Movie Review: Collapse (2009)

Author and theorist Michael Ruppert discusses his views on where mankind is headed in terms of global issues like energy, politics, and war. The film has the same structure as An Inconvenient Truth, which came out a couple of years earlier - one man gives a lecture while stock footage and graphics support and decorate his arguments.

Ruppert, a former police officer who has ties to the CIA, is articulate and passionate, and for the most part convincing as he chain-smokes his way through a stream-of-consciousness narrative about the imminent decline and fall of our oil-based existence. Throughout the film, though, I couldn't help thinking that there's something the audience is not being told about him (what it is, I don't know).

Marxist Movie Reviews: About a Boy (2002)

Welcome to Marxist Movie Reviews, a series that attempts to look at modern and classic films from the perspective of what they say about society and social conflict. This point of view has historically been left to the academic world. However, this kind of analysis can provide anyone who enjoys movies with insights into the messages they deliver.

The Basic Plot: A single man in London develops a friendship with a troubled boy, a relationship that helps the man work through his own personal issues

The Best Part(s): The writing

Now that Hugh Grant is no longer a big star, it's easier to see that this film hasn't aged well in the decade since it's release. A general vibe that seemed hip and clever back in 2002 now feels forced and false. What is even more clear is the way the story disparages the condition of being single.

Marxist Movie Reviews: Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

Welcome to Marxist Movie Reviews, a new series of film reviews that attempts to look at modern and classic films from the perspective of what they say about society and social conflict. This point of view has historically been left largely to the academic world. However, this kind of analysis can provide everyone with insights into motion pictures and the messages they deliver to those who watch them.

The Basic Plot: A scheming New York publicity agent (Tony Curtis) does the dirty work for a popular newspaper columnist (Burt Lancaster) who is trying to break up his sister and a jazz musician who’s fallen in love with her.

The Best Part(s): the dialogue, the acting, the music

This film is a scathing, powerfully acted portrayal of the Media & Entertainment industry and how it allows the corrupt and the vicious to thrive while squashing everyone else. The movie presents New York City as a beehive of activity, its citizens climbing over each other trying to get to “the top,” making and breaking deals, asking and giving favors, and doing lots of drinking.

Visual Style in "The Wire"

Here is a wonderful documentary from Erlend Lavik that analyses the visual style of "The Wire." As big a TV fan as I am, I've never seen the show, but everyone I know who has swears by it. Understanding visual elements in film and TV has always been a bit of a mystery to me. Lavik's essay is an excellent primer on the subject.


Style in The Wire from Erlend Lavik on Vimeo.

House Re-Imaginings in Houston (A Fifth Ward Jam)

Retirement Plan (Director's Cut) by Matan Yaniv

This is very impressive work from a young digital artist. Hopefully we'll see more of him soon.


Retirement Plan (director's cut) from Matan Yaniv on Vimeo.

Marxist Movie Reviews: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011)

The Basic Plot: Tom Cruise revives his role as Ethan Hunt, not an espionage agent but a soldier fighting an eternal secret war against unseen psychopaths who are trying to destroy everything while us normal people go about our business, oblivious to the shooting, hand-to-hand combat, and explosions.

Marxist Movie Reviews: I Love You Phillip Morris (2009)

The Basic Plot: Based on a true story, Jim Carrey plays a con man who meets the love of his life (played by Ewan McGregor) in prison and stages a series of escapes so he can be with him.

The Best Part(s): None that I can think of

It’s not hard to see why this film had so much trouble getting distribution. The relatively explicit sex scenes were a turn-off for mainstream theaters, but that's far from the movie's only problem.

"We Come As Friends" Trailer

Here's a trailer for an upcoming BBC documentary about modern-day colonialism in Africa. While it's not shocking anymore to hear about what the "civilized" world does to poorer countries in the name of progress and modernization, documentaries like this that help provide the visual evidence of what's going on are essential. It's no longer possible to act like things like this don't happen.

Marxist Movie Reviews: The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

The Basic Plot: The former lobby-boy of a well-to-do resort/hotel reminisces about his adventures with the hotel concierge (Ralph Fiennes) as they become embroiled in a murder investigation and the looming onset of war.

The Best Part(s): Ralph Fiennes' performance, Wes Anderson's direction

Wes Anderson's heavily stylized direction is an ideal fit for this story, which is told in flashback (actually, a flashback in a flashback) and has the dream-like feel of memory. Fiennes' character, who could accurately be called a cad and schemer, is nonetheless also a departure from the usual movies portrayal of the servant class as loyal to a fault or corrupt beyond redemption. He is very much a man in full who has chances to display courage and loyalty along with his ability to get over on his higher-class customers.

Marxist Movie Reviews: The French Connection (1971)

The Basic Plot: New York cop Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) is on the trail of a massive heroin smuggling operation, and will stop at nothing to get the bad guys.

The Best Part(s): Gene Hackman's performance, William Friedkin's directing

Stories about 1960s and '70s New York City cops are legendary, and almost all of them involve corruption and wrongdoing (The Al Pacino film Serpico takes this subject head on). This movie, the first R-Rated film to win an Academy Ward for Best Picture, takes the concept to the extreme by allowing the audience to follow a cop who's so deep into his job he's willing to break any number of rules and procedures to get his man.

Far from being the one to "Protect and Serve," Doyle prowls through the urban jungle like a wildcat, walking over or through anyone in his path, even if they're civilians. ESPECIALLY if they're civilians. The action scenes are exciting, but made me realize that the general public would have been better protected if the cops let the drug dealers go, rather than be subjugated to the violence and corruption involved in the case. In sum, while this movie is at the top of the grime thriller genre that's well worth your time to see, it paints a disturbing picture of law-enforcement agency that's out of control in its methods, and God help any innocent bystanders who happen to get in the way. Parallels to recent real-life events all over the country involving bad cops are inevitable.

My Rating: 8/10 ("Really Liked It")

Marxist Movie Reviews: The Atomic Cafe (1982)

The Basic Plot: This a collection of 1950s and 1960s films, public service messages, instructional videos and other visual media (presented without narration) dealing with the worldwide proliferation of nuclear weapons during the Cold War

The Best Part(s): All of it

While it was far from funny at the time, Americans' concern with nuclear war with the Soviet Union led to the creation of a lot of interesting and often amusing films dealing with the subject. Here in the 21st century the population is so used to having nuclear warheads around it seems bizarre for such strange actions and reactions to danger be taking place, but the sentiments aren't that much different than how Americans felt immediately after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 2001. Fear, paranoia, and barely contained panic expresses itself the same way, with carefully detailed instructions and cartoons provided to help make things a little more bearable. This documentary is an invaluable look into a past era that, on close inspection, is not entirely different from our own.

My Rating: 10/10 ("Loved It")

Chuck Jones - The Evolution of an Artist

This is a wonderful short film that explores how the work of legendary animator Chuck Jones got to be so funny and fantastic.


Chuck Jones - The Evolution of an Artist from Tony Zhou on Vimeo.

Recalling The Soundtrack to "Pulp Fiction"

[This is an article I wrote for CHIRP Radio's "Rediscovering Our Record Collections" series.]

There was a point in my life where I wanted to be a filmmaker. I still might be one at some point. Who knows? If it wasn’t for my obsession with music, I might have been a textbook cinephile by now, as intrigued by new releases and upcoming film festivals as I am now about new album releases and who’s on the program at the next big music festival.

I still have a strong interest in movies, though, and the picture that got it all started for me was Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. This was the movie that not only fascinated me to no end with it’s singularly unique style (made up of entirely of, I would soon learn, styles copied from a lot of other films), but also got me interested in movies as more than just something to stare at while I stuffed my face with popcorn.

It’s a great film. But what makes a film (or a song, or an album, or a painting, etc.) “great?” A big part of the assessment is subjective, but there are some factors that go beyond personal taste, one of which I think applies here. Like Birth of a Nation, Jaws, and Star Wars, this movie changed the way Hollywood made movies. Pulp Fiction, along with other films the Miramax production company released around the same time like Sex Lies and Videotape and Good Will Hunting, introduced the idea of the independent film (which has always existed around the edges of the industry) as great way for major studios to make money. The big-budget, high-concept movies that had dominated since the ‘80s would soon have to share theater space with “edgier” projects that focused on unusual stories, quirky characters, and the elusive idea of “cool” that New Wave, Avant Garde, and foreign cinema seemed to have more of than American cinema.

Exercise is Really Good for You

Exercise is good for you. Even a LITTLE BIT of exercise, done regularly, is beneficial. This video explains why.

 

Movie Review: Gone Baby Gone (2007)

Movie reviews in 100 words or less...

A solid and effective noir from Ben Affleck. The overall dark, stifling mood of life in South Boston is very effective. I'm still thinking about the moral questions this film asks.

7/10 ("Really Liked It")

Movie Review: Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

Movie reviews in 100 words or less...

I enjoyed this movie from beginning to end. Visually stunning and trippy for a commercial film. The only reason I didn't rate it higher was because a viewer would have to have a solid grounding in the Marvel Universe (comics and movies) to understand what's going on.

8/10 ("Really Liked It")

Lady Dynamite (Season 1) (2016)

One of the newest of Netflix’s latest series features Maria Bamford, stand-up comic, voice actor and occasional pitch-woman. She was the promotional face of Target stores a few years ago playing a caricatured manic shopper who gave the impression she might be committing horrible acts to herself and/or others if she didn’t have the distraction of buying things.

As viewers learn during the series, it’s not entirely an act. Bamford uses her very real struggles with depression and bipolar disorder in her semi-autobiographical performance as someone who is just trying to make it through life (get a job, get a boyfriend, etc.). Her condition was severe enough that she had to be institutionalized, a fact that forms a major story point in the series’ narrative.
The show takes place in three time frames: present-day, a couple of years prior when she was “on top,” and further back in the past where details about her family and upbringing shine a light on why she is who and where she is.

Marxist Movie Reviews: Trainwreck (2015)

Marxist Movie Reviews attempts to look at modern and classic films from the perspective of what they say about society and social conflict.

The Plot: A single woman who drinks a lot and has sex with lots of men reaches turning points in her life and must decide if true love is the way to go.

The Best Part(s): A cameo by pro wrestler John Cena as one of the main character’s boyfriends. He’s got screen presence and a good sense of humor. He could probably follow fellow grappler The Rock into a career making movies and maybe even sitcoms.

This is not a terrible movie. If you’re sitting on the couch with nothing else to do, it’s perfectly acceptable. How you feel about Amy Schumer’s performance probably depends on how you feel about Amy Schumer the stand-up comic. The main structural problem I had with the movie is how it can’t decide if it wants to be an improvisational laugh-fest or a Louie-esque poignant journey into the life of a person. Call it the curse of Judd Apatow - do you put talented performers in front of a camera and just let them do their thing or spend some time following a script?

Although the movie is R-rated, the naughty bits aren’t especially shocking and don’t add anything to the story, which is a pretty simplistic tale whose moral is True Love = Settling Down With One Person. In The more I think about that message, the more shockingly retro this supposed modern raunch-fest of a movie is. Is it possible for someone to be single and happy? Not according to American mass-market entertainment, the rules of which this movie sticks to like glue. While the main character has freedom, health, a career, and (as the movie makes very clear) lots of no-attachment sex, it’s not enough.

Marxist Movies Reviews: The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

Marxist Movie Reviews attempts to look at modern and classic films from the perspective of what they say about society and social conflict.

The Plot: A small-time veteran criminal (Robert Mitchum) navigates his way through the world of organized crime in Boston, looking for a way to avoid an upcoming prison sentence and make enough money to get out of his situation

The Best Part(s): Fantastic performances by Mitchum as the title character and Peter Boyle as one of Coyle’s associates

As a gritty, unsentimental portrait of life as a foot soldier in organized crime, this movie has a kind of dramatic realism that would be repeated by films such as Goodfellas and Donnie Brasco. This film, directed by Peter Boyle, was released as a counterpoint to The Godfather, a film that presented mob life as the kind of Shakespearean epic the public perhaps prefers to see goes on with the Mafia and Mafia-like organizations. The social reality of being part of such an organization (the violence, the constant hustling, the imminent threat of prison or death) is a subject that lends itself to much more rewarding viewing, in the right film maker’s hands.