Category Archives: Art

UPDATED: “The Secret In Their Eyes”

Aesthetics, Art, Film, Hollywood, Pop-Culture

Imagine a film without loud-mouthed, humorless, self-referential Hollywood hedonists, congratulating themselves on their American exceptionalism (and sensitivity). Imagine a film with a plot you don’t figure out in the first minute of the movie (because it’s a fairly typical ad hoc abomination, like “Salt,” with Angelina Jolie). Imagine actresses sans silicone who act rather than act-out. Imagine actors who transport you into a world that goes beyond their bathroom mirrors (and every other surface that reflects … their image). Imagine no political correctness—no invisible wagging finger suggesting The Right Political Perspective; no ideology, only a story, and interactions between the sexes that are positive and natural; the kind that happened before women became menaces and men were made over in their image.

“The Secret In Their Eyes,” directed by writer-director Juan José Campanella, is such a film. It “won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 82nd Academy Awards [2009], making Argentina the first country in Latin America to win it twice …” (Wikipedia.)

The New York Times’ review of this exceptional film did not do it justice. American film reviewers labor under the chauvinistic impression that Hollywood is where it all begins, and that there is no filmic life outside it. I guess this could blind a reviewer to excellence elsewhere.

The New Yorker gets it, writing that this “legal thriller” is “powerfully and richly imagined: a genre-busting movie that successfully combines the utmost in romanticism with the utmost in realism.”

Writer-director, Juan José Campanella, working with the screenwriter and novelist Eduardo Sacheri, sends us deeper into mystery and passion; the movie presses forward with a rhapsodic urgency and with flashes of violence and pungent humor. “The Secret in Their Eyes” is a finely wrought, labyrinthine entertainment whose corners and passageways will be discussed by moviegoers for hours afterward as they exit into the cool night air.

Watch it. It’s achingly beautiful and deep, “an effortless mastery, from moment to moment, of whatever the dramatic situation requires.”

UPDATE: And imagine wit and humor, organic to a situation— as people use colloquially—instead of the American, “I kicked him in the butt, ha, ha, ha, ha. I’m Brad Pitt.” Funny conversational lines from the better-than-decent effort that is “The Secret In Their Eyes”:

“Hurry up or you’ll find not a crime scene but a wake.”

The hero’s “antic partner,” Pablo Sandoval (Guillermo Francella), answers the phone in the criminal-court office (he doesn’t really want to answer): “No, wrong number, this is the sperm bank …”

The love object, the lovely Irene Menéndez Hastings (Soledad Villamil), a judge’s assistant, must get hero Benjamin Espósito (Ricardo Darín) off the hook for his investigative zeal. She mentions having had to win some official over with her smile (she’s being self-deprecating). Espósito (who loves her deeply and desperately), a subordinate, teases her gently: “What is this smile? Have I seen it?”

There is a powerful scene in which Irene walks in on Espósito’s interrogation of the killer. It’s amateurish if penetrating compared to the American power protocol.

Sensitive woman that she is, she catches the creep undressing her with his eyes. Then and there “she turns the questioning into a sexual duel, taunting Gomez’s manhood, her words more wounding and more effective than a beating with brass knuckles.” She’s brave, smart and politically incorrect.

There is also considerable depth to perceptions related; ordinary conversation which make you say to yourself, “That’s so true.” The victim’s husband, “a bank employee named Morales (Pablo Rago), who remains obsessed with his dead wife for the rest of his life,” is relating to Espósito how he knows no longer if his memories of his beloved are true memories or memories of memories. (How often have you wondered whether what you remember even happened?)

Sandoval, a drunk, gives his life for his friend, Espósito. An opportunity presents itself, and out of the delirium of drunkenness, Sandoval finds the presence of mind to do a great thing. Or did he really? So subtle and unassuming is this act of sacrifice performed by a flawed, if delightful, character, that it almost goes unnoticed. It is certainly not accompanied by the soaring, sentimental f-cking sound/music/noise that masks similar, but staged, moments in your typical Hollywood production.

I don’t want to sully my impressions of this gem of a movie, but watching “Salt” last night was unsettling. America’s XBox, special effects, language-less movie culture reflects a certain reality-averse atavism. Up-close, Jolie the star is frightening. She has cultivated a comic-book look with a newly sculptured nose and cheekbones that might have been enhanced. Her mouth is hemorrhoidal. The chick is scary. And her come-hither glances! A CIA agent, or whatever she is supposed to be in this moronic movie, struts her stuff in a skirt slit up to her panties, which she promptly removes to make a bomb (an underwear bomber). My G-d; that’s not even Avatar-like clever. (Well, they say Avatar was clever. I don’t know; I would never watch such far-removed rubbish about a blue people fighting for their invaded fairy forest.)

Fashion Police (http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/fashion/index.html)

Cultural Foot-And-Mouth Can Kill

Art, Music, Pop-Culture, Technology, The Zeitgeist

An abundance of flying objects and a minimalist script, as far as music and language go: This encapsulates the artistic tastes pervading the culture. “Sixty Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl, however, was enraptured by the sounds of a bad band called “The Edge,” collaborating with Bono, another three-chord wonder, to produce the “new musical ‘Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.'”

In order to better describe the audial effects he wanted to achieve, Bono told “The Edge”: “ta, ta, ta, tum; give me that John Lennon-kinda sound.” He can’t even read music. Neither could they, presumably. That was “the creative process in real time” to which Stahl treated her viewers.

About the pretentious director, Julie Taymor—without whom Bono said he would not have been willing to warble worthlessly—the media seem to be saying less since her set has started buckling under poor Super Man and his supporting crew. She must be a card-carrying liberal.

The show’s financial scaffolding is rickety too. It so happens that Taymor’s talents for entertaining are not commercially viable: she has been at this production longer than the Iraq war has been entertaining the political deadheads. Before its financial sponsors can break even, “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” will have to run for decades. That is if it holds up.

UPDATE II: Hollywood: Let’s Call It Quits!

Art, Energy, Film, Free Markets, Hollywood, Propaganda, Science

I’ve always shied away from calls to boycott an entire industry; it sounds so, well, stupid. Now I see no other way with the Hollywood cretins. Watch the latest antics from the nation’s prime pea brains:

The evidence is in. Activism has now replaced acting, and sermons have supplanted stories. I don’t know about you, but given my own intelligence, I refuse to be lectured by “tards.” Unless these cerebrally compromised egotists can promise me a GOOD STORY sans politics—I do not patronize their “art.”

And while I’m at it: Theirs is not art. Idiots; you are nothing more than public entertainers; glorified circus animals, show critters. Amuse me–make me think less about my daily political reality—or f-ck off.

There are some superb, new TV series that showcase the best of entertainment: strong acting, no abreacting; fabulous, apolitcal scripts. “Justified” is one. “Flashpoint” is another.

“Law and Order” in all its permutations sports PC elements, as does “CSI.” But generally, these excellent series offer kick-ass scripts and actors. Give me a good narrative. But I will not tolerate some prancing, decked-up, self-styled Goth twenty-something (allegedly) inserting herself into the story, and selling what goes, in these sorry days, for “originality” and “individuality.”

Other than the ladies who always offer up their cleavages in the interrogation room, and everywhere else (you want respect when you go into a situation boobs first? Not from me, bubbles), “Law & Order,” “CSI” (but not NCSI) and “Criminal Minds,” especially,—are all top-notch productions.

Vote for such quality with your time and money; withdraw your vote from the rest.

UPDATE I: MORATORIUM ON MINDLESSNESS, please. In what is high-level deception, the administration co-opoted and doctored scientific opinion rendered in the matter of the so-called moratorium.

Via KansasCity.com:

“A group of engineers and oil experts said Friday that the Interior Department changed the language of a high-profile oil spill report after they’d signed it, falsely signaling their support for a drilling moratorium that they thought went too far.

The new language called for a stronger and wider moratorium on some oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico than the experts thought necessary. In fact, one said Friday, the stronger moratorium might instead increase the risks slightly.” …

UPDATE II (June 14): PHILOSOPHER KINGS. What, you may ask, is entertainer Gloria Estefan doing at the “Merage Foundation for the American Dream and the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars’ National Leadership Awards Gala held at the National Press Club”? Carrying forth against the Arizona immigration-enforcement law, of course. Boycott the bitch.

Updated: DVD Distractions

Art, Celebrity, Film, Hollywood

I’ve been promising The Judge a list of reasonable DVD distractions.
We folks might not be able to afford a shopping trip to Paris, as the one Michelle Obama, the Royal Grandma and Girls took courtesy of the taxpayers, but we can all kick back with a reasonable film and some home-made popcorn, and try and forget our odious overlords for a short while.

Here are a few picks, ranked from best to worst.

1) “Doubt” with Meryl Streep, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams. Excellent performances and a powerful lesson about gossip. I liked the analogy of a slashed feather cushion. The feathers fly away, irretrievable like gossip. I don’t know about Christianity, but a Jew is prohibited from bad-mouthing another. Of course, this is a sin we all commit.
I suspect the story was also meant to poke at the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church. However, that minor folly can easily be ignored.

2) “Changelin.” With the edification of our friend Thomas Szasz, we covered the topic in a previous blog.

3) “Hard 8”: excellent acting. This 1996 film is a real old-school flick. The characters are well-developed, the plot unexpected, and an emphasis placed on what drives the protagonists. When I say the storyline was good, I mean this: Most film scripts these days offer such thin gruel for stories that, I don’t know about you, but by the time 10 minutes have passed, I’ve figured out the next 1.5 hours.

4) “Gone Baby Gone.”. A respectable directorial debut from Ben Affleck. More than respectable: this was a good, gripping story. It brought into sharp relief the damage self-righteous, know-it-all do-gooders can cause.

5) “The Stone Merchant”: Starring Harvey Keitel as an Italian convert to Islam for whom terrorism is a religious duty. This [is] a highly improbable tale, which also features F. Murray Abraham, Jordi Molla and Jane March.”
It’s barely passable.

6) “Rain.” An obviously obscure movie, since I am unable to find a trace of it online. And, no; it’s not this “Rain.” The “Rain” I saw was a torrid, Oedipal tale of a woman who kills her husband, and, unbeknown to her, has an affair with her … son. She resolves the latter conflict as ruthlessly as the former (husband). It’s well acted, but morbid.

7) “Lakeview Terrace“ with Samuel L. Jackson is poor, but even poorer is our #eight, “Righteous Kill.” Robert De Niro can do no wrong in my eyes: he’s always good. Al Pacino, on the other hand, is the most overrated actor living. He can’t act, even though he has had the benefit of good roles. He bellows and screams and gesticulates and annoys the hell out of me. But you may be more patient than I with Pacino’s once-you’ve-seen-one-you’ve-seen-’em-all performances. He gives me a fat headache. The script is weak too.

Have fun.

Update (June Eighth): I must have seen “October Sky” at the same time Dan did, and had the same thoughts he expresses hereunder. It’s a true story. I loved it so much, I looked-up the title and hero at the time. The young man went on to great achievements.
There is another fine film I stumbled on in the manner Dan described. It’s with Robert Redford as a frontier man; fabulous too. Anyone recall the title? In fact, I think the Judge will find the last two films mentioned the best of the bunch.