A few weeks ago, Summit Entertainment released the first seven minutes of The Brothers Bloom online. Normally, this kind of marketing strategy is useful, particularly if the movie isn’t well known. However, it helps for such a movie to have a terrific opening, which grabs the viewer in and makes him/her need to see what happens after that teased beginning. The Brothers Bloom, unfortunately, has an unbearable start, enough that I couldn’t even get through the entire seven minutes. I turned the streaming video off at the 4:24 mark.
The primary cause of my annoyance was the voice-over narration, provided by actor/magician Ricky Jay, a man whose speech is easily recognizable, only not for good reason. His lisped reading, sounding like a poor man’s Wallace Shawn, ruined the movie for me immediately. And I decided within those few moments that I wouldn’t bother to go see The Brother’s Bloom in its entirety.
I later learned that Jay’s narration is only in the film for that seven-minute prologue that opens the film, so I am willing to give it another shot, with hope that it gets better. Due to my initial irritation, though, I’ve decided to share a list of ten other movies ruined by their voice-over narration.
…Read more
If you don’t listen to Elvis Mitchell’s radio program on KCRW, The Treatment, you should start. A while back he interviewed Todd Field about his new film, Little Children. As Field laments how taxing it is to direct a film involving so many characters, Mitchell compliments Field on how attentive he is that each character act differently around each of the other characters. It’s a subtle nuance in Field’s films, but it’s one of the things making Little Children and his earlier film, In the Bedroom, so distinct. And, unfortunately, it’s a rare thing to see in cinema.
We all act differently around different people. We naturally gauge things, like how intimate we are with somebody, what their education is, if we share things in common, if they scare us, bore us, excite us, and whether or not they’re somebody we want to impress. All these little processes happening beneath the surface influence how we act around a person.
In most movies, though, the protagonist walks through life acting the same way around everyone they see. (Maybe it’s one of the things we admire in a hero, their ability to be unwavering–something we wish we were better at.) But these characters who don’t alter which parts of themselves they present to different people are..well…unbelievable. They’re caricatures.
“We go to the movies to watch people,” Field says. Regardless of how beautiful the cinematography or music may be, most of us are there to watch people. Todd Field provides some of the best people-watching out there. For that, I think he’s one of the most distinct–and hopefully influential–filmmakers of our time.
(I was able to have a very brief conversation with Field at Telluride, where I also wrote a post about Little Children.)
The Spout guys returned from Telluride exhausted but full of stories and commentary. To help them sum up their experience I asked them to give me these things:
5 favorite films
4 interesting people
3 favorite spots
2 memorable moments
1 way the festival changed you
Today, Paul fills in the blanks. Make sure to read his posts for more meat. More to come soon from the other guys.
5 favorite films:
- Day Night Day Night (check out my post and podcast)
- Maldonne (I wrote a post)
- Little Children (I talked to the director, Todd Field, and made a podcast, and I wrote a post)
- The Great Expectations program: The Tube with a Hat and Marilena De La P7 (both Romanian)
- Lonesome (with a live freaking orchestra!)
4 interesting people:
- Julia Loktev (director of Day Night Day Night–loved her Q&A after the film, her ability to articulate)
- Quan (a writer I enjoyed discussing Dodsworth with)
- JP Gorin (the guest director of the festival–everyone loved his saucy “Frenchness”)
- An old Texan who didn’t know the phrase “film buff” but knew everything about films from the first part of the 20th Century
3 favorite spots:
- the West End Tavern (and their fried foods and spaten)
- the Galaxy Theater (a gym converted into a huge theater with weird Galileo-like constructions everywhere)
- the covered waiting area outside the Galaxy
2 highlights:
- Arriving in town and realizing that Telluride is everything it’s built up to be
- Seeing/discovering Maldonne, an amazing old film that’s been overlooked for nearly 80 years
1 way you see things differently:
- Experiencing a film is so much better when you’re looking for what’s memorable rather than what’s “good.”
