Flushed Away

This film comes from the makers of Chicken Run and the great Wallace and Gromit series of films. The style is the same, but the animation is no longer clay animation. They have moved on to CGI. The film looks great, but I miss the wonder of clay. The film used a lot of the same humor as the W&G films, but doesn't employ the same subtleties that make those films so great. Still, Flushed away has charm and some really fun scenes. The voice acting from Hugh Jackman, Andy Serkis, Bill Nighy, Kate Winslet, Ian McCellan (sp), and Jean Reno is great and lively. A fun movie to watch with the gang, whoever your gang may be.

***

Updated 2006 Favorites (with room for changes)

FAVORITES(2006)
1. Children of Men
2. Stranger Than Fiction
3. The Proposition
4. Half Nelson
5. The Fountain
6. Casino Royale
7. Little Miss Sunshine
8. The Science of Sleep
9. Babel
10. A Scanner Darkly

Babel (2nd Viewing)

My second viewing was a reaffirming of my earlier feelings for the film. Themes became more noticeable and I was able to be more involved in what was happening in the present of the film because I knew the future. I had a bad audience to see the movie with. The movie theater was packed with older people (the gray-haired clans of Canton and surrounding villages). They must have thought they were at home because they constantly said things out loud to the people they came with. People laughed or snickered during serious moments in the film. A woman behind gave a running commentary of how she was feeling about what she was seeing on screen. But I persevered. I liked the movie the 2nd time around, a good sign the movie will remain on my top ten favorite films for 2006.

Jeffrey Overstreet review on christianitytoday.com

Children of Men

Children of Men is my new favorite film of 2006 and perhaps (time will tell) one of the best films I have ever seen. It's an ultra-suspenseful movie that created suspense out of my utter devotion to the characters. The more danger they got in, the more I pleaded with God for them to be alright.

The story takes place twenty years from now in 2027, with the new cause of the world's problems being the fact that women of the world have not been able to carry children to term for the past eighteen years. The world has lost hope. Seeing through the eyes of the characters, my life is trivial if it is only for me, if the world ends with no new generation to inherit the earth. The world in the movie is desperate for hope. They haven't felt it for so long that they've forgotten what it feels like. Then a yougn woman becomes pregnant. And like the main character in the film and the subsequesnt characters the young woman meets, the hope is new. strange, and deeply felt by myself. I know what hope feels like. I've got some right now. But I was sucked into the movie to the point where their renewal of hope was my renewal of hope. And it wasn't just hope that you get a good parking spot or meet the right girl; it was the hope of the world. Yowza!

The film's suspense is not contrived or fake in any sense. Every difficulty that could come between Theo (Clive Owen) and bringing the young woman to safety comes into existance, but the obstacles are organic. People do not behave in the manner they do in most suspense films, doing things they never should or would do. Nobody walks into a dark room saying softly, "Is anyone home? Billy, this isn't funny" before being spooked by the wild man with the meat cleaver hiding behind the door. The films "action" scenes are breath-taking and great studies in audience participation. I put my hand over my mouth to keep from gasping or shouting several times.

Even though I was immersed in the film, I was always aware of the high quality of the production elements. There are some great, memorable shots that should go down in history as some of the best (certainly of the science fiction genre that this film could be classified in) if this film happens to find a devoted audience on DVD.

The direction by Alfonso Cuaron guides the story and actors well. The film gets a great, award-worthy performance from Clive Owen. I have always been aware of his talent, but in some of his past films he has had some sort of impenetratable aura around him. That voice. That face. His sad eyes even when he's happy. But he is fully committed to his character in Children of Men. He is completely engaging, bringing the audience along for both his figurative and literal journey.

Back to the production values: the camera work was at times stunning. There was a "chase" scene involving a car and a mob of people that put you right in the middle of the vehicle our heroes filled, but somehow fit comfortably in a thimble sized space because the car was full with three people in the back and two in the front. How'd the camera get there? How does it move the way it does? It's constantly changing views to give us every angle possible, but never shaking uncontrollably like most thrillers these days (though I'm sure the film did employ that technique at times).

The main reason to stay is the story. It hinges on a simple premise that happens to be endlessly interesting and involving. It works so well. I'm sure repeat viewings will review flaws in dialogue and plotting, but I don't think I'll ever forget my first time seeing Children of Men. It was an amazing experience.

People have been saying "children are our future" for a long time now, but the absence of children is never really considered as the loss of a future, a sentence to be doomed to live out the present hopeless and downtrodden. That's where the movie begins. It's the journey to the ending that will stay with me. I have to see it again. I'm sure I'll look back at this post in later months and my words will seem pompous and pretentious or something of that nature. But these words do accurately represent the excitement I feel today, a few hours after finishing the movie.

*****

Jeffrey Overstreet Review on Christianitytoday.com

Great Interview with Independent Filmmaker Allison Anders (Gas, Food, Lodging)

I have never seen an Allison Anders film before, but I came across this interview when looking for interview of female independent filmmakers for the open frame blog. Andrew suggested looking for interviews with Anders. She offers very insightful comments about the current state of independent film and hollywood movies as well as her own filmmaking experiences. Check out the interview here...

Click Me

Illuminating Hal Hartley Interview

I just read a wonderful interview with Hal Hartley when putting together some info for the Open Frame Blog. It's completely regarding his film Henry Fool. If you read my review of the film, you may recall that I had mixed emotion with the film, giving it the middle of the road rating of **1/2. The interview I read was completely drenched in "aha!" moments. I feel like i finally get the film and especially the characters. For anyone who has seen the movie, check out the interview at about.com. It just might change your mind.

A Scanner Darkly (4 viewings)

In my last post about this movie, I said, "The animation truly suits the movie, though at times the effect of the beautiful look in some scenes is lessened by the animation's use in drives in the scenes where everyone is just acting stoned and crazy (barring the hallucinations, which really come alive)."

After watching the film twice more since then, I have changed my mind about the animation, or rather my opinion of it became clearer. The animation is always beautiful. The look borrows from comic books and paintings more than anime or disney. Things are authentic looking and easily observed even though the reality it depicts is slightly "above" or "more (beyond)" when compared to ours. And that is what I was trying to say earlier. The scenes where everyone is just hanging out being paranoid don't seem spectacular because at that point, I had become accustomed to the style and tone of the film. Seeing these events that I could witness in my own neighborhood or on the highway depicted in animation seemed different from the other scenes in the film. Again, they looked real enough to be real, but were actually just off center enough to make those scenes heightened and more acutely observed. I think that I started to look past the visuals into the stories and the moments within represents a great quality of the animation. I watched the movie with the commentary on and it was a very unusual, good commentary. Linklater, Reeves, a producer, one of Phillip K. Dick's daughters, and a Phillip K. Dick expert all watched the movie and talked about themes and ideas and the source material more than "how'd they do that?" sort of information. There were instances of "HTDT?", but the larger portion of the commentary was different from what I've come to expect from commentaries. That isn't to say I haven't encountered the like before. The movie continues to grow on me. Part of the reason I've watched it so often is it's new to me and one of the only new movies I had in the house. Plus, it's good. It's interesting enough to reveal more and more to me each time I see it. The commentary certainly revealed a great deal to me. The true test of the film will be how fresh it feels in three months or so.


Jeffrey Overstreet review on lookingcloser.org

Sherrybaby

This is another addict movie, the genre of which I have been watching much of late. Sherry (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is a manipulative, angry, selfish woman trying to get her life in order. She exhibits a lot of bad qualities complete with bad habits, but she honestly wants to do better and be better. She just doesn't know how. And everytime she tries and fails is a wince-inducing moment. She tries often. The peformance is uncompromising and the writer/director has created a complicated character who is hard to root for. She has goals, specifically to become a mother to her daughter again, but in that respect I found it difficult to want her to get there because every attempt was maddening. Her brother roots for her, but even he has gotten used to the idea that his sister may never get right for good. And that is the feeling I as a viewer was left with. I wanted to see her pull through and win, but any movie that tries to portray that faces the risk of sentimentality. I've seen it before. Still, I want to believe every time that addicts will get better and stay better. Sherrybaby portrays the attempts in a realistic manner, with Sherry ultimately facing the idea that she can't make the jump from being the idea of mother to being an actual mother without help. And she offers honest humility before her brother before going into in-patient care. The ending avoids the over sentimentality it could have embraced in favor on a more authentic, satisfying feeling.

***

Henry Fool

I was disappointed by this movie. I had been wanting to check out the films of Hal Hartley for a few years and had never gotten around to it. I saw Henry Fool on the shelf at the video rental place and couldn't pass up the opportunity. I was happy with the film for the most part for the first three-fourths of the movie. The characters were very original and the movie had a go-for-broke attitude that promised many surprises. The title character was a treat until he became the sad sack of the last fourth of the film. He was no longer interesting. I didn't like him anymore. The film lost speed when he lost speed. He was such a lively character, a great foil to the other lead, an aspiring writer who used to be a garbage man. Where the garbage man is primarily quiet and lack confidence, Henry Fool more than makes up with his vocabulary that falls out of his with arrogance. But the arrogance is more endearing because it is accompanied with confidence and countered by a relentless desire to instill his knowledge of the craft of writing on the garbage man. The film has some very funny things to say about writing, things that will make any aspiring writer grimace and silently guffaw. The charm of the film is the great short hand between all the characters. Henry Fool abruptly enters the lives of the other characters, but behaves in such a manner that he has every right to treat them with bluntness and familarity. And the other characters reciprocate. The film doesn't want to be a laugh riot, though it is very funny. It offers some short beautiful moments (a mute [?] woman sings softly) usually centered around the poem of the garbage man. But the movie lost its energy when the garbage man reads Henry Fool's opus that turns out to be literary scurvy. That in itself is funny, but what follows is not enjoyable at all. Where did all this gloom and seriousness come from? That isn't to say that the film prior was not gloomy or serious, but certainly not to the extent of the last fourth. Also, Fool is a convicted pedophile and I admit I was unable to look at him as the same charming wannabe world-changer once the fact was revealed. The fact offers the character some complexity and depth, but I found it difficult after the fact to like the character afterwards. Still, I managed to come out the film unscathed. It certainly is not a bad film. It strikes me as what indepedent film strives for. It is daring and edgy without appearing to show an obssession to be so. I will probably watch it again with the hope that it will surprise me with new positives now that all the negatives have already been catalogued and stored away in the appropriate warehouse.

**1/2

A Scanner Darkly

I had mixed emotions when deciding whether or not to rent this movie. I had heard a very small number of critics praise it and a horde of others condemning it as an indie that could not live up to its own ambition. I'm glad I rented it. I've watched it twice now. It looks as though it will sneak into my top ten favorites of 2006 easily. I was pleasantly surprised to feel myself entranced in this head trip of a movie. The film is far from perfect, the mark of any movie featuring Keanu Reeves in any capacity. But this is easily Keanu's best performace since The Matrix and perhaps since the beginning of his career. He is able to convince me he's a conflicted drug addict/undercover cop. That isn't necessarily a stretch for his talents, but he fills the role quite well. The real strength behind the movie is its ability to shift from its dark/stoner comedy scenes to its sci-fi cop story. It struggles a bit to keep the authenticity in its sci-fi cop scenes, but the lacking in that area is only apparent to me because the dark/stoner comedy scenes stand out so well. The melding of the two elements makes for an interesting story that I had no trouble surrending my attention to. There are is a lot of talk in the extras from those involved in the making of this movie that speaks of the source material's prophetic nature. Indeed, the paranoia that once was left primarily to the drug addicts and mentally deranged has found its way into reality. There is also an attmept to come up with some sort of condemnation of the costs we pay to try to win the unwinable war against drugs. But I didn't latch onto these themes. The proof was in the pudding. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say. I may have used that idiom wrong. But the fun and entertainment is following the lead character and his merry band of addicts around as they lose their minds over and over again. The substance to the film, the sacrifice of Keanu's character, only holds together the other elements. The twist near the end is not surprising, but rather the kind of odd shock when you realize your guess is correct. It also fit the work. I felt the film could have ended on the zoom in on Keanu's coffee near the end (you'll see), but I am not opposed to the end the story presents in the film. I also want to point out how much I enjoyed Robert Downey, Jr. in this movie. It's a piece of loose cannon acting where you can tell Downey really committed to the eccentricities of his character and just ran with it like a sprinter. The animation truly suits the movie, though at times the effect of the beautiful look in some scenes is lessened by the animation's use in drives in the scenes where everyone is just acting stoned and crazy (barring the hallucinations, which really come alive). Linklater crafts a dreary cautionary tale with some old tricks and some new.

***1/2