A totally quirky film that demands more than it gives: The Taste of Tea

I finished watching "The Taste of Tea" and uttered the semi-cliche, there's two hours of my life I won't get back, but that isn't totally true: It's 2 hour and 20 minutes. Okay, that's too harsh. There are things I did like about this unusual Japanese film. I did, over the long course of it, come to understand this quirky, artistic family, in the mode of a Japanese version of a Wes Anderson or Noah Baumbach film - or most accurately of the family in Little Miss Sunshine, with the cute little girl and the sensitive young man and the eccentric grandfather and uncle. But it's very Japanese, a tough go for an American viewer - hard to know how many of the quirks are unique to this family and how many are endemic to Japanese culture (film set in rural Japan ca 2004). The Mother (and grandfather) and anime/manga artists, and the film uses anime and music video as a subtext - the crazy and colorful violence of the anime sequences that the quiet, demure, bespectacled mother designs are an "ironic" contrast to the slow, actually torpid pace of the family life and of this film - achingly long scenes watching cherry blossoms sway in the wind, long narratives, minutes spent watching characters move pieces in a game of Go. This occasionally broken up by some short action scenes (mobster gets beat up and buried alive), moments of really odd behavior (family enjoys group hypnotism), typical teenage angst (boy falls for girl who's far out of his league and pines away), and strange interludes (grandfather remembers his youth, uncle runs across former girlfriend and they chat awkwardly for maybe 5 minutes). A totally quirky film that some may love and has moments of great interest but demands, in my view, much more than it gives.

Great stuff throughout Brick City, but the series sometimes gets in its own way, trying to cover too much

Finished "Brick City," the 5-part sundance documentary on Newark and Cory Booker, leading up to 2008 election day - Obama's victory. I did really enjoy the series, especially because of my interst in and history with Newark, great to see such a terrific mayor as Cory Booker committed to that city, and you finish watching certainly hoping he will have a long and great career in public service. The Jayda story - the teenage mom who wants to help other young women stay away from gangs and trouble - plays out very well, too - she's likable and you hope for the best for her, against plenty of long odds. This episode brings in a whole new element, the battle for the Central Ward council seat, with Booker's candidate up against a local guy who thinks Booker has brought in too many outsiders to run Newark. Booker gets his clock cleaned. It's one of the unfortunate flaws of the series that there's just too much material and the directors founder as they shift from one story line to another. I continue to wish that they had been more selective and had let more scenes play out. The best scenes in this episode are the wonderful student assembly in which principal of Central High, Ras Baraka, speaks to the students about safety on the streets and his failure to protect them (there had been a shooting outside of the school), also some of the political council sessions in which Booker and aides discuss strategy in the council election. Trust your material, guys, in your next documentary, and don't screw up great scenes with a loud music soundtrack. Great stuff throughout Brick City, but the series sometimes gets in its own way.

Courts, Cops, and Bloods in Brick City

Jayda seems on the verge of going to prison on the four-year-old assault charge, and even though her tough-as-nails attorney tells her not to worry, how can she help it? It's hard to believe she'll get a fair shake, and we don't of course hear the story from the victim's point of view, so who knows? Seems terribly unfair, though, as Jayda, now pregnant, has come up from a childhood in which she was clearly a trouble-maker to a point where she is a true leader likely to have a positive effect on her community - if she can survive. Prison will do her no good. We'll see. This 4th episode of "Brick City" has considerably more information on Jayda and on her former crew, the Bloods, who lose one of their members to gunshot suicide. We also learn, through a lot of indirection, about a power struggle between the Director of Police McCarthy and the police chief, who has not been even a bit player in this documentary series to date. Though it's impossible to follow all the nuances of this struggle, the essence is that the chief gets kicked upstairs and Mayor Cory Booker comes down in support of his director, McCarthy. Valiantly, the filmmakers try to make a character of McCarthy, but he seems always very conscious of the camera and cautions about what he can truly reveal. Police rarely make for good documentary subjects, unfortunately, as they have learned on the job to watch everything they say and they rarely trust the media. So much great material in Brick City, but once again I wish the filmmakers had let it speak for itself instead of infusing the story with a background track and frenetic editing.

What gives a documentary film its integrity? : Brick City

I continue to like "Brick City" despite its flaws, especially episode 3, as we really get to like Jayda and continue to be in thrall to Corey Booker. The narrative has a little more focus in this episode, as we zone in on two crises: the delays in the construction of the new Central High School, and the budget crisis forcing across-the-board cuts in all agencies, including police, now struggling to keep down the murder rate. The filmmakers valiantly try to make Chief McCarthy the 3rd main character, but he seems not too willing to let them inside his head or to grant a lot of access outside of public appearances. Booker lets them go with him everywhere, but seems to have no private life. Jayda gives pretty complete access, which makes her a very winning and open character - struggling to make a life, and to help other young women, but with plenty of flaws and with a lot of pressures pushing her back to thug life. I notice that the filmmakers never actually interview any of the characters - they only observe - and I think that's great, and I wish, as I've said in the past two posts, that they'd brought that same integrity into the editing and production process because I think this series would feel much more true and real if it didn't have a musical score. That said, this 3rd episode is not quite as frantic in its editing as the first two, and a few scenes - the overnight for freshmen boys at Central, the meeting of the men's group against violence - are allowed to unfold a little, and these are highlights of this episode. There's a danger in having too much material and trying to jam it all in - some stuff has to fall by the wayside to let the best material bloom.

Cory Booker, Jayda are extremely likable, but frenetic editing gets in the way: Brick City

Second episode of "Brick City" much like the first - some things I loved about it and some that troubled me (a lot). The character of Jayda, the teenage mother who's left her gang (the Bloods) and speaks to high-school girls about getting their lives on track, is emerging as the strongest character in the series, very complex and likable, and I wish the filmmakers could be a little more, or a lot more, patient and let her character emerge slowly, let us get to see her at some length. But the style of this series consists of frenetic montage and frantic editing, as if 500 hours of material must be crowded into 4 hours of documentary. No, it mustn't. Some should be left on the floor. We never spent more than a few moments at any one scene, and some of them - Jayda's breakup with her boyfriend, her reunion with the gang, her release from detention - require much more. The frenetic pace is a little more suitable for the main character, Cory Booker. He remains incredibly likable and heroic - but the film catches him in public life only. Maybe he has no private life, or maybe it was out of bounds as a precondition, but it does seem that episode 2 added nothing to our knowledge of him from episode 1. He needs to be facing some sort of crisis to give the story an arc: he is trying to lower the murder rate, so in part we're watching the city as it enters the long, hot summer, and we do see a lot of the police chief, the 3rd main character in the series, but not sure that's enough to shape the story and Booker's role gets a little murky in episode 2. It needs a single element or crisis to help crystallize the plot and to bring his character into high relief.

I recommend Thomas Cobb's book, too : Crazy Heart

Finally saw "Crazy Heart," based on the novel Crazy Heart, by Thomas Cobb. (Let's give all writers the credit they deserve!) It's an entertaining, very well done movie - clearly it's Jeff Bridges's show in every way because the movie is entirely character-focused, and entirely on his character, everyone else is a foil. The book, too, was primarily about the character Bad Blake, his fall from grace and his struggle for redemption. The structure of the movie is a little tighter than the novel, eliminating many of the road stops and the side trip to LA to connect with his estranged son - and that's all to the good. I won't be giving anything away here in noting that the movie considerably softens the hard ending of the novel - Bad makes a serious run an sobriety, and he has a friendly reconciliation with his girlfriend (Jane? - Maggie Gyllenhall), though it's not the Hollywood ending that I'd feared - they don't get back together. Though Gyllenhall is pretty good in the part, her character is the weakness in the film, as she's not played as a single mom likely to fall hard for an obvious drunk and failure - she's far too cleancut and well-scrubbed and we never quite believe she would make such terrible decisions. A great strength of the film is the music - I hope the current edition of the book also comes with a CD - all sounding good, but, though I'm no expert on modern country, it seems that it's all in the 21st-century style, much closer to pop or blues, and not at all in the style of the late '80s, when the film is set (the book is set in the early '80s). Cobb's novel has lots of detail about the life of a road musician and about the c/w business, which the movie can't delve into, so if you want to go deeper into the life of Bad Blake I recommend the novel Crazy Heart, source of the movie Crazy Heart starring Jeff Bridges.

Newark is a strange and tragic city : Brick City

The Sundance series "Brick City" is pretty good, based on first episode, but not as good as it could be or ought to be, unless it picks up quickly. I am really interested in this topic and will watch it through no matter what - as an Old Newark hand and a big fan of Cory Booker. Newark is such a strange and tragic city and carries to many memories for me, so I've really looked forward to seeing this. So far, it is a very good portrait of Booker, but its attempt to tell the story of the city through several characters is not well established in the first episode - only one other character, the ex-gang member Jayda, comes to anywhere near the level of interest of Booker. The series seems a little controlled and selective, as if we're not quite getting the full story of Jayda (though I think her role will be bigger in the next episode) and we're certainly getting an unabashedly heroic view of Booker. OK, maybe he is a hero plain and simple - but at times this seems almost like a campaign video. It would help if the style were more simple and focused - few if any scenes are allowed to unfold and develop, as there's a great deal of snappy editing showing different Newark scenes, and maybe there's too much material on Booker and not enough on other aspects? Personally, I find the musical score to be a big mistake - again, making this series seem like an infomercial at times and less like a documentary, which it is. This technique defies the conventions of most contemporary documentaries, but with little overall benefit.