3-Sith

Among the film critics I most enjoy reading is Jonathan Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum used to write weekly columns for the Chicago Reader. These days, he might write a review a month, but there was once a time when he would write 3 times a month. Film critics are already seen as an elitist lot. Rosenbaum often criticizes other critics, eg, Camby from the NY Times. His reviews often tie two or three films whose only commonality was that he saw them near one another, ie., they were released right about the same time.

That's going to be my start as well. I've been reading online film criticism for a long time, starting probably around 1997. Some of the best, referential, incisive writing is being done by online critics, and my favorite is Mike D'Angelo. Once upon a time, I was a poor graduate student who was too timid to drive anywhere in the DC area. I would see maybe a dozen films a year, and maybe twice that in video tapes (or maybe not). In other words, I didn't watch that many films.

However, I knew a lot about films (though certainly, I'm not a film buff like Roger Ebert or Leonard Maltin) mostly from reading reviews. The hardest part about writing a review is the review itself. Most fledgling critics merely summarize the film. It's so much easier to say what happened in a film, than say why you liked the film, what was working, and what wasn't. D'Angelo's reviews tend to be of the spoiler-less variety, which is, in my mind, far superior to the "here's what happened in the movie". Having tried to write some film criticism myself, I know this route is a challenging one.

Mike has replied to my posts and probably considers me something of a minor crackpot, for exactly the reason I state. I read reviews far more than I watch films. Lately, this has changed. Several reasons. First, the appearance of the amazing Landmark Theaters. Once upon a time, if you wanted to catch art films, you were hard-pressed to find them. You'd have to hunt out special theaters. Well, those theaters are now nation-wide. Landmark Theaters allows fans of cinema to watch films that would otherwise require living in New York City. With tickets around $10, Landmark isn't cheap, but it's no more expensive than most theaters. Gone are the days of $5 movie tickets, at least, if you live in a metropolitan area.

I have a strong preference to watch current films, rarely spending time to catch the classics. The French New Wave, the independeng pictures of the American 70s, Peckinpah, John Ford, Tarkovsky, Ozu, Godard, Bergman, D. W. Griffiths. These are all names and eras reaching back to the silent era that I don't have a strong predilection to watch.

Instead, I'd like to see Kiarostami, Wong Kar-Wai, Kim Ki-duk, the Dardennes brothers, Atom Egoyan, and others whose films have reached the US from places as far-flung as China, Korea, Taiwan, Iran, Canada, and Thailand.

The other boon to cinephiles everywhere is Netflix. I know true cinephiles believe in the theater experience. Large, pristine copies of films, luscious colors, crisp sounds---film as it was menat to be experienced by filmmakers. However, making the time and moeny commitment to attend films at the best theaters is far too costly and time-consuming. Netflix to the rescue!

Netflix, and now Blockbuster and Walmart, give you what traditional brick-and-mortar video stores could not. DVDs delievered to the home. This would seem a minor convenience at best, but they do two other things that make it worth while. First, they use a monthly all-you-can-watch business model. Pay just under $20 a month, and you get to watch as many movies as the local Netflix site and the post office can deliver. If you really devoted yourself to watching films, you could probably manage 20 a month. Watch 5 a month, and you basically break even.

More importantly, Netflix is able to use "the long tail". The long tail has been discussed in the media in recent weeks, but people in consumer electronics have talked about it for months. It says that the most popular films are watched by a lot of people, but that there are many people collectively who want to watch little-seen films. For everyone who wants to watch Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or even Triple X: State of the Union, there are those that want to see Shane Carruth's Primer, Wong Kar-Wai's Days of Being Wild, Atom Egoyan's Calendar. Even critically unacclaimed films in gay/lesbian cinema now has a chance to be seen by many. Latter Days, an average, but touching film about a closeted gay Mormon meeting a shallow West Holllywood waiter, can be seen by many more people than those who live near big cities.

I've used both more recently to catch up with little known (even to me) documentaries and films by great directors, and even the occasional dreck film.

This brings me to my review of two films that I recently saw.

Believe me, I had no intention of watching Episode 3 on opening night. My coworkers were set to watch a 12:01 am showing of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith at a local theater. I figured the film would be sold out, despite being shown in the wee hours of Thursday, May 19.

As it turns out, work wasn't too bad, and my roommate wanted to see it that evening, and I thought, why not?

Everyone who's followed the first two episodes has heard the complaints. Lucas can't write dialogue. He cares more for action and special effects than for stories and acting. Lucas went back to the well with The Phantom Menace creating a film that seems aimed at 8 year olds rather than early teens. From a dorky Anakin, to an insufferable Jar-Jar, to odd accents from Nute Gunray and Watto, to Anakin bumbles to save the day, to the "why bother with Darth Maul", to what-the-hell are mitochloridians, to Lucas reliving his drag racing days, the movie was a complete waste.

Attack of the Clones followed with a title that sounds like a bad "B" movie of the 50s (Attack of the Killer Bees!). However, with lowered expectations, I found the film more enjoyable to follow. Maybe I like mysteries better. True, it introduced Dooku whose name sounds like Duckula, to no great purpose.

Lucas had a huge problem to solve when he made these films. He knew the backstory he wanted, and roughly how he wanted to achieve it. He needed to have the Clone Wars. He needed to kill off the Jedi. He needed Anakin to fall to the dark side. He needed Bail Organa, so he could get Leia to live with him. He needed Luke and Leia to be born, and then to be relocated. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. But then, he goes on and on, deciding that C3PO should once belong to Anakin, and Mon Mothma needs to show up, and let's have Chewbacca, and there's little Boba. Thank goodness he didn't introduce us to little Han Solo.

The biggest of his problems is Anakin becoming evil Vader. The real problem, as I learned from the film, is that the dark side isn't all that dark. Think about what the Empire has done. Are people enslaved? Not really. Are they tortured? Not so far as we know. Indeed, the Empire's purpose seems mostly to eradicate the rebellion, and it's not entirely clear what the rebellion is rebelling against. That didn't matter in Star Wars since Vader just seemed like a cool bad guy.

So Anakin needs to convert from good to evil, and yet, the reason for him becoming evil just doesn't seem to fly. I'm not sure Lucas, who seems to study myth, every found a reason why people choose to be "evil". Hitler wanted to restore Germany to its greatness, but needed someone to blame for the woes of Germany. Stalin was probably paranoid. If you take power by force, there's a sense others may take it away from you, and through treachery.

Anakin becomes evil because of what? He wants to save Padme? And this gives him incentive to kill all Jedi? The problem with the Jedi is that, for the most part, they are good. It's hard to think that killing all the Jedi serves any purpose. His fall from goodness just doesn't make sense. Anakin is far more passionate than Vader, and so even that transformation doesn't make sense.

I also felt there were many awkward moments in the film. The Emperor's disfigurement, the needless use of Dooku, the surprising lack of shock that the Sith Lord was hiding in the most obvious way possible, the battle at Kashyyk for no apparent
reason except to show Chewbacca. I have no idea why Mace and Yoda seem so angry so often. I never could buy Yoda as military leader. It just seemed to go against what the Jedi should have been about (of course, if they never fought, it would be hard to defend the Republic).

The great irony is that, for all the action Lucas puts in his films, it never feels like a rush, because we never care. The Jedi are supposed to react to great danger with perfect calm, but in that calm, the viewer never gets engaged.

And for all of Samuel Jackson's greatness as an actor, Mace Windu was simply a waste. He doesn't do much, like many other characters presented in the film.

The film does have a few good points. Most notably, I liked the way the Jedi are killed off, betrayed by the stormtroopers that were supposed to help them out. Ian McDiarmid oozes evil charm in a way he hasn't in any of the previous films. Too bad, it falls apart once he has to act like the Emperor in ROTJ. Hayden Christiansen played Anakin more conflicted, and he seemed more of a friend to Obi-wan than the whiny guy he played in AOTC. I thought his performance was better, but still problematic. Ewan McGregor did fine, again doing his best Alec Guinness.

After having watched "The Incredibles", I believe Lucas has a profound problem with story telling, as much as he believes in a good story. He was too hamstrung by his other films, which created all sorts of constraints on how the story could be told. Truth be told, he should have went for an even darker film, making the Emperor be Anakin's father (by somehow using the power to "create life" in Anakin's mother, maybe even to tell Anakin that he had his mother killed, and will have Padme killed too, and have Anakin rage and fume and yet be unable to stop himself from doing what the Emperor says, and then maybe have Padme have feelings for Obi-wan, and Anakin be jealous about her feelings).

On a completely different front is Kim Ki-duk's 3-iron. His first film of note to reach the US is "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter...and Spring" about a Buddhist monk who teaches a youth about Buddhist ways. The seasons are really the seasons of man's life from childhood to teen to adult to elder, and to youth again. It is a quiet film of few words, and yet is compelling from beginning to end.

3-iron starts off far different, but ends in about the same place. A wayward Korean male who's life is spent breaking into houses whose tenants are on vacation, and proceeding to clean up, and repair broken items, meets an abused wife of a Korean businessman. Nary a word is spoken between the two, as he rescues her, and has her join him in his life of living off others. The silence between the two is only broken once when the woman utters Leia's famous line in TESB. However, her soulmate does not gratify us with the reply of "I know".

Kim uses silence as well as anyone. For a while, I didn't understand the use of the golf club. The violence that threatens when ever the ball is struck is palpable. But it made more sense once I realized what golf is about. Of all sports, it seeks, though repetition, and calmness of mind, to seek perfection. Golf is a popular sport in Asia, and Kim makes it a metaphor for seeking spiritual perfection as well. Yet, just as no one ever becomes perfect in golf, neither does the relationship between male and female. It is an odd, strange, beatiful film stuck between serenity and violence.

Its solution to the problem is something a Westerner wouldn't have thought of, but rather than attribute it to a particularly Eastern way to handle problems, perhaps I'll just credit it with the odd genius of Kim Ki-duk.