Filmsy - Movie Reviews Blog

Movies Where Art Was Used As A Transformative Medium

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Art has the power to do things that nothing else does. It’s personal, intimate, thought provoking, has the ability to express every emotion on the spectrum in vivid technicolor, it’s unique, it’s make you make of it…the word that truly describes all that art encompasses in a life is the word transformative. Art is transformative. It’s magical. The way it works in each individual’s life is special and the story of transformation is never the same.

One art form that is brilliant at showing how art is used as a transformative medium is film. Film is able to present a story as if it were real life. It includes all of the senses and draws you into take you on a journey. For the sake of example, here are movies where art was brilliantly used as a transformative medium in the lives of the characters involved: [Read more…]

Cloud Atlas Directors Talk of Their Film, Lana Wachowski Appears

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One of the most anticipated films this year is the film adaptation of author David Mitchell’s expansive fiction novel Cloud Atlas. The new film is a very ambitious one especially since the source material has a depth and breadth that is a gargantuan challenge to put on screen.

To fully control and steer such an ambitious film project, three directors decided to pull their talents together to make the movie – Tom Tykwer and the Wachowski Brothers. Tykwer is known for his wonderfully kinetic German film Run Lola Run, and the Wachowskis have already indelibly left their mark in fans’ minds with The Matrix trilogy. [Read more…]

Movie Review: Breast Men

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Let’s face it, people are obsessed with looking good. We go to the gym to sculpt our bodies, put creams and chemicals on our face to slow down the effects of aging. We get face lifts to remove wrinkles, and tummy tucks to make sure we’ve got flat abs. But if there’s one cosmetic surgery procedure that have truly charged the face of the aesthetics profession and even culture itself it will have to be breast augmentation, or putting silicone breast implants on women to make them feel more “adequate” where it counts – the breasts. [Read more…]

Gaily, Gaily: Disappointing, Disappointing

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I caught Gaily Gaily on late night cable.  Why would I devote two hours of my life to this particular 1969 release?  Well, in theory, Gaily Gaily should be a meaningful, insightful, socially significant movie. Consider:

  • It co-stars Melina Mercouri, the anti-Junta Greek actress who later became a member of the Pan-Hellenic Parliament and Greece’s minister of culture after spending years as an outspoken critic (and target) of anti-democratic forces.
  • Abram S. Ginnes wrote the screenplay. Ginnes was a lifelong radical, a labor organizer and a victim of anti-communist blacklisting during the 1950s.
  • The movie is an adaptation of Ben Hecht’s undoubtedly embellished autobiographical works. Hecht, a prolific Oscar-winning screenwriter, spent time on an English blacklist due to his strong support of the Zionist movement in Palestine.
  • United Artists released Gaily Gaily in 1969, in the thick of a movement toward more overtly political film making.
  • Norman Jewison, who has tackled a variety of social and political issues in his movies, directed Gaily Gaily.

In reality, Gaily Gaily is anything but a politically charged movie. It’s really nothing more than a sepia-toned dramedy with an impressive cast, nice period costuming and a glass smooth Henry Mancini score.

Beau Bridges is Ben Hecht. Actually, he’s Ben Harvey. That’s right, they somehow managed to turn Ben Hecht, the very namesake of the SS Ben Hecht that braved the British blockade of Palestine, into a WASP-y blond kid. Anyway, young Bridges is a sexually frustrated teen from Galena who has a thing for cleavage. With the support of his dear grandmother, he heads off to Chicago in hopes of a slightly more exciting and cleavage-rich lifestyle than Galena can provide.

He’s robbed on the train. Bordello boss Queen Lil takes care of him. He becomes a cub newspaper reporter. There are minor twists and turns as comedic reporters and politicians drink, drink and drink some more. People chase one another as bouncy Mancini music plays in the background.

Old school newspaper reporters are loveable rascals. Irish guys are drunks. Prostitutes have hearts of gold. Politicians are corrupt, but not necessarily evil. Melina Mercouri is beautiful. Margot Kidder makes her film debut. Bridges has that vaguely confused look on his face that dominates most of his early performances. Every scene features an instantly recognizable character actor (Brian Keith, Hume Cronyn, George Kennedy, etc.).

Gaily Gaily is pretty like a gilded old photograph. It snagged three Oscar nominations (costumes, art/set decoration and music).

Unfortunately, it’s boring. And, to be honest, it’s pretty damn stupid. It’s certainly disappointing.

It’s also strange. Gaily Gaily is a throwback movie made and released during a period of innovation and boundary testing. Hollywood’s output was commenting on larger issues in a grittier way than ever before. Yet Gaily Gaily’s collection of politically aware and talented artists made a movie that, at its very best, is nothing more than a quaint source of vanilla half-chuckles.

Australia: An Interesting Warning with a Side Order of Cole Slaw

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I have an incredibly doughy spot for epic movies. Two of my top five all-time favorites are expansive David Lean history pieces (Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago). I’m such a sucker for BIG films that I even liked Legends of the Fall, which by most measures is one of the most horribly overwrought pieces of junk made in the last thirty years.

It was this love of the genre that made a viewing of Australia inevitable. I’m not a Baz Luhrman superfan, Hugh Jackman has never really impressed me and I think Nicole Kidman is the most frustrating actress of her generation. All of my instincts begged me to stay away, but I finally broke down and stuck the 2008 non-blockbuster, Australia, in the DVD player.

Something Interesting

The most interesting part of the entire movie occurs prior to the first credit. Before the first notes of the swollen score, a warning appears on the screen. It states:

Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders should exercise caution when watching this film as it may contain images and voices of deceased persons.

I may have seen other movies that featured this caution, but this is the first time I noticed it. Here’s the scoop:

Apparently, the Aboriginal people of Australia and the indigenous population of the Torres Straits have a series of bereavement and mourning rituals that include certain avoidance practices. When a member of the community passes away, they cease to use the name of the deceased for a prolonged period and avoid or destroy all photographs or recording in which the deceased appears.

It can be quite distressing for these folks to inadvertently encounter an image or recording of the departed during this period of mourning, known as “sorry business.”

Cole Slaw

Unfortunately, that brief warning was more interesting than the rest of the big, bloated flick.

I’ll spare you from a recitation of the plot. Basically, Australia is the story of a little native boy, a fish-out-of-water white woman who shows her toughness in the Outback, and a gruff, grizzled cattle drover set against the backdrop of World War II and the Japanese bombing of Australia.

It features everything you’d expect from a big, romantic epic. Sweeping scenery shots, an over-the-top score, a beautiful woman whose porcelain features belie her steely determination, the rough-and-tumble against-all-odds local love interest, big explosions, big weather and dramatic deaths. It also provides our white protagonists an opportunity to defy convention by landing on the right side of what was a horribly wrong policy regarding the native population during the period.

I can understand those who hate movies made from components like these. I really can. From a more objective perspective, I might even agree with them. However, I really do love this sort of thing. As such, I should adore Australia.

But I don’t.

Australia is cole slaw.

I like cabbage. I like salad dressing. I like little slivers of carrots. I like all of the stuff that goes into cole slaw. It should be my favorite food in the world. Yet, I hate it.

Every year, I try it again. I just can’t believe I don’t like it. It doesn’t make any sense. Every year, I discover that I hate it more than I did the year before.

That’s Australia. I should like it, but I don’t. Not even close.

With Australia, though, I think I know why I’m turned off. When people make cole slaw, they’re making it because they believe it will be a tasty side dish. They’re not making it as part of some culinary homage to the cole slaw of the past. Luhrman’s Australia is an intentionally exaggerated version of old Hollywood epics and its resulting insincerity steals any movie magic it may have otherwise possessed.

Australia is a 20th century Gone with the Wind for the southern hemisphere. It’s also a long reference to another 1939 Hollywood production, The Wizard of Oz. Whether Luhrman is trying to honor those films or to make some other point about their composition is meaningless to me. The movie tries too hard to channel its forefathers and plays like a collection of pieces that aren’t quite properly joined.

Remember, this is coming from a guy who actually enjoyed a movie featuring Anthony Hopkins in a bearskin coat wearing a chalkboard around his neck and slurring profanity. When you lose to Legends of the Fall, you really LOSE.