We slide down in the elevator, slip past the opening doors and glide towards the front of the hotel and the revolving doors. Looking out, we see the doorman coordinating guests and luggage, managing arrivals and departures. It is with this incredible camera movement that Murnau opens The Last Laugh.

The camera movement doesn’t sound so amazing you say? Well, consider that the movie was shot in 1924. The opening shot had me saying – “He came up with such brilliant and fitting camera movement more than EIGHTY-FIVE years ago??!”

The Last Laugh is about a hotel doorman who defines himself by his job. He is treated with deference at the hotel and at home in the apartment complex – his grand uniform and his well-brushed, giant moustache lending an air of unmistakable gravitas. When the hotel manager decides he’s too old for the job, he’s replaced with a younger version of himself and is suddenly demoted to the washroom attendant – the lowest job on the totem pole. His world shatters.

The completely silent film doesn’t even use title/dialog cards to explain what’s going on. The acting would be considered over the top today, but considering that it had to convey all the emotion without a single word, it is understandable. Emil Jannings as the doorman is exceptional. His desolation and humiliation are painful to watch.

With a very straightforward story line, the movie is about emotions. The camera is used to excellent effect to highlight his mental state. Initially the camera idolizes him, shooting him from below or straight on. After his demotion, he shrinks – not only in comport, but the camera also moves higher, making him smaller. The hotel, is shown as a towering edifice, with revolving doors extending skywards – his perception of his workplace when he returns in fear. Murnau also used the camera to depict Jannings’ inebriatedly-depressed state. The camera swings around Jannings capturing the surreal, discombobulated state he’s in very nicely. And then there’s the dream sequence where Jannings imagines himself back in his role, easily hoisting large trunks of luggage with one hand – the camera flies through the air towards and around Jannings, emphasizing the removal from reality. When his secret is discovered, the laughing faces of his nosy neighbors are super-imposed onto each other – all leering at him. The movie illustrates how the camera, in concert with the actors, can communicate so much without a single spoken word.

The only incongrous part of the movie is the ending. After an utterly crushing emotional attack, it would be most fitting if the doorman collapsed and gave-in to the circumstances. Apparently the studio wanted a happy ending – and so the movie’s first title card apologies for what lies ahead – the doorman unexpected inherits a fortune from a patron who dies in his arms. He’s shown eating and drinking heartily in the hotel and being benevolent to all those who work there before he rides off into the sunset.

That aside, The Last Laugh is an excellent movie. A movie I enjoyed much more than I expected to and one that gets better with repeat viewings. Murnau did things with the camera in 1924 which many directors today are too conservative to try. Bravo!

YouTube – AR Rahman wins Golden Globe

After a dry spell for huge chunks of 2007 and 2008, the recent past has been better on the movie front. What hasn’t been better is my willingness and ability to document my thoughts on the stuff I’ve watched.
Writing a full review seems like a huge effort in the days when I am getting very little sleep. But hey… when did my little movie blog have to be anything other than what works best for me?

So in 2009 I hope I’ll blog more on Tatvam. But when I talk about a movie, it won’t be a classic review. Rather it will be the thoughts and emotions that struck me as I watched it. Will it be interesting to anyone else? Well… I guess I’ll find out.

These videos are excellent. He’s talking specifically about the broadcast world, but it applies to any creative storyteller (writer, photographer, filmmaker, artist). The first three are particularly relevant, the third video is my favorite. Brilliant stuff.

This NY Times article on MIT’s Media Lab examining titled “Saving the Story (the Film Version)” bothered me on a number of dimensions.

The first huge issue is confusing form and function or the story and how it is delivered. Consider this –

The center is envisioned as a “labette,” a little laboratory, that will examine whether the old way of telling stories — particularly those delivered to the millions on screen, with a beginning, a middle and an end — is in serious trouble.

How a story is delivered – via the studio distribution system, YouTube, or Twitter has nothing to do with whether the story has a beginning, middle and end.

The art of storytelling has existed since man learned to communicate. The form has changed. Dramatically.

A good chunk of the rest of the article is about Hollywood griping about Hollywood.

But Mr. Kirkpatrick and company are not alone in their belief that Hollywood’s ability to tell a meaningful story has been nibbled at by text messages, interrupted by cellphone calls and supplanted by everything from Twitter to Guitar Hero.

“I even saw a plasma screen above a urinal,” said Peter Guber, the longtime film producer and former chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment who contends that traditional narrative — the kind with unexpected twists and satisfying conclusions — has been drowned out by noise and visual clutter.

A common gripe is that gamelike, open-ended series like “Pirates of the Caribbean” or “Spider-Man” have eroded filmmakers’ ability to wrap up their movies in the third act. Another is that a preference for proven, outside stories like the Harry Potter books is killing Hollywood’s appetite for original storytelling.

Whatever, people! Hollywood’s ability has not been “nibbled away” by text messages!! It has been nibbled away by the fact that every decision is made by focus groups and marketers – not the the writers and the directors!

Let’s look at Slumdog Millionaire – how has that story been affected by the noise of tweets or smses? If the story has merit, it stands above the trash… er… or above the urinal screen, as the case may be.

Open-ended series’ – who created them? Who produced them and distributed them? Right – you, Hollywood.

The article goes on to talk about Hollywood insiders complaining that small stories can’t compete with Transformers. So? Hasn’t that always been the case? And if the problem is getting worse who’s making it worse? You, Hollywood!

And again, what, pray tell does this have to do with the “story”? Nothing. So far, all I’ve heard is whining about marketing budgets.

And then there’s the classic “blame the audience” strategy.

Ultimately, he blames the audience for the perceived breakdown in narrative quality: in the end, he argued, consumers get what they want. Bobby Farrelly, a prolific writer, and director with his brother Peter of comedies like “There’s Something About Mary” and “Shallow Hal,” concurred.

“If you go off the beaten path, say, give them something bittersweet, they’re going to tell you they’re disappointed,” Mr. Farrelly said. He spoke from his home in Massachusetts, where he is working on the script for a Three Stooges picture, and said he missed complex stories like that of “The Graduate.”

Really? Really?? Let me point you again to Slumdog Millionaire. People are thirsting for great content, but your marketing focus groups will never tell you that. If you miss complex stories, then write them! Is a complex, intriguing and multi-layered story burning inside you Mr. Farrelly? Please, please write it and get it made. You know enough people to do that. I promise you I will spend my twelve bucks to watch it. Why are you writing stuff like Shallow Hal and then complaining that you are being forced to do so?

The only person I agree with in the whole article is Ken Brecher, the Sundance institute’s executive director.

“Storytelling is flourishing in the world at a level I can’t even begin to understand,” said Ken Brecher…

:

If anything, Mr. Brecher added, technology has simply brought mass storytelling, on film or otherwise, to people who once thought Hollywood had cornered the business.

Exactly!

So what exactly will the Media Lab be doing?

The people at M.I.T., in any case, may figure out whether classic storytellers like Homer, Shakespeare and Spielberg have had their day.

Starting in 2010, a handful of faculty members — “principal investigators,” the university calls them — will join graduate students, undergraduate interns and visitors from the film and book worlds in examining, among other things, how virtual actors and “morphable” projectors (which instantly change the appearance of physical scenes) might affect a storytelling process that has already been considerably democratized by digital delivery.

Rubbish. They are not going to figure out whether classic storytellers are done. They are going to investigate how new technologies will affect the creation and the consumption of content.

And that is… fine. In fact, it is great and wonderful. And it makes for a good, news-worthy article. So why on earth did the Times make it about “the story”? The article opens with

The movie world has been fretting for years about the collapse of stardom. Now there are growing fears that another chunk of film architecture is looking wobbly: the story.

Let’s get it clear – as long as there are writers, no, as long as there are people, “the story” will survive. It is part of us. My grandmother is a fantastic storyteller and there are thousands of people out there who are telling stories every day.

What’s at risk is Hollywood’s business model and the standard methods of distribution. And perhaps the Times’ ability to figure out what the underlying story is all about!

What fabulous news – they’ve painstakingly restored the epic!

The final product, which the studio is calling “The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration,” combines bits and pieces of film recovered from innumerable sources, scanned at high resolution and then retouched frame by frame to remove dirt and scratches. The color was brought back to its original values by comparing it with first-generation release prints and by extensive consultation with Gordon Willis, who shot all three films, and Allen Daviau, a cinematographer (“E.T.”) who is also a leading historian of photographic technology.
Critic’s Choice – Pristine Glory of ‘Godfather’ Films in ‘Coppola Restoration’ Set on Blu-ray and DVD – Review – NYTimes.com

The rest of the article makes me want to run out, buy it and watch all three films back to back. Here’s a small taste –

Watching the first film, you are struck again by how little screen time Marlon Brando actually occupies. Most of his work is done in the 20-minute opening sequence, as the Godfather sits in his study, receiving supplicants on the day of his daughter’s wedding. This is a piece of superbly efficient expository writing, setting out an exotic milieu, describing its rules and moral configuration, and establishing the larger-than-life figure who presides over and protects it.

And Brando plays it like the master he was, balancing just enough exaggeration (the cotton-stuffed cheeks, the asthmatic voice) with pure behavioral naturalism (the eyes that go blank when he is bored or distracted) to create a figure that both belongs to this world and is too big for it. After that sequence his work is effectively done, and the character can recede into the background of the action (he spends much of the rest of the movie recovering from an assassination attempt) without surrendering his dominant presence.

So, click through and read it.

And at the bottom of the article, a juicy little tidbit. Sex And The City: The Movie DVD also comes out this week. And it has 12 minutes that I didn’t get to see in the theater… Hmm… that screams “no brainer” to me. Count me $35 lighter.

The NY Times takes a look at the state of the indie world. At a time when so many indies did well at the Oscars last year, why are so many indie studios closing??

But that embarrassment of riches is a direct cause of the present desolation. Those movies were sent out into a brutally competitive marketplace, a Hobbesian battlefield of each against all. Competition may be healthy, but in this case the odds of winning seemed to grow increasingly long as the victories became pyrrhic. In principle, the middle-sized movie is a way to minimize financial risk. With some notable exceptions, like Miramax at the end of the Weinstein era, the specialty divisions have advertised their thrift and moderation, often capping production costs at $10 million or $15 million or $20 million.

Compared with the $100 million that the big studios now routinely spend on their franchise movies, that’s not a lot. But the effort to make good on even a modest investment frequently becomes an exercise in throwing bad money after good. Building an audience for a movie that doesn’t capitalize on the mass appeal of a pre-existing pop cultural brand is an expensive proposition, and a huge gamble.

Ah, market dynamics. Indies are hot, so there are a ton of indie movies. Then, there are too many indie movies and the producers need to spend more and more to get audiences to watch them. The game goes from being a high probability that a small investment will succeed to a low probability that your now high investment will succeed.

Ideally in true market dynamics, winners are weeded out from the losers. The “smart” players will stay around, get smarter and earn more of the small indie market, but do so profitably. IF it is a big enough market. Here’s the kicker –

Will there now be fewer? Would that be a bad thing? Will fewer mean better, or just more of the same? These questions have ultimately less to do with the movie business — which always changes and always stays the same — than with the state of the audience. All of these strategies of marketing, branding, campaigning and publicizing amount to a strenuous, sloppy effort to intuit the desire and influence the behavior of moviegoers. And the problem may be not that there are too many movies, but that there are too few of us.

As an aspiring filmmaker, I believe there will always be filmmakers who want to make indie movies – movies that are not feel-good, big budget movies. And there will always be an audience. The question the NY Times proposes is is the audience big enough.

I wonder. Does this audience only consume indies? No. They also consume big budget. So how many indies can they watch and how can yours be one of them? That’s what everyone is trying to solve.

I think the answer will not be to spend more. It will be to spend differently. The cost of acquisition has to go down, the engagement method has to be different. Will be fun to watch… and perhaps, at some point, participate 🙂

When I lived in California, I didn’t have cable. So I didn’t follow and actually couldn’t watch Sex and the City. Then one day, my friend Amy introduced me to the show. I was instantly hooked. I went and bought the DVDs of all the prior seasons and watched them back-to-back. We’d often get together in her house for dinner and watch the show together.

Sex and the City

Since the show ended four years ago, I’ve gotten my fix by catching late-night reruns on TBS. When I found out that the movie was coming out, Amy and I had to go see the movie the day it was released of course.

So 4PM on Friday found us in a packed theater in the heart of New York city with 440 women and 10 men. As the previews ended, Amy cracked open the champagne she’d smuggled into the theater – just in time for the huge cheer that went up for the movie.

The movie catches up with the fab four three to four (ten?) years after the last episode of the show. Everyone is older and firmly ensconced in the relationship we left them in four years ago. Oh – everyone is also much, much thinner. Almost gaunt. What’s up with that??

Anyway, coming back to the movie – Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is happy with Mr. Big (Chris Noth), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is in status-quo with husband Steve (David Eigenberg), kid and nanny, Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is hanging with Harry (Evan Handler) and Lily (their adopted daughter) and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is, unbelievably, still with (and faithful to) the hottie, Smith (Jason Lewis). All the favorite non-central characters like Sanford, Anthony and Enid are also back where we expect them to be.

Of course, we need to see some drama with all of them and we do – all centered around Big and Carrie’s wedding. Happy-happy goes to sad-sad to let’s-deal-with-this to I’m-happy-alone to… well, I’m not going to tell you where it goes to, but you get the picture.

The movie is like one long, long, long (2 hours 20 minutes??) episode of the show. It has all the glamor – the dresses and shoes are as fabulous as ever, the drama, the sex and the city that lovers of the show would expect. The jokes are still funny, the characters are still kooky and the margaritas are still consumed by the gallon.

Of course, there are elements which I didn’t love – Louise from St. Louis is a bit too earnest and she’s been primarily put in the movie to fulfill one dramatic duty. Some of the lines sound corny, trite and a bit forced. But overall, the theater laughed, sighed and aww-ed right on cue.

The key to enjoying the movie is to understand what to expect from it. It is not Gandhi. It is not The Lives of Others. It is a funny, quirky, girls-night-out film that you go see with your girlfriends to have a good time. It is a fond remembrance of the show that was, a nice little visit with the characters with whom we are on first-name basis.

If you loved the show,  you will enjoy the movie. So all you Sex and the City fans – head out and have a great time. As Carrie would type into her now-updated Mac – Isn’t catching up with old friends the best way a girl can spend the evening? Absolutely it is!

_{Photo rights: Craig Blankenhorn/New Line Cinema}

This is the best Piracy PSA evah. Maybe you have to have watched Superbad to find it funny though…

This is a very, very cool video. Kudos to director Dougal Wilson.

This video seems like it is one single take. But it isn’t.

How many cuts can you find?

And if you like the song, here are the lyrics –

Join our group and you will find
Harmony and peace of mind
Make it better
We’re here to welcome you

We’re all on a journey to
Finding the real inner you
Make it better
We’re here to welcome you

Time stops still when
You’ve lost love

Happiness
How’d you get to be happiness
How’d you get to find love, real love
Love, love, love

Floating in a magic world
Donate all your money we’ll
Make it better
We’re here to welcome you

We can see a troubled soul
Give us all your money we’ll
Make it better
We’re here to welcome you

Time stops still when
You’ve lost love

Happiness
How’d you get to be happiness
How’d you get to find love, real love
Love, love, love

We’ll be swimming in the sea
Of wisdom and serenity
Make it better

Happiness
How’d you get to be happiness
How’d you get to find love, real love
Love, love, love