Glen Keane, Beauty and the Beast

mushroom: LouieSchwartzberg, time lapse

Hit and Miss ***

Hit and Miss *** 
tv film, first season, 6 episodes 2012

Transexual contract killer - from man to woman - with mid-Western attachments of a half family.
Intriques, local illicit affairs, white trash cultures, romance between a man and his acceptance of a transsexual man-woman.  Many details are not tightly woven.  Good cinematography, unlike tv episodes, it has the feel of a feature film.

Gummo ***half

Gummo ***half
genre:  cult film, fictional docu-drama, no romance docu-drama on America with mainly non-actors

director:  Korine Harmony

This is a grainy, catch as catch can style film on poor people of America.  75% scripted.  Poor, not only in resources but often mental illness, and tornado ravaged environment - but you could see that even pre-tornado, it wouldn't have been very much better.  The lively parts are the young children full of life and joy in ordinary living, swimming in a plastic pool in the rain; kissing for fun in an non-exclusive, non romantic way.
Compared to the film "paperboy" this is much more fresh looking and its shot in 1997.  Harmony's method and rules to makings this film is v interesting.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gummo.
A visual film maker, its an unusual setting in America - we see mid-West small towns for what they really are.

'The film was shot in some of Nashville's poorest neighborhoods. Producer Cary Woods comments, "we're essentially seeing the kind of poverty that we're used to seeing in Third World countries when news crews are covering famines, [but] seeing that in the heart of America." 

The film's portrayal of "poor white trash" has garnered both glowing reviews and thunderous condemnations for its disturbing content and unusual style, which is simultaneously hyperrealistic and surreal.'

 Errol Morris has a similar "reality" focus, but Errol Morris is a much more polished ad man, his films are extremely well designed and researched.

The subjects they both cover are in the same global ball park arena.  Away from glossy myth of refinements and successful dreams of America - its everyday life for a lot of people.

PaperBoy ***

PaperBoy *** 2012
genre: intrique in small town Texas with murder, sex, psychological dents in everyday people

I like this movie, its very rich in all its details.  Everything fits.  Nicole Kidman is very good in this movie.  She is usually a bit cold and wooden, here, she somehow inhabits the character well.  She has a walk and a gait... all in character.
I like everything in the movie.  There is a wave of middle-lower white trash body of film work coming out.  Is America ready to tell this range of human stories coming from their world?  "Winter's Bone" etc all coming through maybe Doris Day, Woody Allen type of cushy refinements of America is finally all told we must get more grass root, the people stories.
I guess every country has a layer of "grass root" stories, it will get told when the glossier subjects are over told.  Everywhere is the same.  People want to hear something with more authenticity in it, whether its the "truth" or not, the details are also interesting.  We recognize the pop tunes, LaBelle singing, alligator gutting.  Working in a garage as newspaper office... home like relations of servant and the boss.  Something easy going and truthful, or believable.

However, overall speaking, this is story telling with a fishing net, all kinds of period details and sounds, images are quickly caught, linked together with a story line - alls well balanced explained accounted for, we are told from beginning to end, through the mouth of the servant (how would she know?  why is she so complacent?  She is not afraid of consequences as a black person in deep south in a low powered situation?  ) So the story is constructed, reasoned, and covering lots of ground it gets told with little twists of the plots.

In a lot of places, the story is not quite believable because of the construction has not been chosen carefully - for example, I don't think it makes sense that we are asked to believe the situation (the swamp) is so dangerous, and the newspaper boys are unarmed - no weapon! and they still go dig in - just for a newspaper story?

Little bit bumpy story logic in the details but overall nice movie.

8 bit art

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Django Unchained ***half

Django Unchained (2012) ***half  165 min   Tarantino's new comic book live action flick.  I always enjoy watching his vibrant quick paced flicks. Here, the central character Django - the quickest gun in the South along side humorous, cultured, dapper German bounty hunter (a little too suave and smart to be doing such kind of job, after all, he seem to not care much about money, no family - how come  he is such a good shot, well read, fine mannered?  Though this is a charismatic character but it is a comic book type character.  I could easily imagine its styled a bit a la Peter O'Toole type - quick witted and cool.  The Django character is all tension, well played, but all on the surface - and of course, comic book characters need go no further for fear of tiring the readers/viewers.  The black actrices are all v gd looking.  The sister, just the right pinch of self restrain, it is hinted that she is interested in the German visitor.  DiCaprio played the evil plantation owner - well, he's a gd actor - but not as impressive as in his earlier roles.  Everything is beautifully stitched together, music, visuals, sounds... but still its an eye candy comic book film.  Spike Lee says he will not see it because its disrespective to his ancestor.  The subject of America's past and how they have stolen black Africans to make into slaves is too heavy a subject to be dealt with via a comic book - yes, this subject has not been dealt with - and doing it comic book style is fundamentally putting on entertainment where it is not amusing if it were your own ancestor.  And I think Spike Lee is right.  This film lacks depth and its inattentive, too quick to glossily this bitter dark cruel inhuman part of American history, and to make this part of history into entertainment is somehow, not enough.   Though i admit, i like the use of music - a smooth canvas for revisiting pop culture, beautiful sounds, warm nostalgic country songs of yester years - use of spaghetti Western fonts - visual and musical history of film/radio itself- these are smooth and slick entertainment action sequences... but this film lacks a certain humanity.  Compare to a film somewhat similar set in colonial/oppression/opportunist/women-as-play-things context - a film for example, like Fitzcarldo of Herzog - which also deals with exploitation of indigene  people to outsider/intruders/profit making opportunists there is a great difference in the orientation of the two films. Both are set in hardship contexts.  One is a comic book set in a dark past history on a very serious subject; the other is also a sort of comic book with much more depth on another part of dark history - but Herzogs hero has a dream and Tarantino's character has only been allowed to wish for reuniting with his wife.   Both these films show visual events in lawless times, how people deal with fear and cruelty, going through a power struggle/personal-against-all-odds-dream-come-true process and when the character is allowed some luxury of existential poetry, it does make a much better movie.