Antichrist (2009)

I have only seen one other film by Lars von Trier, and that was Dancer in the Dark (2000) starring Björk. Dogville (2003) is the next movie I'm going to take on of his, but there seems to be a recurring theme or whatever of crazy women in his movies. Though Björk was a tragic figure, She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is fucking insane.

The movie is divided into six sections, an Epilogue and Prologue which are beautifully shot in black and white and underscored with a Handel aria, and then four chapters, Grief, Pain, Despair, and the Three Beggars. What these segments all mean is pretty obvious, by the end anyways, and make the film more or less ambiguous, depending on who you are.

But let me rewind and tell you what the movie is about. Simply, it opens with He (Willem Dafoe) and She having graphic sex while their son decides it is pertinent to jump out a second-or-third story window, which leads to his death. She goes nuts, unable to cope with the guilt that she could have prevented this death and did nothing. He is a therapist of some kind, and decides that her fears lie in Eden, a place in woods where they go.

The film's prologue and first two chapters are actually pretty good, I guess. The film rarely dips into a lot of graphic nature in the first half, save a wolf and deer, and sex, but is an interesting avant-garde therapist movie. Her feet burn in the forest, He makes Her walk between stones, and good ol' therapy sessions abound. This stuff isn't very riveting either, though.

The second half is more riveting, and a lot worse then the first half. She goes nuts, attacks Him, and everything spirals out of control. Chaos Reigns, as the cute fox says at the conclusion of Chapter 2, and indeed it does here. The movie is needlessly graphic, and while I was cringing during certain genital mutilation scenes, it never effected my in the way I think it wanted to. Hearing all the critic's reactions from its Cannes and subsequent screenings, I was expecting something that would rock me to my core, leave me traumatized, and effect me in some way.

The movie gets kudos, overall, for its cinematography (Anthony Dod Mantle) and the courageous lead performances by Dafoe and Gainsbourg. This movie gets worse in my mind as time goes on, but I cannot deny that they gave great performances. Sadly, it was in a movie that is much more boring then it would like you to think. It wants you to think it is brave, bold, daring, and exploring deep themes, when really it can be summed up as one of the ultimate anti-feminist films of all time.

It's amazing that I have to sum this movie up as overall being very...boring. All the problems in the film come from von Trier himself, and while I commend him for going out and trying something different, I reprimand him for not having any clear ideas about what he was trying to achieve. The significance of Eden is so painfully obvious, and the way She parallels the great vixens of mythology, Eve and Pandora, is ridiculous.

The reason I saw this movie in the first place was because it divided the general opinion of it. It ended up on a film critic poll as one of the Best and Worst movies at Cannes. How do you not see that movie? I won't discourage the truly curious to not go see it; you should seek it to at least experience it for yourself and decide where you stand. But to everyone else, who has no idea what this movie is, and how no idea what they would be in for, I say, stay as far away as possible.

Not Rated, but it contains several graphic sex scenes, genital mutilation, and animal abuse. Not real animals, animatronics. But still.

Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

As the final shot of the movie faded out, and the credits began to roll, I started to absorb what I had seen, process what I had heard, and interpret how I felt. But it was all quickly summed up by the old lady who was sitting behind, who said, "That movie almost made me cry."

I do not clearly remember Maurice Sendak's 1963 story book, on which this is based. That book contains 338 words, I guess, and this movie contains 101 minutes. How you expand a book that you could read in under a minute to a full length feature that explores all the emotions and turmoils of childhood is a sight to behold and fall in love with.

The plot is thin, but basically tells the story of young Max (Max Records) who likes to play, but who also is somewhat ignored by his older sister. When his mother and he have a disagreement, he runs away, and enters his imaginary world via a little boat. There he meets the Wild Things, voiced by an all-star cast including James Gandolfini, Lauren Ambrose, Catherine O'Hara, Chris Cooper, Forest Whitaker, and Paul Dano. Gadolfini is the only one I was able to recognize, and the rest disappeared into the fur and feathers of their characters.

The movie is a dark one, especially for one intended for children. I believe the movie will scare children, but it will not scare them in a horror film-kind-of-way; at a horror film, you experience empty, meaningless scares which hold no emotional resonance and that you can shake off later (save the few great masterpieces of horror). This will scare kids because it bleeds with truth, and is something that will resonate with any grown-up or child. I say it is scary, but I don't say that meaning kids won't like it. They will. People don't give kids enough credit for being able to understand deeper, more thematic issues.

The CGI in this film is incredible because it serves the story and enhances everything around it, something I wish more filmmakers would pay attention to. The Wild Things exist, are in fact people in fur costumes, but the faces are CGI, and that is what is important. It allows young Max, who is quite incredible in this movie, to be able to act off these characters because they exist for him as they do for us. He doesn't have to pretend that these things exist and hope that the emotion comes through later.

And the performances are all around magnificent, from little Max to all the voice cast who add so much depth and emotion to their characters that you love each and every Wild Thing, for all their flaws and attributes. And though I kept thinking of Tony Soprano whenever Carol, the main Wild Thing talked, I eventually forgot Soprano because this is a different character completely. The Wild Things are kids themselves, and that is what makes this movie so beautiful.

Because really, it is all in Max's head, everything that goes on. Or maybe it isn't. Who knows. The movie is beautiful because it is so honest about childhood, and I kept having memories flood through my brain of events in my past that oddly mirrored what happened in this film. Max claims to have magic that slips through the cracks, and gets into an argument with Judith (O'Hara) about how there is nothing that can plug up the cracks. And a dirt clod match ends with Alexander (Paul Dano) calling time-out, but still getting attacked and getting upset. And when Max tells Carol how the sun will eventually die. These are all just a few scenes that make up a greater movie.

And this kid's film is one-in-a-million because it is quite drab, it's colors primarily browns, blacks, and whites, and not as vivid as what our ADD addled youths are used to these days. Like Pixar, it ignored making the pop culture references and focuses on characters and story, and that is what kids and adults want more then anything. Warner Bros. should be commended for sticking with this project, and letting Spike Jonze, who's only other feature credits include the incredible Being John Malkovich (1999) and Adaptation (2002) (both Charlie Kaufman scripts) run wild with his imagination. So far he's only made three films, and I consider all three to be spectacular. Whatever Jonze does next, I'll be paying attention.

Rated PG, contains many dark themes and a limb dismemberment.

What's Left for The Office?

I rarely do this, break off from film and review something television show related, especially when that television has only started its season. But The Office had a very important episode this past Thursday: Jim and Pam finally tied the knot.

This may sound like the ramblings of someone who has probably spent too much time watching this show, but I feel it is important to "blog" about it because Jim and Pam's relationship has been the emotional thrust of the show, the center story that the rest of the series has more or less revolved. I had always imagined the show ending with Jim and Pam's wedding, but now it has happened a mere four episodes into the show's sixth season.

Which begs the question: what's left for the Office? This show now almost feels over to me, as everything is fairly routine and, as the past season indicated, whenever something gets shaken up it just resolves itself simply a few episodes later (Pam moving to NY for school, Michael and Pam quitting Dunder-Mifflin). Jim has been promoted to co-manage with Michael Scott, and while the episode "The Promotion" hilariously detailed the way these two play off each other, I also feel it is a device that will become tired very soon.

The only thing left, I guess, is for Michael Scott to find his true happiness, which it seems he may be on the way to discovering considering who he hooks up with at the end of the wedding. But there is no satisfying way to wrap up each character's story lines. Pam is going to have a baby, another exciting prospect I guess. What I'm trying to say is this needs to be the show's final season. Can you really imagine a 7th season of the Office, where Pam and Jim are parents?

To comment on the wedding episode briefly, I thought it was an effective combo of hilarity and sappiness that worked for me. The dance at the end was, I guess, also kind of stupid, but it worked for me in that stupid kind of way. I haven't seen the YouTube video that inspired it, but I probably won't seek it out. The Office's interpretation was a fitting way for Jim and Pam to get married, I guess.

Die Büchse der Pandora (1929) (Pandora's Box)

It is curious how, back in the day, some directors (particularly German ones) structured their films into Acts. There is not set number of acts, it was just how many you needed and what fit. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) has six acts, and Pandora's Box (1929) has eight. Why? No reason really, it was just what director Georg Wilhelm (G.W.) Pabst required for his film.

Pandora's Box is a curious little film. Twice I have now seen it, and I will not deny that through many of the first six acts I became a little wearisome of it, waiting for it to pick up its pace and continue on. But the last two acts are so engaging and full of drama that they make up for some of the slower moments in the earlier parts.

What really magnetizes the film together, though, is Louise Brooks, who stars as the main character Lulu. She has a presence that I do not think I have seen equaled by any other silent screen actress. When she is on screen, she is magnetic, transfixing you with her odd haircut that seems to accentuate her soft features (made possible through soft focus, of course). She is absent for most of the film's second act, and it suffers without her.

The plot can not really be summarized in a sensible way, but essentially it is about Lulu, her seductive power over men, and how she sinks deeper and deeper into despair. She begins by seeing "clients", and her most reliable is an old man who at one point claims to be her father, but you are sure he could not be.

She is put into a show and, through a series of events becomes involved in an accidental murder, goes on the run, and ends in one of the best scenes of silent cinema as she unwittingly invites Jack the Ripper into her run down living place. Her beauty stops the Ripper from using his knife, but soon he succumbs, and Lulu's hand goes limp.

Whenever I watch a silent movie, I find I usually tune out the track that Criterion or whomever has composed specifically for it. Of course the music effects my perception of what is happening on screen in a purely visceral level, but in my head I usually create other atmospheres to go along with what is happening. In act seven, in a scene at a bar I imagine glasses clinking and people cheerily talking, or when Lulu succumbs to Jack the Ripper I imagine her last breath escaping her lips.

That is probably the most interesting aspect of silent movies: they are the most pure form of film there is, because without the noisy scores, they are just film. And they seem the most fitting version of the format because film is in and of itself an illusion of rapid images creating fluid movement. Sound, of course, has made films better and a great sound design will enhance and enrich the movie. But there is something about letting the movie tell its own story, and silent movies are challenging for any person in today's society.

And Pandora's Box is a film that would only work in silence. If these characters spoke, the situations would be come ridiculous, outrageous, and downright silly. But here, melodrama is straight drama. Few films would only work in silence, and here is one of them. Anything by the silent clowns Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplain, and Harold Lloyd I would also include in that category.

The title of the film refers to a Greek myth, about a woman named Pandora who like Lulu was beautiful and happy. The gods gave her a box, and told her never to open it up. Sadly the curious thing did, and unleashed greed, sadness, anger, and a bevy of ill feelings upon our world. That Lulu mirrors this character is without saying, and that she unwittingly spreads lust and greed makes this one of the most unique adaptations of Greek Mythology.

This film, while dull in a few areas, is ultimately a beautiful work of silent filmmaking at its peak, when sound films were permeating every inch of American cinema. Louise Brooks alone makes the movie worthwhile, and stands out for me as one of the most unique films from the silent era.

Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)

"I don't think I can do this anymore. Those of you watching in the theaters must go out and act. And please, hurry up."

These are more or less the words that Michael Moore uses to close his latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story. They are urgent words, asking us, the American people, to step up and do something about corporate greed. Of all of the films Mr. Moore has ever made, this is the one he's been really waiting to do, and examines a subject that we really shouldn't be idle on much longer.

Mr. Moore's movie is scattered all over the place, though. The economic system, our meltdown, capitalism, is such a huge topic, that it would take three or four hours to fully cover the entire subject effectively. With the two hours he has, Mr. Moore presents effective and not-so-effective arguments for...well, I'm actually not sure what he is arguing for exactly. The downfall of capitalism? The uprising of socialism? Neither, I think, but maybe for corporations to stop being greedy...

The movie follows Mr. Moore's usual tactics of trying to meet with CEOs and being denied by security guards. You almost feel sorry for those guys having to deal with what the CEOs should come down and face (though that is what security guards are for). And there are scenes of weeping Americans, and yes, it is pretty horrifying that anywhere from seven to nine police cars show up to evict a family from their house.

Probably one of Mr. Moore's best examples of capitalism run amok comes in a story about a Pennsylvania Juvenile Detention Facility, where kids are sent there for nearly a year for doing crimes as petty as setting up MySpace pages joking about how the Assistant Principal sucks. That the judge is paid millions for sentencing these kids (none had a chance, as several of them recall) is a crime too horrific to be true, but it is.

Another very shocking revelation comes in life insurance policies taken out by companies on their employees, so that if an employee dies unexpectedly, the company will be the primary benefactor in that employees death. Even more offensive is that this practice is referred to as "Dead Peasant Insurance." How is this legal? It was explained, I think, but Mr. Moore points out that it shouldn't be because it's the same principle as taking at a claim against your house burning down because then you would want...that house to burn down!

And if you really want to get pissed off all over again at the bailout, perfect for you because it happens again. Though what pisses me off most about the bailout is that there was never anything stipulating how the money was supposed to be handled. So AIG gave it's employees bonuses and sent its CEOs or whatever on multi-million dollar vacations.

Mr. Moore doesn't offer many solutions, but there is one shining example of the Chicago factory workers whose building was shut down with only 3 days notice, and no severance given to any of the hardworking employees. Those employees refused to leave the factory until Bank of America came down and resolved the issue. It's uprises like that that show how much power the average American holds. We just don't realize yet.

Probably the most chilling section of the movie comes from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's final State of the Union address, which he gave via radio because he was too sick to do it public. However, he had the cameras film him saying that he proposed a second bill of rights in which every American would have the right to a home, a job, healthcare, and education.

I find the musings of both liberals and conservatives on the issue of Michael Moore amusing. Most commonly he attacks the Republicans, but he is also a strong critic of Bill Clinton, and though he sings the high heavens to Barack Obama in the movie, he would easily turn on Obama as well. People have different outrageous opinions, but here is a movie that I think you can't highly disagree with, at least on the most basic level. That corporate greed has run amok is no secret, that Citigroup planned to take over the world back in 2004 should have been reason enough to tear their building down brick by brick, and that our money that was supposed to fix the economy has been mainly used to benefit CEOs, and has not reciprocated to us, should cause us to march on Wall Street and demand, like Mr. Moore, every cent of our $700 billion back.