SCREENING LOG - 8/21/2006-8/27/2006

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The Illusionist (2006, Neil Burger)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443543/
I went to see this on the strength of Jonathan Rosenbaum's glowing review in the Chicago Reader, which cited the film mostly for making the viewer an active participant in the film -- cinema as a social act. By the time it was over I wasn't sure if such praise can't be bestowed on most half-decent mystery movies. The ending was too close to THE USUAL SUSPECTS that I had trouble seeing what was so special about this one. Edward Norton has sufficient gravitas as the mysterious, dark illusionist, though Giamatti is really the anchor as the 19th century Viennese Chazz Palmientieri trying to figure out Edward Spacey. One thing the movie has that USUAL SUSPECTS doesn't have is Jessica Biel -- her European accent is *beep* (why didn't they get Eva Green? they look almost identical) but with lips like that she can speak any phony accent she wants.
mixed

Little Miss Sunshine (2006, Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449059/
For the last couple of years every indie distributor in this nation of originality and innovation has been looking for the next SIDEWAYS. All I have to say is that at this year's Sundance, there must have been hundreds of thumbs orgiastically working their Blackberrys at the screenings of LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE. It's basically SIDEWAYS as a family road movie, though in fairness to SIDEWAYS this film lacks any real insight into its stereotypically quirky characters, unlike the way SIDEWAYS seemed to know SoCal wine country and its denizens. Perhaps it's more accurate to label it a NATIONAL LAMPOONS FAMILY VACATION with up-to-date jokes -- and what does it mean that we look to Sundance to provide us with a 2006 version of a Chevy Chase comedy? Needless to say, I came in with low expectations for this much-hyped summer sleeper, and for that I was rewarded with a pleasant enough time. I think I got more enjoyment looking to my left and seeing smiles and chuckles of all ages illuminated in the flickering darkness than I did watching what transpired onscreen, not unlike Sullivan in the churchhouse. How's that for cinema-as-voyeurism? The film itself is as contrived as it is charismatic -- heaping incident by the gobsful to keep things moving while somehow managing to hardly develop its characters (but then again sticom characters rarely develop, they repeat the same ritualistic mannerisms into perpetuity). But even the dumbest scenes have a certain vibe to them that make it all seem harmless enough. Besides, when people seem to be enjoying themselves as much as they do, and you're happy to see people so happy, why complain?
a sheepish yes

Before and after LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE I checked out a total of an hour's worth of The Mother and the Whore (1973, Jean Eustache), and it was every bit as bracing as I remembered it -- in stark contrast to LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE's cartoon contrivances, this film captures the people, places and the look and feel of its time with stunning clarity. Lately I've been wondering if I should be watching lighter Hollywood fare to balance out my diet, but a film like THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE reminds me of why I've had such a heavily foreign arthouse appetite in the first place. Still the best film from 1973 and one of the very best of the 70s.

Pick 3 4 Me 2 C film of the week:
The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl (1993, Ray Muller)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107472/
Some quick thoughts off the cuff:

- Any way you cut it, this woman is amazing. An accomplished dancer, actress, and film director, who had the balls to hang among the likes of Hitler and Goebbels, I have to respect that. It's amazing to see her full of life at age 91, scuba diving and daring to touch the business end of manta rays. You go girl.

- This movie unfortunately doesn't quite have the same balls as Leni has in terms of really giving her a run for her money as a subject. It's not nearly as investigative or "deconstructive" (to use its own chosen word at the beginning) with Leni's persona, career, choices, ideology, and, yes, myth as it would like to be. She more or less has the last word in terms of keeping her artistic integrity at the end of the day. The film (understandably) is mostly in awe of her as a subject and functions to rehabilitate her legacy. On that score it mostly succeeds.

- The most contentious the film gets is of course over TRIUMPH OF THE WILL and what Leni's responsibility as an artist was to her own work, particularly in terms of the political. Funny how this issue never seems to go away -- Sofia Coppola got torched by the French critics at Cannes last May for professing to be staunchly non-political in her treatment of Marie Antoinette. And frankly she deserved it -- in this day and age to lack a political consciousness is dangerous to oneself and to the world. And when these people, Coppola as well as Leni, open their mouths and say that they are artists first and foremost, it sounds like such a neutered, feckless, lazy comment, like willful ignorance. At any rate it's a far cry from Hemingway's war novel heroes making a "separate peace" with the madness around them and pursue their own goals -- because to do that was in itself a political statement against the insanity of state authority. The irony being that to be self-centered in this manner becomes a socially progressive act. On the other end of the spectrum, these people, Leni and Sofia, they aren't pushing against anything -- they're just complicit. It stinks.

As long winded and perfunctory at times as it is, I have to give the movie a yes at least for making me think about these issues, and for giving a comprehensive enough overview of Leni's career, even if it was more wide than deep. I did come away having more respect for her films, more as works of beauty than of art, but highly accomplished all the same.

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