"Shallow Grave": a "full-throttle bit of Hitchcockian nastiness"

In 1994, before he directed Trainspotting or Slumdog Millionaire or 127 Hours (AKA the movie where James Franco cuts off his arm), Danny Boyle directed Shallow Grave--now out on a Criterion Collection DVD. 

Here's Criterion's blurb:

"The diabolical thriller Shallow Grave was the first film from director Danny Boyle, producer Andrew Macdonald, and screenwriter John Hodge (the smashing team behind Trainspotting). In it, three self-involved Edinburgh roommates—played by Kerry Fox, Christopher Eccleston, and Ewan McGregor, in his first starring role—take in a brooding boarder, and when he dies of an overdose, leaving a suitcase full of money, the trio embark on a series of very bad decisions, with extraordinarily grim consequences for all. Macabre but with a streak of offbeat humor, this stylistically influential tale of guilt and derangement is a full-throttle bit of Hitchcockian nastiness."

Here's part of what Tom Charity said about it in his Time Out review:

"This impressively assured, highly accomplished British feature doesn't dwell on moral niceties, but goes straight for the gut. John Hodge's screenplay has the kind of unrelenting forward momentum and close-to-the bone sense of purpose which sees you safely through a good many logical minefields, even if nagging question marks occur in retrospect. Given that most of the action takes place in the flat, it's remarkable how agile and invigorating Boyle's direction is. As the friends fall out, the movie loses some of its black comic edge, perhaps, but only to gain in sheer, back-stabbing, bloody-minded mayhem."

The Criterion disc contains some great extras, including recent interviews with the cast and a behind the scenes documentary that shows how 20-something producer-wannabe Andrew Macdonald spent years trying to get financing to make John Hodge's screenplay into a movie.  After financing was in place, they interviewed various directors, ultimately choosing the 37-year-old Boyle.  While Shallow Grave is his first theatrical film, he already had years of experience directing in the theater, along with years of directing TV shows and TV movies in England.

Here's one of Criterion's fun "Three Reasons" videos for the film:

If you're someone who insists that you must like the characters to like a movie, book, or play (I guess that means no Macbeth or Othello for you), you might want to skip this one.  Everyone here's a nasty piece of work.

"A Blessing" by James Wright (1927-1980)

Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,

Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.

And the eyes of those two Indian ponies

Darken with kindness.

They have come gladly out of the willows

To welcome my friend and me.

We step over the barbed wire into the pasture

Where they have been grazing all day, alone.

They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness

That we have come.

They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.

There is no loneliness like theirs.

At home once more,

They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.

I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,

For she has walked over to me

And nuzzled my left hand.

She is black and white,

Her mane falls wild on her forehead,

And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear

That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break

Into blossom.

FREE LACMA Admission This Week to See "Levitated Mass"

Here's LACMA's blurb:

"As a show of thanks to the many communities which saw and hosted the historic transport of

the 340-ton boulder that is now part of Michael Heizer’s Levitated Mass at LACMA, the museum is offering free admission to residents of select zip codes during the week of June 24 to July 1."

Among those zip codes are these from Long Beach: 90802, 90803, 90804, 90805, 90806, 90807, 90808, 90810, 90813, 90814, and 90815.  For more qualifying zip codes, go HERE .

What IS Levitated Mass ?  Here's what LACMA says:

"Levitated Mass by artist Michael Heizer is composed of a 456-foot-long slot constructed on LACMA's campus, over which is placed a 340-ton granite megalith. As with other works by the artist, such as Double Negative (1969), the monumental negative form is key to the experience of the artwork. Heizer conceived of the artwork in 1968, but discovered an appropriate boulder only decades later, in Riverside County, California. Taken whole, Levitated Mass speaks to the expanse of art history, from ancient traditions of creating artworks from megalithic stone, to modern forms of abstract geometries and cutting-edge feats of engineering."

The work was unveiled this past weekend, as you can see below.

I'm sure a number of you were aware of the boulder as it made its way through the area.  Here are a few of the photos I took as it was headed down Atlantic Ave. from Bixby Knolls, over the 405, and past Spring St.

 

See LACMA's WEBSITE for information about the other current exhibits (including a tribute to the title sequences from James Bond movies!).

In the Kingdom of Wes Anderson

Wes Anderson, director and co-writer of such films as Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, and Fantastic Mr. Fox, has a new movie out: Moonrise Kingdom.

With an impressive 95% Fresh critical consensus on the Rotten Tomatoes site (and a 92% from the non-professional-critic Audience), the film still has its haters.  I give you The New York Observer's Rex Reed:

"Preceded by bewildering blogs and Tweets (and even a few genuine reviews) from Cannes ('A Tender Triumph!' 'Glows in the Darkness!' 'Ode to Arrested Development!'), Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom is juvenile gibberish about two 12-year-olds who get married in a Boy Scout camp that is too sexually outrageous for the preteen age group it portrays and too tween for grown-ups. Like all Wes Anderson movies, it is naïve, mannered, pretentious and incomprehensible. He co-wrote it with Roman Coppola (yikes! another Coppola!). Together they were responsible for The Darjeeling Limited, one of the worst movies of all time. This one is neither as contrived as The Royal Tenenbaums nor as moronic as The Darjeeling Limited, but its boredom quotient is still stuck in the same unbroken wave of dubious tedium Mr. Anderson is famous for. (It also features another Coppola, the creepy Jason Schwartzman.) What is it with this guy and his awful movies masquerading as 'original ideas' that turns otherwise sensible critics into slobbering groupies?"

Reed would certainly fall into the group that Michael Specter calls Anderson's "detractors."  In a new Wall Street Journal piece (a mini-tribute, really) called "The World of Wes Anderson,"  Specter writes that Anderson "has been tagged with the loathsome term 'quirky,' largely because he has a particular vision and is tenacious in bringing it to life."

And whether you love his work or hate it, Anderson's work IS immediately recognizable as his.  Check out what he does with this recent car commercial:

Besides the "quirky" epithet, Anderson's work is also often dismissed for being "precious" and "twee."  I'm guessing that many who throw those terms around couldn't actually provide accurate definitions of either word, so let me turn to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

precious: "excessively refined: AFFECTED"

twee: "chiefly British : affectedly or excessively dainty, delicate, cute, or quaint"

And since both definitions refer to AFFECTATION, here's that definition: "the act of taking on or displaying an attitude or mode of behaviour not natural to oneself or not genuinely felt."

So the knock on Anderson seems to be that his work is fake, not genuine, pretentious, cutesy, and--something that seems to lurk under the surface of a lot of Anderson criticism--not suitably masculine.  I think there's a journal article there, but I want to move on.  Here's the trailer to Moonrise Kingdom:

Here are a few words from Wes Anderson:

"I want to try not to repeat myself. But then I seem to do it continuously in my films. It's not something I make any effort to do. I just want to make films that are personal, but interesting to an audience. I feel I get criticized for style over substance, and for details that get in the way of the characters. But every decision I make is how to bring those characters forward."

Here are a few words from me (or is that too twee?): I love some of Anderson's movies and don't respond to some others.  For me, the stylization works best when it reflects the imagination and originality of youthful protagonists.  At other times, it can have the effect of distancing us emotionally.  In Moonrise Kingdom, the Aesthetics (with a capital A) can keep us at arm's length, but slowly the movie pulls us in (if we let it), providing a surprisingly emotional pay-off.

But who cares what I think?  Wes Anderson is a stylish guy.  Just look at him.

Some might see affectation.  I see someone who is true to himself.

My Voyage to Italy

I got back from Italy a few days ago.  Of course, I was there for the food.

And for the antiquities.

And for the sense of history all around you.

And for the scenery.

Not to mention the people watching.

But a couple of hours after landing in Rome, I snapped the throngs of tourists at the Trevi fountain,

and foremost in my mind was Federico Fellini,

who used the fountain in a famous scene from his 1960 film La Dolce Vita.

And for the rest of the trip, the images I saw around me often brought to mind the images from classic Italian films.  "I saw these movies.  They had a powerful effect on me.  And you should see them."  Not my words but Martin Scorsese's, spoken in his nearly-four-hour-long documentary about Italian cinema My Voyage to Italy (1999).

In his film, Scorsese discusses the work of Fellini, along with that of other major Italian directors Luchino Visconti, Vittorio De Sica, Roberto Rossellini, and Michelangelo Antonioni, presenting generous clips from many great films that will make you want to fill a Netflix queue.  It's like sitting in on a university class taught by the best film professor imaginable.  His enthusiasm is infectious.

And the movies Scorsese discusses are ones that every serious student of film should know.

Here are a couple clips. The first focuses on Fellini's La Dolce Vita.

The next focuses on Visconti's Senso (1954).

"Fish Tank": Coming of Age in an English Housing Project

A couple weeks ago, I finally got around to watching Andrea Arnold's 2009 film Fish Tank, winner of the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival.  Images from it have come into my mind every day since.

Now available on a Criterion DVD, it can also be watched instantly on Netflix.  Here's the Criterion blurb:

SYNOPSIS: British director Andrea Arnold won the Cannes Jury Prize for the intense and invigorating Fish Tank, about a fifteen-year-old girl, Mia (electrifying newcomer Katie Jarvis), who lives with her mother and sister in the housing projects of Essex. Mia’s adolescent conflicts and emerging sexuality reach a boiling point when her mother’s new boyfriend (a lethally attractive Michael Fassbender) enters the picture. In her young career, Arnold has already proven herself to be a master of social realism, evoking the work of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach; and she invests her sympathetic portraits of dead-end lives with a poetic, earthy sensibility all her own. Fish Tank heralds the official arrival of a major new filmmaker.

The Criterion WEBSITE for the film has the trailer and one of their great "Three Reasons" videos for it, along with several articles.  Here's the trailer:

I like what Peter Rainer had to say in The Christian Science Monitor:

"Because Arnold hews the film so close to Mia's hurts, what might come across as a downer instead often has a startling immediacy. Only bad movies are depressing movies. "Fish Tank," for all its faults and vagaries, brings us up close to a fully realized human being, and that's revivifying.
Jarvis, who had no previous acting experience, was accidentally discovered by Arnold when she overhead the girl arguing with her boyfriend in a train station. Arnold was right to go with her instincts in casting an untrained unknown: Jarvis has an openness to the camera that a more accomplished performer might have lacked. Her acting has a moment-to-moment excitement because we can never tell what Mia will do."

I think it's worth your time.

Meet Ross, a Navajo Horse

This is Ross.

He's the star of Melissa Henry's award-winning short film Horse You See, in which he tells us about himself in the Navajo language and even sings a song.  Here it is:

In an interview, Melissa Henry was asked what she wanted viewers to take away from the film.

Melissa: I would just like them to be happy that they watched it, that it brings some sort of joy or happiness to their day, even if it's just for a little while. But for the more "serious" answer I'd like people to see that a film in the Navajo language can reach out to all audiences regardless of who they are or where they grew up. If anything it would be great that they become so curious that they use the movie to learn some Navajo words and phrases.

Melissa and her producer (and husband), Alfredo Perez, were asked what advice they could give to aspiring filmmakers.  Here's what they said:

Alfredo: Melissa grew up in the Navajo reservation with limited access to TV, so she and her brothers had to make their own fun and exercise their imaginations playing in nature and with animals around them. So my advice I guess is for people to try to tell their own stories and not so much copy other things they've seen. Postmodernism has its limits, eventually you run out of movies to quote and pay homage to, and your audience is exhausted and hungry for new and different things. So just go with your own idea and make your own movie. It can be hard to come up with new things if you grew up surrounded by media, but it's always possible to offer a fresh approach. Then other people can quote you instead.

Melissa: Do something that's fun, do something that's going to be worth the time you'll be putting into the movie. Also, when you get too much advice from other people it can really cloud what you are aiming for, so you need to find people who really know you and you really trust. Find a good producer, someone who believes in what you're doing and who will fight for your vision.

Melissa and Alfredo started Albuquerque's Red Ant Films in 2003 "to create original films in the Navajo language."  HERE is a link to their website.