Journal Square, Jersey City

As a corporate off-site event, we go to Jersey City to watch Blade Runner and Brazil at the Loew's Jersey Theater, which is currently being restored and operated by a non-profit foundation. Originally built in 1929 as one of 5 grand movie palaces in the NY metro area, this is a truly impressive movie theater. Very large with over 3000 seats and impressive baroque revival decor all made out of painted plaster it is a reminder of times when going to the movies was a major event and possibly the only form of entertainment available to a large part of the population.

The other impressive feature of the theater is a large-scale theater organ - also being painstakingly restored into working order. Originally designed as a cost-cutting measure to replace a full orchestra with a single person to provide the sound-track to silent movies using the only technology available at the time to fill a space that big: pipe organs. In additions to organ pipes these theater organs have all kinds of bells and whistles to imitate the timbres of other instruments as well as provide all kinds of sound effects in a purely electro-mechnical way.

Disneys heavily self referential satire on a variety of its classical fairy-tale cartoon movies. A series of animated characters are thrown out of their animated fairy-tale world into the presumably not so fairy-tale world of NYC, leading to some funny juxtaposition of Disney fairy-tale and NYC clichés. All in all some light-hearted humorous fun, but probably (hopefully!) no serious contender for the Oscars.

Episode V of what is turning out to be the epic pop-culture saga of the '00s. In fact, the new director seems to have made choices in visual language, atmosphere and emphasis on plot-lines, which seem to evoke Star Wars as the previous cinematic pop-culture mythology for much of the preceding generation. After the magic-wand duel between the old wizard/spiritual mentor Dumbledore and the dark lord Voldemort one almost expects the later to announce to Harry, that he is his father and that Hermione is his sister... just kidding.

As the series is taking on more epic proportion and focuses on The Big Questions of good vs. evil etc. - similarities with any other such epic story through human history are starting to become unavoidable. That is probably why stories made up as a "designer mythology" - like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings - have such a resounding success with the public, as they tap into a cultural undercurrent with their universal story-lines and archetypical characters.

As compared to some of the earlier H.P. movies, this installment is a less faithful transcription of the book and makes some more significant choices of particular story lines - probably for the better. It becomes more easily accessible by people who have not read the book. In particular the emphasis on Harry's development and internal struggle between good and evil makes for a good main plot line. At the end, in a Lord of the Rings moment, he recognizes the need for support from his friends in facing his demons. As for Tolkien, reluctance, vulnerability and the need for support from a fellowship of friends are the hallmark of a true hero. A long shot away from the arrogant superman image of a Wagnerian hero...

The end of this movie possibly marks the turning point of the saga, where Harry comes to terms with himself and is ready to face his destiny (with the help of his friends).

What I remember from reading the book, was a juicy Orwellian political parable on the rise of fascism or any form of totalitarism: a radical ideology supported by a hard-core of well placed supporters from the elite of society (the death eaters) as well as the complacency of the bourgeoisie who prefers to believe that nothing bad is going on to justify their continued inaction, or even secretly sympathizes with the extremists, supporting their ideas even though pretending to condemn their methods.

We also witness firsthand how a ruling party would try to build and cement mind-share in the quest of a "premanent majority" by influencing the youth and taking control of the education system. Here in the form of Dolores Umbridge, a ruthless apparatchik an crony of the current Minister of Magic. Her rise and hold to power are solely based on the principle of "loyalty before competence", which should be eerily familiar to anybody who has followed US politics over the recent years. For many Brits, the particular struggle for the soul of education, weather the purpose of learning is to pass standardized tests (O.W.L's in this case...) or to become a better human being in some immeasurable way, could also be a reflection on the Thatcher years where similar struggles between utilitarianism and idealism must have raged throughout the places of public education (similar theme as in The History Boys , recently on Broadway from London).

Ziegfeld theater

Not my first choice of movie, but as a birthday surprise for somebody who is a big fan of romantic fairy tales and wild pirate stories...

In a summer of sequels and remakes, this is the 3rd part of a movie trilogy - based on an amusement park ride. Maybe they should consider next a Broadway musical, followed by the musical movie - this seems to be the way how multi-channel franchises are properly exploited these days. The most fitting line is the cynical comment by the evil Lord Cutler Becket, representing the big-business interests of the East Indian Trading Company, to mockingly excuse and justify his evil and treacherous ways - "It's just good business" - one can only wonder if he is talking about the movie here ;-)

I guess everybody has to do prequels these days? Based unusually closely on the first James Bond novel by Ian Fleming, this latest addition to the Bond movie franchise is supposedly how this career as 00 started. A very different Bond from the previous movies, much grittier, rawer and muscular (literally) than any of the previous ones. This James Bond actually bleeds and gets dirty, rather than just slightly shifts his bow-tie after a fight. He isn't as flippantly cool and sarcastic, but rather unpleasantly ice-cold and brutal, a natural killer, who in between adrenalin rushes is painfully aware that he has sold his soul to the devil and that he is ways underpaid for this kind of shitty thankless government job, except that he is just too good at it and getting a big kick out of it. The opening stunt scene much more physical than usual and appears to over the top and choreographed that one expects Jackie Chan to burst onto the scene at any time... After recent James Bond movies, which had become notorious for basically being commercials strung together with a plot, one almost has to look for the product placements - gone are the entire scenes filmed through the label of a Smirnov vodka bottle or on the screen of a Ericsson cellphone. A question that remains is why the makers of the movie decided to move the location of the to Montenegro of all places - while the book had it in France? Maybe as a welcome to the worlds newest state? Or maybe it was supposed to sound like Monte-Carlo, but then why not use that? Maybe because the view of Monte Carlo is too iconic and well-known to have a (very scenic indeed) Czech spa resort town to stand in for it - for budgetary reasons. But then why not give credit where credit is due and locate the whole thing in Carlsbad in the first place?

Singing and dancing penguins, need we say more?

Would be interesting to know how much of this is somewhat staged and how much is absolutely spontaneous I guess it's hard for people to be truly spontaneous in front of a camera-team, so I guess it' all depends on what they are told before the camera rolls. (maybe among others, the proceedings of Doe v. One America Productions Inc., SC091723, Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, West District (Santa Monica) will shed some lights on this...) The film about the making of this film might be more interesting. Unless it's completely fake, it would be interesting what it took to escape from that Rodeo scene or form a avoiding indecent exposure charges after crashing the mortgage brokers convention in the hotel... Borat, aka Sacha Baron Cohen clearly has a talent for provocation, pushing people's buttons and bringing out the worst in them. The movie is crass, crude and provocative, but not sure I would really agree with the rave reviews and ratings the movie is getting.

A portrait of France's most famous queen as a yet another look at the troubles and alienation of a beautiful, rich and famous young woman - well it is a movie by Sophia Coppola after all. With its hip and contemporary look (including the choice of actress) , the movie is still surprisingly historically accurate for the most part (with some embellishment into unsubstantiated rumors). As the teenage queen and her close confidantes gossip, party, shot and try on new shoes in fabulously stylish candy-colored shots, the script could as well be that of any cliquish (upper-class) high-school teen comedy set today. Rather than falling into the Disney princess fairy-tale fantasy, the movie actually gives a fairly good illustration of the ritualistic and constraint lives of royalty, even - or particularly - at the pinnacle of the "absolute monarchy" of the French Kings. The ability concentrate as much power in the hands of the king can only be maintained as long as the most powerful lords of the land are (by their own choosing) stuck in the artificial world of the court of Versailles, scheming over who is allowed to hand the king (or queen) their underwear each morning.

The midtown offices of a fictitious high-end NY fashion magazine are populated by some of the most stylish backstabbing bitches imaginable (of both genders) living in fear and admiration of the larger than live editor in chief, who rules her domain, and so we are told a good part of the fashion world, with an icy reign of terror. While being the personal assistant of an egomaniac workaholic in overdrive must be hellish in any industry, it appears to be particularly so in an industry where people derive their key value and self-image from their particularly distinctive sense of critical judgment. Which typically means cutting anything any anybody to shreds in the most elegantly sarcastic ways possible. Even the most well-meaning and supportive statements are at best dressed in personal insult or derogatory comments. While in reality this must make for a pretty bad work environment, it does make for pretty good comedy...

Maybe its the gag reflex over a somewhat too stereotypical morality tale of "hot shot celebrity discovering the true meaning of live while stranded in the countryside", but somehow this latest installment of the Pixar saga didn't have the magic touch of earlier movies like Monster's Inc or Finding Nemo.

Al Gore is on top of his game in this recorded slide-show presentation. Still a little too geeky to be electable, but his passion and sincerity for his cause is contagious.

Despite initial cynicism that crash might have won the best picture oscar simply because it doesn't include any gay cowboys, the movie really is very well done. I am generally not a friend of these multiple-strands-of-implausibly-intertwined-lives type movies, but crash manages to derive some kind of irony on how the unlikely encounters and re-encouters are strung together to make a point and create a caricature out of racial stereotypes. Characters in the movie say things out aloud that in a post political correctness, no properly socialized person would say out alound - but probably think and so it doesn't sound fake. The movie manages to strike a hopeful or funny note just about whenever the audience is ready to jump off the balcony or slit their wrists in disgust of how rotten we people treat each other.

The last installment of the Star Wars prequels sets the stage for the story of the classic trilogy and answers some questions, e.g. why Darth Vador would be wearing such an uncomfortable costume.

In the tradition of "prequels" the story of how an eccentric multibillionaire ends up running around the city at night dressed up as a bat. And no, this isn't a Woody Allen movie...

I wanted to see this movie , partly to see how badly it would crash and burn. Quite a challenge to turn this collection of wacky and surreal tidbits about our even wackier universe into a movie - when read or listened to, there is so much room for imagination that the movie makers would have made choices that would disappoint a majority of the fans and simply confuse those who aren't.

Overall the film did a honorable job of trying to do justice to the text within the constraints of commercial cinema. They had to pick a story-line through the book and make a lot of visual and atmospheric choices (like the city of the Vogon ueber-bureaucrats looks a lot like the dream sequences from Brazil) and overall the movie works quite well. But other than the book, it probably won't go down in history as a significant movie.

A mixture of Indiana Jones, with less action scenes, and a tutorial in American history and the wild mix of conspiracy theories that often surround the founding fathers of the US and their involvement in secret societies. It would not surprise me that in the 1700 most liberal thinking men would have a high chance of being member of a masonic lodge or similar free-spirited and due to its subversive nature at the time, secret society, but the connection between Freemasons and the treasure and wealth that the knights templars had accumulated during the crusades seems somewhat overreaching...

documentary

A critical portrait of what is probably the predominant institution of our times. Since before the law, a corporation is a "legal person" the movie goes on to explore the character profile of a corporation: single-track mindedly obsessed with making a profit. Lack of soul, body or any form of morals or scruple. No fear of pain, death humiliation or punishment (unless it affects profit). How the delineations between public welfare and personal property have evolved over time to a point, where one can ask in the context of multi-national cooperations whose public welfare we are even talking about.

road movie

Gorgeously filmed coming of age story, road movie, travel adventures of based on the journals of two Argentinean medical students, taking off from Buenos Aires on an old motorcycle (ironically called the "The Mighty One") heading for the northernmost tip of the continent in Venezuela. The quiet, serious and idealistic Ernesto Guevara (later to be known as Che Guevara) becomes increasingly aware of the hard life and injustice that dominates the life of millions of poor, land-less and displaces people throughout the continent, while his boisterous friend Alberto Granada is busy trying to chase girls or procure some food or shelter for the constantly broke pair using the wildest stories. Probably one of the most beautiful, sweetest and funniest movies I have seen this year.

Remake of the 1962 classic

The year is 1962 - the American people is scared of an invisible enemy: the communist infiltrator, plotting to destroy the American Way of Life. the year is 2004 - the American people is scared of an invisible enemy: the islamist terrorist, plotting to destroy Freedom (or so we are told...). Seems like a good time to make a chilling conspiracy theory thriller about mind-control and infiltration at the highest level. While the original movie actually plays on that popular fear and presumes the supposed enemy of the time being behind this somewhat far-fetched conspiracy, the current version plays more on the fears of leftists and liberals: that not islamic fundamentalists are the real danger, but rather power-hungry politicians and their corporate benefactors. The movie is somewhat heavy handed in its leftist agit-prop, e.g. the supposedly fictitious evil corporate moloch, Manchurian Global isn't even a corporation in the traditional sense, but explicitly portrayed as a "private equity fund with high-ranking ex-presidents, prime ministers and deposed dictators on its board" - an as thinly veiled stab at Carlyle Group that would almost justify those Washington insiders to protest defamation, if they wouldn't be too busy to reap in the benefits of access and connections to even care...

The scary part is that a conspiracy, involving highest political levels, influential corporate players and shady private contractors involved in some unaccountable roles in US military operations, sounds almost plausible... But fortunately we can rest assured, that in the real world special interests don't really have to resort to such drastic and nasty means of such elaborate kind of high-tech mind-control and assassinations to gain access to the highest levels of political powers, since intimate personal connections and shared financial interests already do the trick quite well.

And as far as mind-control goes, the old-fashioned "rule by fear" trick still works beautifully on the American people...

Episode two of a new franchise?

Since I didn't grow up on Marvel comics, I usually don't understand what the big deal is about with those life-action comic-strip adaptations. First making a movie out of something that has meandered through thousands of editions of comic books into a cohesive movie script would require some serious writing. In this respect, Spider Man 2 is much better than the first episode in this franchise.

Maybe it is because comic book heroes are deliberately somewhat caricaturesque and "sketchy" characters that they end up feeling too odd and unreal when played by humans in a life action movie. Specially since on one hand, this movie is attempting to play seriously on its drama angles, the coming of age story, the tough choices, the difficulty of living at the fringes of society, the suppressed love - which just doesn't fit with the "cartoon" sequences.

Episode III of the J.K Rowling epic

Definitely more dark and moody with the new director (Alfonso Cuaron ), including some real bad British weather. With this change in tone and with a more "adult" director, is this really still a children's movie?

documentary debut by and with Morgan Spurlock

Watching a perfectly healthy young man nearly ruin his health to prove the point, that an all-McDonnalds diet would not be exactly healthy could have some serious long term effects on your appetite. The documentary covers this 30 day experiment, including the alarmed consternation of the doctors that provide the medical supervision. The movie also tries to make a case that one reason why obesity is rapidly becoming public health enemy number one and primary cause of avoidable death, but since a multi-billion dollar processed food industry has a strong interest in our malnutrition and it will make sure with its advertising and lobbying power that basically nothing will change.

documentary by Michael Moore

This documentary, mostly cut together from media footage of members of the current administration with a voice-over comment has an obvious agenda: regime change 04 in Washington. Editing statements together in such a leading way helps battle the short attention span of the audience, that makes the kind of demagogic lies so effective, which the current administration and their power-base employs with such skill.

Anybody who has followed current affairs over the last few years and has some interest in history and politics doesn't learn much new. In particular, it does not even attempt to offer a theory for what might have prompted the Ahab-like obsession with Iraq that many key members of the current administration seem to have been harboring since its raise to power. While it may be entertaining to draw out the various connections and special interests that may be at play here - but it still seems quite unlikely that such personal (profit) motives would play the leading role. Or maybe I am just too naive...

Trying to make a film about the legend of the Trojan War focusing purely on the human aspects, without involving the gods is kind of like trying to make a movie out of Lord of the Rings without any dwarfs, wizards, elves, etc: simply a gigantic computer generated carnage without any sense nor aparent reason! Since the story is basically known (i.e. who dies next...), all the computer generated battle scenes alone can't hold the attention for 3 hours.

While it may seem cute for a while to give the major players modern motives and sensitivities, kind of like archetypes of the modern age, the story still doesn't seem to make sense and the actors (with few exceptions) seem ill at ease an unnatural in their roles. In this modern interpretation, Agamemnon, quite the power-hungry machiavellian power-broker simply uses his brothers humiliation as an excuse to lead this pan-hellenic coalition against Troy, which with its geo-political location at the entrance to the narrows into the black sea made it a key to the control of Asia-minor in those days. After Menelaus dies (by liberty of the screen-writer...) and the original casus belli is no more, the shift in the rationale for war becomes obvious... kind of like Helen being the original mythical Weapon of Mass Destruction... ;-)

What's next, maybe the Odyssey as a road movie in upstate New York?

Ingmar Bergman festival @ Film-Forum

Not a happy place... a barren island with 4 people sets the mood for a cold and brutal picture studying 4 people in various stages of disarray: Karin a young woman falling increasingly into insanity , her confused and panicked young brother, her husband and her father, both helpless and emotionally distant. Probably the strongest portrait of mental illness I have seen on film (or on stage) and the performance reminded me of Vanessa Redgrave's role and her depiction of socially unacceptable drug addiction in "Long Days Journey into the Night" last year on Broadway.

documentary by Jorgen Leth and Lars von Tries @ film-forum

How sick could reality TV get...? In this documentary, Lars von Trier tortures his mentor and idol Jorgen Leth by having him re-make 5 times his 1967 minimalist short film "the Perfect Human" - but with imposing increasingly vicious and arbitrary rules and restrictions - the obstructions of the title. However hard and desperate Lars von Trier tries to trip him up and throw him off balance, Jorgen Leth shows his true class as a film maker and ends up being able to turn even the apparently most damaging obstructions (e.g. no shot longer that 12 frames!!!) into advantages - truly impressive!

documentary by Jehane Noujaim (US) @ Film Forum

Classical documentary without the "Michael Moor style" in-your-face political activism and self-serving showmanship. The film-maker stays behind the camera and her subjects are the key protagonists: editors, journalists and other members of the news staff of the Arabic satellite news station Al Jazeera, located only a few miles away from US military central command for the middle east in Doha, Qatar - as well as members of the international (mostly American) media and the US military media relations staff at the CentCom media center, where the Pentagon's "official" view of the Iraq war was produced and disseminated to the world. The US military has learned from the past and tried very effectively to monopolize information, the media's and the worlds perception about what is going on in Iraq during the "coalition" military operations in Iraq: by warning journalists to evacuate from Iraq before the way, by providing an information feed and a press-center at its CentCom facility far away from the theater of operations, similar to the host of olympic games or any other major sporting event and by giving "friendly" media outlets privileged first-hand access to the part of the war the military wants them to see through its novel "embedded journalist" concept. Obviously, anybody who insists in this situation to produce its own content or to provide a forum to alternate views - e.g. by airing segments from the Iraqi national TV - is going to be unpopular with the US military, who considers that a hostile subversion of its efforts to manage perception.

Ironically, at the center of American wrath is the upstart Arab news station Al Jazeera - which probably is as close to what an "free" Arab media would look like. This leaves the question if the current dogmatic right-wing government in the US are going to like very much the "free" Iraq they are claiming trying to create through this war and the following occupation since. Ignoring the warnings (or was it meant as a threat?) from the US military, Al Jazeera keeps 3 offices in Iraq during the war - and communicates its coordinates to the pentagon. This might have proven to be a mistake as during the air-raids leading up to the entry of US troops into Baghdad, the Al Jazeera office is being destroyed by a targeted air-strike, killing their correspondent. The US military does not deny to have destroyed this building on purpose and claims that its troops have come under fire from this building - I guess they do take the "explosive" power of the media pretty serious...

It seems that the western-educated and BBC-trained journalists of Al Jazeera are much more acutely aware of their own cultural bias and the boundaries they do or don't overstep each day, than the members of the US media corps or the US military media relations officers that accuse them of being biased and unprofessional as journalists. It seems that many of the Americans, even some who are foreign affairs correspondents, still consider their own cultural bias simply as "The Truth".

This film shows how the editorial choice of what to show of the nearly infinite flow of information about an event, is inherently subjective, even while staying within the bounds of what is commonly considered object "he-said/she-said" journalism. Much of the statements made in the movie have become illustrated by the events since it was shot. The hate-tirades by Secretary Rumsfeld during press-conferences against the liars disseminated by Al Jazeera (shows as Al Jazeera news footage in the movie) and his wishful statement that "everybody should take the rights of POW's as seriously as we do" caused bursts of choked, hysterical laughter in the theater...

Good Bye, Lenin - German "ostalgia " picture

A bitter-sweet nostalgic picture about those turbulent years in Eastern Europe in the late 80ies. In particular the German unification that left a bitter taste for many in the east as it was handled almost like a corporate acquisition. Although not happy with how things were in the GDR, they would have liked find their won ways, rather than being overrun and bought out by their obnoxious, rich cousins from the west...

An interesting twist is how Alex creates the illusion that the GDR still exists for his sick mother, among other by creating fake news broadcasts. Once again, who controls the media, controls the truth...

"Dogville " at the Angelica

We really wanted to go see "Good bye, Lenin ", but it was sold out. Intrigued by what the unlikely combination of a Hollywood A-list actress and an artsy European film-maker who limited means into a stylistic fashion statement (Dogma 95 ). Somewhat "neo-brechtian" in its detached, preachy approach to analyzing morality and human nature. The theatrical staging on an abstract set, despite some light and sound effects, make the story seem even more abstract and allegorical and maybe make the emotional low-blows easier to stomach. An excellent movie that hardly leaves anybody indifferent and can lead to hours of discussions - just not much of light entertainment or what one would consider a "date movie". Ok, that would have been unusual for Lars von Trier, but then he wouldn't bee the first somewhat notorious filmmaker to sell out to Hollywood...

by Akira Kurosawa (on DVD)

I guess I really should catch up on watching more of Kurosawa's movies. He is probably the single most influential director on recent (i.e. second half of 20th century) American filmmakers. We were commenting on how this adventure story reminded much in its setup of Star Wars : princess of a fallen fiefdom being escorted by a heroic samurai general through enemy territory in the company of 2 bickering comic relief characters who are the focus of the movie. On the DVD there is an interview with George Lucas who besides giving hommage to Kurosawa as being an eye opening experience and how in particular he borrowed the idea of telling the story through the eyes of the two lowest characters in the movies from Hidden Fortress . Except that the 2 androids in Star Wars use some more polite language than the two peasants in this film.

"The Battle of Algiers" at the Film Forum.

It's obviously a masterpiece of knee-jerk political/social "propaganda cinema" made for maximum emotional impact, but in many ways I think it is also brutally realistic and even handed. It shows the moral dilemmas and mechanisms at work behind occupation and armed resistance. Somebody recently wrote that no attempt of a foreign occupation force to suppress a nationalist motivated insurgence has succeeded in the last century. This movie seems to illustrate why: to succeed in an occupation and root out any resistance, one has to abandon any sense of morality to a degree which very few people are willing to do.