Ira Sachs, USA, 2005A nice effort but mostly moribund. Certainly lacks the beauty, or even the emotional resonance, of something like In the Mood for Love, although maybe this stuff just works better (for me) in subtitles.
Source: Capital DVD
26 February, 10:15 PM
Howard Hawks, USA, 1946I love Bogey! I can’t imagine what the 1945 version would be like, because when you’ve got a film where (as anyone will tell you) one of the murders isn’t even solved, it’s definitely all about the central relationship. Something I hadn’t picked up from The Long Goodbye (which I definitely should’ve watched after this, damn Blockbuster) is that Phillip Marlowe is a James Bond-esque player! Several women throw themselves at him, and he gets it on with at least one of them during a stake-out, then gives her a pretty callous brush-off when she pretty clearly wants at least to hook up again. I don’t think he had time for any more, but I imagine he did in the book (and all the action probably wasn’t contained off-screen, either). It does put a different spin on the whole relationship when you realize what a player he starts out as.
Source: Warner DVD
25 February, 10 PM
Don Coscarelli, USA, 2002It’s really a bad sign when you see a 90 minute film and you feel like it should have been at least 30 minutes shorter! It makes you realize that a real disservice has been done to the medium of film with the ghettoization of shorts. I’m no better, as when I look up a festival listings, I have no interest in shorts either! While Brokeback Mountain suffered from trying to stretch out a short story with new material, I get the feeling this film tried to be too faithful to what was there, and there just wasn’t enough for a feature. Bruce Campbell’s voice-over narration is largely inane, and you only get into some good bad-assedness near the very end.
Source: MGM DVD
24 Februrary, 9:20 PM
Phil Morrison, USA, 2005Not perfectly transcendent, but certainly successful at reaching towards it. My favorite moment is when the Blue State protagonist is listening to her Red State-raised husband sing a hymn (very well), and her expression goes through so many contortions, leaving you really uncertain as to whether she is offended by the possibility that he might still have some religious sentiment, amazed that he has hidden his proficiency at singing from her, or something else more nebulous. Her reactions and his singing combine to produce an interesting, sublime moment. I don’t know that I would have nominated Amy Adams for an Oscar though; I think Embeth Davidtz’s work here is more nuanced.
Source: Sony DVD
23 February, 8:20 PM
Walter Salles, USA, 2005This could be a constant refrain here, but nonetheless I really have to give credit to Walter Chaw of Film Freak Central for drawing this film to my attention, because the notion of another crummy “J-horror” knockoff with killer washing machines caused me to merely chortle that I’d never see that movie. Unfortunately this seems to have been a common reaction, as the film was a flop. I also didn’t trust my co-worker’s recommendation, as I figured that his taste was suspect. However, Chaw’s belated recommendation led me to give it a chance, and what I found was a very compelling and involving psychological thriller (not “horror” at all), filled with atmosphere and a surprisingly good performance by Jennifer Connelly, certainly better than what I saw from her in House of Sand and Fog. Fumbles the ending a bit, in execution if not in substance. I haven’t seen the original yet but I do doubt it will be as good. It just goes to show that just because the original impetus to make a film might have been bad (remake a foreign film because Americans won’t read subtitles), it doesn’t mean the film itself is bad. Seems obvious, but apparently I needed to learn this lesson again.
Source: Buena Vista DVD
21 February, 9 PM
(Geomi sup)One of those “what the hell is going on” movies, but, despite the “Asia Extreme” label (without which I imagine there’d be no Region 1 DVD release), not exactly one of those “pushing the limits of horrificness” films. By the end, you pretty much do know what’s going on, and it’s interesting but not exactly shattering. I found the mood to be well cultivated but the film to be a little somnolent at times, or maybe it’s the characters that weren’t involving enough. It’s not bad, but I don’t know if I’d recommend it to someone that had never heard of it.
Source: TLA DVD
19 February, 10 PM
Pradeep Sarkar, India, 2005Utter shit! I’m probably really being unfair to Bollywood, but I think I need more comedy in films like this. Pure melodrama is just too much. That, and perhaps it doesn’t really work in a quiet theater (this was part of the so-called Riverside International Film Festival), and you need audience response with your friends to make it fun. Whatever the case, I found this to be much less entertaining than Mohabbatein or especially Main Hoon Na, both of which I saw last year. Even the music wasn’t as good!
Source: UTV 35mm print
18 February, 8 PM
(Gegen die wand)Engaging, but uneven. There are definitely a lot of extreme moments and the characters are interesting, but it doesn’t reach the heights you keep hoping it will build up to.
Source: Strand DVD
17 February – 9:30 PM
(Dare mo shiranai)Sublime. I was afraid this would be one of those “so artsy it’s boring” films, and it might be for a lot of people, but I found this to be a very engaging story to base a largely improvised, silent series of performances on. There’s nothing and everything going on here.
Source: MGM DVD
12 February, 10:30 PM
James Wong, USA, 2006Blah. This is just not what I consider film to be, and I know that’s a close-minded statement, but let me just top it by saying that I don’t even like what this movie and others like it (or worse than it) say about our culture. How can we really go to a movie just to see kids get splattered across the screen, with no larger artistic, plot, or even overall entertainment purpose? How can that be the whole entertainment right there? I really don’t get it. It seems to require a certain contempt for reality. Sure, I don’t like those bimbo girls either, but they don’t deserve to die for it either. I guess this film actually “transcends” that paradigm in a different way than Buffy does, which is that the sympathetic characters get ripped up too. Yay? Admittedly I wasn’t as grossed out by it as I expected, and I even laughed at times, but I felt philosophically empty outwards, and that’s the scary part.
Source: New Line 35mm print
11 February, 2:10 PM
Park Chan-wook, South Korea, 2003Much as when watching A History of Violence, I expected to be grossed out by, well, the violence, but instead I was grossed out by… well it’d be a major spoiler if I told you. A lot of the violence isn’t even in your face at all. This is one of those movies that you would recommend to everyone except that you might get in trouble if you imprudently recommended it to more sensitive souls. I am not an entirely jaded person and so this movie did come close to making me sick, at least psychologically (it’s hard to explain). However, unlike some cheap horror film, the revulsion here is well earned because the characters matter and whatnot. Aside from that, it’s stylistically brilliant.
Source: TLA DVD
5 February, 9:40 PM
Robert Altman, USA, 1973I think that when you a person born in 1981, watching a character from the 1940s (Phillip Marlowe) whose adventures you are not familiar with, inexplicably (no reference is made to the incongruity, you have to read reviews or watch the special features) transported to the 1970s… well, it’s too many degrees of temporal separation. The 40s, the 70s… it sounds idiotic to say this since you’d think I could tell the difference between the two, but the anachronism of the Marlowe character wasn’t often very apparent to me, he just seemed like a slightly archaic hero. I also think I’m not the biggest fan of Robert Altman’s style, or perhaps I should just leave the subtitling on throughout the film. The thing is, if you’re never quite clear what everyone is saying, it’s like no one is saying anything after a while.
Source: MGM DVD
4 February, 10 PM
Terrence Malick, USA, 2005When I watch a movie like this, I feel like I am still trying to calibrate my exact level of snobbery and/pompousness. While I clearly register higher on that scale than most of my friends, this film, which has been lionized on various film websites including the ones I frequent as the best film ever and so on, shows me that I’m not going to max it out anytime soon. I just don’t really get it. Pompous, slow, stereotypical (supposedly it transcends or undermines stereotypes but I don’t see it)… what’s to like exactly? Yet I can’t really justify in any absolute terms why I love most of Wong Kar-Wai’s films and dislike this. Although some film geeks seem to like designating certain movies as those you must like if you are to show that you have any choice, I would never try to argue to somebody about the absolute aesthetic value of Wong over Terrence Malick (even if I had seen Malick’s earlier films), because I don’t believe the argument can be made. It’s not that every aesthetic judment needs to be preceeded by “it’s just my opinion but…” It’s merely that I don’t think anyone has the right to assert an opinion as fact (well you know unless it’s really obvious). This seems self-evident but it’s not at some of the places I spend time in online.
Source: New Line recut 35mm print
29 January, 12:45 PM
Steve James, USA, 1994A film like this seems especially valuable in today’s climate of Big Momma’s House 2 and take your pick of whatever else. A really compelling look at ghetto life; I don’t think I really had a clear idea of what it’s like (for some) until I saw this. Of course it’s 12 years later and things have changed, but I imagine, not for the better. It’s also a scathing example of how white basketball coaches display their contempt for the black kids they coach (although maybe this guy isn’t racist, he might just be inhuman). The dedication of the team involved is amazing. They actually follow these two boys and their families for the entire four years of high school. One can argue that the film lacks visual pizzaaz, but it’s hardly ever boring despite the length.
Source: Home Vision DVD
28 January, 9 PM
Ang Lee, USA, 2005First off, I really don't see what the big deal is about watching two men have sex, make out, and what not. I felt some trepidation about seeing it only because it was socially generated. But I saw a far more graphic gay sex scene last year in Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together so really I knew it would not be a big deal. It would actually be an interesting experience to watch that movie not knowing that they're going to get it on.
If anything bugged me about that movie, it would be how they portrayed the main female character, the way the ending kinda dragged, and finally, that it's not as good as is being said by so many. Also, it shouldn’t be forgotten that there have been "gay films" before. The fact is that this is a blockbuster gay film, which is a cultural landmark for reasons that aren't exclusively tied up with the artistic or entertainment value of the film in and of itself. I'm glad it's doing well, but I also doubt that any red state woman is going to vote in favor of gay marriage (if it comes up on the ballot) after seeing it.
Source: Universal 35mm print
22 January, 1:20 PM
Roman Polanski, USA, 1974Excellent, a “classic” that actually lives up to the film geek hype. I don’t think I realized that Jack Nicholson used to be a bad-ass (the old man version just isn’t cutting it), and the plot really hits you, especially at the end, which admittedly does feel tacked on, all the more so after you learn that Roman Polanski rewrote it against the screenwriter’s wishes (it works thematically but it doesn’t entirely make sense with regards to plot and characters). Without knowing enough about moviemaking I can tell that it’s very well shot. The idea of Chinatown being a menacing place not because of anything that we see actually happen there, but because of the bad memories they have of what has happened there, memories that ultimately have no relevance what happens at the end.
Finally, the effect of having his snooping go on in real time (actually showing him fiddle around until the receptionist gets fed up and gets him who he’s asked to see) is quite amazing. You’d think that would only fly in art flicks, and it’d be boring regardless, but I guess the 1970s were a different time for movies, and more importantly, Nicholson can pull it off here.
Source: Paramount DVD
20 January, 10:30 PM
Alfonso Cuarón, USA, 1998I might have liked this one more than it deserves, but I am a big fan of Alfonso Cuarón (see also his later works, Y tu mamá también and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, or as I like to to call it, "the only HP film that works as a film"). As such, the film is just very pretty.
My understanding is that it was savaged by critics, because they felt that it fell far short of the the David Lean version. I've never seen it, although I intend to do so later this year, but I suspect that this film needed to be judged on its own merits. It isn't much more than a visual feast superimposed upon the artfully arranged skeleton of the Dickens plot, inventively modernized and Americanized.
I personally enjoy adaptations a great deal, and I think I might like to do my thesis on "adaptation" eventually. I used to consider my habit of comparing the version at hand to the previous (or "original") version to be a detriment to the viewing process, because it seemed like it kept me from being involved in what I was seeing. Increasingly, as I come to value analysis more when I watch films, I enjoy what is a rather easy angle towards analysis. I like seeing what they change, and so increasingly it bores me when they change nothing (and squander the essence in the process). I'm looking at you, first two Harry Potter films. I'll take Cuarón's approach anyday.
Source: Fox DVD
17 January, 10 PM
Michael Almeredya, USA, 2002I watched this very obscure film because I was writing a paper on another film by the director, Michael Almereyda, namely his version of Hamlet mentioned earlier. Usually I would hate this kind of film, because there is no ending whatsoever. I don't mean that kind of "emotional ambiguity" ending like we see in Broken Flowers or A History of Violence (although I liked the first example better actually), but instead, the kind of ending that gives no emotional climax, tension or anything of the sort, and in fact invalidates the plot. It honestly lets you know that that seemed to matter actually mattered! Almereyda really seems to think that he has transcended narrative. The fact that this film sat on the shelves for three years after its first festival showing before getting a two-screen release and a DVD right after in December 2005 seems to suggest he was wrong.
With all the reasons stated for why I couldn't possibly recommend this film, I was surprisingly forgiving of all these sins. The atmosphere was quite engaging and the indulgent "philosophical" dialogue wasn't too off-putting. Plus, the reason this film finally became available was that it showed the usually unfilmed parts of New Orleans, the parts largely destroyed by Katrina. The film therefore has a value that has very little to do with the intentions behind it (although kudos still goes to Almereyda for filming something other than the French Quarter).
Source: Sony DVD
16 January, 8 PM
Werner Herzog, USA / Canada, 2005A masterpiece. I was especially impressed by the inane attempts to understand the nature Treadwell's transgression. We have the pilot who recognizes that Treadwell couldn't take animals on their own terms but then starts assigning said animals the ability to determine a human "mentally retarded." We have the supporter who haltingly reads a few letters in order to characterize all opponents as anti-environment (effectively debunked later, as if there was any question).
And finally there is director Werner Herzog, who assigns a murderous, chaotic malevolence to a nature that is basically just the mirror image of Treadwell's own Disney-nature. Herzog really rips apart this view when showing Treadwell's distress at the natural consequences of drought and scarcity, but ultimately superimposes his own totalizing view on "the world" with a few lines of narration.
Finally, I was particularly fascinated by Treadwell's wistful speculation on how much easier it'd be for him if he was gay; the last time I laughed that hard was David Brent saying that "mixed race" people were his "favorite" on The Office Series 2. In my mind, this is the level on which the so-called "meta-bigot" works, in which we see the full perversity of such views from a remove without the slipperiness of direct narrative participation. It seems appropriate that Herzog doesn't provide narrative reactions to the individual personal revelations Treadwell provides in that segment of the film. Source: Lionsgate DVD
13 January, 9:30 PM
Roland Joffé, UK, 1986Total “historical epic” schlock, with corny dialogue, dumbed-down history, and all. Politically, this whole notion that there were some virtuous white colonizers that would have done the missions in a nice way is just galling, but even if you don’t agree or don’t care, the film still sucks for the above reasons. At least in this film, Robert De Niro gives no hint as to why he is so well-regarded, whereas Jeremy Irons is at least respectable.
Source: Warner VHS
13 January, 4:15 PM
