Tampopo

Great foodie fun, Juzo Itami’s “noodle western” slices and dices genres, spices them with sex and mordant wit, and mixes it all up in a blender. His wife and consistent leading lady, Nobuko Miyamoto, is the titular heroine, as bright and sunny as the dandelions she is named after, trying to make the most of her deceased husband’s ramen shop. Tsutomu Yamazaki is the truck driver who drifts into town, Shane-like, to show her the way up the ladder of culinary success, with a Seven Samurai-like crew of helpers. The camera slides away from the main story onto tangents that portray the varied sensual delights of cooking and eating, summed up in the lingering final shot as the credits roll, of a baby breastfeeding. Not quite the hoot it was on first viewing, the jokes do add up to broad cross-cultural survey of responses to food. (1986, dvd@cai, r.) *7+*

Hoop Dreams

A true Hall of Famer. Not just one of the best documentaries ever, but one of the very best films of the past two decades, with peripeteia you couldn’t script and characters you couldn’t cast. Thematically rich and emotionally deep, this story follows two black Chicago teenagers from 9th grade to college, while they and their families pin their hopes for betterment on basketball, through the cage, on the court, spinning around obstacles and leaping toward the goal. Meanwhile schools and colleges bid for a piece of the Magic, and are quick to discard broken dreams and limbs. Years in the making and a swift three hours of running time, the film is patiently observed and cannily edited. Eschewing the orthodoxies of talking heads or fly-on-the-wall verite, this documentary succeeds “by any means necessary.” Director Steve James is a true heir of Robert Flaherty, but top credit has to go to Arthur Agee and William Gates, who offer a fascinating retrospective commentary on this Criterion Collection DVD of the story of their growing up, on the court and off. An update was planned for this edition, but has developed into a full-fledged sequel -- I eagerly await it. (1994, dvd, r.) *9+*

10<50 = Top Ten Directors Younger Than the Clark

This is an essay that will appear in the June issue of the Images Cinema newsletter. Since I haven't been posting many reviews lately, I am offering this as filler. Complete program notes for this summer film series at the Clark will be posted soon. So here's a preview:

Who are the top ten directors in their prime today? Which directors under the age of 50 have already amassed a substantial body of work and are likely to make the most interesting films of the next decade or two? The question is subject to debate, of course, but I had to come up with my own answer when asked by the Clark Art Institute to help celebrate its 50th anniversary by presenting a film series of the best directors born since the museum’s opening in 1955. These free screenings will run in the Clark auditorium Fridays at 4:00, beginning July 1st.

I present this personal list and the “10 Under 50” film series as an invitation to debate. Nearly everyone will find a favorite left out. Where’s Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, Tim Burton, Steven Soderbergh, Spike Jonze, Todd Haynes? Wes or Paul Thomas Anderson? How about more women and more foreign directors? Why Gurinder Chadha over Mira Nair?

And what about the brothers -- Hughes, Wachowski, Farrelly, Weitz, etc.? Well, I did sneak one pair into my list, the Coen bothers, one of whom made the cutoff date, but they had to go when schedule constraints reduced my initial dozen to ten. My other regretful deletion was Spike Lee, who’s already made the transition from enfant terrible to grand old man of movies.

One thing to note about this list is how many of these directors recur on the Images Cinema playlist, both the films that I am showing in retrospective and their newer releases. Also note that this bill of fare is brasher and bolder that what the Clark usually offers, with lots of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, not to mention politics, war, and genocide. Good thing Massachusetts is a Blue State.

What follows are brief career capsules for the chosen directors, with the “10 Under 50” title in bold, and the date it will be shown, in order of their birth dates, from oldest to youngest:

Cameron Crowe nailed it first time with the teen romance classic Say Anything, hit the big time with Jerry Maguire, and had his best time yet with the autobiographical Almost Famous (7/1), about a teenage reporter for Rolling Stone on the road with a band in the rockin’ Seventies.

David O. Russell never stops pushing boundaries, from the incest comedy Spanking the Monkey and family farce Flirting With Disaster, through the bold and funny take on the first Iraq war, Three Kings (7/8), to last year’s existential slapstick, I (Heart) Huckabees.

Atom Egoyan is profoundly marked by both his Armenian heritage and his Canadian upbringing. Family Viewing announced his themes and perspective; his repertory built to the climax of Exotica; he crossed borders with The Sweet Hereafter; and then recapitulated his themes in Ararat (7/15), a semi-documentary exhumation of the 1915 Turkish massacre of the Armenians.

Alexander Payne bid to become the Bard of Omaha with his first three films: Citizen Ruth, Election (7/22), and About Schmidt, all wicked but surprisingly evenhanded satires on Heartland values. He broke out, in more ways than one, with last year’s taste of California dreamin’ -- Sideways.

Richard Linklater is identified with Austin TX, from Slackers and Dazed and Confused to the animated dream Waking Life (7/29). He reached mainstream success with The School of Rock, but his peak so far is the Before Sunrise/Before Sunset pair of romantic comedies. Linklater is my #1 guy, like no other since Truffaut.

Alfonso Cuaron alternates decidedly adult Mexican films like Y Tu Mama Tambien with adaptations of English literary classics for young and old, from The Little Princess to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Great Expectations (8/5) is a bit of both.

Michael Winterbottom has boundless energy and protean interests. He’s made two adaptations of Thomas Hardy novels, Jude and The Claim. Visited warzones in Bosnia and Afghanistan for Welcome to Sarajevo (8/12) and In This World. Anatomized the Manchester rave scene in 24 Hour Party People and a suburban London sisterhood in Wonderland. Next up is the scandalous 9 Songs.

Lukas Moodysson began light with the teen lesbian comedy Show Me Love and the frank and funny dissection of sexual politics in Together (8/19), set in a 1970s Stockholm commune. He then turned darker, exploring the sociology and psychology of the sex industry in Lilya 4-Ever and A Hole in the Heart.

Sofia Coppola left no doubt after Lost in Translation that the success of her first film, The Virgin Suicides (8/26) was not dependent on her father Francis or then-husband Spike Jonze. Her adaptation of the Jeffrey Eugenides novel clearly demonstrates she is a filmmaker with a vision of her own.

Gurinder Chadha comes by her genial multiculturalism naturally. She explored her Indian in Britain roots in Bhaji on the Beach and Bend It Like Beckham. She goes to L.A. for another cross-ethnic feast in What’s Cooking? (9/2) and goes from Bollywood to Hollywood in her latest, Bride and Prejudice.

Much more about these directors, and the “10 Under 50” film series in detail will be posted on Cinema Salon in coming weeks. You can join the debate over these Top 10 choices, by simply clicking on the "Comment" buttons on this site, or by emailing me at ssatullo@clarkart.edu

The Wire

Oops, now I’ve got another HBO series that will lure me away from the film archive, trading movies for tv. I was leery of committing to another program like The Sopranos or Six Feet Under, submitting to a long, slow pleasure something like a Victorian novel -- a big, baggy monster of a serial, a river of commingling narrative. But I’m into the flow now. The drug war on the streets of Baltimore has dragged me in, microcosm enough to hold my attention through the 13-chapter length of a season, and then make me eager for the next season’s volume. So now I’ve started on the first disk of season one, episodes 1-3. Also listened to David Simon’s commentary on the pilot, which confirms he’s got a lot on his mind besides the old game of cops and cons, using a time-honored genre to delve into the institutions of American life. Jeez, and after this I’ll have to see if it’s true what they say about Deadwood. You don’t have to buy the whole argument of Steven Johnson’s widely-reviewed Everything Bad Is Good for You to agree that tv can become a whole other kettle of fish, cognitively speaking. (2002-to date, dvd, n.)

Architectures

Work, travel, and baseball have all cut into my movie-watching time over the past two weeks, but what really preempted my viewing was this 17-episode half-hour documentary series from European tv. Informative and well-photographed, each episode covers one building by a different architect. The narration dubbed into English lacks pizzazz and point, however, each blackout leaving you hanging in some way. Maybe in Europe you don’t have to sell the story the way you do in America. I’ve selected four to make up the initial program for my “Documenting Architecture” film series at the Clark next Fall: the Paris Opera and Ecole des Beaux Arts, then the Bauhaus and back to Paris for the Pompidou Center. (1995-2004, dvd, n.)

Being Julia

This movie was mostly noticed for Annette Bening’s bravura tour de force in the title role, but it’s actually quite a good film. Her star turn is well supported by the likes of Jeremy Irons, Michael Gambon, Bruce Greenwood and Juliet Stevenson, and if the “juvenile” leads are a little, well, juvenile, then their callowness only sets off the majesty of the diva. The subject is the monstrous, magnificent self-absorption of actors, and the inversion they accomplish in making their life in the theater real, and their life in the world into playacting. Julia/Annette may be on the downslope of her prime, but will do whatever it takes to keep her pump primed. She re-charges her emotions by having a playful then painful affair with a boy not much older than her son, but then takes to the stage to work out the truth of her feelings. Istvan Szabo has mastered historical and theatrical backgrounds (here, London in 1938) in such films as Mephisto, Colonel Redl, and Sunshine, so his direction is sure and seamless. The result is both entertaining and truthful, serious and farcical, the double face of the actor’s trade. (2004, dvd, n.) *7+* (MC-65, RT-75.)

Good Bye, Lenin!

Endearingly slapdash, this film is notable for giving of glimpse of how the fall of the Berlin Wall looked from the other side. A boy who wanted to grow up to be a cosmonaut winds up after ’89 as an installer of satellite tv dishes. Meanwhile his mother, a true believer in socialism, has had a heart attack and fallen into a coma while her world is turned upside down. When she re-awakes (and her daughter has already proudly donned the uniform of Burger King), the son endeavors to recreate the socialist republic within the confines of her bedroom, so she shouldn’t be shocked into another attack. His attempt to rewind socialism in one room is an amusing recapitulation in reverse of the changes that swept over the communist world in a matter of months. (2003, dvd, n.) *6+* (MC-68, RT-88)

Summertime

This gets complicated. I am reviewing this film after Being Julia, which I saw a few days later, but in the reverse order of a blog you’ll be reading it after anyway. It has just struck me that both films star 47-year-old redheads who retain plenty of sex appeal, and who find men to re-charge their batteries through desire reciprocated. Here Katharine Hepburn is a primly yearning spinster from Akron, whose European tour of a lifetime lands her in Venice, where she attracts the attention of Rossano Brazzi on the Plaza San Marco. A complicated dalliance ensues, a Venetian love affair in more ways than one, till that inevitable train pulls out of the station. This film marks a turning point in David Lean’s career, on the way from the intimacy of Brief Encounter to the spectacle of Doctor Zhivago, with Venice itself sharing the lead role. (1955, dvd, r.) *7*

I. M. Pei

Two documentaries, First Personal Singular and The Museum on the Mountain, that I would be delighted to show at the Clark, tell the story of the China-born but Harvard-bred architect of celebrated additions to the National Gallery in DC and the Louvre. His work on the Miho Museum outside of Kyoto relates to the Clark’s own “art in nature” situation. The great advantage these films have over most others is the charming presence of the architect himself. His perpetual smile somehow comes through in his buildings, even when he acknowledges flaws and shortfalls. The first film surveys his whole life and career, while the second focuses on one late and summative project. The photography is serviceable but not showy, offering a sense of, not a surrogate for, the buildings themselves, but the personality of the architect is foregrounded to good effect. (1993-97, dvd, n.) *7*

Antonio Gaudi

This near-speechless appreciation of the work of Gaudi, the great Catalan architect, directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara (best known for Woman of the Dunes), certainly inspires awe for buildings that seem to have been grown instead of built, that look like none other, though designed in direct response to the specific history and culture of Barcelona. But more than anything else, it demonstrates that film is not architecture, that you cannot experience one medium through the other. I would have been happier if the film had been about the architect and his work, rather than trying to render physical movement through space and time, from 3-D to 2-D (or from four dimensions to three, as the case may be), reducing the body to an eye. Perhaps the big screen would improve the sense of scale, but this film does not become a prime candidate for the film series about architects that I am mulling over for next fall at the Clark. (1984, dvd, n.) *6*

The Corporation

Maybe because there is something inoffensively Canadian about the production, I find this left-wing rallying cry much more palatable than the efforts of that pinko walrus Michael Moore, who actually figures prominently in this film as well. He appears as talking head, along with the usual suspects, Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, etc., as well as fresh faces like Naomi Klein, whose book No Logo I am in the middle of reading. But much more striking were voices such as the classic CEO who had an ecological epiphany and shifted his company’s course toward sustainability, or the little Indian physicist in a sari who led a movement against the self-terminating seeds of agribusiness. There are lots of others as well, which satisfyingly fill the 2:25 running time. Antic editing keeps the whole lesson moving along briskly and amusingly. The basic premise is to take the 19th century legal fiction that the corporation is a person, and examine just what sort of person it might be. It’s a bit glib to diagnose the corporation as a psychopath, but basically accurate. This documentary is “fair and balanced” in the grand tradition of Fox News, but from the other side of Alice’s wonderland mirror. But point by point was well taken. I was particularly struck by how Gilded Age lawyers seized upon the 14th amendment to free the person the corporation claimed to be from the “slavery” of government regulation. I’m somewhat bemused by the way the film becomes a marketing brand of its own, but wonder how else to sell the case for social change? (2004, dvd, n.) *7* (MC-73, RT-91.)

Warm Springs

It may be HBO and not TV, but this is still a TV movie -- offering familiar characters and predictable inspiration, however well done. It tells the story of FDR from the time he was stricken with polio till he staggered on braces and the arm of his son to the podium of the 1928 convention to nominate Al Smith, touching all the bases with apparent truth. Kenneth Branagh and Cynthia Nixon make a believable Franklin and Eleanor, and many recognizable and welcome actors populate the subsidiary roles. The docudrama may be inherently limited as a form, but for me is intrinsically more engaging than cartoons or action films. Journeyman director Joseph Sargent probably does his best work since The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3 (just as John Frankenheimer did with Path to War, in my opinion.) So even while we wait for the next season of The Sopranos, HBO is indeed a premium channel. (2005, HBO/T, n.) *6+*

The Incredibles

Credible and creditable -- not bad for a cartoon. Animation by Pixar, story and direction by Brad Bird. A mix of Marvel Comics, James Bond, and family sitcom, steeped in pop culture, with a modicum of topicality, it’s all very good at what it does, but what is does is hardly the highest film can do. It may start with a theme but winds up with zap! and pow! (2004, dvd, n.) *7* (MC-90, RT-97.)

The Letter

Only an unsatisfactory resolution keeps this period-piece melodrama from quasi-classic recommendation. It is oh-so-smoothly directed by William Wyler and stars Bette Davis near the top of her game, as a murdering bitch who successfully masquerades as a lacemaking bungalow-wife in colonial Singapore, a masterwork of sexual duplicity. Herbert Marshall as her blind but kind husband, and especially James Stephenson as her knowing but conflicted lawyer, rise to the grand dame’s level. Somerset Maugham’s play may be creaky and cynically imperialist, but apparently the ending was tacked-on to pass the censors. The dvd contains an alternate ending that still doesn’t work. If they’d framed this story properly, it would have hung as a prime portrait in the gallery of filmic femmes fatales. (1940, dvd, n.) *6*

Of the quasi-documentary What the (Bleep) Do We Know? (2004, dvd, n.) I can only respond, “Not much.” I found its desire to be mind-blowing to be mind-numbing, and I couldn’t bear to watch it through. The attempt to use quantum physics as a license to sell New Age nostrums was intellectually shoddy, whereas Richard Linklater’s Waking Life presents similar ideas more honestly and more amusingly.