The Influence of the French New Wave

This is a critical video essay I did on the French New Wave movement and it’s direct influence on American cinema. I’d never done one of these before, and I simply felt like I should do it. So here it is, posted for all to see.

Thanks for watching!

How to be a Film Critic

As Printed in The Lumberjack on April 30, 2009

by Gary Sundt

I started writing for The Lumberjack in January 2007. Back when my word count was small and my aspirations were large, my first assignment was to review Primeval (a rather forgettable film about a killer crocodile). I remember finishing that review, in which I called an actor an idiot and confessed my love for crap like Deep Blue Sea and Orca, and feeling very confident that I had written a masterpiece.

Nearly two-and-a-half years have passed since that review, and I am still analyzing films. I have been open to other writers filling the position on the grounds that they will take movie reviewing seriously. But a review is an educated opinion, and most people aren’t as educated as they think they are.

Now the reader says, “Turn that pompous and icy sword back at yourself, buddy man.” And I do. People may not believe it, but I often ask myself why my opinion should matter. At the end of the day, I have determined my opinion is valuable because a) I have studied the art of filmmaking, by not only analyzing the craft of moviemaking itself, but also in producing and directing my own feature film projects, and b) I hold myself to a small set of rules that I believe makes my critiques at the very least reliable, even if you might not agree with them.

Watch the movie: This doesn’t mean going to the theater and playing with your cell phone. I mean really watch a movie. Consider nothing you are looking at is natural or “real-life.” The sights, sounds and language that make up every movie you’ve ever seen were manufactured to instill a specific series of emotions. That chill that runs down your spine when Kevin Spacey lectures Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman during the car ride near the end of Se7en is not just you. It’s designed. People made you do that. There is music in that scene. Did you notice? You should have.

Teach people something: Being a movie critic means you have seen more movies than most people and have taken time to learn things about them. Is what you are watching a remake? You should probably see the original, or at the very least admit when you haven’t. Is the sound or the picture in the movie theater not properly calibrated? I saw The Dark Knight four times in four separate theaters, and the weakest experience was the first because of how improperly the sound was set up in the Harkins Flagstaff 11. When you teach people something, they walk away from the movie review with a higher respect for your credentials, which are eternally in question.

Don’t back down: When you’re a movie critic, people have a tendency to disagree with you. Friends, family and coworkers will rip into your oh-so-special opinion. Whether they know it or not, they love to do this, mostly because you get paid for your opinion.

But I say don’t let them break you. Everybody has an opinion, but yours needs to be founded in logic. I have experienced this time and again with Twilight devotees, and I have never argued with any fangirl or boy who didn’t walk away defeated. Granted, that’s just easy, because even those who adore the cheesy-vamp-lovefest know it’s trash, but I think the point is clear.

Sometimes it feels good to be bad: I believe it is very important to recognize when you’ve had a good time at a bad movie. This was a lesson I learned after rereading my review for Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters. I maintain that it was a bad movie, but I had a great time because of just how silly it was. My review did not reflect that, and it’s a point that I believe was unfair of me to leave out.

I learned my lesson, and have since been very open about when I have enjoyed films that are almost certainly garbage. Rambo is a terrible movie, but my critique was honest when I said my manliness ensured I would have a good time. This allows you a certain level of rapport, because admitting your own biases allows the reader to form a more well-rounded opinion of what a movie has to offer.

As I’ve been writing this, I have kept my first review open on the desktop, looking back when I need a moment to reflect. It has been a long time since I wrote that piece, and to be honest, it isn’t a masterpiece, but it’s a solid review.

I take a lot of comfort in knowing my first review wasn’t totally off base. Albert Einstein wrote, “The individual must not merely wait and criticize, he must defend the cause the best he can. The fate of the world will be such as the world deserves.” The same can be said for movies, and I have never felt as though I didn’t give a critique that wasn’t founded. It says a lot to me about what it takes to review films, and more than two years later, I still believe I have those qualifications.

The Movie Theater Experience

 by Gary Sundt

 As Printed in The Lumberjack on May 1, 2008

 “A man goes to the movies. The critic must be honest enough to admit that  he is that man.” — Robert Warshow, The Immediate Experience

 As a film critic, I watch a lot of movies. I have a collection of about 300  movie tickets since Spider-Man came out in 2001. That’s approximately  $2,550 spent for some 600 hours of movie watching in a theater. This  doesn’t take into account my weekly DVD rentals and purchases, repeat  viewings and reading on the subject of films. That’s a lot of time and  money to spend on movies.

 Know that most of the movies I watch are not especially good. Even less  common are they great. This is a column about those good or great films,  and the experience of watching them in the theater.

I am of the belief that movies are the greatest art form on the planet. Upon hearing this, many object. What about music? Photography? Writing? Performance Drama? Painting or sculpture? “How can one be better than the rest?” people ask.

My response to this is that movies, at any given moment, can incorporate one or all of these. Film is the best because it utilizes all the different types of art and evokes an emotion.

The movie theater, on the other hand, creates a very similar experience to the other art forms. Much like a rock concert or an art exhibit, people of all walks of life crowd into a specific space to view the latest work from their favorite actor, director or movie studio. Or maybe they don’t. Perhaps they don’t care what they’re watching, as long as it’s entertaining.

Regardless, the film begins. The lights go dim, and that’s when something amazing happens. This event cannot be mimicked at home by one’s self, or even with a group of friends. Movie houses packed with strangers are the sole provider of this experience.

In a comedy, we laugh. In horror, we scream. Drama pushes us to feel the plight of the characters, while science fiction will provide marvelous sights and ideas we couldn’t begin to fathom outside the Cineplex. Regardless of the genre, friends, family, enemies and strangers observe the same events, and similar feelings arise. Remember when Jurassic Park came out and everyone’s collective minds were blown by the power of visual effects? Yeah. It’s kinda like that.

The theater is full of many different people from all walks of life, watching the screen at varying levels of attention. And if a movie is made just right, this variable mishmash of photography, performance, music, writing, etc. will collectively evoke a similar emotion.

While this similar feeling arises, these emotions will be remarkably different. Perhaps we laugh, but everyone has a different reason for laughing. It isn’t because, as a friend of mine once said after 40-Year-Old Virgin, “It’s just funny.” Why is it funny? Every person will respond differently. That’s the magic of art.

So try to imagine this: people of every type, all in the same place, experiencing the same and entirely different emotions in a single moment. The stories on the screen are designed to do this, and will succeed if they are great. We moviegoers have the chance to travel to the theater and experience it.

Perhaps this is why we are irritated when some stupid person answers their phone, checks their voicemail, sends a text or talks loudly to their friends. We get mad because we have thrown down our hard earned dollars to experience these complex emotions. We’re entitled, dammit!

Notice that those guilty of such atrocities are often tweens and children. However, with our newfound knowledge of this intricate experience, we can somewhat understand why they tend to be so ignorant. Middle school kids and children often fail to understand mature emotion. We have every right to chastise, kick them out of our theater even. But at the same time, we, as well as them, should understand. They just aren’t there yet. They’ll get it someday.

Or perhaps they won’t. I see many different movies, some I want to see and many I don’t. I occasionally happen upon an adult guilty of the juvenile atrocities that drive loyal moviegoers up the wall.

I have, once or twice, done the equally obnoxious thing and approached these people after the show. One time a kid answered his cell phone in the climax (if you can call it that) of When a Stranger Calls. The whole movie had been pretty bad up to this point, and when something interesting was finally happening, a kid answers his phone. On a different occassion, a mother brought her 4- and 7-year-olds to The Devil’s Rejects, one of the most vicious and twisted film experiences I’ve ever had. Both occassions resulted in stict talking-to’s, simply because I was so outraged.

Their response (edited here) was simply that they didn’t care. As hard as this may be, I have to tell myself that some people just won’t ever get it. This may not stop me from yelling in their face, but it does stop me from attempting violent decapitation with my popcorn bag.

However, this ignorance represents another inherent beauty of films. Movies are made and priced for all walks of life. Unlike the latest concerts and plays, the price is fixed such that everyone has a right to experience these phenomenal emotions, even if they are too ignorant to properly understand. Perhaps it would be nice if those insufferable tweens would just throw their hormones a bone and start making out (at least they’d be quiet for once). Regardless, movies are for everyone, and that makes them special.

Film snobs will not agree. These are the guys that think everything after Citizen Kane is poppycock, and they would insist that most people don’t deserve the privilege of movies. Every art form has its snobs, and they all feel this way about their precious corner of the universe. I myself may border on film snobbery, but I maintain my humanity by insisting equal movie-watching rights. If you like Vantage Point or The Reaping, you have every right to watch it. If No Country for Old Men was a bit too complex for you, that’s cool too.

This moment of final judgment is where the movie ends. The lights come on, credits roll, and everyone piles out the theater. The experience of the movie theater is over, and we all walk out into our different worlds with our different opinions. Debates may rage, or a general consensus may be found. When I left Prom Night, a friend and I were stunned silent by how awful it was, while a stranger behind us said, “It was good but I was scared.” Once again, the beauty of art.

So this is my last movie column of the semester, and what have I said? Go to the movies, you crazy people. See that flick you’ve been waiting several months for, or go see something you’ve never heard of. The experience is yours and everyone else’s.

The lights dim. Showtime.

Note: If you are reading this, know that I plan to continue writing reviews over the summer months. The Lumberjack takes a break during the summer months, so I have to finish up the semester somehow. Look for updates over the summer, ya’ll.

The Onion reports “Iron Man” trailer to be made into feature length film

The Onion reports that the extremely popular Iron Man trailer will be made into a feature-length film. This news has been met with skepticism by fans of the Marvel movie trailer, but the filmmakers have promised to stay true to what made the trailer so great. Watch below for more details.

Iron Man hits theaters May 2, 2008

Writer/director George Gallo brings reflective film to Flagstaff

Trevor Morgan and and Armin Mueller-Stahl look at a painting in George Gallo’s Local Color

by Gary Sundt

As Printed in The Lumberjack on April 17, 2008

The last time writer/director George Gallo was in Flagstaff, he was at a bar.

It was during the filming of his 1988 script, Midnight Run. He recalled, “I was with one of the actors, John Ashton. We were getting all tanked up in a bar right across the street from the train station. I was catching an overnight train home to L.A. I didn’t want to fly home, and I figured I’d just get drunk and get on the train and get a sleeping compartment and go to sleep. I remember liking Flag quite a bit.”

Gallo will be returning to Flagstaff via his latest film, titled Local Color. Opening Friday, April 25, the film recounts the director’s own experiences as an 18-year-old aspiring painter who finds guidance and wisdom from an aging artist the summer after his high school graduation. In an effort to pay tribute to those who have inspired him, Gallo (who wrote the story for Bad Boys and the script for The Whole Ten Yards) has written and directed a film addressing the topic of art and expression.

“The film is based very much on what happened to me personally when I was 18 years old,” Gallo said. “I graduated high school in 1974 and wanted to continue my art training. At that time, there really wasn’t much in terms of practical, grounded training in the world of representational art. It was all abstraction, and I was more of [a] traditionalist. There was really no place to study.

“So I ended up studying with a brilliant Russian impressionist. I became his student, his apprentice, and he was the master, obviously. But he had become an old drunk by the time I met him, and his better days were behind him. He didn’t like what the world had become, didn’t like what the world of art had become and had decided, in a kind of conscious effort, to drink himself to death.

“But I came along full of youthful exuberance, and saw the true genius in the work that he had done, and wanted him to teach me. His whole thing was basically ‘f-ck you, get out of here, leave me alone, let me die.’ And the movie is pretty much about the kid trying to get the old man to believe in life again, and so then he can pass the baton on to the kid.”

Local Color also explores the filmmaker’s then-taxing relationship with his father, George Gallo, Sr. Gallo refers to his father as a working-class guy who couldn’t imagine his son making a living in the arts.

“He was of a different generation,” Gallo said. “The idea of making a living at painting or writing stories didn’t sit very well with him. He always understood ditch digging or being a cop or getting a city job. That was his reality.

“I wanted to be an artist and he just didn’t get it. It led to a great deal of arguments and fighting in our house, which I think is pretty clear in the movie. Here he had this kid with his head in the clouds, a really artistic kid. And he’d look at me and he’d be like ‘where the f-ck did you come from?’

“So that was my reality that I grew up in. I was quite headstrong, and obviously I succeeded ultimately. Was he proud of me in the end? Yes. He’s a very proud father. He just didn’t think I could pull all this sh-t off. And when I look at my life, I can’t believe I pulled a lot of it off.”

Gallo was no older than most students at NAU when he sold his first screenplay. He recalled, “I started studying a lot about filmmaking, and took a shot at writing a script when I was about 20 or 21. I got incredibly lucky. I sent the script to a cinematographer by the name of Arthur J. Harding. He passed the script along to a producer, Martin Bregman, who did Scarface, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico… all these big Al Pacino movies of the day. They purchased the script.

“I started bouncing back and forth between screenwriting and painting, because the screenwriting thing became very lucrative to me rather quickly. I was very lucky. So I started writing screenplays, painting pictures, writing screenplays. Eventually I saw an opportunity to direct. Imagery and directing obviously go hand in hand, and directing is obviously linked to storytelling.”

Gallo has felt a certain untruth to artists as portrayed in films. In Local Color, he saw the perfect opportunity to bring to life the true art of being a painter to the big screen.

“A lot of times, I see artists working in movies and it’s kind bullsh-t. It’s just not realistic because whoever is making the movie doesn’t understand what it’s like to be an artist for real.

“Being a painter, I wanted a very specific truth. I’ve stood in a field for hours just learning the technique, and I wanted infuse, to the best of my ability, what that whole process is like. Part of being an artist is just keeping your heart and soul open to alternate points of view.”

Local Color will play as a limited engagement at Harkins on April 25. Gallo expects students of every type to relate to the film’s message.

“I think anyone who is trying to learn anything, be it art, music, political science, whatever it is, I think it’s a movie that will connect well with the student population. Especially in an artist-based community,” he said.