#42 We just watched this on Netflix streaming: Wild Strawberries
Not much of a title screen. Artistic or budgetary?
The Film: Wild Strawberries
Countless filmmakers point to Ingmar Bergman as an inspiration. I have no idea why this is, but I have a theory: Bergman was one of the first, if not the most popular and prolific, to use film as a true medium of introspetive self-expression. Meaning, he made movies that were deeply personal, often to the point of transcending the art form.
What other director would have a man playing chess with Death?
An image that you, dear reader, are likely familiar with even if you don’t know the movie I’m talking about.
Wild Strawberries is a more existential version of Ikiru. It finds a man at the end of his life trying to find peace and makes amends. If not make amends, than at least recognize his wrong-doings.
I have my complaints with the movie. The main and most obvious (to me) is that a great deal of the movie is made up of a flashbacks and voice overs and if he was indeed making a Swedish Christmas Charol than he should have the decency to build in a some type of literary device that made the whole thing less “weird” , if that is a satisfactory word. (It isn’t)
I think the movie works and might fall into the realm of a “spiritual exploration”, but it often annoyed me and didn’t flow well with the story. When similar surrealist visions occur in movies like 2001: Space Odyssey, they flow from human madness and the incomprehensible reality of space, time, and its effect on consciousness. Bergman just plays them off as dreams…
The Scrooge shot.
Why to watch it: It is a decent place to jump into the waters of Ingmar Bergman.
Ingmar Bergman is a great filmmaker – no one can really deny that. His films exist in a different reality than the movies we’re familiar with today. There is something to be said about Bergman being a bit boring - Wild Strawberries does feel long at only an hour and a thirty minutes, but that is because I’m used the to the conventions of modern filmmaking.
The movie is a road story, but asks all questions that Bergman was obsessed with such as death, existentialism, and the existence of a creator. These questions often come off feeling contrived, for example there is a moment where two characters are an obvious (maybe too obvious) dichotomy of religious belief in the existence of God and they physically fight over whether God exists. Bergman = stark storytelling.
Such moments are not unusual with Bergman. His films always scream out questions and ideas instead of subtlety eluding to them. Woody Allen is often the same way – likely inspired by Bergman
One of the last images of the film.
Pay attention to this: “Environments more than entertainments”
Roger Ebert referred to Andrei Tarkovsky’s movies this way. Whether the definition applies to Bergman is not for me to decide, but I think it is a cute way to describe Bergman’s great talent: Creating an atmosphere - not just of aesthetics, sound, and framing, but one of an atmosphere of moral and spiritual questioning. That being a long-winded and clumsy way of saying Bergman’s works aren’t just to entertain, but to create self-contained worlds where a Knight (in the Seventh Seal) really would turn to the camera and express his fears about death and the absence of God.
I must concede that while I liked Wild Strawberries quite a bit, I would not list it with my favorites of the “old greats” (Ozu, Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, Kubrick, Welles, Hitchcock, Fellini – to name a few of them).
Another note: For those people who would want to cut my balls off for hinting that this isn’t the masterpiece you believe it to be, I want to note that the versions available (especially the one I watched on Netflix) of Bergman’s older films are nearly unwatchable. Someday I hope to hit up a Bergman festival where they have beautiful restored prints available. If you’ve ever seen a completely restored, computer-cleaned Blu-ray, you know what I mean.
-Collin
By Collin, on May 18th, 2011
Netflix is king and increasing paid content online
I fucking <3 Netflix
I totally called this back in an article I wrote last year. Obviously it wasn’t hard to call, but I like to toot my own horn when I’m correct. Now that thousands of BitTorrent users are getting butt-fucked by the whole Expendables thing - a worthy “bf” if you ask me – I think Netflix is going to take over completely. In a great article from CNN they stated the following:
Netflix accounts for 22.2% of all U.S. broadband traffic compared to BitTorrent’s 21.6% share. And at peak times, Netflix hits 30% of all traffic, a bounce of 44% over results from the fall.
Netflix is doing more to actually combat the problem than suing some nobody douche. It encourages people to pay for their content. If production companies would just get with the program and realize the their million dollar, straight-to-DVD movie starring some washed-up C-lister isn’t going to encourage people to buy it. They should just put it on Netflix Streaming.
Many of the companies suing over copyright involve indie movies, which is understandable. Small movies don’t have huge opening weekends and they certainly don’t encourage people to get their exclusive Blu Ray with tons of extra content, as in they don’t have one. What they have is a shitty DVD that would be a waste for people to spend $15 bucks on or $4 at Blockbuster.
The excuse they can “rent” it on Netflix doesn’t apply anymore. My generation wants their content fast – meaning right this minute.
Netflix streaming isn’t lucrative, but it is a fucking reality. A Netflix Streaming subscription is almost free…almost. Between sites like Hulu and Netflix, they’re changing the way we pay for and watch content. It is exciting. Youtube has a pricey subscription feature. I’ll have to look into that.
-Collin
By Collin, on March 29th, 2011
#35 We just watched this on Netflix streaming: Gojira
The Film: Gojira
Of all the movies Gojira reminds me of one just sticks in my mind and won’t leave: The movie First Blood. The two films have nothing to do with each other in terms of plot, but both are tragic warnings about the dangers of war and both were turned into franchises of shameless destruction and violence. Don’t get me wrong, Godzilla flicks and Rambo flicks are awesome. It is just funny Godzilla was such a powerful statement against weapons of mass destruction, but you could watch a more modern Godzilla flick and never know.
The actual movie is what you expect: Godzilla shows up and starts fucking up Tokyo. However, what you might not expect is the moral dilemma introduced toward the end of the movie. Do you save the cities of Japan or introduce a new weapon of mass destruction to the world? The film takes a position on the use of the Atom bombs only a decade earlier.
Why to watch it: It is the first fucking Godzilla movie!
Aside from all the morality jargon, it is just plain cool to see the first Godzilla movie. You might not like it, but I did. The special effects are cheesy at times, especially when you can clearly tell that Godzilla is a dude in a suit. The special effects though, overall, are pretty decent. They’re dated, but still effective. I was engaged in the story, but the characters are never fleshed out and you never care about them, but that really isn’t the point of the movie.
Pay attention to this: The film’s arguments against weapons of mass destruction.
Gojira is a not so subtle in regards to its criticisms of weapons of mass destruction. Particularly America’s use of the Atom bomb on many cities. It is easy to draw parallels between Godzilla’s destruction on Tokyo and the destruction that America did when they dropped two Atom bombs on heavily populated cities. These scenes with Godzilla are way too long and are often way too silly and fake, but I think they work.
Moreover, the discussions whether or not to use the new weapon to kill Godzilla seem like real fears that stemmed from the use of these weapons. They are intriguing ideas during a time of global uncertainty in regards to what America did. It’s cool. And man, hearing that Godzilla scream for the first time is so cool.
-Collin.
By Collin, on March 28th, 2011
#34 We just watched this on Netflix streaming: Talk to her
The Film: Talk to her
One of the youtube comments under Talk to her‘s trailer says, “No one does it like Pedro Almodóvar”. A funny comment if you ask me because I’m not sure I know what “it” is. I also don’t know exactly if the comment was describing greatness or difference. Maybe both?
Talk to her is a defining film for Almodóvar. Not in his career, but in what kind of filmmaker he is. Almodovar’s films revolve around plots that are, frankly speaking, totally ridiculous. So much so they’d seem unlikely on Days of our lives.
Talk to her follows two men’s lives as each man becomes obsessed with a woman in a coma. One woman was a matador who received a traumatic injury from a bull. The other a ballerina, I can’t remember how she got hurt.
Regardless, the movie is somewhat of a masterpiece and I’ll try my best to explain why: It is a successful attempt at exploring the more feminine emotions of men and how men deal with loneliness and self-identity.
Why to watch it: Pedro Almodóvar’s audacity.
There is a segment in this movie so audacious I thought it could only come from the dreams of Charles Bukowski. I won’t ruin it here, but it is the most surreal sexual fantasy I’ve ever seen. I mention the segment not because of its sexual absurdity, but to highlight that despite its absurdity, it manages to be an evocative statement about male sexuality. What that statement is I’m not positive about, but it isn’t just a John Waters anarchistic moment. It sums up Almodovar to me because his great talent is making emotional statements about human beings through material that is seemingly impenetrable.
Pay attention to this: Themes of gender and identity.
I’m not suggesting that Almodóvar’s movies are thematically stale, but many, if not all of them, are wrapped together in style, themes, and emotions. They should be watched together and in marathons. Independently, they’ll seem like beautifully sh0t, absurdist odes to traditional Hollywood which contain evocative statements about identity, sexual gender, and family.
All that sounds shamefully academic, but Almodóvar is the type of filmmaker you need a film theory brain trust for. He is a filmmaker whose goal is pay homage to the films he loves, but also discuss ideas and emotions that he is obsessed with. If Quentin Tarantino, John Waters, and Ingmar Bergman all meshed into one person, their films might be something similar to Almodovar’s.
Openly gay much of his life, Almodovoar probably found solice in women. Many of his films obsess about women supporting each other in times of need, bonding together, caring for each other, and being emotionally intimate. This is not Sex in the City either. His characters face real tragedy and real life. Men watching his films might discover that these behaviors can, and are, had by men as well. That is kind of what Talk to her is about…I think.
-Collin.
By Collin, on March 24th, 2011
#32 We just watched this on Netflix streaming:The Year of Living Dangerously
The Film: The Year of Living Dangerously
You want to talk weird? Let’s talk weird. Weird is when you sit down to watch a Peter Weir film you’ve never heard of and see a dwarfish, asian, Linda Hunt who is supposed to be a man. Does no one else see this problem? This movie was really good except for this huge issue. Let me explain…
This movie stars Mel Gibson as Guy Hamilton who is a journalist writing on events in Jakarta, Indonesia during the rise of communism in Southeast Asia. Awesome. The atmosphere is great. It looks like a sweeping political adventure. But then, Linda Hunt shows up as the Asian character Billy. I’m like, “Oh, she probably has the hots for Guy and wants to help him out.”
Nope. Hunt’s a guy. A guy!? How is that possible? It was really distracting to me.
But once I just accepted that it was a woman playing a man, I just tried my best to ignore it. Once I did, the movie became really good. Sigourney Weaver plays Jill Bryant, an assistant at the British Embassy. Her and Gibson’s characters start a romance as communism and war become a reality. So cool.
Why to watch it: It is a good example of the best genre.
I don’t know what to call this genre exactly, but it is my favorite. Epic-romance is what people usually say, but I don’t think that tells the whole story. The genre is a love story wrapped up in a conflict. Maybe it is war, a break-up, a bad life, even something like ennui. It also has to be in a foreign country or culture. Also, love triangles sometimes happen.
English Patient, Gone with the Wind, Australia, Casablanca, Reds, Lust, Caution, and Cold Mountain are all included in this genre. But more, I love movies where two people from different worlds meet in an unlikely situation such as In the Mood for Love, Witness, Lost in Translation, or even Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Pay attention to this: Peter Weir coming into his own.
Peter Weir has been stagnant since his epic Master and Commander film. His last movie was pretty bad and I don’t see him coming up with a new movie anytime soon. But when he made The Year of Living Dangerously he really came into his own. The way he immerses the audience in Indonesia is terrific. He also captures an expatriate culture I’ve literally experienced first hand. Men who think they own the locals and can do whatever they want. It appears they could…
Moreover, my only gripe with the movie’s content, which makes it only very good and not great, is that the romance doesn’t have time to form into anything significant.
Sure, they get their bang on and share a cute moment in a rainstorm. I just don’t think that’s enough to let us empathize with the couple. I think what the movie lacked in its romance was more perspective of what was happening with Weaver’s character. There needed to be more moments where we get to know her. Anyway, this has gone on too long…see it or don’t, but it is pretty good.
Pay attention to this: “Environments more than entertainments” 
Of all the movies Gojira reminds me of one just sticks in my mind and won’t leave: The movie First Blood. The two films have nothing to do with each other in terms of plot, but both are tragic warnings about the dangers of war and both were turned into franchises of shameless destruction and violence. Don’t get me wrong, Godzilla flicks and Rambo flicks are awesome. It is just funny Godzilla was such a powerful statement against weapons of mass destruction, but you could watch a more modern Godzilla flick and never know.
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