The Namesake

It is better that The Namesake looks and feels more like entertainment than it does an art film. The film is about the cultural divsions in an Indian family over the years. The story begins with the parents meeting, marriage and leave of India to go to the United States. What they come to is an entirely different world. The values and customs that their children are brought up represent an opposite extreme of what the parents themselves knew as children. The crux of the film is about the children trying to come to terms with their parents to appreciate what they have to offer.

The film is by Mira Nair, an accomplished filmmaker of the subject of Indian heritage. The film doesn't measure up to earlier efforts by her, but the film is better because it feels so translatable to American audiences. The story has some insights and perspectives, but not enough to climb over better, more depth films. It would be just another film of a recognizable sub genre if made to suit the art market. Cultural explorations are a good norm of that market, but with some recognizable American actors the film becomes a small gem to American audiences who will recognize Kal Penn. Nothing astonishing, but a good enough effort that has its heart and mind in the right place.

Across the Universe

The limits of interpretation apply to Across the Universe. The Beatles, icons of the 60s, have their music served up as story and discussion about two youths who fall in love but are torn apart by the political struggles to stop Vietnam War. A different Beatles song lays out a different emotion and thought for the short history of the characters and their times.

The film is a true musical in the sense that the lyrics are suppose to be as important and as meaningful as anything piece of dialogue, but the film over values the meaning of the music of the Beatles. The band dealt with both pop tunes and explorations in rock and darker subjects, but the idea that some of their songs are good for political climate of the 1960s is much less believable. The Beatles were politically aware but most of their progression with material and subject matter was personal. The few times they did outright deal with social change it was done in the most general way. The film milks those for songs for all they are worth and even extends the meaning of other songs to prove points that had little to do with original intention and isn't very believable now.

For Julie Taymour the filmmaker the story matters very little. She continues her exploration of mixing styles and sets to create visual poetry, but she underwhelms in Across the Universe. A few ideas and visuals are good, but she keeps the visua moments spread too far and too tin over the course of the film. Each new visual moment has a new set up and design and lasts many seconds instead of minutes. When Federico Fellini made Juliet of the Spirits, he tied the visuals together for twenty minutes of length sometimes. He understood the visuals were important, but it was more interesting in how they could be brought together through editing. Julie Taymour tries to impress us more with exaggerated production sets up. She doesn't link the visuals to that many impressive filmmaking sequences.

Definitely, Maybe

Love stories are like pop songs. They deal with our most intrinsic interest in life, but they also gloss over reality for ideal and conveniance. People always make too much importance of them. The fact they can relate to the basic feelings isn't that important. The words "I love you" are meaningful to everyone, but replicating those emotions in sugar coated works of pop entertainment always has great limitations.

The difference with Definitely, Maybe is that the story does try to complicate an age old formula. The father tells his daughter the story of how he fell in love with his mother. He tries to convince her it is complicated but she argues that it isn't. And so the film begins by relaying over his history with three different women and how chance events and new moments moved him from one girl to the next or from one great moment to a low one. Definitely, Maybe has a few ideas correct in that it cannot leave definite impressions of each woman or moment. Some characters just do drift away and ideas of his old self also just fade.

The few good parts of the film are shading around with what is still a standard vehicle movie. Ryan Reynolds is judged as an actor by his likability instead of his depth and the final hurrah with the great romance has the characteristics of a full fledged dream come true. It's relatable to no one but people who live vicariously through romance novels, stories and songs. I'd be lying if I didn't say the film tugged at a few of my emotions, but any sad situation can do that. The story of feelings in movies and how we relate to them has more to do with personal experience and intellectual thought. All of our senses have to be challenged. Definitely, Maybe just challenges a few and white washes a lot more. It's still just a holiday movie in the end.

Kid A - Radiohead

This is the last album by Radiohead that I paid serious attention to. What they developed with OK Computer was a sophisticated sound that was the result of a few albums of experimentation with guitars and other instruments. The album also had a high concept, but that is of lesser interest. Sometimes people associate greatness with the attempt at meaning, but Thom Yorke doodled a bunch of lyrics that hit the listener over the head with their obvious meanings. The true excellence of the album was the band's groing ability to develop with their original sounds and show slow but thoughtful progressions in their music. When Radiohead finally followed up OK Computer they didn't keep growing with their sound but instead they abandoned years worth of accomplishments for a new identity. The new make up was concentrated of new instruments and sounds.

Kid A is their romp through beats and computer effects. A styling so far off it was considered avante garde by anyone who had associated Radiohead with their earlier incarnations. The problem is that progression with musicians usually is associated with the instruments they are good at. Considering Radiohead isn't breaking new ground but going, numerous songs on Kid A can be considered simplistic, off beat versions of much better material. The National Anthem incorporates trumpet work with drum beats and other computer effects, but the progression of the song is a layer by layer introduction of each new instrument. There is little make up to the composition of the song beyond the basic beat that drives it. The use of the trumpet is just a decorative sound for a basic beat. When David Bowie experimented with electronica in the mid 90s, he also used simple beats to decorate whole songs. It showed his ability to cloak himself in new music without making it part of the best of his abilities. The shock is that when bands like U2 experimented they did so by associating many of their old instruments in with the new ones, but Radiohead designs most of the songs on Kid A to breed a complete new identity. They try to make an album that takes on talented musicians of the genre with only a few years experience. In some ways the success of Kid A is a backhanded compliment to the genre.

I've heard that Radiohead progressed after Kid A, but once I found Amnesiac to be disregardable I lost most general interest in the band. Someday I may find my way back to the band, but an album like Kid A doesn't live up to the hype.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band - The Beatles

Sgt. Peppers isn't the greatest album or even a good one. In the scheme of musical conceptions it isn't even a true album. The Beatles felt like it was a breakthrough for them because of the high level of experimentation relative to earlier efforts. The concept is that the album is being played by a mock band called Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, a kind of marching band that represents all different facets and personalities of the band. The fact that the Beatles would deal with different personalities was to be expected because the band was growing more tired with their original incarnation in every new album. The problem is that they had no good idea to go about showing the personality splits amongst the bandmembers. Instead of making a cohesive album filled with thematic, tonal and structural similarities, they made an album that is a collection of songs with no similaritiy amongst each other at all. The tie in to the concept is that each bandmember was able to mold and shift the songs to their design, but it was all for the purpose of an idea that wasn't even a concept. It's a rationalization. In Sgt. Peppers they also ditched a lot of their pop song structure with songs that challenged the bandmembers vocal abilities. Paul McCartney most notably comes up short and sings many songs with a lackluster thud. He wouldn't develop a great range until Abbey Road with the powerful stylings on such songs like, "Oh, Darling". The power behind that singing would have helped some songs on Sgt. Peppers. Abbey Road also was the album that did combine all the sounds of the Beatles and match it into an album that was an album. Different musical interests are everywhere, but all are tied with similar sounds and structures that appear through out. Plus a slightly more interesting concept drapes the album, but concepts were never the band's strong suit anyways

Finding Forrester

The film is likeable to me because it mixes two of my favorite things, basketball and writing. Other than that there is nothing to it. Gus Van Sant makes another film about an unlikely genius. This film just pales in comparison to Good Will Hunting. The story is smaller and the themes are almost nonexistent compared to the earlier film. Some filmmakers accidentally make early films of theirs shine by making new ones later about the same subject that really dissapoint. I wonder if Van Sant doing this film a few years later was such an accident. Also, I have a bone to pick with its believability. The young black basketball player is discriminated against because he is 16 and black and yet has an extensive knowledge about literature. OK, the film focuses on the fact he is black. I'll disbelieve it because he is 16! No one that young can have read so much in the timetable the film gave. It's impossible. Fun movie to watch, but not to take serious.

Saraband

The breath and depth of Scenes from a Marriage makes the idea of a sequel hard to grasp, but Bergman returns to the topic. The good news is that he reunites the original leading actors. The bad news is that the story does not hold up to the original Ullmann and Josephson, long divorced, reunite but have little shared history since their break up. The film has little to base on about them so it is mostly about secondary characters, Josephson's family mostly. This introduces fresh characters and themes into a story that already has much to it. Bergman doesn't contribute very well to the original characters with this. He borrows old themes from other films and makes a film that exists on the idea that multiple stories is better than one quality story. Bergman is a master dramatist, but even a master had to be dumbfounded about how to write a sequel to such a dense film about a couple who decide to part ways by the end. The sequel had to be about something else to exist. It is that and sadly the results do not impress.