"The end of you."

Shutter Island / The (old!) Wicker Man: Final Cut

     Happy Halloween, everyone!  Let's start by talking about the great Dante Ferretti, Italian production designer extraordinaire who currently has a beautiful exhibition of his work on display at The Museum of Modern Art here in NYC (through February 9).  This sweet little old Italian man (at least that's how he came off when he introduced the first film screening at the opening ceremony) began his career working on Pier Paolo Pasolini's later work, including the notorious Salò, or 120 Days of Sodom (hell, all Pasolini's later movies were pretty notorious), and has since made several movies for Martin Scorcese, starting with The Age of Innocence.  If you live in the area and are a fan of movies, take a look.  Along with great big portions of set pieces arranged through the museum showcasing his work, MoMA is screening many of his best realized movies (still on deck:  Interview with the Vampire, Casino, Hamlet).  It is so worth your time.

     Also worth your time is the little movie Scorcese released in 2010 between his Oscar winning The Departed (yawn) and the well received (and among the more engaging 3D features made thus far) Hugo.  Shutter Island is just shy of being anomalous among the works of Scorcese:  It has nothing to do with NY, does not involve a single made-man, and does not star Leonardo DiCaprio (hahaha, just kidding -- of COURSE it stars Leonardo DiCaprio).  I initially dismissed it as a thriller with a [Well...now I have to stop right here for the spoiler announcement.  OK?  I'm gonna go ahead now.  You've been warned.] twist you can see from miles away (you will, too) and didn't bother going to see it in the theater.  When I saw it later that year on video, I felt foolish, because the so-called "twist" was somewhat superfluous -- the story told was still rich, heartbreaking and maybe one of the few Scorcese movies I've found genuinely moving.  As such, I took the opportunity to see it again at MoMA on the big screen.

     In terms of visual style and building a sense of dread, its closest relative might be Cape Fear, arguably Scorcese's weirdest and most disturbing movie to date.  I don't think Shutter Island is as operatically bizarre (although there is a drowning scene that rivals the one at Cape Fear's close), but the tone and atmosphere call back to that strangeness.  Shutter Island, written for the screen by Dennis Lehane ("The Wire", Mystic River) from his novel, evokes an interesting mix of prior Scorcese pictures you may not expect -- Cape Fear for sure, but also the visual texture of Kundun (full disclosure:  I am that asshole that sincerely likes Kundun) and, maybe strangest of all, the warmth (a rarity in his movies) and sympathy for characters not seen since The Age of Innocence (though one does later feel the "hug" in Hugo, too).

     Shutter Island opens in mist and fog, a shot held eerily long with no immediate music cues present until one sees something of a ghost ship emerge from its cloudy depths.  This opening is only one of the first metaphors for fractured memory that haunts the rest of the story.  No sooner are we introduced to our primary characters, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his new partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), then are we thrust into a series of jarring shots, cut with such speed (and alarming, freaky freeze frames thrown in for good measure) that we're immediately as disoriented as the seasick marshal.  [Nerd alert:  It took me a little while to figure out that what was throwing me off in this scene was shot after shot of total 180º rule breakage; nice one, Marty & DP Robert Richardson!]  Following some brisk exposition we move to the action proper:  An investigation into the disappearance of a violent patient (Emily Mortimer) on the eponymous prison island.  Ostensibly a floating asylum for the criminally insane, the island leads our hero, already dealing with Dachau liberation-level PTSD on top of a tragically dead wife (Michelle Williams in fever dream sequences), to spars with head shrinking medical professionals (including a pitch-perfect as always Ben Kingsley) and psychotic patients alike for the duration of the story as he pursues his missing quandary (along with "Prisoner" style clues -- "The Law of 4", "Who is 67?", et al.).  As the spectre of his wife warns "this would be the end of you" while he walks through the facility's wards and rocky terrain (which include portentous, persistent images of smoke and water), so too do we move along Daniels' broken psyche, until it finally intertwines inextricably with the island and the inhabitants therein.
     It's a credit to Lehane's writing and Scorcese's direction that, whether you figure things out immediately or not until the end, the story still manages to satisfy, never completely misdirecting from what it completely hints at from the get go.  It benefits from relying on our main character's subconscious obsessions -- memories of his wife's death by arson (and as he specifies, "not the fire, but the smoke"), an SS officer he would not grant a final mercy to, the deaths of countless Nazi guards punished for their acts -- and consequently establishing that the viewpoint we're most privy to is unreliable at best.  Some of the most truly terrifying horror comes from realizing you can't even trust the person telling the story.

     It was during the moment where the ship approaches the dock of the island that I shuddered and realized how much it reminded me of another creep fest (tis the season) I'd just rewatched on the big screen for its "final cut": The Wicker Man.  Please, not the one with Nicolas Cage!  The ORIGINAL one with Christopher Lee, Edward ("The Equalizer") Woodward and, uh, the songs.  Sergeant Neal Howie (Woodward) is also called to a remote island in pursuit of a girl mysteriously vanished, only to be faced with his own personal demons and a potentially malevolent patriarch with ulterior minded islanders.  Both our heroes also bear witness to their original purpose evaporate into smoke right at the moment it's too late for them to turn back, bricking themselves into their own emotional prisons along the way; both movies have emotionally devastating ends.  I'd originally watched The Wicker Man as a double feature preceding Don't Look Now, which in turn had it's own grief-soaked protagonist whose perception of the world had been warped beyond self-preservation.  This new cut of The Wicker Man disposes of a tongue-in-cheek intro text thanking "the people of [the] island", restores the original order of scenes, adds a sequence mid-way to provide another cohesive clue, a shot or two added to a montage of Howie making further investigations into his missing person, and a chilling coda to the finale.  While these changes create greater narrative cohesion, something is dissatisfyingly lost  -- while they help in making better sense of character development throughout, it stifles the rhythm of the picture and takes away from the overall feeling of disorientation, weirdness and dread the viewer experiences; for example, meeting Lee's Lord Summerisle sooner in this version gives greater credence to his having pulled strings all along, yet defangs the impact of not seeing him until almost half-way through the shorter version.  Much of how one follows the previous version relies on picking up bits of business as you go; having this version be more explicit takes much of the fun out of keeping up with the narrative.  This intended version is still worth seeing whether you're familiar with the material or not, but like both Marshal Daniels and Sergeant Howie, it leaves you pondering so much for the best intentions.

There will be blood.

Notes on the new CARRIE, TROUBLE EVERY DAY.

     [Spoilers.]  I wasn't especially excited for a remake of CARRIE, a movie which is easily one of my top five favorite Brian De Palma movies of all time, but I was intrigued when I found out it was to be directed by Kimberly Peirce.  I ultimately had not loved BOYS DON'T CRY (for much the same reasons I didn't enjoy PHILADELPHIA the first time I saw it -- too "importantly" preachy and compromised), but I'd found it a very strong debut for a first-timer.  Only the third feature Ms. Peirce has made in 14 years, I thought of another director just as prolific and got even more interested.  [I'm gonna stop right here and mention this other director -- Jonathan Glazer -- because have you seen the teaser for his new movie?  You should see it now.  I'm not even sure when this comes out, but it must be amazing, right?  How can it not be?  If it's not as good as I'm hoping, I may have to stop watching movies.  Maybe.  Sorry for the digression.]  The new remake of CARRIE hews closer to De Palma's vision than the source material of Stephen King's, apart from one scene towards the end where a formal hearing is conducted regarding the events of the prom-night conflagration, alluding to the narrative structure of the original novel.  While Peirce is to be commended for trying out new things in this version, particularly in conceiving a story in which we have much more sympathy for Carrie White than with the townspeople in prior tellings, remaining so close to De Palma's take may leave you missing the bits he did so well the first time.

     What Peirce does get right and in some cases improves on deserve noting:  A better sense of Margaret White's (Julianne Moore, just a tad heavy-handed) mental illness (nice, albeit excessive touch having her be a cutter) instead of simply being a Bible-wielding nutbar; the mercy shown to Ms. Desjardin (Judy Greer), despite her fruitless efforts at being a surrogate mother for Carrie White (Chloë Grace Moretz, playing the role with more self-protective suspicion than Sissy Spacek's gawky, guileless weirdo); and a greater emphasis on the tragic weight of Carrie's circumstances -- urgently, clandestinely learning all she can about TK and magic, she comes off as a stray mutant sadly undiscovered by the school-as-sanctuary of the X-MEN stories, or a Harry Potter that took a wrong turn for the worse adult guardian.  Speaking of which, there are definite "origin story" elements that dovetail appropriately with this century's glut of superhero narratives (possibly owing to co-writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, a notable major comic book writer), but those remain subtle as the horror beats accumulate throughout the rest of the picture.  There are wisps of commentary on the proliferating arsenal of instant bullying methods via social media, along with echoes of class and self-worth a la THE BLING RING, but seem quickly abandoned for overstating Sue Snell's (Gabriella Wilde) guilt over the opening group assault on Carrie's unfortunate public discovery of her womanhood (there's even a late-story reveal of a blessed event, almost completely and awkwardly unnecessary to the story).  You also see this in the dimension given to Chris' (Portia Doubleday) bad-little-rich-girl character (with an uncredited Hart Bochner as her dad), further evidence of the director and writers' attempts at giving every character just a little more depth and motive.  

     It may help not being overfamiliar with the screen's original version; one can't help keeping a running tab of all the scenic snapshots this version stops to take note of and reminisce over how they've been done better (many of the sardonic notes of the original are thrown over for standard, hamhanded horror ones; the moments of pure ecstasy many of the characters experience just before death, sadly excised for overburdened demises; the wonderful shock of the ending of the original (though probably best left untouched); John Travolta).  You may say this is endemic of remakes in general until you stop to consider at least two this century which managed to transcend their predecessors -- both VANILLA SKY (derived from Spain's ABRE LOS OJOS) and LET ME IN (from Sweden's LÅT DEN RÄTTE KOMMA IN) took approaches that, despite other flaws they may have, made me forget (almost) all about their prior and at least equally brilliant incarnations (the latter was also based on a sprawling, multi-perspective novel).  Both also managed to tell thoughtful, personal versions of same and additionally placed them in a unique, American context, a telling contrast to a CARRIE remake that plays merely as horror movie of the month.  Perhaps doing an American remake of an American classic is ill-advised (yes, I'm definitely thinking of THE BAD NEWS BEARS).

     After the disappointing returns of CARRIE, it was just a hop, skip, and a jump from Kaufman-Astoria to the Museum of the Moving Image (ain't Queens magic?) for the brand new 35mm print of TROUBLE EVERY DAY.  I remember originally looking for this at Mondo Kim's in the East Village years ago and finding their copy with one of their classic, written-on messages in the margins of the box:  "Not that it matters, but this copy has no English subtitles!"  Indeed, much of the movie's dialogue is kept at a minimum, and much of what's said in Claire Denis' cult classic is spoken in English by the film's protagonist, Shane Brown (Vincent Gallo, with his usual eerie, "I haven't slept in days" presence), or heard briefly in the lyrics of the soundtrack, provided by Tindersticks (a regular collaborator of Ms. Denis).  Many of Claire Denis' movies have focused on human desire, and TROUBLE EVERY DAY is no exception.  What sets it apart from the rest of her work is the full dive into a sci-fi/horror genre presentation (my apologies to the director, for I know she's taken pains to avoid this too-obvious association), where bloodletting very literally becomes the organizing priniciple of the main characters -- Coré Samuels, as played by a dialogue-free Beatrice Dalle, and the aforementioned Mr. Gallo, on honeymoon in Paris with his new bride June (Tricia Vessey) and in search of the former for reasons kept satisfyingly mysterious (insert DRACULA allusion here).  With the lack of dialogue, the human sounds you hear most are sighs -- arguably the most universal sound of ache and longing, heard here when characters are at rest, exhausted from sexual intercourse, or tired simply from some existential malaise (how very French).  All consuming need, lust, desire, and what in modern parlance has come to be referred to as sex addiction all come to the fore in TROUBLE EVERY DAY, as it forays into a not-quite vampire/cannibals story.  Shane and Coré's inevitable reunion (they are familiar with each other in 16mm flashbacks) is also offset by a subplot concerning Coré's doctor husband (Alex Descas), searching desperately for a cure to his wife's "affliction".  Shot in the usual, beautiful low-lit style of Denis' regular DP Agnes Godard, there are images of the Seine at dawn/dusk, wonderfully imagined shots in and out of an airplane as it flys over Denver (!), surreptitious views of a recurring chambermaid (Florence Loiret-Caille) washing her legs at a sink after a day's work, and blood, so much blood everywhere.  After this and CARRIE, one may become queasy over the slightest sight of anything red and wet for some time.

Ken's Double Featurette Awards, 2010

Best Double Feature 2010: Let Me In/Toy Story 3

Runners up to the above: Winter's Bone/Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

Best Cage Match Double Feature: Kick-Ass/The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Best Complete Nonsense Double Feature: Alice in Wonderland/Hot Tub Time Machine

Best Directed: The Social Network/Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Best double feature score heard in the same weekend: Let Me In/The Social Network

Best First Feature: Banksy, Exit Through the Gift Shop/Lena Dunham, Tiny Furniture

Best Harris Savides makes L.A. look inhabitable Double Feature: Greenberg/Somewhere

Best non-American double feature: Un prophète(A Prophet)/Io sono l'amore(I Am Love)

Best Liam Neeson can make anything watchable double feature: Clash of the Titans/The A-Team

Best inadvertently seen this year double feature set in the same state (New Mexico): Charley Varrick/Let Me In

Best non-Pixar double feature: Despicable Me/Tangled

Best Pepsi Throwback double feature: The American/The Romantics

Best use of pop songs: "O Children", Nick Cave, Harry Potter 7a/"1 Thing", Amerie, Somewhere

Favorite male supporting performances: Pierce Brosnan, The Ghost Writer/Maximus, Tangled

Favorite pair of totally different scores by the same composer: A Prophet/Harry Potter 7a, Alexandre Desplat

Most perpetually anticipated double feature I can't seem to see: Dogtooth/The Fighter

"OK, bored now" double feature: The King's Speech/Never Let Me Go

Overrated double feature: Black Swan/Inception

Still bringing it: Michael Douglas, Solitary Man/Woody Allen, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger

Underrated double feature: Shutter Island/The Ghost Writer

LINKAGE

From today's Economic Times: How to finance your film via The Social Network.

A Double Feature 5 Years After Katrina

Soft Cat - It Won't Be Long from Friends Records on Vimeo.

My friend Fred posted this amazing music video animated by his sister Miranda Pfeiffer. So firstly, a big congrats to her. I am not sure if she meant the release of the video to coincide with the anniversary of Katrina but the images of the water swelling and engulfing everything + all the news coverage there has been of late about the Hurricane got me thinking.

In particular I thought about The Music Room (1958) by Satyajut Ray. Which I programmed a long way back in a series about Crumbling aristocracies. It's a wonderful mediation on the end of an era, as the lord of manor entertains his friends one last time in his famous music room even as the river threatens to take back the land his castle sits on. Hopefully in the next few days I will think of a double feature about rebirth and rebuilding... so that this Katrina anniversary can end on a slightly more hopeful note.

Linkage: For the day (possibly the week or month).

(Maybe) Something on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World vs. Fatih Akin's Soul Kitchen pending, but first: From this past Sunday's NY Times, we have a piece from Arts & Style reporter Ms. Melena Ryzik on an interesting development regarding film distribution, "D.I.Y. Music Labels Embrace D.I.Y. Film":

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/movies/22indie.html?ref=music

Read and be merry.

SCIENCE FICTION/DOUBLE FEATURE

Both Inception, the new movie by Christopher Nolan, and Jon Turteltaub's The Sorcerer's Apprentice, involve physics

and the human brain's capacity for perception. Both succeed on different levels.

Inception is the first movie by Chris Nolan conceived as an original story since his 2000 hit, Memento, which had the heady premise of presenting your standard neo-noir in backwards order; since then, Nolan has cut his teeth on adaptations -- Insomnia, the two recent Batman movies, and The Prestige. I'm not sure that his storytelling chops have evolved, but what's there can certainly be identified as a personal style, which always seems to involve spinning tricky stories with some sleight of hand and some admittedly charming old fashioned movie magic. In Inception, we're immediately thrust into a world where the invasion of a person's dreams and unconscious mind is a given, a la The Matrix or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. At the same time (not unlike Nolan's previous efforts), the plot follows that of a basic heist genre picture, set up as protagonist Cobb's (Leonardo DiCaprio) one "last big score" to get him reunited with the kids he hasn't seen since having to flee "Stateside". He recruits a crew for the job -- an Arthur (loyal partner Joseph Gordon-Levitt), an architect (Ellen Page, also doing extra work as a psychologist in some scenes), a forger (a lively and entertaining performance by Tom Hardy), and a chemist (Dileep Rao), all bankrolled by a new employer (Ken Watanabe) who can guarantee his future amnesty. Lurking in the shadows is a femme fatale in the form of Mal (Marion Cotillard and yes, that is one heavy-handed character name), who may or may not gum up the works. What sets this basic plot apart is that the majority of the action takes place in what are essentially several floors (and a basement) of Cillian Murphy's subconscious house of a mind (which also brings us into Being John Malkovich territory). The movie toys with this, has its fun, and keeps the audience engaged, albeit on an intellectual plane rather than an emotional one. While a lot of talky talk exposition gets unpacked (one of the drawbacks of sci-fi in general), it's kept to a minimum; the filmmakers are confident enough to rely on their visuals, which are enjoyable in details big (such as Page's quick read of what she can manipulate via the physics of the dream world) and small (the joke of explaining "the kick" by subjecting Gordon-Levitt's character to successive pratfalls, or Hardy's transformation into Tom Berenger via clever cutaways to various mirrors). JG-L gets to perform some of the more exhilarating effects work, in a scene -- probably the movie's best -- that moves from a fist fight in a rotating corridor to free-floating in the same environment to solve yet another dream conundrum (take that, 3-D!). Overall, it's an entertaining and refreshingly imaginative movie, inventively dazzling while being bereft of any real feeling. The prime example is the explanation of Cobb's angst over his relationship with Mal: You get the impression that our hearts are supposed to go out to this doomed affair, but like so much of the narrative not directly dealing with the main event, it only serves as more distancing backstory. The best you're going to get is the chemistry teased out between Hardy and Gordon-Levitt's characters, who seem ready for their own Oceans series. In line with the rest of Nolan's oeuvre, you're better off not overworking the 10% of your brain used in regard to the big dreamy ideas (or the length -- a James Bond ski chase sequence taxed my watch-glancing resistance) and just enjoying the small spinning top.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice, while being of more modest means (and, as the latest Cage/Bruckheimer co-lab, that speaks volumes), may arguably be the more rewarding experience: After an awesome voiceover intro by Ian McShane (can we just have him introduce everything from now on?), an unlikely "I make music with my Tesla coil" genius Dave (a winning Jake Cherry at 10 years old, then Jay Baruchel at 20, giving Michael Cera and Jesse Eisenberg some much needed competition) gets recruited by "Merlinist" magician Balthazar Blake (but really, they could've just named him "Nicolas Cage"), discovers he is -- wait for it -- "The Prime Merlinian" (LOL), and learns how to use more than 10% of his brain not to manipulate dreams but to blow shit up and get the girl. How does physics get explained in this, you may ask? Physics = Magic. Done. Seriously, Nic and the writers (based on a Goethe poem!) make it that easy for the audience. The rest is Alfred "Horvath (whore bath?)" Molina relishing his role as the baddie and forcing several Cage matches to ensue, involving floating sword fights, an urn with a ten year imprisonment expectancy (to the day), a dragon, a Russian nesting doll, an ashy Alice Krige and a Chrysler building gargoyle that knows how to get to Paris. Oh, and I forgot -- broomsticks. It's Maaaagic! All you have to do is get past the complete implausibility of a WNYU dj playing a Jonas Brothers-esque song on the New Afternoon Show. While the best magic is performed in getting our hero from Washington Square Park to the Chrysler Building in mere seconds, The Sorcerer's Apprentice makes the perfect palate cleanser to the high concept ambitions of Inception.

"Double Take" and "Mundane History"

Double trouble Hitchcock meets himself in this allegorical satire

Double Take begins with Alfred Hitchcock explaining, in the footage of his 1966 interview with François Truffaut, the term "MacGuffin":

It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in a train. One man says "What's that package up there in the baggage rack?", and the other answers "Oh that's a McGuffin". The first one asks "What's a McGuffin?". "Well", the other man says, "It's an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands". The first man says "But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands", and the other one answers "Well, then that's no McGuffin!".

Turns out Hitchcock himself - here either played by a famed look-alike (the late Ron Burrage), or assembled from amusing fragments of his TV and other public appearances, and is pitched against a double of himself (a character that "he must kill" in an imaginative re-edit of Psycho) - is the McGuffin, in what turns out to be an impressionistic, insightful, and all-too-often hilarious commentary on Cold War politics.

Belgian filmmaker Johan Grimonprez's mockumentary charts the fierce relationship between America and Russia like a TV show: with Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev essentially cast as the fictional Hitchcock double, while, by some inspired combination of montage and voiceover, Folgers instant coffee is paralleled with murder poison, and The Birds the Cold War threat. It all culminates into Donald Rumsfeld's infamous McGuffin metaphor. Oh, who'd have thought?

On a similar if totally unrelated note, Thai director Anocha Suwichakornpong's feature debut, Mundane History, is another movie that only takes its synopsis as a jumping board to something much more profound. In this Tiger Award winner at the recent Rotterdam Film Festival, what started out as a simple story between a rich, young man (paralysed from the waist down in an accident) and his male nurse (who gradually comes to break down his patient's resentful facade) eventually turns on its head and becomes something entirely different.

While its disjointed timeline may appear gimmicky at first, Mundane History slowly reveals its (literally) cosmic scope, spinning off into a philosophically perplexing take on personal emotions and illusions, traditional family structure and class distinction, political history of power and bloodshed, as well as a shockingly hynoptic double take on life and death. The young protagonist's injury remains unexplained - the McGuffin amid Suwichakornpong's meditation of an incomparably greater scope.