The Artist

Saw The Artist this Thursday and I loved it, but to be honest, I’m having trouble articulating why. I usually can’t stand it when people use words like “cute” or “charming” or the phrase “has heart,” but really, that’s exactly how I would describe The Artist. It has that old charm of classic Hollywood films. Let’s face it, we all can guess how the film is going to end. But just like the really good classic films, the fun is in following the characters on that path.


The plot to this film is very similar to Singin’ In The Rain; both films are about a silent film star trying to stay relevant as new stars rise in the talkies. I’m going to be completely honest with you; I have not seen the entire film. (I know, I know.) I was supposed to but…well, it was freshman year of college. Therefore, I’m not going to go into comparisons between Jean Dujardin and Gene Kelly or Bernice Bejo and Debbie Reynolds. That’s just silly anyway; although The Arist definitely wants you to think of Singin’ In The Rain, making a direct comparison is unfair. The Artist is a silent film, knows it’s silent, and takes advantage of that. The main characters perfectly show the difference between the silent and talkie era. Dujardin’s character, George Valentin, is perfectly charismatic in his mannerisms. He has an easy smile, a knack for physical comedy, and the broad mannerisms that make an excellent silent film star. Bejo’s character, the aptly named Peppy Miller, has the same knack for dancing and physical comedy, but she also has an extra spark; she’s talkative. Compared to the other characters, she speaks a mile a minute, even though we only get a few dialogue cards. Her jabbery energy allows her to easily transition from her first role in a Valentin film to a top billing star in talkies, but she still keeps her love for silent movies. I should also mention James Cromwell, who serves well as Clifton, George’s long-suffering butler.

As I said before, the film’s ending is not a surprise. What is a surprise is the amount of depth in the characters; underneath all the technical and nostalgic elements of the film is two very emotional performances. This is melodrama not in the disparaging sense, but in the sense that we are shown these stylized yet deep emotions.

Not that the technical elements should be ignored. After all, making a silent film in this day and age is, at the very least, ballsy as hell. But it immediately shows you that, as any intro film professor will tell you, these films are never truly silent. The score is beautifully retro, matching but not overstating the melodrama of the story.
We are also shown this in the first scene, where we see the orchestra playing along with George’s latest film. There also are two moments with sound, and both of them focus on a specific element of sound design. There is a large difference between lack of audible dialogue, which is what we usually think of when we think of silent films, and lack of foley and sound effects, which is often forgotten.

If The Artist is playing in your area, you should definitely go see it right now. It’s fun and moving and a love letter to 20s cinema without damning the progress of sound. It’s been getting a lot of awards buzz, and frankly, it deserves all of it.

[originally posted 12/25/11]

The Tree of Life (or death?)

I’ve been talking for a while about my trepidation about seeing this film. It’s one of those films that’s almost impossible to explain to someone who’s not familiar with art films, and I’d never recommend it blind to someone. Tree of Life was not completely confusing or boring like I had feared, but it surprised me, though I’m not sure in a good way.

How I decide what films to see (even if I can’t tell you what they’re about)

[originally written 11/20/11]

Okay, so I get interested in a bunch of movies. And, because friends ask about things that friends are interested in, I usually get asked what I’m thinking of seeing. And once I say something, the next question is inevitably, “What’s it about?”

And then it gets awkward. Because, a good amount of the time, the best I have is some half-remembered basic summary I read on wikipedia. So then, why would I be interested in something I can’t even describe?

#1: The director

There are some directors that interest me enough that I’m interested in almost anything they’re working on. Some other directors I’ve heard good things about and what little I know of the plot sounds like something they’d do something interesting with. For example, a while ago I was on a huge Aronofsky kick. I had realized that I wanted to start expanding my horizons on what films I watched, so I had seen Pi and Requiem for a Dream (in addition to The Wrestler). Usually when I’m into a director, I look to see what they’re up to next. At the time, the only information about Black Swan was that a) it was called Black Swan, b) it starred Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, and c) it was about competing ballet dancers or something?

Knowing what I knew about Aronofsky, this sounded really strange, but that was enough to get me interested in it.

#2: The actors

Like directors, I also follow actors. Sometimes an actor makes an impression on me in a movie. When I saw An Education, I was really impressed by Carey Mulligan, and so I decided to try and follow her next projects. The same thing happened with Michael Fassbender; he really struck me as Archie Hicox in Inglourious Basterds, and same thing, decided I wanted to see what else he was up to. Coincidentally, both of them are starring in Shame, and I’m excited to see them work together.

#3: Intriguing trailer

Everyone says trailers always spoil, which is usually true, but sometimes I’ll see a trailer that really makes me interested in a film. Sometimes it gets me interested in something I previously wouldn’t be interested in, or like The Skin I Live In, it just sorta comes out of nowhere and bowls me over.
I mean, look at this trailer. Look at it. I saw it in front of Drive, and had absolutely no idea what the fuck I was looking at. Except that it was fascinating. It’s a great example of a trailer that gets you interested and yet doesn’t tell you much of anything about it.

#4: …film people said it was great

Okay, okay, okay, I know everyone says that awards shows in general are shams and, as many say, they don’t reward as “best” whatever as much as they do “most” whatever. A lot of people distrust critics too (though I should write at some point why I think that’s dumb), and people can think that film festivals are pretentious and more hollywood back-patting bullshit (also not quite true!). But, but, sometimes, it’s really worth following these, and I’ll see something just because there’s buzz around it, even before a trailer comes out.

A good example is The Artist. While I did see the trailer recently and now really want to see it, I first heard about it when it won Best Actor at Cannes, and I vaguely knew that it was a black and white movie about the old movie era. I didn’t know how interested I was in it, but I kept it in my mind until NYFF, when I heard it was a silent movie. I couldn’t see it there (film festival prices are insane), but it’s coming out now and I’m definitely going to see it.

Honestly, I think people should try some of this more often. There are a lot of complaints that Hollywood is out of ideas and only does remakes and blah blah blah, but the thing is that nobody bothers to look around for something new. It really seems like people separate movies into the stuff that gets advertised, Oscar bullshit, and pretentious stuff, and that’s completely myopic. Prestige movies have a reputation of being overfluffed Oscar bait, and while sometimes that’s true, other times they’re genuinely good in their own right and are worth checking out.

But the movies that get shafted the most are the smaller movies. They get branded as either pretentious, too artsy, too precious, or just plain boring. But there are genres just like in mainstream Hollywood; if you’ve got an indie theater around, it’s worth just looking around and seeing something. A lot of the not entirely huge stars will show up in them, and these films are a whole new world of film.

Also, then you can be the one who has actually seen a bunch of the movies that show up at awards shows (not going to lie, I do like being the person who knows that kinda stuff and has INFORMED OPINIONS). It’s a wee bit smug, but who doesn’t like being smug every once in a while?

…ok maybe just me.

Below The Line, or Goddammit the technical awards are fucking important!

[originally posted 12/15/11]


I know I shouldn’t, but I do take awards shows pretty seriously. I’ve been trying the last few years to keep up with movies well enough to have a halfway-formed opinion (last year I saw 6/10 of the Best Picture nominated films), and I do get a bit frustrated when most people only care about the big, flashy categories: Best Picture, Best Actor / Supporting Actor, and Best Actress / Supporting Actress. Maybe Best Director too, and if they’re particularly interested, Best Screenplay / Adapted Screenplay. And while that sounds like a lot, even people who really like movies tend to see Cinematography, Visual Effects, Editing, and both Sound categories as the ‘boring’ stuff that you can chat during, as if it isn’t important.

And guess what? It really, really is.

Let’s start with my favorite category: Cinematography. To boil it down to its essence, cinematography is the lighting and camera choices for each shot and scene. I say choices for two reasons: one because I find it hard to explain cinematography and so I cribbed a little bit from the wikipedia article, and, more importantly, because there are many ways to shoot the same shot, and cinematography is about making the right choice for the scene and film at hand. Think of cinematography as a dynamic version of photography; for any one photo, the photographer has to make decisions about the intensity of light on the subject, the direction of the light, the framing of the shot, the focal length of the lens, the shutter speed, and the depth of field. Even in outdoor conditions with no other light sources but the sun, the angle and intensity of light still must be kept in mind. (There is also the issue of film stock and white balancing, but that would get me into a film/digital discussion and this is not the place for that.) Most people who have ever taken a picture understand this: if you take a picture of someone with the sun behind them, you’re just going to get a silhouette of the person because they are backlit.


The same concepts apply to cinematography, with an added element: time. Unlike the still camera, the lens length, depth of field, and lens length can be changed within one shot. The camera position can also be changed during a shot, giving a new option of camera motion. Every one of these choices can change the mood and impact of the shot.

So why do I get pissy when people don’t care about the cinematography category? Simply put, all of those choices put together are what make the movie a movie. The moving image is the essence of what you’re watching; without it, you’re not watching anything, just listening or reading. Cinematography, even over acting, sound, and story, is the most important element of film.

“So wait wait wait,” you say. “If cinematography is the choices that cause everything you see on screen, what the fuck is Visual Effects?” Good question! Visual Effects sounds like it’s really cinematography, but the difference is that visual effects are what you see that isn’t produced by lighting or camera choices. We’re talking about things like CG, although I would say there are other things that would count. To explain this difference, there was a kerfluffle when Avatar was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects at the Oscars. Since Avatar was completely computer rendered, many people argued that it had no actual cinematography. There are camera movements and lighting decisions in Avatar, of course, but since there was no physical camera or physical light, why should it count as cinematography? Avatar won both categories, so I guess for the Academy, it counts enough.

(In my opinion it shouldn’t count, but I am far from the authority on anything ever.)


But visual effects don’t necessarily have to be flashy. Take for example, the Black Swan visual effects reel. The most noticable effects are of course, Natalie Portman’s transformation into the Black Swan, but look at the more subtle changes. The floor of the stage was stylized, crew were erased from mirror shots, and the backdrop was extended on the stage. In my opinion, Black Swan should have been included in the Best Visual Effects category, simply because the cleanup and animation were both well done and effective.

Next topic: Editing. I think most people who watch movies have the basic understanding of editing; it’s putting the shots together to create scenes, and linking the scenes together to tell the story. But like visual effects doesn’t have to be flashy to be effective, editing is also very important in very subtle ways. In his book, Making Movies, Sidney Lumet mentions that he knew a director that didn’t want his editors winning Best Editing awards because then the editing was distracting from the story. I don’t think that’s true at all, but it is indicative of awards ceremonies’ tendencies to take “Best” whatever as meaning “Most” whatever. (I am far from the first person to make that distinction; in fact, I may have read it from the same book!)

Remember how I said there are choices to be made about each shot and each scene? Editing is the choices made about how to juxtapose each shot to make a scene, and juxtapose each scene to make the movie. The juxtaposition of scenes is laid out by the screenplay, of course, but scenes can also be moved or deleted to tell the story more effectively. Editing decides whether a shot or scene is necessary or effective for the movie. The director and cinematographer may shoot a scene in more than one way, or include closeups along with wider shots, and the editor must choose what combination of shots is most effective. The combination of shots, speed of cuts, and number of cuts in a scene can change the tempo and feel of a scene, and the combination, speed and number of scenes will set the tempo and mood for the entire movie.


And now we get to Sound. Now, I can understand why most people don’t care about the sound awards. Sound is maligned everywhere. I’m sure any sound person has seen ads on cragislist and Mandy for smaller films where it’s obvious that location sound is an afterthought. “Need sound guy tomorrow. Must have his own equipment, no pay but copy and credit.” People just kind of assume that you just need a camera with a microphone, or maybe a boom mic if you’re fancy, and everything’s gonna come out alright. Sound is pretty much an afterthought even for some filmmakers who are starting out.

Sound is incredibly important. I can’t even tell you.

Well, actually I can, because I’m going to, but you know what I mean. Location sound, the sound that is picked up when shooting, is the first thing you think of. The dialogue is the most obvious; of course you have to hear what the actors are saying (unless you’re not supposed to, of course). But you can’t just record the actors. Absolute silence in a film is very different from real life silence. The best way I can describe it is that absolute silence, or dead air, is startling; it sounds like something’s wrong somewhere. To prevent this, the location sound guy will always take room tone, which is a recording of the regular silence at the location. Room tone makes silent movies seem more real and picks up background noises in the area. There are different types of microphones that are best at picking up specific types of sounds, but to be honest, I’m a bit out of my element when it comes to sound, and this post is long enough already.


So what is Sound editing? Well, the location sound and dialogue tracks don’t pick up everything, at least not realistically. Some sounds also can’t be created on set, like sounds caused by things in visual effects. Most sounds you notice in films are actually added in post-production. Footsteps, gunshots, rustling of clothes, and other sounds are added in larger productions by foley artists. They use objects to recreate sounds that sync up with the actions in film, or to add flavor to the background noise. In addition to foley, sounds are also used from sound libraries. Sound editing is the process of putting all these sounds together to sync with the film images.

Sound mixing is the last step in sound production. All of the sounds that are in the film must be balanced so that they do not drown each other out. The room tone and foley noises must be present, but not so much that they distract from the dialogue. Without sound mixing, movies would be unwatchable because all the sounds would be fighting each other for dominance. You don’t want one piece of dialogue to be too loud, or the sound level to change drastically between scenes. Even if two characters can’t hear each other over a loud noise in the film, we as the viewer need to hear both of them.

Now, will all of these categories personally interest you? Maybe not. . But they’re important, and all of these departments and crew members deserve recognition and respect just as much as the writer and director and actors. Movies, especially features on the award show scale, are a collaboration, and I think that’s important to keep in mind.

London River

I saw London River at a free IFC member screening, so I came in knowing very little about it besides…well, there’s a white woman and a black man that somehow get involved in each other’s lives. I never remember the synopsis that comes with these emails before the film; this is mostly from the picture attached:

And basically, I was right. The premise is that both Brenda Blethyn’s character Elizabeth and Soigui Kouyate’s character Ousmane have come to London to find their adult children after the 2005 London terrorist bomb attacks. Elizabeth comes from Gursney, England, after her daughter doesn’t return her calls, and Ousmane comes from France (although he is originally from West Africa) to try and find his son Ali, who he has almost no information about and hasn’t seen since he was six. Unsurprisingly, the two cross paths repeatedly, and it turns out that their children knew each other.

But the story isn’t really about the children; it’s about the conflict between the parents. Ousmane brings information about Elizabeth’s daughter, who was taking an Arabic class with his son, but Elizabeth, already scandalized by the fact that her daughter was living in a Muslim neighborhood, is automatically suspicious. They keep running into each other throughout the film, and eventually Elizabeth’s prejudice begins to erode as they realize that they have more in common than they thought.

If that sounds like I’m painting this film as super-cliche, well, it’s definitely kind of trite. Elizabeth even has a line that says the “more in common” theme. The overall message has been done before, and almost definitely done better. (A. O. Scott of the New York Times points to Driving Miss Daisy as an example, but I have not seen that film). Frankly, I’ve never liked that genre of film; Gran Torino is probably an exception, but to a certain extent it seems like the white character is getting congratulated at the end for not being a fucking racist, which of course is patiently taught by the black/asian/whatever character. Big whoop. You stopped being an asshole, do you want a goddamn medal?

I’m also very iffy about the use of a terrorist attack as a backdrop, but I think it works out alright in this context. Any twenty-something who lives alone knows that parents worry about their children, and we can all imagine the anxiety caused by a disaster in the vicinity of friends or family. There is also a very interesting element with Ousmane and his son; knowing nothing about his son besides the fact that he is Muslim and lives in London, when the news reveals that this was most likely a suicide bombing, he worries that his son might have been involved.

While those are points in the film’s favor, the real saving grace of London River is the acting. Sotigui Kouyake is a subtle, naturalist actor who can convey emotion with just his body, and Brenda Blethyn is fantastic at portraying both unease, anxiety, and sorrow. They are really the ones driving, or perhaps saving this film, depending on how you feel about the premise. For me, the writing wasn’t nearly good enough to overcome the triteness of the core themes.

Movie piracy: let's be reasonable here

[originally posted 12/9/11]

So my friend ombrophilia just made an interesting post about music piracy, so I wanted to put in my two cents about film piracy. I’m not going to sit here and pretend I’ve never pirated a film, or tell you that you’re a bad, mean person for doing so. But let’s not pretend that piracy isn’t affecting people. And not just bigwig producers and popular studios; don’t kid yourself by thinking that you’re sticking it to Big Hollywood by pirating movies. It has more of an effect than you think.


Remember those anti-piracy PSAs that used to be shown before trailers with below the line crewmembers telling you that you’re cutting into their pay by pirating movies? Remember how we all wrote it off as guilt trip shit? Well, it totally was, but they’re also not lying. The thing is, not paying for a movie you’d otherwise see in theaters doesn’t just mean that you’re not giving revenue for that movie. How do you think studios pay for films? It’s by profits from other films. And less profits means a possibility for less productions, and less productions means less work not just for producers and big name stars and big directors, but for everyone. And it takes a ton of people to make a movie. If you’ve sat and watched the credits of…well, anything forever, you’ll see how many people work on films. There’s enough competition for those below the line jobs anyway without the job market shrinking.

Some people justify these things by saying that Hollywood is producing a ton of bullshit anyway, so why should they support it? And yeah, I have no intention of telling you that The Smurfs and Jack and Jill are pinnacles of American comedy and you should throw money at them. (Please don’t oh my god.) And tons of people complain about remakes, and that Hollywood only makes them to make money.

Well, duh. The reason studios do these things is because people go to see them. Now I could tell you that remakes are far from something new, but that’s not the point. The point is that the film industry makes things that they think or hope people will see. If you really wanna see something new, go give it your money in theaters. Instead of taking your money away from bad stuff, take a chance on something new. I of course understand that you don’t want to possibly spend the hilariously expensive amount of money for a movie ticket to something you might not even like, but in my opinion, if you’re going to see something, that thing doesn’t have an obligation to come to you. Otherwise, as I said before, you’re not just stiffing the studio directly on that movie, but indirectly for everyone else involved. There’s more to movies than just the lead actors, director, and producers.

Which comes to my last point: supporting indie/smaller films. You know how I basically said up there that I wasn’t going to judge you about pirating?

Okay, okay, I may have lied a tiny bit. If you pirate smaller films, I am a little pissed at you. Now, I understand that if you live in the middle of nowhere, you probably don’t have an indie theater nearby. But really, is it that horrible to just wait for that DVD? (hint: my answer is ‘no.’) But if you live near an indie theater, or for fuck’s sake, in or near LA or New York, you’ve got to be kidding me. With indie movies (or movies directed / written by up and comings like Source Code), there’s a ton more on the line. Studios need to see profits to be convinced that 1) making more off-beat movies like this is worth their time and money, and 2) there’s enough of a market to open the film wider, where more people can see it. If you’re pirating these types of movies, you’re helping to fuck over the talent and kind of movie that you wish big studios were making. Directly.

Waaah, you might spend money on a movie you don’t like. It happens. But unless it was three hours of the director pooping or something, you didn’t waste two hours of your life or whatever excuse people might use to get pissy at the chance of paying for a film. You supported an smaller film, which might help other small films to get made. If you saw it at a smaller theater, congratulations, you helped that theater out a bit too! (Theaters needing more money is one aspect of why movie prices are so ridiculous nowadays.)
And if you’re bitching over anything less than $10, stop. Seriously. People in major cities (especially New York and LA) are paying $12-$13.50. I really hate the “consider yourself lucky” shpiel, but…come on.

And if you’re too poor to see movies at the moment, you know what? Tough. I think we all think we’re entitled to entertainment ever since piracy got super-big, and let’s be honest, we’re not. As I said, I’m not trying to tell you you’re a terrible person for pirating anything or trying to guilt trip you into stopping (I’ve made myself stop pirating movies but I have done it quite a bit in the past!), but I think we all need to stop kidding ourselves about what’s going on here. We think that we deserve entertainment for free, when…that’s just not true.

Also if you have a chance to see an smaller / quirkier movie and decide to pirate it instead, I am a little pissy at you.

The Skin I Live In

[originally written 11/16/11]

I feel like I really need to talk about this movie, although I’m not exactly sure what to say. The feel of the film is spot on; the cinematography is so perfectly sterile, smooth, and creepy. I first thought the film was going to be some kind of creepy medical thriller, but the whole artificial skin thing is an element of the story, but not a core part of it. The core of the film is obsession, revenge, and violation. I don’t want to spoil this movie at all (if you’re even thinking about seeing it, don’t read below the cut!), but I have to warn that it gets very disturbing and I think it could definitely be triggering.

In fact, I think violation of all types is the main theme. The violator and the violated, violation of privacy, rape, to gaze and be gazed at; Almodovar manages to blend all of these together and adds the elements of identity and medical sterility to make a disturbing but striking film.

Seriously, if you have any interest whatsoever in this film, please don’t read the spoilers below. (Awesomely, the trailer definitely does not spoil; in some ways it doesn’t tell you anything.)

Arise, dead blog!

Obviously, I haven't been very good at keeping up with this blog; it's been over a year since my last post. A lot of things have happened since then; I finished my senior year in college, became interested in the New Hollywood era, discovered Tumblr, and discovered that finding a job is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Except the pieces of hay will also prick you with the pain of disappointment and the needle may or may not actually exist.

I decided to revive this blog because I've become more interested in keeping up with current films (although I still have a metric ton of past films I should have watched already). I've been writing film posts on my personal tumblr, but because of the more...frivolous things I also post on there, I wanted to have a space solely dedicated to serious (or at least attempts to be serious) posts about film. I plan to double post my film posts both here and on my tumblr from now on, and since I'm unemployed, I totally don't have an excuse for not updating anymore! I'll start by copying some past posts I've made onto here.