World On A Wire - 1973 - 4 Stars

Actors: Klaus Lowitsch, Mascha Rabben

Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Here is a link to the World On A Wire trailer (I'm sure there's a way to embed this, but I'm not going to bother to learn how): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URq7m3-SOtA

Let's check off all the awesome items:

- Very early electronic music

- Ridiculous 70s style furnishing

- A giant flashing red screen and a guy having a bad hair day walking towards the camera

- Why is there a whole crowd chasing that dude? Anyway, awesome.

- 'Who benefits?' 'Everyone, if it's up to me.' *closes car window*

- 'For your sake, forget everything you've seen.'

This could be the greatest trailer I've ever seen. I had to see this movie, even if it was nearly 3 and a half hours long. What followed couldn't live up to the trailer, but it was certainly well worth seeing.

Note: Minor Spoilers Ahead

Where to begin? I suppose with the Simulacron. The Simulacron is a fully computer-simulated world created by the IKZ corporation, populated by 'identity units' - essentially, computer-generated people. The Simulacron is nearly complete, but naturally there's some issues - one identity unit is aware that his world is not real, and he's not reacting to that news too well. Another unit committed suicide, which the creators deem impossible. Along the way to finding this out, a ton of goofy stuff happens - there's a party thrown by a leading IKZ member in an impossibly ridiculous house. The leader of the Simulacron project dies unexpectedly. There's something about the United Steel Corporation's interest in the Simulacron project as it relates to the potential profitability of steel.

Fassbinder's camera rarely stays still - sometimes it will pull way back from a conversation with seemingly no purpose. Other times, two characters will be speaking, and he will zoom in on a character's face who isn't talking. There's an infinite number of mirrors in the film; seemingly no wall or surface is worth anything if it's not reflective. Fassbinder uses this to frame a myriad of interesting shots. His motile camera often settles where one character is in view, and another character is only in view through a mirror. For a film that does a whole lot of talking, the constant motion of speaker and camera makes what could be a dull affair less so.

However, there are some odd touches. There's a scene that provides all sorts of exposition (most of which we already know) nearly an hour and a half into the film. There's a scene that appears to summarize the entire film to this point, as if we weren't aware. One has to remember that this movie was made for TV and was cut into two 100 minute segments. As a result, seemingly, there is a fair bit of padding and several red herrings. I have to imagine this could've easily been made into an 150 minute film.

Still, it raises questions that are more relevant than ever - does existence matter if it is within a computer construct? How realistic could we actually make a computer simulation? Why would we do this? I always like it when more thoughtful directors tackle sci-fi - they don't always care about precise technical details, they care about the philosophical implications of technological advancement.

Hopefully this film is released on Netflix, but right now, Netflix doesn't even know it exists.

Metropolitan - 1990 - 3½ Stars

Actors: Carolyn Farina, Edward Clements

Director: Whit Stillman

Does the world of Metropolitan exist? That was the question I kept asking myself - it appears to be made up of young New York socialites home from college on winter break. Yet the world appears indistinct - there's no talk of current movies or music. Instead, the socializing seems to be made up of wild pontificating, witty rejoinders, character assassination, and anxiety about the future.

It's not hard to see people like Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach getting into this extraordinarily talky film. The plot is stunningly low-key, the Chekhov rule is violated, and it's more about the characters than it is what happens to them. Still, lines like 'Oh, I don't actually read literature, I prefer to read literary criticism' make the film well worth it.

The Mechanic - 2011 - 3 Stars

Actors: Jason Statham, Ben Foster

Director: Simon West

Enough of that art-house bullshit! 'The Umbrellas of Cherbourg was a lovely insight into...' - time for a real movie.

The Mechanic starts with a rather awesome sequence and goes downhill from there. It's unfortunate that action films so often put the coolest thing first. Still, if you want to see some shit blowing up, people hiding in heating ducts, one of the recurring musical themes from Barry Lyndon (Barry Lyndon? What's that, a gay porn?), and assault-rifle armed men crawling over rooftops, this is the movie for you.

One thing I love about a well-constructed action film is how everything in the world is repurposed as a weapon. In this film, a refrigerator door, a garbage disposal, a seat back, and a fire extinguisher pin are all used to harm other people. Furthermore, action films traffic in the unseen - we get to see elevator shafts, skyscraper rooftops, heating vents, and the like. The world is full of hiding places that we rarely think about.

One thing I don't like about modern action films is the ridiculous filters they put on the movie. Why is this movie so unbelievably yellow? Is it to make sure everyone knows they're watching an action movie? Is it to heighten the sense of unreality? Whatever the case, half of this film appears like it's been pickled.

Days Of Heaven - 1978 - 4 Stars

Actors: Richard Gere, Brooke Adams

Director: Terrence Malick

Days of Heaven is easily the most beautifully shot film I've ever seen. A director would likely be happy to get one shot to look like any of shots in this picture. Malick seems to have an endless supply. The images are so pure that they hurt.

However, the story is paper-thin, the acting is sub-par, and the symbolism throughout feels weak. The film is almost too beautiful; it doesn't want you looking under the surface. Perhaps under all that beauty, there is a deeply meaningful film, but I'm not going to watch it a second time to find out.

Woyzeck - 1974 - 2½ Stars

Actors: Klaus Kinski, Eva Mattes

Director: Werner Herzog

Was it frequent commenter Ian who said he didn't like Herzog's 'man-in-society' films? I can't remember, but I'm beginning to realize I don't really like them either. Woyzeck is about a low-level soldier who takes the world's abuse.

Woyzeck's problems are two-fold:

A: It was adapted from a play and it shows. Many scenes are staged with little inventiveness, just two characters talking to one another in a sparse room.

B: Woyzeck's 'insanity' is evident from about the 10 minute mark of the film - as a result, there's really no character who we sympathize or empathize with. We don't know that if Woyzeck's plight is a result of his constant mistreatment, mere insanity, or whatever. This is also the problem I had with Stroszek, where Bruno S's elfin nature as the protagonist doesn't really evoke sympathy.

Woyzeck has a few interesting ideas, but ultimately it's too talky and the characters are loosely drawn.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg - 1964 - 4 Stars

Actors: Nino Castelnuovo, Catherine Deneuve

Director: Jacques Demy

I hate musicals. And The Umbrellas of Cherbourg begins with a scene where an auto mechanic is singing to his auto mechanic friends about what they're going to be doing that night - one said, 'going out with a girl', which seemed to me to be a pretty bald-faced lie, given the singing and the general Frenchness of the whole thing. Anyway, getting past the notion that this entire movie is sung aloud took some doing, but it definitely beats the normal convention of musicals where people stand around talking normally and then spontaneously burst into song.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg excels for two reasons. One is in making a rather simple love story interesting and emotionally resonant by way of musical expression. The second reason is its camera work - I think of musicals as these very staid affairs where people face the camera and the entire thing is staged like a play put on film. Not so in this movie - the characters and the camera are always moving. The director knows that song alone isn't enough to carry it.

The Straight Story - 1999 - 4½ Stars

Actors: Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek

Director: David Lynch

This is my second time viewing The Straight Story, and I'm not sure if I love The Straight Story because it's a great film or because it's an anti-film. By anti-film, I mean that it's staggeringly mundane - at one point, the protagonist asks which area code he's in and whether he has to dial the extra three numbers. Most of the performances don't feel like performances - most characters in films are a little more charming, a little more witty, a little more beautiful than the rest of us. Not here. In fact, the characters are so devoid of these things that it wouldn't be hard to view the film ironically, but I don't think that's the intent.

Farnsworth is unforgettable as Alvin Straight. Straight is honest, stubborn, and endowed with a folksy sense of humor. The Straight Story was, in typical fashion, passed over for Academy Awards, but Farnsworth was nominated for Best Actor. Only one off-note scene, which feels like it's imported from another Lynch project, keeps this from being a 5 star film.

Capturing The Friedmans - 2003 - No Rating

Subject: The Friedman family and their dissolution during troubled times

Director: Andrew Jarecki

Documentary Rating: Must-see

I think if there were a Gallup poll on the most monstrous crime a person can commit, pedophilia would likely rank #1. It's loathsome and completely unforgivable. And yet, there's a more troubling aspect that Capturing the Friedmans adeptly raises - since the victims of pedophilia are so young and impressionable, how can you glean the truth from people whose memories are unreliable and who don't respond well to interrogation?

Where Capturing the Friedmans really excels is in its use of home video taken at the time of the Friedman controversy. For whatever reason, the eldest son was recording their daily life. This saves us the use of endless panning shots across family photos and repetition of video from the news media at the time. It also ensures that the people involved, being interviewed 15 years later, are unable to use their unreliable memories to gloss or distort what was actually going on.

Audition - 1999 - 3½ Stars

Actors: Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina

Director: Takashi Miike

I'm not going to try to trick people into watching Audition, a movie which seems entirely non-threatening until it becomes the exact opposite. So while I won't be spoiling the plot, I will be spoiling some of the themes. You have been warned, both about this review and the film itself.

I'm not sure whether to take Asami's actions as mere psychosis, or as extreme reactions to the nature of women in art. Whenever women perform art, there is often a sexualized aspect to that performance - Asami finds three different avenues to express herself, and in all three, she's regarded as a sexual object rather than an artist making a statement.

Whatever the case, Audition is strange and disturbing - I was reminded at many points of David Lynch. I'm not sure if that's a good thing.