UTW review of Morning Glory

Here's my review of Morning Glory that appeared in a recent Urban Tulsa Weekly. I didn't like it all that much and in fact, worried that my critique of morning television programming might have been a little too scathing. But, too late now. Go here to read it.

Xanadu, Whip It and Sweetgrass

Xanadu. Each November at Circle Cinema, I try to pick something for the midnight movie that fits the following sentence: come watch a turkey before you eat turkey. For 2010 it was the 1980 musical/science fiction romance Xanadu. I'd actually never seen it, but knew about it and even owned the soundtrack thanks to my love of Electric Light Orchestra. So, Saturday night at midnight I watched it and think it's deserving of his reputation as a kitschy, campy smorgasbord of silliness in the late '70s/early '80s vibe. The film is way more serious than I expected. Sure, the story about a romance between an artist and the roller skating muse (Olivia Newton John) from another world is absurd. The dialogue is terrible. The effects are laughable. But, the songs are super melodic and catchy. There's something kind of wrong watching Gene Kelly skating around to a pounding disco beat (which would be his last appearance in film).  Xanadu's a train wreck, but it's charming in just enough ways to make it worth watching late in the middle of the night in true cult cinema fashion.

Whip It. I didn't see Whip It when it came out in 2009, but I didn't miss much. Drew Barrymore's directorial debut is set in the roller derby world of Austin, texas, as a bunch of tattooed women skate, beat the crap out of each other in the name of sports and find some kind of elusive female empowerment via the shared bond regarding these things. At least that's what Ellan Page's 17 year old character "Babe Ruthless" discovers on her journey of self-discovery, all because of roller derby. The coming of age elements to Whip It are pretty mediocre and covers all the usual bases--fights with Mom/Dad, boy trouble and feuds with the best friend. That leaves the roller derby action to save the film and while it was crisp, fast paced and full of action, unless you actually know what the heck is going on in a roller derby match, these scenes lacked suspense. I'm out of the loop on this re-birth of the sport I watched before professional wrestling as a kid. Now, it's serious business from those involved. That doesn't make Whip It any better than it is--a predictable, lightweight, coming of age story.

Sweetgrass. If you like your documentaries no-frills then I've got just the one for you: Sweetgrass. It's so no-frills that a little bit of explanation would have greatly added to the viewing experience as I watched its story unfold. We see a huge of herd of sheep being driven over a mountain range by two sheepherders. It appears to be a dangerous trek with one of the herders visibly shaking by the event, calling his mother and complaining about what has happened. The men have to fight off bears, predators, personal injury and extreme isolation as they move the sheep. But, a big mark against the film is we never know why these men are doing this. Have the animals been sold? Do they drive them over this mountain range every year?  We never know how long that the trip is taking them either. It could be one month, could be six, who knows. Any little bit of text or voiceover at the start of the film would have simply answered these questions and made the rest of the film more enjoyable. Watching sheep roam the countryside for 90+ minutes isn't the most thrilling of topics either, so a little help from the filmmakers sure would have been appreciated. There are some beautiful scenes of nature in this documentary though. The sheep are driven through fields and mountains that are gorgeous, awe-inspiring and wonderful to see. It felt as if you are on the drive, but you aren't really welcomed in to understand why this is happening. You are just watching. Sweetgrass could have been even better had the directors chosen to teach us a little bit as the film unfolded.

Hiroshi Sugimoto theatre photographs

I've been photographing historic movie theatres for a long time. I'm drawn to the architecture, the colors, the glowing neon marquees and the sadness of an empty, unused theatre. I've been compiling photos of run down, abandoned theatres for a project I've dubbed "Dead Cinema" (some of these might appear on Blevins Fotografic from time to time). I have taken interior photographs, but the bulk of what I've done has been exteriors due mainly to the fact that I've been unable to go inside if I'm just driving around towns and cities hunting for that marquee that pulls me in like a magnet.

Recently I stumbled across the work of Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto and have been blown away by his large-format, extremely long exposures that capture an entire movie in a single frame. The expertise to be able to craft these long exposures on 8x10 cameras, as Sugimoto does, is the work of a master technician in complete control of his craft. Folks, if you are a digital photography person, bow down and admit the error of your ways, as these remarkable images could only be made by someone working within the world of film.

Sugimoto, born in 1948 in Tokyo--we actually share February 23rd as a birthday,  has been taking movie theatre photographs since 1978 and they range from famous palaces, lesser known palaces, regular theatres and even the drive-ins that dot the American landscape. How it works for Sugimoto is he sets up his camera, prepares and formulates light, space and the room, opens the shutter and records the entire film in a single frame. What is left is a magical, glowing white screen and every small detail of the theatre/drive-in captured. There are no people which leaves an eerie, surreal element to the images. It's as if time has forgotten to exist in these Sugimoto photographs.

Here's Sugimoto describing where the idea for the photographs came from.

One night I had an idea while I was at the movies: to photograph the film itself. I tried to imagine photographing an entire feature film with my camera. I could already picture the projection screen making itself visible as a white rectangle. In my imagination, this would appear as a glowing, white rectangle; it would come forward from the projection surface and illuminate the entire theater. This idea struck me as being very interesting, mysterious, and even religious. [Time Exposed, 1995]

I've been looking at a bunch of these images online, but it's not enough, I want to be able to see prints, up close and personal, to soak in all the minute details captured in these images. Since they are drawn from large-format cameras I can only dream about the details a giant print would unveil.

All images on this post are by Hiroshi Sugimoto.

UTW review of Nowhere Boy

Go here if you want to read my recent review in Urban Tulsa Weekly of the English film Nowhere Boy. It's about the early years of John Lennon, before the Beatles, when he was just a troublemaking teenager in Liverpool. I wasn't blown away by it.

UTW review of Conviction

Sorry for the time away, dear readers, been kind of swamped with outside commitments. I will try to be more punctual for those of you who expect better of me. Go here to read my review of Conviction. It's one of those "true" story inspirational films that come out like clockwork. I'm lukewarm on it.

October movies

October was a light month, but did have some NY, NY screenings--always a good thing. Plus, I re-watched a couple of films I absolutely love, love, love (high scores below should give it away).

The Social Network---2010---usa   ****
Blood Simple---1984---usa    ****1/2
A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop---2010---china   **
Inside Job---2010---usa   ***
Waiting for a "Superman"---2010---usa   ***
A Fish Called Wanda---1988---england   *****!
Marwencol---2010---usa   ***1/2
Red---2010---usa   ***
Repulsion---1965---england   ***1/2
Hereafter---2010---usa   ***1/2
The Town---2010---usa   ***1/2
Conviction---2010---usa   ***

Halloween festivities

Here's some photos of the White City Halloween Spectacle a group of us engaged in last night in lieu of a film article--I've been lazy lately with inspiration for posts! There's a group shot of the entire cast going for kind of a Victorian era mish-mash of characters ranging from hunchback, gravedigger, mad scientist, zombies, witch, gatekeeper of souls and two sisters in an eternal slumber.

I was Dr. Florian von Herzog (a nod to both Kraftwerk AND Werner!), a scientist lost in the grips of mathematic insanity looking for the bones of young children to use in his laboratory. You can gaze at Dr. Herzog in a lucid moment in the photo to the right. SJ played Rachel, one of the pair of Rothschild sisters who were in some kind of unexplained sleep-state who were dangerous and hungry for flesh if woken. Photo below is Rachel in some kind of Salemesque graveyard setting. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and this is why...

UTW review of Hereafter

My latest review in Urban Tulsa is the Clint Eastwood helmed drama about the mysteriousness of what comes after we die called Hereafter. Hardly scientific and thankfully free of religion, this is a Euro-tinged, ensemble casted, slow-burning drama that I liked despite it having some issues. Go here to read it.

Dead Alive trailer

Before Peter Jackson made films such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, he made horror films such as Dead Alive (aka Braindead). We're screening a film print of it this Friday and Saturday at Circle Cinema at midnight. I've seen this a few times and one of them was pretty memorable as I watched it with my Grandma Gertrude when she was in her mid-70s. She just giggled and giggled at all the over the top gore that Jackson unleashes. This trailer is rather free of the bloodletting though. Come watch it on the big screen this weekend if you are in Tulsa!

UTW review of Red

This week I reviewed Red for Urban Tulsa. Go here if you want to read it. Kind of an action/comedy hybrid, it's a familiar story yet still kind of fun. Especially if you like John Malkovich. 

Movie tickets #20

UTW review of A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop

A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop is a nice title, not so great movie. This is actually a Chinese remake of the 1984 Coen Brothers movie Blood Simple. It's also my review this past week in Urban Tulsa. Go here to read it.

Movies in Manhattan

I just got back from a brief trip to the Hudson Valley to attend SJ's twin sister's wedding and spend a few days in NYC post-wedding. Of course, films were on the docket. Even though we were only there for two full days and three nights, got to see four films. It helped that we were staying in  a borrowed apartment at Macdougal and Bleeker--within walking distance of lots of good theatres. I am highly envious of the location of that apartment!

First up was Inside Job at the Angelika. We actually bought tickets to see the new Woody Allen film, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, but as we went down stairs a quick decision to switch it up was made. Inside Job is about the 2008 global economic crisis and is so chock-full of business talk, I felt like I needed a MBA just to figure out what in the world was going on. Too many talking heads, acronyms, complicated business talk for me I guess. Also, I am not sure why I keep watching these docs about how corrupt a society we live in. All it does is infuriate and get my blood pressure up about issues I have absolutely no impact on. No regular person does. Inside Job is another of those kinds of docs, when you can understand what these sleazy, greedy banking bastards are doing.

Waiting for a "Superman" was our second documentary and this time we were at Sunshine on Houston Street. Over earnest and a bit disappointing, this attempts to tell how our public school system is screwed up in America. You don't say? Well, it is if you weren't aware of that fact. Seems the kids can't read, write or do math (or comprehend business talk either based on my fogginess during Inside Job) and this is especially true in the inner city where schools are dropout wastelands. The problem here is it should have focused more on the desperation of the kids and their families that they get into one of the charter schools profiled, rather than going dry and telling the viewer repeatedly how messed up things are. We already know that. Connect us emotionally to more kids and I'll remember that long after some of the statistics are cited. Maybe I didn't like this that much because as soon as it ended I was heading down the street to Katz's Deli for some pastrami?

One of my favorite things about being in New York City is the endless opportunity to watch old films in a theatre with other people. Film Forum is currently having a great two-week festival of heist related movies and we caught A Fish Called Wanda, a peerless 1988 heist/comedy that stars Kevin Kline, John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Palin. I hadn't seen this in over a decade and sure forgot just how unrelentingly funny this movie is. Kline just goes for it from beginning to end and Cleese does a couple of psuedo double-takes that might be in the running for best double-takes in film history. He holds his bafflement for so long it's not really a double-take, it's way more than that.

Our last film was another documentary, Marwencol, at the IFC. This was an odd one. Very low budget look at this guy who is viciously attacked in Kingston, NY and left for dead. Brain-damaged after the attack, he begins to build a fantasy world around his house that involves WW2 and a fictional story set in Belgium all done in 1/6 scale. He's completely lost in this world of alter-egos, battles, good vs. bad and dolls. Probably a little too long, Marwencol is still an interesting look at the lengths one man goes to keep his mind and body busy whilst it can do little else after an act of brutality.

UTW review of The Social Network

Go here if you want to read my review of David Fincher's latest The Social Network in Urban Tulsa. It's about the birth of Facebook. I liked it.

Showing The Outsiders in an alley

Recently I was involved in helping with a screening of The Outsiders in a unique Tulsa location: a downtown alley. A screen was hung off a brick building, a DVD/projector was placed on top of a truck, a PA system was hooked up and presto, it's movie time. The neat thing about this particular alley was that a scene from The Outsiders was actually filmed in it.

The Outsiders is a special novel and movie to a lot of Tulsans, myself included. Written by S.E. Hinton when she was a Tulsa teenager, the book was a favorite of mine growing up. The film version from 1983 and director Francis Ford Coppola has a legendary who is who of young Hollywood types. Here's the list: Tom Cruise, C. Thomas Howell, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Diane Lane and Leif Garrett. Tom Waits even has a small role.

These two images were taken the night of the screening--one of the film itself and the other a view of downtown Tulsa from one of the seats.

Valhalla Rising, Room In Rome + Cell 211

Valhalla Rising. This was an interesting Danish film set around 1000 AD as the great Mads Mikkelsen plays "One Eye," a violent Viking type forced to live in a cage and fight other men to the death while attached to a pole. Mikkelsen, wordless the entire film, is not someone I'd ever imagined in such a brutal role where he's destroying skulls with rocks or ripping out hunks of flesh while in battle, but he's terrific as usual. Do not mess with One Eye! The film also goes on a few tripped out, Werner Herzog-esque madness feeling scenes as One Eye gets entangled with a group of Christian crusaders. Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn (Bronson), Valhalla Rising is beautiful throughout, no matter how barbaric or unhinged what we witness becomes. The film is full of atmospheric dread and as much 1000 AD dirt, doom and gloom than you may want. Valhalla Rising is hard to stop once it begins and while it has some flaws, the sudden, over the top violence combined with the gonzo visuals make it one of the year's more intriguing releases.

Room In Rome. I'm a long-time fan of Spanish (or Basque) director Julio Medem but his newest, Room In Rome, is a complete and utter disaster! It is going to be in the running for one of the worst of 2010 for me as it is a shallow, poorly written, horribly acted bit of Euro-sleaze and an awful release from Medem. To get a film from Medem with lots of sex in it is no surprise, after all, he directed such pulse-racers with flesh-a-plenty like Sex y Lucia and Lovers of the Arctic Circle (a film of his I really love). Room In Rome's story is so flimsy orchestrated it feels as if Medem thought to himself, "How can I get a couple of hot actresses in a hotel and convince them to take their clothes off for 93% of the movie?" However he pitched it, that's what occurs. The only thing going for this is the fact that Elen Anaya and Natsha Yarovenko are very attractive women. Anaya is the much better actor but who is going to remember that after watching this? It's hard to tell the difference between Room In Rome and the soft-core Euro films shown on late night cable in the 1970s and 1980s--same bad stories, same bad acting, plethora of nudity as two women spend a long night nakedly entwined in each other's arms in Rome.

Cell 211. Here's another film from Spain but I actually really liked Cell 211. It's a very gritty prison drama that offers up enough suspense, twists and turns to overcome some really poor decisions near the end of the film (I won't spoil it so don't worry). A newly hired prison guard is getting a tour of the facility when a riot breaks out. He finds himself alone behind the bars, mixed in with the inmates he does what he can to survive--pretends to be a criminal too. He comes under the wing of the prison leader, the vicious Malamadre (Luis Tosar) and events become more complicated as he gets more intwined with their riot while also trying to stay alive. As I said, some of the twists toward the end just didn't work for me and that's too bad as Cell 211 was really enjoyable up to that point. Still solid and very watchable, if you like films set in prisons--add Cell 211 to the list as a good one.

UTW review of You Again

Go here if you want to read my review of You Again in a recent Urban Tulsa. File it under the scathing category as I didn't like this comedy at all. I didn't come close to cracking a grin.

Blevins Fotografic

Not satisfied with the time I invest to keep up with writing about film for CineRobot, I've decided to end the secrecy of my interest in photography. That's right, I've started a second blog called Blevins Fotografic!

I'll try to post images that I like that I've taken every 2/3 days. There will be no images from digital cameras--real film, real film cameras! You can find Blevins Fotografic on the links to the right or click one of the links on this post. Better yet, go to it and fill out the proper blanks that will allow you to be notified of each image that is posted.

Don't you want to see more images like "Hay Field 2" that I took while in Le Flore County, Oklahoma?

September movies

It wasn't a huge month for film watching. I did get to see one of my all-time favorites (Fast Times...) in a theatre on a very scratchy print. I watched a couple of really crappy films too--Room In Rome and You Again (review soon).

The American---2010---usa   ***1/2
Basquiat: The Radiant Child---2010---usa   ***
Piranha 3D---2010---usa   ***
Winnebago Man---2010---usa   ***1/2
Blast from the Past---1999---usa   ***1/2
The Switch---2010---usa   **
Flipped---2010---usa   **1/2
Easy A---2010---usa   ***1/2
Valhalla Rising---2009---denmark   ***1/2
Room In Rome---2009---spain   *1/2
Love on the Run---1979---france   ***
Trafic---1971---france   ***1/2
Cell 211---2009---spain   ***1/2
You Again---2010---usa   *1/2
Fast Times at Ridgemont High---1982---usa   *****!
When You're Strange---2009---usa   **

Francois Truffaut's "Antoine Doinel" film series

***light spoilers ahead; read with trepidation if you plan on watching all five films***

A few weeks ago I watched the interesting documentary Two in the Wave that is about Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Goddard, their friendship, their rivalry and the French New Wave. I've never warmed to Goddard but have long loved the work of Truffaut. It was good timing as SJ and I have been slowly winding our way through Truffaut's wonderful series of films on the character "Antoine Doinel." The "Antoine" films capture all the qualities I love in a Truffaut film: the combination of serious and comic, an overtly sweet romanticism, the palpable joy of living and the foreboding sense of "Frenchness" that covers pretty much everything on the screen.

"Antoine Doinel" showed up in Truffaut's first film The 400 Blows in 1959 and it was the first depth charge for what would become known as the French New Wave. Jean-Pierre Leaud played the 12 year old Doinel, as he did the next four installments over the next two decades. As Leaud ages, so does Doinel, although the character never seems to truly "grow up," continuously getting into romantic troubles and inable to hold down a job. Leaud is the perfect cinematic foil for Truffaut's alter-ego in the series as I'm not sure Truffaut would have been able to continue had he not had such a rapport with Leaud as his leading man.

The second time Antoine shows up is for the only short film of the bunch with the 1962 Antoine and Colette. The charming 32 minute film sees Doinel start up a familiar topic for Truffaut to mine in the future: romantic obsession. He spots a woman he finds fetching at a concert and begins to pursue her to no avail. No amount of wooing can win the heart of Colette it seems and the groundwork is laid for the films that come next in the series.

Stolen Kisses comes in 1968 and starts with Doinel being kicked out of the army for unfit behavior. He immediately gets in touch with Christine (Claude Jade) even though she just wants to be friends. Doinel is persistent though and gradually she gets drawn into the romantic whimsy of the character. Along with the romance is some comic material related to Antoine's inability to hold down a job with a chunk of the story involving him bumbling around as a private detective. Stolen Kisses is my second favorite of the films--it's hard to top the always watchable The 400 Blows--as it just has a terrific feel to it. Perfectly paced and full of fun scenes and characters, it's a joyous trip into the foibles of poor Antoine and his work/love life. Classic stuff from Francois Truffaut.

Just two years later in 1970 comes Bed and Board, the fourth installment in the series. Antoine is now married to Christine and the scenes early in the film of their wedded life are filled with some of the same light-hearted comedy and charm that makes up the bulk of Stolen Kisses. As the film evolves though, there is a tonal shift and it becomes a little more somber and introspective as Antoine begins to rue the mistakes he is making in the marriage--starting up an affair with an exotic Japanese woman for example. Growing into an adult has taken some of the youthful exuberance from Antoine and Bed and Board hints that it might not be as easy for Antoine to get what he wants in the future. Adults seem to find it harder to bounce back from failure than young people and Antoine finally might be on the path in growing up.

Or maybe not. Love on the Run comes nine years after Bed and Board and finds Antoine and Christine divorced whilst Antoine is up to his usual shenanigans with a variety of women. There's even a return of Colette, now a successful woman in her 30s that piques the interest in Antoine (who doesn't?). Love on the Run does something I didn't like at all--it uses a bunch of scenes from all the previous films cut into the story. This wasn't a good idea. I've already seen those films so didn't need to re-watch scenes I already know and remember. The new story was really hampered by this continuous interruption of the fresh to insert this old footage.

If you love French cinema, do yourself a favor and watch the Antoine Doinel series of films by Francois Truffaut. Even if you've seen 400 Blows, return to it and then follow it up with the four charmers that follow, you'll be happy you did. I just wish Truffaut would have come back for a sixth installment.