Bruno Aveillan

Love the wispy-ness of light and texture, the impressionistic washes, shallow/varied/distorted fields of focus, and sensitivity of Aveillan's stills and moving images. Nice collection of them in this Louis Vuitton advert.

Al Green Altar

Does it get any better than Al Green's live performances in the early 70's?
NO.

"The French Connection" by William Friedkin; "The Hurt Locker" by Kathryn Bigelow

In terms of a script, I can't imagine it was exciting on first read, but as a film that emerged from it, a director that knew how to "use" New York City, and as a result of its on-the-ground research with participation from those the film was about, "The French Connection" is a film that has what most films after the 70's lacked, character. Perhaps filmmaking has mirrored the changes in New York City's landscape, textured to corporate plastic, a wild west to gentrification.

Learning from Friedkin's commentary on the film's DVD, the film was mostly "stolen," meaning, no setups, no extras, available light, no permissions, using the city itself and the folks on the streets - to create the scenes. It was an "induced" documentary, so to say, and borrowed from Friedkin's experience as a documentary director prior to this film. He kept the shooting pace brisk, one or two takes. He had friends with cars block the roads to cause a traffic jam on the Brooklyn Bridge for 15 minutes!!!! He shot handheld using wheelchair dollies on subway platforms without permits. In our post 9/11 New York, these things would be impossible. He also "orchestrated" high-speed driving scenes on New York City streets, in the famous car-subway chase scene, with pedestrians and civilian cars on the road! I wouldn't recommend this last one at all. He's lucky no one was killed. But I celebrate this film in the tradition of rogue filmmaking, that is, after all the research and prep work had been done. An ode to rogue filmmaking.

I also miss what now feels like an era of onscreen giants of textured small characters, the anti-heroes, Hackman, Schneider, Hoffman, Pacino, Deniro. The films oozed with character. The city, oozed with character. Perhaps the city and the films' production process required that touch of danger, instability, unpredictability, for that "character," the "edge," so to say.

The color scheme is beautiful and perfectly captures winter in New York, how the quality of light moves through the cold air and reflects off brick and steel, all the angled shapes of the city, the cold blue environmental hues, the sunset colored yellow of the sun at all hours of the day, the hard angled light. And any film with elevated subways in it, is an instant for me, as I grew up on it, next to it, under it...love everything about them for life. They make me feel warm and fuzzy.

For me, an interesting dramatic question that the film raises: what happens if the main character remains unchanged? In strict dramatic principle, there has to be a change. But it seems like in this film, from beginning to end, Gene Hackman's character remains unchanged. It is just increasingly revealed to the audience, the extreme extent of the character's blind obsession. Perhaps though, the point of the film is that nothing changes. It didn't bother me in this film. The ride and the cat-n-mouse plot is riveting enough. But it's a question that seems to comes up a lot. When character doesn't change, but they are put through a plot wringer for the duration of the film, is that, for lack of a better word, ok? Is it satisfying?

Another example, this year's "The Hurt Locker" by Kathryn Bigelow, was that. The bomb defuser played by Jeremy Renner, is a bit crazy, obsessive, one-note. Each bomb he defuses is more and more dangerous, but he remains unscathed, unshaken, a bad-ass to a point of cool, except when he cracks for a dangerous moment and leaves the protected military compound. I was on the edge of my seat because of the increasingly nerve-wracking complications of each bomb scenario; but also the fact I believe, that this world was wildly out of my realm. Is that what made it interesting? Because it was a new world, a new language of warfare that I previously wasn't fluent in? It kept me busy while distracting me from the fact that there was no character-driven dramatic arc? Because I found that in speaking with others, one friend wasn't so taken by all the bomb stuff because the character never changed, and another who's in the military spoke of all his buddies who hated the film because they were distracted by how unrealistic the military stuff was. In this film, I enjoyed the ride but didn't feel completely fulfilled at the end. It was a thrill ride in the way some really good fluff action films go (except this was supposed to be based on our current situation in Iraq). So as a story device, with each increasingly "insane" and dangerous bomb situation, where there are increasingly more lives at stake, more obstacles and less probability that the defuser would survive, we explore the extent of the character's singular pursuit and obsession. That's the point of the story - character doesn't change. He's that extreme.

Then for this film and for the former, can we draw the conclusion that this challenge to classical dramatic character-equals-plot arc, points the film's theme in another direction?... is the unchanging character then symbolic of the conditions in which that character thrives in? The police vs. criminal pursuit absurdities. War begetting more war insanity? Nothing changes. Is that the message of these films? And are they satisfying timeless expressions of that theme?

"Up In The Air" by Jason Reitman

"Up In The Air" was up in the air. There were a lot of interesting "we're born alone die alone" variety themes in the film, including how technology furthers that reality, and funny moments. There's the commitment as a fear of living and dying theme, and love can save us if we can find it theme. But I think the tone of the film was way off. It felt too cutesy like it was trying to be a household comedy in that "Juno" or Hollywood holiday-season-film kind of way with its happity boppity soundtrack, without that dire-dilemma-as-absurd-comedy irony that "Juno" or Jacques Demy's "Umbrellas of Cherbourg" had, the bright colors and happy tone contrasting with darker issues of social-convention-challenging pregnancy. This film needed more grotesque realism like that of the Coen Brother's "Fargo"'s picture of the midwest and David Fincher's "The Fight Club"'s unrooted corporate/modern world alienation. There were a lot of heavy issues addressed, but ultimately were so watered down by the try-to-please-everyone genre, having too many themes of equal weight, and George Clooney's coolness, that the film felt wishy washy. A weak directorial effort, because I think the material could've been there but one theme needed to be more of a singular driving force, with a decidedly darker ironic aesthetic vision. Clooney also, his whole body language was too movie-star confident. I think his character had a confidence, but not that cool. As unbound as his character was to geographical space, his world still existed in the confined seating of an airplane seat and all the public spaces his body moved through throughout his traveling business life. Clooney, the at-ease actor, became a distraction. The one detail that I thought was so appropriate was Vera Famiglia's satin blouses. Yuck. I hate them with a passion. And I found they so perfectly expressed the world she portrayed. All we needed to also see was a shoe with a bad clunky heel on it. Ick.

[Aha! After writing this entry, I discover, Reitman also directed "Juno"!]

"The Road" (Cormac McCarthy) film by John Hillcoat

This film can best be described as Vittorio De Sica's classic, "The Bicycle Thief" gone horror movie. It is a dark, in a "the horror the horror" sense, exploration into the heart of man in a post-apocalyptic setting. A father struggles life and death for his and his son's survival – and it triggers a whole series of moral dilemmas which tug at the question of 'what is the meaning of man?' 'What is the meaning of life?' The film, (I've not read the novel) offers no solutions but suggests that for the most part, we live in darkness and hell.

The story's plot hinges on the father's desire to take his son south, to coastal Florida, as if there's a promise of something different, of some hope for survival. Perhaps sunshine, warmth, safety, some food, perhaps other "good guys". But as the film unravels, we begin to get a feeling that it is also a senseless pursuit. That either they'll never reach this destination, or they'll get there, and it will be as bleak as where they've come from, and possibly another destination will have to be conjured. That's what we do to survive. Have a goal. A destination. Out there...and thus requires a journey. We seek and create roads. There doesn't seem like much purpose to their lives, just survival and a sense of a destination, and one day is as bleak and dangerous as the next. The struggles don't change. There's never a feeling of safety. And despite this, there's something internal, a will, a desire to survive, a hope for a future. Hope. Future. Two words that seem so absurd as we journey this "road" where everyday is wrought with the question of whether it will be their day to die, and the anxiety of 'what will be the quality of that death?'...by murder, cannibalism, torture...as images of Francis Bacon's carcasses and Hieronymus Bosch's hell on earth - are conjured.

A precise and weighted device in the story is the gun with the 2 bullets. It's as much a character in the film as the father and son. It's the gun that the father has meticulously taught his son to use, that if they were caught...one bullet for father, and one for son. In every second of the film, they have the choice to exist or not. And yet they remain, and struggle, and experience horrors, and suffer. And still they remain. Many had given up, as embodied by the mother character, or gone mad. Stubborn emotional and psychological hardiness and luck is required for survival. And this father has all the determination in the world. His purpose is his son. It is the symbol of his humanity: to do whatever it takes to protect his son. He is a "father." It defines him. Gives purpose for his own survival. The contrast though between he and his son is that he'll do whatever it takes, even at the expense of losing other aspects of his humanity. His son is the reminder of that which is innocent, compassionate, which transcends the brutal material realities. This dialogue between father and son about morality and goodness and what is required to maintain one's humanity, is the investigation of this film, even though it could've been addressed with more depth. I don't think one side of the argument wins over the other. It is in the active dialogue in the context of each dilemma, where this "humanity" is defined.

The film did not let up in its intensity, even in it's dark and dirty color scheme. Scene after gut-wrenching scene, shot after dusty desaturated shot. And as much as I'm a fan of narrative arc, I didn't mind that this film stayed on one note. The exploration kept me riveted.

After viewing the movie, I discovered that John Hillcoat also directed "The Proposition" which I hated with a PASSION, for this one-note reason. The film was a flatliner, superviolent, and for no reason, saying nothing. Dusty and bleak. Buncha white men playing cowboys and barbarians in the deserts of Australia. And with nothing changing, EVER, Nick Cave's soundtrack was a kind of hell on earth experience. Whatta jerkoff, I thought of everyone involved. I had just watched a buncha white men masturbate onscreen and call it art. I left the theater early and angry. But even as I watched "The Road" and thought the entire time, nothing's changed, the same dangers and violence, a moment of respite when the father-son find food and take a bath, but otherwise stakes remain the same hi value, the kind of dangers, the same quality throughout, I was riveted by the journey. I wonder whether I would've judged the work differently if I knew that this was "The Proposition's" director. Actually, had I known, I wouldn't have even seen "The Road."

There is a paranoia throughout the film where everyone fears they are being followed to destructive ends. But the ending offers a glimmer of hope in that one can be followed and pursued by those who want to help, by that which is good. But that glimmer is but a whisper in the world that surrounds, of darkness. But it is enough.

Kenna "Freetime," Directed by Tony Petrossian; Prodigy's "Smack My Bitch Up" by Jonas Akerlund

Prodigy - Smack my bitch up
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Kenna/Petrossian's Video, cool conceit. Reminiscent of Prodigy/Akerlund's xxx-rated classic.