Lola Maya’s blog

July 2, 2010

Catwoman review

Filed under: Uncategorized — lolamayasblog @ 10:13 am

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Move over Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, and principally you, Daredevil! There’s a new superhero in town, and her name is Woman. Catwoman.

Actually, Catwoman has been around for somewhat a while, first essayed on divide by Maura Monti, Julie Newmar, Katherine Victor, Lee Meriwether, Eartha Kitt, Michelle Pfeiffer, Adrienne Barbeau (voice), and Kyra Sedgwick (voice), surrounded by others I’ve probably overlooked. Immediately, in 2004’s “Catwoman,” it’s Halle Berry. Since winning an Academy Award, Ms. Berry has starred as a spunky Bond girl, a human Disturbance, and a offence-fighting feline. That’s what an Oscar will do for you.

In fairness to Ms. Berry, she is the best thing in the movie. No other Catwoman has looked so good in a cat supplication. Beyond that, the whole relationship is pretty dumb, composed by the goofy standards of superhero flicks.

Of course, you don’t craving to mess up this flick with producer Val Lewton’s classic 1942 “Cat People”; or Robert Wise’s 1944 “Curse of the Cat People”; or Alfred Shaughnessy’s 1957 “Cat Girl”; or Paul Schrader’s 1982 “Cat People,” where Nastassja Kinski truly turned into a big cat. Nor should you disconcert Ms. Berry with Angelina Jolie, whose nickname is Catwoman, or with porn actress Laura Catwoman, whose name I stumbled across on IMDb while looking up the production dates for the titles mentioned beyond everything. Honest.

“Catwoman” is by skedaddle with little riches. This might have been expected, considering that its guide, Pitof (a infancy moniker; birth big shot Christophe Comar), worked principally in visual effects before coming to this flick picture show. Every scene is in motion, with Pitof’s camera hovering nearly, swooping down, and encircling its subjects like the cat of the movie’s title stalking its take advantage of. It gets dizzying after a while, and along with the omnipresent beat of a pounding, nondescript electronic drum and synthesizer accompaniment, it can happen to downright irritating. The silver screen reminded me of an extended MTV commercial. Notwithstanding for all its flash, dance, and big-budget effects, “Catwoman” features some of the least convincing visuals I’ve seen in quite some epoch. Berry’s leaps and bounds look artificial, too speeded up, too hyperactive to be uniform invention proper. In other words, the on a trip-wire stunts and the CGI work look like just what they are–superior wires and computer graphics.

It also may not be enduring helped that the big had, as far as I could consider them, eight different producers of numerous kinds and six different writers working on it, not counting the late Bob Kane who invented the Catwoman comic-book character decades ago. When so divers people get a hand in a project’s creation, the commitment is in jeopardy of losing its centre, its hallucination, and getting watered down by compromise. That seems to be the case with “Catwoman.” It tries to be all things to all people–a little of the character from the waggish paperback, a little of the old TV entertainment, a dollop of “Batman Returns”–but it not at all amounts to much of anything.

As I remember Catwoman from the comic books of my girl and later from the campy “Batman” television series, she was just another of Batman’s nemesises. But she wasn’t categorically all misbehaving. She was maybe an antiheroine, an antagonist in this case who wasn’t quite all that evil yet wasn’t an outright do-gooder, either. She was always something of a contradiction, an poser to the viewer as by a long chalk as to Batman. But in this new movie, Catwoman is all good. She goes from being a timid, mousy teeny woman working in the art department of a cosmetics firm to a plucky, ceaseless, self-assured warrior against wrong. Several times she purrs that she’s disobedient, but there are no other indications of such. It’s as if the movie’s massive commission of writers and producers who developed her couldn’t devise jet adequately alone and in fine undeniable Catwoman had to be a traditional superhero working for truth, justice, and the American opportunity. They nonetheless gave her a new name, Patience Phillips (as opposed to Selina Kyle in Tim Burton’s movie and plain broken-down Catwoman in previous adventures).

Anyway, in time-honored superhero tradition, the movie begins with a past due story-line. With a fiercely. For approximately the whole first half of the peel, we get to secure senseless how and why Catwoman became Catwoman, a passage I create endlessly long-drawn-out, time consuming, and near pointless. “The day that I died was also the day I started to live,” Ms. Berry tells us in a prologue, and about forty-five minutes later we irrevocably see what she meant. But if the flick picture show was prevalent to convey so much CV and so little plot, maybe the filmmakers should sire considered doing what M. Night Shyamalan did in “Unbreakable” and made the whole silver screen a outlying story on the creation of a superhero.

I said the back story was adjoining asinine because when we in fine do find out how Patience becomes Catwoman, it makes no coherence whatsoever, not retaliate in terms of fancy. Poor little Patience wanders into her cosmetics company intermediation one evening and inadvertently stumbles upon a deadly surreptitiously; she overhears that the Beau-Words bite on the bullet cream the performers is with reference to to interpose is addictive and toxic. She is discovered snooping about and flees for her life, dishonest cosmetics company henchmen in hot pursuit, finally washed unconscious of a drain water-pipe (what are the chances?) into a river, and left for dead. But, naturally, she isn’t dead; she drifts ashore unconscious, where her seemingly lifeless body is suddenly resurrected by cats who endow her with superhuman powers of power and agility. This is because one of the cats is honestly an earlier god or goddess or magical spirit or something. And that’s it. She wakes up Catwoman.

Apparently, giving her legendary abilities is not the only clothing the cats do for Resolution. They cause her to have a partial memory loss as right, conveniently the loss of why she was flushed down the channel and what her cosmetics hard is up to. Everything else helter-skelter herself she seems to remember. Go tot up. As a plot signet this allows her to investigate what went on, or we wouldn’t partake of a second half to the silver screen; but logically it leaves a the whole kit to be desired. What’s more, she not only acquires strength and agility from the cats but gains an instant and polished facility to accomplish Olympian feats of karate and gymnastics. Well, at least it gets her unconfined of her frumpy decayed clothes and into a skimpy leather cat suit. Thank Eden for small favors.

Berry is gorgeous, but we all distinguish that, and it’s not ample supply. Surprisingly, she does best as the messy Patience, perchance because she’s a good enough actress to take the part dignitary real and alive. It’s as Catwoman that Berry gets into trouble because the character as written is so monumentally absurd. The poor lady has to don a hilarious blacklist jump suit and sneak throughout like an old-rhythm movie vamp, pretending to look and sound like a sexy feline. It comes bad as laughable as it sounds.


June 30, 2010

Cabin Fever review

Filed under: Uncategorized — lolamayasblog @ 9:33 am

The DVD has 5 commentary tracks and is packed with extras!

CABIN FEVER DVD

Lions Admissions Relief / $26.99 / Rated R / Widescreen 2:35:1 / 92 Minutes / English 5.1 Surround & Dolby Surround / English & French Subtitles / Trailer

Finally, a horror film about vicious, not conceivably kids only interested in self-preservation! Five vacationing college kids, cute Karen (Jordan Ladd), sweet Paul (Rider Strong), temptress Marcy (Cerina Vincent-who provides the requisite teen sex and bath nudity), appealing Bert (James DeBello), and obnoxious Jeff (Joey Kern), set peripheral exhausted to splash out a week in an isolated cabin in the woods. Loudmouth Jeff, who thoughtfully brought along an batter carbine to shoot rabbits, accidentally hits a sheer sick inhibit (Arie Verveen) spitting blood. He?s been infected with a mysterious, physically-eating virus. Instead of plateful the shackle when he comes to their cot door, the teens very soon fake he?s contagious, bludgeon him, and set him on fire. They all solely think through away their behavior. Label the control? It is placed under discussion. When the handcuffs?s body falls into a reservoir, he infects the drinking water.

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Virginal Karen is the beforehand to sip some still water. She starts bleeding profusely. There is no warmth for Karen. She is when locked up in a scatter and sinistral. Bert is horrified. He wisely dons a towel over his mouth on the side of the rest of the flick picture show. Having destroyed the passenger car themselves when the infected man attempted to get away in it, they are stuck without transportation, no phone, and hillbilly neighbors not pervious to outsiders. Each goes off in pursuit of lend a hand, entering other people?s homes and congregation up with uncooperative locals. When they do get the transport started, nobody wants to touch or even contain next to Karen. Bert, my personal luminary, abandons the assemblage. Whatever it is, it muscle be airborne.

A wonderful genuflect to David Lynch appears in the human being of Deputy Winston (Giuseppe Andrews). He taunts the audience momentarily sidetracking us. What?s up with him? The splattering aversion of blood and oozing sores keeps the teens and us on a frenzied billow coaster ride that is creepy, funny, and malicious. All the characters are smartly drawn. There?s not one idiot middle them. Writer/director Eli Roth disrupts the genre by toying with outright racism and gay slurs. He taunts us with the proposition beyond the shadow of a doubt: What the castigation does this racist comment mean?

Roth gives his characters a mean-spirited like a cat on a hot tin roof. There is always anybody character that cries a lot, does something furiously stupid, and falls down while being pursued by a crazed maniac. The others stop and go back to support. In CABIN FEVER, such noble self-loss would be laughed at. And the end? Roth delivers on all levels a highly enjoyable teen horror motion picture. If you design the dreadful DREAMCATCHER killed the genre, Roth has gloriously resurrected it.

The DVD extras: The sickest films are the most cheer to impute! Eli Roth is a Generation-X guy in his twenties with a big smile on his face who appears in the terrific behind-the-scenes tracks with his dad. Roth is clearly a fun-loving prankster who wants to share with us the "joyous" know of making CABIN FEVER. The DVD has so many extras and, in a tribute to the designers, they got it all on a single disc. This is also a ?how to make" a horror movie training class.

"Bungalow Fever: Unbefitting The Skin" is a 30-slight documentary on the design of the cabin, the music (Angelo Badalamenti, David Lynch's composer, plays only of the film's themes on the piano), the grisly effects, (Roth loves covering his actors in blood!) the training of the "killer" dogs (they picked anybody that worked with Patrick Swazye in "Black Dog," but it was fired for being too nice!). There are also some clips from the 2002 Toronto Shoot Festival, where CABIN FEVER was shown to a groaning theater (there was a vast bidding hostilities to cause the movie, and Lions Gate won).

On the DVD you get on a "Family Version" of CABIN FEVER! (Okay, it's merely a minute long) and a headline called "Chick Vision" which will "automatically screen out the most frightening scenes as they approach, offering a happier viewing experience." Simulated fingers "cover" the screen, though not every "frightening" fetish is covered up (this was doubtlessly done on purpose). It's take pleasure in when your girlfriend covers her kisser at the movies, when she thinks a "frightening image" will be published. We'll be seeing this on television soon: "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre tonight on FOX- in Chick Imagination!"

The CABIN FEVER DVD has five (count 'em, five!) commentary tracks, the second-most of any DVD I've seen (THE RULES OF SHOW DVD has six commentaries, and that's a Lions Door DVD, too). All five commentary tracks promote Eli Roth: A Director's commentary; Roth with "The Guys" of Cabin Fever; Roth with "The Girls;" Roth with the filmmakers; and Roth with falling star Rider Strong "who talked so damn much we had to move him to another seek out." The DVD also has some weird home movies and food pep below the sections "Pancakes" and "The Immoral Fruit."

Victoria Alexander can be reached by visiting FilmsInReview.com or, in a beeline, at

June 28, 2010

Eagle Eye (2008)

Filed under: Uncategorized — lolamayasblog @ 2:03 pm


Director:


D.J. Caruso


Cast:



Shia LaBeouf

,

Michelle Monaghan

,

Rosario Dawson

,

Michael Chiklis

, Anthony Mackie, Ethan Embry,

Billy Bob Thornton



Writing Credits:


John Glenn, Travis Wright, Hillary Seitz, Dan McDermott (and story)


Tagline:


If you want to live, you will obey.


Synopsis:


Executive Producer Steven Spielberg delivers the ultimate race-against-time thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat! Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan star as strangers ripped from their ordinary lives when they are "activated" as part of a high-tech assassination plot. Through blistering chases and shocking twists they try to escape - but where do you go when the enemy is everywhere?


Box Office:


Budget

$80 million.

Opening Weekend

$29.150 million on 3510 screens.

Domestic Gross

$100.404 million.


MPAA:


Rated PG-13

Widescreen 2.35:1/16×9

Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1

English

French
Spanish
Closed-captioned

Supplements Subtitles

:

English
French
Spanish


Runtime:

117 min.


Price:

$34.98


Release Date:

12/27/2008


Bonus:



DVD One:


• Deleted Scenes

• ?Road Trip: On Location with the Cast and Crew? Featurette

• Previews


DVD Two:


• Alternate Ending

• ?Asymmetrical Warfare: The Making of

Eagle Eye

? Featurette

• ?

Eagle Eye

On Location: Washington DC? Featurette

• ?Is My Cell Phone Spying On Me?? Featurette

• ?Shall We Play A Game?? Featurette

• Gag Reel

• Photo Gallery

• Trailer

Eagle Guard: Special Edition (2008)
(December 22, 2008)

Slowly but surely, Shia LaBeouf has turned into a solid box office draw. It?s no surprise he?s had hits with titles like



Transformers



and



Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull



; both were pre-sold to audiences, so LaBeouf?s presence didn?t seem to impact their success.

However, LaBeouf has been able to lead projects to the top of the box office charts. He did this with 2007?s



Disturbia



and he accomplished it again with 2008?s action-thriller

Eagle Eye

. No, the latter?s $100 million gross didn?t set the world on fire, but it demonstrated that LaBeouf could ?open? a movie and bring in a decent box office total.

Reunited with

Disturbia

director DJ Caruso,

Eagle Eye

casts LaBeouf as Jerry Shaw, an ordinary ? though smooth-talking - 20-something drone at Copy Cabana. His life gets a jolt when his twin brother Ethan dies and he briefly reunites with his estranged family.

After the funeral, Jerry?s life takes a turn for the weird. Though perpetually broke, he suddenly finds hundreds of thousands of dollars in his bank account. He also finds boxes of military weapons and other items stashed in his apartment. A cryptic called tells him he?s been ?activated? and warns him to immediately depart so he can avoid FBI incarceration. Jerry doesn?t listen, so he ends up under questioning from agent Tom Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton). However, the mysterious forces intervene and allow for his escape.

We also meet Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan), a single mother. After she sends her son Sam (Cameron Boyce) away on a school trip, she receives the same weird message about being ?activated?. She gets guided to the wheel of a Porsche Cayenne, a vehicle into which the powers also place Jerry. This sends the pair on a shared journey to flee the various authorities, figure out what?s behind their adventures, and maybe even stay alive.

Some movies require a little suspension of disbelief, while others demand a lot.

Eye

falls into the ?hunka-buncha suspension required? category. Actually, I think one must put the logical side of your brain on hold for a movie like this than for something like

Transformers

because

Eye

tries to exist in the real world.

Transformers

never pretends to be anything other than straight fantasy, but

Eye

wants us to accept it as something that could occur in reality.

In that manner, it fails. At no point does

Eye

seem particularly plausible, and it comes chock full of plot holes. It requires far too many coincidences and bits of magic to enter the realm of reality. Because we?re supposed to view it as part of the real world, its lack of believability causes it to lose some points.


Eye

also gets zapped a bit due to the manner in which it flaunts its influences. At times, the film feels like a conglomeration of ideas taken from other flicks. In particular,



Enemy of the State



comes as an obvious precursor, and I see bits of



The Matrix



, Hitchcock and other flicks as well. Originality never becomes one of the movie?s strongest points.

But you know what?

Eye

entertains despite its flaws. While the story elements may seem derivative, the main plot itself keeps us involved. Caruso takes a potentially complicated tale and delivers it in a way that minimizes its messiness. With a mix of borderline extraneous characters and plot complications, the movie easily could ? and probably should ? have turned into a perpetually confusing, off-putting production.

To my surprise, that never occurs. Instead, Caruso keeps things on point. Elements that could?ve been mystifying instead seem intriguing. The movie dollops out just enough plot elements to keep us interested. We always feel curious to see where the film will go next, but the film avoids the traps that might come with its often obtuse nature.

LaBeouf?s natural charm continues to serve him well. Despite his youth, he manifests a nice ?everyman? feel that makes him perfect for projects like this. In some ways, he often plays similar roles, but unlike someone such as Seth Rogen, LaBeouf doesn?t

seem

the same in his movies. Nothing here extends LaBeouf beyond the ?ordinary guy in extraordinary circumstances? theme of many other characters, but he still manages to make Jerry seem three-dimensional and not like the same old thing.

Caruso also handles the flick?s many action scenes well. I could live without his preference for hand-held camerawork; some dialogue scenes become irritating due to their intrusive use of shakycam. This doesn?t distract during the action sequences, though, and Caruso delivers a lot of rousing set pieces. Those add real pep to the production and allow us to ignore some of the film?s flaws.

And make no mistake:

Eagle Eye

comes with its share of problems, some avoidable, some probably not. Nonetheless, it packs enough excitement and entertainment to usually overcome its problems. It turns into a consistently fun and enjoyable experience.

The DVD Grades: Illustration B+/ Audio A-/ Bonus C+


Eagle Eye

appears in an aspect ratio of approximately

2.35:1

on this single-sided, double-layered DVD; the image has been enhanced for

16X9

televisions. No significant issues materialized during this fine presentation.

Sharpness always looked quite good. From start to finish, the movie seemed concise and accurate, with few signs of softness on display. Jagged edges and shimmering were absent, but some slight edge haloes appeared. In addition, source flaws failed to occur.

Much of the time the palette of

Eagle Eye

went with stylized hues. It often went with cold blues for the military pieces and had a desaturated golden look for a lot of the other bits. Across the board, the colors fit with the design and came across well. Blacks seemed deep and firm, while shadows showed good clarity and delineation. This was a consistently positive transfer that narrowly fell below ?A? level.

With all its action scenes, the

Dolby Digital 5.1

soundtrack of

Eagle Eye

boasted many opportunities to shine. It took advantage of these to create a vibrant soundfield. You name an action element and it likely appeared here: gunfire, trains, car chases, helicopters, missile launches, and plenty of other exciting pieces cropped up often throughout the movie. The track managed to mesh the elements well and made this an involving setting.

That meant plenty of surround usage. The back speakers became nearly equal partners, as they provided tons of unique information. The whole package blended smoothly and created a consistently lively sense of place and action.

In addition, the movie offered excellent audio quality. Speech sounded natural and concise; I noticed no edginess or other distractions. Music took a backseat to the effects, but the score was vivid and full.

As expected, effects played the most important role here. Those elements appeared vibrant and accurate. They showed clean reproduction and packed a good punch; low-end response made fine use of the subwoofer. All in all, the movie featured a terrific soundtrack.

We find a mix of extras spread across this two-DVD release. Most of the supplements appear on the second platter. On DVD One, we find a three-minute and four-second featurette called

Road Trip: On Location with the Cast and Crew

provides comments from director DJ Caruso, producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, production designer Tom Sanders, and actors Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan. They tell us that they visited a bunch of sets and things moved quickly. We get a few other very minor production notes, but there?s very little substance here. We see a couple of mildly interesting shots from the set, but this is nothing more than an advertisement.

Three

Deleted Scenes

run a total of three minutes, 35 seconds. These include ?Ethan?s Wake? (0:36), ?Minuteman? (1:13) and ?Twins? (1:46). ?Wake? offers a longer glimpse of Jerry?s estranged relationship with his family, while ?Minuteman? gives us a bit more exposition in terms of plot complexities and some characters. ?Twins? fleshes out Jerry?s relationship with his brother a wee bit more as well, though it simply extends an existing scene.

None of these seem particularly interesting. ?Minuteman? probably appears the most useful, as it gives us decent details. However, it?s unnecessary, and in the context of the full film, I expect it?d slow down the drama. All of these cuts were good ones.

DVD One opens with a few ads. We get promos for

The Uninvited

,



Tropic Thunder



,



Ghost Town



, and

Without a Paddle: Nature?s Calling

. These also appear in the

Previews

area along with clips for

The Duchess

,



The Godfather

Trilogy Restored


and

Van Wilder: Freshman Year

.

Over on DVD Two, we open with an

alternate ending

. It goes for one minutes, seven seconds. This scene gives the movie an opening for a sequel ? a really, really stupid opening for a sequel. I?m quite glad it got the boot.

Four featurettes follow.

Asymmetrical Warfare: The Making of

Eagle Eye


runs 25 minutes, 30 seconds and includes Kurtzman, Orci, Caruso, LaBeouf, Sanders, Monaghan, director of photography Darius Wolski, 2nd unit director Brian Smrz, and special effects coordinator Peter Chesney. The show covers the movie?s development, cast and performances, stunts and practical effects, cinematography, set design, and a smattering of other elements.

As an informational piece, ?Warfare? seems unremarkable. It tosses out a decent array of facts about the production but lacks much substance. However, it compensates with quite a few good shots from the set. These add zest and make the show more interesting.

Next comes the five-minute, 57-second


Eagle Eye

On Location: Washington DC

. It features remarks from Caruso, Kurtzman, co-producer Pete Chiarelli, actor Michael Chiklis and Library of Congress Director of Communications Matt Raymond. As expected, we go to the National?s Capital and check out the segments shot there. It provides a pretty mediocre take on that subject, though we do get some more nice footage from the shoot.


Is My Cell Phone Spying On Me?

lasts nine minutes, 14 seconds and provides comments from Monaghan, Chiklis, LaBeouf, Kurtzman, Caruso, Chiarelli,
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Asst. Professor in the School of Information Studies Michael Zimmer, Electronic Privacy Information Center executive director Marc Rotenberg, and producer Edward McDonnell. ?Spying? offers a look at the technological aspects of the movie?s plot. It seems superficial but still provides enough facts to give me the creeps.

For the final featurette,

Shall We Play A Game?

fills nine minutes, 22 seconds. It gives us a chat between Caruso and



WarGames



director John Badham. Essentially they discuss

Eagle Eye

and its connection to other films,

WarGames

included. It?s fun to see Caruso with his mentor, and they turn this into a reasonably stimulating conversation.

A

Gag Reel

goes for seven minutes. For the most part, this consists of the standard collection of mistakes and chuckles. It does include a few fun improv moments, though.

In addition to the film?s

theatrical trailer

, we find a

Photo Gallery

. It offers 40 images that come from the set and from the film. It?s a completely pedestrian collection.

If you can tolerate the many stretches of logic in

Eagle Eye

and just go with the flow, you?ll probably enjoy it. The movie hits snags, but it compensates with an intriguing story and plenty of exciting action pieces. The DVD provides strong picture and audio, and it also throws in a decent but unexceptional collection of supplements. Although the 2-disc set doesn?t dazzle with extras, this is a fun movie and a good release.

June 27, 2010

A kidnapping turns prickly in…

Filed under: Uncategorized — lolamayasblog @ 4:28 am

A kidnapping turns prickly in the Down Under neo-noir “Cactus.” Exec produced by thesp Bryan Brown, this yarn relative to an crude kidnapper taking a loudmouth gage on a long drive to an unknown destination feels like a padded-out episode from the thesp’s Oz tube series “Twisted Tales,” an O. Henry-style anthology. May 1 release looks to wither locally but may bloom in ancillary.

After being attacked one night, professional gambler Eli Jones (David Lyons) wakes up bound and gagged in the back of a car traveling through the Australian desert. At the wheel is troubled kidnapper John Kelly (Travis McMahon) who, for the sake of conversational interplay between the two, ungags his underhanded abductee. Onetime camera assistant Jasmine Yuen-Carrucan (”Kill Bill,” “Mongol”) leapfrogs into the director’s chair with confidence; but her flawed, lightweight script betrays inexperience behind a keyboard, with main thesps struggling to sustain dramatic momentum amid their inadequate dialogue. Brown contributes an amusing turn as a small-town sheriff, but Shane Jacobson (”Kenny”) is wasted in a thankless cameo. Low-budget concept (two characters, one car, one desert) gets the most from the economical production values; tech credits are impressive.

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June 24, 2010

Oldboy (2005)

Filed under: Uncategorized — lolamayasblog @ 3:18 pm

After being kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years, Oh Dae-Su is released, only to find that he must stumble on his captor in 5 days.

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June 22, 2010

Eraser (1996)

Filed under: Uncategorized — lolamayasblog @ 6:43 pm

Eraser is mid-consistent Arnold, a hardware-heavy, lofty-body-count actioner that tries to compensate for a B-talking picture script with advanced artillery and high-tech mayhem.

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Script by newcomer Tony Puryear and vet Walon Green [from a screen story by them and Michael S. Chernuchin] centers upon Schwarzenegger’s John Kruger, a government ‘eraser’ expert at making witnesses disappear for their own safety. His new case isn’t so easy: the witness in question, Lee Cullen (Vanessa Williams), has the goods on some turncoats in the defense field who plan to sell a load of top-secret super-guns.

From the beginning, characters are introduced just to serve as cannon fodder - in particular, Cullen’s ex-b.f. and a reporter friend. After Kruger stashes Cullen safely in New York’s Chinatown, it becomes apparent that she isn’t safe after all, indicating a mole in the system and causing a confrontation between the steadfast Kruger and his boss and mentor, Deguerin (James Caan).

Looking leaner than usual, Schwarzenegger strides through the proceedings with his customary unhesitating purposefulness. Williams is similarly all business as the besieged young patriot willing to go the limit to expose government evildoers, while Caan schemes and threatens with evident glee.

Most of the gunplay is pretty standard-issue. Special effects are mostly solid without being awe-inspiring or gargantuan.

1996: Nomination: Best Sound Effects Editing

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June 20, 2010

Frankie (2005)

Filed under: Uncategorized — lolamayasblog @ 4:24 am

Frankie is ‘a coat hanger about to be retired’. A 26-year-old miniature ideal, she knows all too effectively that her career is ending. Make-up artists tut over her skin, casting directors say she’s too fat. Former model Diane Kruger takes the titular role in this French character portrait that flits between a clinic and modelling assignments, documentary-style, in an unclear chronology. It seems Frankie has been hospitalised for depression and a burgeoning eating disorder. Scenes at casting sessions and on shoots disclose the unaccompanied life that drove her there: severe, unfriendly faces talk everywhere her in the third individual (‘she doesn’t understand,’ sighs the same petulant photographer). Everybody under the sun is smoking, all the time. This is far from the glamorised fashion area seen in Hollywood chick-flicks. Here, a sparse soundtrack, inhuman lighting and want scenes emphasise the gloomy side of the work – not a plea to save fellow-feeling, but an atmospheric picture and well-performed by a suitably downbeat Kruger. The chauffeur intended interest feels a but tagged-on, but this is still a worthwhile contemplate for those interested in the inky side of manner.

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June 17, 2010

Wait Till Your Father Gets Home: The Complete First Season (1972)

Filed under: Uncategorized — lolamayasblog @ 5:54 am

When Hanna-Barbera’s animated sitcom Wait Till Your Father Gets Home premiered way back in 1972, I was just a little kid, but I vividly remember watching it because, as anyone from that generation will tell you, TV only had three networks, and cartoons rarely if ever showed up in the evening hours. So when they did, it was a pretty big thing. But you had to have cool parents, though (or be left alone a lot), if you wanted to see these new, “fun adult” shows that were starting to pop up on television; you know, the naughty stuff by Norman Lear like All in the Family or Maude. So when I discovered that Hanna-Barbera was doing a night-time syndicated cartoon that played and sounded like the Bunkers, I was in heaven. Cartoons mixed with the possibility of “dirty” jokes? What more could a seven-year old want?

Unfortunately, I misjudged the power that cartoons had to lull parents into a false sense of security. The minute they saw this funny, ever-so-slightly adult animated sitcom, they immediately froze up, and refused to watch it again. They didn’t forbid me to watch it, but they weren’t too happy about it, either. And frankly, I was puzzled by their reaction. As a family, we watched All in the Family with no problems, but translate some of those same concerns into bright, colorful, seemingly innocent cartoon form, and Mom and Dad started to frown. I didn’t understand at the time that the vast majority of mainstream cartoons had never touched on these subjects before (obviously, I’m not talking about underground stuff like Fritz the Cat, which, as curious kids, we were dying to see). Cartoons, to my parents, were supposed to be our safe havens from the cares of the world; when they saw the same tensions that were occurring in our own house acted out in a stupid cartoon, they just shut down. How times have changed, huh?

Seen today, anyone can appreciate the relative daring that went into this Hanna-Barbera effort. And by daring, I’m referring to its concept - a funny, flip, slightly suggestive sitcom that tackled some rather controversial issues occurring in the world at that time. Now let’s be clear right off the bat; this isn’t Family Guy. I would suspect most kids and anybody under thirty or so would find Wait Till Your Father Gets Home exceedingly tame by today’s ribald, vulgar standards (and I’m a huge Family Guy fan, so don’t email). Thirty years of ever-increasing taboo-breaking television have dulled most younger viewers to earlier TV milestones. And that goes for me, too, in my own time frame; I still can’t my head around the fact that Lucy couldn’t say the word “pregnant” on her show. That being said, Wait Till Your Father Gets Home is still a surprisingly funny show, with a admirably laid-back execution, an innovative production design, and clever writing that holds up well after thirty-five years.

The premise of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home is as simple and stylized as its production design. Harry Boyle (Tom Bosley) is the harried middle-class head of a rapidly changing family. His two older kids are a constant muddle to him. Chet (David Hayward) is a twenty-two-year-old college graduate who plays at being a hippie (he lectures down at the “ghetto” twice a week, before coming back to the safety of Harry’s couch). Alice (Kristina Holland) is the overweight daughter who’s constantly chastising Harry for all his perceived prejudices and shortcomings. Harry’s youngest son Jamie (Jackie Earle Haley, Willie Aames) is always there to back up his Dad - provided there’s monetary compensation in it for him. And Irma Boyle (Joan Gerber) is Harry’s wife, who can’t seem to decide which side of the fence she should be on. Filling out Harry’s extended family is Ralph Kane (Jack Burns), Harry’s ultra-right-wing bigot neighbor who is constantly on the alert for invading Communists, minorities, or anyone who doesn’t look or act or think exactly as he does. Each episode, Harry comes home from running his small business to find his family embroiled in some minor crisis that somehow always manages to backfire on Harry. Politics are discussed, traditions are evaluated, and new ideas are put forth until everyone agrees that the best possible course of action is take the middle ground and just get along. Everyone, that is, except Ralph.

Quite often, Wait Till Your Father Gets Home is described as some kind of battle between “right wing conservative” Harry and his “radical” kids Chet and Alice. Perhaps that’s how fans remember it; after all, it’s been some time since it was on (if it’s played on other channels recently, I’ve missed it). But what struck me about Wait Till Your Father Gets Home is how even-steven most of the discussions are in the series. Harry, far from being a reactionary, is basically a nice guy, a traditionalist who can’t for the life of him understand the changes that are going on his world. Most of the comedy comes from other characters misunderstanding him - or downright accusing him of prejudices he doesn’t hold - and his frustrated efforts to have his own middle-of-the-road opinions heard (that’s why the implied threat of the show’s title and theme song never made much sense to me). The kids, though sporting then-fashionable rebellion against their elders, hardly come off as radicals. Chet seems in his own world, most of the time; Alice is the instigator of most of the accusations against Harry, and even then, she usually comes around to seeing Harry’s point of view, just as Harry does in turn with his kid’s beliefs. Despite all the teases and suggestions that Wait Till Your Father Gets Home is going to be some kind of radical attack on accepted social mores, it ultimately comes off as fairly conventional in its ideals.


Even the extreme characters in Wait Till Your Father Gets Home; specifically wild bigot neighbor Ralph Kane and his vigilante group, wind up being softened by the comedic elements of the series. Ralph, a full-scale racist, spouts some funny lines (voiced by the incomparable Jack Burns) that will make today’s touchy, P.C., nanny-cultured crowd go running for the nearest ACLU chapter (of course, if Ralph wasn’t white, his ridiculous racist rants would be called “relevant” today). But clearly, the Ralph character is set-up as a comedic foil for Harry, to illustrate how mild and good natured and essentially fair he is. It’s satire, after all. The writers of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home achieve this effect neatly by having Ralph’s greatest worry being the Communists infiltrating the U.S. - a notion in 1972 that seemed ridiculously passe and silly.

But Wait Till Your Father Gets Home doesn’t save the satirical barbs just for the conservative targets; the so-called “revolution” that was coming to America in 1972 gets its fair share of skewering, too. Liberal sacred cows of 1972 get jabbed, as well, including communes, hippies, nudists, draft-dodgers, welfare, “self-expression,” feel-good adultery, and no-guilt pornography all get razzed in Wait Till Your Father Gets Home. Chet is probably the best example of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home’s wide-ranging irony. The closest thing to a hippie on the show, this free spirit talks the talk, but he walks the walk at home, frequently on the couch, without an ounce of ambition, while all his considerable bills are paid by Mom and Dad (not exactly an unfair portrait of most of the people I knew who called themselves “hippies” when I was a kid). The episode Help Wanted clearly shows the series’ willingness to play fair when it shows the insanity that comes to Harry when everyone wrongly assumes he’s a bigot, demanding that he hire a minority for his new delivery driver. Advocacy groups from every walk of life inundate Harry while his family berates him for his non-existent prejudices - until he finally hires back his old driver: an elderly Jewish man who’s constantly smashing up the van. Anybody tuning into Wait Till Your Father Gets Home just to watch Harry “get his,” like they regularly did for Archie’s weekly comeuppance on All in the Family, were probably laughing at their own self-portraits, too. And that’s really the key to Wait Till Your Father Gets Home’s success: it’s still funny. Produced by H-B regulars (and writers for the similarly-toned Love, American Style) R. S. Allen and Harvey Bullock, Wait Till Your Father Gets Home has some deftly timed give-and-take jokes and dialogue that play soft and easy with the viewer. For a supposedly ground-breaking show, it’s pretty genial in its humor, and all the more welcome for that tone. Some may hate that laugh track, but if anything, it gives Wait Till Your Father Gets Home even more of an “established” sitcom feel.

Another pleasing aspect of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home is the stylized approach to the animation. Veering away from the detailed look of say, a Johnny Quest Hanna-Barbera, Wait Till Your Father Gets Home incorporates the blobby look of the magazine cartoon. The characters were designed by Playboy regular Marty Murphy, and further stylized by H-B genius, Iwao Takamoto. Discarding all but the most basic identifiers for the backgrounds (a cost-cutting measure, too, no doubt), scenes appear often to be floating in mid-air, with only a couch or a table in the background to give perspective to the characters. It really lightens up the show, giving it a clean, abstract look that fits surprisingly well with the laid-back vocal tracks (Bosley is perfect at the resigned Harry).

Here are the 24, inseparable-half hour episodes of the four-disc slug arrangement Attentively around Register Your Father Gets Living quarters: The Flawless Dialogue go Time:

DISC ONE

The Fling
When Harry has to stay at a motel with a client, the family immediately assumes he’s having ana affair.

Alice’s Dress

When Harry’s to receive an award, Alice decides to go formal — with a see-through top.

The Hippie

Chet’s hippie friend stays at the Boyles, and never leaves, prompting Harry to try on the hippie lifestyle.

The Beach Vacation

Harry is outraged when his two-week vacation at the beach is ruined by friendly nudist neighbors.

Help Wanted

When Harry needs a new truck driver, his family insists he hire a minority.

Love Story

Alice falls for Mr. Right — a panhandler.

DISC TWO

The Victim
Harry gets mugged, and his family sticks up for the perp.

Chet’s Job
Despite years of resistance, Chet finally takes a job, with surprising results.

Chet’s Fiancé

How did hippie Chet ever get that good-looking, prim-and-proper girlfriend? And what will Harry say when they decided to live together before marriage?

The Mouse

Jamie gets a pet mouse, but the family — particularly the women — are dead set against it.

Duty Calls

Chet is drafted, but will Harry go in his place?

Expectant Papa

Harry and Irma are happy to be expecting a new child, until the older ones say it’s “population pollution.”

DISC THREE

The New Car
Harry gets ripped off on a new car, and decides to take his revenge (there’s a weird disclaimer on this episode, disavowing any connection with real people being portrayed in the episode, that must have stemmed from a lawsuit — it’s a vintage disclaimer, too; not new).

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The New House
Harry’s new house turns out to be a gigantic pain in his…wallet.

The Prowler
A prowler is loose in the streets, and Ralph and his vigilante force are ready for him.

Mama’s Identity

The Feminine Mystique comes to Irma, and Harry’s not buying it.

Papa the Patient
Harry doesn’t know what’s worse: the pains in his stomach, or the trial of going through the health care system.

The Swimming Pool
Harry makes the mistake of trying to please his family — by buying a trouble-laden swimming pool.

DISC FOUR

Sweet Sixteen
Alice’s sixteenth birthday party rapidly spins out of control when a party planner takes over.

The Commune

Alice decides to leave school and live on a commune.

The Music Tycoon
Chet decides to become a rock band manager.

Accidents Will Happen

Should Harry cheat the insurance company when he gets a tiny injury?

Papa in New York
Harry goes to New York City — with the whole family in tow.

The Neighbors

In what appears to be a potential spin-off, Harry introduces us to a young couple and their tribulations when they first live together.

The DVD:

The Video:
The full screen DVD transfer for Wait Till Your Father Gets Home: The Complete First Season looks surprising bright and colorful. There are a lot of dirt specks and anomalies, but it’s clear that those are present in the original materials, no doubt from the breakneck speed in which these cheaply produced cartoons were made. One episode, The Prowler, is really, really dark, but again, it appears to be a problem with the original materials, not the DVD transfer.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English mono track accurately reflects the original broadcast presentation. Dialogue is clear and sharp. Close-captioning is available.

The Extras:
There are two short featurettes included on the Wait Till Your Father Gets Home: The Complete First Season box set. First, a ten minute short called Animation for a Nation makes some ridiculous generalizations about America in the early 70s, and then barely mentions the show. Why am I listening to former California Gray Davis and Leif Garrett talk about hippies here? A much better short, Illustrating the Times, comes in at six and a half minutes, and features new interviews with the recently deceased Iwao Takamoto and graphic designer Marty Murphy. Great background on the show, and some good insights.

Final Thoughts:
Hanna-Barbera’s groundbreaking Wait Till Your Father Gets Home: The Complete First Season is not the radical attack on America that you’ve read about; it’s much more genial and middle-of-the-road, with its targets carefully spread about both liberal and conservative fields. It’s still funny, and the stylized production design is a nice step forward for Hanna-Barbera. Don’t expect Family Guy, and you might just like its easy-going approach to some surprisingly adult themes. I recommend Wait Till Your Father Gets Home: The Complete First Season.


Paul Mavis is an internationally published overlay and elfin screen historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the prime mover of The Espionage Filmography.

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June 14, 2010

Leather Jacket Love Story review

Filed under: Uncategorized — lolamayasblog @ 1:29 pm

The drag performances in particular run hot and cold, which pretty much
sums up the film. It is by no means the romp the bouncy soundtrack intends
to signal it as.

The tone of the comedy has a slight satirical edge that doesn’t go far
enough in this story of a good-
hearted 18-year-old innocent named Kyle (Sean Tataryn) who desires a life of
monogamous bliss after an all-night stand with a 30ish biker (Christopher
Bradley).

Kyle calls himself a poet but is so sappy, as his poetry confirms, that
it’s hard to imagine him holding anyone’s attention for long, either Mike
the biker’s (Bradley) or the audience’s.

A couple of unfunny drag queens stop the action cold every time they open
their mouths, but another trio of cross-dressers (Erin Krystle, Craig Olsen
and Mink Stole) shows up regularly as a kind of Greek chorus, if you catch
my drift, and make up for their sisters.

There is a lot more nudity than anyone might expect in a film like this,
an otherwise modest affair in black and white. Bradley has presence and can
deliver a line and benefits from the exposure he gets.

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June 13, 2010

DVD -Dracula:   Pages Fr…

Filed under: Uncategorized — lolamayasblog @ 12:09 am


DVD



-Dracula:

  Pages From a Virgin's Diary





Beyond
Borders
Michael J. Anderson on

The Wind Make
Carry Us

In
the distance, a Land Rover slowly traverses the dirt
road which snakes its way through rust-colored mountains.
Sounds proliferate: the tires growl on the gravel path,
crickets chirp, and songbirds twitter. Belying the exceptional
distance at which the vehicle is photographed, men (presumably
within the automobile) converse in a clearly discernible
register. Subsequent cuts introduce variations in the
angle and length from which the vehicle?s progression
is monitored, even as the magnitude of the men?s disembodied
voices remain constant. Indeed, beside Farzad, a young
boy who has been dispatched to retrieve the visitors
from Tehran, and Behzad, the driver and ?engineer,?
none of the others (part of a film crew, as it is later
revealed) are shown onscreen with any degree of visual
clarity. They will remain to the viewer persons of whom
one isa ware, but at the same time, persons whom one
does not know by sight.

In this way, Kiarostami introduces his viewer to the
formal rhetorical strategy of

The Wind Will Carry
Us

(1999) within its opening sequence. From the
outset, Kiarostami formulates a dialectical relationship
between image and sound that ultimately will serve the
picture?s discursive ends. The space onscreen can vary
from cosmic vantages, such as those of the minuscule
Land Rover winnowing its way through the mountain paths,
to close-ups of the film?s protagonist that accommodate
little depth beyond the subject itself. Concurrently,
Kiarostami aurally represents an expanse that extends
far beyond what the viewer can see at any moment, even
when the camera remains a considerable distance from
the persons or things presented on-screen. The space
which is represented beyond the limits of the frame
therefore is itself multi-planar in much the same way
that Kiarostami?s long shots accommodate numerous points
of interest within the frame?s limits. Kiarostami establishes
numerous spaces beyond the visual field by fragmenting
his soundtrack to represent at once, for example, someone
talking on-camera to someone off, even as there may
be birds singing, dogs yelping, and a distant radio
blaring. The limits of the frame are exploded, there
is a world extent beyond that which the camera directly
reveals.

The off-camera space, suggesting a multiplicity of overlapping
spaces, is further suggested through the Engineer?s
repeated cellular communications. In each of these,
he is speaking with someone from a distant, far removed
location. The viewer can neither see nor hear the other
communicant, but all the same, is impelled to assume
the reality of this other and the veracity of the space
they occupy. This then becomes the template of yet another
of the director?s strategies: to depict presence without
[material] presence, a concept essential in order to
understanding the film in terms of the spiritual. The
notion of presence-without-presence also manifests in
the crewmen who are primarily represented as off-screen
voices, a man who is digging a ditch for a communications
tower atop the hill (that coincidentally the Engineer
must ascend each time he wants to answer his phone),
and even the dead who occupy the graves that cover this
same summit. Each of these, alive and deceased, exists
beyond the material limits of the frame. In most cases,
their very existence is never confirmed visually.

And then there is the subject for the film that Behzad
and his crew are preparing to make: the village?s oldest
resident, who like the others mentioned, never appears
materially in the film or on film, even if she is a
constant point of reference for the on-camera dialogue.
The film that they are waiting to shoot is one that
details the ceremony surrounding the old lady?s death,
that is if only the matriarch will finally pass away.
Yet much to Behzad?s chagrin, not only does she not
die, but rather her health even improves. That this
is a point of frustration for the filmmakers provides

The Wind Will Carry Us

with its droll undercurrent.
It also provides the relatively static narrative with
an endpoint: Behzad?s attainment of humanity (not unlike
Ethan Edward?s at the conclusion of John Ford?s

The
Searchers

). When the worker is buried alive by the
collapsing ditch?which, significantly, the viewer hears
as an off-camera sound cue?the Engineer rushes for help,
soliciting assistance from the farmers who line the
road, offering the children a ride in his truck (in
an act of contrition targeted at Farzad whom he earlier
snapped at needlessly), and finally returning to the
top of the hill in his Land Rover, which the townspeople
now use to transport the gentleman to medical assistance.


Consequently, Behzad hops on the back of the motorcycle
of the village doctor, who proceeds to offer his view
on that most essential of questions: what is the relationship
between this world and the next? The doctor avers that
death is ultimately a far worse ?disease? than old age,
which Behzad initially decries. He observes that ?when
you close your eyes on this world, this beauty, the
wonders of nature, and the generosity of God, it means
you?ll never come back.? In a fashion decisively reminiscent
of the taxidermist?s at the conclusion of

Taste of
Cherry

(1997), he defends this life against the
next, asking ?who has come back from there to tell us
if it?s beautiful or not?? ?Prefer the present,? he
says, ?to these fine promises.? Of course, Kiarostami
underscores the doctor?s words with ravishing images
of the Iranian countryside, thereby tipping his hand,
such as it were, to how he himself is likely to regard
the issue. However, Kiarostami?s film, like all of his
major work, is characteristically open to interpretation.
What is at issue, in fact, is no less than the question
of the soul, and consequently what follows this life.
(In this way,

The Wind Will Carry Us

becomes
a fascinating follow up to

Taste of Cherry

, which
dealt with the exigency of suicide).

The thematic application of its central concept of presence
without presence would seem to convey a sense of the
immaterial in a medium which is fundamentally material.
Put another way, by referring to characters which the
viewer does not see, and in some cases does not hear,
Kiarostami is evoking a world not just beyond the material
limits of the frame, but by implication, beyond the
material. Clearly, Kiarostami reminds his audience that
the world is much larger than that which can be communicated
in any single work of art, be it in terms of its thematic
scope or separately, in the physical space of the film
itself. Here, it can be observed additionally that his
systematic use of extreme long shot serves to contextualize
the depicted object within the space of the larger world.
To be sure, the film?s denouement seems to assert the
fundamental interconnectedness of the modern world (which
is underlined of course by the repeated use of telecommunications)
and likewise, the situation of the individual within
a broader social context.

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Symbols of death proliferate
throughout

The Wind Will Carry Us

: the graveyard,
the imminence of the old woman?s passing, the ancestors
that Farzad mentions in an early conversation with the
Engineer, the exam question that the boy cannot figure
out (what happens to the good and the bad on the day
of judgment?), and the femur that Behzad leaves on his
dashboard. All of these things seem to impel the viewer
to consider the parameters of the afterlife, to say
nothing of immaterial existence more generally. Indeed,
in the film?s opening sequence, Behzad tells Farzad
that like all people, cars too have ghosts. This becomes
the explicit theme of the work, once the viewer discovers
the subject for their film?they are waiting for the
old woman to give up her ghost. The viewer is asked
therefore to consider what it is that constitutes the
soul, and what similarly happens to the soul after death.
Kiarostami sees his function as that of one who raises
questions, rather than the person who answers them.
In a very real sense Kiarostami affirms that the above
questions are ones that everyone must answer for themselves.

To be sure, Kiarostami, in spite of what is ultimately
a humanistic (and decidedly terrestrial) response to
the questions raised, all the same proceeds from a position
that respects such immaterial concepts as the soul and
an afterlife. Cinema, because of its material ontology,
is seemingly predisposed to eschew questions that are
spiritual in origin. At times, the very concept of the
spiritual seems to be contradicted by the medium itself,
given that it has no inherent means to confer the metaphysical.
This too is a place where Kiarostami?s contribution
cannot be underestimated. In no way would it be overstating
the case to say that

The Wind Will Carry Us

provides
a template by which a filmmaker can communicate metaphysical
reality. The limits of the frame, the material representation
of a space in dialogue with another that is not represented
physically become metaphors for the relationship between
this world and those which may exist apart from it.
By limiting the space of the mise-en-scene, Kiarostami
expands the space of the art.

Asked in a 2000 FILM
COMMENT interview if there are any other directors who
might be working on a ?similar wavelength,? Kiarostami
responded in a manner that reveals his own understanding
of

The Wind Will Carry Us

as a spiritual work:
?Hou Hsiao-hsien is one. Tarkovsky?s works separate
me completely from physical life, and are the most spiritual
films I have seen­what Fellini did in parts of his movies,
bringing dream life into film, he does as well. Theo
Angelopoulos? movies also find this type of spirituality
at certain moments. In general, I think movies and art
should take us away from daily life, should take us
to another state, even though daily life is where this
flight is launched from.?

While this work exemplifies a certain conception of
spiritual representation on film, this does not exactly
account for its connection to those artists that Kiarostami
mentioned. Fellini aside, the mature work of these filmmakers
share a similar pacing with

The Wind Will Carry Us

;
in films like

Flowers of Shanghai

,

Stalker

,
and

The Traveling Players

, the relatively slow
or deliberate movements have the potential to affect
the viewer on a supra-emotional level, which is to say
in manner analogous to music, that the viewer?s physical
processes can be affected by the excessively slow rhythms,
on a level beyond the intellectual or emotional?it?s
almost possible to conjecture that one?s heartbeat and
breathing slows in concert with the languid images onscreen.
The viewer?s experience of the film thus is less mediated,
his or her connection more direct, and in this way perhaps
more spiritual.

The film?s languid pacing also provides the viewer the
time and space to consider the issues raised by the
film?not only with the questions that they must ask
themselves, but also with the time and space to engage
in self-critique. In this way, as in so many others,

The Wind Will Carry Us

sustains an organic relationship
between the film?s form and its content. Indeed, this
is the very significance of Kiarostami?s film: it connotes
a reconstitution of the medium according to the particular
meaning its maker is attempting to convey. In this respect,
Kiarostami joins another of the cinema?s great spiritual
filmmakers, Robert Bresson, whom Kiarostami has suggested
was the model for the sound structure of

The Wind
Will Carry Us

. Likewise, each evokes a world beyond
that which exists onscreen. Where they diverge is at
their respective endpoints: whereas Kiarostami?s is
a cinema of proliferation and layering, a cinema of
the maximal (to paraphrase Jonathan Rosenbaum), Bresson?s,
in contrast, is a cinema of radical austerity, a cinema
whose surfaces are emptied of their expressive capacity.
That each attests to the metaphysical is a credit to
the medium?s dexterity.

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