Twixt

A washed up horror novelist (Val Kilmer, at his Kilmerest) on a book tour stumbles onto a weird mystery in a small town which may serve as fodder for a new book. Only, he also begins having strange dreams which may relate to an older, possibly related mystery from many years before. Dreams and reality don't begin to blend so much as they begin commenting on each other. Oh, also, in his dreams he hangs out with Edgar Allen Poe and talks shop with him.

This is the first of Francis Ford Copolla's newer, comeback-ish sort of films I've bothered to see, and now I'm regretting not checking out the others. Because it turns out he's back in his don't-give-a-fuck, do what I want mode, and therein lies all his genius and madness. Twixt is sort of a love letter to horror movies (where Coppola got his start), and it's not so much a cohesive story as it is Coppola being a show-off. Which I always thought was his best color. Here, he does whatever the hell he wants at any given time, basically just to display the fact that he has the technical chops to do anything.

Twixt is gorgeous and strange and unique. It jumps back and forth between a surreal dreamworld and a real world that, frankly, doesn't feel much less stylized. There is a (kinda complex) story, but most of what happens seems to happen more for effect and atmosphere. Nominally it's a horror film but I wouldn't say it's scary; often it even plays like an offbeat comedy. At one point Coppola just sort of points the camera at Kilmer and let's him improvise a bunch of silly voices for a while. But then you'll get some truly bizarre and compelling imagery in the dream sequences. I thought I detected a weird tone of irony in the air; the dialogue and performances are somewhat stylized, and there at times seems to be a winking corniness to the whole thing. But Twixt has it both ways; it good naturedly mocks the genre (and to some degree, I suspect, Coppola himself) while also believing in its cinematic power. It's like if his version of Dracula played it just a little less straight.

In other words, it feels like a movie made specifically and only for me. Like one of my favorites from 2012, Beyond the Black Rainbow, Twixt peers into the oversoul of of corny genre cinema and finds art, abstracting the story and the visuals and the tone into something weird and beautiful.

Rating: A-

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse

Saturday, November 22, 2008

A fantastic, and fascinating, documentary about the making of Apocalypse Now, which if you didn't know, had one of the the craziest, most tumultuous shoots ever. What really stands out about the movie, besides all the ridiculous anecdotes, is the figure it paints of Coppola. On the one hand, the admire the shit out of this guy for what he accomplishes, for seeing his out-there vision of this movie all the way through, and completing it despite all the shit he goes through, all the struggles, etc. On the other hand, you also see how his ambitions are fueled by an unbelievable sense of importance. In the beginning of the film, they show a clip from an interview where he says "This film isn't about Vietnam. It is Vietnam." That's pretty crazy, but the more of the documentary you see, you more it becomes clear that Coppola not only believed that his film accurately depicted exactly what fighting in Vietnam was like, but that the shooting of the film is somehow comparable to the war as well.

Gotta disagree. The shoot, while admittedly a fucking nightmare, was not so bad that one would understand what it meant to be a soldier in Vietnam. But tell that to Coppola, who seems to think that he somehow recreated and relived the Vietnam war. His ideas are so self-important that you almost get turned off the film... until you realize that, well, if he didn't honestly believe this crazy shit, he never would have made a film this good. Unless you hate Apocalypse Now, in which you're gonna think Coppola is the biggest shithead ever after watching this.

Apocalypse Now

Saturday, November 22, 2008


I have seen this before, but not in a long damn time. As a statement on Vietnam, I'm not sure that this film is an entire success. My dad always said it was about how, the deeper we got in to the war, the less sense it made. I like that, but the problem with that theory is that Apocalypse Now starts with madness, and only gets crazier as it goes along. It already has a screw loose to begin with.


The characters can't really be accepted on a literal level, so there's no real emotional entry point in that sense. The story is so strange and even surreal at times that it can't really be accepted as an accurate portrayal of the war. By the end, when the movie becomes overtaken by Marlon Brando's insane Colonel Kurtz, the story seems so far removed from what came before that you practically forget that it's a war movie.


Okay, so maybe it doesn't work as a political statement, or on an emotional level, or as a plot. But who gives a shit. This movie is an intense, powerful vision... a vision of madness probably, not signifying much to me in a literal sense, but a remarkable use of the medium to try and grasp something bigger, greater. A film that tries to be more than a film.


If nothing else, this has to be one of the best looking films ever. Like Leone's Once Upon in America, every shot feels so unfathomably complex and beautiful that you struggle to take it all in. There's not a shot that feels like a throwaway, that seems to lack in interest or visual beauty.


It dawned on me watching it that it's a bit like Aguirre: the Wrath of God. Both films tell of a journey up a river and into the wild, where all sanity seems to break down and the movie descends into madness on such a great scale that you begin to suspect that the filmmakers went as mad as the characters do. Both films tap into this larger vision that few dare to go. It's a stare into the void/void stares back type situation.


I would still call The Conversation my favorite Coppola film, but this is a great film too, and you can't help but be bowled over by it's audacity and ambition. Coppola tried to set out to create something that was more than just a movie. You can't succeed at that, but he gets as close as anyone has.

The Godfather Part 3

Monday, September 8, 2008

Back with the final Godfather Monday, and I'm proud to announce that I have now seen the entire trilogy, which I believe officially makes me the last person on Earth to do so. Hurrah.

And I gotta say, it seemed to me that this one has a bad reputation, but I thought it was actually pretty okay. If nothing else, it's a solid crime movie. Yes, it was the worst of the three, but still contains some strong performances and some quality filmmaking. In fact, I would say that Michael's character comes off as more nuanced than in the previous films. Sure, Pacino has a few "hu-ah!" kinda moments, but he also is allowed to show more emotion, actually expressing guilt over his past actions, and yearning for redemption. Michael seemed a little one-note sometimes in the first two movies, here I think his misguided but genuine attempt at self-improvement makes his character more interesting.


The other thing I appreciated is that the story was more along the lines of the original film, with constant forward motion, suspense, action. There are a lot of memorable set-pieces, and the movie seems to keep building and building. Like I said in my last post, part 2 is the best all-around, but I thought it would have been an even better movie if it was done in this style.


I think the reason for this one's reputation isn't that it's a bad movie, but that it's flaws are way more evident than in the other films. Obviously, there's Sofia Coppola's much maligned performance, we don't even need to go there. Worse is the borderline incomprehensible plot that ties into some weird Catholic church conspiracy theory that would probably have seemed pretty ludicrous if I had managed to follow it at all. Maybe I didn't pay close enough attention, but it struck me that you would need to take notes if you wanted to decipher this plot.

I would also guess that people don't dig the ending of this one. Not the big climactic shootout, which was a little melodramatic, but the final scene. Coppola shows a montage of the women Michael has loved and lost in his life, and then, rather audaciously, cuts to years ahead, where Michael is an old man. After sitting a few moments, he slumps over in his chair and dies. The end. No fireworks, he's just an old man, all alone, who keels over in his chair. I have to say, I loved this ending, and in it's own weird way it was the perfect way to warp up the trilogy. You're anticipating the whole time that Michael might die in this one, but you're expecting something a lot more dramatic than this. Instead, after this complex and over-the-top story, we are shown a very honest moment.




On a whole, I think this worked better as a trilogy than it did as individual films. Parts 1 and 3 offered a more satisfying, entertaining crime fiction type of film, while part 2 provided a more nuanced story and history. The cumulative effect here is pretty good, you get your ice cream and you get your vegetables, but no one movie was a homerun for me. Which is why, ultimately (and here's where I'm going to sound like an insufferable contrarian) if we're talking all-time great mob movies, I would argue that Goodfellas and Once Upon a Time in America are the superior films. Both tell powerful, nuanced stories while also knowing how to deliver the entertainment that you're looking for in this genre. And what I mean is, they know how to do these things at the same time, instead of being more compartmentalized like they are here.


In fact, the superficial similarities between The Godfather Part 2 and Once Upon a Time in America are pretty numerous. They are both epic-lengthed mob flicks starring Robert De Niro, that jump back in forth through time, in part telling the story of how a mob boss comes into power in early 1900's New York. This probably warrants closer examination, but I'm not the guy to do it.


Anyways, I liked these movies.

The Godfather, Part 2

Monday, September 1, 2008

In some ways, it's like my list of squabbles about The Godfather were magically sent back in time to Coppola while he was making the sequel. The women are still not as fleshed out as the men, and don't get much screen time, but it seemed like they had more to do here. Maybe they don't have much impact on the plot, but at least here Kaye's actions seem to have an impact on Michael. That's something.

It's even longer than the first movie, but there's no subplot like the Sicilian diversion in the first movie that felt like it didn't build to anything. Here everything seems to have a clear purpose.

And I think Michael's arc is far more compelling and appropriately modulated. I complained that in the original, the arc was supposed to be him going from a normal guy to an amoral crime boss, except that they seemed to skip the transition. One minute he wanted nothing to do with the family business, the next minute he's killing people. Here, Michael is already corrupted, and it's more about seeing exactly how low he will sink. And he actually seems conflicted in places, like maybe it's all starting to wear on him.

So it's kind of odd then that this movie lacks the entertainment factor that the first film had. I mean, if there is one thing I can see for the first movie, it's that it's incredibly watchable, and moves from one entertaining sequence to the next. There's Lucio Brazzi's murder, Don Vito's attempted murder, Michael trying to move his father into another hospital room, the assassination in the restaurant, Sonny beating up his brother in law, the big montages of assassinations at the end, and tons others. Constant sequences of action and suspense.

This one (in part because a lot of the corrections I mentioned) is more introspective and has less forward momentum. There are a couple excellent set-pieces (especially young Vito's murder of a local mafioso), but they are few and far between. Mostly it's long sequences of dialogue, as the characters weave a very intricate plot full of double-crosses and hidden agendas.

All in all, this was the better of the two films, because it had a greater depth of emotion and delved much further in fleshing out this world and these characters. But I can't help but think I would have full-on loved it if it had married these improvements with the more "action"-packed style of the first film. I mean, if it was a trade-off, then they made the right call. But I suspect that Coppola was just trying to make a more serious film this go-round, and not as much of a crowd-pleaser.

I'm actually looking forward to watching the much maligned final chapter next week. I'm thinking since I liked these first two but was not completely fucking enamoured with them like the rest of the planet, I won't be holding it up to unreasonable expectations and I will be satisfied if it's just an okay movie.

The Godfather

Monday, August 25, 2008

Oh boy. Where to start. A while back I ashamedly admitted that I had never seen The Godfather Part 2, my reason being that, um... I wasn't really a big fan of the first film.

I know, I know. Pretty much every human being on the planet agrees that The Godfather is a great movie. I recognize that I am clearly in the wrong. But let me explain myself a little.

I had only seen The Godfather one time. And the thing I noticed about it was I didn't feel like it was the first time I saw it. The film is so deeply ingrained in our culture that every scene was familiar... it was a collection of moments I had already heard about. There was no impact.

Like I said though, I'm aware that I'm wrong. And since I'm kommitted 2 klassiks, I decided that it was high time I watched the entire Godfather trilogy. So I now present you with Godfather Mondays for the next 3 weeks, to fill in the gap left in my heart now that Rambo Mondays are over.

I figured this time, having seen The Godfather once before, I could get over the fact that I knew everything that was going to happen, because everyone knows everything that happens the second time through. It would be an actual second viewing, instead of my original sort of 1.5 times viewing. And I can see clearly now, the rain is gone, this is a pretty damn good yarn, well made, well acted, and obviously iconic. Pretty strong stuff.

I still didn't exactly love it.

I'm sure I'm going to sound like I'm just trying to be contrarian, but let me promise you that I'm at least not intentionally trying to do that. Maybe subconsciously, I don't know, but I'm not disagreeing with the general public just for the sake of disagreeing. I had a handful of serious issues with the film.

For one, the portrayal of women. All the female characters feel hazily defined. Diane Keaton disappears without a mention, only to reemerge whenever the plot requires. She has reservations about Michael's family, but then suddenly she's married to him even though she seems opposed to what he does. And then there's Michael sister, who isn't really given a personality, is almost entirely defined by the fact that her husband beats her, and then is expected to carry a big emotional scene near the end where she calls Michael out on his villainry. And maybe worst of all is the woman Michael marries in Sicily, who has almost no dialogue of substance, yet we just sort of accept that Michael loves her, and then she gets killed and is never mentioned again.

In fact, I have a problem with the whole Sicilian chunk of the movie. I understand that it's about Michael becoming closer to his roots, which will influence him in taking up the mantle of godfather, but ultimately it all feels too long and has little bearing on anything. As I mentioned above, there's his underdeveloped marriage that feels like little more than a plot device. But for me it really felt like there was a lack of progression, not just in terms of the subplot that doesn't add up to much, but in terms of Michael's character.

Which leads me to my final complaint: Michael Corleone's character arc. I love the idea of him going from disassociated from his family to becoming the new don, like it was his fate or something. But it's not very well transitioned. For the first hour or so, Michael is little more than a peripheral character, mainly defined by his objection to the family business. Then, after his father is shot, he's suddenly on board and raring to go. He's in all the way, no sense of hesitation. I think in the end his story is supposed to be sort of tragic or dark, but it doesn't really come across. We never see how a good man becomes bad, we don't see him fretting too much over his decisions, or debating his values or anything. One minute he's a good man, the next he's a killer. It's like they skipped the transition, which to me would be the interesting part.

All of which isn't to say I didn't very much enjoy this movie. The strength of the performances and the filmmaking and the immensely quotable screenplay really covers up a lot of these problems. And if nothing else, this movie is incredibly watchable. I am genuinely excited to see part 2 next week, and from what I gather it's considered better than this one.

Well, like I said, I'm not trying to be contrarian here. Still though, I'd love it if this pissed some of my friends off and they wrote in to tell me how wrong I am and that I'm an asshole.

The Conversation

Monday, February 4, 2008

I feel guilty. It's time for a confession.

On Sunday, I had started watching On the Waterfront as part of my Kommittment to Klassiks, being all charitable and Jesus-esque in giving Elia Kazan another shot even though I'm a little lukewarm on his films. So I get like, shit I don't even know how far into it an I realize that I'm not paying much attention, and I'm not sure I'm in the mood to watch it, and really I had wanted to watch it with Shenan because she has a crush on Marlon Brando but we didn't get a chance, and I don't know let's for the sake of argument say that I was pretty drunk at the time. I turned it off, sealed it up in it's Netflix envelope and sent it back from whence it came.

I know, I know. That doesn't show much Kommitment.

So, to make up for it, I decided that Monday night I would have to watch a legit masterpiece, so I pulled out my copy of Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation. It's my favorite of his, although in the spirit of confession, I don't really think The Godfather is anything special and I haven't even seen all of part 2. Probably an avenue I should explore this year with my K2K.

Anyways, it's still a great movie.



On an unrelated note, if I can maintain the (so far fairly consistant) rate of movie watching for an entire year, I will watch something like 547 movies, which comes to something like 38 days worth. Assuming my hastily done math is correct.