From the opening scene to the last, it is clear that Paprika is Satoshi Kon's own paradoxical confession. His new film, an exhilarating, mind-blowing and audaciously satisfying anime, is about Paprika, the peppy dream-detective alter ego of the cold-as-ice Dr. Atsuko Chiba (Megumi Hayashibara), who, after hearing about the theft of the D.C Mini—an object that allows for dream eavesdropping—is forced to stop the dream invader using the actual hacking people's dream sleep as well as stop the dreams that are merging among them. Although Kon's narrative is more complicated than anything imagined, one must realize it is a dream. And don't dreams progress in such a way? Paprika's brilliance comes from Kon's breakneck attention to tempo. Switching from REM sleep to real life, his narrative is so aesthetically developed that it's no wonder that it is so entertaining. Also his ability to shape his characters—specifically Chiba—into cold, one-dimensional characters recalling noir. More than that, however, Paprika is proof of the Japanese advancement in the animated genre that truly leaves American counterparts stuck in the sandbox.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Paprika (2006): B+
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Happy Thanksgiving
Some new reviews can be found below on films that just made DVD (my favorite being Ratatouille), but really the thing that tops the cake is No Country for Old Men, which is as of now probably the single best thing I have seen all year. A review for Todd Haynes' new film, I'm Not There, will soon be up, but in the mean time, happy Thanksgiving!
Ratatouille (2007): A-
Given that most of this year's animated films have mostly been pure deceptions, one could easily say that Ratatouille is nothing short of a miracle. It's more fun than any movie about a rat discovering his true obsessions—then almost being killed—has the right to be. An affectionate, blithe and gleeful concoction that marks Pixar's return to form, Ratatouille finds director Brad Bird—whose Incredibles is one the finest animated film I have ever seen—keenly at it again, now picking up the story of Remy (Patton Oswalt), a rat gifted with senses able to cook and read. Clearly, he's infatuated with the art of cooking—an aspect that, unfortunately, sees him perpetually out of place with his family: while he wants to cook, all they care about is survival. As Remy's senses grandly start to flourish, one now finds him ardently idolizing chef Gusteau (Brad Garrett), even enough to sneak into a rural human home to watch the chef’s food show. From its title sequence on, Ratatouille gradually escalates in not only fun, but brilliance, as Remy now—after being separated from his family—finds himself in the hands of Lunguini (Lou Romano), a slim, partly slow garbage-boy, who has, luckily, found himself a job at Gusteau's restaurant. At his first day's job, Lunguini finds himself "accidentally" ruining a soup. Led by Gusteau, whose ghost claims himself to be a figment of his imagination, Remy is able to fix the soup before it goes out the the customer. Some random food critic gets it (and loves it), and from there, the conundrum starts: after the evil, head chef (Ian Holm) orders Lunguini to kill Remy—who was found in the kitchen—Lunguini, with the threat that he will not be able to live up to the mean chef's standards and knowing that Remy is his only chance of survival in the kitchen, opts not to, now letting Remy live with him.
Remy now controls—by grabbing onto the slim garbage-boy's hair—Linguini like a marionette, and from there, plot is induced. Narratively speaking, Ratatouille, is, first and foremost, a prime example in which objectives of characters are masterfully used. Its invigoration proves, undoubtedly, Bird's ability to pick up whatever narrative he chooses and bend it to a work of art. As odd as it may seem, Ratatouille is also a brilliantly sophisticated metaphor: from Gusteau's phrase "Anyone can cook" to Remy's raison d'etre, the film juxtaposes the fact that anyone—even a rodent—can do anything to change the course of history. The fact that Remy's naïveté leads him to believe that humans are forgivable creatures is also figuratively used to aid Ratatouille as a whole.
Pixar's animation is, as usual, flawless: from Remy's humorously big, yet cute eyes to the beautifully framed mise-en-scene of Paris, Ratatouille is, for all intents and purposes, delectable. Indeed, as unfortunate as it may seem, the film does not top The Incredibles, but nevertheless, this droll paean to life is a marvel—definitely one of those films nearly flawless in creation, and profoundly received in the heart.
Rescue Dawn (2006): C
Given the origins and continuance of Werner Herzog's still-growing oeuvre, it's safe to say that Rescue Dawn, his newest film, is not up to par with his other works. Recreating the magnificent Little Dieter Needs to Fly into a motion picture, Herzog now eschews a Hollywood-esque narrative that results in exactly something that one didn't expect: another conventional POW escape film. Despite the ethereally realized evocation of time and place, Rescue Dawn is a fine-grained disappointment, not because of the fact that the film fundamentally does not work, but because the result could have added to so much more; the fact is, the film simply seems robbed of Herzog.
Rescue Dawn, unlike most of his films—including the masterful The White Diamond—only encapsulates two of the directors current thematic obsessions: obsessed heroes and nature. Herzog sees Dieter Dengler (a fantastic—like usual—Christian Bale) as a god, which gives him space to aestheticize the former with the latter. While on his first bombing mission over pre-Vietnam War Laos in 1966, Dengler is hit by incoming enemy fire, subsequently crashing on Laotian territory. After being captured by local Laotian soldiers, Dengler—who had just wittingly refused to sign a paper claiming the U.S.'s harms—is put into a POV camp with fellow inmates (among them played by Zahn and Davies). After careful planning and timing, the inmates escape. Up to this point, Rescue Dawn plays as an efficient, barely Herzog recognizable action film. Herzog's camera-work still proves the keen adeptness of the director's skill, but such an aspect is even, as odd as it may seem, quite rare. His script, as usual, is pretty much impeccable, proficiently capturing Dengler's relentless drive to escape.
The thick, mountainous cinematography evokes a fantastically real atmosphere of escape (yet I do not know how the hell Scott Foundas of LA WEEKLY can compare this to Robert Bresson; the latter was a master at escape, turning everything into art), but as surprising as it may seem, Rescue Dawn, through out, lacks that kind of direction-less trance that was conjured in his masterpiece Aguirre: The Wrath of God and subsequent Fitzcarraldo. More than anything, Rescue Dawn, unlike all of his previous films, lacks that and one more thing: the metamorphosis into an eloquent spiritual, transcendental journey. Powerful scenes in the film prove quickly forgettable—much of it, thanks to Klaus Badelt's heinously Hollywood-esque score—and the ending is the true meaning of a disappointment: essentially, it reeks of furthermore Hollywood sentimentality—to the degree that one can not (or dares not) consider it as a Herzog film anymore. It's crystal-clear that the great director could have done so much more with the ending, and it is really quite pernicious, because such a realization of Rescue Dawn's sentimentally familiar end fails to perpetuate it as a heavenly composite of the film's collective whole, something that leaves the viewer visually—and deceptively—circumvented. The acting pas de deux on display in the film clearly redeems the film from any type of inscrutable nightmare, and as the abhorrent score plays during the finale, one can't help but to wonder why Herzog's hallucinatory spell was broken. The act of self-reflexivity has been stripped away, and all is left is pure Herzogian convention. For all it's flaws, At least one can thank MGM that it's a Herzog film.
Ocean's Thirteen (2007): C+
There's no denying the slight slickness and rendered fun of Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Thirteen, but the problem is exactly that—everything is slicked up to say to the point of monotonous anesthetics. This time around, it's the whole gang getting payback on some rich-ass casino magnate (Pacino) for putting the gangs idle, Reuben (Gould), in the hospital. Their plan, you ask? Steal the money from his new, shiny hotel, just waiting, yes waiting, to get robbed. The cast doesn't really act—they're just having their fun. Is it entertaining? Yes. Is it good acting? No. Still Entertaining? Yes. The script, as usual, is a load of randomly placed, moronically realized garbage, yet the actors love it, and they use it to their cannon. Is it good acting now? No. Along side Soderberg's slick but uneven camera movements, slick mise-en-scene, and slick cinematography, Ocean's Thirteen still has that insouciant charm, but after the film's unexpected climax, it wears down. I suspect that the easiest comparison to the film is definitely a sugar high. Take your pick.
La Vie en Rose (2007): C-
Usually, biopics have a tough time balancing an adequate narrative with the life of the subject. Olivier Dahan's newest film, La Vie en Rose, is no exception to such a precedent. A hideously esoteric affair so claustrophobic in essence to the point in which you want to run out of the theater for a breath of fresh air, La Vie en Rose fails to lucidly encapsulate singer Edith Piaf's (played by Marion Cotillard) life, shamelessly taking key points in her life and ripping them to pieces through an erroneous and essentially blemished narrative; one of pure mediocrity, it jumps all over the place sans any particular raison d'etre: one day, Piaf is 6, the next day, she's 45, the next day, she's 24, and the next-next day she is dead. Piaf's life makes for an appealing premise: the girl—poor, un-cared for by her mother, and most of the time sick—suffered much when little; indeed, if anything, the film does accurately capture her suffering, but it's when Dahan starts framing certain scenes as clichés that the problems start. I don't know what the hell such a glitched narrative is of good use for, but here, it ruins everything—as Piaf grows up, she discovers her talent, then sings, gets drunk, almost gets married, is born (oh, whoops, wrong order), sings, collapses, then, as unfortunate as it may seem, dies. The film is so caught up in the fundamentals of the incoherent narrative that it leaves everything—specifically Cotillard's dazzling performance—un-cared for, also blatantly leaving you monotonously awed at the screen in desperation. Piaf's life was, indeed, tragic, but the film only lays tragedy upon tragedy, and death upon death in such a melodramatic way that all you want to do is leave. Hideously manipulated, La Vie en Rose has, for all intents and purposes, failed Piaf, as its final shot dares not evoke a tragic ending—more proof that La Vie en Rose is as commercial as French films get. And that is not, not, a good thing.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
No Country for Old Men (2007): A
Joel and Ethan Coen's superlative new film opens with sublime shots of a small Texan desert, paralleled by a Tommy Lee Jones voice-over. It's an exhilarating establishment of a story, with the each shot increasing in sunlight until the beautiful landscape is fully-lit. The camera subsequently pans to a man—a cow stunner in hand—being arrested; he gets in the cop car, and the voice-over immediately comes to a close. It is a moment of beauteous exactness, where space, time and even fear are accounted for; without a doubt, this exactness of time and space is one of the many trademarks of The Coens' No Country for Old Men—a stunning, searing masterpiece, raw and beautiful by turns. It is that rare work of art that thrills the senses and the mind, while unequivocally reaching a cinematic apex in filmmaking and storytelling.
No Country for Old Men is the first film not coming from the Coens' own material. Adapted from Cormac McCarthy's brooding, coldly written novel, the material nevertheless seems to compliment the siblings' style, with comedy, grimly original characters, and a wry script in hand; the film also undoubtedly marks their return to form, dropping the disappointing feel of The Ladykillers and continuing the exceptional neo-noir-type genre of their masterpieces Blood Simple and Fargo. (One could even say their is a hint of The Big Lebowski, particularly in its narrative backbo
The film—and its narrative therein—is so brutishly constructed, so perfectly realized, so caught up in its nihilism that it's almost as if 
The last quarter of the film is centered on Jones's sheriff—who is caught up in the whole thing. He is a man who no longer fathoms the
Sunday, November 11, 2007
American Gangster (2007): C
That American Gangster has received a surprising amount of critic appraise does not exclude it from an overall category found around this time of the year: Oscar bait. Pas de deux acting, historical topics, famous actors—you name it. Essentially, there's no way to escape this, as director Ridley Scott's newest concoction bears all of these trademarks mixed in a 70's milieu, the ultimate result being a tumultuous yet impeccably well-designed archetype unable to escape a sudden sense of familiarity all around; in recreating an embracingly deft milieu of the 70's, however, Scott, like in Blade Runner, has found an acceptable match. Not letting back, Denzel Washington plays Frank Lucas, a criminal mastermind in terms of drugs and getting drugs—he gets his stuff straight from Thailand, this being an impetus for many people to use heroine quite more back in the 70's. Working in faux-intelligent parallelism, Scott also adds Russel Crowe's Richie Roberts to mirror Lucas's actions: both start out with nothing, ultimately crescendoing—the former in his drug money, and the latter on the investigation. More cast, in essence characters, are added, boiling the whole situation up above the norm, ultimately climaxing in a gripping shoot-out—yet again technically cool but not felt.
Without a doubt, this quality lacks throughout: however technically it succeeds, the film will never be able to escape its superficial ways and find a deeper meaning, this being American Gangster's main dilemma. Scott seems to have a certain amount of respect for both, though ultimately it's shown in, without a doubt, the film's best scene: the two men talking face to face. Respectively, the pas de deux works efficiently as usual, Washington giving a charismatic performance and Crowe adding what little he can to his do-good character. The film rests on their shoulders, as well as its vivid sense of place; yet its clunky running time also leads to narrative deficiencies throughout. However, an interesting success of the film is the way it manages to balance out Washington's performance with grimacing scenes of tension. There should be more of these; there aren't.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
The Best of Cin-o-Matic: No Country for Old Men
No Country for Old Men: 9.1
Well, there's no getting around it: No Country for Old Men is the most critically appraised film of the year, getting a 9.0 on cin-o-matic - higher than last year's Pan's Labyrinth; but less than Army of Shadows (9.5) and Killer of Sheep (9.8!). The former, never before released in the U.S, was my top pick for the best film of last year, and the latter, never thearatically released since 1977, is, as of now, my top pick for the best film of the year as well. Nevertheless, I approach No Country with great excitement - a review will be posted soon, as well as my ultimate thoughts on Ridley Scott's overrated American Gangster.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Terror's Advocate (2007): B
Dictators. Terrorists. War Criminals—I don't know where the hell to start, except to say that Jacques Vergès has basically defended them all. Director Barbet Schroeder's new documentary centers on the man himself, a slick, even quite narcissistic defender of all, starting from iconic Algiers bomber Djamilla to Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, as well as Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy and famous terrorist "Carlos". "I'd even defend Bush!", he says. Respectably, the tone to match with this type of subject is slick as the man himself, and Schroeder vividly aestheticized his material by transcending a myriad of talking heads and old archival footage throughout; the film is chronologically structured, and as it goes along, it seems to luxuriate and crescendo in its rhythm. When Terror's Advocate chooses to become an unnecessarily complex political thriller, it does stray away from its primary subject; yet nevertheless, Schroeder's film is elegantly made and fascinating.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Cheers To The New Radiohead Album
A salutation to the new Radiohead album -- which is definitely the best thing I've heard all year, partly because I am a huge fan but also because of the songs' transcendence; this may be a new path for Radiohead, at the same time, however, retracing precious roads. I am curious, though, to see if there'll be any music videos for any of the songs. Anyhow, below, from Youtube, is one of the songs (15 Step):
