Category: Film

That’s the new German movie with the rave reviews and the foreign language film Oscar, but don’t be fooled.  The movie is technically excellent, but not thoughtful.  It is part of a more general, and disturbing, trend in contemporary German culture to whitewash the past.  The film shows many small acts of defiance against the Stasi, as if to redeem an otherwise sorry East German record.  Last year — fortunately I cannot remember the title — we were shown the German martyrs against the Nazis. 

Don’t economists emphasize the marginal unit?  Can’t we have at least one movie about small acts of defiance?  In principle yes, but characters implausibly discover the brotherhood of man and viewers are fed uplifting final homilies, a’la Schindler.  Natasha, who lived with her equivalent of the Stasi for many years, had a similar reaction of partial disgust and incredulity.

My friends consider me a cultural Germanophile (I could do "My Favorite Things German" for weeks), but I tend to be a cynic about the blacker historical episodes in the German past.  I used to hate the slow, tortuous, and pretentious Nazi-Angst movies of Fassbinder and his ilk, but they’ve aged surprisingly well, and they came much closer to striking the appropriate tone.

Addendum: Here is one good review (spoilers); by the way if you know the Hong Kong original, Infernal Affairs, you’ll find The Departed almost impossible to watch.  I walked out.

A loyal MR reader mailed me a copy of his movie, Burning Annie.  A depressed college guy fails in love and lust because he obsesses over the pessimistic Woody Allen movie Annie Hall.  (You can put it in your Netflix queue, and it plays in NYC 2/7, here are reviews).  He refuses to tell bed-ready, nubile young women that he loves them, or even likes them, because he is unwilling to make himself vulnerable and open to rejection.  I wonder how much truth-telling stems from this motive. 

I liked the special effects, of course, but on the whole
the film [a Schwarznegger movie] bored me.  Like many of these American
films, it had one good idea and clung to it so hard that it seemed poor
in emotion and range.  The scenes seemed flat because even in the most
dramatic moments the American actors spoke quietly to each other, as if
they were discussing the price of onions.  And there were no songs.
Finally, ultimately, most American films were sparse and unrealistic,
and didn’t interest me very much.

That is from one character in Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games, my early pick for novel of the year.

Otherwise I am learning just how good a writer Roberto Bolaño
can be, I see Bogota women run into the men’s room to avoid even a
slight line at the ladies room, and I’ve figured out how to eat well
here, it is fundamentally a baking culture.

Made by the director of
Office Space, this politically incorrect dystopian comedy portrays a future where dysgenics
have made everyone a moron.  It should appeal to those who enjoy
watching stupid people behave stupidly, not to those who demand
legitimate filmmaking.  In other words, it’s pretty damn funny.  There
are some classic lines, like "Welcome to Costco, I love you."  DVD only.

The Stations themselves are usually a series of 14 pictures or sculptures depicting the following scenes:

    1. Jesus is condemned to death

Apoc: Jaguar Paw captured by cultists.

    2. Jesus receives the cross

Apoc: JP tied to slave line.

    3. The first fall

Apoc: First fall (guy forced to rise without help)

    4. Jesus meets His Mother

Apoc: Testicle-eater sees his mother-in-law?

    5. Simon of Cyrene carries the cross

Group saves wounded guy at end of slave line.

    6. Veronica wipes Jesus’ face with her veil

???

    7. The second fall

???

    8. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem

Mayan women laugh at the guys getting painted blue.

    9. The third fall

???

   10. Jesus is stripped of His garments

???

   11. Crucifixion: Jesus is nailed to the cross

Brought up to top of pyramid.

   12. Jesus dies on the cross

Eclipse saves JP.

   13. Jesus’ body removed from the cross (Pieta)

JP sent back down the pyramid.

   14. Jesus is laid in the tomb

???

Overall, amazing parallelism.

And then in a later email:

…Jaguar Paw definitely returns to save his wife and sons on the third
day.

Right on.  But for the last few Stations, I see a deliberate non-parallel with the Christian story.  I view the film as concerned with Islam as much as the Mayans.  It replays the (supposed) Islamic "myth" that Jesus climbed down off the cross, saved by a miracle, and joined his wife and kid to live in India (to complicate matters, only a minority of Muslims believe this, but many quasi-informed Christians think this is a very common Muslim view).  Gibson’s movie is saying "OK, let’s say that happened.  Jaguar Paw makes a miraculous escape.  But earthly triumph is still no means of salvation and it cannot replace the Christian notion of sacrifice; you can run but you can’t hide.  The plague is coming.  The Spanish ships are coming.  God is coming.  We must throw ourselves on God’s mercy.  Islam is no good, salvation lies only in Christ."

I also wonder if all that throat-slitting was not a reference to Daniel Pearl and various jihad-based webcam assassinations.

Pretty intense vision.  Gibson is repugnant, and his approach is distant from my own worldview, but I am still thinking about his splendid movie.

Apocalypto, yes storage costs for goods are positive in the movie.  The film is about theology; virtually frame-by-frame it is commentary on Passion of the Christ, the Bible, or both.  Call it mishnah, if you wish; the reviews I read didn’t get this at all.  The movie’s central question is what the idea of a miracle, or salvation, can mean in a non-Christian world.  I found it remarkable, but I can’t imagine it drawing many viewers beyond the curious, the omnivorous, the Mayan, and the deeply committed.

Here is my previous post on negative rates of return.  Comments are open, but if you wish to simply complain about Mel Gibson, please use this old space.

Addendum: Here are reviews.

One of the few must-see movies of the year.  In addition to its dramatic virtues and superb acting (read Matt’s review), it offers economics, public choice, and political philosophy.  The moviemakers appear to understand Thomas Schelling on focal points and convention, "showing that you care" theories of signaling, David Hume on public opinion, and Michael Oakeshott on tradition, among many other ideas.

At least in Tony Jaa’s [Ong Bak] new pro-animal rights, anti-Chinese, martial arts film The Protector, set mainly in Sydney.  Here is my previous post on Muay Thai, and yes in this case seeing is believing.

Mr. De Vany and W. David Walls, an economist at the University of
Calgary, took those factors into account.  Looking across a sample of
more than 2,000 movies exhibited between 1985 and 1996, they found that
only seven actors and actresses – Tom Hanks, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sandra Bullock, Jodie Foster, Jim Carrey, Barbra Streisand and Robin Williams – had a positive impact on the box office, mostly in the first few weeks of a film’s release.

In the same study, two directors, Steven Spielberg and Oliver Stone also pushed up a movie’s revenue.  But Winona Ryder, Sharon Stone and Val Kilmer
were associated with a smaller box-office revenue.  No other star had
any statistically significant impact at all.  So what are stars for?  By
helping a movie open – attracting lots of people in to see a movie in
the first few days before the buzz about whether it’s good or bad is
widely known – stars can set a floor for revenues, said Mr. De Vany.

Here is the full story, on the new economics of cinema. 

I am a bit closer to an efficient markets view on this question.  Stars don’t matter much per se.  But many stars — or their agents — are good at picking the right movies to star in.  Other more critical inputs, including good scripts and marketing expenditures, follow these stars around.  The value of the star drops out of the regression, but the star was still the key certifier to get the quality put into the movie in the first place.

Addendum: Here is Art DeVany’s blog, and here is Art on beer and pizza.

It is probably the best movie this summer.  It creates its own world and draws you in.  Forget the bad reviews from writers who do not take obscure Catholic theological debates seriously (well…theology is not my cup of tea either, but I will pretend for the movie’s sake.  If you can accept the Jedi…).  The absurd parts of the film, like the descent of the monkeys, are supposed to be absurd.  It is about the miracle (yes miracle, as in miraculous) of the incarnation, the fact that anyone can be special, our stumbles toward the truth, the apparent arbitrariness of earthly justice, and most of all that we have no choice but to believe in something "absurd."  The strongest connection, of course, is to The Book of Job and then to Lewis’s Narnia.  The film also has a first-rate sense of humor, which is increasingly rare in Hollywood today.

Here is one good (Christian) review.  It is no surprise that the Catholic Kelly Jane Torrance also liked it.  Yet the movie bombed.  It is sad to think that Hollywood is about to neuter one of America’s most accomplished and original filmmakers.