The Online Film Community’s Top 100 Movies

Draw your own opinions.

My thoughts? Well, it's certainly better than the AFI 100 and the IMDB 250...but not that much better. Firstly, It's way too top-heavy with American films -- Seven Samurai at #20 is the first foreign film on the list -- and it's way too male-oriented. Secondly, it's not even really distinguishable compared to every other list out there but such is the nature of most list compilations. However, there are some rather inspired choices (6. Blade Runner, 25. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) that are just quintessentially "internet", and quite a number of my favorites (predictably) made it. It's a bit egregious to complain, I suppose, so I guess...well done? Yup, yup.

Oh, come on, Death. Are we really that bad?

Somebody set up a barricade around Jean-Luc Godard's residence.

Assimilation and gender.

I was on another user's blog last night and the discussion was brought up on female representation within film. I'm all for feminism and am well aware that to a large number of males, and females, that the term paints an overly incisive form of dogmatism -- which is not to imply the term is always applied favorably; it's problematic when it becomes a form of recompensation and starts echoing the same fundamental disputes as nationalism (placing ideals of one's culture/self over another's, etc). Anyway, so within the discussion comes up the question of "why are so many female characters just there to subvert the centralized male characters rather than actually drive the narrative on their own terms"? It's a multi-faceted question (duh!) and the tangents just waiting to erupt from it really make me want to soar around naked in Paris, fingers grasping -- but never letting up -- on Shaw's "Sain Joan." OK, not really, but you get the point.


So essentially this next segment(s) will attempt to justify a few things:

a. Which directors are "getting it right" and why.
b. Which directors aren't and why.
c. An idea of what needs to be done in order to promote female-centric narratives as well as suggest how to avoid the stereotyping of supporting/limited role female characters.
d. How homosexuality and race have something to say about this.
e. TBA

[will be updated later]

Analytical Vacancy.

Apparently, the banal depths of the IMDB forums can prove to be more intelligible than individual's passing themselves off as "film critics". OK, certainly that's a bit hyperbolic but there's few things that prove to be more annoying (see: disenchanting) than people just assuming that we're already saddled up for the joke. Pandering or clubbing around your own self-entitlement doesn't mean we're on board already. Hey, there's nothing wrong with pedantry but at least understand that assuming critical supervision means you actually worked on something; boldly attributing innate observation pretension can backfire, you know? Listen, I'm not saying I've never treaded the water on didacticism or that I've ever wrote page after page of expository circumvention, but I sure as hell have never sought to submit something to any sort of a film journal--no matter how informal--that just emphasizes my deficiencies.

Lost in Translation

Lost in Translation finds Bill Murray and Scarlet Johansson playing a man and a woman, respectively, both of whom wander around an expensive Tokyo high-rise hotel with nothing to do. They have nothing to do, the film insists, because they are too smart for it all. Anyone not Japanese in the film is depicted as terribly superficial; Johansson's husband is a fashion photographer, Murray's spouse sends him carpet samples. The Japanese, for their part, are hardly depicted at all, except to underscore the protagonists' alienation.

What they are smart about is the mystery. Too bored with their hotel rooms but too smart for all the suffocating superficiality, Murray and Johansson run around a neonlit, arcade-laden Tokyo still doing next to nothing. Maybe they're smart for each other? They kiss at the end, though that doesn't seem to change much of anything.

The problem is, Lost in Translation isn't all that smart. It seeks to capture the alienation of the upper classes, insisting that the air way up there is terribly thin in terms of meaning. Unfortunately, the film is just as thin, about as meaningful as your average episode of Laguna Beach, an MTV reality television with cinema-like production values that documented the love lives of immensely well-to-do teenagers in California. I struggle to see what difference it makes that the vacuity of Lost in Translation is intentional; the result is just about the same.

Maybe the film's problem was that it's director, Sofia Coppola, is the well-to-do daughter of Francis Ford Coppola (known for such films as the Godfather triology, Apocalypse Now and Jack). She's probably had access to cinematic tropes all her life (I hear she name-dropped Antonioni in her Best Screenplay Oscar speech), but Lost in Translation makes me think she's lost as to how to tie all these tropes together into something meaningful.

The internet has been a savior for a lot of things but also has shallowly verified cheap amounts of self-importance. It's recognized that certain informalities are going to be there, but it doesn't mean it's actually just a selling point. Since when has reviewing been more about chauvinism than about perceptiveness? Calling Lost in Translation "vacuous" (irony, I know) or implying fault with it's attempt at "captur[ing] the alienation of the upper classes, insisting that the air way up there is terribly thin in terms of meaning" is much too contrived for any level of reviewing, especially when neither of those jabs are actually defined; after all, the latter denunciation pretty much nullifies Fellini's, Antonioni's, and half of Resnais' catalog. Although, I never knew that alienation, detachment, culture shock, existentialism, etc. were purely high-browed ideals. Does Satantango fail because desolation only holds bearing with those who truly know deprivation and poverty? And above all, are we still at the point where gender and (implied) nepotism are actually being sold as authentic criticism?

I've sort of been on a Lost in Translation/ Sofia Coppola streak as of late, so I'll try to post some responses to common criticism within the next day or two.

Prospero's Speech

Now my charms are all o'erthrown,

And what strength I have's mine own,

Which is most faint. Now 'tis true

I must be here confined by you

Or sent to Naples. Let me not,

Since I have my dukedom got,

And pardoned the deceiver, dwell

In this bare island by your spell;

But release me from my bands

With the help of your good hands.

Gentle breath of yours my sails

Must fill, or else my project fails,

Which was to please. Now I want

Spirits to enforce, art to enchant;

And my ending is despair

Unless I be relieved by prayer,

Which pierces so, that it assaults

Mercy itself, and frees all faults.

As you from crimes would pardoned be,

Let your indulgence set me free'

Prospero's Speech from "The Tempest"


I can't say I'm overwhelmed with any sort of intense sadness for the death of Ingmar Bergman - 89 years is quite a run. Nonetheless, the man's dedication to the medium and his largely unparalleled affinity with artistic and spiritual (Dreyer is only human) validation are more of something that is long to be admired, if not deemed impossible in this day and age. Joe DiMaggio's 56 ain't got nothing on it. And while his films will be endlessly scrutinized, analyzed, and even patronized to mere rhetorics in the decades later none of it will hold any greater thought than those who upon viewing are galvanized by them. It's quite polarizing to note that Death and what we make of such a finality was perhaps his grandest of themes, that all other motifs that incandescently streamed throughout his works complied obediently with that invariable fate. I don't love Ingmar Bergman. I don't really share a lot of what he says; it's not really the point of an artist to make us comply if we sufficiently concern ourself with be experienced. And I don't think his death will make any profound impact on my life, not that he would care or had cared. However, I'll always admire that he was able to do so much and I'm sort of envious in the regard that in subsequent years he could put out legitimate masterpieces when in this day in age we can't even spot consistency in terms of decades from our greatest of directors. And above all, I'll rejoice that he left us so many features that depict the vast parameters and tangents of the human soul, a oeuvre filled with quiet romanticism and underrated humor that only registers once we accept "flaw".

"I want to confess as best I can, but my heart is void. The void is a mirror. I see my face and feel loathing and horror. My indifference to men has shut me out. I live now in a world of ghosts, a prisoner in my dreams. "

Antonius Block in The Seventh Seal

Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles

Well, I just watched it and after I get done with some homework I'll work on a review/analysis.

Matt Schaub sure picked a bad time to get traded, huh?

That is if Vick is [rightfully] convicted of the charges. Don't you think Virginia Tech has had enough this year?

2007: Can I take my hand off the snooze button?

"It's a cyclical thing. When they make one, everyone loves them. Different genres come around in succession. People always welcome the western. It's America's genre."

-Robert Duvall

Admittingly, I haven't done my part this year. I haven't seen Rescue Dawn, Ratatouille, Rescue Dawn, Paprika...you get the point. However, my apathy is much attributed much more to the anticipation of fall releases than assumed disappointment from the available features. Before I go off and ostracize myself I'm also content with playing the "catch-up" card with 2006 -- it turned out to be the best year of the new millennium. (It's humorous to note that two of the most widely-acclaimed films of the year, The Departed and A Prarie Home Companion, happen to be two of the worst films in the respective directors' oeuvre.) Fortunately, I think I've finally embarked upon the shores of 2007; my enthusiasm seems effectively honed after reading a few early reviews for No Country for Old Men and Paranoid Park -- it's all frightfully romantic! I've got a point here, although it's rather self-referential: "Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others." No? OK, well I haven't really an agenda here other than to supply slight validity for my giddiness, and there's nothing more noble that the truth, right?



1. Se Jie, Ang Lee






Spies? WWII? A universally lauded film visionary returning back to his roots? Tony Leung? It's like Hitchcock without the vehicular tendencies. In subsequent years we get two of the most expansive, humanistic directors--Ang Lee and Alfonso Cuaron--working in their home language, in environments that seem akin to that of which manifested both of their recognized masterpieces. In the wake of the same year Kar Wai Wong is putting out the "cross-over film", I'm inclined to think Lee's is going to be the better film for the reasoning not that I'm famously anti-Wong, but that Lee's film doesn't appear to be as observably self-parodied. Also, Joan Chen has more shows more naturalism in Zi yu feng bao than Natalie Portman has shown her entire career. Ah, so much for cheekiness.


2. Paranoid Park, Gus Van Sant







Kracaeur will continue to blush. And as if you're one of those that thinks realist cinema needs yet another reawakening then you have Paranoid Park, which looks like an apt return to the social environment/structures of Van Sant's zenith, Elepant. Long takes, austere artificiality, and questionable authorities it all looks to be rather intact with every glimpse of Paranoid Park. Conspicuously, Van Sant appears to be content with encroachment of auteur-ism. Fair enough, he deserves such a vicinity.


3. No Country for Old Men, The Coen Brothers






It's a complete shame that they didn't go for Blood Meridian, as well. Yes, I'm rather optimistic that Ridley Scott will return to form--whatever that means-- but the buzz around No Country for Old Men is just irrational. It all is rather fitting for those who've actually read the novel, it's drenched in a sporadically combustible post-modern tone that's got Coen written all over it, the whole thing is just so...cinematic. It's also an insanely expeditious: characters represent anachronistic archetypes, landscapes that drip with biblical embodiments. It's probably the most relevant film the Cohen brothers could ever make because few people can actually negotiate the conflicting realms of social observation and bellicose absurdity. I'll leave your opinions of the fervency of the cast up to common sense.


4. There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson







The trailer is simply fantastic sans the reminder that Paul Dano is actually a human being. If anybody commands the screen in a more theatric, gravitational fasion than Daniel Day-Lewis than please tell me. It also appears that Mr. Anderson has found himself away from the Scorsese backrent that he once was obliged to liquidate, and Robert Elswitt seeks to increasingly distinguish himself as one of the premiere cinematographers of our generation--which says a lot. Thing is, I'm not really expecting much out of this film except a really great time...and confirmation that the politics of the old West still demand significant pertinence. Texas government is a fascinating thing in that it still transcribes just how much traditional Republicanism governs society. There's much to be said about the proprietorship of the "cowboy mentality" and how the increased minority establishment has actually increasingly promoted such a mentality.



5. Le Voyage du ballon rouge, Hsiao-hsien Hou





It's been pretty hush-hush about this one. The original 1956 film is one of the most lauded examples of the properties of montage and austerity. You've got an international leading lady (Binoche) and a seemingly inspired deviation from the simplicity of the Le Balloon Rouge. So it's not really a remake but a previsioning? Or is it more of a celebration of the '56 Cannes winner? Either or it's Hou, and you know that means quality; the man is a genius when it comes to "pure cinema": parametric narration, lighting, long-takes, reflexive POV... He's capable of pretension when he's at his worst and capable of adamant devotion when at his most creatively self-secured. So far the basic plot is that Binoche, a puppeteer, teacher, and mother of two allows a Taiwanese baby sitter in to her home who ends up changing Binoche's close-minded perceptions of life by means of imagination (the balloon) and cultural intergration. A recipe for heavy-handedness or for poetry? We'll see.

Japanese Sentimentalism

[The following essay was written about a year and a half ago--I was 18--and sheds light on cultural affinity of Japan's culture and cinematic scene. I recognize that the essay appears a bit intrinsic in its observation of these relationships, yet I've attempted to let the essay to remain rather intact because it does at the very lest provide a substantial overview. Within the next week or so I'm seeking to append additional references and evidence towards the observations.]

There is a scene midway into Yasujiro Ozu’s Tokyo Story where the elderly couple, who have been recently visiting their children for the weekend in Tokyo, spend the day at a coastal spa. It is conveyed throughout the film that the children’s parents signify a great burden for them, and the particular spa visit, arranged by the preoccupied offspring, allows for couple to be looked after without interrupting the daily routine of the children’s “big city life”. The scene, like many others in the film, emphasize a culture whose classical approach to cinema -- and all art forms – emphasizes an emotional and thematic texture that is both distinct and effective.

Late film director Yasuzo Masumura explains, “Sentiment in Japanese films means restraint, harmony, resignation, sorrow, defeat, and escape," not "dynamic vitality, conflicts, struggle, pleasure, victory, and pursuit.” Ultimately, this serves as a contrast to the typicality of Hollywood’s penchant for excessiveness, gratification, and fully-realized desire; and as Masamura further clarifies, “There is no such thing as a non-restricted desire. A person who thoroughly reveals his or her desire can only be considered mad....” [1]

So is Japanese cinema, in comparison to other countries’, limited in the light of their emotional constraints? It’s a yes and no answer. Certainly, the average “light drama” tends to not have the emotional fluctuations as the typical Amerian drama; the understated acting in Japanese films seems quite unnatural next to the convulsive, extroverted performances churned out by Hollywood each year. However, just as Masamura defines, the restrained emotions that are at the heart of Japanese dramas tend to be more individualistic and intimate than most other film cultures around the globe. In Grave of the Fireflies, the horrors of the Second World War are portrayed through the personal struggles of the film’s two young siblings, their survival amidst the destruction of the Japanese. There is a tragic level of inconsequentiality in relation to the conflict; the brother and sister meet their own death in a way that underlines the Japanese’s own hopeless defeat in the war.

Although Japan’s loss in the war generated a considerable amount of films expressing such a defeat, familial dramas have always been the quintessential example of traditionalism and restraint. Ozu, Shinoda, Nomura, Mizoguchi, Kurosawa and many other world-renowned Japanese masters often depicted their culture through the joys and misfortunes domestic interactions. Yoshitaro Nomura’s Kichiku tells of a wife’s desertion of her spouse and three kids after her husband fails to provide sufficient financial support for the family. Kenji Mizogucho’s Ugetsu shares a similar presence: the husband of a family in dire need of money to support his family is tempted by greed and consequently allows his wife and child to suffer. A noted perception of dramatic revelations within these pieces is that the individuals who often act on self-indulgence suffer at the fate of others, specifically loved ones. This emphasizes a traditionalistic notion of Japanese culture that self-preservation is one of the worst of sins; a straying on unity and collectivism exposes an unforgivable selfishness.

Analysis of world cinemas uncovers the cultures behind the lenses, but as the medium morphs and expands so to does the abilities for directors to convey those cultures. Anime, much like most cinematic movements, flourished under significant movements within the Japanese society. The genre permitted artists to express their frustrations with exponential progression within the economy and culture as well as the departure of traditionalistic values within the culture. Cinema, specifically classical Japanese, demonstrates that there is a necessary establishment for history, contemplation, anthropology, and so many more social sciences. One can only hope that somebody wouldn’t cast their parents to a day spa during their visit. The least one could do is go with them.

Girlfriend's A-blogging

It turns out that my girlfriend will be manifesting her own blog. Her contribution, as I had initially suggested, might be significantly reduced to do this news. My head falls to the floor... I tease. Anyway, I'll be linking her blog on here shortly. In the mean time here's are a few things:

• I'll be providing analysis for some of my favorite films within the next several days.
• Anybody with complaints about the legibility of my current template please comment. Your opinions, of any sort, are that of which I feed upon.
• I'll be posting a sports article non-Vick related rather soon.

Thanks!

20 Favorite Films.

Forest of Bliss, Robert Gardner(1984)

It does appear to be rather rudimentary, yes, but I'm effectively running my posting number to 3 upon completion here and shedding some light on my taste & passions. Feel free to comment on my list and/or provide one of your own. Remember, my lists are highly ephemeral.





(in no particular order, English titles)

Love Streams (John Cassavetes)
Nostalghia (Andrei Tarkovsky)
Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola)
Je t'aime, Je t'aime (Alain Resnais)
Miami Vice (Michael Mann)
Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese)
Forest of Bliss (Robert Gardner)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
The Life of Oharu (Kenji Mizoguchi)
White Dog (Sam Fuller)
Eraserhead (David Lynch)
Persona (Ingmar Bergman)
Y Tu Mama Tambien (Alfonso Cuaron)
Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alain Resnais)
Inland Empire (David Lynch)
Woman in the Dunes (Heroshi Teshigahara)
Zerkalo (Andrei Tarkovsky)
Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder)
Hana-Bi (Takeshi Kitano)
Nights of Cabiria (Federico Fellini)

Galvanize this?

Alright, so for a few months I've been pathetically neglecting this blog...mostly because I've really had nothing better to do and that I have a distinct tendency to actually be more productive when I'm actually being productive. However, ultimately, it has really just been omnipresent fear that I'm so far behind on the whole blog community thing and that I'm essentially at risk of being washed out amongst the millions of other people who have more important things to say... and are better at saying it. In other words, I suppose I would have been better off trying (initially) to make this something therapeutic--which is also sort of a paradox-- rather than a self-establishment of communicative necessity. Either way, I've come to say that I'm going to give this another shot. [/martyring]

Moving on...

The objective now is that I feel a need to reinstate and clarify how I want this blog to flourish, rather than flounder in its current state:

• Fundamentally, I wanted to use this site as a library for my film criticism/analysis. I have a rather large penchant against the vacuity of film criticism nowadays in the sense that I think the internet has promoted an informal approach to the process; Chauvinism tends to be rather prevalent as the result of striving distinguishment. Don't get me wrong, if done right I think there's nothing wrong with negotiating between playfulness and formality; however, the maligned efforts of critics to supersede content with baseless assertions of "apparent falacies" has led to an inevitable debasement of the form.

• I'm also looking to contribute casual enthusiasm for the medium through film festivals I'm looking to attend, film retrospectives, interviews, and my own personal experiences with the medium. I'm attempting to work on a short this fall as well as complete a screenplay. My girlfriend also is looking to adapt a Victorian novel, so I'll keep "you guys" (ah, the ambiguity!) up on that, too.

• Which brings me to my girlfriend's contribution...it's entirely open at this point. She's actively interested in a continual input to this blog however will not be limited to intrinsic perspectives that we had previously suggested; the upcoming election and her evolving interests in media, fashion, and literature recently have enlightened her interest in communication. Our relationship represents another source of enthusiasm and insight that we emphatically want to represent on this blog (not in the cheesy, hackneyed LiveJournal manner). Transcribing the joys and difficulties of a relationship, I think, has the ability to illuminate the other interests portrayed on this blog, as well as to convey the methodology of our approaches to these interests.

• Finally, I'm hoping to expand by means of joining with another blog--I've talked with a few interested individuals--or by connecting this blog with other websites of similar interests. More on this later.

In conclusion...

I understand that there must be hesitancy towards these promises. After all, my noncompliance for the last couple months paints a distinct cloud above all of this. However, as I previously noted, I've sought to reinvest my faith into these vast territories that I had originally planned on venturing.."Not creating delusions is enlightenment. " (Bodhidharma)