The Viewer

The Puffy Chair, Humpday and the mumblecore movement

the314viewer — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:47:31 +0000

One day, I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts (The Nit Picket Podcast) and they talked about a movie called The Puffy Chair. I liked a lot of the same movies as the members, and they really could not stop talking about The Puffy Chair, which they called the essential mumblecore movie. The mumblecore movement is the only great indie film movement of the 2,000s that appears to be slowly slipping into the mainstream. Some trademarks include 20-ish year old non-actors, shooting with camcorders, a focus on relationships, and practically no budget. I know that those qualities can be turn-offs, but it’s also hilarious and incredibly accessible. The Puffy Chair is quickly rising to the top of my favorite movies. It tells the story of a road trip of a man, his girlfriend, and his brother to pick up a replica of a chair their father had from an eBay seller and the relationships between each character and other people that they meet.

Another great film by the same directors, Mark and Jay Duplass, is Humpday. Humpday is about two straight men who get the idea to make the first gay porno involving straight men for an art-porn festival hosted by a local newspaper. That sounds like an low-grade, no-laugh, raunch comedy starring Will Ferrell (what happened to the guy?) and the poster supported that suspicion, but it is done very well and looks into the minds of these two characters who try to figure out what it means to truly love a friend and has one of the most interesting takes on sexuality that I’ve ever seen. Also it has one of the guys from The Blair Witch Project as one of the leads.

Also check out the upcoming Noah Baumbach movie Greenberg with Ben Stiller and mumblecore actors Greta Gerwig and Mark Duplass, the FX show The League that also stars Mark Duplass, and the upcoming Duplass brothers movie Cyrus that has gathered a very impressive cast of well-known actors.

Harakiri (Seppuku)

the314viewer — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:16:21 +0000

In every era or genre of film, there is a director or writer who makes the majority of films in that genre that will overshadow other, writers and directors, that in my opinion usually surpass those of the flagship model. John Ford overshadowed Anthony Mann, Sergio Leone overshadowed Sergio Corbucci, and Akira Kurosawa (happy centennial) overshadowed Masaki Kobayashi. I love all the filmmakers I have just mentioned, but I feel that the latter in each genre don’t get the credit they deserve. These three in particular because their films are almost all dark and cynical. Today, I have decided to review Kobayashi’s Harakiri which oddly enough shared some of the standard Kurosawa crew, namely screenwriter Shinobu Hashimoto (one of my personal favorite writers in any medium), and star Tatsuya Nakadai who gives an incredible performance in the lead role. Let me just say that this is probably one of my top 10 favorite films, and it is definately my favorite Jidaigeki (Japanese period piece) and Chanbara (samurai movie). It starts out with Nakadai asking the local shogunate for a place to commit seppuku, the ritual evisceration of one’s bowels, they oblige him and he tells of his history and his decline. This is a fascinating character study with a character that is just as unique. I think the essential part of this film is the opening/closing shot, both of which are the same in their depiction of an empty suit of armor, a metaphor for the shogunate. Dominant over many and at the same time, lacking an ounce of humanity. Hashimoto wrote an incredibly politically charged, criticism of government power that just appears like something Kurosawa could have realized half as well as Kobayashi, even though Seven Samurai (which Hashimoto also wrote) has something to say about the country at the time. The film won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, only losing to Luchino Visconti’s classic The Leopard, to give it some prestige.

The Room

the314viewer — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:09:57 +0000

The Room is the best so-bad-it’s-good movie ever made, and has a cult following so large that there is no doubt in my mind that it will become our generation’s Rocky Horror Picture Show. The story is simply a love triangle. That’s it. Nothing in this masterpiece is well-done. The auteur of this film is Tommy Wiseau. He directs, writes, produces, and stars in this film. He gives what is arguably the worst performance in a movie ever, but you could also argue for the female lead, the utterly revolting, Juliette Danielle who, like her male counterpart, has no redeeming qualities (and I get the feeling that she isn’t acting all that much). This is one of the few movies that I want everyone I know to see because some of the things that are done in this movie are just astounding. To give an example of what this movie is like, I will tell you a pretty well known scene where one of the characters, Denny is confronted by a drug dealer (they never say what kind) on a roof, and then two other characters come out of the door and save him and bring the dealer to the cops, two other characters literally come out of nowhere and try to talk to Denny, but later this is never mentioned again and has no effect on any of the characters’ relationships. Anyways, watch it immediately. This will be the first in many cult movies that I will review.

I will give you two other perspectives on it here:

REVIEW-A-DAY #64, The Room

The Daily Review: Episode #252 The Room

The Daily Review: Episode #252 The Room

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

the314viewer — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:54:02 +0000

The first Archers film that I watched. It follows Colonel Clive Candy’s (Roger Livesey) life from a trip to Germany during leave to investigate a spy situation (not orders) because of information given up by Edith Hunter (Deborah Kerr). And he duels with german Theodor Kretschmar-Schuldorff who is played by Anton Walbrook who falls in love with Hunter. The rest shows his friendship with Schuldorff and obsession with Hunter. These themes are interestingly commented on in the movie.

Here it is on Amazon.

A Matter of Life and Death (a.k.a. Stairway to Heaven)

the314viewer — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 18:26:03 +0000

Here’s a second film of the archers. David Niven stars in this Christian-fantastic-courtroom drama. RAF pilot Peter Carter jumps out of an a crashing airplane without a parachute but doesn’t die. He then falls in love with the girl he was talking to on the plane. It turns out his heavenly collector missed him because of the fog. He has to win an appeal in heaven to keep his life. This film is my favorite of the three Michael Powell films (The Red Shoes, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, this film) that I have seen. You can watch the film on Veoh.

The movie double feature with Age of Consent.

The Red Shoes

the314viewer — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 17:57:13 +0000

Directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (the Archers) have influenced the careers of Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, George A. Romero, and Brian De Palma. The Red Shoes is their most beloved film. Moira shearer plays a woman who wants to be a famous ballerina, but unfortunately she falls in love with the composer Julian Craster (played by Marius Goring), and the troupe leader Boris Lermontov (played by Anton Walbrook) thinks that love is the worst enemy of a dancer. She has to decide between love and a career. It’s not the Archer’s masterpiece, but it’s still very good. A highlight is the ballet sequence most of which doesn’t take place on a stage, but instead through various areas including a rock platform above a volcano. If nothing else watch that sequence.

Amazon Link.

The Long Goodbye

the314viewer — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:17:57 +0000

Raymond Chandler may be the greatest detective/crime writer of the 20th century, and the adaptaions of his novels are equivalent in the film world. The most famous Philip Marlowe-movie is Howard Hawks’ The Big Sleep starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, but the best goes to Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye starring Elliot Gould as Marlowe. The storyadds in a gang that if the film was about them, they probably could have made just as good a film reminiscent of Goodfellas, but it was a detective story. Marlowe’s friend was murderd and he was the last one to see him. His friend Terry owed the gang a large amount of money, and Marlowe is held responsible. An exagerrated Hamingway-type man who was stuck in a hospital, and “rescued” by Marlowe in the early part of the story comes into play. An incredibly cool movie, watch it soon.

Lone Wolf and Cub: Sword of Vengeance

the314viewer — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:43:04 +0000

Sword of Vengeance is the first of the six part Lone Wolf and Cub Series. If you watch it, you could possibly get a feeling of deja-vu, that will soon pass over. That is because the first ten minutes of it were used in popular grindhouse classic, Shogun Assassin, and the rest of it was made up of the sequel to Sword of Vengeance, Baby Cart at the River Styx. The whole series, along witht the Zatoichi movies were acknowledged influences on the Kill Bill movies. When you are getting ready to watch this, don’t expect the more realistic clean Criterion Collection Kurowsawa-type samurai epic where anyone can die, expect more of a comic book with some nudity and explicit violence. This is like the Evil Dead of Samurai films. It is very bloody, and it’s special effects are strikingly similar to The Evil Dead’s claymation, it probably is claymation. The film is very entertaining, as the protagonist Ogami Ittō is like the japanese Man with no Name because of his cleverness and deadliness. But this cartoonish ronin is more than that. It is also a revenge film (obviously) which is always enjoyable because vengeance is something that everyone feels constantly. Sword of Vengeance also deals with honor, disgrace, family, and a kind of dehumanization. It is one of my favorite comic book/graphic novel adaptations.

The Postman Always Rings Twice vs. Double Indemnity

the314viewer — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 21:52:54 +0000

In 1925, Ruth Brown Snyder start an affair with Henry Judd Gray and planned to kill Snyder’s husband. They forged a signature onto a $48,000 insurance policy for Mr. Snyder. After repeated attempts, they finally succeeded on March 20, 1927 by stuffing chloroform up his nose and closing the nostrils with rags. This murder left a great legacy behind it. Seven years later, James M. Cain wrote The Postman Always Rings Twice (film link) and Double Indemnity (film link) after another nine years, both based on the Snyder-Gray murder. In the ’40s, both were adapted into cinematic classics of film-noir.

Everything is so similar about these books/films. Let’s start with the protagonist. An inter-monologue is uses to narrate both stories. He is also the one who really comes up with the idea of murder, are arrested, put in a gas chamber (deleted scene in Double Indemnity), and can light a match with their fingers. The femmes fatales are both blond, but that’s about it. There’s also a snooping civilian in both pictures, Kyle Sackett in The Postman Always Rings twice, and Baron Keyes in Double Indemnity.

They sound more like they were made as drafts of one another, rather than seperate books. I would recommend both films. Double Indemnity has experienced more widespread acclaim, but I’d have to go with The Postman Always Rings Twice as my favorite of the two. You should watch both instantly on netflix. If the Double Indemnity link fails I found a Veoh link.

For a Few Dollars More – The Man With No Name’s second ride

the314viewer — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 21:24:27 +0000

In Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy, the final film, (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly) gets most of the attention as being one of the greatest films ever made. Then there’s the first installment, A Fistful of Dollars, is also notable because it started the series and is a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo. But it is a trilogy, so where’s the middle movie? It was in American theaters early in 1967. It was called For a Few Dollars More, and co-starred Lee Van Cleef once again. Eastwood and Cleef are both bounty hunters after the gang led by a man named El Indio, so they decide to team up. This alliance resulted in a highly underrated shootout. This film is a western, but it has no normal western feel. Instead its storyline among other elements create an environment as almost as surreal as Blue Velvet. The eerie song of the locket, the psychotic antagonist, and the suspense make this a Hitchcock/Polanski-esque epic. You have too see it, it is every bit as good good as The Good , the Bad, and the Ugly.

Go to this 13 part Youtube playlist.