A Year of Movies is over. Now: morewertzler.com

The Limits of Control
3/14/10

I’m terrible at analogies, so I often repeat the only successful one I’ve ever thought of: When vegans bake cakes, they don’t just take out the eggs—otherwise the cake would turn into a soggy mess and collapse on itself in the oven.  Instead, they replace the eggs with applesauce, and the cake turns out looking like a cake.  Somehow, Jim Jarmusch has found a way to remove the eggs and still come out with a delicious dessert in The Limits of Control—though he removes any semblance of plot or story, he still ends up with a fascinating film.

It sounds counter-intuitive that such a movie would be remotely enjoyable or entertaining.  I’ve seen countless student films that use all of the same noir-thriller tropes as Jarmusch employs here (suited criminal with quirks, allegorical anecdotes, “patient” editing styles).  But what they lack that Jarmusch brings is a confidence behind the camera to create a mood that envelopes the viewer.  (They also lack name-brand talent that can pull off aimless dialogue.)

Honestly, I’m not sure what Jarmusch was trying to say with the film, but I’ve got a few ideas.  The fun comes from trying to solve a mystery that might not even be there.  It’s not a question with a straight-forward answer, but a meditation on storytelling that requires much audience participation.  But if you put a lot into it, you’ll likely get a lot out of it.  (That being said, I’ve found my closure and won’t be thinking about it for quite some time.)

Gomorrah
1/28/10

Since this blog seems to be evolving into my quest to find the perfect film, it’s only fair that I lay out some criteria.  I’ve always felt that the best features are all-inclusive: You can start them without having any prior knowledge, enjoy the experience, and come out with a certain amount of closure, but also the flexibility to let the story grow if you so desire.  In this respect, Gomorrah somehow manages to be both a success and a complete failure.  I feel the desire to read the nonfiction book on which it’s based, and also Wikipedia as many Camorra-related articles as I can in the forty minutes I’ll remain intrigued.  But I also only felt this way at the very end of the film.

The first 2 hours and 11 minutes were beautifully shot, well acted, and utterly confusing, as I had no knowledge of any backstory.  The last minute though— which links the entire film to the real-life Camorra mob— makes the whole film relevant and worthwhile.

Perhaps if I knew more about Neapolitan mobsters, I’d have enjoyed the film more.  As a fiction film, it was less than entertaining.  As a companion piece to works of non-fiction, it is likely riveting.  Unfortunately, I only have myself to blame for my ignorance.  Off to Wikipedia now.

The Foot Fist Way
Started & Finished: 1/13/09

I used to think 100 minutes was the ideal runtime for any good movie.  Jody Hill has proven me wrong: 82 is the way to go.  Quick and efficient, not unlike taekwondo, some might say.  Even if your movie is just so-so, 82 minutes isn’t such a commitment that the average viewer will turn it off.  No, it’s just right for those of us with a short attention span and a soft spot for white trash more genuinely portrayed than ever before.

In fact, The Foot Fist Way has inspired me to cut to the chase with this write-up and go start another movie.  Go see it, have some laughs, and get on with your life.  You’ve got 82 minutes to spare.

Anvil: The Story of Anvil
Started & Finished: 1/6/09

One of the disadvantages to working in movies is not being able to see the actual movies until the hype is over and everyone’s gone home.  Sometimes a film really resonates on the screen in a way that can’t be reproduced at home, no matter how big your flat-screen set-up is.  It’s hard to say if Anvil would have been one of those films, but it certainly was not meant to be viewed with running commentary by your music-elitist roommate who walked in halfway through and never left.

I don’t mean to be unfair—if I had come in 30 minutes in, I might find Lips and co. a pitiful group of has-beens.  But Sasha Gervasi really does an excellent job of toeing the fine line between admiration and mockery.  Having read so many glowing articles about the film, billing it as a “real life Spinal Tap,” I was expecting it to err more on the side of satire.  Thankfully, it’s a frank and genuine look at two friends’ devotion to a project with middling success over the course of their entire lives.

Though the narrative was a bit formulaic, the pace was refreshing, and a scene or talking head never wore out its welcome.  The use of steadicam over handheld for the A-roll was a nice stylistic touch and lent the film a cinematic quality that many docs lack.  While the continued existence of Anvil the band doesn’t leave much of an impact on my life, it was rather awe-inspiring to see a person so devoted to their art.  And it made me feel guilty for sometimes feeling burdened by this blog.

Medicine For Melancholy
Started & Finished: 12/19/09

I’m embarrassed to admit I just watched this for the first time, but it was well worth the wait.  I normally shy away from talkative, character-driven films, but Medicine doesn’t fall into the traps that many others do: It has great acting, beautiful imagery, purposeful camerawork, efficient editing, a great soundtrack, and most importantly, it addresses real issues.

Were it simply a boy-meets-girl/morning-after story, it might not have been as successful.  But by grounding a universal story within the context of urban living brings the story to a new level.  The uncertainty of Micah and Jo’s budding relationship beautifully reflects the ambiguity that surrounds issues of race and class.  It ultimately putting the viewer right in the middle of the conflict, forcing them to negotiate their own feelings both toward the couple and toward the issues raised.

I’m obviously a bit biased in that I love seeing my city on screen, but Medicine is absolutely one of the best representations of San Francisco put to film in quite some time, from the muted images to the local issues at stake.  Sorry I’m so late to this party, Barry.

Rudo y Cursi
Started: 12/2/09 | Finished: 12/5/09

Basically: The best part of the movie was the “Please turn off your cellphone” ad featuring Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna in character. Everything else is an unfortunate low point in the careers of all involved. Light fun but ultimately, even the dream team of producers Alfonso Caurón, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Guillermo del Toro can’t save this formulaic story.

That’s all.

Observe and Report
Started & Finished: 11/29/09

I’ll admit it: Mallrats was one of my favorite movies as an adolescent boy.  Not surprisingly, the jokes don’t hold up well once you… grow up.  Luckily, Jody Hill has filled the void in my heart especially reserved for mall-based humor with Observe and Report.

Though stories that meander with little direction often get on my nerves, Observe and Report managed to wander through a particular segment of our protagonist’s life while maintaining course.  Just when I was anticipating a predictable comedy plot point, Hill blindsided me with the unexpected, and on multiple occasions.  This is why the best comedy (at least for me) is so funny— it shows us the absurd actually happening before our eyes.  What is most surprising about this movie though is that those unanticipated moments have more dramatic than comedic resonance.

Observe and Report shows another side of Seth Rogen’s comedic chops, but it’s really the dramatic elements that set the film apart from the Apatow/Frat Pack comedies of the 00s.  While the execution is a bit rocky, Hill has successfully tapped into what makes the best dark comedies successful: a delicate balance of the absurd coexisting with matters that hit a bit too close to home.

Pet Sematary
Started & Finished: 10/23/09

One lesson I was taught in screenwriting regarding choosing your protagonist:  Who is the person least likely to be caught up in your plot?  For example, if you were writing Pet Sematary, you might ask: Who is least likely to believe in an ancient Indian burial ground that brings dead animals back to life?  Your answer might be “someone who knows reanimation is impossible.”  Like a doctor.

But the trick is to draw that disbelief out— if your character becomes a believer right away, you risk letting the air out of your story.  And if your story has no air, then I’m left watching an hour’s worth of a gullible, possibly mentally disturbed M.D. whose undead cat keeps popping out of cabinets.

It is important to remember that this is Stephen King’s Pet Sematary after all.  The last third of the movie almost redeemed the bulk of his famous (read: generally slow and cliched) exposition that leads up to the finale.  But I was expecting more zombie animals, so I was a bit disappointed.

Unfortunately, I don’t have the childhood nostalgia of this film to find it very frightening.  But I can’t really knock a horror film with Fred Gwynne (The Munsters), Blaze Berdahl (Ghostwriter) and a bunch of crazy cats.

Trick ‘r Treat
Started & Finished: 10/19/09

I always forget how much I enjoy scary movie season.  Not for the (usually horrific) horror films that have frequented theaters in the last decade or so, but for the openness the rest of the world shows toward a genre that has been relegated to the bargain bin at your local Walmart.  And for good reason: The market is saturated with remakes and reboots that rely more on surprising you with loud, nondiagetic sounds than manifesting actual fear.  But while I will watch The Shining any day, October provides a once-a-year opportunity to indulge in the crap that is Halloween-themed-horror.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some quality films centered around this holiday.  And I hardly consider myself a horror aficionado.  But the recession-proof nature of the genre only spurs Hollywood’s goals of quantity over quality.  So it should be no surprise that a film like Trick ‘r Treat was released straight to video.  What is surprising is that it’s actually a quality Halloween-themed flick that might have found a following in theaters had it been marketed properly.

The concept is simple: Several Halloween myths converge over the course of one night in Sleepytown, Ohio.  Add a bit of Tales From The Crypt and a splash of Pulp Fiction-style storytelling for an added gimmick, and you’ve got Trick ‘r Treat.  There’s the requisite gore, comedy and nudity in this 82 minute feature, and even several history lessons on the origins of the holiday.  And while it fails to drum up much fear in the audience, it certainly succeeds as a fun, Halloween-themed romp that recent horror has failed to provide.

Trick ‘r Treat was supposed to be released in 2007, but because it didn’t fit the Hollywood model, it was tossed away and only released a few weeks ago.  The film is certainly no replacement for the classics, but it could have been a step in the right direction for a tired genre if it had been given the chance.  Perhaps one day, the world will produce tweens that find the Saw series boring and demand something original.  But until that day, I’m afraid we’re stuck wading through the tripe that is modern-day horror.  And that is a scary thought.  Bwa-ha-ha-h… shut up.

Sugar
Started & Finished: 10/6/09

Good baseball movies are few and far between (Field of Dreams, The Natural, and The Sandlot being some of the most obvious) for a reason: There are only so many baseball-centric stories that can be told and interest an audience outside of the sport’s core fan base.  Sugar had a chance to break into that upper echelon with a relatively untold story of Dominican transplants in the American minor leagues.  But unfortunately, it gets tangled up in the various themes it attempts to touch on (baseball, immigration, fish-out-of-water, coming-of-age), unable to leave a resounding impact with any single one.

Sugar’s first half is arguably its most powerful: Watching the young ballplayer work his way to spring training and then the minor leagues from his small town in the Dominican Republic is thrilling and compelling.  Because Sugar doesn’t speak any English, there is little dialogue when he arrives in the U.S.  This forces the story to move forward visually, and reveals so much more about the character than any conversation could.  The directorial styles of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson) shine on the diamond, showing the game in some of its most cinematic and realistic forms put to film.  (Actor Algenis Perez Soto’s experience playing ball was a pivotal casting choice that really lends well to the film’s authenticity.)

But it is that authenticity which Boden and Fleck try so hard to recreate that ultimately leads to the film’s fizzling out toward the second half.  Almost as if it was just too hard to keep telling the story with a language barrier, the writers move Sugar to a setting in which it is easy for him to find fellow Spanish-speakers.  While the motivation behind the relocation may be common among Dominican baseball prospects, it basically negates the biggest part of Sugar’s struggle in the United States, and makes him a less sympathetic character.  Because this massive hurdle has been conquered, and all other problems have been (literally) left behind, the audience is left following a character whose next moves seem irrelevant to the story that the directors started to tell in the first half of the film.

Despite its shortcomings in story structure, it’s refreshing to hear a new story told, especially one with a twist on the common “unlucky kid gets lucky in sports” theme.  Boden and Fleck’s direction is always interesting— their unique blend of gritty realism with the surreal is a fascinating lens for watching baseball through.  It could have been about 20 minutes shorter, but Sugar is still one of the best baseball-related films of the last decade.