Filed by Richard on Monday, July 21, 2008 at 4:42 pm

The Dark Knight is a good movie, with a few great performances, and some fairly perfect psycho-development of the varying lead characters. So why did it leave me cold?

I’m sure I’m not alone in being sick of hearing the Heath Ledger drumbeat; the Oscar talk, the brilliance of his performance, his ascension to the seat at the right-hand of God etc, all based on this performance. Can we STFU about it already? But the thing is, it turns out he is terrific. Incredible actually. He’s pulled off that rare accomplishment of delivering a clearly mannered performance, where it is evident that much work went into the mechanics and cadence of the performance, yet it didn’t seem mannered. At all.

Aaron Eckhart almost matches him in a much different role. As the idealistic, yet pragmatic District Attorney Harvey Dent, he’s thoroughly believable in an unbelievable universe.

Christian Bale is OK as the Bat-Man*; I still have never gotten used to how the various actors playing Bat-Man lower their voice to a growl when they put on the rubber ears. This version seemed especially bad. It seems clear that he’s not doing this to hide his identity because the few people he encounters as Bat-Man that also know Bruce Wayne already know he’s Bat-Man anyway. It comes across a bit as a weak man trying act like a tough man.

The Gotham of the Dark Knight is just a bit more grounded in reality than the Gotham of Batman Begins, with its myriad monorails floating  hundreds of feet in the air and plumbed through and between buildings. For the most part this makes for a better film experience.

The film does an extremely nuanced and effective job of developing the stories of Bruce Wayne/Bat-Man, Harvey Dent/Two-Face, Commissionar Gordon, and the Joker. For the Joker, there is no back story; and as snippets of the movie purport to tell the origins of his madness, we gradually learn they are all lies. The Joker is just a madman; there is no explanation. How refreshing.

Knowing that Harvey Dent was to become Two-Face, I spent much of the too-long movie wondering “when does he burn his face and become the villain that we know and love?”. It’s a good thing though that the transformation came so late in the movie, because for once the origin story IS the story; it took me to the end of the film to realize it. Most comic book movies seem to follow the same tired formula; the first third features highly compressed origin stories of the heroes and villains, the second third sets up the conflict, and the final third has the giant battle. But with the Dark Knight, the conflict is all about morality in an immoral world, and how sometimes there is no right choice to make.  When Dent makes the choice to become Two-Face it’s entirely understandable and his anger and villainy is almost defensible. He WAS the white knight and he played by the rules. And he was destroyed because of it.

Of course the complexity of this morality play is undercut by a presentation that seems at times to revel in fairly random and reckless killing of innocents and villains alike, yet at other times the entirety of the movie hinges on specific moral decisions by decent people and criminals alike to protect the lives of their fellow man, even at the expense of their own. When these moments arrived, it felt a bit like the final reel of a different movie had been spliced in accidentally; when did the lives of people suddenly start to matter?

Iron Man set the standard of comic book adaptations. You walked out of the theater jazzed, planning to see the movie again. With the Dark Knight you walk out impressed by many of the performances and the reach of the story line and character development, but ambivalent about the overall film because of it’s tonal inconsistencies.

*I’ve always preferred the original DC comic naming convention of “the Bat-Man” over the name “Batman.” It seems so retro, yet modern.

Filed by Richard on Sunday, June 22, 2008 at 12:21 am

In a mild fit of nostalgia I pulled out Toy Story tonight.

• I had no idea that Joss Whedon was the lead scriptwriter. I think I remembered somewhere that he wrote Alien Ressurection, but Toy Story? No idea.
• The end credits encouraged the viewer to  “visit ‘Toy Story” online at www.toystory.com”. Is this the first movie that had this kind of a credit? The movie came out in 95, which is before most people had even used the web. Must have been weird or jarring at the time…
• There’s no opening Pixar credit sequence; just a Disney credit (the Pixar sequence came at the end of the film).
• Though the film holds up really well, it’s interesting how simple the graphics seem now, and how basic the story is. It’s a truly great film, but it’s definately moving into that “classic film that we appreciate for it’s importance” mode.
• The genesis of the film is so long ago that the creators note on the commentary that they signed Tom Hanks before Philadelphia came out, and long before Forrest Gump and Apollo 13. And no one had even heard of Tim Allen.

Filed by Richard on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 11:05 am

Every once in a while I’ll come across a positive review of a film that I had no intention of seeing; in fact I’d had a visceral reaction to the thought of seeing the film. Yet that review almost completely turns me around and I start mentally making plans to see the movie, then I just wander over to our friends at rotten tomatoes and suddenly my evening plans are freed up.

Filed by Richard on Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 2:57 pm

Assassin’s Creed is a great game; it’s many faults are swamped by it’s many virtues. The story of an Assassin travelling through the Holy Land during the age of the crusades, Assassin’s Creed puts you squarely into that far away time. Essentially a first-person shooter without guns, Assassin’s Creed represents a remarkable step forward  visual game design.

Much of the action takes place among major Holy Land cities like Jerusalem and Acre, and each city is truly epic in size and detail. Your assassin character can wander the streets and climb the city walls; the attention to detail remains high throughout. If there were not a single bit of gameplay the game would almost be worth the money just for the opportunity to wander the dusty streets, bump into townsfolks, and climb the myriad spires to take in the entire city. It’s rare the game that make you feel fully sucked into setting of the game by simple visuals alone, but Assassin’s Creed does this and then some.

The physical interaction with your character and the townsfolks feels more realistic than any game I’ve ever experienced. A crowded alley or square of most games seems to represent a major challenge to game designers as the AI townspeople will move in unrealistic ways, such as everyone walking in the same direction, etc. The “people” of Assassin’s Creed wander any which way, stop, scratch themselves, have conversations with each other, move out of each other’s way, and more. It’s a remarkable thing to watch.

Perhaps the major fault of Assassin’s Creed is the repetitive nature of the challenges. Many times you are called on to save a citizen from being hassled by local thugs, eavesdrop on a conversation, or assasinate a knight. And every single time (well almost every time), the challenge is identical. Unlike Grand Theft Auto, which presents unique challenges every time; your challenges in Assassin’s Creed are essentially the same on hour 20 as that are at hour 5.

And the fighting is essentially a button mashing affair. There are many different button combinations that you learn throughout the game, designed to break holds, lunge, defend yourself, etc. Yet I found easy success just hitting the sword button over and over, while hitting the “defend” button every fifth time or so.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; there are bad button-mashing games, and this isn’t one of them. If you want to be tactical and learn the combos, it will definately work and work well. But if you want to just mash your opponents to death you have that option as well.

One small note: in my eternal challenge to to best Matt on Xbox games, I (of course) have shot straight past his score 825 to his 755. Furthermore, in terms of individual achievements in a game, I have equaled every single one of Matt’s acheivements… until now (not counting Gears of War, which I didn’t finish). There is an acheivement in Xbox360 that requires you to hit a button at a key moment during several cut scenes. I wasn’t really paying attention to acheivements until halfway through the game, and at that point it was too late. It would probably take about 5 hours of my time to get the acheivement, and as much as I like being the top dawg; it ain’t gonna happen in this case…

Filed by Richard on Tuesday, April 8, 2008 at 10:48 pm

It’s easy to see why so many critics hated Julie Taymor’s Beatles-soaked fantasy “Across the Universe.” A sixties story told entirely through the songs of the Beatles, it seems almost designed to inspire derision.

It’s also to see why a smaller, but significant, number of important critics fell madly and deeply in love with the film. It’s joyous singing, inventive staging and choreography, talented cast, and the effortless way it digs into your core emotional memory is remarkable. Though I’m no important critic, I am definitely in the latter camp. This is a wonderful film.

Telling the story of a young English lad come to America; the girl he falls for, and her brother who’s sent to Vietnam, Across the Universe basically covers every cliche of coming of age in the 60s. That it does this without cynicism is the real revelation of the film. It’s not that the film is all butterflies and rainbows; it’s that the Taymor didn’t feel any overpowering need to comment on the time and setting with an unnecessary modern eye.

The single best creative choice Taymore made during the production of the film–and one hardly commented upon by any critics–is the use of live recording of the actors during most of the film’s songs. On a surface level it helps immeasurably to never see tell-tale miscues as an actor ever-so slightly fails to sync their lips to a pre-recorded track. But more importantly the actor sing and act with a startling clarity of emotion. They’re not trying to convey an emotion while remaining true to a song they recorded in a studio months before. They’re doing it in real-time and it makes all the difference.

And what great singers they are. Evan Rachel Wood, who’s been on the periphery of the big time in Hollywood for the last few years, has a terrific singing voice. And as her boyfriend Jude, Jim Sturgess is regularly moving while singing the most recognizable of Beatles song and instantly re-contextualizing them.

I fell for the movie within the first minute. When Jude (Sturgess), sitting on a blustery beach, turns to the camera and sings a slow, lilting acappella version of “Girl,” I was sold. It hit both the movie-loving part of my brain and the section off to the left reserved for my ipod. The combination made the film impossible for me to resist.

I suspect a lot of other people had the exact opposite reaction. But if there’s ever been a film that needs to be experienced from the heart, it’s this film. It’s own heart is as pure as can be.

 The DVD presentation features a commentary by Taymor and her partner. The commentary is not particularly revelatory, and at times merely descriptive. Given Taymor’s track record of three essentially perfect films (Titus, Frida, Across the Universe), one expects more depth to her commentary.

The DVD also contains a second disc with several documentaries about the production. While interesting, the real find is extended versions of about 10 of the songs in the film.

Filed by Richard on Sunday, March 9, 2008 at 12:07 am

The Bank Job is a serviceable film of a remarkable story. It runs along at a steady gallop, never really falters in any way whatsoever, but ultimately never transcends into something really great.

Apparently the film is based closely on a real story; albeit a story that was kept under wraps for the last 40 years or so. Jason Statham plays the leader of part-time gang of London crooks circa 1970. They are pressed into attempting a bank robbery by an old acquaintance (Saffron Burrows). Ostensibly the bank job is about simply robbing the bank, but Burrows’s character had actually been put up for the job by the British secret service, who wanted her to obtain some incriminating photos in the bank vault.

The story is very complex; dirty cops, clean cops, dirty politicians, secret agents, underworld hoods, and of course our hapless gang of would be bank robbers all figure into the plot. It’s to the screenwriter’s credit that the story always makes sense, always. Despite many twists and turns, and feints and jukes, you the viewer always know exactly what’s going on; yet it never feels like someone is leading you by the nose from plot point to plot point.

But that said, the Bank Job never gels into anything great. It is simply just ok-to-good in everything, but great in nothing. It’s like a Honda Accord.

Part of the problem may be because of the slavish attention to the apparently true story. Though this is pitched as a heist movie, it’s certainly one of the few heist movies where the heist is over half-way through the movie. Because of this, the actual process of the heist; typically the most enjoyable part of a heist movie, is rushed and not as involving as it could be.

The Bank Job does a good job of capturing post-swinging London; it never really hits you over the head with a too-spot-on mis en scene, but you never really notice any anachronisms either (except for maybe a BarclaysCard Visa logo on a store front… did Visa make it to London as soon as 1970?). Thankfully the film also did not pound us over the head with montages cut to the beat of iconic early 70s British songs. I can only remember hearing T. Rex’s Bang a Gong (a good choice), and a killer cover of Money over the end credits.

While it’s a good sight better than other films in general release right now, it doesn’t speak that highly of the Bank Job that it’s better than College Road Trip and 10,000 BC. A competent, mildy engaging film, nothing more.

Filed by Richard on Saturday, January 26, 2008 at 8:19 pm

Finally played through Half-Life 2 on Xbox360. I had previously played the game on the PC when it was first released back in, was it 2004? At the time I thought it was the greatest game ever; Though time marches on, Half-Life 2 still deserves the title.

It’s amazing how much depth there is to this FPS. The game has about 9 or 10 major sections; any two which would constitute a typical game. One section might focus on driving skills, one might focus on sniping; others might be more team focused. It’s just an incredibly deep game.

I was struck by how much easier the game was on the Xbox than the PC. I think a lot has to do with the very forgiving targeting system. Though there was plenty of action, I played through entire hours of the game without dying or even risking dying.

I don’t know how much time I spent playing the first go-round, but it was certainly at least 40 hours. It was and is the most time I’ve ever committed to a single FPS campaign. This go round I clocked in at about 14 hours.

Half-Life 2 has the all-time greatest weapon moment in all of games; when your gravity gun becomes energized and allows you to grab humans and fling them with abandon. I remember the first time it happened I was so excited I wanted to get on the phone and call someone. It’s not quite as exciting the second go-round, but it was still incredibly fun nonetheless.

Half-life 2 had so many innovations: the Gravity Gun, a believable partner character (Alyx Vance), a style of play that eliminates “easy,” “heroic,” and “legendary” types of challenges, a unified and truly compelling storyline, etc. Now that Bioshock has come out and set a new bar for First Person Shooters with compelling storylines, Half-Life 2 is ever so slightly dated. But evaluated against what had come before it, Half-Life 2 is still the best FPS ever.

Filed by Richard on Friday, January 25, 2008 at 7:46 pm

Sylvester Stallone has achieved a remarkable thing with Rambo; he’s taken the most jingoistic and uber-80s of film series (the Rambo films), and cut out almost every single element that dates those films. He’s made a lean and incredibly mean Rambo film for our modern age. Whether its a good film is a different question.

This hook of this film is it’s depiction of brutal violence. Waves upon waves of Burmese soldiers are shredded like so much grated cheese by Stallone’s 50 caliber machine gun. In it’s own way it is much more brutal than the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan; if not nearly as artful.

Stallone’s Cinematographer uses a similar 45 degree shutter to achieve a staccato strobe effect to the blood and meat flying from former heads and limbs. This film is thoroughly informed by the ghoulish video sites that show all manner of Iraqi, Chechen, Russian, and Iranian citizens die close up, in dreadful ways.

It’s to Stallone’s credit as a filmmaker that he rarely dwells on any spectacular effects shot. Each death runs quickly into the next. If this film is to be successful; it will be entirely due to the heretofore unknown levels of realistic violence. Rambo as a brand means literally nothing these days; but as an especially violent counterpoint to the current de facto kings of cinematic violence, 300 and its brethren, Rambo may just find a audience.

One element that Stallone does bring whole cloth from his previous outings is the outrageously evil army that he’s fighting. In this Rambo, he fights the Burmese military, who’s blood lust for raping, torturing, and killing peasants knows know bounds. They began to remind me of the pig-faced superNazis in the dream sequence of American Werewolf in London; evil squared.

So Rambo isn’t a great film; but it is remarkably effective at accomplishing what it set out to do. It’s an action movie in it’s purest form and it probably the most brutally violent movie to date.

Filed by Richard on Friday, January 25, 2008 at 12:21 am

George Lucas. Peter Jackson. Robert Zemeckis. Three film visionaries who bet the farm on untested technologies for film production; bets that led to the creation of some of the world’s most successful film production and effects houses. But have you heard of Steven Lisberger? How about Kerry Conran? Both of these filmmakers were almost entirely untested by Hollywood. Both of them helmed freshman productions costing tens of millions of dollars using entirely new, completely unproven techniques. And both of them failed spectacularly—or were perceived to have failed; never to make another film since.

Steven Lisberger was the force behind Tron, and Kerry Conran created Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Had each of these films succeeded, it’s certain that the production houses built to create them would be major forces today in Hollywood. Had either of these directors succeeded, perhaps they’d be the household Hollywood names that Lucas, Jackson, and Zemeckis have become. But they didn’t succeed. Nevertheless, they deserve to be praised for their vision and the risks they took. Read on…
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Filed by matt on Sunday, January 20, 2008 at 7:46 pm

That’s right, I watched what is clearly a horrible movie from a few years ago for no good reason. When I got back from Cloverfield, my hand-held camera nausea allowed a very limited time playing Call of Duty 4 so I watched Stealth on TNT HD. Actually I do have a valid justification for watching it – it was written by W.D. Richter who directed Buckaroo Banzai and wrote Big Trouble in Little China, two of my favorite movies.

It was bad. Reeeeeal bad. There was no flavor of the fun that I enjoyed so much in the other films. (Actually the last line was pretty funny – I’ll give it that.) Josh Lucas wasn’t bad but in a month I won’t be able to tell you it was him in the role. Jessica Biel was also fine but in the third act when her pressure suit has magically transformed into skintight gear you think maaaaaybe she was hired because she is smoking hot. Jamie Foxx, who I think won the oscar for Ray when this was filming, was clearly just slumming it. But it’s hard to blame the actors when there’s nothing interesting or unique for them to do.

The three actors are all in a super duper fighter squadron blah blah blah, a computer-powered jet joins the team and hilarity ensues. Why does the computer-controlled jet have a cockpit and seat again? For maintenance purposes? That’s so stupid even a studio executive should have pointed that one out as beyond the pale. Who would you think the bad guys are? Terrorists? Check. Former Russian republic? Check. North Koreans? Check. Lame clone of HAL? Check.

I should say something nice – the effects were well-done. The future jets looked real enough and the Navy helped them film on an aircraft carrier which looked nice.

Back to bitching – the robot jet has its tech support team set up on the hangar deck, taking up a ridiculous amount of space in an environment where space it at a premium. Maybe the rest of the air wing was off bombing dirty hippies or something. Part of the third act takes place as a character is trying to cross from North Korea to South Korea across the DMZ. With magical building rubble that serves as cover and my favorite – no land mines at all. I guess Joe Public might not know they’re there but I do and it bugged the hell out of me. Something highly annoying TNT does is run the credits to one thing on one side of the screen while it starts the next thing on the right. When they repeat something it kind of backfires. Guess how awesome it is to see the ending to a movie as you’re watching it begin? Not awesome at all.

So despite being written by someone I quite like I would have been better served watching one of the Bill Moyer’s Journals on my dvr. There’s bad but fun, like Armageddon, and then there’s just bad. This was the latter.

Filed by matt on Friday, January 18, 2008 at 8:26 pm

Saw Cloverfield after work today. First of all paying 9.50 for a 4:20 show? Are you kidding me? In a smallish screen with no stadium seating?I enjoyed the movie – it delivers exactly as advertised – it’s a monster movie that’s scary. The shooting style is all hand held camcorder – much like the Blair Witch Project, only I don’t remember actually feeling like I might vomit in that one. The feeling calmed down after a bit but I just don’t need the verite that badly. If you’ve seen a commercial or the trailer you already know the plot – monster appears and starts causing havok in Manhattan – attractive young people try to get the hell out of the way.

I’m still processing my thoughts but I liked it. More than anything else I felt like it was approached in a real enough manner that I bought the concept. As the main characters (no-name actors who do a great job) make their way through the city you see glimpses of other action always going on without focusing on it. The way this ancillary action is handled and integrated into the film sells it for me. It would have been very easy to focus on this or that but you only catch fleeting glimpses as the main characters careen through the situations. And what’s there feels accurate with the exception that it seems like the military was on scene and firing weaponry awfully damn fast – how close are actual tank depots to Manhattan?

As I was watching the opening scenes I kept thinking that this was enough and we can get things rolling now. In retrospect I think it was fine – it must have been very difficult trying to figure out how much setup was needed to hook you into the characters before setting them into the crucible to see what happened to them. When the hook of your movie is monster stomping around the urge to get to the stomping bit must be awfully strong.

I thought the monster itself was fine though as Jeffrey Wells had pointed out it would have been a very interesting experiment to have never seen the monster at all. While I agree that would have been cool, I’m fine with how this was handled.

The movie is somewhat short but I didn’t feel cheated at the end or that the pacing was off leading me to wish it was shorter or longer. I thought I knew how it ended, based on one of the shots in the trailer (and man do I hate when that happens) but it went in a different direction that I was okay with though again it finds itself following Blair Witch. It left me feeling like I need to get on the ball with a family disaster plan. You know, in case something crawls out of the Puget Sound and starts laying waste to the suburbs.

I enjoyed it, with a qualified bit of nausea thanks to the camerawork. Gettin old I guess.

Filed by Richard on Tuesday, January 15, 2008 at 7:20 pm

Dear Leader Steve Jobs delivered another masterful keynote address today… really is there anyone better at this kind of thing? The products line he went over was great, if a bit niche in their appeal.

The big news is the expected release of the Macbook Air, which the stellar Apple marketing is selling as “the world’s thinnest notebook.” It really is a beauty to behold, though there was more than a bit of taking clear disadvantages and selling them as virtues (a technique mastered by Volkswagen in the 50s and 60s and perfected by Steve Jobs). In this case its the lack of an optical drive for the machine. Jobs argument is that you can now rent movies easily through iTunes, you don’t need a drive for backup because of their new off-computer backup technologies, and you can use other computers wirelessly to “borrow” their drive to install software.

So broken down, forget about your extensive DVD collection, buy those films again to watch on your fancy new computer, or better yet, rent them for the right to watch them once. Also, buy our new combi-Airport and Backup hardrive for your backups. And while your at it, don’t even think about using this as your only computer; by default it’s going to be a secondary computer because you will never be able to load software otherwise. Oh, and all of this for the low price of $1799 (unless you factor in the 4 grand or so for another computer, a new airport-hard disk backup solution, and the replication of your DVD collection). read more »

Filed by Richard on Saturday, January 5, 2008 at 8:07 pm

10 Mad Men (TV Series) This amazing AMC series about the Madison Avenue world of advertising is an HBO series that isn’t on HBO (apparently they passed on it). It does so many things right; such as an almost perfect production design. I’d don’t think I recognized a single actor in the series before I watched an episode, they are all ingrained in my head now. They really make an impression.

9 The Slingbox (TV Gizmo) This wonderful contraption has been around for a couple of years, but I just got mine in November. Much like TiVO entirely changed how you watched TV, this crazy little machine upends everything again as well. It allows you to watch your cable TV from anywhere, in remarkably good quality over fairly lousy broadband connections. It even works beautifully on my creaky old Dell Axim Pocket PC. It’s like manna for ADHD multitaskers.

8 Sopranos (TV Series) The Sopranos finally wrapped up its slog through the American pschye with a short, brilliant season. It will be missed.

7 Bioshock (Video Game) Has there ever been a more fully realized video game story and world than the underworld of Bioshock? If there was ever a video game that would cause Roger Ebert to revise his opinion about the inability to consider video games art, Bioshock is that game.

6 Portal (Video Game) This game gives one hope. When even the very best games are just perfect realizations of time-worn gamestyles, Portal was wholly unique. The puzzles, the pacing, the storyline, even the relatively brief length of the game; all perfect.

5 The Portal Song (Song) The finale song, sung by the computer antagonist of Portal, is sublime. It’s funny, beautiful, and moving. And I’ve probably listened to the thing through youtube like 50 times.

4 Zodiac (film) Fincher’s police procedural gets under your skin early and never lets go. Rarely have I sat through a movie with a pit in my stomach for the entirety of a film. Is there a better, more consistently great director working in Hollywood?

3 Sublimely Perfect Endings (All Media) What a wonderful year for sometimes controversial, yet perfect, endings. From the Sopranos’ Journey-fueled cut to black, to the long-promised violence of There Will be Blood, to Tommy Lee Jones’ coda at the end of No Country for Old Men, to the cake and song of Portal, to the optimistic cut scene of the “good” ending of Bioshock… has there ever been such an embarrassment of riches for perfect endings?

2 There Will Be Blood (Movie) I only saw the movie this morning, but I suspect that it will stick with me for a very long time.

1 No Country for Old Men (Movie) I think, after a month’s reflection, that this is the best Coen Brother’s Movie ever. It’s also the best movie of the year.

Honorable Mentions: The Office and 30 Rock on NBC, The Orange Box on Xbox 360, Pinball on Xbox Live, The Lives of Others, The Bourne Ultimatum, Crackdown on Xbox 360, Halo 3 on Xbox 360, the iPhone, and lots of other things I totally forgot about.

Filed by Richard on Saturday, January 5, 2008 at 7:10 pm

Beginning with the end, or ending rather, the final act of Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will be Blood caps an almost perfect movie almost perfectly. There has been much ink spilled about the “odd” and “troubling” ending of There Will Be Blood. Don’t believe any of it; it’s awe-inspiring.

There Will be Blood follows Daniel Plainview, played with considerable force by Daniel Day Lewis, a California prospector at the turn of an the last century who strikes it rich in oil through grit, determination, and a serious desire to destroy any and all competition.

As a character study of a driven man, it shares a place with other similar films like A Face in the Crowd, All the King’s Men, et al. As a metaphor for the challenges and glory of capitalism and greed, and an exploration of the moral dichotomy inherent in the pursuit of power, it’s without peer. read more »

Filed by Richard on Saturday, January 5, 2008 at 2:45 am

Manderlay, by Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier, has been sitting in my DVD shelf, unwatched, for over a year. I’m not sure why I avoided watching it, possibly the negative critical reaction, or the negative set reports… I’m not sure.

I shouldn’t have avoided it; Manderlay is as enthralling and maddening as Von Trier’s other films. Like it’s predecessor Dogville, it wears an anti-America hatred on it’s sleeve. And like Dogville, you’re left buzzed about the experience, and angry at Von Trier for his simpleton thesis.

Von Trier original conceived a trilogy of films about America, each to star Nicole Kidman as a gangster’s daughter and stand-in for bumbling misguided America. After the generally undeserved critical drubbing of Dogville, Kidman bowed out of the series, and was replaced in Manderlay by Bryce Dallas Howard. It was an astute choice; Howard is really extraordinary in this film; especially given that she is essentially representing a metaphor, and a lousy metaphor at that.

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