Movie Review: A Separation
You may have heard that the Iranian film A Separation is a masterpiece. You have heard correctly. Some world court needs to make it a crime for this film not to be nominated for Best Picture. (I know it is nominated in the Best Foreign Film ghetto, but can we acknowledge that often the Best Picture of a given year is not in English?)
Like the Best Picture-nominated The Descendants, A Separation is a family drama played out against the background of a broken marriage. But A Separation makes The Descendants look like a clumsy student film. Husband and wife Nader and Simin are getting a divorce. Simin wants to take their 11-year-old daughter outside the country. (Why, she refuses to say. A sly political statement from the filmmaker?)
Nader's aged father suffers from Alzheimers and cannot be left alone. With his wife out of the house, Nader hires a poor and highly-observant Muslim woman named Razieh to care for his dad. Razieh finds the duties a challenge to both religious observance -- is it a sin to undress a man who is not a family member? -- and her own stamina -- she has a 4-year-old daughter and is expecting another. Pay close attention at the beginning of the story, because every detail returns as the movie turns into a courtroom drama that will threaten to destroy the lives of each character in turn.
The characters are so perfectly acted and the script, by Asghar Farhadi, who also directs, is so skillfully constructed, that a series of slight misunderstandings between Razieh and Nader build believably to scenes of explosive dramatic force and heartbreaking revelations.
As 'foreign' as some of the elements of Iranian society in the film may seem, the story here is universal. The tragedy and the comedy of the tale lies in the deep understanding human nature. Every character reacts just as a real person would in the same circumstances. Liela Hatami (as Simin) and Peyman Moadi (as Nader) suggest layers and layers beneath the surface. Indeed, the entire cast, right down to the little girl who plays the four-year-old daughter, feel more like real people captured in a documentary never actors.
Read more... (includes a discussion of the ending which may be considered a spoiler)
FilmCraft Book Reviews: Editing and Cinematography
It was my pleasure recently to get a look at two filmmaking books in new series called FilmCraft from Elsvier's Focal Press. Large, square, and in full color with handsome layouts, you might mistake them at first for art or photography books. They wouldn't, in fact, look out of place on a coffee table. But there is much more inside to enjoy than browsing pretty movie stills: they are chock full of information and wisdom on their respective crafts.
by Justin Chang
Editing begins just where you would want a book on the art of film editing to start: Walter Murch. If you haven't heard of Walter Murch, you probably haven't studied editing. Murch has been a leading theorist and lecturer on the art of montage, as well being, you know, the guy who cut films like Apocalypse Now and The English Patient. After a brief bio, the text on Murch explains his theory in his own words, with a nicely-edited interview and breakout boxes that discuss the challenges of particular scenes in various films.
The entire book is structured in this way, and after Murch we meet more of the huge names in the world of editing, including Ann V. Coates (Lawrence of Arabia), Richard Marks (As Good As It Gets) and Lee Smith (Inception). There are also short "Legacy" articles which touch on the work of other famous editors, like the late Sally Menke (Pulp Fiction). (more...)
Your Wednesday Links: Oscar Reax
NYTimes: Oscars 2012 Ballot - Get yours printed and ready for the office pool. Remember Making the Movie's Oscar Tips.
Grantland Oscarmetrics: The 'Yes,' The 'Huh,' And the 'What The Hell?!' of Nominations Day
Vulture: Patton Oswalt’s Wonderful Oscar Snub Response
Kickstarter: A $60 Fifty Dollar Follow Focus
Chris Jones Blog: Avid or Final Cut Pro X? Tips for setting up your first feature film cutting room. - Interestingly, he lists some none-of-the-above options, like Lightworks.
A photo gallery of old movie houses - from John Ott on Google+
Deadline: How Did Last Year’s Festival Films Fare At The Domestic Box Office?
Most of these links come from the @makingthemovie Twitter stream. If you'd like to see them as they come, follow us on Twitter.
Movie Review: Coriolanus
Screenwriter John Logan was just lauded with an Oscar nomination for his adaptation of the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret into the Scorsese-directed film Hugo. But he tops himself with yet another kind of adaptation entirely: obscure Shakespeare.
Though great swaths of Shakespeare's play Coriolanus have been cut out of the new film version, starring-and-directed-by Ralph Fiennes, no violence has been done to the text. It breathes with cinematic life and startling immediacy.
Part of that is accomplished by transporting Shakespeare's Rome to a modern, Balkan setting. Only a few elements seem out of place -- such as the custom of begging the people for a consulship nomination, and the laying down of guns to have a knife fight in the middle of a battle.
That fight is between Aufidius (Gerard Butler) and Caius Martius (Fiennes), a Roman general better known by his war-name Coriolanus. Coriolanus and Aufidius are mortal enemies, but when the people of Rome, stirred up by some scheming politicians, banish Coriolanus, he joins forces with Aufidius to seek revenge upon the entire city, his family included.
Like all of Shakespeare's classic plays, there are layers upon layers. You may know Shakespeare as a great poet of joy, friendship and love; after this play, you will be convinced he had equal talent in portraying pride, righteousness and rage. Coriolanus will bow to no man; but his unyielding mother Volumnia, played with hypnotic conviction by Vanessa Redgrave, has her fingers fast around his heart, moreso than even his best friend Menenius (a superb Brian Cox) or his fragile wife (Jessica Chastain).
If you're the type of person who already knows they don't like Shakespeare, then why are you reading this? If you love Shakespeare on film, as I do, then rejoice! Not since Kenneth Branagh's debut with Henry V has an actor/director given delivered such a one-two punch of a film. Fiennes is masterful in his portrayal of Coriolanus, and confident behind the camera, filling the movie with moments, small and large, that amplify the themes of the text.
Martial law, famine, war, political ambition, the meaning of loyalty to country, loyalty to one's fellow soldiers -- and loyalty to family -- the play and now film explores each in turn. To Shakespeare, Rome was not a quaint and noble old civilization, but a land of savage violence. (Witness Titus Andronicus.) It was also a reflection of the Elizabethan society in which he lived, a way to disguise political comment in the form of historical curiosity.
When Coriolanus was performed circa 1607/08, the execution of former hero general Robert Devereaux, 2nd Earl of Essex, in 1601, would still have been in popular memory. There had been famines, and popular insurrections. And the English had fought for their lives to turn back a Spanish Armada. All of which I bring up only to muse on what people will be getting out of our great films today. What has made Shakespeare transcend time and place so effortlessly? I have some ideas, but I'd rather you go see Coriolanus (if you live in one of the three cities in which it is screening) and share your own reactions.
In this time of wars and occupiers and political infighting, does Coriolanus still draw blood?
Movie Reviews: Carnage and Rampart
Carnage does not pretend it isn't based on a play, unlike Ides of March. There are two -- at least, perhaps more -- times where the characters decide, under the flimsiest of motivations, to stay in the same room yelling at each other.
If you're willing to overlook that, and the rather uninspired directing by the usually confident Roman Polanski, you'll be treated to three excellent performances and a very good one. Jodie Foster is a bit out-matched by Kate Winslet, John C. Reilly and Christophe Waltz, even though her character, Penelope Longstreet, a pious liberal with a quiet desperation, is the most developed of the quartet.
John C. Reilly plays her husband, Michael, an affable cookery salesman who can acquiesce to his wife's liberal instincts for only so long. Their son has suffered from a schoolyard attack by the son of the Cowans (Winslet and Waltz), but which boy was the true victim is the subject of much debate. Waltz, as a lawyer who advises pharmaceutical companies on how to deny culpability, is perfectly cast in terms of his sly, slimy persona. His accent, however, is never explained in the text, which makes his character's hyper-sensitivity to the use of English words less-than believable. Kate Winslet has already proven her facility with an American accent many times, and has no such believability problems. Her portrayal of the buttoned-up Nancy's descent into candor is the highlight of the film.
The play is a translation of a French original by playwright Yasmina Reza, Le dieu du carnage (The God of Carnage). I saw her celebrated play Art in London in the late 90's, and that was also a very funny and very vicious examination of upper-middle-class mores. This play/movie doesn't quite have the same climactic finish as Art. The energy ramps up, but there seems to me to be a great deal further to go when the figurative curtain drops. The ending felt more like an intermission break -- the veneer of society peeled back only halfway.
The screenplay for Carnage is credited to Polanski and Reza. Christopher Hampton translated it for the London stage, and I bet I'd have preferred his version. Still, as a royal rumble between great actors, you can do worse than to give them a proven stage property and set them at each others throats. Reza's tale seems to endorse the idea that civilization is really a fragile construction, but also a self-healing one. For all they tear each other down, these couples are simpatico in many ways. I could see friendships forming out of this encounter that last longer than the marriages.
Rampart is the second collaboration between writer/director Oren Moverman and actor Woody Harrelson, the first being 2009's The Messenger, which I watched last week on Netflix streaming, and which blew me away. Once again, they have created an unforgettable character. Harrelson's Officer Dave "Daterape" Brown is the kind of hard-ass, manly cop you would expect to be terse and plainspoken. Instead, he relishes florid language and quoting esoteric legal opinions. His tragic flaw is his own moral certainty, which blinds him to the shades of grey all around him.
Rampart takes place in the middle of the scandal surrounding the Rampart division of the Los Angeles Police Department in 1999. In this climate, "Daterape" Brown's brutal tactics that once made him a hero, now make him a pariah. Moverman, along with his co-screenwriter, the crime novelist James Ellroy, has chosen an elliptical, expressionistic style for this story and it works like gangbusters.
As Dave's paranoia and self-destructiveness metastasize, editor Jay Rabinowitz skillfully whipsaws us through his encounters with his family, the top brass and a string of women. The gritty, high-contrast cinematography by d.p. Bobby Bukowski is phenomenal. The only stylistic flourish that felt too strained was a deposition scene where the conversation literally went in circles.
Like The Messenger, this film is a difficult sell in traditional commercial terms. Is Dave a victim of weak-spined politicians, or a symbol of police corruption? What are we to make of the characters played by Ned Beatty and Robin Wright who may or may not be double-dealing against him? Can any movie which foregrounds character so much over the plot be sold to mass audiences? Then again, Drive has done okay. I hope Rampart will be able to find the same smart genre audience.
Avid Error of the Day: File ‘creating6′ can not be deleted because it is busy.
As with all of these Avid errors, just skip ahead to other less-technical blog content. I post these when I want solutions to turn up better in searches for other Avid users (and myself).
I've seen this as "creating2" "creating3" "creating4" "creating5" "creating6" etc. Had a crash while importing an image -- images longer than around 10000 pixels in one dimension will cause Avid to hang. Also, TIFF in 16bit RGB instead of 8bit RGB.
No problem, right? Force quit Avid and restart. Problem is, it doesn't see the drive I was importing to anymore, so it gives this file error. (Some speculation on Avid boards talks about permissions and stuff.)
Anyway, the fix is easy if annoying. Full system reboot. Hopefully you've fixed whatever in the image caused the crash in the first place. Once I was rebooted it saw the drive again and I was able to proceed.
Your Wednesday Links: Hey, Have You Heard of SOPA/PIPA?
Confessions of a Hollywood Professional: Why I Can't Support the Stop Online Piracy Act - A working Hollywood editor looks at both sides of the argument before determining the flaws of the bills.
Free PDF screenplay downloads from this year's Sony films, including Moneyball
Tips for Using Audio Engineering Mistakes Creatively - warning: geeky
NYTimes: A new theory of what makes films satisfying
Quentin Tarantino’s favorite films of 2011
Most of these links come from the @makingthemovie Twitter stream. If you'd like to get them as they come, throw us a follow.
Movie Review: Haywire
Haywire is the action movie equivalent of a hungry tiger. The plot, from ace writer Lem Dobbs (The Limey, Dark City), is so tightly-coiled that I wondered if it would explode and fall apart at some point. I'm happy to report it never does. Like the central character, Mallory Kane (Gina Carano), it keeps pushing forward with relentless fury.
Carano is an MMA fighter by profession, and it shows. The audience I saw this with literally applauded the fight sequences. She may have room to grow as an actress, but as an action star, she is born fully-formed. The fights here feel more dirty and real than standard movie fights, even though you know they are still heightened in subtle ways. The aesthetic is the opposite of the school of elegant wire-fu. In Haywire the actors do amazing things, but never have to defy physics or gravity to do them.
The cool fights would be for naught if the story wasn't interesting. At first it seems like it might be a "female Bourne" movie. But it's rather the opposite in several ways. Sure, Mallory has been double-crossed and she's looking for revenge, but she remembers everything. She behaves like a real mercenary might in her situation. She doesn't have an unlimited supply of cool weaponry or a lot of well-placed friends who can assist her. All she has is what she can improvise with in the situation. She knows when to set a trap and wait and she knows when to come charging in with the element of surprise.
Your Wednesday Links: Infiltrating the Rose Parade
Infiltrating the Rose Parade - Think #occupy is the first to do it? Mack Sennett and his Keystone comedians did it first, in 1913!
Kevin Kelly on Tin Tin and the Uncanny Valley
Ted Hope's Really Good Things In Indie Film Biz 2011
The Lion King Rises: Dark Knight Trailer Mashup - via @jvartus
NYTimes: Inside the Production Design of ‘Hugo’
"Americans love the movies as much as ever. It's the theaters that are losing their charm." - Roger Ebert on slumping movie biz
New facebook group for low budget filmmakers, films, & fans
Most of these links come from the @makingthemovie Twitter stream. If you'd like to get them as they come, throw us a follow.
OLD POSTS UPDATED:
Filmmaking Tax Credits by State
DVD Review: The Inbetweeners Movie (Region 2)
The Movie
The Inbetweeners Movie is billed as Britain's #1 Comedy of 2011, so of course I would be interested in seeing it even if I wasn't already a fan of the television series, which has run for three hilarious seasons on E4 in the UK. Being a fan, I can't really speak to how this film would play to a viewer who isn't already familiar with the gang of four awkward, horny teen boys: Will, Jay, Neil and Simon.
What I can say is that it fits in well with the show, finding all the fellas back in fine form for a Lad's Vacation in Greece. The trademark social awkwardness and snappy banter is on full display, and I laughed many times while watching.
Writers Iain Morris and Damon Beesley are so good at capturing the inner workings of the teen male mind, I was disappointed that they did not put more effort into creating equally awesome female characters. In this film, each of the boys get a distaff foil, and they are all played by very winning actresses who do what they can with the weak material they are given.
In the end, the film is all about the boys -- well, and maybe Greg Davies as Mr. Gilbert, whose speech to the graduating students is worth quoting at length:
This isn't The Dead Poets Society and I am not that bloke on BBC2 who keeps getting kids to sing in choirs. I especially don't want to hear how well you are settling down at uni or how much growing up you have done in the past twelve months. At best, I am ambivalent towards most of you, but some of you I actively dislike, for no other reason than your poor personal hygiene or your irritating personalities. I hope I have made myself clear on this point -- and in case any of you think I am joking, I am not. I assure you, once my legal obligation to look after your best interests is removed, I can be one truly nasty f*cker. Good luck with the rest of your lives and try not to kill anyone. It reflects very badly on all of us here.
American audiences might compare this film to American Pie as a raunchy teen comedy. I don't think the plotting of The Inbetweeners Movie is quite at that level, but it is assuredly better in terms of witty rejoinders and sentimental moments punctured by colossal acts of stupidity.
Sound & Picture
Just fine. It looks and sounds better than the T.V. show, which was at a normal professional standard. The production value is higher thanks partly to the change in location - Malia, Greece, doubled with various beach cities in Europe.
Bonus Features
There is an entire second disc filled with bonus features, the main one being a very, very in-depth Making Of documentary. This will be of interest to filmmakers who want to see as much behind-the-scenes as they can, although it is oriented towards fans of the actors and is very heavy on them. There is some good info from the production people on some of the shooting challenges -- on boats in rough weather, finding locations, keeping paparazzi from shooting Joe Thomas' junk.
I skipped over "Joe Thomas: Dangerman" which seemed like it would be repeating info from the documentary; I made it through most of "Things We Did Instead of Rehearsing" which just an amusing reel of the actors horsing around in the rehearsal room. The "Deleted Scenes" were interesting as far as those things go. It's rare you ever come across a deleted scene that you thought shouldn't have been deleted, and this is no exception, although there are some funny moments in these, such as Jay urinating on the floor of a club bathroom. The "Bloopers" were dull. I didn't bother checking out the rest of the bonus features. Unless I'm mistaken, there was no commentary track -- a glaring omission that you'd never see on a big American comedy release.
Overall
A fitting send-off for a great series but not destined to become a comedy classic. Still, there are enough funny quotes and moments I can see myself re-watching it.
Call Sheet
In the Can
- Movie Review: A Separation
- FilmCraft Book Reviews: Editing and Cinematography
- Your Wednesday Links: Oscar Reax
- Movie Review: Coriolanus
- Movie Reviews: Carnage and Rampart
- Avid Error of the Day: File ‘creating6′ can not be deleted because it is busy.
- Your Wednesday Links: Hey, Have You Heard of SOPA/PIPA?
- Movie Review: Haywire
- Your Wednesday Links: Infiltrating the Rose Parade
- DVD Review: The Inbetweeners Movie (Region 2)
Word of Mouth
Favorites Re-Released
Back Catalogue
Balance Sheet
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