The Lens Flare Podcast

Lens Flare Episode 6: The Tree of Life There’s talk of...

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 16:57:16 -0500

Lens Flare Episode 6: The Tree of Life

There’s talk of life, death, and dinosaurs.

The Arbor NO SPOILERS Review

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 23:28:01 -0500

I’ll be honest: I didn’t like The Arbor. I get what the filmmakers are trying to do, and I appreciate it. It just wasn’t for me. It’s definitely a must see, especially if you’re a fan of documentaries.

(by alex. I’m sure snydel has a very different opinion…)

Lens Flare Episode 5: The Descendants Snydel and Alex discuss...

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:19:00 -0500

Lens Flare Episode 5: The Descendants

Snydel and Alex discuss another one of their least favorite movies of the year.

Lens Flare Episode 4: Rise of the Planet of the Apes Snydel and...

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:41:51 -0500

Lens Flare Episode 4: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Snydel and Alex discuss one of the most underrated films of the year.

Random Review 4: Network

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 01:22:23 -0500

I’m sort of embarrassed to say that Network is the first Sydney Lumet film I’d ever seen. I walked into the screening with a lot of preconceived notions. This was an iconic filmmaker who had recently died…I wanted it to be good. (Otherwise, let’s be honest, I look like a pretentious asshat.) Whenever I go into a film with high expectations, it doesn’t end well.

I didn’t need to worry. I was floored. I thought this was a film about a crazy dude who looses his mind on television one day. But Network is so much more. I was totally unprepared for the darkly satirical nature. If you know anything about me, you’ll rightfully assume that I found this delightful. Friendship, romance, murder: it’s all wonderfully ridiculous. I really hate talking about the plots of movies simply because something like Network is way too fun to be spoiled. (I realize that not many people may call this movie “fun.” I’m okay with that.)

Getting past my sheer giddiness, I was also taken aback by just how relevant Network is today. Since the invention of the printing press, the masses have proclaimed the downfall of media which will inevitably lead to the demise of mankind. Obviously, this hasn’t happened. Yet traditional media still becomes anxious when anything on YouTube other than pet videos gets a little too popular.

A similar anxiety occurs in Network, but in a very unexpected way.

I wish had some more intelligent thoughts right now about the nature of media and how it controls our society, but I would rather engage in a dialogue instead of prattling on about how we’ve destroyed the purity of “new media.”

I think the reason I loved Network so much is it reminded me of just how much power media has, but also how much more powerful a single person can be once he takes control of what he creates for his viewers.

SPOILERS:
Sure, that power might ultimately lead to your assassination, but still. It makes me think a lot about the responsibilities of not only artists, but also producers.

(by alex)

I don’t really understand this. I just know that it is...

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 23:39:59 -0500

I don’t really understand this. I just know that it is made of an amazing amount of awesome.

Snydel's Top Ten Films of 2011

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:37:36 -0500

Disclaimer: Numbered “best of the year” lists are arbitrary. This is in no way me saying “these were the best films of the year.” I have hardly seen a complete showing of the movies put out in 2011; these are just some of the ones I saw and enjoyed the most. Lists like these are meant to start conversations, not end them.

10. Beginners – Mike Mills’ latest film may look like art house catnip at first glance with its plot mix of cancer riddled father, late age homosexuality, and its perpetual attempts at eccentricity, but beneath the caked layers of quirk lies a surprisingly moving dramedy about loss, intimacy, and the immortal adorability of talking Jack Russell Terriers. Elevated by low-key performances from Ewan McGregor, Melanie Laurent, and Christopher Plummer, Beginners far from revitalizes the genre, but instead resonates strongly not because of its treatment of loss, but rather its deft portrayal of the generational divide. If any film this year deserved to be called The Descendents this year, it was this one.

9. 13 Assassins – Takashi Miike’s homage to the samurai genre, a play on the time worn plot conventions of Seven Samurai, plays with classical conventions of honor and the samurai code while simultaneously catering to a blood-starved contemporary audience. Miike’s love letter to Kurosawa never quite transcends its status as fan service, but with its gleefully sadistic villain, enormous set pieces, and its now infamous usage of flaming boars, 13 Assassins stands out as the most entertaining action movie I saw all year.

8. Super 8 – There was no better classic blockbuster experience I had all year than Super 8. Super 8’s quality will unluckily be harped on in future history due to its predictable climax and descent into complete convention, but for an hour, J.J. Abrams created a near perfect pastiche of Spielberg sentiment and scope. With a group of charismatic kids who could have easily passed for the Goonies in a different world, Abrams relies on the spectacle and mystery of past epoch-defining events like E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jaws, Stand by Me, and the aforementioned Goonies to create a film that feels all but lost in the current era.

7. Hugo – Can Martin Scorsese really make a kid’s film? The answer is a resounding yes. Hugo may lack the typical Scorsese playing pieces of gangsters, betrayal, gory violence, or the almighty Robert De Niro, but Hugo retains a bewildering amount of Scorsese’s essence and charm. Employing the rich vein of film history, Scorsese’s love letter to cinema is the most delicately beautiful history lesson all year, if only for its staggeringly reverent Melies recreation late in the film. As an exploration of film’s power, Scorsese is manipulative in all the right ways, leading the audience through a wistfully dreamy Paris full of film archetypes keenly aware of their precedents, but never delving into parody.

6. Melancholia- From its first ten minutes, Lars Von Trier’s fatalistic melodrama tries really really hard to move its audience. At first, the slow-motion pictures of characters in states of emotional duress and finally their acceptation of their fate seems bizarrely sequenced, in essence revealing the directors cards of a film that threatens apocalyptic conclusion. Melancholia isn’t a drama about the end of the world though, it’s about the way people act at the end of the world. Charlotte Gainsbourg and Kirsten Dunst are the yin and yang, two characters who look at the world in drastically different ways. As the film marches to its foregone conclusion and both the entire world and the worlds of the characters fall apart, Von Trier shows a startling vision of a life threatened by impending death. In its own way, Melancholia is essentially a spiritual snuff film, but it’s a gloriously weird and hallucogenic view of the world.

5. The Arbor – How far does the definition of documentary stretch? The Arbor, Clio Barnard’s starkly moving account of playwright Andrea Dunbar and the whirlwind of pain she inflicts on everyone around her tosses out standard definition: blending theater staging, avant-garde performance-art, acting, and a clever variation on the talking head format with actors lip-synching the real-life stories of their counterparts. While convoluted on paper, The Arbor functions perfectly in execution as the Dunbar clan’s wrenching tales come alive through dramatizations and some of the sharpest editing I’ve seen in any film in years. The best documentaries are able to give new life to their subjects and while The Arbor defies predictable definition, it’s incredibly difficult to imagine a more insightful depiction of the Dunbars’ lives.

4. Drive – Your enjoyment of Drive will depend entirely on what you’re looking for within it. Yes, this is an action film, but in the same way, House of the Devil is a horror film or The Vanishing is a thriller, Drive is a film built entirely on the thrill of anticipation, heavily stylized anticipation, but anticipation nonetheless. Punctuated by moments of extreme violence, claustrophobia, and melancholy, Drive is the action film that John Hughes and Jean-Luc Goddard would have created together: an existential mood piece tied together through a killer retro soundtrack and an adorable love interest.

3. Weekend – There are few films that realistically and effectively address the sensation of intimacy. As the title suggests, Andrew Haigh’s debut shows the simple progression of two gay men getting to know each other for a weekend after a one-night stand, but it’s the little touches that set apart Haigh’s film. For being a debut filmmaker, Haigh displays a startling assurance behind the camera, channeling mood and tone with his shot choice. From one moment to the next, Haigh is able to detect sea changes in emotion and the sense of the room and the tension within the men’s interactions. More than simply the control of the filmmaking though, Haigh’s script feels like a real document of experience, shifting through rites of passages of relationship and the trial of what getting to know someone really means.

2. Certified Copy- My placement of the film this high is certainly related to the twist of sorts revealed later in the film, but prior to the twist, Certified Copy is a fascinating illustration of the way clashing minds think and how our viewpoints and experiences define our lives. Deeply melancholy yet never cloying, Abbas Kirostami’s film begins as a meditation on artistic theory, but soon mutates into something completely different.

1. The Muppets- It’s only kind of peculiar to have The Muppets as my number one movie of 2011 after a series of art house films, but there’s no film that filled me with more pure joy this year than The Muppets. I wish I could point to some long apparent thread of fandom for Jim Henson’s delightful puppets, but while my Muppets Christmas Carol VHS has been worn ragged, my experience with the gang and their perennial renditions of Mahna Mahna and Rainbow Connection have been severely limited. Maybe it’s my enduring man crush on goofball Jason Siegel, the gleefully self-aware soundtrack, the mélange of game guest stars, or simply a desire to vicariously experience Muppets mania, but there has to be a reason that a gigantic smile was planted on my face for the entire experience. Regardless, The Muppets is the type of movie that makes a cynical moviegoer like me happy to still have blockbuster efforts.

Alex's Top Ten Films of 2011

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 22:54:26 -0500

10. Tabloid: I don’t even know what to say about this movie. Comprised almost solely of interviews, Errol Morris tells the story of a supposed rape/kidnap and makes into a rollicking adventure. I’m not even sure what I felt during this movie, but I was grossly invested and highly entertained.

9. Young Adult: You might not enjoy watching Young Adult. It’s incredibly funny in a painfully truthful way, which makes you see how sad and pathetic the main character is. This isn’t for everyone, especially people who enjoy the typical plot driven resolutions to films, but it really struck a chord with me.

8. Fright Night: I saw this movie because I was bored and wanted to see David Tennant as a satirical Chris Angel. Fright Night is that and SO MUCH more. Other than The Muppets, this is the most fun I had in a theater all year. It may be that I just wanted to see a movie in which there’s really no exposition and vampires are just BAD THINGS THAT NEED TO BE KILLED, but it is oddly well made.

7. Shame: You will DEFINITELY not enjoy watching Shame. But it’s really, really good. I promise.

6. The Muppets: I mean really–it’s the Muppets. What more do you need? Singing? Purely sincere joy? You’re in luck…

5. Tree of Life: I had to put Tree of Life on this list. There are so many things about this film I hated, including the finale. But no other film this year has generated as much thought or discussion or mockery from my own head. Yes, about a dozen people walked out of the theater within the first hour. But hey…there are also dinosaurs. So there’s that.

4. Another Earth: There are a lot of things wrong with Another Earth. It screams the fact that it’s a low budget indie film. Behind all the static shots of dust (Literally: there are about three shots of dust. It’s pretty, but still…) and it’s contemplative score, Another Earth shows that science fiction can ask interesting questions while focusing on deeply human stories.

3. Hanna: I think “modern day” fairy tales have been overdone at this point, but Hanna still resonated with me. Maybe it was the amazing set pieces, maybe it was the thumping score of The Chemical Brothers. Or maybe it was that weird little part where the main character, completely out of her element, hangs out with a really weird family (which is hilarious).

2. Drive: Gorgeous cinematography. A badass Ryan Gosling. Adorable Carrie Mulligan. Perfect car chases. Awesome score/soundtrack. What else do you need?

1. Weekend: “I don’t want to watch another gay movie.” I’m pretty sure that was the first thing I said as soon as I was told to watch Weekend. Typically the films by LGBTQ filmmakers that end up on Netflix Instant aren’t exactly masterpieces, let alone anything more than soft core porn. Weekend, however, is my favorite film of 2011 by far. Quiet, deeply intimate, and almost heartbreakingly believable, it simply tells the story of what happens one weekend after two men hook up in a bar. Everything about Weekend makes me happy that movies exist. Each shot is not only beautiful, but extremely personal (and not in a “oh look I’m shaking the camera it’s handheld and AUTHENTIC” kind of way). Both actors, relative unknowns from the UK, are extremely believable and likable. But if I had to pick absolutely one thing that makes this film perfect it would be the script. Never has conversation felt so real. The subject matter is able to tackle gay issues without being preachy, yet it still focuses on the feelings of two people, not a “gay couple.” If there’s one movie you see this year, please…let it be Weekend. (PS: Some will argue this film isn’t for everyone. Well. They are wrong.)

(list by alex)

Random Review 3: Midnight in Paris

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 17:28:00 -0500

The magic of Midnight in Paris really begins the moment we see Owen Wilson’s face twist in confusion after Zelda introduces him to her husband, Scott Fitzgerald. The zaniness just escalates as his character meets Hemingway and other notable authors of the 1920s.

After that, the film just feels like Woody Allen Porn. It’s no coincidence that Owen Wilson looks and acts like a young, awkward, yet woefully pretentious Allen. Like many of his others, the set pieces scream LOOK, LOOK, WOODY ALLEN MADE THIS FILM and it gets old to the viewer very quickly.

I can excuse all of this and continue to enjoy Midnight in Paris. However, any filmmaker, even Woody Allen, knows that it’s better to SHOW rather than TELL. But t one point, Wilson’s character literally STATES THE ENTIRE THESIS OF THE FILM to another character.

I do not know why the public seems to adore this film. The heart of the film is the gimmick of seeing 1920s artists and writers in their natural element. At times it’s fun in a very novel (get it?) way, but Allen is preaching a very tired message that isn’t surprising or thought provoking. But in case you don’t understand what he’s trying to say, just wait. Again, Owen Wilson’s character will spell it out for you in the final act.

(by alex)

Snydel and Alex discuss the improvement’s to the new...

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 02:28:07 -0500

Snydel and Alex discuss the improvement’s to the new series of Sherlock.

2011, by most critics standards, wasn’t a spectacular year...

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 21:09:15 -0500

2011, by most critics standards, wasn’t a spectacular year for cinema. However, the amazingly talented Kees has returned for another year with what can only be described as a magical compilation that reminded me of why I love film so much.

Enjoy, and happy New Year! :)

Random Review 2: Page One

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 18:26:00 -0500

I got the sense while watching Page One that The New York Times is really, really screwed. I actually didn’t have that opinion until I saw talking head after talking head of very angry reporters. They all seem to hate the Internet…a lot.

There is a stark contrast in the film between “veteran” journalists and “new media” specialists. The old guys talk about the golden age of the newspapers and how everything has gone to shit while the young kids who know what Twitter is gush about “real time” news. Both groups come off as out of touch with the public. Additionally, all the journalists, young and old, have an air of self-perceived superiority.

While well made, Page One made me even less sympathetic to print media. I thought this documentary would give insight to how journalism is evolving as an art and information source. Instead, I felt disheartened as I watched dozens of aging white men lament the death of professional journalism.

I imagine watching the inventor of the VHS complain about his relevancy for an hour and a half would be similarly unpleasant.

(by alex)

Photo

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 08:56:02 -0500

Snydel’s mini review of The Beginners.

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:35:49 -0500

Snydel’s mini review of The Beginners.

Random Review 1: Tarnation

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:30:00 -0500

Coinciding with the reboot of the Lens Flare podcast, I’m going to (poorly) reflect on a different film each day. I will probably forget, get bored, or find something easier to do. There’s not reason for me to blather on about movies I’ve just watched other than the fact that I am a very distractible film student. Watching the work of people who are (incredibly) more talented than I can’t hurt, right?

PS: My opinions are uninformed and stupid. Please don’t listen to them.

Tarnation is unlike any film I’ve ever seen before. A heartbreaking examination of a son’s relationship with his schizophrenic mother, Tarnation challenges the boundaries of what is and isn’t a documentary. The film is comprised of over a decade of home movie footage shot on various different cameras and formats. Our protagonist and director, Jonathan Caouette, spent hours performing monologue’s in which he usually portrayed distraught women. These home movies are wedged between photographs of his family, videos that showcase his budding queer identity as a teenager, as well as footage of his mother as she defends into insanity over the years.

There’s really no point in talking any more about the plot. Tarnation isn’t a film to be seen, it needs to be experienced. While this is an incredibly pretentious thing to say (I’m banging my head on the desk as I type that), anyone who has seen Caouette’s bizarre and moving opus will agree. Made for only a few hundred dollars on iMovie, Tarnation also showcases what is possible for young creative people in the modern era. There’s not reason anymore not to get off your ass and make something meaningful.

(by alex)

Episode 2: The Help

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 19:51:30 -0500

Episode 1: Super 8

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 19:49:00 -0500

In this inaugural episode of the Lens Flare Podcast, Michael Snydel and Alex Cox discuss the new film by J.J. Abrams, Super 8.