Tag: adaptation

Week 14

Posted by Leo – April 11, 2010

Apr 2 – Apr 8

Film(s) watched:

  1. The Fast and the Furious (1955)
  2. The Last American Hero (1973)
  3. September Issue (2009)
  4. Cairo Time (2009)
  5. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)
  6. Jennifer’s Body (2009)

Book (s) read: None

Screenplay(s) read:

  1. Slumdog Millionaire – adapted by by Simon Beaufoy from the novel Q & A – Draft 8/15/2007

Films:

The Fast and the Furious (1955)

With a story by Roger Corman, The Fast and the Furious (apart from the title, it bears no relation to the 2001 Vin Diesel movie), is a typical low budget B-movie. B-movies play by their own rules, as they live in the margin between mainstream, art house, and sometimes pornography. Many good B-movies showcase the director’s inventiveness under financial constraints, or the writer’s clever playfulness with the genre. The Fast and the Furious unfortunately has neither. The plot does not make any sense, and the characters basically do the same scene over and over again. It feels long, lazy, and repetitive even with a modest 73 mins running time.

The Last American Hero

A young Jeff Bridges shows his charisma in The Last American Hero as a hillbilly who dreams of being a star. The film is an adaptation from a Tom Wolfe article about the true story of American NASCAR driver Junior Johnson. I appreciate the realist approach, but I don’t find it engaging enough. The car race sequences lose the narrative momentum. In comparison, Le Mans, which is another car race film with an almost documentary style, presents a much clear picture of the psyche of the driver(s) and their raison d’être with much less exposition and plot.

The September Issue

The September Issue, though is supposed to be a documentary about the production of the annual, the most important, thick-as-a-telephone-book issue of Vogue, is really about humanizing the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour (not that Meryl Streep hasn’t already done that in The Devil Wears Prada). There isn’t much about the fashion industry or the fashion magazine industry, as the filmmakers are not interested in the deeper, controversial issues of the business. However, once I have accepted that this is simply a straightforward (and flattering) look at a driven, successful person at work, it is actually a very enjoyable film. Ms. Wintour, as much as an ice-queen that her reputation suggests,  is a very effective leader.  She knows what she wants, and she has the means to achieve them. Her long time partner Grace Coddington, a former model turned creative director who not only has immense talent but the nerves to stand up to her boss, steals the film whenever she is on screen.

Cairo Time

Cairo Time has a very, very slight story. It would probably work better as a short story or a short film, or even a travelogue. Still, there is much to admire in Cairo Time. Cairo, for one. And Patricia Clarkson, an underrated actress who is always excellent, is in almost every scene here.

Dodgeball

Formulaic, yes. Over the top Ben Stiller, yes. People getting hit in the crotch a lot, yes. In spite of, or rather, because of all that, Dodgeball is a lot of fun. As a bonus, Vince Vaughn plays an actually likable guy, unlike any of his other characters since.

Jennifer's Body

Screenwriter Diablo Cody tries her hand in the teen black comedy horror genre. Jennifer’s Body has some trademark dialogue (“I am scrumptious!”) that you would expect from the writer of the clever and funny Juno, and there is an edge to it that makes it slightly more than just a genre film. But ultimately, I wish it’s  funnier or darker or scarier, or all of the above.

Screenplay:

Slumdog Millionaire - Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy

Slumdog Millionaire has a brilliant narrative construction with two main stories going on in parallel: 1. The protagonist’s current situation and 2. His journey to his current situation. Flashbacks are always tricky to write as they tend to snap the forward momentum of the story, but the flashbacks here create new momentums as we gradually realize that the two stories reveal character motivations and goals in the other. I haven’t read the novel, Q & A, but I believe that screenwriter Simon Beaufoy has altered the narrative structure quite a bit when he adapts it into the screenplay.

Pick of the Week:

The September Issue.




2010:

Total films watched: 93 (in 98 days)

Total books read: 5 (19 to go)

Total screenplays read: 8 (44 to go)

Week 13

Posted by Leo – April 7, 2010

Mar 26 – Apr 1

Film(s) watched:

  1. Mallrats (1995)
  2. Princess of Nebraska (2007)
  3. Sugarland Express (1974)

Book (s) read:

  1. Starting Out in the Evening by Brian Morton

Screenplay(s) read: None

Films:

Mallrats

After the success of Clerks, Kevin Smith’s Mallrats was a flop both commercially and critically when it was released. The much bigger budget doesn’t improve the quality of the script and the direction, and the supposedly clever dialogue loses their effectiveness by the unconvincing delivery. Jay and Silent Bob are more interesting than the main characters.

The Princess of Nebraska

The companion film to the quiet A Thousand Years of Good Prayers. The Princess of Nebrasksa, also adapted from a short story by Yiyun Li and directed by Wayne Wang, is a story about an indecisive young woman’s journey. It has a much more kinetic style of camerawork and editing which mirrors the protagonist’s state of mind. My complaint is the boyfriend plot is a bit confusing and doesn’t add much to the story.

Sugarland Express

Steven Spielberg’s first feature film, Sugarland Express, seems a bit timid, and lacks the energy of his previous TV movie, Duel. There are quite a few scenes with a lot of police cars, which are designed to inspire some awe, but somehow they seem to slow down the momentum of the story without actually generating much excitement.

Book:

Starting Out in the Evening by Brian Morton

This is another instance where a wonderful film adaptation inspires me to seek out the source novel.  Brian Morton’s Starting Out in the Evening is a great read. I was interested to see the changes made to the narrative in the adaptation process, not that I’m one of those people who insist that the film should always be completely faithful to the source material.

An observation: the cover of the novel has the father and the daughter sitting on a park bench with a bit of distance between them, which is also the image used in the poster for a film I watched last week, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, also about a father and a daughter. It’s a good image, but is it going become a cliché?

Father and daughter on a park bench in "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers"

Father and daughter on a park bench in "A Thousand Years of Good Prayers"

Pick of the Week:

Princess of Nebraska

2010:

Total films watched:  87  (in 91 days)

Total books read: 5 (19 to go)

Total screenplays read: 7 (45 to go)

Week 12

Posted by Leo – March 30, 2010

Mar 19 – Mar 25

Film(s) watched:

  1. Starting Out in the Evening (2007)
  2. A Thousand Years of Good Prayers (2007)
  3. Duel (1971)

Book (s) read: None

Screenplay(s) read: None

This week I was too busy preparing a paper to present at the Popular Culture Conference and didn’t have much time for movie watching. The topic of the paper is the value of studying screenplays, which I think is an overlooked area in academic film studies. There are tons of screenwriting books out there, but most are either how-to manuals or marketing books on how  to sell your screenplays. Serious academic studies on screenwriting is curious lacking. I think that there is a rising interest in Europe as a academic screenwriting conference is held there for the past 2 years, and a new Journal of Screenwriting is being published over there.

Films:

Starting Out in the Evening (2007)

Adapted from Brian Morton’s novel of the same name, Starting Out in the Evening is a classy, sensitive film about intelligent people who care about reading and writing. Shot on HD video, this is a great example of how great films can be made on small budgets. Of course, it helps to have a great script and wonderful actors.

A Thousand Years of Good Prayers

After a few very mainstream Hollywood movies, Wayne Wang made a welcomed return to his indie roots to direct two films about Chinese Americans. He also experimented with releasing them on Youtube instead of the theater route, which could be a good alternative way to distribute indie films in the future.

Adapted from a short story by Yinyu Li (who also wrote the screenplay), A Thousands Years of Good Prayers offers some wonderful intergenerational/intercultural observations about Chinese living in America. It’s rare to have American movies about Chinese Americans, and I fully appreciate the effort. Some might feel that it is a bit slight for a feature film, but I actually like its gentle modesty.

Duel

Directed by a young Steven Spielberg from a script by Richard Matheson adapted from his own short story, Duel is an exercise in a highway cat and mouse game involving a menacing truck and a hapless commuter. Though it’s only his first film (a TV movie), Speilberg demonstrates his considerable talent in staging suspenseful action sequences already. We never see the truck driver (and it is to Spielberg’s credit that he acknowledges that it was the screenwriter’s idea), so the truck is the monster. Compared with the lame psycho killer car in the dreadful movie The Car I watched last week, this truck shows its character within seconds and it is a truly formidable villain.

On a side note, it was quite an achievement that the principal shooting was completed in 13 days.

Pick of the Week:

Starting Out In the Evening

2010:

Total films watched:  84 (in 84 days)

Total books read: 4 (20 to go)

Total screenplays read: 7 (45 to go)

Week 11

Posted by Leo – March 21, 2010

Mar 12 – Mar 18

Film(s) watched:

  1. The Driver (1978)
  2. Did You Hear About the Morgans (2009)
  3. Catwoman (2004)
  4. The Car (1977)
  5. Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
  6. Le Professionnel (1981)

Book (s) read: None

Screenplay(s) read:

  1. A Single Man – Screenplay by Tom Ford and David Scearce – Based on the novel by Christopher Isherwood
  2. Crazy Heart – Screenplay by Scott Cooper – Based on the novel by Thomas Cobb

Films:

The Driver

The Driver is basically an American version of Jean Pierre Melville’s Le Samourai, but not quite as good. It even has a French connection in the beautiful Isabelle Adjani (a peculiar casting, but then it adds more mystery to the already mysterious character).  While not as cool as Alain Delon (then again, who is?), Ryan O’Neal does a good job as the nameless driver whose existence is to drive. Just like in Le Samourai, we don’t really know much about the character. The film is about him doing his job. The detective here is not nearly as formidable an opponent as the detective in Le Samourai, which makes the duel less interesting. The Driver is actually a very well made film, it is only when it’s compared to Melville’s masterpiece that it comes up a bit short.

Did You Hear About the Morgans

“Tell, don’t show” is not exactly what they teach you in screenwriting classes. So, a red flag is raised when the first thing we hear (before we even see anything) in Did Your Hear About the Morgans is Hugh Grant leaving a phone message telling us all the background information that the screenwriters couldn’t bother to show us. The movie that follows is just cliché after cliché. If follows that sacred RomCom formula to the T.  Hugh Grant has played this character in countless other movie, and he seems bored doing it.

Romantic comedy is a genre that really needs a reboot. There are just too many lazy efforts.  (500) Days of Summer last year tried something different and it was refreshing.  Now we need more of that.

Catwoman

After the Morgans, Hillary and I decided to make it a crap movie night. I had heard a lot about Catwoman, which has the reputation of being one of the worst movies in the decade. Now I finally have an excuse to see it. The opening scene shares the same kind of lazy exposition voice-over with the Morgans, so immediately we know we’ve picked a good one. The movie doesn’t disappoint either. The protagonist has no personality and no motivation. The villains are barely one-dimensional (even by comic book adaptation standard). The story makes no sense. In comparison, Did You Hear About the Morgans has become a yardstick of movie excellence.

The Car

A mysterious, driverless car appears out of nowhere and begins to run people down in a Southwestern small town. No reason is given to anything. Why does the car run people down? Why the car? Why these people? Why this town? Why anything? It’s wtf all the way. The human characters are all so bland that I couldn’t care less if they were run over or not. There’s one quick shot  in the movie where an extra (or a stunt person) was run over by a galloping horse (accidentally? I couldn’t really tell). That moment is the only scary moment in the entire movie, and it has nothing to do with the car. (I hope that guy was alright).

Two-Lane Blacktop

Two-Lane Blacktop is a car movie, and more. The characters talk almost exclusively about cars. They care about cars. But at the same time, they don’t really care about anything. They race, but they seem more interested in helping each other out, fixing each other’s cars, keeping each other company, than winning the race.

I love how the camera pays attention to things or characters that turn out to be insignificant to the film. Too often in movies when we see a shot of something, it must has something to do with the plot or it’s foreshadowing something. A guy sitting in a diner is just a guy sitting in diner, why does he have to mean anything?

Le Professionnel

It seems that all the great car movies are American, so I’m very interested in finding any foreign films that are either about cars or have great car scenes. I wanted to see Le Professionnel because I read somewhere that it has a great car chase scene. That scene, a car chase sequence with two beat up cars in the city of Paris, turns out to be average at best. The rest of the film has nothing to do with cars. But it is decent movie about a former soldier returning to take revenge on the government who betrayed him. Ennio Morricone’s music (though a bit overused) adds a much appreciated tragic and fatalistic layer to the film.

Screenplay(s):

A Single Man - Screenplay by Tom Ford and David Scearce

Adapting a novel often means externalizing thoughts and emotions. A screenwriter has to convey internal feelings via actions. Compared to Christopher Isherwood’s novel, the script is therefore less ambiguous.

Crazy Heart - Screenplay by Scott Cooper

The script has some fantastic descriptions of music and of playing music, which are not as apparent in the film. It’s a great character study where Bad Blake is in every single scene, and it is the kind of scripts that attract actors.

Pick of the Week:

Two-Lane Blacktop.

2010:

Total films watched:  81 (in 77 days)

Total books read: 4 (20 to go)

Total screenplays read: 7 (45 to go)

Oscars results

Posted by Leo – March 8, 2010

Kathryn Bigelow - the first woman to win the director award

This is the year to back the favorites.  7 correct picks out of 9 isn’t too bad.

As expected, The Hurt Locker won big. Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the Best Director award. The fact that the first female Best Director is renowned for her macho film style does say something about the movie business being a man’s world though.

I got both screenplay categories wrong. (Shows how much I know about screenwriting).  I thought Up in the Air would win the adapted screenplay category since it has really improved upon the source material. But Precious is a fantastic film, and I’d really like to read the script and the book now. And this is The Hurt Locker‘s year, so I’m not that surprised that it got the original screenplay award too.

I’m also glad that The Secret in Their Eyes won Best Foreign Language film. I hope the win will give this gem of a film a wider distribution in the U.S.. I haven’t seen the two favorites in the category – Maichael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, and France’s entry, A Prophet, so I can’t really comment on those.

My picks and the actual results:

Best Supporting Actor:  My pick - Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds). Actual winner - Christoph Waltz(Inglourious Basterds).

Best Supporting Actress: My pick - Mo’nique (Precious). Actual winner - Mo’nique (Precious).

Best Actor: My pick - Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart). Actual winner - Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart).

Best Actress: My pick - Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side). Actual winner - Sandra Bullock (The Blind Side).

Best Original Screenplay: My pick – Quentin Tarrantino (Inglourious Basterds). Actual winner –  Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker).

Best Adapted Screenplay: My pick - Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner (Up in the Air). Actual winner - Geoffrey Fletcher (Precious).

Best Animated Feature Film: My pick - Up. Actual winner - Up.

Best Director: My pick - Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker). Actual winner - Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker).

Best Picture: My pick - The Hurt Locker. Actual winner - The Hurt Locker.

Week 9 – Catching up on 2009 films

Posted by Leo – March 6, 2010

Feb 26 – Mar 4

Film(s) watched:

  1. Crazy Heart (2009)
  2. A Serious Man (2009)
  3. The Young Victoria (2009)
  4. The Hurt Locker (2009)
  5. The Blind Side (2009)
  6. Precious Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire (2009)
  7. Whip It (2009)
  8. Inglourious Basterds (2009)
  9. Coraline (2009)
  10. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (2009)
  11. El Secreto de sus ojos (aka The Secret in Their Eyes) (2009)
  12. Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009)

Book(s) read:

  1. The Damned United by David Peace

Screenplay(s) read: None

More 2009 films this week.

Films:

Crazy Heart

The Hollywood formula demands obvious villains, which is an easy way to create conflicts. Good vs evil is simple enough for everyone to understand.  But by assigning such definitive quality as “good” or “evil” to a character more often than not reduces it to an one dimensional caricature. Crazy Heart is refreshing  because it doesn’t try to make any of the characters “bad” or “evil”. It teases us a bit, but I think writer/director Scott Cooper cares about the characters too much to make them any less than three dimensional. When Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges) and Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal) fall in love, they fall in love by having conversations. We hear them, and we feel it. None of those (cheating) musical montages!

Crazy Heart is not without flaws though – it probably tries a bit too hard to be uplifting. But there are enough pluses (the music, for one) for me to really like it.

A Serious Man

Coen Brothers’ darkly humorous (are there any other kinds for the brothers?) A Serious Man poses some complex questions on faith and rationality, which I really enjoyed.

The Young Victoria

The Young Victoria is beautiful to look at. Everything is gorgeous – the sets, the costumes, the cinematography. There is one fantastic shot of a long line of wine glasses that took my breath away. The problem is, the story is just not that interesting, and the storytelling is just too unambitious to make it an engaging film.

The Hurt Locker

I love that we never see the enemies in The Hurt Locker. There’s a sense that nobody really knows why they’re doing what they’re doing. They (and we) think they do, but we (and they) aren’t really sure. They shoot their enemies. But are they certain those are their enemies? They feel outraged when they found the body of  a local boy they’ve befriended. But is that really that boy’s corpse? In a tremendous scene where snipers exchange fire, one soldier shoots and kills an “enemy”, but neither he nor the viewers are sure whom he’s really shot. Most movies are about the protagonist overcoming obstacles to achieve his/her goals. The Hurt Locker has that, but in a way, the protagonist’s need of adrenaline rush and his goals are almost secondary to the bigger picture of the uncertainty of surviving in a war zone.

The Blind Side

The Blind Side is like one of those feel good Lifetime movies. There’s never any real danger of anything. It’s hard to believe any of the characters. It’s designed to appeal to a certain demographics and in that sense, it’s a very good business product.

Precious

Precious Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire deals with exactly the kind of things The Blind Side doesn’t want to think about. MoNique’s explosive performance really steals the film.

Whip It

Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut is a fun little film.

Inglourious Basterds

Without a doubt, Tarrantino is an excellent writer. The five chapters in Inglourious Basterds are basically five long scenes. Some are better than others, and the good ones are superbly good, such as the first scene.

Chrisptoh Waltz’s Col.Hans Landa is one great Nazi villain. Yes, he’s an obvious villain. To us. But to himself, he’s a good guy. An intellectual detective. A Nazi Sherlock Holmes (that pipe moment is hilarious). And that’s what’s makes a great villain – the “villain” cannot think of himself as a villain. This is not a screenwriting secret, but obviously, it’s easier said than done. How do you create an obviously “evil” character (to us) and have him believe that he’s a “good” guy? Inglourious Basterds is full of these characters. In fact, most Tarrantino films are full of these characters. He is an excellent writer.

Coraline

Coraline seems terribly scary as a kid’s movie. I’d be terrified if I saw it as a kid. But I’d also remember it well into my adult life until the point I re-watch it and realized that it’s not that scary after all. That’s certainly one way to make a memorable film – just scare the bejesus out of kids. Of course, it helps that Coraline has some real imaginative, Tim Burton-esque visuals.

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee

Not many novelists get to write the script and direct the film adaptation of their own books. The novel version of The Private Lives of Pippa Lee has a long middle section that is essentially a long flashback and I wondered how Rebecca Miller would deal with it in the film version, as casting would be very important.

Casting Blake Lively, who bears a remarkable resemblance to Robin Wright Penn, is a great decision. By intercutting the past and present is also a good artistic choice, and so is having more scree time for present day Pippa. Even though that in effect diminishes our understanding of young Pippa’s anguish and the parallels of the mother/daughter relationships, I care about present day Pippa more, who is the real protagonist. Casting Keanu Reeves to play a character who cannot lie is another stroke of genius. He, as some critics has mentioned, is the most “honest” actor.

On the downside, some of the scenes feel a bit rushed

El secreto de sus ojos

El secreto de sus ojos (The Secret in Their Eyes) is fantastically constructed crime thriller. Calling it a crime thriller really doesn’t do it justice. Even though there’s a crime to solve, and the case is pursued by the protagonist with the obsessiveness worthy of a great crime thriller, writer/director Juan José Campanella’s elegant film is much more than that. The protagonist uses the case as an inspiration to write a book (is it a memoir, or is it fiction?), and we see what happened 25 years ago (is what we are seeing actual events? or it that just the writer’s novel?) But the ambiguity doesn’t confuse a mesmerizing story that slowly reveals the secrets in these people’s eyes.

Ricardo Darín is once again excellent (Darín is also in two of my favorite films, both written and directed by the late Fabián Bielinsky- the cheeky and clever Nine Queens, and Bielinsky’s masterpiece, El Aura), and so is the beautiful Soledad Villamil.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

The joy of Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, in addition to a wonderfully over the top performance from Nicolas Cage, is its unpredictability. There are enough “bad cops” movies to have a general formula – but this Herzog film pretty much goes wherever it feels like.

Books:

The Damned United by David Peace

I saw the film first, then read the screenplay, and read the novel last. It’s adaptation in reverse. Peace’s novel is a fascinating read for a football fan. Brian Clough’s doomed reign at Leeds was a bit before my time, but I was fully aware of his accomplishments at Nottingham Forest when I was growing up.

I really like the parallel timeline of the novel, which everything comes full circle. The repetition, though clearly illustrates Clough’s obsessiveness, gets a bit tiring after a while. But then again, I’d imagine getting inside someone like Clough’s head would get tiring after a while too. Compared with Peter Morgan’s screenplay, Peace’s Clough is more self-obsessive, and not as likable. It’s him him him. What I like about the screenplay/film is Clough’s friendship with Peter Taylor, which apparently is a creative choice by Morgan during the adaptation process.

Pick of the Week:

A lot of good films this week. Both The Hurt Locker and Precious are superb films that I like a lot. But the Argentinean film, The Secret in Their Eyes really spoke to me with its elegance, and is my pick of the week.

2010:

Total films watched: 67 (in 63 days)

Total books read: 3 (21 to go)

Total screenplays read: 5 (47 to go)

Week 8

Posted by Leo – February 28, 2010

Feb 19 – 25

Film(s) watched:

  1. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
  2. Harold and Maude (1971)
  3. An Education (2009)
  4. Up in the Air (2009)
  5. The Messenger (2009)
  6. Where the Wild Things Are (2009)
  7. Julie & Julia (2009)
  8. Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)
  9. In the Loop (2009)

Book(s) read: None.

Screenplay(s) read:

  1. An Education – by Nick Hornby. Based on the piece of memoir by Lynn Barber. Draft dated: 4th April, 2007

This week I’m focusing on mostly 2009 movies. Watching some that I missed, and watching a couple for the second time.

Films:

To Kill a Mockingbird

I picked To Kill a Mockingbird as one of the films for our library’s Black History Month Film Series. A faithful adaptation of Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, the film maintains a novelistic quality. Even though it’s told from the little girl Scout’s perspective, the story doesn’t restrict itself to the goals and wants of any one character. It seems grand in scope for a movie, but it’s not really an epic. The narrative begins like a wide shot and takes its time to gradually zooms in to main point of the story in the final scene of the film. A classic.

Harold and Maude - Harold's Jaguar Hearse

Harold and Maude is one of my (and Hillary’s) all time favorites. Hillary especially baked a ginger pie for us to watch the movie with. It’s all set up to be one of those fun food and movie occasion, except I don’t like ginger. Oh well.

When I drew up my list of car movies to watch, I completely forgot about Harold and Maude. Well, it’s not strictly a car movie, but it does have a memorable car. Yes, I’m talking about Harold’s awesome  Jaguar E-Type hearse. Even though I’m still taking a break from car movies, I’m catching up all the back episodes of Top Gear. I’m sure Jeremy Clarkson et al. would be mighty impressed by Harold’s craftsmanship.

An Education

Carey Mulligan, the star of An Education, has obvious star quality. She’s terrific and pretty much carries the entire film.

Up in the Air

Upon 2nd viewing, and after reading the novel and the screenplay, I can really appreciate what Jason Reitman the director’s has done. I think Up in the Air the movie is better than the screenplay (well, better than the draft I read anyway), and the screenplay (that same draft) is better than the novel.  The screenplay makes his goal more focused, and adds the subplot of his protégé which really adds to the main conflict of the story, and has sharper and wittier dialogues. The movie version makes the protagonist’s goals bigger (e.g. to get 10million miles on American Airlines rather than something like 500k miles on a small airlines in the novel), which is the Hollywood way. The visuals are efficient, rather than fancy or spectacular, but they suit the movie. The interviews with real people who have been laid off is a great touch. It has a future  classic feel to it,  like some of Frank Capra’s best movies – those that reflect the social conditions of the time.

The Messenger

I’m usually not terribly interested in movies about returning soldiers. I feel that they are mostly about the same kind of characters facing the same kind of problems.  But The Messenger has a fresh take on this genre. The returning soldiers deliver bad news to families of fallen soldiers. Each of those brutal scenes is like a battle in and of itelf. I like that first time director Oren Moverman keeps his commentary to minimum by shooting it in an almost documentary style.  The film feels sincere and we feel for the characters.

Where the Wild Things Are

I had high hopes for Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are, but ended up quite disappointed. Maybe it’s just me and my dislike of manic kids. Maybe not. The visuals become dull after a while. The parallels between the Wild Things and the real world are intentionally loose, but they are loose to a point of not having any impact.

Julie and Julia

Julie & Julia is a clever adaptation of two memoirs. The movie is light and enjoyable. And what more can we say about Meryl Streep?

Fantastic Mr. Fox

Animation suits Wes Anderson’s style. You could say he relies a bit too much on style instead of substance in his last several features, that he spends too much energy on being cool rather than telling compelling stories. But in Fantastic Mr. Fox, Anderson has license to be cool. The format gives him freedom to try things he can’t do with live action. As a result, I think it is one of the coolest animations I’ve seen. A highly enjoyable film!

In the Loop

The 2nd viewing of In the Loop is all about enjoying the sharp, acerbic, witty, filthy, over the top dialogue. It’s laugh out loud funny about the serious and ridiculous subject of political gamesmanship. This is a brilliant satire.

Screenplay:

An Education - Screenplay by Nick Hornby

Several of Nick Hornby’s novels have been adapted into successful movies: Fever Pitch (twice), High Fidelity, About a Boy. It’s probably safe to say his novels have a cinematic quality. So why not skip the middle step altogether, and just write for the screen? An Education is an adaptation from a memoir by Lynn Barber. The draft I read is very close to the film version with just a few slight differences. Some of Hornby’s descriptions are not as well expressed on screen as on the page. However, I like one change the film version makes – in the 3rd act, when David takes Jenny’s family out – in the script, he borrows Danny’s Rolls Royce, but in the movie, he uses his own Bristol. As Jenny’s father debates whether he should pay for gas, the door handle falls off. It’s a great touch to show both what’s behind David’s facade, and Jenny’s father’s realization of it.

Pick of the Week:

I like both Up in the Air and The Messenger a lot. But Up in the Air edges it, simply because I’ve read the novel and the screenplay and saw what changes the filmmakers made to improve the source material.

2010:

Total films watched: 55 (in 56 days)

Total books read: 2 (22 to go)

Total screenplays read: 5 (47 to go)

Week 7: A light movie-watching week

Posted by Leo – February 19, 2010

Feb 12 – 18

Film(s) watched:

  1. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
  2. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1968)
  3. The Invention of Lying (2009)

Book(s) read:

  1. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller

Screenplay(s) read:

  1. The Damned United – 2008 draft script by Peter Morgan (from the novel by David Peace)

I took a break from car movies this week. Not that I’m bored with them. Not at all. There’re sooo many more car movies I’m looking forward to watching. But in preparation for the K-State Libraries Black History Month Film Series I’m organizing, I felt that I should try to re-watch some of these films. We are showing three films this year: 1. Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, 2. To Kill a Mockingbird, and 3. Akeelah and the Bee. The three movies depict prejudice in three different eras: 30′s, 60′s and today, with very different approaches.

Films:

In the Heat of the Night

In the Heat of the Night is not part of the libraries’ film series, but I thought I’d have a Sydney Poitier double bill at home with Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Now that I’ve seen it (for the 1st time), I wished I’d chosen this movie as well! Though Poitier has top billing, the real protagonist is Rod Steiger’s Police Chief Bill Gillespie. It’s he that goes through the most dramatic transformation. For the sake of the plot, they have to explain the murder in the final act, but it actually gets in the way of  the meaty part of the movie, as the murder mystery is not nearly as interesting as the dramatic tension between the two leads. Apart from this minor complaint, this is an engaging film which also illustrates race relations from less than half a century ago (hard to imagine!).

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner approaches race relations from an entirely different angle than In the Heat of the Night. Once again, the white man is the real protagonist. It is Spencer Tracy’s struggle to come to terms with having his daughter marry a black man that really drives the story. It is he that is the most changed man at the end of the movie. Overall, it’s a very entertaining film with several charismatic stars. Like In the Heat of the Night, it serves as reminder of how far we have come since the 60′s in terms of racial acceptance.

The Invention of Lying

After reading the screenplay, this movie is quite a disappointment. There are quite a few holes in the execution of an interesting premise – saying whatever is in your mind is not the same as telling the truth. Ricky Gervais’ character simply decides not to say what’s on his mind.

The movie begins with a voice over to explain the world of no lies, whereas in the screenplay, we have several scenes of the history of the world of no lying. The old adage of “show, don’t tell” is never more true than in here. Yes, the voice-over takes up less time but it makes absolutely no impact in convincing the viewers of this absurd world. The entire concept hinges on the viewers suspending their disbelief, and if that fails, the whole film fails, which is basically what happens here. Some of the lines are funnier on paper than on screen, and it doesn’t help that the visual is quite dull. This is surely the weakest of Ricky Gervais’ s works. I do, however, look forward to Gervais’ next project which brings back the wonderful partnership of Stephen Merchant.

Book:

The Private Lives of Pippa Lee - by Rebecca Miller

I remember watching Rebecca Miller’s Personal Velocity, a film adaptation of her book of the same name.  Comprised of three short films, the film has such a literary quality to it that I had a strong urge to read the source material, and I was not disappointed. Miller, daughter playwright Arthur Miller, is keenly observant of her female characters, especially about their relationships with their families. The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, which has been adapted into a movie, is mostly about mothers/daughters relationships. I like the structure of the story, but I can imagine the difficulties of translating it into a film. The central character would have to be played by two different actresses, and so much would be dependent on the believability of the casting. I look forward to seeing the film version.

Screenplay:

The Damned United - screenplay by Peter Morgan

I have become quite a big fan of screenwriter Peter Morgan. The Damned United the screenplay is slightly different from the film, but I will need to re-watch the film. I’m actually very interested in the adaptation process of this film – from the novel (which I’m reading right now) to the screenplay to the film. Perhaps a paper on this topic in the future.

Pick of the Week:

In a light movie-watching week, In the Heat of the Night is the pick of the week.

2010:

Total films watched: 46

Total books read: 2

Total screenplays read: 4

2010 Week 6: Finally finished a book!

Posted by Leo – February 9, 2010

Feb 5 – 11

Film(s) watched:

  1. Le Mans (1971)
  2. Bullitt (1968)
  3. Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
  4. The Terrorizers (1986)
  5. The Love Bug (1968)

Book(s) read:

  1. Up in the Air by Walter Kirn

Screenplay(s) read: none

Films:

Le Mans

Director Lee H. Katzin and Steve McQueen trusted that the inherent beauty of racing would be enough to captivate viewers of a feature length motion picture. They were right.  Le Mans is shot like a documentary with minimal dialogue. We are immersed in the race and it’s fascinating. With so few scenes with dialogue, whenever a character speaks, the scene takes on added significance. The poignant scene where the female lead asks McQueen about why racers race gives meaning to all the racing in the entire film.

Bullitt

Unlike the scene with the female lead in Le Mans that elevates the film, the scene with the female lead in Bullitt brings the film down from excellent to just very good. The entire film is about this taciturn cop doing his job. This “girlfriend” subplot doesn’t really belong in the first place. The long scene where she tells him that she doesn’t understand his world is just too on-the-nose to work.

When you talk about Bullitt, you have to mention that famous car chase in San Francisco. And it’s a great chase.

Smokey and the Bandit

One of Burt Reynolds’ many “redneck” car movies. The plot is simple, almost simple minded, but the movie is actually quite entertaining. Jokes are of the low brow type, and some are funnier than intended. As Bandit puts it perfectly, “When you tell somebody something, it depends on what part of the United States you’re standin in, as to just how dumb you are.”

The Terrorizers - directed by Edward Yang

The most “urban” of the three Taiwanese New Wave directors (the other two are Hou Hsiao Hsien and Tsai Ming Liang), Edward Yang is strangely the least known outside of Asia. It’s a shame that only one of Edward Yang’s films is available on DVD in the U.S.. That film, Yi Yi (now available as a Criterion Collection DVD), is a masterpiece epic of everyday life small moments. In fact, most of Yang’s films are about everyday life small moments.

The Terrorizers has a complex, multi-thread, and fragmented narrative and it challenges the viewers to solve the puzzle. It is often (wrongly, I think) compared to Antoinoni’s Blow Up, mainly because each film has a photographer and a mysterious murder. When asked in an interview, Yang brushed aside that notion, and talked about his admiration for the works of Resnais and Pialat, which I actually see greater resemblance to Yang’s style.

The Love Bug

The Love Bug, the first in the Herbie franchise, is a moderately fun Disney movie for kids.

Book:

Up in the Air - a novel by Walter Kirn

Up in the Air, the movie, was one of my favorite films of 2009, and it is actually better than the book. Directed by Jason Reitman from a script by Reitman and Sheldon Turn, the film distills the best quality of the novel and adds subplots and details that actually strengthens the story and the character. Up in the Air, the novel, has a good first 100 pages or so but slowly loses steam.

Pick of the Week:

The Terrorizers – A close one. Le Mans is great but Edward Yang’s The Terrorizers is a masterpiece.

2010:

Total films watched: 43

Total books read: 1 – Yay! finally read a book!

Total screenplays read: 3

2010 Week 5: Too wussy for Korean Films

Posted by Leo – February 8, 2010

Jan 29 – Feb 4

Film(s) watched:

  1. Thirst (Bakjwi) (2009)
  2. Vanishing Point (1971)
  3. The Orphanage (El Orfanato) (2007)
  4. The Innocents (1961)
  5. Flawless (2007)
  6. Not for or Against (Ni Pour, Ni Contre) (2002)
  7. Cannonball Run (1981)
  8. Convoy (1978)
  9. Christine (1983)
  10. Corvette Summer (1978)
  11. Ronin (1998)

Book(s) read: none

Screenplay(s) read: none

Car movies marathon continued. Watched another 6 car movies – one of them brilliant, and one of them absolute crap. Finally watched The Orphanage, after hearing about it for so long.

Films:

Thirst

Thirst has a fresh take on the vampire genre. It is sexually charged, and the moral conflict is deeply felt.  As much as I admire Chan-wook Park‘s craft and imagination, and even though he uses gore for a purpose, and the violence is never just for violence’s sake, sometimes I find it difficult to get through his films.  I know, I’m a wuss. But it is to Park’s credit that he can make his films as much an ordeal for viewers like me as for his characters. It’s quite overwhelming to witness his characters expressing their loath in such extreme (though stylized) violence. Nevertheless,  by the end of the films, I’m always glad that I’ve persevered.

Vanishing Point

The Challenger is an apt car to use to rebel against the establishment. Richard C. Sarafian‘s film documents one man’s almost existential journey without much overt reason nor explanation. But it’s never boring. Cut to the chase, literally, from the get-go, Vanishing Point is one awesome chase film!

The Orphanage

Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona from a fantastic script by Sergio G. Sánchez, The Orphanage uses mood and suspense to scare the hell out of me, which is the kind of horror films I like. It puts all those gore-fest “horror” movies to shame. The ending shows the influence of Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), who is the producer of the film, and supplies additional layers to an already rich story. Great film!

The Innocents

After The Orphanage, I decided to watch another creepy horror film that mostly utilizes suspense to scare. The Innocents is an adaptation of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw. Not nearly as scary or as intense as The Orphanage, The Innocents nonetheless manages to create a sense of  schizophrenia.

Flawless

Apart from very good art direction that re-creates 60′s London, the Demi Moore/Michael Caine heist film Flawless is too by the book to offer anything original. Characters lack strong motivation, and their actions are never convincing.

Not for or Against

I’m very fond of Cédric Klapisch‘s Chacun cherche son chat (aka When the Cat’s Away), which shows us the change of a Parisian neighborhood by having us follow the female protagonist’s search for her missing cat. I also like L’auberge espagnole, which is about a group of students studying abroad in Barcelona. Not for or Against is a French heist thriller, which begins with a robber’s rationale of his way of living and ends with a camerawoman living it. Is money that important? Is Klapisch for or against it? I think he offers quite a few clues to his own neutral statement.

Cannonball Run

Cannonball Run was so painful to get through its modest 95 mins. It’s as if nobody on the set even bothered to try. So many stars and such lazy effort that it’s actually offensive. I actually got mad watching this “comedy”. Roger Moore playing Roger Moore is the only semi-decent thing in the entire movie.

Convoy

Not strictly a “car” movie, in fact I think Sam Peckinpah has made a western with eighteen-wheelers. The emphasis isn’t really on character development as on what the characters represent. Similar to Vanishing Point, and many other 70′s American films, the truckers/trucks here are used to symbolize the people’s disenchantment with authority. I love the one beautiful, balletic “truck chase” sequence in the sand in slow motion.

Christine

A straightforward and effective thriller. Fun use of songs. Christine is one badass car.

Corvette Summer

Similar to Christine, the Corvette in Corvette Summer is treated as a romantic object of desire. But unlike Christine, this motif is not explored past one scene. The actions of the characters in this movie are all unreasonably naive to the point of dumbness, even for a 70′s teen movie. Annie Potts is charming, but still not enough to save the movie.

Ronin

One spectacular car chase, and two decent ones. The rest of John Frankenheimer‘s Ronin is quite nondescript. It’s almost like the film exists solely for the car chases.

Pick of the Week:

A tie – The Orphanage and Vanishing Point.

2010:

Total films watched: 38

Total screenplays read: 3

Total books read: 0

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