Summit Cinema Film Festival Finale! Grandmaster splinters the competition!

Dear Ladies and Gentleman, representatives from Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Beijing, Moscow, London, Mumbai,  Sydney, Vienna, Paris, Charleston, Los Angeles, and New York.  Thank you all for attending the Summit Film Festival this summer!  As the Festival comes to a close I wanted to thank all of you personally for not giving up on the art of film.

The final entry for the summer of 2013 competition is the done by none other than the jazz auteur himself.  A man whom pays attention to every cinematic detail the way a conductor guides a symphony.  The one the only MR. WONG KAR WAI.  In watching the opening of his latest feature "The Grandmaster" from the classical music and the swirl of colors of a painters palette a viewer gets transported to a cinematic Milky Way galaxy instantly.  The visuals by Wong are the best of any living director.  The initial rain sequence in which Tony Leung in his Panama hat and black Kung Fu outfit takes on a group of many is amazing.  Rickshaws are splintered and rain hits the actors like carpet bombs.  He is the Ip man and the last man standing.  His silhouette outlined like Indiana Jones as the fighters all reel in pain on the ground is stoic.

In looking at the sets for the film they were astounding.  Cheers to Martin Scorsese, Samuel Jackson, and the French for financing this movie.  Without their help I am sure the decadent Golden Pavilion that looks fashioned after the Forbidden City couldn't be created.  The train depot and snow house locations were magnificent.  The snow at the house Ziyi Zhang has never been executed in exactly the same way as how Wong utilized it for Zhang's childhood training.  There are parallels to this and Wong's other Kung Fu movie "Ashes of Time" although much of that takes place in the desert.  The way the natural environments and elements  add another dimensions to Kung Fu in general is enjoyable, but in Wong Kar Wai's hands it is taken to another level.

Favorite scenes from the film are watching Tony Leung and Ziyi Zhang fight in a romantic dance sequence.  In some ways the Kung Fu in this film feels like a dance like West Side Story or Michael Jackson's "Bad".  Another scene is the Ziyi Zhang's fight sequence at the train depot.  In  this scene bricks are surreally  moved and bars are unhinged in slow motion.  Tony Leung practicing on the wooden block in stutter step slow motion looks amazing.

In terms of story and dialogue the romance between Leung and Zhang is mysterious and noir.  A button becomes a romantic symbol of everything.  As in most Wong Kar Wai film it's the mystery of love and desire that are most intriguing and not the actual dialogue.  In "In the Mood for Love" "2046" "Chungking Express" and "My Blueberry Nights" this is true.  The actors and actresses read the majority of the range of their emotions on their faces.  A reoccurring theme is the one that got away.

Thanks to those that support the Grandmaster especially the Weinstein Company.  Thanks for attending the Summit Cinema film festival this summer!  We appreciate the hits from Latvia, Russia, France, and India or wherever you may be.  Jump in the ocean one time before the summer's over.  Keep on grooving cinephiles and stay tuned!

Summit Cinema Part III: Woody Allen's master stroke "Blue Jasmine" and Cate Blanchett to the Rescue!

Dear Cinephiles, academics, Australia, Indonesia, and Papa New Guinea, fine arts enthusiasts, donors and high society/ in addition with just as much respect the working class labor oriented American people, fellas with grit under their nails and paint stuck to the hair on their arms,  the library movers, painters, construction crews, the flower shop owners, independent movie theater workers, volunteers for big screen cinema, clerks for independent music stores and freight movers.  Well ladies and gentleman from top to bottom what Mr. Woody Allen's latest opus deals with is the topic of CLASS!

The muse for this brush stroke is none other than the fabulous show stopping Cate Blanchett.  I have waited a long time for Allen to find a muse that could rival Diane Keaton in "Annie Hall."  Mrs. Blanchett who hails from Australia has done just that.  She is a welcome change from Allen's constant use of Scarlett Johansson and a ten times better actress.  Scarlett is talented, but compared to Cate no one comes close.  In a similar debate I wonder if Scorsese chose not to use Leonardo DiCaprio so much  that perhaps he would get better performances.  Perhaps an actor and a muse can get too comfortable together in the creative process when they work together so frequently.  Leo and Scarlett are both extremely talented, but perhaps they know the exact styles of Allen and Scorsese.

Cate Blanchett delivers a character from opening sequence on the airplane that is totally unique.  She is talking to a fellow passenger whom is considerably older and who at first thinks she is talking to herself.  Cate nails a crazy disheveled down and out woman seamlessly.  On the other hand she is so grounded and stoic at being a regal debutant.  She can be hosting a fancy dinner party, at a polo ground, or in the Hampton's and it fit's  like a glass slipper.  In the following scene she can be literally at her wit's end in a small disgusting apartment clinging to her dignity as her mind is unraveling in her reversal of fortune.  Blanche Dubois's ghost is definitely hiding in the beams of the ceiling.  Andrew Dice Clay is amazing as a working class guy in Allen's world.  In the climax of film he is a perfect juxtaposition to Blanchett.  Blanchett could dine with the Queen of England, while Dice could easily be tailgating at a Jet's game.  Neither could do the other in reality.  In the scene where she loses it in Sarsgaard's car after the climax of the film.  The mascara is running down her face and she is screaming at Peter Sarsgaard.  Cate hit's so many levels on this film of being on top of the world, to sitting with wet hair on a park bench talking to herself.   She is truly a marvel to watch how did she do this?

San Francisco is a new terrific location for Allen.    The Golden Gate Bridge hasn't been utilized so effectively since Vertigo.  When Sarsgaard and Blanchett meet at the party the bridge is in the distance.  Alcatraz can be seen in the background when Cate's sister and the two men are on top a hill for a selfie picture.  The Marina is a great backdrop as well as Chinatown.  "Dirty Harry" and  David Fincher's "Zodiac" are some of only a handful of films to truly capture the flavor and the look of this location.
San Francisco is very photogenic if done correctly.

Well I thought "Midnight in Paris" was Allen's best film in 10 years.  I have to admit that I like "Blue Jasmine" even more because of the splendid Blanchett, she makes going to movies worth while and fortunately has gotten the right part.

Sweet dreams to all the people that have hit the Summit Cinema post!  From Mumbai, India, to Caracas Venezuela keep on grooving and keeping big screen cinema ALIVE!

Summit Cinema: Film Fest Part II: Only God Forgives-poetic, pulverizing pulp

      Dear ladies and gentleman, hard copy book lovers, Type-O-Negative, Latvia, Tarkovsky, Gaper Noe and the distinguished arts community of the Russian Federation and Eastern Europe.  Bukowski, Toshiro Mifune, Kurosawa, Dersu Uzala, Wong Kar Wai, and Fatih Akin.    On top of the dumpster of reboots and half dead superheroes the Summit Cinema glistens.  Since when did Comic-Con dictate global cinema?  We here at The Summit know cinematic nectar when we screen it.    Nicolas Winding Refn has done it again the man has ripped the roof off the dumpster.  "Drive" was a beautiful operatic fairy tale.  Inspired by Thomas Mann and 1980's Michael Mann.  "0nly G0d F0rgive$ is a ghost red room nightmare into beautiful hell.  The film immediately draws correlations to Lynch's "Fire Walk With Me" and Wong Kar Wai's "In The Mood for Love".  The establishing shot of Gosling's outstretched arms and clenched fists book end the last image seamlessly.  Julian is a man who has killed his father with these bare hands and loves his mother.  Oedipus and Greek tragedy have been commented on by numerous viewers and critics.  Critics complain that the film has cardboard characters, is  visually over indulgent, no hero, and complain at Gosling's 12 lines of dialogue.  I have a response to these allegations.  Learn to sit and read a hard copy book like a film.   Refn obviously feels confident with assigning his lead actor little to no dialogue.  This forces the true cinephile to go internal on a wild ride with a visual pleasure cake in a pulpy, haunted, neon Bangkok, Thailand.  The stares of Gosling reveal a man who has always been in the shadow of his brother, emasculated by his mother and is methodical about every decision.  

    Cliff Martinez drives a stake through the heart of a vampire with a haunting fever dream of a score.  I have never seen karaoke utilized as a serious art form and a way of life.  Vithaya Pansringarm is the Thai police chief who from his opening shot wearing wing tipped shoes on a rain slicked Thai alley has the vision of a samurai and a surgeon.  He defines intensity simply by standing erect.  Many would call Chang the villain, but I see him as a judge.  Everyone he punishes is from the criminal underworld and I agree he is despicable.  Yet he never dies and for Refn he perhaps takes the human form of God as Michelangelo illustrated in the Last Judgement.
Kristin Scott Thomas plays Crystal Julian's mother.  She is the character I love the most!  The range of Thomas as an actress is astounding.  In "Loved You So Long" by Phillipe Claudel she delivered one of the most emotional performances in years.  Here she has been shaped into an ice sculpture by Refn he claims Lady Macbeth and Donatella Versace were primary influences.  The hotel check in and family dinner sequences are show stoppers.


On to the best part.  The cinematography by Kubrick's Larry Smith is flawless.  The red hall ways with exquisite Dragon wall paper are jaw dropping.  The blue slit lighting in Gosling!s eyes in a solid red room are genius.  The slow motion sequence of the two Thai Hitmen in flip flops wearing sunglasses on a neon lit dreamscape is my favorite visual in the movie.  There is no dialogue just lips 
moving and hypnotic techno.  The reds lead the viewer literally into hell.  Ghosts were definitely in 
the machine.  Even if Cannes booed the film it is meaningless.  It was a hit at our festival.  The 
Summit Cinema thanks our hits from Latvia.  Until next keep your eye on the screen and not the smartphone.  Stay tuned for part 3 of the Summit Cinema festival and enjoy the ocean this summer!!!

Summit Cinema: Film Festival

     Ladies and Gentleman, hospitable Southerners, the French Foreign Ministry of Culture,
surfers, hip hoppers, David Lynch, Pantera, and Limp Bizkit.  While television may try to slay the cinema Gods.  I can always count on a few lads and lassies to keep pushing the envelope even when the box office return rate has shell shocked the rest.  After Steven Soderbergh's "retirement" State of Cinema speech I got a little nervous it was an amazing speech from a cinematic wizard with tent pole success.  So when he said cinematic art is vanishing quicker than Barnes & andNoble I got concerned.

Then I went to the first day of the summer Summit Cinema festival and it all changed.  The red carpet
was out in Hollywood.  The Magnum Ice Cream bars sponsored.  Which of course means the stiletto Magnum Girls.  Sofia Coppola and Paris Hilton did the ceremonial ribbon cutting.  The assortment of
noir black and white fashion was there.  Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Alexander McQueen, and Karl Lagerfeld brought high fashion onto Sunset.

The room went dark for none other than the cinematic treasure aka Sofia Coppola's "Bling Ring".
Opening shot of teenage kid's scaling  a celebrity's fence etched in security camera lime green night vision set the tone.  The film chronicles rich teenage angst with a bull's eye.  In "Rebel Without a Cause" James Dean enters a new school friendless.  The same is true for Israel Broussard's character. When Dean asks Buzz as they are about to drive cars off cliffs "why are we doing this?"  The response from Buzz is "we have to do something".  Reckless teenage excess has been happening since the 1950's in cinema and now Sofia God bless her has taken a whack at youth gone wild.  For all the critics who find the characters as shallow, unlikable,  and are aimlessly searching for a protagonist happy hunting.  When I looked I found teenagers that were bored.  I was happy that Sofia chose not to judge them.  I myself have no idea what high school would be like today?  Celebrity and reality  television may be the other focus of critics.  I saw the stealing and home burglaries of celebrities as teenage rebellion.  Ironically in "Rebel Without a Cause" teens die the same could be said for "Less Than Zero".   Nobody dies here, but jail is on the menu.   I never really thought throughout the movie how hard Paris or Lohan's life must have been as a result of the burglaries.  Sofia Coppola turns the stealing into an addictive art form.

Onto the best part and away from the academic analysis.   The feeling as a viewer was amazing.  The bucket of color Sofia dumps is awesome.  The shoes, jewelry, handbags, outfits, and homes themselves jump off the screen like a Porsche driven by Duran Duran.  The club scenes and color patterns reminded me of Michael Mann's "Miami Vice" movie.  The party atmosphere and quantity of drug sequences set the mindset and tone of these crazy teens.  The music is perfect rap, techno, and Sofia's personal picks.  Nobody is writing about the parents in this film they are just as out of touch with reality or missing in action as the teens are.  The best visual images are Katie Chang spraying Lohan's perfume in slow motion, Paris Hilton's shoe room, Emma Watson' s outside of court television interview, and the best visual the exterior shot of the Hollywood glass doll house mansion as the camera slowly zooms forward and the interior landscape is occupied by Katie and Israel.

The Summit Film Festival is of to a sizzling start.  Don't touch that dial cinefiles!

Frances Ha's: magical dance through Manhattan

      Noah Baumbach is a great writer.  He illustrated his skills in "The Squid and the Whale", "Margot at the Wedding" and "Greenberg".  All of those films are demonstrations of a writer whom is in total control.  One reoccurring theme of his previous work is neurosis.  In his latest feature Frances Ha he drops the shackles of neurosis and depression and offers hope.  Co-written and starring the show stopping and dazzling Greta Gerwig.  Together they have offered a unique and artistic perspective for a 27year old woman in New York.  Gerwig is vulnerable, unsure of herself, hilarious, gritty, pure, and witty.  Three scenes stand out I won't spoil them.  The dinner scene with the friends family, her running pirouettes, and the look between her and Sumner that she eloquently lays out earlier in the film.  Baumbach has outdone himself.  The collaboration with Gerwig for the second time is by far the finest motion picture he has created thus far.  Some critics are upset that he chose for the movie to have no sex.  I can say that the innocence is part off what makes the film a breath of fresh air.  Frances will be a studied and forever cool character for years to come.  

     France Ha is a film that pays tribute to the golden age of French New Wave cinema.  Truffaut's 

"Small Change" and Goddard's "Breathless" are referenced.  Baumbach is also influenced by the great Woody Allen's "Manhattan".  The use of black and white is wonderful.  My favorite aspect of the film is the look of New York.  The perspective of the city feels fresh as channeled through Frances.  The writing captures a late unestablished artist who is 27 in New York perfectly.

The film may pay homage to the classics, but like Frances it is totally unique!

To The Wonder: Reinvents the Wheel

      To The Wonder by Terrence Malick swirls across the wheat fields of Oklahoma and kisses Mt. St. Michel in France.  The film is by far Malick's biggest roll of the dice.  His other films are all amazing, yet easily accessible to the average moviegoer.  Here the dialogue is sparse.  And on three viewings at the theater many people have left or felt uncomfortable by the silence.  I think our current culture  and it's technological restlessness are to blame.  Thank you Mr. Malick for creating a cinematic meditative experience.  The film takes the viewer places emotionally and metaphorically. 

In looking at France under the lense of a master is beautiful.  The film reinvents the wheel of cinema in that it feels like a silent film yet the whole thing seems to be communicated through interpretative dance.  Olga Kurylenko hailing from Ukraine brings a ballet to Malick's visual symphony.  Her dance, gestures, joy, disdain, childishness, and imagination are the backbone of the film.  Ben Affleck is solid as the man whom says very little.  He tests water for contamination and in performing these functions the American soil appears polluted.  The sense of wonder and imagination that Kurylenko possesses is difficult to find domestically.  
America perhaps is jaded from beauty and dance.  Many cinema goers on opening day said things to the effect of it felt like a two hour Calvin Klein commercial.  What some fail to see is the average director could try for 10 years to get the shots of the wheat fields, industrial spaces, buffalo, evicted homes, Mt.St. Michel, Versailles, and never scratch the surface.  

Another treat for American cinephiles and global moviegoers was to see America and France both presented in the modern day.  Malick has never shot modern day and viewing an Oklahoma supermarket  and it's aisles was fascinating.  Modern day machinery at construction sites looked foreboding.  Malick has made his most personal film because it is autobiographical.  Salutations to the Sun God for allowing the director to capture such beautiful natural light.  This is the type of film that makes all the other bad movies fade to dust.

THE MASTER: Sails past everything this year!

Ladies and Gentleman it is my pleasure to announce that the film of the year in 2012 is without question "The Master."  The films opening over head shot of  choppy water from behind a vessel accompanied by Jonny Greenwood's music sets the tone of an amazing film.  Director Paul Thomas Anderson has not missed a beat since "There Will Be Blood."  The film is in many ways a companion piece to that film.  Oil and religion is simply repaced by sailing and the occult.  The scene where Phoenix and Hoffman first meet below deck is one of the best scenes I have seen in movies in years.  The film is so superb that it is the type of movie that makes up for all the bad movies you may have seen in the last year.  I am truly baffled at explaining at what makes the movie markedly superior.  I will try.  The main character played by Phoenix is difficult to explain.   He is tormented, shell shocked, reckless, crazy, genius, erratic, but above all sensitive.  The sensitivity is what makes Freddie Quell three dimensional.  Lancaster Dodd played by Hoffman is a man who is completely sure of himself.  The chemistry between the two is like father and son, long lost brother, veteran, mentor, and teacher.  Amy Adams is the neck that turns Dodd.  She is flawless at being a 1950's mother with unbelievable power and icy determination.  In some ways she is the leader of "The Cause."  She influences the writing of Dodd and is the backbone of the movement.  She dismisses Quell early on and is one tough character.  Phoenix, Hoffman, and Adams all are picture perfect in this cinematic gem.  The cinematography in the 70mm print is unprecedented.  The grid illustrated from all the close ups on characters faces and not focusing on the background is amazing.  Close ups of heads of lettuce and reapers in Salinas are exquisite.  Paul Thomas Anderson has raised the flagpole of cinematic greatness and achievement.  While sadly others are turning to television, recycling old ideas, or having gargangtuan problems with distribution, or simply they just sailed into the sunset.  Watch it go cinephiles!   Watch it go!