Binder Challenge #1: I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK

Small cheat: I actually started the Binder Challenge on my personal blog a few weeks ago, so as I get the latest one ready here's the kick-off, a smaller-seen "tweener" film for Korean superstar Park-Chan wook.

Coming off the heels of LADY VENGEANCE, the final entry in the critically acclaimed Vengeance Trilogy (the other two films being SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE and the global phenomenon OLDBOY), Park Chan-wook decided to travel off the well worn path of revenge thrillers and brutal violence and move in an unexpected direction: a romantic comedy. of course, this being a Park Chan-wook film, it's a romantic comedy filled with brutal violence and revenge.

Did you expect anything less?

I'M A CYBORG, BUT THAT'S OK is a bit of a mouthful, barely mentioned in his Wikipedia entry, and a disappointment at the Korean box office. On the surface this seems a bit odd, as the film is filled with his signature style: everything is framed wonderfully, the camera zipping along inhabiting the world as if it's its own character. Chan-wook employs a color palette, and the film is peopled by an oddball cast that are all given their small moments to develop and shine. And of course there's the violence - played for laughs, sure, but still readily apparent. So all the boxes are checked and we're on target to be blown away. But unlike his other films, and unlike the films I'M A CYBORG... brings to mind (I was specifically reminded of the works of Terry Gilliam, Stephen Chow, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet), the images and moments fade away almost as soon as the credits roll.

It's an interesting premise: Young-goon is a timid factory worker who, in the opening scene, attempts to "charge" herself by slitting her wrist, inserting exposed copper wires and then plugging herself into a wall outlet. You see, she thinks she's a cyborg (but that's OK), and needs to charge her batteries instead of eating food. It's a gorgeously choreographed sequenced, mixing the humor of the situation with a visceral punch as the blood flows down her arm. Young-goon is admitted to an asylum where, in typical movie fashion she comes across an motley crew of misfit patients, including Park Il-sun (played by SPEED RACER/NINJA ASSASSIN/Asian singing sensation Rain in his debut film), a bunny mask-wearing kleptomaniac who "steals" the problems of his fellow inmates.

The meet cute/fall in love plot-line is confounded by Young-goon's insistence that not only is she a cyborg, but that she needs to charge up so she can fulfill her mission to kill all the "white-uns" for taking her grandmother away from her. Park Chan-wook shoots a number of fantasy sequences where Young-goon's fingertips open up to display gun barrels, allowing her to blow everyone away in the hospital as her mouth spits out empty shells. Park Il-sun, barely equipped to handle his own psychological problems, uses Young-goon's delusions to keep her safe as they both fall in love.

The film comes together in a few quiet, beautiful moments, such as Park Il-sun "implanting" a food converter Young-goon's back. Even as you acknowledge the absurdity of the situation, the care and delicate movements serve what would in another film be a bland, typical love scene. Later, both are locked in confinement, and their method of communication demonstrates a playfulness and innocence that shines in even the darkest portions of Chan-wook's other films. But those moments are few and far between, and large sections of the movie go by that, while visually dazzling and "cool" (the first time you see Young-goon go into her Terminator mode it's hard not to gasp with geek delight) don't leave much of an impression when the scene ends.

Just writing about the movie makes me almost think I liked it better than I did. The problem is, for all the dazzling visuals and comedic beats, I'M A CYBORG, BUT THAT'S OK feels flat when all is said and done. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but it's missing the spark that fused his other films together, leaving this as a footnote in an otherwise exemplary career.

Harold and Maude (1971)

The film opens with the camera following a pair of feet, slowly but deliberately moving down a flight of stairs. We follow the feet to a record player, the camera slowly showing us more of this character as a Cat Stevens record in put on the turntable. We're up to the waist, which is enough to see the expensive watch and rings the gentleman is wearing, and that the room is covered in the wood that denotes money...old money, inherited money. Cat Stevens plays on as the body, now visible save for the head, moves to a table where he writes a note and delicately pins it to the lapel of his expensive suit. His slender, delicate hands move for a match, striking it against the crystal case.

Arms outstretched, his hands light a candle, and it's only as the hand moves back and he blows out the match that we see his face: young, refined, half covered and back lit, providing an almost ghostly visage before the camera retreats back to his feet, which move back across the floor, jumping up to a small step stool. The music crescendos and abruptly ends as the feet step off, swinging in a dead man's dance as, directly below, the words "Directed by Hal Ashby" appear.

What a credit sequence. And for a comedy, no less.

Utterly failing in its initial box office run, HAROLD AND MAUDE has become a cult classic; a black, morbid comedy whose situations feel more at home now than it did when it was release over 35 years ago. Even though I had seen THE LAST DETAIL years before, this feels like my "true" introduction to Hal Ashby. The basic story, despite its somewhat unique concept of a young, 20ish something boy falling in love with an 80 year old woman, is pretty standard stuff for a film coming out during the horrors of a post-Woodstock, Vietnam War: reject the Establishment, the military is a joke, live free easy, blah blah blah... In truth, there's not a lot you can't figure out 20 minutes into the film.

So what makes it so special? A large part of it is the perfect casting and top-notch performance of Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon as the titular couple. A lot of the praise over the years has been showered on Gordon as the vivacious hippie/flapper/guru Maude, but watching the film I feel like she had the easier role of the two. Bud Cort had to be very careful - it's clear that, although he is much younger than Maude, he's by no means a child: a hard trick to pull of with such a youthful face. Luckily he's got a great, mature voice that balances things out, and his slow discovery of love and living, even in the midst of killing himself time and time again, is captured beautifully.

None of that would have worked, however, without Ashby's eye and fresh visual take. Wrapping the obvious message in a visually arresting, genuinely funny film (all to the great soundtrack by Cat Stevens), Ashby brings an astute eye to the scenes, using longer takes and a very naturalistic shooting style that still manages to feel very filmic (if that's even a word - I don't want to give the impression that this in any way feels like a documentary).

Harold's "suicides" are a perfect example of the type of look Ashby brings to HAROLD AND MAUDE. Each is graphic, sudden and explosive, cut a second later by the humor of the situation. The first time I saw a still of the bathroom scene, where Harold's mock suicide involves slashed wrists and more blood than your average horror movie, I had no idea what I was seeing, let alone how effective it would be by his mother's pronouncement seconds after walking in on the scene. Likewise with his final attempt in front of a potential date set up by his mother - he demonstrates hari kiri, stabbing himself in the stomach and falling to the floor, blood spilling everywhere. His date, not in on the joke, still thinks it's an act (she's an actress) and proceeds to mimic his death throes perfectly. Hilarious.

You may know where you're going with HAROLD AND MAUDE, but it's the ride getting there that makes it such a fun and embracing film. As a kickoff to the work of Ashby it's a great starting place, and I'm looking forward to what's on deck, the Woody Guthrie biopic BOUND FOR GLORY, a film of a different make altogether.

Movie #18: Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008)

There's something about NICK AND NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST that feels like the anti-JUNO to me. Whereas Diablo Cody's overrated dialog and attempts at youthful sentiment in JUNO struck me as smug and often downright patronizing to its intended audience, NICK AND NORAH feels more sincere in its picture of two people fumbling towards first love in the prime of their youth. It may not perfectly match your first time, or my first time, but director Peter Sollet, working off a script by Lorene Scafaria based on the popular novel, seems more intent on conveying the small gestures, the quiet moments where things come together, and wrap it up in a loving tribute to a New York City that glows with music and lights and coffee.

The story isn't really about anything; it's just enough of a scenario to allow us the fun of watching Nick and Norah explore their relationship. Michael Cera plays Nick, recently heartbroken bass player player for The Jerk-Offs, begrudginly heading into the city to play a gig and hopefully catch a secret performance by Where's Fluffy, an almost mythical band that Nick (and Norah, as we come to discover) adore that acts as the MacGuffin of the picture. Through a series of coincidence he meets up with Norah at the club he's playing at. She's trying to keep her friend Caroline from getting utterly wasted (something she fails to do) and just enjoy the music, but the hurdles set up by the film demand that she engages in a "meet cute" with Nick and propel the film to its satisfying conclusion.

It's refreshing to see Cera make some small but noticeable adjustments to the character he's been playing in a number of his past films. His Nick is still the essential shy good boy, but there's a new-found sense of confidence and grace in his movements, his delivery. He doesn't come across as eternally lost to the circumstances of what's going on around him. As Norah, Kat Dennings knows exactly when to play the giggling schoolgirl, and when to play the wounded, older girl who's a little tired of simply being her age. It's a great part, and that smile instantly draws you in. Their conversations fall over the place at first: when two people are just beginning to feel each other out, the conversation necessarily starts off broad. But as the movie progresses and they begin to connect, the talk becomes intimate, and the language becomes shared. It's one of the many points of the film that feel true, even if it isn't all that factual.

The rest of the cast beautifully supports the leads, especially Ari Graynor as the good-natured but way too intoxicated Caroline. She another plot device to draw Nick and Norah together, but she's a wonderful plot device all the same. Same for indie rock scene in New York, which comes alive under the direction of Peter Sollet to become a character in its own right. This the New York I had the fortune to see when going out with my much-younger friends, and it's captured perfectly. NICK AND NORAH'S PLAYLIST is that rare, sweet film that yearns to impress without resorting to imitate.

Movie #15: Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008)

For all her fame, Scarlett Johansson doesn't really appear in a lot of popular movies. And when she does (NANNY DIARIES, HE'S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU), they're typically pretty bad.

Use her correctly, though, and she's a charming presence who can more than hold her own in a scene. Woody Allen seems to know this, and also knows that having Johnasson as his Muse seems to have reinvigorated him. VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA is his best film in years, a return to the comedic drama that he did best in films like HANNAH AND HER SISTERS.

Vicky and Christina are best friends who have the opportunity to spend the summer with Vicky's aunt and uncle in Barcelona. Vicky (Rebbecca Hall, in what kind of passes for the Woody Allen role) is the logical, sound type, engaged to be married to a man she says is stable and successful. Christina is the passionate risk taker, and Johansson embodies her with a free spirit that is instantly alluring without being sleazy. Allen takes the Spanish city and films it with an intimacy that marks all of his New York films, and it becomes as much as character as the people who inhabit it. They go out to dinner and meet Javier Bardem, a painter who truthfully tells them he would like them to fly away with his for a weekend of food, art, and sex. Vicky is disgusted, Christina intrigued, and they go. What happens over the course of the weekend is surprising and just the beginning of two months of discovery about what its is each other believes they want and what they actually need.

All this and we don't even physically get to see Penelope Cruz until halfway through the picture. She is a constant presence, Bardem's ex-wife, who perhaps tried to kill her husband and has a history of mental illness. When she finally appears she is a whirlwind of emotion, and her influence on the lives of everyone take the film in some unexpected directions, least of all the much talked-about 3-way between Cruz, Bardem and Johnasson.

Woody Allen has been making great films for so many years, it shouldn't be a surprise that he can still pull it off so late in the game. But it is, and VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA is a wonderful film that shouldn't be missed.

Movie #3: Semi-Pro (2008)

See? Not everything on this blog is going to be either serious foreign, art-house classics or critically acclaimed documentaries. There's always a little room for Will Ferrell.

SEMI-PRO was one of the "compromise" movies I routinely get from Netflix to satisfy my wife's cinematic desires. Which is not to say I was adverse to the decision - I definitely enjoy me a good Will Ferrell flick. SEMI-PRO doesn't exactly deliver on that - it's no ANCHORMAN, or even THE LEGEND OF RICKY BOBBY. But it's a damn bit funnier than the recent STEP BROTHERS, so in the Ferrell pantheon it gets a passing grade.

Ferrell plays Jackie Moon: owner, coach, player, and promoter for the Flint Michigan Tropics, an ABA team in the waning days of the league, a team just about as bad as can be imagined. Which is the point, considering this is pretty much a by-the-numbers feel good underdog story. When it's announced that the ABA is going to merge with the NBA and that the top 4 teams will be absorbed, Jackie makes it his mission to ensure his team's place in the league. This includes things like attempting a roller skate jump over 47 feet of Tropic Ball Girls, and wrestling a bear. Everything but actually focusing on playing the game. To that end Moon hires bad boy and ex-NBA champ Ed Monix (played by Woody Harrelson in a welcome return to basketball movies) who quickly moves from hated teammate to learned guru, teaching the team to be an actual team using rousing speeches, grueling practice drills and, in one instance, a punch to the jejunum, which if nothing else was a lesson in anatomy for me.

Yes, SEMI-PRO is predictable. Tone-wise it moves all over the place and doesn't quite settle anywhere. And it's Will Ferrell doing pretty much exactly what he always does. All that being said, I still laughed. The scene with the bear wrestling is pretty hysterical, if only for Ferrell's ridiculous warnings once the bear gets loose in the stadium. Everyone else does their jobs well, especially a brief appearance by Jackie Earle Haley as a hippie who makes a once in a lifetime free throw. So, as much as my senses tell me that SEMI-PRO is a bad movie, in the end I laughed a lot more than I anticipated, and that can't be a bad thing.