2001: A Space Odyssey
April 30th, 2008
Forty earth years have passed since the Star Child first floated into view at the mind blowing climax of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and to celebrate the anniversary of a movie full of birthdays, birth metaphors, and planet-sized foetuses, the Tribeca Film Festival put on a special screening followed by an extraordinary panel consisting of Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, screenwriter Ann Druyan, artificial intelligence expert Marvin Minsky, and actor Matthew Modine. Continue reading on About.com….
I managed to film the first 20 minutes of the panel:
2001: A Space Odyssey. Stanley Kubrick, 1968. *****
Taxidermia
May 3rd, 2007
Yet another Tribeca dud, Taxidermia is one of the most unpleasant movies I’ve ever sat through. György Pálfi (Hukkle) directed this Hungarian Grand Guignol grotesquery that riffs on exactly three ideas: pig fucking, speed eating, and self-taxidermy. Based on short stories by Lajos Parti Nagy, the movie presents the fable-like history of a freakish family. In the first section, a harelipped country pervert who can shoot fire from his dick is looking for ever-new kicks in well-lubricated glory holes and Hans Christian Andersen tales that turn into their porno versions. Imaginative camera work and extreme close-ups create an intense physicality, but they don’t lead to a place you want to follow: by the end of the segment, butchery, adultery, and shocking acts of bestiality and necrophilia sent waves of nervous giggles through the audience. The walk-outs started.
The remainder of the movie tells the stories of the pig-fucking pervert’s offspring. His son, born with a curly tail (ha ha!), becomes one of the Eastern Bloc’s most successful “sport eaters,” an obese guy in a wrestling leotard wolfing down chunky soups and Russian horse sausage from troughs. Between rounds, the competitors power-barf and chat about the groupies in the audience. Like an SNL sketch that stretches its conceit well past the breaking point, Taxidermia milks the “sport eating” joke for more than its worth: there’s the cross-swallow, the hollowed out red star filled with caviar, the threat of lock jaw. It’s as if Pálfi had decided to take the “mint leaf” sequence from Monty Python’s Meaning of Life and turn it into a feature film. There seems to be some satirical intent, but it’s not pointed enough to sting.
The third section is the most repulsive: close-ups of taxidermy in progress were never on my must-see list, and the skinning, gutting, and sawing is made worse by the fact that the pervert’s ghoulish grandson is operating on himself. And I haven’t even told you about the gutted fetus, to be filed under “sights that cannot be unseen.” Not every movie has to be a pleasant experience, but Taxidermia struck me as a pointless gross-out, inventive but without sufficient character or story to support its grotesque excesses.
Taxidermia. György Pálfi, 2006. *
- Filmbrain finds Taxidermia “a fascinating treatise on excess, desire, and the politics of the body.”
- The trailer:
N (Napoleon and Me)
April 25th, 2007
The Tribeca Film Festival begins this week, but the sad truth is that six years into the fest’s history, I have yet to see a good movie there. Granted, we’ve taken off entire years in favor of Jazzfest, but there’s something about the glut of contradictory press releases, moved or canceled screenings, and red carpet premieres we somehow fail to get invited to that makes the metastasizing downtown affair rather unappealing. (And we don’t even have to worry about the $18 ticket price.) But we try, and that’s why last night, we found ourselves in a poorly ventilated theater by the Holland Tunnel to see a mediocre Italian historical comedy.
When Napoleon is exiled to Elba in 1814, a young teacher (Elio Germano) seething with hatred wants nothing more than to assassinate the conquering tyrant. He is hired as Napoleon’s secretary, but can’t muster the courage to do the deed–and instead, is charmed by his now humbled majesty. No wonder: Napoleon is played by Daniel Auteil. High-minded discussions of the art of war and the pain of remorse sit uncomfortably next to the kind of low humor often found in Miramaxy representations of quaint European towns. Away from Napoleon’s fortress, scenes of domestic comedy (”Easy with that dried codfish!”) work themselves into shrill histrionics that trigger unfortunate memories of Roberto Benigni. Moments later, questions of guilt and the expediency of human lives demand our earnest attention. Napoleon and Me is intermittently amusing, but the film can’t find its tone, theme, or center. With Monica Bellucci as full-bosomed Baronessa.
N (Io e Napoleone). Paolo Virzi, 2006. **
