Matrix #84

Happy When It Rains

I moved to Vancouver when I was fresh out of high school, and lived there for the next seven years. I never got tired of the rain. Or maybe I’m just romanticizing it, because I would probably get tired of the rain now. But back then I was a wannabe Goth girl, though not as morbid or as made-up. I wore only black and I was happy when it rained. And it’s the rain, of course, that is a huge part of Movie-Mythic Vancouver.

The Movie-Mythic City exists as a collection of moods, ideas and images found in cinematic history and the collective imagination. New York might be the most mythic of these cities, figuring as its own character in iconic films from Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, to Wes Anderson. For Vancouver, it seems to be the rain that comes up most often. The never-ending drizzle, the grey skies, and the gloom have become part of its character as portrayed on the screen, perhaps most famously in setting the mood for The X-Files, which, like so many things shot in Vancouver, was not actually set there.

The fact is, although dubbed Hollywood North, Vancouver has mostly lent its famed weather to television and movies that didn’t want Vancouver to be in them. But Vancouver often sticks out, anyways. How can it not? Most ridiculously, in Jackie Chan’s Rumble in the Bronx, Vancouver can’t be mistaken! Who ever thought Vancouver could pass for the Bronx? It clearly doesn’t. There’s a scene with a hovercraft on the beach, the mountains in the background… heck, if that’s the Bronx, it sure is a beautiful place.

One of the first American TV shows to shoot in Vancouver to save a buck was 21 Jump Street, the teenage cop show that launched Johnny Depp’s career. Though supposedly set in a fictitious American state, the opening titles gave away its true Vancouver location as the Skytrain and the Hastings bus were seen in the opening titles (always a source of pride to Vancouverites).

Since then, the list where Vancouver has stood in for Anytown, USA, has grown and grown, including such venerable TV programs as MacGyver, Smallville, and of course, The X-Files. And in the movies, Vancouver has quietly appeared in Hollywood gems as X2: X-Men United, Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, and currently, Twilight: New Moon.

But when it came down to making my Vancouver movie list, I wanted to include shows that were actually set in Vancouver. Hard Core Logo came to mind immediately for movies, and not much else. So then I had to do some digging!

Out of necessity, I widened my scope to include television shows, which are an especially important part in reflecting Vancouver’s character. Da Vinci’s Inquest, one of the CBC’s most popular shows ever, is really Vancouver. But there are also little-seen independent films that, although not widely available, have certainly added to Vancouver’s onscreen mythos. Most of these on the final list are, of course, Canadian, because if we don’t set our stories where we live, who else will?

So finally, here’s the Matrix Top Ten List of Movie-Mythic Vancouver:

Hard Core Logo (1996) – Bruce McDonald captures Vancouver’s punk rock scene the way I remember it (perhaps I’m romanticizing again).

Da Vinci's Inquest (1998-2005) – One of the best crime dramas ever, based loosely on real-life Vancouver coroner and then later, mayor, Larry Campbell.

The Grey Fox (1982) – This historical drama by Phillip Borsos about a genteel stagecoach robber who decides to go to British Columbia to become a train robber. Notable mostly for the wonderful Richard Farnsworth.

Unnatural & Accidental (2006) – by Carl Bessai, based on the play by Marie Clements.
Based on the real life murders by alcohol poisoning of 10 Native-Canadian women on Vancouver’s East Side, a subject also tackled in Da Vinci’s Inquest.

Everything’s Gone Green (2006) – by Paul Fox, screenplay by Douglas Coupland.
Love him or hate him, Mr. Coupland has contributed much to developing the character (caricature) of Vancouver. Everything’s Gone Green was the first movie that he’d written, and is one of the most “Vancouver” movies ever made! And if that wasn’t enough, you could then watch all 13 episodes of jPod, adapted from Coupland’s novel and made into a CBC television series, which ran one season (available to view on the website!).

The Beachcombers (1972-1994) – The Beachcombers on the CBC had a run of 22 years, the longest running Canadian TV drama in Canadian history. It wasn’t technically set in Vancouver, but about 40 minutes north by ferry. But whenever I go out to the Vancouver Airport, I see logs jammed up in the Fraser River delta and I think of this show.

Better Than Chocolate (1999) – Anne Wheeler’s lesbian love-story fairy-tale.

Double Happiness (1994) – One of the first movies I ever saw that starred an Asian-Canadian woman (Sandra Oh), and even more importantly, was written and directed by an Asian-Canadian woman (Mina Shum).

Robson Arms (2005-2008) – A wacky comedy with a who’s who of Canadian TV stars (including my fav, Dave Foley), and set in the West End, one of the most densely populated areas of Vancouver. Naturally, it’s all about neighbours!

The X-Files (1993-2002) – I couldn’t resist finishing off with The X-Files because, although not set in Vancouver, it’s become part of the myth of Vancouver in a way that other more generic shows have not. In the last seasons, when the production moved to sunny LA, some wondered whether they would be able to strike the right mood without all the rain.

2 Days in Paris / Two Lovers

I'd read a review of 2 Days in Paris, Julie Delpy's directorial debut, which described it as being rather Woody Allen-like, and it really is an apt description. I know Delpy mostly from starring in Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, which I happen to think are two of the most romantic movies of all time, so it was great to see her onscreen again. She strikes me as eccentric and kooky but down-to-earth at the same time. Her boyfriend in the film (played by Adam Goldberg) reminds me of so many neurotic people that I know, so it was kind of fun to watch him blunder his way around. The movie ranges from cringe-inducing to neurotic and messed up, but kind of sweet and decent, too. I really liked it, but when we lent the film to a friend, who admittedly has the opposite taste in movies than we do, he said he had to turn it off after fifteen minutes because he found the characters too whiny. A chacun son cinema!

The same friend recommended Two Lovers by James Gray to us, and so logically it would follow that we wouldn't like it. Actually, Joe thought it was just okay (though he was under the impression it was going to be a RomCom and it wasn’t), but I found it surprising and not too affected. I was surprised when the Joaquin Phoenix character, who seems a bit like Marty, a guy who lives with his parents and seems socially awkward, goes out to clubs and breaks with the best of them. Well, I guess that was the main surprise… besides the fact that the film paces itself out beautifully, takes its time with it. Gwyneth Paltrow gives more depth in her bad-girl portrayal than I’ve seen in some time. Isabella Rossellini, who is always wonderful, plays Joaquin’s mother wonderfully. The scenes are quiet and well-observed. Both these films ended up being paired well together in very opposite yet kind of complimentary ways. Nice!

Happy-Go-Lucky / The Wrestler / The Fountain

I'd heard way too often that Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler was a pretty good film, which is the perfect way to ruin a film with high expectations. For example, Joe and I started watching Happy-Go-Lucky, Mike Leigh's latest, which we’d also heard was a good film. After ½ an hour, we decided not to continue. We found ourselves rather annoyed by the main characters, especially Sally Hawkins with her continuous cackle. Same as with the whimsical music that kept popping in. I may return to it, however, as I’ve heard that the beginning of the film is a bit of a misstep for Leigh, and I'm a fan of his earlier works.

The Wrestler, in spite of all my preconceptions, surprised me. It struck a good balance between gritty realism and Hollywood storytelling. It seemed heartfelt, and its excellent script was not too maudlin when it had so many opportunities to be. Mickey Rourke is great as an excellent ex-wrestler trying to make a come-back after a heart attack takes him out of commission. And we get a peek into behind the scenes of the world of professional wrestling, which seems way stranger than anything I could dream up, like stapling one's opponent with real staples. Whoa! Director Darren Aronofsky seems to be back on track after his strange and fantastical flop, The Fountain.

We actually hadn't seen The Fountain prior to seeing The Wrestler – well, not more than twenty minutes before giving up on it – but we were so impressed with Aronofsky’s latest that we thought we'd give it another shot. I can't say I regret doing so, if only because I haven't seen anything so outlandish in quite some time, but it was really, really, really, um, strange. Not in a good way. New-Agey and sentimental and poorly acted. I'm glad that The Wrestler followed, because I might have written Aronofsky off, otherwise.

Moon

The first thing I noticed about Moon is that for a science-fiction film, the set is very human. The machines looked used and duct-taped together, and have sticky notes posted to them with instructions like "kick me". The living quarters are a comfortable mess. It's so much more realistic than those super art-designed classics that we all know and love, and which are often alluded to in the movie. For instance, the computer named Gerty (voiced by Kevin Spacey) is calm and soft-voiced, but it isn't evil or malicious, though of course you expect it to be. Sam Rockwell gives a brilliant, understated yet anguished performance as a man who's about to finish a three year solitary mining contract on the far side of the moon. Clearly, three years of solitude is too much for a man! Duncan Jones has made a really wonderful film... with no hyperbole, Moon was the best new movie I'd seen in quite a while, a quiet, humanist sci-fi tale.

Bloody Sunday

Paul Greengrass's Bloody Sunday was a revelation in docudrama. It's riveting, gritty, chilling, sickening, but not in the least bit exploitative or overdone. In 1972, during a pro-I.R.A. civil-rights march in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, 27 unarmed civilian protesters were gunned down by the British Army, and 13 killed. Though Greengrass is obviously on the side of the Irish-Catholic demonstrators, he presents two contrasting points of view throughout the film. We see the protestors, ordinary Irish folk, lead by Ivan Cooper, their member of Parliament (a wonderful performance, full of gravity, by James Nesbitt); and we see the under-trained soldiers in British Army preparing for the confrontation, their anxiety, their disdain for the Irish “hooligans” and their confusion going in. The events are presented simply but deftly, building with tense emotion to the imminent clash.

The camera is handheld, but most importantly, not too hand-held, avoiding the jerky motion-sickness-inducing motions of The Blair Witch Project but lending the aesthetics of documentary film. And there is no music throughout, just dense soundscape and overlapping dialogue. Bravo! There is nothing I hate more than inappropriate or overdone music.

Until the end, anyways, when it faded to black and the credits started to roll. Oh no, I thought, there’s going to be a U2 song now. And there was! It took me a moment to realize that the song was, what else, Sunday, Bloody Sunday, and then I remembered that I used to love this song when I was a teenager and was really into U2. But now, I have trouble taking U2 seriously after they became ironic rock stars, then at some point, seemed to lose the irony.

But that's such a trivial digression. Bloody Sunday reminded me of every civil rights movement in history, of Kent State, Tianenman Square. It's an amazing feat of filmmaking, and having seen it, I might reconsider seeing United 93, Greengrass’s portrayal of the events of 9/11 and the plane that didn’t reach its target (though I’m still not convinced of the necessity of that film's existence). Bloody Sunday, however, is a completely necessary film, an outrage, a challenge, an impassioned shout for justice. See it!

The Cove

One of the most talked about documentaries on the film circuit this year opened in theatres this week, and having found ourselves with a rare afternoon off, Joe and I of course went to go see The Cove, a documentary about a small, carefully-guarded lagoon in Japan, where over 20,000 dolphins are killed every year. The press about this film has been overwhelmingly positive and I have to add my voice to the accolades, and my most sincere urging to go see it. It’s not only an activist film, but a taut, harrowing thriller. It teems with passion, and rarely did I feel that it was showboating or soapboxing.

Joe, a staunch vegetarian, ranted afterwards about people who are horrified that anyone could eat a dolphin, but who are happy to eat cows or pigs, to which I had no reply, since I might be counted as one of those people. And sure, I could see his point, being a lapsed vegetarian myself (but oh, the bacon...!). On the way home from the theatre, I had a craving for a Vietnamese salad roll with shrimp and sliced cold pig (why not call it what it is?), which I got at a great little take-out place on Jean-Talon Blvd. It was delicious! But I recognize that I should at least be extremely picky about the animals that I do eat on occasion, which I mostly am. What constitutes “extremely picky” would constitute a whole other discussion, rather than a simple digression. But I digress... I hope this doesn’t distract from the issue at hand!

Most people I’ve spoken to don’t want to see this film. I, too, had hesitations. I could imagine the horror of a dolphin slaughter perfectly well, and didn’t want to have to see it.
However, I can say that The Cove is not needlessly violent, and there is only the one main slaughter scene, the crux of the movie. The Cove is more about the efforts of Ric O’Barry (Flipper’s trainer-turned-activist) and the filmmakers to expose the secret slaughter, and the espionage aspects of the narrative certainly are tense, but it's great storytelling as well. By the time the slaughter is finally captured, we are well-prepared for it, and on the side of O’Barry and the film team. The Cove is really well-made and passionate documentary, and needs to be seen.

The Black Book; Stepbrothers; The Cell

Recently, I wrote about Paul Verhoeven and the need to possibly re-evaluate my views on his work. I haven’t rented Showgirls yet but we did see The Black Book, Verhoeven’s most recent film from 2006. The Black Book is, as with most Verhoeven movies, an exercise in extremes. It encompasses the best and the worst of Verhoeven’s impluses towards pulpy melodrama and excess.

The Black Book is a cartoon, basically. It reminded me of war comics, though of a particulary trashy sort. Though the characters suffer some awful and horrific things, I wasn’t as moved as I would have been had they been any semblance of a human being, a real person, and not the cartoony symbols that they were. But that’s focusing on the wrong things, really. Paul Verhoeven is not into subtley, veracity, or any kind of restraint. He is not into “real.” It would be as if I expected Sgt. Rock or Superman comics to thoughtfully and conscientiously portray a war. That isn’t to say comics can’t do this. Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus is the best and most obvious example.

I guess, however, that I’d expected more; perhaps that’s where I went wrong. Never expect anything from Verhoeven but extreme and explicit trash! I might have liked it more, then. But I got higher expectations since this was a return to his home country, his first film in Dutch since The 4th Man, which was an intriguing, stylish thriller, and a lot of fun. I had hoped it would be more like that! It wasn’t. It was more like Total Recall and Showgirls at once, with lots of tits and violent bloodshed and a vat of shit dumped on our heroine for good measure. Gross!

But in spite of these crass moments - some would say, because of them - The Black Book never bores. It races along its twisty, turny way at breakneck speed, tragedy after tragedy occuring with nary a pause for reflection, so that it feels like the characters are not psychologically affected by any of it. That’s how I felt, too: mostly unaffected by all the suffering. It’s just entertainment! But, well, did I already mention that the film is set during the Holocaust? It seems maybe too irreverent to speak of The Holocaust in terms of trashy entertainment. Just a thought.

So in the end, do I still feel that Verhoeven needs re-evaluation? He’s managed to convince me that his films aren’t necessarily worth writing off, but I’m not sure that I like them all that much.

And here’s a brief run-down on some of the other movies we’ve seen recently.

Stepbrothers. A horrible movie. Joe is the Will Ferrell fan; I think he’s great on SNL, but not really much else. Anchorman was pretty good, and my four-year-old son loves Elf. Usually, Ferrell often provides the only really funny bits in each of his movies, and two or three funny bits per movie, at best. Some, like Old School, have only one (I’m streeeeaking, I’m streeeeeeeaking!). Stepbrothers sucked all the way through, but got worse and worse to the end, plus oddly and inappropriately violent for a comedy. I don’t even know why we watched the whole thing. Really, run away from it as fast as you can.

The Cell. This was kind of like playing catch-up with movies I’d meant to see and had put off. But after seeing Tarsem Singh’s more recent and absolutely lovely The Fall, we wanted to right that oversight. Again, the art direction and cinematography are both breath-taking and surreal. But the plot was completely unoriginal, very Silence of the Lambs, right down to the last-minute race against time to save the latest victim, and so, the film failed overall to impress me much, beyond the visuals. But in the realm of the visual, Tarsem (as he’s now known as) does a great job with his highly inventive and imaginative settings.

Dear Zachary

Joe saw the trailer for Dear Zachary and immediately wanted to see it. He says that I saw the trailer with him, but I swear, I have zero memory of it. Has he mis-remembered, or am I really getting that senile? In any case, we finished watching it last night; it was at once horrifying, gripping, and overwhelmingly sad.

Dear Zachary by Kurt Kuenne is “about the 2001 murder of his best friend, Dr. Andrew Bagby; Andrew was killed by his ex-girlfriend, who fled the United States for Canada, then discovered she was pregnant with Andrew's son, whom she named Zachary. Originally begun as a project for Zachary to learn about his father, the film follows Andrew's parents' battle to win custody of their grandson from the clutches of their son's murderer, and is an activist plea for reform to Canada's flawed bail system, which allowed Andrew's murderer to walk free while awaiting extradition and kill again.” (From IMDb)

It’s difficult to criticize a documentary like this, one that is passionate and has a bona fide cause to champion. Suffice it to say that the material did not need the overly-edited treatment that Kuenne gives it; horror movie tropes and comic talking heads seemed at times just inappropriate. Tiny gripes, really, in the grand scheme of things. This film is so honest and heartfelt, so gut-wrenching and infuriating, that it will stay with me for some time. See it, then write to your member of parliament about bail reform. What’s art for, if not to change the world?

Mister Lonely

Last week, on the day of Michael Jackson’s funeral, it seemed fitting to start watching Mister Lonely, a film starring Diego Luna as a Michael Jackson impersonator. He meets a Marilyn Monroe impersonator, played by Samantha Morton, who convinces him to come to a commune where her husband “lives as” Charlie Chaplin, her daughter as Shirley Temple, and others as The Pope, The Queen, Buckwheat, Abe Lincoln, James Dean, Madonna, Red Riding Hood, Sammy Davis Jr. and the Three Stooges. A subplot stars Wernor Herzog as a pilot/priest who oversees flying nuns. How could this not be amazing? I loved Mister Lonely, loved its beautiful cinematic long sequences, its genuine and unsettling weirdness, its wonder and hope that slowly revealed its dark tragedy, its entrancing music by Jason Spaceman from Spiritualized. Released in 2007, Mister Lonely was Harmony Korine’s first film in eight years. It’s the kind of film that provokes strong reactions: you either love or hate it, as I hear is the case with his previous films, Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy (which I haven’t seen, though I do mean to). This film is, evidently, not as dark or disjointed as his others, and might even be called spiritual or uplifting if it weren’t for (maybe because of) its sadness. The perfect film in theme and mood to pay tribute to the real Michael Jackson in all his strange sadness as well. Diego Luna as Michael explains his obsession: “I don't know if you know what it is like to want to be someone else, to not want to look like you look, to hate your own face and to go completely unnoticed. I have always wanted to be someone else. I have never felt comfortable the way I am.” It makes perfect sense on so many levels.

Starship Troopers and a general reconsideration of Paul Verhoeven

I admit, I had pretty much dismissed Paul Verhoeven, widely known as a maker of trash. He wasn’t always considered as such, though. He’d had a long and successful career in his native Netherlands already when he went Hollywood. The movie that put Verhoeven on the map was Robocop, a pretty good movie that spawned not-so-good sequels, a tv series, videogames… it was followed by the mostly well-received Schwarzenegger vehicle Total Recall, and his most successful and controversial movie, Basic Instinct. Showgirls was widely panned, but not as much as Hollow Man, which almost killed his Hollywood career. Critics love to trash his work, myself included, seeing his fondness for overblown violence and smut as misogynistic, exploitative spectacle.

However, I was surprised to learn that many of his movies had gone on to find a cult following. Showgirls, for instance, has become a classic of Gay Camp. Then recently, I saw The Fourth Man, and was honestly surprised! As Verhoeven’s last movie made in Holland before he went to America, it was very stylishly edited, twisting and compelling. I was hooked! I could seen, then, that I had to re-evaluate my views of Verhoeven.

Joe wanted to see Starship Troopers, as friends had been telling him it was actually pretty good. When it first came out, there was a lot said about it being an ode to Nazism, which had been enough to turn me off of it. But of course, it’s more complex than that. We watched it last week, and it turned out to confound all my expectations, not a small feat indeed. I had thought it would be a straight-up, cheesy kind of space-action flick with totaliarian aesthetics, but it was actually rather Disney-esque in its “wholesome” and cartoony characters and sets (though not so Disney-esque in its gore and skin quota). It was overblown, overacted, and completely clichéd… and these were its good points! It was so very obviously all these things that it became something else, a blackly funny poke at action movie heroics and rabid patriotism. And interestingly, sexism has been eradicated, and the army is entirely co-ed, right down to the showers (Verhoeven's not one to miss an opportunity for wet, glistening flesh).

On the other hand, the satire doesn’t get more clever than this, and so it gets a little boring after a while. I got to dislike the characters more and more, and by the end of the film, had mostly contempt for them, and while this may be a desired effect, it wasn’t fun spending time with them. Or perhaps I’m reading the intent completely wrong, and I was actually supposed to like and identify with these characters! But that clearly didn’t work out either. So I wouldn’t call Starship Troopers a really good film, but it’s certainly not to be dismissed.

These last two movies have prompted me to reconsider Verhoeven completely. I’m not saying that I suddenly see Verhoeven’s films as “high art” (if the line dividing high and low even exists anymore). I do think, however, that his gung-ho approach to movie-making is more subversive than I previously gave him credit for. He takes clichés of sex and violence and amps them up to levels that are crassly titillating (ahem), then just absurd and funny. We’re planning to watch his new film, The Black Book, his first Dutch film since The Fourth Man. I also want to see Soldier of Orange from his earlier Dutch period, which comes highly recommended as one of the best Dutch films ever. And hey, I might actually even rent Showgirls again! I see now why it’s become a camp classic. Verhoeven is way more fun than any of the other action cheesemongers in Hollywood put together.

The Fall

I had never heard of The Fall. Joe had been reading good things about it, but since it had barely had a release, we thought, how good could it be? Well, we were stunned and amazed. It is simply one of the most imaginative, cinematic, beautiful and clever films that I’ve seen in quite some time! The story, set in the 1920s, is about a paralyzed and heartbroken Hollywood stuntman who weaves a magical tale of five mythical heroes (a fey and fancy Charles Darwin with a monkey companion among them) to a little girl with a broken arm (Catinca Untaru in one of the best, most natural performaces I have ever seen by a child). There are telling and clever little details that illustrate the interactive nature of storytelling. For instance, when the stuntman tells of an “Indian” who has a wigwam and a squaw, the girl, who is from Romania and unfamiliar with Hollywood Cowboys and Indians, imagines a beturbaned Indian from India. The imagery blends fantastic and surreal elements throughout, and is so stunning that I was convinced it had to be CGI, but evidently it is not. This is the kind of whimsical, extravagant metanarrative that’s right up my alley, though I can see how one either buys it completely or hates it completely. But for me, all the threads work beautifully together to weave a tale of wonder and imagination.

So how is it that The Fall is virtually unknown? It first premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2006, but didn’t receive a (very limited) theatrical release in the States until 2008, and went straight to DVD in most other countries. Tarsem, whose first feature was The Cell with JLo, made the movie himself over four years and in 28 countries… that is, he financed it completely himself, outside of any studio help, so as to have complete creative control. Tarsem was hoping to get a rave review from Roger Ebert (who was a fan of The Cell) when the film premiered, but unfortunately, Ebert was ill that week, so was unable to attend. Even more unfortunately, the generally negative responses to the film at the TIFF gave it a bad rep, which it was unable to overcome, even though Ebert later gave it four stars. The film is a meta-fairy tale for adults, which made it hard to peg down and market, according to several acquisition executives. Tarsem’s reputation as a commercial and music video director worked against the film, as many saw it as thus having more style than substance. And the fact that it was self-financed gave the film a reputation as a "vanity project," unworthy of being studio-financed or distributed. What a picture this paints of how the film market works in abominable ways! How it quashes originality while bolstering mediocrity! How many other gems of movies remain unseen because of similar situations?

Fortunately, the film is slowly receiving some recognition. It’s drawn comparisons to Guillermo Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth, and the DVD comes as “presented by David Fincher and Spike Jonze,” which lends it their stamp of approval. It’s a shame that as a result of one poor reception at its premiere, it hasn’t had the chance to gather the audience it deserves. I say, go see it ASAP! Maybe it can gain a second life on DVD.

The US vs. John Lennon; Helvetica

Two documentaries that we’d been wanting to see for some time! The first one was triggered by a visit to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, which was celebrating the 40th anniversary of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s famous 1969 Bed-in for Peace, held in Suite 1742 of Montreal’s Queen Elizabeth Hotel. We decided to watch The US vs. John Lennon a few days after seeing the MMFA show. It was a good, straightforward documentary, following Lennon’s peace activism (including the bed-ins) and his battle with the USA who wanted to deport him. There were a few overused effects that highlighted attempts to add interesting visuals to the talking heads, which were overall a bit annoying. But such a great subject!

On the other hand, Helvetica is a documentary about a font. Yup! But it’s also, of course, about the impact of visual design on our everyday lives, which I found fascinating. It’s maybe a bit overlong but the montages showing the ubiquitus font in logos and signs are really well-done. Yes, it’s a beautiful font, but there were times when I thought, it would be terrible if EVERYTHING was in Helvetica. One designer in particular was denigrating “terrible 1950s design” which I love… however, other designers provided counterpoint by saying that yes, it would be very boring if there was nothing but clean design and Helvetica. Both documentaries highly recommended!

Andrei Rublev and Paul Blart, Mall Cop. Strange Bedfellows!

Andrei Tarkovsky’s The Sacrifice is an incredible film of light and shadow, grace and despair, prayer and insanity. It unwinds slowly, letting you enter each moment. It was the first Tarkovsky film I’d seen. So I was looking forward to watching Andrei Rublev, which I’d brought home from the library. Ultimately, it did not disappoint, though it took us a while to get the hang of being in the movie, what with its multiple monks and painters. We finally sorted out who was who well into the film. There’s a famous scene of the "Tatares" raping and pillaging the village. We see a horse falling down stairs and being speared, and a cow on fire. We were pretty disturbed by this! I don’t think it’s right to set an animal on fire for art… and I don’t think they had stunt cows.

In complete contrast to Tarkovsky was Paul Blart, Mall Cop. Could anything be more different? Well, actually, it would have been worse had Paul Blaert been a completely horrible film. It wasn’t! I guess I had expected it to be, so with lower than low expectations, it turned out to be not bad.. and not offensive, not stupid, not mean, and not full of misogynistic sex humour. Good clean fun that you could watch with your kids/parents!

The Rapture

The Rapture (1991) was written and directed by Michael Tolkin, who wrote The Player, one of the best Robert Altman films ever! Good pedigree, I thought. Mimi Rogers gives a great performance as a telephone operator by day and sex-orgy addict by night, who suddenly finds God. Well, I must say, it was a nutso film, and just when you think you’ve gotten a handle on it, it would change directions, making 180 degree turns into a completely different kind of nutso. Yup, said Joe, there’s a lot of different crazys in there! That, however, was what made the film interesting to me. It pushed the situation into extremes, then flip. It was very theatrical, very dark, and very (if strangely) well done.

Cashback

This 2007 first feature from young Brit director Sean Ellis certainly has visual flair and a promising premise. What if you could stop time? Well, if you were a 14 year old boy, you'd look at a lot of titties. Alas, the protagonist of Cashback is not a 14 year old boy anymore, but a heart-broken art student with insomnia who works the nightshift at a supermarket whose main clientele are beautiful white women. Annoyingly, instead of just admitting that he wants to look at a lot of titties, he waxes poetic about the beauty of the female form, art, etc. etc. etc. in ways that show he is more sensitive and artistic than everyone else. In one of the many "aren't I profound" monologues, he wonders whether the girls would forgive him if they knew he has been stopping time and taking off their clothes to draw them... he likes to think they would because of his "artistic motivations" but I would say he was just a jackass. What to do when the narrator and protagonist is a jackass and an annoying little self-important prig? What to do when the director throws in a slapstick, unrelated soccer game in the middle of a saggy and boring plot? Stop watching. That's just what we did.

From Hell

Interestingly, when Joe asked me if I wanted to watch "From Hell", I said yes. Those of you who read my top ten list of movies I wouldn't watch know that there is a fine distinction between those movies I enjoy and the ones I refuse to see. But several reasons made me interested in this. First of all, I like Johnny Depp. Actually, that's the main reason. I'm also interested in Alan Moore, who wrote the graphic novel that the movie is based on. The movie turned out to be quite entertaining, and not extremely graphic, though there is a lot of blood. The killings are swift and handled fairly well. However, the ending was ruined for both myself and Joe, as the film swerved away from the book, from history, and from any narrative sense, and (SPOILER ALERT) managed to produce a somewhat happy ending. No, Johnny doesn’t get the girl, but the very fact that the girl is spared rather than butchered spoils the movie’s credibility as a serious adaptation. I told you there’d be some spoiling!

Chats perchés by Chris Marker

Ever since seeing Sans Soleil recently, I have been obsessed about Chris Marker. I went to the library and got out a stack of books about him, and a DVD of Chats perchés (2004), or as known in English, The Case of the Grinning Cat. Made in his signature style with loosely connected and rambling thoughts jumping now and again to amusing or amazing juxtapositions and revelations, Chats perchés was originally made for French television, and starts by exploring yellow painted Cheshire-like cats that began to appear all over Paris. From there, we meander through an exploration of the previous four years, from 9/11 and the Iraq war to scandals in French politics, all punctuated by the return of the cats. My favourite line was about the narrator doing an Internet search for chat (cat in French) and having to weed out all the links to chatrooms. Not being up on my French current events, I have to say I wasn't as drawn in by Chats perchés, but appreciated seeing more of Marker's work.

Matrix #83: Terror!

Turn it off!

“I just don’t understand you,” Joe said to me after we’d turned Blindness off after our second attempt at watching it. “It’s so random,” he says, “why you can watch one thing and not another. You can watch corpses and blood and dead bodies but not this?”

It certainly might seem random, as I’m not always able to articulate the reasons why I don’t want to watch a particular film. But there are certain traits that these movies share. That was when I first conceived of the Matrix Movie List of Terror: movies that I’m too terrified to watch, that I dare not watch, that I will not subject myself to. I mean, what is the whole point of wanting to be terrorized by a movie? I just don’t get it.

Horror films are most obviously associated with terror, and what distinguishes the two terms seems almost ephemeral. There is extreme anxiety in both, sure, but horror as a genre encompasses films that are not necessarily terrifying (like those great old Karloff/Legosi silent films). And I’m not one who simply dislikes a genre – I like a good horror film, in fact, the feeling of prickles cold on my neck, hands sweaty. I’m quite fond of many Japanese horror films, for instance. I admire how a really good thrill is constructed through mood and editing, as in Ringu or A Tale of Two Sisters. And we recently watched a Mario Bava masterpiece, Black Sunday, which featured truly horrible scenes such as a woman getting a spiked iron mask nailed onto her face. Aghhhhhhh!

Most of these films are so over the top that I know they are not real. Camp and comedy are excellent distancing devices, classic techniques that allow the audience to step back from the abyss with relief, knowing that although what they are watching is horrible and terrifying, it’s still just a movie. A good horror makes me laugh as well as squirm, even if I’m just laughing to let off steam.

We’re watching Da Vinci’s Inquest right now, that long-running classic of Canadian television. I’d never seen the show before and was sucked right in. There is a lot of aftermath of violence: murder, suicide, even infant rape in one particularly gruesome episode (I felt it might have gone too far with that one). But it’s all aftermath, and the corpses are simply grisly objects, clues in a puzzle to be solved. We take the same detached tone as the coroner, the pathologists and the murder unit.

So what am I unwilling to watch? What is unbearable?

My List of Terror includes horror movies, thrillers, a movie about terrorism, a religious drama, and some documentaries:

Blindness is the movie version of a book by José Saramago, about a plague of blindness and the rapid decay of societal order that follows. It’s a book that I read and loved, though its subject matter is dark and depressing indeed. But reading is not the same as seeing, and the pleasure of prose, of well-written words and the long followed-through thought on the page provides an aesthetic steam valve. The thought of actually seeing some of those scenes, especially one involving mass rape, was a bit too much to bear. Perhaps I was prejudiced by that thought alone. I wanted to stay open-minded about it, though, and tried to watch the film anyways. It was too clean-looking, with too many stars in it, for one. Too pretty, maybe. But getting to that scene, the men hitting those women in the face in silhouette, that just made me want to turn it off. So we did.

United 93’s tagline: “September 11, 2001. Four planes were hijacked. Three of them reached their target. This is the story of the fourth.” I‘ve heard it is actually a very good film, striking the right tone, no big stars to distract, very measured and respectful. Joe saw it and agrees. I don’t want to see it anyways. I’ve heard about the people on that plane, calling home to say goodbye, and for a moment, I’m with them, calling Joe to say goodbye, and it breaks me down everytime. I can’t bear to be with them for more than that moment, never mind almost two hours.

Polytechnique by Denis Villeneuve is on the list for similar reasons. By all accounts, it is very well-done, and has been compared to another poetic and meditative approach to the subject of a school shooting, Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, which I’ve seen and liked. Why this and not that, indeed? I like Villeneuve’s work, and I’m not against seeing Polytechnique, necessarily, but it seems too close to the bone still, an open wound I’d rather let heal than disturb.

Then there are the horror films. The Amityville Horror I’ve always had a fear of, ever since it came out when I was a kid. I’d been reading ghost stories and movies about hauntings and demons always scared me way more than zombies or ax murderers. Amityville was “a true story.” I was scared shitless of it, and even though I could probably watch it now, I’d just rather not. Same deal with The Exorcist and The Omen – though I think I’ve actually seen The Exorcist but blocked most of it out.

Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer, is supposed to be a very, in fact, too realistic and graphic depiction of a serial killer. Like I need to live that out. No thanks!

Films like Saw and 8MM both seem entirely tasteless to me, morally and aesthetically, particularly 8MM’s use of a snuff film as a plot device.. Maybe if I thought they’d be any good, it might be another story, but I won’t be bothered to find out.

The same can be said for the last two entries, both purportedly documentaries. Executions is a real documentary, Faces of Death part stock footage, part faked. I’m not sure which is worse, but both seem too exploitative for words. I’ve heard arguments about Executions being a great argument against the death penalty, but I don’t know that you need to partake in it to be against it.

And finally, Mel Gibson’s Jesus movie, what was it? Oh yeah, The Passion of the Christ. Two hours of straight sadism and torture. Don’t want to see it, nope. My mother, a devout church lady, saw it with her church, can you imagine? My mother said everybody should see that film to know what Jesus went through for us. I can’t believe her church made her do that! She said she couldn’t sleep for weeks afterwards. But I’m not going to have that problem, because regardless of what my mother says, I’m not going to see it.

I can tell you what each of these movies have in common, besides my unwillingness to put myself through the wringer for the sake of entertainment: It is the portrayal of the prolonged suffering of others, first and foremost. Whether it’s the ultimate in exploitation, or done with the utmost respect, I still have trouble with it. Some might argue that it’s the elements of catharsis, or consciousness-raising, or “looking into the face of the abyss” – that kind of thing, that might justify viewing these films. Okay, maybe. But as Nietschze’s oft-used aphorism (popular especially in horror movies) points out, the abyss looks back… and when you battle monsters, you must take care not to become one yourself.

The Matrix Top Ten Movie List of Terror: movies I’m too terrified to watch!

Blindness (2008) – Fernando Meirelles
United 93 (2006) – Paul Greengrass
Polytechnique (2009) – Denis Villeneuve
Amityville Horror (1979) – Stuart Rosenberg
The Exorcist (1973) – William Friedkin
Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) – John McNaughton
8 mm (1999) – Joel Schumacher
Faces of Death (1978) – John Alan Schwartz
Executions (1995) – David Herman, Arun Kumar, David Monaghan
The Passion of the Christ (2004) – Mel Gibson

We're back with Da Vinci!

Life has been koo-koo lately but now the days are clearing up and I can get back to my work, so here I am, filling up the days with distraction. Yes, I need to be editing my film! But I need to do so many things at once or else I just procrastinate and then get nothing done. Strange, how my brain works... but at least I know it.

So, here we are, writing about watching, making lists. We're starting season 6 of Da Vinci's Inquest tonight! Da Vinci's Inquest is probably the best Canadian television series of all time, and I hadn't watched any of it while it was still on. But after watching just one episode, I was hooked! Based loosely on real-life Vancouver Chief Coroner Larry Campbell, it ran seven seasons (1998-2005), then one season in 2005 as Da Vinci's City Hall (Campbell was elected Mayor in 2002) and a final TV movie, The Quality of Life. We mean to watch them all! Sure, it has its stylistic flaws, overused and overblown background music, crazy titles. But Nicholas Campbell (no relation to Larry, I assume!) is a cranky old treasure and more people should know about this series. It's starting syndication in the States now, and it's low-key, character-driven storylines are finding an audience with people who are tired of slick, formulaic shows like CSI. Da Vinci is often completely wrong, and cases are often never solved.

Occasionally we take breaks from it to watch something else, most recently, Wanted, starring Angelina Jolie and directed by Timur Bekmambetov. So absolutely preposterous, it's fun! Bekmambetov has a way of ramping up his unbelievable digital effects into the craziest action sequences, and though he has distractingly terrible music and ludicrous plot devices (The Loom of Doom!), it's clear that sheer craziness is the whole point.

And last week, Chris Marker's Sans Soleil - incredible that it's the first time I've seen it. An experimental essay-documentary about a man who travels, mainly through Japan and West Africa, writing letters about the things he photographs, the nature of memory, life on earth. It's beautiful, hypnotic, thought-provoking, incredible. Now one of my favourite films ever.

A Matrix of Anxieties

One of the best pieces of advice ever given was in The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Don't panic! And it’s true, it's never useful to panic. Sure, everything has the potential to induce anxiety: normal social etiquettes, self-doubt, the daily news full of catastrophe and fear-mongering about the economy, war, toxins in our food -- just plain living. And nothing I do seems to affect change. But panic doesn't help. It fogs the brain. Stay calm, breathe deeply. There is hope, although it’s this that makes me even more anxious. Dare I hope, lest I be gravely disappointed once again? The emotional swing of hope and fear duelling daily has made cynics of us all. Nonetheless, one deals however one can: pharmaceutically for the mental-disorder variety of anxiety; meditatively for those inclined to sitting still; cinematically for the rest of us.

Movies have charms to soothe the anxious beast. Escapism: to lose oneself in the pleasures of narrative and forget about the world. Is cinema part of the monster spectacle that connives to keep us apathetic and narcotised (opiated!), or can it also poke, prod, and enrage us into action? Well, there's something for everyone. When it comes to the movies, anxiety as a theme is, like life, sprawling and unwieldy, encompassing everything.

There is, most often in American films it seems, anxiety as a comedic and neurotic state, such as in most Woody Allen films. It’s Allen that first comes to mind for me, as he pretty well defined the sub-genre of movies about Anxious New York Jews, which often overlaps with the sub-genre Anxious New York Writers. Any list of films about anxiety would naturally include writers as subjects, since they seem to be among the most anxious of people, or at least the ones most public about their own phobias, their psyches and their analyses. So, we have the Coen Brothers’ dark comedy Barton Fink, and the Spike Jonze-directed, Charlie Kaufman-penned, brilliantly self-referential Adaptation (not to mention Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York). I could probably think of ten great movies in this genre alone.

But, there are so many other varieties of anxiety! David Cronenberg’s unique brand of horror has an underlying element of anxiety based on fear of the body/technology and the possibility of malfunction. David Lynch explores a similar anxiety, though more existential, surreal, and ominous in nature, especially with Blue Velvet and Lost Highway. And some of the well-defined genres of Asian horror (for instance, Hideo Nakata’s Ringu – don’t even talk to me about inferior Hollywood remakes) excel in exuding a thick atmosphere of anxious and chronic dread. Then there are those films that inspire anxiety because of their realistic docu-drama aesthetic and extremely harrowing plots involving ordinary people. These can be unpleasant to the point of agony to watch, since, unlike horror films, there is not the same distancing effect that allows you to mark them as fiction. I could barely stand watching Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel, for instance, which made me question why I was putting myself through torment. Was there a sense of catharsis in suffering so graphically with the characters? Was it simply gratuitous exploitative spectacle disguised as art? I can’t decide. Babel was released in 2006, with a barrage of similarly tense though more fantastical films like Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men. The cinematic mood back then looked unbearably bleak. But even in the darkest of times, there is always humour. So who better to conclude the list of anxiety movies with than the Master of Wry Suspense? Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, with its emblematic and technically brilliant zoom shot through a staircase, induces a delicious thrilling anxiety that is movie-watching pleasure at its finest. But oops, speaking of Hitchcock! Mel Brook's High Anxiety, an appropriation of over ten Hitchcock flicks including Vertigo, Psycho, and The Birds, brings anxiety full circle to outright spoof, satire, slapstick. Laughter, as they say, is the best medicine, so maybe the Americans got it right there. And now, as America is about to swear in a new president, it seems that hope is back, again fighting daily with fear and anxiety. Good luck and Godspeed to each of us.

And so, the final list:
The Matrix Top Ten Anxiety Movies!

Deconstructing Harry (1997) – Woody Allen
Barton Fink (1991) – The Coen Brothers
Adaptation (2002) – Spike Jonze (written by Charlie Kaufman)
Dead Ringers (1988) – David Cronenberg
Lost Highway (1997) – David Lynch
Ringu (1998) – Hideo Nakata
Babel (2006) – Alejandro González Iñárritu
Children of Men (2006) – Alfonso Cuarón
Vertigo (1958) – Alfred Hitchcock
High Anxiety (1978) – Mel Brooks

Matrix #81: Indie Music

What, just ten Best Music Movies?! Why even try? For the sheer fun and ridiculous obnoxiousness of such a task, of course! I’m not talking about musicals here, though Singing in the Rain would certainly be there if I were (perhaps the greatest musical of all time, topped only by The Sound of Music for its kitsch-cult factor). I’m talking about capturing the zeitgeist of when you were young. Is it nostalgia, that somewhat dirty yet deceptively sweet and bitter feeling that brings me back to my idealistic and stupid younger self? Does that give my age away? Yikes! But no, I wasn’t even alive for Beatlemania, too young to remember the beginnings of punk. No matter your age, thanks to these music movies, our collective consciousness remembers.

The Matrix Top Ten Music Movies:

A Hard Day’s Night (1964) – Richard Lester’s groundbreaking Beatles film! Sweeeeeet…

Syd and Nancy (1986) – Alex Cox, who also gave us Repo Man, directs the brilliant Gary Oldman in the morbid punk bio of The Sex Pistols’ Syd Vicious, accused of murdering his girfriend Nancy Spungeon.

Stop Making Sense (1984) –Perhaps the greatest concert film of all time, Jonathan Demme film of The Talking Heads leaves me with two words: Big Suit!

Gimme Shelter (1970) – This is not so much a concert film of the Rolling Stones’ 1969 tour, as a document of the death of the Sixties at Altamont.

Big Time (1988) – I was eighteen when I saw this and fell in love with Tom Waits forever.

Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980) – One of the best biographical music films out there, starring Sissy Spacek in an uncanny performance as Loretta Lynn. And what a life she had!

The Decline of Western Civilization (1981) – Penelope Spheeris, who later gave us Wayne’s World, first made her mark with this excellent documentary on the 1980s LA punk scene.

‘Round Midnight (1986) – Legendary jazz musician Dexter Gordon as the fictional tenor sax player Dale Turner in a film that captures the 1950s New York jazz world.

24 Hour Party People (2002) – I’m a fan of both director Michael Winterbottom and Joy Division (though the movie focuses more on the band’s label), so that’s why this movie makes the list.

This is Spinal Tap (1984) – Rob Reiner’s eminently quotable rock mockumentary that turns it up to 11! Co-writer Christopher Guest would go on to make A Mighty Wind, also worthy of mention, but Spinal Tap defined the genre.