I’m starting to think that while Michel Gondry is a competent director and a master stylist, the only great film he ever had in him was by Charlie Kaufman.
Be Kind has a premise that plays directly to Gondry’s DIY aesthetic: Jack Black gets magnetized and erases the all-VHS stock of Mos Def’s video store, so the two of them start to remake the movies the customers request, using not much more than cardboard, paint and neighbours. These parts are perfectly aligned with Gondry’s hipster whimsy — Ghostbusters, Rush Hour 2, Driving Miss Daisy and The Lion King all get “sweded”. And it’s awesome. It’s clever and hilarious and inspiring — hell, it made me want to make my own films again. Unfortunately, somebody decreed that there had to be an actual movie around those scenes, with a storyline and characters and everything. And that very concept, I think, is the opposite of what Gondry is really about, or at least what he’s good at. I don’t mind seeing the seams in the actual filmmaking process, but the jury-rigged story (bless its French-accented little heart) is trying to say something about who owns culture, but instead unravels into a mess of undefined characters and loose ends.
Plus, the fact that it supposedly cost $20 million makes the whole thing seem disingenuous and perplexing. After watching the amusingly “sweded” videos on YouTube (including Gondry’s own home-made version of the trailer), I wonder if the end result would have been better had it been made for a quarter of that budget.
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Monday, February 25, 2008
This may not be relevant, but did you know that Gamera is a friend to all children? — Mystery Science Theater 3000
Despite the fact that I’m kind of a movie geek, I really don’t pay much attention to the Oscars. Probably because find the whole thing tedious, crass and self-congratulatory. Whenever they do the montage of dead people and the audience spontaneously plays applause meter based on the fame of the deceased, I pirate ten new Hollywood movies just out of spite. Plus, there’s the fact that I stubbornly refuse to care about the lives of my favourite actors and directors apart from the movies they make. (Though I’ll admit to secretly being pretty happy that No Country For Old Men did so well.)
So instead of watching the Oscars, I spent the evening watching Japanese giant monsters fight in Gamera vs Guiron. I actually liked it quite a bit better than the last Gamera movie I watched, Gamera vs Gyaos, mostly because this one uses the scenes without giant monsters fighting as an excuse to trowel in a whole lot of low-budget weirdness. This mostly comes in the form of Guiron’s keepers, a couple of sexy brain-eating Japanese space babes in capes and helmets (which, coincidentally, exactly corresponds to a fetish I didn’t previously know I had). Not to say that there is anything non-bizarre about the giant monsters! Because not only do we have the turtle-shelled, jet-propelled, low-rent Godzilla knock-off that is Gamera, but his opponent Guiron is fucking surreal: he’s 80 meters tall, has a giant paring knife for a head, shoots throwing stars out of his face, and has the power to make water flow uphill. Let’s face it, you can’t tell me you’ve seen a whole lot of that before.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
All religions suck. — Dead Kennedys
I got into Bollywood via the music. I have a few compilations on my iPod, and even though I had no idea what anybody was singing about, I enjoyed a bit of grooving to Mohammed Rafi and Asha Bhonsle. A few months ago, kommune-mate Abhi helped me add several of the more distinguished Bollywood movies to my Zip List, and I’ve been watching them as they trickle in. And I can say I’m enjoying them quite a bit.
The first hour of Bombay plays out like a romantic comedy, as a Hindu man falls for a pretty Muslim girl in his village. Even though both families will surely object, he woos and wins her with a combination of wacky coincidences and lavish music numbers (my favourite is the marriage consummation number, complete with squads of big-haired 1980s-issue dancers and erupting fountains). A few scenes of marital bliss later, Gillian predicted something bad would have to happen, just because everybody was so damn happy. Sure enough, the second half is as grim as the first half is cheery, as Bombay is engulfed in the religious riots of 1993-1994. This part is an odd mixture of melodrama and unflinching look at the riots and the participants. On the one hand, even the fundamentalists religious leaders (who are clearly given the lion’s share of the blame here) are given unexpected nuances. At the same time, there are numerous heartfelt speeches and songs, and our heroes spend a disproportionate amount of time talking about the importance of India coming together, even though they are continually at the epicentre of the conflagration. I’m actually not sure that’s a bad thing. There is a time and place for subtlety, and I’m pretty sure this movie isn’t it.
One thing I really appreciate about Bollywood movies, even (or especially) in an important Message Movie like Bombay, is that they understand the need to entertain. This is something that I think a lot of filmmakers in, say, Europe (and Canada) have lost sight of: there is a contract between filmmaker and filmgoer. You can be as artsy as you like, and make all the statements you want as long as you engage me first. If you can’t do that, you have failed as a filmmaker. Maybe it’s just that the stakes are so much higher, but its clear that the people that made Bombay understand this — they have something genuinely important to say, and sometimes that’s simply more important than capital-A Art.