The Bridge

Tonight, the IFC cable channel rebroadcast The Bridge, an astonishing, heartbreaking, and brutally honest documentary about people who committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. The filmmakers secretly staked out the bridge throughout 2004 with multiple cameras, and ended up actually photographing 19 of the 24 people who took their lives by going over the railing. This shockingly unshocking footing is interspersed with interviews with loved ones, and stunning shots of the bridge itself.

But it's much more than that. This movie exists in a place almost beyond documentation, possessing the same weird combination of empathy and detachment seen in Gus Van Sandt's fictional Elephant.

Some have claimed the film is exploitive, but I think they're missing the point: The only way to approach the topic of suicide is with clear eyes and the understanding that you'll never understand it. That is, the more you see, the less you know. And that's the point where The Bridge stops being a movie and becomes something else entirely.

Or as one interviewee says:

I don't have any answers. Just a bunch of observations....

Oh, Snap!

From Josh Levin's review of Meet the Spartans in Slate:

Friedberg and Seltzer do not practice the same craft as P.T. Anderson, David Cronenberg, Michael Bay, Kevin Costner, the Zucker Brothers, the Wayans Brothers, Uwe Boll, any dad who takes shaky home movies on a camping trip, or a bear who turns on a video camera by accident while trying to eat it.

I have to disagree. Three minutes of the inside of a bear's disgestive system might be worse than Meet the Spartans. But worse than one of Michael Bay's craptastic blockbusters? Doubt it.

You Are What You Eat (Dumplings)

Last night I watched one of the most disgusting and stomach churning movie I've ever seen. Dumplings, one of the so-called "Asia Extreme" movies that have been getting a lot of recent attention here in the States, is stunning to look at and has an enjoyably campy and operatic plot.

But director Fruit Chan really doesn't know when to stop. The plot? From IMDB.com:

To remain beautiful and young, a woman embarks in a sick and disgusting [quest] for a repugnant menu.

Unlike recent "torture porn" flicks that also push the boundaries of violence and gore, Dumplings doesn't implicate the viewer in the action--fortunately. You might lose your lunch anyway.

All My Friends

Check out this article on Slate about LCD Soundsystem's song "All My Friends." The song--like every song on Sound of Silver--is fantastic. Like Talking Heads channeling the best drum & bass around. And I have a special place in my heart for anyone who can so devastatingly capture the melancholy of the aging cool guy. (For the serious fans, Franz Ferdinand has released a cover of the song that really does take the piss from New Order.)

Fanboy Ecstasy

1. J.J. Abrams Cloverfield phenomenon has mushroomed out of control. It's everywhere, even on VH1--the channel for shortbus hipsters to lazy too actually be cool. If you haven't seen the trailer, it's here. And don't forget the weird/dumb movie website with the moveable photos. Do a Google search if you want to see theories, fake websites, predictions, parodies, et al. Survey says: Fanboy wet dream.


2. David Duchoveny claims there is a second X-Files movie in the works. Please, let it be so. And please, let it not suck.


3. Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! was broadcast on the TCM cable channel last week. Outstanding. Even better was the post-movie chat between Robert Osborne and Tod Oldham. Hilarious--especially Osborne's face when Oldham compared the Russ Meyer gem to Citizen Kane with nary a whisper of irony.

Chim Chim's Revenge

Defamer is always funny, but every single line in today's report of a chimpanzee attack on the set of Speed Racer had me clutching the pearls. In a good way. Key quote:

The 15 milligrams of injectable "rest" administered to the ornery chimp proved so successful, producers ultimately decided to give the newly docile actor a second chance. It's a decision they may wind up regretting, should horrified crew members find themselves fishing Spritle's mangled body from the Mach Five's trunk, only to discover a blood-drench Chim-Chim emerging from the shadows a moment later, delivering a dead-eyed stare that all but gloats, "The bite was your warning, humans. Spritle didn't have to die."

Under Your Spell

How excited am I? The Avalon Theatre is hosting an audience sing-a-long for the one, the only, the Buffy musical on July 20 and 21.

For those of you who don't know, "Once More With Feeling," the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is possibly one of the best hours of television ever broadcast in America. To be able to see it again, with a crowd of BTVS nerds will be--what is the word?--H-E-A-V-E-N.

But I'm not wearing a costume. Probably.

Hat tip: DCist.

Why Bladerunner FX Still Rock

Mythbuster Adam Savage explains why the special effects in the 25-year-old Bladerunner are still unsurpassed. Key quote:

But they did all of these effects in camera, which even back then was a much more complex way to execute them. The key to this is a motion-control camera — a smart robot, basically — that moves through the city on the same track, over and over again. It's accurate to within a couple thousandths of an inch. They did separate passes, rewinding the film each time and then re-exposing it to add each new element. So they did one pass for the lights on a building, another for the video projection, then a pass for the rain lighting and so on — as many as 16 passes in some cases.

I think part of what Savage is getting at in this article isn't that Bladerunner's FX are perfect. They aren't. But that these non-CGI effects capture something perfect that makes the movie better. That is, their very nature creates a mood; the medium helps the message.

Modern CGI effects approach and often attain complete photorealism. But they really only work when they are completely invisible or retain some kind of Hollywood dreaminess--for example, the Lord of the Rings. But when the fantastical is reduced to mere reality--the latest Star Wars trilogy, the Harry Potter movies, the new Transformers--the most expensive effects in the world become not so very special after all.

Tuesday Time Capsule: Russ Meyers

The first image I ever saw from Russ Meyers was a life-sized cardboard cutout of Up star Raven De La Croix--the so-called "Margot the Magnificent Superchick." Even at that early age, I knew I was as queer as a backwards duck. But something about that very, very larger than life woman fascinated me.

Years later, after I discovered the Sontagian definition of camp, I watched Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Certainly, Meyers's pneumatic "superwomen" and drag performers seemed to share the same DNA. But even that explanation failed to completely satisfy my curiosity.

Later still, I began to watch the Meyers's films with an older and more experienced eye. I discovered that what fascinated me wasn't the just obvious over-the-top details of his women, but their contradictions; Strong, feminine, crazy, loyal, sexual, violent, victimized, victimizer. Ambivalent. Contradictory. Hyper real. And completely fake. They were, as a friend once said about something completely different, "a parody and celebration at the same time." Indeed.

What's not to be fascinated by?

Pop Goes My Heart

I watched Music & Lyrics tonight, against my better judgment. Romantic comedies tend to rub me the wrong way for any number of reasons. Surprisingly, this flick not only didn't suck, it actually made me laugh. And nothing was as funny as this video from fake 80's band PoP! Uncannily accurate in its cheesiness, it also features a fantastic song from Fountains of Wayne virtuoso Adam Schlesinger someone I've never heard of. I can't get this out of my head. And I don't think I want to.

Here He Comes

My second earliest gay memory happened when I was six. I loved Speed Racer. No, not that kind of love. I just really, really dug the show. I mean, what six-year-old doesn't want a car that can chop down trees and has a monkey in the trunk.? Plus, it's really easy to act out old-style anime. You only have to move one frame every couple of seconds or so. Easy!

But if Speed ruled, Racer X rocked. Tall, dark, handsome. Mysteriously edgey. Maybe even a bad guy. But, as the Shangri La's sang, he's good bad, but he's not evil. So, the whole gay thing: I remember one afternoon watching the cartoon like I always did. Racer X came on, so I naturally paid more attention. Then--and I'm smiling as I type this--he got into a glass-doored shower for a Brian DePalma steam special.

It was years before I had a name for what happened to me next.

There was never another moment like that in the entire series. I know. I looked. Now I've learned that those wacky Hollywood Wachowskis are putting together a live action Speed Racer movie. Insert gear shift joke here. Ahem.

"God's Lonely Man"

The original trailer for Taxi Driver. Still dropping jaws after all these years.

10 Movie to Watch For

Salon's fantastically readable indie movie critic, Andrew O'Hehir, sends this list from Cannes. Of them all, I'm getting sweaty palms thinking about Control directed by Anton Corbijn:

Corbijn's film is a glum, black-and-white period piece about Ian Curtis, the late singer in the legendary English post-punk band Joy Division, and there are only two possible reactions to that information. It's either "Who cares? or "What do I have to do to see it?" Samantha Morton stars as Curtis' wife, Deborah (the film is based on her book), with unknown Sam Riley as the espresso-depresso gloomster champion of his time.

Corbijn's music videos for Depeche Mode, Nirvana, and others were beautiful and perfectly tuned into their times. I wonder how well he does with late 70's England? And speaking of which, Ian and the boys appeared in 24 Hour Party People a few years back. It wasn't really their story, but I still hightly recommend it to anyone who loves post-punk music and gloomy dudes singing death disco.

The Best SF of the Last 25 Years?

Entertainment Weekly has posted one of their interminable lists. This time: The Sci-Fi 25.

Of course, they get a lot of it wrong. There's no Max Headroom. No The Fly. And no Repo Man. No Primer. Even a sure thing like Robocop is missing. You know something's wrong when Quatum Leap fills in for Robocop. I'm just saying.

What's surprising is what they got right. Futurama, for instance. Or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And while it may be a scientific fact that Blade Runner is the most important piece of visual SF art in the last 25 years, not too many fanboys are going to argue with The Matrix at #1.

Still, no Lost Room, or Babylon 5, or....