2 Feb - "Is this their heartbeat, or ours?"

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010)

dir. Werner Herzog (Nosferatu the Vampyre, 1979)

This is my first review of a documentary. Documentaries are a tricky genre because not so many people watch, so I don't very much social capital from talking about them. Case in point, on Friday I had a brief conversation with a fellow about movies with caves. We agreed that The Descent was quality cinema (it's definitely on my top ten horror movie list). We also talked about The Cave and The Abyss, and how it's not surprising that underground is such a fertile subject for horror plots. Then I mentioned how I had just watched Cave of Forgotten Dreams and the conversation went to a screeching halt. Chauvet? Werner Herzog? Documentaries?

Ummm, but we all liked Tremors, right?

So while the likelihood of ever meeting another person who sat through this whole documentary is low (even though in ten years everyone will have seen snippets off the Discovery Channel). I feel a little more sophisticated from having seen it.

2 Dec - "you can give up, let yourself go, or grit your teeth and hang on like stupid people do"

Biutiful (2010)

dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu


CAST
Javier Bardem (Collateral, 2004)

I watched this the other night with a fella I've been seeing briefly but I'm not certain at all it was the best choice for a date night (I have a bad track record with picking movies to watch with guys I'm interested in). It was too sad in all sorts of ways. It's about this guy who's got cancer in a bad way and his family is all messed up and he's trying to make it right and there's some human trafficking going on as well. I think it was trying to get at this relationship between Beauty and Ugliness and Love and Hate and sometimes you really really hate someone but at the same time you love that person and it sort of tears you up inside.

I guess it has something to do with that idea that every person you love is going to break your heart someday.

I don't mean to wax sentimental, but due to the circumstances I didn't have the opportunity to be emotional when the feelings hit me the first time around. There's a lot of little details to reflect on in this one.

18 Nov - "Not everybody can afford security"

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (2009)

dir. Daniel Alfredson

CAST
Michael Nyqvist (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2009)
Noomi Rapace (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2009)
Lena Endre
Georgi Staykov

November 18th, I think sometime around midnight, brought me to the conclusion of the Millennium trilogy. The third installment commences after Lisbeth has been arrested for the attempted murder of her father and it is a race against time to see if the truth will prevail over corruption and iniquity.

Consequently, the film is dominated by the trial and plays out much like an episode of Law and Order, with the male protagonist Blomqvist trying to prove the veracity of Lisbeth's allegations against her father, her guardian, and psychiatrist even as Lisbeth refuses to testify in her own defense.

That's a curious point and one of the notable complexities of this character. It's almost as if she's daring the court to find her guilty, by refusing to defend herself and dressing like a caricature of a punk. You might also say that she refuses to legitimate the proceedings with her participation, and those who conspired against her rigged the evidence from the start. Why give them the satisfaction of watching you struggle in the trap they have laid?

24 Sept - "We'll just send them to Madagascar"

Europa, Europa (1990)

dir. Agnieszka Holland (The Secret Garden, 1993)

CAST
Marco Hofschneider
Julie Delpy (Broken Flowers, 2005)

Last week my neighbor/bff asked me to go with her to the German club's movie night and this was the selection. The funny thing was that I thought this movie was hilarious, it thought it was like a comedy, but my poor neighborette did not share my mirth. She's German, so I guess it's like a too-close-to-home thing for her.

So it's a German war movie, and the kid here is Jewish, and he gets separated from the rest of his family, and he has to pass as a non-Jew in order to not be murdered. It doesn't seem like a comedic premise, but bear with me. Sometimes I'm worried that I might be sort of racist sometimes. I try not to be that way, but I think in this case I have a valid argument. I wasn't the only one in the room who was laughing.

The first point of humor is that Solly (Solomon or Solek) keeps getting left behind by whatever group he's tagging along with by a very narrow margin, this inevitably leads to him narrowly escaping demise, also by a very narrow margin. For example, Solly gets separated from his older brother due to a mix-up with some boats, but then his boat lands on the wrong shore and Solly gets taken up by some Bolsheviks and put into a communist orphanage. but then when the school is destroyed Solly gets left behind by the other orphans. At another point Solly (alias Peter) is told that he's going to have to provide some documentation about being German, and all is almost lost, but then the building is blown up and the administrator dies, problem solved!

It is also important that this is a very sexual movie, and the sex is treated very comically. On his train ride to the Hitler Youth School, an older woman seduces Solly (in the dark, of course!) fawning over his dark hair and the fact that he shares the same birthday as Hitler. "Mein Furor!" she exclaims in the throes of passion. To further emphasis the irony of  stereotypes, Solly has a dream sequence in which he and Hitler are hiding in a closet together. "He's Jewish too," Solly's dead sister explains, "that's why he hides it with his hands." "Don't tell them I'm here!" the cowering Hitler moans.

I will also say that a lot of this movie revolved around the protagonist's penis. Of course, when you're a fellow trying to pass as gentile, your dick is a big liability. Solly worried about his a lot, and by a lot I mean maybe a little bit more than any other pubescent boy. He is upset because this means he won't be able to sex it up with his girlfriend, but it turns out that she's a super-Nazi and dumps him because he isn't Aryan enough.

On the other hand, this movie does have a somber theme. Especially near the end when Solly has to face other Jews again, and explain why he is strong and rosy-cheeked while they are emaciated with loved ones dead on the ground. Solly survived, but is he a traitor? When he meets his brother again they both pee on the ground side by side, unashamed to display their true selves to the world. It was a fitting ending.

27 August - "I didn't think people could dance around here. I thought they were all stiff."

Maria Full of Grace (2004)
dir. Joshua Marston


CAST
Catalina Sandino Moreno (Paris, Je T'Aime, 2006)
Monique Gabriela Curnen (Lady in the Water, 2006)

The last two movies I watched were both duds, so I decided to take a safe bet and picked a well-reviewed Spanish-language film; because I'm all about those. Unlike the last two movies - this was neither inane nor irritating.

The plot is that Maria, a seventeen year old living in rural Columbia, takes a job as a drug mule only to realize that the glamorous world of trafficking has a seedy underbelly.

The really compelling aspect is that Maria seems to be the only self-aware character in her world. Everyone else moves along with a status quo but Maria refuses to submit to normative behavior and she gets punished for it. When she accepts the mule job, it's partly because she needs the money and she's in a position of weakness, but mostly it's because she doesn't want to work on the flower plantation anymore. That's important, because it means that she's not a passive character - she isn't getting shunted around by the plot, she's making choices.

When the shit hits the fan one of the other girls dies because the drugs leaked into her belly and they cut her open to get the rest out. That's when Maria realizes that their bodies are valueless to the dealers and she steals the drugs and makes her friend Blanca run away with her. So really this is a story about self-actualization, wherein Maria struggles to achieve self-reliance against everyone who is trying to take away her autonomy. Her very body is turned into an object of transport but her goal is carry no one's burdens but her own.

16 August - "I don't want to die like that French Poodle!"

Sólo Con Tu Pareja (1991)

dir. Alfonso Cuarón (Y Tu Mamá También, 2001)

CAST

Daniel Giménez Cacho (Cabeza de Vaca, 1991)

Claudia Ramírez

Ricardo Dalmacci

It amazes me how different the cultural standards for sexuality in cinema. In this movie, there's one scene where three children running through the woods stumble upon the protagonist making noisy love with a soon-be-bride, and one of them squirts them with a water pistol. It's hilarious, but Americans would never stand for it. In America, children aren't supposed to know that sex exists, only that males and females have a tendency to pair off and somehow or another offspring consequently occur.

Another thing that sets this movie apart is that it's about a man who realizes that he's pretty much a slut, and feels bad about it. The initial plot is that Tomas isn't happy with the person he has become. He keeps screwing around with these girls and saying alternatively that, "This isn't really me," and, "a leopard can't change it's spots."

The best part is when Tomas has to "entertain" two ladies at the same time, by climbing in and out of the windows of two apartments. However, on each trip he is riveted to the window in between the two apartments, where a third woman lives, the one he is actually in love with. This woman has a man, though, and she doesn't need to play the same tedious games that Tomas is engaged in. That's what makes her so attractive and untouchable.

So one of the ladies gets wind that she's been tricked, and since she's also Tomas's nurse, she falsifies his lab results and makes him think he's got AIDS. So he decides to do the suicide thing, except then the unattainable girl finds out her fiance is sleeping around, she decides to die, too, and so both of them are going to jump off a building together, but they fall in LOVE and Tomas figures out he's not infected after all. The end.

16 Jan - "But he's so cautious. He won't go into dark places"

Lust, Caution (2007)
dir. Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain, 2005)

CAST
Wei Tang
Tony Leung Chiu Wai
Leehom Wang

This movie is set in WW2-era Shanghai, and it's about a college drama club in 1940s China who discover and attempt to murder a high-level traitor collaborating with enemy Japan. The youngest member of the club, Wong, ingratiates herself with the traitor Yee's household and quickly becomes his mistress. The club gets drawn into the REAL resistance movement and the conspiracy deepens. Wong delves deeper and deeper into her make-believe role, rejecting her own true love for the farce of romance with the sadistic Mr. Yee. All of the heroes die.

You guys, this movie was super-sad. The heroine gave up everything to become the perfect spy, only to fall for her own act, and betray the people she swore to protect and die for. There's one part where the gang realizes that in order to carry on their scam, Wong is going to have to sleep with Mr. Yee. And so one of the other club members, the only one with any experience, is elected to show Wong how it's done. That's the part where Wong becomes a real outsider in the group, and her commitment to her alter-ego begins to overpower her own true self.

I think this was marketed as an "espionage thriller," I don't think that's right at all. I guess it's a "wartime romance," but a really twisted one. Lots of explicit sex scenes in here, but that's pretty much the name of the game with these foreign films. Plus, I think I watched the uncut version (it was 2:40 long)

Jan 15 - "Hold still, or it'll get messy"

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)

dir. Neils Arden Oplev

CAST
Michael Nyqvist
Noomi Rapace

I guess Scandanavian (I'm not even going to pretend to know anything about that corner of the world) cinema is on the rise. First there was Let the Right One In (2008) (recently remade in America, haven't seen that yet), then the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, and this year another movie which I'm eager to see called Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, about a very wicked and sinister Santa Claus.

Well, I didn't read the book even though it's been all over the place and on the front shelf at Borders for what seems like my whole life. I did read the first several chapters of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest on my Mom's kindle on an airplane until she made me give it back. It was pretty cool: fast-paced, mysterious element, quirky characters, etc. The characters are sort of one dimensional but at least they're consistent. Mikael Blomqvist is so dull he might be well casted with Kevin Costner, but I'm pretty sure they got Daniel Craig for the American remake so maybe he'll be able to pull some complexity out of his butt or something.

Sorry for being snarky. Too much coffee today. I'm gonna apply a "Don't watch with your Aunt" warning sticker to this movie, unless your Aunt is super cool like mine, because there are lots of sexy parts. Even worse, they are almost exclusively non consensual. Although this movie still has a lot more going on than appealing someone's perverse fascination with perversion. I think Noomi Rapace will be showing up in a lot more American movies, including a SciFi flick for 2013 that may or may not be a prequel to Alien (1979).

Dec 1 - "What idiots! Now you're friends again!"

Y Tu Mamá También (2001)

dir. Alfonso Cuarón (A Little Princess, 1995)

CAST
Diego Luna (Milk, 2008)
Gael García Bernal (The Science of Sleep, 2006)
Maribel Verdú (Pan's Labyrinth, 2006)

Lately I'm really into the foreign films, if you all don't mind my sounding snooty for a moment, they just seem more sophisticated than American movies (what? more sophisticated than Miss March? Indeed!), and I'm not just talking about the sex scenes.

I said last time that I saw parallels between yesterday's trashier raunchy comedy and today's profound exploration of identity and personal growth. So, they say that there are no new stories, just new ways of telling old ones. Well, we've basically got two stories about young guys on a road trip talking about their cocks a lot. Except in Y Tu Mamá También (So titled because when Tenoch confesses that he banged Julio's Mom, Julio responds...) it seems nicer because they're doing it in Spanish.

The climax of the movie is pretty intense, also kinda hot. Like I said before, the story is very straightforward, Tenoch and Julio are two buddies who are taking Luisa, an older woman who just left her husband, to a beach that doesn't exist. But they discover stuff about themselves along the way. It's nice, but the climax is weird, and the denouement is a bit of a downer, but sometimes you can't really expect a happy ending. These Spanish movies are all kind of like that (I was thinking of Sex and Lucía, but I guess I watched that just a few days before I started blogging about all my media adventures [not exactly true, I also watch a lot of TV that I rarely talk about]).

I guess what makes this movie seem smart is the constant allusions to the world outside of the story. There was this weird stylistic thing where the camera would occasionally drift away from the protagonists and follow a background character for a brief period. I suppose this was to show the greater context of Mexican life. The political tumult that everyone seems to be involved with except for our two young heroes. These tangents were sometimes accompanied by narration describing something horribly tragic which happened to the person or place Our Heroes were passing by, but sometimes it was left tacit, the military stops another car by the side of the road and the protagonists laugh and laugh about something stupid. But we know better, we are the omniscient audience.