Vinicius, Angel-A, Northwest Ties

Vinicius de Moraes is the man who fathered the musical style known as bossa nova. Many peoples' knowledge of bossa nova comes from having heard "The Girl From Ipanema" one too many times. Or if young and hip, they might know of the band Nouvelle Vague and their wacky bossa nova covers of classic punk rock tunes. Vinicious the movie delves into the man who founded this music style and follows his crazy life up until the end.

The film uses a somewhat irritating device right off the bat -- actors on a stage reciting poetry, seemingly as if they were being de Moraes or were part of his life somehow. If you're unfamiliar with de Moraes himself, as I was, you have no idea why we are watching these people, or why they are reading poetry at all. In fact, I started questioning whether this was actually going to be a documentary or a docudrama, having no idea where all this acting was going. Fortunately the beautiful imagery kept things from going downhill rapidly. Then, finally, there were the talking heads we all know and love, discussing things about de Moraes and being intermixed with old snapshots and footage. It's learned that early on in de Moraes' life he was a poet, and as such we hear recitations of some bits and pieces of his poetry. A good bulk of his life seems to have been spent around poetry and the movie reflects this, so it definitely doesn't jump into bossa nova or even any music for a while. As the music begins to emerge, more and more screen time is devoted to various musicians playing various songs by de Moraes, intermixed with some pretty b-roll. Everything in the movie is painted in very warm colors and it's really quite beautifully shot.

Apart from the wacky stage actors reading poetry, this sounds like your typical documentary about some famous person's career path into stardom and then eventually to their death. The thing that sets this movie apart from all that is this: the man had nine wives. Yes, nine wives. So we follow de Moraes' career path slowly upward as he becomes further recognized for his music, and at each interval we learn de Moraes gets married. Again. Nine times. This alone makes it almost worth seeing, simply for the humor value in learning about each progressive marriage and seeing the interviewees talk about them.

I didn't exactly walk away learning much about bossa nova, and though there were some excellent singing performances in the movie, "The Girl From Ipanema" is still the only tune I can name. The movie itself extends a bit too long as well. But the interviews are great and bits and pieces here and there are really interesting if you have the patience to sit through the entirety.

Angel-A was one of those movies that started out teetering on the line for me between pretentious self-indulgent trash and humorous quirky drama. Usually this line settles itself in the first 10 minutes or so and I can continue watching through a filter of excessive disgust or amused relief. Unfortunately this time the battle of good vs. bad continued throughout the entire movie until it was over, and I'm still not sure what my feelings are on it.

The story basically revolves around one sadsack man and his inability to be truthful with himself and thus be happy. He receives a visit from a tall blonde woman who it turns out is an angel sent to fix his life for him. The movie is completely in black and white, though the contrast is very soft so that it almost looks like it was originally shot in color. The script contains a lot of navel-gazing Linklater-ish dialogue between the two main characters, mixed in between moments of high drama and corny comedy.

I'm still not quite sure what point the b&w photography served on this movie, as there didn't seem to be much compositional or thematic need for it. Fortunately the script was pretty engaging, even at times where the dialogue was a bit stilted, and the pacing moved it right along so those dull points were easily forgotten. Overall it wasn't bad, but in a sea of lousy movies lately that may not be saying much.

Northwest Ties is a compilation of short films produced here locally. There were six films total, and afterwards there was a Q&A with the directors/actors. Several were very poorly produced and had equally lousy scripts to boot. Several were very well polished. Fortune Hunters had its fair share of dialogue issues that were very distracting. By that I mean, the dialogue sounded really forced and in turn like it was dumbed down for the viewer so that they could understand what was going on. But Gedde Watanabe makes an appearance which I always consider a good thing.

Audience Watch: I sat next to some progressive short-haired women for the first movie who were ranting about how awful some movie was (didn't catch the name) because it was exploitive to women. This probably isn't funny in and of itself, but as someone who grew up in Olympia, WA, this conversation comes a dime a dozen next to a cup of fair trade coffee and Utne Reader. During another movie, a couple sat behind me and argued about how lousy their seats were because one of them spent time searching for a parking spot instead of just parking in the lot.

Some things I learned today:

- Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park is the place to go for shooting any cemetery scenes, apparently they are very accommodating to filmmakers.

- HD can still look really horrible on the big screen without proper lighting and post-production care.