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| 5/31/2004 |
| UPDATE: Love From Knowles! |
Or actually Quint, it would seem! They posted my review of Open Water this morning! I've been reading AICN for many, many years and it's a great source of gossip and spoilers for upcoming films, though the quality of writing varies. Anything written by "Moriarty" is usually well worth looking at (he's a screenwriter in LA).
I should mention that I re-worked my review as posted here the other day, and what they have on AICN is my original, non-revised version.
For MAXIMUM ENTERTAINMENT, be sure and read the "Talkback" section, where the AICN regulars accuse me of being a "pretentious plant" (which means they think I'm some marketing hack trying to take advantage of the AICN site to promote the movie), and yell at me for not bothering to describe the shark scenes. I reply of course! All in good fun! |
| 9:05:00 AM |
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| 5/29/2004 |
| No Love From Knowles |
| Well, as of now, AICN hasn't seen my review of Open Water as being fit to print. Thank goodness for .Blogs, eh? |
| 10:13:16 PM |
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| SIFF: Open Water |
Here's the review of Open Water I sent to AICN:
OPEN WATER
The plot is a simple one - we're introduced to a couple, Susan (Blanchard Ryan) and Daniel (Daniel Travis), just as they are leaving their driveway for a vacation in some tropical paradise. We can see by the way they interact that they have been together for a while - and that things are bumpy, at best, in their relationship. They're doing what many of us do when we're in a rut with a partner - taking off to somewhere sunny that's as far away as can be from their regular lives, to hopefully reconnect with some "quality time."
Even in paradise, however, things remain prickly. We see scenes of them gamely playing the "tourist game," but neither of their hearts are in it. And then one morning they get up early for a guided group dive, several miles out to sea. Once in the water, they swim a little too far away from the main group, and a simple (and crucially, believable) counting error results in them being accidentally left behind... in shark-infested waters. The rest of the film is dedicated to answering the question, "Just what the !@#?% are they gonna do now?"
I found the early scenes a little uncomfortable and stilted. And I have to admit that early in the movie I found myself adjusting to how the movie looks, which may have affected my perceptions of these early establishing scenes - it was shot on digital video, and we were seeing the very first screening of a 35mm print. Overall, the movie looks good, but it's very obvious that it's a video film. I noticed the uneven (and unfinished) sound mix in a few spots; there were some great rumbling hi-fi effects like car doors slamming, airplane engines roaring, etc., which would suddenly cut to a dialogue scene that sounded like something you'd shoot with your camcorder. It might be wise to loop some of that dialogue. The director mentioned that they were inspired by and in some ways emulating the Dogma 95 style of filmmaking (whose rules I'm not intimately familiar with - I'm not THAT much of a film geek) which I guess supports making films as "realistic" and "unpolished" looking as possible. In that sense, it succeeds, but a mainstream audience used to slick reality TV (which the movie resembles at times, thanks to the "video-ness") might find themselves shifting in their seats in the early going.
However, once the two leads are stuck in the water in the middle of freaking nowhere, the tension starts building and becomes almost unbearable. The actors, neither of whom I'd ever seen before, really shined in this section of the flick; I found their conversations authentic and heartbreaking. I'm not going to give away any of what happens to them - but I'll say that it took a long time on my drive home before the knot in my stomach fully went away.
The audience was into the movie - responding well to various moments of slight comic relief, gasping and groaning in all the right places. I was completely absorbed; the feeling of dread just gets more and more oppressive with every passing minute. The ending will be controversial. It definitely affected the mood of the audience in the Egyptian, and somebody asked the directors in the post-screening Q&A whether or not Lion's Gate, who will be distributing the movie nationally in August,
asked them to change the ending. Kentis and Lau said that Lion's Gate has been completely supportive, and not a frame has been changed since they acquired the movie at Sundance. Kentis mentioned that audiences are conditioned by "shark movies" to expect one of two possible endings (you figure it out), and that they wanted to present a third option. I will say what happens took me off guard, but the more I think about it, the more I like it; I'm not often surprised by a movie these days, and I like that they "got" me. Kentis is right, I am conditioned by what I've seen before, and I like that he was toying with my expectations - although I had a distinct sense that many in the audience around me had the opposite reaction.
Even though it's obviously a "low-budget" production, it never looks cheap, and the editing is largely effective. Even with the video format, there are some starkly beautiful and terrifying shots - the scene at night during a thunderstorm stands out in my mind. And except for my reservations with the early scenes, the acting overall is very good - these seem like real people, and we root for them. I only noticed one continuity error which, I admit, I noticed largely because of my red-blooded American male-ness. There's a shot of Ryan where she is obviously supposed to be very, very naked. I say "supposed to be" because if you're, uh, paying attention, you'll notice that she is wearing panties in the initial shot - which then cuts to a different angle where it's suddenly very obvious that she's now, as if by magic, suddenly NOT wearing said panties anymore. What can I say, she's gorgeous, she was naked, I was looking, I noticed. Come on, if you're gonna go the Full Monty, then go the Full Monty already.
Something that came out in the Q&A after the show was a little info about how the movie was made, and when I heard it was shot over 2.5 years, on weekends and vacation breaks, my admiration for the film increased by several notches. The fact is, the technology exists now to make and edit feature films independently far less expensively than ever before - but you still have to get up off your ass and do it. The fact that these directors had the stamina to bring the movie to fruition over that long a period, all the while working day jobs, is truly something worth applauding. And I would say to all those grumbling Seattle hipsters I heard on the way out - put up or shut up, brah. It's easy to sit back and pick apart stuff from under your hipster haircuts while slurping your 17th cappuccino of the day; you think you can do better, get out there and do it, or shut the fuck up. The directors seemed still somewhat stunned that their little flick got picked up for distro at Sundance in what they characterized as "storybook" fashion. What I saw on the screen was an obvious and effective labor of love. I don't know how big the release will be, but I think word-of-mouth will be strong. This is a great little thriller well worth checking out. I'll probably catch it again in August just to support it, and also to see what changes/updates the filmmakers end up putting in. I gave it a "4" out of 5 on my little SIFF ballot. |
| 1:26:21 AM |
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| 5/28/2004 |
| SIFF-ting |
| The Seattle International Film Festival is going on now, and will continue for another couple of weeks. I went to a couple of screenings last year, and this year I'm going to six flicks so far. The first one is tonight, at the fabled Egyptian theater: Open Water. I believe it would be considered a "thriller," and is a fairly low-budget labor-of-love from the director and producer, both of whom are supposed to be at the screening tonight. So-called "scary" movies don't really have any effect on me anymore, at least not the ones with monsters or demons or whatever. Ghost movies, when well done, can still give me the creeps, but what really freaks me are movies about things that could actually happen. So I expect this one to be good, and keep me on the edge of my seat. I've read good things about it on the various movie sites out there, too. Maybe I'll write a review and submit it to AICN and see if they print it. We'll see. |
| 2:18:35 PM |
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| 5/26/2004 |
| Plumbing The Depths |
May is nearly over (already!) and it will go down as the most pathetic month in .Blog-terms since I started this page. Oh well, no use apologizing for it, I guess. Call it a vacation. Call it avoidance. Call it what you will, but don't call it a comeback, I been here for years.
In the last few days I have decided that it would be a good plan to quit pretending to myself and others that there isn't an undercurrent of unease in my life right now. Which is what I've been doing. "Everything's fine!" was my outward face to the world. And, don't worry family - it's not as if there's some huge problem out here - nothing worth gnashing of teeth and worrying worts about. But there is something going on; a disquiet. And the problem is, I'm not sure exactly what is causing it. What I have realized is, pretending there's no problem at all will not solve it. So, it is time to do some serious inward-think, and figure out what's up, and better yet, DO SOMETHING about it. It could be that I really need to shake things up. Whether that means by small or large steps, I hope to soon figure out.
Maybe I just need a V-8!
Some talk of music I've been listening to of late: I've been a fan of Veruca Salt since they came to national prominence, but I only recently picked up their second full-length release that came out many years ago, Eight Arms To Hold You, and I'm glad I did because I just love it. And being happy about that album lead me to the first solo album by ex-Veruca Salt singer/songwriter Nina Gordon, the name of which now escapes me because the CD case isn't handy... ah, it's Tonight And The Rest Of My Life. Thank you, Google. Anyway, boy was I surprised when I put on Nina's album and found out she really wanted to be Aimee Mann. It's not that the album is bad, it's just not... well, it doesn't really have the qualities that I loved so much about VS. Does that mean I'm one of those ingrates who doesn't want their fave artists to change and grow? Anyway, she looks real cute in the photos on the cover. Nice nips, Nina. The other thing I bought the other day, on iTunes, was the newest Dream Theater album, Train Of Thought. Now, I have been on record as saying that I absolutely cannot stand Dream Theater. I'm not really a fan of their genre, although I do respect their considerable skill on their instruments. But I don't get into shred-metal so much, in fact, I'm not much into "musician music" at all anymore. But Timpe brought in a track to last week's Poultry Of The Damned that appealed to that teenager in me that LOOOVES the Very Heavy Music. And I realized that, as much as I detest the vocals of James Labrie, I could, if I chose to, use the same "mental vocal deletion tool" I use when I listen to bands like Pantera, or Meshuggah. AND, the album was available on iTunes for seven American dollars. You read that right. SEVEN BUCKS. I'll buy anything for $7. So now I've actually bought and paid for a Dream Theater album. And I'm enjoying it immensely, pretending as I listen to it that vocalist Labrie is just some buzzy little bug, floating over the frenetic proceedings. Try it, it works. |
| 10:40:48 PM |
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| 5/16/2004 |
| And A Bottle Of Anything... To Go |
This was not a good week for cheery outlooks. Yup, the optimism took a couple of good hits in the last several days. That's partly why there's been no new activity in this space... I just couldn't bring myself to try and write what I've been feeling. I guess journals are the place to do that, but it's been all a bit much, hasn't it? You know what I mean. I know you've been paying attention.
Just back from my third viewing of Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, by far the best film of 2004 thus far. I thought that maybe, watching that beautiful film again might at least cleanse the mental palette a bit. I certainly feel better, and inspired, having seen it again. I can't imagine it'll play in theaters much longer, and that's fine, because they need to release it on DVD so I can watch it whenever I need it - I could have used it last Tuesday night, the night I didn't sleep because I couldn't get the imagined images of that poor kid being murdered on camera for the world's benefit out of my worried mind. I say imagined, because I couldn't bear to actually watch the video, though I could've, as anyone with access to a computer could. I stared at the link that could have launched it on my screen for a really long time, though. I stared and stared and stared and my hand hovered over that mouse, and then I knew that I couldn't, shouldn't. Reading the descriptions on various news sites was nauseating enough, and as I said, certainly enough to prevent me from getting any sleep Tuesday night.
It's been a sobering week. The kind of week that's made me glad that I haven't had any children yet, because what kind of fucked up world are we living in? Who am I to foist such bitterness and despair and lack of compassion and ugly brutality upon some unsuspecting little new human? How to explain this away? The other side of the coin is, even with all of this, I wouldn't choose to not be here. I'm glad for every day. Ay, conundrum!
When we practice for the band lately, we play for three hours without playing any music at all that's been on the albums I've done in the past. Of course, we're working on all this new stuff, and we play these tunes multiple times, still, it's exciting to go to practice and do nothing but play new things. Pete brought in half a finished song a couple of weeks back that I really love and I've been working on it, adding vocals to it, chipping away at the arrangement. Such a gift, though somehow as I work on it I feel even more responsible to his idea than I do to things of my own, because it's such a great thing, I don't want to mess it up. When I was a kid I took art lessons at various times, learned how to paint, charcoal, pastels, that kind of thing. I remember one of the teachers, when I was having trouble on a piece, would reach over my shoulder and draw right on my drawing, or paint right on my painting, in order to show me a creative solution to the problem at hand; part of me resented that, you know, it was my picture, after all. Some of these old pictures are hanging in various family locations, my grandmother's house has one or two, there's a couple hanging over the piano in the house in Woodbridge where I grew up. They've been hanging there nearly since they were completed, which is an awful long time ago now. When I look at them, I can easily see the parts that my teacher did, and I smile. They are part of the picture, after all, even though I'm the only one who signed it. I guess I hope to do something with Pete's idea that sounds like it was always meant to be there, even though to him, it will always be really obvious that I reached over his shoulder and painted right on his canvas. I hope he understands I'm just trying to make a nice image. |
| 1:19:25 AM |
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| 5/6/2004 |
| In The Groove... Sorta |
Doing something right now I don't do every day... listening to DAT tapes of vinyl records. And dumping them into digital form. So that I can listen to my old records on my iPod. Weird, huh? Somewhere back there before I left Virginia in 1993, I went somewhere (I'm thinking it had to be Scott Tury's house) with a bunch of albums and some blank DATs to transfer stuff I didn't have on CD yet. Some of this stuff, to my knowledge, still hasn't ever come out officially on CD. It's a really bizarre collection of material, and almost no full albums - just certain songs I decided I wanted a copy of. Since it's been so long ago and I don't even remember doing this anymore, I have no idea what prompted me to collect these particular songs. A sampler:
- Two tracks from the first Robert Plant solo album
- "Rock Me Amadeus" (the mix with the history lesson in the middle)
- A bunch of U2 B-sides from 45's they released at the time of The Joshua Tree
- "4 The Tears In Your Eyes" from the original We Are The World LP
- A couple of Yngwie Malmsteen songs, including "Black Star"
Stuff like this is great now that I'm doing the weekly radio show. So weird that I actually took the time to transfer this stuff. I still don't have a turntable on the west coast, so I can't listen to the vinyl I still have.
I sure would like to listen to all my old Bill Cosby records. I wonder if I'll still think they're as funny as I did at 8 years old. |
| 7:37:46 PM |
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