Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Modern Classics: Memento (2000)

For those of you who know me, you know that Memento is perhaps my favorite film of all time, although I'll never fully commit to having just one clear cut favorite film. At it's most basic level, Memento is a simple high concept movie about a man with short term memory loss out for vengeance. That makes for what some incorrectly consider a gimmicky plot construction. Half of the movie is black and white scenes playing forward in time, and the other half is intertwined color scenes which play backwards in time. In the hands of a lesser filmmaker, Memento would have in fact ended up as nothing more than a gimmick. Luckily, Nolan maps out each detail so wonderfully that every visual, even the quick switch of a single frame (1/30s for anyone that wants to impress the masses with some trivial trivia), is absolutely essential to the puzzle being assembled as you watch the movie.

Mysteries and thrillers of this sort often suffer from one common problem: they are more about the destination than the journey. That is, to say, that while all the pieces fit together, and the ending may make sense and even pack a wallop, getting there wasn't particularly interesting. Memento has the knock-you-on-your-ass ending, but everything before that hardly pales in comparison. Part of why the rest of the movie works is that the viewer is emotionally involved from the beginning. Who doesn't have some sympathy for a guy who lost his short term memory and remembers nothing after his wife being raped and murdered? We want our protagonist, Leonard, to succeed by any means necessary. Also, each scene succeeds in its own right. There is always something happening, always a conflict, a goal to each scene that the viewer can invest themselves in.

The Usual Suspects is a good example of a poor movie that doesn't have much going for it until the end. While I know that film is loved by almost all in my age group (and beyond), I challenge them to watch it again and tell me whether there is conflict in each scene. It's a movie that has so much invested in its ending that, God forbid, should you happen to guess the predictable ending at some point during the first act (and, really, you should have), the rest of it is bland at best. For Memento, even if someone were to tell you the ending before you watched it for your first time, you'd be twisted and turned so many times before you got there that it may hit you even though you knew it was coming.

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SPOILERS AHEAD. For those of you who aren't familiar with spoilers, it refers to specific aspects of the movie that only those who have watched it should read. If you haven't seen the movie, please skip to the section below the # sign.
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Further separating Memento from it's supposed peers are the characters. Nolan sticks to a handful of characters, each with their own unique arc, but united in the darkness of their humanity. The frightening universal theme of the film is that we all lie to ourselves to make ourselves happy from time to time, and Leonard is no exception. Nor are Teddy and Natalie, both of who use Leonard for their own gain, though neither is a particularly bad person. Natalie lost someone she loved; Teddy helped Leonard find his wife's killer when the other cops wouldn't.

Rarely is a film so morally ambiguous yet so effective at the same time. Do we hate the antagonist known throughout most of the movie as "John G"? Sure until we find out who he is in the context of the film and how Leonard found him. Is Leonard the bad guy for killing Teddy? When he did it, he did genuinely believe the guy raped and murdered his wife. Is Teddy the bad guy for using Leonard to make some extra cash of a drug deal on the side? Teddy was the only one who believed Leonard and helped him find the original John G.

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While there's plenty more to rave about from the cinematography to the editing (oh the stunning editing), the best way to appreciate this exemplary piece of film noir is to simply watch it. Don't feel bad if you need to watch it a few times to get all the tiny details. One very attentive viewing is enough to get most of what this film offers, but not to quite soak in each and every detail which the filmmakers have so carefully constructed. Memento is one of the greatest film making achievements of all time and, in my mind, remains Nolan's crowning work.

The Classics

Movies just aren't what they used to be. We all know that. We've all been victimized at some point or another by a guaranteed-to-be-entertaining mega blockbuster that gives you no bang even though you've already paid the ten bucks, or the arthouse film that plunges so deep into abstractness that even David Lynch throws up his hands in surrender. That's not to say there aren't what will one day be known as "classics" being made each and every year. Over the next few blog entries I'm going to take a look at what I deem to be truly great, classic, films made since the dawn of the new millenium. They may not yet have the intangible black and white charm of Casablanca, or the technicolor wonder of The Wizard of Oz, but if a film is truly great, all of that will come as enough years pass by.

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Body of Lies

Body of Lies

My IMDB Rating: 7/10

Finally an above average political thriller that is effective and surprisingly politically neutral.  That’s not to say it won’t irk those on the far reaches of either aisle in addition to the always irritable Iranian government.  But, Body of Lies is a plot driven espionage thriller that demonstrates the basics of what Western intelligence has done right and wrong in the post 9/11 era without being preachy or shoving too much at the audience.

The movie follows Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio), an operative trying to gather intel on Islamic terrorist cells to get to the head: Al-Saleem.  He works closely with local contacts wherever he goes, only to find that his boss, Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) finds them useful but disposable.  After losing such a friend in Iraq, Ferris travels to Jordan to head up the U.S. Intelligence operations there.  In Jordan he befriends Hani (Mark Strong), the head of Jordanian Intelligence, who places more value on patience and trust than speed and technology.

Anyone who read the title of the movie can guess the basics of what happens next: Ferris gets caught in a web of lies, some created by him, some by his boss, and he struggles to do the right thing and break free from all he has constructed.  The lies are actually relatively simple and easy to keep track of.  There isn’t betrayal upon betrayal which so many movies get caught up in these days, but the pacing does suffer due to a plot that forces itself to be intricate when it would be better served by simplicity.

There is a point about halfway through the movie where Ferris comes up with the idea to construct a fake terrorist cell to challenge the cell they are going after.  The idea isn’t all that bad, but it basically restarts the plot instead of building it.  The pacing of Body of Lies is suspect with plenty of these moments.  Ferris doesn’t seem to learn much from the err of his ways until the very end, so the characters, while compelling, are also stagnant for most of the movie.

Still, the performances are excellent if not extraordinary.  DiCaprio has established himself as the best young actor out there for quite sometime now.  His command of different voices, different languages (I’ve never heard a southerner speak Arabic as well as he does in this movie), and different mannerisms make him a consummate professional.  Crowe, in my opinion one of the top few actors working today, is underused in what is really a smaller role than what the trailers showed.  I guess every Ridley Scott movie just has to have Maximus in it.  The two biggest standouts are Mark Strong, who plays the Jordanian Intelligence Head just serious and slick enough to make you wonder what his interests really are, and Golshifteh Farahani, who is the first Iranian born actress to appear in a Hollywood flick since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Incidentally Mrs. Farahani can’t return to her native Iran until the court sees the movie and then decides what to do with her passport.

Admittedly, the love interest of Aisha played by Farahani seems a bit forced.  Are Ferris’ feelings for a woman really the only thing that can humanize him and realize that maybe he hasn’t been doing things the right way this whole time? Body of Lies does such a good job of injecting emotion into it’s storyline unlike so many recent political thrillers (think Syriana, Munich, The Constant Gardner, etc.), that it is disappointing to see it resort to such means in an attempt to humanize Ferris and give his life some real meaning.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

What Happened To Movie...goers?

We've all heard the complaining that the quality of movies these days is dwindling. Originality is dead and Hollywood has sold its soul to the devil to produce another sequel. Facts being what they are, that's mostly true. Just look at the Golden Globe best picture nominees this year: American Gangster (based on fact), Atonement (based on a novel), Eastern Promises (wait, an original?), The Great Debaters (based on fact), There Will Be Blood (based on a novel, albeit loosely), and No Country For Old Men (based on a novel).

That's not to say these movies are bad. On the contrary, the only poor film among the group is Atonement, which, predictably, won best picture at the Golden Globes this past Sunday. Still, didn't we used to go to the movies to get away from real life, instead of reliving it? Originality is gasping for air beneath an endless vapid sea.

Obviously there's absolutely no question at all that Hollywood is responsible for mercilessly slaughtering all forms of originality. Let's take a look at the top five grossing movies of the year: Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Notice anything? Three threequels, a fifth chapter, and a big, big budget movie based on wildly popular cartoon. But, wait, if those are the five highest grossing movies of the year, that must mean people, mostly people outside Hollywood, went to see those movies. That can't be true! This would all be okay in a world where the aforementioned films were quality films, but out of the five I can only call Harry Potter a good film, and only if I listen to my fanboy nerd, I can put Transformers there as well (yeah, the movie was offensively bad, I know, I know).

It wasn't always like this. Take a trip back to 1990 with me. A year when Turtles rocked, Swayze and Costner were big stars, parents went on vacation and forgot their kid, and a hooker charmed a millionaire. That's right, the top five of 1990 were: Home Alone, Ghost, Dances With Wolves, Pretty Woman, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Word of mouth meant something, critics weren't complete pompous asses, and people went to see movies that were just plain good. Now, no one in their right mind will argue that the original TMNT was a piece of classic cinema history, but it was fun. It was good, clean, sensible fun. The other four in the list actually are classics that have withstood the test of time and remain relevant 18 years later.

The one thing that remained constant from 1990 to 2008 is this: movie studios produce what can be sold. When you start a good business, art or not, you have to make sure it can be sold for a profit. Movies have always been a business. Always. But, in 1990, movies made their money primarily by word of mouth from regular Joe's like you and me, and somewhat from critics. Marketing didn't focus on having a mammoth opening weekend because they knew most good movies would make their money back and then some when it was all said and done. Oh, how the times have changed. The only top 25 opening weekend of all time to come outside of this decade sits at number 24 with 1997's The Lost World. Movies just didn't used to open that big. Heck, the highest grossing movie of all time, 1997's Titanic, opened with a now puny $28.6M, but it stayed at number one for a record 15 weeks which is unheard of in today's industry.

Hollywood isn't completely free of blame. Heck, it might even be more to blame, but that's not the point. Hollywood's problems are transparent and easy to blame. Between the paparazzi, the fake couples, and movie stars becoming political figures, the movie studio execs, directors, writers, and actors forgot what movies were. In an attempt to fight DVD's and home theater systems, the studios brought out movies that were bigger and louder. When that didn't work because those movies were just too expensive, they turned to the rebirth of a low budget yet highly profitable genre: horror. Most of us like a good horror movie every now and then, but I can name about two over the past ten years that I consider good movies, or even entertaining movies.

The problem isn't even that people rush out to see movies that I wouldn't subject my worst enemies to (damn you Shoot 'Em Up, damn you). It's that the public's definition of what makes a great movie, or even an entertaining movie, has changed drastically. Happy endings replaced by senseless deaths, likable heroes replaced by passive and unlikable characters, and ultimately a darker tone. I know what most of you are thinking: this guy likes fluff. Stamp a prince marrying a princess at the end of the movie and he'll call it a quality film. That's not the point at all. The point is that the shift towards a darker medium has damaged our very understanding of film.

Let's take this year's Golden Globe best picture winner for example. Atonement currently has an 8.1 rating on IMDB, signaling that it is playing very well with the general public, and universal praise from top critics (minus A.O. Scott). If you wish to see this movie in the future, normally I'd tell you to skip the next two paragraphs, but I implore you not to do so and read them instead. Positives: the movie itself looks pretty. The visuals are well constructed, and the cinematography is quite good. But, it frightens me that this movie was nominated for best screenplay, as it fails to make us feel even the slightest bit of emotion for any of its characters. We're expected to believe that Robbie and Cecilia are in love because they share a moment at a fountain and a quick screw in the library. That might be the Ron Jeremy definition of love, but it sure isn't mine.

Maybe I would have believed their love for each other if Cecilia weren't a typical intolerable, pompous rich girl living in a mansion. Or, even if she were, I could believe it if Robbie had some depth to him, some singular likable quality. Thankfully, the story isn't about our lovers. After all, the movie isn't called Love, it's called Atonement. Our story is about Briony, our little thirteen year old brat who is even less amenable than her sister Cecilia. We can't root for Briony before she tells the lie that sends Cecilia and Robbie's lives spiraling into a dark abyss, or after when she's grown up to regret her sins. See the title coming into play now? Clever. Very clever.

The problem is that there is no atonement. There is no constant theme throughout this movie and without that string to tie it all together, the individual scenes lose any sense of meaning. There is a very long tracking shot on the beaches of Dunkirik that critics have absolutely raved about. While technically impressive, it quickly turns into a snorer. I get that Broiny's actions sent two people's lives into a toilet, but when I don't care about those two people, it's not really a big deal. We're treated to two hours of the same uninspired mess. There is a nonlinear storyline that seems to be nonlinear only for the sake of being artistic and different. There are scenes and shots meant to show the destruction of innocence, ala dead school girls shot in the head by the Germans, but they come across more as a desperate attempt to be artistic and throw some meaning into an ultimately meaningless movie. Through Robbie's suffering we're supposed to understand how horrible Briony's sin, and more importantly the consequences of her sin, really are. But, Robbie's supposedly horrible plight never feels that horrible, neither does Cecilia's. In the end, Briony's attempt at atonement is so pathetic that we wish everyone had just died at the beginning.

Though I've basically just written an essay bashing Atonement, the problem isn't with that one movie. If it were, I wouldn't be writing this. The problem is that people consider trash like this good because they just don't understand it, or they watch a movie like they read a book. Between The Departed (admittedly, a great movie until the last five minutes) and Million Dollar Baby, we have an epidemic of films that simply don't understand what they are about, so they travel down a dark path that we have all been trained to think is deep. A happy ending is conventional, it is too expected, and audiences stamp it as too cheesy these days, so anything that aims at critical success must end with some kind of hopelessness. The senselessness of these endings takes the characters we have come to relate and destroys everything we care about in the movie by taking them out of character in order to create a tidy, if dark, conclusion.

My hope in writing this is to at least point this out so that we may not be as easily entertained or impressed by what people too easily deem a brilliant work of art these days. There are still great movies being made by great directors, written by great writers, starring great actors. Many of these movies are dark and depressing, but don't confuse correlation with causation. Babel is a depressing movie loved by critics but ignored by the public. Requiem For A Dream is a great movie that is about as dark as you can get, but it only found its audience once it got to the local video store. City of God, a dark movie based on a true story (how dare they combine the two!?) is one of the best movies ever, and definitely one of the best no one has ever seen. Some greats are Hollywood blockbusters, like Minority Report and Batman Begins, but these don't stand a chance come awards season because for some reason coming out too early in the year decreases the quality of a film (we'll get into that another time).

These greats are being glossed over or not given their due because of what has almost become a public fad. A love affair with darkness and depression, a lack of understanding of characters, and a general lack of emotion has inspired Hollywood to create moving images that I cringe to call movies.