"Girl in 3D", "Drummer Wanted" and "Happy Ending"

Seeing as the annual Indiefest was on, we decided on a whim to take in “Girl in 3D”, an unfunny satire of the record industry in which a sicko drug-addled “shock rock” star (Coyote Shivers) kidnaps a fan (Bevin Tucker), trusses her up and uses her as his “toy” in the hopes that she will be his muse.   Intertitles provide statistics on exploitation and abuse of young women who’ve moved to LA to pursue dreams of acting or modeling; however, apparently some audience members felt that “Girl in 3D” engages in the very exploitation that it criticizes—fairly, I think, in that the film lingers on shots of Tucker bound and subjected to various torments that might've made De Sade exclaim, "Really, you go too far".   When two audience members walked out, the film’s attendance dropped by roughly a third.    

But is it in fact possible to make a non-exploitative film which unblinkingly examines the nexus between the “will to power” and non-consensual sadism?   One need look no further than Passolini’s 1975   “Salo”, his film about a group of fascists ensconsed in a mansion in Italy after the war who for their pleasure imprison a group of village youth for use in their beastly scenarios.   No one could claim that “Salo” seeks to titillate; it is one of the two or three most troubling works I've ever seen whereas "Girl" is just easy satire.  
 
One thing can be said for sure of “Girl in 3D”: I can’t think of another film I’ve reviewed on this site that is less recommendable in a family forum, thus making it perhaps only truly suitable for a future Thanksgiving family-gathering movie night.  

More enjoyable and funnier by far was “Drummer Wanted”, the second of two shorts that preceded the main feature.   It’s an unforgettable little documentary on the band Ike’s auditions for a drummer and communicated in just a few minutes the stress of the process, as the prospective bashers are by turns incompetent, inexplicable or unexpected.

The first short shown, the dream-like “Happy Ending”, was largely silent with an atonal score.   It achieved a tone of dread and a few comic moments, and its black & white imagery was vivid.   However, it was also redolent of a film school project, which I assume it in fact was.

In any event, it’s always interesting to see proper independent features and shorts, even to illustrate that independence need not necessarily correlate with quality.

 - Aug 7, 2005  

March of the Penguins

This film tells the story of the life cycle of the emperor penguins of Antarctica, who exist in a windswept, barren land of ice at the bottom of the world.   At the opening of mating season they journey to their communal mating ground, wobbling and belly-sliding for miles and miles across the ice and snow.   Once arrived, they commence their mating rituals.   When they find a mate they become still and bow their heads together in a loving gesture that is lovingly shot by director Luc Jacquet.   In such shots the penguins, who are for the most part cute and comic figures whose slapstick antics get laughs, achieve a swan-like beauty.   The film is a testament to the fragility of life amidst the harshness and brutality of nature, to intimacy and tenderness against the great void.   The penguins huddle together to shelter their chicks from the raging storms, but nature is “red in tooth and claw” as the saying goes, and some of the newborns succumb to the elements.   There is an amazing underwater sequence in which a new mother, depleted and in search of food, becomes herself the meal of a ferocious sea predator.   “March of the Penguins” is a film of tremendous beauty, best seen on a big screen so as to become engulfed in the vast expanses that dwarf the endless procession of little black penguins, waddling and sliding indomitably across this landscape so alien to us, enduring all for the sake of their chicks.   The odds of this National Geographic production hitting the big screen would have been slight just a few years ago, but the recent commercial success of documentaries has made such a thing viable. Morgan Freeman narrates.

- Jul 22, 2005  

"Up for Grabs" and "Bartholomew Whoops and the Bad, Bad Ball"

A baseball is the stuff that dreams are made of in the engrossing documentary "Up for Grabs".   The ball in question is the one that met the service end of Barry Bond's bat in October of 2001 to become his record-breaking 73rd homer, and which came to rest briefly in the gloved hand of one Alex Popov, restaurateur and fan.   A news cameraman named Josh Keppel captured on tape Popov's catch and the ensuing tooth-and-nail pileup for the ball and its attendant fortune and fame, from which a smiling man named Patrick Hayashi emerged with ball in hand.   The ball's trajectory didn't stop there however; it went on to wind its way through a protracted courtroom struggle.    

I found myself switching allegiances as the film went on: just when I’d come down firmly on the side of one of the gentleman, the film pulled the rug from underneath my feet and I saw that my guy was a bit dodgy after all.   By the end, both Popov and Hayashi come off as case studies in opportunism, dishonesty and pettiness.   We are forced to ask ourselves what we would have done differently had we been in their shoes.   Though the absurdity of the principals and the situation makes the film a comedy, it’s a mystery as well: though "the Keppel tape" clearly shows that Popov caught the ball, witnesses offer sharply conflicting takes on what happened during the melee.   Some report seeing a ringer ball in Popov's mitt, and a young boy claims that Hayashi bit him on the leg.  

This screening was a bit of a treat in that the film’s director, Michael Wranovics was in
attendance and took questions afterwards.   “Up for Grabs” is his debut feature.  

Also in attendance was legendary Chicago independent filmmaker Tom Palazzolo, whose short film “Bartholomew Whoops and the Bad, Bad Ball” was shown as a warm-up to the main attraction.   The whimsical film recasts as a sort of children’s illustrated anthropomorphic narrative the “Bartman affair” of the 2003 playoffs at Wrigley Field, in which a hapless fan reached for a ball that was still in play.   The film aims a sarcastic eye at those fans who would blame Bartman for costing the Cubs a shot at the World Series.  

I recall seeing Palazzolo’s indelible 1976 short “Jerry’s” in a film course when I was at OU in the early 90s.   It’s about a volatile Chicago deli owner who harangues his clientele.   Of course, I had no idea at the time I’d end up in Chicago one day.   I saw Palazzolo’s “Marquette Park” (1976 as well) at a film festival in the late 90s; it’s a documentary on the Nazi Party’s efforts to stage a demonstration in that Chicago neighborhood.  

- Jul 17, 2005  

Crash

This ensemble drama focuses on the combustible mix of guns, racial contempt, and law enforcement in an LA in which the melting pot has reached a tumultuous boil.   It begins in the aftermath of a car accident involving a police detective played by Don Cheadle, which happens to have occurred near a roadside crime scene where the body of a young black man has been found.   The film then steps back to the day before to trace the events that led to this point.  

Multiple storylines revolve around confrontations in which race-based animus plays the key role in their escalation to the edge of tragedy and sometimes beyond.   In one story, a white woman’s (Sandra Bullock) fear of two young black males turns out to be justified.   However, this story develops into an illustration of the tragedy of stereotypes, the way that they poison us as well as dehumanize “the other”.   The same holds true for the other storylines, which include: a conflict between a young Hispanic locksmith and a storeowner who is perceived as Arabic; a successful black television director and his wife who have a humiliating, traumatic encounter with a racist cop; and Detective Waters’ investigation of the killing of a black cop by a white cop.   In the latter tale, the ironies multiply as the detective, a black man, realizes that there’s much more to a story that the whites in the DA’s office hope to spin as a simple tale of a racist cop gone amok.  

Each tale is a case in point of the ways that such shorthand does violence to the subtleties and nuances of reality.   As if to counter, the film takes us into the lives of people whom we would ordinarily think of in just these reductive terms, such as a racist cop (Matt Dillon) and a pair of black street criminals (Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges and Larenz Tate).   It does this not to justify, but to illustrate how everyone’s life experiences have brought them to the point at which we encounter them.  

Ultimately, though, this film is about redemption, about souls saved as well as lost, but you’ll be surprised on which side of that divide the various characters land.   Redemption arises here from forgiveness, from reaching out, from acts of bravery and mercy, and in one case, from tragedy averted in a way that seems to the people involved to be nothing less than a miracle.   The film suggests that our fates are interlinked, as unfashionable as that sentiment may be at this time.   Perhaps ironically, my main criticism of the film is of the very structure that illustrates this laudatory sentiment: there’s something rather too pat about the way the narrative strands are woven together.   Still, this is strong, strong stuff.   Recommended.  

“Crash” is the directorial debut of Paul Haggis, who wrote the screenplay for “Million Dollar Baby”.

- Jul 10, 2005  

Me and You and Everyone We Know

Rapturous reviews have greeted this comedy/drama, the debut feature from multi-media performance artist Miranda July.   I’ve had to grapple with my reaction because though the film didn’t completely work for me, I’m conflicted in that there is so much about it that is in fact so good.  

To start with, there’s July’s delightful performance as Christine, a lonely, daffy video artist who creates her art by pointing a video camera at photographs and inventing dialogues for the people pictured therein.   To pay the bills she runs a car service for the elderly.   I liked the portrayal of the non-patronizing relationship between Christine and a senior man whom she drives around.  

John Hawkes plays Richard, an eccentric who sells shoes for a living at a department store.   His tendency to attempt to enliven everyday life, the tiresome rules of which he has little use for, with bizarre dramatic gestures is one factor that has led his wife to leave him.   His children, one small and the other in his early teens, move in with their dad, whom they regard with a mixture of fright and stunned bewilderment.  

July has a gift for working with child actors.   There’s a hilariously serious little girl next door who keeps a “hope chest” filled with practical appliances for her future marriage.   There’s a subplot in which Richard’s kids access an internet “adult” chat-room and the youngest convinces his big brother to give him a turn at composing a reply.   Evincing that fixation that the excretory seems to hold on the youthful imagination, the poker-faced youngster dictates a message so scatological it’d make Burroughs blush.   This scene has the potential to be controversial, as do others which expose underage characters to explicit situations, but the way July and the young actors stage it, the scene gets huge laughs.

There’s an extraordinary sequence which exemplifies what works about the picture.   Christine has become smitten with Richard.   As he gets off work she follows him, and as they share a walk to their cars they spontaneously begin to imagine the story of their imaginary future relationship using the landmarks of an ordinary street as milestones.   However, when they reach his car she says it’d perhaps be better that they don’t try to live out the nice scenario they’ve just imagined.   Confused, Richard drives off but when he comes to a stop sign she jumps in the car, expecting him to be delighted that she’s changed her mind.   His words are cold and he basically throws her out of his car.   It’s a genuinely painful moment, wonderfully played by both actors, especially because we know that Richard is sabotaging himself, that he dearly wants connection as well.   He’s hurting himself as much as he’s hurting her.  

Everything about the amazing sequence above rang true emotionally for me, but the film as a whole did not.   I think it’s because I didn’t buy that Christine would ever speak to Richard again.   For that matter, it’s actually quite hard to see what Christine sees in him: the filmmakers have made the decision to not make him likeable in any conventional sense.  

So what we have here is an amusing comedy with poignant moments and some wonderful, even magical, scenes; which is populated by the sort of people we don’t ordinarily see on screen and which offers a still-too-rare woman’s perspective; and a film with a cogent theme, that of our use of technology to attempt to connect with others in an atomized world (or as a substitute for real connections).   Add to that some unforgettable lyrical images and you can see why I’ve had to grapple with why I didn’t find this a more satisfying experience.   I’d really like to see it again.   That’s the first time I can remember saying that about a film which didn’t completely work for me.  

This film won four awards at the Cannes Film Festival, including the Camera d'Or as best first film, and it took the Special Jury Prize at Sundance.

- Jul 4, 2005