Hey kids. I know it's been a while since I rapped at ya, but I've been busy. Not useful-busy, not I-can't-find-time-to-write busy, just, you know, "busy." I know it's a lame excuse, but too bad. Besides, it's not like I have any readers, let alone adoring fans who I'm disappointing by not posting for four months. So, to all you purely hypothetical admirers who deserve an apology. . . Fuck you, and on with the show.
Today's Thursday, which means Movie Day. Typically, Movie Day means an hour with my shrink, followed by pasta at Bottega Fiorentina, maybe a little grocery shopping at Trader Joe's, and a movie. As it happens, I've been picking up extra Thursday evening shifts at work for the last several weeks, which has meant no Thursday movies. That, of course, has been making me cranky; and since work is a mindless, hellish, soul-sucking experience anyway, I made an early New Year's resolution a couple weeks ago not to work on my days off anymore. Needless to say, I'm in a better mood these days. (It helps that Manager Meathead was caught last week surfing porn on work computers, and the ensuing coverup Management is trying to pull looks to blow everything to shit by Christmas. Oh, and pot. I've been smoking pot again. That helps too.)
So this Thursday's flick was The Fountain, by Darren Aronofsky, whose Pi was considered the Very Best NYU Student Film of 1998, and whose Requiem for a Dream received Academy recognition as 2000's Film Every NYU Film Student Should Be Really Really Impressed With. The Fountain should be up for similar awards this year, most likely the Steven Soderbergh Award for Very Very Artsy Acheivement, Even With a Budget and Studio Backing.
My somewhat belabored point is that Darren Aronofsky is a technically and aesthetically talented filmmaker, as far as any book about making movies is concerned. I just wish he'd cut loose a bit more. I mean, every shot in Pi is mathematically determined (so I hear, anyway). I'll bet anything an analysis of Requiem for a Dream ends up in a future edition of How to Read a Film, because it's plain that Aronofsky intends to write it.
The Fountain is no different. Three different stories go on in it: in the first, set in sixteenth century Spain and Central America, a conquistador, Tomas (Hugh Jackman), is sent on a mission by Spain's Queen Isabel (Rachel Weisz) to find the Tree of Life, which will bestow eternal life on whomever drinks of its sap. The second story is set in the present day, and concerns a neurologist, Tommy (Jackman, again), searching for the miracle drug that will save his wife, Izzi (Wiesz, again), from an encroaching brain tumor. The final story takes place in, presumably, The Future, with Hugh Jackman as a bald-headed Buddist monk traveling through space with the Tree searching for the Mayan underworld of Sebulba, which is a dying star. Seriously. And they're in a snowglobe. I'm not kidding. Guest starring Rachel Weisz as the Ghost of Christmas Past.
Man, this stuff is so artsy you'll shit. The movie is shot through with visuals that echo back and forth between the stories. A Moorish design on the wall behind Isabel's throne shows up later etched in glass on the door to Izzi's hospital room. Tommy's car racing into downtown Montreal becomes Tomas's horse racing to the castle. Subtle it ain't.
To be fair, this sort of gimickry is somewhat necessary in these sorts of past life movies. It's part of the tone. Unfortunately, Aronofsky treats his characters the same way. When Izzi calls Tommy "my conquistador," it feels like she's been fed a line. But Tommy takes it in stride, as though he read the script for the rest of the film.
All of that said, it's still a pretty decent, and even occasionally heartfelt film. Jackman puts in a solid performance in all of his roles, and his grief when Izzi dies (really, I'm not giving anything away with that revelation) is palpable. I can't really say the same for Weisz, but that's mostly because I don't think she's much of an actor. The film doesn't really push her, either; mostly it's content to use her face as a tableau. There are hardly any other performances worth speaking of, but that's all right, as the film is ultimately a romance.
By the final twenty minutes, it also becomes an almost lyric rumination on death and the fantasies inspired by loss. It's overly mannered, yes, but, considering how rationalization is a common defense in the face of death, its self-conscious cleverness isn't wholly inappropriate for a story that is ultimately about watching someone you love die.
Today's Thursday, which means Movie Day. Typically, Movie Day means an hour with my shrink, followed by pasta at Bottega Fiorentina, maybe a little grocery shopping at Trader Joe's, and a movie. As it happens, I've been picking up extra Thursday evening shifts at work for the last several weeks, which has meant no Thursday movies. That, of course, has been making me cranky; and since work is a mindless, hellish, soul-sucking experience anyway, I made an early New Year's resolution a couple weeks ago not to work on my days off anymore. Needless to say, I'm in a better mood these days. (It helps that Manager Meathead was caught last week surfing porn on work computers, and the ensuing coverup Management is trying to pull looks to blow everything to shit by Christmas. Oh, and pot. I've been smoking pot again. That helps too.)
So this Thursday's flick was The Fountain, by Darren Aronofsky, whose Pi was considered the Very Best NYU Student Film of 1998, and whose Requiem for a Dream received Academy recognition as 2000's Film Every NYU Film Student Should Be Really Really Impressed With. The Fountain should be up for similar awards this year, most likely the Steven Soderbergh Award for Very Very Artsy Acheivement, Even With a Budget and Studio Backing.
My somewhat belabored point is that Darren Aronofsky is a technically and aesthetically talented filmmaker, as far as any book about making movies is concerned. I just wish he'd cut loose a bit more. I mean, every shot in Pi is mathematically determined (so I hear, anyway). I'll bet anything an analysis of Requiem for a Dream ends up in a future edition of How to Read a Film, because it's plain that Aronofsky intends to write it.
The Fountain is no different. Three different stories go on in it: in the first, set in sixteenth century Spain and Central America, a conquistador, Tomas (Hugh Jackman), is sent on a mission by Spain's Queen Isabel (Rachel Weisz) to find the Tree of Life, which will bestow eternal life on whomever drinks of its sap. The second story is set in the present day, and concerns a neurologist, Tommy (Jackman, again), searching for the miracle drug that will save his wife, Izzi (Wiesz, again), from an encroaching brain tumor. The final story takes place in, presumably, The Future, with Hugh Jackman as a bald-headed Buddist monk traveling through space with the Tree searching for the Mayan underworld of Sebulba, which is a dying star. Seriously. And they're in a snowglobe. I'm not kidding. Guest starring Rachel Weisz as the Ghost of Christmas Past.
Man, this stuff is so artsy you'll shit. The movie is shot through with visuals that echo back and forth between the stories. A Moorish design on the wall behind Isabel's throne shows up later etched in glass on the door to Izzi's hospital room. Tommy's car racing into downtown Montreal becomes Tomas's horse racing to the castle. Subtle it ain't.
To be fair, this sort of gimickry is somewhat necessary in these sorts of past life movies. It's part of the tone. Unfortunately, Aronofsky treats his characters the same way. When Izzi calls Tommy "my conquistador," it feels like she's been fed a line. But Tommy takes it in stride, as though he read the script for the rest of the film.
All of that said, it's still a pretty decent, and even occasionally heartfelt film. Jackman puts in a solid performance in all of his roles, and his grief when Izzi dies (really, I'm not giving anything away with that revelation) is palpable. I can't really say the same for Weisz, but that's mostly because I don't think she's much of an actor. The film doesn't really push her, either; mostly it's content to use her face as a tableau. There are hardly any other performances worth speaking of, but that's all right, as the film is ultimately a romance.
By the final twenty minutes, it also becomes an almost lyric rumination on death and the fantasies inspired by loss. It's overly mannered, yes, but, considering how rationalization is a common defense in the face of death, its self-conscious cleverness isn't wholly inappropriate for a story that is ultimately about watching someone you love die.
posted by Uncle Ovid at 4:04 PM
1 comments
