March/April 2014: Cinema

I held off on a monthly report for March because of a lack of viewings, but I'm back to doing the monthly thing now combining the past two months. I made a few cinematic memories over the past two months, and my favourites were from Ernst Lubitsch and Jean-Luc Godard. I also finished the filmography of Elaine May who has to be one of the most under appreciated directors of all time. She only made four films and each one of them is very good and Mikey and Nicky and A New Leaf are masterpieces. I finally got a start on new films as well in the past 61 days with Stranger By the Lake and Only Lovers Left Alive. The highlight of the past two months was writing for The Vulgar Cinema again. I loved Johnnie To's, Don't Go Breaking My Heart and it is one of the very best films I've seen this year. My interests outside of cinema have mostly been consumed by wrestling, but I did start up on classic era Simpsons and it's as good as everyone says. 2014 is shaping up to be a fruitful year in cinema even if I'm working at a much slower rate than I have in past years for personal reasons. May is already off to a great start, and I might have big positive life changes this month as well. Things are looking mighty swell for Willow. I hope they are for you too.

Best
Don't Go Breaking My Heart (Johnnie To, 2011)
The Doll (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919)
Notre Musique (Jean-Luc Godard, 2004)
Working Girls (Lizzie Borden, 1986)
The Fruit of the Paradise (Vera Chytilova, 1970)
Mikey and Nicky (Elaine May, 1976)
Stranger by the Lake (Alain Guiraudie, 2014)
First Name: Carmen (Jean-Luc Godard, 1983)
 Christine (John Carpenter, 1983)
The Palm Beach Story (Preston Sturges, 1942)
Journey to Italy (Roberto Rossellini, 1954)
Tokyo Drifter (Sejin Suzuki, 1966)
La Chambre (Chantal Akerman, 1972)
The Great Dictator (Charlie Chaplin, 1940)
Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944)

Best Rewatches
Whip It (Drew Barrymoore, 2009)
My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988)
Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson, 2012)
8 1/2 (Federico Fellini, 1963)
Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2004)

Worst
Labor Day (Jason Reitman, 2014)
Proxy (Zack Parker, 2013)
Devil's Knot (Atom Egoyan, 2013)
Goats (Christopher Neil, 2012)

 

Reunion: The Veronica Mars Movie

Originally posted on Letterboxd

I feel like I should state right now that I'm a big Veronica Mars fan. However, unlike most of the fans I didn't want more. The conclusion of season 3 ends on a near perfect note for everyone involved in the series. The show solidified it's modern noir elements in a final moment between father and daughter. It was really the perfect ending. Cult Television audiences tend to be a little greedy though and everything must always continue even when something ends strongly, and there lies the problem with having a Veronica Mars movie. It's completely unnecessary and in some ways damages a really good ending to a short, but accomplished television series that already said everything it ever wanted to say. This wouldn't be an issue if the movie was fantastic, but ultimately it's a nice but forgettable experience.

Veronica Mars was always a television show that worked best in a long form narrative. It gave the show the room to breathe, develop characters and go into themes of class, gender, race, and gendered violence. The show was never great at handling stand alone cases and the problem with now having a movie is delivering a great standalone case in 100 minutes and they fail. The mystery here just isn't interesting and there's no time to work this case the way writer/director Rob Thomas is used to handling things. Saying this case is rushed would be an understatement. This brings up questions for me as to why viewers feel the need to resurrect television shows to bring them into cinemas. As much as critics these days want to make comparisons between the two filmed mediums there are differences that make translation extremely difficult. Veronica Mars is one show that just doesn't work well in the realm of cinema. Rob Thomas doesn't have an eye for visual language for one and the already mentioned issues of adapting a story that used longform narrative for it's entire lifespan can't do the same in cinema so it was obviously going to feel different. What I'm left with is feeling this is neither good cinema or television. There's fun to be had in the rhythms of the dialogue and Kristen Bell's performance but those things were always going to translate. I can't say the same for the rest.

There's also the problem of pandering which makes the entire experience feel plotted by fans. This leads to a kind of toxicity within the narrative where relationships point more towards bad fan fiction than character truths, and that's really frustrating considering the voices feel right but their decision making a little off. Every character also has to show up long enough for audiences to see everyone. It's almost clever Rob Thomas wraps all of this around the theme of high school never ending, but in reality it's more about catching up with everyone because that's what the audience wants to see, but I guess that's what you get with a crowdsourced picture. I don't want to come off like I hate this or even dislike it though, because that isn't necessarily the case. I'm a longtime Veronica Mars fan so it's nearly impossible for me to toss this aside without being happy at hearing the fucking theme song again or Kristen Bell talking circles around everyone else (what a shame it is that screwball comedies are mostly dead and she can't star in one of those). It's just not much more than a television movie, and I can't imagine non fans are going to like this or even get it.

Veronica Mars feels like you're favourite band in the world reuniting to record an album. You're obviously excited and you never thought you'd get to hear these people working together again. You turn on the album and that all familiar feeling of knowing these people comes back, and you're happy for a few moments, but then that feeling starts to slip away and you know the fire is gone. Then the album ends and you're grateful you have more new music from a band you loved, but it's just extra songs.