Morning Glory (2010)

Sometimes an actor can drag a mediocre, MOR project up into the realm of moderate entertainment through sheer force of personality and commitment to the role. Consider William Devane in Rolling Thunder, for example, which could have been a Death Wish rip-off but became humanized and was given depth due to the sterling work from its lead.

And God knows Rachel McAdams does her best in this. She is so appealingly spazzy as the enthusiastic workaholic, limbs flailing, dimples working over time. She’s a great physical comedian in the making, assuming someone bothers to give her funny jokes to dance to. McAdams is one of the most assured, effortlessly charismatic of the younger generation of starlets groomed to be the next Julia Roberts (compare, for example, to the vacuum that is Kristen Bell). But unfortunately the deck is stacked too much against her, and she ends up being crushed by the sheer weight of banality exhibited by both the script and the direction.

Montage, montage, something bad happens, montage, something that looks bad turns out good, something that looks good turns out bad, montage, sudden third act obstacle to be dismissed once everyone learns their lesson – scored, of course, to the worst radio station in the world. And as good as McAdams is, almost every other part is either miscast (Goldblum just cannot be sincerely angry – you always assume he’s sarcastically screwing with you before he flashes that grin of his), mishandled (Keaton is totally wasted) or just a complete and utter vacant space (Patrick Wilson must not ever be considered as the romantic lead for any mainstream movie ever again – seriously, he drains the energy out of every scene he appears in here. He needs to be smarmy, psychotic, weaselly or nothing). And Ford is saddled with a sadly one-note caricature that exists only to keep the movie from being over in 30 minutes.

49

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983)

Weirdly fractured on a scene-by-scene basis, the story of a prisoner of war camp for the British run by the Japanese and how the arrival of an enigmatic stranger impacts on those stuck playing the roles circumstance or culture insists upon. There is a lot of great material here – the collapse of empires, duty vs. desire, individual responsibility within a dispassionate war machine – but the film never really coalesces around these themes, instead hammering these points almost at random from moment to moment.

But that’s not to say it doesn’t eventually get the job done, and the final epilogue is a remarkably emotional farewell to both the characters and the whole mess of warfare and the sticky issue of punishment and how much it is actually meant as retribution, and how much it is meant as a reflex to act as a sort of delineation between past and future regimes. A young (well, relatively) Takeshi Kitano makes the most of his chance to poke his head out of the comedy ghetto, and would go on to remarkable things himself.

65

The Thief of Bagdad (1940)

Starts off amiably and with a spring in its step – the Technicolor backstory is interesting, and it’s pretty funny at times, mostly intentionally. The hokiness of the whole thing befits a genial fish-out-of-water tale. But then we get caught back up to the present, the stakes increase, and we suddenly get thrown into the fantasy realm which expands the hokiness and makes it unpalatable.

The lightness of touch disappears and everything becomes a bit of a grind, the directors struggling to make the special effects come to life, and not really being able to join the different methods (models, superimposition etc) into a cohesive whole. Maybe a better clutch of set-pieces would have help gloss over the awkward effects, but they are pretty bog-standard, and the sword fights are look as if the actors were afraid to break a nail.

46

Ballad of a Soldier (1959)

One of those films that drifts along, seemingly satisfied with being a gentle humanist observation of human behaviour in trying conditions. As such, it can be a little clunky at times – such as the initial meeting between the young soldier on his way home on leave and the girl on her way to see her fiance, which is awkwardly staged and rather broadly performed by the otherwise winning actors – and lacking in a genuinely cohesive artistic vision.

But the there are little moments that make the journey worthwhile – the soldiers in the train car sharing cigarettes and joking about our heroes exploits, and the galvanizing effect that has on an injured, self-pitying soldier along for the ride; the hardening of a the expression when it becomes obvious a wife left at home hasn’t been just waiting around for her husband to return – and the destination is remarkably affecting, casting the previous 80 minutes in a more positive light.

67

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)

Neatly observed and deeply felt on a scene by scene basis, it all seems just a little bit too blunt and a little bit too broad overall. The racism on show is somewhat cartoonish, making the (potentially interesting) thawing of some of the attitudes in the second half less believable, unbalancing the film as a whole.

In fact, the whole idea of self-interest and pragmatism overcoming bigoted beliefs (as depicted by the shopowner), and whether this is the first step towards a more tolerant society, is touched upon but never really developed, leaving the relatively simple relationship drama, which is not terrible by any means, but hardly awash in original insight.

Fassbinder does have a knack for framing to emphasize the isolation felt by the central couple (doorways, a sea of benches etc), and the wearing down of Ali’s genial optimism in the face of such overwhelming hostility is affecting, especially given his otherwise rigid posture. Even water will wear away rock given enough time.

67

Day 3

Age is catching up with me – stuffed my calf muscles (yep, both legs) during the strenuous, unnatural act of running, so am now forced to use the stationary bike in the gym. Not a huge fan, but better than nothing, I guess. Wish I had my own bike so I could actually see 20km+ of scenery rather than the awning of the building beneath the gym. My headphones also decided to call it a day, so I didn’t even have the benefit of music to see me through. The gym did provide Antiques Roadshow on the TV, but not being over the age of 50 meant that it didn’t quite provide any type of distraction.

Read:

Drag queen tampon ad ‘transphobic’ – business | Stuff.co.nz.

Interesting debate. Personally I’m not too fussed about it. Transgender people are not real women, at least genetically speaking. And they wouldn’t use tampons. This is not a “stereotype” of transgenders but specific, inarguable facts. The importance is that you can both recognize these facts AND not use it as a basis of discrimination against transgender people. I don’t see any discrimination here.

And therein lies my problem with this “outrage” – while I can see people getting upset with the stereotyping the behaviour of a certain group when not all individuals of that group exhibit that behavior (and I gather there is a component of this is the complaints about the ad), I don’t understand how you can get upset with simple facts which aren’t even used as a stick to beat that group with. They are just things that happen to be true that are used to sell some tampons. Big deal.

It should also be noted, however, that the people who don’t like the ad have every right to complain, and if the company pulls it off the air in response, well that’s fine by me, as that is how things should work. People pressure influencing company decisions – I just dread the government trying to interject itself into the process.

Watched:

Last Year at Marienbad (1961) – 69

I don’t think the story is as impenetrable as its reputation suggests – or at least, the film is welcoming enough to allow the viewer to imprint a reasonable narrative (at least in terms of character motivation and overall premise) that can serve to guide you through the dream-like, gliding editing, mannered acting and gorgeous mise-en-scene.

It takes a while to settle into the groove of the film, as you become familiar with the rules of engagement, and of course, you are still left with a nagging feeling that there may in fact be no ultimate point to the film, except to create a one-of-a-kind mood piece to contrast with the prevailing (mainly Hollywood) genre trappings of the typical doomed romance story of the time. But then, is there anything particularly wrong with that, if it is done as well as it is here? And considering the film still generates debate in the critical community all these years later about what it all means, perhaps that’s the ultimate success, individual viewing experiences be damned.

Listened to:

Wolf Parade, Apologies to the Queen Mary – Still much, much prefer the side project Sunset Rubdown, but this is still 2000s indie-rock done right.

 

Day 2

Watched:

Three Monkeys (2008) – 73

A beautiful sequence of elegantly composed shots intercut with numerous sweaty, grimy close-ups, charting a rather standard story of the upheaval in a family of three after the father agrees to take the rap for a crime he didn’t do in exchange for money from his boss.

It’s stately and curiously drained of passion (and there are certainly no narrative or character surprises), but it ultimately works because the close-ups serve to reflect the isolating effects of grief, guilt, suspicion and anger – the world goes on but you seem trapped in a self-made fog of internal monologues.

And it’s pretty to look at, which shouldn’t be sniffed at when we are consistently served up similarly slight stories with all the visual panache of a home-made wedding video (e.g. The bland, flat Legends of the Fall). The final shot is a stunner, depicting how our own individual crises are minute compared to both the society we are raised in and nature.

Listened to:

Trolle//Siebenhaar, Couple Therapy

Sonic Youth, Sister

Neonbabies, Good Noise

Blur, Think Tank

Day 1

Crappy weather to see in the New Year here in Auckland, but still found the time to get to Takapuna Beach for lunch with EJ. Every man and his dog was crammed into the Takapuna Beach Cafe & Store despite the overcast conditions. We went the Burger King sit on the beach route, watching some dog shit roll in the waves in front of us.

Watched:

Inglorious Basterds (2009) – 70

Up from 68, this is a film that lives and dies on three scenes: the opening, the strudel and cream reunion, and the basement bar. They exhibit Tarantino’s gift for dialogue that both deepens character and creates tension – words used to tease out inconsistencies. But the rest of the film is hit and miss – the comedy falls flat (Mike Myers seems like he wandered in from Austin Powers 4, Eli Roth is a charisma-vacuum, the random flashbacks are clunky etc)

JCVD (2008) – 37

Great idea, terrible execution. Two great scenes (the opening and the direct to camera monologue) and lots of evidence that JCVD has actual depth as an actor, but the entire film looks like crap and the hostage drama centre is a poorly-choreographed bore, with shitty pointless villians and a storm of hollow noise trying to substitute for urgency outside…

Listened to:

The Delgados, The Great Eastern

Sonic Youth, The Eternal

Sonic Youth, NYC Ghosts & Flowers

Erase Errata, Other Animals

Israel-Palestine Conflict

I used this file in a unit on the Israel-Palestine Unit. It wasn’t designed to be self-contained, but acted more as support for a running series of lesson plans. This is why it remains rather unresolved, but it may contain some useful stuff for anyone who is interested.

Contents:

Learning objectives, Glossary, Nine Question Introduction Quiz,Mapping Activity, Current Issues and Neighbouring Countries

Israel-Palestine PPT

Publishing school results

Kiwiblog has a couple of debates going on about the reaction to the prospect of “league tables” being published listing school results in national assessments. I’ve gone over my opinion there, so I’ll just briefly summarize it here:

1. I don’t think there is any valid reason to keep the results hidden from public view. It can only harm the public perception of the education system and educators.

2. It is up to the Ministry of Education or the schools themselves to explain the assessment results if the feel that they don’t accurately reflect the performance of individual schools (something that is quite likely, given the multitude of factors that can influence results)

3. As long as there continues to be a sense of mistrust or sense of contradictory goals between the five main groups involved in this – the government, the schools, the teachers, the parents and the students – then education is going to continue to stagnate and be swamped in petty power struggles and blamestorming.

More news as it comes in.