Re-Viewing: “Dogma” (1999)

Hi there. When I Re-View movies I do just that, I watch them again. Catching things I missed the first time, and wondering why i did or didn’t like that movie as much as I did.

“Dogma” (1999)

Directed and written by Kevin Smith. This movie is famous for featuring a literal “shit demon”.

Kevin Smith is, by his own admission, not so much a director as a writer who films his own writings. And nowhere is this more obvious than in “Dogma”.

”Dogma” was, and still is, my favorite of Smith’s movies. Even though it is really an epic struggle of evangelical proporiortions, it still feels like Smith on even a macroscopic plot level.

It goes like this: Two outcast angels (Matt Damon pre-“Bourne” and Ben Affleck pre-“Armageddon”. Both Pre-“Good Will Hunting”) Have found a loophole in the catholic dogma which allows them to return to heaven contrary to Gods commands. Only problem is that if God is proven fallible, the entirety of existensce is erased. This all sounds much better when Alan Rickman explains it in the movie.

Thus, the forces of heaven send the last relative of Jesus Christ, played by Linda Fiorentino out to stop them. She is aided by the thirtheenth apostle (Chris Rock) who is here to inform the world that Jesus was black, a muse (Selma Hayek) who is here to act against the misogyny in the bible, plus Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Smith himself) who are there because … well, they provide good laughs.

This all has a very high potential for action. But this is a comedy, and it ends up in a lot of talking. A whole lot of talking.

I first saw “Dogma” on TV late at night a handful of years ago, when I was in a slightly more impressionable age. And I dropped in about halfway through, around the point-of-no-return. This is were the dialogues are actually the most fitting and grapping. In fact I think that had the dialogue been trimmed down in the rest of the film and preserved around this point, the film might have had a more universal appeal. Well, if look past all the religious uproar it caused.

But my point is that there is a “great movie” in “Dogma”, with lots of dialogue on top, and a lot of “great dialogues” that other movies would kill to have. But this is not really something that bothers me on the personal level, because the dialogue (the whole lot of it) is good and is mostly delivered by people who take scene-chewing delight in it, the most fun to watch is the aforementioned Alan Rickman.

But even today Dogma stands as a movie that is a marriage of a pseudo-intellectual series of arguments against organized religion (catholicism taking the worst of it) and a dirty, but funny comedy. And it doesn’t ever delude itself into being anything else. It works at what it sets out to do – give us a good time, something to think about, and maybe a voice for some things that we didn’t know we wanted to say.

Bonus Points: This movie features Jason Lee as the demon Azrael. The role which got him cast as the villain Syndrome in Pixar’s “The Incredibles”.

Furthermore Kevin Smith’s latest film “Cop Out” (formerly “A Couple of Dicks”) has just premiered in the United States. It stars Bruce Willis who starred as John McClane opposite Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber in “Die Hard” back in the mythical year of 1989.

Re-Viewing: The “Antichrist” of Tarantino – “Inglourious Basterds” (2009)

A very good Danish teacher of mine once told me that in order to analyze any piece of fiction, all you really had to look closer at were a) “what’s it called” and b) “how does it end?”.

The title “Inglourious Basterds” is a slightly mistyped retyping of the previous “Inglorious Bastards” of which Tarantino’s film is neither a remake nor a direct parody. On one hand this suggests a willing invoking of the generic, with the typos in there as nothing but “artistic license”.

Incidentally the danish translation names the Basterds something more akin to “The Sinister Hellhounds” or “Insidious Scumdogs”. I’m not sure why, but I almost like those titles more.

The ending is where the meat is however. Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Martin Bormann, Herman Goering and the Führer himself are excecuted, shot to pieces, blown up and finally incinerated in a small movie theatre in Paris a few weeks after the landing of Allied troops in Normandy in 1944. In case you weren’t aware – this is not the generally accepted historical account.

In the aftermath of all this, Lt. Aldo Raine and the only other surviving member of the Basterds, Utivich, find themselves alone just across Allied lines with Colonel Hans Landa, who seems just about to get away with everything. That is until Raine shoots Landas radio operator, and presents his primary beef to Landa: Landa is a Nazi, and now he wants to run away from it.

Thus Raine and Utivich carve a swastika in Landas forehead. And one comments to the other, in the final shot of the film: “You know what Utivich, I think this may be my masterpiece.”

“We’re gonna make a film, Marcel”

One possible interpretation, that I am surprised hasn’t been discussed more, is the fact that the line is Tarantino speaking. That is insofar as Raine acting as an author surrogate more than any other character in a Tarantino movie, I’m not forgetting that both Goebbels and Hitler speak more like Tarantino characters than historical figures.

“Basterds” was a project that was many years in the making. The first drafts of the script apparantly already existed somewhere around the time of “Jackie Brown” if not earlier. Though the plot was radically different back then.

I’m taking a wild educated guess here, but I suspect two events were really what finally got the project rolling: the first was the premiere of “There Will Be Blood” in 2007 (Tarantino evens admits as much – having an unofficial rivalry with Paul Thomas Anderson) and the second was the dissappointing reception of “Death Proof”.

Tarantino had been critizized for a substatial part of his career. The points of contention are usually the points that other people love his movie for: His dialogue and character-driven (non)-plots and his heavy homaging/stealing from other films that he likes.

 “Then we’re not operating on the same level of mutual respect as I had hoped” – “No, I guess not”

When critique like this goes on a thing often happens: The director often becomes indistinguashable from his movies. Your mileage may vary on this, but I don’t think that this is always a fair point to make.

But apparantly Tarantino seems to own his criticism here. Taking all his personal trademarks and siphoning them into a movie that contains some of the more sacrosant points of cinema, and of human history in general: The persecution of Jews (Shoshanna’s backstory), the brutalities of war (The Basterds), living in fear and opression with censorship as a consequence (Shoshanna in Paris), and finally culminating them in a cathartic slaughter of perhaps the most demonized individuals in history.

And that is precisely the point. Where perhaps any other director with Tarantinos academic knowledge of, and deep-felt love for, cinema would have played more on subtlety or obvious symbolism. Tarantino is simply “obvious”.

His references and homages are there, but as always you can either choose to ignore them, appreciate them or make a game of picking them out. They don’t have to be understood to appreciate the movie, the movie is an achievement in itself. As it should be.

 The greatest film director ever…

This is what leads me to compare this movie favorably to Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist”. Where “Antichrist” split the waters. Either you loved it or hated it I allowed myself to use a simple reasoning in order to decide what I thought of it: Was the movie itself any good?

Short answer: No. It was too obsessed with its own subtext to care about making the text coherent. There was probably and excellent symbolism and research behind it, but no movie to hang it on. The movie was admittetly von Trier’s way of getting out of depression. If it helped him, I’m happy for him, but I very doubt that it had that effect on anyone else. In this case the director and the film really became inseperable.

In the same way Tarantino’s “Basterds” is a vanity project. But that really can’t be held against it, because Tarantino knows how to make a vanit project entertaining, and still make his point.

For furthing reading on what effect “Basterds” has had on Tarantino’s career. I can recommend this article from The Guardian’s Film Blog.

Jason Segel Has A Hand Up Your … Backside…Kermit

“The Cheapest Muppet Movie Ever Made”

Back in September of 2009 that was the working title of the latest big screen appearance of the loved and adored puppets. However revently it got changed (in my opinion an improvement) to:

“The Greatest Muppet Movie Of All Time”

The Muppets have had a hard time in recent years. It is hard to capture an audience in a time of CG when you’re made of cloth and stuffing. Though truth to be told Disney (who currently own the Muppets) are media savvy enough to still make a name for the Muppets on the Internet.

However, the first muppet feature film since 2005’s “The Muppet’s Wizard of Oz”, which was a television event, is in production. Some of the minds behind it are the director of TV’s “Flight of the Conchords” James Bobin, and actor/writer Jason Segel, perhaps best known from TV’s “How I Met Your Mother”.

Jason Segel also starred in the film “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”, which I must admit I haven’t seen myself, but I’m told that there is an excellent puppetry sequence in there somwhere, and that this inspires people with great confidence in the project.

Full details can be found at The Playlist

Personally I am also very excied about this project. The Muppets are, in the right hands, family entertainment of the very best kind. A kind that I only really see Pixar consistently producing these days.

In other words: We need the (censored for you convience) Muppets!

I’ll leave you with two clips. The first from my favorite muppet movie “A Muppet Christmas Carol”:

And this one is one of Internet fame, who says that franchises can’t survive on the Internet?

Trailers – They Just Don’t Make Them Like This Anymore

Now, in principle, the title of this post is misleading. My parents had hardly been born when “Psycho” first came out, so I hardly have any right to feel any nostolgia or such towards seeing this in in a theatre.

But this trailer is magnificent. Almost six whopping minutes long (that’s even younger than most YouTube clips) and this was shown before another feature mind you.

And that doesn’t even begin to touch upon the structure and means that it employs. Just watch this and watch three random trailers on Apple Trailers and I bet you not feel like those three were cut from the same mold. Not that there’s necessarily anything wrong with that – I’m just trying to show that doing it other ways can work quite well.

And here is one:

“Metropolis” – live-streamed and (almost) restored.

Last night at the Berlin film festival, it happened. An almost-complete version of Fritz Lang’s magnum opus “Metropolis” hit the silver screen, with a live orchestra, a live audience and a live online streaming.

That last part is perhaps the greatest gesture of all here. Because it shows film as something that derserves a canonical recognition, af if a film like “Metropolis” doesn’t, then I don’t know which film does.

I was unfortunately unable to follow the live-stream my self, as were certain countries, like the US I’m told, but fortunately journalists who were actually there give some reports:

The Independent – Greatest complain was the that the lighting of the orchestra diluted the film itself.

The Local – Talks to a few members of the audience.

And that’s pretty much it, it seems. The Indepent’s article seems to be the the one kicked around the most.

The restoration will probably only be given full attention once it reaches home video. The live stream was, after all, competing against the opening of the Winter Olympics.

Either that, or this really is a far more esoteric subject than the arrangers of the Berlin Film Festival had hoped for.

My own first impressions review of  Metropolis (the 30 minutes shorter cut) can be found here: Metropolis

The Never-Ending Story: “Fringe”

“Miss Dunham, what we're doing, what you have asked me to do, is pushing the boundaries of all that is real and possible. We're not roasting a turkey.”

- Dr. Walter Bishop

Hi there. “The Never-Ending Story” is my little attempt at commenting on things that aren’t movies: TV, comics and other serialized media are on the line here. Hidden meanings and out-there interpretations will be discussed, and there will be spoilers – but if you’re up to speed, you’re in the safe zone.

I might as well be honest with you. I watched the first few episodes of “Fringe” wanting it to be the new “Lost”. Trying to subcounsciously squeeze it into the same universe as Oceanic Airlines and the DHARMA Initiative, and trying to see if I could see a smoke Monster in any scenes. Needless to say, this didn’t really come to fruition.

But when that realization had hit me, the show actually grew on me. Sure it was heavily episodical in nature, sometimes annoyingly so, but every single episode had at least one aspect you could enjoy even it was just the horrific deaths or John Noble’s brilliant mad scientist Dr. Walter Bishop.

On that note: This is another excellent example of casting a Classic/Shakesperean actor in a slightly over-the-top universe, and adding to the believability. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan also seem like the masters of this tendency. In fact Stewart has been praised time and time again for saying ridiculously bad lines with absolute conviction. That said, he elevates even good material.

But I digress, what I really want to talk about here is the brilliant mythology element that Fringe introduces around the last third of it’s first season: The Multiverse.

Now strictly speaking, only two universes really seem to matter in the context of the show, but whenever the parrallel universes are explained, a metaphor that implies that more exists is always invoked. Whether or not this becomes important remains to be seen.

The real brilliance comes because Fringe uses this to create what is perhaps the most horrifying concepts in modern TV, perhaps modern pop culture in general.

Vampires and werewolves are tangible creatures. You can run from them, and you can kill them by whatever means the manual advises you to. Serial killers what cops are trained to catch, and demonic possesions are usually dealt with by a bucket of holy water or a well-timed suicide.

And what all of the above have in common is that fact that they are somewhat localized threats. A small and personal scale if you will.

But in “Fringe” it’s laid out plain as day – that other universe, which has a duplicate of you, only slightly different, is going to come and erase you out of existence. Either that or that doppelganger of you and everyone you know is going to perish.

It can happen anytime, anywhere. You can’t hide anywhere. Well, not anywhere in the greater Boston area at least.

This is an interesting twist on the usual Freudian approach to horror. Instead of the horror coming from a supressed darknes in the Id, we instead have the horror of The Other, albeit in a “not to different” variety.

This is of course a gross oversimplification, but I find that much horror analysis is.

But of course, this scale of threat occurs very often in other media, comic books mainly. But the difference is that we are not dealing with particularly superpowered protagonist. A standard FBI training, a high intellect and a few underworld contacts is really nothing compared to a cosmic-scale threat, and that is were that oh-so-welcome feeling of dread begins.

Oh sure, I am quite aware that the ground is laid for the writing staff to pull a Doctor Who-like “Reverse the polarity!” moment to end the multiversal danger. But if what we get in-between (I know I’m not the only one hoping for full-on multiversal war) is good, I think I can let that slide.

“Fringe” is an inter-dimensional, pseudo-scientific crime drama. And a pretty good one at that. Not all elements are stellar, but the elements that are never disappoint. But the show really feels like it needs a concise sense of direction, or this modern “X-Files” might just fail in a generation with a shorter attention span and a different mentality towards science fiction.

Re-Viewing: “Watchmen” (2009)

“What, in life, does not deserve celebrating?”

- Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias

Hi there. When I "Re-View" films, it actually means that I am RE-Viewing them. Thus giving me the opportunity to share my reflections on a film I have by then viewed more than once. Some may seem better, some may seem worse. Instant hit doesn't mean classic, standing the test of time does.

“Watchmen” (2009)

Directed by Zach Snyder. This film is famous for making teenagers everywhere snicker at “blue balls” for entirely new reasons.

“Watchmen” was far from the failure it could have been. It enjoyed a quite handsome Box Office succes for something that starred no Hollywood A-listers and was based on a not too famous property. Likewise, the critical reception was actually quite fair for a work that was so uncinematic.

Hold on, did I just say uncinematic? Yes I did. The graphic novel “Watchmen” was praised for being cinematic in it’s visual style. That is, until it’s writer Alan Moore came out and said thinking that was completely missing the point (Moore never being one to hold his tongue when it comes to how his work is treated).

Much of the visual profoundity, details and symbolism that the graphic novel was praised for hiding within each panel comes off as heavy-handed when the movie tries to replicate them. I espescially thinking of a certain “snow angel” in the final act.

Much criticism was raised at the choice of Zack Snyder for the director’s chair. But while his action-heavy style (which must, in part, have been there for market appeal) did deflate some of the feelings of vulnerability and dread in the original work, there is no denying that he loves the source material.

Watchmen was, at this time, a film which would never completely satisfy anyone. The hardcore fans would criticize any change made to the source material, and the generel audience… well what about them really?

 

What time is it one the Doomsday Clock?

I believe the thing that it really didn’t have going for itself was its timing. Like a 9/11 joke in December of 2001 it was simply “too soon”.

The original graphic novel would never have achieved anywhere the praise it did if it wasn’t for the fact that it had roughly speaking 60 years of comic book history behind it. The specifics of the history didn’t really matter – what matters was that Watchmen could splatter that image like a symmetrical inkblot.

The superhero genre (which is essentially what we are discussing when we say “comic books”) only really made it onto the big screen with “X-Men” in 2000. And only a few franchises really hit it big, though many were launched. That means that “Watchmen” – the movie – has at best a history of 10 years to deconstruct. And no matter how well that deconstruction was, it wasn’t gonna have as much impact as if we had been watching “straight” superhero movies for a least another half decade.

And even then we would have had films like “The Dark Knight” upping the ante, changing the game. Calling for new subject matter to be twisted and subverted.

Perhaps cinema had been better served with a completely different story to deconstruct “superhero movies” like “Watchmen” (the graphic novel) did for superhero comics.

Nonetheless, “Watchmen” is probably the closest thing we’ll ever get to seeing the graphic novel translated faithfully to the screen. This will hopefully satisfy the more reasonable fanbase, and pleasure the slightly-openminded general audience. After all Snyder’s hand gives them a lot of reason to pop this disc into the player as well.

Where is Lisbeth Salander? and will she kick Bella Swan’s ass?

 

The Guardian’s Film Blog recently published an interesting article (which can be found here) Contemplating if we would ever see a succesful movie franchise lead by a female actor.

The conclusion was that the two only female winners would appear to be Kate Beckinsale (“Underworld” franchise) and Cameron Diaz (“Charlie’s Angels” and “Shrek”). Personally I missed any real mention of Uma Thurman and her roaring rampage of revenge in “Kill Bill”. Though to be fair that was just one movie split into two, and technically not a franchise.

But perhaps the most profound point made was that it was in fact the “Twilight” franchise which was really the most succesful.

In spite of teen favourite Robert Pattinson’s looks and their not-insignificant impact in getting the film seen, the portrayal of the female lead Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) in not without it’s own qualities. As much as she was portrayed for being wooden, and for drawing a negative, submissive, helpless and even straight-out idiotic picture of the american girl teen, this was far from enough to hurt the film’s box office succes. Quite the opposite probably.

Then there is also, the “Sex and the City” franchise which will get a theatrical sequel this year. Needles to say, too many anti-feminist arguments can be made against this franchise

This brings us to Lisbeth Salander, the pierced and abuses heroine of the late Stieg Larsson’s “Girl with the Dragon Tatoo” trilogy. Which is just about endin it’s unusually lenghty theatrical run in Scandinavia, and set for both re-release and remaking in North America.

Now, granted, there a more factors than one can count on three hands that have an effect on whether or not this remake will be a succes (I’m wagering that the re-release will only have a modest one if any – Americans never did like subtitles) but the inherent feminism in the material is certainly not the least of them.

While this has been a staple of the swedish crime novel scene, the violent female protagonist does not seem to be a thriving character in American movies. Either it will be over the top violence (Such as Beckinsale or Thurman – though to be fair, this goes for most male leads as well) or essentially a glorified update of the token girl. The realistic, gritty violence of Larsson’s work and their film adaptation might not be kindly received.

Still, though the chance of Salander beating Bella Swan or Carrie Bradshaw at the box office is staggeringly low. She will still have the victory of being a far more interesting character overall, and a glimmering example of how great a female character can be, with to few peers on the silver screen.   

2010 Oscar Nominees

Earlier today the official nominees for the Academy Awards (more commonly referred to as the Oscars) were announced.

I will spare you the full listing in this post, It can be found Here. Instead I wil focus on the nominations that intrigue me the most.

The Devaluation of the Best Picture Nominations – But it’s not all bad.

As you might have known or guessed by now. There can only be one winner in each category. Up until this year there were also only five nominees in each category, making it a great mark of achievement for a movie to be even nominated. (Søren Høy of the European Film College made an excellent blog post on this here (in danish): Scarlett i mit Badekar)

This year however, there are 10 nominees in the category Best Picture. Resulting in the term “Best Picture Nominee” being slightly devaluated. This also seems like a slightly odd year to expand the category, as I have found there to be quite few “really really good” movies this year. And most of those were even genre movies that I recognized as not being “good movies” as such, but I liked them anyway.

My two greatest trips to the movies this year was for “Watchmen” and “Star Trek” respectively. Yet neither of those movies deserve to win “Best Picture” – “Star Trek” didn’t attempt anything other than being a wide-appeal action/adventure-fest, and while “Watchmen” was perhaps closer to “Best Picture” material, it’s timing was simply wrong in the pop cultural counsciousness.

For similar reasons “Avatar” does not deserve to be in this category.  Just as it didn’t deserve to win The Golden Globe for Best Picture. John Campea, formerly of The Movie Blog, pretty much nails it here: John Campea's Cage 

However, the expanded list of nominees has let to one of the best movies actually being nomniated. The movie in question is Pixar’s “Up”. Previously it would have been dumped in the “Best Animated Picture” category. I heartily hope that “Up” wins, but I doubt it with most of my mind.

Tarantino, you Glourious Basterd

Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” is also a favorite this year. Being nominated for both Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay (which has only 5 nominees).

Tarantino’s film winning in either category would mean a victory for what is indeed an auther-fueled work, not that this is necessarily a good thing.

If Tarantino wins this year, my mind will jump to some of the same theories that surfaced when Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed” won in 2007, despite it not being one of Scorscese’s best films (and we can argue elsewhere which one is) – but that the Academy thinks they owed them one for overlooking films such as “Raging Bull”.

However, this is a voting body of around 4000 people at least. That is a pretty hard vote to rig. So if Tarantino wins, chances are people wanted him to.

Besides, Tarantino got a Palme D’Or for his second film (“Pulp Fiction” –1994) so I doubt that a case can be made that he is an unrecognized genius.

Danish Directors Rising

“Burma VJ”, “An Education” and “The New Tenants” are all three films by Danish directors this year. Which of course is a big deal to the Danish press. Normally I’d argue that nationality shouldn’t really play too big a role, but it has been nice to see a tendency to have more Danish actors, and now Danish directors being recognized in the American Market, even if it is only for the purpose of awards.

These were my immediate thoughts on the Nominees. What were your thoughts? Were the right nominees picked? Have any thoughts on who will win what – feel free to comment.