Julia Holter’s new album Loud
City Song is a tribute to the novella and film Gigi. It’s complex, lush and begs multiple listens. She’s grown
with every album and until her next this will be her champion. Holter languidly
whispers from the corners and jumps to the center of the room with bombast only
to sneakily retreat again. Loud City Song
is a top shelf Chardonnay while the majority of pop albums this year are
lowbrow palette. Loud City Song is
rare and will be kept for years in a cellar!
Measuring by the Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick is my favorite artist of all time regardless of the medium. His work is the barometer I use to measure all things.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Mud-deid Critic Meter
It is quite possible that I am simply a contrarian. I love indie music
and I generally have little tolerance for what’s on the radio. I prefer smaller
budget films that have restraint versus films that seemingly have a limitless
budget. It could be that simple. Maybe
I am destined to hate a thing unless everyone else dismisses it, but there is
no way that Mud should be on a single
list at the end of this year for best films of 2013.
At the beginning of this year I found out that Nichols and Shannon were
working yet again on a film together. So, I came into this with certain
expectations based on my affection for Take
Shelter and Shotgun Stories. Matthew
McConaughey was also included in on the cast and if you’ve seen Bernie and Killer Joe you know yourself that McConaughey has been on a tear
lately, but unfortunately he is also wasted by backing into a character we’ve
seen him play all too often. The only new edition to McConaughey here is his
receding gum line, which is attributed to a fantastic job by the makeup
artist(s).
Take a moment and visit rottentomatoes and do a search for Jeff Nichols.
On this director’s page you’ll find his filmography and among his films the
highest rated is now Mud. By no means
is Mud a bad film, but compared to Take Shelter it is slight. Mud is a straightforward, unchallenging
coming of age story set on the Mississippi. Take
Shelter challenges the viewer and begs for interpretation. Even the
performances are superior, which only reminds me of the utter lack of screen
time Michael Shannon gets in Mud.
So, why the 98% of the compiled critics on rottentomatoes felt like this
deserved more than the 92% of critics that loved Take Shelter is beyond me. Take
Shelter may very well be the best film Jeff Nichols ever directs and I
could easily see it making “the best of the ‘10s” list. Can we say the same for
Mud? Again, maybe I’m a contrarian.
Or, maybe critics heard the buzz coming off the festival circuit and had their
minds made up before they sat down to watch the film. Did they go into the
screening, take off the critic’s cap, and just enjoy a predetermined “great”
film? Or, is Mud so unchallenging and
serviceable that it leaves the critic no choice but to approve as opposed to criticize?
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
What Maisie Knew
What Maisie Knew is the exploration of a child custody battle from the perspective of a child. Although I would like
to, I can’t wholly dismiss What Maisie Knew.
The performances by a well-stocked cast and newcomers, Joanna Vanderham and
child actress Onata Aprile, nearly give pathos to the script, but by the end of
the film I question the motivations of the characters. To question the
motivations of the characters, exclusively the adult characters, in the film
would give way to spoilers. I will not do that, because I do think the performance
of Onata Apirle, played here as Maisie, is worth a viewing. This isn’t a film I
will revisit, but Apirle’s chops stand out even when she is in the same frame
as Julianne Moore. For that alone, I recommend everyone see the often hard to
watch (due to child neglect and psychological abuse in nearly every scene) What Maisie Knew. I expect we
will see more from Apirle in the future.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
The Greatest Trilogy Ever Told
When I was seventeen,
I made the decision to leave home. The how and what of it I wasn’t sure at the
time. I just knew I wanted to see the world. I did some mental math. If I live
to be seventy-five and I’ve already lived what is going to be eighteen years of
my life in and around Savannah, why would I spend anymore time here? That’s
twenty-four percent of my life. I’ve always carried that instinct – that mental
clock. It can be exhausting, morbid even. However, it can also drive you to
some interesting places, people and situations. You are trying to squeeze every
ounce of juice from an orange and for some odd reason you are being timed. To
lower expectations, I compromised with myself. If I only make it to New York,
at least I’m not here and I can live with that.
I fairly quickly found
a way to get around the world. It wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it
would get me out of my hometown immediately after I graduated. For a decade
straight, I lived overseas and only touched American soil three times in an
entire decade. I’ve said all that to truly say this, I’ve spent a lot of time
in planes, trains, and automobiles. I’ve spent a lot of time in relationships
with foreign women. I’ve fallen in and out of love – sometimes overnight.
In Before Sunrise, Before Sunset and Before
Midnight we start with two people that meet for the first time on a train
headed to Austria. From that point forward we are allowed to be with Jesse
and Celine for about twelve hours of their day. We are invited back in every
ten years and Linklater, Hawke and Delpy literally take ten years to make the
next film. We are allowed to visit them at different stages of their lives and
with each film they become more complex. They carry an exponential amount of
emotional depth with each visit. As a person that has experienced some of this
myself, I can honestly say the film feels like it’s coming from a real place.
It never once feels insincere. This is how people that fall in love in a foreign place and with a person foreign to them actually
communicate - fight even.
These films are never
trite or cliché and for once it’s a good example of when “show, don’t tell”
doesn’t apply. The show is in their body language, a look or how something is
said. Hawke and Delpy’s chemistry is phenomenal, Linklater’s camera always
where it needs to be. I’m not sure if we will get to visit them again ten years
from now, but if we don’t I can live with that. We went places.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
The Anti Bond
Before Daniel Craig,
the James Bond franchise was all bombast, misogyny and on the nose. For crying
out loud, characters had names like Pussy Galore. The films, the writing and
the sets were absurd and consistently so to their credit. Still, that type of
absurdity is best left to the creators of Archer.
Newer editions, primarily Casino Royale and
Skyfall, have improved the franchise
and taken it from homo erectus to Neanderthal. Even Quantam of Solace is a far cry from most of the Bond entries. Sidebar:
Skyfall may make a list in the future
of favorite villains. How good are Javier Bardem’s villains?
I bring up Bond to
juxtapose one of my favorite anti-Bond films, The American. Whether Corbijn setout to make an anti-Bond film I
wouldn’t know, but that’s certainly the lens of which I view the film. George
Clooney quietly plays an assassin and not once does he walk into a bar, flash
his cufflinks, order a shaken martini (What?!), chat up the villain’s girlfriend and state his entire name.
Clooney’s only love
interest is with a hooker. He pays her and she speaks just average English.
Everything is quiet and he doesn’t walk with the confidence of a man that lives
without fear. His job ensures his endangerment and his body language shows it. The film isn't without its flaws, but it's a better study of how the life of an assassin might be lived.
Any further talk of the film would contain spoilers, so I will leave you with
the following: For the men out there that still need their inner teenage boy
fix, there are boobs. The women in the film, Violante Placido and Thekla
Reuten, are gorgeous and their performances are graceful and understated. And
for the women, George Clooney’s bare ass makes an appearance on occasion.
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