movies

Why I Love It: The Brothers Bloom

July 16, 2017 by Kate MacLeod

Image result for brothers bloom fair use image When I heard that Rian Johnson was going to direct Star Wars: Episode VIII I was beyond geeked. I have adored every one of his films from his first, the high school film noir Brick, to his latest, the clever and oh so stylish time travel tale Looper. But my far and away favorite is his second film, The Brothers Bloom. This ties with Jaan-e-Mann as my absolute favorite film ever, because like with Jaan-e-Mann it was almost unsettling how much it felt like a filmmaker had climbed inside my head and made a movie just for me.

Now, my favorite book of all time hands down is Ulysses, following the wanderings of a man named Bloom and a younger fellow named Stephen. I don’t recall ever seeing a trailer for this movie or anything; I freely admit I grabbed it without even reading the description based on title alone. (I also hadn’t seen Brick yet; I saw that after watching this one a dozen times).

First off, it’s a gorgeous film. Beautiful settings, marvelous clothes, and all the colors just pop. I don’t really get the gritty, washed-out color aesthetic some filmmakers seem to love these days. Film is a visual medium; show me something I want to look at! Plus the camerawork is part of the storytelling. And is it weird to praise a film’s editing? There is a time jump in the last third of the movie that is executed so smoothly I feel like I have to.

It kicks off with a poem giving us the back story of our two main characters, the brothers Stephen and Bloom, and the poem is read by Ricky Jay. It is awesome.

It’s about two con men who base their cons on great works of literature, with many delicious details like little cookies for fans of those sorts of books.

Rinko Kikuchi was in this before she was in Pacific Rim, and she steals every scene she’s in. That’s no easy task opposite the likes of Adrien Brody, Mark Ruffalo and Robbie Coltraine. Loved her character. She doesn’t speak, but she doesn’t need to. Her face is so expressive words would be redundant.

But the biggest reason I love this film and watch it over and over again is Rachel Weisz. Her character is so fabulous. She collects hobbies, really cool ones (I do this, albeit with less success). She teaches herself languages from books (ditto). She is a shut-in, but not intentionally (um? Yeah, I don’t get out much). As a child she was misdiagnosed with being allergic to everything, and by the time she discovered the truth her mother was ill and needed intense home care. Because of this the story opens with her having been kept apart from the world for her entire life but being alone now she is so ready to change that.

She’s socially awkward, but she’s not shy. How often do you see that in a character? And Weisz plays her so well. You can see her grow in confidence throughout the film, it’s a beautiful thing. Her character is brought into the story because Bloom thinks Stephen needs love in his life, but she’s never just a love interest. And while the film technically doesn’t pass the Bechdel test, that’s largely because Kikuchi’s character doesn’t speak. The two women bond, showing each other their separate passions (hobbies like making pinhole cameras on one side, explosives on the other).

I love this movie with all my heart, and I can’t wait to see what Rian Johnson brings to Star Wars. Is it nearly Christmas?

Why I Love It: Jaan-e-Mann

May 29, 2017 by Kate MacLeod

I love stories in any form. I love books and movies and TV shows and radio plays and story songs and… you get the point.

And I love talking about stories. Absolute favorite things. If small talk were about stories I’d be far more comfortable chatting with strangers.

But I don’t really like recommending things, or critiquing things, or even summarizing the plots of things. What I like about certain stories tends to be so strangely specific it’s hard to say whether anyone else would even like something that I adore. Critiquing I do enjoy doing, actually, but it’s time consuming to do it properly. And I suck at summarizing because plot is so seldom what I like about a thing.

Just for an example, I once enjoyed a film about a Roman soldier played by Colin Firth who teams up with an Indian warrior played by Aishwarya Rai. They bond while sparring with swords. It was awesome. Less than a week later someone asked me if I’d seen the movie that was like an Arthurian prequel where Merlin had been a Druid sneaking a boy emperor out during the fall of Rome and how in the end the Pendragons were descended from Julius Caesar and Exacalibur was his sword? I said no, that didn’t ring any bells, but my husband had to correct me. We had totally just watched that movie, and the A plot had not stuck with me at all. (It’s called THE LAST LEGION).

So that’s all sort of by way of warning. I’m going to be telling you from time to time about things I love. But the things I love, they tend to be pretty unique to me. Your results may vary.

Where to start? There are two films I love most in the world. Both films that felt, the first time I watched them and within the first five minutes, like the filmmaker had crawled inside my own mind and made a movie just to delight me. The first is from India and it’s called JAAN-E-MANN.

Image result for jaan e mann

As you may know, I’ve written a novel called MITWA where the main character is from India. I had done a lot of research to get this character right (and taking place in the future lets me hand wave a little bit too), but then I happened to be talking to a friend who was from Delhi and admitted I had never seen a Bollywood movie and didn’t even know where to start. She gave me three, and halfway through the first film I was sold on the entire genre. I ordered them by the box from Eros Entertainment and watched several a week for years.

JAAN-E-MANN was probably the tenth or so movie I watched. I already knew the lead actor Salman Khan, and had picked up this movie because he was in it. It was the debut of writer/director Shirish Kunder. I had enjoyed some of the other films I had been watching, but this movie just blew me away.

It’s pretty rare to see a Hollywood movie totally unspoiled. Even if it’s something that doesn’t sound familiar and came out a decade before, I’ll still vaguely remember the ad campaign, or a review, or maybe the trailer. I’ll have certain expectations based on the actors that appear in it. But for this movie, I knew nothing except to starred a guy I’d liked in two other, very stylistically different films. I didn’t even read the blurb on the back of the box, just stuck the movie in the player after getting my then-young boys down for a nap and pushed play.

It opens in space, on board a space station tumbling in free fall. This movie grabbed me before the first line of dialogue on the strength of its visuals alone.

This movie I do remember the A plot, and not just because I’ve seen it a million times. It’s because it riffs off of one of my all-time favorite stories: Cyrano de Bergerac. In this story a wannabe actor owes his estranged wife more alimony than he can afford, so he cooks up a plan to get the nerd that adored her from afar all through college to marry her. But first the nerd needs a makeover, and to be fed all the right lines. This was the first movie I’d seen Akshay Kumar in, and he sells both the before and after versions of the former nerd, now astronaut.

I had to stop the movie at the intermission because naptime was over. That afternoon waiting until bedtime when I could finish the movie was the longest afternoon of my life. Because what happens just before the intermission changes everything.

I kind of think if this had been a Hollywood movie, this plot twist could not have blindsided me the same way. Then again, I saw THE CRYING GAME on opening night when I didn’t even know there was a secret to THE CRYING GAME, so sometimes these things still happen. But still.

The second half of the movie, after that Event, recontextualizes everything that happened in the first half of the movie. Rather like how the ending of THE SIXTH SENSE changes the entire movie you’ve just seen, except here you get to see it all played out. Because the story isn’t over.

But as good as the storytelling is, and it’s awesomely satisfying, this movie is just visually so cool. The main character tells his uncle about his college days by running a flashback on the back wall of their office like a film (complete with the 3 – 2 – 1 run up and beep). The camera does complete rollovers (did he build a special rig a la Guillermo del Toro in CRONOS? I may never know; Bollywood films almost never have director commentary tracks). The songs are an integral part of the story (kinda rare in Bollywood), even the dance choreography is storytelling.

The colors are lush, the sets gorgeous, it’s just beautiful. But it’s what del Toro would call eye protein, not eye candy, because it’s all part of the story.

I can direct you to a trailer, but why not check out my favorite song from the film? It opens just after one of my favorite moments, when the main character and his uncle start to sing on their own but are interrupted by the sound of someone knocking inside the wardrobe in the corner of the room. The uncle opens the doors and an entire musical group comes out and sets up because you can’t have a musical number without musicians.

Movie flashbacks

June 3, 2016 by Kate MacLeod

The other day Facebook did that thing where it shows me a post I made years ago, this one describing how Mystic River was the most upsetting thing ever and left me a snotty sobbing mess at the end. I’m sure it would still have that effect, I’m not going to test that theory, but it’s no longer the most disturbing film I’ve ever seen. No, that honor goes to Amores Perros by Alejandro González Iñárritu (director of Birdman and The Revenant more recently). And just this week I’ve had reason to flashback to that one way too much.

(Spoilers ahead. It is a fantastically well done movie I highly recommend seeing for yourself, the first thing I ever saw Gael García Bernal in and I love him in everything. Bookmark this post, go watch the movie, then come back. And now that you’re a weeping snotty mess too…)

OK, there are multiple plot lines in Amores Perros. The owner listening helplessly as their dog trapped and lost under the floorboards is attacked by rats is quite upsetting enough, but that’s not the scene that haunts me. No, the really upsetting story line is about the older man, a squatter in an abandoned building living with a dozen or so strays like a big canine family, all piling on the bed together to sleep. He takes in a dog that used to be a pet but has recently been used in dog fights. He was so successful in the pit that the guys losing their money and dogs have shot him and as he’s bleeding in the backseat of the car his owner crashes. The people are pulled free but the dog is ignored by all but the old man, who brings him home to his dog family, patches him up and cares for him. Then he goes out and while he’s out the dog does what his previous owner had trained him to do: kill all the other dogs. The man comes home to see all of his dogs dead or dying, the lone dog looking up at him with an “aren’t I a good dog?” look on his face.

Yeah, brutal.

But why I was remembering it just this week in particular is another story. One of our cats recently died, and we decided rather than get another cat we’d get another dog. We haunted the American Humane Society website and watched for likely dogs, looking for something female and less than a year old. The dog we settled on was 9 months old but over 40 pounds already. I was worried she was too big, but she was such a lover. My husband had seen her already but when I came to meet her and the two of us approached her kennel she rushed forward like she knew him already. She came when called, sat on command, and was so cuddly, a total sweetheart. She had been a stray who had had a run-in with a porcupine she was still healing up from, because an interesting back story is important.

We brought her home and introduced her to Mugen in the neighbor’s yard, neutral ground. They sniffed each other and Mugen was a little freaked out because she was so big but she didn’t seem bothered at all. Then we brought them in the house and things were still cool. I gave them both a treat and they regarded each other as they chewed. Mugen went to hide the rest of his for later, then came back to see the new dog. I guess he got too close, she didn’t growl or anything she just lunged at him and put her mouth on his throat in that killing bite I knew so well from that movie. She backed off when I told her to and never broke the skin, but man. Those flashbacks. In an instant she was a whole different dog to me.

We tried to smooth things over the next few days but clearly this sweetheart of a dog had a whole Jekyll/Hyde thing going on and had no patience for my active (frankly, a bit of a spaz) rat terrier. We tried separating them in different parts of the house with a baby gate, but she was a brute and could knock that gate right down.

So we had to take her back. Hopefully someone else takes her in. In a lot of ways she was a dream compared to my little spaz, so mellow when he wasn’t around, cuddling, tail wagging the entire time she ate, standing patiently at the door waiting for the leash and walking calmly beside you. I almost think she was too mellow for me, but she will make someone else a perfect dog, provided they don’t already have a spazzy little dog. (We never introduced her to our cat Spike at all.)

We have 90 days to pick out another puppy. I’ll definitely be going for something smaller than Mugen this time, at least one that is currently smaller so I’m not stuck with breaking up a fight by coming down on the underdog since he’s the one who knows my commands (he got sprayed with so much water trying to keep him from upsetting the big dog). And this next one will have a much slower introduction. The whole thing was very upsetting, feeling like we let that sweetheart of a dog down because we’d all fallen in love with her (not the least my eldest who was surprised to find not all dogs hate him like ours kind of does).

I spoiled big plot points for Amores Perros, but I didn’t tell you how it all ends. It’s one of my favorite movie endings ever, one that is uplifting but not overly optimistic. It’s perfect by not promising more than feels possible for that man and that dog. (And I didn’t tell you everything about that man, not by a long shot). If you like viscerally intense movies, check it out.