Modern Mondays: Last Life in the Universe (2003)

by Kimberly Lindbergs | September 21, 2009

Categories | Movie Reviews, Modern Mondays, Tadanobu Asano

Is it Monday already? Lately the weeks seem to fly by but I managed to pull a little something together for Modern Monday. Forgive the brevity of my blog posts lately, but house hunting continues to consume most of my free time at the moment. With that in mind I figured I’d share a little something about a film that is much more interested in images than words.

Last Life in the Universe (aka Ruang rak noi nid mahasan, 2003) is a beautiful and thoughtful meditation on life, death, alienation and reconciliation written and directed by Pen-Ek Ratanaruang with breathtaking cinematography by the impeccable Christopher Doyle. It also features an wonderfully subtle performance by one of my favorite working actors, the brilliant Tadanobu Asano.

Last Life in the Universe forgoes familiar storytelling techniques and uses it’s own surreal language to examine familiar themes in an unconventional way. This macabre and melancholy movie is touching but never sappy and it always maintains its sense of humor. Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s innovative film occasionally recalls the work of filmmakers such as Louis Bunuel and even Jean Cocteau but Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s Thai background gives his film a unique perspective and tone.

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Modern Mondays: Cloverfield (2008)

by Kimberly Lindbergs | September 14, 2009

Categories | Horror, American Cinema, Modern Mondays

During the recent media barrage following the annual 9/11 anniversary, I was reminded of the Matt Reeves and J.J. Abrams’ giant monster movie Cloverfield (2008). I’ve seen Cloverfield twice since my first viewing and it remains one of my favorite horror films of the last decade.

When the movie was originally released it created a mild media controversy after many critics berated the film for being insensitive to 9/11 victims and the events that scarred a nation. People also seemed to enjoy spending a ridiculous amount of time pointing out the improbabilities of this giant monster movie as if they were critiquing a documentary. I think those kinds of criticisms of a fantasy thriller are fascinating and pointless, but they’re also a credit to the director who managed to give the film an incredibly authentic look and feel.

At the time I was bothered by a lot of the negative criticism the film was receiving and I wrote a lengthy defensive of it that you can still read here. Since the film’s initial release it has gotten more critical respect and I suspect that will only continue over time.

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Modern Mondays: Mulholland Dr. (2001)

by Kimberly Lindbergs | August 31, 2009

Categories | American Cinema, Modern Mondays

David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. has been over analyzed and written about ad nauseam since it’s 2001 debut that I’m hesitant to add to the cacophony of noise surrounding the film. But I will mention that it is one of my favorite films of the last 10 years and it’s also the movie that brought me back to Lynch since I had lost interest in his work after Wild at Heart (1990) and Twin Peaks (1990-91). For one reason or another I still haven’t gotten around to seeing The Straight Story (1999) and Lost Highway (1997), but Mulholland Dr. remains one of my favorite David Lynch films along with The Elephant Man (1980) and Blue Velvet (1986).

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Modern Mondays: Innocence (2004)

by Kimberly Lindbergs | August 24, 2009

Categories | Movie Reviews, Horror, French Cinema, Modern Mondays

Part horror film, part fairytale and pure allegory. Nothing in Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s 2004 film is as it seems. Much like her artistic partner, filmmaker Gaspar Noé, Hadzihalilovic is obviously interested in making films that push past expectations and delve into the unconscious mind. Innocence isn’t simply a film about what’s on the screen. It is a film that reflects what the audience chooses to see when they watch it. The movie takes place in the dream-like surroundings of a gated school for young women where imagery is much more important than story. Characters speak very little and what they do say is often less important than what they don’t say.

Throughout Innocence Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s direction is flawless and once you’ve entered the world she’s created it’s impossible to forget it. Much like Peter Weir’s excellent 1975 film Picnic at Hanging Rock, Innocence uses the sterile and beautiful world of a girl’s boarding school as a backdrop for exploring ideas about society, power, control and gender. How we respond to these films often illustrates the way in which we see the world. But there’s no denying that Innocence is a film intended to shake up its audience and make them think. At times watching Innocence is an uncomfortable experience and it should make viewers squirm. It’s a horror film without shocks. It’s a fairytale for adults. Innocence is anything but forgettable entertainment. It will crawl under your skin and stick there.

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Modern Mondays: Shaun of the Dead (2004)

by Kimberly Lindbergs | August 17, 2009

Categories | British Cinema, Comedies, Modern Mondays

Hilarious, smart and extremely relevant. Shaun of the Dead (2004) is one of my favorite comedies of the last decade. Before I saw the film I thought zombie comedy had been played out, but Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg proved me wrong. The film has been written about a lot and I don’t think I have much to add to what’s already been said, but I will say that if you haven’t had the opportunity to see Shaun of the Dead yet do yourself a favor and give it a look. It should be available from most DVD sellers and renters.

Modern Mondays is an ongoing project here at Cinebeats where I share a few thoughts or lengthy rants and raves about my favorite films produced during the last decade. Films previously mentioned on Modern Mondays include:

- The Left Bank (2008)
- Love Songs (2007)
- Bright Future (2003)
- Control (2007)
- The Quiet American (2001)
- A History of Violence (2005)
- This Is England (2007)

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Modern Mondays: This Is England (2006)

by Kimberly Lindbergs | August 11, 2009

Categories | Movie Reviews, Rants & Raves, British Cinema, Modern Mondays

As someone who came of age during the ’80s, I’ve become increasingly disturbed by the critical response to director John Hughes’ recent death. Over and over again I’ve been told that he was “the voice” of my generation and that he “defined the ’80s.” Instead of pointing out the crass commercialism that made up the man’s entire film career, The New York Times has let A.O. Scott proclaim that John Hughes was “our Godard.”

John Hughes may have been many things to many people, but there’s just no denying that as a director his career had a hell of a lot more in common with Judd Apatow than Jean-Luc Godard. How any film critic that writes for The New York Times could call Hughes our generation’s Godard and get paid for it is beyond my comprehension. And as someone who was a teenager in the ’80s, I also find it deeply sad and frustrating.

I’m unabashedly naive and extremely sentimental when it comes to my childhood in the 1970s, but the 1980s ignites a different kind of nostalgia in me. It’s an unpleasant nostalgia that took shape while my innocence was melting away and my teenage hormones were raging. That teenage rage has carried into adulthood and occasionally manifests into fits of anger like the one you’re about to read.

It’s important to note that I’m not angry at John Hughes the man or the people who enjoy his films. I’m angry at the absurd critical response to the director’s death and I blame a culture that conveniently forgets facts in order to build critical arguments. If the cultural pundits and film critics are to be believed, an entire generation bought what John Hughes was selling them. But the truth is much more complex than that.

Hughes made films for mainstream America that resembled the Gidget movies of the late 1950s and early ‘60s. As a rebellious teenager I absolutely hated Hughes’ films. Hughes’ simplistic, Reagan-fueled, whitewashed, upper middle-class view of the world reflected everything that was loathsome about the ’80s in my mind. Hughes was a conservative baby boomer and a yuppie that spoon-feed my generation - so-called Generation X - the worst kind of ’50s nostalgia imaginable in order to make a buck. His films didn’t speak to me at all since I had much more in common with James Dean than Gidget and John Hughes was no Nicholas Ray.

I’m told in countless obits written about John Hughes that some segment of ’80s youth culture found comfort in the way that his movies portrayed teenagers as well as outsiders and malcontents. But if you were actually questioning authority during the ’80s it was impossible to identify with any of the faux rebellion found in Hughes’ movies. The man preached conformity over and over again. The so-called “outsiders” in Hughes’ films rejected other teens like themselves so they could date popular jocks or beauty queens. In other words, if you followed the social rules laid out by John Hughes you’d get a “hot date” for the school prom and be “accepted” into Reagan’s America. Reality check; the real teenage rebels and outsiders didn’t go to school proms in the ’80s. They also skipped detention.

The myth of John Hughes giving voice to my generation is much like the myth of the ’80s in general that has been perpetuated by silly television shows like VH1’s I Love the ’80s. But contrary to popular opinion, many of us who came of age in the ’80s didn’t buy what Reagan and the Hollywood machine that marched in boot step behind him were selling us and John Hughes was a hugely successful part of that Hollywood machine. Those of us who resisted the machine didn’t live in gated communities or spend our days in shopping malls. Some of us actually attended “Rock Against Reagan” protests and after the initial excitement wore off many of us didn’t want our MTV. We watched AIDS destroy entire communities as the homeless spilled out into our streets. We saw the drug wars destroy families and fill our prisons. We spent our time trying to self-publish zines that expressed our anger and frustration as a compassionless and cruel conservatism swept across America threatening to suffocate the country. And last but certainly not least, we watched class warfare and racism take root in our high schools as they crumbled from lack of funding. The ’80s was a scary decade to grow up in unless you conformed to rigid social structures and didn’t question authority. And the films that John Hughes’ made seemed to perpetuate a kind of thoughtless conformism that is frankly appalling to me and still prevalent today.

Of course many people did buy the American fantasy that John Hughes and the establishment were selling them. Many didn’t see the casual racism and sexism that was evident in many of Hughes’ most popular films. Some people clearly sympathized with the materialistic nature of his characters and I’m glad that so many have found some kind of joy in Hughes’ movies. But the fantasy world featured in John Hughes’ films was not representative of the ’80s youth culture that I came of age in and Hughes did not speak for me.

Thankfully some directors who actually came of age during the ’80s are now old enough to make films that truly reflect the decade as I remember it. One of those directors is British born Shane Meadows. Meadows’ unforgettable 2006 film This Is England takes place in Britain during the 1980s and attempts to show how the skinhead culture that took root there developed into an angry nationalistic movement. Many of the kids featured in Meadows’ film are fatherless and form a kind of family with other young people who share their taste in music and wear similar clothes. Much like Reagan’s America, Thatcher’s England presented British youth with a very bleak future and Meadows’ film skillfully chronicles the underlying frustration and resentment that so many young people from working class families were feeling at the time.

Shortsighted film critics often overlook how much of Meadows’ movie can be seen as a general critique of the decade it calls into question. And I think that is symptomatic of the increasing ignorance about what youth culture was really like in America during the ’80s. Point of fact; you could easily take Meadow’s terrific script, set it in San Francisco during the ’80s and simply call it This Is America.

In This Is England the main protagonist is haunted by his father’s death in the Falklands War. If you grew up in California during the ‘80s it wasn’t uncommon to know 2 or 3 kids who had lost their fathers in the Vietnam War and you often sat in classrooms with Vietnamese refuges. The Falklands War may have ended in 1982 and the Vietnam War may have ended in 1975, but both wars left my generation with fatherless kids and a whole lot of baggage. Many of the kids I knew also had their families torn apart by divorces or deadbeat dads who just walked out the door one day and never returned. Families were falling apart as fast as the economy. Reagan’s America might have looked financially sound if you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth but for many Americans it was a decade of increasing job losses, forced early retirements and an all out war against organized labor. College wasn’t an option for myself or most of the kids I knew. It was a luxury that few of us could afford. Without a supportive family and a college fund, the future looked incredibly bleak which often led to an increase in recreational drug use. Like the kids in Meadows’ film, we ended up forming makeshift families simply based on our musical tastes and wardrobes. But our clothing wasn’t just worn for kicks. What we wore often reflected our social class and attitudes. In other words, wearing an anarchy t-shirt wasn’t just a fashion statement. It was a social statement that could get you kicked out of school in the ’80s.

Many of us who grew up on the West Coast in Reagan’s America also faced our own skinhead crisis thanks to a group who called themselves the American Front. The American Front was an organization loosely based on England’s National Front that is prominently featured in Shane Meadows’ film. Older members of the American Front often preyed on vulnerable and angry young men that they recruited off the streets. A new and deeply disturbing form of Nazism encouraged these young people to engage in violence and proudly sport swastika tattoos. They naively started to believe that immigrants, homosexuals, communists and socialists were destroying the country and they blamed them for the failing economy. The American Front became a dangerous threat to groups of neglected kids who had come together due to lack of family and outside support. As the ’80s progressed music clubs that once represented a small oasis where you could hangout with like-minded individuals began to casually transform into minor war zones after these white power obsessed skinheads latched onto the punk and metal scenes. In this kind of environment you were forced to grow up fast and your political identity was often formed before your 18th birthday.

You won’t see any of that ‘80s reality represented in the films of John Hughes.

Teenage me in the ’80s (wearing a James Dean t-shirt!) & the female cast of This Is England

John Hughes never spoke to me, but Shane Meadows does. Meadows is a truly talented filmmaker and if you want to know what the ’80s was really like for those of us on the fringe who were trying to make sense of the world that was left to us watch This Is America England. I should point out that This Is England takes some of its cues from other films about troubled youth such as Truffaut’s classic The 400 Blows and Penelope Spheeris’ Suburbia (which I also think is a better film about the ’80s than anything made by John Hughes), but Meadows’ packs enough punches and truth into his script to make it a truly original film and one of the best of the decade. This Is England also boasts some terrific performances from it’s two lead actors, Thomas Turgoose and particularly Stephen Graham as the deeply disturbed Combo.

At a time when it has become increasingly clear to me that very few people actually remember what the ’80s were really like I take comfort in a film like This Is England. Shane Meadows obviously remembers the decade well. And although This Is England is a very British film, Americans would be wise to watch the movie with their own country’s history in mind because many of the problems we face today are just remnants of unfinished business from that often misrepresented decade.

This Is England is available on DVD from Amazon and you can find it for rent at Netflix and Greencine.

Modern Mondays is an ongoing project here at Cinebeats where I share a few thoughts or lengthy rants and raves about my favorite films produced during the last decade. Films previously mentioned on Modern Mondays include:

- The Left Bank (2008)
- Love Songs (2007)
- Bright Future (2003)
- Control (2007)
- The Quiet American (2001)
- A History of Violence (2005)

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Modern Mondays: A History of Violence (2005)

by Kimberly Lindbergs | July 28, 2009

Categories | Movie Reviews, Drama, Modern Mondays, Comic Books, Viggo Mortensen, David Cronenberg

It seems like everywhere I turn someone is talking or writing about the recent Comic Book Convention that is held in San Diego every year. It used to be an event only attended by comic book fans and various industry insiders, but it has exploded into some kind of massive media event attended by anyone and everyone. When did comic books become so acceptable? I suppose it was the onslaught of popular comic book films in recent years that has made the general public and every working film critic take notice. As someone who worked in a comic book shop throughout most of the 1990s for minimum wage, I find this sudden interest in the events at Comic-Con extremely amusing. It’s also great for the business, which has struggled to gain legitimacy for years. Comic books are now making a lot of people a lot of money. And money makes critics and cultural pundits take notice.

One of my favorite comic-to-film adaptations in the last 10 years is David Cronenberg’s 2005 film A History of Violence, which was based on a little known comic collection or “graphic novel” published by DC Comics under their Paradox Press banner. The comic book was written by John Wagner and illustrated by one of my favorite working comic book artists, Vince Locke (Deadworld, American Freak: A Tale of the Un-Men, etc). Although Cronenberg’s film received an Academy Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, few people seem aware of the fact that this critically acclaimed film was based on a comic book.

Since I’m still running on limited free time I decided to share a few choice quotes from one of my favorite reviews of A History of Violence that was written by one of my favorite authors, the late great J. G. Ballard. Ballard is a brilliant writer and he worked with David Cronenberg on the film adaptation of his own novel Crash (1996). In Ballard’s excellent review of the film he sums up exactly why A History of Violence is such a great film and one of my favorite movies of the last decade. What follows are a few choice excerpts from Ballard’s review.

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Modern Mondays: The Quiet American (2001)

by Kimberly Lindbergs | July 14, 2009

Categories | Movie Reviews, War, Modern Mondays, Michael Caine

A day late, a bit slime on content, but not forgotten…

Since the death of Robert McNamara last week I’ve been thinking a lot about the man who was often called the “Architect of the Vietnam War.” And I was reminded of one of my favorite films of the last decade that explored the American involvement that led to the war in Vietnam, Phillip Noyce’s excellent 2001 adaptation of Graham Greene classic novel The Quiet American.

Phillip Noyce isn’t a director who I’m particularly fond of. I’ve sat though five or six of his films, but the only two that left any kind of impression on me were his terrific thriller Dead Calm (1989) and The Quiet American. Joseph L. Mankiewicz was the first director to turn Graham Greene’s novel into a film, but Phillip Noyce’s 2001 remake of The Quiet American is not only a better movie than the original, but I also think it’s one of the best adaptations of Graham Greene’s work that I’ve seen.

The film stars Michael Caine in what is arguably one of his finest roles. In the film Caine plays a married British journalist named Thomas Fowler who is living in Vietnam and having an affair with a young Vietnamese woman called Phuong (Do Thi Hai Yen). After Thomas meets an idealistic American by the name of Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser) and introduces him to Phoung, the stage is set for a complicated love triangle that plays out against the backdrop of the escalating political situation in Vietnam. The plot may sound a bit dry, but The Quiet American is actually a very suspenseful film that is filled with political intrigue and beautifully shot by the incredibly talented cinematographer Christopher Doyle.

Miramax shelved the film for more than a year because producers were concerned that it would be seen as anti-American after the terrorist attacks on September 11th. Thankfully Michael Caine was able to persuade the studio to screen the film at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival where it received great reviews and afterward it was finally released into theaters. The film went on to win many awards and Michael Caine was even nominated for an Oscar for his performance. If you haven’t had an opportunity to see the film yet, now might be an appropriate time.

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Modern Mondays: Control (2007)

by Kimberly Lindbergs | July 6, 2009

Categories | Movie Reviews, Modern Mondays

Time is not on my side lately. I’m afraid things will be sort of stop-and-go here at Cinebeats for the next few months because I’m in the process of packing up and moving to a new town some 40 miles away. 2009 is turning into a year of major unexpected changes for me and film blogging isn’t at the top of my priority list at the moment. I’ll still try and share one or two new posts every week, but don’t be surprised if I’m MIA for long stretches of time.

I’m sharing all this with you because it’s an excuse to say that I didn’t have a lot of time to write much about my latest Modern Monday pick, which is Anton Corbijn’s incredibly striking and stark biopic Control (2007). Control explores the troubled life of Joy Division front man Ian Curtis and it’s one of the best films I’ve seen in recent years. It’s also one of the best biopics made in the last decade. I briefly expressed my interest in seeing Control just before its initial release in a post titled Music On Film. In that post I wrote:

“As a teenager growing up in the ’80s it was impossible to overlook the work of talented photographer and director Anton Corbijn. The man created many amazing music videos and album covers for some of the best bands and artists of the period such as Depeche Mode, U2, David Sylvian, Echo and The Bunnymen, Art of Noise, Front 242, Morrissey and Joy Division. It’s only natural that Corbijn would be inspired to take his passion for music and focus it on making feature films. His first feature-length movie is Control, a biopic about Joy Division’s tragic front man Ian Curtis. The early reviews have been overwhelmingly positive for the film and many have complimented its look, which isn’t a surprise since Anton Corbijn’s music videos have always been impressive to look at. Control is currently playing at many film festivals and should get a limited theatrical release sometime in October.”

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