A Crystal-Clear View

61* (2001) Dir: Billy Crystal.

The film chronicles the 1961 attempt to best the record of 60 home runs in a single season, a record set by Babe Ruth in 1927 and still considered, in 1961, unreachable by contemporary players.  But that year two players, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, on the same team and in the same year, had hitting streaks  that brought the story of a race for a record and a rivalry that played well in the sports pages, but had little to do with the two men, who were and remained good friends — not feuding rivals — throughout.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a sports fan, baseball fan or even a Yankee fan; this is a story about two men, very different men, each doing something extraordinary, who were on the same team in the same year, and what they faced because of it.

It’s very hard to talk about this film, once you say It’s a great film.  It IS a great film, but if I’m going to persuade you to watch it, that’s not going to be enough.  So, let’s look at some things that make it great:

1.  It was directed by Billy Crystal.  Yes, THAT Billy Crystal, comic, actor, director, and Yankees expert.  Also, one of the finest, most thorough and nuanced directors we have.  In a Billy Crystal film you get drama, comedy, action — but most importantly, great acting, fine scripts, authenticity, great photography, design, music, and all the rest of the movie arts and crafts, but a real look at real people, not merely at images or myths.

2.  It’s not merely a sports film.  Sure, baseball yes, Yankees yes, but it’s about the two men, and Crystal gives us the two men as they really were, difficulties and problems as well as great moments on the field, as closely as anyone can.  The Maris and the Mantle families, in the ‘making of’ featurette, praise the film’s portrayals of the men, not as myth and icon, but as men, two men as they actually were.

3.  It’s extremely accurate, sticks strictly to the historical record, down to the smallest detail.  Not in a poky, dry way, but in a way that brings the 1961 Yankee Stadium and team and society at large to life, brilliant sparkling life.  Not larger than life, not lesser than life, not life as usually portrayed in movies, not a ‘biopic,’ but really, truly, presents it to us as, I believe, no other medium possibly can.  No collection of archival footage (used heavily as a resource, but not used heavily in the film) can bring the games and action to life.  But this movie, based in reality, in history, and in the encyclopedic baseball memory of Billy Crystal, can and does.

Full disclosure: I do remember the Yankee Stadium of those years, as my father took me to games there while I was growing up, and I can say that Billy Crystal got it absolutely right (not that I doubted him).  And, yes, like the Devil — and like Billy Crystal — I am a Yankee fan.

Star Trek (2009)

Star Trek (2009) Dir. JJ Abrams.

I love this movie.  I’ve had more pleasure and more sheer fun and excitement from this movie than from any movie in a long time.

Now read again the subtitle of this blog.  Yes, here I am, Wilm, praising a popular, even blockbuster film, as a fine entertainment for the thinking grownup, regardless of your taste in films.

Take note: it’s the first Star Trek movie that didn’t make me wince as I watched it.

The film managed perfectly (and I hadn’t thought it could be done at all) to work both for those who are hardcore Star Trek fans (people who can answer any trivia question about any episode in any of the series or films, and, as the filmmakers themselves understood, would focus their beady eyes on every frame of this film for possible violations of the canon) and also for those who had never watched Star Trek, weren’t interested in Star Trek, and who wished quite often that Star Trek fans would just pipe down and give it a rest.

That meant, of necessity, and with careful forethought, that there would need to be some basic similarities of casting, character, and action to the original series — and also some striking and interesting differences, and some huge improvements.  Chris Pine is absolutely right as the young Kirk, as is Zachary Quinto as Spock, and, really, the rest of the cast as well.

Authentic accents from Chekov (played here by Anton Yelchin) and from Scott (Simon Pegg) were long overdue and make a huge difference to my ability to suspend disbelief and avoid winces.  Sulu’s fencing is now a genuine combat skill, not a hobby.  And, my favorite of all favorites, there is the incredibly incandescent and unexpected love affair which, never reaching anywhere near the limits of PG-13, is still much more convincing than those in way too many R-rated films.  Yikes!  Talk about less is more!

This film has suspense, danger, action, romance, tragedy, poignancy, wit, humor, bellylaughs, an involved and involving story with setups, payoffs, reversals, effects both practical where possible as well as computer-generated, and all of the first quality, a fast pace that allowed the audience to do a little work, enough fine material to reward multiple viewings, superb acting, directing, writing, production, sound track and music.  It’s very rare to see a popular movie not only succeed but excel on every level, not least with an excellent script.

This balance between the former and the current, with a believable explanation of why there should be deviations from the original canon, is well-kept throughout all aspects of the production. Michael Giacchino, who composed the film’s score, uses motifs, figures, and themes from the original Star Trek series and films, weaves them anew into a moving score, and adds new material that fits this film perfectly.

Here’s another film franchise that has been brilliantly renewed.  Thank you, JJ Abrams, cast, crew, screenwriters, and all!

The Time Has Come Today

One of the problems we have in this country is trying to find things out, about situations that affect us all, to find out in sufficient detail, untwisted and unspun, so as to have any kind of coherent national conversation about them.  In recent years, it’s become utterly impossible to depend on commercial media to do that… which means we have abandoned the Jeffersonian idea of an informed electorate and, alas, made the idea of a free press (there isn’t one in print, on TV, or the internet, it seems) moot.

One of these pressing topics about which we know less than we should, and hear about in a limited fashion only from those who wish to sell us their own points of view, is the whole issue of climate change and the meeting in Copenhagen intended to get the nations of the whole world figuring out and getting behind ways to save the environment — that is, the earth as a place able to support human life — primarily by cutting carbon emissions.

That’s why it’s important to watch this 10-minute video, The Story of Cap & Trade.  Saying you understand the theory of cap & trade is like saying you understand the theory of the four-stroke engine: it doesn’t get your car’s oil changed.

Go ahead, watch this short but vital film, that adds the political and profit-making aspects to the rest of the story.  For once in your life, get ALL the facts and the details — there are some devils in the details that you should be aware of — that are going to make a big difference to you and your family, your children and grandchildren.  Not just to their comfort, but to their very survival.

And when you’re done, consider spreading the word about the film in any way you can: posting about it on a blog, as I’ve done here, using Facebook, Twitter or any other means (links to all such media are available on the page), or just by turning to your neighbor and (gasp!) discussing it.

The Story of Stuff, who made the film, are not asking for money (but of course, contributions are always welcome if you choose to give — there is a link on the page).  Much more important is your spreading the word, and getting others to see and understand.   I think if you watch the film, you will want to do so.  A friend of mine forwarded this link to me, and here we are today on this blog.

Watch and learn: The Story of Cap & Trade.

Phantom of the Opera

Phantom of the Opera (2004)  dir. Joel Schumacher.   Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, Patrick Wilson, Miranda Richardson, Minnie Driver, Ciaran Hinds, Simon Callow, and a large, fine cast and a superb production.

Regardless how you feel about musical theater, and whether or not you’ve seen Phantom of the Opera on the stage …  Andrew Lloyd Webber’s film version of his great musical production is intended to thrill audiences, and if you’re not getting that thrill — lots of gooseflesh — you might want to have someone check to see if you have a pulse. 

My goosebumps had goosebumps, just the way it should be.  In addition to the story with its twists and turns, and suspense, mystification, and unexpected resolution, it has great acting at every level, as well as great singing, dancing, production design, costumes, and imagination and creativity everywhere. Not least, hommage to Cocteau’s classic film Beauty and the Beast, where the torches are held on human arms that move as the Phantom passes into his own domain.  Spectacle and intimacy both, on the screen, large or small. 

For once, the strengths of the stage are meshed with the strengths of film, giving us the best of both. Then there is a moment toward the end when the Phantom realizes that Christine is lying to him to save her lover, and we see him realize it, and reach inside himself, and make his decision.  Not overdone, not dragged out too long, not passed by too quickly.  Brilliant. We see him see it… more than we could see from the audience to a stage — and then he does what he needs to do…

I have always admired Gerard Butler’s voice, but I hadn’t realized how well he could use it to sing. And Minnie Driver’s acting is superb as the Italian diva, La Carlotta, as temperamental and tempestuous as all get out.  Ciaran Hinds and Simon Callow give us the new owners of the opera house, and Miranda Richardson gives us Madame Giry, who has held the situation at the Opera House together so far.

And the well-told framing story, giving us form and conclusion to it all –the acts structure, as well as ‘how it all turned out.’  This whole production gets a huge A+.  

So see this, see this, on DVD, even if you’ve seen it on the stage.  I’ve seen it on the stage and, fine as it was, this disc won by a length.

I may just go make some tea — I need fortification after watching this superb production — and put the disc back in and watch it again!

Accounting

Sydney Pollack 1934-2008

A few days ago, I saw the news that Sydney Pollack had died.  I’m so sorry to hear this, that he had cancer, that he died.  He was one of the great voices, telling truth in his films, expoloring human life… he would say things in his films others wouldn’t and do it urbanely, usually wittily.  He was the man behind Tootsie, producing, acting (small part), directing…

You could do worse than order up and watch a slew of Pollack films: the recent Recount for HBO, soon (I hope) to be out on DVD, The Interpreter, the superb Tootsie, and so many more.  

If Sydney Pollack had anything to do with it, it’s great. 

I wish he had lived longer — much longer, and of course without the cancer.  We needed him to help keep us sane and tell the truth about the rest of the voting story… 2004, 6, 8 — his name alone (along with the intelligence and wit he brought to all his efforts) would have gotten his material out to the public.

Meantime, watch his films and rejoice and learn and laugh.  Pay attention. Watch them all — they’re timeless.

Tautly Tart

America’s Sweethearts (2001)

Despite its (purposely) saccharine title — which kept me from watching it for a long time; I wasn’t interested, I thought, even in takeoffs on such a theme, given the abysmal history of the usual brainless ‘takeoffs’ in US movies — America’s Sweethearts is a brilliant, taut, and tartly witty film.  It succeeds on every level: Script (Billy Crystal and co-writer Peter Tolan, of Rescue Me fame), production (Billy Crystal and excellent production crew), acting (Billy Crystal and a great comedic ensemble with not a false note among them).

Getting the picture?  Of, by and with Billy Crystal, who gives us wit rather than pratfalls, an intelligent script with real yet comedic characters, and laughter from the head and heart, rather than the belly — well, mostly: I can’t deny a few belly laughs here and there.  The whole film is brilliantly character-based.

Amazingly fine — five stars out of five — with Julia Roberts, John Cusack, Hank Azaria, Stanley Tucci, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Alan Arkin, Christopher Walken, Seth Green, and many more.  My goodness!

Look What We Can Do

I just watched Straight No Chaser’s hip, funny, superb version of The 12 Days of Christmas yet again on YouTube, a must-see for all jazzbos, all rock fans, and all those who know what a drehdl is. The count of watchings is now over 1 million; no surprise there.

 

And here’s what I thought:  Do you remember the scene in Sports Night one winter’s night in which  Dan, hungry and remembering that he has half a turkey sandwich in his office, discovers a homeless man there, who is trying to get out of the cold.  Dan tries to give the half sandwich to the man: clearly, the man’s need is greater than his.  But the man insists on sharing and cuts the half sandwich in half again, so Dan and the man sit on office chairs in front of a monitor, eating their pieces of sandwich, and watch the live feature being broadcast over the network: a team of climbers making it, the very last steps, to the top of Everest.  “Look what we can do,” says Dan, a remark with a certain resonance for all of humanity, as well as his own compassionate heart.

 

Well, go watch that Straight No Chaser video again, with the wit, the musical ability, the hard work arranging and rehearsing, the humor, and the tremendous fun ten men are having doing something very very skilled and hugely enjoyable for us, the audience.  And remind yourself: Look what we can do.

Cool Heat

Quick: who are the two highly popular series characters, in very different series but each notably single, who get to answer questions about a mystery woman by saying: “That’s my wife”?

One is Mr. Spock in the episode “Amok Time” in the original Star Trek series. And the other is Lt. Castillo in “The Golden Triangle,” in the first season of the now-classic series Miami Vice.

Now that many TV series are available on DVD, they can be seen as a whole. Miami Vice was the first in which each episode was shot as though it was a movie, and ushered in the era of high production-value television series, according to the ‘making of’ featurette on the first-season set of discs.

Miami Vice had a strong cast and featured fine guest actors, some established, and some near the beginning of their careers. This was a powerful and heady mix in a show that could draw viewers almost as powerfully as the illegal substances the Miami Vice detectives were attempting to keep from reaching the streets.

Miami Vice has intoxicating visuals — not only vistas of water, sky, beaches and citiscapes by day and by night, but settings and locations, and indeed the entire production design, including lighting and costumes which purposely include and coordinate every color but earth tones. Magentas, purples, greens, blues, reds, grays, pinks and lavenders, and not least highly emphatic whites and blacks play, in all kinds of combinations, against the area’s art deco architecture and many ethnic neighborhoods. Even scrapyards and dingy boatyards filled with rusting ships fit in as backgrounds for the action. Whether in old green surveillance vans or Ferrari Testarossas, small boat or huge yacht, waterplane or helicopter, in the heat of the action the visuals are cool.

The series was (to understate wildly) highly popular during its original broadcast, drawing in and keeping viewers hooked. It also ushered in an era of Sonny Crockett look-alike fashions for men. Crockett usually wore white unconstructed jackets or white trousers with knitted shirts, but always along with one or another pastel color including pinks and lavenders, and often wore deck shoes without socks. His hair became longer and longer over the course of the series. I like long hair on men, and hope it will become fashionable again soon. Check out Sonny Crockett’s appearance for pointers when that finally happens. Ricardo Tubbs, by contrast, usually wore beautifully tailored silk suits with coordinating shirts and ties. For one season, he also wore a beard. Heady stuff for the onlookers — and high times for the men’s fashion industry.

And the series itself is highly addictive viewing. Its continuing characters have stories and backgrounds that are shown to us over five seasons, as they pursue their various dangerous and often undercover activities. There is a mix of stories of tragedy and comedy, drama and action, romance and retribution that keeps the series going. If one episode doesn’t appeal to you so much, just wait a minute — the next one will. And when Miami Vice is over, you’ll wish there was more, and wish it for a good long while.

Must Have Disc

Must Love Dogs. John Cusack, Diane Lane, Christopher Plummer, Stockard Channing — and guess what: everyone else, from the Deli Guy (Kirk Trutner) to Mother Teresa, a Labrador Retriever played by two different Labradors, is superb too, along with writer/director Gary David Goldberg to the entire cast and crew, making, for once, a pitch-perfect romantic comedy: funny, sad, tender, lots of the unexpected, and never ever sloppy, sentimental, or trying for cheap laughs. I watched this movie and I felt great! Try it, you’ll like it.

By the way, have you ever noticed how John Cusack hugs? Your definite friendly bear-type hug. One arm often over the shoulder of the woman. He’s not just near her, or pressing on her; somehow he’s bringing her in, gently but firmly, as part of him. Great stuff.

Getting Home

Apollo 13. In the ‘making of’ featurette on the disc, Tom Hanks refers to one of the seven great plots of literature: how do you get home? We hear a lot of people saying of all kinds of things “because we can,” but what if you can’t — or your circumstances are genuinely bad, getting worse, and almost any one of hundreds of little things can kill you, some overt or sudden, some hidden and building, so that it looks like you can’t? In books about writing, wannabes are told to put the protagonist in a bad situation, and as he struggles, have things get worse for a while, sometimes because of the very things he’s had to do earlier to save himself and get as far as he has. But this was not the plot of a book or a movie, this time: this was Apollo 13. And, because of a fault in one of the oxygen tanks, latent, unseen and unknown until actually used in this mission, the tank exploded and severely damaged the ship.

According to Ron Howard, the director and a producer of the film, one of the reasons the film was made was not only because it had such exciting and suspenseful material, but also to provide a record. While copious archival footage from NASA existed and was used to study the mission and provide detailed information, it could not merely be edited together to make a coherent narrative film telling the story. It hadn’t been shot for that purpose, and it didn’t ‘fit’ from shot to shot in a way a feature film needed.

So with the information in the footage and the archives and with on-the-spot advice from astronauts themselves, and with Ron Howard and Tom Hanks as the “accuracy police,” they made a film that was very accurate down to the last switch in either module, to the events in the film, to the events on the ground at Houston, and to the events in the astronauts’ homes.

If We Can Do This…

From The Earth To The Moon. Sometimes, television is not only a pleasure but a privilege to watch. Not often, I agree, but it does happen. And sometimes, the people who are making it happen — the producers, writers, directors, cast and crew, effects, pre-and post-production, and everyone else — do it so right that there’s not a false note in sight. Welcome to the miniseries executive-produced by Tom Hanks for HBO, From The Earth To The Moon.

Each episode begins with a voice-over of President Kennedy speaking at Rice University in 1962: “We choose to go to the moon…. We choose to go to the moon… We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard.”

The most important things about President Kennedy are not those things people may say he did wrong, but all the things he did right.

If the best teachers give the best assignments, then assigning the nation to find a way to put men on the Moon and bring them back safely, and do it within the decade, was perhaps the best, the most positive we ever have been given. The stick of the rivalry with the Soviet Union was already out there, but much more in evidence within the Apollo project was the carrot of just what an accomplishment it would be to meet this impossible-seeming challenge. And by the time of Apollo 11’s Moon landing, it had become an Earth-wide amazement. The entire world watched, and hoped, together.

Going to the Moon before the end of that decade — in all its aspects, disappointments, triumphs and pain, all the many sides of the huge effort — is the story told by From The Earth To The Moon. Told so well, I have to add, that having seen 11 episodes, I’m putting off seeing the 12th, because then it will be over. The highest quality of cinematic talent has produced this top quality result, with every aspect of the presentation, based firmly on NASA records and films and checked and advised by astronauts working with the film crews and cast.

I think what hit me hardest, watching the huge effort, is how different we are now as a nation from what we were then. There are some similarities, of course: unpopular wars being fought far from home; an ongoing “us vs. them” struggle. But our spirit as a nation is very different, our morale seems lower, our general level of unhappiness and discontent much higher, the divide between rich and poor much greater, the middle class struggling to hold on and unable to do so in increasing numbers, our jobs going overseas, our money buying less at home and worth less against other currencies abroad.

We could really use a real challenge, a real national project that is not a war or a disguised war, one that could generate purpose and meaningful jobs for people and generate real wealth for the country, not just profits for big companies and the already well-to-do. We had one then, and we pulled the plug on ourselves. Not through a shortage of money — the defense budget remained as bloated as ever, and a very small part of it would have paid for needed things at home and a program like this besides. Now we have a war that, according to the latest election returns, no one wants, but which is persisted in anyhow, and which is costing us the future indebtedness of our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. Maybe we need to not only plug that drain but find another glorious impossible challenge we can all get behind that is not a war.

My favorite episode — but believe me, it’s hard to choose, for they are all superb and all different in approach and point of view — is Episode 10, Galileo was Right, in which the Apollo 15 astronauts have important geological tasks to do on the Moon, gathering samples and needing to observe the Moon’s geology with expert eyes; and the episode is about how their eyes got to be expert. As one character in the episode wrongly underestimated the crew’s abilities, “they’re just a bunch of pilots.” Not so — astronauts were engineers and often had significant advanced degrees, as well as their piloting skills — but by the time they got to the Moon they were indeed experts at lunar field geology. How did that happen? And why geology? Moon rocks are not just extremely expensive souvenirs — and selecting the right ones to bring back, and being able to be sure about which ones those were, were vital to the program.

If you’re not curious about the Earth and the Moon, and how we got from one to the other, maybe someone should take your pulse, or massage your stone heart. But really, all you have to do is watch the first episode of this miniseries, and you’ll wake up, come back to life, be hooked. “If we can do this,” points out one memorable character in the series, “then we can do anything.”

Classical Gas

The Dish. It’s very difficult to talk about The Dish; it’s so much more a film that simply has to be seen. It tells of the participation of the ‘dish’ at Parkes, Australia in broadcasting the lunar landing in June, 1969; only it almost didn’t, but yet it did… The film has won many awards and been nominated for many more, and has a terrific soundtrack. But even so, I haven’t yet told you why you should see this film: because it is so wonderfully not serious about itself, and yet tells its excellent story with both dignity and humor. Lots of humor. Rolling in the aisles at times…

Please see it; it’s a terrifically fine film.

The Seventh Seal

The Seventh Seal. Ingmar Bergman, dir., Max von Sydow, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Bibi Andersson. No special effects, no color, no car chases, no shoot-em-ups, seen through subtitles, but one of the richest and deepest emotional ranges I’ve experienced in film. The very austerity of style helps charge the atmosphere.

The movie is filled with ironies of situation. How could it not be? Look at its subject: Death comes for the Knight, who offers to play chess with Death. While the game lasts, Death won’t take him. If the Knight wins, Death will allow him to live. The knight and his squire, a formidable man in his own right, are just back from a crusade, a hollow and life-wasting experience. The Black Plague is rampant, and so are many horrors of brutality in a people frenzied to escape a horrible death). I felt the horror and disgust, the injustice, the frustration, the anger, all over again.

And having thought that, I asked myself why I thought things were really any different with people nowadays?

The knight and his squire show kindness and offer what help and protection they can to those them meet. And the Knight finds a way during the chess game to let a young family escape Death’s grasp. One finds some good people and some kindnesses along the way, perhaps, and if so, one is lucky. And also sometimes a few unexpected pieces of one’s own past.

Triple Your Pleasure

Triplets of Belleville is, I’m happy to say, indescribable. And that to me is one of the tests of great (non-verbal) art. You can break wave after wave of words on it, but it remains, like the stone breakwater, unaffected by comment. The most you can hope to do is describe it so that people will want to go and see it — possibly several times.

My cinema companion agreed. He said, in a followup email: “I too enjoyed the Triplets. It’s one of those films that doesn’t fit comfortably into any existing pigeonhole. I suppose I must either create for it a new pigeonhole or else declare it to be beyond classification. It was unique and quite surprising on several levels. I appreciate your great suggestion.”

It’s unique, surprising. Josephine Baker, Fred Astaire, and Django Rinehart all make cameo appearances in it — in animated form; it is an animated feature-length film. But they, and the idea of referencing stars of the time, are quickly passed, part of setting up the chronology of the story. The film’s original characters are finely and wryly observed, and brought to us in the way only true animation can — by showing us their characteristics in exaggerated and satiric appearance and actions and in embodied form. There is the unforgettable Maitre d’ who literally bends over backwards to satisfy and please his powerful client, the head of the French Mafia with his bodyguards. The bodyguard thugs are drawn with huge high and wide shoulders, looking like blocks of black stone, all interchangeably identical. And the apparent weight turns into an actual weight hazard later on. The unbearably smug and self-satisfied look on the face of the leader in the Tour de France bicycle race; the racers themsrelves, all huge leg muscles and barely-there bodies; the dreams of Bruno the dog, that we see in black and white; and so much more, make this a unique experience. And the great story that pits Mme. Souza and the Triplets — ladies of an advanced age, all — and the faithful dog Bruno against the entire French Mafia, to free Mme. Souza’s kidnapped grandson, Champion… wonderful. The film has the power to make us laugh, to create suspense, to despair at setbacks and rejoice at victories, and even to cause us to shed a tear.

Beyond all this, however, the artwork in the film is what got me interested from the beginning. Not only the expressively animated characters and objects (like the ocean liners and the bicycles, cars, trucks, etc.) but, even more, the backgrounds and scenes of the entire film are masterworks of expressive drawing. They are filled with character, anecdotal but plausible in style, filled with vertiginous hills, winding roads, hugely high bridges, setting us firmly in the world of the story, a world seen with a gimlet eye for observation, detail, and comment.

I told you it was indescribable. You’ll just have to get the DVD and see it for yourself. Please.|

Spirited Away Again

I just got done watching Spirited Away again, as I do whenever I’m feeling as though I’d like my soul soothed and my head reset. It works, every time.

Every time I watch it I am astounded by how beautiful and how well-crafted it is in every way, including in its ability to seem simple and artless, one test of a masterpiece. It is visually stunning, with backgrounds of amazing complexity and beauty, both interiors and exteriors. I watch the interiors and am glad to be able to share such amazing spaces as the various portions of the palatial bathhouse of Yubaba and the larger-than-it-looks cottage of Zeneba. I see the exteriors and long again for the sea as Sen (as she is then) and Lin eat dumplings on the balcony and look out at it. The illusion of sunlight, clouds, rain, twilight, dawn and night, and the transitions between, are faultlessly and convincingly presented, with sun, sky, land, beautiful plantings, bushes and flowers, all adding to the film. The various characters, spirits, creatures, dragons, and others are fascinating to watch, and the story is perfectly crafted to carry all that is in the film — which is a lot. But that ‘a lot’ is not allowed to get in the way of a good story.

Neither is the story allowed to get in the way of the film. There are moments given to us that don’t advance the ‘plot’ but which give us great delight and add to the film. For instance, there is a short scene in which a fat mouse re-enacts Chihiro’s most recent action, to the delight of some enchanted soot-balls. And there are the subplots: what happens to a whole range of associated characters, skilfully made part of Chihiro’s story as well as concerned with their own lives and actions.

I am not one of those who feel that stories ‘mean’ something, that there is a key handful of symbols with simplistic allegorical meanings that are somehow applied by an author to create a story with some kind of washboard morality — this is good; that is evil; out damned spot. I believe that the stories that do work, work well on many levels, and that those levels are there for us, and that we see those we need to see as we need to see them. After we look at many stories we can perhaps begin to recognize many patterns; but that does not make a good story predictable, much less simple, allegorical or formulaic.

So if I say that the beautiful Spirited Away gives us a world in which Chihiro helps cleanse a river of its pollution, restores the name and many powers of another river, heals a dragon, takes the menace out of what seems to be a flight of angry birds by declaring, “They’re just paper!” and refuses to be swayed by gold or gifts from her purpose of helping those who befriend her, you won’t make the error of saying that the story ‘means’ you should be against pollution, or get out there on river cleanup, or that you should be friendly and help those you like and love lest all your gold turn to mud, or whatever. Glimpses of such ideas may be found within the story, but they are not the story, nor what the story ‘means.’

It was the pithy Samuel Goldwyn who reminded us that “messages should be sent by Western Union.” Spirited Away is so much more than merely the sum of its parts — or the sum of any collection of statements about it — that I hope you will heed him, and watch this film in all its glory.

Potterized by Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Potter fans have now been Potter-ized for the third time, this time under the direction of Alfonso Cuaron, and seen lots of familiar faces and relived that Hippogriff of an adventure with Harry, Hermione, Sirius Black, Professor Dumbledore, and all the great people who inhabit Hogwarts and environs.

Superlatively well done! I love what’s been added to Hogwarts, especially the clockworks mechanism and the huge pendulum, the great orrery seen in the room where Harry practices the Patronus (those floating brass spheres are part of it), the footbridges, and much else, including the amazingly interesting woodwork outside Prof. Trelawney’s aerie, and all the terrific furnishings there, the update of Harry’s dorm room, and all the rest.

I was happy to see the great Gary Oldman as Sirius Black, the great Emma Thompson as Sibyll Trelawney, the fine Lee Ingleby (last seen by me as Smike in Nicholas Nickleby and as Hollom in Master and Commander) as Stan Shunpike, the conductor of the Knight Bus; the great Michael Gambon taking over the reins of Hogwarts as Professor Dumbledore, the fine David Thewlis as Professor Lupin, the great Julie Christie (yes, that Julie Christie) as Madame Rosmerta, the beautiful snowy owl Hedwig, and all of the student regulars back again.

Once again, as in the other Harry Potter films, the script did an excellent job at putting together the key actions of the novel, and this time, perhaps more than in the first two movies, also put in more of the wit of both situation and language that is in the books and that makes them so wonderful to read. This time, though, there were additional challenges to filmmakers: making a convincing Buckbeak who could (apparently, at least) be ridden by three people at once; managing the time displacement sequence convincingly and naturally; giving us a look at the Marauder’s Map in action; and presenting clearly the rather complicated situation surrounding the death of the elder Potters: who actually did what to whom, when and how. The key word for all of these events is convincing. They are very convincing: convincing enough for us to believe that the magic shown in the film happens in just that matter-of-factly magical way that it does in the books, and that it is all as real as the characters themselves. The effects don’t seem like effects; they are just part of the action — the highest possible praise for effects.

The movie runs 2-1/2 hours, and the time just flew by, although the action, while suspenseful, was not rushed. I attribute the orchestration of all this success to the master hand of director Alfonso Cuaron. Azkaban is my personal favorite of all the Potter books so far, and Alfonso Cuaron has given it to us splendidly on film.

Love Actually

Love Actually. I recently saw the movie Love, Actually — I had skipped it when it was in the theaters on the basis of way-too-saccharine trailers, although I was very interested because of the great people in it: Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, the wonderful Gregor Fisher (who plays the well-cast Bill Nighy’s manager, the hefty guy always dressed in denim, and who played the villainous Squeers in the fine Nicholas Nickleby with James D’Arcy) and many others, not least my personal favorite Colin Firth (sigh — indications of schoolage crush here). He’s the guy in the movie who learns Portuguese so he can propose to his girl. Watching him open up the house he rents in France is one of the best scenes in the film. (Best Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, even better than Olivier IMO; great Jack Worthing to Judi Dench’s Lady Bracknell; great Earl of Wessex in Shakespeare in Love, that constantly frustrated man who had the bad luck to get his own way; the betrayed and, finally, vengeful husband of Kristin Scott Thomas in The English Patient; and much more, much gloriously more…) And yes, I do like watching the Prime Minister (Hugh Grant; no one does this kind of thing the way he does) making some good moves to “Jump” by the Pointer Sisters, and I really like the scene where Mark (the fine Andrew Lincoln) shows the handwritten poster cards to Juliet (Keira Knightley). Excellent!

The movie managed to avoid most of the sentimentality pitfalls — my gosh, not all, it’s about romantic love at Christmastime, good grief! — But it’s tonic with a twist rather than the strawberry pop the trailers showed us).

And speaking of tonic: For American audiences, there is some much-needed see-yourselves-as-others-see-you quinine water here. Don’t spit it out just because it has a slightly bitter aftertaste. It’s much easier on us than we deserve, just enough to make us pause a little and even (gasp!) think, I can only hope.

M

M. The Criterion Collection is widely recognized as one of the leading groups in the world for locating, restoring, and rereleasing on DVD world film masterpieces in editorially fine forms and with translations, commentaries, and associated materials.

Most recently, I watched their recent release, M, director Fritz Lang’s groundbreaking 1931 masterwork about a serial killer of children. Pointed out many times is that M provided the pattern for police procedurals, tracking of serial killers, and much else in modern film.

The Criterion Collection edition has assembled what seems to be the most complete footage possible, and have clarified the image to bring back a version as close to release-date quality as possible, and similarly working with the sound track and the subtitling, providing an optional authoritative commentary, and accomplishing the seeming miracle of providing this landmark film release to today’s film viewers on DVD.

The film is gripping, with moments of humor and drama within the steadily building suspense. If you haven’t seen it recently, please do: go watch Peter Lorre in an astoundingly moving performance. He is on screen in only a relatively small amount of screen time, but his performance is so powerfully moving that I (and others, I have read elsewhere) remembered him as being present most of the time… with an excellent cast including Otto Wernicke and Gustav Gründgens.

A Matter of Death and Life

The Fountain. Suppose someone said to you that you have to figure out how to make a movie about life, death, and rebirth, and all that that means. You have to make it without being corny and overblown, and it has to have a script that can be acted and effects that can be created. The script has to have enough story that it can be followed, and the pieces and parts of the story put together with enough difficulty to keep the interest going through the nearly plotless encounters with death, desperation, and rebirth, and plainly enough so the audience come away having seen, understood, grasped or at least remembered some of your ideas and intentions.

You’d (probably wisely) rule out a film based solely on incurable illness and deathbed tribulations — but some kind of death must be there, if the film is to be a fantasia on death and rebirth. But that can’t be all. You might include death and rebirth myths and ideas from any/many cultures. And you might put them together the idea of the desire to live forever, and with creation myths, and somehow braid it all together into an amazing vision.

Well, that is what you might do if you were the brilliant Darren Aronofsky, thinking up and writing (in collaboration with Ari Handel) and directing it — a movie, as the featurette points out, that had a death and rebirth cycle of its own (funding was cut off and production stopped. Work didn’t stop in creative minds, though, and eventually independent funding was found, the film recast, and production continued in an entirely different location).

Watching the film the first time and wondering during the early scenes just what was going on and how it all hung together, I felt sometimes I might have been watching the last scenes of 2001: a space odyssey, or some of the previously unknown work of Ingmar Bergman. Films that produce this feeling of being ‘at sea’ used to be called “experimental,” but it’s a technique now used by mainstream films as well as art films. It requires a little patience on the part of the audience, something that tends to be in short supply in our whiz-bang visual bombardment culture. It’s well worth cultivating, to watch this film.

2 Films About Illusions

Hi, Wilm!

2 films about stage illusions:

1. The Illusionist. I love watching this film. Edward Norton is a personal favorite, Paul Giamatti goes from strength to strength, and everyone in it is top notch: Rufus Sewell, Jessica Biel — great stuff!

I will say this, without spoilers: it’s nice to know that the magic shown in the film is almost all magic that was available at the time in which the movie was set. The Orange Tree effect, the mirror, and all the others, were done on stage, both at the time — and in the movie. The actors who handled cards, balls, etc., all learned to do those things from master magicians who worked with the filmmakers and actors to coach them — so when Edward Norton runs that little red ball through his fingers, or slows down the falling of the orange, he’s actually doing those things, because he’s learned how — and so has the actor who plays him as a young man.

There are almost no CGI effects in the film. (There are one or two, but they are not able to be detected AS cgi effects.) The whole point of making this film about a stage illusionist is to get you to ask yourself, what of this is an illusion and what is real? What am I actually seeing? In order to do that, practical footage is the only answer, that is, to film right then on location with the actors doing what’s shown, rather than resorting to extravagant CGI effects later.

A word of caution: if you enjoy the film, don’t watch the ‘making of’ featurette or listen to the director’s commentary afterwards. It’s much more enjoyable to keep asking yourself, How do they DO that? than to find out and have the illusions spoiled forever. After all, we go to see illusionists exactly to be puzzled and amazed, and not to be able to tell how they did it, no matter how much we think we want to know.

Once you’ve seen it, it’s worth watching again (without commentary, and without watching the featurettes) to see the sequence of events in the story adding up.

2. The Prestige. This, too, is a truly fine film, very different from The Illusionist despite their common milieu of prestidigitation. If The Illusionist tackles the question of “What is an illusion, and how much of what we see is only what we are led to see by the master illusionist?” then The Prestige tackles the question “When is an illusion not an illusion at all?” The Illusionist shows how a masterful illusion — the deception of the eye — can be, like fire, a good servant; The Prestige shows how, pushed past deception and in the hands of the obsessed, it can be a bad master.

It’s not only the plot of The Prestige that is so compelling; the actors are British or Commonwealth-area actors, and are masters of accents. Jackman, Bale, Caine and Serkis all speak with accents that are not their own, and have reputations as masters, even wizards, of accents. Jackman and Bale have played Americans before, and doubtless many viewers here think of them as Americans. In this film, while Jackman uses an American accent, Bale plays a Londoner of the lower classes. Michael Caine’s accent may be closest in this film to his own — someone else would have to verify that — but Andy Serkis, born in London, gives us one of the richest Manhattan accents I’ve heard in a long time.

And every part of the film is as good as every other part, and all superb. The driving force is a superb script by Chris and Jonathan Nolan, with Chris Nolan directing, and based on a novel by Christopher Priest.

And this is another movie you’ll want to watch again as soon as you’ve seen it the first time — without the commentary (save that for later; they’ve managed not to put in as many spoilers).