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The Cruise-ible

Jim Emerson

Tom Cruise with his “Miiii” squeeze.

What do we talk about when we talk about Tom Cruise? What are our images of him really based upon, besides his own publicity stunts and some headlines? And just how did the top movie star in the world become so unlikeable in the public eye, an object of scorn and derision in the media, and a punch line for stand-up comics? Normally, a movie star’s fall from gross — er, grace — wouldn’t interest me much (although I am still trying to figure out how Burt Reynolds’ 1970s career flamed out). I’ve interviewed hundreds of actors and filmmakers over the years and I’ve always made it a personal policy never to ask them, or speculate in print, about what they euphemistically call their “private lives,” mainly because I really don’t think it’s any of my (or your) business. I’m interested in their work, not in what they do in their off hours.

But the fascinating thing about Cruise is how he’s made a public commodity of his so-called “private life” (or his own image-manipulation version of it, presented for your entertainment). You’d think he would have learned something from the tabloid headlines generated by the sudden and mysterious split with his superstar wife Nicole Kidman, and tried to keep his personal affairs as private as he can. But no. When somebody boasts about details of his alleged off-screen love life on the most popular talk show in the world, goes on TV to say a pregnant actress (Brooke Shields) was wrong to seek medical treatment for her postpartum depression, and acts as a public spokesperson for his supposed “religion” in interviews (if you grant Scientology that status) — even to the point of having Scientology tents set up on the set of Steven Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” in case cast or crew wanted to take a Free Personality Inventory — well, that’s when the “personal” becomes part of the star’s public branding. And Tom Cruise is a brand name, every bit as much as Apple or Starbuck’s or Subway or Volkswagon.

Opening Shots: ‘Yojimbo’

Jim Emerson

In the spirit of “Rashomon,” two views of the opening shot of another Akira Kurosawa picture:

From Or Shkolnik, Israel:

We see a beautiful mountain landscape, a dramatic music starts playing while the name of the movie appears in big letters:

Yojimbo

Suddenly a stiff samurai enters the frame, wind blows in his wild grown hair, and than a hand pops out from within his kimono neck collar in a charming way that looks as if his hands are still in their sleeves at the sides of his body. He scratches his head in a very un-samuraish way, and than the hand goes back from where it came from and disappears as if only to visually express what’s going in this man’s head: He has no direction. Then the credits start to roll and the camera follows the man (in a single shot) while he is walking, but we can’t see where because the angle is very low and frames only the back of the man’s head over a grey empty sky. Like the samurai, we can see no direction. After the credits end, a caption appears that unfolds the historic background of how in 1860 the Tokugawa dynasty lost all power and many samurai found themselves without a master to serve, including this samurai who was left with “no devices other than his wit and sword.”

We then see the samurai walk to a crossroad, stop, look around, pick up a stick and throw it in the air. The Camera frame the stick when it falls, and we see the samurai’s feet walk to it and than changes their direction to where the stick points, the camera tilts up and the sequence ends with the samurai walking away from the camera.

Darkness for ‘Donnie Darko’ director?

Jim Emerson

Buffy Barko. Sarah Michelle Gellar in Richard Kelly’s “Southland Tales.”

When “Donnie Darko” sank without a trace after its theatrical release in October, 2001, writer-director Richard Kelly feared his (potential) career had gone down with it. Then, the movie became a cult phenomenon on DVD and Kelly, like his alliterative hero, was given a second chance.

The signs since then have not been enouraging: a screenplay for Tony Scott’s “Domino,” a film that graced many of last year’s Ten Worst lists; and (far more disturbing) a “director’s cut” of “Donnie Darko” that indicated Kelly didn’t know what he’d done right the first time. All the best qualities of the film — its teasing ambiguity, its creepy playfulness — were nearly crushed in an attempt to laboriusly spell out an elaborate science-fiction/time travel mythology. What was once a tantalizing undercurrent was thus made literal and dull. More “explanation” of geeky but arbitrary “rules” simply reduced the movie’s sense of possibility and imagination… and made it a lot less fun. If the “DD” director’s cut had been the original version of the movie, it would never have piqued enough curiosity to have developed much of a cult following.

Now, the reviews from Cannes of Kelly’s long-awaited and highly anticipated sophomore feature, “Southland Tales,” suggest Kelly hasn’t learned anything from his “Donnie Darko” director’s cut experience. Most of them are devastating — by which I mean they’re at least as bad as the ones for “The Da Vinci Code,” and worse than the ones for “X-Men: The Last Stand.”

The Borat release form

Jim Emerson

Slate says it has a copy here. One page, easy to read in a couple minutes, and pretty darned comprehensive. Including: “This is the entire agreement between the Participant and the Producer or anyone else in relation to the Film, and the Participant acknowledges that in entering into it, the Participant is not relying on any promises or statements made by anyone else about the nature of the Film or the identity of any other Participants or persons involved in the Film.”

Video games as brain aerobics

Jim Emerson

Yes, the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal is generally an intellectual black hole. (Check that metaphor: Can a black hole be shallow? After all, doesn’t it, too, instantly narrow to a single teeny point?) But this piece by Brian C. Anderson extolling the mental health benefits of video games does provide some amusing and intriguing fodder for our neverending debate about games and art and the human brain:

Video games can also exercise the brain in remarkable ways. I recently spent (too) many late-night hours working my way through “X-Men: Legends II: The Rise of Apocalypse,” a game I ostensibly bought for my kids. Figuring out how to deploy a particular grouping of heroes (each of whom has special powers and weaknesses); using trial and error and hunches to learn the game’s rules and solve its puzzles; weighing short-term and long-term goals — the experience was mentally exhausting and, when my team finally beat the Apocalypse, exhilarating.

A Clockwork Cuckoo

Jim Emerson

View image: Eyes Wide Shut.

My review of “Color Me Kubrick” at RogerEbert.com and in the Chicago Sun-Times:

John Malkovich is a terrible Stanley Kubrick. In “Color Me Kubrick” he plays the director of “Dr. Strangelove,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “A Clockwork Orange,” “Spartacus” and “Judgment at Nuremberg” as a multiple-car collision of Peter Sellers’ Inspector Clouseau, Miss Kirk Douglas, Quentin Crisp and Tony Soprano. Sometimes all in the same scene.

What, you say? Kubrick didn’t direct “Judgment at Nuremberg”? Well, right you are, and Malkovich isn’t playing Stanley Kubrick, the renowned film director. In “Color Me Kubrick,” billed as a “true-ish story,” Malkovich plays Alan Conway, the fittingly named con artist who improbably impersonated Kubrick — well, not so much impersonated him as simply claimed to be him — around London during the making of “Eyes Wide Shut.”

The movie is structured as an episodic farce and a showcase for bad acting. As the cons get increasingly outlandish, so does Malkovich’s Conway’s Kubrick, who tries on more accents than all the characters in all of Stanley Kubrick’s films put together, and gets them all wrong, too. He name-drops incessantly, and insists on referring to the star of “Paths of Glory” and “Spartacus” as “Miss Kirk Douglas,” and the star of “Eyes Wide Shut” as “Little Tommy Cruise.”

Continue reading review at RogerEbert.com

From ‘Gumnaam’ to ‘Ghost World’ to… ‘Lost’?

Jim Emerson

Enlarge image: “Jaan Pehechaan Ho”

Terry Zwigoff (“Crumb,” “Bad Santa,” “Art School Confidential”) said that as soon as he saw this musical number, “Jaan Pehechaan Ho,” from the 1965 Bollywood production “Gumnaam,” he knew he had to have it for the opening of his film “Ghost World.” You can see why. It’s mesmerizing — one of the wildest, craziest musical numbers I’ve ever seen. The (Lynchian) energy is so frenetic the thing practically pops off the screen. And the way it’s directed and choreographed for film is fantastic. The camera is always in the right place, and the shots of the necessary duration. You never feel like the director and editor are just cutting between different angles at random (as in the last few centuries of music videos, or Oliver Stone movies), chopping up and defusing the kinetic energy of the dancers and the dance. Every shot (mostly full shots, with a few mediums and only a few well-chosen close-ups for punctuation) seems to have been planned with the camera in mind, so that the whole dance only exists as assembled on film. That’s the way a movie musical number is supposed to be. And there’s something going on in just about every part of the frame — and in the foreground, middle ground and background, too! (I think the opening of the first “Austen Powers” movie was the last time somebody did it right like this.)

The whole number is available on the “Ghost World” DVD, and on the web — here as an .mpg download and here on YouTube.

Groovy frame grabs and more after the jump.

TIFF: One day at a time

Jim Emerson

View image An image from the lost masterpiece by Michelangelo Antonioni, a surprise unveiling at the Toronto Film Festival. Oh, no: It’s just the interior view from my hotel room on Bloor Street. Sorry. (photo by me)

Here’s what happened: The 2007 Toronto International Film Festival started tonight. I got here last night. But let me back up a little. Seconds before getting into the car to head to SEA for my flight to YYZ (that’s Toronto Pearson Intenational Airport), I realized I’d forgotten some dog bones that I left in a bag on my porch. Not for my trip, for my dogs. Who are staying with my mom, who was gracious enough to give me a ride to the airport because she loves me and because she said she’d be up at 5 a.m. on a Wednesday anyway. So I quickly ran back to fetch the pressed rawhide nuggets of chewable deliciousness. The moment I sprung off to fetch I felt the most searing pain in my left calf.

It felt like a Charley Horse — but, fortunately, it was only excruciating when I tried to use it. Sitting or standing was fine. It only hurt when I walk. Long story short: Five hours of aviation-enforced immobility later (plenty of time to stiffen up real good), I hobbled, drenched with sweat, lugging my bags through a new (and seemingly endless) Torontonian concourse, filled with dread. (And did I mention pain?) There’s lots of walking to be done at TIFF, even when you’re staying close to the center of the action. Fortunately, I was able to get a massage at the hotel health club at the last minute. It didn’t fix the problem, but I think it loosened it up a bit.

This morning I awoke to a moment of pulse-pounding suspense. Put some weight on it and… “Mein fuhrer, I can valk!” As Sugarpuss O’Shea put it, “It’s as red as the Daily Worker and twice as sore (“Ball of Fire”) but I can deal with it. I cannot describe my relief.

I’m still out of it, though. I think my brain circuits have shorted from yesterday’s pain and anxiety overload. Today, I went to get some eye drops for an irritated right eye. (Eye drops are film festival essentials, as anyone will tell you.) The nice pharmacist recommended some antibiotic drops, down aisle 3 on the left, in a yellow and red box. I got ’em. Put ’em in my eye. Hurt like hell — like no other eye drops I have ever experienced. That’s because they were ear drops.

It’s a good thing I’m spending most of the time, very still, in the dark. Eyes wide open.

* * *

Tonight, I made a vow to myself, that I hope you will help me keep. Just for the hell of it: no superlatives in my Toronto coverage, which means giving up some of my favorite crutches (“splendid,” “superb,” “terrific,” “wonderful,” “amazing”). Which I try to avoid anyway, but too often fail. It’s too easy, especially when you’re cinematically overstimulated and writing on deadline. I’ve seen two terrific movies so far and I could go superlative crazy any second, but I’m going to try not to. Please let me know (and I’m sure you will) if I screw up.

(NOTE: I’m using “superlative” in the looser, colloquial sense — as in “hyperbole,” not just the superlative [“-est”]form.)

* * *

Toronto may be the only film festival in the universe where the laminated passes that you have to wear on a strap around your neck have actually gotten smaller. This year, they’re wallet-sized. But, you know, who wants to go through all the hassle of removing a card from your wallet, when you can simply flash your pass at one of the World’s Friendliest Film Festival Volunteers? (And I mean that last part sincerely.)

Another brilliant innovation this year: bar codes. No longer do the lines for press screenings have to crawl as each and every person signs in with their name and affiliation. Now they just point one of those hand-held scanners at your card and everybody knows what screenings you’ve attended! I’m not kidding, I think this is genius, and I can’t believe I never thought of it before. Next year: Eye-In-the-Sky cams and facial/vocal recognition software, like what Dr. Heywood R. Floyd uses in “2001” (that was six years ago, guys) — only, of course, much, much faster. No physical passes necessary.

TIFF is cutting-edge. I know they can do it.

OK, next post: Will be about the movies. As usual, Roger Ebert is already way ahead of me. He’s already written his THIRD report, which will be published shortly…

Git yer own Scanners widget

Jim Emerson

Fully customizable to fit YOUR blog or site. Just click the “Get Widget” button below. This one’s already “transparent,” so it’ll blend into your page’s color scheme, but with a few clicks you make it look however you like. Then just plop the code into your template on Blogger, Facebook, TypePad, WordPress, MySpace or whatever and you and your readers will see automatic updates. It’s groovy and fun. You can also get a Roger Ebert’s Journal widget by (ironically) looking in the far-right column below…

Opening Shots: Eyes Wide Shut

Jim Emerson

From Jonathan Pacheco, Anna, TX:

When the release of “Eyes Wide Shut” drew near, a lot of the buzz was around it being a “sex film,” and some (fools) went as far as to claim that its ambition was to be the “sexiest film ever” (after all, Kubrick had broken the molds of other genres). After “EWS” came out, the buzz was that it was a letdown — due largely to the fact that it was “not sexy.” Subsequently, many felt that it was a sub-par film, almost unworthy of the Kubrick moniker.

View image

Unfortunately, they missed the point. The opening shot to “Eyes Wide Shut” is short and simple: Nicole Kidman’s character getting undressed. I’m sure many saw this as a tease, a promise of what’s to come. But I believe Kubrick was using it for the exact opposite purpose, telling us to forget about our preconceived notions of what this film was going to be (or, as you pointed out, Jim, what a narrative should be). In essence, the shot is so brief that it’s almost as if Kubrick is saying “Okay, here: Nicole Kidman naked. Satisfied? Now get that out of your mind and let me tell my story.” Many films don’t have their nudity so early on, so perhaps Kubrick put that quick flash in there to see if we’re paying attention. The next time we see Kidman, she’s doing something very unsexy (using the toilet), and further events tell us that some things are not what we expect them to be (for example, Tom Cruise’s character turning off what we believe to be the background score).

Yes, more nudity follows in the film, from Kidman and many others, but Kubrick is telling us that the nudity and sex is not really the point; he’s not setting out to make the “sexiest film ever.” What is his point, then? I’m not sure. It’s a film that can be watched many times and still not be totally understood — just like some other great Kubrick films.

JE: You’re quite right, Jonathan. That eye-opening first shot IS a ravishing tease, but not in the way viewers might expect — plucked out of time and space, floating in isolation between the white-on-black titles for Cruise/Kidman/Kubrick, and the name of the movie itself. Blink and you’ll miss what Kubrick is doing from the moment the picture starts. “EWS” had been accompanied by the usual hyperbolic pre-release rumors that invariably swirled around rare and secretive Kubrick projects while they were still in the works. In 1979/80 “The Shining” had been touted in advance as “the scariest movie ever made” (did Kubrick really say that was his goal?) and in 1986/87 “Full Metal Jacket” was anticipated as as “the ultimate Vietnam movie” (whatever that was meant to mean). This sort of buzz, whether or not inflamed by Kubrick himself, helped intensify general interest in the movies but, as you point out, it was also ultimately misleading. Kubrick, more than any other filmmaker, taught me not to get distracted by the movie I was expecting, and to simply watch what was happening on the screen instead — because “The Shining” and “Eyes Wide Shut” were absolutely NOT the movies I thought I saw the first time I watched them.

Allow me to riff a little on this “EWS” shot: The first thing you notice is, of course, Kidman dropping her dress. The dominant color is the (warm, feminine) red of the drapes that frame her — and that are reflected in the mirrored closet doors to the left. The shot is not perfectly symmetrical, but in addition to the reflected curtains and the fleshly symmetry of Ms. Kidman, there is a lot of twinning going on here: Two pairs of identical columns mask the image; a couple of overlapping tennis rackets lean in the corner; pairs of shoes are lined up, rather haphazardly, underneath the window…

Gans: Seven Best Modern Horror Movies

Jim Emerson

There was a buzz circulating among students at the University of Colorado at Boulder during the Conference on World Affairs last week about “Silent Hill,” the new horror film by director Christophe Gans (“Brotherhood of the Wolf,” “Crying Freeman”) with a screenplay by Roger Avary (“Pulp Fiction,” “Killing Zoe”). Their hope is that it just might turn out to be one of the first good movies based on a video game. However it’s received, I do like the director’s taste in horror movies.

Surprises? MSN Contribs’ Top 10 Movies of 2009

Jim Emerson

I think you’ll find this list a bit more interesting and idiosyncratic than most of these kinds of things. Motley contributors include Richard T. Jameson, Kathleen Murphy, Dave McCoy, Kim Morgan, James Rocchi, Glenn Whipp, Sean Axmaker, Mary Pols, Don Kaye and me. Be sure to check out the individual lists here. Mine will no doubt be a little different for scanners — in part because I’ve seen (and re-seen) more movies since the deadline. (Spoiler note: The point total for “The Hurt Locker” was even higher than the one for “NCFOM” in 2007.)

TIFF: Behind the mask of horror

Jim Emerson

Eric Rost, hawking his wares.

JT Petty’s “S&MAN” (pronounced “sandman”) is a little like “The Blair Witch Project” in that it starts off as a documentary about a filmmaker making a documentary, and then turns itself around on the viewer. (Also in the way it uses the web as an extension of the movie.) Petty himself has made transgressive horror films (“Soft Digging”), and he’d originally planned to make a doc for HDNet about a video peeping tom who got away with his crime because the neighbors he’d been spying on didn’t want his footage made public if introduced as evidence in a trial. But (o, irony!) the peeper wouldn’t agree to appear on camera. A person has a right to some privacy.

So, the movie Petty wound up making instead incorporates interviews with academics, psychiatrists, and underground horror actors and filmmakers that explores the line between horror and documentary, and the sado-masochistic aspects of both.

Professor Carol Clover, author of the seminal (sorry) “Men, Women, and Chain Saws” — and some of the horror filmmakers themselves — talk about their sensitivity to the mistreatment (or apparent mistreatment) of animals on the screen because, as Clover puts it, that feels to her like an “unmediated” experience. Footage involving humans, no matter how horrific, is still “mediated” because unless you can be certain — and you rarely can — that it’s a genuine snuff film (like terrorists beheading their captors on the Internet), you can be reasonably sure it’s not “real.”

Charles Nelson Reilly, R.I.P.

Jim Emerson

Actor Charles Nelson Reilly dies at 76

Ebert on the meaning of movies and criticism

Jim Emerson

From Roger Ebert’s remarks last night at the DGA Awards, where he was granted an Honorary Lifetime Membership in the Directors’ Guild of America. They were delivered by Chaz Ebert:

Of course sometimes my reviews have not been favorable. Robert Altman once told me, “If you never wrote a negative review, what would your positive reviews mean?”

“That’s true,” I said.

“Unfortunately,” Altman said, “in my case, all of your negative reviews have been mistaken.” […]

We are born into a box of space and time, and the movies come closer than any other art form in giving us the experience of walking in someone else’s shoes. They allow us an opportunity to experience what it would be like to live within another gender, race, religion, nationality, or period of time. They expand us, they improve us, and sometimes they ennoble us. They also thrill us and make us laugh and cry, and for that gift, and for this honor tonight, I am very grateful.

Full speech, and news story, here.

Jason Alexander for the Netflix Relief Fund

Jim Emerson

Netflix Relief Fund with Jason Alexander from Jason Alexander

My 10 best list: the movie (WGA strike/Antonioni edition)

Jim Emerson

Ten movies, two or three shots apiece (more or less), 76 seconds, no dialog, no annotations. (The critical comments will come later.) This is my hommage to the ending of the late Michelangelo Antonioni’s “The Eclipse” and to the writers who are currently on strike. (Full disclosure: I’m a WGA/west member and I strongly support the writers.) The effort was to look at my favorite movies of the year (inspired, to begin with, by the opening of “No Country for Old Men”) solely through establishing shots, architecture, landscapes, inanimate objects… and a few glimpses of extras and motionless actors who don’t speak.

How many of them can you name (in one shot? two?). Titles, writers and directors are cited at the end. (For some reason, this iKlipz/Flash version hangs for a few seconds just before the final titles — but they do appear…)

I am part of a secret left-wing conspiracy…

Jim Emerson

… against Glenn Beck, involving puppy shooters, “Video Gaming Expertes,” loiterers and transvestite prostitute solicitors, according to the satirical christwire.org, a site that’s so satirical it comes all the way around the other side to where it sometimes uncannily resembles reality (see the story headlined “Chinese are Evil and Racism is Always Unacceptable”).¹