Blue Like Jazz - 2014 - Movie

Blue Like Jazz 

(the movie)

2014

Steve Taylor directs

Donald Miller writes

IMDB Link

I’m one of those who grew up in the Nazarene church watching every Christianese film ever made in the 60s and 70s.  All of the Billy Graham films, the films about “God’s Preacher” in the streets of NY on skid row - David Wilkerson, and all the teen “scare” flicks about drinking and running with the devil that always ended with some kid dying and the other kid getting saved.  It was very much the same as the small missionary books that we read every week.  They were almost mathematically predictable in their formulaic way of presenting missionaries that struggled with some people group that had not heard about Jesus, the hardship that the missionaries themselves went through to reach these people, and then some breakthrough would happen, and as a resolution something wonderful would come from a tragedy or a seemingly unbreakable barrier.

SCCR is the acronym used by Donald Miller in Blue Like Jazz, the movie, for the arc of the story, Setting, Conflict, Climax, Resolution.  When applied neatly in those films and books, it took on a predictability that even a teenager could have written themselves.  But when used artfully, as in this film, Blue Like Jazz, Steve Taylor does a mash-up job of twisting it around so that those characters we think are going to end up dead have another lease on life, and those seemingly alive, make ghostly disappearances into an alternative lifestyle, for awhile at least.

So in other words, “This ain’t yo daddy’s church movie boy!”

I really did love it.  It was funny, poignant, and successfully convincing, all those things that most of those early films and books from the fledgling Christian media age were not.  Yes, this is a Christian story, written by an author that is outspokenly Christian, and directed by a music and media whiz that is the same, but with a new sensitivity to reality, and no fear of truthfulness.  Like the book, Blue Like Jazz turns the tables on the secular world without dismissing the people that are secular, and making the apology for the church that has been so long in coming to our skeptical modernists and post-modernist majority of today.

It really does work well. 

Ok, in antithesis to all that I do have to say that there are juvenile filmmaker marks here and some mistakes, like continuing to run the music soundtrack when it would be better to have it off (like the conversation in the bike hut when the Texan and the blonde main characters are having it out about their viewpoints).  Would have been better to sometimes just turn the “musak” off and have dialogue, because then when music IS on, it’s much more impactful.  Consistent music throughout, especially filler music, is dreadful.  But other than that, this was a really well-made film, and hopefully they will collaborate to make more.  I agree with the 4-star marking on Amazon.  Nice job Steve and Don.

John Michael Talbot - 1989 - Music CD

John Michael Talbot

Master Collection

1989

You know, amid all the crud and degradation of mankind that I find myself reviewing at times, such as the depression of the Bob Dylan film, or the lost Knight in Terrence Malick's latest work, in the sincere hope that people will actually read that and get something from those reviews, I must interject some absolute beauty and hope in other forms.  Enter John Michael Talbot, once again lifting my spirit above what I am currently doing and "busy" with to calm me, bless me, and gently but persuasively lead me into the chambers and halls of endless light and love in the presence of God Almighty.

This CD collection was listened to 7 full times through by my brother Ernie before I brought it home  and put it in my iTunes digitally.  How do I know how many times?  Because fastidious Ernie put a small "tick" mark by his address and the price of the audio LPs and CDs that he purchased.  And I do mean EACH time he listened completely through something.  So that means that Ernie listened to at least 238 John Michael Talbot songs in his life.

I've included the small pic here for your amusement at the expense of my blessedly eldest OCD brother.  Pray for him.

I'm Not There - 2007 - Movie

I'm Not There

2007
IMDB Link

Six different people embody/channel Dylan, the most audacious of which is Cate Blanchett.  Unbelievable performances.  Drama, pathos, humor as well.

But I could not help but be struck by how very sad this story was.  There was melancholy and angst everywhere, sprayed across the screen, from the regrets of a family torn apart, to a dog left behind, a smoking motorcycle against a tree, and a confused public and bewilderment and disappointment with everything.

That about sums up the circus around Bob's work.  A very creative challenge, putting Dylan's biograph to a fictional setting and then lighting it on fire, like the girl lighting her head with a match in one scene as he drives away in a car.  Most excellent use of visual storytelling I've seen in a long while. It's also fitting that it's very much in the style of a 60s dreamscape film, seemingly dislocating, while also running 6 different stories at the same time that result in a cohesive whole.  That's a difficult thing to hold together, or pull together in the first place, and a nightmare for an editor.

But as usual, I'm behind the times in writing a review for this, as it is 9 years old and I'm just getting around to seeing it.

If you're a music fan, and a Dylan ponderer, this is like ice cream on the cake of what we already know. 

Knight of Cups - Lives up to my expectations. Genius.

Knight of Cups

2015

Terrence Malick

In the very start of cinema, you had the rotoscope.  It was the illusion of images flashing by through little slots in a circular metal container, and your eye did not see the little slots at the right speed, but they blurred together, allowing the glimpses of the images on the opposite side of the hollow container to be "glanced" at through them, and since the images were in sequence, that gave the illusion of motion.  It's still the same today, at 24 frames per second, or 30, or 60, depending on the camera.

The very early cinema was a desire to create the illusion of motion.  The material used for the motion images varied from horses to people walking, or throwing a ball.  But from then on, structure began to form, and cinema evolved into storytelling.  The novelty of the simple image quickly grew into an art form not just of the image, but of the meaningful interaction between image and observer.  The most artful became master of the image so that it told the most effective story.  

Malick lived up to my expectation, as noted in my prediction in my Facebook post which I almost never write, in that his masterful use of the image as primary in creating his stories has come to full fruition in Knight of Cups.  He has finally transcended cinema's modern constraints for good, and I don't see him looking back.  

As much as entertainment fans may cringe at the thought, this is what truly great cinema should be.  His work is as close to the dreamlike experience of existential thought as the dream itself.  There is no doubt there is a great deal of direction, manipulation (as difficult as it is to sense that word as positive, it is), and content.  In fact, there is so much more content here packed into it's 2 hours that it could take weeks to unpack it.  

This is such a totally different approach to storytelling that it draws largely bifurcated reactions, packed firmly into 2 camps, one being the "love it" camp all of whom may not be able to explain why they do, but they do, and the bewildered or "hate it" camp, which will no doubt admire the energy and visual beauty of Cups, but will likely eschew the depth of it on the grounds of what appears to be the absence of plot and dialogue.

After just seeing it tonight, I have to say I will need to see it again.  It deserves a second viewing, or repeated viewings.   Those who would downplay the film as possibly pandering to lower visual tastes and appealing to salivating predators needing eye-candy fixes either have not really viewed the film, or are perhaps in that class of moviegoers themselves and not paying attention.  The great juxtapositions that Terrence is making here are a teeter-totter of the conscience, the ocean tides giving a perfect metaphor for the ebb and flow of an embattled soul-searching male in the onslaught of post-modernity, and also the very fact of being a vulnerable male, subject to what every man is subjected to in some degree, sooner or later, without exceptions.  

There is one line in the traditionally Malick hushy-whispery monologues that slip by us often quickly and without seeming connection (although on examination you'll find that they are solidly connected and filled with multiple meanings), and I had to actually get my phone out and note it down before I forgot it exactly as quoted.  It is a line of monologue floating above the scenes of Bale's character Rick interacting with the strip club girl played by Isabel Lucas I believe.  It is the girl's voice:

"We're not living the lives we're meant for......We're meant for something else."

THAT is a load of content that we could talk about all night, and deliciously delivered by the most blatantly audacious of the girls Rick is drawn in by.  That would be Malick's great gift of irony subtly yet also boldly swashed across the screen for our minds to wrap around.  Malick is very much like the court jester here, a goofy character seemingly out of place, but absolutely treasured by the King because the biting wit of a great jester holds great value and substance.

To end the film with the word "Begin" is also just such a play for us.  We are given the many facets of a jewel, and then it's laid before us on the table and the question is asked of us, "What will you do with it"?  The open road speeds towards us as the last image.

To be continued.....

Knight of Cups - 2015 - Movie Pre-Review

Knight of Cups: 2015 Terrence Malick

Initial Pre-Review

This is my Facebook post of Mar. 9th:

I believe that A.A. Doud of the A.V. Club's analysis is very observant and right on in many ways.

https://film.avclub.com/los-angeles-gets-the-terrence-malick-treatment-in-knigh-1798186822

An extensive analysis is exactly the antithesis, however, of what a film like Malick's is really about. The reason he has so broken with stereotype and worked his against-the-odds filmmaking style, and repetitively, is for 2 main reasons (and I'm sure there are more if we look further, but 2 main reasons in any case). 1) Like a great master painter, and I just viewed Pollack a few weeks ago, and that fits this perfectly, to repeat a formula that works and to refine it would be the goal and 2)the style perfectly breaks the expectations we have, yes, and if one allows oneself to be "taken" by the film's direction, which is indeed meditative and dreamlike, then you'll find that the "narrative" is held within that structure - in other words, like a great painting, there is a reason for it being great that is not necessarily borne out of expectation, but a naturalism that makes it great, and it has to be taken as a WHOLE and not pieces, which is why narrative structure indeed cannot be applied here. Like that sentence for instance. Technically it still works, even though there is no stopping place.

Pollack's later works were great precisely because he found a freedom from the restraints of the edge of the canvas, and the edge of the "known" and began to allow his free association to combine with his full acknowledgement of his craft.  As it applies to Malick, in The New World for instance, there is a definite progression of plot, as we know the story to have it's own plot in any case, but with Malick the PLOT is not the objective, it is the TELLING that makes it come alive, a story we're already familiar with. Just one example from that film: the great English gardens in the end with their flawless landscaping, and there is Pocahontas dressed to the nines in her tight fitting shoes, corset, hair done up in a bun, etc. The visual alone is all that needs to be said, especially when Malick places the Native American escort over and against that landscape in his near-native getup, as anachronous and disturbing almost as an elephant defecating at a ladies tea.

I'm supposing that you'll have to put me in the "faithful" lot, because I'm seeing into that structure, possibly a bit easier than the average moviegoer, not out of a sense of "film snobbery" or superiority, but because I've spent over 30 years of consistent film study and analysis, starting with my revelatory film school experience in the late '80s. I drop very easily into the Malick spell, and without reservation am a fan. And I haven't even SEEN this film yet. I'm only responding to this review. I'm very likely to write a follow up to this after I've been able to catch it near my culturally and geographically estranged location. The nearest even this Friday, after a week of it being out, is still a 3 hour drive.

Los Angeles gets the Terrence Malick treatment in Knight Of Cups

Malick has provided, with his gorgeous meander of a seventh feature, plenty of ammunition for the faithful and the not.

AVCLUB.COM

The Martian - Ridley Scott's Pristine World

The Martian

2015 - Ridley Scott

IMAX could be the tell-all issue with me, as my eyes run consistently during a show with the extra goggles on.  People think I'm crying at movies.  Not true, simply dripping from the strain my eyes go through in compensating for the false vision experience.  It's age, or something....too many films, so little time.

I'm going to be rough on this particular film, but make no mistake, I DID enjoy seeing it.  The experience was fun because space and adventure are always a good ride, unless you totally screw it up like "Lost in Space" or something.  Ok wait, I'm feeling apologetic because this is Ridley Scott and I'm about to be critical of a long-time favorite, genius, "must-see" director.  He's in the same list with Scorsese, Kubrick, Eastwood, Malick, Paul Thomas Anderson....you get it.  Ok, he's nothing like Malick, right, but I'm putting him at my own personal same "appreciation" level.

EMOTIONALLY this was a highly effective piece of work, on the level of Apollo 13 in its tension, and at about the same pacing.  Great acting, no doubt on the part of Matt Damon, and some others.  And of course this means great directing, thank you Mr. Scott for another "stellar" job of getting the people right, good reactions, motivations, etc.

Well, there's that.  However, casting needs some help in other departments.  I do understand the need for the NASA lead to be a bit of a mush character, and he needs to be a sort of fall-guy, but it could have been someone else.  I admire Jeff Daniel's screen cool in that he is relaxed, ok, but every time I see him I think Disney.  I'm sorry, it's the truth.  When he's on the cast, there is Disney, and it's a film again.  In other words, he did not help with the supposed realism of the situation, because I don't think of him as the character he's playing, I think of him as an actor.  He's acting.  And that's not what you want in this situation.  However, he was completely offset by Jessica Chastain, and her presence.  Nice. And something of Interstellar was hinted at here, for fans of that film.

Anyway, IMAX could really be an issue in my observation of this film, but I have a feeling it's more an issue of "too well done" as far as the special effects.  It was all so pristine, and crisp, and...well...sterile.  Right, I know there was a great deal of sand, and sweat on the humans, and there was the feces scene and all, mixing up soil and growing potatoes.  Well and good, but even the sand-storm particles were too large and too clean looking, all faky-like.  This was highly "produced" and processed, and for some reason the evenness of the special effects and the cutting edge technology cut off a bit of actual realism for me.  Remember how black and white films would actually conjure for us a dream state of alternate reality and make a world of their own in their atonalism and how removed that was from the world we walk in?  Some of those shots in those older films were done in soft-focus, or with Vaseline on the lens, or not even in very good focus at all .  So when you get effects that are so real, as in The Martian, suddenly they are beyond real, sur-real, and then it can cause us to drop our "suspension of disbelief", and suspect that we're watching a film.  The rotating bolts and nuts in the free-floating hatch scene near the end, well, they were just too clean or something. Hm.

Another element is the story as it unfolds.  I actually don't like to read a new book that a film is based on, if it's a new work.  I'd rather see the film first.  I don't think I'll read this book however.  There was nothing out of keeping in this work with known science, and held true to the 2001 A Space Odyssey tradition of putting the science first ahead of the fiction. Accurate. But the story development was so Hollywood-esque, and unlike Mr. Scott, really.  There was the Jeff Daniels figure with appropriate corporate responses, the typical juggling of priorities at that level of decision making, and as I've said he puts a plastic kind of feel to every scene he's in.  But there was the "secret weapon" figure of the unsung hero from another department which figures it all out. For those of us who know SciFi, that answer was all too obvious, the "turn around and go get him" move.  I did like that character's personal life being so messy, his sleeping in his cubicle.  I did appreciate, like everyone else probably did, the rebellious move by Chastain's character to take a vote and override NASA.

But I also think this work was highly influenced by formulaic insiders and producer interests, and Ridley did not have as much of a hand in it as he would probably like.  I am making a guess here based on nothing except what I already know, but that's my guess.  It does not have the grit and earthiness of Gladiator or Robin Hood.  The terror of Prometheus.  The gnarly unknowedness of the Alien franchise.  It lacked some kind of personality that I can't quite pin down.  And frankly, the film should have ended with Damon's speech to the astronaut class and not gone on with the further footage of the NASA program's future development.  That leads me to my last point.

Together with my previous points, the reason why I think this film feels so corporate, faky, possibly even propagandistic, is that in the end, it was like Space Cheerleading, let's go NASA!  Yeah!  I almost feel like it was funded in part by the space program.  So I guess not leaving with a bit of mystery, or wonder, but instead an upbeat commercially-type of endeavor left me feeling a bit more like Disney than Scott Free.

I went way out of my way to see Blade Runner again at the theater when it was on special run recently in Indianapolis at a Landmark theater.  I will still look forward with great anticipation Ridley's upcoming films, especially what might be a final chapter in the Alien works, but this one did not leave me with a great desire to see it twice, unlike many of his other features which I've seen multiple times over.

Agitatus

The Black Panthers - 2015, Stanley Nelson

The Black Panthers - Vanguard of the Revolution 

2015 - Stanley Nelson

I was just on time for the 8PM show in Chicago on the 26th.  The director, Stanley Nelson, was not going to be on hand for tonight's showing, that was the next night.  Two wonderful black ladies came and sat in a couple of the only seats left right next to me. I was one of only a couple of Anglos in the audience. There were moments of recognition, head nodding all around, chuckles and real laughter at many of the comments of the interviewees. This film had a non-stop type of feel, an urgency, and didn't let up.

The movement of the militarization of inner city black youth in 1967 through 1971, emanating from Oakland CA and quickly catching fire on both coasts and most cities, was short-lived, as could have been predicted by all historical markers, and also could not have come to a good end considering the climate of the times, and the methods employed by its leaders.  The Black Panthers - Vanguard of the Revolution film succinctly, within its 2 hours, gives an accurate timeline of the development of this movement, stunningly real and telling interviews with actual participants and commentators that were involved with it, and overall the best historical overview to date.  It is biased in its viewpoint, as along with every documentary that claims to be a documentary of course must be, but that bias does not really interfere with itself in the telling.  While it is sympathetic bias, yes, it is also real, and self-effacing, and telling all, despite the obvious pain it brings its maker. While there is a sense that this is black "cheerleading" and playing to the dark audience, it cannot be simply dismissed as sentimental reminiscing. This is good filmmaking. 

In example: The truth of the breakfast program’s good was juxtaposed against words later in the film, “just another breakfast program club”, spoken by the critic Eldridge Cleaver from Algeria, but a well-spoken and inside critic that was making a valid point.  The breaking apart of the Panthers, the split, is revealed in just the same stripe as the coming together.  Well-balanced.

What was most revealing to me in this rendition of the Panther story, and a part that had not stood out to me before, was the motivation of J. Edgar Hoover in creating the Cointelpro and the intelligence to infiltrate the Panthers to destroy them.  That motivation was fear.  The same fear that was behind the plantation owner’s eyes when he saw the slave quarters going up in flames with unshackled black bodies dancing all around it in the night was the same look behind the eyes of the administration in the creation of the program to douse those flames being born in Oakland.  And not without reason.  Black men with guns, in the open, loaded, and even marching into the State house with those same weapons.

But at this critical juncture, there could have been another way, another approach, other than subterfuge, other than the “war-like” tactic of counterintelligence, surveillance, undermining, oppressive police tactics, outright lies and deceiving of the public.  

The Panthers had a righteous cause, and rightly supported, and it was the failure of the administration and others in a position to provide adequate rhetorical and active response, and activation of law to bring about peace, that was the cause of the disruptive actions that ensued in the first place.  However, it must be also noted that the Panthers did not help their own cause in many ways, aligning themselves with the Vietnamese north, the concurrently hated and feared enemy of an ongoing war.  This alignment is what piqued the interest of the national government power more than anything, to believe that an internal organization was possibly providing sanctuary and assistance to a foreign power that was seen as a direct threat and an enemy of the state, and outspokenly communist.  The Panthers adopted the language of communism, Mao’s little red book, and violent communism, “by any means necessary”, and this was in equivalent terms rhetorically and realistically a physically active threat against the constitutional government. That’s why the gloves came off.

IF…and this is a big if that I draw from the subject….if the language of the movement had stayed closer to home and dealt with the most pressing and true problem of domestic violence and oppression of black people by the police, and other authoritative figures of power, and had combined their efforts earlier with WASP sensitivities, and while blandishing weapons also sought a political solution, the whole picture might have looked very different.  It also might have looked differently if concurrently the white-led governmental system would not have resorted to fear and intimidation, and ruinous underhanded spying, the FBI being the weapon of choice.

If if if…….IF Huey had not done drugs….IF MLK had not been assassinated, IF we would only listen….IF….as Rodney King has said, “Why can’t we all just get along?”

The Visit - 2015 - Movie - M. Night Shyamalan

The Visit

PG-13   94 Min   Comedy, Horror   
Sept. 11th, 2015 (USA)

So, there may be some reason why this film was released on Sept 11th.  It has a definitive moral: don't let hate drive what you do.

Disappointment can lead to disillusionment.  The teen filmmaker, as documentarian (and please note that documentary filmmakers are primarily concerned with recording reality so that it does not get lost but for exposition of the facts into the future) is throwing around complex film terminology, attempting to be grown past her age, and to create from technology a remembrance of her mother's childhood.  She is exposed to her mother's childhood world, the town, the school, the grandparents......well all seems well anyway.  Is that Martha Stuart in her old age?  The farmhouse seems like mid-century preservation or a museum of nostalgia.

M. Night is at his best when hiding the lurking evil underneath a veil of normalcy.  It's akin to the offscreen horror of Alien, except in this case, the off-screen is actually right on the screen, you just can't see it.

Night has taken some heat of late from many critics, and I for one am a bit more disappointed in his later offerings.  You're only as good as you latest film as they say in Hollywood, however, it does look a bit distant from the man who gave us The 6th Sense, Signs, The Village, and Unbreakable.  That streak of films, along with Lady in the Water, marked a new kind of filmmaker and set M. Night Shyamalan apart from some of his peers.  But there was some juvenility and somewhat of an industry-burdened sigh from the films Devil, The Happening, and this one.  There seems to be some pressure here to use cutesy actors like the teens, and slightly more than convenient plot setups to get to our sit-suspense little treat.  Just as the kids were set into a trap, I the viewer also felt like I was set up for a "boo-gotcha", as when the grandmother suddenly looks into the lens at night.  It's fine to have your kidney-jolting moments like that, but it's also expected to some degree.  Nothing surprised me here except (spoiler spoiler spoiler....sorry not gonna tell).

So this was "fun". It's funny that IMDB listed this as "Comedy, Horror".  Hm, there were some genuinely funny parts, now that I think about it.

Is it worth going out and seeing at the theater?  Well, no, this is a rental I'm afraid.  I'm sorry M!  Sincerely I do love your films, but this is not Shutter Island by Scorsese.  You'll have to take it up a notch to get there.

6 out of 10 stars/points/beans/Depends pads/whatever

Agitatus

Art

So why have I not been writing so many articles as I did in 2013?  What happened to my proliferation of media verbiage?

I've been making my own media:
https://vimeo.com/user4616063

And working on my art:
www.steven-m-curtis.com

Hope you visit my sites.

Best of Enemies film

Best of Enemies2015

R 87 min.
Media Ranch - Motto Pictures - Tremolo Productions

All things 1968 interest me.  It's the year the world split in 2 and we received as it's twin child the birth of 2 cultures, and the answers are still being questioned even now.  In fact, they are working themselves out.... even now, hence my novel that I've been working on for 10 years.  Right, a novel, me.... well, about the film....

Best of Enemies is the recap of the 1968 spectacle that ABC launched in an effort to save its dying influence in the media against the only other 2 players, NBC and CBS who were in bed with the political parties to the teeth, and broadcast a perceived iconoclast of personalities in William F. Buckley Jr. Vs. Gore Vidal.  It was naughty vs. virtuous (you were expecting nice, no, not in this review), basically a new conservative, right wing power vs. the newly empowered left-winged liberal (not libertarian, please don't get those confused) social and political anti-establishment humanism.

The film covers the mood of the period well, with cuts to the surrounding circuses of both National Conventions, in Miami and in Chicago, drawing well on the contrasts in locations, and being honest about the eccentricities of both, capturing the personalities of both parties evenly it seems.  The narration of several key side-commentators of notable interest was spot-on in many cases, such as the observation that the left's characterization of the conservative movement was attempting to draw similarities to that of fascist Nazism in order to demonize it, and create a great wave of negative public opinion against it.  During the debates this is what the "cherry bomb" was referring to, the nasty underpinning that many would not say, but believed.  When it came out in the debates, it was clear that this was the issue that was both a false positive, and yet presciently real, and also.... what made Buckley buckle, and lose his otherwise detached mannerly argumentations.

I felt that here however, is where content was underplayed over the context of that emotional moment, because the film consistently returned to it, time and again, as if it were that moment of defeat for WFB that drove his life ever after, and the issues be damned, that's what he spent the rest of his life dousing the flames of, a sort of dominant defeat that was never recovered.  I disagree.  This is the central focus of the last part of the story that the film portrays that I would have to say ignores the vast evidence to the contrary, that Buckley's life was filled not with vitriol over a single enemy as much as he in fact turned that moment of regret into fuel that powered his ongoing positional rhetoric against the cultural upheaval of idealists into his dying days.  The moment of weakness that seemed to look so ugly for Buckley on the Charlie Rose show sample that was included in the film, and was in fact a moment of personal resignation was paired with the "non-admission" of his regret over that debate moment with Vidal, to make it seem as if that were the driving force of his life, and that the moment of defeat were in fact the "end" of his debate...in effect, he had lost the debate.

This is filmmaking ladies and gentlemen.  The power of the media proves itself once again to be almost indecipherable from the truth, and the power of persuasion still rests with those who wield it, be it ever so benign, or malevolent.  Documentary?  There is no such thing.  The moment you point the camera in any direction, if automatically leaves out at least 2/3 of the whole view.

As much as all things 1968 interest me, and as much as I relate to the content of this film, knowing most of the principle players and parts they have to play, the timeline that I have memorized, from April to Oct (that's from the death of MLK to the raising of the fists at the Olympics), this film did not overwhelm me.  I was delighted at the revelations of the tete a tete between the protagonists, the bantering of the debates themselves, but at the same time was left wanting for more.  It's strange how the film spent so very little time on the actual debates themselves and relied on commentators and narration.  I am particularly biased in this way however, in that if it were me personally, I would have just opened with a few explanatory titles, and then rolled the debates themselves, in entirety.  But of course, out of context, most filmgoers now would not be in the least bit impressed with that, as the knowledge of the 60s wanes, a full 1.3 generations separation between it and the present.

To many of the current generation this film will seem irrelevant, or there may be some separation of the content from the modern context.  A 20-something may regard this film as nostalgic, and completely miss the cultural relevancy of the content of those debates, as passé, as historical, as something to be learned from, but not worried over.  That is, of course, a mistake.  The debates are still raging all around us.  These men are both dead, but the divide they represented still exists as surely as the Mason-Dixon line, and as surely as the Panama Canal, or the poles where one has Polar Bears, and the other has Penguins.  Such debates are still ensuing, and now are in our courts, our schools, and our religious culture, sending one part one way, and one another.  Most recently the debate was resurfaced in the media moment of Ben Stein's "Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed", and David Horowitz's book "ProFessors: the 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America".  These were not created in 1968, but in the last 10 years.

I highly recommend this film for those interested in the subject of the 60s, if you're not schooled in it widely, or if this is of some interest to you, but be forewarned, it is not comprehensive, and I believe gives a...well, biased view of the circumstances under which it's "documentary" feel leads us to believe that it is undivided, unmodified, and consummate truth.  For it's length of course, it is attempting to explore an important moment in history and expose for examination 2 important figures of that moment, and you can't cram all of that surrounding history into 87 minutes, let alone 2.5 hours, so this film ends up being targeted to those of us who already know the context, to some degree as to have it make sense. Please read and watch more widely than this narrow 87 minutes allows.

Agitatus

Housekeeping - 1980 - Marilynne Robinson - Novel

Housekeeping 

(novel)1980

Marilynne Robinson

I didn't discover Frederick Buechner or Flannery O'Connor until I was in my 30s, so I guess I should not be surprised by my record that I did not discover Marilynne Robinson until 2 years ago, and even more not shocked that I hadn't read her first novel until just this week.  It was published in 1980.  Where was I exactly?

Incredible.  Here is my favorite line from the book after my first read, as I'm sure I'll read this again, and possibly again after that, for it's densely populated word-smithing I'm sure that I have quite skipped over some gems and did not read it slow enough this time.  But on pg. 179 of the paperback,

"The sorrow is that every soul is put out of house."

There it is.  That's the book in as few words as possible.  And the belief that interlaces every page, like a ghost behind the paragraphs, always there.  The prose is multilayered, but after this read, I've also picked up on Robinson's style.  And that is summed up later in the book within the context of the story actually, when Ruthie talks about "facts", as she exclaims in the narrative voice that, "Facts don't explain things....it's Facts that need an explanation".  

That is, in fact, what Marilynne does.  Her work is character driven, not plot heavy at all.  Yes, there certainly is one, and at times because of the absence of heavy plotting we are absolutely groaning to find out "what happens".  She does allow this, eventually, but there is the weaving in and out of present tense reality to that of peeling back the layers of that reality to reveal divine undergirding, and  concomitantly the barrenness of the human condition.  ..."every soul is put out of house" is the point of reference upon which the entire ship floats, and this holds true for all of her work, especially that of the trilogy Gilead, Home, and Lila, all of those gems that I have read prior to this early work.  Now I see the germination of those novels back this far ago, the seeds of Lila, the son of Boughton drifting,  the images throughout of children bereft of parents or held back from life by forces beyond them.  

Great stuff.  A must read, even if you have taken this long to get around to it as I have.

Agitatus   

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl - 2015 - Movie

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl 2015

PG-13  105min  Comedy-Drama  June 2015 (USA)

Funny Funny Sad. Mostly funny.  Powerfully realized as a screenplay and film. I took my 19yo daughter to this and we were both surprised, and elated.  At one point she had to calm me down a bit because I got over-giggled at the snippet of the mockery of Urban Cowboy.  That's ok though, there were some other adults in the crowd that were also laughing with me, and I understand why my girl could not get some of the particular points of reference that the film spoof titles were making because I'm sure she hasn't seen all of them.

Acting was not a main point here, it was narration and the follow-through invisibility of the camera, the pacing, and the way that the punchy lines were delivered throughout that made it all work.  Although the acting was excellent in itself, the editing has it in this film.  It's really a piece of magic.  David Trachtenberg is the cutter, and this is one case where it has paid to grab a TV-oriented editor and bring him over to the world of the feature.  Great stuff.  Fast, precise editing makes this story move, where it could have dragged in other hands.  And starting out with the narrator, being the principle player Greg, played by Thomas Mann, giving his voice and character both a calmly even tone was a great decision in the directing department, via Alfonso Gomez-Rejon.  Earl, well, he was so natural, a great foil in the structure, not an Abbot and Costello thing at all, but a very necessary partner and alter-ego to Greg.  The book of course plays on this much more, the relationship being one of kinship across racial lines, planting Greg firmly in the "I'm taking this as it is" department, whose first and foremost mission is to remain anonymous in life, or non-committed and universally ignored.  They played well together, especially when in conflict.

Olivia Cooke plays Rachel, the dying girl.  I would call her role absolutely real, and normal.  A teen girl, ill with cancer.  Her acting responses were so well done, bravo, just the way you would expect a real teen to act and to feel.  There was not a moment where I felt she was acting.  Superb.

This story is huge delight, and if you're a film buff, even more so for the comic insides that weave in between.  I have to post a separate picture here I found of just a "few" of the many titles that the young filmmakers were producing.  Gut funny.  What I want to know is, where is the entire list of their films?  There were so many!

8.5 is the correct number for this film.  IMDB said 8.3.  So what's .2 eh?

-Agitatus

Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Vinterberg - 2015

Far From the Madding Crowd 2015

PG-13  119min  Drama  May 2015 (USA)

A most wonderful escape into Victorian England, and a film you can take your spouse to safely without fearing being hit over the head by some agenda other than romance.  There is tragedy, conflict, and the essence of commitments.  Wonderfully played by all, albeit Tom Sturridge who plays the brazen and bold Sergeant is a bit too brazen and bold at times, and miraculously reappears at the appropriate moment....well, I will not give too much away here, but there were some farther-fetched plot points, yet we are all too eager to receive because of their inevitability.  Yes, it's all too obvious even from the start what is going to happen, but dang it all, that's the fun of the story, watching it unfold exactly as we would have it to be.  HOW it unfolds, the drama, is indeed wonderfully portrayed.  Have I used that word wonderful too many times yet?  There was one thing that happens near the end that was not foreseeable, although my wife says she saw it coming.  Hm.

The most fetching (ha, you thought I'd say wonderful) thing for me, the film guy, was the cinematography.  Quite frankly, that's the main reason I wanted to see it.  I knew it would be beautiful, and it delivers.  Painterly, moving, thick with mist and clarity where appropriate, the lens was polished on this one.   Charlotte Bruus Christensen, the Cinematographer is from Denmark.  Every scene was a thrill.  But there was one special moment, and I am prejudiced because I am a man, and I already love Carrie Mulligan, especially her work in The Great Gatsby aside L. DiCaprio and Inside Llewyn Davis...but the moment was one where the camera catches her seated on a sofa with the window light coming in, and....well, it was Vermeer and...other artists come to mind.  Perfect.  I'm sure that my lovely wife could also have pointed out a few scenes where the handsomeness of the 3 men were portrayed in the same manner.  Striking.

9 out of 10 I think.  Excellent.

In Abstentia, Duay Brothers - 2000

In Abstentia - 2000

B&W film.  Introspective POV in extremis.

This is Eraserhead + Vodka + Acid.

Basically this: A woman in an insane asylum writes to her husband.  There you go.

-Agitatus
07/16/15

I haven't written in a long time.  Somewhat because I've been extremely busy with my art (see www.steven-m-curtis.com - Steven Curtis let me post my art on his website), and somewhat because I haven't had anything that inspired me to write.

Well, I just did, and I have to say SOMEthing about it.  Here it is, plain and simple, literalists and theologians and Muslims are now dismissed:

Noah is a great movie.  One of the best biblical epics to date.   Only the Passion was better.

There, I said it.

The people at Answers in Genesis have it all wrong, completely missed the point, and have no clue what the word "film" means.  I could elucidate, but I'm not going to bother.  It makes me tired just thinking of how to approach that gap in our culture.

Daren is a stinking genius, and he knows what he's about.  Thank you, and looking forward to your next film.

- Stephen Marks

The Desolation of Smaug

2013 Peter Jackson

This was not the Desolation, alright, it was the almost desolation.   Without spoiling it, I’ll just tell you that the desolation is still coming, as most of us adults know anyway, because you have to have your trilogy experience built from one novel now.  That’s why the scene/s of dialogue between Bilbo and Smaug inside the mountain were so PROLONGED.  Right.  About 40 minutes from the time Bilbo steps into the gold and starts looking for the Arkenstone is about the time that the conversation finally winds down.  That is after the dragon and all Dwarves exhaust the interior space of all the tunnels under the mountain.

Bilbo should have been dead at least a dozen times over as far as I could tell.  Smaug calls him a thief no less than 8 times.  This is his favorite word, because it translates very well in the mouth of a dragon.

Smaug is truly magnificent and menacing, as he should be, but I’m personally much more terrified of things that I cannot completely see, like in Alien for instance where we never really get a look at the whole beast, but are left some to mystery.  That mystery was completely given away, especially as Smaug pauses in his movement just long enough to reveal his missing scale, to be conveniently shot I’m sure by that one remaining black arrow, in the next, hopefully last Hobbit installation.

Everything was hyper-realized and elongated in this show, like that dialogue with Smaug.  Hey, that rhymes!  So the special effects departments get paid well and eye-candy enthusiasts get their dizzying fix, and poof, we have an excuse for a movie.  Beorn was not my favorite however.  He was just not likable enough as the man person, and his makeup was bad.  Could have done a better job there.

There were cute kids in the village of Laketown, and home-styled warmth aplenty to build up to an eventual destruction, which if you’re read the books, you know is coming.  

But speaking of books, I must say this is not an overall bad enhancement, as the facts are all still there.  Why would they not be?  There’s plenty of time to include them all.  The films are bringing to memory some of them you could forget, such as the healing of Kili's leg with Kingsfoil.  The addition and enhancement of Elvish involvement in the whole Laketown/Elven King enterprise, and the view of the Elven King’s kingdom interior were all magnificent, as were even the jail cells and barrel setups.  Nice work on the part of visualizing that whole experience.  Also the addition of the romance of an Elven sweetheart with deep dimples, matching her with a Dwarf as interested suitor was a nice cinematic touch, not in the book of course, but still not bad.  The river ride was ridiculous and not survivable, as far as I could tell, but of course they did.  Anyone can survive a CG waterfall, although they were supposed to have the lids on the barrels!

The scenes with Gandalf invading Dol Gulder all by himself were well done, especially the wickedly horrifying darkness of the enemy against the light of his staff.  That was truly amazing.  What I want to know however is where Gandalf keeps coming up with new staffs in his future iterations, and also why he didn't look at bit more young in this story since it is some time before the LOTRings.

I loved some of the little touches, like the Dwarves' little picture book with a drawn photo of "my wee lad Gimli".  Funny.

In any case, my reaction to the film overall was that I hated it as an adult.  If you’re a kid, or you have never read the books, I’m sure it was a fun experience, but for me, it is the equivalent of turning great literature into a Disney ride, and an expensive one.  

Inside Llewyn Davis

2013
Coen Bros.

An Ode to the generation in between the conservative Post War and the rebellious hippies, this one is for all the losers out there that had a dream, a voice, a guitar, or just a cat, and that did not want to just “get a job”, but they ended up either doing so anyway because the dream didn’t work out, or they died.

Llewyn Davis was the real folk singer, the real thing.  He had the voice, the Guthrie sincerity, the traveled feet, the real life background of one who was truly a “beat” type, the stokes on the guitar, the ideal.  But he ran, like so many, heads-on into the industry man who didn’t “see any money in this” - Bud Grossman (F. Murray Abraham). “I don’t see any money in this” is that pivotal moment, the beginning of the third act wherein the protagonist’s journey takes its turn towards a conclusion, makes a decision, and either goes all out in flames, or goes home.

There is a slice of life here of the folk scene as it was winding down and making way for the more esoteric, the more nuanced beat scene come to life in Dylan and then rock.  There is a scene of Llewyn coming out of the Gaslight Poetry Cafe at night, and there is a line of people waiting to get in, witness to the popularity and tiredness of the scene.  Llewyn yells at the line of people that ,"It's a sham, the show's a sham."  There are also the small dinner get-togethers at the apartment of a pair of true folk believers, the Gorfein's, wherein visit the square and old-school musicians who play harpsicords and "the old stuffs".  Llewyn attends the dinner parties because he needs a place to sleep and something to eat, but he is obviously suffering through it.

This story does not deal sentimentally with the beat generation at all, as some have attempted to do.  Rather, it leaves it almost silent, smoking, driving in a car without any seeming real destination, mumbling almost incomprehensible poetry lines and dropping a name in the car that sounds like Corso, ripping apart new music compared with the superiority of jazz, stopping at every rest stop necessary to stagger into the bathroom and then finally collapse on the floor drooling with a needle stuck in its arm and a surgical tube around it, then shoveled none too gracefully back into the car.  That’s pretty accurate if you ask me.  And there is Llewyn, stuck driving for them, but he closes his door on the tag along friend, and that’s that.  He still takes a stab at the music, he makes it to Chicago.

Actress Carey Mulligan plays a very effective slut.  At first, the sweet looks and charm make for a great foil for Llewyn, emphasizing the depth of his impoverishment by establishing that they have a long-time loser relationship, and then in the end she becomes another brick in the wall of insider trade for the folk scene.  As a representation of women in that scene's politics, however, she does a fine job delivering a great performance, since she refused to deliver anything else, according to the story. :)

There's Llewyn chasing a cat through the streets that turns out to not be of a gender he was expecting, close to the real thing, but not; an impostor.  That was such a perfect metaphor for the whole story.  Great stuff by the Coens.  The cat, Ulysses as it turns out, follows him out of the Gorfein's apartment, as does his music, and he is forced to carry it around with him to care for it.  I mean, what?  Who's he going to leave it with, the elevator guy?  But as an attachment, much like his box of stuff at his sister's house, and his box of records at the record company that are going to get thrown out if he doesn't take them, the cat is so much baggage that he must take care of, and like him, is getting shoved from one place to another in an increasingly smaller world.  At one point, Llewyn is asked where he's staying for the night, and he answers, "Well, there must be somebody [in the area] that doesn't hate me."

I would go into the level of confidence and sympathy we have for the point of view of Llewyn during the most touching scene in the story (again, just at the cusp of the third act, after the main character has made a major decision and is heading towards it), but that would be a spoiler.

The reality that the music industry is just someone’s whore is never more clear than this.  Llewyn most likely represents that other 99.8% that did not make it, that ended up broke, ended up with a box full of vanity press vinyl.  He most likely represents that percentage that got its ass kicked in an alley, and took a back seat to those whose studios catered to only the 1.8% that they happened to like.  He also, I am sure, represents the other large percentage that the music "system" used to utilize as fodder from the streets by creating an archaic workaround that was very much like the old time "company store" for coal miners.  This was more like reality than most other stories I’ve seen representing a romanticized “generational movement”.  

This one is not for the audience of the popular generational ideal.  This one was for those who actually lived it, attempted to love it, and lost out in one way or another.

This is a must-see if you’re a 60’s buff, a 50’s sympathizer, or just simply a music fan.  Others hooked on pop culture, easy solutions, or with no sense of history (romanticism) please never mind.

Silver Linings Playbook

2012

Ok, I just saw this film again.  I love this movie!!  ( my shortest post ever?)

Philomena

Philomena

2013

Ok, I don't like it.  There were touching moments, quite a few, and quite a few comedic moments.  The whole thing really "works" of course, because it's brilliantly directed and acted, and has great chemistry, etc.  So why don't I like it?

Because it's also a highly emotionally manipulative work that has the underpinnings of the homosexual agenda.  It takes a serious subject of the abuse of religious position, power, and greed, and turns it sideways into a manipulative text on homosexuality and the supposed absurdity of sexual abstinence.  It contrasts quite rightly the negative results of sexophobic nuns improperly administering punishment that has been left over from a bygone era of dark age mentality and cruelty, combined with a greedy sensibility, with that of the question of our sexual nature and the question so aptly put by the Martin Sixsmith character played by Steve Coogan, "But why would God give us such a powerful thing as sexuality only to then tell us we must suppress it?" (this is my wording).

This again plays into the hands of the "gay" agenda, as well as Philomena's absolutely blank and unabashed acceptance of her son's homosexual nature, explaining that she "knew all along" that he was homosexual, because he was "such a sensitive and caring boy", inseparable from his sister, so they took them both together.  As if sensitive and caring is the essential ingredient of "being" homosexual.

The writers, Martin Sixsmith (the real one), Steve Coogan, and Jeff Pope, have twisted the wrench here by taking a true story, then tying Catholicism, sexual reticence, and of all things George Bush and the cessation of funding for AIDS research altogether for a 1-2 punch against conservatism, but also thereby ruining, or at best completely clouding the real issue of compassion and grace that the Church is also known to have for lost girls, family, and children.

Booo.  I don't like being manipulated.


Agitatus

Nebraska

2013

Paramount/Vantage

“Universal”

Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Bob Odenkirk, and Stacey Keach

Woody Grant, David his son, and Kate, Woody’s wife, slowly, and methodically shuffle through every single rotting room of an old homestead that Woody’s father built with his own hands in the middle of Nebraska, the landscape where everything is bare and plain, and stretching for miles to the next homestead or town.  This is exactly the description of the search through Woody’s soul, the different rooms of a man’s heart.  And amongst all that empty ruin, the broken glass, the completely demolished crib, the alcoholism, the slow depreciation of the body, the son finds a way to hold up a bit of life for his old man, to stand next to him in the face of his ridiculousness, his absurdity, his delusion, and delivers a punch that we’re so glad happens at the proper time.  

Bruce Dern is Woody, Will Forte (SNL fame) is one of his sons, and June Squibb is Woody’s wife.  Bob Odenkirk (Breaking Bad) joins as David’s brother Ross, the other son.   Stacey Keach does a fantastic job in an important smaller role of an old friend in Hawthorne, Nebraska, where Woody grew up.  I remember Bruce Dern from Silent Running (1972), mostly.  That was one of my all-time favorite sci-fi flicks when I was a teen, right along side THX-1138 (George Lucas’ first breakthrough starring Robert Duvall).

This story is about respect, honor, and commitment, even in the face of what appears to be a shattered and worthless life.  It’s about coming to terms with an individual life.

But it is equally about the real desire that we have as fathers to leave something for our children, even if it’s just a truck, and a compressor.

A fabulous job of revitalizing Black and White photography, and a completely appropriate use for this story’s setting.  I liked the fact that at the start, director Alexander Payne (The Descendants - 2011, and About Schmidt - 2002),  used the old Universal logo, also in B/W.  But what could not have been more appropriate than the non-use of color was the inclusion of relatives, and people revealing everything they were - also, eh hem..in black and white, especially the wife Kate.  She was the bullhorn of opinion, the town crier of lists of sins, outspoken and not a hint of embarrassment at her own self-defacement.  She left no rock unturned.  Kudos to the bravery of writer Bob Nelson, who previously to this has written only some TV drama and comedy.  There is a bite to this one.  

Ed Johnson of NUVO.NET does a review in the Nov27-Dec4 issue.  He states, “Nebraska almost succumbs to ugliness, but eventually finds it’s footing and pays off.”  I have to agree here somewhat.  That is what appears to happen if you’re not paying close attention.  But that so-called ugliness is simply truth telling, made possible by Kate, in fact, who plays a much larger role than you would at first imagine.  Ed Johnson also notes that he wonders, “weather Payne and Nelson’s (the screenwriter) parade of sad, angry, inane, lost and /or insufferable folks was an indictment of rural communities or humanity in general.”   I have to say neither.  (Please read “neither" with an “I” instead of an “E”).  It is a parade, yes, but a very carefully executed parade through the various vagaries of the degrees of motivations and manipulations that people are capable of, thereby bringing an even higher contrast to the almost winsomely honest performance of Will Forte’s character as his ingenuous son.  Again, more black and white.  This is an expose of the nature of people in the progress of dying.  

The family watching football had to be one of my favorite moments of the film.  Funny, and appropriately timed as a relief from what could have been a tedious subject.  A road movie, as Johnson said in his review, yes, but not a barren one.  I knew when the last shot was happening on the screen, when the titles would come.  It was a great closer, perfectly done, and very satisfying, a complete “trip”, without leaving us in some kind of existential blur or a question about what we should do now.  What to do?  Well, it made me want to pause and spend time with someone, to listen to them, to possibly alleviate their desires for life.  

Great film.