More a visceral excercise in disorientation than a plot-driven action thriller, Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy combines the psychology of color with the subtlties of revenge tragedy to achieve a remarkably dense filmic experience. Jagged, expressionistic set designs and frenetic cinematography evoke the paranoia of Park’s psychically tortured protagonist Oh Dae-su, channeling the spirits of Terry Gilliam and David Cronenberg. Suffering in the film’s opening sequences a meaningless incarceration of fiteen years, Oh is released into an unstable freedom in which he seems to be aided by strangers in his quest for revenge against his nameless captors.

As Oh, Choi Min-Sik carries this character study with all the requisite depth; the audience’s interest is fixed on this aged yet youthful face as the former family-man encounters bewilderment, rage, shame, and redemption. Oh’s complexity emanates from the ironic contrast between lust and familial piety, a tension which sustains his will for vengeance. The film suggests the moral vacuity of film noir until its final act, when, cleverly, its true nature as an archetypal morality tale is revealed as Oh’s fragilely pieced-together reality disintegrates.

More off-putting than off-beat, certain sequences involving the carpenter’s approach to dentistry or seafood are only the starkest moments in a film which challenges its audience’s ability to comprehend what it is seeing (and stomach it, too). Even though the convoluted structure and shot compositions are appropriate to Park’s artistic aims, the film is frequently perplexing and at times purely abstruse. If, however, the viewer invests enough into Oldboy, the elemental impact of the climax and epilogue is more than rewarding.

Monty Python’s Flying Circus always exceeded the sum of its parts. Their debut, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, was as much a landmark in renegade filmmaking as it was an achievement in inspired silliness. Six young educated men with everything to prove, a scant budget, and yet seemingly not a serious care in the world crafted some of the most perfect farce ever captured on film.

Some of the finest moments in the original film (Terry Jones’s effeminate prince, the Camelot scene) were funny precisely because they skewered the inanity of musical theater. So how is it that someone (Erik Idle), or some persons (Erik Idle and Mike Nichols), thought that they could transpose Holy Grail into a musical without losing what was quintessentially brilliant about the original project?

The appeal of this massively hyped show lies completely in its billing: Tim Curry, David Hyde Pierce, Hank Azaria, Mike Nichols, and Monty Python and the Holy fucking Grail. How could these components fail to add up to the good? They do, and in the most embarrassingly flat ways.

The show merely retreads all the cult-canonized routines from the movie, only without the magical timing of the original. It has the typical shortcoming found in a hollow cover of an Otis Reading tune: all the sugary hooks and none of the soul. They even felt the need to “Americanize” some of the dialogue – as if the American audience never understood that “filth” meant “mud” in the film – and tone the accents (in the original as varied and regional as an assortment of fine cheeses) down to bland “stage British.”

The new songs are rarely amusing and instantly disposable. “The Song that Goes Like This” spends all the witty effect it will ever have within one listen (a trait which mirrors the sing-about-what-is-happening-as-it-happens gimmick of the lyrics). “His Name is Lancelot” runs with the Lancelot-is-really-gay joke several kilometers too far; Idle is unaware that the spontaneous-coming-out-number gag was already invented and mastered by fellow sketch-comedians The Kids in the Hall in their under-valued 1996 movie Brain Candy.

Alongside the new tunes, the established Python classics – “Knights of the Round Table” and “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” – seem like tasteless preaching to the eccentric choir, but they even manage to bungle these, too. The former is ruined by the decision to set it in Las Vegas’s Disney-version of Camelot, while they erroneously put the latter back into a sincere context when all its ironic bite originally derived by having it sung, in the final moments of their 1979 film Life of Brian, by a chorus of crucified men recently nailed to crosses. When Patsy (a character who remained likeably mute in the film) sings it earnestly to cheer up Curry’s Arthur early in Act II, Spamalot finally succeeds in becoming the very musical the Pythons so adeptly lampooned when they founded this cult in 1974.

The performances are, of course, immaculate. Songbird Sara Ramirez, who plays the new role “The Lady of the Lake” is the only genuinely fresh part of the show, with her arresting vocal acrobatics and spot-on comedic sensibility. Her ornate inflections and arpeggios, combined with her hilariously accurate facial contortions, aptly mock the parade of “divas” who top the charts and the Grammy awards (Christina, Alicia, Britney, Mariah). Pierce and Azaria are highly entertaining, but only as much as their parts allow them to be. Curry is wasted as the straight-man “King Arthur,” a role which only works if you have the crotchety and withdrawn spirit Graham Chapman.

Perhaps the show’s biggest misstep is its blundering attempt to ingratiate itself with New Yorkers. Giuliani and Sondheim references, a Gene Shalit gag, and a nearly-offensive song about needing Jews to make-it on Broadway. The play’s deus ex machina ending (far inferior to that of the film) even guides the plot to Broadway, in a cheek-tweaking “look at how clever we are for being post-modern/ self-conscious” moment that just makes your guts heave.

This is not a case of Python fanatics (and they are fanatical) being impossible to please, it is a case of undelivered goods. In trying to bridge the worlds of filmed/televised lunacy and musical theater, the writers came up with something which lacks the appeal of both, alienating both the Broadway enthusiasts and the Python-addicts. Spamalot is as undercooked a show as there has ever been.

The sad paradox is that the masterpiece Monty Python and the Holy Grail was made despite countless limitations – of time, of money, of experience – while Spamalot is a dud despite all the resources and talent imaginable.

The enthusiastic audience was ready to rip into applause the instant a recognizable bit from the movie hit the stage (and they were helped by meticulously reproduced costume design) or the instant one of the celebrity stars made his first appearance. While any active audience enhances the quality of live acting, it was far too obvious that they were merely thrilled by that with which they were already familiar. They were not applauding finely developed new comedic characters; they were really applauding Niles, Moe, Dr. Frank, and the guy who directed The Graduate. They were cheering not for the Trojan rabbit, the Tim the Sorcerer, or the Knights of Ni they had just seen, but for these icons as they exist in their memory of the film they love so much (to which they might just as well have bought tickets for that afternoon instead).

The visual coda to Richard Linklater’s acclaimed 1995 film Before Sunrise was a brief series of shots recollecting the various corners and streets of Vienna in which its two young characters had just spent a glorious night together. A quiet bench, a ferris wheel, a bridge, a pitch of grass in a park become lovers’ landmarks, but melancholy pervades, as these places are shown to be vacant. Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy) are then traveling apart (she to Paris and he back to America) after their brief encounter, and the emptiness of those shots amplifies the emotional burn of the closing minutes.

Nine years later, Linklater revisits the characters, passion, and ideas of that momentous night in a sequel, Before Sunset. To fans and skeptics, the title may have been misleadingly awkward or facile at first, but Linklater is no patsy for marketing suits. Dubious as any sequel to a meaningful film might be, doubts fade within the first minutes of the new release. Mirroring filmically the closing moments of the original, Before Sunset opens with series of shots canvassing tranquil morning locales in Paris. A quiet street, another quiet street, a cafe are established as places of “potential,” and as the film unfolds (mostly in real-time) Celine and Jesse’s reunion takes them to these locations. While the first film ended with the immediate past, the companion begins with the immediate future.

Jesse has written a successful novel based on the events of Before Sunrise, and Celine comes to his reading at a small bookshop in Paris. They share an hour transfixed by the sudden presences of each other before Jesse leaves on a plane for New York. Nine years of adulthood have taxed them in their seperate lives. Ideals have proved to be burdons, disappointing routines have uprisen, and love has been fleeting and rare. Although each tries to conceal it, a truth about their one night in Vienna escapes: it was the one moment in their lives of true connection, of real love. And nothing has touched the same extreme since.

For anyone who saw Sunrise prior to Sunset, the simple sight of Hawke and Delpy together is transcendent. Both have incurred baggage, wrinkles, defeat, but each remains beautifully alive and quick. More confident, more experienced, but no less fragile, their chemistry defies the logic of acting — defies those who scoff at the admittedly pathetic parade of hopeful but soulless rom-coms released each year. Hawke and Delpy co-wrote the script with Linklater, but a testament to their skills as actors is that it seems more like Jesse and Celine deserve credit. Hawke suffers far too many bad reviews; he is a master at this kind of naturalistic, conversational acting. The weight of intelligence behind each incredibly accurate exchange of lines is reflected in the expressions and timing he conjurs of an actual, self-conscious man trying his best to articulate the heavy thoughts occuring to him. Add in the weight of time — nine years — and the rendezvous is overwhelmingly convincing.

Small-talk transitions carefully into trusting familiarity, and as the time for Hawke’s character to leave grows near, Delpy delivers a moment of moving vulnerability. They both open the truths about themselves unabashedly, absurdly sustained by the understanding of what should be the talk of two strangers. If the film sounds schmaltzy, worry not ye cynics. There are heaps of harsh reality to balance. Their realist script deftly allows for the presence of both, and it is both engrossing and affecting to observe two not-as-young lovers grapple with the ambiguities, the fleeting possibilities, of the life right in front of them. That the teetering, smoldering emotions are never allowed anywhere near melodramatic temperatures renders the film’s brilliant, Carve-esque ending all the more rewarding. The viewer, gripped, finds his heated mind flip-flopping feverishly “Don’t get on the plane! No, just go…wait, yes stay!” while Hawke, cool on the surface, willingly lets Delpy delay his concerns and allay his regrets. Title included, Before Sunrise should be chiseled in as one of the few succussful sequels in cinema history, (demonstrating that one does not need a clever title if the movie is real).

continued from Niño Rojo review

Banhart took the stage at the Bowery Ballroom alone, as one might expect, and opened solo with “Little Yellow Spider.” Gesticulating with his right hand as if conducting a parade of the happy-grotesque animals catalogued in the song, the tweaks and vocal flourishes Banhart indulges made the performance of the song significantly different than the album cut.

Nothing, however, had prepared me for the hour of absolute sonorous joy that ensued. Five “friends” — electric bass and guitar players, a drummer, and an acoustic guitar player (a comrade from Banhart’s side project Vetiver) — joined him for the remainder of the show, filling out the bounce and swagger of the guitar-and-singer formula. As a result, the raucous fugue-like shuffle ending to “This Beard is for Siobhan” became an even rowdier stomp-a-long exhortation to “have a real good time, a good time, a real good time.” The additional instrumentation was wisely used not to extend the length of the songs with boring jam sessions, but instead merely added to the breadth of each song’s already finely crafted structure, and occasionally adding a decorative lick.

The set list was noticeably lacking in material from Oh Me Oh My, including only the brief instrumental “Tick Eats the Olive” and a minor-key transposition of the usually warmer tune “Michigan State” (a song boasting some of his best lyrical wordplay). Most songs were from Niño Rojo, but highlights were “Will is My Friend,” “A Sight to Behold” and a surprising but glorious cover of an old reggae tune.

Onstage, the bandmembers often embraced one another, rubbed heads, and otherwise expressed their affection. The bass player wore a crown of bright flowers. Looking around the crowd, this was definitely NOT Woodstock (I think popular culture is too self-conscious for that now), but the love onstage had an effect on the audience and the on the music, too. I was smiling the entire show; it was beyond pleasant. They had a real good time. We had a real good time. We all had a real good time.

For nearly three decades, the citizens of Iraq were subject to the despotic rule of Saddam Hussein and his fascist whims. Outcries of protest from the people were silenced by censorship, imprisonment, and medieval torture. Removed from power by the War in Iraq, Hussein’s absence has restored to the Iraqi people the freedom of expression. Last spring, three American filmmakers sought to capture this moment of liberation through the power (and relatively cheap cost) of digital cameras. The result is the new documentary Voices of Iraq, “filmed and directed by the people of Iraq.”

150 digital cameras were distributed to Iraqi citizens along with a few pages of guidelines about what and whom to film. The cameras were passed from friend to friend, spreading across the disperate regions and cultures of Iraq: children, college students, Kurds, clerics, Christian priests, rich sheiks, poor farmers, urbanites, mothers, friends, intellectuals, artists. Edited chronologically, closing with footage from as late as Septemember 2004, the film presents an invaluable panoply of popular opinion on Iraq as a country at a dubious cross-roads. More sensistive than any paper poll, what the fragile, the irate, and the relieved people of Iraq lend to the camera is their very humanity, live and in person.

The tagline,”filmed and directed by the people of Iraq,” is telling. The camera jitters and scans amateurishly, as the cinematographers react to their subjects. One filmer is moved to put down the camera and embrace her mother, who is brought to tears by memories of the torture she endured by preparing with self-inflicted cigarette burns. Another interview, in an office, is interrupted by explosions outside, and everyone hastens to safety.

The film is a pastiche, by nature of the project, but is tastefully edited and structured by the producers to give it cohesion. The most effective post-production, aside from the editing, is the use of headlines from American newspapers to punctuate various segments of the film. Not astonishingly, the image of Iraq presented by these leading journals is debunked by a slew of footage suggesting the contrary. The most ironic example of this technique is Iraqis’ reaction to the U.S. media’s coverage of the Abu Gharib prisoner abuse scandal; they laugh when they hear of the abuse of former guards and assassins of Saddam’s inner regime at the hands of U.S. military, men who had previously committed far more brutal acts of torture on the citizens of Iraq (many of whom record their stories) under Hussein and who deserve, in their eyes, all they get (which, according to several interviewees, doesn’t even qualify as torture). The film then cuts to homemade videotapes made by Hussein’s sun, Uday, in which prisoners have body parts (tongues, hands) hacked-off in public. It is important to note that it is not the moral equivication that is of interest here, but the distorting of opinion committed by Western media. The danger is in not accurately conveying exactly what common people are actually angered by.

It’s not prisoner abuse that angers them, it’s simply the horrors of war. Families torn apart, crushing grief, the liberation of Iraq is not unlike any armed conflict: gruesome and dehumanizing. Hussein’s record of genocide against the Kurds does not match up well, either, as shots of excavations of mass-graves evince. War is the enemy here, whoever the perpetrator, and the film wisely presents both sides evenly, endorsing none. They resent both America and Saddam for this pain, and this is something more polemic docs (like, obviously, Farenheit 9/11) fail to convey. In a sense, Moore is no better than mainstream media in the amount of distortion he creates. Voice of Iraq escapes this pitfall by simply letting people speak for themselves.

The most striking images of the film are the numerous smiles. Here are people whose streets are littered with debris and flaming wreckage, whose homes have been bombed, and they are managing, in some cases, outright glee (graduating college students in May). Even the skeptics, who see economic chaos and looming collapses, seem cheerful about trying to make it work. After a quarter century of repression, the exuberance of personal liberty and the lure of democracy must be thrilling. With elections slated for January of 2005, the end of the film sees a citizenry flooded with questions: now that we have a choice, what will we choose? Issues of separating church from state, of the role of women in Iraq, and of establishing stability in an volatile region of the world are the sobering burden of a new nation.