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"This was a very early test with the sole purpose of just getting some footage to Ben our vfx (visual effects) supervisor to see if our vfx plan for the faces would work. The clip doesn't look or feel anything like the movie, the Wild Thing suit is a very early cringy prototype, and the boy is a friend of ours, Griffin, who we had used in a Yeah Yeah Yeahs video we shot a few weeks before. We love him, but he is not in the actual film...Oh and that is not a wolf suit, its a lamb suit we bought on the internet. Talk to you later..." --Spike Jonze

Not too long ago, this leaked test footage clip found its way online and sparked some more interest in Jonze's upcoming interpretation of the beloved children's book Where The Wild Things Are. Jonze, best known for his films "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation," turned in his final cut of the film over to Warner execs in late 2007 --and they weren't pleased.  They found it too dark, and sorely lacking that kid-friendly vibe they were pulling for.

Then there was a test screening, and well, just read some of these audience reactions:

"...Some kids at my screening began to cry and asked their parents to leave, so that should give you an idea."

"The things are not cute. Max comes off a bit weird and off-putting 'He slaps his mom!' and he seems confused and not charming at all."

These Warner execs freaked out so much, that ever since March rumors have been spreading that they might order the ENTIRE film to be reshot (with or without Spike!).  The budget for Jonze's version was said to be around $75 million dollars already. 

In other words, it looks to be that Jonze has made his "Where The Wild Things Are" film into the kind of dark gem that helped distinguish films like Nicolas Roeg's "The Witches" or George Miller's "Babe: Pig In The City" from your average Brian Grazer-produced, cardboard cut out kids flick.  Those involved in Jonze's film, like Oscar winner Forest Whitaker, obviously understood Jonze's original vision for telling the story in a bleak manner.  And now they are speaking out against Jonze's version getting pulled.

Whitaker, after his kids watched Jonze's cut:  

"My children are 9, 11, and 16.  It was intense. They liked it, though. They enjoyed it.  [The dark scenes] are the point of the movie, and I hope that they maintain that point, because I think children can identify with a character who is upset. …[Max] rolls by himself, no father figure; this is a single family home.  His mother ends up having a boyfriend that becomes like a monster to him…people have to build trust with the people their parent starts to date…These are real issues that the character deals with, and I hope that [the filmmakers] continue to explore them, because kids need to see that; they need to see that other kids are dealing with it."

"The thing is, it's one thing to read [scary stuff] in a book, but when you see an itty-bitty kid running alongside a 10-foot-giant on the side of a cliff, it gets intense. But that's the point, because we're representing the things inside of the kid. They represent his struggles, either him being too angry or being confused, or not feeling like he belongs. They're a gargantuan extension of the way he's feeling inside."

 

Posted by nelsoncarvajal at 02:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

"Identity would seem to be the garment with which one covers the nakedness of the self, in which case, it is best that the garment be loose, a little like the robes of the desert, through which one's nakedness can always be felt, and, sometimes, discerned. This trust in one's nakedness is all that gives one the power to change one's robes." --James Arthur Baldwin

David Mamet's newest film "Redbelt" pits Chiwetel Ejiofor as Mike Terry, a mixed-martial arts trainer who is broke.  Oh, and he's also in search of himself--more in the manner of reassuring his values.  As with any Mamet movie, "Redbelt" isn't so much about martial arts as it is about the revealing of personal themes; in this case it's a code of honor, honesty and being true to oneself.  All aspects to a particular identity. 

Through the discourse of the film, Mike Terry faces old enemies in the form of a brother-in-law, new friends in the form of Tim Allen's superstar alter ego, and individuals like Emily Mortimer's depressed lawyer who has a tendency to shoot business windows and then win over the heart of our protagonist.

In the end, the film is only minor Mamet.  It's no "Spartan" or "Glengarry Glen Ross."  Still though, Mamet's central theme of identity, which is chiseled at with every addition to his filmography, is--excuse the pun--at the center of "Redbelt's" ring.

So Mike (Ejiofor) by the end of the film does change.  Or maybe change is the wrong word to use; he more or less makes a discovery about his own identity (a philosophical one) and his singular place in the world.  A colleague of mine by the name of Rory Jobst said it best when it came to Mike's role in the film: "A martial artist who has to find his place in the world." 

But what about when you live in a world that finds your place for you?  Such ideas and implications are brought up in Shira Geffen and Etgar Keret's "Jellyfish" (its translated title from "Meduzot"), which won the Camera D'Or prize at last year's Cannes Film Festival. 

The exquisitely beautiful Sarah Adler leads an ensemble as Batia, a wedding party waitress who recently was deserted by her boyfriend.  With a nagging promo-hungry & fundraising-happy mother constantly blasting through her answering machine or telephone, Batia is a lost soul adrift an ocean of lost souls.  We meet others: a newly married couple living the honeymoon from hell in a noisy hotel building and a slanky, tall aspiring actress with mommy-doesn't-love-me issues.  For me, the strongest character comes from Joy (played by Ma-Nenita De Latorre) a Philippine social worker who coincidentally comes to nurse the aspiring actress' ailing mother.

Joy is the least flawed character in the film.  Her qualities are ultimately redeeming and her subplot of working to earn enough to reconnect with her son, who lives in her home country, is the most accessible of all the rest.  Batia, as the film shows, comes across a personified angel or jellyfish even, in a wet, mute young girl (Nikol Leidman), who only wears an underwear and a floating tube.  The married couple faces the possibility of infidelity back at the hotel.  And our aspiring actress underperforms in a silly, semi-musical version of Hamlet.

The last five minutes of the film unfurl in an exciting and often brilliant execution of gorgeous underwater cinematography and surprising plot developments.  Water is everywhere in this movie.  Whether it's the desire to view the ocean from a hotel suite, a leaky ceiling or the mural on the side of a moving background truck (the opening shot)--water is there.  The ocean can be a scary, unpredictable environment and the filmmakers propose the idea of identity being completely controlled by the elements.  Batia's parents are wealthy but she somehow lives in a stinker of an aparment.  Joy's only way to be with her son, is to work as a surrogate daughter to a sickly elderly woman.

Is that much of life really out of our hands?  Maybe.  But the scary implications behind "Jellyfish" can't be ignored.  Do we make our own identity, like Mike does in the final scene of "Redbelt"?  Or is it useless since our environment will ultimately make us who we are like in "Jellyfish"?

Geffen and Keret's film may be superior to "Redbelt" but I like to side myself with Mamet's ideology of making one's own identity independently.  And more importantly, in one's own control. 

Posted by nelsoncarvajal at 07:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The film Steven Spielberg will ultimately be remembered for, "Schindler's List" is essential viewing for any aspiring filmmaker or film scholar.  As Hollywood offers one Holocaust film after the other, from Tim Blake Nelson's "The Grey Zone" to Roman Polanski's "The Pianist," none can ever seem to match the emotional greatness of Spielberg's 1993 masterpiece, which was mostly shot in black and white.

The scene: Straddled on a horse, amidst a hilltop with a female companion, Nazi party affiliate Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) looks down at the liquidation of a ghetto.  The horrific site of Nazi soldiers dividing and swarming through the streets is only more terrifying when the sight of a lone young girl, no older than ten, can be seen walking through the chaos.  We can make her out because Spielberg decided to emulate the red color of her coat.  As the camera pans across the streets, from the hilltop view, we can see a line of male Jews executed in front of a wall, and others forced onto the backs of trucks which are gearing to go toward concentration camps.  And still, when the little girl comes even into the corner of the frame, our eyes wander to her, quietly hoping she makes it out.

Why we love it: Coupled with the heartbreaking music, this imagery of innocence threatened (the girl in the red coat) is perhaps the most potent and memorable scene of a film already heavily laced with tremendous, iconic imagery and cinematography.  The girl in red has taken on many meanings, but the most basic is perhaps the most powerful: she isn't saved.  If you study the cover or poster of "Schindler's List" it is easy to see that the hand reaching down from above is of an adult's and the child hand reaching from below comes out from a red coat sleeve.  That visual is shattering when a later scene in the film is considered: as Schindler follows the smoke of a nearby burning, he notices the burnt red coat being hauled toward the pile of human ash.  A life not saved.  Filmmaking in its highest regard.

Posted by nelsoncarvajal at 12:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In my earlier blog about the viral marketing behind "The Dark Knight" I mentioned Ledger's minimal screen time in the upcoming film.  Nolan has gone on many interviews to insist that "Knight" will not be a Joker origin story; in fact he described the Joker as "an absolute"--someone who more or less cuts through the narrative and blows shit up.  Think of the Scarecrow's role in "Batman Begins."

So where is the emotional stake in the plot going to lie?  With none other than Harvey Dent (played by the "Thank You For Smoking" spin doctor Aaron Eckhart), Gotham's soon to be fallen anti-hero.

According to comic book folklore, Dent's character is horribly disfigured when acid is splashed in his face by a criminal witness in a courtroom trial but if you pay close attention to the new trailer (released on 4-28-08) you'll notice these quick shots:

Obviously Nolan has chosen a more dramatic approach toward Dent's disfiguration as opposed to the comic book, and this just adds to the anticipation.  Surely, "Knight" isn't all that it seems right now.  Currently, fanboys are purchasing clown make-up to dress up like what they think will be a Darth Vader-like villian role in the Joker.  But we know how Nolan is with keeping secrets and not giving away the good stuff.  So Harvey Two Face will go on between now and July on a mum-like buzz.  But when those houselights go down on July 18th, and the plot starts unraveling, we're going to hear a mixture of moans (those angry about the lack of Joker time and/or relevance) and inspired gasps (those willing to trust and take Nolan's direction into the darker passages he'd rather navigate with Dent).

So just how dark?

In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Eckhart helped shed some light: "Harvey Dent has an extremely strong sense of justice. His fiancée (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is killed. He's horribly injured. But he is still true to himself."

Fianceé killed?!  Here's a specific case where we can thank the Joker for his presence in the film:

I'm not trying to break anyone's heart with the Joker either.  Eighteen minutes or eighteen hundred minutes of screen time of Ledger's rendition of the Joker will be sublime.  Just remember it's the former not latter.

Let's just take time to celebrate the return of another iconic villain from the Batman universe.

Eckhart: "There are fans on the Internet who have done artist's versions of what they think it will look like, and I can tell you this: They're thinking small; Chris [Nolan] is going way farther than people think.  To me, this film is about how Batman feels about justice, how he takes care of the city, how he feels about the Joker when he meets him and sees what he is capable of doing. How he feels when Harvey Two-Face takes matters into his own hands. It's not simple, and it gets ugly. I think people will be surprised."

I give you: Harvey Two Face. 

Posted by nelsoncarvajal at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

 
Richard Jenkins has been acting for a long time.  In many ways, "The Visitor" harks back to those stowed away feelings I got years ago when I first watched Philip Baker Hall in "Hard Eight" (aka "Sydney").  Hall had been acting in films for a number of years--mostly as an unsung supporting character actor (minus his stunning turn in Altman's "Secret Honor").  "Hard" put Hall in the forefront; his major starring role billed him in front of such heavyweights as Gwyneth Paltrow and Samuel L. Jackson.  Though big names like that are absent from "Visitor" it in no way makes Jenkins' performance less of a thing of beauty.  Like his colleague, Jenkins is in no hurry to give an overly theatrical lead performance.  There are moments of startling silence, and of sad secrets of a past life.

Director Thomas McCarthy ("The Station Agent") creates a deliberately isolated economics professor in Jenkins; his Walter Vale character is note perfect in showing just how unhappy he is with whatever he's looking at, albeit a late student paper or a shallow piano teacher.

Without giving too much away, a university-related conference in New York City forces Walter (Jenkins) to leave his quiet Connecticut life in order to present a paper he "co-authored."  Conveniently, Walter has an uptown apartment nestled in the art-interested area of the city.

I'll stop there.

There's a surprise, or ironic twist you could call it, that's waiting for Walter in his quiet apartment.  The way he handles this situation and the relationships that are formed from it, give the movie its weight and ultimate core of pathos.  Up until Walter walks into his apartment, we are pretty much watching a riff of Giamatti's wine-crazed loner from "Sideways."  But Jenkins does something special; he doesn't make Walter totally likable or such a sad old man that we're forced to feel sorry for him.  Walter has money, a secure job and respect from his colleagues.  No, what Jenkins gives to Walter is that added layer of personal yearning.  On the exterior Walter is successful: a college professor working on his fourth book.  Yet, on the inside, Jenkins is able to convey a void that is much more organic.

So once Walter starts to let loose musically and sometimes with foolish abandon, the feeling is euphoric.  Many critics have commented on the film's post-9/11 atmosphere or messaging, but that begins to distract from the film's real find: a dazzling lead performance from Jenkins, worthy of an Oscar nomination (I'm saying it now!).  I also felt that a few years ago, Jenkins was robbed of a supporting actor Oscar nod for his heartbreaking role in "North Country."

The 9/11 immigrant aspect is pushing what the film is doing in the wrong direction.  The film could have very well also dealt with illegal Mexicans or Chinese characters.  But it doesn't.  It deals with other nationalities.  Deal with it.

This is a film about relationships: the lack of relationships, the discovery of relationships and the ultimate loss of relationships.  It doesn't matter the person is from.

What matters is where you and that person go.

Posted by nelsoncarvajal at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)