Category Archives: filmmakers

Skip’s Quips: Off to the New Tavernier Flick

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Blog Sketch 082813I have never seen a Bertrand Tavernier film. But now I’m going to watch one.

It’s called The French Minister and it’s playing at Manhattan’s Lincoln Center. My wife is coming, too.

I feel very ignorant about Tavernier’s body of work. I haven’t even seen ‘Round Midnight. I probably should.

There’s also Death Watch, which I’d heard about and am interested in viewing.

The French Minister should make good blogging material. I am curious about it. Plus, Tavernier apparently is scheduled to make an appearance afterward for a Q&A session. Sounds interesting, right?

All part of the benefits of living in a cinema-oriented world.

Skip’s Quips: ‘Nebraska,’ Montana, Ooh, I’m Gonna Pan Ya

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Blog Sketch 082813Actually, I’m not, because I actually liked Alexander Payne’s intimate black-and-white film Nebraska. I just wanted to write a silly headline.

But seriously, folks. This was a pretty good movie. Bruce Dern as the aging, oft-confused, alcoholic father of electronics salesman Will Forte. June Squibb as Forte’s bitter mom. Stacy Keach (!) as Dern’s nemesis and onetime business partner. And they’re all part of a plot to recover a million bucks in winnings that Dern’s character thinks is owed him because he got a “You’ve just won $1 million” notice in the mail.

I think the movie should’ve been a lot more depressing, but Payne keeps the dialogue spare and the direction light. The action actually had movement, a place to go. And yes, there is an arc. So nice job. I’m not a fan of all of Payne’s flicks (I thought Election was particularly mean-spirited), but he’s definitely a filmmaker with destinations in mind and the ability to get there with economy. And although I don’t feel Nebraska is a masterpiece, it’s a smart, small film with a good tale to tell. It works. And it makes for a worthy evening.

On to the next movie.

From Skip and Setter’s Creator: My Next Opus on CURNBLOG … This Time With Susan Seidelman

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Blog Sketch of Me 092213Hi, folks! My new interview on CURNBLOG is up, and it’s a good one: I talk to Susan Seidelman, director of films such as Desperately Seeking Susan, about balancing comedy and drama, Hollywood’s treatment of female talent, and her own cinematic influences. You can read more here:

http://curnblog.com/2014/03/07/interviewing-susan-seidelman-madonna-menopause/

I hope you like it.

From Skip and Setter’s Creator: Interview No. 3 With Hal Hartley Is Up

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Blog Sketch of Me 092213Hello, readers! Wanted to let you know that my latest interview is up at CURNBLOG: a conversation with acclaimed director Hal Hartley. In it, Hartley discusses the benefits of working independently, what he likes about films and his insights on musical composition. You can read more at:

http://curnblog.com/2014/02/25/interviewing-hal-hartley-cinema-words-music/

I hope you enjoy it.

Setter’s ‘Spectives: Dude, Where’s My Movie?

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613Now I can finally say I’ve seen The Big Lebowski.

And what a big, sloppy movie it is. Kind of tedious, ultimately, too, though it has some bursts of funny dialogue.

Could’ve been a lot better, though. Seemed to miss a lot of opportunities. Still, you rarely see real, bona fide (OK, actors portraying real, bona fide) nihilists onscreen, so that’s a plus. A Big Lebowski plus. Hm.

Actually, what bothered me the most about this Coen Bros. film was the structure. Despite all the tying up of (really) loose ends, it felt like it was generated in a room at midnight over a couple of White Russian cocktails and tons of stale coffee. Perhaps that was the point. I’m not Big Lebowski big on that kind of point, though.

Yes, the cinematography was quite good. Especially the camera-in-the-bowling-ball shot as the orb rolled down the lane. Nice job on that, guys. It didn’t, however, define the movie, like some shots do. And great camerawork does not necessarily a great movie make.

Oh, well. I wish the Coens decided to be much sillier with the film, as it had so many wide-open targets: nutty artists, bowling aficionados, stoner, uh, no-goodniks. It just ended up being diverting, with a number of long stretches. I’m not Big Lebowski big on long stretches, either.

I just want a good-overall movie.

From Skip and Setter’s Creator: Another Interview … This Time With Whit Stillman

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Blog Sketch of Me 092213Hello, everyone! Just letting you know that my latest interview for CURNBLOG has been put to website, and it’s a doozy. It’s a conversation with Whit Stillman, director of films such as Metropolitan and The Last Days of Disco. In it, Whit discusses his moviemaking process, as well as his opinion of films past and present. You can read more about it here:

http://curnblog.com/2014/02/11/interviewing-whit-stillman-cinematic-sense-sensibility/

Hope you like it!

Setter’s ‘Spectives: Coming to Bury Rather Than Praise

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613Are we allowed nowadays to express how little we’ve learned from Pauline Kael’s film reviews?

Or is that speaking ill of the dead? Because the last thing I’d want to do is speak ill of the dead … though, as I recall, Kael often spoke ill of the living, so that’s fine, right?

For instance: There was that completely non-judgmental review of Dances with Wolves, remember, where she suggests that director Kevin Costner has “feathers in his head”? That’s OK to say, isn’t it? I mean, levying personal insults at the filmmaker rather than criticizing the film is copacetic, no?

No. It sure ain’t. And I don’t think it makes sense to do that—no matter how bad the director’s films are.

Saying a flick’s poor in some way is, to my mind, much more fair. One of the reasons I never found Kael’s reviews enlightening is that they tended to include content, like the feather-festooned phrase cited above, that directly attacked those involved in the movies’ creation, for some reason, and that’s not valid criticism. Blast the film, not the maker. If the director’s a bad person, that’s one thing, but it also may be irrelevant. The picture is the thing when composing a movie review, and it should focus on that while describing what isn’t to like about the director’s techniques rather than the individual as a person. Keep the nastiness to the work.

I’ve never subscribed to the Cult of Kael, and although this is a big reason why, it isn’t the only one. I disagreed with her many a time on her perspectives, though once in a while I concurred. Yet her insistence on personal insults kept me from admiring her work overall. There are plenty of good critics in this world who maintain honesty without succumbing to such practices. Too bad Kael couldn’t do the latter. Frankly, I couldn’t praise that if I tried.

Setter’s ‘Spectives: The Shot Not Seen ‘Round the World

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613The best shot in all of cinema may be one that’s hardly remembered.

It’s one that I think about periodically when I ponder great filmmaking. Of course, it’s from The Seven Samurai, one of my favorite movies. But it’s not from a famous scene.

Instead, it’s an image from a sequence toward the beginning where a number of farmers are in town to recruit samurai. They’re staying at an inn and discover that most of the rice that they’re subsisting on has been stolen. If I remember correctly, one of the farmers–Rikichi (played magnificently by Yoshio Tsuchiya)–gets angry at his comrade, Yohei (Bokuzen Hidari), who was supposed to watch over it, and throws the last handful at him.

Then comes this great shot, where we see Yohei start to pick up the grains, one by one, from the floor.

Why is this so brilliant? It’s one small, short shot, but the impact is monumental. It tells you everything you need to know about the farmers–that they’re so desperate, poor and hungry that they’ll even try to save a few grains of rice to eat them … the last they have left. They can’t afford to waste any. And director Akira Kurosawa shows this horror by focusing his camera on the floor, as Yohei tries to retrieve the rice.

Absolutely compelling.

There may be more famous shots in the movies, but this is one of the few complete ones, an image that gives us all the information we need, plus a haunting picture, without telling us straight out why. No surprise, then, that I think about it often when I muse on all things cinema.

If only more directors would learn from shots such as this, the movies would be a better place.

Skip’s Quips: Details on the ‘Interiors’ Doctrine

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Blog Sketch 082813These days, I refuse to see any Woody Allen movie made after 1975.

That’s right: I didn’t see Blue Jasmine. You know why? Because I already know I won’t like it.

Plus, Mia Farrow told me years ago that I have a “beautiful singing voice,” so I do kinda feel biased. But that’s another story.

The problem is, I just don’t care for any of Allen’s films with serious themes. Even Annie Hall; it just isn’t my favorite. The non-humorous dialogue and situations peppering his later pictures aren’t credible in my book. And I can’t help but wonder why he gravitated to such content after making some of the most hilarious films to hit the screen in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Those include Bananas, Sleeper, and Love and Death, laugh-a-minute jokefests that, to my mind, are of higher quality and greater import than anything he has made since. He’s a terrific comedian. Why does he seem to feel an all-comedy flick is beneath him?

I’ve remarked before on the phenomenon of great comic actors taking on serious roles in, perhaps, an effort to be recognized for more “significant” work. Yet I wonder sometimes about a theory I have: that great actors are often great comedians, yet great comedians aren’t always great actors. It is just a theory, but it has held true in many a case.

Don’t worry; I’m not gonna patent it or anything.

Woody’s not going to go back in time, I assume, and recreate the past. We’ll just have to live with his annual or semiannual churnout of lackluster, serious films dotted with big stars. And I will have to live with not going to see them. What price contentment, huh?

I’ll just put on Sleeper instead.

Setter’s ‘Spectives: Integrity? Don’t Make Me Hum

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Setter Drawing for Blog 082613So I’m watching Frances Ha. All of a sudden, this lilting music tickles the soundtrack.

“Hey,” I say. “That sounds like something from King of Hearts.”

Sure enough, it was. Snatched directly from the Philippe de Broca movie. In fact, the film’s main melody popped up numerous times during the proceedings.

Needless to say, it didn’t help me enjoy this rather tiresome Noah Baumbach flick any more than I already did. But there was another issue: It was distracting. I kept thinking about Hearts and how good it was. How much I wanted to see it.

Is this what Baumbach wanted when he was making Frances?

Unfortunately, this problem isn’t relegated to one movie. The Artist used a passage from Bernard Herrmann’s score for Vertigo, and I was confused about that, too. Started thinking about the latter flick as I was watching the former.

Bad, bad strategy for any filmmaker.

This goes past un hommage. It’s irrelevant. It’s sampling music from scores past and using it in other contexts. When a great score is applied to a film, it’s associated with it. You can’t pull the two apart. If you try, you bring up connotations that shouldn’t be there. Do directors want to do that?

I’d think they wouldn’t. Would Wagner want you thinking about Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro while you were watching Parsifal at Bayreuth? If you admitted that to him, he’d probably get all 19th century on you. (He was mean enough as it was.)

Unless it’s parody, a film should focus on itself. Otherwise, a movie loses its credibility. It breaks that fourth wall of sound, and the audience becomes aware of it. Directors shouldn’t want that. It’s jarring, not immersing.

I say unto filmmakers: Let’s keep-eth old scores where they are-eth. And commission new ones for your movies … or use tunes by a great composer that lack cinematic context. Something borrowed just makes me blue. Something different, however, may well be music to my ears.