Minority Movie Report - Vincent

Attended a special screening of The White Stripes documentary, Under Great White Northern Lights in Hollywood Tuesday night. Jack White is one of my favorite musicians so I'll watch anything he's in: Coffee and Cigarettes, It Might Get Loud, It Came from Detroit, etc. The kicker is that Under Great White Northern Lights is all about their 2007 cross-Canada tour. Could it be anymore perfect for a Canadian in LA?

The venue was "Space 15 Twenty" at 1520 Cahuenga Blvd, five mins away from Hollywood and Vine, which is interesting in itself. Space 15 Twenty is a project run by Urban Outfitters in which they have studios that showcase different designers and creative brands, rotating every month. In addition, they also run pop culture events like art shows and screenings revolving around pop art (last week they had a pop-up art show to celebrate the release of The Runaways). I love Urban Outfitters already, this may make it my favorite retail establishment of all time. Anyway, the screening took place in the courtyard, which was open air and had wicked acoustics.

Surprisingly, there weren't that many people there - maybe forty max, so I don't know if it's a case of bad marketing or that they don't have many fans in the city? I have to say though, that I was a little bit disappointed by the documentary itself. I love everything Jack White touches and one of my biggest regrets was missing The Raconteurs with The Kills when they came to the Malkin Bowl in 2008 (I did catch The Deadweather at the Commodore last year though, which eases the sting a little), however, Under Great White Northern Lights was lacking on a few aspects. For one, it was focused on the Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Nova Scotia legs of their tour. No shout out to BC at all and minimal clips of the other non-maritime provinces. It wouldn't have bothered me as much if it wasn't touted as a documentary of their cross-Canada tour.

I also wished that there were more behind the scenes looks at the band instead of just concert footage of their sets. Jack only goes on to talk a tiny bit about what they were going through as they traveled the country and Meg... well, Meg is Meg. The majority of the film is just them performing their biggest hits in front of a Canadian audience, which would have made for a great concert DVD, but was missing the insights of a documentary.

What it did do well was showcase Jack and Meg's creative spirits. From the opening of them playing their One Note concert (yes, they really did play just one note), the tone was set. There is a whole segment devoted to their now-legendary daytime adventures across the nation where they played for free in public places with little or no notice. I still remember reading about how they got on a public bus in Winnipeg and just started jamming. Seeing it happen on screen made me wish I was in the Peg (for the first time since they lost the Jets). What would have made it even better would be if they had more on why they did it and what it meant for them. They tried to have a bit on this but it was cut way too short (probably to squeeze in some more concert footage).

One moment that made my night, though, was a short introspective from Jack on making music. For a couple minutes, he talks about the hardships of creating music when they've already made it in the industry. When they were still struggling to make a name for themselves, they had hopes and the dream of playing in front of a sold-out audience was enough to stoke the fires of ambition. Now that they've made it and done everything they ever wanted to do, he feels he's lost the motivation he once had. Nonetheless, Jack goes on to say that the only way to get over this is to just do it. Creativity is hard work - you have to force creativity out of yourself because the danger of having time is that you don't make use of it.

Those words still ring in my head because it is the absolute truth. When you have all the time in the world, "tomorrow" is your worst enemy. Life itself is a struggle at any given time and too often we find ourselves deceived by the comforts of a pressure-less present only to pay for it with our futures. A friend of mine once told me that even though you may be well fed now, never forget what it's like to be hungry. So true. I might pick up the DVD of Under Great White Northern Lights just for this little bit of inspiration.

Another great moment was the end. I won't give it away but it ended on a note that was simply sublime. If only they had more moments like that in the documentary, this would have been golden film.

Overall, Under Great White Northern Lights is not a bad film. If you love The White Stripes as much as I do, you definitely need to watch it. I did have a lot of moments where I felt like I was right there at the concerts and the director Emmett Malloy captured their energy very well to the point where I almost stood up and cheered at the end of every song. Visually, it was very artistic in using the White Stripe palette of red, white, and black and it very much has the gritty feel of a rock doc. My only advice is to go into it with the mindset of it being a concert DVD and you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Check more info here:

The Official Site of Under Great White Northern Lights: http://www.whitestripes.com/film/film.html

Space 15 Twenty: http://space1520.com/

~Vince

Ran into this a couple weeks ago and just thought I'd share:

2009 Movie Mashup

It's a pretty well done mashup of 2009 flicks that summarizes the year (if nothing else, it has two of my favourite bands in the soundtrack). The past year has been ridiculously good for films and here's a list of my top films of 2009 (expanded from the Podcast). In no particular order:

Top Films:

1) The Fantastic Mr. Fox: This was a brilliant movie that depresses me when I think of how the majority of people passed it up due to its animation style. We are too brainwashed into believing that "animated" means handdrawn or Pixar style computer generation to the point where people won't even give this flick a chance. The story and dialogue is amazing, mainly due to the source material (Roald Dahl) and the interpreter (Wes Anderson). I highly highly recommend this to everyone. There are multiple levels of jokes that will entertain both kids and adults.

2) The Hurt Locker: Suspense without losing character or flaking out. Unapologetic and uncompromising, it is one of the best films about war I've ever seen. Much like Jarhead, it was a thought provoking character piece that explores the psychology of warfare rather than just show us firefights.

3) Where the Wild Things Are: I, and probably half the people born after the 60s, grew up with this book. I had my doubts like I usually do when they take a classic and put it on screen (see Watchmen below), but I felt secure that it was in the hands of Spike Jonze. It was deliciously dark and did not tack on a Hollywood ending, which I really appreciated. It definitely isn't something I would take a kid to see but we all knew this film was made for adults to relive their childhoods.

4) Star Trek: I'm not a Trekkie (I've watched a few episodes and Wrath of Khan, of course), so I was a bit skeptical on how Abrams would spin the series. I think Star Trek did so well because underneath all the mythology, there was a solid story. This wasn't a film made solely to please (and capitalize on) the Trekkie following. It had a lot of in jokes but it didn't steep itself into the history of the series to make itself coherent. As a result, it appealed to everyone instead of diehard fans.

5) District 9: As a recent graduate from Vancouver Film School, I was giddy when I heard about this. Once again, I had my doubts about this being put to screen because I had watched the short and could not think of how they would turn this into a full length film. A six minute perfectly self contained news report style short film about racism stretched into a feature? Didn't sound promising at first but Blomkamp is a genius and while the story was nothing new (The Outer Limits had a few similar episodes), it was entertaining and well told.

6) Inglourious Basterds: Tarantino did it again. Hyperviolence, unexpected twists, a ton of edge of your seat moments, and witty dialogue made this one of the most flat out entertaining films of the year. The only word to describe this film is satisfaction; it gave us exactly what we wanted. Because of that, I didn't see the ending coming at all, which is a hard feat to pull off.

 

Films I Most Wanted to See But Didn't Have Time:

1) Men Who Stare at Goats: I'm a Clooney fan and the trailer showed him doing what he does best: dry witty humour.

2) (500) Days of Summer/Paper Heart/Away We Go: All three were feel good rom-coms that aimed for a broader audience (targeted men as well as women). All three are on the back burner for date night.

3) Up in the Air: Trailer didn't sell me but I have heard a lot of good things about this film. Again, Clooney.

4) A Serious Man: I'm a big Coen brothers fan but something about this film didn't draw me in. I'll still watch it though, just to complete the Coen brothers experience.

5) Sherlock Holmes: Came out Christmas Day and I've been busy since then. Will definitely check it out in the theatres though, as Robert Downey Jr. is amazing and coupled with Jude Law it's a film I can't miss.

6) Sin Nombre: Had screener tickets to this but couldn't make the showing. Sigh. Very limited release and once the window was gone, I couldn't find it anywhere. I will definitely need to catch this on DVD.

 

Most Overrated (not nescessarily bad, just too hyped up for what it is):

1) Up: Every other person I talked to said this was the best animated film they've ever seen. More guys have told me they shed some tears watching this than any other film I can think of. Meh. It was alright. Story premise was interesting and there were a few good moments but it just felt too contrived at parts and a little too ridiculous for me to take any of its messages seriously.

2) The Hangover: It was funny, but not THAT funny. Greatest comedy ever? Not even close. Shit just didn't make sense half the time and had me wondering about causality instead of laughing. I saw the ending a mile away and the most interesting bit (how he lost the tooth) turned out to be quite lame.

3) Funny People: It was a good film with horrible marketing. Everyone thought it was going to be the biggest comedy of the year - an Apatow flick with Seth Rogen and Adam Sandler! It turned out to be a decent drama (a bit long though) that bombed. Mark my words, it will be the next King of Comedy.

4) Bruno: Borat was good because it was something unexpected. Bruno was ass because the trailer gave 90% of the funniest parts away. Cohen took too many easy targets to have this be interesting and it followed the exact same formula as Borat. Less assholes and more penis, though.

5) Watchmen: As much as we comic book fans wanted to see the greatest piece of comic literature brought to the silver screen, we knew it would never work. You can't condense a twelve issue series with twelve pieces of dense prose into a film. The result was an incomplete machine running on marketing fumes that managed to fuck most the viewers over. A ton of comicbook-as-literature bandwagon jumpers ran blindly into this one. And a lot of them were confused. Shit just simply didn't get explained (Bubastis? WTF? He makes no sense without the genetic engineering plotline and just manages to show up randomly in the film...)

6) Avatar: Pretty. That is all.

 

~V

Link: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm488474624/tt1131734

If you listen to episode 17 of the podcast, you might understand why we are posting this here... We had to!

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm488474624/tt1131734

When I first heard that they were adapting Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are into a movie, two questions instantly came to mind:

1) Will my childhood get lured with candy into a van, beaten with a sack of quarters, raped by a drunken Michael Bay, then dropped off broken and bleeding a block away?

2) How the fuck will they stretch a children's book with fewer lines than a pocketful of fortune cookies into a feature film?

Upon viewing the trailer for the first time, both questions were answered:

1) It will not be a raping, only a slight molestation, and by an uncle at that.

2) I don't care.

As far as adaptations go, my jaw dropped. The opening sequence calmed my fears - the monster looked decent and I didn't have the urge to slam the kid in the face with a shovel (a sign of good casting). When the music started I popped a boner. I may have even spurted a lil dog water. Seriously, Wakeup is probably one of my favourite songs (not just cause I'm Canadian, Arcade Fire is amazing - check them out) and although it works in pretty much any trailer outside the the horror genre, it seems like it was made for this movie. It synced up perfectly with the cuts and I sat in silence for a few minutes after it was over, just to absorb it all in.

Everything about this trailer is sublime. I am truly happy (but not grateful since those studio douchebags fucked us with Michael Bay) that it was given to a fitting director. I love Spike Jonze (he did my favourite movie of all time) and this has escalated him into the upper echelons of directors. Why? Because instead of making this into a heavy CG explosionfest done for the purpose of selling books and marketing toys, Jonze has kept the quirky (almost too fake to be CG) atmosphere by making the monsters realistic, not perfect. It adds a sense of crudeness to it, which I find more warm and identifiable. There are probably only a handful of directors that could pull this off (the only other that comes to my mind is Michel Gondry) and I'll say they made a wise choice.

Of course, this is only the trailer and I could be dead wrong. I jizzed myself over the trailer of another classic book brought to the screen, only to be sorely disappointed: The Watchmen. When I heard they were making a Watchmen movie (for reals this time!) I was appalled. Seriously, you cannot adapt a 12 issue comic and another 20 odd pages of prose with themes and plots as deep as that onto 3 hrs of film. Alan Moore has always been my favourite writer (ever since V for Vendetta, more so after Lost Girls!) and now I know why he never watches things adapted from his books (hell, he didn't even let them use his name in the credits ~ seriously, how can you say something is CO-created without listing both people?). However, when I got Mike's call at the asscracks of dawn that the trailer for Watchmen was out, I bolted up and headed to Apple trailers. No other movie, let alone a trailer, would get me up that early. When I watched it, I came. Then I watched it again. And again. And again. Until nothing but air ejaculated. That is how much it blew my mind. And that is how much Where the Wild Things Are blew my mind. Let us pray that this does not bomb as badly as Watchmen.

As much as I hate that they are whoring out bits and pieces of my childhood. I can live with it if it's done with half a brain. I know this will never equal my book experience as a kid, but I can appreciate that they made it without selling out the visuals. Come this fall, I will most definitely line up to see it opening day. If it's anywhere as good as the trailer I will be happy. If it sucks, at least he tried and I'll still have Adaptation.

~V