http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/ REVERSEBLOG: the reverse shot blog en Copyright 2009 2009-11-20T15:49:19+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/not-so-magnificent_obsession_almodovars_broken_embraces/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/not-so-magnificent_obsession_almodovars_broken_embraces/ If he weren’t so damn likable and talented, it would be tempting to begrudge Pedro Almodóvar his success. Almodóvar—always a gifted visual stylist—turned an artistic corner a decade ago with All About My Mother and its follow-up, Talk to Her. To the eye-popping color, self-conscious deconstruction of genre, and playful performativity that had characterized his earlier work, those films added an emotional maturity and clarity that his previous movies only hinted at. They were serious, and they were seriously fun to watch. Since then, Almodóvar has honed a brand of cinema that weds respectability and commercial viability so seamlessly that… Reviews 2009-11-20T15:49:19+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/way_gone_the_missing_person/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/way_gone_the_missing_person/ Updating the private investigator film with September 11 shadings is not a terribly novel idea, but writer/director Noah Buschel isn’t an idea man. He likes feelings, atmosphere, actors, and emotion, and he originally said he was inspired to make The Missing Person because he was reading Raymond Chandler around the time of the attacks—but then he told indieWIRE that he was being slightly disingenuous when he originally said this, as his motivations were more vague. Buschel’s deprioritzing of tagline-ready storytelling mechanics is evident as his movie gawkily transitions between various plots. Surprisingly, it’s two elements that might seem like drawbacks… Reviews 2009-11-20T15:40:55+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/solar_power_alexander_sokurovs_the_sun/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/solar_power_alexander_sokurovs_the_sun/ Hou Hsiao-hsien’s City of Sadness opens with Emperor Hirohito’s radio announcement renouncing his divinity going unremarked by a Taiwanese family as they gather around a newborn son, establishing both the distance of power from the everyday and its invisible pervasiveness. Hou’s tactic is not simply a clever way of handling a tale of people caught up in the world historic, a clichéd notion which simultaneously aggrandizes the individual’s tragedy while subordinating him to the seeming untouchability of historic forces. The oblique scenes in which Hou depicts Taiwan’s White Terror are truths in themselves, not cryptograms to be decoded for the… Reviews 2009-11-19T16:16:49+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/red_cliff/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/red_cliff/ Financed by the state-owned China Film Group Corporation to the tune of $80 million, John Woo’s Red Cliff is the latest “most expensive Chinese film ever made,” following quickly upon such prior contenders as Curse of the Golden Flower and Hero. Woo’s film is of course a massive-scale martial arts epic like its spendy predecessors, both of which were directed by Zhang Yimou. And Woo’s take on the Asian blockbuster is very much like Zhang’s: the cast is packed with innumerable Chinese superstars (Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhao Wei, Chang Chen, etc.) who play heroes that do everything from catching… Reviews 2009-11-18T05:10:16+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/distant_voices_shrill_lives_lukas_moodyssons_mammoth1/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/distant_voices_shrill_lives_lukas_moodyssons_mammoth1/ Much can be said about the concept and implications of globalization. That it’s good for corporations, indifferent to local economies and cultures, rough on the working class. Here’s another: globalization inspires very bad art. Besides Jia Zhangke and Olivier Assayas, who understand commercial exchange as being inseparable from life, and see business as transforming but not necessarily debasing human relations, most filmmakers approach globalization as an existential death-match between capitalism and the human soul. Now that we’re so connected, goes the thinking, we struggle to connect. We want to go home, but we’re spiritually lost. Fractured stories reflect our fractured… Reviews 2009-11-17T05:44:22+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/after_words_oren_movermans_the_messenger/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/after_words_oren_movermans_the_messenger/ With so many films about the Iraq war come and gone, the arrival of The Messenger, a becalmed, observant drama about Casualty Notification Officers (those whose work it is to stoically inform next of kin of their loss) seems oddly appropriate, especially as it’s released at that moment when the public’s attention is being wrenched towards Afghanistan and the ongoing situation in Iraq drifts ever further from consciousness. Oren Moverman’s directorial debut is structured around absences—those who’ve died, actions taken elsewhere. His protagonists are largely obsessed with aftermaths, even as they works towards becoming actors in their own lives.  From… Reviews 2009-11-16T15:49:05+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/wild_animals_wes_andersons_fantastic_mr._fox/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/wild_animals_wes_andersons_fantastic_mr._fox/ With the recent announcement that no less than 20 films were submitted for this year’s Best Animated Feature Oscar, 2009 can rightly be labeled something of a watershed year for the format. Of course, some of those entries are bland generic staples—the new Ice Age movie, the Chipmunks sequel, Battle for Terra, Monsters vs. Aliens—shiny, machine-tooled baubles designed to attract and pacify the youngest-audience quadrant for big studio profits.  But considering entries like Coraline, 9, Ponyo, Up, the forthcoming A Town Called Panic, and Wes Anderson’s just-released Fantastic Mr. Fox, a strong case could be made for animation reemerging as… Reviews 2009-11-13T20:01:39+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/ship_of_fools_richard_curtiss_pirate_radio/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/ship_of_fools_richard_curtiss_pirate_radio/ Richard Curtis, creator of Blackadder and Mr. Bean, is one of the most powerful people in British show business. His laudable and dedicated career-long work for the charity Comic Relief, which has gained a political dimension since his involvement with the pressure group Live 8, has given him one of the country’s most illustrious contact books; his forthcoming knighthood has almost certainly already been minted.  Of course he has also written and/or directed a number of highly successful films destined for the U.S. market, among them Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones’s Diary and Love Actually.  As… Reviews 2009-11-13T16:11:41+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/a_ghost_of_a_chance_zemeckiss_a_christmas_carol/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/a_ghost_of_a_chance_zemeckiss_a_christmas_carol/ If there’s ever been a scene that requires no embellishment in the translation from page to screen, it’s Ebenezer Scrooge’s meeting with the melancholy crumble of bones that were once Jacob Marley. Yet in Robert Zemeckis’s motion-capture update of A Christmas Carol, this most famous of narrative-inciting exchanges nearly bursts with overemphasis. Not content to merely moan and rattle his chains, this Marley is a veritable explosion of frights; when he tells Scrooge of the clanking irons invisibly wrapped around his own body and soul, wailing, “It is a ponderous chain,” the “p” is pronounced with such force that spittle… Reviews 2009-11-11T20:25:58+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/flaherty_nyc_tonight_experiments_with_animation/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/flaherty_nyc_tonight_experiments_with_animation/ The always reliable FLAHERTY NYC series returns with their November installment tonight: Experiments in Animation.  Monday, November 9, 7:30 pm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The always reliable FLAHERTY NYC series returns with their November installment tonight: Experiments in Animation.  Monday, November 9, 7:30 pm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Animated films come in all shapes and sizes. In the Experiments with Animation program, The Flaherty will bring together a broad spectrum of animated works, ranging from quirky and humorous to dark and haunting, and often falling somewhere in-between. The program is sponsored in part by the Leo Dratfield Endowment, honoring the late Charles Samu, an ardent supporter… Repertory 2009-11-09T17:09:10+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/dont_open_richard_kellys_the_box/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/dont_open_richard_kellys_the_box/ Take me seriously! Many reviews of The Box will start out like: “After the disastrous reception that greeted Southland Tales, director Richard Kelly…” This opening apologia acknowledges the massive blunder that was Southland (though there are still a handful of defenders), and opens up wiggle room to reinstate Kelly as a filmmaker worth watching, regardless of the relative quality of The Box itself. His intelligence and ambition—perhaps even “vision”—will be referenced, his genre-mashing sensibility lauded, and even if the film might be not be any good (more on that shortly), Richard Kelly himself will likely emerge unscathed to fight another… Reviews 2009-11-06T21:57:49+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/all_fall_down_chris_smiths_collapse/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/all_fall_down_chris_smiths_collapse/ At the turns of decades and centuries, it’s fairly common for sky-is-falling prognostication to spike wildly. This angst often finds expression in popular entertainments, such as the appearance, as if on cue, of the clunky misfire Knowing and the upcoming sure-to-be tedious 2012.  What these kinds of spectacles provide is something like diversionary exorcism—the world outside may seem bad, but there’s some comfort in recognizing that visual effects artists can always imagine even worse.  These films are about as easy to dismiss as History Channel specials on Nostradamus, and probably less fun, so Chris Smith’s often unnerving documentary Collapse arrives… Reviews 2009-11-06T15:01:18+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/body_shop_frederick_wisemans_la_danse_the_paris_opera_ballet/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/body_shop_frederick_wisemans_la_danse_the_paris_opera_ballet/ La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet, Frederick Wiseman’s 38th film in about as many years, and his second about dance (after 1995’s Ballet), begins with a series of shots of Paris, immediately establishing the renowned company as subject to the city’s daily grind. Though La Danse features a number of administrative meetings and extended glimpses of finished performances, Wiseman’s primary interest is in the grueling rehearsals. Dancers run through their movements in mirror-lined rooms, usually to the accompaniment of a pianist in the corner, and choreographers, exacting and for the most part stinting on praise, pick those movements apart, suggesting… Reviews 2009-11-05T16:11:40+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/left_behind_lee_danielss_precious/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/left_behind_lee_danielss_precious/ Four years ago, in one of its most notorious episodes, The Tyra Banks Show found its host on a mission to enlighten her audience on the issue of anti-obese bigotry. America’s top model did so by placing the burden upon herself, taking her fat-suit to the streets, onto buses, and into blind dates—and arriving at the conclusion that she had hit upon “the last form of open discrimination that’s O.K.”  The idea of the show was for Tyra to heroically assert the dignity of a marginalized group, but her histrionic response to a few hours walking around in disguise only… Reviews 2009-11-03T20:18:34+00:00 http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/a_few_great_pumpkins_ivseventh_night_ifantasia_is_night_on_bald_mountain/ http://blogs.indiewire.com/reverseshot/archives/a_few_great_pumpkins_ivseventh_night_ifantasia_is_night_on_bald_mountain/ Now that you’ve been sufficiently scared all week, it’s time to party. Rarely has there been a better celebration of the spirit of Halloween than the magnificently unsettling “Night on Bald Mountain” segment from Walt Disney’s 1940 labor of love, Fantasia. Putting aside obvious narratives of how this terrified many a tot (coming after nearly two hours of plotless, dialogue-free, near abstract animated sequences, this piece de résistance sent kids over the edge, often from boredom into manic freak-out mode), this perfectly petrifying short film, based on Modest Mussorgsky’s 1860 composition, is simply the most effective hand-drawn spookshow of all… Halloween 2009-11-01T03:29:44+00:00