Project Nim: The Monkey Who Taught Us to Be Human

Project Nim

Directed By: James Marsh

Director of Photography: Michael Simmons, Editor: Jinx Godfrey, Production Designer: Markus Kirschner, Original Music: Dickon Hinchliffe

Rated: PG-13 for foul language (not spoken by Nim)

            James Marsh’s Project Nim is about the lines between human and ape, and the strange way they blend together. And as much as it is about one very special chimpanzee and his closeness to humanity, it is also about humanity’s own closeness to a devolved state.

            The film is an interesting and often moving follow-up to Mr. Marsh’s Man on Wire (he also directed the middle section of The Red Riding Trilogy), the awe-inspiring documentary about the man who danced his way across the Twin Towers. Project Nim is a more straight forward documentary; It has a somber tone and a more typical subject. But Mr. Marsh’s focus throughout the film—not really on the experiment, but on the humans surrounding it—is what turns the film into something else. Mr. Marsh sheds less light on the experience of chimpanzees than on the experience of humans.

Best of the Year So Far: Big Splashes in the CInematic Pool

Bridesmaids

2011 has already set itself apart from last year with a number of truly unqualified gems of the cinematic order. The medium continues to develop new voices that speak to us in fresh and original ways, and a number of masters have been able to find new takes to stretch the imagination as well. Here are ten favorites, presented in alphabetical order, so far (click on the title to read the full review):

The Arbor (United Kingdom): Clio Barnard’s strange experiment in documentary filmmaking follows the sad story of playwright Andrea Dunbar and the children who begot her sins. But more fascinating is Ms. Barnard’s unique style that only brings the voice in, allowing her to run wild with the visuals, truly accentuating the story in powerful ways.

Bridesmaids (United States): While suffering from some of the minor issues that all Judd Apatow films seem to carry, Bridesmaids is certainly the funniest movie of the year so far, with Kristin Wiig giving it all in a raunchy gross-out comedy with truly realized characters and a unique perspective on female friendship.

Certified Copy (France and Italy): Abbas Kiarostami’s first feature outside his native Iran asks a simple question: Why do we value the original, when the copy can be just as good? And thus Juliette Binoche and William Shimmel play a game across one afternoon that tests this premise, leading us in an insightful drama where the emotional stakes are equaled by the philosophical stakes.

Aurora: The Ordinary Day of a Psychopath

Aurora

Written and Directed By: Cristi Puiu

Starring: Cristi Puiu

Director of Photography: Viorel Sergovici, Editor: Ion Ioachim Stroe

Rated: Unrated, but a brief shock of violence within three hours of otherwise nothing.

        I counted three moments where the protagonist of Aurora, played by writer-director Cristi Puiu, seems to be staring back at the camera, almost with a menacing smile on his face. As this three hour epic drags on, Puiu seems to be mocking his audience. Go on, he dares, walk out on me. Of course, like any good film critic who trusts the director of the very funny The Death of Mr. Lazerescu, one of the harbingers of the Romanian New Wave, I waited, and waited, and waited for not just for something to happen, but to have something to have a stake in.

            However,  Puiu instead mocks us, almost with more contempt than Lars Von Trier at a press conference. Aurora might be hailed by some as the culmination of what Romanian filmmakers have been getting at with their neo-realistic approach that some have described as “slow cinema,” but it’s actually a major step in the wrong direction, where the style has become as pointless as its narrative.

Cars 2: From America With a Turbo V8 Engine

Cars 2

Directed By: John Lasseter

Written By: Ben Queen

Starring (The Voices of) Larry the Cable Guy, Owen Wilson, Michael Caine, Emily Mortimer, Eddie Izzard, and John Turturo

Art Director: Jay Shuster, Original Music: Michael Giacchino

Rated: G, though some explosions may frighten the smallest of children.

            There is something unique about the Cars franchise that separates it from almost every other film in Pixar’s history. While Toy Story, Monster’s Inc., and A Bug’s Life among other present mini-universes within our own universe that we just don’t know about, Cars is a world onto its own. There are no humans turned around, unaware that their vehicle is a sentient being (that story is left to Michael Bay). Instead, the Cars live in their own alternate universe, where they eat oil and feel sick when breaking down. Would President Obama show up as a long slick limo?

            Cars and now its sequel, Cars 2, are also known in certain circles with distain as simply cash-cows for the Disney-Pixar brand. While Cars was the least profitable film for the animation giant at the box office, it has also made the most green in toys and merchandising. But such conversations are irrelevant, and make it too easy to attack the Pixar franchise for what is likely to be agreed upon its least successful film to date. John Lasseter, the Pixar founder and current CEO, shows a lot of admiration for the idea of Cars in his directorial style (he passed on directing Toy Story 3 to do this film, after all). And while never as transcendent as Pixar’s other films, Cars 2 zooms its way around a cleverly inspired plot to keep things moving too fast that you won’t mind.

Bad Teacher: Every Child Left Behind

Bad Teacher

Directed By: Jake Kasdan

Written By: Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg

Starring: Cameron Diaz, Lucy Punch, Justin Timberlake, Jason Segel, Phyllis Smith, and John Michael Higgins

Director of Photography: Alar Kivilo, Editor: Tara Timpone, Production Designer: Jefferson Sage, Original Music: Michael Andrews

Rated: R for sex humor, sex, language, drugs, and well, at least there’s no violence.

            Cameron Diaz is the type of actress who will get down and dirty for anything. When we first discovered her in There’s Something About Mary, she played ball with the raunchiest of humor, showing there was no low she wouldn’t go. Then she became a sweetheart, a title that never fit her. Flop after flop, such as the Charlie’s Angels reboot or Knight and Day tried to cast her as the pretty girl, and more serious pictures like Gangs of New York tried to place her as an Oscar contender. But Ms. Diaz has always been best at being crass, rude, and low, a talent that too few actresses have, or are too afraid to do (unless it also involves Nazis).

            That is why watching Ms. Diaz smash through the Gates of Hell in Bad Teacher is so appealing. The film is more or less summed up by its title—Ms. Diaz plays a very, very bad person, who is shaping America’s youth in the worse way possible. Under the direction of Jake Kasdan, known for his cult hit Orange County and the very ridiculous and funny Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Bad Teacher is a bit of a narrative mess, dropping scenes and subplots like a blind WWII bomber. But Ms. Diaz, as well as her fellow co-stars, sell this ridiculous and very funny movie.

EXCLUSIVE: Subject of New Errol Morris Film Claims Fabrication

Joyce McKinney, in blue, talks about Errol Morris's Tabloid

UPDATE (6/28/2011): Mark Lipson, a producer for Tabloid (as well as a few other Errol Moris films, including The Thin Blue Line), has responded to the story as told below. Lipson notes that Showtime is indeed a partner on the film, remarking, "Showtime is in fact a partner in the enterprise of Tabloid." As for the other allegations, Lipson prefered to stay on the sidelines for now. "I agree at some point it would be worth addressing all the various questions. But for now.. certainly for the next couple of months, I would like the movie to speak for itself."

Does this mean that some of the movie is in fact fabricated? My gut says if yes, only by a small bit, as Morris' film is about the impossibility of ever reaching the truth. My take on the story is that McKinney simply beleived that having seen how Morris has created sympathetic portraits of people like Robert McNamara in The Fog of War or the soldiers from Abu Ghraid in Standard Operating Procedure that she would get off with the same sort of nice light on her. The film is somewhat sympathetic in the end anyways, though it certainly allows the other side to have its way as well. Thus, only time will tell if McKinney will have her way.

THE ORIGINAL STORY

            Audiences were in laughter and applause tonight at the Museum of Modern Art for an early screening of Errol Morris’s latest film, Tabloid, but they got a second story after the film had ended. Tabloid is the latest documentary from the filmmaker behind The Thin Blue Line and The Fog of War. It follows the strange story of Joyce McKinney, who snuck into tonight’s screening in New York, lambasting the film’s validity during the credits and beyond tonight.

Tabloid recounts the story of McKinney, who followed her Mormon boyfriend from Utah, who she believed had been brainwashed by the Mormon Church and sent to the United Kingdom. The girl went with a couple companions to England and stole him back, and then claimed to have three days of passionate sex in a Southern English cottage, some of which included ropes and chains. But Morris shows the sides from others involved in the story, including the reporters that made her a tabloid sensation, which instead reveal kidnap, rape, and other kinky stuff. McKinney escaped charges in court by fleeing to the United States while on bail, but remains a tabloid sensation for years to come.

Page One: A Peek Underneath the Grey Lady

Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times

Directed By: Andrew Rossi

Written By: Kate Novak and Andrew Rossi

Featuring: David Carr, Bill Keller, Brian Stetler, and Bruce Headlam

Director of Photography: Andrew Rossi, Editors: Chad Beck, Christopher Branca, and Sarah Devorkin, Original Music: Paul Brill

Rated: R for newspaper speak

            I don’t read the newspaper.I get all my content from online, or from podcasts. When I was in high school in Minnesota, I read the Pioneer Press each day, but as college rolled around, it came much easier to check a number of free websites than *gasp* pay for journalism and information. Who needs a paper when you can have a Kindle or an iPad? And thus the crisis of journalism continues to this day and whether online advertising and new media can emerge victorious over the place for all the news fit to print.

            If I were to subscribe, however, which I probably will find myself doing when my free online trial runs out, it would be of course to the New York Times, a newspaper I’m more fond of for their arts section than their news, though mainly because I follow those subjects more closely day-to-day. But the Times is an establishment that is more American than apple pie, and Andrew Rossi’s documentary Page One asks the important question, “What would happen if there was no New York Times?” Unfortunately, Mr. Rossi thinks it’s important to really get to the heart of this subject and continue to pose and answer the question again and again, ruining an amazing opportunity to show why the Times continues to be the best at what it does.