crazed monkey

The Globe And Mail: This could never pass for a masterpiece theatre. Probably everyone knows how moviegoing has drastically changed over the past five to ten years. Like David MacFarlane, I used to enjoy going to the movies. Now I dread it. Sure, I love the stadium seating and the large screens (who doesn’t?) but the whole movie-viewing process carries too much effort and frustration these days. Thankfully, a few civilised theatres remain in this city, but they are swiftly disappearing. Most theatres with any character or history in Toronto are either vacant or rubble. (Funny fact: Some of the older cinemas in Montréal have been “saved” and are now used to screen porn movies. I can’t imagine how odd it must be to watch hardcore pornography in the presence of the balconies and ornate mouldings which decorate vintage cinemas.)

MacFarlane compares current movie offerings to The Bicycle Thief:

Made in 1948 on a budget that I doubt would pay for the catering on most movies today, [The Bicycle Thief] is a stunningly beautiful film — the simplest, most heartbreaking story, the most perfectly understated acting, the most evocative cinematography, the most steady direction and — above all — the most unflinching honesty. It has no sex, no violence, no special effects. Nothing gets blown up. Nobody gets murdered and put in a trunk. No one packs any heat or goes down on anybody else. Aliens, oddly enough, don’t show up.

Just the very mention of The Bicycle Thief brings to mind its simple yet somehow compelling story, its leisurely pace, and the way it tells of human struggle with hardly a piece of dialogue. What a great film. If you haven’t seen it already, rent it, or buy The Bicycle Thief DVD from Amazon.ca. You will not be disappointed. The Bicycle Thief is one of the highlights of modern cinema.

Posted on February 24th, 2003 in culture, movies - No Comments »

The Globe & Mail: Toronto effects firm wins Academy Award. Alias/Wavefront will be presented an Oscar honouring scientific and technical advancements in film-making. It’s about time Canadian special effects shops received some recognition.

Congratulations to everyone I know who works at Alias/Wavefront, even though they probably won’t ever read this. I did a stint at both Discreet Logic and Softimage in Montréal a while back, and have much respect for those who can handle and enjoy the work in high-end graphics software development. It took me two attempts in that industry to realise that I wasn’t as into it as I had previously thought.

Posted on January 8th, 2003 in culture, movies - No Comments »

I just don’t want to ruin it by making it a Hollywood thing, like an orchid heist movie or something, changing the orchids into poppies and turning it into a movie about drug running. Why can’t there be a movie simply about flowers? It’s like I don’t want to cram in sex or guns or car chases or characters learning profound life lessons, or growing, or coming to like each other, or overcoming obstacles to succeed in the end. The book isn’t like that and life isn’t like that.

This afternoon I finally had a chance to see Adaptation. I really enjoyed Kaufman’s Being John Malkovich, so I had high hopes for this movie. In brief, Adaptation met my expectations, and exceeded them in some respects, mainly due to both Nicholas Cage and Charles Kaufman.

Nicholas Cage really surprised me, although probably because I have not seen Leaving Las Vegas, for which he won an Oscar. His portrayals of the two halves of Charles Kaufman are excellent. As Charles Kaufman, Cage is believable as a man who views his weight, baldness, and insecurities as a barrier to success. As his almost opposite in mind but not in body, Cage as Donald Kaufman demonstrates that these are barriers which can be overcome. Conversely, Donald Kaufman serves as a mirror to Charles’ worries that he is a fake, a lucky one-hit wonder who will be found out.

I enjoyed Kaufman’s use of the “movie-within-a-movie” technique, with the fresh spins: including himself in the movie but splitting the character into two halves, Kaufman starting to write the script to the movie we are watching while we are halfway through that same movie, etc. Some people may feel cheated or disappointed by the ending, but I saw it as an intentional, ironic and tongue-in-cheek twist which fit in well with the change in writing style. I especially liked how Kaufman killed off the one character he chose to kill off, for reasons which I refuse to explain here for fear of spoiling the ending. Let’s just say that I thought it tied everything up quite nicely and leave it at that.

Adaptation is one of those movies which I wouldn’t mind seeing again once it comes out on video. There are several delicious lines of dialogue, one of which is quoted above, which would be a joy to hear once more. There are very few comedies which can elicit that kind of praise from me.

Posted on December 29th, 2002 in culture, movies - No Comments »

Frank posted his review of Spirited Away last night, and I feel that I need to respond to the following comment:

Ironically, Ian and Vic walked out of there claiming to have found it incomprehensible. This astonishes me - this had the most coherent, albeit simple, plot of any anime I’ve ever seen. Savages.

It wasn’t that I found the plot incomprehensible, just that I suffered severe whiplash from the plot twists pulled out of Miyazaki’s ass. In creating Spirited Away, it’s as if Miyazaki started with the end result (young girl gains strength and learns some lessons about good and evil and the blurred boundary separating them by experiencing life in an imaginary world) and then hired a five-year old with an ether addiction to fill in the plot points. Naturally, I realise that this is the same premise behind Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but I don’t much like that story either. Tales of morality do not appeal to me.

Don’t get me wrong, the movie wasn’t all bad. The animation and details were incredible, each scene more inspiring than the one previous. The characters were very well done with easily identifiable personalities, although Haku was a little wooden. I liked how nobody in the movie was truly evil and few were truly good. Even Yubaba, the witch who runs the bath house where much of the movie takes place, had her good points. I would rate Spirited Away higher than Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki’s previous work, on the characters alone.

Posted on December 18th, 2002 in culture, movies - No Comments »

I went out to see Bollywood/Hollywood last night at Cumberland. This is one of those movies which, although bad, is not quite bad enough so as to be enjoyable. The acting was wooden, the comic timing was off and the chemistry between the principal cast was almost non-existent. The song and dance scenes, for which many a Bollywood movie are known, were not as good as they could have been. Too much Hollywood, not enough Bollywood. As Vic’s woman Liz pointed out, the movie was like a Bollywood version of Pretty Woman, complete with a predictable Hollywood ending.

Bollywood/Hollywood had a few saving graces, however: Rahul’s cross-dressing chauffeur, Rocky, probably the only interesting character of the bunch; Rahul’s grandmother, who spouts off Shakespearian quotes seemingly at random; and, of course, the gorgeous Lisa Ray as Sue Singh, Rahul’s hired Indian bride-to-be.

There was much that I thought Bollywood/Hollywood could have played up more, such as the tendency for south-Asian immigrants to be more strict in the preservation of their culture than those in their motherland. This merited less than thirty seconds in the movie, where those from the motherland are dismissing as being “modern”.

I had high expectations of this movie, based on its trailer and on the reviews it received when it played at the Toronto International Film Festival. Bollywood/Hollywood could have been better.

Posted on December 8th, 2002 in culture, movies - No Comments »