TITLE: One Crazy Summer (1986) AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 10:38:00 PM ----- BODY:
Our recent episode on John Hughes made me think back to another director known (a little) for his 1980's teen comedies.

Dir: "Savage" Steve Holland

It’s easy to remember the 1980’s teen comedy as a franchise owned by John Hughes. The once prominent director codified the teen experience in Sixteen Candles and the Breakfast Club with such style and authenticity that little thought is given to his doppelgänger, "Savage" Steve Holland. To begin with, Holland built his best stories around a young John Cusack: that penetrating combination of charm, hipness, and accessibility introduced in Rob Reiner's The Sure Thing. Despite the glory of the Hughes films, they lacked the one thing that Holland had: the teen leading man, Jimmy Stewart in a veneer of cult band t-shirts.

Holland's two most successful films, Better Off Dead and One Crazy Summer, took the teen comedy places few went. He strove for comedy of the absurd: a vital blend of exaggeration, darkness, and subtlety. One Crazy Summer begins in this slightly bent universe with the high school graduation of Generic, New York. We are quickly introduced to the small band of characters. At the center is "Hoops" (Cusack), the unusually normal cartoonist chronicling a quest for love.

Given the opportunity to seek a small adventure, he departs with his best friend (Joel Murray) – who brings his elementary age sister – picking up a troubled bar singer called Cassandra (Demi Moore). They run off to Nantucket where people are every bit as unusual as they were on the mainland. They join up with the Stork twins ( Tom Villard and "Bobcat" Goldthwait) and a pacifist Marine (Curtis Armstrong) and begin a mission to save a house from an evil businessman (Animal House's villain Neidermeyer).

Hoops’ quest for love is ongoing, and his experience earning the affection of Cassandra is well intentioned, though ultimately lacking any tangible chemistry. The plot may not be overwhelmingly interesting, but Holland’s direction and love of the absurd makes the journey unforgettable. In the course of 90 minutes the viewer witnesses a rabid mechanical dolphin, two cases of grand theft auto, an underwater lobster attack, escape from a motorcycle gang, a yacht race, the destruction of a radio station by bazooka, and Godzilla’s rampage of a housing development.

This is hardly the usual teen film. But somehow Holland captures something quite essential to the teen experience. Cusack embodies average-nice-guy with such consistency, he could be placed in the Smithsonian as an example of the 1980’s adolescent. In this world of surrealism and unpredictability, he is normal and a mirror on that awkward transition from the stability of teen life to adulthood. The real world is not normal.

When the movies are reviewed, John Hughes' films will probably remain the official documents of teen life in that otherwise forgettable decade. He succeeded by imitating some form of an ideal life. But Holland’s interpretation is painted in Charles Addams strokes, preferring to disclose authenticity through contrast and exaggeration. It doesn’t make One Crazy Summer more accurate than Sixteen Candles. But it does make it a lot more difficult to outgrow.

***1/2 of *****

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-------- TITLE: Review: Sicko (2007) AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 11:26:00 AM ----- BODY:
Dir: Michael Moore

Perhaps it sounds condescending, especially when speaking about a director who received an Oscar for one film and set the documentary box office record for another, but Michael Moore has grown up... a little. Moore is a personality - never shy about using the documentary format for propaganda purposes. But Sicko introduces a new version of the progressivist filmmaker. Rather than being a blatant illustrated pamphlet for - or against - a social evil, Sicko embodies a slightly different voice. Those who think a documentary should be the equivalent of journalism may not recognize this change. Michael Moore is no reporter. But rather than being an editorial cartoonist, he's evolved into something like a columnist: no different then a George Will, Cal Thomas or Fareed Zakaria.

Well, maybe a little different.

Michael Moore has moved from the Oliphant cartoons of Bowling for Columbine and The Big One, to a delicious blend of Andy Rooney, Dave Berry and Noam Chomsky. Sicko is a funny, intelligent, satirical and poignant film about the problems in the American health care system. And there are problems.

Moore has a gift for being both charming and disarming. He manages to find priceless footage that reveals the extreme problems, whether it is Phil Knight's acceptance of underage workers or President Bush's deer-in-a-headlight response to the September 11th attacks. The footage in Sicko contains a few of those moments, but most of them come from innocent responses to, seemingly, innocent questions.

Sicko is a carefully constructed, well-paced and tempered series of questions; many of them seem more legitimate and open than in previous Moore films. In a twist, he removes himself from the story as much as he can. It's about common people in common situations. Although the terrible, faceless corporations are indicted, this is more of an exploration of the way people cope with sickness in the United States and abroad. And therein is the film's genius.

By removing all but his voice and his filmmaking for a large portion of the movie, Moore allows something that is lacking in most of his prior works - the subjects have their own voice. For some reason, Moore moves away from the usual demonization of individual companies toward the thing he generally argues for in society: populism. Although he assembles and crafts the overall text, the quotations and references are distinct voices.

This becomes most striking in Moore's trip to Europe. Rather than being overtly sarcastic, he merely asks simple, plausible questions from an unknowing American. There's a subtle innocence to his interviews. The outrage and perplexity comes with the responses of truly innocent participants of the socialized health care programs in England and France. Without saying anything overtly critical, they betray a sense of wonder and confusion at the American system. Some doctors politely, and provocatively, question the ethics of a healthcare system that's priority is anything other than the well being of the patient.

Sicko's freshness is almost entirely from content and editorial decisions. The technical aspects and grammar haven't changed from earlier works, and could even be viewed as a step back from the iconic imagery of Fahrenheit 9/11. But Sicko may be the first Michael Moore film since Roger & Me to be truly provocative for its substance and the quality of the question being explored. Whatever a viewer may feel toward Moore, there's something more wrong, more complex and unsettling in his subject. And as viewers leave this film they will be talking more about the content than the character on the posters.
**** of *****

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-------- TITLE: Review: 2001-A Space Odyssey (1968) AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 9:37:00 PM ----- BODY:
Dir: Stanley Kubrick

Any movie that goes twenty-five minutes without dialogue or waits an hour to get to the central characters, seems like a formula for failure. A movie with angry evolutionary links jumping around with bones in their hands, looks like a failure. A space movie with lasers and battle, must be a failure. So why is Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey so successful?

I heard about this movie growing up and how my parents walked out of the theatre. And so when I finally got around to watching it, I wanted to finish - to prove that I was an intellectual, a conoseiur of films and could take whatever abstraction was being thrown at me. Having watched this a few times over the last decade, I'm continually surprised by how original, how unique this film remains. It makes me wonder what kind of person gave Kubrick permission to do this, because on paper it must have seemed like a complete mess. And that reminds me of another movie and how a studio risked everything based on the talent and reputation of a director: RKO and Citizen Kane.

This movie belongs in that conversation, on the same list with Citizen Kane, Casablanca, The Passion of Joan of Arc. And if you're trying to figure out why it works, stop. It's impossible. This film violates every rule but comes together with such precision and beauty that any attempt to emulate the structure is absolutely futile. It's like trying to remember why the Mona Lisa remains such a captivating portrait.

The story is confusing and abstract - something about a monolith that ushers humanity into evolutionary stages. And perhaps that isn't important, though there's an angle to the story that makes it feel as grand as the book of Genesis.

The central and most famous section of the film takes place aboard a space ship on a mission to Jupiter. It tells of the perfect HAL 9000 computer that starts to lose it's perfection. It develops a self-awareness that transforms into self-preservation, leading the irrational act of murder. It ultimately leads to the "death" of HAL. Not just the termination of a machine, but the death of an emerging consciousness. This section is so compelling. It's placed between the bookends of obscurity and silence at just the right time, cleansing the pallette for another exploration - this time for a special effects driven journey of discovery.

Like the rest of the movie, this third section shouldn't work, but it does. Perfectly. There are a few striking things about this movie aside from the atmosphere, pacing and vision.

The first is that the special effects have more accuracy and substance to them than nearly everything that has emerged from the cgi revolution. It reminded me of why it was possible to believe the original Star Wars trilogy occured in a real place. The new trilogy felt like light and pixels. The second is that, with the possible exception of Star Wars or Solaris, no one has improved upon this story or the sci-fi epic. Granted, the HAL storyline is ultimately a re-imagining of the Frankenstein legend, but very little of what Kubrick achieved forty years ago has been exceeded.

In an evolutionary model, Stealth, Electric Dreams, Terminator and perhaps even the Matrix trilogy, should have come earlier, leading to 2001 as the ultimate word on humanity verses machine, of mankind atoning for its own attempts to replace a creator god.

But this film, like Citizen Kane, was years ahead of the evolutionary curve - almost like an act of divine intervention.

***** of *****

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-------- TITLE: Archive Review: Matrix Revolutions (2003) AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 8:50:00 AM ----- BODY:
Since I've done nothing other than cover deep foreign movies, I thought – in an act of mercy – I'd throw in this review from a slightly more popular movie. This was written after seeing the film in the theater for the first time.

Dir: Andy Wachowski/Larry Wachowski

It is wholly unfair to gauge either of The Matrix sequels against their 1999 predecessor. Somewhere, back before “bullet-time,” we had not imagined the hybrid of techno-club culture and hong-Kong wire effects. But now this is all familiar territory and the remaining question is whether the peculiar parallel world created by the brothers Wachowski will be nearly as interesting as it seemed a few years ago.

The leather trilogy began with an homage to Alice in Wonderland but ends here with a highly-stylized abstraction of a video game. Visually, the Metropolis landscapes are riveting. Still, they feel like backdrops — even matte paintings — suggesting great imagination, but wholly inorganic. Of course, given the plot lines and history of the world, this may be intentional. But every hero story, especially those that are supposed to be about great acts of salvation, must make us care for both hero and victim. Instead, Revolutions is relentless posturing and exaggeration. There are no people in this movie. Zion, the refuge of true humanity, is somehow less warm than the digital cities. Its demolition seems no more tragic than the closing of a Starbucks.

Few movies are so successfully and unapologetically about style. Then again, few have the capability to rely on pure atmosphere. The Wachowskis' landscape remains unequaled. The action sequences continue to be astounding. But with all the hype, with all the quasi-philosophy introduced in the first two installments, something is altogether hollow. Perhaps the tagline—"Everything that has a beginning has an end"—sums up the film. It sounds profound but is sheer redundancy. This is a movie about indulgent pretension, acting like a clever group of undergraduates volleying meaning-of-life questions while playing Halo.

Revolutions, if it is has a point, is about conclusion. It is all about arriving at some finality. However, all sense of urgency and momentum is derived from the previous two installments. Anyone who enjoyed those films will be required to watch the third. Maybe true satisfaction comes from the utter shallowness of the chapter. There isn’t a need for another movie. Whatever happens to humanity and the machine world is really irrelevant because by the time Neo has fought his climactic battle nothing is really worth saving. The mystery of The Matrix was how it convinced us that there was reality to its universe in the first place.

*** of *****

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-------- TITLE: Some thoughts on Bergman AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 2:58:00 PM ----- BODY:
It's probably not great promotion to tip my hand so early - long before a program actually hits the ether - but, this seems as good a time as any to reflect on Ingmar Bergman. Over the last two months, my wife and I have watched eleven Bergman films in preparation for the next Watching The Directors podcast. Along the way, we were confronted by a surprising barrage of talent, humanism, thought and light. It's not the discovery of anything new - people have know that Bergman's films were significant long before our little podcast attempted to fill 75 minutes of commuter time. But somehow, there's a sense that we stumbled upon a secret.

Perhaps the greatest single-word description of what Bergman offers is "substance." His films, even an eighty minute chamber piece like Winter Light, seem more thoughtful, deliberate, impassioned and honest than most films that need three hours and eighty million dollars. Perhaps Bergman understands something about character and story - that a real story, with a touch of poetic and production embellishment - will stand long after the effects and blitz of the blockbuster.

Now, before this comes off as elitism - some statement that only foreign films are real films, it's probably worth clarifying that Bergman's "real" stories do not require sparse surroundings. The effectiveness of something as grand as The Lord of the Rings wasn't merely spectacle. It worked because it had something that large movies often lose: truth. The characters - hobbits and wizards - were grounded in truth. They existed in a world where integrity had consequences and personality made a difference. They sacrificed for one another and wept at the fear of losing life and friendship. The goal may have been to save the world, but it was a real world with beer and food and families.

Bergman is a naturalist. His characters behave with subtlety and frailty. There's something familiar and positively accurate about them. But still, Bergman isn't above the exaggeration and manipulation essential to great filmmaking. His camera moves are intended to draw us into a feeling of claustrophobia, terror or loneliness. His positioning of actors and objects creates energy and tension. Bergman is a master in the same way Shakespeare was: not that they came up with deeply original stories, but they captured the beauty and horror in common stories and decorated them with genius.

Of course all films can't exist at this level. If every film was Autumn Sonata or The Silence, we would all go mad from the sheer intensity of life. There's room for Michael Bay, Brett Ratner and John Hughes, just as there's room for Grisham and Chrichton. What an artist like Bergman does is remind us of the transcendence of philosophy, religion, love and great music. He captures something rare and fleeting, but important and deeply humanistic.

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-------- TITLE: Review: Winter Light (1962) AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 8:54:00 PM ----- BODY:
Dir: Ingmar Bergman

In a Kids in the Hall skit, the comedy troupe creates a faux Italian film, a Fellini-esque exaggeration that rips on American films: "Always with the happy ending." The rise of the indie film, and the success of the R rating have both muted this caricature. But it is true, American films are predominantly comedies - at least in the technical sense of the word – “always with the happy ending.”

If this stereotype has any truth then the inverse, the idea that foreign films are all tragedies, may also have some basis in fact. Ingmar Bergman has done little to tear down the impression of artsy, melancholic films about the harshness and isolation of life. Winter Light appears to be an archetype of such a perspective. Yet, appearances, like the pristine Swedish winter, can be deceiving.

Winter Light tells the tale of a pastor and his remarkably small group of parishioners. Pastor Ericsson (Gunnar Björnstrand) presides over the conclusion of a church service, and then retires to his study where he engages his agnostic mistress Märta (Ingrid Thulin), the hopeful hunchback Algot (Allan Edwall) and the suicidal fisherman, Jonas (Max von Sydow). The small cast is matched with a small story. This is simply a three hour Sunday afternoon between services. However, in that time, the pastor loses faith, a man loses his life, a woman is widowed, another woman is harshly scorned and a simple man gives a beautiful reflection on the Passion.

In a counseling session between Pastor Ericsson and Jonas, we learn that Jonas is there only for a shred of hope, a reason not to kill himself. This plea exposes Ericsson's own emptiness. He has nothing to offer except his own questions of whether life is worth living. The meeting concludes with Jonas quietly leaving the room and the pastor quoting Jesus on the cross: "God. Why has thou forsaken me?"

This scene - joined with the subtlest and most precise piece of camera work since Citizen Kane - is both painful and poetic. The pastor is left with a sense of temporary peace, as if finally freed from the requirement to believe. He is free to say and do anything he wishes, no longer bound by either his fantasy of God's goodness or his puzzlement over God's mystery. The world simply is what it is, without mystery or purpose, without judgment or objective.

Though seen as a lesser, rougher work by cinematographer Sven Nykvist, the photography creates another character. The English title Winter Light (as opposed to the literal Swedish title - Naatvardsgasterna - "the communicants") speaks of the way that such coldness and brilliance cooperate. There is almost a paradox to the idea: the deadness of winter against the clarity of light. Nykvist, Bergman and Björnstrand keep this tension throughout the film, never tempted to place faith and nihilism against one another. Instead, they must exist. In the cruel, harsh world it is easy to see only the winter. In the church it is easy to see only the woodwork, the images and tales of a loving and benevolent God. In this work, as in much of Bergman's corpus, faith is not clean.

Ericsson's loss of faith, as a duty to his profession and his parents, is said to have paralleled Bergman's own realization that his childhood faith was abandoned. Yet, perhaps this too is overly simple. Bergman, like the pastor, does not leave religion so easily, for with him and his characters, God is a constant presence, even in his absence. It is this loss of faith from another period of life - whether in childhood or the assumed religion of culture - that one is finally freed to believe. Winter Light, despite its tragic plot, is a testament to finding belief in a new way, through a simple reminder of the stories that still hold true and the God that is hidden in the cold and the light.

****1/2 of *****

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-------- TITLE: Review: Ordet (1955) AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 11:18:00 AM ----- BODY:
Arts and Faith ranks Ordet (The Word), Carl Dreyer's penultimate work, as its premiere selection on its list of spiritually significant films. There's something provocative about that ranking, like it must be the one film that every spiritually curious film watcher must see. Considering that Dreyer is also responsible for The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), it's hard to imagine him producing a more significant, more spiritual film. I'm not sure that Ordet towers over Joan, but it is different, vital and well worth watching.

The story centers on two Danish families in the 1920s, both with differing concepts of faith. This distinction isn't anything as obvious as Catholic - Protestant. Presumably it's Reformed and Free Church, which is probably enough diversity for its time. Much like the better Woody Allen films, several subplots converge into an overall theme: the question of faith, in a generic Protestant Christian sense. It isn't about any particular doctrines other than a refutation of God's absence and the possibility of miracles.

The subplots are where the drama distinguishes itself. The governing character, Morten Borgen, patriarch of the Borgen family and lord of Borgen farm, is a man of particular devotion. He is conflicted in his purity of faith, desiring to keep a firmness but always undermined by his affection for his children. Morten sits in conflict with Peter Petersen, the leader of a small band of religious experientialists. Petersen is convinced of the exclusive orthodoxy of his religion, telling Borgen that he is hell-bound and needs to join and convert. Like "Romeo and Juliet", the families' divisions are emphasized by a romance between Anders Borgen and Anne Petersen.

The other two brothers of the Borgen family accentuate the religious obsession. Mikkal is an agnostic, patient with his father's faith but unimpressed. He is a good man and seems the most steady of the cast, apart from his devout wife Inger. Mikkal's brother Johannes is a theology student who over immersed in Kierkegaard. His spiritual quest consumed him until he lapsed into a mental state with a serious identity problem: Johannes is convinced he is the second coming of Jesus. He mopes around the house, quoting scripture.

The plot comes into focus through a conflict between Morten and Peter over the forbidden romance. Inger, who is about to deliver Mikkal’s first son, interrupts the bitter exchange. Her pregnancy becomes complicated and questions about the survival of the baby and Inger dominate the remaining half of the film. It is in the wake of such turmoil that the faith and agnosticism of the characters become tested. They must all face what they know to be true, all with Johannes becoming more mystical and challenging the quality of the Borgens's belief.

Other than having religious themes, Ordet has very little in common with Dreyer's Joan. That earlier film was abstract and frenetic. It was full of drama and venom, expressionist in concept and design. Ordet is methodical and plain, taken from a stage play by Kaj Munck. It suffers from the source material as a film, staged and shot with long uninterrupted shots. It has more in common with Hitchcock's Under Capricorn than Dreyer's silent work. But that change in style and pacing serves the film. Around the hour mark, the background development begins to elevate the story. The pacing and conflict increase and moments of music and silence play against one another.

While the first half of the film is deliberate and thoughtful, it is with the second half that those investments become valuable. Will Johannes regain his sanity? Will Ann and Anders be allowed to marry; will Peter and Morten settle their feud? Will Inger, Mikkal and the baby survive?

The test of a great film is not only in the questions it is willing to ask, but how it ultimately confronts those questions. Ordet isn't content to simply inquire, but has the courage to confront questions. That isn't to say that it provides simple or satisfying answers, but the film concludes with conviction and decisiveness. Dreyer's Ordet is a truly compelling and rewarding film, as full of pathos and angst as anything Bergman produced, but saturated in the warmth and possibility that made another Danish film, Babette's Feast, such an endearing work.

****1/2 of *****

Notes:
1. Birgitte Federspiel (Inger), also plays one of the elderly sisters in Babette's Feast.
2. This is a difficult film to find. For some reason neither Netflix nor Blockbuster stock it. It is, however, available for purchase at reasonable prices from Criterion.

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-------- TITLE: Film: True and True-ish AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 2:45:00 PM ----- BODY:
While developing the Watching Theology podcast, I expected to be a bigger defender of using the arts to think through theology. Although that is partly the case, I've found a few problems with the approach.

As a person who spends a disproportionate amount of time with movies, I'm at odds with the medium. On one hand, film offers the culmination of a number of art forms - writing, visual and music. It tells stories in ways that were completely impossible only a century ago. Since my generation is addicted to stories, film plays into an insatiable appetite. They are convenient ways to satisfy blunt attention spans while making me believe I've learned something.

Film, like other visual arts, is about shades and moods - not precision. We can flock to a movie portrait of William Wallace (Braveheart) or the Persian/Spartan war (300) and come away with a hint of some truth. We cannot, however, trust that hint. It isn't something we can defend as fact. Even in Carl Dreyer's landmark The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), which says that all dialogue is taken from court transcripts, the viewer understands that the film interprets. It does not record.

Some of my favorite films are biographies: A Man Called Peter (Peter Marshall), Luther and the aforementioned Passion of Joan. But, even in the most faithful telling, I know I'm getting an interpretation - an idea of an artist's concept of a person. There's nothing more unnerving than hearing actual tapes of C.S. Lewis's voice, disappointed that he wasn't a bit more like Anthony Hopkins (Shadowlands).

As unlimited as the films are in the ability to depict people and places, they are constantly confined to a certain language and palette. Like other stories, they can convey truthfulness, but have limits on truth. Films can be real, capturing an indescribable angst or impulse, but they have difficulty with details - with precise technical language.

Several theologies of the late twentieth century have capitalized on the power of the arts, but have forgotten limitations. As we speak about getting truth from a film or song, we tend to forget that the truthfulness isn't very detailed. Worship music conveys the idea of emotional interaction with the Divine, but it rarely goes beyond mood.

My fear of films comes from their power, especially after Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004) created a frenzy of hyperbole and adoration. There were stories about encountering Jesus in a personal and real way "that had never happened before." People were coming away from the film believing they knew more about Jesus and the heart of Christianity. In truth, they knew more about Mel Gibson. Was there truth in the art? Of course. But that truth was limited. In some points, it was anti-factual.

Christianity remains a religion of the word. It is doctrinal and even has this strange devotion to preaching - through speaking texts and propositional statements. At some level, this seems like an outdated idea, but perhaps it's always been that way. St. Paul refers to preaching as "foolishness", so maybe the people of his day were no less enticed by poetry, music and plays than we are by The Matrix.

But Christianity's dependence upon written texts is undeniable. Art has always been supplemental to Christianity; it has never had authority. As such, the new dependence upon the arts, even for teaching, is tangential. When it takes the front position - as it did in much of Europe a few centuries ago - it disorients and obscures. It's an assistant, but not a reliable guide.

Like it or not, Christianity is bound to things like theology, doctrine, creeds and confessions. The movies - even the really good ones - can bring us someplace, maybe even to a place that feels more real than any biblical story. But they are ultimately missing the ability to comfort that comes from exact words - promises. The texts let us know, while the arts can make us feel. Of course, feelings can be a good thing - if they're based on truth. Otherwise, they're just drugs.

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-------- TITLE: Archive Review: Spiderman 2 (2004) AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 6:54:00 PM ----- BODY:
Note: Seeing as Spiderman 3 has opened this weekend, it seemed like a good time to dig back into the archives for this review of Spiderman 2, from a few summers ago.

Dir: Sam Raimi

It seems that Spiderman 2 was already classified as one of the premier films of summer 2004 long before any eye saw a frame. It had to be, for the very same reason as the original Spiderman. The forerunner was touted as an exceptional work of psychological brilliance based on one of the most universally beloved heroes of the comic universe. That story was about maturation and character development. It was about the person inside the suit, and was able to treat the young viewer and his or her chaperone.

So far the Spiderman franchise has been content to revisit the themes of superhero films established most firmly with the Christopher Reeves-era Superman, though with an added level of depth and competence. Still, perhaps the most surprising aspect of the whole sequel is that no lawyer associated with the Superman films sued for intellectual plagiarism.

Spiderman 2, like Superman 2, is the story of the reluctant hero - the struggle between the costume and the normal life. Peter Parker (Toby McGuire) is torn between his guilt-based sense of responsibility – the deep conviction that Spiderman is the protector of the innocent – and a personal desire to pursue life with a girl (Mary Jane, played by Kirsten Dunst). It is, with no real sense of irony, that the endangered girl ultimately draws Peter back to the costume.

In an age of absentee masculinity and indifferent anti-heroes, this self-sacrificial story seems both healthy and needed. Perhaps it is. But at the end of the day, there is nothing particularly surprising - nothing really risked in the sacrifice. Like most concepts of screen heroes, no act of benevolence goes unpaid. Is Peter Parker really required to give up Mary Jane? Does he forever have to forsake any life outside of duty? No. He must simply learn to be a better time manager and get others to cooperate.

Spiderman 2 offers unusually good acting, a reliable story-line, and an embellished special effects budget. This is the hope of every parent who’s adolescent boy is looking for a franchise. Spiderman is significantly more wholesome than Neo (Matrix) or James Bond. But there is only so much self-suffering that one should have to witness unless watching a Swedish film. The circumstances of existential doubt and debate get overly heavy. It’s difficult to remember if McGuire ever has a joy-filled smile in the whole film. If the hero doesn’t have any fun, why should the viewer?

***1/2 of *****

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-------- TITLE: Review: The Virgin Spring (1960) AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 6:31:00 AM ----- BODY:
Dir: Ingmar Bergman

An old Depeche Mode song questions the goodness of God in the realities of life. It imagines the death of a young girl, among other tragedies. Eventually, the song can only draw the conclusion that God is somehow sadistic: "I don't want to start any blasphemous rumours, but I think that God's got a sick sense of humour, and when I die, I expect to find him laughing." The British pop band may have seen The Virgin Spring, a movie intent to display the same dilemna of the brutality of an everyday existence and the apparent absence of God from His own creation. But if it drew only the conclusion that God was enjoying the evils of life, those artists missed the fullness of another artist's - namely Ingmar Bergman's - more devotional and faith-filled question.

Max Van Sydow rejoins Bergman as, Töre, the knight-father in this retelling of a thirteenth-century ballad. Töre's daughter is on a traditional pilgrimage to light candles at a distant church. Along the way, her innocence and optimism are betrayed. She is raped (in a surprisingly graphic presentation) and killed. Her body is left in the woods, robbed of all wealth and decency. Her violators leave the woods, unwittingly arriving at her family home for shelter.

There is a degree of dramatic tension from the moment the small band of murdering brothers arrives at the home. The story is still loose and in the formulation of plot, there's always the possibility that the brothers are found out and The Virgin Spring becomes a tale of vengeance. Then again, perhaps the brothers escape, only to be discovered later, long after they are free from the roof and reach of the bereaved father.

But either line would stunt what is actually a more ambitious, and more personal film. Bergman isn't telling this story to create a balance of justice in the universe, to answer some question about the innocent and the guilty. He means to ask a question that plagued him throughout his filmography: "Where is God?"

This is the question that the mother must ask, the question that Töre must face, especially in light of all that such violence and arbitrary loss must cost. If one can't trust their innocent daughter to be protected by God on a pilgrimage of faith, can one trust God for anything?

Perhaps the most notable aspect of the film is its tone. It is the very mark of quietness, yet remains a savagely violent film. Somehow, with Bergman, these two tracks are not contradictory. The still, religious life at the end of winter gives the film an air of peace and contemplation. But the events within this world are so aggressive, impassioned and harmful, that the stillness almost seems to be a divine facade, a distracting and disarming attempt by the Creator to mask the brutality of His creation.

The Virgin Spring is the epitome of the depressing foreign film, but it - like the very atmosphere of stillness and violence - is held in deep tension with an underlying devotion and goodness. It contains a hint of optimism and redemption, though only after the height of disappointment and sin. It is, at once, sin and forgiveness, freely engaged with the most persistent questions of religious thought. The Virgin Spring is a tale of contemplation and devotion, utterly fearless in it's humble attempts to ask God where He is in the world He created.

****1/2 of *****

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-------- TITLE: Archive Review: Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 6:56:00 AM ----- BODY:
Dir: Quentin Tarantino

Tarantino has been called the next Orson Welles - whatever that really means. Despite a multitude of similarities with that legend, something is altogether different. Until the desperate later years, no one could imagine Welles being bound to popular culture and low-budget martial arts films. Welles seems cosmopolitan - commenting on the United States while remaining an heir of great European filmmaking. Tarantino is undeniably American. Like the Beach Boys or Elvis, you could never look at his work and imagine it originating anywhere else.

With Kill Bill, Tarantino starts to resemble another director: Oliver Stone. There was something about Platoon and Wall Street that seemed promising and vital. When JFK emerged, Stone’s private passions saturated his filmmaking. He laced his conspiratorial paranoias with a variety of film-grades, experimental narratives, and divergent perspectives. But from that point Stone’s work has seemed to be works of indulgence (consider On Any Given Sunday). Kill Bill is Tarantino’s JFK. It is a work of indulgence and vigorous creativity. It could just as easily herald a trend towards self-destructive excess. It is a pinnacle work, but it is an unrestrained work.

Any attempt to describe Kill Bill in a word, must be style. With the opening moments, the joy of originality from Pulp Fiction’s diner scene - the most intriguing initial dialogue in a film since The Godfather - returns. It is indescribably Tarantino. Somehow we know it is him and would recognize it anywhere. There are very few directors who are so apparent. Maybe Hitchcock. Maybe Allen. Maybe Kurosawa. Definitely Tarantino.

The film has little plot - only what it needs. This is a story of revenge, but sometimes that very word carries such power and possibility that it can be as interesting as Hamlet. The Bride (Uma Thurman) is the central character. We know very quickly that a group of assassins killed her wedding party, her unborn child and presumed her dead. Nearly five years later, she has awakened seeking their lives. The story is simple enough: she tracks the five of them down beginning with Oren-Ischi (Lucy Liu), culminating in her old boss, Bill (David Carradine), presumably to be encountered in Volume 2.

The brilliant re-definer of crime/action films draws from different sources, but the experience is familiar. Rather than the crime novels of Elmore Leonard, Tarantino looks toward Westerns and Hong Kong action films. He writes a story that draws from the foundation of Charlie’s Angels (a thought he offered us through Uma Thurman’s tale of a failed television pilot in Pulp Fiction). He merges it with Kurosawa-esque legends of samurai and revenge and mixes in a strange blend of Charles Bronson heroism and Isaac Hayes bravado. The strength of Tarantino is his ability to take all of these influences and form a fresh voice. With the possible exception of Jackie Brown, a Tarantino film is not forgettable.

Kill Bill, despite drawing from a variety of Saturday afternoon B-films and television kung-fu movies, is fresh. It is about the sum of the parts and the joy of the journey. This also means that it can only be compared to Tarantino. Standing next to Pulp Fiction there is something less than landmark in this work. Perhaps it is because it is only half of a film. Perhaps it is that Pulp Fiction is such an inventive and utterly unrepeatable movie (the curse of Citizen Kane) that Kill Bill could not hope to live up to such a standard.

Tarantino’s famed dialogues are more sparse, though his visuals are enhanced. He injects an anime sequence that is appropriate but overlong. Rather than slight exaggerations, Kill Bill is saturated in highly comic violence featuring gallons of blood and spurting arteries. Pulp Fiction was all about very normal and limited people in traditionally glamorized and romanticized situations. Kill Bill is about the special and glamorous. Uma Thurman can get cut and bleed pints, but, other than in flashes back to the wedding massacre, she never approaches the brokenness or vulnerability of Pulp Fiction’s Mrs. Wallace.

Tarantino considers Thurman to be his muse, and it shows. It’s a wonder that no one has found a way to use her since 1994. The woman who played Venus in Terry Gilliam’s Baron Munchauesen photographs with such vividness, she is perfect for the film’s stylized presence. When she dawns Bruce Lee’s yellow jump suit, there is something iconic. With Kill Bill the courage of Tarantino to risk his career becomes apparent. He holds nothing back, and though this does not work with perfection, there is something undeniably refreshing and powerful about it.

**** of *****
-------- TITLE: The Gospel According to Tarantino AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 7:59:00 AM ----- BODY:
Religion is often considered the domain of the sacred. Everything else, including movies, beer and comfortable underwear, is the profane. That doesn't necessarily mean it's dirty, just that it's somehow tainted by the material world. It isn't that special, untouchable realm of holiness.

Christianity really messes up those categories, especially in the Incarnation of the Word - in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. And that tension of fully God and fully man has confused most of us ever since. In nineteenth century revivalism - and in many areas of contemporary Evangelicalism - abstaining from "worldly amusements" (as the old Southern Baptist "Faith and Message" used to put it) was the test of holiness. It became evidence of a Christian's Christianity.

But let's just begin with the basic idea that "the Word became flesh" and that one of the fundamental scandals of Christianity is that it blurs the boundaries of sacred and profane. A dusty (probably a bit smelly), ancient Jew is considered the holiest person ever to live. Still, does that mean sacredness can stretch further into the really profane? into the realm of sex, violence and a potty mouth?

(Speaking of "potty mouth") In an interview Bono did with Rolling Stone he talked at length about the question of reconciling - or even thinking there could be reconciliation - between the sacred and profane. He saw that the inability to live with that tension ultimately undid Christians like Elvis Presley and Marvin Gaye. They could sing about Jesus and girls but never at the same time. It was said of Elvis that he would record a gospel album and go home with a mistress. Listen to Gaye's classic What's Goin' On album to see him flip between Jesus-centered music and drug songs. This is the same guy who revived his career with "Sexual Healing" though lost his life to the gun of his fundamentalist father.

There are a number of films that push the marriage of sacred and profane to points of abandon. Kevin Smith's Dogma (1999) is an attempt to create a somewhat affectionate critique of religion - at least an insider's contemplation - with deviant sexual humor, apocryphal plot points and a giant crap monster (Smith is a Catholic). Constantine (2005) is a story of redemption in a violent, but surprisingly reverent world of demons and harsh social textures. The Exorcist is perhaps the most disturbing film of the recent era, but the story was written as a testament to the power of faith and the reality of good and evil in this world.

But even more impressive - and confusing - are the movies that don't appear to have a religious or Christian perspective. Miguel Arteta's The Good Girl (2002), written by Mike White and staring Jennifer Aniston, is about an affair between a woman and an adolescent. But it touches on the reality - and even the language - of sin. It prods at Texan Christianity but accepts its sincerity. Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man (1973) is a story of a small island dedicated to paganism, including orgies and ritual sacrifice. But the primary police investigator is a devout Christian who maintains his integrity despite temptations and danger.

The ultimate example is a surprisingly moralistic film from a writer/director named Quentin Tarantino. Pulp Fiction (1994) is a massive assault of style, perverse characters and dialogue. It famously inspired a string of dark and violent independent films, and contains homo-sadistic rednecks, hit-men, rampant drug abuse and stays grounded in the dark underworld of blue collar criminal activity. One of the primary characters - perhaps even the main character - is Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson). Jules is half of an enforcer team that kills a room of young men to take back a mysterious brief case for their employer, the crime lord Marsellus Wallace (Ving Rhames). Winnfield, in the moment before he assassinates quotes the poetry of Scripture. He uses - and abuses - Ezekiel 25.

But Jules witness an event. After a stream of close-range bullets fly past, he thinks he's seen a miracle. Vincent (John Travolta), his partner, interprets it as mere luck. And in many ways, the story - or at least that aspect of the story - is about how these two people respond to divine intervention. Vincent is the skeptic. Jules is the faithful. As the movie draws to its conclusions, Tarantino makes a surprising statement about the two paths these men take. Jules' remains a mystery, unknown to us except in his final statements of intent. Vincent's is perhaps a judgment against his lack of faith.

Does Jules undergo a religious - yes, even Christian - conversion? And does he become the hero of the story through it? After my third or fourth viewing, I actually caught this aspect. Iit became clear that Jules has become a man of primitive but sincere faith. Consider his words to Ringo (Tim Roth), who is holding him up at gunpoint. Jules turns the table on Ringo, gaining the uperhand:
Jules: I want you to go in that bag, and find my wallet.
Ringo: Which one is it?
Jules: It's the one that says Bad Motherf***ker....
Jules: Wanna know what I'm buyin' Ringo?
Ringo: What?
Jules: Your life. I'm givin' you that money so I don't hafta kill your a**. You read the Bible?
Ringo: Not regularly.
Jules: There's a passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. 'The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you.'
I been sayin' that s**t for years. And if you ever heard it, it meant your a**. I never really questioned what it meant. I thought it was just a cold-blooded thing to say to a motherf***er before you popped a cap in his a**. But I saw some s**t this mornin' made me think twice. Now I'm thinkin': it could mean you're the evil man. And I'm the righteous man. And Mr. 9mm here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous a** in the valley of darkness. Or it could be you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. I'd like that. But that s**t ain't the truth. The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd.

So can you recommend Pulp Fiction to the church body? Or is it so buried in the profane that the sacred is unrecognizable? Or perhaps I'm missing the whole point. Perhaps Pulp Fiction is simply about characters, and Tarantino's genius is that he creates characters with integrity and complexity to exist in his stylized world. Perhaps Tarantino doesn't see the conflict that undid Marvin Gaye and Elvis Presley because he's personally unconflicted. And maybe that gives him a little bit of freedom to allow sacred and profane to coexist, at least in Pulp Fiction and in Jules. Is Pulp Fiction a Christian film? Not exactly. But it does allow the possibility for God to break in, and that's half way to the Incarnation - the ultimate statement of sacred profanity.

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-------- TITLE: LOTR: The movie and the book AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 8:40:00 PM ----- BODY:
Among my deeper, perhaps more pathetic, confessions, I must admit to never reading the Lord of the Rings. My very love for that story comes utterly from those Jackson films. Yes, I've read The Hobbit a couple times, dabbled with the Silmarilion and am a few pages away from finishing Joseph Pearce's Tolkien biography. I can't defend my, well, sin. But, perhaps I can explain it.

Several years ago I saw the animated Lord of the Rings film. For some reason, it never captured me the way The Hobbit did and I never really had interest in the story. By the time that Jackson's film emerged, I began to understand a bit of the allure - that same fascination that made Tolkien's masterpiece sit at the top of lists on the twentieth century's best books. But by then, I had no choice. I couldn't begin reading. I had to wait for the trilogy to come, to hear and see the story.

Many people probably ran out to read the books. They knew what we all know: that the book is always better than the movie. I knew that too. But I couldn't help thinking of a summer twenty years ago. Unlike so many boys of my generation, I didn't see Return of the Jedi early in the run. I had to wait. My family had planned a vacation and part of that vacation was seeing Jedi in a big theater. My Dad, sympathetic to my pain, gave me the novelization, which I devoured. On the screen, by the time Luke was fighting out of Jabba's palace, I was strangely empty. I was underwhelmed, like some great hope became a bit of an unspoken disappointment.

After The Fellowship of the Ring I remained dedicated to avoiding that adolescent error. I remained chaste, avoiding all but the most filtered and distant Tolkien lore. I stayed away from any text or interview that would answer the question: "How does it end?" I believed that there was no way Middle Earth would be lost to the forces of evil. But I never knew with certainty whether Frodo would make it out alive. The more I read of Tolkien's devout Catholicism, the more I thought, "Perhaps he would kill off Frodo - as a sacrifice, as a Christ figure." Honestly, until that first ending (there were many endings) of Return of the King, I did not know whether Frodo would make it out alive... and that was the evidence of a great story and a great movie.

The Lord of the Rings has surpassed the original Star Wars trilogy for me in many ways. It can't take the place of Star Wars. Nothing ever could, anymore than my parenthood could replace my childhood. But for all the complexity of Lucas's masterwork, I have a special adult fondness for Tolkien and Jackson. Instead of my former ability to watch Star Wars to be brought home - to a place of serenity and wonder - the evergreen trilogy has become LOTR. (Yes, this was hotly contested in Clerks 2.)

And that brings me back to the problem of those darned books - those magical volumes of language and legend that sparked Jackson's imagination, that compelled such wonderful visions. Do I dare read them? Do I dare mess with that perfect series of hope and redemption, of beauty and grandeur? Perhaps. But then again, maybe I should just stick with The Hobbit.

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-------- TITLE: Review: 300 (2007) AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 8:21:00 AM ----- BODY:
Dir: Zack Snyder

Schools have spent much of the last fifteen years changing mascots. The Orangemen have become, simply, the Orange. My old community college moved from Indians to the Yaks (true). After watching 300, I would be among the first to suggest my old high school consider dropping "Spartans".

300 is a stylized splatterfest, an adaptation of a Frank Miller graphic novel that aims to bring his vision of ancient history from the page to the screen. It does this. Unlike so many adaptations, the problem isn't only the translation, but also the source material. Miller's story is a glimpse at the Sparta civilization and its attempt to withstand subjugation by the Persian empire. It concentrates on a small band of soldiers who join King Leonidas, like the Scots standing with William Wallace for the cause of freedom.

300 is no Braveheart. It may not even be a Sin City, another Miller adaptation. For one thing, Sin City had both characters and plot. Other than the above summation, there is no plot. And the development of character, with the possible exception of Queen Gorgo, isn't as deep as the black ink on a Miller page.

When audiences see Leni Reifenstahl's Triumph of the Will, her propaganda documentary on the Nazis, they watch with fascination. It's a chance to see the most famous villains of the twentieth century on film. But it also has a tendency to develop some sense of understanding. For a moment, every non-German stops asking, "How could those dumb people ever follow this guy?" Reifenstahl succeeds at turning Hitler into a hero, a fulfillment of some deep Teutonic dream.

The Spartans are no less noble and no less nationalistic than the Nazis, but director Zack Snyder is no Reifenstahl. The prologue vividly displays the indoctrination of Spartan youth. They are inspected at birth for perfection. When they fail, the babies are cast upon a giant trash heap of discarded carcasses. Following a perversion of Plato's Republic, young boys are taken from their mothers to be trained, brutally, to be heartless and committed warriors. They suffer abuse at the hands of other boys, men and the entire civilization. The survival of the entire nation depends on continual chain of systematized eugenics, abuse and military assimilation.

No one in Sparta is weak. Every man, other than the duplicitous philosopher-politicians, is blazing in idealized masculinity. The women are perfect matches. It is the society of design and misogyny. It exists only through the uncompromising enforcement of an ethnic and philosophical ideal that would have made the Führer wince.

And these are our heroes.

After the establishment of lore and culture, the remainder of the film is dedicated to achieving the perfect battle scene. Wave after wave of Persians fall to the strategies and homo-erotic sculptures of the Spartans. Xerxes, an eight-foot demigod king, offers peace through submission - and a display of fetish jewelry that belongs in Hellraiser. Sparta has sacrificed all of its imperfection for their ideals. They will not even hear the most compassionate offer of treaty. They know only the way of the sword and brutality, though, for them, it is the way of liberty.

The first battle is successful. It draws on depicting strategy and highlighting the stylistic vocabulary of the film. But each subsequent sequence is simply a modified version. It becomes obvious that the style and grandeur of 300 is limited to a small palette. It is built on blacks and reds, sword splatter, chiseled physiques and a pacing that slows to accentuate every thrust of the spear. If the film ran at a constant real-time speed, it may have lasted only thirty minutes.

And that would have been more than enough.

* of *****

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-------- TITLE: Review: Zodiac (2007) AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 8:30:00 AM ----- BODY:
Dir: David Fincher

In the late 1960's and early 70's a string of murders gripped much of the Bay area. The crimes were apparently random, violent and played out publicly through print and television news. The unknown force behind the crimes, who called himself the "Zodiac," inspired copycat savagery while ultimately remaining uncaptured. Later, a San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist - named Robert Graysmith - wrote a book about the events of that time. These are the facts that David Fincher works with, and Zodiac is a film that intends to be as precise in following those facts as it is in producing a cinematic experience.

By following this structure Fincher operates with a handicap. He can't end the film with the capture of the criminal. He can't show the successful resolution of a long, terrifying period in Californian history. Zodiac is a film that is constantly trying to find its center, trying to figure out a story that can have an ending. When is it time to roll credits? Unfortunately, the center doesn't truly emerge until deep into the movie.

Instead of a sequence that was cut for time, we see only a piece of text: "Four years later." Here, in 1977, Gyllenhaal's Zodiac-obsessed Robert Graysmith gives the film grounding. Long after the public has moved on, after the reporters and detectives have been reassigned to other cases, Graysmith is stuck with an obsession to continue the case. He becomes a collateral victim of the Zodiac, unable to focus on a normal life. And he ignites the hopes and perspectives of several involved in the original investigations.

Fincher remains a masterful director. With Zodiac, he creates one of the most complete technical films since Casino. Donavon's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" rings through with all the style and atmosphere of The Rolling Stone's "Gimme Shelter". The soundtrack generates a bed of ambience, creating mood without obviousness. Each song is chosen with the rhythm and perfection of a Scorsese soundtrack: an endless cycle of songs that compliment the story without ever taking it over.

Even deeper, the use of light and framing are genius - unpretentious but exciting and compelling. Every sound effect rings through with great placement and precision. Quirks and visual details make each frame substantial. The dialogue is fluid, literate and sometimes humorous. Zodiac is a film with unsurpassed texture and craftsmanship. (The shot of the Golden Gate bridge buried in fog - the image used for the poster - is iconic and stunning.)

Surprisingly, Fincher forgoes the technical wizardry of his earlier opening credits. It's almost as if he's forcing himself to create an accessible film. Rather than Fight Club's travel through the brain, he uses a standard combination of imagery, music and overlaid text. But if you watch, you can see that the first ten minutes of the film introduces the vocabulary of Zodiac. It will be both human and terrifying, linear and straightforward. Both explicitly and suggestively violent. It will consist of perfect pans of the camera, tobacco coloring with surprising amounts of light. It will create momentum through the introduction of new characters, the atmosphere of music and sound, the overlaying of audio and text. In short, those first minutes serve as a primer - a code key - to everything that follows. It is also a clinic to every aspiring filmmaker - and perhaps a reminder to current directors about what can be done in a movie.

But Zodiac is 158 minutes long and needs more than a great beginning or even a provocative middle.

It sets up like a combination of Se7en, Quiz Show and All the Presidents Men - a promising parentage. But those are three distinct movies; their greatness comes in precision: knowing exactly what they want to do and how to get there. Woodward and Bernstein make cameos through Gyllenhaal and Downey, but they don't stay. If there's something that doesn't quite develop - at least until much farther into the movie - it's a center. Zodiac is a film of texture, not topography.

It is the most eloquent dramatized re-enactment we've ever seen, eventually, giving way to another film. That second story - about obsession and the personal impact of a public crime - was the right one to chase. It should have been pursued much earlier, even though it would probably have meant dropping a half-hour from the best crafted parts of the movie. Unfortunately, Gyllenhaal's Graysmith is less compelling than the characters that become peripheral: Mark Ruffalo's Inspector Toschi and Robert Downey's Paul Avery.

Chloe Sevigny, who plays Graysmith's wife Melanie, is basically a literary device.
She lacks depth and emotion - a placeholder that rarely changes expression and seems unthinking, perhaps stylistically ornamental. It's almost as if Fincher needs to use the pre-1977 story to create the momentum for the final section. Gyllenhaal's descent is solid, but it lacks the depth of Brad Pitt's in Se7en, or even Michael Douglas's in The Game. But Gyllenhaal experiences moments of deep horror and enthusiasm, eventually redeeming Fincher's choice. He also gives us one of the most atmospherically and psychologically terrifying sequences since Silence of the Lambs.

Fincher's failures would qualify as the successes of lesser directors. Though a bit bloated and unfocused, Zodiac is an impressive marathon of generally great performances and compelling atmospheres. Fans of Fincher will be treated to another satisfying - though somewhat inconcise - reminder that he is a new master. The average moviegoer will be treated to a somewhat long, but captivating expose of the power of cinema. But there are at least two or three scenes in his movies that no other director could create. Like all Fincher films, even if the sum of its parts don't add up to a masterpiece, Zodiac's parts are honed and crafted with greatness you can't find in many other places.

**** of *****

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-------- TITLE: The other side of beauty AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 5:54:00 AM ----- BODY:
H.R. Giger is a master of synthetic aesthetics, and by that I mean nothing less than the ability to understand and combine the most beautiful and ugly aspects of creation. There's something compellingly beautiful about his alien creations. Something that draws us in to their sleek, feminine qualities. It's very difficult to duplicate. One step in the other direction - to add a few more teeth or more dramatic angles - and they simply become monsters.

Horror films have attempted to find that balance of extremes: violence and calm, gore and sensuality, beauty and ugliness. Consider the Hellraiser series, as the films play on grotesquely designed, sensual demons. They do something that goes back far in the study of aesthetics. They understand that the contrast of beauty and ugliness creates a tension and energy that lures the human animal into some level of primitive excitement.
Whether it's the modern horror movie or the medieval judgment play, ugliness is an important component of understanding beauty. Humans live in a strange condition of balanced contradictions. Anyone who thinks people are basically good should be around a mob that hasn't slept or eaten in 2 days. We are draw to violence and brutality, to exploited sexuality and domination. It's the reason dictatorships and politics will always exist - and perhaps why the ultimate form of biblical government is a monarchy.

One question provoked by St. Paul is whether a Christian should look at, or even consider, ugliness. In his letter to the Philippian Church, he writes, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things." Some interpreters have turned this passage into a ministry of positive thinking. Others strongly argue that it's utterly inappropriate for a Christian to expose his or herself to the other side of aesthetics.

Unfortunately, we have a difficult situation: the world is at least as ugly as it is beautiful. We aren't excused from ugliness, though we are supposed to cling to beauty.

That becomes a bit of an issue in horror films, or even films that spend a great amount of time on the uglier aspects of the human condition. One of the most difficult things about being a film-phile, of being a lover and critic of movies, is that so many of the greatest works are about the fallen state of humanity. Like Shakespeare, modern storytellers are drawn to the tragedy.

There is something to learn from watching ugliness, whether it's a Scorsese saga or a David Fincher murder picture. Perhaps these two contemporary directors do it better than anyone else. Despite their fascinations with violence and darkness, they are artists who never deny beauty. Even their ugliness is beautiful. This may seem like a small concession, or even a fan's manipulation - a strained attempt to avoid the American Evangelical tension of Christianity and watching rated-R movies. Rather, it is a vital distinction between exploitation and art.

Scorsese, perhaps because of his embedded Catholicism, is constantly aware of the human-God paradox: the balance of crucifixion and resurrection, of incarnation and deity. He understands beauty so deeply that his ugliness is stronger, more effective. And the same can be said about the inverse: his ugliness makes his beauty clearer. Nowhere is this more obvious than the relationship of innocence and filth between Travis Bickle (Robert Deniro) and Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) in Taxi Driver. Her innocence fascinates and compels Travis, but his filth can't comprehend or control it. It devolves into something else, but the contact changes him. He develops a noble, though perverse, desire to be good, to be beautiful, in his attempt to save the young prostitute, Iris (Jodie Foster).

David Fincher's films are an aesthetic triumph. From Alien3 on, he contrasts and controls the elements of darkness and vulgarity with the rules of symmetry and composition. He makes beautiful ugliness. Fincher, both thematically and technically, integrates the full aesthetic of perfectly and beautifully designed fallen-ness. Alien3 is driven by the qualities of masculinity and femininity, of stark evil and goodness co-existing. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) becomes a Christ figure - complete with outstretched arms sacrifice. She sacrifices her beauty to battle ugliness. And like Father Karras (Jason Miller) in The Exorcist, her sacrifice to ugliness is designed to preserve beauty and goodness.

Se7en is the masterpiece statement on beautiful ugliness. Even the rain is transformed into a symbol of the pervasive presence of sin. It is a powerful look at the deceptive and persistent draw of sin, that eventually it will corrupt and stain even the most beautiful and innocent qualities of this life, even the desire for justice. But in that understanding, and under Fincher's perfect combination of themes and aesthetics, something else emerges: the clarity of the human condition. We are drawn to Luther's famous statement: simultaneously saint/justified and sinner.

The problem with the human condition is that, because of our fallenness, we tend to understand the good virtues most clearly in contrast with the evil. Fincher and Scorsese both yield to the temptation to exploit evil, but neither completely forsakes the triumph and necessity of good. And for that reason, no matter how ugly their films become, beauty is ultimately their aim and their redemption.

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-------- TITLE: Archive Review: Casablanca (1942) AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 6:45:00 AM ----- BODY:
After reviewing Bogart and Bacall on our Howard Hawks WTD episode, I thought it would be worthwhile to look at another Bogart pairing from a few years earlier.

Dir: Michael Curtiz

Surely there are over-rated classics: movies that are listed as important but seem dated by contemporary standards. Casablanca is not one of those. It continues to stand as a fascinating piece of filmmaking that is safely positioned to endure long after most films of the twentieth-century drift into nostalgia and neglect.

At the beginning, there is little sign of the promise this movie holds. There are moments of cinemagraphic greatness, but nothing so stark and visual as Citizen Kane or a David Lean film. The opening titles and expositional voice over seem in keeping with small budget war pictures that were being pumped out of the studios during that time. But ultimately, this film is not about a beginning. It is about the ending.

The whole story primarily takes place at “Rick’s Cafe Americain” - the restaurant/club owned by Humphrey Bogart’s Rick Blaine. For drama, rather than draw in the establishing allure of the location, Curtiz relies on the sheer presence of Bogart and Bergman, and a beautifully composed supporting cast that includes Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet and Claude Rains. Bogart is making his breakout in this role. He finds himself as the center of the entire story, being forced to confront a buried past and choose a side - not only politically, but morally. In the 100 minutes of screen time, we watch a man define himself.

Bogart is most convincing when he’s strong. The scenes in which he buries his head, apparently weeping, seem somehow overacted. But there is always a sense of power and weakness in Bogart. He is strong because he is unpredictable and angular though not physically overwhelming. There is also a desperation in his manners and stature. He could easily drift into being a pathetic man suffering from a mid-life crisis. Perhaps this makes his tenderness towards Ilsa some of the most dangerous work Bogart took on as an actor. It was a hint of what was to come much later in his career with his brilliant performance in The Caine Mutiny.

When first introduced to Rick there is a sense of new charisma and possibility entering the film, something Curtiz emphasizes by his gradual rising pan, tracing Bogart’s hands and moving toward his face. However, the real magic of the movie is Ingrid Bergman cast against him. She glows with a transcendent depth that makes the Moroccan context seem tame. In flashback scenes, she has a youthful luster that is almost a last chance to see her as girlish - something which will soon disappear in the darker roles that mark her later career. Bogart attempts to be carefree and passionate, but it isn’t always convincing. Bergman, however, appears to be in a very different place when we view her in the Paris flashbacks and the conflicted world of Casablanca.

The film grows in intensity, building to the famous ending that could have very well gone another way. But one almost has a palpable sense of danger as the Germans become more territorial and Rick realizes that there no one can save Ilsa and Lazlo but him. Rick is a man with a past and a story, apparently as a mercenary and warrior. But weapons have little place in this warfare, and it is only through diplomacy, deceit and desire that he can choose: to save a good man and lose Ilsa, or allow him to be arrested by the Germans and regain the happiness he knew in Paris.

Casablanca is nearly a perfect film. It is modest but satisfying in length. The characters are unforgettable and endearing without being typical or overly safe. Dialogue is simultaneously natural and poetic, and the story is as timeless as any told by Shakespeare. There is something about this film that could never have been predicted, and could never be duplicated. Casablanca is the convergence of story and talent, heart and ambiguity that forms a greatness far above all but a few films.

***** of *****

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-------- TITLE: On Old Films AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 9:03:00 AM ----- BODY:
C.S. Lewis wrote an article called "On the Reading of Old Books." In that short and essential essay, Lewis noted the value and surprise of going back a few centuries - or millennia - to read old authors. He wasn't being scholarly or imposing some kind of classical discipline. Instead, he argued, old books are more helpful. In new books, the accepted beliefs of our day generally go uncriticized. In old books, whatever is true is still true, but whatever is false is obviously false.

There's a similar perspective in watching old - or at least older - movies. Contemporary films have few shocking scenes, especially when they intend to be shocking. I have no interest in watching the Saw series, a work that creates shock from purely visceral extravagances. The lustiness of the American Pie series is lost on me. Instead, I'm more stunned by older films that smuggle in racial, gender, political or religious explosives.

Watching the films of classic era directors is a great starting point. Joseph Mankiewicz played with gender and age in many of his films. The suggestiveness of Cleopatra was dangerous. All About Eve was littered with one-liners and quick glances that packed in more envy, contempt and wit than most modern black comedies can hope to achieve.

Likewise, Howard Hawks never hides his feelings about domesticity - about the nuclear family or the feminine woman (or man). He promotes the power of masculinity, the value of career and sexual politics. He also plays with censor boards, pushing text and context. Consider Gentlemen Prefer Blondes:
Guy 1 (staring at Jane Russell's and Marilyn Monroe's torso): Say, suppose the ship hits an iceberg and sinks. Which one of them do you save from drowning? Guy 2: Those girls couldn't drown.

It's not difficult to go back further, to the silents and people like de Mille and D.W. Griffith. De Mille exploited the R-rated nature of Romans and biblical stories for all they were worth. Consider the Claudette Colbert's donkey milk bath in Sign of the Cross. Griffith decorated the Babylonian court with women in Intolerance. Even Fritz Lang played with highly suggestive nudity in Metropolis.

DeMille, Griffith and Lang worked largely before the production code, and there was an illicit and provocative nature to their naughtiness. It was limited by the social mores of the day, walking a fine line between the lure of cinema and the loud moral charges against it (not unlike the modern era).

The Hayes code may have produced the most interesting and playful shocking scenes. Hitchcock was the master of smuggling sexual tension. His train ride affair between Eva Marie Saint and Cary Grant is the stuff of legends. Notorious is riddled with suggestiveness concerning adultery and promiscuity.

Part of my hatred for the "PG-13" rating is that it allows filmmakers to be lazy. Violence can be loud and vulgar, but the absence of two "F"-words makes it appropriate for teenagers. Likewise, sexual conversation isn't ever muted, subtle or suggestive. It's boringly frank and technical. Violence is exploited.

The Hayes code is not the ideal of any generation, but it did force a level of creativity from writers, producers and directors that is no longer necessary. Instead of Psycho's artfully violent and sexual shower scene - something that shows neither the knife's penetration or nudity - the contemporary film can pull back into wide shots, showing as much of the actress as necessary, with blood spurts and voyeuristic indulgence. And, in the process, the modern film is less shocking and intriguing.

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-------- TITLE: My Ignorant Oscars (Direction) AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 7:11:00 AM ----- BODY:
Once upon a time, my wife and I did a weekly podcast following current releases. That seems like an impossible event considering how seldom we get to movies these days. So it is with great shame that we - as co-hosts of a show about directors - can offer no real insight into this year's "Best Achievement in Directing" Academy Award category. Having only seen one of the nominated works, we have to watch from afar.

We hope to get the movies in before the Oscars, if for no other reason than to comment on our picks and our bets. But perhaps there's something valuable about picking and guessing from a place of near complete ignorance. Ignorance and speculation will be the sum total of this entry.

Of the five nominees, Stephen Frears (The Queen) seems the least likely to win. Frears has done some reputable work in the past (The Grifters, Dangerous Liaisons), but is, well, too British. And his film is too explicitly British. Nothing confirms the snobbery of the Academy like seeming too British. Ignorant odds of winning: 1 in 100.

Clint Eastwood (Letters from Iwo Jima) is a double-winner. The Academy likes him: his austere filmmaking, complete with a nihilist and important-feeling string of films going back to Unforgiven (1992). That's part of Eastwood's advantage. But it also doesn't hurt that he threw out a companion work, Flags of Our Fathers, which also drew some attention. But is he ready for a third statue? The only way Academy members give him a third and snub Scorsese is out of spite and no one hates Scorsese. Ignorant odds of winning: 1 in 25.

Paul Greengrass (United 93) is an intelligent filmmaker. He's especially noteworthy for how he approached a film about one of the most exploitable and sensitive events in American history: the events of September 11, 2001. And perhaps it’s because of the significance of the events behind the film that Greengrass has a shot. But at the end of the day, United 93 is a film that capitalizes on external reinforcement and probably won't endure as a great film. It's not a controversial film and deserves credit for taking such a sensitive subject and perfectly choosing how to deal with it. Then again, maybe a more dangerous filmmaker would have made a more provocative film (it's a subject that even seems to have tamed/subdued Oliver Stone). In some ways, the nomination is the award. Ignorant odds of winning: 1 in 50.

Alejandro Iñárritu (Babel) is the kind of filmmaker that has garnered whispers and notice from a number of influential critics and moviegoers. Since Meirelles's City of God (2002) and Alfonso Cuarón's Y Tu Mamá También (2001), the film world has started taking notice of Central and South American film work. It's serious stuff. The Mexican Iñárritu has an open path to taking the award this year, especially given the foundation he's set in 21 Grams and Amores Perros - both deeply respected films. Babel already won the Golden Globe for Best Picture. Ignorant odds of winning: 1 in 5.

The final nominee needs no introduction. He's the Bob Dylan of his era - ignored for years by the establishment, especially in his prime - and due for recognition now that he's part of the royalty of that establishment. I'm not saying the Academy gives undeserving awards to filmmakers and actors it has ignored in the past - just that it gives an advantage. This is the biggest reason Martin Scorsese (The Departed) will win. It's not that his film isn't strong. It's the one picture on this list that I've actually seen, and it's definitely among the better works of the year. The performances are outstanding, the execution is solid and the buzz is exciting. Of course, I thought the ending was abrupt, arbitrary and untrue and haven't seen as conspicuous and gawsh-inducing a rat shot since Species (1995). But otherwise, it was both an enjoyable and expertly crafted film, deserving of the nomination. Likewise, Scorsese - despite the faults of this film - handled it with an energy that deserves attention. Scorsese has already won the Golden Globe for direction and will finally get his Oscar. Semi-ignorant odds of winning: 1 in 2.

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