Everyone's been saying this movie was good even if you don't like boxing and it certainly is a fascinating movie. I kind of loved that it's all just Mike Tyson telling his own story from his own perspective. It's a wonder Don King and the woman who charged him with rape haven't sued over this movie, if they haven't. I was tired when I watched it. I guess it was a mostly passive experience. The only thing I really thought during the movie is that it would skip from one event to another event two to four years later and I wanted to know what happened in the interim time. I also wanted to know what Robin Givens had to say about it. That scene where she's sitting next to him and telling Barbara Walters how awful he is is something else. It's nice he doesn't hold a grudge though.
This doesn't really have to do with this movie but people always say that the parade of celebrities is one of the bad things about the movie The Hangover. I have to say, I thought it was one of that movie's few redeeming qualities and I actually kind of liked Mike Tyson in the movie even though the movie itself was pretty bad.
I could see myself watching this movie again just to examine more closely how it's put together.
B
06 January 2010
05 January 2010
The Detective (1968) / Tokyo! (2008)
I have to say, however blah the movies were last night, I'm really blown away by the quality of the video I've been getting. I don't know if I mentioned that I finally got a blu-ray player and it's hooked up to my roommate's projector in the living room. I've been told that we need a new cable to get the full blu-ray experience so I haven't even watched the blu-ray disc that was given to me with the player (There Will Be Blood). We've been playing with the Netflix streaming feature and I just can't believe how good the playback is through the projector. I'm sure someone more technically savvy would talk about how it isn't sharp enough or something but from my perspective, the colors are amazing and it's kind of awesome to be able to sit down in your living room and have the option of projecting any of the 350 movies on my Netflix instant queue.
As to the films, The Detective was all right. I put it on mostly because I had always meant to watch it and I felt like getting my Lee Remick on. Unfortunately Lee Remick isn't put to very great use here. It's a sort of cop drama with Frank Sinatra and it's about him trying to solve this grisly murder of a homosexual and also all this stuff about a cabal of businessmen playing real estate and development games that defraud the citizenry and lead to any number of social ills. There are a number of flashback sequences that show his life with his wife, Lee Remick, and his life as a New York police officer and so forth. I think these are the parts I found most interesting. The movie deals with several controversial subjects of its day and it's definitely interesting as a historical artifact. On the one hand, the film's attitude toward homosexuals seems much more humane than some of the other films of the sixties and seventies. It sort of shows the darkness of their lives and the torment they're subjected to by the world and it shows the hero Frank Sinatra being all compassionate about it. On the other hand, it also shows them as generally silly and deranged. I was actually a little surprised at the frankness of some of the dialogue, particularly the scene where they talk about what the victim might have had a bottle of mineral oil for and how one guy says it's not for the butt sex because you need something thicker, like Vaseline, and responds to the shocked comerades that men and women also use such lubricants. The film also tries to wrestle with drugs and addiction, if not in an all too serious manner. There's a guy giving a lecture about the benefits of LSD usage, which Sinatra chooses not to stick around for, and there's this bit about a teenage junkie prostitute that leaves Sinatra making a snarky comment about it being part of the Great Society and then later attributing that sort of thing to the kind of housing available in the city. There's also this whole other story about how Lee Remick, the ex-wife, is a nympho and how they couldn't stay married because Frank can't abide no whoring wife, although they still sleep together from time to time. The movie is really very fascinating as an artifact that stands between the production codes of the past and the deluge of more adult content that was loosed upon America in the late 60s and in the 1970s. Looking at the reviews from its time, it seems that a lot was made of the realism of the film, from the gritty realism of police work to the naturalism of the dialogue. The dialogue is really interesting because it is more naturalistic than in a great many previous films but it also seems sort of interstitial, a kind of missing link or something. Maybe that's what makes it feel like it's from the Isle of Misfit Films or something. I'm also surprised to discover that the movie is based on a novel whose sequel was filmed as Die Hard. Go figure. As I'm typing this it occurs to me that this film seems to be one of those that is more fun to consider than to watch. Perhaps I'll watch it again some time. C
The other movie I watched last night, Tokyo!, was less interesting to me. It's three short films set in Tokyo by three non-Japanese directors: Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, and Joon-ho Bong. The only one of these shorts I really cared for was the one by Michel Gondry. It's about this couple who have come to Tokyo and are trying to find jobs and apartments while living with a friend. The welcome wears thin. The girlfriend can't find a job, the car is towed. Things take a turn for the surreal. I didn't love it but I enjoyed it pretty much. Then is the Leos Carax piece which I didn't get at all. A few times I thought I might have figured out something that made it interesting or worthwhile but then I just got irritated by it again. It's this weird, grotesque business about a trollish man who comes out of the sewers and wreaks havoc, is arrested, is defended in court by a weird trollish lawyer from France, and is executed. It all came across as pointless and off-putting and I just didn't dig it. I actually decided to watch it because of the Joon-ho Bong thing but I was so alienated after the Leos Carax film that I couldn't really focus. Either that or it was kind of blah. It seemed all right. Like I said, I just couldn't focus... C-
04 January 2010
Two Days, Six Movies: Humpday, Half-Life, Paris 36, Taken, Strange Culture, Funny People
So, keeping up with my renewed commitment to keep track of the movies I watch this year I have six movies to post about from this weekend: Humpday, Half-Life, Paris 36, Taken, Strange Culture, and Funny People. I also watched the first episode of the British series Skins, which my roommate put on because a mutual friend was a fan of it and we were waiting for my boyfriend to come over after work so we could play with my new blu-ray player/Netflix player, which is currently hooked up to my roommate's projector and is just about the most heavenly thing I've acquired in some time, I guess.
Five of the above listed films were rented from a video store where I had a bunch of credits because I had a friend spend an extra night in Chicago and it was too cold to do much of anything else than have a movie marathon. Strange Culture is what I watched via Netflix streaming with my roommate and my boyfriend last night. By the way, there's something really fun about going through the movies on the blu-ray player which is way better than using the queue online. It also feels more movie-ish to not watch them on a computer monitor so I feel like this development will finally get me to watching some of the hundreds of foreign films on my instant queue...
The weekend's movie binge started off with Humpday, which I was very skeptical about and only got because it was on a few critics' best of the year lists. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I mean I won't get into the end because that's kind of a spoiler thing to do and I don't know whether it's possible to make a cut on here and it's conceivable that someone at some time might actually read this thing. What I liked about it though was the dynamic between the husband and wife. It sort of reminded me of me and my boyfriend when we're fighting about something. I thought it was interesting though, the way it played with masculine psychology, though being a man with scant masculine psychology I can't say if it's really that accurate or only seems so to me the way that The Hurt Locker seems realistic to people who lack a fully formed notion of realism, in my opinion. I also liked how it deals with that phenomenon where we lose track of parts of ourselves and find ourselves doing pretty silly things to recapture those neglected fragments. I mean, it's not a great film but not every film needs to be a great film. I like the indie aesthetic. It kind of seems to blend the 90s independent film with a more contemporary sensibility. B
Next up was Half-Life. Of the movies I watched over the weekend, this is the one I wanted to watch again. (Unfortunately I won't have time to do so.) It's another movie that picks up the neglected thread of that spirit of independent filmmaking that had me so fascinated in the 1990s. It's this movie about these Korean Americans in some ostensibly Californian city in what seems to be the near future or alternate present where global warming has led to various problems including an explosion of the jellyfish population which is destroying the fishing industry. All this quasi-apocalyptic stuff happens in the background though and is made more a part of the setting than the plot and I really liked that. The story is basically about this family of a mother, her boyfriend, and her two daughters and the family of said eldest daughter's gay adoptee best friend (His mother is played by LA Law's Susan Rattan!). There are animated sequences periodically and the whole thing leads to a surreal, dreamlike quality which I naturally adore. I was kind of distracted but I really enjoyed it. B+
Paris 36 (aka, Faubourg 36) is a French movie about this theater in a Parisian suburb (I think) in 1936. It gets taken over by some gangster developer who wants to tear it down but somehow he decides he wants to be beloved by the people so he lets the theater put on their variety show. Beyond that it's sort of blah blah blah plotwise. A friend of mine who hosted one of those Sunday morning screenings of it last spring told me it was a mess and looking back on it, I guess it kind of is a mess. It's kind of a dull mess though so it doesn't really come across that strongly as such. I rated it three stars on Netflix though because it was pretty and engaging, even if I was reading blogs and things online during the last third. It's the kind of thing I wanted to like but I guess it didn't really do enough for me. Maybe I'll watch it again and see if it's any better if I'm paying closer attention. I'm not sure it will be. C
I thought Taken looked all right when it came out, based on the trailer, but the reviews weren't that great so I stayed away. I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. I mean, there's no pretense at art here but it seemed somewhat original in its tone. The things that make other films of this genre kind of cheesy were implemented with a lighter touch here, despite shootouts with gangsters and lurid sex slave stories. I'm not surprised that the director is French. There's something not quite American about this film and I quite liked it. I mean, I don't know if I'd watch it again but it kept me engaged from start to finish and I had a smile on my face through most of it and that counts for something. I mean, I guess the whole sex slave thing can be viewed as opportunistic or exploitive but I liked that it tried to inject some contemporary relevance into a genre film. I felt like the theme of governments and criminals colluding for financial gain was very topical. It's an age of corruption but the movie never got sanctimonious about it and there's no big scene in the movie where Parisian sex slave trafficking gets wiped out, you know, like in those movies where the primary victim is rescued and then there's music and slow motion and sombre faces as bad guys get arrested and countless victims are taken into the arms of the good guys. So, while my appreciation for this film is mostly for executing a tired genre in a fresh and engaging way, I also appreciate the moral ambiguity and the realism that doesn't try to redress the world's calamities in 90 minutes so that we don't have to worry about it at night anymore. B
We streamed the documentary Strange Culture via Netflix.com through my roommate's projector and while the quality wasn't really what you'd get from a DVD, perhaps, it was really kind of impressive, given that you're projecting a movie streaming from the internet onto a screen that large. I mean, I'm not sure how big the actual projection is but it's probably around six feet squared. As to the film, I quite enjoyed it. The story was fascinating to me. It has also those liberal pet themes like government overreach, big business, the dark side of the food industry, man versus the machine, speech. It's about a guy who was part of an art collective that tries to educate people about things like genetically modified foods. One morning, this guy, Professor Steve Kurtz, discovers that his wife has died in her sleep. A paramedic sees science equipment and suspects terrorism. Homeland Security gets involved and tries to paint Mr. Kurtz as a terrorist, despite that all the bacteria in the petri dishes are completely harmless things he ordered from the internet. FBI agents find an invitation to an art show that has some Arabic writing on it and decide that it's proof he's operating as part of a terror cell or something. Eventually, they realize he doesn't have weapons of mass destruction and charge him with mail fraud because he didn't submit a requisition form to the universtity for the $256 worth of supplies he bought. This case went on for four years and the movie doesn't stick around for the verdict, which is one of the things I really liked about this movie, because if you finish with the trial it becomes about the court case and not about something much larger. I think that aspect is particularly fantastic. I also quite liked the way they use actors (including Tilda Swinton) to reenact certain events, particularly at the beginning, and then it switches to a more conventional mode with the real people, then switches back and forth between interviews and reenactments until it goes a little meta and the actors speak as themselves and so forth. I thought it was great. It's experimental and innovative. It tells an important story. It has Tilda Swinton in it being fabulous as Hope Kurtz and fabulously zany as herself. A
Then, finally, we watched Funny People. I actually watched the first half hour before I went to bad that morning and I thought it seemed all right. Like it might have potential. Sadly, I soon discovered last night that the potential was quickly disposed of and it went on for way too long. I'm going to get all SPOILER here because it was a bad movie and it doesn't seem like I shouldn't. Anyway, this movie would have been better if Adam Sandler stayed sick. Or, even if it ended shortly after he found out he was going to live. Instead it sticks around for another hour or three with this dull story of him trying to get back his ex-girlfriend, who has been married for 12 years to Eric Bana, with whom she has two children. The bits with Seth Rogen and his friends are slightly entertaining but there's too much about this irritating comedian and his irritating movies which look somewhat worse than his actual movies. I sort of like the way the movie shows us these clearly awful movies and shows how people are still fans of them. I think it's great that people in California can be that in touch with reality. I could go on about how stupid this movie is but, like Jewel Mayhew indicated of Miriam Deering in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, I'm not prepared to give another minute to this movie. D
PS- I'd love to know if the words "full-throttle body shock" are in the press release for The Hurt Locker. Every bit of praise I see for that movie uses that phrase or something similar about an adrenaline rush. Puke. Also, I kind of liked Police, Adj. but why in the hell does every review of it refer to the climactic conversation as "exhilarating"? I can't imagine that's the word for it. Watching it when I did, I felt like it was clunky but that I appreciated idea enough to like the movie as a whole. I feel like most journalists must have IQs of 115, give or take seven points.
Five of the above listed films were rented from a video store where I had a bunch of credits because I had a friend spend an extra night in Chicago and it was too cold to do much of anything else than have a movie marathon. Strange Culture is what I watched via Netflix streaming with my roommate and my boyfriend last night. By the way, there's something really fun about going through the movies on the blu-ray player which is way better than using the queue online. It also feels more movie-ish to not watch them on a computer monitor so I feel like this development will finally get me to watching some of the hundreds of foreign films on my instant queue...
The weekend's movie binge started off with Humpday, which I was very skeptical about and only got because it was on a few critics' best of the year lists. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I mean I won't get into the end because that's kind of a spoiler thing to do and I don't know whether it's possible to make a cut on here and it's conceivable that someone at some time might actually read this thing. What I liked about it though was the dynamic between the husband and wife. It sort of reminded me of me and my boyfriend when we're fighting about something. I thought it was interesting though, the way it played with masculine psychology, though being a man with scant masculine psychology I can't say if it's really that accurate or only seems so to me the way that The Hurt Locker seems realistic to people who lack a fully formed notion of realism, in my opinion. I also liked how it deals with that phenomenon where we lose track of parts of ourselves and find ourselves doing pretty silly things to recapture those neglected fragments. I mean, it's not a great film but not every film needs to be a great film. I like the indie aesthetic. It kind of seems to blend the 90s independent film with a more contemporary sensibility. B
Next up was Half-Life. Of the movies I watched over the weekend, this is the one I wanted to watch again. (Unfortunately I won't have time to do so.) It's another movie that picks up the neglected thread of that spirit of independent filmmaking that had me so fascinated in the 1990s. It's this movie about these Korean Americans in some ostensibly Californian city in what seems to be the near future or alternate present where global warming has led to various problems including an explosion of the jellyfish population which is destroying the fishing industry. All this quasi-apocalyptic stuff happens in the background though and is made more a part of the setting than the plot and I really liked that. The story is basically about this family of a mother, her boyfriend, and her two daughters and the family of said eldest daughter's gay adoptee best friend (His mother is played by LA Law's Susan Rattan!). There are animated sequences periodically and the whole thing leads to a surreal, dreamlike quality which I naturally adore. I was kind of distracted but I really enjoyed it. B+
Paris 36 (aka, Faubourg 36) is a French movie about this theater in a Parisian suburb (I think) in 1936. It gets taken over by some gangster developer who wants to tear it down but somehow he decides he wants to be beloved by the people so he lets the theater put on their variety show. Beyond that it's sort of blah blah blah plotwise. A friend of mine who hosted one of those Sunday morning screenings of it last spring told me it was a mess and looking back on it, I guess it kind of is a mess. It's kind of a dull mess though so it doesn't really come across that strongly as such. I rated it three stars on Netflix though because it was pretty and engaging, even if I was reading blogs and things online during the last third. It's the kind of thing I wanted to like but I guess it didn't really do enough for me. Maybe I'll watch it again and see if it's any better if I'm paying closer attention. I'm not sure it will be. C
I thought Taken looked all right when it came out, based on the trailer, but the reviews weren't that great so I stayed away. I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it. I mean, there's no pretense at art here but it seemed somewhat original in its tone. The things that make other films of this genre kind of cheesy were implemented with a lighter touch here, despite shootouts with gangsters and lurid sex slave stories. I'm not surprised that the director is French. There's something not quite American about this film and I quite liked it. I mean, I don't know if I'd watch it again but it kept me engaged from start to finish and I had a smile on my face through most of it and that counts for something. I mean, I guess the whole sex slave thing can be viewed as opportunistic or exploitive but I liked that it tried to inject some contemporary relevance into a genre film. I felt like the theme of governments and criminals colluding for financial gain was very topical. It's an age of corruption but the movie never got sanctimonious about it and there's no big scene in the movie where Parisian sex slave trafficking gets wiped out, you know, like in those movies where the primary victim is rescued and then there's music and slow motion and sombre faces as bad guys get arrested and countless victims are taken into the arms of the good guys. So, while my appreciation for this film is mostly for executing a tired genre in a fresh and engaging way, I also appreciate the moral ambiguity and the realism that doesn't try to redress the world's calamities in 90 minutes so that we don't have to worry about it at night anymore. B
We streamed the documentary Strange Culture via Netflix.com through my roommate's projector and while the quality wasn't really what you'd get from a DVD, perhaps, it was really kind of impressive, given that you're projecting a movie streaming from the internet onto a screen that large. I mean, I'm not sure how big the actual projection is but it's probably around six feet squared. As to the film, I quite enjoyed it. The story was fascinating to me. It has also those liberal pet themes like government overreach, big business, the dark side of the food industry, man versus the machine, speech. It's about a guy who was part of an art collective that tries to educate people about things like genetically modified foods. One morning, this guy, Professor Steve Kurtz, discovers that his wife has died in her sleep. A paramedic sees science equipment and suspects terrorism. Homeland Security gets involved and tries to paint Mr. Kurtz as a terrorist, despite that all the bacteria in the petri dishes are completely harmless things he ordered from the internet. FBI agents find an invitation to an art show that has some Arabic writing on it and decide that it's proof he's operating as part of a terror cell or something. Eventually, they realize he doesn't have weapons of mass destruction and charge him with mail fraud because he didn't submit a requisition form to the universtity for the $256 worth of supplies he bought. This case went on for four years and the movie doesn't stick around for the verdict, which is one of the things I really liked about this movie, because if you finish with the trial it becomes about the court case and not about something much larger. I think that aspect is particularly fantastic. I also quite liked the way they use actors (including Tilda Swinton) to reenact certain events, particularly at the beginning, and then it switches to a more conventional mode with the real people, then switches back and forth between interviews and reenactments until it goes a little meta and the actors speak as themselves and so forth. I thought it was great. It's experimental and innovative. It tells an important story. It has Tilda Swinton in it being fabulous as Hope Kurtz and fabulously zany as herself. A
Then, finally, we watched Funny People. I actually watched the first half hour before I went to bad that morning and I thought it seemed all right. Like it might have potential. Sadly, I soon discovered last night that the potential was quickly disposed of and it went on for way too long. I'm going to get all SPOILER here because it was a bad movie and it doesn't seem like I shouldn't. Anyway, this movie would have been better if Adam Sandler stayed sick. Or, even if it ended shortly after he found out he was going to live. Instead it sticks around for another hour or three with this dull story of him trying to get back his ex-girlfriend, who has been married for 12 years to Eric Bana, with whom she has two children. The bits with Seth Rogen and his friends are slightly entertaining but there's too much about this irritating comedian and his irritating movies which look somewhat worse than his actual movies. I sort of like the way the movie shows us these clearly awful movies and shows how people are still fans of them. I think it's great that people in California can be that in touch with reality. I could go on about how stupid this movie is but, like Jewel Mayhew indicated of Miriam Deering in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, I'm not prepared to give another minute to this movie. D
PS- I'd love to know if the words "full-throttle body shock" are in the press release for The Hurt Locker. Every bit of praise I see for that movie uses that phrase or something similar about an adrenaline rush. Puke. Also, I kind of liked Police, Adj. but why in the hell does every review of it refer to the climactic conversation as "exhilarating"? I can't imagine that's the word for it. Watching it when I did, I felt like it was clunky but that I appreciated idea enough to like the movie as a whole. I feel like most journalists must have IQs of 115, give or take seven points.
02 January 2010
Baby Jane, My Mother, Your Mother, Bashir, J.Lo
This last week my boyfriend has decided to mix things up by going and renting old DVDs of his own choice. Early in the week he rented a bunch of sort of classic films he'd never seen: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, All About My Mother, Waltz with Bashir, and Y tu mama tambien. Then last night he picked up Out of Sight with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. In effort to keep a better record of the films I watch in 2010 than I did in 2009, I feel like I should begin by noting down my feelings about the movies I just mentioned. You see. I actually feel more interested in talking about the various books I'm trying to read right now but as it falls outside the scope of this blog, we'll stick to the subject at hand. Or what have you.
Watching What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? again after all these years confirmed my belief that Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte really is quite superior. I mean, I enjoy What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? well enough but it's not like I'd ever really need to possess a copy of it and return to it like with Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte. I actually dozed off halfway through so I can't really give too many thoughts about the movie itself, except they be memories of previous reflections. One thing I've noticed about watching these digitally mastered DVDs of things you've only ever seen on VHS or on TV is that sometimes it seems like a revolution of some kind and other times, like in this case, it seems to alter the mood of the film in a somewhat alienating way. I guess I preferred the dark and murky quality to the VHS version, which is kind of a weird thing to find myself thinking. I feel like I'm getting nostalgic about VHS (even though I don't even have a fully functional VCR) ever since I discovered the rich assortment of out of print movies my local video store has on VHS. I guess the most I have to say about this movie is that it made me nostalgic for any number of other Bette Davis movies, most of all the one mentioned above. The BF didn't really see the big deal about the movie but I don't know that it's really his kind of movie. He didn't believe me that he should watch Now, Voyager instead... B
The BF did however quite like All About My Mother. I like it, too, but watching it again after several years has taught me that people are perhaps right that Talk to Her really is the better film. I remember watching this one for the first time though and thinking it felt like a revelation. It spoke a lot to who I was at the time it came out: who I was, what I liked, what I was up to. I've been going back and watching some older Almodovar movies lately (like the High Heels, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and the underrated gem Kika) and I kind of feel like I still prefer his less mature 90s era films even though I can honestly say I've never seen a Pedro Almodovar film that I didn't like. I've seen all of them except the first three and The Flower of My Secret and I'd rate them all at least four out five stars. Strangely, the one I've felt least enthusiastic about is his new film, Broken Embraces. I've heard I need to watch it again. I'm sure I will. What's funny to me about watching All About My Mother again is that it doesn't seem as powerful or relevant or moving as it did ten years ago. I guess the things that were shocking or surprising then are no longer shocking or surprising and that I'm nearly ten years older as well. This movie made my best of the decade list, which wasn't really numbered but it was probably at about number five. Watching it again, I don't know that I'd keep it there and it's caused me to want to go back and watch everything from the last ten years all over again. B+
The other night was the first time I watched Waltz with Bashir since I saw it in the theater the night of the Super Bowl, which must have been in January (?). I wonder if the difference in the way I experience it comes from the lack of surprise and suspense that comes from a first viewing or if it's more to do with the difference in scope of watching a movie on a large screen in a multiplex and watching it curled up with my boyfriend on his couch. Maybe the trouble with watching movies in our homes is that we're too comfortable in our own space. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I was just too cozy for this movie. Or maybe it just needs to be seen large or maybe it just doesn't warrant repeated viewings like I thought it might. I remember being surprised and enchanted by the scene from which the film pulls its title but when I watched it again on DVD it didn't really seem to have the same surprising poetry. I think I wept a bit when I saw it in the theater. The moment where it switches from animation to documentary footage hit me like a boot to the stomach the first time around and it's still a relatively powerful part of the movie. I guess movies are also like drugs in the way they keep you trying to reproduce the same highs you've had before. B
I was actually glad he got Y tu mama tambien because it's on SOOO MANY of these best of the decade lists I've been going over and I wanted to see it again because I didn't really get the big deal when I saw it the first time around. I'm still not sure I do. I think one problem is when the film came out it seemed to have this reputation that it was this very risque, homoerotic film. It didn't seem all that risque to me then and it certainly wasn't as homoerotic as I wanted it to be. I guess I had really gotten excited to see a gay movie that wasn't completely terrible. Oh, well. In any event, my expectations this time were completely different than when I first saw the thing and I kind of appreciated it in some ways. I kept thinking to myself: This movie seems to be doing a similar sort of thing as The Headless Woman so why am I reacting so indifferently? I guess I felt like the only thing that seemed to interest me about the movie very much were the relief shots of daily life for the hoi polloi in Mexico. Maybe I should have tried watching it again and see if the information at the end of the film made what came before it any more meaningful. It was pretty, I suppose, but essentially it just seems like a soap opera about some privileged boys in an underprivileged country. Perhaps I've sat through too many Wes Anderson movies to care much about privileged young people and their exploits? I mean, I guess the characters aren't completely uninteresting but shouldn't a great movie be beautiful or show us some new insight or anything? What makes this movie better than Marie Antoinette? B
That brings us up to last night when we watched Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight. It was all right. I mean, it was bad, but it was entertaining. I appreciate that some of the things that make that sort of movie so annoying sometimes were very understated here. The movie sort of has potential but it just didn't do it for me. I noticed when I looked it up beforehand that it was nominated for Academy Awards for editing and for adapted screenplay and I couldn't help but smirking at the dialogue sometimes but I can kind of see what's good about the writing. The cast was kind of good, even though it seemed like George Clooney was playing himself and like Jennifer Lopez was kind of miscast. Maybe that's what didn't pull off the movie enough for me, that she doesn't really seem believable here. She's not strong enough or serious enough and she's too pretty. It's like, her lipstick was a little too perfect, you know? I sometimes have felt that growing up in the 80s and 90s we got the short end of the stick culturally. Maybe it's just that now, in this moment of decline, America is kind of the pits. It really seems like a sort of dead culture. I hope there will be life in the world, yet. Maybe someone will figure out a way to make Erich Fromm or Joseph Campbell fashionable and we'll all write poetry and stop buying so much crap. I don't think so though. C
Watching What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? again after all these years confirmed my belief that Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte really is quite superior. I mean, I enjoy What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? well enough but it's not like I'd ever really need to possess a copy of it and return to it like with Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte. I actually dozed off halfway through so I can't really give too many thoughts about the movie itself, except they be memories of previous reflections. One thing I've noticed about watching these digitally mastered DVDs of things you've only ever seen on VHS or on TV is that sometimes it seems like a revolution of some kind and other times, like in this case, it seems to alter the mood of the film in a somewhat alienating way. I guess I preferred the dark and murky quality to the VHS version, which is kind of a weird thing to find myself thinking. I feel like I'm getting nostalgic about VHS (even though I don't even have a fully functional VCR) ever since I discovered the rich assortment of out of print movies my local video store has on VHS. I guess the most I have to say about this movie is that it made me nostalgic for any number of other Bette Davis movies, most of all the one mentioned above. The BF didn't really see the big deal about the movie but I don't know that it's really his kind of movie. He didn't believe me that he should watch Now, Voyager instead... B
The BF did however quite like All About My Mother. I like it, too, but watching it again after several years has taught me that people are perhaps right that Talk to Her really is the better film. I remember watching this one for the first time though and thinking it felt like a revelation. It spoke a lot to who I was at the time it came out: who I was, what I liked, what I was up to. I've been going back and watching some older Almodovar movies lately (like the High Heels, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and the underrated gem Kika) and I kind of feel like I still prefer his less mature 90s era films even though I can honestly say I've never seen a Pedro Almodovar film that I didn't like. I've seen all of them except the first three and The Flower of My Secret and I'd rate them all at least four out five stars. Strangely, the one I've felt least enthusiastic about is his new film, Broken Embraces. I've heard I need to watch it again. I'm sure I will. What's funny to me about watching All About My Mother again is that it doesn't seem as powerful or relevant or moving as it did ten years ago. I guess the things that were shocking or surprising then are no longer shocking or surprising and that I'm nearly ten years older as well. This movie made my best of the decade list, which wasn't really numbered but it was probably at about number five. Watching it again, I don't know that I'd keep it there and it's caused me to want to go back and watch everything from the last ten years all over again. B+
The other night was the first time I watched Waltz with Bashir since I saw it in the theater the night of the Super Bowl, which must have been in January (?). I wonder if the difference in the way I experience it comes from the lack of surprise and suspense that comes from a first viewing or if it's more to do with the difference in scope of watching a movie on a large screen in a multiplex and watching it curled up with my boyfriend on his couch. Maybe the trouble with watching movies in our homes is that we're too comfortable in our own space. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I was just too cozy for this movie. Or maybe it just needs to be seen large or maybe it just doesn't warrant repeated viewings like I thought it might. I remember being surprised and enchanted by the scene from which the film pulls its title but when I watched it again on DVD it didn't really seem to have the same surprising poetry. I think I wept a bit when I saw it in the theater. The moment where it switches from animation to documentary footage hit me like a boot to the stomach the first time around and it's still a relatively powerful part of the movie. I guess movies are also like drugs in the way they keep you trying to reproduce the same highs you've had before. B
I was actually glad he got Y tu mama tambien because it's on SOOO MANY of these best of the decade lists I've been going over and I wanted to see it again because I didn't really get the big deal when I saw it the first time around. I'm still not sure I do. I think one problem is when the film came out it seemed to have this reputation that it was this very risque, homoerotic film. It didn't seem all that risque to me then and it certainly wasn't as homoerotic as I wanted it to be. I guess I had really gotten excited to see a gay movie that wasn't completely terrible. Oh, well. In any event, my expectations this time were completely different than when I first saw the thing and I kind of appreciated it in some ways. I kept thinking to myself: This movie seems to be doing a similar sort of thing as The Headless Woman so why am I reacting so indifferently? I guess I felt like the only thing that seemed to interest me about the movie very much were the relief shots of daily life for the hoi polloi in Mexico. Maybe I should have tried watching it again and see if the information at the end of the film made what came before it any more meaningful. It was pretty, I suppose, but essentially it just seems like a soap opera about some privileged boys in an underprivileged country. Perhaps I've sat through too many Wes Anderson movies to care much about privileged young people and their exploits? I mean, I guess the characters aren't completely uninteresting but shouldn't a great movie be beautiful or show us some new insight or anything? What makes this movie better than Marie Antoinette? B
That brings us up to last night when we watched Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight. It was all right. I mean, it was bad, but it was entertaining. I appreciate that some of the things that make that sort of movie so annoying sometimes were very understated here. The movie sort of has potential but it just didn't do it for me. I noticed when I looked it up beforehand that it was nominated for Academy Awards for editing and for adapted screenplay and I couldn't help but smirking at the dialogue sometimes but I can kind of see what's good about the writing. The cast was kind of good, even though it seemed like George Clooney was playing himself and like Jennifer Lopez was kind of miscast. Maybe that's what didn't pull off the movie enough for me, that she doesn't really seem believable here. She's not strong enough or serious enough and she's too pretty. It's like, her lipstick was a little too perfect, you know? I sometimes have felt that growing up in the 80s and 90s we got the short end of the stick culturally. Maybe it's just that now, in this moment of decline, America is kind of the pits. It really seems like a sort of dead culture. I hope there will be life in the world, yet. Maybe someone will figure out a way to make Erich Fromm or Joseph Campbell fashionable and we'll all write poetry and stop buying so much crap. I don't think so though. C
29 December 2009
Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
I thought I really liked these movies. I mean, I loved them when I was a child. They're okay now. But the dialogue is funny and the acting is funny and Mark Hamill's accent is funny. I still feel like R2D2 is the most compelling character. Maybe Princess Leia, who knows? Watching it, I can't tell which silly looking bits were silly from way back or are silly because of revisionist tinkering. C
I Am Trying to Break Your Heart: A Film About Wilco
My boyfriend put this on last night. It was sort of interesting but not what I'd call a great documentary. It wasn't satisfying on a narrative level and it seemed not so well constructed and it had too many shots with fisheye lenses and so forth. I was surprised how sort of unremarkable the music seemed. C
22 October 2009
Chicago International Film Festival recap
Saturday, 10/10
Raging Sun, Raging Sky, Mexico, A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAvW4I6lMFs
Sunday, 10/11
A Frozen Flower, South Korea, A-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvG4rvI8HBw
Mother, South Korea, B+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rDeNM-M8p8
Monday, 10/12
Vincere, Italy, B
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69f_Z4i_Vj8
Case Unknown, Poland, C-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6fzvHyq4uY
Tuesday, 10/13
Police, Adjective, Romania, B
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpAbFoWwjJY
Eastern Plays, Bulgaria, B-
http://cineuropa.org/ffocustrailer.aspx?lang=en&treeID=2015&documentID=112248
Thursday, 10/15
Hidden Diary, France/Canada, C
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPKNZimsQBc
Friday, 10/16
Who's Afraid of the Wolf?, Czech Republic, A
http://vimeo.com/3005565
Women in Trouble, USA, B+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5-UoltzDBk
The Rapture of Fe, Philippines, B
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBh5jYaVmmQ
Saturday, 10/17
Made in Hungaria, Hungary, B
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSz3QKQR0Fo
Backyard, Mexico, A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMeBfNAAnvQ
A Woman's Way, Greece, A+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30vAhfZ53F4
Sunday, 10/18
Eyes Wide Open, Israel, B
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnKfBvlZAcM
The Thank You Girls, The Phillipines, C
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwyQ6Bjdfgw
Monday, 10/19
Will Not Stop There, Serbia, B
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4b168J3SfA
A Single Man, USA, D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tCxRO67gyk
Tuesday, 10/20
Ricky, France, B+
http://www.francois-ozon.com/en/videos
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, B-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jU3AimFaz0
Wednesday, 10/21, Best of the Festival
Fish Tank, UK, A-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg1yMOdjyp0
Hipsters, Russia, A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Geb5zO4co
Raging Sun, Raging Sky, Mexico, A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAvW4I6lMFs
Sunday, 10/11
A Frozen Flower, South Korea, A-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvG4rvI8HBw
Mother, South Korea, B+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rDeNM-M8p8
Monday, 10/12
Vincere, Italy, B
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69f_Z4i_Vj8
Case Unknown, Poland, C-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6fzvHyq4uY
Tuesday, 10/13
Police, Adjective, Romania, B
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpAbFoWwjJY
Eastern Plays, Bulgaria, B-
http://cineuropa.org/ffocustrailer.aspx?lang=en&treeID=2015&documentID=112248
Thursday, 10/15
Hidden Diary, France/Canada, C
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPKNZimsQBc
Friday, 10/16
Who's Afraid of the Wolf?, Czech Republic, A
http://vimeo.com/3005565
Women in Trouble, USA, B+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5-UoltzDBk
The Rapture of Fe, Philippines, B
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBh5jYaVmmQ
Saturday, 10/17
Made in Hungaria, Hungary, B
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSz3QKQR0Fo
Backyard, Mexico, A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMeBfNAAnvQ
A Woman's Way, Greece, A+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30vAhfZ53F4
Sunday, 10/18
Eyes Wide Open, Israel, B
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnKfBvlZAcM
The Thank You Girls, The Phillipines, C
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwyQ6Bjdfgw
Monday, 10/19
Will Not Stop There, Serbia, B
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4b168J3SfA
A Single Man, USA, D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tCxRO67gyk
Tuesday, 10/20
Ricky, France, B+
http://www.francois-ozon.com/en/videos
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, B-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jU3AimFaz0
Wednesday, 10/21, Best of the Festival
Fish Tank, UK, A-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg1yMOdjyp0
Hipsters, Russia, A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Geb5zO4co
20 March 2009
Synecdoche, New York (2008)
I'm watching this movie for the fourth time now. I'm kind of ambivalent about it now. I loved it the first time but it can be kind of self-indulgent. Like Being John Malkovich it can be kind of oppressively greasy feeling and like Magnolia, but more so, it can sometimes seem to wander and ramble a bit.
There are moments of grace in the film, particularly toward the end but the more I watch it it can seem that much of the movie seems to possess the same failing as the protagonist: self-indulgently pessimistic. It reminds me of what Erich Fromm talked about as "necrophilia," which is not sex with corpses but rather a preoccupation with death and decay. It is contrasted with his concept "biophilia," the love of life or living systems.
Unfortunately the moments of grace, wonder, and/or insight are often overwhelmed by greasy clunk.
Dianne Wiest is great. So are Samantha Morton and the little girl.
Jennifer Jason Leigh is kind of irritating though.
I don't get the whole things about Ellen and Eric.
Initially I took this as a call to vigilance but in a way I think it's more of an elegy about not being able to seize life.
Where is my little girl?
It has its moments but I think I identified with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Adaptation more.
His movies can be so exhilarating but often want focus.
B
Like Mother Angelica said this morning: "Enjoy the sunshine. Don't pay attention to the people who are always looking for the rain."
There are moments of grace in the film, particularly toward the end but the more I watch it it can seem that much of the movie seems to possess the same failing as the protagonist: self-indulgently pessimistic. It reminds me of what Erich Fromm talked about as "necrophilia," which is not sex with corpses but rather a preoccupation with death and decay. It is contrasted with his concept "biophilia," the love of life or living systems.
Unfortunately the moments of grace, wonder, and/or insight are often overwhelmed by greasy clunk.
Dianne Wiest is great. So are Samantha Morton and the little girl.
Jennifer Jason Leigh is kind of irritating though.
I don't get the whole things about Ellen and Eric.
Initially I took this as a call to vigilance but in a way I think it's more of an elegy about not being able to seize life.
Where is my little girl?
It has its moments but I think I identified with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Adaptation more.
His movies can be so exhilarating but often want focus.
B
Like Mother Angelica said this morning: "Enjoy the sunshine. Don't pay attention to the people who are always looking for the rain."
03 March 2009
Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father (2008)
Whoa! Call me sentimental but this movie is like little I've seen before. It reminded me of Capturing the Friedmans in its intensity but where that film shows you the dark, this one is more on the light. A young filmmaker learns that his close friend Andrew has been murdered by his psychotic ex-girlfriend. He wants to show the ripples that his friend has left behind and goes about capturing as many of the memories of the people that he knew before the memories fade. When it is discovered that the murderer, in Canada facing a lengthy extradition process, is pregnant with Andrew's son, the film takes on new poignancy, particularly as Andrew's parents head up to Newfoundland to be a part of the child's life. The movie is moving throughout and rarely does it seem cloying. It's also quite raw and intermittently shocking. I'm not sure it's like anything I've ever seen before. A powerful documentary. I loved it.
I strongly recommend it to everyone. A
I strongly recommend it to everyone. A
Sheer Madness (Heller Wahn) - 1983
I think this is the first movie I've seen by Magarethe von Trotta other than 2005's schmaltzy but appealing Rosenstrasse. And, well, of course she codirected The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum with her then husband Volker Schlondorff. This film stars Hanna Schygulla and Angela Winkler, who played Katharina Blum, and it centers on their friendship. It's typical of German movies of its time. It's spare, less flashy than American films. The template for these movies seems to be a few minimal threads that move along, slowly reach a climactic union and unravel. One thing you notice is that while these German movies tend to be more political in nature, they also tend to have a less omniscient voice. If Sigmund Kracauer argued that Expressionist film paved the way for the Nazi uprising, a claim I think is pretty dubious anyway, I can certainly suggest that the cocksure attitude of American films, with their lack of ambiguity or loose ends, has done its part in creating a nation of American fascists. The cinematographer on this film was Michael Ballhaus, a frequent Fassbinder collaborator, and here and there are touches that remind you of Fassbinder. However, I think that it has more in common with other directors of the time, like Schlondorff.
The scene where Hanna Schygulla sings "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" (an hour and nine minutes into the film) is definitely the highlight. I found myself eventually sucked into this movie but found the ending somehow unsatisfying. Of course, given that it's a German movie from pre-1990, you have at least a 90% chance of being dissatisfied with the ending. It's not terrible but it dropped the movie from a B to a C+.
Hanna Sings. And yes, I think it is somewhat more interesting in the context of the film, now that I've seen it.
The scene where Hanna Schygulla sings "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" (an hour and nine minutes into the film) is definitely the highlight. I found myself eventually sucked into this movie but found the ending somehow unsatisfying. Of course, given that it's a German movie from pre-1990, you have at least a 90% chance of being dissatisfied with the ending. It's not terrible but it dropped the movie from a B to a C+.
Hanna Sings. And yes, I think it is somewhat more interesting in the context of the film, now that I've seen it.
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