SCREENING LOG -5/31-6/06, 2004

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Seven Days in May (1964, John Frankenheimer)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058576/

mixed -- was pretty entertaining throughout with great performances by an A-list ensemble, but the ending made it all feel contrived.

The Blues Brothers (1980, John Landis)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080455/

A movie that's famous for the wrong reasons -- Belushi and Ackroyd's considerable comic talents aren't given any real outlet; instead their mugs are frozen in a black sunglasses and Stetson hat facade -- iconized and monumentalized as the embodiments of White-as-Black cool, they don't have to lift a finger, the movie throws hosannahs at them every moment. Meanwhile the formidable roster of black musicians works their asses off in the many wonderful musical interludes that thankfully interrupt the monotony of car chases and lukewarm schtick. Therefore, I suppose if CABIN IN THE SKY deserves a yes, so does this. yes (#5 for 1980 between THE SHINING and AMERICAN GIGOLO)

Pull My Daisy (1958, Robert Frank and Alfred Leslie)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080455/

mixed - seen most positively as William Blake relocated to the Lower East Side, but otherwise it takes rather predictable swipes at religion and other bourgeois tropes -- Delphine Seyrig, in her first screen appearance, is the most interesting thing in it -- she plays the icy housewife who deals with the bohemian shenanigans with a impassive countenance, ripe with its own feminine intrigue, that would make Nancy Reagan or Laura Bush beam with pride.

Dragnet Girl (1933, Yasujiro Ozu) second viewing

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024120/

YES (#6 for 1933 between KING KONG and WOMAN OF TOKYO)

The Five Obstructions (2003, Jorgen Leth and Lars von Trier)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0354575/ The most touching and personal film I've seen from Lars von Trier. The modern master of pain expresses his love for his film school mentor Jorgen Leth, naturally, by subjecting him to a sadistic set of exercises in which Leth is to remake his 1967 short "The Perfect Human" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0376821/) five different times, under five different sets of restrictions (example: the first film is to be shot with no shot lasting more than 1/2 a second). There's a game-like gimmickiness to this concept that's not unlike the reality game shows that plague contemporary television -- and yet von Trier's game of cinematic torture turns out to have a profound sense of purpose that exceeds what you'd expect from a mere exercise.

The original short, shown in fragments throughout the film, is shot with a characteristic Scandanavian exactness, that comments ironically on its own desire for cold perfection. In explaining his motivations for making Leth revise his film, von Trier gives a lucid account of what has preoccupied him as an artist throughout his career: he wants Leth to remake his film with less of the "perfect" and more of the "human" -- in fact, the uglier and stupider the end result is, the more "human" it and its maker (who himself seems too "perfect" in his well-kept, self-possessed demeanor) will be. For me the most shocking rendition of the short was #2, in which Leth is instructed to remake his film on the worst place on earth. Leth goes to the red light district of Bombay, where he, acting the part of the "perfect man", wears a tuxedo and eats a gourmet dinner while surrounded by the beggars, orphans and prostitutes of Bombay. It's a shocking display that pisses on the original version and how isolated it was in its clean white world, and it would extend to become a moment of pure humiliation for Leth, except that Leth carries out his sentence with complete complicity and dignity. And so he does through the other exercises as well, facing each gauntlet von Trier throws down with fearless creativity and resourcefulness, which I found extremely inspiring. Leth's indomitable efforts frustrate von Trier's attempts to break him down, until it is von Trier, not Leth, who is forced to reflect on the meaning of his own actions.

THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS is further proof that von Trier is confronting and critiquing the sadistic and manipulative tendencies that have been central to his unwieldy brilliance in illuminating the dark, uncomfortable areas of the human condition, and yet had seemed to hit an artistic dead end with DANCER IN THE DARK. Both this film and DOGVILLE show a more mature von Trier, one who is more aware of and accountable to the full implications of the torture, suffering and victimization he has employed in his films, especially in exploring how easily those who victimize others in the name of righteousness become victims their own self-righteousness. This movie is probably both the best explanation and auto-criticism of von Trier's aesthetic one can hope to find, one that is entertaining, inspiring, and moving on many levels. YES (#2 for 2003 between DOGVILLE and CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS #2 for new movies seen in 2004 between BEFORE SUNSET and ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND)

Control Room (2004, Jehane Noujaim)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0391024/

yes -- A documentary of the Iraq war told from the perspective of Al Jazeera's reporters -- its view is limited but vivifying, and offers some valuable food for thought about how much of the war is waged in the newsroom, with facts, ideas and truths being the casualties. If anything it made me feel that we live in a truly mythical age... and that no one should be a spectator of movies if it comes at the cost of being a witness to history.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978, Philip Kaufman)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077745/

mixed - overextended and irretrievably fuzzed out in its meaning, it made me realize just how great the original was.

The Buddy Holly Story (1978, Steve Rash) second viewing

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077280/

This time it became very clear how much this lionized account of Buddy Holly presented him as a buster of racial barriers. This theme is treated in a rather squeaky clean way (Holly never really gets into any sticky problems with his desire to wed a Puerto Rican, play at the Apollo and tour with an equally squeaky clean Sam Cooke - man I miss Cooke-as-supreme-sexual-innuendo in Michael Mann's ALI) but it's well-intended. The concert footage is convincingly shot in telephoto to give a "you are there" effect. Busey's performance takes the hagiographical material and breathes it full of life -- it's a beautifully self-effacing effort, brimming over with love for the man being potrayed. yes (#10 for 1978 between A SIMPLE STORY and THE LAST WALTZ)

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