There Will Be Blood

You’ve already know my rating for it. Here’s some keys to the why 5 of 5 stars.

Some movies linger after you watch them. It may be that they keep you up at night thinking about them, or it may be that you put them in the DVD player again and again. Either way you know you like it, and you know you like it a lot. It’s that way with There Will Be Blood. At first, I didn’t pay it no heed after seeing it. Usually, I would’ve passed it off as okay, but I didn’t pass judgment. So it keep seeping back into my brain. “What did I feel about this flick?” And then when I told my coworker I saw it, I had to blurt out my usual star rating to give him a sense of how good the movie was. Surprisingly, it was 5 stars, and accompanying it was the saying that it was probably the best movie I had seen in a couple of years. (I forgot about The Queen although that one isn’t as good relatively speaking). That’s a bold statement!

The movie is very much Anderson’s take on Kubrick. He’s more of an Altman-esque director, but this time he chooses to do Kubrick. Shades of 2001 and The Shining are in this. 2001 because the main character, Daniel Plainview, goes through his own “Dawn of Man” sequence, a quiet look at the early trial and fortunes of Plainview. 2001 also ends with a picture of the old man, Dave Bowman, in the future. Daniel Plainview’s future ends with him as an old man, but smashing skulls just as the apes in the “Dawn of Man” sequence. Finally, the effect of the bowling alley was just as Kubrickian set design for the Shining, and the ending is just as Jack Nicholson is finished off in that movie.

These influences seem brilliant, but the movie is inspired beyond that. Theirs Daniel Day-Lewis going ape. There’s Paul Dano, the wacked preacher who doesn’t age or the mysterious twin. He’s good. There’s the kid who is there scampering at Plainview’s feet like mini me. He puts a nice turn in.

The movie was just pretty good in telling its story. Is it greed? Is it oil? Is it religion? It is all that and quintessentially American.

Annie Hall

Oct. 12, 1992

At the start of Annie Hall, the comedian, Alvy Singer directly addresses the audience in a short but witty monologue. In this monologue, he delivers two jokes which, although they are clichés, are underlying themes to Alvy’s personality and his inability to commit to relationships. His monologue seems to apply only to himself, but in a deeper fashion it could apply to all people’s relationships. Woody Allen, the director, starts a simple character study of an unsteady relationship between two average individuals and turns it into a fascinating insight into human behavior.

The main focus of the film is Alvy Singer’s (Woody Allen’s) relationship with a struggling singer, Annie Hall, played by Diane Keaton. Usually, their relationship consists of talking with each other. They talk about their careers, their therapy, and their almost non-existent sex life, but hardly about each one’s feelings towards the other. The only action that takes place is limited to Alvy’s flight to California to bring back Annie to New York. Towards the end he sees within himself a struggle to make a commitment to Annie.

Throughout the film, they go from being a couple to being disillusioned lovers to simply being two people living in the same big city. Their up and down relationship culminates in a somber ending when they walk away from each other.

Allen, as director and co-writer of Annie Hall, revitalizes the often done tale of the love lives of men and women with new power and vigor. With the introduction of original and very quirky characters, Allen jazzes up a rather mundane subject. The characters change the film’s focus from a love story to an individual’s relationship that makes the film thoroughly enjoyable. Alvy Singer isn’t just the main character looking for a relationship, but is also a neurotic comedian with a false sense that everyone is anti-Semitic. In a very hilarious scene, Alvy tells his friend Rob (Tony Roberts) about mistakenly overhearing someone say “did Jew” not “did you.” His paranoid fears come to the fore when he has to meet Annie’s family. When Annie tells Alvy that her Grammy Hall is suspicious of Jewish people,

Alvy immediately becomes self-conscious and dreads meeting her. And when they do meet at her parent’s house, he literally sees himself turn into an orthodox Jew under Grammy’s stare.

Annie Hall (Diane Keaton) is the ultimate quirky individual who adds much to the comedy in the film. Her mannerisms are unique to her. She drives her car at breakneck speeds through crowded city streets that frightens Alvy whenever he’s in the car. She uses childish language to sum up her feelings at the time, which amazes Alvy that a grown woman would use such language. In the scene of their first meeting, she comes across as a bubbly woman eager to spend some time with him. She makes her plans incredibly flexible that Alvy can only accept her offer of a ride home, even though she has said that she was going the opposite way. It is her charm that makes Alvy fall in love with her.

Other interesting minor characters add life to the story making it more fun and amusing. They are not just additions to the story, but they also contribute much to the comedic nature of the film. The use of the other characters as a sound board for jokes spices up the film. Rob, Alvie’s best friend, is an actor and a womanizer. Alvy turns to him for advice, but besides the fact he points out that Alvy needs to get laid, Rob offers no solid guidance for Alvy’s love life. Duane Hall (Christopher Walken) has one line in the film about how he wants to crash his car whenever he drives which ends up being entertaining in the scene when he drives Alvy and Annie to the airport. Alvy sits with a nervous face, while Annie and Duane act as if he never contemplated crashing the car. The humor in this scene is subtle, but it is also very amusing.

The casting of Shelley Duvall in the role of Pam is a good choice. The physical characteristics of Duvall make her fit perfectly into Pam’s role as a terrible one-night stand for Alvy to have to get over his breakup with Annie. Pam is an awkward and somewhat unattractive person, and Alvy hardly gets along with her. On their first, and only date, Alvy acts uncomfortable with her. They hardly engage in conversation, and when they finally end up in bed, the look on Alvy’s face as he listens to her talk is a mixture of regret and of boredom that is truly hilarious in the context that they just finished doing it.

The essence of Annie Hall is human relationships, and Woody Allen directs the cast to an almost perfect performance that the story of two individual’s relationship stands as being universal. You can almost sympathize with the characters, because they could be you. There are hardly any flaws in Allen’s direction. What little action enhances the story, and everyone says what you would expect them to say in context with their character. The characters and what they say elevate the film to its funniest moments. It’s what these strange individuals say that make the film hilarious. The dialogue is comical as it is flawless. The people in Annie Hall turn the most basic human problems into a pleasant experience to watch someone go through.

“Down here you’re on your own.”

December 20,1992

Even in the wide open plains of Texas, film noire can still exist. The filmmaking team of the brothers Joel and Ethan Coen postulate the notion that Texas can be the perfect setting for film noire. In Blood Simple, there is no need for the claustrophobic feel of a big city to enhance the bleak aspect towards life in film noire; it can easily be done in the great vastness of the plains of Texas. The Coen brothers are able to serve up a unique thriller with offbeat humor and still stay true to some aspects of film noire. They don’t just follow the genre’s conventions, but direct the film in a style all their own that they elevate film noire to an exciting level. In every way imaginable Blood Simple is typical of a film in the genre, but there are times in the film in which the Coen brothers break the mode of film noire which makes for a very original film. Their debut in Blood Simple will lead the Coen brothers to be a strong creative force in cinema.

Blood Simple opens, as most film noire movies do, with a character doing a voice over narration. Later, you’ll recognize the voice as being that of the private detective, Visser (M. Emmet Walsh). With the Texan drawl and a heaping dose of sarcasm in his voice, the brooding, pessimistic attitude of film noire comes through within the first few minutes of the film. Visser’s narration consists of one idea: nothing is fair in the world, especially in Texas. In fact one of Visser’s lines is, “One thing I know about is Texas, and down here you’re on your own.” The narration has a very pessimistic outlook and sets the tone for the rest of the film. Texas too can have the brooding, dark atmosphere that is the trademark feel of the big city in film noire. Even though the narration does not continue past its first use, the pessimistic attitude, which the narration was filled with, remains the major theme for the rest of the film. Incidentally, to show how deeply dark this film is, the character doing the narration will be dead by the end of the film.

Another film noire convention that the film utilizes is the character of the leading female role as being that of a “black widow.” They are femme fatales that cause the downfall of the men in the film. Abbey (Frances McDormand) destroys all the male characters who come to know her. First, it’s her husband, Marty (Dan Hedaya), who suffers. Marty must put up with the ungrateful wife that Abbey is. He also has to put up with her many extra-marital affairs. In defense of her though, Marty is not a loving husband; he drove her out of the marriage. The second man to fall because of Abbey is Ray (John Getz). Their affair together seems to be a promising one, but he can never fully trust her. His lack of trust leads Ray to suspect that he is close to being shown the door and ousted for another man. The mistrust Ray has is an obstacle for their love. In the end, Ray is murdered and cannot get the chance to express his love for her which is ultimately sad and an example of the pessimism in the film. The last man to die in the end is Visser. He literally dies at her hands. All the males seemed to have been chasing after Abbey, and in the end died because of her.

Abbey is a black widow in all meanings of the words. She looses her husband, and Ray who tried to court her is dead. But in film noire conventions, the woman has an active role in causing the downfall of the males. What the entire film is about is Abbey and her extra-marital affair with Ray. She starts the chain of events that led to the murder of her husband and lover and the killing of Visser. She doesn’t know it, but she is the driving force behind the violence and tension of the film.

As film noire suggests by its very name, things are dark both thematically and visually. The bleak outlook on life is reflected in the sparse usage of light. Many of the scenes in Blood Simple occur during the night. By having things happen at night, the director can control the lighting scheme. Joel Coen and his cinematographer, Barry Sonnenfeld, return to the classical noire style in many of these night scenes. The classical style is very expressive with the use of light. Everything seems to happen beneath low key lighting. The use of expressive lighting usually happens in the interiors of cars. In the first scene after the introductory narration, Ray and Abbey are in a car driving down a mysterious stretch of road; they are lit in a low key lighting scheme. Their faces are practically in the dark and are illuminated by the instrumentation on the dashboard. Partial showing of people’s faces in film noire makes for the character to be more mysterious.

Low key lighting also utilizes pools of light to separate the important aspects on the screen. The final scenes of Blood Simple also have the expressive lighting that is found in classical film noire. They take place at Abbey’s apartment which has huge, undraped windows suitable for expressive lighting. When it’s dark in her apartment, menacing shadows are cast throughout the room. The final scene in which Abbey is stalked by Visser contains many examples of low key lighting, pools of light, and menacing shadows. During the scene, she hides among the shadows, and most of the time the only part of her figure which can be seen is part of her face. It is the way light and shadows are used that gives film noire that dark, brooding atmosphere. Another fitting example of expressive lighting within the climactic scenes is when Visser fires blindly at Abbey through the thin walls of the apartment. His shots go through the wall, and they leave behind holes in the wall from which light streams through into the dark. Again, this scene reflects the pessimistic attitude, because it happens at night when the world is more menacing and dangerous.

The darkness within the frame also pervades the theme of the movie. Blood Simple is very bleak, and it does not have a happy outlook towards life. Besides opening with a cynical narration, there are many points in the film that exude the bleak attitude common to all film noire movies. One such example is the unhappy ending to Abbey’s affair. Most everybody is dead, and her lover, as well as husband are on the casualty list. Marty, Ray, and Visser, the male characters, die after they have become involved with Abbey. Love doesn’t conquer all but gets shot through the heart by a high powered rifle. Another cynical example is the foreshadowing of death. To imagine oneself riddled with bullets is very morbid and pessimistic. Ray gets a glimpse of his fate when he finds a picture of himself murdered. What can be more bleak than having the knowledge that your fate is that of being murdered in the prime of your life? Even what people say is tinged with a pessimistic view of life. Marty at one point comments on his messed up life. He says, “I’m staying right here in hell.” His life is a living hell without Abbey, and although he doesn’t know it, but it is also a hell with her. Abbey, as a destructive force in the lives of her men, is also very pessimistic. The black widow theme surrounding her character plays on the darker side of male-female relations. Finally, the most fatalistic image from the picture is the closing shot. It is from the point of view of the dying Visser as he looks up at the bottom of a bathroom sink and watches as a drop of water is on the verge of falling on his head. The director seems to be stating that life is like the underside of a dirty sink; it’s all mildew and scum. The bathroom sink metaphor sums up the entire feeling of a downbeat life and cynical world which hangs over the heads of the characters of the film.

One convention of film noire which Blood Simple does not seem to address is the suffocating atmosphere of the city. It doesn’t exist in the film, because there is no city; it’s just the vast expanse of Texas used as the backdrop to the suspence. But still, the Coens are able to get across that Texas can be as oppressive a place as a big city through their choices of interiors. The Coens don’t need a huge city to overwhelm the characters and make them appear insignificant, because they supply their own oppressive areas. Enclosures exist throughout the film from the confines of the interior of a car to the claustrophobic effect of being buried alive. Nothing symbolizes the confinement of the characters in their own private hell than Marty’s premature burial. The Coens also use effective lighting to enhance the dark feel of the film. Darkness and shadow pervades most of the film and it can symbolize how confining life is. The Coens without an urban setting can still convey enclosures by subtle means which are hard to get at a first glance.

Being in a genre which has been a cliché for some time could lead you to suspect that Blood Simple is a predictable film. But when the Coen brothers decide to do film noire, they do it in style. They are extremely original in their approach to filmmaking, as well as to storytelling. The many twists of the plot and the double-crosses will leave you engrossed in the film. As an example of film noire, Blood Simple does a fine job in following many of the conventions of the older, more classic noire films, and it forges a different route compared with those classic films. In some sense Blood Simple fits the noire genre by not being a perfect example of the film noire style, because the genre’s films are varied, and it’s hard to pick one which best exemplifies the genre. With Joel and Ethan Coen at the helm though, film noire won’t be as easy to attach a cliched epitaph to.

Atonement

Atonement is the Pulp Fiction for the Masterpiece Theatre set. No it’s not violent, but it tells its story in a non-linear fashion.

Set in England some years before WWII, we start with a young writer finishing her first play inviting the stable boy to the play. Her crush on him will be important as it leads her to do malicious and damaging things. He and her sister are really in love. Of course, we know it’s doomed. She sees them at the fountain only part of a scene. She misinterprets it. Then we go back to see the reality of the scene. The audience knows more than the characters and at each turn, the audience feels like shouting out to stop the madness. “That’s not what happened.” He gives the sister the wrong letter. She reads its and again misinterprets it leading to major trouble. Skip a few years to the war and he’s trying to get home. The sister is now estranged from her family and is a nurse in London. She too becomes a nurse, but still writing. The writing of her autobiography goes on. She taps it out on the typewriter.

While somewhat pretentious (it yearns for an Oscar), I liked the fact that I had to think and concentrate on some of the story. While not outright great, it was a good watch.

3 of 5 stars.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

Walk Hard: Dewey CoxOriginally, I would not have wanted to watch this flick. They posted the first ten minutes of it online. I watched it and came away bored. How can we think this mock biopic is any good when the last spoof movies, Date Movie and Epic Movie, have killed the genre? Can the current golden boy of comedy, Judd Apatow, continue his run of comic films? The answer is no and no. So, I wonder why I went to see the movie anyway.Dewey Cox is ably played by Reilly. He makes the perfect clueless singer. The movie's one sheet of him spoofing the iconic Jim Morrison portrait is the best thing from this movie. The songs are fun also.Walk Hard follows the conventions of the biopic. The early struggles of the young Dewey Cox trying to live up to his dead brother's image and to be a better man than his dad thinks he is. The film moves onto the early career success with a naïve Dewey Cox meeting the King in the film's funniest moment. Rock'N'Roll always included sex and drugs, and it is in finding the drugs to go with the music does the film become a little more funny. Dewey meets The Beatles in India. Jack Black as Paul, Paul Rudd as John, Justin Long as George Harrison, and Jason Shwartzman as Ringo are hilarious. The second best cameo of the film. Jenna Fischer enters the scene after Dewey Cox delivers a cocaine fueled, hardcore version of Walk Hard and promptly adds the sex to the mix. She plays the June Carter Cash role to give Dewey the soulmate he's meant to have. The film then portrays the middling, pathetic side of his fame and it veers off into a bad, boring movie.I've always though Apatow's movies are 30 minutes too long. He seems to want to put a lot in the films he does. Surprisingly, this film ran about 90 minutes. It still felt too long.2 of 5 stars.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets

I have a theory about these films. Like the first one, National Treasure: Book of Secrets, will not lose much in translation if you replace the thing that Nic Cage and his pa are looking for with “Hobo Gold.” Try it with the original: the map on the back of the declaration of independence shows us where to find… HOBO GOLD!

These movies are really about the search getting from one clue to the next. The Hobo Gold is like Hitchcock’s MacGuffin. It’s what’s needed to be found only because it ends the search and the movie.

The original was a really bad movie, but if you suspended belief in reality and went along for its ride, then you would’ve been stupefied into believing in… HOBO GOLD! The Declaration of Independence leads to the Liberty Bell which leads to Ben Franklin’s glasses and finally… HOBO GOLD! Genius of corniness. Dumb but somewhat satisfying. Like smarties: sweet but no nutritional value whatsover.

This version falls short of the joy ride that was the original. It has less chases and it takes the idea of the HOBO GOLD! too seriously. It should’ve been dumb and dumber chases and searches more so than the original. Yet, it was not. The clues were not that cool and the spy games not that interesting. Still this version was somewhat satisfying as the HOBO GOLD! was found, and the reality of Dianne Krueger, hottie, was realized.

3 of 5 stars.

Juno

Juno

While waiting away the holidays, what’s better than to catch a movie?

So I bought a ticket and caught this by myself. Except the theatre was full. The PG-13 rating meant that this was guaranteed to be an audience of highschool and college kids. The rough outlines of the ad campaign makes it a hipper than thou movie, and you couldn’t have more of the hip crowd in this theatre. And it was packed.

So the movie’s plot is the standard fare of teenage pregnancy. Girl is pregnant unexpectedly. Girl thinks abortion. Girl decides to go through with pregnancy. Girl decides for adoption of the child. Girl gives birth. Girl goes through with a life changing experience while the father is stone stupid.

That girl was Ellen Page who rightfully steal the show. Although she was too cute. She’s so hip she finds the Melvins as losers. She was like “punk’s not dead!” when I am a punk rocker!! She was like “I pity you and your 90s grunge!” when I am a punk rocker!! She was funny. The dialogue gets a lot of praise, but it’s too cute and showy to be more than a female Tarantino attack.

The best line though: “Sonic Youth is nothing but noise!” Hear! Hear!

Overall, good movie. Indie feel by way of the calculating studios. I expected something more.

Last scene was the best. You’ll be hearing that song played by alt rockers from hear to eternity.

3 of 5 stars.

I Am Legend

I Am Legend is the tale of the last man on earth. That man is Will Smith.

The best parts of this film were the quiet, abandoned, alone scenes of Will Smith in the empty streets of New York. The weakest were the shoe-horning in flashbacks that tried to put pain to Will Smith’s loss. I liked the foreboding and could’ve used less of the past.

The final thirty minutes devolve into standard action fare. It could’ve been better.

Creepy and fun.

4 of 5 stars.

Enchanted

Marge at the FishTank has apologized for dragging the Seed and me to this flick, but there’s really nothing to be apologetic about it. If she could get the other critics to issue a personal apology to me that would be awesome. Some of these critics raved about Amy Adams. I personally couldn’t care less. I was like the old hag wanting to push her down a well. http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6959836

Enchanted

2 of 5 stars

Adventures From My Netflix Queue: The Baron of Arizona

The Baron of Arizona is a DVD from Criterion’s Elise line of restored minor works of some feature directors, in this case being the incredible Sam Fuller. It’s an early work of his. Written and directed by him based on a true story of the real life swindler cheat, James Reavis. He actually did try to steal the Arizona Territory from the US government

Vincent Price plays Reavis who forged phony Spanish land grants to the entire state of Arizona. He finds a foster girl and raises her up to believe that she is the heiress of the Baron de Peralta owner of the entirety of Arizona. She believes in him as she grows up and that belief turns to love.

The movie starts slow. I wasn’t engaged. It was still interesting as it documented the swindle from meeting the girl to make his plans work to forging the documents in a Spanish monastery to playing a gypsy gigolo to forge the last document in the royal halls of Madrid. Then it picks up with the Baron’s return to Arizona. The locals are riled up. He makes deals and takes their money all the while knowing it is a lie. The US government gets to him, he pleads guilty, but the lynch mobs show up. I won’t spoil the ending, but I was taught in my seat hoping for a happy one.

Fuller is a favorite. While this was an out and out B movie, Fuller is still the B movie specialist. There was the kindly Sofia de Reavis-Peralta standing by her man just as Barbara Stanwyck in 40 Guns. There was Price being all show, carrying the picture. And then there was Griff. He’s in everyone of Fuller’s movies. The heroic government agent out to prove the falsity of Reaves’s claim. He studied forgery. He knows, but can’t really prove. Yet, still the man for it all standing tall throughout.

Watching this was a pleasure. Though it is not up to par as his more acclaimed and accomplished films, it’s great to know his roots and great to know he’ll grow as a storyteller.

3 of 5 stars