Screen Watcher - Movies/Film/TV/Video/DVD

I hate to admit it but this blog is going quiet for awhile. If you wish to track down specific actors or films, try using Search netweed which includes this blog. But, considering the limited lifespan of the blog to date, browsing might be your best option.

I hope to return one day with an even better film blog but, for now, be sure to check the Film section at netweed for news and resources. ~Clyde

I hate to say this but I just can't do justice to this blog. It calls for something more than I'm giving at a time when I can't really keep up with what it already is. I'm going to try to start doing a regular report on the weekends, once a week, and see how that goes. I'll focus on the better things I've seen, throw in a few insults and link to something besides IMDB and Amazon. Perhaps this approach will set the stage for a later comeback. Or perhaps it is the final gasp of a broken blogger. Tune in next weekend and find out!

I don't write about porn, which is not to say I don't watch it. Mostly I don't write about it because I just don't want to reveal that much about myself. However, if the subject interests you, the Village Voice has quite a nice piece on the 21st Annual Porn Awards that focuses on Ashley Blue, star at JM Productions. Nasty, nasty.

If that's not your thing, maybe a feature story on the growing world of Mormon cinema will be more to your taste.

For those interested in anime for grownups, this review of Tokyo Godfathers is well worth checking out.

I saw Abel Ferrara's Ms. 45 recently. But I forgot it was directed by Abel Ferrara and somehow missed that fact. I think it was because it looked like a B movie. But since it was a woman with a gun and appeared to be a predecessor to flicks like Thelma & Louise and La Femme Nikita, I picked it up. I remember discussing Thelma & Louise with friends and thinking what was really needed was a bloodbath. Organized women taking out masses of cops or something. Born in Flames satisfied the organized part and Ms. 45 looked like it would satisfy my desire for a bloodbath.

To a large degree it did. The opening scenes of degradation immediately made me feel like I was watching the film that Richard Kern wanted to make but never could. Indie, low budget but intelligently shot with some basic acting ability at work. Actually, as the film develops, it was clear that the lead, Zoe Lund aka Zoe Tamerlis as Thana, was a fine actress. Thana has two sides, the mute, freaked out victim and the murderous femme fatale. Thana's gradual shift in the focus of her attacks gave Ms. 45 that nice Abel Ferrara edge in which one identifies with the lead but with mixed feelings. And the twist in the end undermined certain gender based readings in a nice way. Yet again, Abel Ferrara makes me happy.

Speaking of opening scenes and degradation, the opening scene of Whatever does a fine job of representing the extremes of ecstasy and degradation often present in teenage sexual activity. I didn't watch the whole thing cause I had to return the video but I realized I'd seen it before. Overall an honest portrayal of the lives of teenage women, well directed by Susan Skoog.

Available from Amazon:
Ms. 45
Born in Flames
Richard Kern's Hardcore Collection
Whatever.

OK, I'm back. I've seen a lot of stuff in the interim and I'll have to do a massive quick take roundup to cover it all. For now, let me say that while I like violent movies, I generally need a rationale for the violence, plus some charm, intelligence and/or empire building from the criminals involved. So I didn't like Chopper very much at all and I'm apalled that I watched most of it. However, if you like stupid violence repeated ad nauseum, you should rush right out and rent it or buy it at Amazon. Or buy the book, which sounds a bit more interesting.

On a more upbeat note, gossip columnist Michael Musto discusses interviewing the Lord of the Rings folks, attending the New York Film Critics Circle Awards and other such events in his fabulous life. For distantly related news, check out this article from Wired on the connections between JRR Tolkien and stuntbots.

Josh Meyer, the person I disagree with most regular on films (seriously, we should do a cable show), has recommended Cinematic Happenings Under Development as an emerging alternative to Ain't It Cool News. Actually, his friends recommended it to him and he passed it along, so maybe there is something worthwhile in this recommendation!

Yes, netweed is again moving servers which may result in a disappearance of this weblog from your screen for a day or two. But it's temporary, should be over this weekend and should lead to a better overall site in the long run. So if I disappear, please be assured that I will soon return. I'd quote Gandalf here but I can't remember that line from The Two Towers.

As I noted in my last entry, I had some concerns about the ending of Good Will Hunting. But, you know, endings are hard to do and it was a pretty good ending to an enjoyable movie. But I did have one quibble with the characterization of the community college class at which Robin William's character taught. I've taken some classes at community colleges and I've taught some classes at more esteemed universities. While nobody's claiming that community colleges are hotbeds for cutting edge research, they're also not like mediocre high school classes. I can't speak for all settings, but community colleges are full of people who want to accomplish something and often are smart, hard working and employed full time. And I've run into some real stupid fuckers in my classes at various well known establishments, particularly Ohio State University. I understand that Gus Van Sant wanted to make a strong contrast to the students at MIT, but I also think it was a demeaning choice that was a bit beneath a director who I respect quite a bit, especially one who understands and values difference.

Good Will Hunting, directed by Gus Van Sant, is a much better film than the previews led me to believe. Definitely an example of advertising misrepresenting a decent production. Relatively small amounts of bullshit with Matt Damon and Robin Williams doing especially nice work. I watched it because I'd just seen The Bourne Identity (see the previous entry) and I wanted to see more of Damon's work. I think he did a nice job with the Will Hunting role which required a wider range than did The Bourne Identity.

[WARNING - PARTIAL SPOILER: Though I appreciated some of the unresolved nature of the ending, I still think it gave this false sense that Will Hunting had worked things out rather than having completed the first step in a long difficult process of healing. Plus, one of the key moments at the end involved a character going to Will Hunting's apartment and looking in the window to see if he was there. Problem - they'd just given him a car, the car wasn't there, they weren't the type of guys to go to the door if the car was gone. Believe me, it just didn't ring true. Nevertheless, satisfyingly done overall.]

Illtown is an artsy/indie flick directed by Nick Gomez, highly stylized, focused on heroin dealers with personal conflicts and rivalries. Lots of nicely surreal oddball touches and images. But the realist elements of the narrative were improbable and left the beautiful images without a convincing ground. Too bad, especially since this is one of the few times I've really enjoyed Michael Rapaport's acting.

Available from Amazon:
Good Will Hunting
Illtown.

I just saw The Bourne Identity for the second time and I have to say that I really like that movie. Matt Damon is so much more than a pretty face. Really, he could be one of the great action heroes if he wasn't so busy being an actor. I found the martial scenes quite convincing. You know, any macho dude can wave a gun around or punch someone in the face but very few understand the understated techniques that quickly disable someone. I should pursue that line of inquiry and find out more about who was coaching him and choreographing those scenes. They're really nice.

Franka Potente also did a nice job. The whole process of buying into a relationship with someone on the run was handled very well and I thought she did solid work with the different emotional states her character required.

The Bourne Identity isn't really historically important, but it's a decent flick and I wish more action/adventure and martial arts directors would take note.

Available from Amazon:
The Bourne Identity.

Although I'm generally trying to avoid posting those 2003 best of articles, the East Bay Express did a nice series of four articles that address cinema in '03. Luke Y. Thompson kicks it off with a look at the prevalence of horror flicks. Gregory Weinkauf considers women in cinema. Six writers select two films each for the best 12 films of 2003. And then follow it up with the best films that didn't make the best of lists.

I saw the original Heavy Metal when it was released in 1981. At that time it was impressive. The publication Heavy Metal was presenting artists that were cutting edge for comics and the film was more of a series of shorts in different styles, though connected in various ways. Combined with a soundtrack that included Devo, Grand Funk Railroad and Black Sabbath, the film was timely and enjoyable.

Though Heavy Metal 2000 is well worth watching, it was not particularly cutting edge for 2000. The music seems dated, the animation style is well established and the plot is pretty basic sci fi adventure stuff. Nevertheless there are some nice moments and the work overall is well constructed.

I originally saw Heavy Metal as an undergraduate in Greensboro, NC. I was living in Greensboro again for a year in 2001 when Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within was released. I read about it, people told me about it but I didn't go and I regretted that as I saw the video for the second time. At that point Final Fantasy was at the cutting edge of technical achievements in photorealistic animation and it remains emblematic of the current state of affairs, especially if considered in relationship to the CGI effects of The Lord of the Rings.

But beyond the technical achievements, I find the overall production to be truly masterful. The plot, themes, visual design and soundtrack all combine to create a narrative of a future earth in which humans battle alien spirits that communicates a credible feeling of a postapocalyptic world in which multiple realms of reality must be navigated. The only concern I have is that such well known actors provide the voices. The first time it didn't register but, now that I'm familiar with the film, I can't help but imagine the faces of Donald Sutherland/etc. as I hear their voices. Nevertheless the actors are well cast and do a fine job with the voiceovers.

See Heavy Metal 2000 for fun and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within for many good reasons not all of which I've discussed.

Available from Amazon:
Heavy Metal
Heavy Metal 2000
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
The Making of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.

So I was at my folk's house at Christmas and I watched a little tv and it was as bad as ever. Nothing really struck me as worth getting cable in order to see. Except for basketball. I love basketball and it saddens me somewhat to know that I'm going to miss another season but I just can't have that thing sitting there, waiting for me to turn it on and waste more time channel surfing. I guess I'll have to find a congenial sportsbar and waste more time drinking and watching basketball.

I recently read David Kushner's Masters of Doom about the guys that created the game, Doom. I've never really gotten into playing video or computer games but I'm really fascinated by them. I think they're an important avenue for the development of online worlds that will become a much larger part of human life in the future. But I also found the book interesting for the story of young people creatively taking control of their lives, fucking things up left and right and still being huge successes. It was especially interesting to read about how many of the innovators of computer gaming were strongly discouraged from their obsessions by parents and parental figures.

Available from Amazon:
Masters of Doom.

Portrait of a Screen Watcher

Interview with Lord of the Rings screenwriter Philippa Boyens

J. Smooth on The Return of the King

Priceline Reunites Kirk and Spock.

But not mine, rather, Godfrey Chesire's picks for the year in the Independent Weekly of North Carolina.

The Return of the King/Sean Astin nominated for Online Film Critics Society awards.

LA Weekly - All's Well in the Shire.

The Return of the King at Rotten Tomatoes.

And what an unfocused return it was. I saw the Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King yesterday and was rather disappointed. I'll have to admit, I don't go to the theater much so I'm used to having more control over my environment, even if the screen is much smaller. Plus, it seemed like something was off with the projectors or the print. Although much happened at night and at twilight or dawn, the colors I saw still seemed very muted and unappealing.

But it was the rushed narrative that was the real problem. Too much stuffed into too small a container with important pieces dripping off the sides, unusable but still leaving you with messy hands. The first part of the movie I kept thinking about the Sarumon sections that were edited out. I'd be watching some bullshit about a hobbit and thinking, dude, your hometown's getting destroyed and you don't even know it, only later to find out that it may as well not have happened, thus losing what should have been the height of villainy to help you care about a movie that assumed that you already cared.

And that was the other part of the problem, the fact that I found it difficult to care about these people. I've been wrapped up in this flick for the last two years. I see the theater release, then the video release, then the extended version. And I was expecting a film with focus, with the twin narratives of Aragorn and Frodo leading a clear path through murky landscape. Instead, I got a bunch of secondary hobbit bullshit, multiple battles that happened somewhere and somewhen not clear to those of us who haven't been reading the novels simultaneously, a missing villain, an enemy that just fades away and an extended happy ending with two reinscriptions of heteronormativiy to make up for the ongoing, yet unfulfilled, homoeroticism of the male protagonists.

I do look forward to seeing it again on dvd ON A BRAND NEW TV!! And I do find that somewhat confused narratives usually clear up by the second viewing and I'm a bit more forgiving if there are elements that I like. Final analysis? They should have made two installments of The Return of the King. Rather than cutting and rushing they could have extended the beginning, ending at a suitable point of engagement, and then picking up again with the ultimate diversion of Sauron's forces and the destruction of the ring. Then they'd have plenty of time to make The Hobbit while filling two Christmas seasons with joy in the meantime!

Related Links:
Official Lord of the Rings Site
Lord of the Rings Stuff at Amazon.

I'm really excited! I'm going to see The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King this afternoon. More soon.

netweed will not be switching servers till the New Year. Weblog posting will be intermittent till then. Happy Holidays!

Clubbed to Death, directed and cowritten by Yolande Zauberman, features an attractive but ultimately annoying French girl who accidentally goes clubbing in the slums. Once she encounters rough trade, she goes back for more. Although I saw a bad dub, it was a very well done production in terms of filming, editing and acting. But the ingenue having unprotected sex with strangers and being generally fucked up just didn't seem all that illuminating. The slum dwellers, drug addicts and club goers seemed pretty interesting and truthfully portrayed, except when the boxer/drug addict is somehow inspired to change his life due to the influence of the ingenue. Nevertheless, Béatrice Dalle, as the boxer's love interest prior to the appearance of the stupid ingenue, is tragic and beautiful in this film, as only she can be.

NOTE: Screen Watcher will go on hiatus from Christmas through New Year's although a holiday review of Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is most probable.

Please visit Hip Hop Logic for some thoughts on Sabotage, a Beastie Boys' video released in 1994.

Peep Hip Hop Logic for my review of The Show, a Russell Simmons project from the mid 90s.

Dust, written and directed by Milcho Manchevski, is a pretty amazing film. Stars include Joseph Fiennes and David Wenham but this film is really about the production and the ensemble featuring David Wenham. The narrative works back and forth between the late 1800s and recent days. There's a big cowboy theme but it's not a Western, it's an experimental narrative with occasional magic realism touches. It's also extremely, graphically violent in a realistic way, much more so than most violent movies.

The pr and the trailer make this seem like a rather normal movie focused on two brothers in the late 1800s. But it's not that at all, it's much better. My feeling is this film got slept on due to misrepresentation by pr people but, from the critics' reactions, it seems to have been just too much for them to comprehend.

Available at Amazon.com:
Dust.

I recently saw two movies that would commonly by referred to as "chick flicks" since they have people talking to each other about their feelings. Rather than comment on stupid gender constructs, let me say that I watched them because I like the women who starred in them and they were also about the sixties, a period in which I'm very interested.

A Walk on the Moon, with Diane Lane and Anna Paquin, is the story of a family's summer during 1969 and their attempts to cope with lost opportunities and teenage angst in the context of greater social change. It was a convincing attempt to address such issues within a family and find a temporary closure that, though it reinscribed the normative hetero couple, still didn't shut down interesting possibilities for the future.

The Invisible Circus, with Cameron Diaz, Jordana Brewster and Camilla Belle, attempted to address losses from the sixties from the perspective of looking back and trying to understand those losses. Its high points were the early memories of the late sixties, especially the late night visitation of a group called the Invisible Circus to the home of the main characters in San Francisco. The movie did a good job of evoking fantastic possibilites as well as the constricted path of armed revolution that led many to despair. But the attempt to look back, to find resolution, to move on, seemed ultimately forced and artificial. And the closing images lacked conviction beneath the dreamlike surface.

Available at Amazon.com:
A Walk on the Moon
The Invisible Circus.

Please see my entry regarding the film Gang Tapes at Hip Hop Logic.

With Jennifer Jason Leigh and Russian gangsters I figured The Quickie couldn't be too bad. Plus, I love quickies!

It took me a while to get into this film, especially since some white guy's (I think) cover of I Put a Spell on You opened the movie. I hate that over the top white man's got the howling blues thing. But as I got a better sense of this film's aesthetics, I realized that it fit well. Sometimes you just have to accept that a filmmaker has made the right choice, at least in terms of consistency, even if you don't like it.

Partly it's the Russian element, the way of expressing things, the humor and generally out of sync with my culture kind of vibe that propels this movie. Perhaps this element could be explained by the Russian director, Sergei Bodrov, with whose work I'm otherwise unfamiliar.

Jennifer Jason Leigh was great as always and Vladimir Mashkov did a fine job as a Russian gangster on his way out of the game. Lesley Ann Warren was fun to see. I've always loved her although her accent seemed to waver from Russian to British.

And I was happy to see Sergei Bodrov Jr., the director's son, who I'd greatly enjoyed in Brother (aka Brat). Sadly, looking up stuff online for this post informed me that he died last year in an avalanche, of all things. If you haven't seen Brother, check it out. He shows great promise there, promise that I don't think was fully realized in later roles.

The various couplings of old and young were kind of fun. Money buys youth, baby. And certain twists and surprises did, in fact, surprise me, an increasing rarity as I consume more images and plots. So, yeah, this film is worth watching. Not earth shattering, but enjoyable.

Related Links.
Trailer for The Quickie
From Amazon: The Quickie
From Amazon: Brother.

Recently saw The Blood Rules, an okay Hong Kong crime thriller directed by Marco Mak. But even the okay ones often have their nice points usually involving little cinematic moments, like the opening shots panning across various items with a dreamy color treatment. But everyone seems to have found this flick not so special.

I tend to dislike (and used to totally hate) critics and reviewers, so I try to find a way to do something else when I write about movies. Generally I just try to give my personal reaction, make some connections, offer some links. But the best solution I've seen so far to how to respond to movies is David Templeton's Talking Pictures. Basically he goes and sees a flick with somebody cool and then writes about their conversation. I'm so jealous!