Update

It's been a busy, short week, so I haven't had time to get any writing done. However, I did watch "Col. Blimp" and "Stairway to Heaven" this weekend, and "Pinocchio" is arriving in the mail today. By the end of this weekend, I should be completely caught up and even ahead of the curve a little. I will also be sending out an e-mail about next month's schedule today or tomorrow...if you or anyone you know wants to be on the e-mail list, just drop me a line at danielebarnes@hotmail.com.

Now, for today's Netflix Member Review zen (as always, these reviews were culled from spending just 5-10 minutes hovering over the Netflix Friends page "Latest Member Review" function...you wouldn't believe how easy it is):

-"In the beginning the movie is almost pornographic as there is scene after scene of Hannah and Michael making nude love." ("The Reader")

-"NOT for YOUTH!!! There are lesbian references and also to female "private parts"." ("Lost in Austen")

-"Only 3 stars, based on me already knowing how the movie would end." ("Valkyrie")

-"Hmmm. Heard about this indirectly." ("The Vikings")

-"Ok, Mr. Mann and Mr. Foxx, please tell me what you were thinking when you were writing and doing this movie. It lack the gel of the original MV. The story plot is the same as all the other movies." ("Miami Vice")

-"Sadly, the movie sent was the play NOT the movie as previewed. I did not watch the play. I have already seen it." ("Madea Goes to Jail")

-"Typical left wing BS. In every conflict the USA has been involved in there has always been traitors like Fonda and Sutherland (he's not even an American...he's Canadian)." ("FTA")

-"They should have named this " I like's to shot the heroin" Where's all the hookers? Hookers and heroin go hand & hand. Roastbeef say's thumbs down." ("The Corner")

3-Day Weekend Netflix Member Review Zen

OK, I still haven't watched "The Life and Death of Col. Blimp", but the SNR popcorn page is lousy with my ravings again this week, so you can go there for your Barnesyard fix. I have "Col. Blimp" and "Stairway to Heaven" at home, so hopefully I can make some headway these last two weeks of May. In the meantime, here's some more Netflix zen (as always, super-duper sic throughout):

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-"Watching this is like sitting through group therapy, very whiny, me me me group therapy" ("Rachel Getting Married")

-"Ive seen this movie a few times before but rented it again because over the weekend I got to meet Yancy Butler who is in the movie, shes really nice in person a great lady." ("Hard Target")

-"I DID NOT ORDER THIS DVD CRASH, AND IF I CONTINUE TO RECIEVE DVDs I DID NOT ORDER I WILL CANCEL THE SUBSCRIPTION. I ALREADY OWN THE DVD, WHY SHOULD I ORDER THIS DVD MOVIE." ("Crash"; rating: 1 star)

-"You will see a murder. You will be intrigued. You will see a fox hunt." ("Gosford Park")

-"After 24 years in the military, I better understand the mindset of Hitler's officer corps." ("Valkyrie")

-"This was very boring, this was a waste of time. this is know as a sleep movie. if you need to sleep but this in, because it will bore a person to sleo.!This good a been a great movie to use the title. but not a docudrama." ("The Unforeseen")

-"I was surprised at the explicit sex displayed vocally as well as visually. It was the most revoking movie I have seen." ("Margot at the Wedding")

-"This is NOT a vampire movie in any sense of the word or definition." ("Let the Right One In")

Voices - "The Red Shoes"

-"There is tension between two kinds of stories in "The Red Shoes," and that tension helps make it the most popular movie ever made about the ballet and one of the most enigmatic movies about anything. One story could be a Hollywood musical: A young ballerina falls in love with the composer of the ballet that makes her an overnight star. The other story is darker and more guarded. It involves the impresario who runs the ballet company, who demands loyalty and obedience, who is enraged when the young people get married. The motives of the ballerina and her lover are transparent. But the impresario defies analysis. It is not jealousy, at least not romantic jealousy. Nothing as simple as that." (Roger Ebert)

-"Shot in dazzling color by cinematographer Jack Cardiff (who also worked with the Archers on A Matter of Life and Death and Black Narcissus), the film brilliantly turns Shearer’s ballets into psychodramatic landscapes. The audience disappears, and what starts out as a straightforward dance becomes a flight of purest fancy: Shearer plummets through the air like a goddess descending to earth, and the noise of applause becomes the sound of pounding surf." (Sam Adams, Philadelphia City Paper)

-"Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's Trilby-based ballet film has been the cult property of dance freaks for far too long. A look beneath its lushly romantic surface reveals a dark, complex sensibility, and that surface, rendered in the somber tones of British Technicolor, reflects a fantastically rich cinematic inventiveness. Moira Shearer is the ballerina who, following the outlines of a Hans Christian Andersen tale, trades her life for her art; Anton Walbrook, as her impresario, is perhaps the most forceful embodiment of the shaman figures--magical, outsized, sinister--who haunt Powell and Pressburger's work." (Dave Kehr, Chicago Reader)

-"[T]he whole picture...seems to have the construction and the flow of a romantic dance. For not only is the story a frankly sentimental affair, true to the stanchest conventions of triumphal love and bitter tears, but it is played by a splendid cast of actors who have the grace and the pace of dancers themselves. Indeed, many of them are dancers, as is natural, and they frequently perform, so that the rhythm and movement of their dancing transmits easily into the dramatic scenes." (Bosley Crowther, The New York Times)

Hot, Steaming Monday Morning Cup o' CH From Dinuba Zen

"Be angelic and see the movie. Ignore those demons called film critics. You'll be glad that you did." ("Angels and Demons")

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Speaking of demonic film critics, I had a lovely weekend, thank you so much for inquiring. But no, I did not watch "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp". It was derailed suddenly by two NBA Game 7's, a pool party, and an early morning dentist's appointment. I know, I'm the worst President/Curator/Co-Founder of an online film society/blog ever, but I should have time Tuesday night to watch it. I am seeing "Terminator: Salvation" tonight in Natomas, so look for an early review of it later this week. There will also be critics quotes for "The Red Shoes" posted this afternoon, and clips put up tonight.

ESFS Movie of the Week - "The Red Shoes"

"THE RED SHOES" (1948 - Dir.: Powell/Pressburger)

I've seen most of the "great" movies ever made, and I can spell out the plots of most modern movies after seeing the first 10-15 minutes, so watching a truly great film for the first time is akin to returning to a childlike state of magical awe. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's "The Red Shoes" left me discombobulated, unsettled, and thrilled, much the same when I saw "Casablanca" for the first time, or when I learned that gelatin had hooves in it.

Perhaps the most unsettling aspect of "The Red Shoes" was that it completely obliterated my conventional notion that the Paris ballet that closes "An American in Paris" was an inspired original, rather than a bald rip-off. Wikipedia claims that "The Red Shoes" was the highest-grossing (including re-issues) movie released in the US in 1948, and it certainly most have been required viewing for Cedric Gibbons' staff at MGM, not to mention Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Vincente Minnelli, and Stanley Donen. Powell and Pressburger's ballet sequence comes in the middle of the film, and it's probably even better than Kelly and Minnelli's, because their characters have so much more depth and personality. The extended, proscenium-bursting "Red Shoes" ballet sequence isn't just a technical stunt, it's intensely crucial and evocative.

The movie takes the Hans Christian Andersen fable as its starting point, and its quite ingenious in the way it weaves the tale through several planes of storytelling (similar to the ways that Powell/Pressburger effortlessly interlock reality, drama, and the supernatural). Of course, the story is told in ballet form (a lonely, obsessive shoemaker tempts a girl away from her lover with a pair of cursed red shoes that never stop dancing), but it's also threaded into the backstage melodrama (a lonely, obsessive producer tempts an ambitious ballerina away from her lover with the lead in "The Red Shoes" production).

In many respects, "The Red Shoes" is a grand, Technicolor expansion of Powell and Pressburger's "A Canterbury Tale" (a movie I reviewed for the SNR in 2006), which used a dash of Chaucer, the English countryside, and a little patented Powell/Pressburger magic to tell a story of modern-day pilgrims displaced by WWII. A bastardized form of that movie was released in America in 1949 (probably on the back of the success of "The Red Shoes"), but it was produced and shelved several years earlier, and it's hard not to look at it now as an important stepping stone to "The Red Shoes".

The movie is exciting not just for the buoyant colors, the graceful dancing, the beautiful music, and the tart, intelligent dialogue, but also because it makes the viewer feel smart for putting together all of the narrative pieces, and rewards them for caring. It works on so many levels - as a romance, a musical, a comedy, a melodrama, a visual and aural feast, and as a story of artistic sacrifice. There is also that undercurrent of non-heavyhanded spirituality that runs throughout most Powell/Pressburger films.

Two young people meet and fall in love amidst the tempest of a catty ballet company lorded over by the imperious, impersonal Boris Lermentov. The boy is Julian Craster, a Dick Powell-ian young composer who finds an unusual path towards success (getting ripped off by his professor); the girl is Victoria Page, an ambitious ballerina/smoking-hot redhead who puts dancing on the same level of importance as breathing. Lermentov recruits the girl for his repertoire of casting-couch backgrounders (we assume he seduces her, just like the rest), but her dedication and passion catch his attention. He offers to make her the greatest dancer of her time (the figurative "red shoes" temptation), but insists (out of jealousy, lust, malice, or logic) that she can't give just half her heart to ballet.

When their affair becomes public, Lermentov banishes Victoria to a life of domesticity with Craster, but she eventually strays back to the company. The ending, in which the stolid, relatively uninteresting male shows up to offer some cracked version of middle-class morality, is all too typical of films from this era. However, as is so often the case, the slightest scratch beneath the surface brings out the even-more-disturbing subtext - Craster is just as manipulative and controlling as Lermentov, possibly worse because he actually wants to clip her wings. Early in the film, Lermentov claims that ballet is his religion, while Victoria believes she dances for the same reason that people live ("I must"). How can someone as reductive and ordinary as Craster comprehend such mythological figures?

GRADE: A.

Tall, Cold Friday Afternoon Glass of Random Netflix Member Review Zen

"I only watched the "Hot Styles" episode for Markie Post." ("The A-Team: Season 3")

The Barnesyard Brings It Home

The Barnesyard OWNS the "Bring It Home?" section in this week's SNR (that's the DVD review sidebar in the popcorn section; page 387D, right between the porno ads and the gay porno ads). I wrote all seven of the BIH? reviews this week, as well as the "Star Trek" rebuttal on the movie page. Can I know OFFICIALLY call myself a "quasi-professional film critic"?

This Week + Even Further Netflix Member Review Zen

Well, I finally watched "The Red Shoes" Monday night. In brief, it was brilliant, and probably one of the most influential films of the era (it must have been mandatory viewing for MGM's musical department). I am working on a Powell/Pressburger intro., which will be followed by an official "Red Shoes" review. "The Life and Death of Col. Blimp" is arriving in the mail today, and with the temperature set to crack triple-digits this weekend, it's the perfect time to crank up the a/c and watch a three-hour movie. In the meantime, I have compiled some more Netflix Member Review Zen (as always, extreme sic throughout), and I will get my early review of "Angels and Demons" posted by the end of the day.

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-"I don't know what the F you're talking about, this movie is NOT good. It's bad. It's not funny. It's stupid. I hate it. And I hate everyone involved with the making of it. They can all go to hell." ("IRANgeles")

-"The blurb stated that the movie had some "mild language". While the language was not shocking or vulgar, it was beyond mild." ("We Are Marshall")

-"if you like WWE super star Kane you'll love Jacob Goodnight (kanes charter)hes like an another twin of kane to the people of its scary its not its just a groess bag (a movie filled with gore) even when ever he do his finisher movie" ("See No Evil")

-"All it did was make me wonder why anyone would want to be in the movie business. GROSS!" ("What Just Happened?")

-"Really couldn't enjoy the movie as it only displayed in BLACK AND WHITE, not color on our dvd players. Then we saw previews IN COLOR? Go figure." ("Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull")

-"I like how they brought religion into the story line." ("Dracula 2000")

-"The movie format was artsy-wierd indie, which we normally like." ("What Just Happened?")

-"Understanding this film is like remembering a dream. Though cinmatically beautiful." ("Glass Lips")

-"I was glad to see the middle child from the Brady Bunch here, and his wife or ex-wife having a small part at the beginning. Did they need all that zooming." ("Fallen Angels")

-"Its a good movie sure it might be mainly bout teeth but hey its a great movie its a great revengeful movie and stuff one nudity only but one of the sickiest part is one of the males got the Dick chop off" ("The Tooth Fairy")

Dare Daniel Winner/Follow-Up Poll

Roberto Benigni's "Pinocchio" won the Dare Daniel run-off poll over "I Know Who Killed Me". That leads me to this quandary - do I choose the original Italian version of "Pinocchio", or do I go with the dubbed English-language version? The film was Benigni's follow-up to his Academy Award-winning "Life is Beautiful", and IMDB claims that it was the most expensive movie in the history of the Italian film industry. When it appeared that the stateside box office prospects for a film about a 50 year-old magical boy were bleak, Miramax re-dubbed the movie with American actors (the comparatively youthful Breckin Meyer voiced Benigni's part).

So do I go with the original version or the dubbed version? Cast your vote in the poll on the right.

Monday Afternoon Netflix Member Review Zen/Other Business

"Great movie! I loved the true everyday human problems." ("The Fantastic Four")

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"The Red Shoes" is all cued up and waiting for me at home after work. This is going to happen! In the meantime, I've moved everything back one week on the schedule, so "The Life and Death of Col. Blimp" discussion will start next Monday. The Dare Daniel run-off poll ends early Wednesday, so vote now!

Dare Daniel Runoff

Once again, the Dare Daniel poll has ended in a tie. The E Street Constitution stipulates that the tied films will face each other in a quick-and-dirty runoff election. It's Lindsay Lohan as a stripper-amputee in "I Know Who Killed Me" vs. Roberto Benigni as Pinocchio in "Pinocchio". Polls close Wednesday morning.

And I still haven't watched "The Red Shoes".

P.S.: My "Star Trek" review came down, but it will go up again next week in the Sacramento News and Review.

Down to the Wire!

It looks like the May Dare Daniel poll is going right down to the wire - with 13 votes counted, early leaders "I Know Who Killed Me" and "Roberto Benigni's Pinocchio" have 4 apiece, while the upstarts "Love Guru", "Pay it Forward", and "The Hottie and the Nottie" are all trying to shock the world. The polls close Friday morning at 10 am, so get those votes in ASAP!

In other news, I still haven't watched "The Red Shoes". What a schmuck.

The Bottom of the Top - My 20 Least Favorite Movies in the IMDB Top 250

[Ed.: Each film's ranking in the IMDB 250 is listed in parentheses]

Amelie (44)
Ben-Hur (137)
Big Fish (231)
Changeling (217)
Crash (216)
Forrest Gump (42)
Gladiator (116)
Glory (233)
Good Will Hunting (245)
The Green Mile (111)
Heat (134)
Life is Beautiful (85)
Little Miss Sunshine (232)
Mystic River (236)
The Shawshank Redemption (1 - I wish I could say that was a lower-case "L", but it's the number one)
Slumdog Millionaire (58)
Snatch (154)
The Usual Suspects (22)
V For Vendetta (172)
Witness For the Prosecution (128)

Few of these movies are according-to-Hoyle "bad"; most of them are just mediocre and overrated. In all fairness, I have not yet seen "Gran Torino", currently ranked at #74 (!!!).

Further Netflix Member Review Zen

-"This movie was a total ripoff of the original movie." ("The Day the Earth Stood Still")

-"John "Rivolta" as he is known in his Maine home community should not play comedy. This film is boring in content and tiring in it acting demonstrated by Travolta." ("Be Cool")

-"Reading other reviews I almost pasted on this movie." ("Jumper")

-"Oooh. A docu-drama." ("Fast Food Nation")

-"This is an amazing movie that was produced." ("Fireproof")

-"Terrible, I hated it and to make matters worse the dvd was broken and would not plan certain parts. I believe that I should have a replacement from my queue at no additional charge" ("Twilight")

-"Only watch this movie if you are divorced, have children, or are jewish." ("Then She Found Me")

Monday Morning Cup O' CH Zen

"I can relate to these characters. My family and used to live with a family long time ago. We had a family to lived with us for a while. Here is one thing that I learned from watching this film-never let your friends live with you." ("You, Me, and Dupree")

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I didn't have time to watch "The Red Shoes" this weekend, so I'll pad this space with lists and quotes in the meantime; I'll also try to put together a Powell/Pressburger intro. You should also vote in the Dare Daniel poll, if you haven't already (or hell, vote again, it's only democracy you're perverting). Does Roberto Benigni's "Pinocchio" have the legs to hold off "I Know Who Killed Me" and "Pay It Forward"? And what about the late charge by "The Love Guru"? It's all too close to call at this point, but the polls close on Friday morning.

Voices - "Michael Moore Hates America" - Netflix Crackpot Edition

[extreme sic throughout]

-"This film is a MUST SEE!!! Moore is exposed for exactly what he is.. A talentless hack who trys to push his warped view of America on us. He manipulates the truth, facts and people and makes himself into one big, fat, greasy a-hole.. Anyone who buys into his hype must be missing some serious brain cells!!"

-"This movie is not about Michael Moores' left wing leanings, it is about his lies and distortions to make America look like an evil empire. I would love to meet Michael Moore simply to show him how I felt about his treatment of Charlton Heston. Michael Moore is a Dirt-bag, plain and simple."

-"The folks who complain about this movie have obviously not watched it."

-"Why doesn't Moore have his production company in Flint? Because he does not REALLY care; he just wants to pretend that he does."

-"This documentary portrays Michael Moore as an elusive and sinister man, who is never available for an interview - even when he purposely takes clips and sound bytes from interviews he conducts with individuals as high up as Government officials down to your everyday person. This well-constructed documentary alludes to Moore's technique to get his agenda across through "documentaries" and "books" throughout the film."

-"I loved this documentary.It shows what a sick liar Michael Moore really is and how hateful he is towards America.I think he should move to another country."

-"The documentary retraces alot of the footsteps that Moore took when doing his movies and shows how he scewed the truth. And it also shows how strong the American spirit."

-"After watching Michael Moore's documentaries in class (one of which I was so disgusted with, I walked out), I wondered if anyone would attempt to contest all the falsehoods Moore has put into his so called documentaries. [Wilson] exposes the unethical techniques that Moore uses to "prove" his points including his manipulation of scenes in his documentaries in order to create "facts" or connections, particularly those attempting to "prove" cause and effect or guilt by association connections."

-"Moore has a few good points in all his movies but ultimately he is no better then the New York Post, Leni Riefenstahl or Joseph Goebbels. It would appear Michael Moore Hates America."

-"This movie makes one strong point, Michael Moore can have his opinions but Michael Wilson can not. For all the people that say the audio is bad, the people’s opinions are meaningless, bla bla bla… Are you so smart you missed the whole point? If so, see the first sentence. So let me say this slowly for all you one stars: the movie is very good at showing how much of a hypocrite Michael Moore by the fact that he can have his opinions, but Michael Wilson can not. Good film for some who is open minded."

-"That's what it's all about - entertainment, right? The end justifies the means, right? As long as the MESSAGE gets out, something in there must be true, somewhere, right? Actually, this movie points out several items that have been shown to be outright lies and distortions in Michael Moore's "documentaries." So that's true. It also points out some great stories of people who don't buy Michael Moore's attitude that America is bad. So that's true too."

-"A real and frightening eye opener to how the country has been taken in by Michael Moore. The Academy Awards should not have given Michael Moore an award for "Best Documentary." That award should go to Michael Wilson."

-"Wilson, unlike Moore, still has a conscience."

-"Michael Moore lies without lying(taking things out of context is lying)"

-"Micheal Moore is at his core a hate-monger and this film tears through the layers of manipulation and clearly shows that when pushed, Moore is nothing more than a pair of lips flapping in wind in a Narcissistic desire to hear his own voice preaching a cut-and-paste version of the world."

-"Tremendous movie! MM is exposed in this flick for what he really is - a hypocritical, selfish, immature, irresponsible, egotistical, ignorant, and unpatriotic fool... I dare libs to watch this movie with an open mind (which they always claim to have) and then continue to support MM. Wilson does an excellent job and one day I hope to shake his hand for being everything that MM is not - fair, honest, equal, and above all else, a great American."

-"I love it when people rate movies they have never seen, Kerry lost move on. One truth is unarguable and that is that Michael Moore Hates America."

-"Nice to see that the brain washing media networks can't pressure everyone on thier video editing."

-"I love America, and this documentary reminded me why."

-"That dishonesty alone is enough to disqualify Moore from making documentaries. Moore gets away with it because (1) many liberals are first-order thinkers (i.e., the opposite of critical thinkers) and (2) many liberals are in Hollywood. The Hollywoodistas swoon over Moore's slanted, nasty BS and the non-Hollywood liberals (the same ones who subscribe to People Magazine and watch Entertainment tonight) swoon right with their celluloid gods."

-"I was pleasantly surprised to see an awesome film where yes, he does expose Michael Moore's flat out lies, but it went WAY beyond that. The whold message to Michael Moore and other libs is "lighten up, dude.""

-"The plain truth is most Americans are NOT in tuned to true politics, only the rhetoric. Moore can animate an issue in his movies, and the viewer 99.999% will not call the bank to see if they gave out free hand guns. And so what if they did. The only people who can get handguns are those you qualify and as so eloquently highlighter in "Michael and Me," there are hardly any fatalities with registered hand guns by legitimate citizens in this country, the (accidents). Hand gun deaths by the hundreds are committed by criminals and un registered hand guns. Why doesn't Moore go after the inner city governments where mobsters, gangs and drug dealers murder regularly with illegal handguns? The Answer is, New York, California, Chicago, Houston and other major cities, have Democratic policies like No Hand Guns allowed. He is a Democrat and has only one agenda, mis-represent the Right's point of view. He makes Bush out to be an elitist, a member of the Bin-Laden family, financially tied to a company, Carlisle Group, when not only are the Bush's far from this the Clintons and many Democrats are as well. No mention of that."

-"Funny Funny, Great point! In the end find a solution; you have the right & freedom to do that..." [Ed.: this is the entire review]

ESFS Dare of the Month - "MICHAEL MOORE HATES AMERICA"

"MICHAEL MOORE HATES AMERICA" (2004 - Dir.: Michael Wilson)

I watched the film last night, but I have more to say about it than be squeezed into a quick review. In short, the film is terrible, and in it's inept attempt to "indict" Moore by turning the tables on him, it actually makes you appreciates Moore's talents. The big problem is that director/star Michael Wilson is making an ideological-political argument against Moore by challenging his credibility as a documentarian. The even bigger problem is that Wilson is a charmless, talentless dope who can't tell the difference between a political provocateur and a celebrity stalker. Moore's detractors take their shots - Penn Jillette calls him a murderer; my old nemesis Albert Maysles, in a particularly nonsensical ramble, labels him a "tyrant" who "hates America" (Dub, I apologize for using Albert Maysles' words against you; clearly, his words should never be used anyone), ex-radical David Horowitz says Moore has a gun to America's head; one of Moore's "victims" wants him to "apologize to America"; an "author/attorney" (actually, he's a pro-firearms activist) diagnoses Moore as pathologically insane; and a talking head who introduces himself as having been once been "asked to appear on Fox and Friends" urges the Academy to strip Moore of his award, and shames them for "allowing" Moore to make films in the first place. But what they all hate the most is that Moore EXAGGERATES things!

To his credit, Wilson makes a fair and balanced attempt to get the "other side's" opinion - a couple of homeless Canadian heroin addicts and a protester in a George W. Bush vampire mask. There is probably a film to be made that cogently and articulately rebukes Moore's over-aggressive style, but this isn't it. The film's "smoking gun" is Moore's "clever" editing of a Charlton Heston NRA speech in "Bowling For Columbine": instead of showing the entire speech, he only used soundbites in order to create an effect! If this kind of deception invalidates Moore's films as documentaries (and this point is argued ad infinitum), then it also invalidates every documentary, TV show, and news report, with the possible exception of some of Warhol's more experimental shit.

The one positive thing I can say about "Michael Moore Hates America" is that it got me thinking a lot about the current state of documentary filmmaking (the cultural/political discourse is too insipid to discuss, and at this stage of the game, often laughable in a gallows humor sort of way), and about Moore's influence especially, so I want to think about it some more and post more thoughts this weekend and next week. I will get some quotes up this afternoon, and have clips (if I can find any) posted this weekend.

GRADE: D-.