Friday, May 30, 2014

Billy Wilder & Me



The first Billy Wilder film I ever saw was Sabrina starring Audrey Hepburn, William Holden and Humphrey Bogart. It wasn’t the most eye-opening film I had seen at the time (Apocalypse Now would do that a couple of years prior), but it was one of the first that subverted my expectations and start my lifelong love of well-made romantic comedies. Sadly, this film didn’t really make much of an impression of me when concerning its director at the time. But going back to it, I realize how much care and concern that he had with those characters, how Sabrina was the light and the anchor in this film. Wilder loved his female characters as much as his males, even when some of the actresses made it very difficult for him in reality.

When I watched Sunset Boulevard for the first time, I was speechless. I was amazed by the narrative twists and turns, the performances, the setting, the direction. Billy Wilder had once again crossed my path, but this time I saw him for his accomplishment in this film. The way that Gloria Swanson’s character seemed to lure the camera to her like a moth to flame, how the framing around the card table both seemed intimate yet illuminated the star-studded cast around that table. And that final glorious shot, the one that could be argued as one of the best final shots ever filmed.

After seeing that, I had to see more. Stalag 17, The Apartment, The Lost Weekend, The Fortune Cookie. These films felt so different from one another that it nearly seemed intimidating going from one film to the other. Then I had seen a film that didn’t just hit me like a boulder, but knocked me out: Ace in the Hole. The irony is that what could be considered his finest work was the one that was least appreciated. In fact, it was long considered lost until 2005 when the Criterion Collection got their mitts on it.

So why does Billy Wilder have such a strong hold over me as a film lover? Why would I dedicate an entire month to discussing his work? If you talk to any film snob or hardcore film lover, Billy Wilder isn’t merely known, but seems to be outright mainstream. Yet you talk to any modern movie goer, this name is lost entirely on people who have never tried his work. We could debate on why older movies aren’t appreciated more, but there’s more to it. Wilder’s films weren’t simply crowd-pleasers, they were statements about modern life as he saw it, the trials by fire and the constant desire to be seen as the heroes of our own story, even when the prevailing evidence goes against that being the case. Wilder wasn’t afraid to do things differently or to play in territories that might be considered risky. His protagonists were usually misfits trying to survive fates worse than death (or at least in their own mind). As a misfit that had seen myself both as hero and villain in my own story, such complexity in characters were a breath of fresh air from white hat/black hat mentality that was prevalent during Wilder’s time and that has not yet gone away even now.

Take Ray Milland’s character in The Lost Weekend; He’s a drunk who knows that he has a serious problem but can’t seem to know how to conquer it over a horrible weekend. One of the finest and most horrific depictions of alcoholism ever filmed during a time where such topics were frowned upon by audiences and the censors. Billy Wilder, along with Milland, understood that in order to understand the plight of this character, you needed not to feel pity but to feel empathy for a character that is pathetic but also slimy.

Even in characters that he wanted to show nothing but contempt for, he was able to show glimpses of humanity. Take the Nazi officer in Stalag 17 who showed respect and straightforwardness with the Allied prisoners of his war camp, though his own feelings were clouded by loss and the pain of exile at their hands.

All of this is visible even without knowing the backstories or the rumors. Wilder’s films are transparent enough to give you enough to know how he feels without it becoming self-congratulatory or vain. In fact, the humility of his films are a trademark towards his craft, the sense that he’s not trying to pull one over on the audience, but let them into to character conflict without obfuscation. In Ace in the Hole, we know Kirk Douglas is a horrible person from the first moment we see him, but we also know he doesn’t want someone’s death on his hands and not merely for the selfish reasons. Yet Wilder doesn’t stop trying to show how horrible the character is. This is probably how he can manage to pull off beginning the film with the narrator’s dead body and still pull off the tension it does through flashback.

More people should know Billy Wilder’s work and should go down in pop culture the same way that Alfred Hitchcock or Steven Spielberg had. His accomplishments towards cinematic history are vital in ways that are as subtle as his films are. I want my contemporaries and newer generations of movie lovers to see that Wilder’s work is timeless and fascinating as any newer film coming out. That these films are as good if not more amazing than the imitators were. In short, Billy Wilder isn’t important enough for just one day, his importance requires a month.

Let #BillyWilderMonth commence.

*This essay can also be found here.

Friday, May 16, 2014

A Few Thoughts on Godzilla (2014)





Let me make this clear, this is not a review on Gareth Edwards’ recent remake of the classic film. The purpose of this article is to contemplate a few things that I found noteworthy about the movie that both work in the film’s favor as well as things I considered lacking. If you are looking for a recommendation might affirm or dissuade, but I’m not outright saying to either watch the film or not nor am I grading it like some exam. There will be spoilers ahead, but I will try to keep them wrangled towards the end.

While my overall impression of the film is favorable, the film does lack some rather important components that keep this from engaging me on the level that Pacific Rim did last year. The first thing of note that I believe that needs to be said is that this film really isn’t a reboot. While there is some expository scenes, the film doesn’t feel the need to explain where Godzilla comes from and a considerable amount of information is already known by an organization that means to research the beast. I personally appreciate the non-origin story as the film already suffers from a pacing problem. That said, how Ken Wantanabe makes his realization as to Godzilla’s intentions is a little far-fetched and a little on the nose for the explanation. More on that last part in the spoilers section.

The film’s pacing suffers from a known Hollywood insistency that non-human, non-speaking characters cannot hold the attention spans of moviegoers ala Alien vs. Predator, Transformers and Rise of the Planet of the Apes. I won’t even touch how Hollywood’s earliest memories came from films in which sound was not available, but I will say that with expressive movements and a confidence in the filmmakers to create something fascinating, this should not be an argument. Is it a greater challenge, absolutely, but unnecessary human characters and plots involving humans in a movie that inarguably is about a monster beatdown only drag the proceedings and leaves me wanting extended monster fighting and less Kid Gets Lost In An Airport drama.

Speaking of monster fights, Godzilla delivers the goods, though at times through the first two thirds of the film I got the sense that the filmmakers are teasing the final fight by showing only snippets of the multiple encounters between the monsters. In a way, this is homage to the original Godzilla where the monster would ravage the city, then immediate cut to the aftermath, no explanation where it had gone or how or why it left the rampage. While I appreciate the artistic use of initially seeing the monster fights as the fleeing humans would, just outside the interest beyond trying to find a safe place to hold out during the carnage, but it is disorienting not to have closure between each fight.

The weakest part of the film has to be treatment of the human characters by the script, which is ironic considering how much time the humans get on screen compared to the monsters. What’s even more strange is how the film makes up for the sheer blandness of the dialogue by casting great actors, actors that in a way have no reason being in a Kaiju picture. The most offensive must be the depiction of female characters, especially Julia Ormond. Her role has so little to do with the film that considering what Bryan Cranston is already doing to make the script not sound terrible, he could have done this with an off-screen counterpart. But overall, women really have little to do here but act as points of worry, which becomes pointless when my concern transits from the humans to the monsters.

This leads me to my biggest concern; there are simply way too many human subplots. This becomes especially noticeable by the climax when I’m supposed to worry about not only the monsters laying waste in combat, but also a bomb, a nurse and a nest. Two of these subplots are ultimately useless as they are meant to create tension that has already been taken up by the other two. This is a textbook example of overindulgence. By removing these needless subplots, nearly 30 minutes of film would be excised and the remaining film would keep our interest on what matters; the monsters. Humans in a Godzilla movie really should only fill two roles, the expository and the commentary. They set up why Godzilla and his friends are fighting and they comment as to where the combat is going. If you really want to add up some human time, let them help Godzilla fight the other monsters. Otherwise sit down, shut up and enjoy the show.

Spoilers: From here on I’m going into spoilers that you might not want to read until you have seen the film.

As I mentioned before, Ken Wantanabe’s explanation as to why Godzilla is an “Alpha Hunter” and therefore means to aid in destroying other monsters is rather weak tea. For being a part of a group that has obsessed over this thing for so long, I would think he would have something more concrete or have molded an argument based on the evidence at hand instead of speculation. I would have more easily bought that he was “sent by God to destroy monsters” more than this. And what does it matter if he does destroy these things if he’s causing as much collateral damage as they are, maybe even more? As much as I love the line “Let them fight.” they should have drawn them out to sea. Or at least Napa Valley (who wouldn’t buy monster-smashed grapes, right?).

And I absolutely love the ending, making Godzilla the superhero (though having the city that he had helped decimate cheer him on was a little rich). This leaves the right amount of room for sequels if they are called for while ending on a note of finality if that doesn’t happen. I also love that the film has respect for the body count as it is clear thousands have died because of this debacle. Unlike Man of Steel, it has earned the tragedy of the amount of losses (I mean seriously, how could anybody have stopped three monsters from waylaying each other?). Godzilla isn’t a creature that can be communicated with; it simply destroys monsters and does it with brutality not seen since Peter Jackson’s King Kong.

End of Spoilers

The film sports incredible monster-on-monster action. The look of the monsters is at a scale that is humbling to say the least, especially Godzilla, who looks especially awesome. And when Godzilla lets out his trademark roar, it will be hard not to cheer this beast on. Speaking of sound, the use of sound mixing and sound design for this film is so good it deserves to be seen in optimal settings where the vibrations of the roars can shake your seat. The photography does look noticeably CG at times, but never Godzilla, whose mass just takes up too much of the screen in a detail so fine as to be seen as anything less than a mighty god of yore. 

I doubt many fans of Kaiju cinema will be displeased by the film (other than a wish for more Godzilla). That said, I’m curious how many people outside of fans of the genre will be impressed. This feels like it can easily rub some people the wrong way like Man of Steel had. It’s clear that Godzilla represents an agent of the planet in the early stages of a tremendous fury. But the damage caused represents more than a couple of well-known real tragedies and that can be seen as being insensitive. That said, this is truly an ambitious story and while not one that will stir much conversation, it does leave me feeling exhausted.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Why Person of Interest Matters to Geeks




                Please excuse me if I am a little lightheaded from the recent third season finale of the CBS show Person of Interest. Not giving away spoilers, the episode was centered around a mock trial of several individuals linked to an omnipresent machine whose very existence invaded the privacy of every identifiable thing on the planet. How it ended could rival The Terminator franchise in believable paranoia.
                Person of Interest is a show about the intrusiveness, dependence, misuse, overabundance, and misunderstanding of technology. It uses a format that closely resembles the legendary comic book crimefighter Batman. It stars the likes of Michael Emerson of Lost, Jim Caviezel of Frequency (yeah, I know he played Jesus but I won’t blame him for that one) and Amy Acker of practically anything Joss Whedon-involved. So why is it that when I talk to my geek friends, none of them are watching this show?
 It’s not like there isn’t a fan base considering it’s one of the most-watched dramas on network television. It’s not like the show is diminutive or insulting towards geeks considering that they are the heroes of the show. And the show isn’t primed towards non-geeks considering it was created by Jonathan Nolan (who gave us The Dark Knight and the upcoming Interstellar, brother of Christopher) and produced by Geek God J.J. Abrams. And it’s not like CBS doesn’t court the geek demo considering that it’s the home of The Big Bang Theory. So again, why is this show not talked about on par with Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead?
Person of Interest, for those who don’t know anything about the show, centers around a mysterious tech master named Harold Finch (Emerson) who has created an artificial intelligence that he calls “the machine” in the interest of sifting through the endless digital databases to look for potential terrorists in the wake of 9/11. In the process, his machine wasn’t just picking up the trails of terrorists but also street-level criminal acts such as premeditated murder.  While the overseers of The Machine (aka the federal government) weren’t interested in these particular crimes and deemed them irrelevant. Finch’s conscience forced him to create a clandestine operation to save these would-be victims or stop these would-be criminals (Minority Report anyone?), but due to his physical disabilities has to find a partner to do the leg work. Enter John Reese (Caviezel), a former CIA assassin on the run from his former employers. Together they foil the bad guys while constantly running up against even bigger foes with vastly superior resources.
This is a show that is tailored to geeks and yet doesn’t seem to get the respect that it deserves from the community. It has the big action moments that are near movie-quality with characters that would be considered superheroes if only they donned some sort of costume. Yet the show is also incredibly smart, dealing with relevant current issues as well as timeless science fiction themes in regards to the role and impact of A.I., shadow governments created by technology, and even religion as a particular character practically worships The Machine. And while these are all heavy elements, the show also have cunning humor and more than expected laugh out loud moments thrown in with the explosions and the tech speak.
And while we’re on the subject of tech speak, the use and understanding of both current and next-generation technology is impeccable. The show tries it’s hardest to stay within the realms of the possible, with the exception of the superhuman ability of these characters to heal from combat wounds.  The larger villains of the show feel real because they also follow rules of the possible, therefore allowing their threat to have genuine stakes. Also fascinating is how each villain group, like Batman or X-Men, feels unique to one another, making them memorable and exciting when either on their own or mixed together.
I know that CBS is notorious for having shows that feel like a one-trick pony because they usually are. Even Big Bang Theory recycles the same joke over and over again. And while there are persons-of-the-week episodes, in many cases these cases usually have a significance in the grand scheme of the season or the show. Some will return to give a hand in another case, others happen to have a clue to the overall problem. And yet as the show has progressed, these episodes become more central to the mythology, more tied to events reaching the finale. And going back to the season three ender, let’s just say that the show’s procedural elements are unlikely to continue as the show evolved into something naturally different from where it started. And not since Breaking Bad has a season finale been both exciting and terrifying in its implications both to the characters and to the show itself.
Person of Interest doesn’t really need geek support to sustain itself, but it’s surprising that geeks haven’t gravitated towards it as they have with other shows. In my humble opinion, that needs to change. Geeks have complained constantly about not having fun smart shows that deal with things that interest them. Yet here is a show that does all of that and on a constant basis. What more could you ask for?
And for the record. Jim Caviezel isn’t Jesus. He’s Batman. In a suit.