From Word To Word

I have not had the time to write about many of the films that I have been watching lately, and I will not try to write about each of them separately now, but a few do deserve mention for one reason or another, so I will just list them here and offer a paragraph or two about why they interested me.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye, directed by Benton Bailey
I was either too young or too sheltered to remember the scandal around Jim and Tammy Baker, so Tammy Faye had never been more than a caricature for me. Her name evoked only hair and mascara, and I never had any reason to wonder if she was anything more than her cosmetics.  Bailey’s film is concerned to address precisely this stereotype, so it is unabashedly sympathetic to her, but Tammy Faye herself is such an immense personality that the viewer, even one as cynical as I am, discovers some sympathy for her as well.  To this degree, at least, the documentary accomplishes its aim.

O Brother, Where Art Thou, directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
This film may seem at first to contradict my tendency to watch mostly documentary on the one hand or fantasy on the other, but I would in fact include this film in the category of the fantastical and recommend it as an admittedly flawed attempt at the sort of film that I think should be made more often.  I am constantly frustrated by our culture’s relation to its mythological and literary past.  We either regard it as being irrelevant and ignore it, or we regard it as being sacred and idolize it.  O Brother, Where Art Thou, however, does neither, choosing instead to take the themes of Homer’s Odyssey and to reinterpret them.  The result is a very good film in many respects, and one that provides a commentary on American culture on several levels, even if it is also one that too often falls prey to the cliches of Hollywood.

Sita Sings the Blues, directed by Nina Paley
This animated film does what O Brother, Where Art Thou could have done if it had not been limited by the need to sell theatre tickets . Sita Sings the Blues mixes South Asian mythology with a contemporary love story and with classic blues and jazz music to create a whimsical but moving story.  The music is used superbly.  The art is wonderful.  I can hardly recommend this film highly enough, and it has even been released free through a Creative Commons license, so you have no excuse not to watch it tonight.

Ballet Russes, directed by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine
I have seen only a single ballet in my life, and it was the ballet that everyone will have seen if they have seen only one: The Nutcracker.  I was young, and my only real memory of the performance is of my even younger brother asking my mother, “When are they were going to start talking in this movie.” Even so, I found Ballet Russes a very interesting documentary.  Though many of its interviews drag, and though the accounts of the interminable politics of the ballet become a little tedious, the story is remarkable, and it made the film well worth the evening I gave to it.

Outlander, directed by Howard McCain
I have an obsession with Beowulf. I confess it.  This means that I end up having to see every new adaptation of the story, even when it is horrible, and many of them are.  McCain’s version begins well, despite the obligatory Hollywoodisms, but the more that it tries to explain itself and the more that it tries to develop its characters, the worse it becomes.  The lengthy flashback sequence, which tries to explain and humanize the outlander, is a case in point.  It is mostly pointless and entirely tedious, and it destroys the pacing of the film besides.  The romantic element of the film is poorly acted and trite in the extreme.  The final action sequence is predictable and unconvincing.  In short, though it may not be the worst adaptation of Beowulf, I will stop well short of recommending it.

District 9, directed by Neill Blomkamp
I was very pleasantly surprised by District 9.  When I heard that it was an alien film, my expectations were low.  When I heard that it was the director’s debut film, they sunk even lower.  When the reviews were mostly favourable, they sunk so low that I almost decided to see something else.  I was, however, as I said, very pleasantly surprised.  Now, make no mistake, it is a Hollywood action film produced by Peter Jackson, and it has all the violence and special effects that you would expect, but it also has a complexity of storyline and character that is entirely surprising in a film of this kind, particularly from a rookie writer and director.  It may even be worth your ten bucks to see it in the theatre.