Reality isn’t real.

Taking out the component of Brüno himself and the fact that he’s not actually gay, not actually a fashion reporter, and not actually Austrian.  The rest of the movie is basically a documentary with real people, right?  It’s very strange how the filmmakers expect certain story points to be taken as fictitious, and certain to be taken as cross your heart and hope to die truth without really stating which is which. It’s like Zoolander meets a Michael Moore film, she said with mild sarcasm…

America, **** YEAH!

Having worked in a lot of reality tv on both the production side and the post side, I can tell you it’s almost all a setup.  Producers poke and prod, suggest, and even subtly put words in people’s mouths until they get what they want.  The filmmakers have complete control over the situation.    Reality movies/tv have just as many takes and retakes and “Let’s try that once more, but angrier” as fictional movies.  That martial arts instructor in Brüno may have said “Homosexuals would probably come at you from behind” out of his own will, but I bet a producer set him up to answer that way. Cut the question asked a half hour ago with that answer you finally got, and blamo! Pure gold.  There’s an infinite amount of manipulation of sound bites and footage in post-production.  That’s what editing IS.  It’s because in the end, both fictional and reality Directors are just trying to make a product that will make them money and turn out well.   I’m not going to sit here and knock reality movies or tv, but I will say take the “reality” with a grain of salt.

But, maybe I’m just making all this up?  No one has really talked about this before. I didn’t work on Brüno, know anyone who did, or have some special insider information.  No one can talk about it because everyone involved has to sign a confidentiality agreement.  We had to use code-names for the first 3 weeks of Dancing With the Stars before anyone was officially announced to be on the show.  After all it’s no fun to have someone revealing the plot before the movie comes out.

Sacha Baron Cohen

But I’m not showing you what’s behind the curtain by any means.  None of this is new information.  We’ve all talked about how the guests on Jerry Springer are actors and how the cast of Survivor probably has a buffet at lunch because when they’re not shown eating rats and boars, they have to eat something.  So why am I writing this? Well because I wanna! And I’m tired of this and Borat being hailed as brilliant. Yeah sure, an obnoxious gay stereotype showed his dick in public in Alabama and the reaction was outrage.  I can’t believe it! Dang, stop giving this guy so much cred.

Mostly, I’d like to talk about it because Brüno’s sole purpose is to get a rise out of people and I find Art for Outrage to be ridiculous.  It’s just “how much can we get away with?” So. What purpose does that serve? The movie is not exactly pro gay rights either.  When has extreme stereotyping ever made anyone more tolerant? I can guarantee the three completely stoned fratties that sat across from me are going away from this movie with new material, not a new found respect.  If they didn’t know what gay people were like before, they sure think they know now.

Saying I don’t like the movie would be fuel for the fire and just what they want me to say and I’m not being paid by Sacha Baron Cohen for this publicity!  Just do like you would during a scary movie:  keep telling yourself “It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real” and then you won’t have any nightmares.

As mentioned before, David and I had moved to New York almost one month to the day BEFORE they started shooting this. We were disappointed we were not going to get a chance to work on the film while we were still in town. (Johnny Depp even stayed in a hotel in my tiny and random home town.) Having seen the film now, I dare say I’m almost glad my name is not attached.

What happened here? I haven’t seen a film on the big screen look so flat and clearly video since… I want to say 28 Days Later (shot on a Canon XL-1), but even that did not look as flat and grainy as Public Enemies.

28 Days Later. Video-y, yes. Flat, not so much.

It was almost rough enough I thought I was at a sneak months before the release date. So poorly lit and sound recorded I thought I was watching a low budget Indie. Unfortunately, this film will be held as an example of what can be produced out of Wisconsin, since it is the first major release to come from the new tax incentives. I thought the same, and was frankly disappointed. I know there are a lot of pros in Wisconsin that can make a good feature. But, then I took a look at the credits on imdb and every person I clicked on was not hired out of Wisconsin! The Cinematographer and a handfull of Sound Guys worked on L.A. Confidential. The Steadi-cam Op is from Le Vie en Rose. Grips from Road to Perdition, Lighting Techs from CSI, House, 24… These are some seasoned pros. So why is it so technically poor? They had a 35mm adapter with film lenses, but it seems they only chose to use it for about a dozen shots out of the whole film. No-body and no-thing was lit correctly (I think they honestly used natural light in nearly every shot), and the audio mix was non-existent, as well as the pure recording of audio was apparently so bad that they had to amp dialogue here and there just so lines could be heard, which inevitability amps the background noise so you get this sudden burst of sounds like you’ve just popped your ears after takeoff. All of which is totally in contrast to great acting, dynamite cast, great costuming and set design, locations, props, music. I have no specific complaints about the directing, although you have to wonder why Michael Mann didn’t say “Why is it so dark, dialogue so quiet, and shot so needlessly shaky? What is this, Cops?”

In addition to the pure and undeniably low quality footage they were producing, the camera work really stood out. The first shot of the film is wobbly and bumpy like the camera guy was fumbling to hold onto the camera. Immediately I thought, “Well that was weird.” But the rest of the movie carried on with the same kind of bumps and shakes. There’s a scene at a hearing with the FBI where the cameraman appears as though he’s trying to sneak into the room without the actors knowing, but instead trips over his shoelace and has to make a quick recovery. Nothing in this movie is shot POV, nor is there any room for Bourne Identity “Shaky Cam.” ESPECIALLY when you’re shooting in a video camera with a picture that’s so flat and grainy. It makes it look all the more like a reality show. Why not use a tripod? In the shootout at the cabin toward the end of the movie, the cameraman just seemed flustered to get a shot and ended up shooting a lot of nothing. There was a lot of whipping around to action that had already ended.

The Sony F23 LOOKS like a pro camera.

Given the questionable camerawork, I started to wonder whether all the poorly lit shots in the movie weren’t just the fault of the cameraman not opening the iris far enough. But no, even in the outdoor sunlit shots nobody bothered to bounce light onto the actor’s faces. And everyone is wearing big hats that put a shadow on their faces, requiring extra attention all the more. You’ve got to light faces, otherwise the audience’s eye wanders to the next brighest thing, no matter what it is. It’s hard to keep someone’s attention when you can’t see them. Even an edge of light around a silhouette to pop them from the background is necessary at the very least. The lighting in Public Enemies looked as though no one bothered to check the monitor and assumed the camera was picking up the light people were seeing with their eyes. There’s a scene with Christian Bale in their office at the police station with very moody lighting, cigarette smoke and the whole shebang. Definitely a film noir feel, and a decent place to go dramatic. The only problem was that the few beams of light that are illuminating the scene were not lighting anything. Anything the filmmakers would have wanted to draw the audience’s eye to was too dark to make out. I can’t help but wonder, if Christian Bale blows up over someone breaking his concentration on set, imagine what he thought when he saw that in half his scenes, nobody can see his brilliant performance.

Shadows can ruin a moment.

It's just a bit too muddy. It could have really popped.

Boy, I don’t know. This film is just mind boggling. In some ways it gives hope to the Indies out there that want a major release but didn’t think their film was up to the standards of Dreamworks and Paramount. But it also really makes me wonder how something like this got to print. Weren’t they watching dailies and noticing these issues? No high def makeup person? Maybe they were looking for grit, but at least do it for the women. Yeesh! None of the actors they paid good money to be in the film are properly lit? There’s only so much you can, want to, and should have to “Fix in post”. And their sound was certified amateurish. You get a couple mistakes per film: a jump cut for no other solution, bad ADR for a line, but the issues in Public Enemies were from start to finish and I can’t believe no one put a stop to it.

Right down to the editing there are problems. Shots linger on WAY too long after they should. And it’s not even a case of letting it linger for emotion. I’m talking about shots of the sides of empty doorways, blurry over the shoulder shots where the subject of the angle is still standing and we’re looking at their pants. It was obvious that the Editor was trying to cut around mistakes made in production with some of the cutaways to nothing in particular to hide another cut, or using a shot where the faces went dark and then cutting to another angle which was less than ideally composed, so he cuts back to the original dark shot. But there are a lot of really rough and long shots that could just use a trim.

Something tells me there was a lot of compromising and scraping for something usable for this movie. But I just have to wonder what happened.
An article came out today from Studio Daily on the “Tech of Public Enemies” where they talk about the camera. In the article, Michael Mann says he originally wanted to shoot it on film. For God’s sake, follow your gut next time! This movie should have been great. It should have been a contender! Instead, I’ll probably be forgetting all about it in a few weeks. What the hell, Hollywood?

What comes out when, and do you care?

Alright, I didn’t do one of these for June. Upgrading the website plus a really uninteresting collection of films, and I never could get the energy up for writing a primer.

It would have roughly said this: What’s with the art films? Moon, Whatever Works, Food Inc, Away We Go. Pelham is going to infuriate me (it did) and The Hangover might be worth it (it was) and the rest can go DTV for all I care. As much as I loved The Transformers 20 years ago, the first movie was lame and the robots looked like they were assembled pre-crushed from the junkyard (Ebert said it better “a junkyard threw up”)

May was apparently the only month for movies this Summer. After Harry Potter rolls out on the 17th, all that’s left is the Fall schedule where studios unload their dreck in preparation for Christmas. Also, doesn’t it seem like a lot of Christmas-type movies came out this Summer? Angels and Demons, Whatever Works, Harry Potter, Public Enemies, even Imagine That… Something is afoot in marketing and distribution!

Interestingly, check this out. This month may suck, but:
REMAKE/SEQUEL METER: 2/10 a new best!

JULY 3rd
Public Enemies
Disclaimer: I am a little bitter towards this movie. My lovely film-professional girlfriend and I lived in Wisconsin until last Spring, at which point we moved to New York for more work. Public Enemies shows up and immediately hires like everyone in the state of WI on the production, giving them all a great credit while we compete against a million other people for the ten jobs here in Gotham. As an addition to the story, I originally come from a small town in central Illinois (Decatur) where, having left to go to WI, both Soderburgh’s The Informant and Spielberg’s Lincoln biopic set their production.

Sour grapes aside I like and trust Michael Mann (though I feel he can be a sloppy writer) and would be looking forward to this much more if it weren’t for the fact that the entire marketing campaign seems to be showing you tommy guns as much as possible. “Do you like tommy guns? Come see Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp! (and Christian Bale) More tommy guns than any other Summer release!”

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
In a world of with Pixar, the Shrek franchise, Madagascar, it’s always seemed like Ice Age was the inferior market exploitation product. For this reason, I really can’t believe there have only been three Ice Age movies. I feel like Ice Age has always been there, the generic and low-rent alternative to CG with style and writers. This one? More of the same. Enjoy! Also, even if we grant him the cartoon ability to fall off cliffs, get crushed by boulders and blow himself up with ACME rockets, Scrat should have starved to death long-ago.

JULY 10th
Bruno
I like the mix of scripted segments and documentary scenes, and even the in-character events too. Cohen’s characters are always more art projects than simply movies, but let’s face the facts: You already know whether you’re going to like it. I’m surprised by how many fratties still say ‘Niiiice’ three years later. Man, has it already been three years?

I Love You, Beth Cooper
Chris Columbus? Well, that’s weird. At least he’s mixing it up, having followed up his two child-friendly Harry Potter films with Rent (did anyone actually see Rent?). This seems very much like a director-for-hire gig. Anyway, not much to be said about horny teens having an adventure. Count the number of times in the trailer the ROTC guy would be hauled off to jail for at least the night! Apparently I Love You, Beth Cooper takes place in an anarchist state, where geeky dudes use their lovably awkward wits to deal with assault and massive damage to personal property.

July 17th
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Yay! Finally another Big Movie! Harry Potter’s move to Summer (from last Christmas) looks brilliant up against this ridiculously poor schedule. Potter will easily dominate box office returns for at least four weeks, maybe six. The movie should herald a darker Potter (the books certainly go in that direction) and this series really should be PG13 by now, so it’s odd that we’re still looking at PG. The fans of Sorcerer’s Stone are eight full years older.

July 24th
G-Force
We have a pet guinea pig; he just wants to eat cucumbers and bite us. Think Will Arnett, Sam Rockwell and Zach Galifinakis can add sly adult comedy elements to anthropomorphic rodents? It would be nice, but this is likely a more-by-the-numbers-than-math-itself kids’ feature. Thing not to look forward to: Advances in computing power and CG software will someday reduce the budget of pictures like these to almost nothing, meaning thousands of them every year! Having watched the trailer, despite his 30-Rock greatness, Tracy Morgan stands out as being an absolutely terrible voice actor.

The Ugly Truth
At least it will lend itself to plenty of great puns about its name! The ugly truth is this: No reviewer or movie writer ever wants to really sit down with the stars of a formula will-they-won’t-they-obviously-they-will romantic comedy and talk about how they’re doing something different. I could copy/paste lorum ipsum here and you won’t care. You’ve already skipped ahead, maybe pausing for a moment because you didn’t know Gerard Butler was in it, or hadn’t heard of it altogether. Given the cute factor, I bet G-Force will even make a better date movie!

Orphan
And with this, July 24th goes down as the most embarassing three-film release day of 2009. Directors really should look more to the 1970s when they’re releasing Bad Seed knockoffs. I think ‘fog horror’ could really make a comeback, but instead psychological horror films just cribs the notes of the last ten years of startling scares. Remember Hollywood: startled doesn’t mean scared! “Who’s going to jump out at me from behind the closet door? OHMYGOD it’s a creepy little girl!”

July 31st
Funny People
Judd Apatow risks his regular audience with his ‘but seriously, folks’ moment. The more mature elements in his stuff has always gone over really well. This cast is huge and very talented (even RZA is in it!) and the movie’s trailer looks effective, successful, funny, sad, crafted! The caveat? Stand up comedy movies don’t do jack at the box office. “The ones where you try to kill Bruce Willis” might be the best line from a trailer this year.

Aliens in the Attic
Concluding July is… yet another kids’ movie! July = no school. Kids will see any old crap! Ha ha grandma is a street fighter? Ha ha the older brother is hitting himself? Crimony. Look, this site isn’t for hating everything. I want to conclude this month by saying that I wouldn’t be writing these if I didn’t like movies a lot. Seriously, each terrible blurb that goes by and month that slides into the dead season makes me more desperate to see something good. What’s the next major release I’m really looking forward to? Probably District 9. In the meantime, go find The Hurt Locker or some (any) other independent film not on this list. They need you!