Werner Herzog's approach to "the truth" has always been fascinating, fearless, at times ferocious and to continue in this alliterative vain, faithful.  Faithful to life -- to its wonderful or horrifying craziness, to its lyrical splendor, and to its appalling ugliness that in turn, can often reveal a deep, multi-faceted beauty. Life is unclean. Life is violent. Life is corrupt. Life is fantastical. Life is chaos. Life is, yes, beautiful.

Watch his "Lessons of Darkness," concerning the Kuwait fires and you’re left breathless by their destructive magnificence.  As the oil wells burn we hear Prokofiev, Verdi, Wagner, Grieg and gloriously, Mahler’s "Resurrection" (2nd) Symphony. Interestingly, Mahler conceived the second Resurrection as recalling positive remembrances for the dead. Yes. Laudable thoughts. Burn baby, burn -- in a wonderfully optimistic and exalting pitch. This feels like Herzog.

And Herzog feels like Herzog. When meeting him, I was so inspired by his presence, his intelligence, his realness, his voice, that talking to him made me feel (and please excuse me for sounding hyperbolic but I’m being honest here) like how Marlene Dietrich described Orson Welles, like “a plant that’s been watered.” And I thank god I’ll never forget our meeting because, perhaps not surprisingly, after one of the most interesting and fulfilling interviews I’ve ever conducted, the tape jammed. Sitting late at night in my bedroom, ready to transcribe this fascinating talk, my heart stopped when I heard that awful sound of tape being sucked into machine. Broken. Fearful of pulling it out of the recorder, I stared at it in disbelief. Unspool and possibly repair? Or leave it? I decided to leave it there. I suddenly felt like Herzog was telling me I must never listen to it. 

This disappointing reality caused further reflection of Herzog and his movies. You don’t go to a Werner Herzog picture and think: “That’s not realistic.” Because, really, what does that mean anyway? This is his truth. This is their truth. Or your truth. Or an iguana’s truth. It’s part of Herzog’s grand yet entirely grounded theories about "reality" -- what he calls "ecstatic truth." Herzog claims that his approach toward filmmaking, whether in his documentaries (like "Little Dieter Needs to Fly" or "Grizzly Man") or biographical pictures (like "Aguirre: The Wrath of God" or "Fitzcarraldo") reveals, as he has said: "Something deeply inherent, where you recognize yourself as a human being again, where you find images that have been dormant inside of you for so many years and all of a sudden it becomes visible and understandable for you -- you read the world differently, your perceptions change."

A true auteur and a true adventurer, Herzog  understands (instinctively and intellectually) just how much we take for granted when not looking out of the corner of our eye -- when we only see what’s right in front of us. “Reading the world differently” is an important element to his filmmaking, and as he braves Antarctica, or walks hundreds of miles, or drags boats over mountains, or contends with true forces of nature, the jungle, the cold, the animals and Klaus Kinski, Herzog is adept at tackling any type of movie, any type of obstacle, any type of eccentricity.

And now he’s taken on Nicolas Cage.

With his un-hinged, gloriously debauched, hilarious, and uniquely gorgeous "Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans" (one of the best films of the year so far), he’s dazzlingly in synch with his subject --  the portrait of a man, a crooked cop (Cage) rotting and raving in a decimated land.  That’s post-Katrina New Orleans, a place that well covers Herzogian themes -- the violence, the beauty, the destruction of nature, the warped passion of a fanatical man. Cage’s Terence McDonagh -- drug impaired, dishonest, abusive, and yet, often kind and certainly conflicted is a jangly, imbalanced creature of inspired madness. What’s brilliant here is that Herzog, not one to create a standard police procedural, places Cage in something like that:  there’s a an internal affairs investigation, a murder mystery and strangely sweet complications with a prostitute (Eva Mendes) and a drug dealer (Xzibit). There’s also gambling and drug addiction, inappropriate pat-downs, lucky crack pipes and relations with his downtrodden dad and stepmother, that recalled a Flannery O'Connor story or Rip Torn visiting his pill addicted mother in the brilliantly brave "Payday."

And like Mr. Torn, Mr. Cage is absolutely fearless in his approach to character. Throw out all the rules and just be. Be crazy.  But be real. To describe his rhythms and humor and in the end, his humanity isn’t easy -- Cage is almost musical in his approach, and he stirs mysterious,  complicated emotions that will yes, make many people laugh. At him, with him, and with the very things that make him laugh. When we are looking at iguanas from the perspective of the animal and the perspective of drugged out Cage considering the animal, the hallucinatory power borders on hilarious and yet, remains honestly poetic (it reminded me a bit of the chicken at the end of "Stroszek").

Which comes to the question: what kind of movie is "Bad Lieutenant"? It’s a noir, it’s a comedy, it’s a character study, it’s a southern gothic, it’s a police story. Yes, it’s all those things. But really, it’s a Herzog picture. Real, unreal, maddening, inspiring and utterly sincere.

--Kim Morgan 

This is interesting. Keep your eyes peeled for the movie "Crazy Heart" opening in a theater near you.  One, it's supposed to be great, and two, it features an Oscar worthy performance (not that "Oscar worthy" means anything really) by Jeff Bridges. And he appears in a bowling alley -- a lot. 

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I hope Bridges is nominated simply because he should be nominated when he steps anywhere within the vicinity of a bowling alley. And I know, that's like my opinion.  

From the New York Times:

"A few weeks ago “Crazy Heart” was just another invisible movie, one with so little promise that the company that made it refused to put it into theaters. Now, suddenly, this low-budget film about a washed-up country singer finds itself at the heart of the Oscar race, with some awards watchers calling its star, Jeff Bridges, a likely best actor candidate."

And later in the piece:

"Once the film was shown to groups of industry insiders, Mr. Bridges, a well-liked veteran who has never won an Oscar despite four nominations since 1972, most recently for 'The Contender' (2000), quickly generated word of mouth for his performance as the grizzled Bad Blake, a country legend reduced to appearances in bowling alleys. T Bone Burnett, who contributed music to the film and whose film credits include 'Walk the Line' and 'The Big Lebowski,' has also emerged as a potential big draw at the intimate screenings for Hollywood tastemakers, where Oscar candidates are born."

Read more about it here.

If any picture was the movie to usher in the new millennium, it was David Fincher's "Fight Club." To me, it was the movie of the 1990s -- as prescient as "Network" was in the 1970s towards the future of “news,” and as equally misunderstood. As Fight Club revealed and essentially, proselytized, we live in a world where we seek to express ourselves, either through conspicuous consumption, or following philosophies for supposed betterment, or to simply remember what it was like to actually feel like a man after the world has feminized us so (something as a woman I find frustrating and heartbreaking -- let men be men again). 

But "Fight Club" isn't saying something as simple and inane as men are pussies. It's not a dumb jock statement of  being a "man."

Rather, it shows how through the alienation of social institutions, and the de-masculination of culture, the rugged individualist is rare. How to tap into being a man, fast? "Punch me as hard as you can."

Based on the diabolical novel by Portland's Chuck Palahniuk (skillfully adapted by Jim Uhls), "Fight Club" is a multifaceted satire. It attacks not only the dehumanizing, corporate Starbucks/Ikea world we inhabit (and still inhabit -- even more), but also self-help philosophies, men's movements, commercials, TV and, interestingly, movies, but oh-so cleverly. The way cinema is blamed for contributing to real-life violence is not only woven into the picture, but it became a reality lobbed at the movie upon release. Like A Clockwork Orange, "Fight Club" was considered fascist by some critics, that it would encourage men to fight (not always a bad thing), and that it might actually create fight clubs (which it did -- not always a good thing).

A movie that ends on man and woman watching two high rise office towers tumbling down from the skyline before the World Trade Center's collapse is creepy, scary prophetic. As Tyler Durder proclaims: "Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy sh** we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. We're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off." And...then through the 2000's? A war. And an economic crisis.

Then, to a certain extent, "Fight Club" took on Generation X, but it also applied to the onset of the next generation. Challenging so many silly articles, books and movies that have attempted to label "Generation X" as listless, flannel-wearing, grunge-listening slackers, the film argued that it's not a lack of passion that kept those in their late twenties to early thirties befuddled, but a lack of personal power, a lack of freedom -- the impotence of not knowing your real soul.

Revealing the absurdity, hilarity and sadness of the type of man who, for example, would sit at home and listen to self-help Guru Anthony Robbins instructing him on how to "awaken the giant within," then go through the motions, and achieving nothing -- Fight Club asks: Do you want to awaken your giant? Do you really want to look inside yourself? What if your giant turns into a monster?

Read my entire piece on "Fight Club" here.

I get it.

Oscar, meet Sony. A not so odd couple. Sony hopes.

From The Wrap:

"At Sony Pictures Classics, awards season is starting to look very crowded.

"The company, one of the few to acquire films at the Toronto Film Festival, is promoting 13 titles for Oscar consideration -- starting with one Best Picture frontrunner, 'An Education,' and a possible second nominee in 'The Last Station.'

"Has it taken on too much?

"In these economic times, does a small company have the resources to juggle 13 campaigns -- some pitting its films against each another?

"Michael Barker, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, has a ready answer: Those are stupid questions.

“'The idea that an Academy campaign requires millions of dollars, those are the old days,' he says. 'Yes, you do have to spend where it’s necessary. But I think you’re jumping to a conclusion that some outrageous amount of money has to be spent to get into the conversation, and that’s just wrong.'

"But there's no disputing SPC's embarrassment of riches on the Oscar radar. It has two formidable best actress possibilities in Carey Mulligan ('An Education,' pictured left) and Helen Mirren ('The Last Station'), along with long shots Penelope Cruz ('Broken Embraces') and Audrey Tatou ('Coco Before Chanel').

"They have Christopher Plummer (pictured below right) in both the best actor category -- where he stands little chance for 'The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus' -- and supporting actor, where he’s a likely nominee for 'The Last Station' (unless the actors branch decides, as it well might, that he belongs in the lead actor category)."

Read the rest of the story here. 

If the turbo charged, extreme Mountain Dew-like trailer for Guy Ritchie's upcoming "Sherlock Holmes" isn't ridiculous enough, check out this bit of 7/11 cross advertising. Ya can't solve clues whilst hungry for a breakfast burger. Or a sandwich. Or whatever that is.

The crazies are right a lot. O.K.?  And not just in movies. In real life too. So, listen to the crazies. Just, not the "Twilight" fan crazies (see two posts below).

Well, actually, always listen to them. In fact, do whatever those girls tell you to do. (Sorry, still traumatized by my Cujo moment in the car, surrounded by 14-year-old mouth foamers).

Anyway...The Onion AV Club has run a great story about 15 movies in which the crazies are indeed, right. Starting with...

"'Rosemary’s Baby' (1968)
"In most movies, a hysterical woman babbling about how Satan raped her and cultists are out to steal her demon-child would be background color, the kind of bit character who exists to make things uncomfortable for the misunderstood protagonist temporarily locked up in a halfway house or an insane asylum. In Rosemary’s Baby, that character is the protagonist, and she has her story entirely straight. Too bad no one believes her—not that it’s any surprise. Her explanations aren’t any calmer or more rational than her wacky religious-guilt-inspired horror story."

Read their entire list here. Number one is entirely on the mark. I only wish the "Twilight" kids moved that slowly. Oh my goodness...I wish I could send all those girls to Dr. Saperstein. Maybe I need Dr. Saperstein.

I know what you're thinking. Did he fire...I mean, did he deserve it? Oui, oui.

Yes, he does:

"French President Nicolas Sarkozy made American actor and director Clinton Eastwood a commander in the prestigious French Legion of Honor on Friday.

"The citation for the highly coveted decoration said Eastwood, 79, was honored for his body of work, his longevity and his ability to delight audiences around the globe.

"Former French President Jacques Chirac had honored Eastwood as a knight of the Legion of Honor two years ago, and Friday's decoration was a step up for Eastwood to grade three on the legion's five-grade scale.

"Speaking in English, Eastwood thanked Sarkozy and the French people.

"'This is a wonderful honor,' Eastwood said. "It is just a great pleasure for me. I really love France. I love movies, and I love the appreciation that the French people have for movies,' he added."