Revocate the Agitator

Takashi Miike makes directing look so fun. His material ranges from gruesome torture macabre to G rated children's films, hitting almost everything in between along the way. What genre hasn't he tackled?

Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai (2011, Takashi Miike) is majestically sparse.

Set in 17th century Japan, this Jeremy Thomas-produced, Ryuichi Sakamoto-scored costume samurai buskin portends a solemn, restrained ballad of desaturated hues, tons of silence, and ominously zen rock gardens.

Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai doesn't appear as a filmed play, although because of its minimal use of characters and locations, it easily could have. Miike overcomes this pitfall by shooting ornate tableaux with a floating 3D omniscient POV through predominantly wide-angled lenses.

Miike often makes movies without any graphic violence, but just because Hara-Kiri:Death of a Samurai doesn't illustrate the explicit carnage doesn't mean that the film isn't visceral--it is.

The gut becomes the epicenter of where a man's test of self is played out. In Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai a nuclear family has to deal with the throes of insurmountable poverty. Motome, Miho, Kingko and their unnamed white cat inherit the same set of circumstances most Hollywood casts battled during the Great Depression, with a similar uncorrupted innocence.

The film's themes are embedded in the arc of Hanshiro and his virtue in the face of oppression. He's up against impossible odds, and Lord Kageyu of the House of li represents an unswayable set of fixed values as old as the rocks and wood that make up the architecture of the various structures the film occurs in. The plot is classically archetypal, yet is stripped down to the grim mechanics of the court martial-like interrogation of the samurai Hanshiro.

Characters are sketched lightly. The dominance of the House of li's military might is in direct opposition to the starving family--and this is the heart of the film. Doomed lovers practically deserve their own genre. From Romeo and Juliet to You Only Live Once (1937, Fritz Lang) and They Live by Night (1949, Nicholas Ray), the death of young romance is the fodder of endless photoplays.

And seeing as how this is one of those rare occurences where the victims (Motome and Miho) are completely faultless, their struggles earned my sympathy especially in the way in which I kept thinking about how this story is so relevant today. What's the solution? Beats me.

We're a frail species.

--Dregs

Satan Spawn, The Caco-Daemon

If I were in the mood to watch a movie that takes place in a trailer park and boldly exploits taboos for shock value, I'd watch a Guiseppe Andrews movie. He's amassed an entire oeuvre doing just that and his films use non-actors and real locations.

I did not find Killer Joe (2011, William Friedkin) shocking in the least bit. It's a $10 million dollar competently executed, if not inspired, B movie with a strong, simple plot, with very limited locations and a few characters.

If I were to wager what a producer should try if they wanted a guaranteed hit, I'd probably come up with a formula close to what Killer Joe follows: plentiful female nudity and trashy revealing getups + disgustingly gory realistic attacks peppered throughout + a singular premise, easy to follow, that brings ever increasing obstacles before its central protagonist.

This is a formula movie of the most primitive variety and it's badly dated. Do bare bush and bloody broken bones actually hold any stimulation for anyone these days? Gratuitous is the word. And when you take that away, what Killer Joe remains as is a visually dull wannabe Blood Simple (1984, Joel Coen). The sad part is that even though Blood Simple only cost $1.5 million, it's the flick I'll see a few more times, whereas I have no desire to see Killer Joe a second time.

Killer Joe is novel in the sense that it feels like something a dark lonely teenager would wet his appetite with in the form of a graphic novel. But that's to say it's kid's stuff. Its writer knows how to keep an audience paying attention, but that's not a feat to me--otherwise, I'd herald Mission: Impossible III (2006, J.J. Abrams) as the best movie of the 2000s.

I've always had the hots for Gina Gershon though. And I'm glad to see her in something for more than a few minutes. For me, she's the secret to why Showgirls (1995, Paul Verhoeven) is a timeless masterpiece.

I guess I'll close by mentioning I don't use B movie pejoratively. While Killer Joe suffers from that hard to define filmed-play symptom, I do cherish the quality that pits all of its characters against obstacles that drive them to their own utterly devastating disintegration at the lowest possible point in their shared lives. It's a black comedy--I know it's PC to say "dark" comedy. And its tone is well crafted, just not quite fitting to my particular tastes. The blue strip club scene was nifty and there's some very effective use of jumping the line between Ansel and Chris during their conversation. And the seduction of Dottie is expert in its use intentional blocking; and, an open frame used in the same way Blow Job (1964, Andy Warhol) did.

McConaughey closes out by dominating Summer 2012 with a role that will rest along side his turns in Bernie (2011, Richard Linklater) and Magic Mike (2012, Steven Soderbergh).

--Dregs

Angel of Death

Richard Linklater seems to have good taste in movies. I think I read him say he wished he could have lived and worked in the classic Hollywood era, being assigned different projects, not having to worry about financing or distribution; but, I may be mistaken.

Once when I was 13, I was sick with a fever and could not get out of bed. My dad surprised me with a VHS of Dazed and Confused (1993, Richard Linklater) he'd rented and I watched it twice in a row. I've still never watched the same movie twice in a row. But nearly 20 years later, I still have not discerned a Linklater style or developed an appreciation for any of his work since I was a teenager and crazy over Dazed and Confused.

Bernie (2011, Linklater) is one of those films that you watch and think to yourself hey, this is actually damn good; it's like the kind of movies Hollywood made in the 30s; the characters and setting are modern yet authentic, and we haven't seen them before like this; cool, Linklater's doing his homage to 30s rural Ford comedies, like he did with The Newton Boys (1998, Linklater) and Bogdanovich did with The Last Picture Show (1971, Peter Bogdanovich) and Paper Moon (1973, Bogdanovich).

But you might also realize, yeah, wait a minute, is competent handling of a quirky black comedy worth 10 wing wangs? Is it worth 100 minutes?

Tough to say.

Bernie's like one of those jokes someone tells and you aren't compelled to laugh, but perhaps produce a sympathy grin or chuckle for the effort.

It almost could have been funny. For me, the funniest moments are when Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine) begins abusing Bernie (Jack Black), but they're too fleeting. I'd also laugh harder at five minutes of Andy Dick's old sketch from The Andy Dick Show on MTV, where he played a character based on himself who assaults his Hollywood intern assistants relentlessly though too. Shirley MacLaine's face is maybe also one of the last to have survived classic Hollywood, coincidentally. She looks great in Bernie and we can recall her youthful features from appearing in something like The Trouble with Harry (1955, Alfred Hitchcock) at a time when Hitchcock'd still be waiting to enter his pinnacle.

The extras all look, dress and talk like gaudy real Texans. Sonny Carl Davis and McConaughey's mom are both excellent and are the only other part of the movie I think came off as genuine comedy.

The detailed exposition of Texas and funeral directors, and the detailed production design and art direction, prove Linklater took special care to research and prepare Bernie. It looks great, seriously. I guess it was just too alright for me. Jack Black as the weird-in-a-real-life-way effeminate, pants up to his waist-wearer is continuously interesting, but isn't he supposed to be funnier? Or is this supposed to be dry? Depends on your taste.

Matthew McConaughey as D.A. Danny Buck Davidson has the meat of the film's theme summed up in his final prosecution when he drills Bernie about whether or not he is accustomed to the "fancy" life. That's what sells the drama authentically and hit the story home. It defines the conflict of Carthage and doubles up the ambiguity over which of the townsfolk are for or against Bernie and Marjorie and a big part of what their speculations on the couple focus on.

To close, somthing silly: when Bernie describes the preparation of a cadaver before its final rest, he mentions things like, left hand lightly placed above the right crossed, head slightly turned to the right... And during his tranquil oration about its significance I eerily realized that's exaclty how I was sitting in the theatre. The black box, as Godard said.

--Dregs

Dirty Black Summer

There are two kinds of movies I go to see: first, there're the latest releases of my favorite directors and secondly, there's everything else. Right now my favorite working filmmakers are Todd Solondz, Steve McQueen, Claire Denis, Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne, and Harmony Korine; and my favorite director is David Fincher.

When I go to see a new movie by one of my favorite filmmakers my response is wholly esoteric. I view the film through the lens of auteur criticism. I place the film within the context of the director's entire oeuvre. I project what I believe is the director's identity somewhere, engulfing what is most vital and worthwhile in the work. And then, I look for what's most pertinent and topical current society, and what's most pertinent and topical to my own current state of being in life in general.

Todd Solondz has not only been my favorite filmmaker for the longest--14 years counting back to a vhs of Welcome to the Dollhouse (1996, Todd Solondz) I copped while still in high school--but, I've also found every film he's completed to date to be a masterpiece. 1998 was a watershed year for the development of my critical taste in films because it's the year I saw my first Woody Allen movie in a theatre, and quickly built on this fancy by seeking out other movies released theatrically at the time that amounted to what I found to be classy adult highbrow melodrama like, Your Friends & Neighbors (1998, Neil LaBute) and The Last Days of Disco (1998, Whit Stillman). These types of films are still the closest model to what I am aiming to make with my own films.

Todd Solondz is the new Woody Allen. Of course, despite the fact that Woody Allen is still alive and making movies. The new Woody Allen movie was actually playing in the same theatre last week when I went to go see Dark Horse (2011, Solondz).

Palindromes (2005, Solondz) marks a shift in Todd Solondz trajectory. It provides a coda for his first three films in the way its multi-actored-single-protagonist device turns the movie into a surrealist work. Before Palindromes, Solondz would puncture the prosaic world of his Jersey misanthropes with a single surreal shocker scene. I like to think of the first three Solondz movies as, to appropriate the label thrown at Woody Allen, "his early funny ones." I find Solondz to have matured after Palindromes, which is why Dark Horse came as no disappointment.

To get the Woody Allen comparisons over and done with, one final note about the parents of Abe (Jordan Gelber) is that the actors portraying them are both remnants from an earlier time in Allen's career. Christopher Walken is practically a Solondz prototype playing Annie Hall's brother in Annie Hall (1977, Woody Allen) and Mia Farrow starred in 12 films directed by Allen.

Abe's parents are the most adorable, cuddly, even stylish 65+ year olds I can think of. Farrow's glasses and pastel accented outfits are youthful in a way that didn't seem ironically ridiculous.

Something that recurs throughout the films of Solondz is the dilemma whereby his characters are incapable of attaining happiness, yet in ways that don't seem to be worthy of our genuine empathy. Solondz shows us how feeble we are and makes us feel guilty over having the nerve to express feelings of forlorn emptiness.

Dark Horse is also Solondz first foray into genuine surrealism. Not here and there, but as a whole Dark Horse places the viewer in unknowable states of subjectivism throughout the narrative. Who's view are we seeing this through? Is part of this imagined or a dream? Is all of it?

Surrealism has never had a more adequate form to support. Solondz is still in New Jersey and still concerned with an upper-middle class Jewish family. One of the most glaring tonal contrasts comes from Abe's chirpy demeanor in the face of his comically pathetic future. He's even challenged a few times by this when characters ask if it's ironic or not.

Dark Horse is intimate and engaging with the tiny little corner of the world it depicts. Among the details that stimulate audience conceptions are Abe's yellow Hummer, just like the one in Bad Boys II (2003, Michael Bay); his rhinestoned necklace with his name on it; his oversized brightly-colored jerseys and polos; his nerd layer, where seasons 1-9 of The Simpsons on dvd are on display; the innocuously braindead brand of twee bubblegum he jams out en route to his various errands; and of course the Lionel auction he's bidding on on ebay.

Hollywood is ruled by a conspiracy that commands its films to have sympathetic characters, a protagonist the audience empathizes with, a clear goal with obstacles that the protagonist pursues while experiencing some significant character change afterward, an uplifting ending, etc... However, Dark Horse avoids most of these obnoxious edicts by having Abe suffer the ultimate of tragic endings, accomplishing nothing, suffering for no fault of his own necessarily, and finally unable to do anything about it. But this provokes other questions like, "what could he have done different, really?"

The performances are so soft, as is the direction and writing. Solondz has huge balls to make these kinds of movies that would seem to be a huge red flag to any producer. Luckily, this played for a week here in Austin and I've never felt so enamored by something so seemingly slight.

--Dregs

The Fast and the Furious

Shame (2011, Steve McQueen) is irreducible. It is about a young marketing professional who's a sex addict (Micheal Fassbender) and his suicidal sister (Carey Mulligan), set in New York. By the end of the film, nothing changes.

I'm split between two ways to read this movie. My first response was positive. Knowing the premise beforehand (Brandon's a sex addict), every shot rang completely true to his symptom. When I first saw the opening shot of Brandon catatonically staring at the ceiling, I projected that he wakes up with one thing on his mind and nothing else--the look of a junkie. And I thought, "brilliant, wow, that's exactly what it's like." I also thought the music, pacing and composition were refined, and that the film did so much in such an understated way.

But after reflection, I was not so sure. Hunger (2008, Steve McQueen) is a bona fide masterpiece about an historical figure who sacrifices his self through starvation to make a political statement in a humanitarian way. Shame's Brandon is the opposite: he indulges his sexual appetite and cares for nothing and nobody. And as a character, what the hell do I care about some rich upper-East side yuppie who gets laid as much as humanly possible? Seriously? Sympathy? For that? I realized, with a different filmmaking approach, I would not be empathizing with this guy's misery, I'd be appalled by the audacity someone had to have to think anyone actually cares about this character's conquests--it might even be nothing more than high dollar softcore.

In conclusion, Steve McQueen is a brilliant visual artist. In the film's beginning, there is an edit that is joined by a shot of Brandon jacking off in the shower that goes soft (blurry) on an MCU of him, which is followed by a match cut of a soft focus MCU of Brandon on the subway.

Also, there's a now signature McQueen overhead shot, composed with perfect symmetry: Brandon taking a bathroom break during work and what he does in the stall.

Then there's the first POV of Marianne in Brandon's office: she appears naked from the shoulders up (even though in the diegetic world she's clothed), and the frame is disturbed--what are we looking at? Her shoulders? Her lips? One eye?

The other two big sequences are: the tracking dolly shot of Brandon running out in the city at night, which follows him as he falls off into black, then catches him sporadically as he approaches overhead sources (also similar to the technique employed for he and Marianne's first walk and, maybe, inspired by the EXT. night shots in Army of Shadows (1969, Jean-Pierre Melville)); and the six minute two shot of he and Sissy (Mulligan) talking on the couch. I probably don't need to point this out, but six minutes is an exceptionally long duration for a shot, especially in the modern cinematic climate of today. (And Steve McQueen's most famous shot from Hunger is an uninterrupted seventeen minute take of two guys talking that is unlikely to be rivaled anytime soon.)

Like I said, it's impressive how every shot works by staying with Brandon or Sissy and omits dialogue for moments of silence and stillness, but preserves focus and remains truthful to their story.

--Dregs

Driven

My favorite films are dark and feminine. Recently, for feminine, there's:

• The Last Days of Disco (1998, Whit Stillman) glamorous, chic, and witty.
• Dancer in the Dark (2000, Lars von Trier) dark musical.
• Amélie (2001, Jean-Pierre Jeunet) so saccharine and girly, although light.
• Mulholland Dr. (2001, David Lynch) scary Hollywood dream/nightmare.
• Palindromes (2006, Todd Solondz) dark adolescent satire.
• Marie Antoinette (2006, Sofia Coppola) pink period/pop art.
• Volver (2006, Pedro Almodóvar) Classic Hollywood-style domestic melodrama.
• Black Swan (2010, Darren Aronofsky) scary ballet dream/nightmare.
• Mildred Pierce (2011, Todd Haynes) the final word in the genre, period.

Damsels in Distress (2011, Whit Stillman) is very light, so it simply cannot be significant for me in a way that actually matters. However, it is riotously funny, softly flowery with a pink feminine touch, and completely bizarre with its own droll ambitions of Classic Hollywood cinematic mannerisms meeting WASPy, adorkably naïve prep school girls who are delightfully characterized through exposition and dialogue.

Violet (Greta Gerwig) is a decoy who initially appears to be Charlotte (Kate Beckinsale) from The Last Days of Disco, but reveals truly unexpected character turns that layer onto her initial appearance--vacuum headed eccentric who seems to aim low, but with an air of superiority, claims virtuosity and altruism (the variant is that Violet is as naïve as Charlotte is cynical). And this is her vehicle to say some of the most insanely offbeat lines I never saw coming. The tone is set in the opening, when Violet scorns some male coed passersby because of their "acrid odor." The score under moments like this is audaciously prim, which signals the film's knowingness of its own satirical edge.

I've spoken a lot lately about how films only convey sight and sound, and that the other senses like smell, taste and touch must be evoked through other means. It's unimportant at this point, but smell seemed a big part of Hunger (2008, Steve McQueen) for me because I felt like he created a constant smellscape of putrid stench. Violet's character evokes smell in several ways. She even goes into a funny speech about how the smell of one's environment has a direct bearing on their state of being.

Violet also speaks with  proper formality and impeccable diction. And it never ceases to be hilarious and charming. (To regretfully digress yet again, Veda from Mildred Pierce has the most brilliant dialogue because it's also period; but, her prim and proper orations are daggers and one of the strongest parts of that film.)

This film constantly reminded me that I was in new territory, which I mean in a good way. It cannot be taken seriously, but it touches serious emotions and ideas. And Whit Stillman is a clever craftsman, in an elegantly minimalist way.

Violet has three close friends who support her adequately. Lily (Analeigh Tipton) becomes very prominent and is intriguing to look at--she has a distinguishing scar on her cheek that almost looks decorative. But of course, Gerwig is the core of Damsels in Distress, and her turn as Violet will be what lasts with audiences.

--Dregs

Biker Boyz

The duality of man theme expressed in Full Metal Jacket (1987, Stanley Kubrick) shows how man’s id can be tapped to create a killing machine; and, say, one that risks exterminating his ego and superego as a result (i.e. Pyle and Animal Mother).

For this reason, Full Metal Jacket is one of the 2 most important films I’ve seen, thematically. And for this same reason, I find it the one movie that best suited Kubrick’s talent and vision. And, that vision is cynical, satirical, and dystopian, to say the least.

The other most important film, thematically, for me, is Au hasard Balthazar (1966, Robert Bresson). Au hasard Balthazar has been my favorite movie for years. It’s the one movie I actually love.

Instead of showing the duality of man, Bresson links man to animal through their souls. He shows that man is not a paradox, but a spirit, just as all living creatures are. But, Bresson also believes all of our destinies to be martyrdom.

Le gamin au vèlo (2011, Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne) is very much concerned with the same aesthetic reverence and milieu of Bresson. Its central protagonist, Cyril, has a desperate hunger in his spirit to understand his purpose in life. He strives to decide if he’s a boy or an animal. And this juxtaposition is central, for the core of the film is this dilemma.

The narrative is a diptych in the sense that first, Cyril fights to understand what’s up with his dad, then the second half of the film arises after what Cyril does after he finds out.

The brilliance of Le gamin au vèlo’s focus arises from the blurring of the lines between boy and animal; because, all Cyril needs to be able to live as a boy is a parent, yet the film expands the elasticity of that connotation. In effect, what this establishes is the perspective that shows how the exact same thing is true of animals—or, as Au hasard Balthazar hypothesizes, kindness nurtures and is necessary for a spirit to exist and cruelty kills it, for humans and animals alike.
With the same ferocity as Alan Clarke’s characters like Gary Oldman in The Firm (1989, Alan Clarke) or the two adolescents in Christine (1987, Clarke), Cyril has a primal inertia. He sprints, attacks, bites, scales walls, climbs trees, and it’s easy to anticipate what he’s like once he gets on his bike—it becomes a Maverickian extension of his need for speed, or, more accurately, stress release and an escape.

The typical Dardennes camera style is maintained: handheld and documentary style. Yet, they also spend quite a bit of time on fluid
tracking shots of Cyril.

The color scheme calls attention to itself. Cyril always wears red, except for one shot. In color theory, primary red’s complimentary hue is primary cyan. In Le gamin au vèlo, Cyril appears in the first shot wearing a primary cyan tee under his zip-up primary red jacket. I actually believe right now that cyan represents Cyril’s spirit. (Other instances where primary cyan occurs are: the nighttime interiors when Cyril sleeps; and to a lesser extent, the accents in Cyril’s bedroom on the estate, and the clothes worn by other boys he encounters on the streets—notice which men wear black.) Finally, there is a crucial moment in the third act wear Cyril wears a primary cyan tee under a denim jacket, with no red—the only time in the film—and, during this scene, the one chance Cyril felt to be worthy of actually living as a boy with a spirit, it just so happens that life is a little more complicated and I’ll leave it at that. (You know it wouldn’t be a Dardenne brothers movie without that awesome "this can’t last" kind of dénouement, like Sirk at his best.)

The Dardennes are still the masters of minimalism when it comes to music. In Le gamin au vèlo, their sixth narrative feature, they use non-diegetic music for the first time—but it’s hardly anything resembling an actual score. The Beethoven cues really feel like the way Bresson portioned out the Mozart in certain moments during Un condamné à mort s' est èchappè ou Le vent souffle où il veut (1956, Bresson).

Basically, I identify most strongly with Cyril’s wild side; especially considering that pretty much all he’s after, underneath it all in the end, is someone to love him. That, to me, is a beautiful paradox: one’s wild animal nature ferociously fighting to find peace and love.

And the fact that movies this simple can still be made still remains a feat to me. I think its a wonder to be able to watch stories play out that can feel this honest and modern, with such lack of fuss over spectacle or high production values in the serivce of genre conventions.

--Dregs

Too Perfect

The cult of David Fincher as auteur probably share diverse notions as to what his draw is. Perhaps foremost among them is his reputation for being a methodical, calculating perfectionist and demanding exorbitant amounts of takes in much of the same manner Kubrick is known for. Additionally, his work is often characterized by scenes showing a surgical precision exacted in getting deep into the viscera of the audience. But, on a more subtle level, the guy is uncanny when it comes to the focus he preserves throughout his vision, considering how large the scale of his work often is and how varied his source material has been.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011, Fincher) is only disappointing because the franchise it's based on is a series of international best selling novels. I get apprehensive about any movie that is poised to open across the world; you know, the big ones. Because in the end, mass market entertainment kind of has to be diluted, once it is served in such a large quantity.

Why does The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo work in Fincher's hands? Because he exceeds when it comes to this antiseptic, dark, cold Scandinavian milieu. The design of this film comes across as almost high tech in a sense. It just feels so modern. The barren landscape is complimented by desolate production design. I still feel the cold from that house--someone let that cat in!

In addition to the production design and art direction, Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor again contribute to the soundtrack with post industrial electronic ambient soundscape type percussion that further advances on the styles they'd experimented with for The Social Network (2010, Fincher). These elements are also crucial to the Fincher touch.

The plot is banal and bores me.

The timeless, exquisite beauty of Rooney Mara is supported by her talent to deliver a convincing performance as Lisbeth Salander--the emotional core of this movie and the primary reason Fincher has captured my adoration here. This girl is modern in the sense that she epitomizes the counter culture of her generation. In the 50s, JDs wore leather jackets, white tee shirts, greased back hair, smoked cigarettes and rode motorcycles--this is Lisbeth's lineage--and in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the self-imposed Hollywood cigarette boycott is clearly flouted. So in a sense, Lisbeth seems like a return to the sure footing of the 50s, as opposed to the chaos and divergent cultural identities that marked, say, the late 60s. Or, should I say, she's a classic rebel, lacking political pretense. And who's she pine over? Who does any upwardly mobile Greaser go for? A Soc!

The denouement is more sugary than it was undoubtedly intended. She's supposed to be scarred, but it just feels like a small bruise. Nevertheless, I identify with, empathize with and root with her for the whole two and a half hours she's up there.

This is too black and white, good guy vs. bad guy for me. But, I'll admit, seeing a rapist get his comeuppance still generates that special brand of catharsis that hits me on the most rudimentary level. The bloodlust that comes with the urge for revenge against anyone who has harmed innocent women or children is one of the instances I'm most vulnerable to being manipulated when I watch films: and that in itself is an entirely different matter to delve into--I just know I try to keep an eye on that. For me though, it's almost a little like Fincher's talent is wasted on this kind of thing--he can usually find plot points that appear more unexpected.

I think his insight into the minutia of historical tabloid operas is his greatest strength. Don't get me wrong though: since Zodiac (2007, Fincher), I find all of David Fincher's movies endlessly rewarding. For me, he's the best working director in the business (uh-oh, superlative praise? I think it's warranted here).

--Dregs

MEV-1 vs. the World

If I were to pitch two stakes at each of the furthest ends my cinematic taste reaches, one would represent the prosaic dramatization of everyday human nature and the other would mark sensuous escape into the fantastic. Or, I look to either be deeply moved or taken for a fun ride; yet, I rarely expect to find a movie that delivers both at once.

Contagion (2011, Steven Soderbergh) shall be categorized as a fun ride (even though there's nothing fun about a story involving a deadly virus), filled with thrills, that moves along at an assuredly purposeful pace right up until its 100 minute running time expires. And then it's over. The film is so compact and self contained (big pun intended) that you just need to sit back and let it happen to you--the hallmark of all genre films?

While this film may lack a dramatic gravitas that stays with the viewer, its formal achievements are so efficient that this becomes a case of style serving as substance. I am reminded of opening a new toy as a kid and the delight of escaping into a fantastic adventure, right out of the box--that's what watching Contagion feels like.

Fist, there's the music. Cliff Martinez's score surprised the heck out of me. Watching the movie, it was audacious at first. To see the montages concurrently launched with this 80s new wave inspired power synth driving and unifying them cracked me up--but they work. It's difficult for me to describe the affinity I feel for kitschy B movie sci-fi aesthetics, but I've always enjoyed the way space helmets and chemistry sets make me think of cutesy beeps and whirring sf/x. And one Mr. John Carpenter was responsible for the watershed synth score he composed for Halloween (1978, Carpenter), which borrowed from Italian giallo scores from bands like Goblin, influencing generic conventions for decades to follow. But back to Cliff Martinez. The synthesizers aren't something I'm qualified or capable of describing in any significant way, however, the guy goes into some funky Moog solos that rock.

The counterpart to the vibrant, modern scoring of Contagion is Soderbergh's cinematography (Peter Andrews is a pseudonym Soderbergh has used since Traffic). This film's palette strikes me as predominately green and yellow and I think it's because this movie is about people getting very sick and dying from a highly contagious virus. Soderbergh shot this on a RED, so I'm guessing he likely photographed with a color temperature that didn't overly correct for the fluorescent, sodium vapor, metal halide lamps, or even daylight and tungsten fixtures--but these colors also could have been manipulated in post. The later Gwyneth Paltrow scenes make heavy use of a tilt shift in the lens. The tilt shift is a special attachment that allows the lens to shift in the housing of the barrel, but what its effect is turns out to be a soft, blurry distortion surrounding the clearly focused center of the frame (this movie uses it a lot, but I can only think of the regatta in The Social Network (2010, David Fincher) for a comparable reference.)

Somewhat related to the cinematography, Soderbergh's blocking is also notable in that he is increasingly in the habit of composing with out of focus objects in the foreground, which I enjoy. He must be having fun these days. His work is vibrant, youthful and slick.

The structure of the screenplay is what allows for this formal excursion to preserve its focus though. With a simple conflict: deadly MEV-1 outbreak as antagonist vs. Earth as protagonist, the script is composed as a day-by-day account, and to me, cohesively shows everything I wanted to see in the world of this story.

Many will comment about the all-star ensemble, but I'll just say I like Demetri Martin as a CFC scientist who looks a little like an indy nerd hipster and Marion Cotillard is too gorgeous for me to forget who she really is and imagine she's an epidemiologist--she's just so classically glamorous.

There are at least two scenes I'd noticed where two characters from opposite ends of the socio-economic spectrum cross paths. There's the janitor (John Hawkes) who seems overly entitled in his demands from the high ranking CDC Dr. (Laurnce Fishburne) and the two passersby the Gwyneth Paltrow character infects: the Ukrainian fashion model and the Chinese busboy. At first I thought this was heavy handed, but then I decided that Soderbergh may be preserving genre conventions from 70s disaster pics where the ensemble typically brought together such disparate figures. I also should bring up Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944) as a prototype, and if there're earlier examples in film, I cannot think of them at the moment.

A final though I had concerns the Ukrainian model. I am embarrassed to admit that I've never considered myself qualified to discuss politics and I might not even have a clear grasp on what exactly the word means always, under exceptional contexts. But to me, I think the filmmakers are making a subtle comment about a news item I recall reading about, which reported on the potential regulation of model's BMIs before being allowed to take to the runway. Of the three models, two were eastern European, and one, Snejana Onopka is Ukrainian. So, I think the fact that she is the first character to die, very quickly after being contaminated, may hint that her immune system was the weakest due to her dangerously low BMI. Of course, I admit, this may be an absurd speculation. But, then again.

And there's a subtle narrative point that may be stretched to read an eco-friendly message therein. The film ends with a shot of a bulldozer razing a wild bat habitat, and that bulldozer has an AIMM Alderson placard. AIMM Alderson is the company the Gwyneth Paltrow character was a global sales rep for and the Japanese businessman in the casino takes AIMM Alderson documents on the plane back to Japan with him, inferring that their deal somehow precipitated the entire outbreak. Again, if these are political messages, I'm still not sure. But that's how it looks.

The ending is a simple joy of narrative convention. After allowing yourself to be engrossed in a narrative, paying attention and actively engaging with it, there is often the tendency to show the beginning at the very end. The biggest example may be the entire conception of Lucas's prequel trilogy, ending with Anakin putting on the Darth Vader costume; there're plenty of detractors, Patton Oswalt being one of the funnier. But in Contagion, I still can get a big kick out of seeing the beginning as an epilogue. And screenwriters tend to aim for the goal of "show don't tell," so the Contagion ending can serve as proof of what happens when it's done right.

--Dregs