The audience booed Renoir in 1939. What would they do today?

Watched the "commentary" version and some other supplementary material on the Great Jean Renoir "Rules of the Game" (1939) and though the commentary was adequate, not extraordinary, the more you learn about the film the more you appreciate it: the wonderful composition of shots, the use of long shots with slow moving camera, the depth of focus (many of the interior shots), the brilliant editing of the hunt sequence (only place in move with many short takes - creating a totally different pace and mood). Also commentary discusses the social classes, making clear that Octave and Andre are the two outsiders, and spends a lot of time discussing the balancing of relations among the characters - like an elaborate dance - some of this lost me and didn't interest me much. Most interesting of all was Renoir's own brief intro, in which he said that the film was a horrible failure on premier, with the audience booing - they hated the film for its point of view, which was a savage attack on the French so-called nobility, a society I find rotten to the core, Renoir said - so that should put an end to any thought that he was sympathetic to this social milieu (though he is sympathetic to the characters within this milieu, because he is humane) - today, I fear, an audience would boo because he criticizes the members of the nobility, not because he devastates them.

Rules of the Game: One of the best movies, if not the best movie, ever made

It's been many years since I've seen Jean Renoir's 1939 "The Rules of the Game," and it still holds up as no doubt one of the best movies if not the best movie of all time. This is surprising in a lot of ways, most notably in that you have to hate most of the main characters: French aristocrats who live in idleness and luxury, playing games with one another, cheating on their spouses, behaving recklessly with the feelings and emotions of others, living off the labor of others while contributing little or nothing to the betterment of their world, oblivious of the war that is about to erupt all around them - and yet, and yet - each character is so fully developed in such a short time and space: De Chesney, the pompous count - collector of musical toys (the image of him next to his grandest acquisition is one of the great portrait moments in cinema) who is also a Jew, we learn, and therefore just not quite as secure socially as he seems to be; Octave (a bit overplayed by Renoir) a ruined man at the end, a participant in a crime, friendless, an artistic failure, cut off from those he has tried to love; the countess, desperate for love and alone in a country she does not understand; Lisbeth, the maid with social aspirations; and many others. No film has ever explored class relations with more acuity and wit (The Leopard comes close - but it's really Lampaduso's novel that deserves the credit there) - and none has a higher level of both cinematic and literary excellence: some of the scenes are so extraordinary that they can match Citizen Kane any day: the animals killed in the hunt, twitching to death, showing the cruelty of those who would kill - animals or one another - for sport; the conversation between the count and his mistress, as she leans against a Buddha statue; the gamekeeper, Schumacher, crying his eyes out in the night - just three examples among many, and the dialogue, among all characters - not just the aristocrats but the servants as well - is so smart and insightful and revealing: "iets (regimes) I can accept, but not lunacy (the chef)"; "Me? I don't have an old mother!". It takes a little while to get into this film - as is true of so many great works of art - but by the end you have experienced an entire world.

An antidote to the pretention of Tree of Life: Nostalgia for the Light

"Nostalgia for the Light" (2010?) by the Chilean filmmaker Guzman is a most unusual and moving documentary. It starts off quite slowly with many still camera shots of what at first looks to be heavy machinery but we soon see as an observatory telescope, then some stills of a rather antiquated kitchen and some old furniture, with Guzman's voice-over noting that this is his childhood home and where he first learned to love astronomy - gradually we shift to the Chilean mountain desert, apparently one of the best places for stellar observation and we start to learn about astronomy and then we learn that the same landscape, arid and hot, is a great place for archaeologists studying early people of Chile - two kinds of scientist/observers - and then, slyly, we learn that this same territory was part of the mining industry (and slavery) in Chile and more recently the locale of the Pinochet prisons and the burial site (mass graves) for political dissidents - and we meet people scouring the grounds for the remains of their loved ones - all different kinds of observation and science and examination of the past - billions of years ago, or 20 years ago - and all are connected in many surprising and subtle ways. Not long ago I watched the extraordinarily pretentious and overbearing Tree of Life, and this simple film makes many of the same points - connections between the cosmos and the individual - in a simple, clear, and moving way: one bloated highly publicized film compared with one simple, barely noticed film. Why would that be?

They're not home - yet - in Season 4 of Battlestar Galactica

Many spoilers here, so if you're watching "Battlestar Galactica" and don't want to know how it turns out in Season 4 stop reading - but we're now at the end of part one of Season 4 and the human race and the Cylons have formed an uneasy alliance and have found earth - and landed - only to see the landscape as a postnuclear ruin. Just amazingly haunting scenes at the end of this half-season, with the characters on a beach and charred ruins all around them and, across a harbor or channel, the ruins of a city, perhaps Manhattan. The planet looked beautiful from above, but not on the ground. At this point, it's unknown whether there are any living inhabitants - human or otherwise - on Earth. The dire disappointment of this discovery could break apart the alliance - or maybe it was a Cylon trick, maybe they led the humans to a false earth? Or maybe it has something to do with the "jumps" and the time barriers, maybe they will be able to jump back to an earlier time and try to avert the holocaust? Or just to blend in? We still don't know how Kara/Starbuck could have seemingly risen from the dead to come back from Earth, nor how her fighter plane could have been restored to pristine condition - must have something to do with time travel. And what about the prophecy that the leader - President Roslin - would die "of a wasting disease" before she could lead her people to Earth? Something tells me they're not home - yet.

The epitome of cinematic pretention: Tree of Life

Somewhere in Terrence Malick's "The Tree of Life" there's a half-way decent movie trying to get out, but this story line gets absolutely smothered beneath the cinematic pretension, the heavy-handed symbolism, the mish-mash of new age music and cliched imagery, and the fuzzy-headed ideas, if you can call them that - and we're left with a movie that's painfully confusing, way too long, and ultimately, in my view, ridiculous. Story, such as it is: family in Waco in the mid 50s (I think) with 3 sons and autocratic dad (Brad Pitt surprisingly good in this role), which leads to some powerful scenes of cruel discipline and family fights - Pitt is also a musical prodigy manque and a would-be inventor or entrepreneur, but these aspects are barely developed. We learn in first moments, flashing forward to the late 60s, that the middle son has died (never learn how or why, possibly in Vietnam?), and then the mom and dad talk in whispers for about 30 minutes about trying to reach him: as we see some rather beautiful imagery of the creation of the entire cosmos, which will remind you maybe of National Geographic World perhaps - honestly, I have no idea what this is about. Reminded me a little of the obelisk in Kubrick - no one understood it but some bought into its ineffable significance, and I didn't. Sean Penn plays the oldest brother (for most of the film it's not clear whom he plays) in the present day, talking about missing his brother every day - believe me, nothing is made of these father-son or brother-brother relationships, they're just stated, presented - as if Malick doesn't care about relationships, or people - we're all just insignificant blips within the cosmos I guess. (For a good film on similar themes, in comparison, think about The Great Santini.) Tree of Life ends with characters at various ages all meeting up as they walk in criss-cross along a wide strand, with hundreds of others, too - one of the most idiotic visions of postlife or heaven if you will that I've ever seen - even worse than The Lovely Bones. Perhaps its an homage to the many mysterious movie endings from the great days of European film: Nights of Cabiria, Discrete Charm, Seventh Seal. But here it feels not mysterious and odd but forced and pretentious and no longer original. And what is the message? That we all will be redeemed - even the cruel, tormenting father - for no particular reason, just because that's the way the cosmos works? Can anyone honestly tell me that you learned a single thing about this movie or that it provoked any single original thought in your mind?

What will the crew of Battlestar Gallactica find when they get to Earth?

Some thoughts on Season 4, the final season, of "Battlestar Gallactica," as we have just begun watching: what to make of the reappearance of Starbuck, in a fighter plane in brand-new condition and believing she's been gone a few hours with the Gallactica says it's been several months and she was presumed dead? She says she's found Earth (and her descriptions of Saturn, for example, suggest that she has). Possibilities: there is an obvious time warp separating BSG from Earth, which she must have passed through; part of the question isn't whether she and her crewmates will find Earth but what will they find when they get there? A future civilization? A past one? A place that they themselves had left in an earlier millenniuum? Perhaps it's an earlier civilization and the Caprica survivors build things and leave signs for the future: e.g., the Pyramids (as in their national sport)? Second: who is the 5th Cylon, and why did this season begin with a flashback episode about a group of Cylon-human hybrids under development? Is Starbuck a hybrid? What role will they play if any (or was it just a random episode that didn't fit anywhere and that they popped in between seasons 3 and 4?

A great ensemble comedy - and the characters aren't all zillionaires (just one is): Bridesmaids

Finally saw "Bridesmaids" on DVD, and of course it would have been better to see it on screen surrounded by laughter, but it's pretty great to see it anywhere - even skeptics and Apatow doubters should know that this is a hilarious movie that's also very warm, caring about its characters, and thoughtful - and to some degree realistic (it is after all at heart a farcical comedy about a marriage - don't expect Ingmar Bergman or Woody Allen). Most of all what's great about it is Kristen Wiig, who was a huge scene-stealing surprise in her minor role in Knocked Up and now shows she's a really good comic writer and an actor who can carry a film; the ensemble cast also really solid, with Rose Byrne, who earned dramatic chops in Damages, showing she's a really funny comic actor as well, and a few others whom I didn't know but especially the heavyset woman who dominates every scene she's in - This is one of the few comedy movies largely aimed at women that's totally appealing to guys, too, and that is I think pretty accurate about feelings and friendships and relationships and doesn't place everyone (just one) in amazingly upscale houses and cars but catches the sense of the real life of someone struggling to get by in tough times, without being gloomy like an Indie pic - two quibbles: why does Wiig have to be a boutique baker - that's become a huge movie cliche, the fallback occupation for women on the rise who aren't corporate sharks; 2nd, I never bought into the character of the good cop - another movie/TV cliche, as if these guys just fall out of the sky and into the lives of the protagonist, with no girlfriend, no ex, no family, no life, no baggage - at age 30+ - sorry, it doesn't happen except on film. Final note: John Hamm aka Don Draper very funny as totally self-centered nasty guy, in an uncredited role I think.

10 Best TV series

Starting final season of "Battlestar Gallactic" led to conversation with fellow BSG fan, AC, about our favorite TV series. We traded some suggestions; here's my tentative list of the best TV series in recent years (that I've seen - and I'm probably leaving something off...):

The Wire. Let's just acknowledge this as the gold standards for the possibilities of episodic TV.
The Sopranos. And yet - everyone forgets how great this was now that everyone talks about The Wire. The Sopranos is totally different material but broke every possible boundary and set the initial standard.
Friday Night Lights. The most likable series ever on TV.
Battlestar Gallactica. Yes it's cheesy, corny, too much video-game stuff - but what a great, well-designed, complex story.
Mad Men. There's no one you like on the show. And you can't stop watching it.
The Staircase. This may not belong on the list, in that it's a documentary series, about a murder trial, but it is so full of drama and surprise - you can't not watch this.
The Office (British version). Hysterical. So dry.
Sleeper Cell. Very compelling and scary and very contemporary. One of the few to air on consecutive nights. Domestic terrorists.
Slings & Arrows. Grows on you. Very funny series about Canadian Shakespeare troupe - anyone who's been around theater will no how true this is.
Huff (Season 1): one of the best family dramas, had a lot of potential but could not carry through beyond season 1, unfortunately.

Early indicators of Antonioni's style, in Il Grido

I'm not sure if you can really see from Antonioni's 1957 neorealistic, somewhat melodramatic "Il Grido" just how great a director he would become, but it's certainly a film worth watching and it has many of the elements that would come to define Antonioni's later style: first, his willingness to shift the plot focus from one character to another - as Il Grido begins by focusing on a woman who breaks up with her 7-year live-in boyfriend (and father of her daughter), and then rather surprisingly the movie turns out to be about him, not her (think of how the main character in L'aventura is more or less dropped from the plot; his penchant for road movies and travel - as the working-class protagonist of this film leaves his small home town, travels up (?) and down the coast of Italy, trying to find some kind of new, stable, satisfying relationship - eventually returning home in despair (think of the travel in l'aventura, the Passenger); the alienation of the protagonist (see above, plus Blow-up). And then, some unique touches: the extraordinary look at small industrial communities (refineries, mostly) in Italy postwar - the incredible poverty and isolation - seemingly closer to the middle ages than to the modern world, except for the occasional, rare appearance of a bus, a motorcycle, and a motorboat - and interesting that the protagonist works in a refinery (oil?) and takes up a job in a gas station; an incredibly odd scene in which the young daughter walks through a field and finds herself among a crowd of zombie-like men - are they mentally ill? shell shocked veterans? it's never explained - it just scares her, and us - the kind of scene that Fellini (and many imitators) would make their signature, but here it is, on a field off a highway, seemingly out of nowhere.