IFFBoston Coverage Coming Soon

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The festival is next week, April 19-24, and I’ll be blogging it again this year…stay tuned…

You Get No Special Points For Honesty

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That is a theme I am dealing with lately and then I came across this quote from Caveh Zahedi:

“I had hoped that being completely honest would bring us closer together. But I had seriously miscalculated.”

Israeli Porn

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It just so happens that I was wondering a few days ago what porn would be like in Israel. Now Nerve.com’s film issue has an article that tells us! Thanks nerve. It turns out, Middle Eastern politics even reach into porn.

“Both men are frustrated with their country’s increasingly corrupt central government and want to make a statement. So today, in this nondescript room at the Sheraton, the peach taffeta curtains are tightly drawn. Turkish coffees and oily boxes of burekas, a popular Middle Eastern pastry, are scattered among containers of wet wipes and lube. …Their film is called The Wet Party. … to gain entry into the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, the fictional Wet party bribes fellow politicians with sex instead of cash. Their platform includes a pledge: if elected to power, they’ll allow women to divert a portion of their paycheck toward breast-enhancement surgery, sort of like a 401k.”

How To Cope With Depression

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Cartoon here.

More on the Scariest Movie EVER (with spoilers)

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More than a week after watching Pulse (Kairo), I am now finally able to sleep with the lights off again. And perhaps write a little about it. I have never in my life been so disturbed by a movie. And I like scary movies. But this one was different. In American horror films you can expect that the ghost is always caught or saved or figured out in the end. Solve their murder and they’ll leave you alone, etc. This brings some sense of closure. You watch these movies knowing you’ll walk away having a handle on it. Even if, like in The Ring, (to which this movie is compared) there is the suggestion that the ghost isn’t actually gotten rid of, that is usually perceived more as just a marketing ploy to let us know there’s going to be a sequel. We don’t actually walk out scared that that little girl is gonna come get us. Or at least I didn’t. (Spoilers ahead)

But this movie is Japanese and didn’t have this closure. In fact once it’s figured out what is the deal with these horrifying spectres, it just gets worse and more horrifying. Partly because the explanation we are given makes no sense. This is basically just faulty storytelling, but in the context of the film it doesn’t matter. In fact it makes it scarier, because the unknown is always scarier than the explained. Every scary movie ceases to be scary once its mystery is explained. So the fact that the “explanation” we get makes no sense keeps it unknown and myserious. To add to this, the problem is not “solved” in the end–in fact the ghosts win. It is an apocalyptic ghost story with no sense of closure (unless you consider an existential apocalypse with all but two people on the planet dead and soon to die closure). So not only do we never quite understand these ghosts, but they win. When you walk out of the theater, they’re still out there. Creeping around in the corners of my bedroom and forcing me to keep the lights on while I sleep.

I can’t think of any American horror film that does this, but then I’m not really a conisseur of horror films. I just see a few of the big-name ones once in awhile, and they all definitely follow a certain formula that is completely overturned in this film. It is a total mindfuck. I’m curious to see the American remake now, to see if it makes the film conform to the typical commercial American horror genre standards. (UPDATE: I have been reminded of Blair Witch Project, which does in fact let the ghost win. But for some reason that movie didn’t scare me at all. Plus the ‘witch’ is contained to one specific area that you’d have to enter specifically in order to see her, so all we gotta do is avoid that area and we’re safe. In Pulse, the ghosts are everywhere, day and night, public places and private, whether you turn your computer on voluntarily or not.)

I should add that the film has its hokey moments, of course, like all horror films. There is a ridiculously inane conversation between one of the main characters and a grad student in computer science–her brilliant expert advice for his ghost-in-the-computer problem is to hit the print screen button. Or to “click it to bookmark it.” Was the writer of this screenplay unable to locate a single person who had the most basic computer knowledge to tell him how laughable that is? Apparently not.

Creepy Movie Update

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I have been sleeping with the light on for the past few days thanks to this damn movie. If you are at all sensitive to these kinds of things I suggest you DON’T SEE IT.

Creepiest Movie Ever

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I couldn’t even watch it all, had to turn it off after a half hour. Then I woke up at 3am and couldn’t get those creepy images out of my head. It may turn out to be a cheesy film (if I ever manage to watch the whole thing) but the first half hour has scared the shit out of me.

UPDATE: I have been sleeping with the light on thanks to this damn movie. If you are at all sensitive to this sort of thing I suggest you DON’T SEE IT.

Lamest Web Design Ever

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I’d like to support the FullFrame Documentary Film Festival but I have to say they have the lamest web design I have ever seen: http://www.fullframefest.org/evac/burning.html.

Total cheese. I am embarassed for them.

Herzog Shot During Interview

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How am I so late in hearing about this? I adore this man, his legend just keeps growing. Who needs to watch his films, he himself is pure entertainment:

“German director Werner Herzog was shot by a crazed fan during a recent interview with the BBC.

The 63-year-old was chatting with movie journalist Mark Kermode about his new film, documentary Grizzly Man, when a sniper opened fire with an air rifle.

Kermode explains, “I thought a firecracker had gone off.

“Herzog, as if it was the most normal thing in the world, said, ‘Oh, someone is shooting at us. We must go.’

“He had a bruise the size of a snooker ball, with a hole in. He just carried on with the interview while bleeding quietly in his boxer shorts.”

An unrepentant Herzog insisted, “It was not a significant bullet. I am not afraid.”

Also this:

Herzog Helped Phoenix from Car Wreckage

Oscar-nominee Joaquin Phoenix was rescued from his car wreck last week by German cult director Werner Herzog. The 31-year-old Walk The Line star overturned his car on a canyon road above Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood after his brakes failed and he collided with another vehicle. Phoenix was saved because he was wearing his seat-belt, but has revealed he was helped from the wreckage by the 63-year-old, who has a home nearby. The actor says, “I remember this knocking on the passenger window. There was this German voice saying, ‘Just relax.’ There’s the airbag, I can’t see and I’m saying, ‘I’m fine. I am relaxed. Finally, I rolled down the window and this head pops inside. And he said, ‘No, you’re not.’ And suddenly I said to myself, ‘That’s Werner Herzog‘ There’s something so calming and beautiful about Werner Herzog’s voice. I felt completely fine and safe. I climbed out. I got out of the car and I said, ‘Thank you,’ and he was gone.”

Happy-Making Movie

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Shaolin Soccer.
It is sublimely ridiculous. I can’t even find words to describe it.
Something like Farrelly Brothers meeets Kung Fu Bollywood, I guess.
Here are a few terms used to describe it by other critics, all of which
I agree with:

“buoyant goof…”
“lunatic whirl…”
“like live action anime…”
“has a way of lifting spirits…”
“an infectious knockabout…”
“silliest, sweetest…films in recent memory”
“empty-headed treat…”

Bujalski@BU

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In more ways than one. I almost didn’t post about this because they’ve booked him into a tiny room that fits about 40 people and has such poor circulation that it gets VERY HOT when the room is half-full, but here goes. Andrew Bujalski will be at BU to show Mutual Appreciation, and Rachel Clift, one of the co-stars and one of my former BU grad school colleagues whom I interviewed about the film here will also be at the event. But even more amazing is the note that he is now teaching film production at BU. Score for my alma mater! Here are the details:

Friday, January 27-AN EVENING WITH ANDREW BUJALKSI-BU proudly welcomes its new film production instructor Bujalski, whose acclaimed “cult” movie, Funny Ha Ha, was named one of the Ten Best Films of the Year by the New York Times. Bujalksi will offer a sneak preview screening of his new comedy feature, Mutual Appreciation, prior to its release, a sublimely eccentric story of a post-grad guy who moves from Boston to NYC and seeks a drummer for his two-person indie band. The chief love interest in the movie is played superbly by Rachel Clift, ex-BU film graduate student. She will be joining Bujalski for the Q&A. 640 Comm.Ave., BU College of Communication, Room B-05, 7 pm.

I Made Another Photo Essay!

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Well not really. It’s just a reformatted version of my dumpster movie that you’ve probably already seen. I wanted to see what it would look like as an photo essay now that I know how to do photo essays. And somehow it looks better on flickr. So check it out if you haven’t seen it already, or see the original version on flickr.

Also if you want to see my werewolf movie let me know–the file’s too big to post here, it’d crash the server. Plus it’s sort of illegal because it’s a mashup of American Werewolf in London with my own footage.

I Made A Photo Essay!

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It’s called I Hate Travel. I made it from scratch with basic HTML. There’s gotta be an easier way to do this, Tony.

Hidden/Cache�–WITH SPOILERS

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The house was packed for a 4:20 Friday matinee of Cache’, I was shocked. I was expecting to have the theater to myself. And I saw several people I knew. Boston is such a small town. Or rather, it’s such a small film town. Every time I go to an event that is interesting mostly just to film geeks, I see several people I know. There were many I didn’t know though, some of which I wanted to strangle for not turning their cell phones off EVEN AFTER THEY WERE RINGING or for saying stupid things to the screen like “Oh my God what a psycho. Why would he do something like that?”

Despite this, I relished Cache’. Several critics are complaining about the film’s heavy-handed allegorical aspects–a heavy dose of self-satisfying white guilt over ‘the Algerian situation’ in France and the broader issues of Imperialism, the Iraq war and other Arab countries. (The image above is considered the most egregious example–for a very extended take, the couple stands on either side of the frame worrying about their son, who hasn’t come home from swimming practice yet, oblivious to the large TV screen in between them which blares with bloody images and news of deaths and violence in the Arab world.) And while these complaints are valid, I think (or perhaps I prefer to think) that despite this specific allegory, Haneke is always aiming for something more universal than that. I think that in part explains the uncertainty that surrounds the events of the story, to the very end. If he were merely commenting on France’s treatment of Algerians, would he leave it unspoken whether the two Algerians involved were actually involved? In keeping this uncertainty he steps back a bit from specific political arguments and instead makes the film about what all his films are about, basically: destabilizing (or perhaps more appropriately, terrorizing) comfy upper-middle-class intellectual families forcing them to confront The World Out There. In Time of the Wolf he used unspecified apocalyptic disaster, here it is racial tension and Imperialism. Perhaps it says more about me than about the films that I do very much enjoy watching Haneke knock the intellectual upper-crust families off their pedestals.

At any rate, heavy-handed political allegory or no, I was still enthralled by the stunning (DV) cinematography, acting, and skillful sense of dread and uncertainty that is woven into this and every Haneke film. But mostly, I just get lost in his images. His long takes. His decidedly unromantic and spare use of violence that makes it so much more shocking, and somehow so much more ethical, than most cartoonish movie violence that ultimately shields us from its impact. His movies really need to be seen on the big screen, too much is lost on a television screen. You need to immerse yourself in his images, accustom yourself to their rhythm.

I do agree with the critics, though, that this is not Haneke’s greatest film–I reserve that title for Time of the Wolf–but it is a very good film, and very much a Haneke film. But one might also call it a Bergman film, or a Tarkovsky film, or a Kiarostami film.

Upcoming Review

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A new Michael Haneke film is just what’s needed to get me excited about seeing movies again. This is where I’ll be tomorrow night. I am both excited and scared. He is in my opinion one of the greatest living directors. Time of the Wolf is my favorite film of all time. You’ll hear about the new one here…

Confirming Netflix Fears

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Thanks to Adam for sending me this link: Your postman may be stealing your Netflix.
Mine were definitely taken by a neighbor, as they were taken before the
mailman came for the day. But I have in the past had about 3-4 dvds go
missing after I put them in official U.S. post office boxes on the
street, and I always suspected the mailman…

Funny Quote from a Boring Movie:

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“I’d rather be happy than be right, any day.”
“Are you happy?”
“Well, no. That’s where it breaks down then, isn’t it.”

–Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Pasty Gangsta Cliche

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My first review on my new pure-film blog will be a mini-review, a
mini-rant: all you people raving about that stupid SNL Chronicles of
Narnia video and emailing it around and posting it to blogs must be
REALLY desperate for SNL to be good again (sorry to my brother, and
Dave). It’s mildly amusing and not at all a new concept (pasty white
boys appropriating gansta rap, ooh how original–6 years ago my grad
school class had a professor with a british accent recite some gangsta
rap as if it were poetry…it wasn’t really fresh then either).

Happy New Year, Babies

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New Year, new blog look, new blog focus. This will be come a pure-film
blog from now on, personal stuff will no longer be posted here. For
that you’re gonna have to talk to/email/IM me. I will post one review a
week along with other various other film-related bits. If the damn
Harvard server manages to stay up, that is.

More Netflix Woes

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Maybe it was a mistake to broadcast how much money I was saving on DVD rental with the Netflix History Analyzer. Lately I have been noticing slower turnaround times and longer waits for movies in my queue, and then I read this in their Terms of Service:

In determining priority for shipping and inventory allocation, we give priority to those members who receive the fewest DVDs through our service. As a result, those subscribers who receive the most movies may experience that (i) the shipment of their next available DVD occurs at least one business day following return of their previously viewed movie, (ii) delivery takes longer, as the shipments may not be processed from their local distribution center and (iii) they receive movies lower in their queue more often than our other subscribers. Other factors that may affect delivery times, include, but are not limited to, (i) the distance between the distribution center from which your DVD was shipped and your delivery address, (ii) the timing of your placement or adjustment of movies in your queue and (iii) circumstances impacting delivery by the U.S. Postal Service.

And then I found this:

Netflix “Throttling” Defined

Consumers will come across the term “throttling” when researching Netflix on the Internet. In 2003, Netflix stated that it loses money on customers paying less than $2.00 per rental. To counter this loss Netflix created an inventory allocation and delivery system that curbs users from paying less than $2.00 per rental. Thus, frequent users will experience long shipping delays, especially for new releases. The Netflix Turnaround Calculator is an example of throttling.

So I’ve been pegged a heavy user and they’re slowing me down. Damnit. I guess this is what the recent lawsuit was about. I had never had problems with service before so I didn’t really know what the fuss was about. I can understand that they have to make a profit, but why be so secretive? Why not take the “unlimited” off the label and say $17.99 for 8 movies a month? Or just make us pay a little more for *true* unlimited rentals. That would be totally understandable. But now I’m upset because I feel like I don’t want to do business with such a shady company. And I *love* Netflix.