When I was a kid, I often lost things, like mittens and shoes. This infuriated my mother, who responded to such losses by making me feel like I'd committed a terrible crime. But I never lost $2 billion, and although this strikes me as a far more serious crime, I have this nagging suspicion that our elected officials are going to respond to JPMorgan's stunning loss of $2 billion by throwing their hands up in the air and saying that it's regrettable, but nothing can be done, either to punish JPMorgan, or to prevent future mishaps.
What I love about JPMorgan's $2 billion lose is that their CEO Jamie Dimon is considered one of the smarter bankers, and his bank is considered one of the better banks. Which raises the question: Can you really be considered smart if you head up a company that loses $2 billion? Can your bank really be considered a good bank if it loses $2 billion? I mean, that is a lot of money! Losing that much money is basically the opposite of what a bank should be doing.
Nevertheless, we're already seeing the same stories and op-eds we saw four years ago when the banks ruined the global economy, examining how this could have happened, whether more regulation is needed, whether the banks are too big, etc. I feel like I'm living in the movie "Groundhog Day," except in my scenario a financial catastrophe occurs every two years, prompting everybody to wring their hands and wonder what hit them.
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Over at the DG, I review "The Avengers."
Click here to see what I thought.
Over at MSN Movies, Glenn Kenny has put together a pretty interesting list of the 50 greatest movie romances. It includes some pretty standard choices, such as "Titanic" and "Gone With the Wind" (a movie I hate, by the way), but also some more offbeat selections, such as Luis Bunuel's "That Obscure Object of Desire" and Hal Ashby's "Harold and Maude."
Anyway, click here to see the list.
Over at the DG, I review the new Terence Davies film, "The Deep Blue Sea."
Here's an excerpt:
“'The Deep Blue Sea' is a deeply felt and richly textured examination of a love triangle, centering on a strong-willed woman named Hester (Rachel Weisz) who leaves her older husband, Sir William, for a younger lover, named Freddie. Neither of these men are quite worthy of Hester, a smart, vibrant and passionate woman who, as the film opens, is attempting to gas herself to death because Freddie has neglected her on her birthday. How did things get so bad? And is there any hope?
Based on a play by Terence Rattigan, 'The Deep Blue Sea' is a bit of a chamber piece, focused primarily on Hester and the two men who orbit around her. But it also paints a vivid and detailed portrait of post-World War II England — of sing-a-longs in pubs, and chilly rooming houses and bombed-out streetscapes that have yet to be rebuilt. The love triangle that propels the plot could only happen against this somewhat shell-shocked backdrop — a veteran, Freddie (Tom Hiddleston) has struggled to adapt to civilian life, and taken to drinking too much, while Hester remains haunted by memories of life during the Blitz. As she contemplates suicide in a subway station, she remembers joining her fellow citizens there during a bombing raid, her husband’s arms around her, as a soldier sings 'Molly Malone.'"
Click here for more.
Over at the DG, I review the new horror movie "The Cabin in the Woods."
Here's an excerpt:
"WARNING: THERE ARE SPOILERS THROUGHOUT THIS REVIEW. DON’T READ IT IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!
I knew very little about the new horror film 'The Cabin in the Woods.' I knew it had an unusual twist that would supposedly blow me away, but I had no idea what that twist entailed. I assumed the film would be a bit like 'Scream' — a self-aware horror comedy that deconstructs the genre while also paying tribute to it, and providing genuine scares. So I was somewhat confused by the film’s opening scene, which features two middle-aged technocrats, played by Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford, amiably chatting by a water cooler. Where was the cabin in the woods? And the nubile young victims? I felt like I was watching 'The Office.'
'The Cabin in the Woods' does feature nubile young victims — five college students who are heading off to spend a drunken weekend in the woods. The movie actually takes time to develop these characters a bit — they fit clear archetypes (the jock, the stoner, the girl who sleeps around, the girl who doesn’t, the smart guy), but they also subvert those stereotypes.
For instance, the athlete Curt (Chris Hemsworth) is actually a pretty bright guy — we later find out that he’s a sociology major. The college students meet a creepy man at a gas station on their drive to the woods, who warns them against going any further, but they ignore them and eventually arrive at the cabin, which has a few weird quirks, such as a one-way window that enables one to spy on the occupant of an adjoining room."
Click here to read the whole thing.
This week I review the new film from the Dardenne brothers, "The Kid With a Bike."
Click here to read it.
Over at the DG, I write about some of the movies I've watched recently on DVD, including Guy Maddin's "Careful" and the crazy sci-fi film "Splice."
Click here to read them.
I was 12 when the TV show "Max Headroom" aired, and although the concept intrigued me, I wasn't allowed to watch it.
In another era, "Max Headroom" might have faded into obscurity, but we live in the TV-on-DVD era, and the show is available through Netflix. Last week, I sat down and watched the first four episodes, in an effort to learn more about the cult hit I missed out on when I was a kid.
Overall, "Max Headroom" is pretty inspired - a subversive, cyberpunk critique of media and capitalism that I still can't quite believe aired on a major television network. Set "20 Minutes Into the Future" the show depicts a dystopian society where TV stations and huge corporations control virtually everything, but a crusading journalist named Edison Carter manages to expose widespread corruption on his popular news show. TVs are omnipresent - they are located in store windows and homeless encampments, and they are always on - and ratings are a matter of life and death. In the first episode, Edison discovers that his network is airing advertisements that are so intense they can make sedentary viewers to explode. (Called blipverts, the ads last about three seconds, but pack in several minutes worth of information.) The network attempts to silence Edison, and he's injured and left for dead during a high speed chase.
Over at the DG, I review the new dumb cop comedy "21 Jump Street."
Click here to read it.
Over at the DG, I review the new Duplass brothers movie "Jeff, Who Lives at Home."
Here's an excerpt:
"The new film 'Jeff, Who Lives at Home' is endearing, but also exasperating — an enjoyable movie that doesn’t stand up to thoughtful analysis once it’s over. Individual scenes and performances are memorable and interesting, but the story becomes increasingly implausible as the film moves along.
This is deliberate: 'Jeff, Who Lives at Home' is about the search for meaning, and takes place in a world where everything happens for a reason and there are no coincidences. It’s a low-key, cosmic comedy, shot in a naturalistic style that makes it seem more rooted in the real world than it actually is. This film is a fantasy, set in a mundane world of office cubicles and chain restaurants and cheerless basements.
Jeff (Jason Segal) is a jobless 30-year-old who lives in his mother’s basement and smokes pot all day. He’s good-hearted but depressed, and has recently become obsessed with the M. Night Shyamalan film 'Signs,' which he believes accurately describes how the world works. (Sample dialogue: 'I watched ‘Signs’ again last night. It gets better every time I see it.') All I’ll say about this is that 'Signs' is a stupid film, and that only a person who’s stoned out of his mind could look to it for philosophical guidance."
Click here to read more.
Paste Magazine has put together a pretty good list of the 20 best songs written for the movies. I was happy to see Aimee Mann's "Save Me," off the excellent "Magnolia" soundtrack, at number five, and Simple Minds' "Don't You (Forget About Me) at three.
Click here to see the list.
With the hype surrounding The Hunger Games, it’s not surprising that Battle Royale, the 2000 Japanese film where kids must kill each other to win a competition, was recently released on Blu-ray.
While The Hunger Games has been criticized as nothing more than a copy of Battle Royale, the concept of death serving as entertainment has been the plot of many films. There’s The Running Man, Death Race 2000, which spawned a remake and a sequel, and my personal favorite, Series 7: The Contenders, a brilliant portrayal of a televised death sport as just another form of reality TV.
Of course, these films – and many more – raise the question of why people are drawn to movies that portray death as a form of entertainment in the future. Obviously, part of it is a nod to periods of history where people were entertained by executions and gladiator battles. These films also toy with the knowledge that we enjoy some forms of entertainment today where there is serious violence and a possibility of death.
Most cinephiles hate the MPAA, the secretive, studio-controlled board that provides movie ratings; I know I do.
Anyway, the MPAA's decision to slap the new documentary "Bully" with an R rating is prompting protests, mainly from critics who believe the documentary should be viewed by teens and older children, and that the content considered problematic - bad language, mainly - isn't exactly going to shock the nation's youth, who have heard it all before.
One of the more interesting discussion of the issue is between Salon critic Andrew O'Hehir and film critic Tim Grierson. As much as I think "Bully" probably doesn't deserve an R rating, I kind of agree with Grierson's take on the matter: In making its decision, the ratings board followed its own stupid guidelines, which hopefully will be gotten rid of, because they're stupid, but in the meantime, do we really want the MPAA making exceptions based on some vague concept of which films are important, and which are not?
Visit Criticwire to read the whole discussion.
Also good is this interview with Kirby Dick, who made the terrific documentary "This Film is Not Yet Rated," which looks at how the MPAA makes its decisions and the secretive nature of the board. Key findings: The board doesn't mind violence, but is leery of sexuality, particularly of anything that could be viewed as unconventional, such as homosexuality and even women's sexuality.
The Week also provides some links here.
"Bully" comes to Albany in April. I will most likely see it, because it interests me and because I hate the ratings board. Take that, MPAA!
Over the past couple months, I've worked my way through two sets of films released by the Criterion Collection, the premier DVD releasing company in the country. The sets introduced me to two filmmakers I was mostly unfamiliar with: Pedro Costa and Aki Kaurismaki.
Let's start with Pedro Costa, since he's the filmmaker I delved into first. Criterion released three of Costa's films in a box set titled "Letters from Fontainhas," after the Lisbon slum where the films are set. The Portuguese director cast residents of the Fontainhas in key roles, and although the first film, "Ossos," is structured around a fictional story, while the two later films, "In Vanda's Room" and "Colossal Youth," are an unusual hybrid of documentary and fiction, with the residents largely playing themselves, or at least versions of themselves. Many of the residents are impoverished and addicted to drugs, and hail from the island of Cape Verde.
Costa's films are good examples of the burgeoning slow cinema movement, though the term is so broad as to be almost meaningless. Movies in this genre tend to feature long takes, contemplative (some might say boring) silences, stunning scenery and locations and relatively thin plots.
Over at the DG, I review "The Lorax.
Here's an excerpt:
"When I learned that a Lorax movie was in the works, I got really excited.
After all, who doesn’t love 'The Lorax'? The book, written by the great Dr. Seuss, was extremely popular at my old summer camp, and I used to read it to kids on a regular basis, along with 'The Stinky Cheese Man' and 'Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes.'
'The Lorax' is a charming and fanciful story, but it is sadder and more serious than the other Seuss books that have been adapted for the big screen, such as 'Horton Hears a Who!' and 'The Cat in the Hat,' with an underlying message about the dangers of ecological catastrophe, and the importance of taking care of the earth.
In some ways, 'The Lorax' struck me as a potentially risky film. Would audiences really flock to a story about a weird little creature who warns about the dangers of cutting down all the trees?"
Click here to read more.
