Wild Card Tuesdays - The Dinner Game

The Dinner Game (1998, dir. Francis Veber)

You've no doubt seen the trailer or commercials for the upcoming Paul Rudd/Steve Carrell film Dinner for Schmucks. This is its source material, a very small and wry French comedy that, unlike the American version never makes it to the titular dinner. Instead, we get a very clever farce from the same director that brought us La Cage Aux Follies and many other French comedies brutally remade by American studios. I'm beginning to think studios simply wait around for him to release a film so they can rush to produce a butchered remake. While not the kind of funny the American remake is shooting for, The Dinner Game will make you laugh through clever wordplay and increasingly convoluted misunderstandings

Pierre Brochant is excited about the weekly "idiots dinner" held by he and his businessmen friends. He comes upon Francois Pignon, Finance Ministry employee (think IRS agent) whose obsession is building landmarks out of matchsticks. Brochant sees this man as the perfect idiot to bring along with him. However, his wife has left him and he has injured his back on the golf course on the same day he is to take Pignon to the dinner. The squat little man arrives, thinking Brochant is offering him a book deal about his matchstick constructions. Over the course of the evening, Pignon helps Brochant makes fake phone calls to track down his wife, mistakes the wife for the mistress, and brings on of his auditing buddies over to help out, unwittingly revealing some shocking infidelities. The film appears to be heading down a maudlin path when it returns to its comedic elements in a very clever way.

Pignon is a very endearing character. He has had his wife leave him and wants to legitimately help Brochant, but he possess a short term memory and care barely retain the simple plans they hatch when calling people they believe Brochant's wife is with. Jacques Villeret plays the role of Pignon and manages to keep him from becoming a dolt. He's a clever, sensitive, eager to help simpleton and the audience sighs with relief when we realize he won't be subjected to the cruel evening Brochant has planned. From what I have seen of Schmucks, I get the feeling Carrell is playing a much broader, less sympathetic version of this character and that's a shame.

The Dinner Game plays like stage play. It's one set with characters coming in and out, a perfect comedy of errors. Schmucks looks like it is uninterested in the simplicity of the original and is opting for complex set pieces involving outsiders that we don't sympathize with but mock. The overly sentimental finale that the original avoids feels all but inevitable for the American remake. The irony here is that The Dinner Game emotionally earns that ending if it wants, while I suspect Schmucks will be so mean spirited that when it comes to that "our hero learns a lesson" moment it will come off as ludicrous.

Criterion Fridays - Close-Up

Close-Up (1990, dir. Abbas Kiraostami)

In America, its not uncommon to see a film "based on a true story". The audience has come to expect that while names and events are real, screenwriters have "punched up" the script with dramatic tropes and formulas designed to add drama to what they see as dull, uninteresting reality. On the opposite end of things, you have documentaries like Capturing the Friedmans where the reality of the situation is so horrific and dramatic we have to wonder how much is exaggerated and manipulated by the director. In Abbas Kiraostami's film Close-Up he takes an approach to the "based on a real story" movie that is some sort of amalgamation of narrative film and documentary. This is one of few times I have watched a film unable to figure out what was reality and was staged.

The film revolves around the case of Ali Sabzian, a man posing as Iranian film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and receiving the good will and shelter of the a family in Tehran as a result. The films opens with an obviously staged scene, the reporter, who first published the story that brought it Kiraostami's attention, is traveling with police via taxi to the family's home to witness the arrest of Sabzian. From there the film becomes a patchwork of the actual video footage of Sabzian's trial and re-enactments of the events. The re-enactments actually feature the real people involved, including Sabzian. The reason this could happen is, that Sabzian never stole from the family he stayed with and the crime was non-violent. By the end of the film, we learn what Sabzian's motivation was and see the family show great sympathy for him in court.

While most films about real crimes attempt to illuminate and make the mystery something that can be understood, Close-Up works to confuse things and make Sabzian a harder and harder character to pin down. What it becomes is a meditation on why someone not involved in the Arts would feel such a strong connection to someone who made their living off of cinema. Sabzian lives with his mother in the wake of divorce. His wife took one child, his mother raises the other. He works in a dead end job as a printer, and Sabzian claims that in director Makhmalbaf's work he finds his own suffering put into words he cannot explain. Sabzian is an incredibly sympathetic figure, but even he confuses us because he talks about how he feels drawn to be an actor, that the idea of losing himself in a character is appealing. So, is the Sabzian speaking court truly his honest self, or another persona he has taken on?

This was not going to be the film Kiraostami was supposed to make at the time. However, after reading about the story in the paper he became obsessed with it and couldn't sleep. So he contacted the parties involved and began making the film. As much as he wants to capture reality on film, he unabashedly manipulates certain scenes. When Sabzian is released from jail at the end of the film, he meets the real Makhmalbaf there are "audio difficulties" with the microphone equipment. Kiraostami has admitted freely after the fact that the audio problems was a manufacturing of him out of respect for the conversation between the two men, but instead of simply saying he was doing this, he made it another layer in the reality and fiction of the film. This is definitely a film that challenges the perceptions of the audience and will make them constantly question the reality or artifice of each and every scene.

My 40 Favorite Film Moments - Part 8

35) The Wedding of Kermit and Piggy (The Muppets Take Manhattan, 1984, dir. Frank Oz)

It will never be a canonical great moment in cinema, but for me as a little kid it was the perfect ending to the Muppet film trilogy. You get an insanely large cast of characters, including those from just around the block on Sesame Street. Also, Piggy's laugh when Kermit asks about Gonzo still cracks me up.





36) Pure Imagination (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, 1971, dir. Mel Stuart)

Gene Wilder in the 1970s is always perfection. And this song works perfectly to introduce us to the inner working of the fantastical chocolate factory.



37) You're Shit (Happiness, 1998, dir. Todd Solondz)

One of the most funny and depressing movie openings ever.



38) Chance Enters The World (Being There, 1980, dir. Hal Ashby)

In Peter Sellers' final performance he gave us the best film of his career. The mentally challenged Chance is forced to leave the brownstone for which he gardened after the owner dies. It's implied Chance was the owner's illegitimate son, and he never left the house in his life. This scene is gorgeous piece of comedy following Chance on his first day out.



39) Sardine? (The 'Burbs, 1988, dir. Joe Dante)

This film was watched endlessly in my house as a child, and I think it is still one Tom Hanks' best comedies and criminally underrated. This is the perfect scene of awkwardness as the characters meet the neighbors they suspect are serial killers



40) Starchild (2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968, dir. Stanley Kubrick)

The most hopeful film ending of all time!

My 40 Favorite Film Moments - Part 6

26) I See Now (City Light, 1931, dir. Charlie Chaplin)

City Lights is so simple and perfect. This final scene showcases the fact that, while Chaplin is remembered as a great comedian, he also could tell a story of great emotional depth.





27) Who's The Commanding Officer? (Apocalypse Now, 1979, dir. Francis Ford Coppola)

This is the scene in the film that truly sums up the insanity of war for me. It is the last American outpost in Vietnam and it is a waking nightmare.



28) Forget it Donny, You're Out of Your Element (The Big Lebowski, 1998, dir. The Coen Brothers)

Walter Sobchek is one of the great American fictional characters. There's not much more than that.



29) Ministry of Information (Brazil, 1984, dir. Terry Gilliam)

A wordless scene that conveys all the information we need to know about this bureaucracy through the camera lens. Plus the late composer Michael Kamen inventively uses typewriters as an instrument in the score.



30) Zoe and the Spider (The Sweet Hereafter, 1998, dir. Atom Egoyan)

From a criminally underrated film, this scene features Ian Holm telling his daughter's childhood friend about an incident from the girl's life that metaphorically corresponds to the drug addiction he is trying to save her from now. Beautifully told.

Director in Focus: Brian De Palma - Snake Eyes

Snake Eyes (1998)
Starring Nicolas Cage, Gary Sinise, Carla Gugino, Stan Shaw, John Heard, Luis Guzman

In the wake of Carlito's Way, De Palma was back on top and directed the very commercial Mission: Impossible. It was definitely a big break both for the director and in establishing Tom Cruise as an action star. It was also not very De Palma-esque, especially due to its globe trotting nature. Most De Palma films work because of their very small and local nature, so having character moving from Europe to Langley, Virginia between scenes was a bit jarring for those expecting a film more true to the director's aesthetic. It was an enjoyable movie though, but it was Snake Eyes that was set to stand as a return to the paranoid thrillers De Palma made in the 1980s (Body Double, Blow Out).

Rick Santoro (Cage) is an Atlantic City cop who has embraced the corruption of his city. It's fight night at the casino he frequents most and his old pal, Kevin Dunne (Sinise) is in attendance as the head of security for the attending Secretary of Defense. Rick gets a seat right next to Kevin's, but the latter is pulled away due to a security issue leaving Rick front and center when a Palestinian terrorist assassinates the secretary. Rick is immediately thrown into the midst of a conspiracy involving a strange young woman who was talking to the secretary moments before he was killed. The investigation leads Rick into retracing the steps of all the major players presenting in the arena at the time of the conspiracy.

Snake Eyes is a colossal failure, due in part to an unrewarding second half, when all the big reveals are made. However, the first half the film is basically a masterclass in cinematography. No matter how terrible the plots and acting are in a De Palma film you can always rely on the camera to be a star (Bonfire of the Vanities being the exception). The first scene of the film is a series of about eight Steadicam shots spliced together to make one long introductory scene leading up to the moment of the assassination. From there, as Rick interviews suspects and witnesses, we are taken back in time where we see the events play out from their POV, the classic first person camera shot De Palma so often employs. There is also an elaborate shot where characters are hiding and pursuing each other on a floor of the casino's hotel. The camera raises itself up to look down and begins panning over roofless rooms, allowing us to peek inside.

The conspiracy is incredibly predictable based on certain characters' actions and comments, so when we learn the truth its a big of a yawn. There's also a lot of plot points that stretch the film's credibility beyond anything acceptable. The motivation for the conspiracy is also fairly weak. I was reminded of Three Days of the Condor and how, despite its low points in the middle, it delivers a believable reason for conspiracy that makes sense within both our world and the universe of the film. The conspiracy in Snake Eyes is rather too elaborate for what is trying to be covered up. This over the top turn of events causes the film to become a bore and by the end its hard to really care about where any of these bland characters end up.

Next: De Palma goes back to some deep Hitchcock roots with Femme Fatale.

My 40 Favorite Film Moments - Part 4

16) Interrogation (The Dark Knight, 2008, dir. Christopher Nolan)

My favorite comic book based film, and an all around great movie. The screenplay is one of the tightest I've ever encountered and this is a great scene that really gets to the heart of the relationship between The Joker and Batman. The Joker is in love with Batman, not that he wants to have sex with him, but he is emotionally fulfilled by Batman's existence. Without Batman, The Joker would have no one worthy of him to combat.






17) What's In The Box (Se7en, 1995, dir. David Fincher)

This is one of those instances where every one is hitting their mark and it all comes together to make such a great film. I'm usually not a fan of Fincher, but the cinematography and editing here plus the actors all delivering make for one of the best climactic film scenes ever.



18) Regret - (Magnolia, 1999, dir. PT Anderson)

Jason Robards delivers a great performance, and you can tell he is speaking from years of his own personal experience filtered through this character. While, he is one of a multitude of amazing actors in Magnolia, his performance has always stood out to me.



19) Testing the Blood (The Thing, 1981, dir. John Carpenter)

One of the most intense horror films ever made, it takes an already great 1950s picture, and remakes it for the early 1980s. The Thing is one of the goriest movie monsters ever constructed and this is one of the few films where Carpenter is able to set the perfect tone and carry it throughout the entire piece.



20) Like Tears in Rain (Blade Runner, 1981, dir. Ridley Scott)

There will not be a film like Blade Runner for many years to come. The actors' strike allowed the art production team to have a considerable amount of time to prep and it shows. This scene in particular combines the neo-noir futurist look with the existential questions being asked thematically.

Director in Focus: Brian De Palma - Carlito's Way

Carlito's Way (1993)
Starring Al Pacino, Sean Penn, Penelope Ann Miller, Luis Guzman, John Leguizamo, Viggo Mortensen

In the wake of Bonfire of the Vanities, De Palma returned to Hitchcock-land with Raising Cain, an odd film about twins and multiple personalities that in many ways hearkened back to Sisters. It was another failure for the director, albeit not as quite a large scale one as Bonfire. With a sense of humility about him, De Palma embarked on adapting a novel by a federal judge called After Hours. The film would be renamed Carlito's Way (to distinguish it from Scorsese's After Hours) and would return De Palma to some themes and ideas from Scarface. However, instead of the rise and fall of a crimelord who is brash and aggressive, Carlito's would tell the story of a man once neck deep in crime, now trying to work his way out and go legit.

Carlito Brigante (Pacino) has just finished five years of a thirty year sentence. He has successfully been released when an appeal is issued proving the D.A. illegally made the recordings that sent him up the river. Now, with a re-evaluation of his life, Carlito has his sights set on raising enough cash to join a former inmate's car rental business in the Bahamas. He buys into a nightclub set up by Kleinfeld (Penn), his attorney and reconnects with his lost love (Miller). Along the way, he draws the ire of Benny Blanco (Leguizamo) an up and coming street tough and must question his loyalty to the ever more frenetic Kleinfeld, whose life in danger of being taken by angry mobsters. The entire time Carlito is trying to make the right choices, stay on the path of good, so that he and his girl can escape.

The first thing that struck me about this film is how phenomenally better and more modern it was than Bonfire. One thing that kept getting to me as I was watch Bonfire was how it felt very dated. Typically if a film is set in the 1980s you're supposed to feel that through the set design, tone, etc. Bonfire pulled it off in a way that made the picture feel too out of touch with any sort of universal truth. Carlito, on the other hand,despite being set in the 1970s, feels like an incredibly modern film. I think a lot of this is due in part to it being subject matter that De Palma is much more capable of handling. The director himself admitted he was planning on turning it down because on first glance he saw it as a Scarface retread. When he finally sat down to read it, he saw the film was going to be the antithesis of Scarface.

The acting here is a mixed bag, though. Sean Penn as Kleinfeld is spot on. He never exaggerates his character but is able to get across the transition from cool, calm and collected to on the verge of a nervous breakdown without breaking a sweat. It's interesting to note, that at this point in his career, Penn had all but retired from acting to pursue directing (He was working on The Crossing Guard with Jack Nicholson at the time). His return to the screen was a big deal at the time and his performance definitely caused some people to encourage him to keep acting. It's a strange thing for people of my generation to think about, as I was not aware of Carlito at all on its original release and have grown up with a viewpoint that you can count on Penn to be in all sorts of Oscar bait type pictures. On the other hand, Pacino nails the character of Carlito but has a persistently annoying accent problem. In his attempt to conjure up a Puerto Rican flair to his voice he ends up sounding at times like a Southerner, and then at others a bizarre interpretation of a stereotypical New Yorker. Accent aside, this a is a complete 180 from Scarface. Carlito is incredibly likable and charming, and it is impossible for you not to root for him to escape.

All the typical De Palma tricks are on display, and while they felt forced in Bonfire, here they feel exciting and fresh. There's some great looking deep focus shots, just a little POV, and some wonderful Steadicam work, particularly in the final scene in Grand Central. The editing in the film is also some of the best of any De Palma movie. I found myself literally clutching my fists in anxiousness during the final tense moments of the film, which could not have been possible if it was wasn't for some stellar camerawork and editing. While plots and actors may fail the director at times, his camera is his most loyal friend and you can always count on him to know exactly how to shoot a scene that gets the most out of it.

Next: De Palma does Mission: Impossible and closes out the 90s with Snake Eyes

My 40 Favorite Film Moments - Part 2

6) Waiting For a Train (Once Upon a Time in the West, 1969, dir. Sergio Leone)

Wordless, with a soundtrack provided by found objects in the setting. A squeaky windmill, a dripping water tower, the steady rhythm of a steam engine. It provides the perfect introduction to the film's protagonist, Harmonica (Charles Bronson).





7) Getting Baptized (Ed Wood, 1994, dir. Tim Burton)

Hack director Wood has gotten financing from an L.A. church. One of the conditions for the money to come through is that the entire cast and crew of Plan Nine from Outer Space will be baptized. The unaffected homosexual producer Bunny Breckenridge (Bill Murray) takes the hefty spiritual ritual with little thought in a cleverly funny moment. This is also Burton's masterpiece in my opinion.



8) Flowers (Harold and Maude, 1971, dir. Hal Ashby)

Ashby is one of the greats of the 1970s, and this scene featuring Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, and the music of Cat Stevens is a picture of perfect composition. The transition from the field of flowers to the military cemetery is a very beautiful one.



9) He'll Keep Calling Me (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, 1989, dir. John Hughes)

This scene is a perfect summation of the profound indecision and anxiety Cameron suffers from. Throughout the film, he's a character who is simply pushed around by his off screen father or by Ferris or by authority in general. This is every thing going on in his brain.



10) Make the Sun Rise (Black Orpheus, 1959, dir. Marcel Camus)
Set during Carnival in Brazil, the film retells the mythic story of Orpheus and Eurydice through an Afro-Brazilian guitarist and the woman he loves. In this final scene, we see that the tragic story of these lovers is part of a cycle and this children are beginning to play down a path that is both beautiful, but painful.

Director in Focus: Brian De Palma - The Bonfire of the Vanities

The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)
Starring Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith, Bruce Willis, Kim Catrall, Morgan Freeman, Saul Rubinek, F. Murray Abraham

And so, all great filmmakers must descend into the bowels of hell from time to time. It's hard for us to understand just how terrible this film is now. Oh yes, Hanks is certainly acting in a way that comes across as acting. And Willis is forced to deliver voice over narration that both shoves the story forward and sounds like he has difficulty saying it. But the utter disaster that is The Bonfire of the Vanities was both as a completed picture and the behind the scenes production fiasco. What was thrown up on the screen was a watered down version of a biting satire, that somehow manages to still offend every major racial group and still feel like the studio was pulling back and watering it down.

The novel by Tom Wolfe, was an attempt to skewer the 1980s greed culture and the rise of a more and more tabloid-influenced media. You have Sherman McCoy (Hanks), a Wall Street financial wunderkind who is sneaking behind his wife's back (Catrall) to have an affair with socialite Maria (Griffith). During one tryst the lovers take a wrong turn and end up in the Bronx where, with Maria at the wheel, they end up running over a black youth who was attempting to rob them. Sherman thinks they should report it to the police, but Maria convinces him otherwise. Cue an Al Sharpton-inspired preacher, opportunistic D.A., and drunken reporter (Willis) and the hunt is on to catch the WASP in the Mercedes who ran over the poor young man. All of these cynical characters feel set to get their comeuppance in deliciously vicious way...however, it never happens.

The names originally batted around in pre-production color a very different film. William Hurt was originally looked at to play McCoy. Jack Nicholson and John Cleese were named as playing the role that went to Willis. Walter Matthau was brought up when casting the judge, but he wanted more money than they were willing to spend. And nineteen year old newcomer Uma Thurman has been up for the role of Maria. These people in these roles would have presented a much better film, not perfect, and they would have fit the types they were meant to play. Hurt would have played into the Ivy League, born into money mold much better than Hanks, who has always come across a more everyman than anything else. And anyone would have been better than Willis as the reporter, who seems to never know what he is doing and simply plays "smarmy".

De Palma throws us some cinematography bones: steadicam shot, quick POV, deep focus. It all comes across as him jumping up and down, shouting "Hey, remember I'm directing this!" Otherwise this is any other lofty studio picture trying to tackle the race issues of the early 1990s and come across as "edgy". I was reminded of Lawrence Kasdan's Grand Canyon (also released in 1990) which is on the other end of the spectrum from this picture. In Grand Canyon, Kasdan seems to tread as if he is walking on ice while broaching the issue of black-white relations and so the film never feels like it comes to any point. Here, we have a film that seems to be promising its going to go where no one else will while constantly tugging at the reins. The final courtroom scene snuffs out any chance that the film will end on a provocative note, as the judge descends from his bench and delivers a sermon to the characters and to us. The entire didactic droning feels like it should have ended with an American flag unfurling behind him and tiny sparklers appearing from out of frame. De Palma was at a major low point here...but he was about to prove he could deliver a monumental picture.

Next up: Carlito's Way

My 40 Favorite Film Moments - Part 1

This month I will be looking at my favorite moments in movies. These are not necessarily the best ever in films, but they are my personal favorites. In no particular order, here we go:

1) Let Me Out (Young Frankenstein, 1974, dir. Mel Brooks)

Gene Wilder is at his best when he goes from calm to frantic in a split second. His red-faced blue blanket tirade from The Producers is a gorgeous moment. This one however goes up there as one of my all time faves. Wilder as the nephew of Victor Frankenstein shines. In this scene we see him go from calm, to manic, to desperate, and finally to confident in his macabre heritage.





2) Mike Yanagita (Fargo, 1996, dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)

Two actors here who deserve a lot more credit. Frances McDormand won the Oscar for her role of Marge Gunderson, but this scene also showcases the chops of Steve Park. Park is able to create a three dimensional character in a single scene of this film, its amazing what he does. Its hard not to imagine the life of Yanagita after watching this. A powerful example of what happens when good writing and acting are paired up.



3) Oh, Are They? (Rushmore, 1998, dir. Wes Anderson)

The film that really broke Anderson out and still one of his best. Max Fischer (Schwartzmann) turns a post opening night dinner into a farce when his love interest invites her male nurse friend along. Would be nice if Anderson tried to go back to his more comedic roots, not that his current work is bad.



4) Binary Sunset (Star Wars, 1977, dir. George Lucas)

It's a short scene, but it says a lot. The dual suns reinforce the alien nature of this world, the lighting sets the perfect tone as Luke Skywalker stares out across the vast landscape of Tatooine, and the music gets across his desire to explore. Simple and perfect.



5) Come Play With Us, Danny (The Shining, 1980, dir. Stanley Kubrick)

A perfect horror movie scene. The music and cinematography are in perfect unison and there isn't much more to say other than, experience the scene yourself.

DocuMondays - We Live in Public

We Live in Public (2009, dir. Ondi Timoner)
Featuring Josh Harris

Josh Harris is much smarter than you. He is also likely more insane than you, as well. This documentary by director Ondi Timoner (also behind the great docu DiG! about the Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols) follows a near prophetic vision of the internet and privacy that was unleashed from the mind of the aforementioned Josh Harris. The ideas he would present, for himself an experiment born out of curiosity, would shape the concepts of social networking and cultivation of user information as a commodity. The way Facebook works now is indebted to the research of Harris, a man who is unknown by the very executives whom run companies that wouldn't exist without him.

In 1980, Josh Harris was a low level researcher in New York City. He attended a conference where the idea of computers being networked globally was being discussed and from this he began to think of how this could completely change the way people run their lives. He founded Jupiter, a company focused on surveying to gathering information on how people would use the internet. From there he developed the concept of public chat rooms which he sold to Compuserve. He was the first to think of making the internet a replacement for television and started Pseudo TV, back when streaming video was a blocky nightmare. Investors liked the idea but by 1999 Harris had become bored and was behaving in a more increasingly erratic manner. His next venture was a piece of performance art/social experiment where around a hundred people signed up to live in a subterranean village Harris built.

Before they could join though, they had to undergo extensive psychological testing, not to ensure their stability in the community but to help feed periodic interrogations that would be held during their stay. Everyone slept in Japanese style pods which had both a television and a closed circuit camera. Every channel was simply another pod. The bathrooms, showers, dining room, entertainment venues, simply everywhere was wired with cameras. The psychological effect it had was at first detachment by the citizens of the village and then a air of insanity took over. The experiment was busted on Jan. 1, 2000 after rumors spread that it was a Heaven's Gate type cult. At this point, Josh and his girlfriend at the time set up cameras all throughout their loft and launched a 24 hour stream of every facet of their life online. This experiment culminated in Harris physically assault said girlfriend on camera when she refused to have sex with him.

From there he fell victim to the dot-com boom of the early 2000s, left New York City and ended up buying an apple farm. He tried to reinsert his "brand" into the current online climate but was met with executives of social networking sites who had no idea who he was. Harris is shown as being incredibly detached from others. His mother was on her deathbed and, instead of physically visiting, he recorded his message to her and mailed the tape, which arrived too late. His most formative experiences seem to have been bonding with virtual families via the television of the 1960s and 70s. Gilligan's Island was a highly influential element in his life and he seems to transpose both the character of Mrs. Howell and his own mother onto a bizarre personality he would some times take on called Luvvey.

Harris ideas about people willingly giving over their information and their privacy has come true in the form of the 24 hour tweet culture we're experiencing. He mentions that Warhol was right about the fifteen minutes of fame, however, he add people want that fifteen minutes every day. The documentary is an excellent examination of how we got to a moment where identity and privacy are typically forfeit when it comes to online culture. Through Harris' insane experiments we can see that it is not so much about the technology as it is about a distance our culture has taken on in relation to each other, long before the internet.

The Summer Blockbuster: 1996 - 2009

What marked the difference between the blockbusters of the 1970s and 1980s and the 1990s and 2000s were digital special effects. For the first two decades the focus was on practical special effects, as the B-rate science fiction films these blockbusters were inspired by used. When you saw a spaceship zipping through the sky there was a physical model of the ship built and there was usually a matte painting of some sort and through the use of green screen the two elements were combined. As unreal as the scene was all its elements were something tangible. The move to computer generated effects is marked as beginning with Terminator 2: Judgment Day. This began a regular tradition of James Cameron being on the cutting edge of film technology.

By 1996, CG effects were old hat. Films from that year included Independence Day and Twister, both of which are remembered more fondly for their special effects than their acting. Independence Day used practical effects for its alien villains and CG for its air battles, while Twister had real actors in real environments but completely CG twisters as well as a CG cow being carried away by it. On the other hand, 1996 saw the first Mission: Impossible film which primarily used practical effects for the majority of its story. These were followed by pictures like Men in Black and The Lost World, one of which began a franchise and the other which continued one. The trend in this period would be to establish franchises using original, and more commonly already established properties from comics and television. The mindset behind anchoring yourself to a franchise was safety. Trying a new formula out meant risk, and risk could mean financial failure. So studio followed the motto of "go with what you know". This was seen in how franchises like Pirates of the Carribean, The Matrix, Spider-Man, Harry Potter, and Shrek have become perennial summer movies.



Before the end of the 1990s though, another director established himself as guaranteed box office during the summer: Michael Bay. His movie Armageddon followed many tried and true tropes. There were established actors, up and coming young talent, familiar character actors, a "rah rah" America plot, and lots of explosions. Bay's name would become a common one on big summer movies, in particular the current Transformers franchise, which while commercially successful is reviewed dismally by critics. It doesn't seems to phase Bay though, as he keeps churning at the same type of films and following his established formula to a tee. Another name to rise to prominence as a season favorite was Pixar. Pixar was a computer animation studio that, while part of the Disney family, retained much of its creative independence and is almost the anti-Michael Bay. Bay paints in broad strokes while Pixar is incredibly detail oriented, making sure to populate its worlds with minutiae and causes their films to truly breathe. It was Finding Nemo that put them on the summer blockbuster scene, and this was followed by The Incredibles, Cars, Wall-E, and Up. Up achieved a feat very few summer blockbusters can, it was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars.

Hollywood's obsession with clinging to the familiar hasn't always given them typical movies and some times we see old favorites deliver something unexpected. Steven Spielberg played with the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park for awhile but switched gears to release Saving Private Ryan, an R-rated brutal portrayal of D-Day. The film works alongside Schindler's List and the earlier Empire of the Sun as a sort of World War II trilogy. All three were quite unexpected from the man who created the blockbuster with Jaws. In the 2000s, Spielberg switched gears and aesthetics once again to tackle classic science fiction stories. He directed A.I., Minority Report, and War of the Worlds, all of which employed a harsh light and not quite as heartwarming look at life as his previous work. Spielberg was joined by Lucas who returned in 1999 to his Star Wars franchise with The Phantom Menace. Audiences were incredibly split on the film and its follow ups: Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. This time around the Star Wars universe felt very sterile and absent of the life it previously possessed. With the conclusion of this third trilogy, Lucas seems to have once again retreated to the world he was able to build for himself.

The end of 2000s closed out with very familiar faces on the screen. There was a reboot of the Star Trek franchise, a new Harry Potter, a new Transformers, a new Pixar film, and a second film based on the books of Dan Brown. Hollywood is firmly dug in to produce tried and true concepts, with the occasional allowance of a new idea. Just recently reboots of the Spider-Man and Planet of the Apes franchises have been announced and some of 2010s most anticipated summer films have been sequels to successful franchises and rebootings of old ones (A-Team, The Karate Kid).

The Summer Blockbuster: 1986 - 1995

Coming out of the mid-80s, if you had money invested in Steven Spielberg and George Lucas you were probably incredibly rich. They had success after success, not just in their own films, but in those of directors they were producing and supporting. However, there would be an odd dip that occurred in the remainder of the 1980s. A few film franchises would rise to prominence, Lucas' stock would plummet, and Spielberg would attempt to try out some non-science fiction and fantasy films.

While science fiction flicks made big box office they also cost big budgets to make. It's no surprise that many studio attempted to go with smaller budget films and these typically focused on "rah rah" crowd pleasers are mixtures of action and comedy. The Karate Kid franchise was one of those "rah rah" type films that aimed dead center at kids and young adolescents. You have a young man, bullied at school, who is taught how to fight by a wizened karate master. He's able to overcome the bullies through beating them up. You also had the first three films of the Lethal Weapon series which raised Mel Gibson to prominence and managed to pull in big audiences on a fairly small budget, something studios always like to see. Along with Lethal Weapon, there was Beverly Hills Cop I and II, which vaulted the already popular Eddie Murphy into an even higher level of celebrity. Even today, if you notice every summer seems to have one Eddie Murphy film (this year's is Shrek 4).



There was also use a big name actor to sell the film, rather than a premise. In 1986, Tony Scott's Top Gun was released and took Tom Cruise, who had appeared in quite a few films before then, most notably Tony's brother Ridley's Legend, to stardom. Top Gun works as both a star making vehicle and a "rah rah" America movie. Tom Cruise's Maverick leads his flight unit take on North Koreans flying a fictional style of fighter jet on par with the American F-14s. Despite the implausibility that North Korean would ever be able to compete with the US Airforce, the film was a huge hit and a high selling soundtrack. Tom Hanks was the other actor to make his way up to super stardom during the 1980s. Penny Marshall's Big was his breakthrough, a simple story of a teenage boy who becomes an adult after making a wish. Budget-wise this was an incredibly cheap film to make. No real special effects and no actors who were huge names, at the time. What made the film such a great success was the honest charisma Hanks brings to all his roles. There are few actors that handle a film so naturally. Hanks would be attached to many more summer movies to come, most notably Sleepless in Seattle, Forrest Gump, and Apollo 13 and  both films that went against the Spielberg/Lucas formula for a blockbuster.

But you can always rely on certain films being a success based on the name attached to them in the director's seat. James Cameron, unlike Spielberg, didn't produce a prolific amount of work but it seemed that he didn't need to to become notable. Cameron made non-summer movies The Terminator and Aliens which set him up for Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Character-driven films weren't Cameron's strong suit and he relied a lot on technology, particularly new types of computer generated effects not yet seen by the public. His T-1000, the liquid metal villain of T2 was a huge shift in special effects driven film making. However, his next film, True Lies would be a non-CG focused film with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis fighting Middle Eastern terrorists.

At the end of the day though, you could always rely on familiar names, be it director or franchise to fuel a successful movie. Spielberg put out the third Indiana Jones film at the end of the 1980s and established a new franchise with Jurassic Park. Jurassic was a type of film that really overtook pop culture in 1993 in a way it would be hard for a single film to do now. It was one of the last pre-internet media fueled movies and was in theaters from June of '93 all the way to October of the same year. Disney also came to the forefront for the first time as a major summer draw. It seems like an obvious company to make summer blockbusters but they had never done so. They got their legs wet with The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, both Holiday season releases. Nothing compared to the success of The Lion King. It was a reworking of Hamlet, an odd piece of source material for a summer movie, but it worked. Audiences went again and again and since Disney has had a picture in the running every summer, though now its CG Pixar features.

Next: Batman, Spider-Man, and Star Wars

Asian Cinema Month - Hard Boiled

Hard Boiled (1992, dir. John Woo)
Starring Chow Yun Fat, Tony Leung

A man leaps through the air in slow motion, wielding twin semi-automatic pistols. Carnage ensues. This is the trademark of Hong Kong action director John Woo, who managed to pretty much invent his own sub-genre of action movies. These are stories where black and white are clearly defined, heroes are wise-cracking bad asses, and the villains are most definitely villainous. This was my first foray into the world of Woo, I skipped his Mission: Impossible sequel and shied away from Face/Off. So, after twenty years of hype, how did I find the master actioneer?

Hard Boiled is the tale of two men. Officer "Tequila" Yuen is a cop dedicated to bringing down the Triad gun running ring plaguing Hong Kong. Tony is a cop deep undercover who is the apple of crimeboss Hoi's eye. Tony is recruited by upstart gangster Johnny Wong to take out Hoi and control crime in the city. Tequila and Tony end up reluctant partners in a crusade to bring Wong to justice. Along the way they form a rivalry over the same woman and end up indebted to each other. Also thrown into the mix is Mad Dog, Johnny Wong's super hitman with a clear sense of honor in his profession.

Hard Boiled has an interesting problem. Barry Wong, the screenwriter died halfway through film, while he was still writing the screenplay. So Woo and his production staff had to cobble together some place for the film to go. Knowing this, it makes up somewhat for the rather random directions the picture goes in its latter half. There's also the fact that the character of Tony started out as an incredibly sociopathic character, going so far as to poison baby's milk. The actor wasn't too comfortable with playing a character like that and convinced Woo to make him more likable. Alongside this is a very uneven love story between Tequila and fellow officer.

What the film does well is the way it tells its story. Woo is amazing when it comes to framing shots and setting up elaborate sequences that turn normally dull shoot outs into ballet performances. Several times Woo chooses to drop the typical camera shots and go into first person or into some unexpected tracking shot that slowly reveals information to us. He's also influenced greatly by some unexpected sources, in particular Francois Truffat. If you've seen The 400 Blows, than you will recognize that same ending zoom in, freeze frame technique used here a handful of times. It surprisingly works and its impressive that Woo was thinking about such "arty" fare when composing a Hong Kong crime movie. Like I said before, Woo was inventing his own genre at this point in his career.

It's nothing spectacular. The weak story definitely hurt the film, but there are a number of interesting set pieces, in particular a mob-owned hospital the last half of the film takes place in. The film make use of practical special effects via explosions in way CG just can't ever mimic. A fun film that hearkens back to an era of uber violent and gaudy over the top crime movies.

Jolly Good Thursdays - Nil By Mouth

Nil By Mouth (1997, dir. Gary Oldman)
Starring Ray Winstone, Kathy Burke, Charlie Creed-Miles, Laila Morse

I didn't plan it this way, but Nil By Mouth is the perfect co-feature for yesterday's Harry Brown. Both films take place in the government funded estate housing and focus on some of the harsh and brutal realities of life there. While Brown goes for a more Death Wish, hyper-violent tone, Nil By Mouth is a documentary-like look at the people Harry so eagerly murders. The film's violence is not constant but comes in explosive and jolting moments. Every thing orbits around a single act of violence that takes place in the middle of the picture.

Ray (Winstone) is an ox, a violent brute of a man who is having his second child with Valerie (Burke). He maintains a disinterested relationship with her, going out at night with his mates, ingesting all sorts of drugs, drinking copious amounts of booze, and soliciting women at seedy strip clubs. When Valerie stays out to play pool with friends, Ray explodes. Also living in this war zone is Billy (Creed-Miles), Valerie's brother and Janet (Morse), Valerie's mother. Billy is a heroin addict who is constantly borrowing money from his mom and sleeping on a roulette wheel of couches. Janet is a helpless figure, standing back and watching her children's lives decay and, in Billy's case, driving him to drug dealers' houses so he can score.

The most obvious element that carries the film is Ray Winstone. I've seen Winstone in films like Sexy Beast and The Proposition and in both of those he plays more of the simmering, muted type. Here he is like a British Jake Lamotta, exploding but never in a showy way, more of a man who has never seen men react anyway other than with violence. There's a moment in the film when he has a conversation with his best mate Mark and talks about how unloving his father was. This monologue lays it out on the table that these men exist in a cycle of brutality. Why should we expect them to know how to show affection or control their rage when they have never seen a man do so, and when they live in a world where you prove yourself through the violence you inflict on others.

Not to be overshadowed is Kathy Burke as Valerie. Burke knows how to tap into the working class up bringing of her character. Valerie knows that her safety is dependent on Ray's presence. She overlooks his nightly outings and has a pretty strong suspicion he cheats on her with other women. Their relationship has come to the point where she simply doesn't care. She is pregnant with their second child and states that she wanted to have another child, but didn't want to find a different father. There's no love for Ray, he's just there. And Ray is with her so he has an anchor point to return to at the end of the night.

The film is soaked in profanity, but that is an accurate depiction of this world and the natural grammar of the place. I was reminded of Mike Leigh's films about the English working class and how often they are cited as "brutally true to life". They really have nothing on the grim reality of Oldman's directorial debut. It's not an easy film to watch. The accents are thick and require the American viewer to play close attention, and the subject matter is not pretty. However, we have to see the full view of these people so that we don't slip into the Harry Brown mentality.

Asian Cinema Month - Eat Drink Man Woman

All this month, in honor of Asian Heritage Month, I will be looking at some major films from the contemporary Asian cinema canon. While the term "Asia" can refer to areas as diverse as the Middle East, India/Pakistan, and the South Pacific, I will be focusing mainly on films out of China, South Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong. In the future I definitely plan on having a month devoted to Middle Eastern cinema....maybe not so much India, just not a fan of their pictures, too many crazy musicals.

Eat Drink Man Woman (1994, dir. Ang Lee)
Starring Sihung Lung, Kuei-Yei Yang, Chien-lien Wu, Yu-Wen Wang

Mealtime is a proven way of bonding with others. Whether its over a campfire, at a booth in a diner, or around the family dinner table, the act of breaking bread with others unites people in a very beautiful way. Even many animals hunt and dine together in packs, with somewhat of an understanding of the bonding that occurs when they do. Ang Lee presents the story of how food and the act of eating cobbles together a group of disparate people into a family.

The film is set in Taipei, Taiwan and focuses on Chu, the partiarch of a family made up of three daughters. Chu's wife died years earlier and now his three daughters live at home with him, each feeling the burden of watching after their obstinate and independent father. Every Sunday, Chu prepares a lavish feast of traditional Chinese cuisine, much more than enough for this small group. Chu has also unofficially adopted his middle daughter's old schoolmate and her daughter. As the story progresses, his three daughters begin to find men with whom they contemplate leaving home for. In many ways, this story is a variation of Fiddler on the Roof, very much about family and tradition.

I really liked this film, much more than I anticipated. I've been sort of back and forth with Ang Lee (didn't care for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but love Brokeback Mountain) so I wasn't sure how I would feel about this picture. I think Lee is best when he is dealing with small, character driven stories. The family surrounding Chu are very complex and real. There are no easy solutions and no acts of serendipity. The high drama you would expect from a Hollywood version of this tale is non-existent, yet there are emotional stakes. Chu has lost his sense of taste and so the act of preparing this meal has a deeper meaning to it. The eldest daughter is also a wonderful chef, but no thanks to Chu. He makes sure the kitchen is off limits to his children, so she learned from Chu's best friend and fellow chef when she was a child.

The way Lee films the cooking sequences is an example of a director at their peak. Everything about the methodical ways Chu prepares his dishes and the care he puts into them is absolutely apparent. The flavor of the dishes comes through the screen somehow and you can feel the steam coming off the dumplings and rich flavor of the stews and steamed fish. If you were putting together a list of films about food, this one definitely make it high on the list.

There honestly wasn't much about this film I didn't enjoy. It's a little over two hours, yet I was so engaged by it I never felt like checking the timecode to see how much was left. I was completely absorbed in the world and especially the characters Lee was presenting. While he has gone on to make bigger budget films, my hope is that Lee can always remain close to his early roots, making films that found their wonder in people, rather than effects.

Wild Card Tuesday - The Last Days of Disco

The Last Days of Disco (1998, dir. Whit Stillman)
Starring Chloe Sevigny, Kate Beckinsale, Robert Sean Leonard, Mackenzie Astin, Chris Eigeman, Tara Subkoff, Matt Keeslar, Jennifer Beals

If watching the burgeoning yuppies of early 1980s Manhattan sitting around vapidly waxing philosophic about the inanities of their lives doesn't sound appealing to you then you may want to skip this film. Despite its title its not at all about disco really. Its about a generation of people who came of age in the 1970s and are focused on self-gratification and the hierarchies and status related to social life in New York. Another of way of looking at it, and how director Whit Stillman was thinking when he made the film, is that this is contemporary take on the comedy of manners genre.


The protagonists of the film are Alice (Sevigny), a recent college grad and an assistant publishing editor and Des (Eigeman), the employee of a disco club which bears a more than passing resemblance to Studio 54. Alice balances a tenuous friendship with snarky roommate Charlotte (Beckinsale) and ending up in awkward social situations with immature men. One of these men is a manic-depressive FBI agent (Keeslar) who becomes a part of a sting on Des' nightclub which has been funneling cash to a Swiss bank account and failing to report millions the IRS. The characters meander through the film, talking in a completely artificial manner and nothing really seems to happen.

It's apparent that Stillman's work (Metropolitan, Barcelona) had a profound impact on the filmmaking of Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach. Stillman's characters aren't so much people as they are roughly painted facsimiles of humans who carry on in conversations peppered with Tarantino-esque pop culture references. One character explains that the reason why so many of his own generation are environmentalists is because of the 1958 re-release of Bambi in theaters. Another conversation involves how Lady and the Tramp teaches women to pursue the bad boy and is at fault for a multitude of bad relationships in their generation.

The characters are dull as hell though. They barely even qualify as characters, as Stillman loves introducing a new and even quirkier one as the film progresses. Yet we get nothing past their surface eccentricities and Stillman struggles to manage any sense of a narrative. He tries to create a partial drama with the illegal business practices of the nightclub but even when the arrests go down all parties involved seem aloof and uninterested. The first hour of the film has potential but the second goes off the rails and becomes a chore to wade through. Much like the decade it highlights the start of, its incredibly shallow with nothing to really say.

DocuMondays - Kurt and Courtney

Kurt and Courtney (1998, dir. Nick Broomfield)
Featuring Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, and a cast of thousands...of junkies

I was thirteen when Kurt Cobain killed himself, and honestly the front man for Nirvana existed on my periphery. The whole grunge scene has never been a music genre I enjoyed, I'm more of a 90s BritPop fan (Oasis, Blur, The Verve). But I can understand why the movement was so big, as it was a big deviation from the musical norms of the time. This docu, by Brit filmmaker Broomfield seeks to stir up some of the conspiracy theories surrounding Cobain's death and in the end isn't really about Kurt or Courtney, but about famewhoredom.



What stands out most about the film is the shoddiness. Made on the cheap, the documentary is narrated by Broomfield who doesn't do much to play the neutral observer, but pretty much interjects his personal opinions throughout. That doesn't make the film any less fascinating though, especially with its parade of "friends" of the Cobains. In particular, one young woman who takes Broomfield to a club where Kurt performed during his early days, and whom talks with expertise about seeing the Cobain couple shoot heroin. She promises Broomfield photographic evidence, and when he returns to her apartment later she is anxious and befuddled and has a million excuses as to why she hasn't been able to provide the photos. The woman is incredibly reminiscent of how Courtney Love is described throughout the documentary.

Broomfield pursues some wild leads, including the claim by S&M band member El Duce that Courtney offered him $50,000 to kill Kurt and "make it look like a suicide". A less reliable source you couldn't ask for. There's Courtney's former private investigator who now has "scientific" evidence that the amount of heroin in Kurt's blood made it impossible for him to handle the shotgun. However, Broomfield provides actual scientific evidence proving that it is possible, to which the investigator simply ignores. The most awful of Broomfield's interviewees is Courtney's father, a man writing and publishing books condemning his daughter for the murder of Kurt in what he explains as a way to keep in touch with his daughter.

Broomfield reasonably comes to the conclusion in the film's epilogue that Kurt most likely did commit suicide and that Courtney didn't pay anyone to kill him. What the documentary revealed to me was that at the end of the day both people came from incredibly messed up homes where a strong parental presence was absent. Kurt seems like a very personable, intelligent guy in some of the interview archival footage, and Courtney seems like a sad woman who made a habit of latching onto local musicians in the hope of grooming them into the next Sid Vicious, as a compliment to her Nancy Spungeon. The person you feel the saddest for is poor Frances, their daughter, whose childhood couldn't have been an easy one.

Kurt and Courtney is currently available to view on Hulu.com

Hypothetical Film Festival #11 - Ernest Saves the Film Festival

Yes, it's a film festival dedicated to one of the greatest thespians of the late 20th century: Mr. Jim Varney aka Ernest P. Worrell. KnowhutImean?

Ernest Goes to Camp (1987, dir. John R. Cherry III)
Starring Jim Varney, John Vernon, Iron Eyes Cody, Gailard Sartain

The Ernest character got his start as a pitchman for various local businesses in the Middle Tennessee and Kentucky areas. Eventually there were a series of straight to video skit compilation films that made way for this first theatrical endeavor. Ernest is a camp handyman, who wants to be a counselor. He gets his chance with a group of juvenile delinquents which leads to a series of slapstick sight gags. Meanwhile, an evil mining corporation wants to buy and shut down the camp to get to a rich vein of the fictional petrocite underneath it. Ernest rallies the juvies together for a big showdown with the corporate head, where our hero displays the Native American combat skills he learned along the way. A great start to the Ernest franchise.

Ernest Saves Christmas (1988, dir. John R. Cherry III)
Starring Jim Varney, Gailard Sartain, Billy Byrge, Douglas Seale, Oliver Clark

Arguably the high point of the entire Ernest franchise. In the same way The Godfather, Part II outshines its predecessor, so too does the first Ernest sequel trump the original. A jack of all trades, Ernest is now a cabbie working in Orlando, Florida who happens to pick up an old man from the airport claiming to be Santa Claus. It appears Santa is in town to name local children's television host Joe Curruthers as his replacement. Joe of course doesn't believe and is duped into starring in a Xmas themed film which betrays his ethics as a role model for children. The film actually has a very interesting meta-commentary on what Hollywood producers try to do to children's films like this one, by interjecting foul language or gory violence to appeal to older audiences. The one thing about the Ernest films is they never sold out on their trademark live action Looney Toons feel.

Ernest Goes To Jail (1990, dir. John R. Cherry III)
Starring Jim Varney, Gailard Sartain, Billy Byrge

This is my personal favorite out of all the Ernest films. Here our protagonist works as a bank janitor who is a double for death row inmate Felix Nash (also played by Varney). Ernest ends up in prison with Nash on the outside with plans to rob the bank. Two things makes this film phenomenal: Gailard Sartain and Billy Byrge as Chuck and Bobby, the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to Ernest's doofy Hamlet, and Ernest gaining magnetic superpowers during the jailbreak sequence. The Ernest franchise amped up the similarities to Pee Wee Herman in this film as well, with Ernest owning a home filled with Rube Goldberg-like devices.

Ernest Scared Stupid (1991, dir. John R. Cherry III)
Starring Jim Varney, Eartha Kitt, Billy Byrge

Meant to be a Halloween companion piece, Scared Stupid was shot in the Nashville, Tennessee like all the previous films (except for Saves Christmas). Ernest is a garbageman tasked with cleaning up the land owned by a strange old woman. Through a series of mishaps, Ernest releases a group of trolls that have cursed the land and finds out the old lady is a sorceress. The film's plot gets a lot more complicated than it deserves to be and makes it one of the weaker entries in the Greater Ernest Oeuvre. It is also hurt by the absence of Gailard Sartain as Chuck, yet keeps Bobby and gives him a new partner. They needn't have bothered. The series goes downhill from here...

Slam Dunk Ernest (1995, dir. John R. Cherry III)
Starring Jim Varney, Kareem Abdul Jabbar

Two films were released before this one (Rides Again, Goes To School) and they were lackluster. This picture isn't great compared to the first few films but was one of the last highlights in a dying franchise. Ernest is laundry worker, employed by the Charlotte Hornets, who dreams of becoming a pro-basketball player. He's visited by an angel (Jabbar) who gives him magic shoes that make Ernest a phenom. Of course Ernest dominates with the shoes, realizes the importance of teamwork and ends up scoring without the magic shoes. Hoorah! This was to be followed by the woefully racist Ernest Goes to Africa and the final Ernest in the Army.

Wild Card Tuesday - Eve's Bayou

Eve's Bayou (1997, dir. Kasi Lemmons)
Jurnee Smollet, Samuel L. Jackson, Meagan Good, Lynn Whitfield, Debii Morgan, Diahann Carroll, Vondie-Curtis Hall, Branford Marsalis

The thesis statement of Eve's Bayou is declared early on in the main character's voice over as an adult, recalling the events that transpired in her 10th year. "Memory is a selection of images, some elusive, others printed indelibly on the brain". This is a story told through the filter of years gone by and originally seen through the eyes of a child. Adult Eve tells us that when she was 10 she killed her father and the film gives us a couple explanations for this, emphasizing the distortion that occurs as a result of experiencing time passing.

The story begins with young Eve (Smollett), a resident of a Creole parish in Louisiana who lives comfortably on the estate of her doctor father (Jackson). It's the early 1960s and the patriarch of the family is caught by Eve having sex with one of his patients in the carriage house during a party in the home. He negotiates with the little girl afterwards, trying to convince her she didn't see what she thought and making promises of lavishing her with more attention than her older sister, Cicely (Good). More and more people in their small town become aware of what is going on within Eve's family and it becomes apparent that things will end on a dark note.

Eve's Bayou is full of classic Southern Gothic atmosphere, yet evoked a lot of European slow paced family dramas. Think William Faulkner meets Ingmar Bergman. The film is stylistic rich and uses the Creole religious practices as a framework for foreshadowing and mixing the dreamed up with the real. When Eve is told stories by her family we see them acted out around her, the characters appearing suddenly in mirrors and Eve standing in the middle of them. The film can can delve into the overly melodramatic at times, but because of the setting and general tone it doesn't seem too out of place.

Eve's Bayou isn't a perfect film, but for a first time venture into directing it is incredibly impressive. Director Simmons uses many African-American female crew member (including an amazing cinematographer) and focuses her story around the women of the family. What is so fascinating to me is the otherworldly nature of the place and time Simmons is capturing. The Creole culture has always occupied a different place in the racial history of our nation, and it is interesting to see a pocket of America where the economy and culture were driven by African-Americans. Eve's Bayou is about these places that seem unreal and about how our minds retain and discard the details of our history.