After receiving another well-written and insightful, though lengthy, email from my friend Moen, I decided to ask him if I could post it here. You see, Moen is a genuine cinephile. He sees literally HUNDREDS of films a year. So many, in fact, that he wouldn’t have time to blog about them all. But he knows what he likes, and is able to recall details months or years later that I didn’t notice in the first place. Around this time of the year, pre-Oscars, he sends out his selection of great films from the previous year. I’m going to post his list of the best American films of the year, and he promises another email soon with his choices for best performances of the year. I’m sure you’ll enjoy these as much as I do. Please comment and let him know what you think. I’m hoping he’ll be chuffed enough to keep contributing.
From the monthly archives:
February 2008
Some brilliant folks over at the National Film Board of Canada have come up with a unique and fun campaign for Oscar-nominated animated short Madame Tutli-Putli. Each visitor to the site can “unlock” a frame of the film each day. If all 23,287 frames are unlocked, then the entire film will be available for streaming on the site.
Not only is this a clever social media outreach, but it provides a way for people outside Canada to actually see the film, alleviating a common problem that many short films face. In my opinion, the film is a lock for the Oscar, and I’d heartily encourage you to participate in this innovative marketing campaign. They’re even giving away 200 copies of the DVD to random frame unlockers.
By the way, this is the NFB’s 70th Oscar nomination (they’ve won 12 times), and the fourth in the past four years.
Well-done, NFB!
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The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007, Director: Seth Gordon): I missed this at SXSW last year but have been hearing great things about it ever since. Despite the unwieldy title (why not just “The King of Kong”?), Gordon’s film is a crowd-pleasing tale of good and evil in the geeky world of retro videogames. It reminded me quite a bit of Darkon (review) (a film about live-action role playing gamers), but without some of the self-deprecation. These guys take their hobby extremely seriously. But as in Darkon, the set up involves two very different personalities: for lack of better terms, the bully and the underdog.
Billy Mitchell is the guy who set the Donkey Kong record back in the 1980s, while a teenager, and he’s grown up milking that “fame” for all it’s worth, building up a hot-sauce “empire” and opening a restaurant. He has the swagger of a motivational speaker and isn’t remotely aware of how comical his persona comes across to anyone not in his circle of gamer fanboys. Like the jock in high school, he’s built his whole life around something he accomplished as a teenager. Many people tried and failed to beat Billy’s high score. And then along came Steve Wiebe. Blank to Billy’s brash, Wiebe has the stolid demeanour and look of Al Gore or Troy Aikman, without their achievements. We hear about all the talent he showed as a young man, and then how he’s repeatedly failed to live up to his potential. His pursuit of the Donkey Kong record becomes a sort of Holy Grail for him and his family. He feels that if he can just be the best at something, anything, then he’ll have the confidence to take on the world. He’s a decent guy, a little shy, and reluctant to force a confrontation. But when his record-breaking game is disallowed by Twin Galaxies, a group of ostensibly impartial “referees” with a strong connection to Mitchell, he resolves to claim the record at any cost.
He travels to a game competition on the east coast so he can attempt to break the record “live” (he’d mailed his previous attempt on videotape, a common practice among videogamers) and is eager for a face to face challenge with Mitchell. But like Achilles sulking in his tent (and with the same vulnerable heel), Mitchell refuses to engage Wiebe. Instead, he sends his own videotape, and the gathered group of gamers actually sit and watch that rather than witness Wiebe’s live attempt.
I won’t spoil the story except to say that even after the film’s end, the battle is continuing. The King of Kong is an entertaining examination of a subculture many of us may remember, even if its continued existence is based on nostalgia and arrested development, as well as of two men’s struggles with what it means to be a “winner”. I just wish some of the people I found myself laughing at had the ability to share the joke.
Buy The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters from Amazon.ca
Buy The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters from Amazon.com
(8/10)
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Though it may seem presumptuous of me (and it is!), I’m going to borrow a page from Michael Tully’s book (and Karina Longworth’s and Jette Kernion’s) and write an entry to any filmmakers and publicists out there who might be reading this and who have a film screening at South by Southwest this year. It’s just a month away, but that’s a pretty good stretch of time to start promoting your film. And believe me, that week in Austin flies by before you know it. Even though I’ve already started receiving a number of emails from publicists pitching their wares, these are generic pitches to the entire press crowd attending the festival. If you want some individual and special coverage from me, send me an individual and special email. You can reach me at “james” at this domain. I can’t make any promises (I’ve got a pretty demanding day job) but giving me five weeks to cover your film is better than just hoping I turn up at the screening in Austin. Screeners are always appreciated, though you’ll have to pay extra to ship them all the way up here to Canada. But once I’ve written about your film, the border magically disappears! Don’t bother sending me links to trailers, though I’m a huge fan of film one-sheets and will almost certainly post those.
To be honest, I’m a little freaked out by the prospect of trying to do a good job of covering both the interactive conference (for the day job) and the film festival (for this here site) as well as enjoy a few days of free music afterwards. Any jump I can get on the media maelstrom I’m about to head into would make me happy, or at least slightly less stressed out.
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Up The Yangtze (2007, Director: Yung Chang): Set against the ongoing development of the Three Gorges Dam, Up The Yangtze is an intimate film about the momentous forces changing modern China. Director Yung Chang, born near Toronto and now a Montreal native, travelled to China in 2002 with his grandfather, who wanted to show him the great river he’d been telling stories about for years. They took one of the “Farewell” cruises which are designed to show tourists the landscape before it is flooded by the dam project. After this surreal experience, Chang knew he had to make a film. Though there are some hints of the film about tourism that he originally envisioned, he wisely focuses on the people being directly affected by this enormous public works project. China itself sometimes seems to be one giant construction site, and the growth of cities has led to an ever-growing hunger for the electricity to power them. Though damming the Yangtze was a dream originated by Mao, it wasn’t until the late 1990s when the project began to come to fruition. The result has been a massive forced relocation of more than two million people, as the rising water levels flood many villages.
Chang found the subjects of the film during the regular recruiting sessions held by the cruise line. Chen Bo Yu is quickly christened “Jerry” for his interactions with Western tourists. He’s 19 and an only child of rather well-off parents. Typical of the sons of China’s one-child policy, he’s a “little emperor”, arrogant and self-centered, used to getting his way. He takes the job in order to make as much money as possible, and at one point boasts that he’s making more than his parents. But he doesn’t survive the three-month probation, possibly as a result of an allegation that he shook down some tourists for “personal tips”.
Yu Shui, on the other hand, needs this job desperately, to support her family. Although only just out of middle school, her subsistence farmer parents can’t afford the fees to send her to high school, and suggest she get a job. They’re also keenly aware that their ramshackle hut by the river, with its vegetable garden, will soon be swallowed up and they’ll have to find paying work. Quickly dubbed “Cindy” by her employers, she struggles to overcome her shyness and the obvious class differences between her and the other employees. Her English skills aren’t as well-developed as her employers would like, so she starts her working life washing dishes in the kitchen. For someone whose ambition is to attend university and become a scientist, this humiliation, along with her homesickness, is difficult to take. But she makes a few friends along with her salary, and soon we wonder if she’ll return home at all.
Her parents had agonized about sending her off to work, and are clearly uncomfortable having to exploit her in this way. But her father also wants her to see the world, even if that just means the rest of the river, and at their first reunion, her parents’ pride is evident. But so is Yu Shui’s embarrassment. Part of it is the typical teenager’s feelings about her parents, but it’s also clear that she’s different from the other young people working on the ship. When her boss invites them aboard for a tour, it’s almost excruciating to watch. But you also get the feeling that she’s going to be ok in this new future, while her parents will continue to struggle.
It’s clear that China’s renewal is unstoppable, but that it is also proceeding without much pity for the rural population. In one scene, a shop owner tearfully pours out a tale of beatings and forced relocation as a statue of Mao sits benignly behind him. I wonder what Mao would think about a country still officially committed to Communism rolling over the very people it professes to revere. There is a time-lapse scene near the end of the film where we watch the rising water claim Yu Shui’s family’s beloved riverbank shack, and it wordlessly drives home the utter indifference of “progress” to the most vulnerable people caught up in it. Much like Jennifer Baichwal’s film Manufactured Landscapes (and the Edward Burtynsky photographs it is based upon), Up The Yangtze is a historical document of a time and place that will not exist for long.
Official site
Donation site where you can help Yu Shui/Cindy’s family
UPDATE: The film opens theatrically in Toronto on Friday February 8 at the Cumberland cinema. I suggest you catch it on the opening weekend since there’s no guarantee how long the run will last. Seeing it on a big screen really does make a difference.
(9/10)