How about “scurrying along” with Giants?

The following excerpt is taken from the introduction to Roger Ebert’s 2005 Movie Yearbook. I like and agree very much with what he’s saying here. In fact, he’s done a wonderful job of laying out exactly why I’m jamming these movies into my eyes each and every Monday night:

Too many moviegoers look at movies and do not see them, but then it has always been that way. Movies are a time killer or a casual entertainment for most people, who rarely allow themselves to see movies that will jolt them out of that pattern. The jolting itself seems unpleasant to them. I'm not a snob about that; anyone who enjoys a movie is all right in my book. But the movies don't top out; as you evolve, there are always films and directors to lead you higher, until you get above the treetops with Ozu and Murnau, Bresson and Keaton, Renoir and Bergman and Hitchcock and Scorsese. You walk with giants.

Now listen up. I certainly hope I’m not a snob about any of this either. And if I ever am, please please PLEASE - call me on it. It’s not my intention at all to become that snooty movie guy. The purpose of the blog is just to share how much fun I’m having with a lot of movies that don’t make the chart at Blockbuster.

You can read the rest of Ebert’s article here.

She walked up to me and she asked me to dance, / I asked her her name and in a dark brown voice she said…

A great Monday night movie – in fact, a great movie by any definition – gets past the defenses and finds a home under the skin. These movies do much more than entertain. They take up residence somewhere at the back of the brain and drops time bombs in the days that follow. Experiences like this storm past the traditional meaning of movies; they might be better described as dreams organized and manufactured by committees. I’m learning that a lot of old movies are good that way.

Take Josef von Sternberg’s Der Blaue Engel (The Blue Angel) (1930). The Blue Angel is a movie that I had never heard of before compiling my Monday list. In fact, the only blue angel I was familiar with before Monday was the one that involved drunken university students, some light flatulence and a Bic lighter. (There’s a world between, let me tell you.) This Blue Angel is actually an early German talkie (subtitled for those of us that don’t sprechen sie Deutsch) about an upstanding and strict university professor who falls in with and then falls in love with an exotic dancer named Lola Lola. (Mind you, that’s not just one Lola; a temptress this bad has to wear the name twice.) What follows, and I don’t think this will give much away, is his downfall. What I won’t spoil here, and what they certainly don’t advertise on the VHS case, is that the professor’s ensuing descent into madness is as primal and shocking as any old monster movie, made worse because we haven’t been anesthetized by decades of familiarity. No, I think it’s safe to say that I was chilled somewhere under my daytime conscience by this film.

Speaking of scary, this was also the most frustrating presentation to show up in the Monday night line-up so far. I’ve begun to take DVD’s for granted. The Blue Angel was only available to me on a crummy library-copy VHS tape, and it was easily the scratchiest and most antique thing I’ve ever seen. Between the jumpy, washed out images and the thick muffled audio, the experience was a little like watching the white ghostly projection of a story broadcast from another dimension. And while this sensation certainly extended the dream-like quality of the film, I could never completely trust the aspect ratio of the picture, which cut off heads and subtitles at random. This is one that I’d love to revisit as a crisp, polished DVD transfer (John Ford’s Stagecoach is another.)

One thing that I will come back to again and again when I’m watching these old movies is the awesome economy of storytelling. The brevity of information on-screen (and the presumed intelligence of the audience on the part of the filmmakers) is marvelous. Vast sections of the film pass with little or no dialogue, letting the actions and looks of the characters fill in the details of the story. Considering the age of the film, this might well have been a consequence of restrictions imposed by the new sound technology being used, but the ultimate effect on both the narrative and the mood of the film is breathtaking. [I should also point out that big chunks of the German dialogue were simply not subtitled on my VHS copy, meaning that there were a few points where I had to draw my own conclusions about what was being said. These sections didn’t fall during any of the key turning points of the film, but they did remind me I was watching a foreign movie from time to time.]

The Blue Angel shares a curious connection with the theatre. It’s no secret that screen acting (and in many cases, the stories themselves) came from the vaudeville tradition, but what’s fascinating about these early movies is that the connection is still so strong. A lot of the actors in these films came up on the stage or in the circus-like environment of the vaudeville houses. As a result, The Blue Angel is at its best when it’s in this environment. Much of the film unfolds backstage and on the road, and between the clowns, the bears and the overall circus environment, the film seems like a credible witness of that sort of life-style. In fact, the movie delivers some pretty racy material (relatively speaking), including a couple of sequences with Marlene Dietrich stripping down or wearing only her briefs.

And on that note, let’s talk about Marlene Dietrich for a moment. Looking back (and I’ve already told you that I had not heard of this movie before), I imagine that she was the primary reason why this movie found its way onto my Monday list. Dietrich is one of those old, old, old-school actresses whose name is more famous than her face. I’ve never seen her before and I doubt most of my generation has either. She was, if the film books and the Internet are to be believed, a model of the style and fashions of her time. The highest paid actress in the industry. Enormously popular on both sides of the ocean. A 1930’s sexpot. The whole package. OK, that’s all fine. But reporting back from the 21st Century, I’m afraid she was also a little manly. In fact, startlingly so. And not altogether the best actor on the screen in this movie.

I want to give that title to Emil Jannings, who played the central role of Professor Immanuel Rath. Jannings delighted me throughout the film, giving a subtle and surprising performance that never seemed to go where I was expecting. In fact, his performance was so believable and human that I think it’s the very thing that grounded the film for me (particularly in that rocky opening, as I struggled to get past the VHS flaws and into the movie.) His transformation is equally spectacular; I revisited a couple of early scenes in the film before returning the movie and marveled that the same actor played the professor at the start and end of the film. [Spoiler ahead, my mates. One thing is certain: I won’t be able to look at the sad face of a circus clown again, without flashing back to the final scenes of the movie.]

Now despite the fact that I’ve already spilled that one small spoiler, I want to write about that ending without speaking further spoilers. It has been promised to some that I will try keep these reviews as clear of spoilers as possible. While I can’t imagine anyone reading this will be lining up to watch an old German film anytime soon, I won’t spills the details of the conclusion. Mostly because the finals scenes are remarkable, and I think everyone should see them. Suffice to say that the final minutes of the movie were strong enough to propel the movie from being a curious museum piece to a deeply troubling, nightmare-painted, piece of scar tissue. The movie ends (mostly) in the theatre house where much of the story takes place, but the greatest miracle is how the final act elevates the action from burlesque side-show to Pagliacci-ish Grand Opera. The melodrama is off the planet.

And that, my friends, is what sticks with you in the days that follow.

An ocean of red brake lights.

Now, I'm not necessarily saying that I loathe the drive to and from work. Nor am I saying that it was definitely a good idea that T. and I bought a brand-new bigger house closer to the office (even if we have to wait 21 months for the house to be built.)

But what I am saying is that I spent more time in the car tonight, struggling with the absurdity of the 401, than I did watching the whole of tonight's Monday night movie. [It was The Blue Angel, in case you're asking - details to follow in the days to come, traffic permitting.]

The saddest part of this post is that I had almost 2 hours to dwell on it.

When you put your hand into a bunch a goo...

Timing is everything.

Here’s something I never thought I’d say, but I was in a military mood on Monday night. Having spent much of the weekend with Roméo’s Dallaire’s devastating Shake Hands with the Devil, I had spent many hours trying to adjust my thinking to the politics and military maneuvers Dallaire describes in his book. I was already thinking about artillery and infantry and leadership issues. I think I was in the right head space to watch Patton (1970), though let’s be clear here: Roméo Dallaire and General George S. Patton could not be more different, both in personality and leadership style.

I carried baggage with me into Patton. My expectation (and first impression) was that Patton, being a decorated and much-ballyhooed war hero, was someone to be admired – at least by the gung-ho American audience who regard this film as a classic. I didn’t expect him to be my hero necessarily, but I certainly expected that he would be hero-like, possessing some qualities I would admire. However as the movie got underway, I became more and more aware that Patton was not only a bastard (which was no surprise of course), but that he was also a bit of a fool: glory-driven and arrogant. In fact, the Patton on-screen seemed to me to be no hero at all. Despised by his men and tolerated (barely) by his peers, Patton was a wild card that no one seemed to have much tolerance for. The early scenes were a bit of a struggle for me, as I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to be identifying with or admiring Patton (in which case, the movie was failing) or simply marveling at George C. Scott’s spectacular performance. I chose the latter.

Let’s talk about the good stuff then. Patton – by way of George C. Scott – is a wonderful character, a full-bodied performance and a great many things that I didn’t expect: a poet, a student of history, and a fiercely spiritual man who believed strongly in reincarnation. I particularly enjoyed the assessment that he was an anachronistic Romantic warrior forced to lead troops in the 20th Century. But of course, that’s entirely right. Even 60 years ago at the height of the biggest war in history, he was starting to become dangerously outdated, a relic of a different type of warrior. Imagine with me the surprise then that the balls-out, war-loving General, who was already out of fashion by the end of WWII, would likely fit in better with this year’s president’s agenda than any in the last 6 decades. I don’t want to stymie this review with politics, but with the climate of the world today, it’s tough to watch a war-movie without thinking about the real wars going on in the world. And watching Patton in an early 21st Century context is probably a pretty similar experience to watching it in 1970 (when another widely unpopular war was deep underway.) I can’t help but think that even as Patton’s behaviour is thrown up on the screen for scrutiny, there are some (active) military leaders that might admire him and overlook the critique.

Patton was written by Francis Ford Coppola, which seems a little funny. The reason being is that Patton’s swaggering battlefield bluster reminds me so sharply of Robert Duvall’s Colonel Kilgore character from Apocalypse Now. In that film, there’s a scene when Kilgore surveys the battlefield, elbow on one knee (just after the "smell of napalm" line) and observes that, "someday this war will be over." The burden of the line is that without the war, the true warriors (like Kilgore) will not be able to survive. Patton is another of these doomed characters. There’s a melancholy throughout the last act of Patton (after Hitler’s forces are defeated) when Patton realizes that, by winning the war, he has also destroyed his own sense of purpose. He grapples with the idea of starting up a new war right away (against the Russian allies – prophetic, no?) but resigns himself instead to the fact that he’ll never be in another world war. That realization drains him. And maybe that also goes some distance to explain the war-mongering leaders in the world today: where would some of these men be without their wars? [I’m getting further from the point here, but it reminds me most of that classic Looney Tunes cartoon where Elmer Fudd finally kills (or rather, thinks he kills) Bugs Bunny. Depression sets in for him immediately.]

So then. That’s the good…

The purpose of this blog is a little funny. After all, I’m watching and writing about movies that have already (in most cases) proven themselves to be classics. Thousands of words have already been written. Some of these movies have books written about them. I’m not really telling you anything you don’t already know if I say that a movie is good or isn’t good. Case in point: Patton won 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, so there’s no point trying to tell you that it isn’t an accomplished movie. Instead, this blog is really about my impression of the film, or better yet, answering the basic question: did I like it?

The truth is no, not really.

I’ve grappled with this question a little bit, because when I don’t like a movie, I always like to know the reasons why. I’ve been running through a list of ideas. Was it perhaps that I’m not a big fan of the war movies after all? Patton is about little else other than a revered general launching an invasion. But then I remembered my affection for Apocalypse Now, Band of Brothers or even Saving Private Ryan (and more recently, Barry Lyndon) and I concluded that not to be true at all. Big explosions are the bee’s knees. I love war movies as much as any genre and look forward to more of them in the Monday line-up. Perhaps then, could it be that the main character was so unlikeable? But again, there are so many movies that I adore with unsympathetic leads that there’s no point in even trying to pack together a list. That’s not an issue for me at all. Bring on the bastards. Was the movie less than meticulously performed and directed? Absolutely not. Again, who am I to pick apart an Academy Award-decorated picture like Patton? The movie was perfectly great.

Nah, it just seemed to me that there were a handful of things that prevented me from completely enjoying the film. Chief among them: the stiff and spare battle sequences, that seemed more akin to an A-Team episode than a war epic; the portrayal of Patton’s war-time nemesis, the British Commander Montgomery, played so much like a panty-waist as to seem like a retired Monty Python character. Really, the movie just didn’t take off.

So let’s leave it at this. I don’t know what it is exactly, and I’m not going to call is a misfire in the Monday Project (because I certainly expect to feel cool about a good many titles in the 500+ list that are queued up to go.) It was a fine experiment.

But by Good God, let’s hope George C. Scott shows up again.

… that a moment before was your best friend's face, you'll know what to do.

I'm having some problems writing up Patton (1970).

I didn't very much like the movie, but can't exactly say why. I'm working on it though. I hope that I'll have something to say about it by the end of the weekend.

In the meantime, let me just marvel at how much George C. Scott as the white-haired Patton reminded me of Dick Cheney in the film...

Does Your Compass Point North?

I had a chance to see The Polar Express this weekend. A quick observation.

Every once in a while, a movie comes along that performs like a perfect litmus test for determining a movie-goer’s sensibilities. In other words, your reaction to the film says an awful lot about you both as a person and as a movie lover. Are you a cynic? Are you a child? Are you a believer? Are you capable of giving a movie full and complete release? Or are you worried about what your friends might think?

The Polar Express is this kind of movie.

Those familiar with me can probably guess where I stand on the movie. But I’ll be interested to hear the reactions of friends and family in the weeks and months to come.

[I wish I could drop a link to Geoff Pevere’s black-hearted lump-of-coal review from the Toronto Star because nothing I’ve seen demonstrates this point more clearly. Alas, his review is available on-line for Star subscribers only (jerks!) Nevertheless, here’s a reviewer on the other end of the spectrum, and one with whom I totally agree. Two links: On the movie itself and the IMAX experience of the same - I saw the movie in IMAX.]

[Spoken Backwards]: “You look just like my cousin…”

The Monday Project is still relatively new. Yet 15 weeks in, I’m startled by the number of connections I’m seeing between the new (OLD) movies in the Monday line-up and those tattered favorites that I’ve seen 100 times. Nothing is new. Everything is derivative (in its own way.) Case in point: Luis Buñuel’s Belle de Jour (1967).

Tell me if this sounds like anyone you know. A beautiful blonde, virginal and post-card perfect in that Stepford Wife sort-of-way, leads a double-life that descends into promiscuous sex, bizarre fetishes, prostitution and a violent tragedy. If you’re thinking about Laura Palmer, that means you’re already familiar with Twin Peaks (or better still, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me.) And if you’ve been to Twin Peaks, then you already know the terrible (and absurb) kind of spirit that lurks in Belle de Jour. Make no mistake. Belle de Jour is its own fish. Twin Peaks was a television show that hinged on a lot of strange and surreal characters navigating eccentric small town patterns. Belle de Jour is not quite the same Lynch-ian experience, but the central song is the same. Blondes like to have their secrets.

Belle de Jour (Catherine Deneuve), the eponymous character of the film, seems to me to be an interpretation of Laura Palmer just a few years past her big date with Bob. She’s no longer the homecoming queen, though it’s possible she was at one time (do they have homecoming in Europe?) She is newly married to a successful Parisian doctor who thinks she is the sun rising and setting. But for all his affection, he doesn’t seem to understand her at all, and that disconnect drives her deep into her own fantasies. She is cold and aloof, often seeming to be outside of what’s happening and privy to things that other characters are not. She also has those eyes – those icy eyes that stare off into space, as if the person inside has escaped somewhere else. She speaks very little in the film. She seems to drift like she’s lost; however, there’s no question that she is (almost) always in control of what is happening to her.

Let me address those fantasies for a moment. The film is 37-years old and it sent chills through me the way that very few 21st Century movies do. The opening fantasy sequence, sprung from the daydreams of Belle de Jour, caught me by complete surprise and unsettled me for most of the film (particularly the final scenes.) There is also a section.at the exact mid-point of the film that so complete surprised me that I believe I made one of those embarrassing movie-theatre exclamations. It might have been as simple as an "oh" or a "Jesus", but there’s no question my legs went cold. These are good feelings. Lord knows you don’t want this kind of dread and anxiety in your everyday life, but in the context of a movie, particularly an old movie, these are good feelings indeed.

I’ve written before about how much I love LOVE LOVE surprises in the Monday night line-up. Belle de Jour was such a surprise. This was first French film of the Project and the second film (after Ikiru) to carry that film school baggage of being maybe too artsy or too snooty to be purely enjoyed. The subject matter didn’t appeal to me in any way. In fact, after reading the synopsis at http://www.allmovie.com/, I was prepared for a soft-core erotic European film of the sort found on late-night TV. This isn’t really any of those things (well, OK – I guess it is French.) Belle de Jour is about sex (and more particularly deviant sex) to be sure, but it was not created to titillate the audience or exploit Deneuve. In fact, there is absolutely no nudity or on-screen sex in the entire film. Buñuel cuts away during the actual act of intercourse in every instance, choosing instead to leave Belle de Jour’s bedroom adventures (or the consumation of said adventures) to the imagination of the viewer. This may have been a consequence of the censors at the time, but like Jaws (where mechanical shark problems forced the monster to be kept off-camera), the film is more effective for what it doesn’t show.

What Buñuel does leave in the film are the absurd customers and the frankly bizarre sexual situations that Belle de Jour finds herself in. And they are hilarious or intriguing, each and every one. There are no straight-forward Johns in the picture it seems. Every man who comes to visit Belle de Jour has a secret fetish or kink that surprises and (sometimes) shocks. I’ve already mentioned the effectiveness of the set-piece at the centre of the film, but I haven’t mentioned the other note-worthy clients: the total Odd Job imposter with the mysterious buzzing box or the Professor who wants only to be scolded (well, scolded and spanked) by the ladies. I had no idea before watching the film that I would actually have fun simply watching the men who came to the brothel for sex.

Finally, and this is neither here nor there, but Catherine Deneuve in this period reminds me an awful lot of Nicole Kidman. More than once, as she surfed the Parisian streets or found herself with a customer, my thoughts returned to Eyes Wide Shut. There is a scene in Eyes Wide Shut that shuts me down whenver I see it: I’m thinking of Nicole Kidman confessing to her husband her deepest fantasies of infidelity, even as it’s the very last thing he wants to hear. It occurred to me after watching Belle de Jour that Eyes Wide Shut now has a whole new series of connections. For one, Kidman’s confession echoes back forcefully to Buñuel’s film, suggesting that Kubrick and Buñuel were both playing with skeletons from the same closet. And for another, Cruise’s mad quest for infidelity now seems to me to be the perfect flip-side to Belle de Jour’s story. The same and different in every way.

Now see how this Monday Project is making everything better?

This upcoming Monday should bring Patton and a scenery-chewing George C. Scott. Colour me delighted.

Was it 1977?

To the shame of my generation, I don’t remember the first time I saw Star Wars.

Make no mistake. It’s on the pedestal that I reserve for my favorite movies of all time. It’s stacked near the top. But my affection grew and grew and grew on the repeated viewings of ratty VHS tapes. I can’t remember seeing Star Wars clearly in the theatre.

At all.

Daddy's Got a Nemesis.

It’s not my intention to write much about new movies on this blog. Other people handle that business just fine on other sites, and I’m more interested in looking at the movies that other people aren’t talking about. But let me sidestep that quasi-rule for just a moment.

I want to write a little about The Incredibles, because it absolutely blew me away.

T. and I made a special trip to the Silver City last night for the new Pixar movie. We both had high expectations because literally everything Pixar has ever done has entertained us enormously. The trailers looked great. The reviews for the film mostly gushed. Everything pointed to a pretty marvelous film.

And that’s the word that tells the whole story: marvelous. Because I can’t remember the last time that I saw a movie that so affectionately bundled all of the conventions of action, adventure, comic book and science fiction films into such a satisfying whole. It’s the perfect recipe really: equal parts of Superman, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Unbreakable and James Bond, with a passing reference to Star Wars for good measure. A completely breath-taking adventure film to make 10-year boys fall on their asses. And a full-bodied movie-theatre experience at that. Quite literally the best thing that Pixar has ever done.

The hero is probably Brad Bird. Anyone who has seen Iron Giant, already knows that Bird has the ability to tap right into the life-force of the 10-year old audience. He knows what fantasies are spinning in their heads. Chances are good that those same fantasies are still spinning in his. I’ve read that getting The Incredibles on the screen was at least a 12-year process for Bird, but watching it, it’s pretty evident that it was a lifetime of pulp stories and piles upon piles of comic books that got him there. This movie is made up of all of those things that make every little boy crazy with excitement. The roots of the story were as transparent as glass.

And that, I think, is what made the movie so appealing for me. T. loved it because it was Pixar and because it was a really good film, sure. That’s probably what the critics are responding to also. But I don’t think everyone will tap into the undercurrent that hooked me, and that will hook most of the Spider-man reading, Star Wars playing full-grown kids out there. For this audience, the movie is every comic book movie (even those that disappointed) made perfect. [Frozone’s ice slides? My God, why couldn’t they have pulled that off in X-Men?] The film pays homage to the best comic book stories but then turns around and makes them better. Makes them more accessible. Makes them (strange to say for a CG-animated kids film) more grounded.

I don’t expect that many people reading this blog are familiar with Astro City: a comic book created by Kurt Busiek that explores the super hero culture from a more realistic (and sometimes civilian) perspective. Busiek’s book rests on characters instead of super-powers, circumstances instead of big plots. The stories are built on years of comic book tradition, but always take the route that isn’t usually explored. Consequently, the stories are always fresh and exciting, but strikingly familiar. The Incredibles might very well be one of the super-teams living in Astro City.

And so it is that the experience got me to thinking a little bit about comic book movies in general. Live action movies specifically. There were a lot of things that The Incredibles did right that will raise the bar for upcoming comic book films. First, I thought it was a great idea to dispense with any kind of origin stories for the heroes. For too long now, it seems that comic book movies have slipped into a formula that demands a fleshed-out origin for every new character. It slows the movie down and who really cares? I don’t think anyone watches a new superhero smashing a wall and says, "What? How is that possible? OK, science accident? Now, I understand." The origin doesn’t matter if the rest of the film adds up.

Something else that puts The Incredibles over the top are those wonderful action sequences. Granted that the world of CG storytelling doesn’t have the earthly restrictions that keep the Spider-man or the X-Men movies grounded (though let’s be honest: most of the action in those movies is CG-generated anyhow,) but it’s all about the creativity really. The use of powers in this film never stopped surprising me. And for someone who’s read, literally, thousands and thousands of comic books, a little originality is enough to carry the film a long, long way.

Finally, and most importantly, the movie was not about stopping the villain. Yes, there was a villain and an over-arching (and diabolical) plot to push the heroes into action. But the villain was really just the sub-plot in this film, necessary only as a framework on which to hang the more important elements of the story: the family, the mid-life crisis, the challenge of putting the glory-days behind you. Like most Pixar films, there was a stronger story underneath the obvious one. This is also true of the best comic books. In a perfect world, it would be true of the best comic book movies (Spider-man and X-Men come closest, but that’s because they are largely interpretations of the comic book stories that are already out there.) Watching a hero in spandex grapple with a villain in armor is not enough to make a movie good. Comic book readers may be simple cats, but we aren’t simpletons.

[At the very least, things are looking very bleak for the Fantastic Four movie. They’ve been scooped. It will take the best live-action comic book movie ever just to put them in competition with The Incredibles. Pretty unlikely.]

And then there are the depths of adulthood and parenting themes that played on notes that I wouldn’t have appreciated when I was 10. This, I think, it what put The Incredibles in its own stratosphere. A 10-year old boy will love the action. But a 31-year old boy with a wife, a job, and a toddler will be able to enjoy the entire package.

I’ve gushed enough for now. And I haven't even talked about how unbelievably advanced the animation seemed (miles beyond Finding Nemo even.) Another time, maybe. Or not.

This week’s Monday night movie (which was also marvelous, for different reasons of course) was Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour. I expect to have some thoughts posted on that movie in the next day or so.

The Top Shelf.

I feel like I need to talk about the favorites. Just this weekend I’ve updated my profile to include my lists of favorite movies and music, but I was a little disappointed that the profile wanted titles only. No room for any extra baggage: 600 characters max. Scat on that. I feel like I should say a little something more. These are my favorite movies after all.

First, let’s be clear. The purpose of this project (and in connection, this blog) is to open my eyes to a whole lot of new movies and dig deeper for some new favorites. With that in mind, this list comprises only my favorites as the project begins and evolves. Don’t be surprised that all but two of the films were released in my lifetime and that a huge chunk of them were in theatres after 1980. Before starting this project, I didn’t adventure too far out of the current multiplex line-up.

Alphabetically, the top 12 or so look a little something like this. These are the movies that play for me when I shut my eyes.

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – The Big One. Here’s a movie that took me a long time to love, but when the walls came down, the walls came down. The reason is so simple: Stanley Kubrick’s movie destroys me every time out. Call me a sucker for clinical cinematography and pensive pacing. In spite of the mission statement of this Monday Project, I’m not some prissy Film-School Art-House snob. I want to make it clear that including Stanley Kubrick is a gesture from the heart and that my decision to include 2001 in this list is an entirely emotional choice. And to be totally honest, on any given day I might just as easily replace 2001 with Dr. Strangelove or (now that I’ve seen and loved it) Barry Lyndon. But there’s no contesting 2001 as a crucial movie in my life. But my God, what an experience! The movie controls my breathing. It’s a movie that takes me out of my chair and into the back of my own skull. That’s gotta be worth something, right?

Amélie (2001) – Sunshine, pure sunshine. My happy place. I saw this movie under ideal circumstances – at a jammed press screening during the Toronto Film Festival. There’s no experience like watching a movie like Amélie with a group of tired and cynical movie critics who start with arms folded and finish by eating out of the filmmaker’s hand. Leaving the screening, I was flying high, walking on air. I felt like I’d been to movie nirvana. The very next morning someone flew a couple of airplanes into the World Trade Centre. And in that strange way that memory works, the two experiences are somehow tangled together. Absolute yin and yang.

Brazil (1985) – Brazil is everything I’ve always wanted in a movie.

E.T. the Extra Terrestrial (1982) – This movie is so important to me that I want to save it for its own posting. For now, let’s say that there has never been another movie to so completely overwhelm the 9-year old in me. This is the first-time fix that this poor addict is still trying to re-experience every night he’s out.

Edward Scissorhands (1990) – Tim Burton is a marvel. With the exception of the Coen Brothers (who have never disappointed me), Burton probably has the best batting average of any filmmaker out there: at the very least, I can count on him to hit a double every time he’s at bat. (Only one single Burton movie sucks ass. We won’t talk of it here. This is a happy place.) I considered putting Pee Wee’s Big Adventure on the list in this spot (let’s face it – it’s a perfect film), but opted for the movie that tugged a little deeper. I can’t explain my affection for it; however, every piece of the movie is at the top of the charts for me: most effortless score, most astonishing design, most clever performances, most marvelous snowfall. And that fairytale story which stumbles towards sad madness? Total bliss.

The Godfather Trilogy (1972-1990) – I’ve posted already on behalf of The Godfather Part III, but I’m not sure if I was entirely clear on my affection for the first (and infinitely superior) parts of Coppola’s saga. For an epic afternoon-swallowing saga, I’m completely ensnared and engrossed every time I happen upon it (damn you TNT for playing all the time! I have things to do!) The movies just get better every time.

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy (2001-2003) – And speaking of epic time-swallowers, this list is turning out to be a little silly, isn’t it? Next thing you know, I’m going to want to include the Star Wars trilogy and Indiana Jones trilogy (um, see below). But in all seriousness, there haven’t been many movies since that golden spell in the early-80’s to encapsulate pure-cinematic-action-adventure-spectacle the way this movie does (and let’s face it – now that the films are on DVD, they’re ONE big movie, right?) If Peter Jackson had made three good movies, that would have been a thing. But instead, he made three mountains with detailing as spectacular as a Renaissance catheral. December 2004 is looking pretty disappointing without a new installment.

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) – The most recent addition to this list is also, ironically, the oldest. A good write-up on this DVD prompted me to pick it up cold and it absolutely demolished my expectations (OK, I had no expectations.) But this film put me in touch with a couple of my new favorite things: the Sergio Leone close-up and the Ennio Morricone score. The performances are remarkable, but it’s Leone’s eye that makes this movie a masterpiece. The opening sequence and the final showdown are now and forever, without question, two of my favorite pieces of celluloid. I watched the movie three times that first weekend.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) – A classic that needs no explanation whatsoever. A perfect piece of entertainment.

Raising Arizona (1987) – Dance with the girl that brought you. The Coen Brothers are in a league of their own at this point, but this is the first Coen movie I saw. Like most good Coen Brothers pictures, the first viewing was sort of un-spectacular. But on repeated viewings, I started to pick up on the rhythm of the movie and Nicholas Cage’s performance in particular. The film is like a piece of music really, meticulously metered and performed from the first frame to the last. In fact, the experience reminds me most of one of those insane Herb Alpert tunes that gets faster as they play, one note falling into the next. Once the movie cues up, I’m hooked and the spell gets worse with every scene. The supermarket robbery/chase is one of my favorite sequences of all time.

Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) – Maybe this is a guilty pleasure, but for a kid whose first impressions of high-school came from John Hughes, this movie is always the dark horse for me. I adore all of the Hughes movies between 1983 and 1987 (then came Curly Sue? What the hell happened?), but for reasons I can’t tap into, this one gets me there every time. Maybe it’s Eric Stoltz’ awkward performance. More than likely it’s Lea Thompson (there’s a bit of crush there, sorry.) And that teen melodrama! This really is the boy’s answer to Pretty In Pink. Call me silly, but I even have the audio of this movie on CD – I just love the rhythm of the scenes.

The (original and untampered) Star Wars Trilogy (1977-1983) – These movies are so integral to my movie-going lifestyle and have been watched and re-watched so many times, that I had to put them on a personal moratorium to protect myself against over-saturation. So it is that I haven’t watched a frame of these films in almost 7 years, and to my great surprise, I didn’t even pick up the DVD set in September. It goes without saying that.these movies pretty much represent the most direct route to the purest part of my movie-loving self. And somehow, they surprise me every time I see them.

Honourable mentions:

The Abyss (1989), Howard the Duck (that’s right and I'll thank you to shut up) (1986), Weird Science (1985), Unforgiven (1992), Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Donnie Darko (2001), Gremlins (1984), The Muppet Movie (1979), Apocalypse Now (1979), Pee Wee’s Big Adventure (1985), Superman: The Movie (1978), Flash Gordon (1980), Se7en (1995), Alien (1979), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Starman (1984), Revenge of the Nerds (1984), Teen Wolf (1985), The Princess Bride (1987), Legends of the Fall (1994), Evil Dead 2 (1987), Batman (1989), The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), The Fisher King (1991), Braveheart (1995), La Cité Des Enfants Perdus (City of Lost Children) (1995), Miller's Crossing (1990), Big Trouble in Little China (1986), Far and Away (1992), Heat (1995), The Secret of NIMH (1982), The Dark Crystal (1982), Jaws (1975), A Simple Plan (1998), Office Space (1999), Wonder Boys (2000), and just about all of the James Bond films, most especially The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and The Man With The Golden Gun (1974).

Was it 1990?

I’m sorry to make this confession, but I liked The Godfather Part III most of all. I think it’s about context so please let me explain.

In the early 90’s, before the Silver Cities and Coliseums of the world devoured the shoe-box multiplexes, the only place to see a movie – I mean, a big, BIG movie with skull-rattling sound and skyscraper dimensions – was at the Ontario Place Cinesphere. An IMAX screen, the only IMAX screen in Toronto at that time (I believe), the Cinesphere was your one-stop shopping for monstrous movie-going. And best of all, every December, January and February, the Cinesphere opened its doors for mainstream, standard Hollywood movies. As big as they could be.

I saw as much as I could in that environment: Apocalypse Now, Star Wars, Edward Scissorhands, Backdraft, Star Trek Generations. These are only a few of the movies that I remember, all second-run. But I recall very clearly coming home from University (3 hours away!) in the early-90’s specifically to see movies at this theatre. Movies played for only a couple of nights and tickets were bought in advance like a theatrical run. It was total movie-crack.

But my point is The Godfather Part III. In 1990, I was 17-years old. I had never seen The Godfather (I or II), but I was anxious to see what the buzz was about when The Godfather Part III opened on Christmas day. CITY-TV helped me out by playing both of the first two films in their entirety, completely uncut. I taped them and over the course of a Saturday and Sunday, I watched The Godfather saga unfold. On a small screen. Between commercials. Amid the everyday distractions of a teenage life.

And I remember this like I remember the bullet popping Moe Green’s eyeball: I was in a big hurry because I had to catch up with the story before the Sunday night screening of The Godfather Part III. The experience was a bit of a rush-job.

So it goes that the first two movies sort of raced past me. I remember being unbelievably shocked by the horse-in-the-bed bit (try to remember seeing that for the first time!) and moved more by the first film than the second (which was the more-rushed experience of the two – I might have dawdled watching that first film.) I definitely liked both movies a lot. They were everything I was expecting, and they were pretty violent (always something for the plus column when you’re in grade 11). The movies were little long though and there were an awful lot of names to remember. It would be another couple of years before I really started to dig into the films in university and before I watched them again and again and again. It would be another couple of years before I started to absolutely adore them.

Time is funny. Anyone familiar with the Godfather Trilogy can understand that loving the third movie most is a little like choosing Return of the Jedi over Empire. Silly business. But over that weekend, the final dramatic images of The Godfather Part III (and Andy Garcia’s spitfire performance) stuck with me more than those first 6 or 7 hours. I consumed the opera performance. I loved the cynical tone. Sophia Coppola seemed fine to me, just fine.

It’s funny what a reee-ally big screen and a little volume will do for your movie-going experience.

A New Hat is a Good Start.

A life unexamined, and all that mumbo jumbo.

If you’re on the brink of examining, I mean really examining your life, your job, your relationships or your place in the world, I expect that Ikiru (1952) is a harrowing journey. Time certainly hasn’t softened it. This doesn’t seem like the kind of life-loving animal that could have hung in theatres in the same years as Leave It To Beaver and Singin’ In The Rain. And while the Criterion DVD seems a little rough and aged at times, the film itself doesn’t seem anything like a 50-year (plus!) document. It’s a sharp and intricate narrative that puts some pretty universal (and always relevant) philosophy up front. Kurosawa’s appeal is immediately evident.

Ikiru isn’t really what I’d regard as a famous movie, so indulge me for a minute while I share what it’s about. Such a simple story. A life-long (and completely anesthetized) bureaucrat named Watanabe learns indirectly that he is dying of stomach cancer. His oncoming death shakes him out of complacency and forces him to confront the fact that life has completely passed him by. He spends the last weeks of his life chasing life itself, asking the big questions, searching for some meaning that will help justify his time on the planet. The big twist? He actually finds both meaning and purpose, and more surprisingly, the answer is overwhelming satisfying.

The film is a very complex experience. Like the big questions in life, the movie flips and flops, drawing the audience close enough to share private moments and still pushing them far enough back so that the film is never sentimental. There are scenes that are searingly intimate, as inclusive and tender as anything I’ve seen on film. Watanabe’s private moments in his bedroom, crying himself to sleep under his blanket, are simply painful to experience. There’s a voyeuristic quality to the moments he spends alone, as though it’s not quite fair to be watching this man struggle with this terrible burden for our entertainment. But at the same time, the experience of Ikiru is often very distancing. The main character, despite the private sequences, remains a cipher to some extent, with a tremendous amount of back-story left untold. The film makes huge jumps in time and travels back on itself to fill gaps in the narrative. Case in point: the last 50-minutes of the film are primarily composed of talking heads – worse than talking head: bureaucrats – discussing Watanabe’s days and trying to solve the mystery of what how he spent them. There’s not a single sympathetic character among them and believe me when I saw that they talk and talk and talk. The viewer is forced to piece together the resolution of the story in much the same way. I realize that this sounds like a frustrating experience, but there is such a wonderful payoff, maybe one of the best of the Monday line-up so far, that the experience never sags.

The movie also unfolds a lot like a good novel, driven by interior forces and unfolding at a pace that scarcely seems suited to the screen. There are long shots that would never hang onto a screen today. There is a shot of Watanabe waiting in a chair that must last longer than a minute. Many of scenes play as long takes, unbroken by close-ups or any other edits. The commentary on the Criterion DVD makes much out of the fact that Kurosawa was influenced heavily by Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych. It shows. The film sports that sort of pedigree.

For me, the film was a most unusual experience because I was in a strange place on Monday night. Coming off a weekend of weddings and old friends, I was filled to the lid with an unusual amount of vitality. Believe me that life certainly is not passing me by this month. So it is that Watanabe’s suffering washed over me to some extent. I like my job an awful lot. I love my family. I’m content with just about every piece of my life so reminding me that life is short doesn’t really drive me to make different choices. But this is why I can only imagine where this movie might take me otherwise. We’ve all been in that job or position where we wondered what it was all for. This movie puts that question into a leg-lock and twists hard. Watching Watanabe’s face and body language will make just about anyone question their own decisions.

And I think that it’s Watanabe’s face that inflicts the most pathos. That face, which carries both the terrible secret of his cancer and the burden of his empty lifestyle, is still haunting me days later. Upon watching the film a second time yesterday (it’s about the commentary – yo!), I was immediately struck by how much affection I had for Watanabe the very first time he showed up on screen. He has the widest eyes and most expressive eyes I’ve seen since Bette Davis a few weeks ago - and astonishingly, he puts her to shame.

There are at least a half dozen sequences in Ikiru that make it a masterpiece. At least three of these are as good as anything you’ll see in a movie. And one of them is so moving and transcendent, that only the language and context of the film does it justice. Describing it is a waste of time.

Despite all of this, I’m not so sure about Kurosawa yet. I want to put that in writing because I’m almost certain that the feeling will change in time: one day I may laugh to re-read this. But of all the great cinema masters, Kurosawa is the one with whom I’m not yet comfortable. I mentioned in an earlier post how much I’ve come to adore Stanley Kubrick. Even those most off-putting and Kubrickian of devices are now familiar and endearing. Of all the masters I’ve seen so far, Kurosawa reminds me most of Kubrick. He certainly has a rhythm and a style of his own but ironically, he's probably more accessible. I look forward to seeing more Kurosawa films in the coming months and hopefully coming to terms with that style. But for now, I’m wrestling with it.

And on the subject of time, I have the strong suspicion that Ikiru is a film that I will want – and maybe need – to revisit in the decades to come. It has that kind of temperature. I certainly adored it this time around, but I have the very certain sense that in a decade or more there will be a lot more layers revealed to me. Certainly the theme of living life while you can is quickly forgotten and worth revisiting from year to year. This probably makes Ikiru sound a lot more preachy and didactic than it is; but the fact is there are just some movies that cut deeper and tease harder at the underlying and larger questions.

I’m glad to have Ikiru as such a touchstone.

Swipes dust. {cough} {cough}

It was certainly not my intention to disappear. Crap, has it really been 2 weeks?

Companion to my commitment to watch a new movie every Monday is my commitment to keep this blog running. Regularly. If I drop out of sight for more than a week, there's good reason. Yes sir.

A couple of bad sick days. A new house (finalized now with bank, lawyers and all, thank you very much.) And at last, a wedding that went wall-to-wall for at least 4 days.

I should have some thoughts published on Kurosawa's Ikiru in the next day or so. I also want to reflect a little more on some old favorites as I'm having a good time trying to recollect my first impressions (comme ça.)