In the Red: Public Enemies, Julie & Julia, Harry Potter 6

Some quick thoughts on what's been going through my q lately.

Public Enemies: Now I am a big Michael Mann fan. I think he belongs right next to, or maybe a foot down from, Scorsese as a great modern American auteur with a deep passion for film. In his latest film he makes a rather bold decision to shoot with a new digital camera and the choice doesn't really work. You can read a lot more about his motivation and the technology in question here. The problem with the digital is that it clashes a bit with the larger than life story that's being told. Despite Mann and his production designer's exquisite (borderline fetishistic) attention to detail, in digital it looks like actors in costumes and never really FEELS like period. Also at fault is the scripting which leaves both protagonist and antagonist in a lurch. Bale is too gruff and one dimensional whereas Depp never cuts loose. The viewer feels there's depth but it stems more from the fact that you're watching a Michael Mann film with Johnny Depp more than actually anything going on on-screen. It never manages to crackle with the cat and mouse dynamics of Heat and that's a real shame.

Julie & Julia: Unlike Public Enemies where the leads don't really work here Streep and to a lesser extent Adams are able to overcome the somewhat needless set-up of Nora Ephron's script. Much as I hate to say it there is absolutely no reason for this movie to not just be Julia. As Julia Child Streep channels the wit, vitality and vigor of the real woman and really holds focus. Adams can't help but look bad in comparison, not because she doesn't perform well, rather it's that her character is such a self-involved whiner with the same cycle of self-doubt and conflict over and over again. She doesn't like her station in life, she panics, she's inspired by Julia, rinse, repeat. It gets tiresome and isn't especially interesting. Streep gets to have more fun and overcome actual hardships. She also has winning chemistry with Stanley Tucci as her husband, Paul. The viewer becomes rather smitten with the two as a couple and refreshingly Ephron both as writer and director allows for Tucci to be more than just a support system for Streep. It's rare to find a movie where characters receive such genuine joy from what they do but on that level the film absolutely succeeds.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince: I had doubted claims of a darker, more adult film, but sure enough the latest installment is indeed both darker and dare I say it, sexier, than the previous outings. It's also decidedly not for newcomers. With a bare minimum of exposition the film launches into it's business (primarily to set up the last film). Still, the wonderful performances from Michael Gambon and Jim Broadbent make the proceedings enthralling and I think Daniel Radcliffe has finally stepped up his game where he not only holds the screen but gives some mischievous textured work to the titular wizard. The rogues gallery of returning English greats also pleasingly fill the background (with Alan Rickman as the usual stand-out). David Yates composes the film in such a way that even the familiar grounds of Hogwarts seem darker and more imposing and Steve Kloves must once more be commended for effectively maintaining Rowling's original tone. I've no doubt once all the movies are done this will make for a very enjoyable marathon viewing where the films grew and develop as well as the original books did.

Watching the world burn

You've seen it, I've seen it (twice), everyone has seen it. Is there really anything I can say about Dark Knight that hasn't been seen or observed a hundred thousand times before in the last month or so? I doubt it. It's just too late, sorry, no full review. Here's just a couple of personal highlights from me. We're riding my ego here like the Bat-pod. Which leads me to-

• The Bat-Pod-I don't know how it happened that I never found out ahead of time that the Bat-Pod actually was the coolest escape-pod in the history of anything that comes from the destroyed Bat-Tank. I was trying to engage the film in a non-fanboy way until BAM Batman slid under the truck, capsized it like an AT-AT and then did that bad-ass vertical 360. SO COOL!

• Anyone else get a pseudo-Obama vibe from Harvey Dent? A public figure everyone is pinning there hopes and dreams on? Anyone?
• Congratulations Aaron Eckhart, welcome to being an honest to god movie star. You've met Mr. Downey I assume?
• Heath Ledger is of course awesome. Same goes for the opening heist and the amazing magic trick. My favorite Joker moment is in the interrogation room when he turns the tables on EVERYONE! Nolan continually had the Joker be at his strongest when you'd think he was at his weakest.
• And may I just say bravo for making the Joker's schemes being honest to goodness moral quandaries (a quandary Jack Donaghy!) with no simple solutions. After years of crappy movie super-villain plots it was great to see how threatening (and genuinely frightening) a good villain can be.
• As great Ledger is (and he's pretty damn great) my favorite character in the film (and favorite performance to boot) is Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon. His return was a triumphant moment for both my audiences. He gets put through the ringer, but just like Michael Caine was in the first film he serves as the moral center when everything goes to pot. His desperation at the prospect of losing Dent is heart-breaking and both his moments with his son are perfect. I'll admit to getting a little nerd-teary when he gets promoted, a moment that gets perfectly punctuated by the Joker's creepy-ass applause (a moment I've since heard was improvised on set).
• Man I wish they could go back and CGI replace Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhaal in Batman Begins.
• Neither the trip to Japan nor the almost secret identity reveal felt superfluous to me as the both show Batman as a detective (something that had been lacking in every single Batman film up to this point). It's a facet of the character that was a pleasure to see.
• I am a little bummed that the wanna-be Batman thread never gets picked up again. It had a lot of potential. It would've nicely echoed the idea of Batman as a malleable symbol.
  
• OK I'll admit it, Christian Bale's Batman voice sounds like GOB Bluth. "Michael I'm onto you"
• Having his legs broken by Batman is my favorite Eric Roberts moment, no strike that, favorite Roberts family moment, in any film ever.
• For all it's grimness I think the film has a pretty damn inspiring ending. "The Joker cannot win." He's not saying it hypothetically, he's stating it as a fact. Batman, moreso than any other superhero, is driven by his ceaseless determination. He will not quit. It's what made the whole "I can retire now and leave this all to Harvey Dent" sub-plot kind of wishy-washy and forgettable for me.
• Bat-Manuel is the mayor of Gotham city? Who says Christopher Nolan has no sense of humor?
• I don't think it's reasonable to compare this movie to The Godfather or it's sequel. I will say though that its ok to call it "Heat with costumes."
• I like the fact that people are responding to this film not for it's action but for it's deeper discussion of justice, it's questions of circumstances defining morality and how institutions can be compromised. I still don't think it's an excuse to not bother checking out independent or foreign films. Which begs the question, anyone want to go see Baghead?
  
• It's my favorite movie of the year so far (just beating out Wall-E) but let's keep things in perspective folks, the year ain't over yet, not by a long shot.
• Is the Joker this year's Daniel Plainview? People sure do seem to respond to him. My friend Amir over at collegehumor gives one of HIS finest performance yet in tribute here.

Like a Complete Unknown

I'm glad I took a day or two to process I'm Not There, Todd Haynes new film inspired by the life and words of Bob Dylan. Its a wonderful film, innovative and intriguing but at the same time extraordinarily dense. I certainly can't universally recommend it, most people's appreciation of the film will go hand-in-hand with their appreciation of Dylan. If you're at all inclined towards Dylan I would strongly encourage seeing this film. Being able to put the films' scenes, character and history in context will certainly help and to that end I would endorse renting Scorsese's excellent Dylan documentary No Direction Home and reading this or this. If even the mere thought of doing a bit of leg work before seeing a film is anathema to you maybe I'm Not There is not for you.

This caveat out of the way, lets get to some particulars. Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven, Safe) has taken the standard Hollywood biopic, planted about twenty ons of TNT at its base and exploded it like Wile E. Coyote. Using the conceit of having six different actors play analogues of Dylan at different periods in his life, Haynes begins to capture a portrait of a notoriously difficult personage to know. The characters themselves are all struggling with identity in their own way in some small part. People like to label certain artists as constantly re-inventing themselves, but after watching this film one would be hard pressed to label an artist who has more successfully metamorphisized time and again than Dylan. He's been the folk-protest figurehead, the cowboy, the man out of time, the family man, the minister and perhaps most notably the rebel who balks at scrutiny of his art, life and work. Haynes shows off these figures at random, flashing back and forth their stories running parallel to each other occasionally inersecting in subtle ways.

Having seen Todd Solondz Palindromes, I was a bit concerned as to how this multiple actors playing one character would work out. In the Solondz film it seemed distasteful and gimmicky (just one of a litany of problems I have with the film). Haynes, however, makes it work in such a way as to really illustrate how complex his subject is and how silly the typical Hollywood biopic is. People are never just one distinct personality their entire lives. We inevitably change and evolve; the person we are at ten is not the person we are at twenty, thirty and so on. Even though the age and style of the actors so radically shift the basic characteristics of the Dylan persona exist through the throughline of each different character.

With six actors playing Dylan in addition to the myriad of supporting players there's a lt of acting to consider here. The clear stand-out is Cate Blanchett who in addition to perfectly aping Dylan at the time he was most contrary to the press as he transitioned from folk-message songs into electric guitar based rock, never once gives away her gender. She also has the most fun sparring partner, Bruce Greenwood the closest thing this film has to a villain, and co-star (David Cross as Allen Ginsberg-genius). Still, all the other analogues make an impression. Christian Bale works as the protester turned preacher is appropriately somber, Ledger as the actor and family man whose marriage is falling apart (opposite Charlotte Gainsbourg), an unusually gritty Richard Gere as a rebel cowboy, Marcus Carl Franklin as a boy trying to be a part of world long gone and Ben Whishaw as a confrontational artist each get a chance to shine.

In addition to the various actors, Haynes changes his style numerous times. He apes the work of a Fellini dream sequence, a Peckinpah Western, a Lester Beatles musical, a domestic drama and others, he even consciously copies whole scenes from Dylan documentaries; Don't Look Back and the aforementioned No Direction Home. Contrasting these styles evokes a variety of feelings and creates an odd synthesis that gives the viewer a keen idea of the type of man Dylan was and the man he became. There's so much material here (references to Dylan lyrics, album cover art and famous quotes are scattered throughout, but its never as overstated as in Across the Universe) that it could days to pour over it all. I look forward to revisitng the film and sussing through it (might I reccomend a pop-up fact feature on the DVD for references).