The complete Metropolis

The original epic sci-fi classic art film, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, has not been seen in its original complete form since it opened in Berlin in 1927. It has taken 80 years to finally get it back to its original state.

Just in time for a blu-ray debut, a copy of the original cut of the classic film has miraculously been discovered in Buenos Aires by the curator of the Museo del Cine with an additional 25 minutes of lost footage, restoring this classic back to its original length and its original composition.

Back in January of 1927 when Metropolis first opened it was a two hour and thirty three minute epic film, but the US distributors thought that it was way too long and boring for an American audience, so before it was released in the US later that year, it was cut down to approximately 90 minutes (one hour and 30minutes), cutting the film by an hour in length. The film has never been seen in its original state since.

Over the years there have been many attempts to restore the film, as little bits and pieces of lost footage were found around the world and re-edited back into the film as best as could be determined, ( it was unknown how the original version was edited together), but the most recent version of the film still only ran 124 minutes.

The Argentine find, which was a 16mm duplicate of the original negative, is not only the longest version of the film yet found, with 25 minutes of extra footage, but also shows the film as it was originally edited together. Metropolis now runs a total of 147 minutes which is only 6 minutes shorter than its original release. This is probably the most complete version of the film modern audiences will ever see.

Unfortunately, due to the poor quality of the duplicate copy, much of the damage is still noticeable in the extra footage even after digital restoration techniques were used, so that the Argentine footage is easily noticeable compared to the rest of the film, which benefits from better source material.

The Story:

The hero’s journey begins as a privileged son of the ruler of a futuristic city stumbles upon another world hidden beneath the modern metropolis. As he investigates more closely and follows a beautiful girl into the bowels of the city, he discovers that this Under World beneath his feet is a world of slave labor. He witnesses the horrible conditions in which people are working around the clock servicing huge machines that run the city. Appalled by what he sees, he implores his father, the ruler of the city, to do something about it. When his plea is met with indifference, he decides to secretly take matters into his own hands. Back in the Lower City the son discovers that there is a movement among the frustrated workers to destroy the machines and kill the ruler of the city above. The son who has connections in the city above is eventually able to mediate reconciliation and equality between his father and the workers.

Metropolis is a cult classic of German expressionism, and dystopian future worlds that foreshadowed films like Blade Runner and The Matrix.

JP

Awards

The awards season is fast approaching yet again. I always look forward to it because with so many movies and books being released during a one year period (around 350 movies) and who knows how many books, and with so many different tastes (books and movies are very subjective) it’s not easy to know what you are going to like and what you won’t, especially with books. Sure you could read all the reviews but not many people do; there are just too many. We only see a small portion of the films that are released and only hear about and read an even smaller number of books. You would have to spend a lot of time browsing the book and video stores in order to find something you like.

Awards make the search a little easier for us every year, not because the winners are guaranteed to be great or suit our taste, no, but because the award nominees narrow down the field for us to look through. All the nominees for awards are going to be worth watching or reading regardless of whether they suit our particular taste. The winner is not important because the winner is rarely the film or book we would have chosen, but if you search through the nominees there is bound to be something of interest or to your taste.

Most of the time the film that I like the best does not win the Academy Award for best picture but it will inevitably win some awards for things that are important to me, like Cinematography, Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Editing, Art Direction and Directing.

Last year my favorite film lost to The Hurt Locker. Now while I liked The Hurt Locker and felt it was definitely a good film worth watching I did not think it was better than or as big of an achievement in film making as Avatar was. That award year was very similar to the award year of 1977 when the largest achievement in film making history Star Wars lost out to an ordinary low key, low budget Woody Allen comedy Annie Hall. While I like Annie Hall, it’s a fun film, it has definitely not had the impact and achieved the huge cult status among film goers and film makers and changed the film industry the way that Star Wars has.

There were other great films nominated last year like Up and Up in the Air which are also some of my favorites now. Up I would have seen anyway because I’m a fan of Pixar and Animation in general but Up in the Air I probably would not have noticed if not for the Award nominations it got. And it was a really cool film, far better than I expected.

2008 was one of the few years where my favorite film actually also won the Academy Award for best Picture. The other films were of course all very good but I probably would not have seen any of them if not for the nominations they got. But Slumdog Millionaire was definitely the stand out achievement that year and I was happy they won.

Slumdog was also the most awarded film I had ever seen, winning at every other award ceremony going, and not just for best Picture but also for Direction, Screenwriting, Cinematography, Music and Editing. This film just could not be stopped. It was a real Cinderella story.

Most other years though are not like that. Some years I don’t really like any of the nominated films. 2007 for example was the year the most critically acclaimed film, No Country for Old Men, actually won the Academy Award but most of the rest of us, regular film goers did not like that film. I think that most people preferred Juno but in that case the small budget comedy did not win over the bigger film.

The year that The Departed won the Academy Award I thought that Babel deserved it more, and it was definitely the better film and bigger achievement in film making. Babel is now one of my favorite films made by one of the best directors working today, Alejandro González Iñárritu. If not for the nomination it received, I may not have noticed it, at least not right away.

The Queen was the other big achievement that was also nominated in the same year. I was very pleasantly surprised at how good it was when I saw it for the first time. And that’s a film that I probably would not have bothered with had it not been for the best picture nomination.

Clint Eastwood’s Letters from Iwo Jima was another excellent film that was nominated in the same year.

There are some years that my favorite films are not even nominated but the nominees are always worth checking out. You’re bound to find a gem in there even if it doesn’t actually win the Award.

JP

My favourite films of the decade 2000 - 2009

Below is a list of my favourite films of the past 10 years from 2000 – 2009. This list was created by selecting my 5 most highly recommended films from each year. I would consider these films to be must see films and can definitely be watched more than once. I have seen all these films multiple times and I would show these films to friends and guests when they come to visit and I never get tired of watching them. There is a mixture of Epic and intimate, funny and serious, animated and documentary, foreign and Hollywood but they are all universal stories that speak to us all. Try them and see…

Title                                                Year      Director

Avatar                                              2009      James Cameron

Star Trek                                          2009      J.J. Abrams

Defiance                                           2009      Edward Zwick

The Cove                                         2009        Louie Psihoyos

Up                                                   2009       Pete Docter, Bob Petersen

Fantastic Mr. Fox                              2009       Wes Anderson

Slumdog Millionaire                           2008      Danny Boyle

The Year My Parents Went on Vacation            2008      Cao Hamburger

Ben X                                               2008       Nic Balthazar

Man on Wire                                    2008        James Marsh

Son of Rambow                                2008       Garth Jennings

The Host                                          2007      Joon-ho Bong

Ratatouille                                        2007       Brad Bird

Lars and the Real Girl                        2007       Craig Gillespie

Days of Glory (Indigenes)                   2007        Rachid Bouchareb Algeria

The Darjeeling Limited                      2007       Wes Anderson

Babel                                               2006       Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles                2006       Zhang Yimou

I for India                                         2006       Sandhya Suri

Happy Feet                                      2006        George Miller

Manufactured Landscapes                  2006       Jennifer Baichwal

Head-On                                          2005      Fatih Akin

Born into Brothels                             2005      Zana Briski, Ross Kauffman

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill      2005       Judy Irving

March of the Penguins                       2005        Luc Jacquet

War of the Worlds                            2005        Steven Spielberg

Hero                                                 2004      Zhang Yimou

House of Flying Daggers                     2004      Zhang Yimou

In this World                                     2004       Michael Winterbottom

The Incredibles                                 2004        Brad Bird

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter… and Spring           2004        Kim Ki-duk

City of God (Cidade de Deus)                    2003      Fernando Meirelles Brazil

The Last Samurai                               2003      Edward Zwick

Lost in Translation                              2003       Sofia Coppola

Winged Migration                              2003        Jacques Perrin

Ten                                                   2003       Abbas Kiarostami

The Pianist                                        2002      Roman Polanski

The Lord of the Rings Trilogy              2002      Peter Jackson

Enlightenment Guaranteed                 2002       Doris Dorrie

Spirited Away                                    2002       Hayao Miyazaki

Y Tu Mama También                           2002       Alfonso Cuaron

Amélie                                              2001      Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Amores Perros                                  2001      Alejandro González Iñárritu

The Gleaners and I                            2001       Agnes Varda

Himalaya                                          2001       Eric Valli

Monsters, Inc.                                   2001       Pete Doctor

Malèna                                              2000      Giuseppe Tornatore

Gladiator                                           2000      Ridley Scott

Shower (Xizao)                                  2000       Zhang Yang

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon          2000       Ang Lee

Kikujiro                                            2000       Takeshi Kitano

JP

Green Zone

Paul Greengrass, director of such marvels of film editing as Bloody Sunday (2002), United 93 (2006), Bourne Supremacy (2004) and Bourne Ultimatum (2007) now comes out with Green Zone. Starring Matt Damon this is a suspenseful and extremely realistic portrayal of the Iraq war at the beginning of operation Desert Storm. Soldiers are told to seek out Saddam’s WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction) but are coming up empty as there appears to be a flaw with the intelligence. Of course today we know there never were any WMDs in Iraq and so did the US Government who were informed long before the invasion. This information probably gave the US Military the courage to launch the invasion without worrying about a counter attack and at the same time gave them the excuse they needed to take out Saddam.

This film has much of the same pace and editing style of the Bourne films making it very suspenseful and exciting but it also attempts to show the secret dealings of the US government. If you haven’t seen it or any of Paul Greengrass’ films I highly recommend them. There are some who have criticized the shaky camera style of filming and rapid editing but this all adds to the realism and feeling of immediacy. It puts the viewer closer to the action. That is why it is now a commonly used style of filming for movies and many TV shows.

Greengrass is very good at switching between multiple storylines simultaneously, to heighten the suspense and keep the action continuous. This gives a film added imagery and more shots from different angles so the action can be seen from many different perspectives at the same time. Today there is so much more imagery packed into a film’s two hour running time that you really feel like you are getting your money’s worth of imagery and story. Add to that the benefit of digitally enhanced imagery that can put the viewer anywhere you can imagine, and film is now a much more powerful tool than it has ever been, and Paul Greengrass is definitely one of the directors at the fore-front of the new technical revolution that the film industry is enjoying.

JP

A quick summary of the 2009 film year

What where the most relevant films of 2009? Which films grabbed our attention and changed our view of the world? Which films opened our eyes and educated us and which films stole our hearts and made us fall in love?

There were excellent films in 2009 that did all these things.

If you check out the Annual critics top 10 lists below you’ll see what critics rated the best of the year.

It was an excellent year for Sci-Fi, Animation, War films and again for Documentaries; my favorite genres.

Sci-fi films were very strong this year with the best being Avatar, Star Trek, and District 9 but also very good were 2012, Terminator Salvation, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine

George Lucas’ influence continues to show the way to the future of film making. Combining elements of fantasy, futuristic military hardware, war, and aliens, James Cameron’s Avatar is by far the standout film of the year taking everyone by surprise and really raising the bar for Special Effects in a science fiction film that also has all the right elements of a great universal story. It is now the highest grossing film of all time beating out James Cameron’s own Titanic. (not adjusted for inflation)

Avatar is the Lord of the Rings of 2009 and it is also on its way to becoming a classic trilogy. James Cameron always knew exactly what made the Star Wars films so successful and he is now successfully following in George Lucas’ foot steps with his own original blockbuster Sci-fi/fantasy epic franchise. The films of Cameron’s that most resemble Avatar are Aliens (also starring Sigourney Weaver) and The Abyss.

The Star Trek reboot by J.J. Abrams is also inspired by the Star Wars films. Abrams has said that he wanted to bring a Star Wars sensibility to the Star Trek franchise. He wanted to give it the speed and action of those films of which he is a big fan. The makers of Star Trek thought of the Star Trek franchise as “classical music” and the Star Wars franchise as “Rock and Roll music”, and they wanted to inject Star Trek with some of that “Rock and Roll” feeling. The good news is it worked and the film is easily the best Star Trek film ever. In addition to this the original TV series has also been given a special effects update and facelift exactly like what was done with the Star Wars Special Editions and now the original series looks better than ever. With the update I am now a new fan of the series.

Visually and story-wise District 9 puts a new and unusual spin on the aliens landing on Earth sci-fi film and it works. The movie is a mix of documentary style footage and very realistic special effects aliens set in a South African slum/ghetto. But it is also very funny and poignant in a sense that there are many apartheid era references; only using aliens.

Animation films were numerous (16 films) but the best ones were Up, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Coraline, Mary and Max, Ponyo, The Princess and the Frog, A Christmas Carol, Monsters vs. Aliens, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and Astro Boy.

You can see a complete list of animated films that were released in 2009 in order of best reviewed to worst according to Rottentomatoes.com by clicking on the link in the right margin called Animation Rated 1999 – 2009.

Up by Pixar, who haven’t made a bad film yet, is a very funny but also touching, emotional story about a couple with a dream to go on an adventure trip to South America but are prevented from fulfilling their dream by life and circumstances. It’s also a beautiful film that was actually filmed in remote parts of South America and harkens back to some of Miyazaki’s films in style and story. Pixar are big fans of Hayao Miyazaki and you can see his influence in this film.

In the War film category there were three that were outstanding; The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds and Edward Zwick’s Defiance. Edward Swick was also behind such films as Blood Diamond, and The Last Samurai.

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The Hurt Locker is an excellent war story set in Iraq and follows a bomb squad who defuse road side and car bombs. It’s a beautifully photographed, very suspenseful and realistically depicted film about one soldier who becomes addicted to the adrenalin rush of war. Finding himself irresistibly drawn to dangerous situations where no one else would dare go, he puts not only himself in harm's way, but risks the lives of his fellow soldiers who support him and even innocent civilians. Unable to adjust to normal civilian life back home he keeps going back into the chaos of war.

Defiance is the true story of three Russian Jewish brothers who form a resistance group to protect a large number of Jewish refugees from Russians and Nazis during WW II. Bases on the book called “The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews”. It’s a truly inspiring story depicting a part of the War very seldom seen or heard about. Very realistically portrayed and well acted, it is one of the better WW II stories I’ve seen. Daniel Craig is excellent as a Russian Jew.

Of the documentaries that I have watched so far (and I have not seen many) the best were The Cove, The English Surgeon, India Reborn, Trouble the Water, which was nominated for an Oscar last year when Man on Wire won, and This is It the Michael Jackson behind the scenes concert video.

The Cove is an incredible documentary about a group of people trying to expose the horrible cruelty perpetrated by Japanese fishermen on Dolphins. It is a must see film as it opens our eyes to some horrific practices that must be exposed. This film will make you angry and make you want to do something to help dolphins everywhere. You may also never want to eat sushi again.

Action/Adventure/Thriller films were less strong this year with only a few good ones mainly Sherlock Holmes, State of Play and The Informant!

Of the Comedy/Feel-Good/Romance films, there were few films that I liked. So far the best ones I have seen are In the Loop, 3 Idiots, It’s Complicated and Rudo y Cursi.

The dramas that I’ve seen so far were mostly all French films. I liked Summer Hours, The Class, and Coco before Chanel. The Blind Side was also much better than I had expected.

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You can read the film scripts for many of these films under the heading “Scripts/Screenplays” at the top of this blog.

Next article will be a Summary of my favorite films of the past Decade from 2000 to 2009.

JP