Film: Three recent beautiful failures

the science of sleep

Have you ever watched a movie and thought, "Wow, that was a mess, but I loved it"? I have, and I have a name for movies that make me feel that way. I call 'em "beautiful failures."

Beautiful failures are usually too long, too weird, too sloppy or just plain stupid, but they're always strangely compelling and, well, beautiful. They're the movies you think you hate but you can't stop thinking about. You come back to them over and over and you can't figure out why. They can be very complex, pretentious or even too simple or mass appealing. Other film buffs might tell you different, but there's really no formula to creating a beautiful failure.

Some of my favorite beautiful failures are Steven Soderbergh's Solaris, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and David Cronenberg's awkward 1996 thriller Crash. I love these films for different reasons, but I recognize that they're all a little ... dreadful.

Here are a few titles I've recently added to my list of beautiful failures. Please, share some of your favorite "bf's" in the comments.

The Science of Sleep

The problems start with the packaging and advertising for director Michel Gondry's follow-up to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The trailer and DVD box try to sell the film as a quirky romantic comedy full of whimsical dream sequences and cute one-liners. What you really get is a seemingly chaotic but densely structured character study of an unlikable, mentally ill manchild (Gael Garcia Bernal).

There's a lot of good here, though. Bernal's character has trouble disassociating fantasy from reality, and Gondry illustrates this with some charming and singular visual tricks. Also, the ending is somewhat of a stunner that brilliantly unites all the disparate ideas and elements that came before. Unfortunately, most viewers will be confused and sick of all the seeming randomness before the third act. Bernal and the rest of the cast are great, but most of the characters are unappealing or hard to relate to. Still, I'll go back to this movie again for its brave storytelling, strange comedic bits and great visuals.
View the trailer

The Fountain

Where to start? The Fountain is the perfect beautiful failure. It's at times fiercely incoherent, silly and pretentious, but it's also visually impressive and features a very strong lead performance by Hugh Jackman.

All of the "big ideas" director Daron Aronofsky (Pi, Requim for a Dream) attempts to convey here can be gleaned from the preface of one of those Don't Sweat the Small Stuff books, but he delivers his dime store philosophy in an extravagant package that constantly switches from compelling to laughable (picture a bald Jackman reaching nirvana while sitting in a lotus position). Add to that a bunch of muddled biblical references, plot strands that go nowhere and performances that range from sleepy (Rachel Weisz) to irrelevant (Ellen Burstyn) and you have a "bf" that, somehow, demands repeat viewing.
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Ghost Rider

This campy comic book adaptation is about a guy with a flaming skull for a head, but that's the least ridiculous thing about it. After delivering two joyless duds based on Marvel books (Daredevil and Elektra) writer-director Mark Steven Johnson amps Ghost Rider's absurdity factor up to 11. Unfortunately, that's way too high -- even for a comic book movie.

The film is a poorly written, painfully simplistic and predictable popcorn flick, but its worst attributes are what will keep me coming back to it. You have to admire a film that so economically delivers the cheap thrills and seems willing to suck ass to do so. The cast members do their best to make sure that Ghost Rider makes you smirk for 90 minutes and slips out of your system faster than a Diet Coke. It's a sick and fascinating thing to watch Nicholas Cage violently hammer tons of trite quirks and ticks into his character (He eats M&Ms from a champagne flute! He listens to The Carpenters! He speaks with an undefinable accent!). Peter Fonda and Sam Elliot ham it up, but the real kick here is Wes Bentley as the film's impossibly witless and fruity villain, Blackheart.
View the trailer, I dare you

DVD: 'Night Watch'

night_watch
Originally uploaded by goldteethblog.

In the DVD commentary track for “Night Watch,” Russian director Timur Bekmambetov likens film editing to painting and composing music. Where the painter or musician has colors or notes, the filmmaker’s tools are scenes. “Editing is the movie,” Bekmambetov, a former commercial director, says.

“Night Watch” is a fascinating and visually extraordinary film of ideas. It artfully mines history, gothic literature, pop culture and the horror and fantasy genres to create a strikingly original mythology. It even tells a hell of a story in which the fate of the world hangs in the outcome. But, like Bekmambetov said, it’s all in the editing.

A film packing such strong visual information and complex concepts would be a chore to sit through if not for good editing. Bekmambetov and his crew pull it off, and teach Hollywood some new tricks. The filmmakers even artfully weave animated subtitles into the visual thread to help move the story along. They secure an energetic and pace that’s never too busy or too lethargic. That’s tough to do when you’re making a crazy ass movie about conflicted mystical beings battling oppressed vampires in dank, modern day Moscow.

Russia’s first “blockbuster,” the first of a trilogy based on the novel by Sergey Lukyanenko, tells the story of Light and Dark “Others,” human-looking supernaturals living among us who are constantly in conflict with each other. The film starts out with a savagely charged medieval battle scene between the two forces. A truce is called, a pact is made and life continues. The Light forces create a police agency, called Night Watch, charged with keeping the evil Dark Others in check and the world balanced (a simple metaphor for our own conflicting impulses). The Dark Others, constantly burned by the tilted truce in favor of the Light, plot to take over by convincing a super powerful Other to join the dark side, thus tilting the scale in their favor.

Our anti-hero is the cynical Anton (Nochnoy Dozor), a Light Other with Dark tendencies. He’s friends with the Darks, who it seems are all vampires, and is used by Night Watch for his tracking and “seeing” abilities. We follow Anton through stunning action scenes and poetic down time, tracking down Darks who break the truce by feeding off humans and turning them into vampires.

It might seem like pretty simple good vs. evil type stuff, but it’s more complicated. Even though they have good intentions, the Lights burden the Darks with shifty laws and clumsily forged ordinances. Much like humans, the Others are not perfect and their troubles are almost always self created. Adding to the complexity is something called “the gloom,” a shadow realm where Others can exist but only temporarily, since it feeds on their life. Bekmambetov cleverly illustrates this by populating the gloom with blood sucking mosquitos.

“Night Watch” sometimes buckles under the weight of its own complex mythology and some watching might feel frustrated or confused by a few scenes. Any confusion won’t last though, since the film is good about doling out compelling expository scenes.

“Night Watch” is a rarity, a visionary film rooted in traditional genres that breaks new ground.

The sequel to the 2004 film, “Day Watch,” is slated for a 2007 U.S. release. It’s rumored that the third film in the trilogy will be filmed in the U.S. and feature English speaking actors. But remember, that’s only a rumor.

Buy "Night Watch" at Amazon.com