Janusz Kaminski

      Chances are if you’ve seen any of Steven Spielberg’s last few films then you’ve seen Janusz Kaminski’s work. He’s the Academy Award winning Director of Photography for films like “Schindler’s List” and “The Diving Bell & The Butterfly.” He’s fantastically talented and has produced a lot of inspired work over the years. More than likely you’ve got a great big boner for his work and think he’s just about the greatest thing to come along since Mumford & Sons and Urban Outfitters.

      I genuinely hate to rain on anybody’s boner parade but I’d like to prepare you for the fact that I’m about to step on your unwarranted Kaminski boner with my steel toed word boots.
It starts with this simple fact. You don’t know shit about cinematography. I’m sure there’s a moral highroad 3 miles back in a nice, silent little hamlet where everyone drives a Toyota Prius and the clergy even have a gay priest in one of their parishes and they would all be mortified at the precocity of my aggressive statement but I really don’t give a damn.
You think high contrast images with intense and improbable shadows are the work of a God. You think midday sun that shines with a more pigmented orange than an Oompa Loompa’s face is quite simply the most inspired piece of lighting in the last 25 years. I hope you have some napkins on hand if the man is bold enough to put a catch light in an actors eyes so you can see the deep brooding blue of his expressionless stare into oblivion, otherwise you’ve just spoiled that brand new pair of faded bootcut denims for no good reason.

      You have the aesthetic sensibilities of a raccoon pining for a piece of shiny scrap tin at the bottom of a hollowed out log. Your visual allegiance is dictated by the barometer of  academy awards season and you’ve all the artistic integrity of a pair of knock off thick frame Alan Ginsberg glasses.
He finished “Diving Bell & The Butterfly” and thought, “Eh, time for a break.” But the applause hasn’t stopped. What people are cheering for is the work of an over-funded, under-motivated, bored yet still talented director of photography.

“It was gorgeous.”
“It was beautiful.”
“It was amazing.”

      These adjectives are certainly positive but are they the appropriate ones for the story that was attempting to be told? The fact is that pretty pictures aren’t so difficult to create, but the appropriate images for the story and the proper visual language to set the necessary tones are. That’s something he hasn’t shown an ounce of interest in since 2007. The last time he gave a damn was a half-decade ago when people were just beginning to realize that Coldplay was the greatest thing ever. Now it’s 2012 and he’s shown absolutely no progression or interest in progression since then and people are finally realizing that Coldplay sucks.

      Munich wasn’t bad. Munich was pretty much par for the course and certainly showcased his vast expertise yet all of his films since have shared very similar visual motifs. High contrast film stocks with slightly overexposed negative that are then pulled down in processing to reduce grain then accented with DEEP shadows and smoke filled rooms and tangible shafts of light. His camera movement, when he works with Spielberg, is all dictated by Spielberg himself, beyond that it’s standard fare…..maybe even a bit below standard because they have been comedies; I can’t think of an easier way to collect a paycheck.

      Now with Lincoln set to come out mid-November it appears as though he hasn’t deviated from this course in the least little bit. Are the images bad? Certainly not, they are quite pretty from what the trailer indicates. It is, of course, just a trailer so it’s impossible to tell if he’s reckoned on the right tone or overall aesthetic for the film but a few things are almost certain. People will love it and praise it and make guttural noises when people mention it’s name, and it will get an Academy Award nomination.

      The same argument could be made for most other departments. Especially production design and costume design. Victorian films should always win because of how giant and beautiful and wonderful and intricate and detailed and rich and authentic and inspired and gorgeous and labor intensive they are by most peoples standards.
What is luxurious and excessive is not always appropriate. In America that doesn’t really concern us though. We have no concept of perspective and propriety with regard to supplemental material and departments in support of story. If any one element of the film speaks louder than the story itself then it has failed.

But nobody seems to get that.

      We just like pretty pictures that evoke surface emotions. We want the instant gratification that comes from being able to immediately identify something that looks good and to be able to feel the small, yet forgettable tingle that a pleasing picture has in the core of our stomachs. We can’t sit and wait and look for something more than that. And therein lies the appeal of Janusz Kaminski’s most recent work. It’s an episode of How I Met Your Mother, or a passage from a Tom Clancy novel. You don’t have to know anything to enjoy it……….and that’s exactly why you do.

The Master Review!

One enters into the world of Paul Thomas Anderson's imagination with the expectation of visual splendor and deeply thoughtful, albeit occasionally disturbed storylines. Over the years, he has proven a knack for taking on ambitious projects involving the nature of humanity and its struggles in powerful morality tales. He is a filmmaker in the purest sense. Now, two years after his potential masterpiece There Will Be Blood, P. T. Anderson presents us with the lengthy, ambitious, and somewhat frustrating doozy of a film The Master.

The Master has a simple story to tell, but the method of its telling is anything but simple. Joaquin Phoenix plays Freddie Quell, a veteran of WWII who is finding it difficult to adjust to the post-war world. He is prone to violence, heavy bouts of drinking, and has an unhealthy obsession with sex. He's a rather despicable character, indeed, but, as portrayed by Phoenix, he is also strangely sympathetic. After a bit of aimless wandering and violent shenanigans, Quell happens upon a cruise boat owned by none other than the prestigious entrepreneur Lancaster Dodd portrayed by the always fantastic Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Dodd is the founder of a mysterious movement simply known as The Cause. Through a procedure known as 'processing,' his movement seeks to cure every individual of any/all ailments whether they be physical or mental. Quell is easily seduced by Dodd's charm and personality and Dodd is blown away by Quell's drink-making abilities. He recruits Quell to his movement and the plot trickles off into all kinds of different directions as Quell continues to serve as Dodd's primary guinea pig for all of The Cause's experiments.

The film carries itself with an air so replete with importance that it's not too difficult to be utterly captivated by the unfolding events. However, much like Lancaster Dodd himself, it makes many arguments for its cause without providing much substance for them. The performances and visuals are so astonishing, in fact, that they can easily distract one from the fact that there's not a whole lot going on here. Though he may deny it in interviews, it's very clear that Anderson is trying to say something about the Scientology movement, but what exactly that something is is a bit muddled. We are presented with numerous scenes and conversations that address the disturbed nature of The Cause, but we are never given enough information about the movement to formulate an opinion of our own. We feel disturbed by the nature of Dodd's character, but we don't get a sense of the extent of his madness or what is driving him to pursue this movement so passionately. Quell, as portrayed by Phoenix, is always fascinating to watch, but one never truly connects to him as a character and there appears to be no purpose to his journey in the film. When everything is said and done, it becomes quite apparent that not a whole lot was said and done.

Nevertheless, The Master is a fascinating, maddening filmgoing experience and should not go unnoticed. Both Phoenix and Hoffman are stunning and utterly captivating in every way possible and carry the film from beginning to end and Anderson has a mastery of his craft that puts practically all others to shame. Expect to be intrigued, but don't be too shocked if you find yourself unmoved by the proceedings.

FINAL RATING: 3.5/5

Beasts of the Southern Wild

Beasts of the Southern Wild is quite an impressive feat in the way its miniscule budget (Reportedly just a tad bit less than $2 million) doesn't hold back its lofty ambitions from soaring to all kinds of creative heights. It is full of imaginative ideas and, visually, it is quite a thing of beauty. The story can best be describe as something of a modern fairy tale about a young girl named Hushpuppy who lives with her slightly aggressive, but loving father on a remote island simply known as 'The Bathtub.' They spend their carefree days shooting off fireworks, swapping stories with the other occupants of the Bathtub, and keeping something resembling a makeshift farm. Their precious little world is 'all-shook-up' when a vicious storm swoops in, flooding their village and leaving nearly every one of their homes underwater in addition to practically all their food. The explanation for this storm is that the polar ice caps are melting and the main plot dealing with Hushpuppy, her dad, and the other village occupants is intercut with footage of giant, long-lost beasts thawing out from the ice caps of the South Pole to come charging through the lands to, you know, do something. I'm sure there's some kind of brilliant symbolism on display here to justify this almost entirely pointless subplot, but I'm at a loss as to what it's supposed to mean. The storyline dips off into many different tangents, but doesn't offer a strong narrative to carry an audience through all these intriguing but insubstantial plot points.  I won't spoil the story here, but there's an overarching theme of 'Nature vs. Industry,' which feels tired and altogether uninformed. There's no justification for why these people are better off living the way they do other than a simplistic view of industry being 'evil' because factories look ugly.

The performances are decent enough. Quvenzhané Wallis as Hushpuppy is adorable and effective and Dwight Henry as her father Wink also gives a solid, energetic performance. Still, it's difficult to connect to either of their struggles when everything story/character-related seems to be going in so many different directions, none of which offer any satisfying conclusions. There just isn't nearly enough going on here to justify taking the journey. All it ends up amounting to is a semi-fascinating, semi-beautiful fever dream of a tale in which not much makes sense and not much of consequence happens.

Despite these flaws, however, Beasts of the Southern Wild is still worth seeing simply for its sheer ambition and its occasionally dazzling visual aesthetic. Just don't be surprised if you come away from the proceedings feeling rather indifferent about the whole thing.

FINAL RATING: 3/5