Paranoid Park- I like Gus Van Sant. I’ve really enjoyed all the movies of his that I’ve seen. I still need to see some of his earlier stuff. I’ve never seen Drugstore Cowboy. Even Psycho, I don’t have a problem with. It is what it is. Maybe it’s just an experiment or an indulgence. But I can’t complain. And, I’m really looking forward to his upcoming Milk. Paranoid, like some of his more recent movies, has this way about it that both hypnotizes and lulls you in while at the same time remaining eerie and suspenseful and keeping you on the edge of your seat. And, as Sarah mentioned, it’s both weird and reassuring seeing the punk rock, tattooed guy playing the father.

Scenes from a Marriage- We saw the nearly three hour theatrical version of the film. Now, of course, I’m curious about the 295 minute TV mini-series version. Two more hours? I may just have to spring for the Criterion DVD and then I can watch it at my leisure. But the version we watched was eerily good. An absolutely wonderful screenplay that absolutely nailed marriage and long-term relationships. Even when what’s happening on screen has little similarity to your own life, it still seems like a polished mirror. You can’t help but look and you also often want to do nothing more than to look away. And, the movie was shot in such a way that was equally intimate and claustrophobic, capturing the essence of the relationship acting out on screen. At this point, I’m not going to say that I’m Bergman’s biggest fan or anything, but I can certainly say that he’s got some great films that are quite accessible.

Split: A Divided America, Return of the War Room & Shut Up and Sing - Given that I’d taken off work the day after the election in order to nurse the inevitable hangover and jubilation and/or disappointment, I filled up my day with a handful of political documentaries. Split tried to answer some basic questions as to why we’re divided into Blue America and Red America and what we can do about it. Ultimately, I thought the documentary short-shrifted possible solutions. In any case, I think Obama is right in looking at not Blue America nor Red America but the United States of America. There are common problems that would benefit from common solutions. Return of the War Room takes a look back at the players behind the original Hegedus/Pennebaker The War Room documentary. I love the original documentary and watch it at least once every election season. This Return of…provided some interesting “Where Are They Know” factoids that are interesting in light of the recent campaigns. But, really, it was little more than a potential DVD featurette. Shut Up and Sing, the documentary about the fallout over the Dixie Chicks comment about President Bush was a surprise. I had forgotten (how could I?) that moment in time where anybody who criticized the President or the war was branded a traitor (and some, including the Chicks, threatened with their lives). It’s funny how things have changed. Does anybody support Bush now? Now, I surmise, there would be but a precious few who would disagree with Natalie Maine’s sentiments. They just became the scapegoats. Redneck America needed somebody besides Muslims (and themselves) to hate. But then the Dixie Chicks were always so much better than country radio anyway.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial- It’s probably the first time I’ve seen the movie all the way through since the eighties. It was quite Peter Pan-ish in a way that, sadly but obviously, I’m less able to appreciate 20+ years later. Or I can ONLY appreciate nostalgically. As a prominent movie of my childhood, I find it difficult to say much about. Nevertheless, I do admit that it almost got a little dusty there at the end.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask) - Finally wrapping up my Woody Allen run. Funny stuff. I especially liked the last of the seven vignettes–What Happens During Ejaculation? Very funny take on sci-fi and war movies. But for me, I prefer Allen when he injects some seriousness into his films. There are still a handful of Woody’s movies that I want to check out, but I’m ready for a little bit of a break.

Sleeper - Didn’t get around to watching Everything You Always… and didn’t make it to Noble Theatre for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. But I did manage to watch Woody Allen’s 1973 comedy film Sleeper. This one was more along the lines of the slapdash comedy of Bananas. The gag-a-second style is great at keeping the laughs coming. And this one was full of the funny. But I guess when it comes down to it, I’m not that huge of a comedy fan. Sure I like to laugh. But all things equal, I generally prefer the dramatic to the comedic. So, I certainly prefer the more dramatic work of Allen.

1. There are two or more female characters,
2. They talk to each other,
3. About something other than a man.

The test sprung out of a 1985 Dykes to Watch Out For comic strip by Alison Bechdel.  According to Bechdel, the rule should instead be called Ripley’s Rule in honor of Sigourney Weaver’s role in Alien.

Obviously the rule is just a shorthand. It doesn’t aim to completely dismiss all those movies that fail its test. But it does point at the bigger issue of Hollywood seemingly being most interested in male gazing over all other POVs. While I don’t think you can use the rule to condemn a particular movie, I do think it can be used to point out the misogyny of cinema more broadly.

I’ll certainly keep the rule in mind, at least in the short term, to see which movies I watch pass the test and which of them fail. I’ll let you know what I find…

I’m reading all the time, but I can learn more about the movies I’m seeing this week from reading a great 19th century novel than I can from whatever XYZ critic has to say this week about whatever. I think another problem with movie writing is that it’s insular, especially Internet writing. It’s so narrow and insular and just about movies, and I think to be a really good writer and film critic you need a range. You need to know what’s going on in painting, you need to know what’s going on in music, you need to read books, and get laid, and go to restaurants, you know what I mean? A lot of movie writing is very impassioned but it’s very limited, very narrow. And I think good critics can put movies into a larger cultural and social perspective.

This sort of reminded me of the scene in Manhattan (which I just watched for the first time last night) where Isaac (Woody Allen) is sitting on the couch naming off all of the things he thinks make life worthwhile:

Groucho Marx, to name one thing… uh… um… and Willie Mays… and um… the 2nd movement of the ‘Jupiter’ Symphony… and um… Louis Armstrong, recording of ‘Potato Head Blues’… um… Swedish movies, naturally… Sentimental Education by Flaubert… uh… Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra… um… those incredible apples and pears by Cezanne… uh… the crabs at Sam Wo’s… uh… Tracy’s face….

Sharing Woody Allen’s view of a godless universe, I think these things are incredibly important. These things (my list would be different of course) make the universe beautiful. They are things bigger than one’s self to which we must submit in awe. In a way, they’re all we have. And I wholeheartedly agree that this sort of multi-dimensional passion not only allows you to better describe the world you see (as a film critic) but also to just have eyes that are more open.

For some time, I’ve put thought into the movies I watch as well as thought into their selection. I know this sounds obvious. But after working at a video store in my college days, I know that many people put thought into neither. More recently, I’ve been putting this sort of thought into what I read. I’ve always been a reader, but over the years I started reading less and less. I’d read newspapers regularly but I sort of stopped reading other stuff. In the last couple of years, I have not only reignited my reading habit but taken it even further (reading better and more diversely…I still have a long way to go). And, I have to say that I’m still surprised when I read something so wonderful. I feel so lucky. Then a couple of months ago I saw The Impressionists exhibit at the Kimbell Art Museum in Ft. Worth. For the first time, art wasn’t just something I should appreciate. It was something that I loved. It was as if I’d learned a new language and could decipher things that before were only gibberish. The world seems so much more beautiful than it did just a few years ago.

I say all of this because I do think movies and life are better seen through eyes which have read great American fiction and seen Cezanne’s apples. And to think I have only begun and yet have so little time…

(via OFCC)

Hannah and Her Sisters - See Woody II post.

The Big Lebowski - This one was at the top of my Movies I Should Have Seen But Still Haven’t List. Finally, I can cross it off. I have to agree with Slate’s David Haglundthat this 1998 film fits right in with today’s political climate. John Goodman’s Walter may as well be urging McCain to attack Iran. You’ve got a guy (the other Lebowski), operating out of an “oval office” and a “west wing,” who has no problem lying and misleading in order to get what he wants. And of course everybody else has their own motives too or at least are otherwise occupied (pot, alcohol) to nip the thing in the bud. And, god, does a white russian sounds really, really good right now.

Manahattan - See Woody II post.

Recount (HBO)- This one ought to be in a double feature with a bottle of Pepto Bismol. It’s nauseating. I wanted to scream and cry and vomit. I wanted to strangle the Republicans for stealing an election and the Democrats for not fighting for it. I might not ever be able to enjoy performances from Tom Wilkinson and Laura Dern again after this one.

Both Hannah and Manhattan show a progression from Annie Hall and Interiors. They’re both more “dramatic” than Annie Hall while still retaining its sense of humor. And yet neither is so dour as Interiors.

Hannah, like Interiors, centers on three sisters and the world that surrounds them. Allen’s Mickey provides comic relief as he deals with his hypochondria and an existential crisis. The film does perhaps have a too happy ending. But, I don’t think it takes much away from the rest of the film. It’s not characteristic so I’ll go along with it.

What I like about Woody Allen is that he both praises and tears down the intellectual mindset. But unlike the McCain-Palin Republican establishment he doesn’t reduce it to pithy slogans of intellectual hatred. Allen is more genuinely concerned with authenticity. It’s not enough to know a lot, or know more than somebody else, it’s really about how you use that knowledge, how you feel it. He talks about the strength and resiliency of the heart over the brain.

Keaton’s Mary Wilkie in Manhattan sort of represents that dichotomy. At first, her intellectual prowess just sort of annoys Woody’s Isaac. Then as he gets to know her he begins to really fall in love with her. Loyalty gets in the way and Isaac must give up Mary and time gets in the way and he must give up Tracy (or just let her go).

The Tracy-Isaac relationship was a little creepy to be sure. But, it still felt authentic and a little bit sweet. While I may squirm a little , I can’t really argue with it. There are too many screwed up relationships out there to seriously criticize one on the basis of age difference.

I loved the scene where Isaac, Mary, Michael Murphy’s Yale, and Mariel Hemingway’s Tracy are walking down the street and Mary starts ripping on all the stuff that Allen likes (Mahler, Scott Fitzgerald, etc.). Then she can’t figure out why he likes Bergman whose view is so “Scandinavian” and “bleak” when the stuff he writes is so funny. Very meta.

In Lax’s Conversations, Woody says:

To the average person, my films might seem, for want of a better word, arty. And to people who know art, they don’t. So it’s a strange limbo I’ve lived in with my movies. They’ve been–I didn’t know what to say. Not commercial and not art and yet some accidentally are enjoyable and even profitable.

This sort of sums up how I see movies and even film criticism. Just watching those movies which academia deems to be excellent or just watching those with the highest grosses is highly limiting. Cinema is about challenging yourself andenjoying yourself. You need your Apatows and your Antonionis.

A week or so later, I watched Interiors (1978) for the first time. This was such a change of pace. I hadn’t thought he’d done such somber films until much more recently. I liked it quite a bit, but I wasn’t sure if it was just because it was so different from what I expected out of a Woody Allen film or indeed if it could stand on its own. Needless to say, seeing such two different Allen films made we want to learn more. I went to the library and checked out a couple of books and a couple of Allen DVDs.

One of those DVDs I checked out was Bananas (1971). Talk about taking a U-turn after Interiors. This one is pure slapstick. It’s a gag-a-second without much of a plot. But still quite funny.

After Bananas, I read The Films of Woody Allenby Sam Girgus. I found the book to be quite enjoyable even if it can be a bit academic. While I knew what diegesis meant from Film Art, I had to run to Google to figure out histoire. It’s got to be French-y for it to be real film criticism. Anyways, it was interesting to read Girgus’ take on Woody in regards to psychoanalysis, his Woody Allen character/persona, and feminism. Of course, the perceptions of all three of these aspects can be fundamentally altered by the tabloid coverage of Allen’s personal life (which, admittedly, I only know roughly and care about even less).

Now I’m in the middle of Conversation with Woody Allenby Eric Lax. It’s a book of interviews spanning from 1971 thru 2007 that revolves around Woody’s moviemaking process. It’s neither a definitive biography nor an exhaustive study of the films. But, it is still an engaging read for an amateur film student like myself.

Reading through the book, I’m drawn towards the side of Allen that makes him private or even anti-social. I can certainly relate. Okay, maybe he’s not anti-social. As Woody says in the book: “I’m not anti-social; I’m just not social.”

I’m also drawn towards the “literary” side of Allen. I don’t relate in that regard so much as I kind of aspire. And of course I’m intrigued by the balance between that and say the Knicks. It’s pretentious without being pretentious in a way. It’s sneakers and a tweed jacket. Then, of course, given my own lack of religious belief, I’m extremely interested in his thoughts concerning a godless universe and how they play out in his films (which was also my initial reason for checking out some of Bergman’s films).

From a February 2006 conversation, Woody talks with Lax about the themes of Match Point. He mentions a Catholic priest who wrote about the movie but assumed wrongly “if, as I say, life is meaningless and chaos and random, then anything goes and nothing has any meaning and one action is as good as the next.” Instead Woody doesn’t think everything is hopeless in such a world:

If you acknowledge the awful truth of human existence and choose to be a decent human being in the face of it rather than lie to yourself that there’s going to be some heavenly reward or some punishment, it seems to me more noble.

He talks about how a priest-philosopher from St. John’s University described the film as “the most atheistic film ever made.” The absence of God is not trivial, in fact it really does matter:

To me it’s a damn shame that the universe doesn’t have any God or meaning, and yet only when you can accept that can you then go on to lead what these people call a Christian life–that is, a decent, moral life. You can only lead it if you acknowledge what you’re up against to begin with and shuck off all the fairy tales that lead you to make choices in life that you’re making not really for moral reasons but for taking down a big score in the afterlife.

I haven’t seen Match Point since it came out on DVD, but I’m going to have to check it out again sometime soon. I’ve still got Hannah & Her Sisters at home to watch. And, then Manhattan, Sleeper, and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex…are at the top of my Netflix queue.

More to come.