Microcosmos (1996)

  This fell under the week of "Animal Experience" in my Film class.  Basically watching films from a perspective other than human.  We were assigned this and Bambi, which I have already reviewed for this site.

This is more of a documentary style which purports via Kristin Scott Thomas voiceover to be a day in the life of the insects all around us.  Except we know this must have taken weeks, if not months, to film using very specialized cameras and manipulated environments.  So, not cinéma vérité.  But still informative.  The camera takes viewers down to ground level and follows bugs from land to water to air pretty comprehensively.  Scale is what is truly important and impressive here.  A pheasant is about the size of an American football without the feathers, but to an ant it is larger and more destructive than Godzilla.  It's also interesting to see some of the social and hunting behaviors of insects.  There are ants farming aphids like little green dairy cows and a spider creating an air bubble hunting lair to snag insects underwater.

Personally, I think we could have gotten the same effect from Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and it would have fit the "sci-fi" theme of the class better.  This is just a garden-variety nature documentary that has most likely already been eclipsed by newer, more advanced nature documentaries.  Probably by the BBC.  Those people really know how to film nature.

Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009)

  The prequel no one asked for and no one needed.  The backstory was sufficiently explained in the first movie and this is really just a shameless grab for cash.

Lucian (Michael Sheen) is the first lycan born with the ability to change back into a human.  This is enough of a marvel that Viktor (Bill Nighy) spares his life and makes something of a pet of him.  While also forcing Lucian to bite other humans and turn them into creatures just like him so Viktor can have a slave army.  Lucian plans to escape but he doesn't want to leave until he can convince his lover, Sonja (Rhona Mitra), Viktor's daughter, to leave with him.  Meanwhile, Viktor is under a lot of pressure as a leader.  The other vampires are concerned about the rogue lycans attacking and there are whispers that Viktor can't even keep his own daughter under his thumb.  So when the inevitable truth about Sonja and Lucian comes out, he overreacts just a bit.

Honestly, if this movie hadn't given Bill Nighy more to do, it wouldn't even be worth writing about.  I love that man, though.  He gives 100% even when a movie doesn't deserve his name in the credits.  Also, Rhona Mitra is way too good to be wasting her time here as Kate Beckinsale's understudy.  She absolutely should have her own franchise as an ass-kicking heroine.

Just one more of these damn things to go.

Pina (2011)

    I had to write a review for my film class and this was one of the movies available to choose.  It was already in my queue from the 2012 Oscars.  Because I'm lazy, I'm just going to copy what I turned in for her class.  So if it seems a little more structured than my usual ranting, that's why.

This is a film about dance, of course, but more importantly it’s a film about legacy.  Pina Bausch was a pioneer of modern dance and this film by Wim Wenders certainly highlights the explosive energy and lyrical fluidity of her choreography.  It also allows the grieving dancers a chance to reflect on her sudden death and what she meant to each of them personally.  We the viewers are spared a boring recitation of her background and biographical data, as the dancers most close to her share their most personal memories.  As a feature-length eulogy, this has the potential of being extremely maudlin but Wenders intercuts the dancers’ voiceover monologues with stunningly shot dance tributes, leavening their sorrow with an ethereal lightness.  

            Several of the dancers discussed Pina’s deep-seated loneliness, with one woman remarking that it was as though Pina had a hole in her center that could never be filled.  Perhaps that’s what drove her to create dances heavily reliant on themes of connection between men and women, humanity and nature, feeling and thought. Her Café Müller piece showcases the isolation and blind groping for belonging amid the uncertainties and anxieties of the human condition.  Dancers with eyes closed move across a black stage littered with chairs and tables while a frantic man tries to clear the obstacles from their path.  The tension is palpable as is the sense of awe at the level of trust she inspired among her troupe.

            Grief is a terrible emotion that wrenches you from your daily life at the most unexpected moments:  on the subway, crossing the street, being slowly pulled down a mineshaft past the world’s creepiest graffiti, or quietly contemplating a stream in the park. The dancers of Tanztheater are given the extraordinary opportunity to find free expression of their grief in solos and duets ranging from stoic and sad to joyful, grateful, and humorous, all framed in Wenders’ lush cinematography and trademark juxtaposition of pastoral softness and stark industrialism.

            Wenders is considered one of the foremost German directors and has always been drawn to the sense of the mystical.  This is why I think he was initially drawn to Pina’s work, recognizing in her a kindred spirit.  Her Vollmondpiece highlights her often austere, cold set design contrasted against the vitality and exuberance of her dancers.  A large rock dominates part of the stage while water pours in the background, slowly filling the stage.  Dancers cavort singly, in pairs, or in small groups, echoing the fluidity of the water in the flowing fabric of the women’s dresses and loose hair as well as in the swoops and falls of their dancing.  The energy remains high and playful throughout the excerpt, and the movements are marked by precision in their repetitions, with each gesture seeming to be performed at exactly the same level of effort every time.  They are joyous but disciplined.

I thought this film was icredibly beautiful and poignant.  I didn’t know anything about Pina Bausch before I sat down to watch it and now I not only have a sense of her work but also a profound consciousness of her as a person, feared, revered, deeply respected.  She pushed people to greatness but loved them even when they failed.  I can’t think of a greater thing to leave behind.

Icarus (2017)

  This is the documentary that won at this year's Oscars and I can kind of see why.  It starts out a guy trying to cheat the system to see if he can and ends up a huge global conspiracy.

Bryan Fogel is an amateur cyclist.  He's competed in some of the hardest races available and never made it to the top 10.  He's okay with that until the whole Lance Armstrong bust for blood doping.  That sets Bryan to thinking.  Could he beat all the safeguards in place and race while doping?  He calls people, high up in the anti-doping world, doctors, people who have spent their lives and careers ensuring a sense of fair play.  They agree to help him start on a program.  Then his anti-doping guy chickens out, but not before he tells Fogel about Grigory Rodchenkov, head of the Russian anti-doping agency.  Rodchenkov is enthusiastic and he and Fogel meet several times and Skype over Fogel's treatment regimen and plans for getting past the safeguards so he doesn't get caught.  Along the way, Rodchenkov drops the bomb that Russia has a state-sponsored doping program for its athletes, which is then confirmed by a German TV exposé, forcing Rodchenkov to flee for his life.

This story snowballs totally before kind of fizzling out at the end.  I'm still watching the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics (I'm so far behind on TV.  I'm not even kidding) and the Olympic Athletes from Russia are not doing so hot.  This scandal has wrecked the legacy of the country and tainted even the innocent athletes.  I don't generally give a shit about sports and I don't really care who's taking what but...

No, I still don't care.  I was sitting there for five solid minutes trying to think of one aspect of this situation that affected me emotionally or psychologically and came up empty.  I don't care.  It's interesting to see how they did it and kind of impressive to what lengths they went, but I just don't give a shit beyond mild interest.

If you like sports, however, this might be something you'd want to watch.  The process is pretty fascinating.

Under the Skin (2013)

  This is a deeply weird film and definitely not for everyone.  Parts of it are stunning but there's a lot of boring in between.  This was also assigned for "Feminism in Sci-Fi" and while it does qualify as science fiction, I have objections to it being designated feminist.  Just because your main character is a woman doesn't mean you have a feminist film.

An unnamed woman (Scarlett Johansson) trawls the streets of Scotland night after night.  She pretends to need directions in order to get men to talk to her and find out if they have any attachments.  Single men who live alone are offered a ride, which quickly becomes a flirtation and offer to come home with the woman.  Once in her house, the men are stripped and sunk into the floor where they are absorbed for fuel.  The alien woman then resumes her hunting.  One night, she picks up a man with elephantiasis (Adam Pearson) and goes through the usual routine, only to be struck with compassion for the first time ever.  She sets him free and runs, but is unable to truly assimilate into this complex and frightening world.

This is basically ScarJo playing a serial killer, and I am totally on board with that.  As I was watching I thought "Okay, is this movie interrogating male privilege by showing that none of them have any inborn fear of being prey?  Is it challenging the cult of beauty by having someone who looks like ScarJo be cold and empty inside with any perceived virtues projected onto her by the men she picks up?  Are any of these men actually actors or did the director just tell her 'Drive around and see how many dudes will get in a car with you'?" and so on.  Then her crisis of conscience happened and I was profoundly disappointed.  From that point, she becomes another Little Girl Lost trope, following the first good Samaritan she finds like an obedient puppy.  The ending felt more and more inevitable as it approached and depressed me even further.

So I cannot in good conscience describe this film as anything beyond "interesting."  Yes, Johansson does get completely naked.  No, you can't really see anything so there aren't even any prurient reasons to watch this film.  Skip it.

Princess Mononoke (1997)

  This is the first real chance I've had to sit down all day.  I should not be working this hard on a Saturday, but my dumbass decided to have a wine and cheese party, which required making my hovel look slightly more like where an actual person lives, not a hobgoblin.

That's neither here nor there, however.  We're going to talk about Princess Mononoke today.  This was assigned for my film class under the heading "Feminism in Sci-Fi" so we will also discuss a) how this isn't sci-fi and b) why it's also not feminist.

A young man named Ashitaka (Yoji Matsuda) saves his village from a demon-ridden giant boar but is contaminated by the same evil spirit.  The wise woman (Mitsuko Mori) discovers that the boar was driven mad by an iron shot and sends Ashitaka west to learn where it was made.  After a long journey, Ashitaka comes to the lands of Lady Eboshi (Yūko Tanaka), a wealthy industrialist at war with the gods of the forest.  She has been clearcutting the land in order to mine the iron sands for her weapons manufacturing and it was her iron shot that drove the boar god mad.  Ashitaka is willing to work with her but is also drawn to San (Yuriko Ishida), the adopted human daughter of Moro (Akihiro Miwa), the wolf god, Lady Eboshi's chief adversary in the forest.

Okay.  Point a) first.  This is not sci-fi.  This is fantasy.  Historical fantasy, if you really want to be specific, but broadly, fantasy.  Once upon a time, they were under the same umbrella but not anymore.   Fantasy is a separate genre.

B)  This is not a "feminist" film.  Just because there is a feminist character doesn't make it a feminist film.  Lady Eboshi is clearly the villain, no matter her attempts to decriminalize sex work and provide compassionate care for the disabled (lepers).  She is also arguably profiting more from the labors of both parties, which minimizes the empathy viewers may be asked to feel.  The action is driven by Ashitaka, with both San and Eboshi existing to spur his reactions.  That is the opposite of a feminist film.

This is exactly the kind of bullshit argument misogynist nerds make to claim they are not misogynists.  Don't fall for it.  Enjoy Princess Mononoke for what it is --an environmentalist morality play-- and don't try and read what isn't there.  Also, don't watch the dubbed Disney version.  It is shit.

Reds (1981)

  This is one of the movies I watched for extra credit in my Art class.  I would  never have seen it otherwise and probably never have even heard of it.  I wish I could say that it is one of those fantastic underseen gems but it's pretty awful.

Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) is a modern 1910's woman who is unfairly held down by the social mores of her time.  That and her husband (Nicholas Coster), who doesn't appreciate her art or her need to be established under her own name.  Then she meets young firebrand John Reed (Warren Beatty) at a rather dull party and gets pulled into his wake at the forefront of American Communist sympathy.  Reed runs a left-wing paper and consorts with radicals like Max Eastman (Edward Hermann), Emma Goldman (Margaret Stapleton), and playwright Eugene O'Neill (Jack Nicholson).  Louise finds it terribly exciting at first, then realizes that A) she'll never measure up to these people or get their attention and B) she'll never have Reed's full attention.  So she leaves to pursue her own path, ending up a war correspondent in Europe.  John finds her and convinces her to join him platonically as he covers the on-going Bolshevik revolution in Russia.  This joint venture sees them finally coming together as partners, which rekindles their previous relationship, even as the tide of public opinion in America turns against them.

The older I get, the more irritating I find Diane Keaton's acting.  Her character is so obnoxious that I started fast-forwarding through scenes just because she was in them.  I didn't even finish watching the movie.  She was in too much of it.  And I've never been one of those people that found Warren Beatty attractive.  He has too much of a puppy face for me.  So I couldn't enjoy him either.

Plus, the movie is three hours long.  That's about two hours too many.  The dramatized scenes are intercut with interviews from people who knew the actual John Reed and Louise Bryant.  Those interviews are the only parts worth watching.  If Beatty had just made a straight documentary with them, I would have watched the hell out of it.  But he didn't, and here we are.

If you are interested in more details about Reed and the people he worked with and championed, I'm sure there are some great books to be read.  Skip this movie.  It is not worth the pain.

Underworld: Evolution (2006)

  So here is the second movie in the Underworld franchise.  It's slightly better than the first, if only because the focus has switched from just Selene (Kate Beckinsale) to Selene and Michael (Scott Speedman) as a couple, even though they've only really known each other for about three days, according to the in-film timeline.

Beginning right where the first film left off, Selene and Michael find themselves targeted by the surviving elder, Marcus (Tony Curran), after some werewolf blood dripped on him while in stasis.  His brother, William (Brian Steele), has been locked in a prison for centuries as the progenitor of the lycan breed.  From the blood memories he ingested, Marcus knows that Selene has the key to William's prison as well as the childhood memory of its location and he is willing to do anything to get those things.  Selene knows that releasing William, who differed from his more famous descendant Lucian (Sir Not-Appearing-in-This-Film) in that once he bit he stayed furry, will be the beginning of a plague of lycanthropes.  To stop him, she must uncover a deep secret of the vampires.

This is still a relatively shitty film.  The plot is paper-thin and relies a lot on panic instead of reason.  For example, the first time she sees Marcus, she runs even though she objectively had no reason to at that point.  It wasn't clear that Marcus knew anything about Viktor's (Sir Also-Not-Appearing-in-This-Film) death and the vampire factions are so split, it would have made more sense for her to look to him as an ally.

Also, the words "gratuitous nudity" apply here.  I generally have no problem with nudity, even when it doesn't relate directly to the plot, but this was just silly.  It's less than a minute but its very brevity argues against its inclusion.  There's just no point other than to keep men's attention.

Last Men in Aleppo (2017)

  This was nominated for Best Documentary this year but I really feel like it's a little greedy to win an Oscar for The White Helmets and then turn around and basically make the same movie over again to try and win the Best Documentary Feature.  That said, it is really important to keep drawing attention to the innocent civilians caught in the pincers of the Syrian Civil War right now.  I just feel like there are more stories to be told than of just these guys.

The Syrian Civil Defense workers, internationally known as the White Helmets, are still doing what they can as rescue workers and public safety officers in the war-torn city of Aleppo, Syria.  They struggle with the seeming futility of their tasks.  Khalid worries about how his children will grow up but knows that they won't leave Syria without him.  Ahmed is desperately afraid of losing his younger brother, also a White Hat, and having to tell their parents.  Every day they lose resources and their centers are deliberately targeted by the regime for bombing.  These men are exemplary because they continue no matter what.  Even after they've personally lost hope.  They get up and they go to work to keep their neighbors and countrymen from losing hope.

This is super depressing and it didn't even win.  I think it's important as a subject but I'm not going to say I enjoyed watching it.  Watch The White Helmets instead.  Same information, but earlier so they weren't quite so riddled with exhaustion and trauma.

Z (1969)

  I don't know why I'm finding this movie so hard to write about.  I tried to put it up last Monday and couldn't get started on it.  I tried to put it up yesterday and only got as far as the poster.  I refuse to be defeated.  It is going up today even if all I have to say about it is "Movie good.  See movie."

When the leader of a leftist organization (Yves Montand) is killed during a demonstration, an independent magistrate (Jean-Louis Trintignant) is called in to head the mandatory investigation.  Tempers are running high on both sides, eye witness accounts are wildly misleading, as is usual, but the magistrate finds that there is a deeper conspiracy afoot and what seemed like a tragic accident is actually political assassination.

This is based on true events that happened just before a right-wing military coup in Greece.  I don't pretend to be familiar with Greek politics so I found it a little confusing until I realized that it all basically boils down to people in power being afraid that their power is going to be taken away.  That's pretty universal.

There are a lot of lists that say things like "10 Films You Have to See Before You Die," "Films You Have to See to be a Film Person," "Top 10 Films to Prove to Your Friends How Smart You Are," and whatnot.  I've never really done anything like that because I firmly recognize that film -like all art- is subjective.  However, I do think that this film in particular should be seen by any and everyone.  Like it, love it, hate it, just don't get it -- it's important that you see it and form an opinion.  The world is political, like it or not, and there's really no standing on the sidelines.

Born in Flames (1983)

  This is supposed to fall under "African American Sci-Fi" in my film class but I didn't see a lot of sci-fi elements.  If anything, it would be alternate future which I wouldn't classify the same way.  But maybe I'm just nit-picking.

This is a very low-budget indie film and it was relatively hard for me to find.  I ended up going to a site called Kanopy that has a ton of documentaries, Criterion Collection films, and just generally hard-to-find, obscure films.  Unfortunately, you have to have some kind of university or school credentials to access it so that sucks.  If you can find this film through other means, give it a shot.

After the installation of a socialist government in the United States, a counter-revolution begins to address the widespread violence and discrimination against women, LGBT individuals, and other minority groups that persists.  Adelaide Norris (Jean Satterfield) becomes the unofficial leader of the Women's Army.  The film tracks her progress from community organizer to revolutionary to martyr and figurehead as she challenges the institutions of power.

I'm going to be honest:  at times, I forgot I wasn't watching a documentary.  It's that grainy, low-fi video that gets me.  It's an alarmingly prescient film with regards to the Women's Movement in 2017 and the push for more intersectionality and greater representation in all modes of life.  The installation of a full-out socialist government is a holdover nightmare from the Cold War but it gets brought up by foam-flecked pundits often enough that it could also be a contemporary bugbear.

The Amazon reviews were extremely polarized down gender lines so clearly this is capable of striking a lot of nerves.  I liked it and I think the time is ripe for a reissue.  Let's get it out of obscurity and back into the light of public knowledge.