2/16/2014 Prisoners, nominated for Best Cinematography, 2013
I'm going to say up front that when the previews for the movies came out, I was not lining up to see it. It just looked creepy and too dark. But, then it showed up on the damned list. Curses. Well, not exactly, it turns out I liked the movie, if you can like something like this. Briefly, two little girls are kidnapped during a family dinner. The parents are played by Hugh Jackman (Keller Dover) and Maria Bello and Terrence Howard (Franklin Birch) and Viola Davis. The families are obviously distraught and search the neighborhood, fixating on a young man, Alex Jones, (Paul Dano) who seems disturbed and perhaps not mentally competent. Jake Gyllenhaal is Detective Loki who is very good at his job despite being haunted by the demons of his past, although we never really know what they are, and Loki would prefer that the parents stay out of the investigation. Keller Dover gets Alex Jones and imprisons him and tortures him to try to get information on where the two girls are being kept. It was very violent and very graphic, and I'm not sure if it was really necessary to convey the message, but perhaps required to demonstrate that torture or excessive beatings do not always produce the desired results. Keller is relentless in his beatings and his determination, to the point of denying there may be another suspect. Melissa Leo, in another phenomenal role, is Holly Jones, claiming to be Alex's aunt. Melissa Leo is a chameleon and even if you don't like her role or the movie, she is amazing to watch. The movie takes a few twists and as a mystery fan, I appreciated the crafting of the story. To tell you anymore will ruin it. The movie is nominated for Best Cinematography for Roger Deakins (who has lately worked a lot with the Coen brothers), and while the photography does capture the darkness of the subject matter, I don't think it will win. I have not see all of the films, but I think Nebraska or The Grandmaster should win.
2/22/2014 The Grandmaster, nominated for Best Cinematography, Best Costume, 2013
There's a good chance that if I can't follow along in a movie, I'm not going to like it; I'm funny that way. I sort of followed the plot in The Grandmaster, but found out how much I missed when I read the synopsis in Wikipedia. I started to watch it again, and then decided I would just wait to get it from the library. I did like The Grandmaster in spite of the fact that the plot and narrative was a little confusing. The Grandmaster has a lot of martial arts action, and according to the subtitles (the movie was in Mandarin, Cantonese and Japanese) there were several variations of Kung Fu, including Wing Chun. The movies takes place over several decades, beginning in the 1930s after the Second Sino-Japanese War up through the 1970s. Ip Man is one of the main characters and was a real person and the movie is based on his life (but I don't know how much of the movie is accurate or made up). It's hard to give a summary because there are so many things going on, but like I said, I liked it anyway. And here's why, it's beautiful, just beautiful, the camera work (it is nominated for Cinematography and Costume) is stunning; Philippe Le Sourd does a stunning job of using dark and light, as I was watching all I could think of was chiaroscuro, which is usually applied to paintings. Tony Leung is Ip Man and Zhang Ziyi is Gong Er, Ip's adversary and keeps her love for him a secret until the end. Zhang has been in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Memoirs of a Geisha, and the argument can be made she is as much the star of this movie as Leung. If you enjoy martial arts movies, you will like this because there are some incredible Kung Fu demonstrations. The soundtrack, which was not nominated, was a perfect fit for the movie and wonderfully evocative.
2/22/2014 The Act of Killing, nominated for Best Feature Documentary, 2013
I like to think that even if a documentary is not very good I can still learn something and find the experience valuable. I've had a day to think about this film, and I don't think I can say this about The Act of Killing. I think a few things went wrong: first, the movie is in Indonesian so there are subtitles, which is not a problem IF YOU CAN READ THEM (bet you could read that), which I had a hard time doing, they were small and blended into the film; the history of what had happened was not told very well, so I did not feel a sense of the why and the who; the main people followed in the movie did not create a sense of empathy or sympathy or anything, just disdain for me; I can watch difficult and hard movies, but I don't think I have heard the term 'sado-masochistic' as much ever in my life, but it was very applicable, it felt a little masochistic to keep watching it, and I almost turned it off several times. The director interviews men who were part of paramilitaries and gangs that tortured and killed communists in the 1960s in Indonesia. As if the original act of killing people wasn't enough, the director asks these men to recreate the acts of torture or killing for a movie, there are some elements of fantasy and bizarre instances of irony that I found uncomfortable to watch. There is a moment when a stepson of one of the murder victims, who is now participating in the filming, wants to tell the story of how his stepfather was killed by these very men, and he's laughing and they're laughing, and then they basically tell him that his story is too complicated for the film. Watching him laugh as he is telling the story, as if he is embarrassed for his father's murder, brutal. One of the main men in the movie does have bad dreams and wonders if what he did was wrong; his counterpart sees nothing wrong with what they did. I just wanted this movie to be over and based on some of the other documentaries for this year, I don't think this will or should win.
2/23/2014 Nominees for Best Documentary Short, 2013
Just getting to the movie theater was an adventure. Minnesota had the worst storm of this winter Thursday night/Friday morning, bad enough that highways were shut down and driving was discouraged. By Sunday, though roads in my part of the city were in really good shape (thank you MNDOT), but I was worried about the city of Minneapolis, which is where I had to go to see the shorts. So, I thought it would be a great idea to take the light rail and then walk the mile to the theater. It won't go down in the book of brilliant ideas, but it worked out okay.
The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life
 |
| Synagogue, Prague, 2006 |
 |
| Terezin Memorial, 2006 |
Karama Has No Walls
This short film is about the attempt at a peaceful protest in Yemen during the Arab Spring that swept the Middle East. It features footage taken by two young Yemeni men, and their first person perspective of how the intended peaceful protest exploded (almost literally) with the provocation of thugs and the military. In addition to the two cameramen, the film tells us a little about two young men who were shot during the fighting; one of them died and one of them, who was maybe 8 or 9, who lost his eyes due to a bullet to his face. Using the real-time footage certainly gives a sense of the chaos that was happening, and it's a story that needs to be told, it gives a feeling of the universality of war and death, and a parent's loss and grief transcend language, religion and country. I just felt the storytelling was not very strong, it relied so much on the first hand footage that when it came to connecting the footage with the two boys who were injured or killed, it seemed disconnected. I would have liked the stories to be a little more fleshed out, maybe not rely on the narrative text, perhaps actually have a narrator tell some of the story.
Facing Fear
After watching this, I think another title would have suited this film better, maybe "Facing Hate", but regardless, this is a powerful story of forgiveness and change and learning to share that lesson. Matthew Boger was brutally and savagely beaten by a group of neo-Nazis when he was 13 years old for being gay and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Matthew eventually got out of the street life and became the manager at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. During a visit to the museum, he unexpectedly meets one of the men who beat him, Tim Zaal, who had since given up the neo-Nazi beliefs he held and was working to educate others on tolerance. The film looks at the journey to Matthew's forgiveness of Tim and Tim's path to forgiving himself and how he changed the hatred he had of others. The two of them began presenting together at the museum and they say they don't know how many people have been impacted by their story, but one father speaks up and thanks them for sharing their experiences. At the end, Matthew tells how important Tim is to him and his life, and that when Matthew's partner was dying, Tim was the person he called. Hopefully this is a film that finds its way into schools and perhaps diversity programs.
Cavedigger
I'm not going to lie, this was the longest 39 minutes of my life. Cavedigger is about Ra Paulette who digs extravagant and elegant caves in New Mexico. He considers them works of art, and has received commissions to create caves for landowners. At first it was interesting, I mean, it's definitely cool to see these archways and rooms carved out of sandstone; Paulette uses only manual tools and works by himself. But it turns from a look into this creative outlet into a look into his tunnel-vision (no pun intended) and obstinacy, and then I just stopped caring.
Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall
It didn't take too long into Prison Terminal: The Last Days of Private Jack Hall before I was in tears. This was a hard movie to watch and yet I am so glad I did. Jack Hall was convicted of murder over 50 years ago in Iowa and received a life sentence. And as is happening in many prisons around the country, with the aging prison population, Jack is getting sicker and close to dying. The movie is as much about Jack Hall's last days as it is about a program that was started in the Iowa State Penitentiary system, hospice care for dying inmates. So, while it is hard to watch the end of Jack's life, there was something so beautiful and tender about the inmates in the hospice program taking care of him, these big guys being so gentle with the 82 year old World War II POW. The end of life process is so personal and private, yet it is something we all experience, it's universal, so regardless of the fact the Jack was a prisoner, he still may have had to go through this in the outside world, it cannot be avoided. The men who take care of him have also been convicted of murder, and yet they have come to a point in their lives where they do want to give something back, they want to help take care of their fellow inmates. This hospice program was funded by donations and by inmate donations (they made some of the furniture and furnishings). One of the interesting things was a comment that Jack's son makes to his father's caregivers. He says his father used to be a segregationist, but that they have helped to change that (all the men shown in the hospice program in the film are black), and that he was so appreciative of the care they gave his dad. There was genuine respect for Jack's service in the war and love and concern. Another interesting item was Jack talks about his return from Europe after the war and how he had a tough time adjusting and if he ever felt threatened, he would fight back because that was how he was taught. It sounded eerily like the cases of PTSD from the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, but 60 years ago I don't think they had a name for it. I was truly moved by this film and the story of all of these men. I think it's interesting to compare Jack Hall with Alice Herz-Sommer since they were both survivors of World War II and both in camps, Alice in a concentration camp and Jack in a prisoner of war camp. Alice survived with forgiveness and love and music in her heart, and Jack came out with anger and hatred and violence in his heart. I think it would be interesting to juxtapose the two and find the commonalities and differences. It's not easy, but if you can find it (check Youtube) I really recommend it. This would be my second choice to win.
As I was leaving the theater, wiping my tears because they would have frozen, I heard someone say that those films were all so depressing. I think that's a lazy observation; if you want 'light' perhaps a collection of documentaries is not where you should be. Were most of the films sad? Yes, they were. Were they depressing? No, I don't think so. I found an element of hope in most of them, if not all of them; the triumph of the human spirit, if that doesn't sound too over the top. Alice Herz Sommer triumphed and survived; the young cameramen survived and told the story of their country during an important period of time; Matthew Boger and Tim Zaal triumphed over hate and fear to become friends and share their story; even crazy Ra Paulette is an example of the rugged individualism that is cherished in this country; and the inmates in the hospice program overcame an apparent dead end life in prison to give comfort to inmates and their families. I don't think that's depressing at all.
I am going to save my non-Oscar related movies and television shows for another time. I think I am emotionally spent. The Oscars are next Sunday, and I am going to be blogging live (posting at the end) like I did last year. I hope to have another two or three movies completed, and this will be the most complete Oscar-night review I have done thus far.
Spring is almost here. Stay warm and drive safe.
