You're welcome! The Wife and I watched Spring Breakers, so you don't have to!

Well, gosh, I guess Harmony Korine is just too meta for me.  I wish I was as smart and hep as Korine, smart and hep enough to appreciate this masterpiece of tedium and schlock, but I fear I never will be.

Look at the pastel colors! What a splendid soundtrack! What genius to stretch out a twenty minute film to feature length! Dang, if there is not some real Spring Breakin' drunken foolishness footage cut in between the drama, too! Whoa, did you catch that? Korine uses slow motion! (A lot.) And, he is literally blowing my mind, jumping us backwards and forwards in time with editing! Has any one ever done that before? Damn! And he uses the sound of a gun being reloaded for punctuation at the end of nearly every single scene! That is filmmaking! Oh, I almost forgot! The Terrence Malick-like use of endlessly repeated voice-over juxtaposed with beautiful nature images! Wait a minute! Is there a Scarface poster on the gangsta's wall? Is Scarface really running on a loop at the gangsta's house? That is so impressive! Is there anything Korine can not do?

Yeah, make a good film, apparently.

I guess the rules have changed in our post-post-modern, death of irony culture today.  But, back in the day, even if you made a surrealist, fantasy, farcical, or satirical film, it still had to be grounded in reality.  Otherwise, it does not work, because the audience does not believe, and does not care.  An obvious example is Masculin Feminin by Godard.  Korine has ripped off the sound design of Masculin Feminin, which uses the sound of gunfire to punctuate scene changes, yet Godard's film is an authentic anti-war, anti-Capitalist masterpiece about Parisian youth culture. Precisely because you believe in all those characters in Masculin Feminin.

Nowadays, it seems irony truly is dead.  Artists like Korine seem compelled to provoke merely by displaying awfulness without any artistic distance between the artist and the creation.  Korine, and other artists like him, seem to suggest that those who do not appreciate the vapid, tedious, ugliness that they put upon us are fools.  Fools for not recognizing that their art -- to them, at least -- is an accurate description of real life.

That is crap.  I am not deluded.  I am not naive.  These are not rose-colored glasses I am looking through.  And, what a perverted, warped way to treat your audience.

Man, watch Masculin feminin instead.

************

************

PS:  My favorite customer review of Spring Breakers on iTunes was:  "Don't watch, don't buy, stay away."

xxxoooxxx,
Go Rangers! I'm going to the game today!,
Michael

There is a great moment in a not very

Good documentary film called Two for the Wave that stands for one of the two political poles that I will always be switching back and forth between, truly torn.

Two for the Wave is a documentary about Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, their friendship, and how it was fractured, and completely fell apart.

After Truffaut and Godard busted up the 1968 Cannes film festival, ending it prematurely in order to show solidarity with the rioters and strikers all across France in May '68, Godard made a conscious decision to only make Maoist Socialist motion pictures from then on in his career.  Truffaut, who was on the side of the angels, but did not make "political" pictures per se, kept on making the same type of pictures that he always had.

Godard was never big news at the box office, and Truffaut only did a smidgen better.  (Melville crushed them both, one of the reasons prob that Truffaut and Godard both dissociated themselves from someone they had once thought of as a personal hero.) But, when Truffaut finally had a giant box office smash with Day for Night, Godard lashed out at him in a very lengthy personal letter, lambasting Truffaut as a counter revolutionary sell-out hack.  Truffaut's response was near as long, but much more elegant, and prob much more to the real truth that made the middle of their opposing positions.

The beautiful moment is in that letter Truffaut wrote.  (I am seriously paraphrasing here.) Truffaut wrote that Godard should stop seeing every work of art through a class system prism.  Consider Matisse, Truffaut suggested.  Matisse was one of the world's treasures who had lived and worked through the Dreyfuss Affair; The Great War; the Soviet Revolution; the rise of Fascism in Germany, Italy, and Spain; WWII; the Holocaust; the atom bomb; and the beginning of the Cold War.  And yet, Matisse continued to paint flowers, water lilies, window sills, gardens, portraits of beautiful women, and never let the absolute horror of all the things he had seen in his life intrude upon his art.

But, there is another great moment in an excellent documentary, The History of the Eagles (much more on this film in the near future) that absolutely captured the other side of the spectrum, the Godard side, for me perfectly.  It happened when Glenn Frey is describing why he believed the Eagles first record was such a smash, a record whose two biggest hits were Take it Easy and Peaceful Easy Feeling.  Frey suggests that after the Vietnam War, the assassinations of 1968 and the Democratic Convention of the same year, and Altamont, the Manson Family, Kent State, Watergate, whathaveyou, that all American wanted to do was take it easy, man.  Well, fuck you, buddy was my first thought when I heard that.  I was furious. The Eagles are actually on the side of the angels, too.  Frey later fired a member of the band because he was not gracious to Senator Cranston and his wife after playing a fundraiser for him.  But, like Truffaut, the Eagles preferred to separate their lefty politics and their art.

Those are the poles I will always be torn between:  The one that insists that every single act, incl art, is a political act, and the notion that art and politics are almost always best left to be independent of each other.




Kisses,
Ardent

Frances Ha is a delightful modest

Little gem of a movie.  And, is a film that the Wife and I will eventually own at home and most definitely should bear repeated viewings.

Noah Baumbach is not one of my favorite directors, at all.  But, I think it was Greta Gerwig's influence -- she stars and co-wrote the script with Baumbach -- that elevate this film to greatness. That, and Gerwig's co-star, Mickey Sumner's performance as Gerwig's best friend, Sophie.

Mickey Sumner (Sting & Trudy Styler's daughter) and Greta Gerwig drink a Stella.

The film is about reckless dreaming, pride, and platonic love.  Ms Gerwig's Frances is reluctant to abandon her dream of being in a modern dance company, despite the fact that she has little talent as a dancer.  And, it is her pride that gets in the way whenever she is offered an opportunity to further her career doing something else possibly related to her art, or to fix her living situation, that finally finds her at a low point in her life, and feeling "old" at twenty-seven.

The driving force for the film is the oftentimes strained relationship between Frances and Sophie, two best friends.  "We're the same person, different hair," Frances says of her and Sophie. Frances, though, is in complete denial of Sophie's serious relationship with boyfriend, Patch, and when Sophie moves out, Frances becomes unmoored, and is forced to find herself, and her life, on her own, without a friend partner to guide her (or for Frances to become dependent upon.)

This "quest" makes up a great portion of the comedy for this film, including two fabulous talky scenes.  The first takes place the morning after one of Frances' most recent housemates has hooked up with a girl the night before.  The girl makes breakfast for everyone the next morning, and proves what a small world this is by telling Frances how she knows Sophie, too, and seems somewhat surprised to discover that she is meeting the Frances that Sophie had described to her.

The second is a real tour de force for Ms Gerwig, and is an extremely touching and moving sequence, because I know I have personally felt exactly how Frances feels at this time in her life in this particular type of social situation.  Frances by this point is "crashing" basically at one of the dance company's member's houses, and then ends up "crashing" a dinner party, as well.  Frances is well out of her depth amongst these very successful people, and perhaps, has too much to drink.  Her attempts at making herself heard and understood are frazzled and disjointed, sometimes dropped altogether, until finally through the haze of smoke and drink, she is able to articulate her personal Mission Statement for what she sees as true love.

I have been there, Sister.  A down on his luck beggar at the banquet, intimidated by wealth and breeding, rubbing shoulders with folks my own age or younger who were already so much more successful than me, folks that had figured it out already, how to live life, and made it seem so easy.  And, me, desperate to prove my worth or intelligence or passion, whilst in the back corners of my mind, feeling I would never measure up, period.

The film is shot in black and white, which plays here as crisp and refreshing, and Frances Ha's most obvious influences are mid to late Seventies Woody Allen films -- there is a nighttime interior scene in a cafe that can remind you of the Elaine's sequence in Manhattan -- and the French New Wave films of Francois Truffaut.  There are exuberant elegant character illuminating montage sequences, played alongside George Delerue music -- a composer who did much work for Truffaut and Godard -- that bring this influence to the fore, and, for fun, the script even has Sophie namecheck Jean-Pierre Léaud.

Highly recommended by me and the Wife.  (The Wife really liked it.  She liked the film so much that she was somewhat angry coming out of the theater.  I figured what made her angry was why are not all films this great? Think about how many millions and millions of dollars are spent on so many films that can not even hold a candle to this cheap black and white indie film.  At least, that is what I think she was thinking.)

Mwah, ...

This is for Nick C,

My friendface friends have already seen it:

"A real minute of silence takes forever."

(And, yes, they are attempting to break the World's Record for running through The Louvre.)

I do not really have anything,

So, here are some videos:

Everyone have the greatest Saturday evah!

Chantal Goya Comment Le Revoir

With scenes from Masculin feminin.  Sweet little video.

Summer with Monika is an

Outstanding film for many different reasons, but foremost amongst them has to be the magnificent and luminescent photography by Gunnar Fischer.  It is a cold and crisp and glowing world that Fischer has captured to tell Ingmar Bergman's tale of young doomed love.

Crisp is a crucial word to describe this film.  In terms of temperature and texture and refreshment. It is a word and theme that appears to inform every single element; from story, art design, photography, and direction, etc, ...

This crispness is also essential to the film's longevity.  It is a film experience that has retained all the same snap and bite that must have exhilarated audiences back in 1953.  Moreover, it is a film that can still speak to young audiences today.

And yes, the shot that Fischer, Bergman, and their star, Harriet Andersson create, wherein Ms Andersson stares directly in to the camera as the light fades behind her and the jazz number mixes with music more sinister is one of the greatest moments of cinema.  Godard copied it in Vivre sa vie.  And scores of other directors have also tried to recreate that moment.  Remember, too, that both Godard and Bergman were romantically involved with their stars when they made these films.  And, yes it comes as no surprise to me that this film would have such a huge impact and influence on Woody Allen.

Summer with Monika is absolutely essential cinema that is just as special today as it was then.  It is available for sale or for rental through iTunes, and Criterion have made superb dvd and bluray versions, as well.








Mwah, ... 

Nouvelle Vague, Billy Idol (!?), Godard, and Bande a Part!

This is all types of greatness.






Mwah, ... 

I was thumbing through my copy

Of Conscious Capitalism the other day (Chapter One: Capitalism: Magnificent, Misunderstood, Maligned) when, ...

No, I am just kidding.  I have not tried to Liberate My Heroic Nature quite yet.  I will get around to that after I have seen every single Godard film and have written a very lengthy essay on his films and the impact of language, the quick-cut, and silly dancing on a God Is Dead Western World.

In the meantime, if Conscious Capitalism could please stop doing this and just let us do our thing, that would be great.  'Kay? 'Kay!

Farewell, My Queen is an absolute

Smashing little entertainment; a ripping yarn impeccably shot, written, performed, composed, and designed.  It is an old-school film that hurtles along at breakneck speed, and achieves everything it sets out to achieve in one hundred minutes, while still leaving the viewer wanting more at the end.

"Yes, your wig does make you taller than me, your Majesty."

I wanted Renee and I to see this at the theater last Spring but it never worked out.  (And, by the way, the Wife tells me the Cinearts "Dome" in Pleasant Hill is closing up shop soon.  Very sad.)

The film is based on a novel of the same name by Chantal Thomas, which I am now very eager to buy and read for myself.  The story concerns three days in the Palace at Versailles just after the Bastille has been stormed.  The court goes in to complete paranoid chaos as to what to do in response, to save the monarchy, and to save their heads.

Queen Marie Antoinette has a reader employed at the court, and decides that the best way to save her lover's life, a Duchess, is for her reader and the Duchess to switch roles and "costumes" in a carriage bound for Switzerland (Basel! Where my Dad lives!) so that if they decide to execute the Duchess, they will have executed the reader instead.

I gather that Ms Thomas must have been quite familiar with this juicy, perhaps apocryphal  tale of the court, and decided to write the novel from the reader's perspective.  The reader is madly in love with the Queen, herself.

Diane Kruger plays the Queen.  Lea Seydoux plays the reader.  And, Virginie Leydoyen plays the Duchess.  Benoit Jacquot directs.  It was shot by Romain Winding, and there is a beautiful, exquisitely and tastefully utilized,  original score by Bruno Coulais.

Plus, I had a "Hey, it is that guy!" moment with the film, recognizing a French actor from a different French film that I love, without remembering his name.  That means I am seeing enough French films now for that to occur.  Pretty damn cool! (The actor's name is Jacques Boudet and he also appears in The Names of Love.)

Supremely highly recommended.  Buy or rent on iTunes, or buy the bluray or dvd  for yourself for at home.

************

And, then I promptly fell asleep during Godard's latest, Film Socialisme, about one third the way through, which says more about the film than my tiredness in this instance.






Mwah, ... 
Love you all,
Ardent

More Women Michael Loves AND A Crucial Book

I am currently working on another massive movie roundup that would include my thoughts on the two latest Godard films that I treasure, Weekend and Vivre sa vie.

And, I can not tell you how tempting it is to get my copy of Against Interpretation off the book shelf, and read Ms Sontag's very famous words on Godard and Vivre sa vie.

But, I will not.  At least, until I publish my review, as such.

Actually, I have read Ms Sontag's essay probably a number of times before, but, as I had never seen the film until recently, none of the words or thoughts have been in even the slightest way retained by me.

************

Anyhoo, that is all I have for today.  Hopefully will see Amour sometime soon with the Wife.  I love you all, and everyone have a fantabulous (wow! they did not indicate a spelling issue w/ fantabulous!? It is a real word?) Saturday and Weekend.  (Ha ha.)

Here is Ms Sontag, a Woman Michael Truly Loves.

And here is the book she wrote that changed my life.

Mwah, ... 

Swing swing swing with Anna Karina in Vivre sa vie!

Yeh, Tarantino did not copy this at all.  Right.










Mwah, ... 

Massive Movie Roundup (Part One)

Or, What I Have Watched Since the Election

Or -- for Nick C -- tldr:  I Watch Way More Films than Anyone You Know

Let us begin:

NOTE:  I am going to be using a star system for these films, something I am not usually fond of, but feel is appropriate for the purposes of this post.  The star system I will be using will be similar to the Michelin Restaurant Guide.  Most films made would receive no stars in my book, but then again, I do not often see films that I would not recommend to folks.  "*" is a Recommended Film.  "**" is a Highly Recommended Film.  And, "***" is considered a Classic or a Masterpiece.  There are no halfsies, either.  

Balletomane

Considering that the Wife and I are going to see The SF Ballet's The Nutcracker on Boxing Day, we must have ballet on the brain.  Renee picked First Position (*) for us to watch last night after dinner.  First Position is a documentary about six young dancers preparing for the Youth American Grand Prix (YAGP) competition.  Renee and I probably liked Michaela's story the best.  And, I am convinced that Aran is going to be an absolutely massive star of the ballet stage.  Miko and Jules' Da seemed amiable enough, but their Mother really set us on edge.  Plus, Miko and Jules were rehearsing for the competition up here in Walnut Creek! (The family lives in Palo Alto.)  Perhaps they shopped at my store? That Mom does look familiar.  First Position is good, but prob could stand to be a little tougher on some of these parents and on the brutal nature of the business these children are endeavoring to enter.  First Position occasionally toes the line as an advertisement for the YAGP.  Still -- especially for balletomanes -- it is a touching document of the fact that dance and the ballet are still powerful and magical art forms in this nation (and across the globe) that can still enchant and inspire cultures obsessed with iToys, video games, and sport.  

Anyhoo, the Wife fell asleep on my lap, and I kept the balletomane theme en pointe by watching a documentary I had been wanting to see for ages, but, for whatever reason had not:  Ballet Russes (**).  I must say that I am a bit embarrassed for a couple of things.  One, that I was mistaken what the film would be about in the first place -- I thought it was about a great Soviet ballet company locked behind the Iron Curtain -- and, two, that this proud Oklahoman apparently never knew that some of the greatest ballerinas of the twentieth century were Native Americans born in Oklahoma in the Twenties.  

Clockwise from top left: Maria Tallchief, Marjorie Tallchief, Yvonne Chouteau, Moscelyne Larkin, and Rosella Hightower.

Maria Tallchief, who is considered one of the greatest ballerinas ever, was married to Balanchine for a while, and helped create the New York City Ballet, and founded a ballet company in Chicago. Marjorie Tallchief became the artistic director for the Dallas Ballet after her retirement from dance. Ms Chouteau and her husband, Miguel Terekhov, founded the University of Oklahoma's School of Dance, and for a time directed the Oklahoma City Ballet. Ms Larkin and her husband founded the Tulsa Ballet Theater, which is one of one of the most respected civic companies in the world. And, Ms Hightower, after dancing and directing some of the leading companies in Europe eventually started a ballet school in Cannes, which is now named after her.

Ballet Russes, despite having very few "outside" and/or critical witnesses; and, generally having a PBS-like touchy-feely air about it, is still quite good.  It is the amazing story of two great ballet companies, and all the great choreographers, designers, and dancers that captivate you while you are watching it.  The "home movies", as they were -- especially the ones in color -- are mesmerizing to watch. And, the dancers' stories are juicy, gossipy, and very sweet and touching all at the same time.  You get the notion that those performers would have done it all for free. Many of them practically were.

It is a lovely story about the people that basically created the ballet art form as we know it.  Good stuff.

Godard

Now, I get it.  It took me a long time, but I get it now.  I was watching the wrong films! I had seen the Stones film (a boring waste); Weekend (which I have always liked); Alphaville; and, natch, Breathless.  

Honestly, I just can not understand all the hullabaloo and fervor for Breathless and Alphaville, especially the former.  Maybe I just do not like Jean Seberg.  Perhaps the nod of debt Godard had for Jean-Pierre Melville by name checking Bob le Flambeur and including the great director in Breathless only reinforced the film's shortcomings to me, as compared to Melville's great films.  I just do not think Breathless or Alphaville go far enough in deconstructing or exploding the genres they are supposedly critiquing.  Alphaville, in particular, is a crashing bore to me, still.

Then, a couple of days ago I saw Une Femme Est une Femme (***)  and Pierrot le Fou (***) back to back.  The first thing that jumped out at me was the brilliant use of color.  The films are saturated with delicious blocks of vibrant primary colors.  Then, I noticed the ingenious mischievous deconstruction of soundtrack in the films; songs stop abruptly, and then start again; and certain "sounds" of what is on screen will be isolated and be the only thing you hear, for instance.  

And then there is Godard's muse:  Anna Karina.  She is intoxicating on screen.  She is like the old Hollywood stars in that she is not acting so much as creating a magical larger than life presence to witness.  She goes beyond acting.  She just is.  And her force is powerful enough to leave you wanting more forever.  (Much can be said for Jean-Paul Belmondo, too, in these two films, at least.  Belmondo certainly was an actor, though, as can be seen in his other film roles away from Godard.) 

I also realized that Godard should be a natural love of mine due to his obsession with text and words in all forms of art.  It is an obsession I share with him, personally.  Text is constantly interrupting or superseding the films.  The characters are always reading books, magazines, or newspapers no matter what the action of the film contains.  Two of the most enchanting and wonderful scenes I ever seen in a romantic comedy are in Une Femme when the lovers, Karina and Jean-Claude Brialy, drop dialogue altogether for their bedtime rows, and "speak" to each other using only the titles of books straight off their shelves.  

The other great thing about these films is how joyful and playful they are.  Even a film like Pierrot, which is a road movie about a couple of terrorists wreaking (sort-of) destruction and death through a gorgeous technicolor 60s version of the south of France, is witty and charming.  The films are never boring or pedantic or preachy.  Godard seems to be illustrating the famous Situationist slogan:  "Beneath the paving stones, the beach!" That underneath this history and these old established cinema genres the magic is already there. The beauty and magic is built in to us.  We just have to shed all our shabby outer selves to reveal it.  

It also strikes me how compelling and perfect these two films are for young adults today.  This slice and dice, playful, bells and whistles style should be a natural fit for our iToys/cellphone/reality show modern day sensibility.

Both of these films are true masterpieces, which is not a term I throw around liberally, and come highly recommended by me.  Une Femme is streaming on Netflix, and you can rent Pierrot on iTunes.

(And I have not even seen Le Mepris yet!)

Part Two soon.

All my love, 

Mwah, ... 

I get it now

Mwah, ...