I read the first book mostly so I could get more in depth information on one character: Lisbeth Salandar.  She is a strikingly complex and yet simple creature.  Her world is black and white, good and evil.  Not surprisingly, she doesn’t deal well, or expectedly, with the grey.  As readers, we get insight into her thought processes which are often unclear in the movie, as she tries to navigate a world that doesn’t follow her rules.  This is not to say that the actor isn’t good (Noomi Rapace is awesome!), but to define her too much in the movie would destroy the image of her as an unexplainable character.  Also, part of the joy of the book is the alternating perspectives.  It  keeps the mystery alive and helps the reader to understand how Blomkvist  and the world percieve her, which direclty affects how they interact with her and she with them.  She does change a little over the first two books (I am still on the library’s waiting list for The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest), and I love how cryptic and resourceful she is.  Hands down my new favorite heroine.

Just a warning to the uninitiated, you will also learn a lot about Swedish history, possibly geography (if you start to look up locations, as I did), and culture.  Also, Mr. Larsson has a habit of describing even some of the most obscure characters, but never in a way that drags and sometimes in a way that becomes important later.

Word of warning for the movies.  They are more of a summary than a blow by blow, but to be fair, these books are around 700 pages each.  Also, they do get a few details wrong and are explicit in both violence and sex, so be carfeul who you bring with you (the easily offended can stay home).  Despite this, they are great movies and I encourage you to go and discover them for yourself.  The third movie has already been released in Sweden and should be released in 3-6 months, if they follow the pattern of the first two movies.  Last note…No American remake!  Everything that makes these movies great is sure to be lost when American producers try to make it bigger and more sanitized all at the same time.  The charm is in the stark landscapes, the great acting, the quiet moments of isolation and the startling violence.

Read these books.  Fall in love with the surprising and predictable Lisbeth Salander, and then watch the movies, for the abbrieviated fun of seeing the book come to life.

When I first saw the notice informing me of my lot, I said “Hell, this ain’t so bad… might even be fun!” What the fuck was I thinking?

The story opens up simply enough: douchebag TV anchorman reports that a “fireball” has been spotted in several locations all over the world, listing countries and last known sitings. Using what can only be described as… well, just plain movie bullshit, he predicts that this fireball should be over California any minute. And he’s right. How is that possible when in 2010 I can’t even get an accurate ETA on normal things – like an airline flight – or whether my Domino’s delivery (using their so-called pizza tracker) is actually en route or is it still in the oven? Madness.

Well the world’s most predictable UFO hovers in the Cali desert highway until our slightly inebriated and waaaay crazy heroine Nancy if forced off the road by it and sits in her car, screaming hysterically. Err, drive bitch! After a few minutes of inane shrieks, her brain turns on and she runs back to town for help. Later, it will dawn on me that the town is ridiculously far from where she abandoned her car, and there’s no way she could have moved so fast back to town.

Side note: Our girl Nancy is rich. I’m talking retarded money, son. She has a diamond the size of a pocket watch around her neck.

Nancy brings her crazy ass back, telling the sheriff what she saw and begging for her husband Harry who, busy plotting with his new lover named Honey on how to steal his wife’s money, does not want to be found. Because Nancy’s rich, the sheriff and his moron of a deputy – serving as comedy relief in a movie that is, well, a comedy – have to take her back out into the desert to find the UFO. Long story short, they don’t and Nancy goes home and is drugged to sleep by her hubby, but not before telling him that she thinks the alien was after the diamond she wears around her neck. Yes, our alien came to earth to steal chains. If he was smart, he should have waited till the late 80′s to hit up an Eric B. and Rakim concert.

Another side note: Either Nancy’s got a crazy nice rack, or I’ve had too many Coronas.

Taunted by our douchebag TV anchor, Nancy goes back out to the desert in search of her UFO, this time with Harry in tow. When they finally find the UFO after searching all day, Nancy inexplicably hops out of the car and charges at the craft screaming until what looks like a cross between a pedophile and Christopher Lloyd opens up, again reaching out for her diamond. While she crazily fires shots into the thing, Harry abandons her, running back to town to pack his belongings. The police stop him and hold him for questioning until word comes that Nancy’s turned up… passed out on the poolhouse. Wounded and unconscious, is in need of treatment. Harry, saved by a crappy alibi from his lover Honey hatches a new plan – to kill Nancy using an overdose of her medication. Harry sneaks into the room, only to discover his wife is now more than just a bitch… she’s a huge one.

The Sheriff and the butler… yes the butler, go tracking the giant footprints back to the ship, where they discover that the diamonds our UFO have been stealing are power sources for his ship. And here I thought he was just trying to get his swag up. I will admit though, there is a cool shot where their faces are distorted in the crystal globes. But that’s it. The rest of this movie sucks, emphasized by our alien’s crappy brawl with the men when they try and steal his ice.

The movie pushes towards its conclusion when giant Nancy wakes up (paper-mache made hands and all), screaming for her husband Harry, who again is nowhere to be found. She literally busts out of the house, with a doctor screaming “More morphine!” Hilarious.  Nancy goes to Tony’s Club, where she knows her husband is doing some serious womanizing.

Final side note: No, I'm not drunk. Nancy's rack is outta control. It's almost as crazy as she is.

Nancy pulls some classic jilted wife moves here – destroying public property and searching hotel rooms for Harry while he hides like a little bitch. She tears the roof off the club – literally – and kills Harry’s lover Honey with a support beam she holds like a damn Slim-Jim. Then she drags Harry out, trying to carry him off. Just when she was about to break him off a piece (or just break him), leave it to Sheriff cock block to come in shooting, blowing up the transformer in the electrical tower, killing both Nancy and Harry in the process.

Oh, and then everyone just walks away. Because stuff like this just happens all the time out in Cali.

Is there a moral here? Probably, but I can’t seem to find it.

]]> http://paperspaceships.com/films/chain-snatchers-and-giant-broads-the-4th-annual-white-elephant-blogathon/feed/ 1 http://paperspaceships.com/films/human-centipede-a-review-in-3-segments/ http://paperspaceships.com/films/human-centipede-a-review-in-3-segments/#comments Fri, 21 May 2010 19:34:16 +0000 Scott http://paperspaceships.com/?p=2131

If you haven’t heard about Human Centipede, you’re in for a shock/surprise/treat.  Human Centipede is the story of Dr. Heiter (Dieter Laser), a prominent German surgeon–a conjoined-twin specialist–who dreams of creating a “human centipede” by surgically attaching 3 people via the digestive track.  And if that sounds like something stomach-churningly disturbing, it is.

First Segment: The Front

It is my belief that any film–no matter how base a form of entertainment it may be–operates under a certain philosophy, an underlying theme which runs like a spine through the story-arc of the work.  It is also my belief (and understanding) that a film exists to communicate a message to it’s audience.  Most of the time, this message is a hokey altruism or platitude like “love conquers all” or “suffering is universal,” but no matter how basic the point, the point is inevitable there…which is why Human Centipede is both fascinating and perplexing to me.

Human Centipede is a film made on a very low budget, which means that it is a work of passion.  It is an idea that the director (Tom Six) believes is important enough to be made with very little funding and a lot of tender-loving-care.  Independent films differ from major studio productions in that they can’t get lost among the bustle of t00-many-forks-in-one-pie syndrome.  There’s no way for an independent film to become a glaring advertisement for Gillette or cut down to the point that it’s unwatchable.  An independent film is pretty much exactly what the director intended (maybe without the special effects afforded to major studio productions), but it is an accurate example of the director’s vision, which leaves the question: what possible reason could Tom Six have for making this movie?

Second Segment: The Middle (SPOILER ALERT!)

The movie itself plays out like a weird hybrid between a Japanese horror film and a very dark comedy.  The first 20 minutes are Troma-esque in their terrible acting and filthy sense of humor, but then we make our way to something much more unsettling.

Ashley and Ashlynn are two American tourists whose rental car breaks down in the German wilderness.  In order to escape a downpour of rain, they stop at the home of Dr. Heiter and ask for help.  Heiter is unabashedly inhuman, and after drugging them both, he locks them in his cellar with the plans of creating his masterpiece.  What follows is a lot of surprisingly tactful shots of what is basically the most unsettling concept in the history of film (and I’ve seen (parts of) Salo).  By surgically connecting Ashley and Ashlynn to a Japanese tourist named Akihiro, Heiter creates his masterpiece, which he genuinely seems to love in the same way someone would love a 3-legged dog.  When cops show up to investigate the missing tourists, Ashley, Ashlynn, and Akihiro have to work together in an attempt to escape.

Third Segment: The Back

Human Centipede is surprisingly well-shot.  Some of the scenes are almost elegant, and the strange sense of humor is almost charming.  By the final act, I found myself both cringing in horror and rooting for the centipede’s great escape.  The truth of human suffering is definitely present (and exemplified by the relationship between Ashley and Ashlynn), but the movie suffers from a serious lack of thematic continuity.  We get the sense of  a weird god/creation dynamic that Akihiro points out in a monologue aimed at adding depth to the thematically lacking film, but unfortunately, it’s too little, too late, and as the camera pulls away from the scene of the horrors, we can’t really believe that we saw anything truly worthwhile.  Maybe in Tom Six’s sequel, Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (2011), we will see something with a little more focus, but with such disturbing subject matter, will he find an audience willing to sit through this again?

It’s taken me a few days to sit back, relax a bit and write out this Robin Hood review. Initially, when I saw it with my brother on Thursday night at a sneak preview, I was pleasantly surprised by the film. It wasn’t anything great but I had a fun time in the theater, even though we had a guy who kept repeating the places where the film took place. The guy also got on his cellphone multiple times and didn’t trust ‘that motha fucka Lil’ John.’ Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Okaaaaaaaaaay! Ugh, finally the guy left due to my brother making fun of him by doing his exact voice but saying even dumber things, such as ‘Yo, I didn’t know the Titanic sank. Shit!’ and ‘Yo, I’m an annoying asshole. Shit!’

But I’m pushing away from the review of Robin Hood. After seeing it, on the train ride home I came to a conclusion. I liked it. But when I was walking home, I was just thinking about every flaw the film had (and there are plenty) and forgot entirely about what I actually liked about the film (which wasn’t actually that much when looking in hindsight). The more I thought about it, the more I actually started to not like it. Then even more so, loathe it. Which is a strange turn of events for a few days worth of thinking it over, talking with other people about it and coming the simple conclusion about this film.

Which is that it sucks a royal Magna Carta sized big one.

To be perfectly blunt, it is one big cocktease of a movie, where we never see the Robin Hood we all know and love but instead is more a political film, dealing with land disputes and the French trying to take over England due to a corrupt Englishman played by Mark Strong (in villain role number 272) and for some reason, he hates Robin with a passion. I mean, he does shoot an arrow at his mouth, which gives him a villainous scar on his face, but chicks dig the scar. But there’s no way he knew who shot the arrow that scarred him. It’s just a script, by Brian Helgeland (who I like by the way… Payback is a wonderful remake of Point Blank), that is so lazy and has characters you really don’t give two shits about. Well, I’ll sidestep that comment and say the only people I truly cared about were Robin’s ‘Merry Men’, who do not get enough screentime whatsoever. When we see their merriment on screen, and the fun they are having as a trio, well, that reminds me of a Robin Hood movie. Kevin Durand is especially great as Little John, but he does with a small role and makes sure to steal every scene that he’s in.

But how could a film with such a stellar cast (hell, we even have Danny Huston as King Richard, delegated to a big red beard and a few minutes of screentime,  andnd Max Von Sydow who is a blind man whose son has been murdered, a trusted knight of the king). We also have a horrible romance between Cate Blanchett and Russell Crowe, which feels severely tacked on, which is funny considering it’s Maid Marion and Robin Fucking Hood. But there’s no tension, no love, nothing at all. Instead some really pushed upon comedic scenes between the two, who have to pretend to be married in order to keep the land. It sounds like a wacky 80′s comedy, but no folks, it’s a 2010 Ridley Scott $237 million dollar blockbuster summer film.

*shakes head*

I just don’t know what went wrong. When the film was originally called Nottingham, we had a more interesting take on the mythos of Robin Hood. In that script, the Sheriff of Nottingham was in fact the good guy, who was also Robin Hood, and a duality of the characters made for a really different take on the usual Robin Hood we all know. But supposedly Ridley Scott hated it (even though he had signed on when that script was the one that was optioned) and got a new, less exciting, less intriguing and very mundance script that seriously makes you yearn for the mullets of Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Yes, I went there.

Speaking of the Sheriff of Nottingham, he’s in the film for all of 5 minutes. And guess what? No tension whatsoever between anyone. A little forced tension between him and Maid Marion but that’s about it. It isn’t until the final scene we get a little Robin Hood hint, with an arrow through a wanted sign for the rogue himself. There’s another scene earlier too, where we get Robin Hood and his Merry Men, being helped by Friar Tuck (who in this film, has to keep mentioning that he’s Friar Tuck, just in case you in the audience don’t know who he is. Or what a Friar is. Or better still, what a Tuck is).

Sheesh, writing about this film is just making me even more angry about it. It’s like Ridley Scott closed his eyes, took some of the deleted scenes from both Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven, and just made Robin Hood with it. I think he wants the world to know and love the Crusades, being this is the second time he’s used the subject matter. I’m just still in awe at how bad this film was. It’s just an utter disappointment of a film, one that makes you sit back and wonder how you’ll make those 2 hours and 15 minutes back of your life that you wasted. But you can’t make them back up. Instead, you can be like me and write a scathing review about the film that Mr. Scott will never read and just wonder how you could get him to read it and maybe stay off of films for a little while. It’s a weird world where I’ve been preferring his little brother Tony Scott’s films above and beyond his own. It’s a Bizarro world, if I’ve ever known one.

One last thought… don’t bother seeing this film in theaters. If you are interested, wait until the DVD/Blu-Ray release, when it will be a director’s cut and will probably have tons of historical extras. Maybe a director’s cut will somehow put in scenes that will make the film enjoyable. But I doubt that.

Again, if you skipped to the bottom of this review to know what I thought about this film, I have a few short words to let you all know. This movie sucks and does not deserve your money at all.

Pinkface

In case you missed it, Los Cronocrimenes (or “Timecrimes” en ingles) is a low-budget Spanish film about a man who stumbles upon a time machine after investigating the assault of a young girl in the woods.  After that, the plot gets way too complicated and way too spoiler-ific to recant on a blog.  If it sounds confused, it is, but that’s part of what keeps you watching it.  And if you can forgive a few far stretches in character motivation, this movie will have you until the very end.

One of the few solid time loop films out there, Timecrimes makes me think 12 Monkeys or Primer, but without the budget of the former or the ultra-ambiguity of the latter.  The best part about this movie is that the director (Nacho Vigalondo) walks you through every step of the time-loop, and even then, it’s hard to predict how this thing pans out.  Part of that is because Hector, our lovable protagonist, seems to make a few unbelievable decisions, but it is also because the events in the story are so basic that you’ll find you haven’t even considered them as a viable solution.

If you haven’t seen this movie, check it out.  You can probably find it on Netflix: Watch Instantly.  If you have seen it, get ready for the remake, which is slotted for 2011.  With a screenplay by Timothy J. Sexton (a writer on Children of Men) and the possibility of David Cronenberg directing, this one looks like it’ll be worth checking out.  Oh yeah, and they seem to have Tom Cruise playing Hector (think Vanilla Sky), but I can’t confirm any of that…

Casually staring into the woods.

Like darkman, only pinker

Ponyo was a beautifully animated film (like a Ghibli film wouldn’t be), and the story was very cute. It is about a young fish who hopes desperately to become a human. She falls into the hands of the young Sosuke, and her love for him allows her to become human.

Grave of the Fireflies was the most moving animated film I have ever seen, hands down. If you have not see it, I urge you to–I would consider it even more moving than most live action films as well. Spirited Away was just a great story all around. In terms of story and emotional investment, I felt Ponyo lacked both–but I also feel that it was meant for a much younger audience, so I can’t complain too much. It was still a great film, and still much better than most American animated films.

If you’re looking for a great introduction into Studio Ghibli’s works, I would suggest watching Spirited Away first. And if you’re up to watching one of the most depressing and moving films ever created, watch Grave of the Fireflies. If you’re in the mood for something cute, Ponyo.

These films will be rated on a scale from 0 cents to 90 cents, considering that was the ultimate price I paid for it. 0 being a total waste up to 90 cents, showing that it was well worth the coinage. If for some reason a film surpasses even that mark, I’ll make up an even better grading.

I decided on this horribly rainy day to check out a film I had seen in theaters with my brother and my uncle last year. A film that was a remake of a classic flick from the 1970′s, a NYC favorite if you will. That film is The Taking of Pelham 123.

Actually, Travolta is quite badass in this.

I tend to love stories based in and about New York City. I can’t help it. I’ve lived here all my life (except for 2 years when I lived in Ohio… but I will not be speaking about The Drew Carey Show anytime soon) and can’t help but love the city that never sleeps and the stories that occur within these 5 boroughs. So whenever I see a film coming out that has an essence of NYC about it, I will most probably check it out.

And when I had heard about the remake of The Taking of Pelham 123, which is a beloved crime film starring Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw, I kind of shook my head and asked “Why?” When I heard it was Tony Scott directing, I was intrigued but then was worried again when hearing about his The Warriors remake (you know, the one where it was going to be real gangs set in present day Los Angeles, therefore losing the fun and excitement of the original genre classic. Thankfully, this project seems dead in the water as of late).

Being that I first saw the original because of my uncle, who tends to introduce many great underrated flicks to my brother and I, he was dead set on taking us to go see it. So I saw it in theaters and was pleasantly surprised by the film. It’s not an end all, be all type of film, but it is a fun little crime flick where you like the characters within and have John Travolta chewing the scenery the way he knows best (and wiping those memories of chewing the scenery in such a horrible way like he did in Battlefield Earth).

But I digress. That was the initial viewing. Sometimes I sway for or against a film when it comes to the home video market. And picking this film up at Blockbuster, I checked it out once again and found it to be a nice ride, unlike a subway ride, to be honest. I enjoyed everyone that was in it. Denzel Washington is admirable in his role, where he doesn’t really have to do much but emote via a headset. John Travolta is always a treat as a villain, so it was good to see him relishing this fact and the sheer amount of f-bombs he unleashes is a wonderful thing. I still find it funny that he says bunghole, though.

Pug face Luis Guzman is in the film but doesn’t really do so much, to be honest. He does wear a bandage on his nose rather well. John Turturro is always good to see and I can’t help but smile whenever he is on the screen. And it really was James Gandolfini’s year and this film just shows why he is branching off into various other roles to differentiate his many years as Tony Soprano. Add this film with Where the Wild Things Are and In the Loop and see why I’m always ecstatic to see Gandolfini’s name amongst a cast listing now.

Tony Scott does his usual thing with his directing but not overblown like he has done before in films like Domino. He does rely a bit on some weird out of place slow-mo shots which kind of throw me off every time he used them and some of the music cues, especially the beginning use of 99 Problems a bit distracting, but other than those gripes, my eyes weren’t stressed out from watching the ensuing acts upon the celluloid.

The DVD is crammed full of extras too, which make it a fun little addition to any library as well. Especially all the behind the scenes stuff detailing the subway lines and how they work.

And speaking about the subway, seeing it in a different light is always a great thing. Especially since when you live here in NYC, you tend to hate the MTA and their lack of service sometimes. This gives an excuse for the method behind their madness. So I’m guessing every time a train is delayed, it’s because some crazy heist is going on.

Fair enough.

What is my score for this film? I think, to be honest, I’d give it 3 quarters and make it $.75 on the dot. It’s a fun film, nothing fancy, but a great villainous turn by Travolta definitely makes it worth a watch. I know it’s also streaming on Netflix right now, so there’s no excuse to not check it out. Unless you live under a rock.

Tune in next time when I pick another film at random and we’ll see if it will be well worth the price of admission or will be promptly sold online to get rid of the bad taste. Bye for now.

A stunning performance on both of their parts.

I have reposted this review I had done for Lucid Screening in honor of Lee’s new trailer.

Lee Chang-dong’s Secret Sunshine (Miryang, 2007) opens with a stream of sunlight coming through a car window. Lee Shin-ae (Jeon Do-yeon), a recent widow, and her young son Jun (Seon Jung-yeop) have broken down on the side of a road while moving to her husband’s hometown of Miryang, a small city in the southeast region of Korea. After flagging down a passing trucker she gets help from Kim Jong-chan (Song Kang-ho) the boss of a local car repair shop who helps Shin-ae find a place to start her piano school and live. Soon, unimaginable tragedy strikes and we follow Shin-ae as she finds faith and loses it in her desperate struggle to keep going.

To be fair, I am a huge fan of Lee Chang-dong and his literary style of filmmaking. Peppermint Candy is perhaps one of my favorite films and I even met the director (briefly outside of a theater) during the Korean film festival that was held at Lincoln Center in 2005. That being said, I cannot say I loved this film, it is far too brutally depressing to be an object of desire (or an object of the repeated viewings I give to his other films). This film affected me physically while watching it and I actually had to pause it and breathe for a few minutes to avoid having a panic attack. This has much to do with Jeon’s amazing performance for which she deservedly won the Best Actress prize at Cannes in 2007. Her portrayal of a woman going through a long and painful breakdown never dips into the histrionic melodrama that populates other Korean films. Even Song gives what I think may be one of his greatest performances, even though his role is largely just to follow Shin-ae. He is far from a main character. This is Jeon’s film, and his character at first seems like the comic relief with his strong accent and slightly oafish mannerisms (his mom is constantly berating him on the phone for being a loser). However, he is looking for his redemption in Shin-ae, just as much as Shin-ae looks for hers in the Christian church. In another, different film Jong-chan might be the hero, the perennial nice guy who helps out a friend in tragedy and finally gets a happy ending. But this is not that movie.

This is Lee’s most realist work and Cho Yong-kyou’s cinematography (largely filmed in handheld CinemaScope) is composed in such a way that the composition becomes invisible. The film is populated with ordinary Koreans doing ordinary things. If you ever want to know what living in a small city in Korea looks and feels like, this is a good alternative to the $1200 ticket. The pacing of this film reflects this realism. Yes it deals with a great tragedy, but it is also filled with the same little moments of quiet and repetition that life is. This also makes the film difficult to watch, there is no catharsis and it is hard to separate out the fact that you are watching a narrative film. I was drawn into the film through its slow but insistent pacing and could not extract myself out of it. There are lots of stories in this film, just as there are in real life. And as in real life, there is no answer to the tragedies that befall our heroine. In many tragedies there is a moment that serves as a catharsis for the audience allowing us to cry, but feel hope that everything will be okay in the end. This film does not allow us to have that moment and because of this it stuck with me for several days after the movie.

The film opens with a beautiful shot of the sky and sunlight streaming through a car window. Its ending shot is a mucky corner of Shin-ae’s backyard fenced with cement bricks and strewn with trash. We know as filmgoers that this signifies the end of the film, but the characters are still left to struggle to hold on to whatever sanity and happiness that they have in the left. I was left feeling brutalized by this film. It is a film with many stories and moments that beg to be described and analyzed but to do so in a review would do a disservice to those who have not seen the film. It is a film that may anger some viewers for the way it directly questions faith, morality and forgiveness in the face of great tragedy yet offers no answers. Do I recommend it? Yes, but it will not be enjoyable. Even the beauty of Cho’s images is not enough to rescue the viewer from the emotions that you will feel watching this film.

The 1973 German sci-fi  classic World on a Wire (or Welt am Draht), directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, is not readily available to U.S. audiences, and it doesn’t seem that there are any plans to bring it overseas.  The film originally aired as a 2 part miniseries on German television, and has never had the chance to enjoy widespread American viewership. So, with that said, imagine my delight when I found out that the Museum of Modern Art would be screening this film for the next couple of weeks.  I didn’t know what to expect from the film: I only knew that I had to go.

In World on a Wire, Klaus Lowitsch plays Fred Stiller, a brooding, badass scientist who heads the development of megacomputer “Simulacron,” which runs a vast artificial intelligence program in order to predict societal behavior over the next 20 years.  The world within “Simulacron” is much like the world it imitates, populated by more than 90’000 artificial people who all have independent desires.  Much like The Matrix or Existenz (although World on a Wire predates both of these), the film centers around the concept of existence and what we know to be true, following Stiller through a series of philosophical questions as his world begins to fall apart around him.

The complete film is 210 minutes, so Fassbinder has time to explore ever corner and facet of the world he created.  After the first 20 minutes of viewing, I was afraid that I had walked into the kind of pretentious art-house cinema that has earned the reputation of being disingenuous and unapproachable; every line seemed heavy-handed, the camera work made me nauseous (always zooming in or pulling back), and the characters were unlikeable.  But, after the film found its pacing, and after I learned to enjoy the self-aware humor of the whole ordeal (because this movie does not take itself too seriously), I found myself loving every moment of it.  The only thing I can’t look past is completely subservient role of women that Fassbinder seems obsessed with (seriously, almost to the point of absurdity).  Other than that, the twists are timed perfectly, the monologues are monumental, and Frank Stiller will have you cheering for him through three hours of fantastic cinema.

World on a Wire is playing at MoMA three more times:

• Saturday, April 17, 2010, 7:00 p.m.
• Sunday, April 18, 2010, 1:00 p.m.
• Monday, April 19, 2010, 4:00 p.m.

I’d give it a 9/10.

In case you didn’t already know, Primer (2004) is available on Netflix: Watch Instantly.  What that meant for me was that it was time to revisit one of the most confounding films I’ve ever seen (and enjoyed…immensely).  Primer is one of those films that is served well by its obviously low-budget production qualities (the film was made for a mere 7,000$).  The lack of major-studio influence gives the film the sense of voyeurism in the same way a show like Friday Night Lights experiments with natural lighting and static camera-angles.  It really works for Primer because the film features some of the most believable sci-fi dialogue ever written. 

Why is Primer so believable?  Possibly because it was written and directed by Shane Carruth, who is both a mathematician and engineer.  Carruth didn’t pull any intellectual punches in this one; instead, he opted for candor.  What results is a film that feels both honest and brilliant, even if initially confusing.  Don’t watch this one drunk, guys.  You’ll need all of your intellectual capacity to follow the technical language and mysteriously ambiguous plot.

yes, that's two guys in a garage w/ a time machine. What of it?

So, if this film is so demanding, where’s the pay-off?  Why would I ever subject myself to such a difficult film?  Well, aside from the fact that the 77-minute movie is so mysteriously enthralling that it seems to have some sort of charm spell cast upon it (that’s a D&D reference for you), the pay-off is in the ideas, and the ideas are brilliant.  Without giving too much away (in case you haven’t seen it yet), this film explores the concept of time-travel in a very psychological way, focusing on our two protagonists’ differing views on the action/consequence dynamic.

This movie also leaves you with a lot of questions that merit a second or third viewing.  It’s important to approach Primer with the understanding that all of the answers are there.  They’re just buried in the confusion that mounts during a very complex and overlapping time-line.  If you’ve seen the movie and you’ve still got questions, Wikipedia has an explanation of Primer‘s time-travel that might help (it certainly puts aspects of the film in perspective).

If you like Moon and Time Crimes, check out Primer.  It’s psychological sci-fi at its best.

I’d give Primer 9/10.