|
The Dreamers [B+ -- An "A-" until the off-the-rails finale (whose thematic and title-related significance I understand, yes; but it shouldn't need to be pointed out that when themes and titles guide the direction of a plot, the tail is wagging the dog). Jonathan Rosenbaum unwontedly has a point when he says that two of the three leads basically appear to be models pulled out of the pages of a catalogue, but the shallowness of the characters theyre playing keeps them from hurting the film. In terms of my personal reaction, it probably doesn't hurt that both in obvious specific plot points and the atmosphere of grand fairy-tale decay it reminds me strongly of my favorite novel, Ada, or Ardor, and in many ways strikes me as the best cinematic adaptation that could be made thereof. I can see how one could sneer at the soft-core sex, the unsubtly-set-up incest, the Virgin Suicides-esque dazed narration; but between the intelligence and mastery of every individual shot and Fabio Cinachettis spectacular cinematography, its so much easier to lose oneself to the films unabashed romanticism and nostalgia, that I don't really understand why anyone would bother].
Welcome To Mooseport [C- -- Small Town America sure is kooky! Too bad it's not funny as well].
American Splendor [A- -- As its detractors point out, it's a film highly reliant upon pathos; but the charges that the "meta" and documentary aspects only exist to temporarily call attention away from the film's warm center are fundamentally unfair. For one thing, the film never really does attempt to disguise its warmth; and as to the charge that the ending is a sell-out, it may be happy, but it doesn't compromise Pekar's pessimism (which is clearly what is meant when the narration announces that there won't be a Hollywood happy ending). Moreover, the film is genuinely a serious meditation on human identity constantly questioning the ways in which we define ourselves (the nerd subplot, the rumination on the name "Harvey Pekar") while acknowledging by (and this is the films great strength) enacting the fact that individual human beings are too complex to ever really be comprehended, no matter the number of angles from which we look at them].
28 Days Later [A- -- If fucking only I had seen this spectacular genre film in theaters. Visually dazzling (best use of sped-up film in a narrative film ever?), a brother of Edward Scissorhands' in being at once a fairy tale and a horror film (with a lot more emphasis put on the latter category, given, than in Burton's film). The climax gets a bit muddled but is still full of amazing images (a woman in a red dress running in front of an open door with rain beating down outside). The trouble with the ending isn't that it's too optimistic, but rather that it's inorganic. Nonetheless, kudos to all involved; could come close to Blade Runner in its future visual influence, and would belong alongside that film and Twelve Monkeys in the annals of great dark fantasies if there were just a little more emotional weight to it].
All The Real Girls [B -- Formless and a victim of multiple-endings syndrome, but also delicate, visually lovely, and moving. If the characters never gain any dimensions, that's only slightly more problematic than in the Malick movies which Green's make such a point of recalling (well actually I haven't seen George Washington) -- the film is a matter of landscapes, of looks, of the ultimate smallness of human lives. My grade would be higher if it wasn't for that bizarre scene at the kid's birthday party, which in its sheer campy weirdness recalls Lynch at his least coherent].
The Shape of Things [C+ -- Or, In The Company of Women. I don't exactly mind LaBute's stylized-in-a-way-he-probably-doesn't-quite-want dialog and character development (it feels essentially akin to the depiction of California college kids on a Fox TV show, only smarter and venomous); I do mind his assumption that throwing in ideas about art and morality (regardless of whether they're profound or banal, which is of no interest to me) will make his movie any better or worse than it is without them. I mind above all his somewhat-desparate self-plagiarism. (This capsule uses up my hyphen quota for the next month)].
The Big Bounce [C/C+ -- What this movie is is a scamming comedy which happens to take place in Hawaii, so every five minutes there's a non-sequential, ten-second shot of somebody surfing. The timing is always a tad behind; the scenes themselves are choppy and never seem to have climaxes. The (George Clinton!) score sucks. So my entire grade can be attributed to the fact that Owen Wilson is capable of making nearly anything funny].
/Lost In Translation/ [A- -- For now I'm going with objectivity, and resisting the urge to bump this up to a flat "A"; the first half-hour is -- well, I can't think of a better word for it than "immature." One-half an aping of Wong and Godard, the other a teenager's idea of "isolation" (romantically puffing on cigerattes, staring longingly at nothing), the film gets off to a slow start. But once the relationship between Harris and Charlotte develops, things turn around completely; Murray really is That Good, with two moments -- the party and his final grin as he walks back to his taxi -- that are breathtaking; and Johansson, in an even more reticent performance, manages to hold her own (even if she's overshadowed). Like The Virgin Suicides, it conjures up a deep, languid rhythm that, the morning after you've watched it, sticks to you like a fog; like The Virgin Suicides it manages to bring across abstract ideas (this time about human communication rather than memory) via completely concrete drama, never putting the horse before the cart. And it manages an ending that's just as heartbreaking].
/Pee-wee's Big Adventure/ [A -- Yeah, I watch this a lot. You would too if it was one of only 9 DVDs you had regular access too].
/Beetlejuice/ [A].
The Fog of War [B- -- Surprisingly unremarkable, cinematically speaking (it's finally occured to me that the problem with most documentaries is that they're essentially aural, with visuals tacked on out of necessity); pretty superficial as a history lesson. Still entertaining].
The Company [A- -- The use of Bach on the soundtrack is completely appropriate: Altman is one of cinema's great contrapuntists and in certain scenes -- "My Funny Valentine"/the storm, the bath/the rehearsal -- his technique is rapturous. What may be the film's greatest feat is that, even to one with no interest in dance of any sort, it's never once boring].
/The Triplets of Belleville/ [A- -- "Inventive," "delightful," "full of startling images," etc.].
The Sweetest Sound [C -- See parenthetical complaint about documentaries in Fog of War capsule].
Manhunter [C].
Shoot the Piano Player [A- -- A nifty little noir whose conclusion obviously influenced McCabe & Mrs. Miller quite a bit].
/Mars Attacks!/ [A- -- Crisp, hilarious, visually brilliant].
/Dr. Strangelove/ [A].
/Groundhog Day/ [A -- Perhaps Murray's first truly great performance (preceding Ed Wood, The Man Who Knew Too Little, Rushmore, Hamlet, The Royal Tenenbaums, Lost In Translation].
/The Shining/ [A -- A brilliant horror film that organically manages to simultaneously be a deeply gut-wrenching portrait of sheer aloneness-in-the-universe].
Big Fish [C- -- Fuck you Burton. I feel like a rock fan whose favorite band does a Buick commercial. Yes, it may have a gloss of Burton's visual sensibility, but true Burton-ness goes a lot deeper than that plus a Danny Elfman score; it's about the wonder of Edward's ice sculptures, Pee-wee's house, the entire town of Sleepy Hollow, etc. This is just a Movie of the Week with a thin veneer of "quirkiness" (a dirty word) painted over the surface. And at the end a big fish jumps out of the water].
/Eyes Wide Shut/ [A- -- The only real cheat is the attempted explanation of the orgy; otherwise this is a graceful, haunting and weirdly-optimistic final film, and one that beautifully breaks into two self-negating halves. At the end, it's perfectly natural that all you're left with is the notion that no dream is only a dream].
Wayne's World [B+].
Movies Seen in 2003:
The Triplets of Belleville [A-].
Destino [B].
Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid [B -- Why has Bill Murray turned out to be one of the great actors of his generation while Steve Martin, with his Carl Reiner years behind him, now only stars in crap? A friend suggests that maybe he's being blackmailed. Anyway, this movie is funny].
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King [A-/A -- A huge, hypnotic spectacle, filmmaking on the level of Griffith, pure visual storytelling done in big, broad brushstrokes and inspiring as hell. Deserves Best Picture (though I'll still be rooting for Lost)].
/Bad Santa/ [B+ -- This movie is so awesome. Best parts: snowman running through department store; "Get out of my bar!"; turning a corner].
Bad Santa [B+].
/High Fidelity/ [A-].
The Trial (Welles) [B+ -- Kinda goofy at times but visually dazzling].
The Animation Show [Average: B].
Mystic River [B+ -- Universally overrated (the score sucks and the plot goes through ridiculous convolutions to make its final point), but powerfully acted].
Pulp Fiction [A- -- First time I'd seen this beginning to end. Technically dazzling, structurally brilliant, tons of fun; if I ever watch it not-on-a-computer-monitor (the terrible venue I'm currently restricted to outside theaters), it'll probably be a straight "A"].
/The Royal Tenenbaums/ [A].
/The Man Who Wasn't There/ [A-].
The Leopard [B -- Gone With the Wind in Italian and utterly uncinematic to boot].
/Donnie Darko/ [A -- Among other things, a powerful study of solipsism. I'll shut up now].
The School of Rock [B+].
Ghostbusters II [B].
Kill Bill Vol. 1 [A -- One of the great virtuoso films in history, with just enough loving details (cereal across the floor, the water pump dipping in the background) to push it into the realm of rapture].
/The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari/ [A -- I think this is my favorite silent film].
/The Virgin Suicides/ [A- -- A great movie, and one that brilliantly enacts is subject matter (memory). I think it'll eventually attain classic status].
Soul Survivors [B+].
/Edward Scissorhands/ [A].
Final Destination [D].
/Pee-wee's Big Adventure/ [A].
Days of Being Wild [B -- Wong loves his fetishes a little too much; the "B" is really purely for his technique].
Lost In Translation [A-].
Intolerable Cruelty [B+].
/Sleepy Hollow/ [A-].
/Rushmore/ [A -- See previous capsules on the film].
Comedian [B+].
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl [B+/A- -- If the plot didn't start to feel overly drawn out about an hour before its end, and if in that same period of time action didn't supplant the spirit of adventure (a phrase I adored as a kid) that genuinely exists earlier on, the movie would probably be a flat-out classic, a piece of pop movie-making* to stand alongside the masterpieces of Burton, Gilliam, Spielberg, and Zemeckis. Heartbreakingly, it does go astray -- but at least it finds its way back again, and no degree of screwing up could detract from the joy I got out of the opening scenes. Depp does for pirate captains what he's already done for Ichabod Crane -- changes our perception of a famous type with bizarre but somehow appropriate ennunication and stylized body movements -- only moreso; Rush mostly matches him; Verbinski continues to develop his unique, if still not-quite-stunning eye for framing. And the action, even when it stretches on seemingly forever, is so astonishingly lucid at its greatest heights of complexity -- I think I could draw maps of both the cave and the ship in and on which the climax takes place -- that it can't become boring to watch. People who point out that it makes no sense can walk the plank in my opinion.
*as much as I've started to loath the Kael-derived line-drawing between "high culture" and "pop culture"].
Intacto [B+ -- The premise is a catchy one, even if it's sometimes treated as it would be in an X-Files episode and a smaller cast would probably make for a tighter, more consistently suspensful movie. But there are two great scenes -- in the dark with the bug, and running through the forest -- in the first half, and it ends with what must be the smartest shoot-out in any recent movie. It also gives, occasionally, an idea of what a film co-directed by Kubrick, Wong and Lynch would look like].
Much to my fist-banging chagrin, Capturing the Friedmans came and left my town while I was on vacation. Fuck, etc.
Chicago [C -- Moulin Rouge cut all over the place too, but in doing so it created a dizzy, surrealistic feeling a little akin to a trance; you were constantly seeing things that seconds later you were unsure you saw, and the story could keep up with the camera's pace. Nothing much comes of the new-angle-every-5-seconds mentality here, maybe because you're just seeing the same shot from another direction, maybe because the (stupid, though nobody bothers to point it out) narrative is still at the same place every time there's a cut. In any case, it feels like what it is -- a theater director's idiotic idea of the "cinematic." The between-numbers stuff is just boring, the numbers feel detached, and the "hip" central conceit that the songs don't really take place makes no fucking sense, ironic since it was probably tacked on to address the numbskull criticism that "people don't burst out singing in real life!" Nope, but there's a thing called suspension of disbelief -- but since the film otherwise offers no indiciation that Roxie is a genius, I won't suspend it enough to believe that every lyric and melody spontaneously passes through her head as she undergoes events. Of course, I saw it on an airplane monitor so I'm not really being fair].
/Back to the Future/ [A -- A miracle, actually -- a brilliantly structured film that's paced so organically and runs so smoothly that you don't even notice the brilliance of the structure. One of the best movies ever, etc.].
/The Man Who Knew Too Little/ [A- -- Has a slow stretch in the middle, but is book-ended by two of the funniest half-hours around].
Wild Man Blues [B -- Certainly strips away some of Woody Allen's mystique as an artist; the only difference between his persona in life and in the movies, apparently, is that in the former his one-liners don't end scenes -- they just hang in the air and often end up leaving a bitter after-taste. Otherwise, it feels very much like a movie he'd direct -- in which a successful Jewish director who complains a lot leaves his beloved Manhattan to tour Europe playing New Orleans jazz. Ends with a scene of a family dinner that's more-than-a-bit-painful to watch; anyone who can see Allen asking his parents if they were exactly the wrong people to bring him up without cringing at the fact that what they're watching is real, has some heavy emotional callouses. A lot of the material is great, and the film is well-paced, but it doesn't really cohere or have much of a point in the end. Woody turns out to be a pretty good clarinetist, though].
/Spirited Away/ [B+ -- Reminds one that great narrative means original details within an elegantly simple structure; large portions of the movie deserve to be called wondrous, they're so untiered from logical thought progression. I can't really say why, as a whole, it still falls a bit flat for me; the only thing in it that I'm actively put off by is the string-soaked score in the last twenty minutes. So I guess its fate with me is to reside on my list of movies that I frustratingly don't love].
Daredevil [F -- Amazingly bad. I'd pick at the non-existent narrative structure and lack of coherence, except that some small things have to be in place before you can rip apart the bigger ones, and nothing is right here -- not the non-sensical villains, the miserable attempts at pathos, the meet-cute Karate scene, the fact that a hip-hop song about being Irish is on the soundtrack, or that the beginning denotes that the end will be the hero's death and then isn't. Actually, the very fact that this is a movie which invites its reviewers to use the phrase "meet cute Karate scene" in itself pretty much means it deserves an "F."Seen on an airplane, incidentally].
Spellbound [B+ -- Unabashedly crowd-pleasing and suspensful, it makes for an excellent watch though afterwards you'll wonder what exactly is being got at. (I think it's that America is a land of opportunity)].
Russian Ark [B -- Watching jellyfish at an aquarium, a friend and I attempted to put their movements into words, and though we didn't succeed he described the effect of their movements, fairly aptly, as "gentle yet deadening." These words also describe the body of Russian Ark, whose endless continuity certainly creates a unique effect but also lulls you (okay, lulled me) into a non-thinking state under which I found it impossible to tell whether various moments were banal and idiotic or brilliant. The ballroom scene is pretty spectacular -- probably mise-en-scene at both its theoretical and practical height; I didn't really understand the ending, though. It's all very gentle and yet deadening].
/Rushmore/ [A -- I won't bother paraphrasing the Comic Book Guy, though I ought to. Still a masterpiece. (My capsule from my last viewing, aways below, actually, like, describes it)].
Finding Nemo [B -- Cuter and sappier and more traditional than what Pixar's done in the past, and with far fewer corner-of-your-eye sight gags. (Actually, I don't know if there are any). But it's hard to deny the emotional investment that nonetheless is there, and just because it's cuter, sappier, and more traditional than past Pixar doesn't mean that it's anything like non-Pixar Disney features. Feels a bit self-conciously "eye-popping," but it sure fucking beats The Little Mermaid. If there's one thing animated films could really learn to avoid, it's over-extended-by-15-minute climaxes; but character-driven humor is always a major plus. Oh, who am I kidding with all my quibbling? I was riveted. (Preceded by a 1989 short entitled Knick Knack, which is pretty amazing for being purely visual storytelling, but isn't actually that funny. It gets a "B" too)].
Scooby Doo [B- -- Was astonished at my luck to catch this beginning on HBO since it had long stood even above My Big Fat Greek Wedding on my list of movies I'd never pay money to see that I most want to see. Anyway, for a late-night television offering, it's pretty entertaining -- a hodge-podge of (deliberately?) terrible acting, amusingly idiotic jokes (my favorite -- a sinister British millionaire calling Scooby "Scoobert"), kinda-neat-but-plastic-looking-and-impersonal set direction, and more evidence of the inherent crapiness of CGI (see also: trailer for Hulk). All I can say is that I'm glad I didn't see it in theaters, but from start to finish I thoroughly enjoyed it].
The Great McGinty [B -- The funny moments are pretty widely dispersed -- either that or I just wasn't getting it -- and there's a social conscience behind it all, placing it somewhere near the (much-superior) Sullivan's Travels in tone. And the opening title card promises literally twice as much as the film actually delivers. So that leaves those widely dispersed funny moments, which, for a film this short, are really enough in themselves].
/Heathers/ [A -- My second viewing and first in four years reveals a sheer fucking masterpiece. There's something inutterably glorious about a so-called teen movie in which Wynona Ryder refers to "teen angst bullshit" in a monologue (take that, target audience). But that doesn't account for the sheer sharpness of the movie -- this is satire that Swift would be proud of, satire that gets straight to the painful heart of people's pretensions. Throughout the film, individual shortcomings are accounted for by finger-pointing at a vague "they" that gets called "society;" it's the same kind of thing you hear in history classes, taken to the extreme. Even if you overlooked the astonishingly suspensful prank-on-jocks-gone-wrong scene (which is actually worthy of Hitchcock), or the breathtaking curlicues of irony (Christian Slater calling "Teenage Suicide Don't Do It" "our song" to Ryder), there'd still be sparkling dialog, pitch-perfect pacing, and the bizarre, serene power of the shot of cheerleading reaching a climax minutes before the film's end].
Pootie Tang [B- -- Its cheapness may be endearing, but it's also just fucking cheap, and when the movie tries to expand its plot in the least, it feels like it's been made by some kids with a camcorder and a couple rooms to film in. But Chris Rock is a helluva funny guy, and the language of Pootie gets laughs time and again. It's all pretty slight, but never unpleasant to watch].
Bruce Almighty [D -- It's absolute crap and doesn't warrant comment, but I do love Carrey, and
he does do something funny about once every half hour].
Man on the Train [B -- Only narrowly escapes falling apart; it's a movie about the unchangingness of things, but for the second two-thirds it constantly has you worried that it's going to sell out its central idea. Lessons are pounded home a bit much and one too many subplots accumulate. And the end goes on too long, with the final shots in particular spelling out what's already plenty explicit. Sorry if all my harping over a movie I like reads awkwardly, but the point is that this film really barely pulls itself off, though that makes the fact that it finally does a surprise all the more pleasant. What really pulls it through are the two great, mysterious faces at its center; somehow Leconte bring out both their geometric dimensions and humanity].
The Man Without a Past [C -- Delightfully quirky; laugh-filled; full of life lessons. There's even a cute dog. I usually hate this kind of movie much more than I do this one, and if Man Without a Past had been made by the-Frenchman-whose-name-I-will-not-speak (but who I thought of more than once during this film's duration) I don't think I'd have gotten to the end. Kaurismaki's visual style isn't especially cloying, however, and towards the end he manages a subtle pastiche look that struck me as what Far From Heaven could have been. The rest of it, unfortunately, is delightfully quirky, laugh-filled, and full of life lessons].
/Beetlejuice/ [A- -- For large chunks of running time, it's simply the greatest, with Burton and Keaton both working at their messy, energetic peaks. The Deitzes wear thin pretty quickly and, much as I like the coda, it might be better ended at the very moment it hits its manic height, maybe with Beetlejuice meeting his demise (spolier). Still I'd call it my number five Burton, and I love Burton].
/25th Hour/ [A- -- Seen on a small screen, it's still pretty great; its element of sheer movie-ness, so thrilling in theaters, may be lost -- and it's a huge shame that the big score, without an equally big picture, is suddenly no longer overwhelming -- but what's conversely gained is the ability to wrap one's mind around the film and see how tightly and intelligently structured it is. In other words, with the sensory experience removed, it's easier to view the movie as a night-and-day-after story, to see how morally compelling an examination of something as simple as taking responsibility it is. The big-screen 25th Hour is ultimately the one I love, but it more than holds up in its unprojected state].
Halloween [C+ -- The opening hour of exposition is really pretty ridiculous -- we don't need to know the characters to be scared when they're getting killed, and all knowing them does is add an element of relief to their deaths. But once Carpenter gets down to business, it's pretty scary, though Dr. Loomis is kinda goofy and the fact that Michael would go after the good girl makes no sense thematically. The "plus" is for the excellent 20-minute set-piece towards the end and for making the outside of a house as claustrophic as the inside; but James Berardinelli doesn't fucking know what he's talking about (spolier)].
Jason and the Argonauts [C- -- In dramatic terms, this is probably one of the worst movies I've ever seen; the acting is beyond dated, the costumes are beyond crappy, the pacing is beyond slow. But that final skeleton battle remains awesome; in light of it and King Kong, it's beginning to occur to me that Harryhausen is an artist as original and skilled, and with a stamp as personal, as any director. I feel silly to be so enthused about a single scene, but, shit -- in their design, in their movements, in their integration with live actors, those stop motion skeletons are simply some of the greatest special effects creations ever. (You can see why they left such a mark on Tim Burton, as well as the mark they left). Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, everything else sucks; I don't think I have it in me to watch the Sinbad movies as well, but I might re-watch King Kong].
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead [C -- Uncinematic and, worse, I think it's a paean to actors (the only kind of paeans that work on film are to cities; and besides, I hate theater actors, which is to say the reprehensible brand of beings known to high-school attendees as "drama people"). Pretentious besides, with a crappy synthesizer/faux-blues (witty!) score in the bargain. But some of the seeing-Hamlet-from-the-sidelines stuff is kind of interesting, I suppose. I got through it. Seen in an English class].
/Psycho/ (the Hitchcock) [A- -- For an hour and a half, it's, like, the best and most beautifully crafted seamy, exploitative horror film ever made. But this time around the entire final quarter played to me like one big snag -- sure it's scary when Lila is up in the mansion, but the only way I can really think to justify the scenes that concurrently take place in the motel below is by imagining that Sam's would-be-intimidating detective moves are supposed to be funny. Actually that may well be the case -- I can certainly imagine that kind of perverse joke coming from Hitch, and he was famous for telling Truffaut that the movie was a comedy -- but it doesn't make the fact that the whole movie loses its footing after Arbogast's death (spolier!) any less annoying. Still, the movie is fascinating as well as entertaining when watched through the lens of that famous line about people being stuck "in their own private traps;" and there's always that first hour and a half].
/The Treasure of the Sierra Madre/ [A -- On the surface, it's simply an adventure film as gripping and colorful as any you could wish for. But the adventure genre, from Stevenson and Dumas up through Lucas and Spielberg, is pretty much about good guys and bad guys in terms so clear-cut that they even overlook the question of innate goodness and badness; philosophy doesn't enter into the traditional equation. Sierra Madre, on the other hand, is a story of the slippery slope that is moral compromise -- or even flirtation with moral compromise -- and its cynicism and concern for big questions betray it as a noir simply wrapped in the cloak of another genre. It was John Huston's genius to make the surface of the movie so evocative and entertaining that the bitter side of the pill goes down sans any noir voice-over or fatalism, even with a largely-chirpy score. The superb trio of performances -- of faces -- at the center makes a sweet deal even sweeter].
Evil Dead [A -- A horror film whose "plot" is so purely functional and whose cheapness is so rigorously exploited -- would that claymation disintegration at the end be even half as scary if it looked slightly real? -- that it comes out truly exemplary of what can be done with a tiny budget. Bruce Campbell's cartoonishly over-accentuated good looks -- I didn't know jaws could actually jut like that -- make a great center for the storm swirling about him. And it's a pretty scary storm. I may not like Spider-Man, but between this and Darkman it's clear that Raimi is probably second only to Burton among directors whose movies are unrepentantly B-derived].
The Ladies Man [C -- Kind of bad, which is unfortunate since the title character is pretty funny (where'd they come up with the idea of giving him a speech impediment?). It's hackwork, of course and the memorable bits are far between; there are enough of them, though, to keep it from being painful to watch].
Raising Victor Vargas [B- -- Has one great scene -- the climactic kiss, a moment that gives the sense of incredible intimacy without that of intrusion on the audience's part -- and a number of smart, credible performances -- which is to say that the characters never seem like forced depictions of types acting according to our expectations (which is what I half-expected from reading about the movie's plot before hand). And the measured direction, establishing very ordinary problems as the stuff of chamber drama, is reminiscent of -- if not anywhere near as gripping as in -- Rushmore. So goddamn those sit-comy subplots. One funny, hesitant courtship is more than enough; it really doesn't have to be mirrored not once but twice. But it's better than Tadpole].
/Vertigo/ [A -- Yes, the photography is still mesmerizing. Yes, the score is still unbelievably beautiful. Yes, it's still brilliantly acted. Yes, it's still divided into two self-contained, perfectly symmetrical halves that reflect forwards and backwards to add up to the most disturbing and profound exploration of the nature of obsession in cinema. (Yes, that sentence is a cliche, but it happens to be true). Yes, the ending is still devastating. Yes, it is still the Greatest Movie Ever Made. No, it will never cease to be any of these things].
/Notorious/ [A- -- Speaking of fluid direction (see capsule (*below*), it doesn't get much better than this; the wine cellar scene, despite all the set pieces that De Palma and Spielberg have pulled off since, remains as elegantly directed and orchestrated, as astonishingly lucid in its lay-out, as pretty much anything in movies. I can't figure out whether it's simply by-the-wayside for Hitchcock that this happens to be a story of ideologies, and the evil-mommy complex is better explored in a lot of his other movies. But that's all there is to criticize. Is there anything worse than people who titter at dated moments in old (or semi-recent) movies? Motherfuckers].
X2 [B -- Before it heads off into moralizing territory in the last half-hour, this is the classic Part Two -- flying between different characters in different places and expanding the earlier movie's scope to give it less of a picaresque quality -- pulled off as well as you could hope. Which is to say, don't listen to Stephanie Zacharek -- the fluidity of the direction is a plus. Also, there seems to be a higher quotient of hot mutant ladies than hot regular ladies. To reiterate, the end is kind of crappy, but since it's preceded by an awesome fight between Wolverine and a girl-Wolverine dressed in leather, who I think is a robot or something, I won't complain].
Detour [B -- Tense and atmospheric, and probably the most lazily plotted movie I've ever seen -- it pulls off the feat of being simultaneously overly-tidy and utterly non-sensical. But pretty entertaining.]
The Lonely Guy [B -- Bad '80's score, but a smart Neil Simon script and one of Martin's best performances.]
Cat People (the Tourneur; there was a remake, right?) [B+]
/Dumb and Dumber/ [B+]
Jackie Brown [A- -- When Tarantino sets out to be cool, there's inevitably a forcedness to it -- yes, even in a case like this one where his methods weren't mimicked to death. But the absence of that cultural miming allows for the movie's merits to be seen more clearly than in the man's earlier works, and these are frequently stunning. The cast is perfect from head to toe, and actors share small exchanges that are almost magical; my favorite is Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Forster's almost ridiculously underplayed "I didn't know you liked the Dellphonics," "They're pretty good." The conscious segregation of the actors meanwhile ends up making some stinging points about racism, questioning whether black and white are ultimately the strongest sides of all. Most of the stuff with Robert De Niro's character could be excised, but on the whole this is one of the best character (and social) studies in recent American film].
City of God [B+ -- It goes without saying that the stylistic tropes and narrative quirks are straight out of Scorsese and Tarantino (the movie is also weirdly reminiscent of Spider-Man). But right beneath what's borrowed pulses a strong original vision; I can't remember the last time a movie so frenzied was also so lyrical. Add to that the facts that there are actual ideas here -- the movie is not just a gang history; it's also a psychological case study and a reflection on the primal link between sexuality and violence -- and that few movies I've seen have anything like this one's genuine moral center, and you've got a film with every right to be as entertaining as it is. Individual moments are silly (especially at the beginning and end), and and there's a point about two-thirds of the way through when the sensory overload just becomes too much. But the movie always pulls you through with its sheer dramatic conviction, and there are even a few moments with real emotional pull. Unlike almost all movies that fly so thick and fast with exposition and exhilaratingly extended sequences, it leaves you feeling anything but empty].
Gerry [A- -- One of the few movies I've seen to actually deserve the description "haunting"; upon first leaving the theater, my grade was a "B+," but the movie's refusal to do anything like leaving me alone as I went to bed that night convinced me that it needed an upgrading. It is, of course, many things, and its levels of allegory and warning are always handled with subtlety enough that they remain effective. But what makes the movie engaging and ultimately heartbreaking is that it's the story of a friendship, a friendship portrayed with an absolute minimum of exposition and yet enough verisimilitude that you find yourself increasingly attached to the protagonists' relationship as the two men disintegrate. I don't know if it's possible to engage with the movie for every one of its moments, but in its whole Gerry adds up to something that leaves an indelible stamp on your brain. God knows if I could watch it a second time].
Crossroads [B+ -- Exploitative, phony, utterly transparent (the fact that the black girl's ethnicity is never once mentioned only makes her token-ethnic status that much more insulting), full of scenes in which Spears' character magically transforms into Spears as soon as she has to sing; in short, everything you could hope for. How does shit like this get made?].
The Quiet American [C- -- The recycled score, present in every scene, does the opposite of what scores are supposed to do -- it puts you outside the movie, allows you to separate yourself from what takes place onscreen. How could it be otherwise when all its omnipresence does is remind you that this is the same movie as every other fucking movie in which two men fall in love with a beautiful foreign woman. Speaking of which, why are they in love with her? Does her personalitylessness make her distinctive in the movie's near-personalitylessness universe? After all, as we're constantly reminded, there are plenty of other beautiful women out there. Almost everything is explicitly stated, and the assault of exposition may be what keeps the film from ever making its characters more distinctive than their (unclear-for-seven-eighths-of-the-time, and, yeah, I know that's "purposeful") ideologies. Michael Caine is decent, but not half of what he was in either Last Orders or Goldmember; Brendan Fraser does what he can with dialog like "Who of us is what he seems?" As previously mentioned, woman-who's-name-I-refuse-to-look-up is a non-presence. (I refuse to look it up because it should stay that way). So poorly directed that the tension level remains exactly the same from scene one till the end (=not high). Basically a soap opera done in the style of Masterpiece Theater, with some politics thrown in for good measure. On the bright side, I've now seen two movies whose titles begin with the letter "Q"].
Lost in La Mancha [B -- Bad movie, engaging document. Worst thing(s) that could have happened to Man Who Killed Don Quixote, best to Lost in La Mancha. Coulda been an unwatched DVD extra, instead is an engaging theatrical release. Etc.].
/Talk To Her/ [B+ -- Embarrasing, now, my comments (a bit below) that All About My Mother is a more successful movie; though I can't justify not giving them both a 'B+' -- that's what they come to -- there's so much more along the way in this one. The trouble here is that Almodovar is too in love with what he films (much as is the case with any fetishist), and the pieces he leaves trailing -- as well as what I correctly called, my first time around, the movie's "lopsided structure" -- ultimately undercut the strength of other moments. These shortcomings hold the movie down dramatically; enough feels unfitting that the enterprise never lifts off the ground, at least not for more than a few moments at a time. Still, Almodovar's struggle to illustrate the difficulty of communication between the sexes, and the pitfalls of trying to replace it with simple intra-gender communication (though the movie is at least as much a fantasy as a warning) finds some awfully moving scenes of full expression in those wonderful dance sequences. And then there's that bull getting ready to charge. And Marco's final talk with Benigno. If nothing else, see the movie for these moments].
|
Koyaanisqatsi [C/C+ -- The score is just goofy, the movie is unwilling to allow for the free connections that make Powaqqatsi fun to watch, and the individual sequences are both elongated and undeveloped. But it's a National Geographic photographer's wet dream].
Another Woman [B -- Woody does Bergman, and the result is interesting; as usual in his 80's films, the cinematography is rich and creates an effective milieu, and some sequences do a great job of portraying the feeling of a life gone wasted. But these sequences have... dialog. And when Woody tries to do the whole sedate/enigmatic European thing (a shot of a mask!), the result is stilted and feels unnatural. Still, who's going to blame a guy for trying something new (especially when the criticism most often leveled against him is that he doesn't)? In the Great Woody Cycle, this movie doesn't deserve to be forgotten].
Love and Death [B- -- Funny if cheap, and sometimes off in its timing].
Powaqqatsi [B+ -- It's not about anything in particular, but there are times when it seems to be about everything, and as a meditation on globilization it's awfully affecting. Thankfully, the most-obviously metaphorical images are rarely as simplistic as they seem -- you just have to give some thought to their unresolved margins (this isn't a symmetrical movie). Good watching, though you may have to be willing to wander off to heat up Chinese food, pick up a dictionary and start looking up words, etc.].
Take the Money and Run [C+].
All About My Mother [B+ -- Strange that Almodovar offers such unperceptive portraits of gays, next to such nuanced ones of women; my guess is that he takes the former mentality so much for granted that he doesn't feel the need to move beyond superficialities. In any case, there's some wonderful melodrama here, and Barcelona looks beautiful. And regardless of whether it's less ambitious than Talk to Her, it accomplishes more of its goals. Almodovar's habit of letting his characters find catharsis in stage performances is more poignant as a recurring motif than in its individual manifestations].
/25th Hour/ [A-/A -- Fuck, this thing is great. Fuck, I wish its initial scenes with Monty were a little more involving. Fuck, it's awesome anyway].
/Donnie Darko/ [A -- Sixth viewing, third theatrical -- and when did this flop turn into a cult midnight movie attended by dialog-quoting hipsters? Still a terrific film, with great atmosphere and some of the most transporting moments I've been witness too -- albeit patchier than it seems on video, and with some lame background material (the stabbed mother). Detractors need only realize that the story is irrelevant to the film's power. Mark my words: Time will not forget the "Head Over Heels" montage, as wonderful an embodiment of the movie's theme of interconnection as I can imagine].
About Schimdt [C+ -- Often seems to be satisfied simply to tell us that them common folks sure are funny. But its endless parade of sincere-moments-turned-cheap-jokes ultimately doesn't represent what the movie is up to; it simply represents the fact that it's trying to have its cake and eat it too, appeal to the part of the audience willing to watch a movie about the failures of an ordinary life at the same time that it keeps the rest of the eyes on the screen with bird shirt jokes. Unforgiveable that it leaves spaces for audience laughter, and yet more moving than you'd expect. Most bizarre review of the year: Ebert on this one, in which he winds up with an a propos-of-nothing order that teenagers watch the movie and see that there's more to life than a paycheck. Them teenage punks].
Talk To Her [B+ -- Begins as a set of fetishes without any core for them to be wrapped around; but once the movie establishes that it's about the two guys, it's pretty moving (I don't cry easily -- at all -- but the final dance sequence did have me on the edge of tears). The fact that it spends so much time leading up to the two guys getting together, so to speak, and on their outside relationships rather than who they themselves are, makes the movie somewhat structurally-lopsided, but I realize that my greater interest in the nuances of individual personalities than of relationships is simply personal. As is my predilection towards any movie book-ended by unrelated-to-narrative dances. (Don't ask). Still might have made a better short story, with its first half entirely excised. (Aside: Made a nice analog to Lolita, still fresh in my mind from having finished it a couple days before)].
The Pianist [C- -- Who knew Polanski had anything so facile in him? The movie's virtues are Adrien Brody, and the compellingly-bizarre 15 minutes in which he wanders through a destroyed Warsaw. Its vices are everything else -- cliches mounted on more cliches; showing rather than telling (the barbarity of the Nazis is never brought home to the audience on a more-than-visceral level -- i.e., we're allowed to pay no emotional penalty); making Poles and Russians speak English while Nazis speak German (otherwise we couldn't figure out that they're evil); practically asking that the second half be described as "full of striking images;" ending with the protagonist receiving a standing ovation. Many have dubbed this Polanski's best since Chinatown, which is just wack -- even if you don't believe (as I do) that The Tenant and Tess are masterpieces, Bitter Moon and Death and the Maiden are far more ambitious, complex, and morally challenging films than this. Hell, I think Frantic and The Ninth Gate are better. With the exception of Pirates, Polanski's movies are never boring, but this is the first one to be didactic enough (even the kindly Nazi who shows up late in the game feels like a contrivance) to be genuinely offensive -- while still managing to be less disturbing than practically anything else in the man's ouevre. In short, how the fuck did the guy come to this?].
Family Dinner [B+ -- First, the conflict of interest (of which anyone reading this will probably already be aware): The writer-director of this short is one of my oldest e-mail correspondents and, half a decade ago, his site was the first to ever link to my writing (at least so far as I'm aware). But I can honestly say that I liked this movie a great deal; each character speaks in an unforced voice that belies both knowledge of what could have been simple types, and sympathy for them (though, of course, some less than others; the boyfriend character is both dead-on and revolting, and the father's not too much better). For stretches of dialog (and silence), it's almost shocking how well it all works. What doesn't work is the reaching for larger emotional moments -- in one case because, from what we've seen, we're not ready for the situation to expand (though it quickly contracts again), in another because the actress it relies upon isn't up to the task. The simultaneous response moments also, at least in execution, fall a bit flat. But so long as the movie sticks to interactions within the kind of nightmare family we can all imagine and most of us are lucky enough to be without, it glides along beautifully. Also, there are hot chicks].
Adaptation [B+ -- Since I appear to be the last person alive to have seen this, I don't have much to add but my own reactions. And given the passionate intellectual debates the movie has inspired, those are pretty boring. But here goes -- Cage is terrific, and I honestly wouldn't want to see the movie end any other way (adapting to being a work of art, rather than real life, though people don't generally seem to have commented on how pessimistic the last twenty minutes' notions of "adaptation" really are). My main problem is that there's a somewhat sketchy, under-developed feel to a lot of the movie; you can feel it being plotted as it goes. Which may be the point -- but that doesn't make it work any better. Still, I'd pay a larger price for any running gag as brilliant as The Three].
/Far From Heaven/ [B -- See first go-around].
Hard Eight [C+ -- Sub-wanna-be-Mamet crap for 80 minutes; the kind of off-Broadway-derived indie that got so boring for so long in the nineties. (Disclaimer: Yes, I noticed that it was visually distinctive). And then, amazingly, it comes up with a twist that is neither superficially-clever or stupid -- it actually reflects back across the entire movie and adds some degree of pathos (though, in execution, it feels ludicrous). That doesn't make it a good movie, but the "I love you like a son" moment is genuinely moving. Still, as I watched Phillip Baker Hall play a character no less hard to feel for for suddenly being given a motive, my problem with PTA's entire ouevre suddenly became clear -- the guy is so intent on being universal that he's afraid to give his characters intellectual lives].
Movies Seen In 2002 (since July):
/Austin Powers in Goldmember/ [A- -- The best film of 2002 that has no shot at future reevaluation; but that doesn't make it less crazily inventive, less exhuberantly in-bad-taste, or less unrecognized-as-more-"delightful"-than-Spirited Away. Lots of people have pointed out what a consistent theme the relationship between fathers and sons was this past year, but have any recognized that the only movie to outdo this one in exploring it was Last Orders? (I love Catch Me If You Can, but mostly for Spielberg's sheer mastery of his form)].
Pennies From Heaven [A- -- Undermines its conceit somewhat by not sticking closer to the form of any period of movie musicals, but is still at least as compelling (thanks in no small part to a great Steve Martin performance) as it is under-realized (as Pauline Kael pointed out, it simply isn't over-the-top enough, though a couple of dance numbers are fantastic). The ending is as bitterly moving as Hollywood endings get].
Great Expectations (Cuaron) [B- -- Cuaron may be Tim Burton's sunny cousin; both men essentially make fairy tales (and Expectations is the most clearly fairy tale-derived of Dickens's novels), except that Cuaron drenches his in light. This movie's best moments are over-powering in the same way that Burton's best moments are; but it sells out its own vision too frequently for that to mean as much as it should. See: terrible string-drenched score, spell-it-out monologues, soft-porn scenes with Gwyneth Paltrow (and say, how do you make Gwyneth Paltrow look so un-hot?), the let's-throw-pacing-out-the-window final 30 minutes. Still, the fact that a movie this interesting was roundly dismissed just proves that, when it comes to Hollywood, critics are no longer capable of telling the difference between the new and daring, and good, old-fashioned crap].
A Brighter Summer Day [A-/A -- Almost impossibly fragile rhythms make this a movie that's impossible to watch casually, which, of course, isn't a problem -- except that, in my case, watching a terrible bootleg copy, it was. I was still pretty engrossed, and the juxtaposition of melodrama with the uneventful that winds up the film is pretty damn effective, making you feel that you've seen both a story and a raw chunk of life. I get the feeling that Yang's compositions and tracking shots might really be something to comment on in any other format -- but hey, I only saw it in this one. Even there the whole thing was an experience].
/Spider-Man/ [B- -- Almost entertaining enough to transcend the fact that it's dramatically flat, and almost absorbing enough to make one forget that it's never transporting. So, yes, I may be judging this movie on the basis of what it isn't rather than what it is (though a Danny Elfman score is never a good idea for a movie that isn't going to venture into otherworldly realms). But what is it anyway? A pretty good story with a great Willem Dafoe performance, but not much verve, that's what].
The Postman Always Rings Twice [C+ -- Watching this third-rate noir, it occured to me how thematically consistent the entire genre is; if I had to sum it up in a single sentence, I'd say it's the series of films with the message that no scheme goes unpunished. (In that sense, Reservoir Dogs may be the most faithful in spirit of neo-noirs). The thought occured to me because this isn't what you'd call a good movie; Cora Smith is a terrible femme fatale (so bad I'm almost certain I'm missing the point), and both the film's melodrama and its denouement are ridiculous. (The mid-section, on the other hand, is pretty good, and the black and white photography is terrific). So the whole thing is most interesting, finally, as a lesson in genre -- an indicator that the spirit of noir really was in the air at this time, as well as an obvious precursor to The Man Who Wasn't There. (I guess I feel subversive for making this, rather than The Shop Around the Corner, my Christmas morning movie, but the latter would have been more rewarding)].
Small Time Crooks [B+ -- So is there a conspiracy against Woody? Because this is really a pretty good movie. Sure, the entire Hugh Grant subplot is clunky (there's no conviction to it; it's almost like it's been placed there sheerly to make the movie even more old-Hollywood). But whenever Allen's onscreen, it's light-on-its-feet and more than diverting. It's funny that the W-man's onscreen persona has become more aggressively populist over the years; sure, he might sneak away from high society to watch a Knicks game in Annie Hall or tell Diane Keaton "You should meet some stupid people for a change" in Manhattan, but in those movies he knows who Henry James is (and you don't get the feeling he'd ask "What's the good of being rich if you can't get a cheeseburger?"). I hereby assign somebody to write a book on this transformation].
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers [B -- Gollum's schizophrenia is about absorbing as human (or non-human) dramas get, and whenever the movie lingers on it, it's a flat "A." Unfortunately, its story is much broader, and doesn't have any space to breathe; every second is action, and there's still barely time for Jackson to get it all in there. The movie's cramped; a four or five hour cut would be ideal. Hint: Every time wailing begins on the soundtrack, it's safe to tune out for the next twenty minutes].
Solaris [B+ -- Has the most langurous and hypnotic rythyms of any 2002 movie; what a shame about the fact that it has to be science fiction at all. The sci-fi title is already pretty much nominal, but Soderbergh nevertheless breaks up the heart of the story with space station jabber. After the first five minutes -- one of the most brilliant uses of a disconnect in form making clear the nature of the content that I can recall -- I thought this was the movie of the year, and it would be if it didn't keep pretending that it's about anything other than George Clooney wandering through his own mind].
/Citizen Kane/ [A -- Okay, so it is one of the best movies ever made (hadn't seen it since age 13). There's something vaguely ridiculous, and not-so-vaguely presumptuous, about criticizing any movie (or idea, for that matter) as monumental as Kane; I suppose I think that the second hour is better and more absorbing than the first, and that Jed Leland is a character of greater depth than the pro-(or is it an-?)tangonist. But the entire film is nevertheless dazzling -- dazzlingly acted, dazzlingly photographed, dazzlingly entertaining. Welles's transformation in the title role is maybe the most amazing in all movies].
/In the Mood for Love/ [A- -- An amazing movie, with every frame a textbook definition of glamour, melancholy, and fetishism; it's hard to imagine any director being so thoroughly unashamed of creating beautiful images as Wong -- when he simply lets smoke curl or rain patter, you hope he never stops. So why isn't it a flat-out "A"? Why is it simply one of the best movies of the past five years, instead of one of the best movies of all time, like Happy Together? Because HT has a fluidity that ITMFL lacks (probably having to do with the fact that it was filmed without a script) -- its long early set pieces establish actual characters, instead of just goregous faces to strike romantic poses (what Love does). It's a measure of just how hypnotic a director Wong is that he can make that series of poses feel like it drifted down from heaven: He's an impressionist the way that Monet was an impressionist -- in breaking things down to their essences, he makes them overwhelming. Still, a movie comprised entirely of impressions is, on some level, a bit thin (it's telling that he's only able to get such a devestating emotional impact at the end by conciously creating a build-up to it), especially (again) when viewed next to Happy Together -- which also eventually drifts to pieces, but, by doing it after establishing its protagonist's frame of mind, manages to use the form to evoke his isolation. Still, I'm quibbling. Bottom line: If I had to watch the shot of Cheung and Leung walking away from the camera after the scene in the restaraunt -- or (even better), brushing past each other on the stairwell, a breathy cello solo pulsing beneath them -- in an endless loop, for the rest of time, I don't think I'd particularly mind].
Far From Heaven [B -- Why don't I love this movie? Like all-time favorites by everyone from Jacques Demy to Wes Anderson to Wong Kar-Wai, it features a flamboyantly stylized surface that conceals aching pain; and even an admittedly shamefully-unfocused-on-actors film buff like myself was pretty much blown out of the water by the range and subtlety of the three lead performances (even if I couldn't stop thinking that Dennis Quaid was Tom Daschle). And, hell, I think Safe might be the best horror movie ever made (don't hold me to that, though). But something is lacking here -- the recreation of Sirk melodramas is done with merciful lack of irony, yet that doesn't stop it from being a contrivance. Basically, it feels like a put-on -- albeit an earnestly done one -- by Haynes, and I wasn't able to lose myself to the movie -- not to its swooning score, or not-as-ravishing-as-you've-heard-but-still-pretty-damn-fine visuals, nor even to Julianne Moore's expressive-in-a-tight-space performance. The whole story is told at arm's length, and it's really not fair when you're asked to cry at the end (a special shame since it may be -- is probably -- the best scene in the movie)].
Femme Fatale [B+ -- The eternal Brian DePalma movie -- mesmerizing pieces that he can't make add up. (Thank god for Blow Out). Voluptuously beautiful in its actresses, sensuous camera movies, and fatalistic score, it nevertheless comes to naught; but until it gets there, it's a great ride].
Night of the Living Dead [B -- Gets off to a great start -- cheaply and self-conciously done, yet chokingly scary, followed by a couple minutes of near-silent movie expressionism. But the body of the film turns out to be tedious and unfrightening; it's a lot easier to have emotional investment in a single cardboard horror movie protagonist than in a houseful of them. The ending is pretty neat, I guess, but it takes too long to get there. Fun enough, but no Dawn of the Dead].
Princess Mononoke [B+ -- I remain impressed by the level of storytelling on which he works; but, Jesus, Miyazaki really can't manage beginnings or ends, can he?...]
/Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me/ [A -- Campy and painful and mesmerizing; and Laura Pamer is so much more sympathetic than the respective protagonists of the similarly-humorless Eraserhead and Lost Highway, that it doesn't really get much competition for the title of Lynch's darkest film].
Punch-Drunk Love [B+].
The Craft [C -- Such a bad movie that it would be a waste of time to talk about why it's a bad movie. What's actually worth saying is that it's a wildly entertaining bad movie].
Secretary [B- -- Gee... Not much to say. I like the idea of a fairy tale about s&m styled like (the movie version of) Little Shop of Horrors; but this is one of those films that ultimately feels so slight, you can only give it a "B-"].
Spirited Away [B+ -- Gets off to a slow start, ultimately resorts to the lame sap you expect of animated movies, from time to time breaks up its own rhythms with gratuitous Americanisms, and, for a movie that wants to have an overarching narrative, seems pretty episodic. (Phew). Needed to get those reservations out of the way to say why this isn't the masterpiece its fans claim, because there is a lot of masterpiece stuff here. It does capture the feeling of great children's literature, and is full of almost ridiculously wonderful set pieces, and images that make you wish for a Miyazaki art exhibit -- or at least a copy of the movie on DVD. The queen wrapping herself up in a blanket and then flapping about the bathhouse is destined to be one of the great scenes of the year, and might be the scariest in any children's movie].
Igby Goes Down [C -- Admirable but unfocused, and manages to be the coming-of-age movie that actually justifies its protagonist's misanthropy. Also features a montage set to "The Weight," in which Igby picking up his bag coincides with "I picked up my bag"].
8 Women [D- -- Nothing wrong with stylization, but only when it's behind something that's genuinely felt; the products of stylization in service of irony are invariably cr@p, which is where this, uh, piece of cr@p comes in. Picks up and drops its storyline's threads on whims; doesn't bother to make the characters more distinct than their costumes. The songs are ridiculously unintegrated; the movie thinks that it's original to put the cliches of the Clue genre into ironic quotation marks (as if nobody's figured out that the "trapped inside a mansion with a murderer" scenario is silly). It's the kind of movie where, when a maneater has a vaguely "jazzy" number about the art of seduction, it cuts to a black woman nodding her head and grinning].
/Rushmore/ [A -- Not much to say about any movie so perfect. Its sadness is matched only by its warmth -- and I suppose its soundtrack; the cadences of every scene are dead-on. And details that call up worlds in themselves, are everywhere -- from Bill Murray's tears in the final scene (that play isn't about Vietnam for nothing); to the inscription on Max's typewriter; to the way the kids dress up as wizards and pirates when they bombard Max; to the heartbreaking mundanity of the Christmas decorations across the street from the barbershop. Movies don't get much better than this].
/Blue Velvet/ [A -- After Vertigo, the best dream movie there is].
/Safe/ [A -- I doubt a better, or more disturbing, movie will ever be made about fascism].
/High Fidelity/ [B+/A- -- Hard to say just why this movie is so good where About A Boy is so bad; but it's not disgustingly sentimental, for one thing, and it's about people where AAB is about types. For anybody who's spent spent time in cramped, indie record stores, the characters will already be familiar, but John Cusack really brings some depth to Rob. Really, though, High Fidelity just has something, something that can't be summed up by familiar phrases like "acutely observed." But on that note, Tim Robbins's character is so dead-on (even moreso than the similar art teacher in Ghost World), it hurts].
/Back to the Future/ [A -- Would be the strongest argument for the studio system if it didn't have as much depth as it does pure entertainment value. (Side-note: It is probably the most entertaining film ever made). But it does -- if Sam Mendes had really wanted to say something about father-son relations in Road to Perdition, he would have watched this baby a couple times before starting out. Pretty much a perfect movie].
One Hour Photo [B+ -- And almost an "A-"; hell, this movie works. More like Taxi Driver than either American Beauty or any old seemingly-amiable-psycho-stalker movie; it draws us into a mindset and, instead of letting us feel good about ourselves by putting distance between Williams -- who's wonderful -- and us, lets us see how perfectly normal, how un-anomalous, his character is. (And not in any cop-out "banality of evil" way, either). It's firmly grounded in a recognizable reality before it begins to grow increasingly stylized as well, and that just makes it that much more compelling. My main reservation -- that the book-ending device is somewhat exploitative, putting the audience in a possession of dread -- would probably melt away on a second viewing, given that it ultimately sets up for the Sy-being-photographed beginning/end symmetry that makes the movie's themes coalesce so well. Could well turn out to be one of the best movies of the year].
The Good Girl [D+ -- A one-note screed that tells us "life is miserable and it ain't getting better," peppered by cruel ironies that contain no actual insight. And the pseudo-literary narration is truly ridiculous. Makes 94 minutes feel like 1,000].
Possession [B+ -- Nothing like unabashed Hollywood romance].
/Unbreakable/ [B+ -- Pretty astonishing that this got released by a major studio, and became a hit, in the year 2000, considering it's as deliberately paced as any European art movie of the 60's. It is, of course, a lot more entertaining than most European art movies of the 60's, and if you give it your attention, it builds a sense of unease and foreboding that's mighty powerful; and the ending -- which, 2 years later (and especially in light of the opening titles), still strikes me as being about the danger inherent in fantasy -- remains near-brilliant. Sandwiched as it is between The Sixth Sense and Signs, I'd remembered it (much as I like those movies) as another emotional cheat -- which it definitely isn't. Just another superhero movie to beat Spider-Man's @$$].
/Pee-wee's Big Adventure/ [A].
Road to Perdition [B -- Entertaining as hell; also sentimental and pretentious. At its best, though, has the pulpiness (and sap) of Dickens (seeing Jude Law's face at the end could be a moment from any number of novels). Certainly a trillion times better than American Beauty, even if the final shot does feature a happy dog bounding across the frame and the line "He was my father," spoken in voice-over. You have to wonder why a British director keeps making movies so self-consciously American, though].
Tadpole [B- -- Didn't mind this movie much, even if I can't think of significantly more to say about it than "Uh... it exists." Well, okay: It exists, and is mildly amusing, but suffers from a handful of lame scenes (like that straight-out-of-a-sit-com fantasy montage). And, it exists in a universe that has Rushmore, which makes it completely redundant. (A movie about a precocious 15-year-old in love with an older woman? My, you do have an original mind). Only, it is not so much Rushmore, as Rushmore if Rushmore were not One of the Very Greatest Movies Ever Made, but instead a please-the-art-house-audiences trifle that made no emotional sense, and wasn't very moving. Finally: "The Only Living Boy in New York" and "Changes" are good songs, but if their back-to-back status is supposed to make them this movie's equivalent of "Oh Yoko" and "Ooh La La," then, um... sorry].
/The Umbrellas of Cherbourg/ [A -- It lags in long stretches, sure; but when this movie's hot -- as in the opening credits, the first shot of the "April" section, the scene in which the protagonist returns home, and that shudder-inducingly perfect ending -- it's so overwhelmingly beautiful that I can't really deny it a place as an all-time favorite of mine].
The New Guy [C+ -- A live-action movie with the energy and spirit of an original "Looney Tunes" short; so what a shame about the fact at it's actually not very funny -- just another "follow your heart" story, in which 20-somethings play teenagers].
Late Marriage [B -- As dramatically gripping in its sustained sequences as any movie I can remember; all I can say to defend the middle-of-the-road grade is that it made almost no emotional impression on me].
Signs [B+ -- Comparable to Jaws (as it was probably intended to be) for most of its running length -- so what a shame about that stupid, stupid denouement. (Though the set-up for it isn't bad). Shyamalan remains a master of mood, and his slow-boil approach to suspense is still as effective as it was in The Sixth Sense. And just having the guts to make an unironic alien-attack movie, sans a shot of the president in front of a waving flag, is admirable].
[Revision: Reading around on the 'net, I've come to feel awfully dense -- how could I not see how easily the film's title can be interpreted as ironic? The movie is probably a lot more ambiguous than Shyamalan wanted it to be, and I'd say it's a "sign" of how hard-wired I am to thinking about intentions that that didn't occur to me before. I don't know that a more cynical reading makes the movie any more satisfying, but it's still worth noting. In any case, Shyamalan is a big talent, but I'd say it's bad that I've liked all three of his films pretty much equally. (Unbreakable came closest to an 'A-'). He's an extremely effective filmmaker -- Signs has a soundtrack nearly on par with (say) Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me's -- but where that movie is gut-wrenching on an emotional level, Signs is zero. Let's hope Shyamalan can still grow].
/Annie Hall/ [A].
/Picnic At Hanging Rock/ [B+ -- Thought this was a masterpiece when I saw it in theaters a couple of years ago, but it turns out to be not nearly as subtle as I remembered -- the camera is intent on making sure we see that rocks look like faces, the entire Victorian-girls-take-off-shoes bit is pretty dunder-headed, the soundtrack could really be toned down. All that said, a pretty effective horror movie; but The Virgin Suicides is better].
/Austin Powers in Goldmember/ [A-].
Austin Powers in Goldmember [B+ -- A big, vibrant pop extravaganza. The reason it works so much better than The Spy Who Shagged Me is that that film's jokes were stretched out to such length that you had all the time in the world to reflect on how stupid they were; whereas this time around, the film never stops throwing something new at you long enough to keep the laughs from coming. When Austin tells Steven Spielberg "There's got to be mojo, baby," (or something along those lines) and then backflips into a crowd of extras who start performing a song and dance number, you know you're watching some kind of work of mad genius.]
CQ [B- -- Why the raves? A pretty slight movie; that doesn't make it less entertaining, but I was forgetting it even as I watched.]
/Donnie Darko/ [A -- With every new viewing, looks more and more like the most amazing thing I've ever seen. At some point along the line, I just stopped caring about whether the story makes any sense, or even what happens. The mindf**k element that seems to usurp the attention of most, is the one thing I don't love this movie for.]
/Freddy Got Fingered/ [A- -- The movie's greatest feat is that, its extreme (and wonderful) humor aside, it manages to ultimately follow a very conventional son-makes-good structure. It's this storytelling audacity that all the detractors overlook.]
The Fast Runner [B- -- (Because this is mythology) the characters are such total blanks that when they have conflicts, they're utterly without tension; video looks crappy; the storyline has no shape. That said, there are enough extraordinary images here that I can't say I regret seeing the movie.]
/Shakespeare in Love/ [B- -- Nice to know I wasn't decieved when I saw this in theaters: mildly diverting is what this one comes down to. Why does half the world think it's the greatest thing ever? I don't know. It's a mystery.]
/Meet the Parents/ [B+ -- Didn't think too much of this upon its release in 2000, but this time I was mightily impressed. It's certainly funny, but that's not really what Parents has going for it; instead, it's one of the most acute looks at the polite ways anti-Semitism shows up throughout society that I can imagine. Ben Stiller's burst of childish emotion, "I have feelings too!," is conciously a variant on "If you prick us, do we not bleed," the "circle of trust" is a handy metaphor for the simple white, Suburban interactions the Jewish protagonist can't quite pull off ("the shower fairy"). Finally, the ever-escalating feeling of paranoia at a prejudice you can't entirely put your finger on but know is there makes it the mirror image of Polanski's The Tenant. I'm glad I watched this again.]
Chungking Express [B+ -- Loosely strung together at best; the fact is, this movie isn't really of a piece. But it's Wong, and therefore it's gorgeous to look at, evocative of the greatest melancholy and yearning, and never less than totally entertaining (even if some of the early stuff -- "Do lives have expiry dates?," etc. -- is pretentious crap). In short, no Happy Together, but that doesn't mean the guy isn't rapidly becoming one of my favorite directors.]
Hua Yang De Nian Hua [N/A -- A short on the In the Mood for Love DVD; hard to comment on a two-and-a-half-minute montage of clips from Chinese films set to a pop song in another language, but, uh, I guess I liked it.]
/The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys/ [B -- Thoughts from my first viewing basically hold, but this film is close enough to the kind of movie I'd make today, were I going to, that I can't help but love its essence. It's the kind of film that becomes a favorite by providing you with memories that keep reverberating in your head for years. Major caveat: The revelation that comes 40 minutes in (people who've seen it will know what I'm talking about) really couldn't be more contrived. Major kudos, on the other hand, for the beautifully withheld last couple minutes.]
Husbands and Wives [A- -- A troublingly ambivalent movie with no characters to feel thoroughly comfortable in liking; also, very tight and funny (even if the allusions to events that take place after the movie's timeline runs out are probably mistakes), upper-second-tier Woody.]
The Last Waltz [A- -- The Band was the first rock group I loved in the way I'd go on to love the Velvet Underground, the Clash, the Rolling Stones, and others, and thus I was pre-disposed to liking this movie. That said, it certainly deserves to be liked, showcasing performances both sloppy (Dylan's stuff), wonderful ("Helpless," "Caravan"), and in between (pretty much everything else). Has a self-contained feeling that's almost heart-breaking at times; the exposition about how the Band came to be feels deeply prophetic of this, a day when people no longer hear of them. And when it comes right down to it, I don't think I could dislike any movie with contributions from both Martin Scorsese and Van Morrison.]
/The Graduate/ [A -- "I don't know, Ben. This whole idea seems pretty half-baked." "No, it's not. It's completely baked."]
Bride of the Monster [D -- Probably the worst movie I've ever seen -- ridiculously uncinematic and lumberingly paced. Still, Tor's hilarious performance gives it enough funny moments to keep me from slappin' it with an "F."]
Men in Black II [C]
Jailbait [B- -- Like Glen or Glenda, could almost be an art film; kinda boring, frankly, but the inimitably stiff line readings make it enjoyable from time to time. The ever-repeating Mexican theme that makes up the soundtrack is... uh... really weird.]
Insomnia [B+ -- Liked this much more than Memento, to be honest, if only because it isn't afraid of giving us characters to identify with (however sketchy the identification may be). Was an "A-" for a while, in fact, but the last couple moments deflate so rapidly, sit on the screen so lifelessly -- and go against the whole theme of the movie (the cycle of corruption) to such a degree -- that I knocked it down half a grade. Nevertheless, a superior thriller.]
Glen or Glenda [B+ -- The only difference between this and mid-sixties Godard (Two or Three Things I Know About Her, etc.) is that mid-sixties Godard is pretty, and this one is funny.]
/Ghost World/ [A]
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys [B- -- Jena Malone's presence spells out all kinds of similarities between this movie and Donnie Darko, and not to its advantage; but I can't deny how Boys has stuck with me. It's pretty moving, considering that it doesn't really earn any of its weightiest moments (which is to say the incest subplot, or the ending). Credit the young cast -- giving high-quality performances from top to bottom -- for that]. |
|
