Encounters Of The Middle Of The World...

Of all the celebrities I've managed to encounter with since moving to Los Angeles in June, perhaps none have left me starstruck quite like the German-American auteur Werner Herzog.  While he isn't necessarily my favorite director, one thing no can deny is that he is truly one of a kind and the the most dedicated of directors. 

Its hard to know where to begin with a guy like Herzog! How about the fact he jumped naked in a cactus patch to motivate his film crew? Or the time he cooked and ate a shoe in front of a live-audience(and had it filmed it into the movie Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe). Or the film Fitzcarraldo, the film he made that involves a 300+ ton ship literally being raised over a mountain? Or how about his hatched plan to kill his leading star(Klaus Kinski) who in turn planed to kill him. Or the numerous times he's been shot at…included a time he was being interviewed by Mark Kermode, only to continue with the interview instead of going to a hospital? Herzog is a mad genius, a man who leaves all other filmmakers in awe. Its hard to think of a director, past or present, who has put more dedication to his craft than he has(did I mention he once saved Joaquin Phoenix's life from a near fatal car-accident?). 

Learning of his extraordinary life and career, I'd always wished to meet Herzog. I missed out the chance to see him and Roger Ebert present a screening of Agiurre, The Wrath of God(don't ask why, it was during that dark period of being a CO citizen). While I'll never have the chance to see Roger Ebert in person, I always knew there would be one day a chance to encounter the good soldier of cinema, as Ebert once referred of Herzog. Thankfully, the chance came last October.

Werner Herzog was at the Aero Theater to do a QnA of his 2011documentary, Into the Abyss, tackling death-row convicts. Having never seen the film before, I was eager to see it at all, let alone on the big screen, but the real reason I went was to see Werner Herzog in person. 

The film was like a lot of Herzog's documentaries: dry, deadly serious in tone, some hilarious LOL moments sprinkled through-out, yet completely mesmerizing. Following a Texan triple-homicide convict named Michael Perry, Herzog gives this person the respect every human being deserves. While he unloads most of the facts of the case interviews many of the victims of his acts, what makes this film(as well as Herzog's other films) special is that he never looses sight of the human-being front and center of the film. Having made documentaries on subjects ranging from Timothy Treadwell to Antarctican scientists, he truley is a human director. Herzog's soothing German-accented voice gives a soothing quality to an otherwise very dark narrative, he's even not afraid to have fun with his interviewees, such as when he interviews a reverend  who blesses death-row citizens before their executed and when he makes an off-hand remark about squirrels talking about life god makes, Herzog asks to further describe his encounter to squirrels to amusing results! Finally, he also manages to tackles the hard task of exploring political issues without himself ever getting political or even polarizing. This resulting I think from the true humanizing of Werner Herzog.

After the film, when the interviewer announced Werner Herzog and he walked to the stage, you could definitely feel his presence. I would've asked him a question but honestly, the interviewer did a pretty good job asking all the basic questions one could have from why he drawn to this particular case in Texas(Herzog was impressed by the non-sensible randomness of the murders) to how he avoids political politics(Herzog stressed he thought the people of Texas were wonderful and pointed out as a German he felt he had no right to dictate to the US how they should run their death penalty system). 

Since he is one of those guys you want to go inside his brain, most of the audience steered of the discussion of the movie itself and talked what they wanted to talk about. One person announced they were a member of the communist party trying to start a revolution giving a long rambling speech about his ideology; seriously, how the hell do you respond to that? Another person took pride of the fact he was from Iran and wanted to get Werner's thoughts on Iran. Then a college-aged girl didn't even have a question and just wanted to expressed how much "Cave of Forgotten Dreams", his documentary on cave paintings, meant to her as a person. While the interviewer was clearly annoyed how all the questions were off topic to "Into The Abyss", Herzog answered the questions the best he could in a non-condescending way.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the interview was the he mentioned he was close to wrapping up Queen of the Desert(his biographical film on Gertrude Bell, starring Nicole Kidman) and that in the next week he was going to South America to do location scouting for his next documentary. Herzog is one of the true treasures of cinema that more people should appreciate. I was honored to finally be in his presence, hopefully it won't be last time! 

Interstellar Oculus Review

Like Cecil B DeMille, Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg before him, Christopher Nolan has thrived at knowing what his massive audience wants and giving it to them. In doing so, he's become as big a "star" as the actors he casts.  Looking at the IMDB Top 250, his highest rated film, The Dark Knight, rates #4 just behind the likes of The Godfather, The Godfather Part II and The Shawshank Redemption, meaning that in this day of age in which people receive the satisfaction of streaming their entertainment on Netflix, Nolan is one of the last of his kind: one who makes "event" movies that people generally feel the need to have to go to movie theaters and watch on the big screen.

Not to say his films don't have their critics: search the internet and you'll find plenty of critics, some from the industry and some who are reviewers/enthusiasts like Rob Ager, a lot of them coming off as fairly intelligent who have clearly studied and know film, who'll criticize Nolan for being too influenced by superior artists like Michael Mann and Quentin Tarantino, crafting incomprehensible action scenes(they'll often use the truck chase from The Dark Knight as the best example), overuse expository dialogue and even overcomplicated his relatively simple narratives for little purpose. While its easy to write those people as "snobs" Nolan's fans take it to the extremes from consistent complaining about The Academy for not nominating The Dark Knight for Best Picture(which resulted in The Academy from expanding the number of Best Picture nominees) to even sending death threats to film critics who gave The Dark Knight Rises a negative review(which resulted in RottenTomatoes.com from removing the comments section from critic's reviews).

I myself find myself being in the middle of these two extremes.  Personally, I don't think Nolan is a genius as others seem to believe. I feel his work often lacks versatility and that he simplifies his somewhat complicated ideas for something more bland and simple, that's easier for the audience to digest but make him far less interesting than the filmmakers he has publicly stated in trying to emulate such as Stanley Kubrick or Terrence Malick. This also doesn't help that with some of his shaky-cam techniques and overreliance on Hans Zimmer he has inspired less diverse and more bland imitators. But on the flip side of that, its rather inspiring to think that in our age of Michael Bay that there's one mainstream filmmaker trying to make action blockbusters that engage their (mostly teen) audience with somewhat sophisticated  and intelligent ideas. Equally inspiring is the fact that there's one modern director who has kept his foot firmly in the past as well as the present, as Nolan insists to shoot on celluloid instead of digital, makes films both in 35mm and 70mm prints, and has even helped finance Kodak to help them keep from fading out of existence. In uneventful filmmaking times, he truly makes films that demand attention, and the fact he has done so without gimmicks like "3D" and in some more old-fashioned ones like giant screens and storytelling is sort of miraculous and for that alone I feel he deserves most of the praise he gets.

One "gimmick" though, he has indulged in is his marketing. In order to stand out, the marketing of his films think of some fairly clever solutions, whether its through ads or building viral websites he really knows how to build up anticipation to his films which sometimes don't have the established brand name to build off of.



For Interstellar, Nolan's latest, WB has offered an "Oculus" experience. In very selective cities in a mere three states, theater chains have offered a "virtual reality" trip in which you can visit the space ship sets of the movie.

When I first read about the set up in New York online it immediately perked up my interest. The reason being it reminded me of something from the viewing experience I had from watching Inception. When the "dream within a dream within a dream within a dream" sequence happened, it reminded me of what Alfred Hitchcock said of Steven Spielberg's Jaws when he praised "[Spielberg is] the first one of us who doesn't see the proscenium arch." One can easily say the same for Nolan. When watching Inception the first time what impressed me the most about the movie was that it was less like watching a screen and more like traveling in a maze with the characters. The reason why it struck popular with audiences, I say, is because it offered what Roger Ebert referred to as an "out-of-body experience". While I have issues with the movie(most of it being related to the needless exposition which bores one to tears on the 2nd viewing) the film works ultimately because of that dream within a dream within a dream climax of the movie. This Oculus experience seemed like the chance to show Nolan how he really views movies: not as a flat surface facing the audience but as an immersive experience. One doesn't need 3D glasses to see his films because the films are three-dimensional themselves.



So when I heard this exhibit was being brought over to Los Angeles, I immediately marked my calendar. As someone who is always eager for events and experiences taking in my beloved Southern California that can't simply be reproduced in just any other city in any other place in the world, such as Colorado Springs, I immediately jumped towards the chance to see this. The fact it was taking place at the AMC Theaters at CityWalk was a match made in heaven: much like theme park attraction, this sounded like an attraction that would transport you inside a movie. And as icing on the cake: the event was free(ok so you still had to pay Universal parking, but I'll let that fact slide by).

 As you can see the chairs and devices almost resembled that of the ones of Inception. While waiting in line it was fun to see the few in front of me get really involved with the experience. Before I stepped in though, some AMC employee offered a free poster to those who had pre-bought their tickets(I bought mine as I was always planning on seeing it and hey, free posters are fun). They also and made you sign of those contracts that said "I am aware of the health risks involved and that Universal and AMC weren't responsible for any deaths blah blah blah" and then it was on to the Oculus.

The best was to describe it was as virtual reality, but without any will-power or controls. It starts with you being on board the ship where your told to go into another room by your "commander". You travel through the tunnels and control, at one point even initiate "zero-gravity" to where your floating through the different rooms. You even go through a floating pencil not unlike in 2001: A Space Odyssey. It ends with you in the control-panel facing another planet(Jupiter maybe?) then ends with the Interstellar logo. Through-out the whole event, your tempted to turn your head and look all around you as your surrounded by the interiors of this spaceship. You also have the urge to grabs things even if you have no real control.

While I highly doubt Interstellar will reach 2001: A Space Odyssey heights(it's a near guarantee Interstellar won't inspire a Steve Jobs to invent and name a product after the movie like Kubrick's masterpiece has) I am sure that based on the Oculus alone that after 2014's underwhelming box office that this film will definitely be an "event" film.

And for that, I say bless Mr. Nolan's cotton socks!