Friday Night Lights

Peter Berg, 2004


3/5

The Permian High Panthers are a high school football team that gives the depressing town of Odessa, TX hope... and also high expectations. The players are competitive yet innocent, looking ahead to their future while also trying to please everyone around them by bringing home the big victory. Based on the book by H.G. Bissinger.

Berg successfully captures the rapid pace of a football game, and augments his unsteady camera work with a transcendent soundtrack. Transitional shots of industrial rust-littered landscapes are peppered in throughout the film with beautiful, ambient musical elements that are reminiscent of early Modest Mouse. The high expectations resonate throughout the town, from the deadbeat old-jock father vicariously living through his son's athletic moments to the African American uncle who just wants his nephew to have a future more meaningful than his own. The high expectations of the Panthers do not just stop at the players. Coach Gary Gaines (Billy Bob Thornton) feels the weight of the pressure on his own shoulders, and at times wonders if the long hours and late-night arrivals at home to a cold dinner plate are really worth it. Berg effectively paces the film to a big climax of a championship game. Versatile cinematography really puts you in the middle of the action on the field, although at times it's a bit erratic with jumping back to the scoreboard quickly and then back to the line of scrimmage. You find that you lose track of the game clock, presumably because Berg wanted to focus on the individual player drama more than the technical details of the game. Too often sports dramas have that cheese factor: repetitive shots and exhausting cliches with scenes that might as well play out to the "Chariots of Fire" theme on repeat. Berg avoids the cliches here and really paints a compelling picture.

Happy People: A Year in the Taiga

Dmitry Vasyukov & Werner Herzog, 2010


4/5

A beautiful film that examines a part of the world hardly explored. It's a magnetic film that really puts you in the middle of the remote Siberian village. It's a raw study of human survival and community in the harshest of climates. It's a village built on a patriarchal family structure, with the man of the house constantly having to go out into the vast forest to tap into his biologically-inherited hunter-gatherer abilities.

The inhabitants have a strict routine that they follow, mainly because their very survival depends on it. With the assistance of their loyal hunting dogs, they travel miles into the snow-covered Siberian landscape to set traps, clear traps, hunt game, and build tools and structures with the very trees that surround them. It's a very honest film, the protagonists don't sugar-coat anything about their life. They must kill animals for their food, and have no shame in doing so. At one point in the film one of the men even says that he feels more honest about killing his food - because he's the one with the blood on his hands. Although the town of 300 is completely removed from the world around them, they are very accommodating and appear to be very comfortable in front of the camera. They are true survivalists, most people wouldn't be able to endure the harsh winter climate or the isolation. They not only have to endure both, they have to endure long periods of both, for months on end. They build the cabins they sleep in, and craft the skis and canoes that they travel in. Herzog's narration adds a noticeable tone to the film, and you are THERE with the people of the Taiga. You are underwater when they drop their nets into the icy river, and you are with them as they traverse the narrow winter paths via snowmobile. It's a refreshing escape from the Western World, removed from technology. Removed from dependence of the superficial. Removed from the meaningless drama that finds its way into our daily lives. These people have REAL drama, like maybe not having a next meal. There are a lot of question marks for them when they wake up in the morning. Will there be anything waiting for them in their traps? Will one of their beloved dogs get attacked by bear? When they arrive at their outlying cabin in the forest, will it be intact? Every one of these variables can have a profound impact on their survival. It can certainly make parts of the American life feel trivial.

The film is VERY similar to the independently produced documentary "Heimo's Arctic Refuge" which is part of the "Far Out" series created by Vice. It follows a man named Heimo for a week while he participates in very similar activites around his secluded cabin in rural Alaska. That film can be streamed HERE

eXistenZ

David Cronenberg, 1999


4/5

Allegra Geller is a video game designer who is very proud of the new incarnation of her virtual reality game titled "eXistenZ". While showing the game to a group of enthusiastic fans, a mysterious assassin interrupts the presentation. Searching for clues, she figures the only way to get to the bottom of who is after her is to go into her own game and see what she can find.

If The Fifth Element and The Matrix had a baby, it would be eXistenZ. This is a film that perhaps can only be created by Cronenberg. The film is very Cronenbergy; absurd visuals, bizarre stop motion animation similar to his oddball creations in Naked Lunch. At times the film has a very The Fly-like feel to it combined with a very cerebral and intricate story. While a film like History of Violence likely took Cronenberg out of his comfort zone, eXistenZ is a film right in his wheelhouse. It's satirizes humans obsession with technology, specifically with video games and the sense of escapism involved in playing them - but doesn't stop there.  Allegra (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is an enigmatic, yet accessible character. Because of the hours spent in seclusion developing her game, she lacks proper social skills and has an odd demeanor to her. When she pairs up with Ted Pikul (Jude Law) to search for the mysterious assassin (or assassins), it's really two opposites coming together. She is the quiet, awkward type and Pikul is the over-cautious extrovert. Jude Law, who is a quite consistent actor, was clearly still working on his American accent while working on this film (the process was quite humorous actually). Cronenberg does a great job of building up the anticipation of actually seeing the virtual world created by Allegra. When you do finally see it, it doesn't disappoint. You enter another dimension and you quickly indulge in the elaborate digital world constructed by Allegra. Just like a video game, the characters even have their A.I. limitations (ie. going off script to an in-game character may throw them off). The comprehensive story maintains it's pace all the way to the climax, and the ending is surprising yet very satisfying. This is a Cronenberg film that probably slipped through the cracks for a lot of people. It reminds me that he's probably one of the more under-rated directors out there. His unusual visual concepts can be compared to Lynch or Burton, and he doesn't just lean heavily on the visuals - with this film specifically he works off of a sophisticated screenplay that should leave viewers feeling satiated. Or at least the ones who like the weird, heady stuff.

Plagues and Pleasures on the Salton Sea

Chris Metzler & Jeff Springer, 2004


3/5

The Salton Sea was a rapidly growing tourist destination. A accidentally created man-made oasis in the California desert, it looked as if it were going to be another Palm Springs. Unfortunately, the engineers didn't foresee the increased levels of salinity caused by agricultural runoff, or the varying water levels which would eventually flood the area. This would ultimately cause a fish die-off, which didn't exactly smell inviting. The vacationers stopped coming, and by the 1990's the only people who remain are nostalgic retirees and eccentric loners.

John Waters does a good job in narrating this quirky documentary. The archival footage of the Salton Sea really paints a vivid picture of an exciting vacation spot. The remaining residents are left with nothing other than distant memories of a thriving local economy, and all that remains are salt-encrusted abandoned buildings. The images of the corroded building skeletons feel apocalyptic. The current community, who look like people who got lost on their way to Burning Man, don't exactly give you the sense that your home would be safe unlocked. From the nudists to the urban dodgers who wanted to escape the L.A. gang-violence, the rough-talk and vulgarity doesn't appear to be a family-friendly environment. There is not one view of an educational establishment or grocery store. The unofficial mayor greets passer-bys by mooning them. There doesn't even seem to be a police presence. When you see building lots on sale for as low as $400, it seems as if they are just giving away land now, and even that price feels inflated. Unfortunately the innocent 1950's water-sports has given way to teenage keg-parties and opportunistic desert-thieves. The wet-paint on the motel sign has dried and decayed. All that remains is the scattered arrangement of RV's on the cracked desert landscape. Sonny Bono tried to save the area but his untimely-death only seemed to reinforce the Salton Sea's inevitable demise. Some optimism remains of the Salton Sea being restored, but I am not one of the believers.