Steven Douglas Maloney

Archive for the ‘Movies’ Category

Russian Communist Party member’s attack James Bond for political points.  My favorite claim:

The party’s leader, Sergei Malinkovich, said: “Everyone knows that the CIA and MI6 finance James Bond films as a special operation of psychological warfare against us. This Ukranian girl sleeps with Bond and that means that Ukraine is sleeping with the West.”

I guess this means that Timothy Dalton is off the hook for the Bond franchise going on hiatus for several years… it was really just because the Berlin Wall had come down.

I would say that one of the reasons that the entertainment industry tends to be left-leaning has nothing to do with hideous motives, but from the fact that the left tends to have stories about human life that have a compelling, sweeping dramatic arc that a radical free market capitalist just can’t tell because he or she would think it wrong to rpesume they know the “right way” that human story arc ought to be told or how it should end.

This flashed through my mind while I was watching the trailer last weekend for a forthcoming Greg Kinnear movie, called Flash of Genius. Since I was then subjected to Mama Mia! following the trailer, I had plenty of time to continue my thoughts.

Flash of Genius is about a college professor who invents the modern windshield wiper and, as it turns out, they steal his design and do not credit him with his invention. So he sues them by himself, acting as his own counsel. My first reaction to this was that it was one of many “proudly leftist” message movie trailers we saw, and that the Hollywood that was too scared to give Brokeback Mountain a Best Picture Oscar was striking back now that their critics influence appears to be receding.

My second reaction was to think that the film, and films like it, always seem to be intended to be anti-Hayekian or anti-Schumpeterian (I cannot tell which, probably neither are specifically targeted at this point, as the tropes are quite old now) stories about how unfettered capitalism, its powerful organizations with greedy, soulless elites plunder the little man and the little man fights for justice when justice wants to abandon them. We root for the person crushed about to be crushed by capitalism, and at the end of the day, we cheer for Mr. Little Guy.

However, my third reaction (Mama Mia! was not Indiana Jones IV bad, but close, so I had time) was is that really what stories like this prove out? I still think its intended as the trope above, but the story actually seems to vindicate (I’m assuming the little guy wins) a strong exceptional person who contributes substantially to the specialization of knowledge, is resourceful enough as an individual to fight for what he is rightly entitled to, is a college professor (Hayek and Schumpeter believe that intellectuals are hugely important for social order), and ultimately, since the state has the right property laws already on the books and enforces them correctly, the resourceful, well-developed individual defeats the once-great corporation who no longer is populated by the great but is a shadow of its former self because it leans to heavily on its ability to project power to get what it wants rather than being innovative and resourceful by its own devices.

I believe the second story to be the more accurate life-lesson, but I have a feeling the movie will try to pass off the first version of the story – presumably because praising the power of resourceful intelligentsia does not put enough people in seats. Still I wonder what people think about message movies like this if we make the leap and treat their messages as worth considering.

[youtube = http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cv-8FSGiOlQ]

After talking about “There Will Be Blood,” I thought I’d post a revisionist history of what the “Best Picture” awards would look like if I could deterine the winner.  I have obviously not seen every movie, and there’s obviously many reasons why they don’t just ask me to pick the winner that are all correct reasons. But, I thought as a speculative exercise, it would nevertheless be fun, and maybe stir some comments and conversation. I arbitrarily will start with 1979, the first year where I’ve seen most of the nominated films in my lifetime (though I was 1 year old at the time they came out)

Steve’s Best Picture Votes: (Actual Best Pictures in Parenthesis)

1979: Apocolypse Now   (Kramer v. Kramer)

1980: Ordinary People   (Ordinary People)*

1981: Raiders of the Lost Ark  (Chariots of Fire)

1982: E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial (Ghandi)

1983: The Big Chill (Terms of Endearment)

1984: Amadeus  (Amadeus)

1985: Out of Africa (Out of Africa)

1986: A Room With a View (Platoon)*

1987: The Last Emperor (The Last Emperor)

1988: Working Girl (Rain Man)

1989: My Left Foot (Driving Miss Daisy – ugh!)

1990: Goodfellas (Dances With Wovles – double ugh!)

1991: The Silence of the Lambs (The Silence of the Lambs)

1992: Unforgiven  (Unforgiven)

1993: Schindler’s List (Schindler’s List)

1994: Quiz Show (Forrest Gump)*

1995: Sense and Sensibility (Bravehart)

1996: Fargo (The English Patient)

1997: Titanic (Titanic)*

1998: Life is Beautiful (Shakespeare in Love)*

1999: The Insider (American Beauty)

2000: Crouching Tiger, hidden Dragon (Gladiator)

2001: The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (A Beautiful Mind) *

2002: Chicago (Chicago)

2003: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (LOTR:ROK)*

2004: The Aviator (Million Dollar Baby)

2005: Munich (Crash)

2006: Children of Men (The Departed) *

2007: There Will Be Blood (No Country for Old Men)

Over almost 30 years, I have only agreed with 7 choices for Best Picutre. I wonder how many Best Picture choices over the same time period others would agree with and even if you find one or two of my choices outrageous, if  others would not still find my votes more agreeable than the actual best picture list as a whole.

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In my continuing attempts to learn about things I missed while finishing my dissertation, I saw Paul Thomas Anderson’s film There Will Be Blood yesterday.  I don’t want to write a movie review of the thing, there’s plenty of those lying around. Instead I’ll cut straight to the provocative comments. First, I think that this film is not only the best film of the 21st Century, it is easily the best film of the 21st century.  Second, even when this film gets some competition (judging by the best picture nominees, it’s been a really lean decade), this film will still be in the mix.  In fact, while I am saying bold things about this movie, I cannot think of any films in the two decades before (the 90′s, the 80′s) that I would say is a better film.  Any thoughts?

 

Following the death of Arthur C. Clarke, I decided to go back and watch 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was an easy sell, since it allowed me to use an HDDVD, helping me to justify owning them. Last night I watched 2010: The Year We Made Contact for the first time in a very long time. Like Roger Ebert, I find it a movie that is very hard to embrace, particularly, as Ebert points out, for its very 1980′s sensibilities. It is also very disappointing in comparison to 2001 or the novelization of 2010: Odyssey Two. I think that the movie misses the majesty, wonder, and possibility of the novel, it misses the importance of the fact that the 2010 story is a second odyssey (which is dropped from the title in a way that shows just how much the film misses the heart of the book). 2001 is a story about human evolution, change, transcendence and transformation from something lower to something higher. What makes 2010 a worthy sequel in print is that it is an Odyssey for absolution. We want answers for the mysteries in 2001, the characters responsible for the costs of the transcendence in 2001 need the answers. Both Floyd and Chandra have dealt with their loss and built new lives, but they both know that starting over is not absolution, that’s why they have to go. The Cold War angle in the story is the parallel on the grand scheme, the trip is also the story of human absolution for what we have been. Just as David Bowman and HAL are the micro story to the macro in 2001, so too are Floyd and Chandra for 2010. The film handles these themes clumsily, and the dramatic impact of the end of the film suffers in particular. Also, the excising of the Tsieng landing on Europa and sending a doomed message to the world is a very poor choice in my view. Rather than the dramatic, Alien-like reveal of the space probe on Europa, it would have been much more chilling to just have everyone sit in a room and listen to the message coming over the radio, and cheaper to film too.

However, such restraint is just not very 1980′s. For what it is, I think Ebert is right, it is certainly not a terrible film on its own. For one thing, the actors compensate for a lot of the shortcomings in the film. Roy Scheider is actually fantastic in this movie, which gets lost at times in it’s mediocre plodding. Ebert says the film is more comparable to George Lucas than Stanley Kubrick, but I think there’s a better choice than either. Many of the films shots are clearly owing to Ridley Scott’s Alien. This is not a bad thing at all, and it is hard to avoid noticing that the film is shot very well. Yet, Scott’s aesthetic helps add to the sense of isolation and desperation of being out in space–somehow, Peter Hyams copies the aesthetic without really copying the effect.

Every once and a while there is talk about someone making the other two books into films, and I have usually been of the opinion that any attempt to make a credible go at completing the series ought to include remaking 2010 as well. Remaking a mediocre film with poor box office is not likely to inspire studio investment, but then again, neither would continuing the story. Ultimately, the failing of 2010: The Year We Make Contact is its time period, it is an attempt to make a blockbuster out of a series kicked off by an art film. If anyone was to make anything out of the final two or even final three space odysseys, they need to once again be art films.

Who could do such a thing? To copy Kubrick would be insane. However, to tell a story with a basic plot through indirect, visual storytelling is something that many filmmakers and screenwriters have become very good at. I could see Drew Goddard or Brian K. Vaughan penning a brilliant screen adaptation of the Clarke novels, particularly based on their narrative experiences on projects like Lost and Cloverfield. After seeing Children of Men, I think Alfonso Cuaron could carry out a breathless vision of the novels, get great performances out of his actors, and do it on a budget. If I was a studio head, I’d be pretty excited about a project of this sort. There’s a way to say “we’re doing a different movie than Kubrick’s” that is not so independent of the spirit of the stories that it suffers, which is exactly the case with Peter Hyams’ film.

I promised that I would see it with others, but I got greedy over the last two nights and finally saw The Ister. I found it to be a very fine film, and felt like the commentary from the various “guides” on our way up the Danube River to be quite educational, and, indeed, they made me wish very much to have had my copy of Being and Time and Basic Writings packed in the car with me. Alas, they are not here, and so I am left with Bernard Stiegler‘s and Jean-Luc Nancy‘s words dancing in my head.. and that will have to suffice for the present. It’s a three hour long trip, but when one takes into account that this trip contemplates the meaning of technology, temporality, mortality, myth, history, tragedy, poetry, language, and ecology… well, three hours doesn’t really begin to cover all of these topics. Nor is The Ister meant to be a thorough examination of all of these things. The Ister is, like “Holderlin’s hymn,” a bit of modern day poetry: it suggests, it recalls, and reclaims, and it brings together both the unities and the contradictions of the thoughts it pulls together. At one point, Stiegler asks if nature is possibly a “phantasm,” since the natural world is ever-changing and technology is ever-changing it. But the filmmakers present the Ister, the mighty Danube River, as a place where nature and technology coexist, and along its banks, with bridges and boats, and graveyards, untouched nature, and even the remains of a concentration camp – the Danube still provides a home. Amidst all of these bizarre coexistant things along the journey, they do actually coexist, and many people live their lives amongst it. This feeling that is captured, more than the philosophy, is what gives The Ister it’s poetic power in a way that makes it a fine compliment to Holderlin’s poem. The movie is not actually a poem, and it doesn’t try to take the form of a poem, but it is what we in modern times need in place of it’s poetry. To write a poem today about the Danube would be silly… this film is ultimately what Heidegger values so much in poetry – Dichtung – Which can mean “invention”, “poetry”, or as Jean-Luc Nancy characterizes it in the film, a “setting-to-work to create a meaning.” The Ister is both an exploration of this, and as a product of this exploration, is an “invention” of its own… and a beautiful one at that.

   
Nothing is funny about movie piracy…. except for this.  This is very funny to me.    I want it… I mean, it’s called Star War The Third Gathers: Backstroke of the West. 

You might ask, "Isn’t mistranslated popular culture pretty much a tired gag?"  The Jedi Council is subtitled as "The Presbyterian Church"!  how can you NOT laugh at that! Thanks Tim at "Mother Tongue Annoyances" – this made my day!

What Happened in 2006?  Casino Royale happened.  For the James Bond enthusiast, nothing else really happened of any import whatsoever.  In fact, to the Bond fan, last year isn’t even known as 2006 anymore.  It is year 0 of the new calendar.  All that happened before is BCR (Before Casino Royale) and all that comes next shall be known as ADC (After Daniel Craig).  Of course, our new boy, Daniel Craig, had some serious assistance by a supporting cast that was fantastic.  A pricklier Judi Dench as M, the Tom Hanks of Denmark (Mads Mikkelsen) as Le Chiffre, Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter!  Boundless joy.  And such wonderful scenes they created.  Who is going to forget the chase scene on foot in the beginning of the movie?  The scene on the train when Bond and Vesper first meet.  Any scene with Giancarlo Giannini being all subtly super-spy like ("Just because you are dead doesn’t mean you can’t be useful").  How about the last scene of the movie?  Marvelous!  The Bond franchise was keen on rotating directors during the Brosnan era, but for my money, the last James Bond film that compares to Casino Royale is Goldeneye, which was also directed by Martin Campbell.  So let’s leave all of the Michael Apted’s, Roger Spottiswoode’s, and Lee Tamahori’s at home and let Campbell become the franchise’s next John Glen. 

I have loved going to the movies my whole life.  I cannot even remotely rationalize the sheer joy attached to the experience of watching movies that I feel, but I have almost come to terms with the fact that it will never be a sensible part of my character.  My love of movies definitely spills over into a deep, profound love of James Bond films.  I had a digital projector rented from MTSU this week (for classroom purposes), and while it was still in my possession, I took it upon myself to watch "Goldeneye" on the wall of my living room.  Tomorrow is my birthday, and the day after that is "Casino Royale."  I get the feeling that this is going to be a very good week. 

The appearance of Daniel Craig’s Bond into our moviegoing experience hearkened me back to "Goldeneye" – especially since Martin Campbell will have directed both of them; but I also find myself remembering Timothy Dalton’s Bond Movies.  In my view, Dalton got a raw deal.  Everyone in the world knew he wasn’t the first choice to play Bond, and I think this colored the audience’s willing to receive him.  People had the sense from the beginning that he was going to get benched any minute.  Beyond this, "The Living Daylights" is a pretty weak introduction to a new James Bond.  The film end’s with the beauty of a scenic Soviet Military prison in Afghanistan… ooh, I wish I could be James Bond and go there.  Don’t get me wrong, the chase scene with the cello case is quite possibly my favorite all-time Bond action sequence, and Dalton’s cheery "We have nothing to declare"  as he slides across the border into the West, riding a cello case while steering with a cello and riding with the cellist, is one of those great classy-funny Bond moments that shows that Dalton did indeed have that "something" that everyone said Bond’s have that was missing in Dalton.  It wasn’t missing when he had the material.  If the "Living Daylights" had starred Brosnan, would it have been a hit?  I think it’s unlikely.  The screenplay does not give the character’s much to do for most of the story, and if you want to see the difference in how the movies allow actors to work, compare Joe Don Baker’s bad guy in "The Living Daylights" to the American spy he gets to play in "Goldeneye" and "Tomorrow Never Dies."  With less screen time in both, he does so much more. 

Then there was "License to Kill."  When Roger Moore confronts the reality that James Bond had a wife who was murdered, he campily drops the arch-villain in a smokestack (btw, thanks for carrying the Blofeld character through so many movies as supervillain only to off him six minutes into a movie where the rest of the film’s drama is who is the villain: Julain Glover or Topol… ugh)  When Tim Dalton’s Bond is confronted with the death of his wife (by seeing longtime friend and colleague Felix Leiter’s wife murdered), he goes off on a one-man mission of vengeance to take down a drug cartel from the inside.  He does this largely through psychology, by planting doubts into the mind of the drug lord about who he can trust, Dalton’s Bond gets Robert Davi to destroy his own world practically all by himself.  Davi is a great villain with one of the all-time best Bond villain one-liners (to the President of his fictional Banana Republic: "Remember, you’re only President for life." -fantastic)  The henchman?  None other than Benicio Del Toro!  And the Bond girl is Carrie Lowell, brief Law & Order star and married to Richard Gere.  That’s not all – the drug cartel makes its deals through a popular televangelist played by Wayne NEWTON!  You read that right.  This was an outstanding contribution to the Bond franchise.  But everyone went to see "Batman" and "Ghostbusters II" that summer… I think "License to Kill" has aged quite well, comparatively speaking.

And that was it.  Dalton got the boot.  The studio waited for Brosnan.  They got four movies out of him, and two good ones.  And while "Tomorrow Never Dies" is one of my favorite Bond films to watch, if someone really pushed "Goldeneye" as the only real winner of the four, I wouldn’t fight too hard.  I think "Tomorrow Never Dies" took Bond down a very different road than a film more like "Goldenye" might have taken the franchise; and I think it’s fair to say that it laid the groundwork for the seizure-inducing activity of "Die Another Day," whose third (fourth, fifth, eightieth, how long was that movie?) act has left my mind numb for several years.  And now, here we are.  A tougher, grittier Bond.  And because of this, I can’t help but think about Dalton.  Some say that Craig seems "cooler" than Dalton, and I don’t doubt that.  But Dalton was not given a lot of breathing room.  He was given one mediocre story and one story that was an exceptional Bond adventure that would not have reflected the way Bond would have been in future films had Dalton stayed on.  George Lazenby got canned after one movie, but he was very difficult to work with and got one of the better Bond stories and was surrounded with talent (Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas).  Roger Moore made a pretty bad movie out of what is arguably the best of the Bond novels out of the gate ("Live and Let Die"), and never really transcended mediocrity while providing reliably terrible outings ("The Man With the Golden Gun", "Moonraker", "A View to a Kill").  I mean, wow, is "A View to a Kill" terrible.  And you can’t blame the songs for most of these failures.  Moore definitely got the Lion’s share of good Bond theme songs.  But they kept him forever.

I think the problem was that Bond had become a star vehicle. Connery and Moore were movie stars.  And people could buy Brosnan as a movie star.  They couldn’t buy it in Dalton, it didn’t really matter how he played the role, and there was no way the people working on Bond were going to break out in ways that could use Dalton’s talent without getting "License to Kill" -like fan backlash.  With Daniel Craig, there have been numerous howls that people don’t think that he’s a star.  Many people, myself included, hoped and prayed for Clive Owen for a long time.  But I think we are all about to be proved wrong.  Daniel Craig, I have a suspicion, is going to show the type of star quality that they want to see in their Bond’s.  Dalton’s Bond wasn’t too serious, he was too deep, too real.  Audiences didn’t want to see James Bond, they wanted to see James Bond and they wanted to see the movie star being James Bond at the same time.  Dalton didn’t produce those Bond scenes that say "in this shot you are no longer are watching James Bond, you are watching an actor who is pleased that you are looking at him and noticing how cool he looks."  Perhaps in this way, Dalton served the story a little too well.  The other Bond’s were able to make the movie more about them and less about the story itself, which, given how lousy a lot of the Bond screenplays probably are, is likely a talent one needs in order to survive as James Bond.

Nevertheless, Timothy Dalton, neglected James Bond:  you made one of the best of the Bond films and had one of the most memorable of the Bond scenes in the other one.  You saved us from Roger Moore camp, and it is possible that your expandability paved the way for the franchise to continue.  If they’d had to fire Brosnan after "License to Kill", God knows where the franchise would be.  In short, thank you for your two movies: I look forward to seeing them again during the "007 days of Christmas" this year, they will be a nice break in between the seemingly incessant playing of "Diamonds are Forever" during the marathon.