Tell No One
27 September, 2008
Eighty percent good is not bad, I suppose. There are fabulous bits to this film, but it challenges naught, except the unholy devotion of the Hollywood system to flashy effects. Fun, though, and nothing wrong with that, I suppose.
Burn After Reading
27 September, 2008
The Coens hate everything. And have managed to condense that hatred into an hour and a half long film that seems, on the very surface, to be quite peppy and upbeat. If you’re an idiot. Which, then, would make you one of the things that the Coens hate. If you are a misanthropic recluse, like myself, you will laugh until your guts hurt. If you are not, you probably won’t get it or will get it and won’t like it.
By Coen standards, or really by any standards, the film itself is a piece of shit. Filmed indifferently, edited sloppily, acted in broad caricature. But this is deliberate, of course, because the Coens can get away with near anything, and because they are pointedly mocking films for which the standards here would be the apex.
Ultimately this kind of fluff is always a bit soul-wrecking, because to be affirmed in ones own hatred of everything seems an empty gesture.
Vicky Christina Barcelona
6 September, 2008
I hate Woody Allen, or at least recent Woody Allen. I went in to this film expecting to leave pissed off and completely disappointed that Javier Bardem had made yet another shit film.
And yet… Allen seems to have regained his stride. The film missteps once, with a signature Woody Allen terrible editing choice, but beyond that it is really exceptionally good.
Most striking is Penelope Cruz, who stalks the screen like an irrationally angry cat, and finally exercises the talent I knew she had to be capable of. Javier Bardem sharing a screen with her is quite something to behold, two people who are committed to their roles and utterly fluent in their expression of frustrated love.
All of the acting is superb, even from Miss Johansson, and everyone deftly handles the typically wordy Allen script. The familiar complex interrelationships are more gracefully awkward than they have been in an Allen film in quite some time, and the narration seems less grating and more friendly than I am accustomed to.
I suppose I will never love Woody Allen, but I do thoroughly enjoy this piece.
Children of Men
6 September, 2008
The editing and cinematography is astounding, even now, even on a small screen. It kicks me in the gut. The disinterest… the apathy. It isn’t a wandering camera, like in Neorealism, it is a dispassionate camera that is slowly drawn in. A camera that is slowly captured by the story-line, that follows the arc of Owen’s character’s development from pathetic waste to savior. Absolutely brilliant.
Marie Antoinette
6 September, 2008
I cannot figure out why I like this film so much. It’s pretty, yes. It’s filmed luxuriously and is incredibly well-costumed. The art direction is spectacular and the acting is superb. The editing is quite good, the music and the sound are all exceptional. But it lacks depth. I think. Maybe it only appears to be superficial. I can’t decide. The glossy sheen on it is deliberate, right? I am so confused. Sophia Coppola is either a genius, or a very spoiled girl who gets to play with very expensive toys.
It is the ending, really, that leaves me wondering whether what I just watched was what it seemed. So smart, so abrupt, so very very unexpected. But of course, Sophia knows how to end a film. We know this, from her earlier work. I think she starts from the ending and works back, to be honest. She has an image, something she knows will catch and stick, and builds backwards from it.
No Country For Old Men
10 August, 2008
I saw this again after having read the book. And all I can say is, the Coen boys have big giant weepy bleeding hearts next to Mr. Cormac McCarthy. It retains its brilliance, even seen small. Breathtaking, heartbreaking, and so filled with narrative perfection it almost makes me forget to breathe. Also, Tommy Lee Jones really ought to be used more appropriately. He is so very perfect in this role.
Hancock
10 August, 2008
Hancock is essentially two movies- one fairly decent one, one completely awful one- stuck together with thumbtacks, or perhaps a staple gun. The pacing is slapdash, and the story itself is all kinds of weird. There are some very pretty shots, and then there are things that seem as though they have been processed to the point of no longer retaining any ‘real’. The thing I really don’t get, though, is the number of reviews I read that said Will Smith had really put himself into this role, that he wasn’t just smiling and joking his way through. He wasn’t smiling big and dumb for the camera, but he was certainly having a good laugh over the whole ordeal. Anyhow. It’s barely passable, but it does have some hysterically funny moments. And Jason Bateman is loveable as always- I would like to see Bateman play a serial killer or something. Not really worth seeing, but if you’re bored, why not?
The Wackness
10 August, 2008
Essentially, this is the new Garden State, with better music and no Manic Pixie Dream Girl. I mostly saw it because I wanted to be creeped out by Ben Kingsley making out with Mary-Kate Olsen. Which did happen, but was not particularly creepy. It actually kind of made sense. And with her utter lack of talent, she’s going to have to find someone older and wiser to take care of her, because pretty soon people are going to stop paying for the novelty of having her around.
Maybe she should make out with Bob Saget. That would be creepy.
Anyhow. The film was enjoyable and cotton-candy light, without the sugarsick afterwards. Not bad, really. And Kingsley was having the time of his life, which was great to watch.
Werckmeister Harmonies
5 August, 2008
I drifted in and out of sleep while watching this and so I do not know for sure what happened, but it was beautiful and I awoke to compositional perfection and an enormous whale.
I will watch it again, I am quite sure.
Bela Tarr is a master of black and white cinematography, in a way that no one else is.
The Dark Knight
20 July, 2008
Ok, so I’ve seen it twice now. Appropriately projected on film once, projected on crappy crappy digital once. I don’t really remember much but Mr. Ledger’s performance. I don’t really need to remember much beyond that- the Joker will never be appropriately played again. The pacing, of course, because editing is Mr. Nolan’s forté, is exceptionally good, and surprising in ways that films don’t often surprise me any more. And there is a clever contrast between the limpid cinematography during the Joker’s ultraviolent escapades and the opaquely shot work of the Batman- enough of a contrast to bring Mr. Nolan’s own morality into question, though his other work has frequently done the same, so this is no surprise. The film also borrows a page from P.T. Anderson’s book (and, by proxy, David Lynch’s) in using, instead of overwrought tension-building music, an atmospheric whine at very appropriate junctures, and an utter lack of diegetic sound at others.
The film wants to be something more than it succeeds in being, unfortunately, though Nolan has gotten away with quite a lot. There is a choppiness in the last act- an inability to bring the story to a proper conclusion, that leaves me wanting. It is, by Hollywood standards, an exceptional film. But I prefer not to disrespect the celluloid by holding things up to such a short stick.
On a not completely related but certainly tangentially appropriate note, I would like to know how in g-d’s name they managed to control Mr. Ledger on the set, when he was not in front of the cameras. Had he lost his mind as thoroughly as it seemed? Or did he maintain control until the film wrapped, and then succumb to madness? Because he was mad, this much is clear. So very little of him was apparent in that role that I think he may have erased himself entirely. And that is the sort of thing from which one does not return.
