Screening Log: Samurai Driver Edition

            Two notes before we begin. As noted, I saw The Warriors at MoMI as screened as a Blu-Ray. I think this gets to a point I had a tweet discussion with sometime last year. The Warriors Blu-Ray looked quite good on a big screen, and everything was crystal clear. But I think that’s why the film lacked a punch. It needed to be extra grainy, scratched up, and skipping in places. Some films are perfect for the digital conversion; others, deserved to be treated like shit, one could say. My second update, and this is brief, is to tell you all check back here over the next month for updates on a big project coming up that I think most of my readers will quite enjoy. More on that at another time, as the details become more concrete.

-A New Leaf, 1971. Directed by Elaine May. 35mm projection at Museum of the Moving Image.

-The Warriors, 1978. Directed by Walter Hill. Blu-Ray projection at Museum of the Moving Image.

-We Won’t Grow Old Together, 1972. Directed by Mauriece Pialat. 35mm projection at Brooklyn Academy of Music.

-Kill and Pray, 1969. Directed by Carlo Lizzani. Betacam projection at Film Forum.

-The Last Run, 1971. Directed by Richard Fleischer. 35mm projection at Anthology Film Archives.

-Ulzana’s Raid, 1972. Directed by Robert Aldrich. 35mm projection at Anthology Film Archives. 

Screening Log: Mann Edition

            No notes for this screening log, but I’m really excited to write about the film I’ll be discussing below, which I technically saw last week (I only had seen two films last Sunday so I held my log back a week).

-Black Angel, 1946. Directed by Roy William Neill. 35mm projection at Brooklyn Academy of Music.

-Thief, 1981. Directed by Michael Mann. 35mm projection at Brooklyn Academy of Music.

-As You Desire Me, 1932. Directed by George Fitzmaurice. 35mm projection at Film Forum.

-Hello, Sister!, 1933. Directed by Erich von Stroheim. 35mm projection at Film Forum.

-The Great Silence, 1968. Directed by Sergio Corbucci. 35mm projection at Film Forum.

-The Price of Power, 1969. Directed by Tonino Valerii. 35mm projection at Film Forum.

-Pulp Fiction, 1994. Directed by Quentin Tarantino. DVD. 

Interlude: Zacharek Zingers

You may hear today that Stephanie Zacharek, the chief film critic for Movieline, will be let go from her position July 13th. It's of course the latest in a string of critics losing their positions. I often disagreed with Zacharek, but she was a damn good critic. Her post on The Artist during the Slate Movie Club is easily the most interesting defense of that film I read during the film's inevitable Oscar run. To honor what is an idiotic movie, I dug through some of her work at Movieline and found some of my favorite lines. Editors, take note:

"If the career of Christopher Nolan is any indication, we've entered an era in which movies can no longer be great. They can only be awesome, which isn't nearly the same thing." -Inception (July 14th, 2010)
 

"The picture has a pale, worn-out look, as if the blood is being drained from it even as we watch – like the characters who populate it, it looks ready for some kind of rejuvenation that may never come." -Post Mortem (April 11th, 2012)

"As the end credits of this last dour Swedish snooze-a-thon started rolling, I clapped my notebook shut as if it were the last day of school. Huzzah! Bring on David Fincher. Please." -The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (October 28th, 2010)

"His body is gangly and puppet-like in that preadolescent way, but every movement is resolute: When he chases after the various kids who, repeatedly, try to steal his precious bike, he throws off sparks of grim determination, like a single-minded marathon runner. Maybe, in the end, he outruns the movie." -The Kid With A Bike (May 15th, 2011)

"Reichardt and her cinematographer, Chris Blauvelt, allow the weather, the time of day, and the landscape, as it shifts little by little beneath the settlers' feet, to determine the movie's color palette: One minute we see strata of sky, clouds and scrubby land rendered in dry, parched tones; the next we're transported into an early-evening fever dream of unreal-looking purples and blues right out of a Maxfield Parrish painting." -Meek's Cutoff (April 7th, 2011)

"When Katz shows the four playing a board time, they're clearly having a great time, and not ironically -- Katz gives us the sense that he cares for his characters, as opposed to just using them as mouthpieces for the discontent of his generation." -Cold Weather (February 4th, 2011)

"Not since Antichrist has a man suffered so greatly at the tiny, grabby hands of God's creatures." -Fury Vengeance (April 28th, 2010)

Prometheus: Origins of the Creature from the Space Lagoon

Prometheus

Directed By: Ridley Scott

Written By: Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof

Starring: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Logan Marshall-Green, and Patrick Wilson

Director of Photography: Dariusz Wolski, Editor: Peitro Scalia, Production Designer: Arthur Max, Original Music: Marc Streitenfeld

WARNING: Like my review for Cabin in the Woods, I plan on discussing Prometheus in full, without any consideration for what are considered “spoilers” If you are curious to see the film, just go see it. My opinion of whether I liked it or not shouldn’t be the factor. If you are curious to read on why I think the film functions as it does, without any consideration for hiding the aspects of the narrative, then read on. Also, I’m also going to spoil Lost.

            In 2010, the hit ABC series Lost came to an end with what many considered a crashing thud. For six seasons, audiences watched a show about constantly accumulating mysteries on an island. Lost fed its hungry fans with more and more—polar bears in jungles, buttons that saved the universe, alternate timelines—and then abandoned it all for a spiritual sit down with its characters, discarding the main reason that it originally drew viewers. For months before the finale, showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse warned their fans: “true fans” only care about their characters; the mysteries were irrelevant.

            Why this long primer on Lost, when the film of the week, and for many their most anticipated film of the summer, is a prequel to Alien? Because as much as critics will be discussing the craft of director Ridley Scott, Prometheus is assuredly a Damon Lindelof work. His hands are all over this film about a group of scientists traveling to a mysterious planet to find the origins of life. And in many ways, the faults of Prometheus lie in his blame (though Scott shouldn’t escape all the blame). 

Moonrise Kingdom: Paradise Found

Moonrise Kingdom

Directed By: Wes Anderson

Written By: Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola

Starring: Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward, Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Jason Schwartzman, Harvey Keitel, Tilda Swinton, and Bob Balaban

Director of Photography: Robert Yeoman, Editor: Andrew Weisblum, Production Designer: Adam Stockhausen, Original Music: Alexandre Desplat

            Moonrise Kingdom, the seventh feature from love-him-or-hate-him director Wes Anderson, feels like in many ways, a culminating work, combining the best aspects from his previous movies. That, to many of Anderson’s angry critics, seems impossible: the man has simply made the same feature film over and over again (this criticism often coming from the same people who say Martin Scorsese should stop making projects like Shutter Island and Hugo, and go back to gangster films). Yes, Moonrise is very much in that Anderson vibe, one that I’ve always found fascinating, but never outright loved. But there’s something so assured, and so confident in Anderson’s storytelling here, that Moonrise Kingdom is a blast, one I fell in love with from the first image to the fighting-tears-from-my-eyes last image. 

            The story, set out by narrator Bob Balaban (playing island expert, weatherman, and possibly God), takes place on an island off the Northeast coast called New Panzance in 1965. In a series of elaborate tracking shots, we meet the Bishops, made up of two lazy and distant parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand), three young identical boys, and a rebellious teenage daughter named Suzy, played by Kara Hayward. In each shot, Anderson reveals the next section of the perfectly aligned house, leading to Suzy, staring out her window with large binoculars. On the other side of the island, we meet the Khaki Scouts, led by Scout Master Ward (Edward Norton), who declares himself a math teacher first and a scoutmaster second, before deciding to reverse the claim. When Ward and the scouts sit down for their breakfast, Ward notices Sam (Jared Gilman), the most unpopular of the boys, has disappeared. Sam and Suzy are in love, and nothing can stop them.

Interlude: Image of the Day

Click it to see it blown up in all its abstract glory.

Interlude: A Dangerous Method - Flat Compositions in 3D Films

Correction: Danny Baldwin notes below that Men in Black 3 was actually shot on film, not with 3D cameras, but it was still designed with a 3D conversion in mind.

I don’t plan on writing a full review of Men in Black 3, the painfully dull sequel to the Will Smith franchise. The film is rarely inventive and quite laborious, and even the quite awesome Josh Brolin is only so fun as a young Tommy Lee Jones (who seems to have only shown up for a paycheck). The film’s saving grace is actually Michael Stuhlbarg as a being who can see across alternate timelines (useful for watching Mets games, it turns out).

            But besides the lazy script, there was something extremely alarming about Men in Black 3: the flat compositions. Being a hater of 3D in almost every possible situation (sans Pina), I ended up seeing the film in 2D (and in 35mm no less!). This is not the first time I’ve seen a 3D film in my preferred format, but it is the first time I’ve noted that choosing to see the film in 2D was actually a detriment to the film.