Celluloid #72

In Theaters

Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire (2009) Daniels - Story about a Harlem teenager facing the harshest of life circumstances. She lives in extreme poverty, practically illiterate, overweight, has one child with Down's syndrome, and pregnant with another kid. Both pregnancies are results from being raped by her father. The actual plot in this film revolves around Precious' new alternative school and the improvements she makes while attending there. The acting all the way around is quite good and the story avoids most sappiness and false hopes. 4/5

Up in the Air (2009) Reitman - So, I've been staying at my parents' house for the last week. We all wanted to go see a movie, but honestly my tastes and their tastes are at near opposite ends of the spectrum. That being said, this was a film that we all enjoyed. I don't think any of us thought it was amazing, but it had enough to merit watching. George Clooney plays a guy whose job is to fire people for other companies. He's the type of guy who takes pride in his work, and he feels most at home travelling around, working towards airline elite status. Natalie is a recent college graduate who tries to reduce costs by implementing a video conferencing model; a move that would threaten Ryan Bingham's (Clooney) way of life. While Bingham shows Natalie the ropes, the story incorporates musings about life and marriage. 3.5/5

In Home

Casino Royale (2006) Campell - My dad is pretty into action movies and has always been a fan of the James Bond films. I remember watching several marathons as a kid, but I have a hard time distinguishing one film from another. I enjoy this new style of Bond featuring Daniel Craig, and nearly eliminating the quippy one-liners and portraying Bond in a much more ambiguous light. It's very anti-hero, Bourne series-feeling. The story is probably always secondary to the stunts and the dashing style, and this film is no exception. The main story has to do with a high stakes card game, but the memorable parts have to do with racing around a construction site and lots of fighting. I also enjoyed Mads Mikkleson taking a turn as the villain. 4/5

Frozen River (2008) Hunt - A mother who is struggling financially comes across a Native American woman on the nearby Mohawk Reservation. That woman makes good money smuggling immigrants across the US/Canadian border. Ray collaborates with her for a while in order to get her kids Christmas presents and a new trailer. 4/5

In America (2002) Sheridan - Great drama about an Irish family who comes to New York to start over shortly after their youngest child dies. It's the early '80s and New York is still sketchy. The girls see events through an unique lens and befriend people normally considered undesirable in the neighborhood. I cried and cried watching this film (and I'm pretty sure that I've seen it years ago too), but I never felt like Sheridan was manipulating the tears. 4.5/5

the Limits of Control (2009) Jarmusch - I guess in a form of film watching revenge, my parents ended up watching this film with me. Technically labelled a thriller, but still slow paced and featuring a protagonist that rarely speaks. The film is very beautiful and I liked the soundtrack of Boris songs (Jarmusch is too cool for his own good sometimes). However, even though I love most of Jarmusch's filmography, this one was disappointing for me. The whole thing comes off like a giant scavenger hunt, where the man gets a clue, meets a character that philosophizes about film, or music, or bohemians, or science, and gives him another clue, where he meets another character, etc. Needless to say, my parents both fell asleep. 3/5

the Proposal (2009) Fletcher - So, like I said...staying at my parents' house, both my mom and my sister enjoy romantic comedies. This one in particular was very formulaic...you could predict the whole movie in the first two minutes. Sandra Bullock plays Ryan Reynold's bitchy boss. She's Canadian and about to get deported, so she forces her assistant to marry her by threatening to fire him. In order to convince INS that this isn't a sham marriage, she accompanies Andrew on his trip back home- to Sitka, Alaska. Wackiness ensues and of course they grow to love one another. Blah. 1/5

Sunshine Cleaning (2008) Jeffs - This was my sister's suggestion, incorporating her like of indie cutesy films. Amy Adams plays a single mom struggling to raise her son when she finds out about a job that pays pretty well. She has experience as a maid, and this job is essentially cleaning up crime and trauma scenes. You find out early on that her own mother was a suicide, and most of the film centers around her relationship with her sister, her father, and a few other people in the community. 3/5

Favorites of 2009

It is time for the annual listing of my favorite films released in the past year. Some titles may have been featured on critics' lists from last year, but they didn't play on a screen in the Bay Area until at least January. I was able to make it out to the theaters at least 26 times this year, and have watched more than 10 other films at home that also came out this year...These were the films that I enjoyed or affected me the most.

10.) Medicine for Melancholy (Barry Jenkins)

9.) An Education (Lone Scherfig)

8.) the Brothers Bloom (Rian Johnson)

7.) Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (Werner Herzog)

6.) Revanche (Gotz Spielmann)

5.) the Wrestler (Darren Aronofsky)

4.) Hunger (Steve McQueen)

3.) Moon (Duncan Jones)

2.) A Serious Man (Joel & Ethan Coen)

1.) Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)

Art Garfunkel Memorial Reading List (July - December 2009)

1.) the Vulture & the Nigger Factory- Scott-Heron (7/14)

2.) the Invention of Morel- Casares (7/23)

3.) Under the Volcano - Lowry (8/10)

4.)  Easy Riders, Raging Bulls - Biskind (8/12)

5.) Drown - Diaz (8/22)

6.) Gravity's Rainbow - Pynchon (8/28)

7.) Switch Bitch - Dahl (9/8)

8.) Underground - Murakami (9/13)

9.) the Art of the Story - Halpern (9/16)

10.) Graceland - Abani (9/17)

11.) Ten Little Indians - Alexie (9/19)

12.) Gogol's Wife - Landolfi (9/29)

13.) the Bark Tree - Queneau (10/15)

14.) As She Climbed Across the Table - Lethem (10/16)

15.) Real Cost of Prisons Comix - Ahrens (10/19)

16.) Difficult Loves - Calvino (10/29)

17.) Quantity Theory of Insanity - Self (11/11)

18.) Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch - Dick (11/19)

19.) Harvest of Empire - Gonzalez (12/5)

20.) Thanksgiving Night - Bausch (12/5)

21.) Born in Flames - Hampton (12/10)

22.) History of Sexuality - Foucault (12/25)

23.) Divisadero - Ondaatje (12/25)

24.) High Rise - Ballard (12/28)

Highlights for the Year

Invention of Morel (Casares), Nowhere Man (Hemon), Death and the Penguin (Kurkov), Book of Laughter and Forgetting (Kundera), the Guiltless (Broch)

Highlights in Nonfiction

Kill All Your Darlings (Sante), Born in Flames (Hampton)

Total Books: 45

Celluloid #71

In Theaters

the Road (2009) Hillcoat - aka "The Most Depressing Film of the Year! (Decade?)" The "End of the World" has already happened, and a man and his son trudge along trying to find food and escape from cannibals and thieves. They head towards the coast, all though it is difficult to see how anything will be different there. This film is bleak- the colors are all grays and browns. Nick Cave provides another harrowing soundtrack (much like his contribution to another Hillcoat film the Proposition). Some of the most tragic scenes involve the man teaching his boy how to commit suicide with their pistol. If one can handle the heavy weight of this film, I think it is really well done, and worth watching. 4/5

In Home

Beat Girl (1960) Grenville - Total B-movie with lots of dancing, lip-synching, and angst. Jenny finds out that her new young stepmother used to be a stripper...and perhaps Jenny will become one too. In addition to the stripper storyline, there's a lot of talk about the generation gap, as these teenagers were born right as World War 2 was ending. 3.5/5

Dead Man (1995) Jarmusch - William Blake comes out West after his parents' deaths. The job he was promised has been filled and through the course of some events, he accidentally ends up killing the son of the factory boss in town. Blake is taken in by an American Indian who thinks Blake is the poet William Blake. This Blake's poetry now becomes his shooting. Very stylish, deliberately paced, funny, and extremely grotesque. I first saw this film while I was in college, and I still love it. 5/5

Five Days (2007) Curtis - I'm not really sure why my parents own this BBC/HBO co-production miniseries, but we've been watching it the last couple of nights. The story is a pretty simple detective story about a woman and her children who get abducted. Both children are discovered within days of the kidnapping, but the mother provides a bigger mystery. I thought the story was fine, but I'm not sure why it had to be stretched out to a five hour ordeal. 3/5

Medicine for Melancholy (2009) Jenkins - Definitely captures the San Francisco hipster experience (down to the lax hygiene and weed culture) and tackles the idea of modern romance (or lack thereof in some cases). Micah and Joanne have a drunken one-night stand that neither remembers the following morning, but after some time of embarrassment and awkwardness, the two decide to spend the day doing stuff around the city. In addition to this sorta love story, the film also addresses the complexities of race. Micah and Joanne are both black hipsters in a city where only 7% of the population is African-American; of that 7%, perhaps 1% is a part of their scene. They talk about gentrification and racial identity without coming off as preachy, and meanwhile hit up the MoAD and the Knockout. 4/5

Sugar (2009) Boden & Fleck - Sugar is a baseball player from the Dominican Republic. He gets called up to play in the minor leagues in the US. Immediately he is confronted with culture shock and a sizable language barrier. Under a lot of pressure, he succumbs to injury and a few bad games. He's all too aware that this arrangement in the leagues serves to use players until there's really nothing left, then send them back to wherever they came from. Also, filmmakers: stop using "Hallelujah" in your movies...even if it is in Spanish! Enough! 4/5

Superstar: the Karen Carpenter Story (1987) Haynes - Notorious biopic using Barbie Dolls to tell the story of the Carpenters and Karen's struggle with anorexia. The performance scenes are actually pretty amazing to watch. In between Barbie-acting, the film is interspersed with stylish found footage and facts about anorexia. It's pretty hard to find because Haynes never got permission to use Carpenter's songs legally, but such a fascinating approach to a usually boring genre. 4.5/5

Celluloid #70

In Home

the Cook, the Thief, his Wife, and Her Lover (1989) Greenaway - This has to be Greenaway's most controversial film. It takes place primarily in a restaurant where a pompous (and perhaps inadequate) thief, his wife, and his cronies dine nearly every night. The wife begins an affair with another patron. Outrageous revenges ensue. Some argue that the disgusting nature of this film is supposed to represent the excesses of capitalism or politics of Thatcherite England, but even if you don't want to read that in, the aesthetics are amazing and the film nothing short of memorable. 4.5/5

Greenaway: the Shorts (1969-78) Greenaway - Greenaway's early short films are detail-oriented and somehow scientific feeling, even though they include many pastoral scenes. One is about a bunch of maps given to an ornithologist, another about windows. Then there's the one about water and another about a phone call. A couple of the films are narrated in this proper English voice but the cadence becomes totally spastic. 4/5

Helter Skelter (1976) Gries - A made-for-TV movie about the Manson Family murders in 1969. Charles Manson believed himself to be Jesus Christ and attracted runaways and outcasts - mainly women. The quality of the film is pretty average, sometimes cheesy, but the story is so bizarro and compelling that it was able to hold my attention for the entire three hours. 3.5/5

Idiocracy (2006) Judge - A stupid film about stupid people. The premise that the world might becomes stupider because the upper class is reproducing at a much smaller rate than lower classes was intriguing to me. However, that means you are actually watching the stupidest people ever for an hour and a half. Jokes about damage to balls, replacing water with sports drinks, and grunting gets old after a while. 1.5/5

Opposite of Sex (1998) Roos - Christina Ricci plays a 16 year old terror who runs away from home to hit up her wealthy, gay half-brother and promptly seduces his boyfriend to cover up a pre-existing pregnancy. The film is totally snarky with a bratty voiceover narration and frequent breaking of the fourth wall. Surprisingly, I found the self-reflexivity enjoyable and only occasionally cheesy. 3.5/5

the Pervert's Guide to Cinema (2006) Fiennes - Zizek philosophizes about the "magic" and "reality" of films. His thesis seems to be that "we need the excuse of a fiction to show what we really are." He focuses on clips from Hitchcock, David Lynch, and Charlie Chaplin to back up his argument, meanwhile dissecting form, motifs, and our emotional attachment to images we only believe conditionally. 4/5

Celluloid #69

In Theaters

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) Anderson - I think stop motion animation will always be an enjoyable sight to see. It holds true for this film, especially in moments of scurrying or eating at fast speeds. In many ways this feels more like a children's film than the other hipster nostalgia film of the season, Where the Wild Things Are. A lot of the adult situations and dialogue will undoubtedly go over the heads of most kids, but at the same time, this is a pretty silly movie. The villains are cartoony and there's plenty of spectacle. 4/5

In Home

Atlantic City (1980) Malle - A failed, aging  mobster falls in love with a young woman who works at a casino. He seems like he just needs to prove his masculinity through his relationship with Sally and by offing a couple of bad guys. Sally is trying to make a life for herself in the wake of her estranged husband's death. I found the May-December relationship very unbelievable, but I know Malle has addressed similar themes in his French films to greater success. 3.5/5

Dark Habits (1983) Almodovar - Oh those crazy nuns with the heroin, acid, lesbianism, and erotic novels. Totally campy, encompassing the zaniest fantasies one could dream about a convent while kicking off Almodovar's filmography in fine fashion. 4/5

51 Birch Street (2006) Block - At first I was put off by the self-indulgent nature of this documentary. Who really finds their family so interesting to make a film about it? However, the issues surrounding how marriages function, ideas about love and romance, happiness, how one expresses themselves outwardly compared to inner emotions all proves to be pretty universal. I found myself fascinated by family dynamics, particularly between children and their parents. 3.5/5

the Hurt Locker (2009) Bigelow - A tense and seemingly realistic portrayal of the war in Iraq. We follow a group of soldiers who are responsible for dismantling bombs. While we might not know much about the soldier's individual backgrounds, its easy to see how war has affected their psychological make-up, rendering some useless for anything besides adrenaline-driven tasks, and other reduced to whiny babies. I appreciated the visual style, shifting from filmic artsy sequences to shakier digital-feeling scenes of combat. Lastly, without being too overt, the film makes the war look confusing and lacking in reasonable or tangible goals or objectives. 4/5

Like Water for Chocolate (1992) Arau - This was one of the first successful crossover films from Mexico. The novel and movie gained notoriety for their eroticism, especially linked with food. A daughter is prevented from marrying her love because her mother wants her to become her caretaker in old age. Because Tita is not allowed to express her emotions, she channels them through her cooking. When she is sad, her tears alter the recipe. When she bleeds into another dish, her pent up sexuality gets eaten by everyone else. I'll be writing a paper on this film in conjunction with the Cook, the Thief, the Wife, and her Lover in the next couple weeks. 4/5