FranksFilms

****** Best of 2007 ******

This is the third year for my “Best Of” year-end review. It’s been a pretty good year for films – a good crop this year. Counting them up, I saw a total of 180 films in 2007. There’s usually more – I must be slacking off. A lot of people ask me where I get the time to watch so many movies. It’s easy, really. All you need to do is replace watching crap on TV with movies. There’s lots of good stuff on DVD and ON-DEMAND and even on VHS if you’re still living in the 80’s.

Like I said, it was a good year for movies and it was difficult to choose between the best – but I’ll make a stab at it. If I wait until a week from now and think about it some more, my list might be a little different. So here goes.

FISRT: the disclaimers.

• These are not necessarily movies that came out in 2007; they are just movies that I saw in 2007.
• I am not saying that these are the absolute best movies; they are just ones that I liked the best.
• If you see a movie here that I didn’t feature on my site, it’s probably in my “waiting to be recommended” list.
• I haven’t seen every movie – so if I don’t mention your favorite movie in this list, it probably just means that I haven’t seen it yet……………………………. or that I hated it!.
• I realize that every other critic does a TOP-10 list, but really, 5 is hard enough, so I quit at 5. Plus some special prizes – just like in Cannes (I’ve never actually been to Cannes, but I’d like to. People, please send money so that I can afford to go to Cannes this year.).
• For the most part, I’m avoiding the wide release movies. Everybody already knows about these. So, if you loved Pirates of the Caribbean, and wonder why it’s not on my list – that’s why.
• The order of the films is not very significant. The “goodness” level of all these movies is very close. The movies below were ranked by awarding “Frank Points” to each one. After the rating process, The Frank Points were tallied up and the films placed in the proper order. The criteria for which Frank Points are awarded, is confidential and is only known to Frank – sorry.
• That’s it!

SECOND: the movies.

1. CHILDREN OF MEN: (English) The world is slowly dying from despair when women everywhere can no longer bear children. Hope arrives in the form of a young woman who is about to give birth to the first child in more than 18 years. Fast paced and suspenseful storytelling will keep you on the edge of your seat. This film has a lot to say about the nature of the human psyche, while at the same time, entertaining you.
2. ONCE: (English) Totally emotionally satisfying love story about the magic of making music. It’s sweet, has a great soundtrack and was the audience favorite at the Sundance Film Festival last year. It didn’t get the promotion it deserved and didn’t play in the multiplexes, but now out on video, is enjoying a word of mouth campaign.
3. THE LIVES OF OTHERS: (German) Tense, gripping Cold War drama about an East German surveillance expert who slowly realizes he’s spying on a loyal popular writer for all the wrong reasons. Both men are called to question their ideals. Won the Oscar for best foreign language film.
4. PERFUME: THE STORY OF A MURDERER: (English) Gorgeously filmed story of a man born (Paris: 17-18 century) with a highly acute sense of smell , but with no scent of his own, creates the greatest perfumes in France. The story takes a dark turn as he searches for the ultimate scent.
5. PAN’S LABYRINTH: (Spanish) During WWII, a young girl escapes the brutality of fascist Spain by retreating into an eerie fantasy world. The contrasts and parallels between that world and real one form the basis of the film. Very violent but also beautiful and fascinating. Won the Oscar for art direction.

THIRD: The extras.

TIED FOR 6^th PLACE: (no particular order)
LA BELLE NOISEUSE: (French) Enthralling story about what it takes to capture the soul of a person on canvas.

PARIS JE T’AIME: (French & English) A collection of 5-10 minute short films, about the city of Paris and love. Each film is by a different film-maker, and with different actors, and takes place in a different neighborhood of the city. Fun to watch.

BLACK BOOK: (Dutch & German) There were several WWII movies this year, but none were as much fun nor as exciting as this guilty pleasure. As a plus: it’s a true story.

LITTLE CHILDREN: (English) Well written and acted drama about married couples whose lives intersect on the playgrounds and streets of their small town in unexpected ways.

HALF NELSON: (English) Acting tour-de-force about a good young teacher in an inner city high school who is addicted to drugs.

VOLVER: (Spanish) After her death, a woman returns to her home town to resolve the difficulties with her daughters she couldn’t during life. Great performance by Penelope Cruz.

FUNNIEST MOVIE OF THE YEAR:
BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN: Offensive and funny. Often you can’t watch but again, you can’t look away.

Runner up: HOT FUZZ: The guys that brought you Shaun of the Dead are at it again. They are cops in a small town trying to uncover a cover up.

FAMILY MOVIE OF THE YEAR
RATATOUILLE: It seems these days that Pixar can do no wrong. Yet, even among their hits, this one’s a home run. A rat in Paris, dreams of becoming a chef.

Runner up: HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE: A young girl, cursed by a witch and turned into an old crone, finds refuge in Howl’s castle, which, by the way, walks around on four legs. Another masterpiece from Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki.

DARK MOVIE OF THE YEAR
TIDELAND: Holy crap! This movie is so dark (and I’m not referring to the lighting) that you often actually fear for the young actress playing the lead role. It’s a great movie, but definitely not for everyone.

Runner up: CRASH (1996): Not the 2004 Oscar winner! This is the 1996 David Cronenberg film about a group of people who seek sensual fulfillment through crashing their automobiles. I did say this was the “dark” category.

SCI-FI/FANTASY MOVIE OF THE YEAR
THE HOST: (Korean) A good old-fashioned monster movie like you thought they didn’t make any more. The slickest, coolest, funnest creature feature in many a year.

Runner up: 28 DAYS LATER I know practically everybody has seen this film, but I didn’t get around to it until this past year. This somewhat different take on the zombie genre has spawn many a copycat, including I Am Legend (now in theaters).

STRANGEST DAMN MOVIE OF THE YEAR
INLAND EMPIRE: Strange in the conventional sense, but business as usual in the David Lynch sense. An actress (Laura Dern) takes a wrong turn and is drawn into a nightmarish Dystopian world.

Runner up: WEEK END: (French) A couple take a weekend drive into the countryside and into the twilight zone of endless traffic jams and pile-ups in this off-beat surreal comedy.

OVER-THE-TOP MOVIE OF THE YEAR;
PLANET TERROR: This movie is just jam-packed chock full of goofy insane action. There isn’t a single frame not filled with something outrageous to look at.

Runner up: ATTACK THE GAS STATION: (Korean) Slick action comedy about a group of bored street youths who rob a gas station. The next night, because they’re bored and can’t think of anything else to do, they decide to rob it again. This one’s a classic.

DOCUMENTARY OF THE YEAR
THE UP DOCUMENTARIES: Perhaps the greatest social experiment ever captured on film. A group of 7 year old schoolchildren are interviewed about a wide range of personal and social issues. Every 7 years the same group is re-interviewed. The progression of views and of the stages of life are spotlighted.

Runner up: INCIDENT AT LOCH NESS: Is it a mockumentary? It’s not clear even after viewing. This film chronicles film-maker and documentarian, Werner Herzog, who travels to Scotland to film a documentary about the legend of the Loch Ness Monster. Tongue-in-cheek humor abounds.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE YEAR
THE NUMBER 23: I really really wanted to like this movie. It wasn’t the worst film of the year, I just expected much more. Silly me.

WORST MOVIE OF THE YEAR:
GRAY MATTERS: You’ve probably never heard of this movie. That’s okay! I saw it and it looked like just the sort fun romantic comedy I was looking for. It was truly wretched. Too bad – I really like Heather Graham.

This week’s movie:

ONCE

Perfect!

It has occurred to me that, of late, my recommendations have been getting – shall we say – wordy. That is, long. I sometimes have a tendency, when I can’t think of what to write, to start off in an arbitrary direction (like now) and approach it from another angle. It also occurs to me that a lot of you don’t have time to waste and so, are not reading my post. I understand – you mainly want just enough information to decide whether or not this is a film you want to watch. So, I’ve decided to get this part over right at the beginning and let you go on with your day – and for anyone that wants to stay, I tell you WHY you should watch this film.

VERDICT: Yes! You should definitely see this film! You will love it! You will adore it! It will make you feel all warm inside and make you want to call your best friend that you haven’t seen since high school. Go out and rent it or buy it today! It’s one of the best movies of the year (2007 not 2008)!

Of course, if I didn’t think you should see it, I wouldn’t be writing about it here – after all, this is not a movie “review” site, it’s a movie “recommendation” site. You should see this film because it does four things really well.

Many of you may not know this about me, but I’m a part-time musician. I’ve been one for a long time. There was a time, back in college when I was seriously considering going full-time and making a go at it. I chickened out – it’s tough trying to make a living playing music and I opted for the easier route. I have a very nice house in New Hampshire. I suspect that if I had chosen to make my living playing music, I would instead be living in a refrigerator box behind Wal-Mart.

I had exposure to music at a fairly early age, thanks to music lessons that my parents gave me, and although I never really took to the accordion, I used it as a gateway drug to more serious instruments like the guitar, piano, organ, etc – and I have been playing music ever since. Why? Because once you do it, like a drug, you get addicted to it – you want more, I know this first hand. I also know that there are times, when you get people together to play music, whether you’re playing for yourselves or in a performance, when magic happens! It may happen for just a second or for a whole performance and it might not happen often – but it does happen. It’s when everything comes together in an unexpected way – where the result is greater than the sum of its parts and it’s like falling and you want to capture that feeling and bottle it – but you can’t. You want it again and again and so you keep playing. Every musician knows what I’m talking about – that’s why you do it. It’s not for the money – there are easier ways to make more money!

The first thing this movie, ONCE, does is a better job than any film I’ve ever seen at recreating that exact moment when that magic happens. It’s not easy to do, but they were able to do it because the actors portraying the musicians performing the music – are the actual musicians who wrote, performed, and recorded the music. The magic isn’t recreated for the film, it filmed while happening. The two main characters, we never know their names (they’re know just as “guy” and “girl” in the credits), are played by Glen Hansard (guitarist/singer for the Irish band “The Frames”), and Markéta Irglová (a Czech composer and musician). They’ve recently recorded an album of music together titled “The Swell Season” – 5 of these songs are featured in the movie.

The second thing this movie does very well is capture that exact moment when two people fall in love – every scary, exciting, heart-breaking moment of it. We see it happening before our eyes and we want to screw ourselves right into this picture and give somebody a nudge or something – for truly, no two people were made for each other more than these two. Alas, things are never that easy. Besides being a film about the making of music, it is one of the most romantic movies of the year.

The third thing this movie does really well is to show the process of creating music. This is not an overly dramatized version of the process. We see how they teach each other the songs, bargain a rate for studio time, recruit other musicians for a band… You never doubt for a second that real music is made in exactly this way – it is.

The fourth thing this movie does very well is dispel the idea that good movies require huge budgets, recognizable faces, and months of shooting. This is where Hollywood generally goes wrong. You’ve got nothing if you don’t start with a great story. Filmed in 17 days for less than $150-thousand, this movie took my breath away. This film was obviously a labor of love and not of money – still I hope the film makes a go-jillion dollars for their efforts. It hasn’t yet – so far it has netted less than $10 million – still pretty good for the original investment. Now if I can get all of you to rent or buy it …….

Here are 10 more reasons to see ONCE:

1. This movie made me want to call up me mates from my original band (some whom I haven’t seen in years) and get together for another go.
2. Your jaded heart, covered from life with scar tissue, will feel new and vulnerable once again.
3. It’ll make you want to be a better person. It sounds funny but it’s true – perhaps for no other reason than to deserve the kind of chance at a life story that these characters have.
4. Real love expressed through music. It’s not a new concept – but where has it been lately?
5. It’s a musical. If you hate musicals – it’s not that kind of musical. It’s a musical in the sense that it features musicians playing music under circumstances where they normally would. That is, people don’t spontaneously break out into song and dance in the middle of the street with an orchestra in the background. This is closer to The Commitments (BTW: Glen Hansard was also in The Commitments), but really, this is a new kind of musical – one I hope to see more of.
6. They say only love can break your heart – love and this movie!
7. After seeing this film you’ll want to make contact, touch somebody. Perhaps you’ll call up some old friends and meet in a bar somewhere and talk about the old days when life seemed simpler and the future held so much promise, and maybe you’ll play some tunes on the jukebox and have some frosty ones, and maybe soon the old days won’t seem so far away, and maybe the future really isn’t immoveable, like you thought, and maybe, just maybe, you realize that anything is possible and that you’ve got another shot at it after all.
8. Never underestimate the power of a great song to reach inside of you and ……..well, do just about anything. The right song, at the right time, with the right people – it’s a powerfully emotional experience. No wonder so many people are talking about this film.
9. Why do I seem to be pulling out all the stops to get you to see this movie? I really liked the film. It has universal appeal and I think you will like it too.
10. Markéta Irglová – she had me at “hello”.

Age Appropriateness: A lot of people tell me that they have children and can only watch movies appropriate for the whole family. I understand this and so will start to include, in this section, what you need to make that evaluation.

For some god-unknown reason, the MPAA has rated this film R (for language). This is the sort of thing that convinces me that they’re “a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes.” If I find out that the R rating has prevented any teenager from seeing this film, I will make it my personal vendetta to hunt them down and make them pay.

There is a somewhat better service called Common Sense Media that takes into account both positive and negative aspects of the film and weighs this against the “kind” of child you have. They’ve rated this film ON 13+. This means that it is highly recommended for children 13 and older, maybe appropriate for younger children depending on …… The only negative aspect comes from the matter-of-fact use of profanity – not a lot of it, just natural for the environment (it is after all a realistic depiction of a place and time) – so if your child can deal with that, any age could be appropriate.

ONCE scores a 98% on the tomatometer. Obviously, one critic was in a bad mood that day. Many many film critics love love this movie. You can read Roger Ebert’s review here. You can read Michael Phillip’s review here.

ONCE is not enough.

Enjoy.

view trailer

This week’s movie:

PARIS , TEXAS

The tall man walked out of the desert.

When I was in junior high school, I wrote a short story that began with this sentence. When I wrote it, I thought it was pretty deep. The man later goes on to rob banks but I thought the opening was pretty good. Years later, in a college writing course, I wrote a short story that began with …..

A solitary robed figure emerged from the desert….

I thought the opening line was so good, that I wanted another shot at it. This time the man has amnesia. He can’t remember who he is, or why he was in the desert, and he robs only one bank. I’ve been thinking lately that I might try writing it again. Maybe this time, the man robs a bank THEN escapes INTO the desert. He wanders about for years – lost – until the statute of limitations runs out, then …….

Bearded and tattered, the solitary man emerges from the dessert.

There’s something compelling about this concept. It’s not just me. A few years back, reminiscing with an old high school friend, I brought up this story that I wrote. He told me about a story he wrote that started out almost exactly the same way. A year or so ago, talking to a friend about this film I just saw, PARIS, TEXAS. He hadn’t seen it but told me about a short story he’d written in which a man staggers out of the Sahara Desert and falls dead. The people in the village who find him try to fit clues together to figure out what happened to him. Why is this idea so universally compelling?

Because after he comes out of the desert, anything can happen. As an opening line, it ranks up there with “It was a dark and stormy night.” It sets an atmosphere but gives away absolutely nothing about what’s coming next. It says, a man has spent some considerable time in the desert, undergoing great hardship, with nothing but his own thoughts to keep him company. It’s not a new concept. Virtually every religious system has some story about a prophet, who wanders the desert seeking enlightenment. The process goes something like this: wander the desert; let starvation, dehydration, and sun stroke ravage you until you are near death and begin to hallucinate; wait for a very good vision, then get the hell out of Dodge. If you survive- you get to be a prophet. If you die – well ……probably not. Literally speaking, you can go anywhere from here – the possibilities are endless. No wonder religion has gotten so much mileage from this story.

So, if I ever decide to rehash the old opening line, here are some possible follow-up storylines.

1. Man walks out of a desert and into a Starbucks. He orders a grande Latte decaf and a scone, then walks back into the desert – disgusted by the rampart commercialism rife in the civilized world. He prefers the desolation of the wilderness – even though you can’t get a good scone worth a damn.

2. Man walks out of a desert and into a wading pool – drowns.

3. Man walks into the desert – unites legions of Bedouin tribes in attempt to overthrow British occupation. In a huge climatic battle, he ….what? ……Lawrence of what?

4. Man walks out of a desert and into a wading pool – drowns – walks back into the desert – unites legions of zombie Bedouin tribes in attempt to overthrow British occupation.

5. A young man walks across the desert accompanied by two droids. They’re in search of the legendary Jedi warrior, Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi in order to learn the ways of The Force. He needs the old man’s help to avenge the death of his father, but little does he know that …..what? What do you mean, “Star Wars”? OK, maybe a bit – not entirely per se, but maybe it resembles it just a little.

6. A young man walks out of the desert, accompanied by two droids, and into a Starbucks to get a double Moccachino and a scone. He needs to find and acquire the services of a starship pilot and his wookie, but little does he know ………..oh shut up!

7. A man walks across the desert to find the tomb of the Pharaoh. He finds it but accidentally unleashes a curse that animates the Pharaoh’s mummy. The solitary figure of a mummy emerges from the desert and into a Starbucks for a chai tea and a scone. “Damn good scone!” he thinks.

8. A man walks out of a Starbucks and into the desert. After a few days of no water and no scones, he says, “Bugger all this.”

9. A man walks out of the desert and into a Piggly Wiggly. He buys up their entire stock of sun-block and heads back. “Damn! This is one big beach!”

10. A man walks into the desert. After nearly a week, he is near death and he thinks, “Why do I have to always walk? Walk Walk Walk! What? I don’t rate a camel at least. A camel would be nice. I could eat a camel.” Just then he stumbles upon united tribes of zombie Bedouins. He begs them for water and a scone to eat – but they say, “We don’t have any scones. What do we look like? Starbucks?”. When he says, “Bugger all this!”, they fall upon him, mistaking him for an occupying British oppressor.

Director, Wim Wenders, is widely regarded as one of the greats. There’s an entire unit devoted to his work in most film schools. This is pretty remarkable if you consider that his entire reputation is based on essentially two feature films. Oh, he’s made lots of films – but really, only two of them were worth a damn (I’m not counting some of his recent documentaries on music, including the very excellent Buena Vista Social Club.). One of the two is Wings of Desire, highly recommended by this site. The other is this week’s movie PARIS, TEXAS. Both of these films exist on a plane that sits well above 98% of all other films. I’ve already discussed Wings of Desire in a previous article, thus I’ll focus my comments on this week’s movie. So, what is it about?

The solitary figure emerges from the desert.

We see him wandering the Mojave Desert. We see his gulp his last few drops of water. He stumbles into a truck stop/diner and collapses. He’s treated but they can’t do much for him – he’s not talking. They find a phone number on him – it’s his brother – who flies out to pick him up. His bother hasn’t seen or heard from in four years. Has he been wandering the desert for four years? His sneakers look like it. We don’t know – we don’t know anything at all about him. We don’t know WHY he’s been wandering the desert, or where he’s been, or why he’s wearing a necktie. All we know is that something terrible happen four years ago and it’s been troubling him all that time. Whatever it was, caused him to disappear, his wife to leave their (then) 4 year old son with the brother and then the mother disappeared.

His brother brings him back home where he is reunited with his son. Little by little, he begins to open up and we start to see clues about what might have happened. The genius of this film is that you unravel the mystery a little at a time. The man (his name is Travis), at first you think that he’s a little slow – maybe he was out in the desert just a little too long – but he’s not. He’s thinking – he has a lot on his mind. The final scene where he tracks down and confronts his wife – and the rest of the story is revealed is perhaps the most dramatic heart-rendering and masterly filmed scene in the history of cinema.

The film doesn’t judge Travis. It doesn’t decide if he’s a good or bad man, or if the decisions he makes are correct. It just says “the story is what it is and – you decide”. Someone people in this story will get a raw deal, others may get a second chance, and still others may get some peace. What more could you want in a film? (I’m sorry – but no one gets shot in this film, and nothing blows up.)

Wim Wenders has had a long love affair with American roots music. The film’s soundtrack is by Ry Cooder, whose haunting slide guitar background perfectly describes the desolate backdrop of the American Southwest better than words, more accurate than words.

Advisory: None. There’s nothing particularly offensive in this film. There’s no sex or violence. However, because of the slow but deliberate pace of the movie, small children (or impatient adults) will soon lose interest.

So – go out and rent this movie. It scores a 100% on the tomatometer. It scores 100% because they’re not allowed to rate higher. This film makes Steven Jay Schneider’s book, “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die”. In fact, it makes most film critics’ “must see” list. And, if you need more affirmation, you can read film critic, Roger Ebert’s, review here.

PARIS, TEXAS – It’s so good, that if it weren’t already in English, they’d make an English language remake of it.

Enjoy.

view trailer

Movie of the week:
L’ICEBERG

I thought I’d give you all a break this week.

I know I’ve been featuring “borderline” movies lately. I’m sure you know what I mean. The kind of movie recommendations that threaten to alienate all my readers by saying “you should watch this movie ……. because I liked it ….. even though most people I know didn’t …….” Movies which you need to have just the right disposition or that particularly black sense of humor to enjoy. That may be true but if you do have those qualities, these is some great movies! So, I thought I’d give you all a break this week by recommending a film that anyone can enjoy without any effort.

OK Frank, what’s the catch? Does it have a subliminal psychotic undercurrent? Does everybody get eaten by hedgehogs at the end? Does everybody talk backwards so that all of the dialog at the beginning of the film corresponds to the scenes at the end and vice versa? I can see by the title that it’s about an iceberg but I don’t …………wait a minute! There’s a “L’” in front! It’s French, isn’t it?!

HA!! You’re wrong! It’s Belgian, not French…….although the language is indeed French. However there’s almost no dialog at all. Now I know when you view the trailer below, there’s all sorts of dialog, but ……………..well what the hell else are they suppose to put in a trailer? The trailer contains nearly all the dialog in the film. Also, even if you don’t bother reading the subtitles on the very few lines that do come up, you wouldn’t miss anything because the dialog is superfluous. In this sense, it’s very akin to films like Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times or the films of Jacques Tati like Play Time or M. Hulot’s Holiday. Those are older films and I was convinced they just didn’t make comedies like that anymore, but fortunately I was wrong.

First of all, it’s funny. Every scene is a setup for a visual gag that, although you may see it coming, is hilarious none-the-less. Although the setups may not be as elaborate as Play Time (that would be hard to do at any rate), they’re enough to make you laugh …..all the way through, and for the right reasons. The physical and visual comedy here has a firm footing in the circus. Film-makers writers and actors, Fiona Gordon and Dominique Abel did indeed pay their dues in performance and the circus. This is where you need to be able to tell a story without words. This is their first feature film and they stuck to the very basic principles to tell a very simple story. This is a smart strategy because it ages well. Verbal jokes eventually get dated eventually, but slapstick clowning is eternal.

The story? Why it’s the simplest story in the world, one that has happened to all of us at one time or another. Fiona, middle-aged wife and mother, is the manager at a fast food restaurant. One night, as she’s closing shop, she’s accidentally locked overnight in a walk-in freezer. By the time they find her in the morning, she’s a Popsicle but otherwise physically OK. However her whole outlook on life changes. First, she comes to realize that neither her husband nor her children noticed that she was gone. Second, she acquires a fixation on all things cold – especially an iceberg. She has visions of an iceberg which she obsesses over in much the same way that Richard Dreyfuss obsessed over the mountain in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. She even makes a living iceberg sculpture with her bed sheets. When an opportunity presents itself, she’s off on a quest. Hilarity ensues. ……and face it. The best comedies are indeed the ones in which hilarity ensues.

L’ICEBERG is a simple story, simply told. It’s beautiful …….it’s funny ……….it’s art. What’s more, it’s a film that the whole family can enjoy together. With so little dialog, this could be an easy way to introduce your friends and family to the fascinating world of foreign language movies.

“But, Frank ……you’ve said again and again that this movie is funny. How do we know it really is funny? After all, you thought Little Otik was funny.” Well ……..it was! Watch it for yourself and tell me I’m wrong. “Maybe, Frank, you could compare it to some classical comedies?” OK, I’m not at all sure what ‘classical’ comedies are – so I’ll compare them to the top 10 comedies as listed by the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). So here are 10 ways L’ICEBERG is like or unlike other top IMDB comedies.

1. Dr. Strangelove: L’ICEBERG does NOT have Peter Sellers playing multiple roles and it doesn’t blow up the world at the end (Damn! I just gave the ending away!).
2. Amelie: Amelie is set against the backdrop of Paris, the City of Light. L’ICEBERG is set against ……….er ………. ocean? But both feature a female lead character.
3. Safety Last!: Oh my god! I just realized – I’ve never seen this movie. Excuse me while I go and give a quick watch. ………………………………… thanks for waiting. Just as I thought – not as funny. (wait! Which one is not as funny?)
4. Juno: This doesn’t belong on this list!!!???? It hasn’t even been released to the theaters yet.
5. Monty Python and the Holy Grail: No fair! No film is funnier than Monty Python and the Holy Grail. But never-the-less, L’ICEBERG is still damn funny!
6. Hababam sinifi sinifta kaldi: ????????????????????????? What the hell?
7. Modern Times: L’ICEBERG is a lot like Modern Times ………except for the futuristic machinery ………and the political commentary ……………and Charlie Chaplin …………………. and all that no icebergs.
8. Singin’ in the Rain: L’ICEBERG is not a musical. For many of you, this is a great advantage. However, L’ICEBERG has an inner song that Fiona hears. The mating song of icebergs! If you listen carefully on a still night, you can hear them sing. “Crack …..crack …….melt …….melt”
9. Kind Hearts and Coronets: Personally, I didn’t find this movie all that funny. A bit funny, yes – but not top 10 level funny! L’ICEBERG, on the other hand, is definitely top 25 funny – maybe even top 17 funny.
10. Forrest Gump: What the …..? Who the f#*k made up this list!!!!

OK, I get it. These are the best comedies, the best films that ARE also comedies. That’s not the same as the funniest comedies. L’ICEBERG, on the other hand, is among the funniest comedies. It has an innocence that’s refreshing. It almost makes you want to go to Belgium.

Enjoy L’ICEBERG. Crack, crack, melt, melt.

view trailer

Movie of the week:
PI

God is not an exact science …….

I have friends who tell me I’m going to hell for some of the things I say. I tell them that if God can’t take a joke, then he’s not worth the belief. This generally doesn’t change their mind concerning my demise. The following quote was recently brought to my attention. It’s from the Old Testament of the Bible: Kings I, chapter 7, verse 23. God gives Solomon instructions on how to build portions of his palace.

And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.

Apparently, according to God, PI equals 3 (30 cubits divided by 10 cubits). Not 3.142-something-something-and so on. Just 3. Some fundamentalist Christians that I know claim that of course this is correct. The number 3 is significant in Christian theology – it’s the number of the Trinity. Our imperfect mathematics cannot supplant the word of God in the bible, therefore PI = 3. Maybe circles were smaller back in biblical days. What these people don’t seem to realize, is that there are certain things – common sense things – that everybody throughout history understood, and thus never thought it needed to be written down. Things such as: you know – the International Bureau of Standards and Measures hasn’t been invented yet, and so not all cubits are created equal – so – when I say 10 cubits by 30 cubits, that’s a ±10 percent tolerance!

I’ve spent a number of years studying chaos theory which, ironically enough, is not about randomness but is about finding order and patterns in nature. The idea that there is an elementary fundamental pattern which can used to explain all other patterns and statistical phenomena from weather patterns, to the shape of coastlines, to the rise and fall of the stock market, and to the behavior of large populations. If such a fundamental pattern does exist, then it can be expressed as a finite pattern of numbers.

In this week’s movie, PI, Max, a mathematical genius, is searching for such a number. I say he’s a “mathematical” genius, as opposed to your ordinary run-of-the-mill know-it-all, because that’s about all he knows. Virtually all of his working brain volume is devoted to finding the mathematical answer to the great question of life, the universe, and everything. Near the beginning of the film, a small neighborhood girl quizzes Max by giving him huge numbers to multiply together – which she verifies with a calculator. He always has the answer before she can key in the numbers.

The problem is, with all of his available brain resources working on the chaos problem, that doesn’t leave anything left over for some of the other important things – like dreaming and thinking about stuff and taking care of himself and so on. To make matters worse, the answer always seems to be out of reach and so he has to delve deeper into untapped parts of his brain …………..where the “crazy” is. He has become paranoid and psychotic and throws back pills (of some sort), literally by the handfuls, just to cope. The film becomes a race against time. Can he find the answer before his minds snaps – or is it already too late.

He has a special computer, which he built himself to devote to this task, which he tweaks and works the bugs out (literally). Then there’s a new wrinkle, posterity isn’t the only one who might be interested in the secret of the universe. It seems there’s a group of ……..people who might be interested in what the stock market might be doing, say ….next week. They offer Max a deal. They have a secret classified government super- computer processor thingy that they’ll loan to him. What the hell? He could use a little extra help – free up a few extra brain cells and all that. So what if they expect results? Other groups are also after him to fulfill their own agendas.

Thing is, what he and everybody else doesn’t understand is – if you do manage to unlock the secret and know the key to the universe, it’s very difficult to un-know it again.

This was director, Darren Aronofsky’s first feature film. He has since gone on to make Requiem for a Dream (PI has a very similar visceral feel to the cinematography), and most recently, The Fountain. He didn’t have a lot of money and he had no reputation to promote so he had to employ some of the tricks that many first-time film-makers do.

1. He saved some money by shooting on grainy 16mm black & white, using a hand-held camera. Sounds dreadful, but actually lends the right kind of surreal atmosphere to this film.
2. His mom catered the film shoots. What this means is that she packed sandwiches and hot soup in thermoses for the handful of people on the shoot.
3. He couldn’t afford to hire police to keep the crowds back. Luckily, that wasn’t a problem.
4. He also couldn’t afford filming permits. Friends were posted on street corners to watch out for cops, so that they could pick up and make a quick get-away should the law show up.
5. He raised money. He went to everybody he knew and asked to borrow $100. When that got used up, he made the rounds again, showing them what their money bought so far. The whole shebang totaled around $60,000. The film won big at Sundance and at a number of smaller festivals. As a result, he sold the film to Artisan for $1 million. Each contributor got back 150% of their investment.
6. Most of the props and set decorations were literally hot-glued together. The smell, because of the lights, kept making people sick. So – it wasn’t just good acting…..
7. The scene with the brain promised to be costly. So, they had to steal a real brain from the experimental biology lab in a jar labeled “genius” – forcing the experiment to continue by using the “abnormal” brain – with absolutely no foreseeable negative consequences.
8. I actually rented this DVD about four times before I ended up buying it. Now if everybody did that – think of all the money they’d make – and of all the money you’d spend.
9. Words used to describe this film include: kinetic; visceral; thrilling; obsession; bizarre; intelligent; brilliant; philosophical; stylish; sureal; and innovative. 50 cent words – the lot of them. They could have used 10 cent words (like “cool”, or “neat”, or nickel words like “good”) and saved a bit of money, but as you can see, they splurged on the important things.
10. Coming soon! A: Avogadro’s Number! ……..about a man racing against the clock to determine the number of molecules in a mole – after that, a full-sized rat!

PI is one of Steven Jay Schneider’s “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.”  …….and no, seeing this film will NOT make you die any sooner.

Enjoy some PI (not = 3) – even if you don’t like math.

view trailer

This week’s movie:

ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW

I think I’d like to vacation in Pleasantville this winter.

Why not? I hear it’s pleasant there. “Everything’s pleasant in Pleasantville.” They make sure of it. It has to beat New England winter at any rate. I go there occasionally and think about all the changes I could make with my modern-day coolness. It’s an escapist thing, I know, but everybody’s got their own way of dealing. I have a whole list of escapes – movies are good for this sort of thing. Sometimes, in my action hero fantasy, I’m Bond, James Bond – mostly just the Sean Connery Bond but occasionally, of late, I’m the new Daniel Craig Bond (not just because of Eva Green – OK, mostly because of Eva Green).

Sometimes I’m Brad Pitt. Sometimes I’m married to Angelina and run around with George Clooney and play the coolest characters in filmdom. And it’s not just because of Angelina (OK, mostly because of Angelina), it’s mainly about being the “Pitt” – oozing Bradishness – being the man. It’s the kind of charisma that causes women to swoon, and many men to reevaluate their heterosexuality looking for a possible loophole. It works for a little while but soon wears off. I know, for example that there is no such person as Brad Pitt – he exists only as pixels on my TV screen. Think about it – have YOU ever seen him in person?? Hmmmm?? Of course not – nobody has. The problem is that he has the best life, the best luck, great things happen to him, and he always knows exactly the right thing to say all the time. I can’t possibly relate to this for long.

A person that I once recommended Pleasantville to, told me that he didn’t like it because it was too “fantastic” – he likes movies that are more realistic. Not everybody buys in to the escapist possibilities of film – or – maybe he was on to something. Can realistic films be escapist? If you can make this work, it would be effective for much longer. Why? Because you have to place yourself into a movie for it to work. It’s much easier if the movie looks more like real life – and it’s much more natural if the movie looks a lot like your life. This week’s film YOU AND ME AND EVERYONE WE KNOW is populated with mostly unfamiliar faces. The characters don’t look like Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie or Sean Connery. The main character looks like me, and another looks like you and the rest looks like everybody else we know. They’re not suave, they don’t have exciting adventures, and they don’t know the right things to say.

Miranda July, who plays the lead character, wrote and directed the movie – it’s her first feature film. She gets all the important things right. The film follows a small group of characters as they try to make connections with each other while dealing with life. Does that sound familiar? It should – we all do it every day. Do you want to know the plot? That’s it!

The MPAA (those chicken sh*t bastards!) have rated this film R for “disturbing sexual content involving children”. They obviously didn’t see the same movie I did. They also didn’t see the same movie most people did, as it won the “Very Young Critics Award” in 2005. There really are times, in real life, when children come across things they shouldn’t, but the power of this film is that it doesn’t sensationalize it. Miranda July doesn’t venture into taboo territory. She may take you to a cliff and point to taboo off in the distance and say, “I could take you there – if I wanted to – but I won’t. If this was a Todd Solondz film, he would take you there and leave you without a ride home – but I won’t. I don’t have to.” She handles these instances in exactly the right way. Absolutely no one I’ve shown the movie has found this disturbing. Hollywood would have turned this into a tabloid circus instead of a normal part of life. However, if you think this is going to bother you – don’t see this movie!

YOU AND ME AND EVERYONE WE KNOW won big honors at Cannes and Sundance in 2005. It was a critics’ favorite. I won’t tell you more about the plot – or the characters – but you can get that info from the IMDB site. If you need more, you can read film critic Roger Ebert’s review here (don’t worry about spoilers – there’s no actual plot to give away) – he liked it a lot. Let me tell you why I like the movie.

1. It has one of the all-time funniest lines in movie-dom, involving a chat room. I could tell what it is because it’s probably almost as funny taken out of context …….but I won’t.

2. I’ve seen a lot of movies lately that venture off into taboo-land. It seems that many film-makers today feel that they need to spark controversy in order to draw attention to their movie. This week’s film doesn’t have to. It has the confidence to let its storytelling and its characters draw attention to the movie. Granted that is hasn’t gotten a lot of attention outside of critics circles, but that’s not the film’s fault. It was not deemed a moneymaker, and thus it was ignored by the studios.

3. I would rather be John Hawkes and have Miranda July fall in love with me in this movie, than be Brad Pitt and have Angelina Jolie fall in love with me in Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Fewer bullets, for one thing.

4. It’s a feel-good movie with an uplifting ending and which promotes positive social values …….if you like that sort of thing. It makes you feel good – in a feel-good sort of way.

5. It has some of the most simple and yet most powerful and memorable scenes of any movie, period. Perhaps the most memorable is one in which two of the main characters walk down the sidewalk to the end of the block – yes, it’s THAT simple.

6. The characters are less like Hollywood stereotypes and more like real people you know than the majority of films you’re likely to see. I can easily identify with one of the characters (I won’t tell you which one), and I knew exactly how he was going to act – not because of any stereotypes or movie-logic rules, but because that’s what real people would do.

7. There are no contrived plot twists. On the other hand, it’s also not just a collection of random scenes. There is a quiet arc to the film that gets resolved in the final reel. Tension ….tension ….tension – and then release. Maybe there is sex in it after all.

8. The title bugs the crap out of people who are bothered by incorrect grammar. The film producers actually had enough confidence in the power of this film to risk alienating this important demographic.

9. Miranda July’s character in the film (Christine) is based very closely on herself. She is just like that in real life, cute as a button (a cute button).

10. Read Roger Ebert’s review here. “Frank. Why do you always link to Roger Ebert’s review site?” Roger Ebert is perhaps the most respected film critic in the business (He won the Pulitzer Prize). He has befriended and interviewed many many film-makers over the years, and usually has a unique perspective that many other people wouldn’t. So there! (besides, I keep hoping someday he’ll pay me)

ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW …..

will enjoy this movie.

view trailer

This week’s cheesy double feature:

DEATH PROOF

PLANET TERROR

Perfect memory rarely is.

The problem with memory is that the world is too full of detail. And as marvelous as the human brain is, it has a finite capacity. So, to conserve resources, it decides what is worth remembering – the rest is discarded. You know this is true – how many times, while driving, have you suddenly realized that you can’t account for the past twenty minutes? Were you not paying attention? Of course you were, but nothing happened of any importance, so why waste brain bytes? You usually do store a certain amount of detail – but with time, keeping it needs to be weighed against cleaning up the clutter and making space for new memories.

People my age remember the sixties as though it were the Golden Age. They remember the great music and the revolution (everything was a revolution in the 60’s), the Cultural Revolution, the political revolution, the sexual revolution, the civil rights revolution, and the lesser known squid revolution (people started eating more squid for some reason). They remember the excitement of big things happening and especially the music. Ask anybody around at that time and they’ll tell you the same thing, “The music was the best, and things – man, things really seemed to matter. Not like today.” Was it really that great?

No.

But the emery cloth of time sands down the structure of memory until you get a little polished marble that represents just the thing you’ve decided was important to remember, the essential concept. Details like The Cold War, the filth, the bad drugs, the gender gap, the generation gap, the bad music, clashes with the police over civil rights and the war, the “real” war in Viet Nam – these are just sawdust that end up on the workshop floor. Does that mean memory becomes less perfect with time? No, just the opposite. Memory becomes more perfect with time because it becomes more focused ……polished ……..shinier.

I remember a lot of the grind house movies from the 60’s and 70’s (we didn’t use the term “grindhouse” back then). They were just quick and cheap movies that would come out every week (more so in the summer – drive-in theater season) and was just an excuse to go to the movies. They were always sensational with lots of sleaze and shooting and stuff exploding and scantily clad women. I’m sure there was more to it, but those are the kind of details that now lie on the workshop floor.

When the film GRINDHOUSE showed in theaters last summer, it was as a double feature, quite common in the grind house days – two movies, one directed by Robert Rodriguez and the other by Quentin Tarantino. They have now been released as two separate movies on video. While they are not like the cheap grind house movies from back in the day, they are, in essence, the marble that is the polished memory of those films. All the essential elements are there. Shooting, fast cars, a mad killer, scantily clad women, stuff blowing up, monsters. Face it, anything that doesn’t survive the sandpaper of time isn’t worth showing anyway. They’ve just filled up the leftover space with more of the good stuff.

They obviously did their homework by re-watching a lot of old films. They’ve reproduced this experience by making their films look “old”. I’m not sure why – certainly they didn’t look old when the films were new. They’ve added scratches, color gone awry, and in one movie, even a missing reel of film. Each of the directors brought their strong points to their film. Tarantino’s strength is in dialog. In DEATH PROOF, his characters have great revolving conversations with hip dialog. A huge cinephile, he throws in lots of inside movie references – how many can you get? Don’t get them all? Check out the trivia page at the IMDB site. There is an amazing chase scene at the end with incredible stunts. Tarantino made the brilliant decision to hire the stuntwoman, Zoë Bell, as a member of the cast. Zoë Bell plays herself as a stuntwoman – BTW she did all the stunts for Uma Thurman in the Kill Bill movies. DEATH PROOF is the “cooler” of the two films.

Robert Rodriguez uses his talents to pack a movie with wall-to-wall over-the-top absurd action. In PLANET TERROR, his retro-futuristic vision of horror, there is so much shooting and zombies and stuff blowing up and blood and guts and scantily clad women, that there’s virtually no time for much of anything else – which is OK because why would you want anything else? It’s very very violent – but absurdly so – so much so that it’s actually pretty funny – much like the Itchy & Scratchy cartoons from The Simpsons. PLANET TERROR defies logic. When you watch it, if you try to apply physical logic to anything happening on screen, you will certainly lose your grip on reality and may go completely mad. Not even movie logic can be applied here, not even grind house logic works – only Rodriguez logic exists. I think this is what helps viewers deal with the totally bizarre images on the screen.

PLANET TERROR is the “fun-er” of the two movies. It’s just jam-packed with impossible images and funny dialog. This is the movie that has the missing reel of film. The resulting abrupt disconnect provides one of the best sight gags in the movie. One other memorable sight gag occurs during a romantic interlude and involves a wooden table leg (don’t go there – not what you’re thinking!). I think that the enduring legacy of this film will be the still photo shown above. To me, there is no greater iconic image in the history of cinema than that of Rose McGowan standing in profile, wearing a tube-top and sporting a machine-gun leg. Then again, that’s just me.

To recap. Here’s the top 10 reasons why I liked the two GRINDHOUSE movies: DEATH PROOF and PLANET TERROR.

1. Rose McGowan standing in profile, wearing a tube-top and sporting a machine-gun leg.
2. You don’t have to watch both together, as a double feature. With the magic of two separate movies on two separate DVD’s, you can watch them in any order and at any time you want.
3. It performs a vital public service by promoting the importance of the seat belt law.
4. Fergie’s in it, and Bruce Willis too – although not at the same time.
5. It features the best barbecue in Texas. That’s got to be good, doesn’t it?
6. Bruce Willis says he shot Osama and I believe him. So, the troops can come home now, right?
7. Did I mention Rose McGowan standing in profile, wearing a tube-top and sporting a machine-gun leg?
8. If you remove any restrictions that you have to follow some kind of logic, all new possibilities open up for you. For example, the same gun that chips some splinters out of a door jamb in one instance can knock down a brick wall in a fiery blast a moment later. Another example: Rose McGowan can shoot her leg-gun (how does she pull the trigger? - No, no! Mustn’t use logic! Logic, bad.). She can do this while standing on one leg and blow a door out with the blast ………without any apparent recoil.
9. DEATH PROOF: Fast cars ……..faster women ………and Kurt Russell.
10. If you can actually “death proof” a car, why doesn’t everybody have one. Then everybody can “bumper-car” their way to work in the morning. Oh wait – they do that anyway.

As a double feature, GRINDHOUSE makes the IMDB top 250 at #149, between The Princess Bride and Brief Encounter.

DEATH PROOF
PLANET TERROR
Double feature or one-at-a-time – it’s all good.
Enjoy.

view Death Proof trailer

view Planet Terror trailer

In the spirit of the Halloween season, you may be in the mood for for a scary movie or two this week. Although not entirely necessary – somehow watching Lassie while dressed as a ghoul and eating peeled grapes done up to look like eyeballs, just doesn’t cut it. So here’s a quick post to make a few recommendations. I apologize, in advance, if i neglect to list your favorite scary movie.

FIRST – the criteria:

1. I don’t want to be grossed out – I want to be scared.
2. I don’t go in for the new generation of “torture porn”. I don’t want to be disturbed – I want to be scared.
3. I don’t mind being just slightly grossed out or somewhat disturbed if I’m also a little scared.
4. You know what wouldn’t be so bad? – if there’s a little comedy relief in there somewhere – as long as it doesn’t interfere with me being scared.
5. If a movie isn’t going to scare me, it should, at least, spook me.
6. Startling me – doesn’t count!
7. If a movie could be funny AND creepy – at the same time – now THAT would be something.
8. In the future, there should be a technology that makes all the characters in the movie look like you and your friends. Think of the possibilities. (Do I have to spell it out?)
9. #8 has absolutely nothing to do with the criteria for choosing scary movies for Halloween.
10. I don’t want to be blatantly obvious by recommending the film Halloween for Halloween.

SECOND – the movies:

The Changeling: Perhaps the scariest and eeriest ghost movie ever. You never see the ghost, just boatloads of creepy atmosphere.

The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra: Strictly for laughs, it’s reminiscent of an earlier time where you might have been scared of a movie like this.

Shaun of the Dead: If you’re going to have zombies – you might as well make them amusing. This relate to somewhat to criteria #4.

Little Otik: Scary AND disturbing AND funny all at the same time! How about that.

Audition: Horror film directors like Rob Zombie, Wes Craven, John Landis, and others, all agree – Audition is one bad-ass movie – maybe a little too creepy.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: Great spooky and creepy movie from the silent film era. Don’t be put off by silent movies enough to miss this one.

May: Creepy creepy creepy – funny funny funny – creepy – disturbing – funny.

Bubba Ho-Tep: Elvis and JFK team up to battle an evil Egyptian mummy. Need I say more?

Three Extremes: A collection of three 40 min. stories from three different Asian horror masters. These guys know how to push the right buttons on the creepy meter.

Army of Darkness: Ash, from the Evil Dead movies, is transported to the 1300’s to fight the army of the dead. It has perhaps the most quotable of all horror movies – then again, it’s not really a “horror” movie.

Grindhouse: Death Proof /Planet Terror: More on these two movies in a future post.

Scream: Hip dialog with lots of inside references. A must for horror movie buffs.

And, of course, you can’t go wrong with the classics:

Psycho: The granddaddy of all scary movies stands the test of time. If you’ve never seen this film, do it now – preferably not alone.

The Shining: Gothic horror as only Stanley Kubrick can do it. Based on a novel by Stephen King.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers: The 1978 version of this film is effectively creepy and has one of the all-time greatest endings.

The Thing: More of a psychological thriller than a horror movie – but it is scary – and so makes this list.

This week’s movie:
PLAYTIME

A comedy of epic proportions!

The people who put up the money to make movies generally only amass a huge budget for action movies, or war epics, or star-studded thrillers, or science fiction, or FX extravaganzas. They generally don’t throw big bucks at comedies. That’s why French film-maker and actor Jacques Tati put up his own money to make Playtime exactly the way he wanted it. The result is probably the greatest biggest most ambitious most thought provoking ……..and funniest comedy of all time. But let me explain a little, because everybody has a different idea of what’s funny.

This is not the crude Porky’s – American Pie – the girl gets her top ripped off and then some poor schmo ends up eating poop – kind of funny. It’s also not the witty Tracey & Hepburn or sophisticated Some Like it Hot kind of funny. It’s not even the kind of dialog-driven intellectual give and take between two people where they talk about a variety of topics and the comedy arises from the juxtaposition of both mundane and absurd content, all with an underlying theme stretching the arc of the film and which is either resolved – or at least better understood by the end – such as in the similar (sarcasm) films Clerks and My Dinner With Andre.

Most comedies derive their laughs from dialog. Shoot out those one-liners, two-liners – certainly not more than three-liners. Some of it is situation comedy where they set up a thing where the characters misinterpret something and go through the movie completely clueless – hilarity ensues. In PLAY TIME, there’s practically no dialog, it isn’t necessary. Instead, the comedy (as well as other things – awe, social observation, etc.) is physical – or at least, visual. This put PLAY TIME on the same footing as say Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times (a FranksFilms favorite), or the films of Buster Keaton. Jacques Tati was indeed the Charlie Chaplin of his day – but PLAY TIME is in no way, a silent film. For one thing, it was released in 1967. Secondly, it far surpasses most movies in sheer visual scope. There are only a small handful of films that transcend the visual medium, that transcends its own genre to deliver a film-maker’s artistic vision – this is one of them.

“But Frank, why should I see it? It sounds pretentious! What if I don’t like it?”

No guarantees, but here are a few things to consider.

1. Cinephiles (film nuts, like me) will tell you that the only way to really see this film is on the big screen in the theatre (Cinephiles always use the “..re” spelling in stead of the “.er” spelling as in theater. That’s how you know they’re Cinephiles.) That’s because there aren’t a lot of close-ups. Most, if not all, of the camera work is in long shots, back from the main action, with lots of stuff going on on the screen – and you need a big screen to get it all in. While this is true in principle, I do believe that it’s no longer playing in the theatres (or theaters for that matter). However, with the proliferation of large screen plasma and LCD televisions, it’s not bad. I, myself, recently watched it on my 28 year old – nowhere near being flat screened – tiny CRT television, and enjoyed it just fine.
2. The film was recently restored and released on DVD as part of the Criterion Collection. They did an excellent job revitalizing the color and sound track. Pass up the older VHS version and look for the DVD.
3. Being an older movie, local video rental stores may not carry it (mine doesn’t). You may find it at your local library (I did). If not, the most on-line sources carry it.
4. Don’t confuse this with the 1994 film, also called Play Time. You may see more than you bargained for.
5. Like Chaplin’s “Modern Times”, it portrays people trying to navigate a modern technological world.
6. The film takes place in Paris – but this is not the real Paris. Tati constructed a replica of Paris on his movie set at huge cost. It is the essence of Paris – actually of any large modern city. In this way, he was able to eliminate the clutter of a real city, and show only those elements necessary for the film (there has never been a cleaner or nicer Paris anywhere). Today, he would have used CGI. In 1967, it had to be built from scratch.
7. There is no equivalent to Jacques Tati today. PLAY TIME was his masterpiece, but it’s not like ordinary films. It has no plot, it has no dialog to speak of, there’s no real narrative. If you start watching this film expecting conventional movie story elements, you may be disappointed. But if you keep an open mind, you won’t soon forget it.
8. If you want to get a better feel for Tati comedy, try some of his other films like Mon oncle, or M. Hulot’s Holiday. Like PLAY TIME they also feature Tati’s alter ego Monsieur Hulot.
9. Scores a 100% on the tomatometer. Not 99% – 100% ! Read some of the critical reviews there.  It’s also one of Steven Jay Schneider’s  “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die”.
10. You can read film critic, Roger Ebert’s review of PLAYTIME here.
11. As always, Jacques Tati’s films are suitable for the whole family. Even the dog.

You deserve a little PLAY TIME

Enjoy.

view trailer