TIFF 2012: Part 5

Men at Lunch & The Central Park Five

By coincidence, I saw these two New York-centric documentaries back-to-back.  

The former is about the famous 1930’s photograph of the construction workers sitting on a steel beam, casually having lunch despite the dangerous position that they’re in.  The latter deals with a criminal case in the 1980’s where five teenage boys were wrongly convicted for the sexual assault of a jogger in Central Park.

Both of them portray New York as a place where many cultures come together, and sometimes clash, but I thought The Central Park Five did a better job of it.  The five subjects are all very well-spoken, and through their interviews, you come to understand the racial tension that existed in New York at the time.  By the end of the film, it’s a real relief that they were exonerated, but at the same time, you still feel angry and sad that they wasted so many years in prison.

Men at Lunch, on the other hand, does not have the same narrative strength.  Essentially, it tries to tell the story of who those men on the beam were, but since nobody knows their identities for sure, it settles for making them into symbols of the many Irish immigrants who worked in construction at the time.  That’s fine, but the film gets a little repetitive, and keeps telling us how brave they were, how hard life was during the Depression, how the construction workers shaped New York as a city, &c.  I found it especially awkward when they tried to draw a connection between those men, and the men who are working now to build the new World Trade Centre tower.  The 9/11 scenes seemed a bit out of place and exploitative to me.

Rating:

Men at Lunch: 5/10

The Central Park Five: 7/10

Thale

Towards the end of the festival, I get a little tired.  I might have enjoyed this one more if I saw it earlier in the week.  I realize that it’s a low-budget movie, and I respect what they did technically.  Thale has some cool horror moments and some cool action moments, but maybe that’s the problem: it doesn’t feel like either a horror film or an action film.  I couldn’t really get into the story because I didn’t know what the characters were after.  But again, I was pretty tired.

Rating: 5/10

Tai Chi 0

This, on the other hand, was a much more suitable pace for a weary festival-goer.  It’s basically a Chinese kung-fu film, mixed with the style of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (e.g., whenever someone does a kung-fu move, the name of the move is shown in stylized text on the screen), with some steampunk thrown in.  Cartoonish action at its finest.  It’s the first film in a 2-part series, so structurally, it’s a bit off: what you think will be the final battle is actually just setup for the sequel, which makes the previous battle the actual final battle, and a little unsatisfying.

Rating: 7/10

TIFF 2012: Part 4

I’m going to go with a shorter, “rapid-fire” format today.  I’m just tired, okay?

Disconnect

Reading the description, I was a bit concerned that this would turn into a morally unsubtle “the Internet is bad” type of story.  I was pleasantly surprised that it doesn’t focus too much on the Internet itself; the Internet just a device to incite events and get the story going, and then mostly stays out of the way.  The focus stays on the characters, which is as it should be.  The characters sometimes behave in unrealistic ways in order to increase the drama, but I thought it was effective and was caught up in the film.

Rating: 7/10

Antiviral

A lot of the pleasure of watching this film comes from trying to figure out how the premise works.  I didn’t read the description beforehand and I don’t know what it gives away, but I’m glad I went in not knowing anything.  Unfortunately, once the premise is set up in the first act, the movie didn’t do much to keep me interested.  There are some cool and creepy visual moments, but I couldn’t really understand any of the character motivations, and I didn’t really care what happened to them.

Rating: 5/10

As If We Were Catching a Cobra

A documentary about political cartoonists working during the Arab Spring sounded like an interesting premise, but the execution was a bit lacking.  All the film is is a series of talking-head interviews with various cartoonists and artists.  There was nothing really visual or cinematic going on, so it’s just watching people talk and reading lots and lots of subtitles.  It was too much for me for an early morning screening, so I walked out, which is a rare occurrence for me.  Maybe this material would make for a good book, though.

Rating: waived because I didn’t see the whole thing.  But really it’s like a 3 or a 4.

The Bay

I keep telling myself that I’m tired of the whole “found footage” thing whenever I see one (I keep watching them though), but this one felt like a fresh experience.  Usually, found footage films have to jump through hoops to justify why there are cameras present, or they just don’t justify it and everyone is left thinking “why don’t you put down the camera?!” the whole time.  The Bay avoids this by mixing different camera sources, e.g. A TV news crew, security cameras, police car dashboard cameras.  Because of this variety, it often feels more like a well-edited suspense film than a found footage film.  It definitely kept me in suspense, although in hindsight, the “monsters” themselves are a little bit silly.

Rating: 7/10

Smashed

Good performances all around, but I thought this story about a young woman with a drinking problem oversimplifies its characters.  I didn’t feel like there was much depth to them beyond whether they are drunk or sober, and what they think about other people being drunk or sober.

Rating: 5/10

Much Ado About Nothing

Wesley and Fred.  Enough said.

Rating: 8/10

TIFF 2012: Part 3

Blancanieves

I’m going to have trouble talking about this film (actually talking, verbally, I mean, not writing about it), because I can’t pronounce the title properly.  It’s Spanish for “Snow White.”  Maybe I’ll just call it “Snow White,” okay? Okay.  So anyway, the movie is an adaptation of the Snow White story, transplanted into 1920’s Spain, and in particular, into the world of matadors.  It was the “Golden Age of Bullfighting,” the director said in the Q & A.

The fairy tale reference is both a benefit and a detriment to the film, in my opinion.  While it does add an other-worldly quality to the characters (especially the bullfighting dwarves), some elements felt like they were shoehorned in, like the poison apple, and the eternal slumber.  I thought the story was strong enough to stand on its own without having to hang it on the framework of an existing fairy tale.

Rating: 7/10

Byzantium

There’s something a bit cheesy about the whole vampire thing, and how they’re supposed to be all mysterious and ethereal and romantic.  Byzantium has that cheesiness, especially during the flashback scenes, which tell the origin story of the two main vampire characters.  The Victoria-era costumes and sets are well-produced, but they’re, you know, cheesy.  I think it might have bothered me more if I hadn’t recently been watching a lot of similarly historical scenes done with a lower budget on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (lower budget = more cheesy).

Stylistically and visually, I enjoyed the film, but I had some problems with the narrative.  The aforementioned flashbacks are interspersed throughout the film, and the origin story arc is supposed to parallel the modern-day storyline. But about halfway through, I had already pieced together the mechanisms of how the characters became vampires, and after that, I was just waiting for what I already knew would happen to play out.  As a result, I thought the flashbacks were starting to get in the way of the present narrative, and slowed down what is already a deliberately-paced movie.

Rating: 6/10

No

Speaking of cheesy, the 80’s were.  Cheesy.  Specifically, the media output of the 80’s (e.g. TV commercials, movies, etc.), when watched today, can often evoke cringes and bursts of awkward laughter.

The subject matter of No could have made for a very dark film—it follows a group of advertisers as they create TV commercials encouraging voters to vote against the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile’s 1988 referendum—but the fact that the commercials they create are 80’s commercials adds a lot of humour.  There is a real danger involved (any election organized by a dictatorship is going to be fraught with corruption and threats) but when the anti-Pinochet “No” advertisers express their incendiary political ideas of freedom and democracy through commercials featuring dancers dressed in Day-Glo Spandex leotards, backed by synth-pop beats, it’s hard not to laugh at the contrast.  The filmmakers behind No have perfectly achieved a balance between humour and solemnity.

Rating: 8/10

TIFF 2012: Part 2

Dead Europe

Not too much to say about this one, other than that it’s not very good.  The story follows an Australian man as he travels to Greece to spread his immigrant father’s ashes.  He discovers some secrets about his father’s past, which are supposed to be dark and troubling, but we never really learn why the father acted the way he did.  The film instead relies on some unsubtle arguments between characters to establish that yes, there are disagreements between Palestinians and Jews, and between Catholics and Jews, and that yes, these disagreements are a part of European heritage and history.  Then we are just meant to transplant this information into our understanding of the father’s actions, and feel moral outrage or anger or something.  But there’s no real connection between the characters and the dreadful racist things they say, so I ended up not feeling anything at all.

Rating: 4/10

The Sessions

Not too much to say about this one either, other than that it’s very funny.  The three stars (John Hawkes, Helen Hunt, William H. Macy) are great, and funny.  It was so funny that I feel like I missed half the lines in the movie because the sound of the crowd laughing drowned out the dialogue.  I should watch this again at home so that I can actually hear what’s being said, and it will probably be even funnier.  Did I mention it’s very funny?

Rating: 8/10

The Girl from the South

If this was a Hollywood biopic and not a documentary, it might have gone a certain way: a youthful, idealistic girl engages in political activism (in this case, it’s for the reunification of Korea); gets the attention of the government in a bad way; overcomes hardships (like being in prison) while continuing to fight for her cause; and eventually becomes a hero, and a symbol for what’s right in the world.

The beginning of this documentary feels like it’s going to follow that plot.  The director, José Luis García, was in North Korea during a youth festival in the 80’s and filmed the “girl from the South”, Lim Su-kyung, during her press conferences and rallies.  The archival footage is very well-shot, and I kept wondering why this movie was only being released now.  It turns out that the more interesting part of the story occurs in the present day, when the director returns to Korea.  I think he is hoping to find that the girl (now woman) is still continuing her activism.  While Lim does still do a political radio show on the Internet, she’s become more subdued, and private.  She seems not to want to be on camera, and keeps taking the filmmaker to dinners in large groups, so as to avoid talking to him directly.  When García finally gets to interview her, it’s like pulling teeth as she keeps deflecting his questions.  She certainly still has her political opinions, but she’s no longer the charismatic and gregarious girl that she was as a student.

In a way, the movie becomes a story of how a person can change.  Lim does not live up to the symbol that she was supposed to be.  Whether it was the suffering she went through in prison, or the tragic accidental death of a family member, or just age, something changed her and made her into a real person, and not a stock character in a film.

Rating: 7/10

TIFF 2012: Part 1

The Deep

When I mentioned to my friend that I was seeing an Icelandic movie about the sole survivor of a shipwreck, he said, “So it’s like Cast Away, but cold.”  For about the first half of the film, this isn’t far from the truth.  Following an exciting marine action sequence depicting the accident, we see the man alone in the cold and dark ocean, struggling to swim.  The feeling of isolation is very powerful.  To combat loneliness, he even talks to a bird (instead of a volleyball).  Throw in some 127 Hours-style flashbacks and hallucinations, and it’s a dramatic, harrowing experience.

The second half is more subdued, and follows the aftermath of his ordeal.  There are two threads going on: one deals with his feelings of survivor’s guilt, and the other deals with the scientific improbability of his survival in low temperatures.  Neither of these threads is particularly satisfying (and the latter’s conclusion essentially boils down to this: he’s fat, and that’s why he survived).  The aftermath lacks tension, and has the feeling of a denouement, but lasting for half the duration of the film.

Rating: 6/10

Shanghai

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see the whole of this film because I had to get to my next screening.  (When planning a schedule for TIFF, I seem to forget that I can’t teleport directly between seats in two non-adjacent theatres.)  Therefore, I can only comment on the setup of the film, which isn’t about Shanghai at all, but rather an Indian town that is about to be heavily developed by a large architecture/construction conglomerate.  There are those who oppose the builders because the locals will be losing their land, and the leader of this opposition group is involved in a motor vehicle accident which is probably not an accident.

From there, a small ensemble of characters try to find out what happened and who’s behind it, &c.  (During the investigation, the accident is replayed several times from different perspectives, which I morbidly enjoyed perhaps more than I should have.)  The setting, interconnecting plots, and political intrigue reminded me of the novel Sacred Games in a good way.

I guess I can only credit the film for making it hard to leave early.  I really wanted to find out what happened…

Rating: waived

9.79*

I’ve never seen one before, but I’ve heard that ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary series is well worth watching, “even if you don’t like sports,” as is often made a point of.  After seeing this film about the 1988 men’s 100m Olympic final, I can see why.  It’s well-paced, and combines humour and drama so that by the time the race is shown (for the second time; the film opens with the race, and then repeats it later after introducing the participants and the various relationships and rivalries between them), you really feel what’s at stake, or at least what the runners feel is at stake.

Everyone must have been aware going in to the film that Ben Johnson later lost his medal and record because of his use of P.E.D.s, and in the queue before the movie, my friend and I were talking about who was guilty (Johnson) and who was innocent (Carl Lewis) and how wouldn’t it be ridiculous if Johnson himself showed up for this?

“He would get booed out of the theatre,” I said, and I meant it.  He was a cheater and a villain, after all.

To our surprise, he really did show up for the Q & A after the film, and received a somewhat enthusiastic round of applause.  I found myself applauding too.  Not that I have any great love for the man, but maybe the film showed that the situation was more complex than I previously thought, and that there were circumstances outside of Ben Johnson’s control, and maybe the morality of sports doping in general is not so black and white anyway, and besides, at least the guy told the truth in the end. To make one rethink one’s assumptions is all one can really ask for from a documentary film.

Rating: 7/10

Review: Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity

Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity by David Foster Wallace

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Frankly, I'm surprised I finished this book. I sort of saw it as part of my current project to work my way up to reading Infinite Jest. (Which is currently sitting on my dining room table. I'm afraid to shelve it lest the lack of a visual reminder will make me forget that I have it. It is also my hope that visitors will be impressed by the sight of the thing.)

Anyway, I figured I would read a bit of Everything and More, see what it's like, and skim through the rest when the math got too hairy. Now, I'm not claiming that I understood all of the math and that it didn't get hairy, or that I never skimmed through any of it at all, but I did follow the general gist for most of the way, or at least enough that I never felt like slamming the book closed and hurling it across the room.

This I credit to DFW's writing style. I don't think I've ever read anything where the text was so aware of its being read. There are constantly little asides and apologies (many in Wallace's trademark footnotes) about how difficult a particular section is, how you might want to re-read this or that paragraph, how it's all going to be OK in the end. These constant conversational reassurances do a lot to encourage the reader (me, at least) to keep going, despite the difficult math.

And there is a suspense to it all too. Cantor is mentioned near the beginning and is set up to be the Hero of the Story, the one whose theories are the ultimate culmination of everything I'm reading, and I genuinely felt the urge to know what Cantor did, like wanting to find out who the killer is in a mystery novel. Wallace does a good job of reminding us how each theory through history will be relevant to Cantor's transfinite numbers, while making each theory interesting to learn about on its own. And while the actual proofs and formulae are explained well, I found the most enjoyment in the connective tissue about the like societal and cultural and historical contexts around each discovery, e.g. the geometric rigidity of the Greeks, the need to develop and accept infinitesimals in physics and science during the time of Newton and Leibniz, &c. I actually wish he had focussed on those contexts more, and I think he probably could have written a thousand-page book (it amazes me how much research must have gone into this as is). I would probably have still read it all.



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Review: Perdido Street Station

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Perdido Street Station is a great mix of setting, plot and character. I admit that for the first few chapters, I was a little weary. The main plot hadn’t kicked in yet, and I was just getting introduced to the characters, so it felt like the book was spending a lot of time describing the setting. I think it’s a weakness in my reading habits that setting doesn’t capture my attention as much as plot and character development, so I found myself starting to skim over some of the longer descriptive passages. However, the city of New Crobuzon is so unique that whenever my attention started to waver, some imaginative element of the world would pull me back in.

Once the plot started to get going, it really absorbed me. Almost every scene introduced an interesting new element, which made the world seem like it was constantly expanding.

If I had one problem with the book, it’s that there were maybe too many ideas. The fantasy setting was established early on, and it’s a world where anything goes, and anything can happen. This was cool most of the time because there was always a sense that something unexpected would happen. However, there were subplots and tangents which seemed to me like they were just put there to introduce a crazy idea. The meeting with the Ambassador from Hell comes to mind; there’s great imagery in that scene, but the character of the Ambassador, and the fact that our protagonists can freely communicate with Hell, never show up again.

This is a minor criticism, though, and overall, I enjoyed Perdido Street Station very much.



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Review: The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore

The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I spent my time with this book alternately impressed and frustrated at the writing style. The first-person narrator and title character is a chimpanzee named Bruno who has learned how to speak. It's clear that from the process of learning language, he has fallen in love with it, so I guess it makes sense that the narrative is written in such a flowery style. It does read well in some parts, but at the same time, it feels like the author is trying too hard to use big words.

It was nearer to the end when I started to lean more towards frustration. Bruno's friend Leon is introduced. I expected that the dialogue between the two would take a more casual tone than Bruno's elaborate first-person narration. After all, no one talks like that in real life. But, it turns out that Leon is a Shakespearean actor, and he does talk like that.

I realize that in the world of the story, this can be explained by saying that Bruno's speaking style throughout the entire narrative is influenced by his time with Leon. That makes logical sense, but it was still a decision by the author to have them talk that way. It made Leon seem not like a real character, but rather a device to deliver more fancy writing.

The book worked best when it focussed on Bruno's icky but somehow touching relationship with Lydia. Unfortunately, it lost me once it became about his adventures with Leon. I would like to judge the book as a whole, but this is a case where the final impressions took away from my earlier enjoyment.



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Great Moments in Snuggie History

Review: The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



When I saw the advertised premise of this book—that many world leaders are actually psychopaths—I went “Yeah! Politicians suck! Rich CEOs suck!” It would be a book for the 99-percenter in all of us.

(I was reminded of a speech that the CEO gave in the office at a previous job. Bizarrely, the employees were crammed into the elevator lobby because we had no meeting rooms large enough to hold us all. The CEO was giving his inspirational forecast for the company:

“In five years, we’ll be the market leader. And our competitors... they’ll be working at Dunkin’ Donuts! BWAHAHAHA!!”

A handful of high-ranking execs managed some forced laughter, but most of us had no response except to look around at each other in shock. I thought to myself, “Yeah, this guy’s a psychopath.”)

When I started reading the book, I was expecting a direct, focussed attack on the rich and powerful, which by the end would have me marching into my CEO’s office, with an outraged mob rallying behind me.

To my surprise, Ronson pretty much abandons his thesis halfway, after interviewing Al Dunlap, a disgraced CEO. The evidence wasn’t strong enough to declare Dunlap a psychopath. At this point, I could see that Ronson was struggling to keep his book on track. The point that he was trying to make had basically fallen apart.

To his credit, Ronson manages to recover. He changes gears, and looks into how our culture is fascinated by madness. A reality show producer that he interviews says that there’s a certain type of crazy that we enjoy watching, because it makes us feel happy to be normal. (If only there was a word to express the feeling of taking pleasure in someone else’s misfortune...)

I think some readers will call this a cop-out, but I liked how he rebounds from his failed quest by questioning his motives for undertaking the quest in the first place. The fact that he wanted to uncover hidden psychopaths means that he’s part of the madness industry.

Entertainment, such as reality shows and books about psychopathic world leaders, is one side of the madness industry, but Ronson also covers a more serious side: overdiagnosis of mental illness and overprescription of drugs.

By ending on that note, I think Ronson is making a profound point: that the true madness in the world is seeing madness where it doesn’t exist.



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Review: Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Joshua Foer writes a compelling account of his experiences in memory competition. The memory techniques that he describes are so simple that “anyone can do it,” but it takes a certain type of personality to commit that much effort and time to practicing those techniques. And indeed, the other competitors that he meets along the way are a little bit eccentric.

I enjoyed the variety of topics that Foer weaves into his story. It felt like reading a mashup of non-fiction genres: science, history, psychology, biography. Particularly interesting to me was the chapter on how the modern education system has shunned memorization. The common opinion is that rote memorization as a learning method is rigid and soul-sucking and that broader understanding is more important that knowing the facts themselves. Foer introduces an inner-city teacher who does teach his students to memorize facts, because in his view, understanding can’t occur without knowing the facts in the first place. I always enjoy opinions that are counter to the norm, so this was a high point of the book for me.




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Review: Reamde

Reamde by Neal Stephenson

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Reamde represents the first time that I have been disappointed with a Neal Stephenson book.

Before I get into it, I’ll start by saying that Stephenson is my favourite author. Snow Crash became one of my favourite books as soon as I read it, and remains a novel that I feel like reading once every couple years. His essay “In the Beginning...was the Command Line” (which has now been published as a book), influenced my own personal computing habits, and encouraged me to learn Linux. Even though current technology has made the essay obsolete, the ideas contained within it still inform my views on computers.

The common thread that runs through my love of Stephenson’s work is his presentation of new ideas. He likes to spit out long infodumps on nerdy details that connect tangentially to the plot (Sumerian history and mythology in Snow Crash, the mathematics of encryption in Cryptonomicon) and every time he does, I eat it up. I basically feel like I’m learning something, and as deluded as I may be for thinking that I can get an education by reading fiction, it’s very satisfying for me.

At first, Reamde gave me what I wanted: it takes the familiar MMORPG concept and adds some neat ideas. There’s also some geeky humour about the placement of apostrophes in the nomenclature of the game’s fantasy setting.

The problems start about a quarter of the way in, when the book turns into an action thriller. Aside from a couple of scenes where some characters meet up and communicate in the online game world, the cool ideas that got me hooked at the beginning are mostly abandoned. The plot revolves around a terrorist plot, and the secret and not-so-secret agents who try to stop the terrorists. In other words, it’s like a really long season of 24 (not my favourite show in the world).

When the action ramped up, I assumed that it was just a small scene that would bridge into the second part of the novel. Instead, the action pretty much continues for the rest of the way. It’s like the climax starts a quarter of the way in, and encompasses three-quarters of the book.

I don’t mind action, and Stephenson writes it well, but it really feels like a slog when the book is a thousand pages long. Each chapter takes place in one day and are titled as such (e.g. Day 1, Day 15). The “Day 4” chapter lasts for 200+ pages on its own (about 20-25% of the total length). It took me almost a week to get through it and I eventually started thinking to myself, “These characters are still in pretty much the same situation that I was reading about three days ago!”

Let me contrast this with the way Stephenson treated action in his earlier work. This sentence ends a chapter in Snow Crash:

After that—after Hiro gets onto his motorcycle, and the New South Africans get into their all-terrain pickups, and The Enforcers get into their slick black Enforcer mobiles, and they all go screaming out onto the highway—after that it’s just a chase scene.

To me, this is a very clever way to jump forward in time. The narrator is breaking the fourth wall and telling the audience, “We all know what a chase scene is, so let’s not dwell on it.” Now, imagine replacing this line with 200+ pages of actually describing all the things that happen in the chase scene and you have Reamde.

To sum up, I still did enjoy Stephenson’s writing style and humour, but it went on way too long. Too much action and plot, not enough ideas. I’ve pretty much read all of his books more than once, but I don’t see myself coming back to Reamde anytime soon.



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Review: The Geography of Thought

The Geography of Thought by Richard E. Nisbett

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I’ve spent most of my life at the intersection of Eastern and Western cultures. When I stumbled upon this book, it made me wonder where I stood. Would my way of thinking match up with one side or the other?

One of the book’s main points is that Eastern cultures value interdependence over independence; that is, people are seen as part of a group. Western cultures, on the other hand, are more individualistic; success is measured by personal achievement.

Coincidentally, not long after I finished the book, I had a conversation with my grandma that perfectly illustrates this point. We were talking about work, and I mentioned how my company might be moving offices soon. My Cantonese language skills aren’t the best, so sometimes there’s miscommunication when I speak to my grandma; she thought I had said that I was changing jobs. When I cleared up the misunderstanding, she seemed relieved.

She said that it’s not right to change jobs, because you’ve formed attachments to the people there and it would be hard to leave. This is not something that I’m used to hearing; often, I get advice that changing jobs will help you get ahead and will be good for your career. I might have been confused by my grandma’s words, but seen in the light of what I had just read in the book, it made perfect sense.

For her, work is about being part of a group, one that is not easy to separate yourself from. According to Nisbett, this is classic Eastern philosophy. The opposing viewpoint—that changing jobs is a positive move—is more in line with Western thought because it encourages individual growth.

I wasn’t aware that this was a cultural difference, but I know that whenever I imagine myself changing jobs, I always feel conflicted about the idea. On the one hand, there is a sense of guilt that I would be abandoning my team and letting them down. On the other hand, I tell myself that it’s a case of misplaced loyalty: it’s not personal, it’s just business.

I think these two parts of my thought process directly correspond to East and West. Having been exposed to both sides for most of my life, I’m not always aware of where that line is. Now that I’ve read this book, I think I’ll be better able to understand where my instincts come from, and be better able to choose from the best of both worlds.



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Review: Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts

Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts by Carol Tavris

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Before reading this book, I had been aware of the ideas of cognitive dissonance and self-justification, having encountered them in some day-to-day personal interactions, mostly related to money. (“X is good, and I want it, but I don’t want to spend so much money on X… therefore, X is no good and I don’t want it!”)

This book studies dissonance in larger real-world situations where the stakes are much higher. Through examples about corrupt politicians, false memories, police interrogations, and others, we see how powerful a force cognitive dissonance can be. The more wrong you are about something, the harder you’ll try to convince yourself that you’re not wrong. This leads to decisions that can harm many people.

This was an enlightening read, but disturbing at the same time. I came away from it with a hopeless feeling. There don’t seem to be any solutions for the problem other than people realizing and admitting to their mistakes, but if self-justification is so ingrained in our minds, how would this actually happen? I don’t know.



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TIFF 2011: Part 4

5. ALPS

I was looking forward to ALPS because I enjoyed the director’s last film, Dogtooth, which I saw two years ago at TIFF. Where Dogtooth combined disturbing and uncomfortable content with some bizarre comedy in a stylistic way, ALPS tries to be more realistic and grounded. It still has some oddly funny moments, though; my biggest laugh was the “Prince and Bruce Lee” scene which comes out of nowhere.

I thought the ending of the film had depth. The main character’s actions come together to explain her earlier (often strange) behaviour, revealing something about her past in a subtle way. It’s hard to discuss without spoiling it, so I’ll leave it as a vague as that.

4. A Letter to Momo

Probably the funniest movie I saw this year. The story was like a combination of My Neighbour Totoro, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke. I fully acknowledge that it’s derivative and a little sappy, but I’m a sucker for silly anime comedy sometimes. Most of the laughs come from a trio of mythical creatures, who have a pretty cool and unique character design. The main character’s grief and guilt over her father’s death gives it some heart-warming moments between the comedy.

3. Violet & Daisy

I think one of the main hurdles for enjoying this film is accepting that the two title characters could exist. I don’t just mean in a practical sense; obviously, no one would actually hire two teenage girls to be assassins in real life. I think the suspension of disbelief has to go further than what would or wouldn’t happen in the real world; it has to go into the psychology of the characters as well. If you can accept that the girls can go from shooting multiple villains in one moment, and then giggling about getting a pretty new dress in the next, then there’s a lot to enjoy here.

Obviously, since I’m putting it this high on my list, I was able to suspend my disbelief. The biggest factor in my getting absorbed into the film was Saoirse Ronan’s performance. Between this film and Hanna, I’ve become a fan of hers. In both films, she’s a girl killer, but she combines innocence and menace in a different way; in Hanna, it’s almost like she’s autistic and has trouble processing her perception of the world, except when she’s killing people; in Violet & Daisy, she uses dark humour to bring out the conflicting sides of her character.

2. Martha Marcy May Marlene

I read a review of this film where the writer says that he would not want to watch it a second time, because of its unsettling nature. I partially agree with that assessment. It is an unsettling film, but the reason that I wouldn’t want to rewatch it is because it would lose its sense of mystery. Much of the enjoyment of watching this film was due to the suspense of not knowing what would happen next, and what happened before. Now that I know what happens, I don’t think a second viewing would be as satisfying.

What might bring me back is the lead performance by Elizabeth Olsen. She’s very quiet throughout, but there’s a feeling that she could explode and lash out at any moment.

1. Take Shelter

As I was watching, I kept changing my mind about what the theme of the movie was. Is it about a man dealing with mental illness? Is it about a man trying to convince an unbelieving community about an impending danger? The strength of the film is that even the main character doesn’t know any more than the audience does. He reacts to his visions as if they were true, but at the same time being aware that doing so is a sign of schizophrenia. This ambiguity is portrayed very well by Michael Shannon, and makes for a very moving climax.

This film also contained some of the most effective special effects I’ve seen. They’re subtle and come at unexpected moments between quieter scenes. It’s a relief from the heavy special effects that we often see in big blockbusters.

TIFF 2011: Part 3

10. From Up on Poppy Hill

There’s nothing too groundbreaking about this story. Girl meets boy, but something keeps them apart, until it doesn’t anymore. It wraps up a little too neatly, but I don’t mind a happy ending. The best thing about it was the backdrop of the high school clubhouse. It’s a visually interesting setting, filled with some entertaining secondary characters.

9. Take This Waltz

I liked the Toronto-ness of the movie, and the colourful cinematography. It has some funny moments, but ultimately, a story about relationship stuff is not my cup of tea. It was the best Q & A session of the festival for me, with Seth Rogen and Sarah Silverman in attendance. They’re very funny. For example, and I paraphrase:

Question: “How do you comedic actors adjust to more dramatic roles?”

Sarah Silverman: “Well, I am capable of just saying words…”

8. The Awakening

This ghost movie has some good scares, especially one creepy scene involving a doll house. The supporting characters are a little one-dimensional, and for some reason, they each have a weird physical quirk; one guy is constantly coughing, one guy wears fake glasses, one guy has a limp and a stutter (Dominic “McNulty” West (man crush?)). I liked the lead character and performance by Rebecca Hall; she’s like a 1920’s version of Scully from The X-Files.

7. Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale

In some ways, it’s a typical war movie, with some spectacular big battle scenes, usually preceded by a dramatic speech. On the other hand, it inverts a common cliché: normally, we’re used to seeing WWII Japanese as fierce and brutal; here, they’re depicted as cold and strategic, and they’re the ones calling their Seediq opponents “savages.”

This was a rare occasion where I wanted a movie to be longer. I had trouble distinguishing between different characters because they’re not given much time to establish their personalities. As it turns out, the film was released in two parts in Taiwan, with a total runtime of four and half hours. They edited it down for the North American release, and I assume they kept more of the action scenes. I think it will be worth re-watching in its entirety.

6. Tahrir 2011: The Good, the Bad, and the Politician

Coincidentally, both documentaries I saw have a variation of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” as the subtitle. It makes more sense for this film than it does for I’m Carolyn Parker, because it’s actually divided into three segments, made by three directors. My favourite part was the second. “The Bad” refers to the officers who were responsible for policing the crowd during the protests in Egypt. Calling them “bad” is almost ironic, because it doesn’t pass judgement, and the segment ends on a morally ambiguous note.

The middle section is sandwiched by two parts which are polar opposites of each other, stylistically and emotionally. The first part uses raw footage and just shows what happened in the protests. It felt like being there, and it was quite stressful to watch. In contrast, the third part is a satirical portrait of Mubarak, played for laughs. It ends the film on a more “fun” note, and relieves the tension built up by the first two parts.

TIFF 2011: Part 2

15. Ten Year

It had some good laughs and an impressive cast, but the story is quite predictable, and it really strains believability that so many attractive people would be in the same high school class. Especially in a small town. No offense to people who live in small towns.

14. Trishna

The improvised dialogue was a little awkward at times. Also, the title character is too passive; she goes through most of the movie just saying “OK,” and “Yes, sir.” The director said that her passivity was intentional; be that as it may, it’s frustrating to watch. The cinematography is beautiful, and shows India in a very realistic way.

13. I’m Carolyn Parker: The Good, the Mad, and the Beautiful

This documentary really makes you feel the effects of Hurricane Katrina, not just in the immediate aftermath, but for several years afterwards, all the way up to now. It might have made for a depressing film, but Carolyn Parker has a big personality and it’s just fun to watch and listen to her talk.

12. The Sword Identity

The key to enjoying this martial arts movie is suspension of disbelief. In this world, people can easily knocked unconscious by a single blow, and it’s possible to fight off waves of attackers by hiding behind a curtain. It’s not your typical kung fu movie in that it doesn’t focus on the fights and the choreography. The fight scenes are over in a flash and some of them even happen off-screen. It’s really about what the fights mean to the characters; all of them have strong ideals about honour and justice, and that’s what lifts the film above the ridiculousness of the action.

11. Machine Gun Preacher

As a non-religious person, I had a bit of trouble getting excited about the main character’s initial transformation from ex-con to preacher. I can’t fault the film for that if it’s true to the real-life story; it’s just not something I can identify with. It’s not a problem once he starts fighting for African orphans because religion is pretty much out of the picture in those situations. Gerard “Tonight We Dine in Hell” Butler gives an intense performance, but I wish he had done it all in his native Scottish accent, authenticity be damned.

TIFF 2011: Part 1

TIFF is over and I’m only now starting to process all the films I saw. Over the next week or so, I’ll count down the movies that I saw, and give a short review of each one.

So, let’s start at the bottom of the list. Except for the two worst entries, even this lowest stratum of films held my interest and gave me something to think about. I’m just open-minded that way.

—. The Story of Film: An Odyssey

I’m not including this in the ranking because I didn’t see the whole thing, and it’s not really a movie. It’s a 15-hour documentary, more like a miniseries than a feature. They were showing it in segments, and it was free, so I decided to pop in on the last day. It’s not hard to describe: imagine watching short scenes from many films, while a guy with a cool Irish accent describes what’s interesting about each one, and why it’s significant in the history of cinema. I got so hooked that I skipped another film, and stayed until the end of this one. I might watch the rest of it on DVD one day.

19. The Moth Diaries

Just because the word “Diaries” is in the title, doesn’t mean you can constantly rely on diary voiceovers to advance the plot. At one point, the main character writes in her diary, “That girl is weird, she must be a vampire!” and we’re supposed to go along with it completely. It would have been far more effective to leave some doubt for the audience, and drop some hints along the way instead of telling us outright what the main character is thinking.

18. Mr. Tree

My biggest problem with this film is that the title character’s quirky stupidity is inconsistent. In some moments, he seems to be mentally disabled, and in others, he’s writing extremely poetic text messages. On top of that, the main conflict of the story doesn’t really kick in until 15-20 minutes before the end, so it really drags on in the middle.

17. Among Us

I think this is a film that tries to replace drama with structure. It shows the story three times from the perspective of different characters, and it keeps you guessing because each viewpoint is incomplete. However, while watching it, my mind started to mentally re-edit the film in chronological order. If seen in that order, I think it would be clear that nothing really compelling actually happens.

16. The Loneliest Planet

I liked the idea behind this film, which is basically about how one event can change a relationship. The event occurs near the half-way point, which divides the movie into “before” and “after” halves. The crucial moment is depicted really well. However, the film is two hours long; I think a 90-minute runtime have sufficed to tell the story. Also, Gael Garcia Bernal (man crush?) doesn’t get to do much except for walking and looking sad.

Impressions from TIFF: Wrap-up (part 3)

Girlfriend

The story follows a man with Down's syndrome living in a small town. The actor had good screen presence and was quite funny in many of the scenes; it's not often you see a developmentally challenged person in a lead role in a film, so I appreciated his efforts. Because I'm not used to seeing a character like this, it kept the movie interesting in what would otherwise be a somewhat standard soap opera plot. The ending was controversial because of the actions of the titular girlfriend that our protagonist is romantically pursuing. I know it was controversial because it prompted perhaps the silliest audience question I've ever heard in a director Q&A session: "Why did it end like that?"

3 out of 5

Fire of Conscience

Hong Kong action movie in the vein of John Woo's classics. While not as over the top as Woo's films, it still had some decent shoot-out scenes and an engaging detective story. The highlight was a totally random childbirth sequence in the midst of explosions and fire. The experience was also made more entertaining by the man sitting in our row who would bust out in raucous laughter whenever grenades appeared on screen. Apparently an aficionado of grenade-related humour.

2.5 out of 5

And that's it until next year.

Impressions from TIFF: Wrap-up (part 2)

The Butcher, the Chef, and the Swordsman

Another Chinese martial arts fantasy, but was short on the martial arts. It used a nesting story-in-a-story-in-a-story structure, with each level of the story centering on each of the titular characters, and their involvement with a magical cleaver. Allow me to demonstrate by structuring my review in the same way:

The Butcher: Didn't enjoy this character because he was very cartoonish and annoying. At this point, I was not aware that there would be an embedded story, so I was quite relieved when we were introduced to...

The Chef: Probably my favorite part of the movie. It was told in the style of more traditional folklore and toned down the cartoonishness that in my opinion plagued the first part. Which brings us to...

The Swordsman: Took on an even more gritty tone, which kind of made it boring. Thankfully, it didn't last too long before we returned to...

The Chef: After having seen each of the three segments, I realized that the Chef portions struck the right balance between humor and seriousness. This storyline wrapped up nicely, but then we had to go back to...

The Butcher: Did I mention he was annoying?

2 out of 5

Janie Jones

A good example of how having the writer-director present at the screening and Q&A session can affect one's enjoyment of the movie. The movie itself was a pleasant, if clichéd, tale of a musician in a band who discovers that he has a teenage daughter who he has never met. Their relationship grows and he learns valuable lessons about life, blah blah blah. I might have liked it less if the director hadn't introduced it and mentioned that he met his daughter as a teenager, and based the movie on that. This gave it a more personal context which changed the way I viewed the film.

2.5 out of 5

There will be one more post.