Theskull42's Bill Cosby AIDS Jesus Movie Reviews

Well, I didn't expect "No Country for Old Men" to be knocked from my top spot of '07

2007-12-25T20:46:00.001-08:00

And I sure as hell didn't expect Juno to be the one to do it. Going in, I was expecting a comedy about on par with Lars & the Real Girl, light, "cutesy indie comedy" that dealt in a roundabout way with the basic issues of life and love, with a really good actress, I would tear up a little, smile a little and put it in the 9-12 range [with the added twist that Juno is EXACTLY, not sort of, not "hey that kind of reminds me of her", EXACTLY like one of my very good friends]. But as it went on, I kept expecting the movie to turn somewhere, to lean even a little bit to the left or to the right, to give me a sense of cinema, to strike a note that was false, and every time it seemed like it was going to either tug on heartstrings [The divorce, and the suggestion of an almost possible love interest for Mark and her...I was dreading the eventual hesitant kiss and Vanessa finding them or pull a false happy ending [Using the divorce as an excuse, then her and Bleeker getting together, keeping the baby and a happily ever after no problems there she kept the baby yay! bullsh-t, and it just...never went there. It stayed right on the even keel, and I believed it every f-cking step of the way. This isn't Little Miss Sunshine with stock dysfunctional characters spouting arbitrary "wacky" symptoms, this is...life. And that's all it can be, and all it needs to be. Sweet, intelligent, sensible, good-natured, honest, and just...as good as that film could possibly have been with the possible exception of Ellen Page making out with me in a major Hollywood film. [Grade: A] [Rank in my now-Fifty-Six of 2007: #1] I can't stop smiling.

I'm Not There [2007, Haynes]

2007-11-24T23:15:00.000-08:00

Like a metaphysical remake of Scorsese's No Direction Home, the escalatingly great Todd Haynes's "Dylan Goes Palindromes" is quite a fascinatingly diverse portrayal of a fascinatingly diverse man.

The device of using six [or seven] different characters to represent the man, myth, legend, etc. that is Bob Dylan starts off seeming like a gimmick but comes off as almost assuredly the only possible way to assess such a stupefyingly complex man. Like a reverse-Sybil, some characters leave more of an impression than others, but all involved aquit themselves with varying levels of solid.

Cate Blanchett has now taken on the unenviable task of portaying two of our culture's most inimiatable icons, and her version of Bob Dylan is FAR more successful than her Katharine Hepburn, if only because instead of imitating speech patterns, she INHABITS the character, channeling rhythm instead of patterns, adopting mannerisms, reactions and the way Dylan carried himself in his most fertile period. She also looks startlingly similar to him with presumably little alteration, and because she DOESN'T really attempt to imitate his distinctive voice, she's the only one who really becomes Dylan.

The others are descending levels of quality, the little black kid [Marcus something] that pretends to be Woody Guthrie is Dylan's early years, aping Guthrie and Seeger, not moving forward within himself. That section more than any other is full of verbatim quotes from Dylan's life, and is amusing if you recognize them. Richard Gere's 'outlaw' of Billy the Kid is refreshingly high-quality, showing none of the typically flashy annoying quirks Gere usually exhibits, especially since he looks like Ye Olde Dude Lebowski .

Heath Ledger [as Dylan's 'superstar douchebag'] and Christian Bale [as 'the early years'] are less successful. Ledger rarely exudes any of the charisma that you would presume would make one that famous or attractive, and it's the most predictable section [full of the paparazzi and marital troubles normal 'star' movies contain]. Christian Bale's character is, like every Christian Bale character, flat and unremarkable.

I was going to say that it could use a half-hour trim or so, but I don't think that's the truth. I think more likely that there are just so many perfect places to end it that I just wanted it to finish on several lovely notes, and then it doesn't end on one of those perfect notes, but still ends quite well.

I realize this has been a rambling review, but this is a rambling film about a rambling man.

[My 40th film of 2007 is my #4 film of 2007] [Grade: B+]

Girls in Uniform (1931); Zero for Conduct (1933)

2007-09-24T13:53:00.000-07:00

Girls in Uniform: Although the VHS tape was old and worn-down, the picture skipped a bit on quite a few occasions, and the subtitles were mind-numbingly difficult to read [I can't figure out who decided white subtitles laid over a black-and-white picture with very little black was a good idea], but what I COULD see, I liked a lot. It was an interesting look at a taboo subject loooong before it became acceptable to talk about it, and with the eroticism that flares up during each time two women gaze into each other's eyes with their noses touching, knowing at least one of them is enjoying it in a sexual sense, in addition to the jabs at fascism, you can imagine why 1931 America and 1931 Germany were not pleased with this film, and it was unseen for a long time. The film is one of the least-awkward films pertaining to sound either, the camera and the people move, and the film takes as many excuses as it can to show music [someone playing a record, the choir singing, etc.].

Nothing life changing, but quite a quality film. I liked it. B

Zero for Conduct: It's like If..., except instead of monotonous schoolboy bickering with an awkward, nonsensical ending, we get an inventive, vivacious, hysterical, charming, amazing film that features fabulous sequence after fabulous sequence, plus a stunningly beautiful slow-motion sequence involving feather pillows and a tyrannical midget leader with a giant beard! I mean, what the hell more could you want?!? Finally a film of substance to put alongside Duck Soup in the "best of '33" [I love Gold Diggers of 1933, but I wouldn't dare suggest it was a story-oriented film [laugh]

This film exhibits the tragedy of losing Jean Vigo I think far more than L'Atalante, which was charming but failed to linger in my mind past its viewing. This film is just sheer exuberance. AND HAS A TYRANNICAL MIDGET WITH A HUGE BEARD! A -

Zorn's Lemma (Frampton, 1970)

2007-08-28T01:19:00.001-07:00

It's like the opposite of a lot of Stan Brakhage's films, which are more like...being a baby and just watching the pretty colors, this film has literally approximated how to LEARN.

The film starts off with someone reading over a black screen a basic grammar book, followed by 45 minutes cycling through shots of words starting with each letter of the alphabet (i.e., a shop window with the word "Acme", "Barber" on a shop window, a sign that reads "Canvas") (although there's only 24 letters, I'll have to do some reading up to find out why), and, after numerous run-throughs, every so often, one of the letters is replaced by an image, and, after more than a few times, you come to associate the letter with the image, and expect that picture to show up when that letter is going to come around (i.e., a bonfire for the letter "X", and the rest of the film features two people reading some work, each alternating saying one word, while some people walk through the snow, I guess symbolizing the point where we understands words enough that substitutional symbols are no longer necessary, and we base it on the words themselves. That I'm not sure about, but that's my initial reaction.

Really quite fascinating. (I downloaded a torrent, then found it online *rolls eyes*, ON GOOGLE!) but yeah, great stuff if you're of the intellectual, avant-garde persuasion.

Also, this was my 600th film off the "They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?" top 1000, a great film to achieve the milestone with.

Eraserhead (1977)

2007-06-29T22:12:00.000-07:00

Supposedly one of the best films ever made, a film from a director I love (David Lynch), in a genre I love (surrealism), and a director who I have seen do this genre to staggering effect before.

A slam dunk, right?

Wrong.

Lacking Bunuel's commentary, Godard's love of experimentation and cinema, or even the demented mystery of Lynch's own Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet, Eraserhead is dead on arrival. Surrealism is nothing without either relaying an ethos or pushing a boundary, and this film did neither. Bunuel's surrealism was as off-the-wall as this, but he was railing against the Catholic church and bourgeoisie society. Brakhage's films were far more difficult than anything Lynch has ever DREAMED of (obviously ), and even though I don't enjoy them, I admire him for taking chances and trying something new and different. Godard is fascinated by the boundaries of cinema and how to extend them, and what characters can do, say and be thereof. This film wasn't even strong enough to pretend to have an ethos like the drunk teenager of surrealism, Cocteau's Blood of a Poet (which includes an opening scroll saying, "If you don't get it, it's on YOU!"). Eraserhead comes off as empty and offhanded, and thus takes on the appearance and lingering disappointment of a mediocre student film from a student you've seen so much better from. It has been stated that Lynch attempted to film a dream, but is that not what every amateur filmmaker is doing when he runs out of interesting or challenging ideas? Just string a bunch of random images together and hope people posit "deeper meanings"? If the film is meant to emulate a dream, it does, as fades from memory just as fast. The only difference between this and one of my dreams is, at least in my dreams, I get to see people I know.

A downhearted D.

Sicko (2007)

2007-06-28T18:57:00.000-07:00

Easily the best thing Moore's ever done, and the closest to a real documentary, he refrains from falsely or unsubstantiated attack (which weakened a lot of the entertaining, important things about Bowling for Columbine, and was essentially all Fahrenheit 9/11 WAS), and devotes about 10 whole seconds to self-congradulations, at the very end, as an afterthought (as opposed to An Inconvenient Truth, another documentary about a very important issue delivered by a divisive Liberal, in which an important issue was clouded by how self-congraduatory and self-obsessed Gore was). An important, downbeat topic handled with Moore's usual ironic wit, but, as mentioned, with a lot less aggrandizing and unsubstantiated finger-pointing than Moore is known for using. Amazing movie though, and, along with The Power of Nightmares, you might owe it to yourself to see this film.

Once (2007)

2007-06-22T21:36:00.000-07:00

VH1 has these things they call "You Oughta Know" videos, which are generally generic no-name acoustic guitarists that sound like everyone else.

And my god, Once was like the longest, most generic, patience-testing VH1 "You Oughta Know" music video ever, and I was in a theater, desperately wishing I could find the remote so I could switch to MTV for the latest Justin Timberlake video.

I don't like watching films that I think I could have made myself over a weekend, and this was exactly that. I have friends who strum acoustic guitar and write songs about their ex-girlfriends too, and most of them just sound like this guy, and, not coincidentally, the only song that I really thought was any good WASN'T WRITTEN BY THEM, it was written by a man you may have heard of named Van Morrison.

Also, they insist on showing every second of every single note of every single generic, samey song. And this isn't a musical like old Hollywood musicals that are interesting and clever and take place during fantastic set-pieces of complex dance numbers and all sorts of wonderfully choreographed shots, this was just them sitting there singing.

It was a bit innocuous but decent at first, but I cringed as YET ANOTHER F-CKING SONG came on. My dad would laugh as every new (but stridently similar) song came on and brought out a round of heavy sighs and eye-rolling from me.

We almost saw Knocked Up. I can only fantasize about what might have been.

A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

2007-06-14T23:31:00.001-07:00

Perhaps the film failed to engage me as it could have if every single couple/'parents' I ever dealt with in my circle of friends had parents that were far crazier and more violent and crazy than anything this couple did. My parents divorced when I was 8 and although my dad was always sane, sensible and calm, of course I didn't live with him, I lived with my mom who is potentially bipolar Anyway, I've visited friends houses and feared for my life numerous times. So a mom acting weird and a dad yelling didn't seem all that remarkable to me, and especially not for as long as this film went on. It finally got close to things I've experienced, but by the time, it was just...eh, just went on and on.

Solid but not necessarily difficult performances from Falk and Rowland, these are the kids of performances that are nuanced but relatively easy to perform well.

So, in what amounts to "stay together for the kids", but they decided to actually try to, as opposed to anyone I ever knew.

Just like Mouchette, where the girl's life was bad, but not as bad as my own life, and Aguirre: The Wrath of God, where the guy was definitely driven but not quite "crazy", the extremity of my own experience negative the power of the extremity of this experience. B- because it's not the film's fault. [#16 in my Nineteen of '74 (which was an unnaturally loaded year anyway]

June 14, 2007

2007-06-14T18:45:00.000-07:00

A Nous la Liberte / Freedom for Us (1931): A fun little movie from that most fun of directors, Rene Clair, a prerequisite, a dry-run, if you will, for Chaplin's Modern Times (a film that was sued for being too similar, but I really don't see it; other than the industrial theme, they're fairly different films). Clair also maintained a safe distance from that suit, and maintained a friendship with Chaplin throughout. It's a funny little satire of factory life. Two men are in prison. During an escape plan, something goes wrong, and only one escapes. The other one gets out later and finds that his friend has become a big industrialist, and gets a job in his factory, and finds the job pretty much exactly like the one he had in prison. There's some amusing sets and sight gags, but it's not mined for as much comedy as Modern Times or Clair's other 1931 gem, the fantastically nutty The Million. B- [#6 in my Six of '31]

Pierrot le Fou (1965): If I made movies, they would probably look a lot like Pierrot le Fou. A completely offhand, a completely haphazard, an almost completely improvised film. If you're trying to follow a story, the film will give you whiplash, but if you're willing to sit back and enjoy the absurdity, and Godard's character's ever-present self-conscious knowledge of their own cinematic limitations (Belmondo looks toward the camera and says, "All she thinks about is money." "Who are you talking to?" "The audience.", and they never mention it again. Also, they somehow get stuck on an island, and in the middle, Karenina says, "This is enough Jules Verne, let's get back to our gangster picture.", and suddenly, they're off the island.) The threadbare, unimportant strands of plot you do pick up seem like they've been edited from a completely different, Hollywood movie. Serious happenings (i.e., murders, thefts) come out of nowhere, and even they are handled goofily (to steal gas, Karenina goes to the attendant, points skyward, and punches him in the stomach, mentioning she'd seen it in a Laurel & Hardy movie) It's apparent Karenina has killed at least two people (including a midget (!)), and that's all you need to know. Go see this, it's awesome. A [#1 in my Seven of '65, ahead of, appropriately, Godard's Alphaville]

Rome: Open City (1945): A film that, to my eyes, is one of those films that is more important than good. The story of Rossellini going around, collecting tiny scraps and ends of film to make this film is a fascinating story that I would be much more interested to see than this decent but disjointed and meandering melodrama. The film is famous for essentially having invented the Italian neorealist movement, a movement he himself would work in for quite sometime, it is a very important and influential movie, but then again, so was The Wild One, and I don't have much desire to see either of these again. Rossellini would improve on this formula and make a more captivating motion picture almost immediately, with the easily more immediate, gripping and fascinating Germany: Year Zero two years later. C+ [#7 in my Ten of '45]

Quick shot...

2007-06-14T13:41:00.001-07:00

Leolo (1993): A fabulous film, a fantasy coming-of-age tale that doesn't shy away from the harshness of reality, there's a lot of funny fantasy stuff (such as his father not being his father because he's fat and crazy, and he positing that his real father, a Sicilian, masturbated on a crate of tomatoes that got sent to his town, had his mom fall on the tomatoes, one went up her skirt and impregnated her), and yet, there's bestiality (not in a fun sense, poor kitty), attempted murder, clinical dementia, bullying (in a fairly sad scene) and LOTS and LOTS of defecation. Amazingly fun movie. A

Hour of the Star (1985): A remarkable portrayal of a completely unremarkable person, a look at a shy, ignorant, possibly mentally retarded young woman who is so blissfully unaware that she works as a typist, is terrible, and doesn't even realize it. Other than the random, unrealistic final shot, the entire film is beautiful in the fact that nothing really happens. Also, the film exhibits how ignorance may be bliss, but when something like heartsickness (however non-romantic the relationship was) rears it head, it just is more confusing, leading to her taking lots of aspirin. Anyway, beautiful little movie. A-

Forty-Eight Hours (1982): A fun film, one of the few films that really exhibits the hallmarks of both a good action movie and a good comedy. It's a solid 25 minutes before Eddie Murphy even shows up, and there are very real, very dangerous situations despite peppering some huge guffaws in-between, enjoyable movie with his rewatch value. B

Summore.

2007-06-12T18:44:00.000-07:00

Man of the West (1958): A fabulous near-Greek tragedy of a Western, and possibly the greatest film in the genre I have ever seen; a fascinating, complex piece of work with a fascinating, complex performance from Gary Cooper. It's a bit stagy, especially in the form of Lee J. Cobb, but, yeah, damn good. B+ [#3 of the Eight of '58]

Ace in the Hole (1951): Another fascinatingly complex tale, but this time, about the decisions one makes and about what constitutes acceptable morals, and whether one would sacrifice all morality for a good story. B+ [#5 in the Twelve of '51]

Stan Brakhage: An Anthonlogy: Disc 2

2007-06-12T15:16:00.000-07:00

I was surprised to find that Gregory P. Dorr of DVD Journal shared pretty much my exact sentiments on every single one of these films, so I'll just be lazy and reproduce his here instead of re-wording it and passing it off as my own:

Cat's Cradle (6:26) — One of the least interesting pieces in the collection, Brakhage describes the short as "Sexual witchcraft involving two couples and a 'medium' cat," which oversells this sexless and impenetrable montage.

Window Water Baby Moving (12:13) — The most emotionally felt of Brakhage's short films, this affectionate and awe-filled mediation on pregnancy contains some moments of pure beauty despite its fascination with the more clinical details of childbirth. Interestingly, while Brakhage usually obscures the naked body with visual effects or superimpositions, he offers no such mask for the pregnant body, approaching it with a sense of delicacy rare to his work.

Mothlight (3:14) — A neat visual experiment. Brakhage made this film by pasting the wings (and sometimes bodies) of moths to his film, creating a high-speed, flickering entomology show. One of the benefits of this DVD set is the ability to step through this brief film frame-by-frame for a closer look at its unique craft.

Eye Myth (0:09) — Stan Brakhage gets it right (even if his description of this film sounds like prefab intellectual bullshit): take an intriguing visual concept, make it happen, and then let it end, naturally. At only nine seconds, this is the shortest film in the collection and, therefore, one of the best, as Brakhage never allows himself a chance to ruin it.

The Wold Shadow (2:28) — While this mixture of nature footage and painting foreshadows the reliance on painting for most of Brakhage's later work, the director's audio comments preceding this film offer more insight into his particular craft than any of his films. Inadvertently exposing the aura of pretentiousness attached to his career, he explains his process thus: "You think you're doing this, it turns out you're doing that and, really, but on the other hand, you were doing what you originally thought you were doing, except it's not at all what you thought you were doing." If this is true, and Brakhage's work is really (as it seems) unplanned execution of a creative aesthetic impulse, then all of the painstakingly unconvincing textual analyses by the artist himself and his admirers is betrayed as the mental masturbation it sounds like. Further, when asked if the obscurity of his symbolism is lost on audiences, Brakhage, a student of Freud, makes a telling admission already obvious to the cynic: "I don't need an audience at all."

Garden of Earthly Delights (1:27) — Similar to Mothlight, Garden uses vegetation glued to the film for its admirable effect, as is as well worthy of frame-by-frame enjoyment.

The Stars are Beautiful (18:32) — Brakhage breaks his silence by narrating this uninspired juxtaposition of footage of a chicken having its wings clipped and a series of creation myths invented by the director. If the tired and awkward narration is anything like Brakhage's poetry, it's no wonder he describes himself as "a frustrated poet;" it's dire, juvenile and his voice is sleep-inducing and this one seems to go on forever.

Kindering (2:52) — Although Brakhage's tendency toward silent movies may wear on viewers with antsy senses craving some aural interaction, 1987's Kindering is a prime example of why his work is often better off mute. This distorted footage of his grandchildren at play is accompanied by the obvious and sophomoric juxtaposition of discordant music and the sounds of childhood recreation. Odd that an "experimental" film would mimic a gimmick already employed by The Amityville Horror.

I… Dreaming (6:36) — Mainstream depictions of dream life often stumble upon the same pratfalls of pretentious symbolism that experimental films already deal with on a scene-by-scene basis. It's difficult, then, to imagine what about dream life could be particularly inspiring to an avant garde director like Brakhage. Nevertheless, this uninteresting montage does feature some of his better photography (though most of it is still, like the rest of his straightforward camera work, largely flat and undistinguished). Includes a soundtrack of disjointed Stephen Foster music.

The Dante Quartet (6:05) — The first of Brakhage's hand-painted films in this collection, Dante, like the others, features some standout frames, but plays like a superfast montage of abstract paintings, which gets a bit dull after 30 seconds. To be fair, however, the better moments in this four-part series come toward the end. Still.

Nightmusic (:32) — Another hand-painted film; this one is only two seconds too long.

Rage Net (:52) — More hand-painting.

Glaze of Cathexis (2:59) — More hand-painting; this time with an obscure Freudian pretext that fails to distinguish it from the others in this genre of Brakhage's oeuvre.

Delicacies of Molten Horror Synapse (8:19) — Despite sporting the best title of all the films in this collection, it is saddled with this cumbersome description by Brakhage: "Four superimposed rolls of hand-painted and bi-packed television negative imagery are edited so as to approximate the hypnagogic process whereby the optic nerves resist grotesque infusions of luminescent light." Well, duh.

Untitled (For Marilyn) (10:34) — Brakhage describes this hand-painted film as "thanks and praise to God." Unless, that is, if God fell asleep during The Stars are Beautiful.

Black Ice (2:05) — Yet another hand-painted film with an explanation that fails to make it look any different from the others.

Study in Color and Black and White (1:37) — Nothing of the sort. Again, hand-painted.

Stellar (2:20) — One of the better hand-painted films, mostly due to its different visual approach.

Crack Glass Eulogy (6:06) — A break from the string of hand-painted films that precede it, but not as interesting visually with its dull manipulations of city photography.

The Dark Tower (2:21) — Grandiosely listed as "An homage to all the dark towers in literary history," there must be one or two dark towers unfairly left out of this severe hand-painted montage, amongst his more bracing work in this arena.

Commingled Containers (2:42) — A few photographic tricks with light and water played over and over and over again. It's Brakhage's lack of building rhythm in his editing that kills some of these shorter films.

Love Song (10:49) — "A hand painted visualization of sex in the mind's eye." Unlikely to give your mind's eye a boner, but some of the colors are nice; although not nice enough for 10 fricking minutes of yet another montage of abstract paintings. Brakhage is coasting.

Gays & Girls in Prison

2007-06-12T15:05:00.001-07:00

Hell's Highway (1932): A bit of a baby brother to I Am a Fugitive in a Chain Gang (despite being released first), this was an interesting, gritty look at why you didn't want to commit a crime in Georgia. B-

Ladies They Talk About (1933): A fun, interesting movie with the always great and supercute Barbara Stanwyck, despite the fact that jail in this film is presented as what amounts to a day spa, with women singing, getting their hair done, and just occasionally having disagreements. Slight but fun. C+

Caged (1950): A B-picture yarn that is FAR more effective and quality than it has any right to be, this film is pretty much known as the best of the "women in prison" movies, and it shows. The film is fabulously acted (including a few Oscar nods), well-plotted and realistic. A major high five for this one. B+

Le Weekend.

2007-06-10T20:13:00.000-07:00

Paris, Texas (1984): A deceptively simple and ponderously brilliant and moving slow-burner of a film, my second Wim Wenders is nearly as great as my first (Wings of Desire); Like the film, Harry Dean Stanton turns in a tremendous performance that is wonderfully enigmatic, and the rest of the cast turns in equally excellent work (although Nastassja Kinski fades in and out of her German accent in the film's stunningly earnest, emotional climax), and although I thought the last turn of events was a bit of a stretch it had to go somewhere, and I give the film credit for not going for the cheap shock to generate drama (although it seemed like it kept threatening to), an amazing film that falls just short of the crown of 1984 (thanks to Amadeus): A [#2 of the Thirteen of '84]

The Sadist (1963): With an opening that more than resembled the opening of Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the film failed to deliver on that film's terrifying insanity as, instead of a chainsaw-wielding, leather-faced maniac with an equally maniacal family, we get...a sniveling idiot and his little girlfriend. Bad deal for the three teachers that get stuck, broke down at his farmhouse. I never really generated a lot of sympathy for the teachers, as they were mostly one-dimensional, and thus, I was never tense when Arch Hall, Jr. threatened to shoot them, and the film was also a slow-burner, but in a negative way. C [#12 of the Thirteen of '63]

The Mangler (1995): From a film that resembles Tobe Hooper, to a Tobe Hooper film that resembles a shoulda-been MST3K film. In idea, it doesn't seem like the film could fail, either as a good film (improbable, but possibly a pleasant surprise) or a so-bad-it's-good film (it's about a giant possessed killer laundry folding machine), but, other than a few amusing isolated incidents (ever wanted to see two grown men wrestle a KILLER antique icebox?) and it has a few wonderfully surreal Gothic touches (which runs it courses about ten minutes in), the film is mostly bogged down in insipid plot strands and downright dull chatter (Any references to the "missing finger club" or the Belladonna Tums in his 108-minute film is definitely for the better), and the film even, for the most part, fails to deliver on the gore to at least satiate one situation (very few people actually get forced through the evil laundry folder, and when it finally gets a juicy chance to be interesting and kill off a main character, the laundry machine gets dishearteningly gunshy before, in one of the film's amusingly preposterous scenes, the three-ton behemoth begins CHASING our protagonists. Even this the film can't do right, and proceeds to spend an extra ten minutes wrapping up plot holes too big and unimportant for me to recite here. D [#42 in the Forty-Two of '95]

Black Orpheus (1959): An inspired retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth set during Carnival, the film is a mostly uninspired travelogue, treading water, for the first hour and a half before finally kicking into interesting gear late in the film in the "underworld" portion of the story. A vibrantly colorful and lively film that doesn't really work as a narrative. It may be more than a familiar tune, but it's the same ol' story. C+ [#14 in the Seventeen of '59]

More...

2007-06-08T13:26:00.000-07:00

Scorpio Rising (1964): A fabulous, fascinating, groundbreaking short film that broke that ground in the forums of ironic juxtapositions of music to screen, and a great almost sarcastic 'outing' of biker culture. Wonderful. A

The Conformist (1970): Although I wasn't blown away by the narrative, it had a pretty crazy ending and the compositions and cinematography is some of the greatest I've seen in my life. Some of those shots man, whew. Anyway, thought it was interesting, and Dominique Sanda might have the most beautiful mouth in the history of cinema. It's refreshing to find a director that knows that eroticism takes more than just tits and intercourse. He's a sexual director for those of us who thought the beach story from Persona was the most erotic thing they'd ever heard, me included. Well done, Bernardo, well done. A- [#2 in the Eight of 1970] (Two months ago, I had seen two films from '70, and, through no deliberate choosing, I have seen six since, and all six of them have been sandwhiched between MASH and The Arisocats (my #s 1 and 8, respectively )

Seven Men from Now (1956): A upper-level traditionalist western with a fascinatingly vengeful performance by Randolph Scott and a few extra twists and turns, pleasantly surprising in such a staid genre. B [#6 in the Ten of '56]

The Leopard (1963): Sumptuously beautiful but languid, lugubriously talky, sleep-inducing affair. Like a less-interesting Italian Gone with the Wind, or, from the same year, a less-interesting The Cardinal: C+ [11th in the Twelve of '63]

More.

2007-06-07T18:22:00.000-07:00

Queen Christina (1933): Well-acted, but plodding and stagy drama with a lot more interesting undertones about homosexuality (including the suggested relationship between Christina and the other woman, and the interesting way with which the Spaniard reacts both before and after he discovers Christina is not a man (in the least-convincing "manly" get-up OF ALL TIME. She literally just...puts a hat on.). Meh. C+ [6th in the 7 of '33]

Wonder Bar (1934): Another film that is mostly famous for notably pushing the boundaries of sexuality in film, with a joke that was surely at the time just an offhand bit of naughtiness, but has since become a gay hallmark (A VERY effeminate man with a wispy little mustache comes to a dancing couple, asks if he can dance, and then takes off with the man, as Al Jolson jokes, "Boys will be boys!").

This film was right as the Hayes Code was beginning, and so pushes a LOT of boundaries that would have been unthinkable just six months later. It's fascinating just how many taboos the film flaunts, as it includes homosexuals (the aforementioned), sado-masochists (the entire whip number), suicidals (Renaud), gigolos (Harry), murderers (Inez, who is allowed to get away with murder) and an incredibly LONG (goes on for over 10 minutes!), incredibly racist number about a black farmer and his mule going to Black Heaven and seeing black angles, with everyone in blackface. There's also a couple of preposterously fabulous Busby Berkeley numbers, and Al Jolson makes everything better (it goes against my better judgment, but the song during the blackface number was excellent, ha) I'm totally flabbergasted at this film, and I love every minute. B [4th in the 5 of '34]

How Green Was My Valley (1941): A Best Picture winner that, at this point in time, is more famous because of the film that didn't win as opposed to any statement about its quality. This film won the Best Picture Oscar in 1941, beating out The Maltese Falcon, Suspicion, and The Little Foxes, but will forever be known as "The Film That Beat Citizen Kane", and that's partly the film's fault. It's a solid "good" movie, the kind that has no glaring faults in acting, writing, directing or staging, but just seems like one of many solid "good" 'poor, working man' British dramas around the same period. It doesn't stick out amongst the pack, and although I own this movie, I hadn't gotten around to it until now, and I only own it because I bought it in a pack because I wanted Sunrise and couldn't find it anywhere else. Worth a watch, but no staggering classic. B- [7th of Ten of '41]

Stan Brakhage: An Anthology

2007-06-07T13:49:00.000-07:00

I have to say, I didn't like Dog Star Man as much as the other three films.

The film is fascinating in small amounts, and I was with it for a while, but I think this could be a lot more impactful at 7 minutes rather than 75, and although it's definitely artistic and interesting and in a technical sense is quite impressive (that's a LOT of cutting, scratching and footage), but I got the message early on and I understand his attempt to create essentially the entire experience of life with literary connotations as well, but brevity would, in my opinion, have served it well. I think if I could have talked to Brakhage, during and after the film (i.e., he grew up and taught here in Colorado up in Boulder, and I feel too bad that I was not able to join something up there before he died in 2003), I could have gotten perhaps more out of it.

Anyway, the other three shorts I watched were more interesting, the first two of which dealt with keying in on specific senses purely and alone: Desistfilm is essentially a bunch of shots of beatniks sitting around being bored, but the sound (a brash dissonance of almost insect-like buzzing and it almost gives you the feeling that you're a fly watching these other beings interact and don't understand what is going on.

Wedlock House: An Intercourse focuses on his more usual sense: sight. The film is a series of quick, glancing shots of a couple in their early experience of marriage, and whether it "says" anything is unimportant, as its mostly just fascinating to watch and ends fairly quickly.

And finally, on the topic of what films "say", The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes is funny in the sense that people assume that, just because someone as experimental as Brakhage filmed it, it must have some metaphorical meaning, when in fact it's simply a look. The film is a pure documentary exhibiting autopsies, and all the gory details therein. It's easier to watch than Franju's The Blood of the Beast, mostly because they're already dead and not being turned into food, but if blood or bodily functions make you squeamish, this isn't exactly your film.

Dancer in the Dark (2000)

2007-06-06T15:04:00.000-07:00

What a fascinating motion picture. Even when it fails to be plausible, it is never boring, never fails to be interesting and captivating.

But as it goes along, you realize it's not making an ATTEMPT to be plausible. In fact, it's directly going against plausibility. It becomes more and more clear that this was a conscious decision to revive two long-dead Hollywood art forms, the musical, and the tragic melodrama. Anyone who complains about failures in plausibility is missing the point. People don't just break out into song in real life either. This is a tragic, melodramatic story of an innocent railroaded into a crime and has to pay the price. The fact that she occasionally breaks out into song in fanciful, vibrant numbers is almost expected considering the director and star.

As much as I dislike Lars von Trier as a person, and his views and beliefs, I must say that the man is a fabulous, fearless genius who always makes films full of life AND death, films both vibrant and morose, many times in the same scene, and this film exhibits this in a very literal sense.

It saddens me that when you mention Bjork's name to most of the general mainstream public, their first thoughts are 1) swan dress, 2) beating up a photographer 3) Iceland! 4) apparent singer. She consistently puts out breathtakingly brilliant albums, and her acting is no different. It's certainly too bad that she has sworn off movies after this, because she inhibits this character with every fibre of her being, moreso than 90% of film actors around.

Whether or not it always works (I'm of the camp that it most certainly does), I would be amazed to find someone that could call this film boring and uninteresting, and if I could, I don't know that I want to. A [Currently #4 in my Fifty-Eight of 2000]

Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968)

2007-06-06T13:52:00.000-07:00

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0296881/

Where is the line? That's what this documentary has gone out to Central Park to attempt to find out. This is a documentary about...the nature of truth, script and honesty of film. The movie starts with the director, cast and crew on a sunny day making a movie he says is called Over the Cliff, and director William Greaves has three cameras: one filming the scripted actors, one filming the crew as they film the actors, and the third recording the entire scene, including passesby who stopped to watch, but then, there's something else here...and all the crew is pissed and everybody makes small talk and complains on camera about him, but there's no definite truth about what is staged, what is real and what comes through as both. So where is the line? Outside of the people involved (and even then, I doubt it fully) know what is objective truth here. A seemingly simple film that brings up as many questions as seconds in the film's running time. Staggering. A+

A few more...

2007-06-06T12:34:00.000-07:00

Hard Eight (1996)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119256/
Paul Thomas Anderson, who has made three of my all-time favorite films with his second, third and fourth films (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Punch-Drunk Love) has disappointed me with his first. A film that bears the glorious style and fabulous acting of an Anderson film, but missing the brilliant writing and epic scale, and also bears all the hallmarks of a short film blown to feature length. Philip Baker Hall is still the man, though, and I can't wait to see Secret Honor. C+ [18th in my Forty of '96]

Saps at Sea (1940)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033022/
A fun, slight little Laurel & Hardy B-picture that include a bunch of amusingly obnoxious set-pieces (they work in a horn factory!) and is under an hour, guaranteeing it doesn't overstay it's welcome. A fair stopgap for watching better films. C+ [14th in my Fourteen of '40]

Fearless (2006):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0446059/
As expected from a Jet Li movie, there are some vicious fight scenes. Sadly, a lot of lame, cliched, simply-written drama fills up the rest. It was a decent way to spend 100 minutes, but certainly not worth sitting through again (just watch Hero or Once Upon a Time in China if you'd like to see fabulous Jet Li fights coupled with an actually compelling bit of storytelling. C+ [37th in my Fifty-Three of '06]

A trio of excellent Russian silents...

2007-06-05T13:43:00.000-07:00

Earth (1930, Aleksandr Dovzhenko): A startling, bombastic paean to both technology and the soil, the film was amusingly referred to in one review as "tractor porn", and the near-orgasmic montage of reactions when the tractor first arrives doesn't do much to dissuade that claim. As the film states itself at the beginning, the plot is fairly wispy and secondary to the breathtaking imagery, and 'tis, a breathtaking film (plus it has more nudity than Titanic!). A- [#2 in my Four of '30]

The End of St. Petersburg (1927, Vsevolod Pudovkin): Made to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Oktober Revolution, the film shows a farmer turning into a worker in a horrid factory, mindless capitalism (crazy ass stockbrockers), Russia's entrance into World War I, and then the big bang of Oktober. It's certainly not a subtle film (they announce they they're going to war fighting for the Czar and money!), but there's some exhilarating images and some spectacularly dynamic editing, and you can feel the fact that Pudovkin just loves making films. And usually, directors that exude that sheer joy, one can see it in their films, and this one shows. B+ [#10 in my Seventeen of Pre-1930]

Chess Fever (1925, Vsevolod Pudovkin): A man has become totally addicted to chess, to the point that his fiancee decides to break off their marriage. She's convinced it breaks up families, a point illustrated to ridiculous and hilarious lengths (including attempting to poison herself and finding the poison in a chess-piece-shaped bottle). I think I probably could have connected with it more had I been a chess player, but even on a base level, without a knowledge of the game, Chess Fever is a fun, brief, very funny little short. A-

2007-06-04T15:07:00.000-07:00

Broadway Danny Rose (1984):
It was a great "Woody Allen Film", and like all great Woody Allen Films, it was turns bittersweet, hilarious and touching. A-, #3 in my now #12 of '84 (behind two of my all-time favorite films, Amadeus and Once Upon a Time in America): A- [3rd of 12 films of '84]

The Long Goodbye (1973):
And I have to say, I wasn't that into it.

It mostly just seemed like a pretty standard film noir, with snappy dialogue and a convoluted plot.

I usually like Elliot Gould, but I was just not a fan of his Marlowe here. This is not Philip Marlowe, it's just some guy with his name. Hell, I prefer Dick Powell's wimpy but charismatic essaying of the character to this. He has nothing to do, makes no stances and is mostly just there. The wisecracks come off as annoying rather than clever and funny, and the plot is a standard bore noir.

I dunno, I just never connected with it on a single level, and I've read that many of the problems I had were Altman's intentions, and, then I have to say he made the movie he wanted to make, I just wasn't a fan.

Still count Altman amongst my favorite directors, but this is my least-favorite, at least until I see some of his real missteps. C- [13th of 16 films of '73]

The Man from Laramie (1955):
A fascinating western with refreshingly complex characterization (i.e., the characters aren't all just white-hat good guys and black-hat bad guys). The bit of a romance is a bit half-baked, but they don't take it as far as some, thus, it doesn't become much of a problem. Excellent film. B+ [9th of 19 films of '55]

The Shop Around the Corner (1940):
One of the movies that keeps avoiding me, but I finally got it, and it was a charming, beautiful, lovely little romantic picture. High five. B+ [8th of 13 of '40]

Hostel, Part II (2007)

2007-05-31T00:49:00.000-07:00

Man, did hanging out with real talented filmmakers during Grindhouse rub off on Eli Roth or something?

The original film was a worthless cacophony of breasts, poor writing and cheesy gore effects, made all the more insufferable by the horrendous pricks our protagonists were.

I wanted to watch this to perhaps supplant Bug as my "worst picture" of this year so far (because it's not a terrible film, and I think doesn't deserve that designation), but this...this was a SHOCKINGLY solid, shockingly entertaining, shockingly WELL-WRITTEN (for its genre) motion picture.

The first movie's turns were completely obvious, and when they weren't, they were downright stupid. (Did anyone really enjoy the margarine coming out of the eye? THAT'S good gore to you?)

This film is almost a virtual remake of the first, but instead of obnoxious one-dimensional men we hate going through predictable motions, we get (mostly) amiable protagonists going through twists and turns, and these three women and two men are SHOCKINGLY fleshed out to the point where they really are real actual living beings with brains. There's also quite a few scenes of *gasp* actual suspense!

I wonder if Eli Roth watched Turistas last year, because that film was similar to his, but improved on it in every way, and this film improves on Turistas in pretty much every way. There's amazingly little gore and amazingly even less nudity, considering (I'll allow him the one orgy gore fantasy, it's fun), and if not for the fact that he couldn't resist one goofily fake prop, it's one of the higher echelon in 00s horror (a list that is terribly short).

I would bet that if you but someone who had no idea in a room, and had them watch both of these films sans title card, and told them one of the films was a sequel to the other, and asked which one, I'd be shocked if any of them picked the first.

This film is more inspired, more intelligent and more well-written than the worst one could even think of being.

I give it a stunning B-, #7 of my now-16 in a mostly-weak-but-not-bad-so-far year...

Bug (2007)

2007-05-30T21:38:00.000-07:00

What an amazingly frustrating movie. Not since Man of the Year have I seen such a schizophrenic motion picture.

The first hour is a fantastic character study, the awkwardness with which people just meeting each other talk, the half-words where you're unsure, trying to feel out, the innocuous chatter, and, once they got together, the fact that they didn't cover themselves naked (since they've already had sex!), everything was pitch-perfect, well-written, well-acted and well-done.

But then, apparently the screenwriter was fired, and the producer that bankrolled much of the film insisted his 15-year-old son was a genius, and had written a fantastic story about crazy people thinking they're covered in bugs, that they HAD to adapt into a film or he wouldn't back them. So they figured, since they had already shot much of this fantastic indie character study, they'd just segue them and everyone would be happy.

Well, think again. It's very noticeable when the shift goes from the good mvoie to the bad movie, and like a friend starting to smoke crack, it's depressing how very apparently and immediate the downward spiral is, and all you can do is sit by and wait for it to end.

The movie is suddenly, jarringly poorly-written, poorly-acted and poorly-plotted, and just gets progressively sillier and stupider, then almost threatens to become interesting, but shows it was just kidding, and ends about how you'd expect a 15-year-old to end a story he didn't know how to end.

The decline is so staggering, that it's easily the worst film I've seen all year.

28 Weeks Later (2007)

2007-05-29T19:55:00.000-07:00

The lack of characterization kills this film.

My thoughts parallel James Berardinelli's:

28 Days Later, while not terribly original, was suspenseful and involving. 28 Weeks Later is neither. The characters aren't as sympathetic or interesting. The kids are generic and the script doesn't care much about the adults. Robert Carlyle, Catherine McCormack, and Rose Byrne are criminally underused. Compare them to Cillian Murphy, Naomie Harris, and Brendan Gleeson from the first film, all of whom inhabited better developed and more sympathetic personalities. Tension in horror movies results from viewers caring about what happens to characters. The audience's connection to the protagonists of 28 Days Later made it a compelling experience. The lack of such a connection in 28 Weeks Later reduces this to a number of sequences characterized by shock moments, frenetic (and often chaotic) action, and stylized gore - all without suspense.

And, so far, among the 14 films I've seen in 2007, there haven't been any "bad" films as much as just sequels with a lack of inspiration, or lack of a good story. (Spider-Man 3 and Shrek the Third were #11 and #13, respectively, beforehand. And they still are. At least Shrek the Third could have been fresh if it was the original film; this film would have garnered more points for its look, but since it's duplicating a look from a much better film, and regardless of look, suffered from characterization (making it the original doesn't take away the weaknesses of the writing, which just causes it to suffer more in the wake of its predecessor), it's gonna have to hit #14 of 14 so far.

2007-05-29T12:25:00.000-07:00

Marathon Man (1976):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074860/
A movie of moments as opposed to a full film, with such a protracted arc that takes so long to set up that eventually, you don't even care why the guy died or what he said, you're just waiting for Olivier to drill holes in Hoffman's teeth. C

God Told Me To (1976):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075930/
A bizarre, meandering exploitation B-picture from B-picture maven Larry Cohen, it features a bunch of people shooting others and giving the titular explanation (including Andy Kaufman as a cop!, of all things) and the detective thinks it has something to do with some mystical cult being dude...it gets monotonous and then descends into (admittedly slightly more interesting) nonsensical, mystical weirdness before crashing to a close. C-

Grave of the Fireflies (1988):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095327/
Touching, heartwarming and profoundly sad, just like everyone else has ever told you, one of the greatest anime films of all time, transcending anime to become just a great film. A

Sherlock, Jr. (1924):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0015324/
A fun, inventive, influential movie about a man spurned through no fault of his own by a girl he's in love with and a dastardly villain who tricked him and stole her, and the man (a projectionist) falling asleep and dreaming of himself as the suave, brilliant "Sherlock, Jr.", saving her from him on the screen. Nowhere near his best, but a damn fun movie. B+

Update

2007-05-28T11:39:00.001-07:00

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970): A truly bizarre, fascinating motion picture. The kind of movie only a film critic could write, a concentraded, deliberate, "make-it-up-as-they-go-along", contradictory fantasy of tits and melodrama. As trashy as the times, A-

The Tingler (1959): A shockingly excellent B-movie with the legendary Vincent Price, and as great as a movie about a centipede that will grow in your back if you can't scream. Not as fun as if I could have seen in Percepto-style in the theater (they would buzz some of the chairs, and of course, the only way to kill the Tingler is to scream, as brilliant a gimmick as I've seen), but damn, even though the tingler is cheesy-looking, it's an excellent film and actually takes some unexpected turns, including a stunner of a twist near the conclusion, B+

Odd Man Out (1947): An excellent, despairing, hopeless film with the great James Mason as an IRA agent who gets shot in a bank heist gone wrong and wandered the streets slowly dying from a gunshot wound. A surprisingly amount of character development for the times and genre, well-acted but a bit repetitive in spots and a tad overlong, but still, quality, B

I've already spoken about Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: B+

Emperor of the North (Pole) (1973), a strange, undeciding film that is mostly interesting for Ernest Borgnine knocking hobos out with a hammer and Lee Marvin dodging him. That's pretty much the entire film right there: Ernest Borgnine knocks hobos out with a hammer, Lee Marvin dodges him, and Keith Carradine is annoying and pointless. The film doesn't make a stand because it doesn't know who its enemies are and what it wants to do. C

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)

2007-05-28T11:36:00.000-07:00

And I haven't yet read the criticisms with knowledge of the actual film yet, but I'm just wondering: What were people expecting? A straightforward 80-minute film? I mean, yeah, of course it's amazingly long and convoluted (although, those people that had trouble following it? It's really not that hard to follow)

Hollywood used to crank these kinds of films out with regularity in the '50s and '60s (including more than 45-60 minutes extra film), and 90% of those films had not a smidgen of the enjoyment of this film. (I'm looking at you, Ben-Hur)

Spider-Man 3 was tired and rehashing old plot points and Shrek the Third was closer to a remake than a sequel, but this? Other than maybe the protagonists making it until the end (which is never in doubt), the path to which they were going to get there was almost certainly not predictable, and never lacked excitement. Where the other thirds came off as uninspired cash cows, this film actually had something to say, and that was: Just have fun. The film's job: Don't overthink it, but actually BRING SOME THINKING to the party. And this film did it in droves.

I know I'm going to regret this, but god help me:
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End is, at this very moment, my #1 film of 2007.

Last Year at Marienbad (1961)

2007-05-25T13:10:00.001-07:00

I am fascinated by films that propose puzzles and then set out and in fact intend to never solve them (as evidenced by my love of L'Avventura, Blowup, The Passenger, Picnic at Hanging Rock and Limbo), and so this'un was right up my alley. This is the sort of film people mock as being "pretentious, pointless French cinema", because those people are looking for a story, and a resolution.

This film presents a situation. Two people at a luxurious hotel. The man tells the woman that they had an affair. She disagrees. He says they met last year and agreed to meet again. She disagrees. The film suggests that another man who may be her husband but is definitely some sort of authority figure knew. It says he doesn't. He kills her. He doesn't.

As Ebert said, "It is a deliberate, artificial artistic construction." And also, "The idea, I think, is that life is like this movie: No matter how many theories you apply to it, life presses on indifferently toward its own inscrutable ends. The fun is in asking questions. Answers are a form of defeat."

There you have it. Amazing. A+

The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On (1987)

2007-05-24T00:55:00.000-07:00

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092963/

This documentary was ridiculous, this man is fucking insane, he's like Michael Moore to the eighth power. Think about that. He's like A more abusive, abrasive, in-your-face Michael Moore.

His thoughts are that a few members of his platoon were killed for suspicious reasons by other members of his platoon in WWII. He spent THIRTEEN YEARS of hard labor jail thanks to his anti-Hirohito activities, and he wants to go accuse the people he thinks are inform him of how and why these people died.

So, he drives around in his van with a giant sign out front that says, essentially, "Fuck the Emperor", and is just totally abrasive. He went to a prison to take measurements for the cells (to apparently build one in his house, ha), and as he was leaving and the cops were escorting his van out, he was taunting them, "DO SOMETHING! GO AHEAD! I DARE YOU!". And you may think that's just my approximation, but no, that's a direct quote.

And then, there was this...he met this medic that was apparently present when they were shot, and the guy attempted to shut him out, and leave after being accused, and when he tried to leave, our gracious subject JUMPED UP AND FUCKING TACKLED HIM. He ended up socking the man in the face several times, and he's sitting on his chest going, "I SHOT AT THE EMPEROR!" and the guy goes, "No violence, please" and he said, "YOU DON'T KNOW VIOLENCE!" and socked him in the face

He ended up finding the siblings of the men who were shot, and they go and verbally attack people who supposedly killed their brothers, and the film leads to a shocking turn of events before its conclusion. The second hour mostly treads water and revisits the same stuff (although he does almost beat this other guy up, getting off only a swift kick before being pulled off), but finishes with a shocking conclusion. Fucking nuts. A-

Other random'uns...

2007-05-23T15:32:00.000-07:00

Sans Soleil / Sunless (1983): Fascinating documentary/travelogue/meditation, B+

Cannibal!: The Musical! (1993/6): Terribly overlong, but a lot of fun, especially for a student film; shows the inklings of Parker & Stone to come four years later, B-

Shrek the Third (2007): I may immediately watch, say, Are We Done Yet? just to see if it can get worse, because Shrek the Third is easily the worst film I've seen this year, and it has nothing to do with low quality as much as...it's a 100% rehash of the first two films. I never audibly laughed at a SINGLE LINE IN THE ENTIRE FILM, and possibly half-smirked once or twice, because I LAUGHED AT THESE EXACT SAME JOKES when I was 13, when the original film came out...I mean, good lord...from the opening joke, it was just treading water, I was just waiting for the film to end. The film looks amazing, but...it's not there for you to laugh, or smile, or enjoy yourself. It's just there to make money. And, more than that, it's just there.; D+

The Last King of Scotland (2006): Wonderful, nuanced performance from Forest Whitaker deserving of an Oscar. The movie was a bit disjointed, and didn't really pay off on any of its dramatic intentions, but Whitaker made it worth watching; C+

The Hole (1960): Channeling Dassin's Rififi, one of my favorite films, this was a matter-of-fact observation of a prison escape. The film watches as the men go through the arduous, risky tasks of escaping from a jail; with an observant eye, a fabulous conclusion and lots and lots of banging, my #3 film of 1960, A

A couple of tremendous shorts

2007-05-21T18:40:00.000-07:00

Night & Fog (1955): amazing, but probably more so in 1955 than 2007, considering how much we've all been inundated with Holocaust documentaries that it's lost some of its edge; but it would be unfair to criticize a film on its imitators or add-ons, so, A...

The Pier/The Jetty/La Jetee (1962): a staggering narrative told only with still frames, and the basis for the fabulous Twelve Monkeys (and this film made me want to rewatch that one something fierce), very different in the details but still with the same stunner of an ending, fabulous, A

The Million (1931)

2007-05-21T18:39:00.001-07:00

Man, I didn't know movies were allowed to be this preposterously fun and entertaining...this movie is quite possibly the greatest slapstick comedy I've ever seen, and that's BEFORE the hysterical songs that just push this film over into one of the most charming and wondrous films I've ever seen...

Well, count me charmed. A

2007-05-21T18:37:00.001-07:00

Crossfire (1947):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039286/
Solid film noir that tried to stand out by using an anti-semitist bent (bumped down from a homophobic bent) and half succeeds, but other than that one snare, a pretty ordinary film; C+

Lili (1953):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046000/
A strange little romance with a lot to analyze but not a lot to the film, Leslie Caron gives an adequate, airy performance as the titular character, and Mel Ferrer as the puppeteer who loves her but can only speak through puppets...everybody lives happily ever after, but only after a completely surreal finale; C

Slaughtered Vomit Dolls (2006):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0811073/
A horrendous film, not "shocking" as much as just gross (the title is severely literal); the film has absolutely no plot, and thinks backwards audio looped over and over mixed with staggering amounts of vomit make a successful horror film; one bizarre little scene (featuring a girl losing a limb but gaining the SPOTLIGHT!) and some quality direction seem to exhibit the fact that, given a real editor (he was writer/director/editor) and a real story, director Lucifer Valentine could pull off something of quality; F

Last Days of Left Eye (2007):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0945357/
A fascinating piece of filmmaking, and this is before the horrendous coincidence (or was it? (and I'm speaking spiritually)) of TLC's Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes dying in a car crash during her 30-days cleansing routine (and filming a documentary about life and about herself). It's hard to get in the frame of mind to speak of it, but it's an amazing film; A

The Holy Mountain (1973):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071615/
Quite possibly the greatest film I've seen (at least a tie with 2001), this film has a whole ton of things I love: surrealism, completely nonsensical scenes, satire, commentary, nudity, sexual surrealism, bald heads, and people turning sh-t into gold...DOES IT GET MUCH BETTER? I submit that it does not. (Although, I hope it does, just to blow my mind further); A++++

The Butcher (1970)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064106/
Reading the reviews, quite possibly one of the most misunderstood films of all time (they take it at face value as a generic thriller, when there's definitely lower levels to get at), a fascinating twist on that old "killer is evil, woman is victim" philosophy; B+

CAPSULE REVIEWS OF A BUNCH OF MOVIES

2007-05-17T17:07:00.001-07:00

-A Sunday in the Country (1983) (directed by Bernard Tavernier):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088318/
Beautiful, melancholic, easy-going, pastoral, impressionist film about an aging painter who wonders if he's made some wrong decisions in life, is discontent with his bourgeoisie son and his wife, but loves the spirit of his daughter and grandchildren. Every shot looks like a painting. Beautiful. 4/5

-The Cranes are Flying (1957) (directed by Mikheil Kalatozishvili):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050634/
A staggering directorial effort distinguishes this film from its "samey" premise, a premise repeated from a hundred WWII dramas (boy & girl in love; boy leaves for war; girl doesn't get to say goodbye, etc.). Staggering scene set during an air raid immediately makes it top 250 for me, before you factor in the rest of the heartbreaking film that does take a few fabulous turns. 4.5/5

-A Woman is a Woman (1961) (directed by Jean-Luc Godard):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055572/
As Godard said, "a neorealist musical...a contradiction in terms." This wonderful film is so love-drunk with cinema that it doesn't have time to mean anything or be analyzed, and thus, any shortcomings about it being "too self-aware" or "obnoxiously post-modern" miss the point. This is a director so in love with what the camera can do, and what editing can do, and what post-production can do, that he just can't stop joyously throwing things in the post. And the fact that the lovely Anna Karina is in it holds the semblance of a plot together and it's just a blast. 4/5

-The Mystery of Picasso (1956) (directed by Henri-Georgez Clouzot):
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049531/
One of my favorite directors finally made a clunker. Well, not so much a clunker as much as a missed opportunity. This is a film that attempts to, if not solve, than at least explain "the mystery" of art. But it goes about it wrong. The film opens with Clouzot saying. "To know what's going through a painter's mind, one just needs to look at his hands. Here's what the painter's experiencing." This is all well and good, and could have made for an interesting thesis, is gutted due to his neat-but-unnecessary innovation, which is essentially a canvas that bleeds through that a camera can film from the other side, and then dubs music over it. The only captivating pieces of the film are the parts when they get away from the see-through screen, and take the music out. Just watching Picasso paint it, watching his hand and hearing his brush or marker or tool is fascinating, but colors appearing on a screen over neato music is not. 2/5

-The Clay Bird (2002) (directed by Tareque Masud)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319836/
A fascinating, wonderfully-paced, beautifully low-key piece of filmmaking. The film in east Pakistan in the late '60s, a place ready to explode into violent revolution. In this place is young Anu, who has a fundamentalist father, an ignored, depressed movie, an ill little sister, and an uncle who has grown bitter toward the military rule. To ensure his devoutness, his father sends him to a strict Muslim boarding school, where he struggles to adapt to his new surroundings while political tensions ruin his family. Nuanced and beautiful, it's a fabulous little movie. 4/5

-Never on Sunday (1960) (directed by Jules Dassin)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054198/
A fun, light little anti-Pygmalion that made Melina Mercouri a star, playing a flighty Greek prostitute named Ilya, and directed Jules Dassin makes the perfect foil as an uptight American scholar trying to find "truth" in Greece and thinking he's found it in "fixing" Ilya. Everything in the film seems like an afterthought, and I mean that in the best way. 3.5/5

Hamlet (1948)

2007-05-17T00:26:00.000-07:00

Ever read a play so much that the amount of seeing a cinematic adaptation that would have thrilled you otherwise is severely diminished? (What sentence construction!)

Anyway, I don't know that it would have helped all that much in this case. In fact, I think, due to the Shakespearean dialect, I would have been lost had I not known the play at length beforehand.

But this was Laurence Olivier's baby, and considering his reputation as the arrogant-but-somewhat-unchallenged "Greatest British Actor", it's not like they could have told him no, and apparently it worked out, with this film winning Best Picture at the '49 Oscars.

Olivier is the titular prince, obviously, with excellent character actors filling in the rest of the parts (Eileen Herlie as Gertrude (who was 28 (!) to Olivier's 41), Basil Syndey as Claudius, the delicate Jean Simmons as Ophelia, and, among others, Peter Cushing as Osric, with Christopher Lee in an apparent small role, and John Gielgud supplying "The Voice".)Other than a few exciting setpieces, specifically those pertaining to the pivotal play, and the fact that my favorite scene is brightened up by one of my favorite actors (the gravedigger scene, and he, the delightful Stanley Holloway), the camera rarely moves all that much, and the entire film has a very stage-bound, theatrical feel to it.

Not much more to say for this one. You know the play. You know the creator of the film. If you think you'll like it, that's your call.

2/5, #9 in my 11 of '48

Wuthering Heights (1939)

2007-05-16T14:39:00.000-07:00

Yet another film in a long line of weepy, stagy melodramas that I kept making feeble attempts to see but not feeling all that bad when I missed it, this thankfully went the way of The Little Foxes (very good) rather than, say, Random Harvest (decent but a bit silly).

The film concerns an orphan, Heathcliff (played in adulthood by Laurence Olivier), who is taken in by a rich man with two children: Catherine (played in adulthood by Merle Oberon), who takes an immediate liking to him, and Hindley (in adulthood by Hugh Williams), who is immediately antagonistic (and within a few days, hits Heathcliff in the head wth a large rock. The film's weep quotient comes from the fact that it's obvious Heathcliff and Catherine are made for each other, and both of them love each other quite a lot, but Cathy is so set on finding a well-to-do husband, it's bizarrely ingrained into her and she can't help herself, and ends up marrying Edgar Linton (David Niven). Tears ensue.

Olivier is as he needs to be, brooding, hurt, beaten-down by the world. Merle Oberon is beautiful, enigmatic and perplexing (even to herself); the rest of the cast holds their own quite well (especially Hugh Williams as the petulant, childish and spiteful Hindley), but this is a two-person film, and the two knock it out of the park.The film was solidly directed by William Wyler; written by Ben Hecht, of all people, from the first half of the novel by Emily Bronte (trust me, it's enough); shot by the great Gregg Toland (who won the film's only Oscar, and deservedly so), and special attention should be paid to the score, which manages to exude feeling without ever spilling over into the melodrama it so desperately tries to give off.

Overall, a surprisingly fantastic film, #6 in the Golden Year of 1939. 4/5

Clash of the Titans (1981)

2007-05-16T13:29:00.000-07:00

I only watched this because it was coming on before a few other films I was watching, and I was pleasantly surprised.

The film concerns the myth of Perseus (Harry Hamlin), illegitimate son of Zeus, when, as a baby, is attempted to be murdered by King Akrisius (angry for Zeus impregnating his daughter), and the great overlord smites Akrisius with the Kraken. There's quite a bit of other mystical names and places that are completely unimportant, because the film doesn't care about the facts, it just wants to thrill you with its campy pleasures.

Anyone looking for historical accuracy from Clash of the Titans is a fool to begin with (remember that whirring, mechanical owl from the mythology books?), because the real interest here is Ray Harryhausen's effects. I always here people talking about the "charm" of old-school, campy-looking effects (the biggest example that always comes up is King Kong), but while I think King Kong is only about the effects, and other than the fact that it's a giant primate, it's a mostly-realistic movie, and it completely flounders the film for me. This film is fantastical and light-heartedly mystical from the outset, and the effects are so wonderful and fun that disbelief can be suspended, and the film really takes on an air of a lot of fun.

Harry Hamlin does what he was asked to do and needs to do, delivery breathy soundbites, look stoic and have a giant, dimpled, chiseled chin. He gets the Heston role, and plays it wonderfully. The rest of the cast is a cavalcade of famous actors doing surprisingly solid work for such a campy little movie, including Maggie Smith, Ursula Andress and Laurence Olivier as (of course) the almighty Zeus.
Nothing worth remembering past the credits, but a lot of fun while it runs.

8/10

Mr. Arkadin ("Confidential Report" version) (1955)

2007-05-14T22:32:00.000-07:00

In a line that is almost monotonous at this point, here is yet ANOTHER Orson Welles film that the backstory on its making is far more interesting than the finished product.

After many of his American films were taken from him and re-edited, he intermittently shot Mr. Arkadin in various countries and released it internationally. And guess what? The film was not only butchered, but butchered far more than any other film in his oeuvre, including at least SEVEN separate versions in various countries, one of which I saw: The American version, entitled Confidential Report.

A kind of Eurotrash counterclockwise comic book Citizen Kane, with the same basic "search for meaning" plot, except with a completely different intent, and the search in this film proves just as meaningless as that. The film is so thoroughly over-the-top it's almost a spoof of Citizen Kane, with a little Third Man thrown in. Welles sports a bizarrely artificial beard and a bizarrely big grandiose performance while simultaneously simply standing around, and there's enough Dutch angles for a thousand Batman villains.

Welles still exudes charisma despite his off-the-wall performance, and his pitch-perfect of a few key lines get knocked out of the park. Sad to say, I can't say the same for the main protagonist, Robert Arden, who is belligerent, grating and obvious in his performance, and one wonders what Welles saw in him. The females are mostly unremarkable and even bleed together in many instances.

I think, even in his "perfect" incarnation, the film would have been inherently flawed as Welles revisits past triumphs rather than pushing forward, and the film is mediocre in an unusually plenteous year, #1 6th in my 18 of 1955...

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

2007-05-14T16:23:00.000-07:00

Why, o why am I so consistently underwhelmed by so many films?

Up next in the running order for me to be underwhelmed by, was Sam Peckinpah's cult classic Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia.

The film concerns a wealthy Mexican man named El Jefe (Emilio Fernandez) that puts a million-dollar bounty on the head of Alfredo Garcia, who knocked up Jefe's daughter. The thing is, Garcia is already long-since dead and buried. Bar pianist Bennie (Warren Oates) is tasked by two of Jefe's goons (Robert Webber and, in a random cameo, Gig Young) to go to the little Mexican town where Garcia is six feet below most other residents, and bring back ol' Alfredo's head. Along the way on the journey, he meets and falls in love with Elita (Isela Vega), a local prostitute. But there are many other people looking for the cranial bounty as well.

There was an odd, pervasive joylessness with this film, and although I know some of this was intentional (Bennie's not exactly content or happy with life), it's a feeling of dread that seems to kill much momentum that the film has (this is a film that, with a slightly-lighter touch, would be something someone would describe as "whacked", but it's too literal and downbeat to engender such an enjoyable descriptor). I thought much of the middle section (especially pretty much everything related to Elita) dragged (at best), and was completely superfluous at worst (I'm sure the scene with Kris Kristofferson was some all-important turning point where Oates finally descends into the kind of violence he once loathed and went off into another plane, but it just seemed completely unnecessary for a movie that could have trimmed 20 minutes and been substantially better.)

With that said, I did think there was some to like. I thought the last 30 minutes picked up considerably and came to a suitably bullet-ridden finale that saved much of what had came before it. Warren Oates, despite being too downbeat, plays a normal guy that is forced to go off the deep end, and has to question what is most important to him in life. Isela Vega is decent but unnecessary (although the fact that she's beautiful and constantly topless makes it a bit easier to sit through). No one else really sticks through, this is pretty much purely Oates's film.

You know, the more I talk and muse about it, the more I'm liking it. I guess I just didn't go through my normal contemplative procedure before writing this review.

Ask me again in a week. Perhaps it'll make my top 250.

Port of Shadows (1938)

2007-05-07T17:36:00.000-07:00

A solid entry in the poetic French realism genre, Marcel Carné's Port of Shadows is a bleak, atmospheric urban drama.

The story concerns Jean, a deserter from the French army (played by that eternal victim of society, legendary French actor, Jean Gabin) who arrives in the port of Le Havre, where, by chance, he gets offered a new identity and safe passage to Venezuela, but he hesitates and is reluctant to leave because he has met and fallen in love with Nelly (Michèle Morgan). He also meets the port's owner, Zabel (recognizable regular Michel Simon), and a jealous, baby-faced petty gangster named Lucien Laugardier (Pierre Brasseur).

This being poetic French realism, it really toes a line towards film noir, a French term for a style of film to be invented in America shortly thereafter. The film is filled with gray, overcast skies, threatening to rain at any moment, massive amounts of fog, and lots of high contrast (it isn't called the "port of shadows" for nothing), and Carne films it as such...this is a place that would be more realistic if it wasn't so damn amazing to look at.Gabin does what Gabin always does, which is act bewildered while bad things happen to him, ignorant to the fact that they're mostly brought on by himself, consigning to his fate while simultaneously creating it. Simon and Brasseur are solid, but underused, seemingly only appearing when needed. Morgan is attractive and enigmatic, but, like everyone else, fairly underused, despite being the main female. This is Gabin's film. Gabin and his hopelessness are the stars here, and they permeate the film. The ending has a bit of a tacked-on feeling that doesn't grow very naturally out of the actual story, but it's a minor quibble and seems more that every poetic French realistic film ends...pretty much like every film noir, and there's no argument there.

Good, solid and mostly unremarkable, the duo of Carne and Gabin would team up the following year for the far-superior, captivating Daybreak. This is on the lower end of my 1938 experience, and thus, 7.5/10, #5 on my now-Six of 1938.

300 (2007)

2007-05-06T16:42:00.000-07:00

Well, it's still about as dumb as I thought.

I went to the theater to see this movie on opening night. I had not slept the entire night before, and had taken a 400-mile car trip the following day.

I could not handle the chatter of this film, or the darkness of the theater.

I attempted to make a judgment despite substantial evidence that I had slept through most of the film.

This was my mistake.

I have now re-watched 300 (or, more correctly, actually seen the entire film), and my opinion has brightened tremendously. Seeing the other 90% of the film, it sure didn't get any smarter, but it certainly did get a lot more entertaining.

The film depicts the Battle of Thermopylae, in which three hundred Spartan soldiers, lead by King Leonidas (Gerard Butler), against Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and the massive Persian army.The film is still incredible-looking, and in fact, considering that the sword-and-sandal genre is a bit of an inclusive, restrictive genre of film, the only way you seemingly CAN make a flourish or a difference would be stylistically, to build up, as opposed to it building out.

Now, I'm not completely turning the leaf...it is still a far-too-chatty affair, with characters speaking in platitudes and expository sound bites as opposed to realistic dialogue, which would be more standable if they didn't do it so often and at length.

So, although I'm not exactly awarding it a top 5 spot so far, I will put it at #6, and allow you to giggle at the review for Next where I suggest that that film is not only AS good but BETTER than 300

The Lady from Shanghai (1948)

2007-05-06T06:54:00.001-07:00

The career of Orson Welles is one of the most fascinating in all of Hollywood history. A filmmaker so pragmatic, so mercurial, that seemingly every one of his films was ahead of its time, both disrespected or at least tossed off in its initial run, and mercilessly butchered. The Lady from Shanghai fell firmly into both camps. The film originally clocked in at over 2 hours, but the studio hacked off 45 minutes or so into a speedy 86 minutes, making what is on the screen only somewhat coherent, which probably partly led to its failure at the box office (its not quite The Magnificent Ambersons in scope, butchered interference or quality, but it definitely stands in its own in all categories)

This is a film about sailor Mike O'Hara (Welles, sporting an iffy Irish brogue) who is hired to work on Arthur Bannister's yacht (the always-slimy Everett Sloane) and he engages in a strange, torrid affair with the man's wife, Elsa (blonde-locked Rita Hayworth, Welles' real life, soon-to-be-ex wife), and ends up in a bizarre murder plot involving a fake death and a real murder that ends up putting Welles on trial. In a jarring transition that reeks of a hackjob, it goes into a amusingly silly courtroom fight scene, and then moves on to one of the most amazing sequences you will ever see, a confusing, breathtaking sequence set in a Hall of Mirrors.As I just mentioned, the setpieces that DID make it into the movie are impeccably directed and wonderfully composed (such as sequences in aquariums and symbolic chess pieces), and Welles, although fades in and out of his sketchy accent, still exudes more screen presence than 95% of actors in the history of film, and the rest of the characters are as enigmatic as the film is incomprehensible. It's like The Big Sleep, but instead of riding on Bogie and his love of Bacall, it rides on Orson and love of the camera.

#6 in my now-10 of 1948.

The Power of Nightmares (2004)

2007-05-06T03:34:00.000-07:00

What a staggering motion picture.

This is the motion picture Fahrenheit 9/11 would have been, had Michael Moore not been on such a insular, narrow-minded witchhunt.

This documentary attempts (and succeeds) in drawing parallels between Islamic fundamentalism and western neo-conservatism, and how they both serve each others needs in maintaining a level of fear to maintain a level of power in the government.

Although I don't think the initial connection he makes (that Leo Strauss essentially "came up" with neo-conservatism) is quite followed through, every connection after that not connected to Strauss himself is spot-on and staggering.There are documentaries about politics that are just choir-preaching polemics, regurgitating things you already know and didn't need to hear again (Why We Fight, The U.S. vs. John Lennon, Fahrenheit 9/11), but every so often, something comes along that opens your eyes, that changes the very fundamental way you think. My all-time favorite documentary, Errol Morris's spellbinding The Fog of War did this, and The Power of Nightmares does this tenfold.

I don't say this much, but you NEED to see this movie. Regardless of your political affiliation, this is one film that should be a requirement who even wants to think about talking politics in this modern world.

And the only higher praise than that that I can give...is a direct link to the film itself (from the public archives, and encouraged by the filmmakers):

See it.

Barb Wire (1996)

2007-05-05T22:11:00.000-07:00

Well, after watching something intelligent, well-made and thought-provoking, I thought I'd had just about enough of that, and thus, here I am watching Barb Wire.

I apologize if the film has affected me more than I realize:

an awesom remake of some crappy old movie called Casa Blanco or something, I don't know, this movie was KICKFUCKINGASS! HOLY SHIT THERE WAS SO MUCH ACTION AND AWESOMENESS I COUDNT EVEN TAKE IT!

seriusly man, this movie is just fuckin awesom from start to finish

it starts off and rite off the bat its awesome because the first like 5 minutes is pam hottie anderson dancin around with her tits hangin out [EDITOR'S NOTE: It is quite generous to refer to Ms. Anderson's breasts as "hanging" anywhere] and then she totaly throws a shoe rite thru this dudes head its sick and then she saves this chick and kills sum other dude wit a cigarete blowdart shit and then she goes and shows off her tits more in some sexy ass outfits and she goes back to this kickass club she owns wit her crazy german butler n her blind ass brother and then this dude comes in and i dont really remember alot of the middle but then later she makes a deal wit this fat black dude [EDITOR'S NOTE: This site makes no designations of race or class distinctions] and she beats sum dudes asses n they kill her brother but she gets em back and has a kickass motorcycle and they fight wit the dudes at this warehouse and the shit blows up in this huge ass explosion

all in all it was super kickass

Terrible, but never boring: 5/10; Amusingly enough, it wasn't even the THIRD-worst film of its given year, 1996, which has three gems in Bio-Dome, Kazaam and the stunningly horrid Adrenalin: Fear the Rush

Sunshine (2007)

2007-05-05T19:26:00.000-07:00

The sun is dying.

It's fifty years in the future, and the fire of our main energy source for light, heat and health is running out. A crew of eight men and women are sent into space carrying a massive bomb with a thermonuclear payload the size of Manhattan in order to re-ignite it. Seven years earlier, another ship, the Icarus I, had been launched, but contact was lost. After moving away from Earth, the Icarus II, our protagonists, have picked up a distress beacon set out by the original ship. Capa (Cillian Murphy), the physicist who controls the bomb is asked by Captain Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada) to decide whether to change course and approach the initial Icarus. Reasoning that their success is theoretical anyway, he decides the pros outweigh the cons, and the possibility of getting another bomb, just in case their bomb is faulty.

As it may sound, this film owes a large debt to that triptych of intelligent, adult science fiction, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris and Alien, and, although, having not seen Solaris, I can most certainly attest that the film does follow similar guidelines that the other two adhere to, including **SPOILER** a wild'n-out/deathfest of a finale, although who is going to go and when and where is just as unpredictable **END SPOILERS**.

It is a magnificent-looking film, and all the more amazing considering on the lesser budget it was made on. Director Danny Boyle has shown on many occasions (such as Trainspotting and 28 Days Later) that he knows how to get the most out of limited tools, and here he evokes the big names of science-fiction without attempting to outspend them. Also, not having the budget, Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland have infused yet another film with a captivating story, rather than just a bunch of flashy setpieces.

The eight main actors (Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh, Hiroyuki Sanada, Cliff Curtis, Troy Garity & Benedict Wong) also do excellent work, managing to separate themselves as real people with real tendencies and real actions. There's no one being contrary just to create convenient villains; in this film, the only antagonist is possibly failing the mission, not any lame evil alien **SPOILER**(and even when it does turn violent, it's bore out of a natural situation featuring a crazy, random unstoppable killing machine, not just a random unstoppable killing machine monster thing, ha)**END SPOILERS**

All in all, a fantastic film, and deserves its place among the greats.

9/10, #2 of 2007

Tender Mercies (1983)

2007-05-05T16:29:00.000-07:00

Robert Duvall is a god.

He ranks up there with Harvey Keitel as possibly the most underappreciated mainstream actor that, no matter what, ALWAYS knocks it out of the park, and yet, the casual movie fan probably couldn't tell you his name.

And here is one of his shining beacons of glory, Tender Mercies.

Duvall plays Mac Sledge, a once-famous country singer who is now a broke drunk, and accepts the kindness of Rosa Lee (Tess Harper) who gives him a job working at the little roadside motel she owns, and eventually they fall in love, and marry. He was formerly married to Dixie (Betty Buckley), a still-famous country singer who is performing the next town over, as he flirts with possibly going back into singing.

You have to admire a movie that wants to tell a simple story, and tell it well. No melodramatic flourishes, no cheap plot twists...this film is a snapshot into a life of a man who wants life to be simple, and is all the better for it.Duvall is glorious, and even sings his own songs so well that you have absolutely no trouble believing he used to be a country singer, and a famous one at that. Tess Harper and Allan Hubbard do excellent work as his newfound saviors...as for his old problems, Betty Buckley, Wilford Brimley and a young Ellen Barkin certainly hold up their end of the bargain.

All in all a wondrous film, 9/10, and my #2 of 1983

Mad Max (1979)

2007-05-05T02:31:00.000-07:00

What a strangely-paced motion picture.

This is a 93-minute film that took 75 minutes to set up the main story, the main angle, and had its titular protagonist dispose of the baddies in twelve minutes flat.

The setting: Post-apocalyptic Australia. The outback has taken on a every-man-for-himself quality, and packs of nefarious baddies on motorcycles roam this barren wasteland. Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) is a policeman in this warzone that has tired of his job, and wants to spend time with his family. Then, his world comes crashing down when the evil Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne) kills his wife and young child.

Mind you, this comprises over 80% of the film...there are numerous, unimportant subplots pertaining to the force's interaction with the gang (and the fates of his peers Goose and Fifi, among others). Now making sure to make your characters three-dimensional is one thing, but this was just overkill. I got the idea of what they were doing pretty early on, and I think the lengthy exposition could have been cut down, even by twenty minutes, and lengthened the insanely quick revenge portion to a solid half hour of screen time (his family is killed, he immediately finds them, and kills all but one with his car in eight minutes flat...then he chases the leader around for three more minutes, and saves just enough time to viciously wrap up another minor subplot)

Surprisingly enough, actingwise, Gibson is about the least-charismatic or memorable character in the film...his wife (Joanne Samuel) has quite a few memorable scenes and really makes a character, in addition to memorably evil turns by Hugh Keays-Byrne, Tim Burns, Vince Gil and Geoff Parry and Steve Bisley and Roger Ward play the other officers well, even if their characters get far too much screentime...The film is direted by George Miller, and was, shockingly, his FIRST film ever, and man, what a first achievement! The film is breathtakingly and impeccably filmed, and every shot is impressive in some sense (also, if it's gone through any sort of restoration, it's equally impeccable...the film belies its low-budget origins and looks just incredible...it could have been released in 2007 and I wouldn't have very many reservations that it was filmed sometime in the past six months)

So, I'm conflicted: Impeccibly filmed, solidly acted, poorly laid-out.

Sounds like a 7.5/10 to me. (And gets rocked into the 8th spot of the unusually good Ten of 1979)

The Born Losers (1967)

2007-05-05T01:06:00.000-07:00

Ah look, the origins of Billy Jack.

Now I haven't seen the famed Billy Jack, but I have seem the behemoth mess The Trial of Billy Jack, and although this was a far better film, we never got to anything as memorable as Billy Jack beating up Jesus (it's almost worth the price of admission to Trial)

Anyway, onto his origins:

From what Billy Jack appears to be, it seems to just have transposed rednecks for this movie's bikers, because this is a half-assed biker movie, served up with a healthy plate of moralizing about parents being at fault for their children's rebellion (among other things)

Elizabeth James plays Vicky Barrington, a biker chick (or, more correctly, a chick who likes riding bikes) and she's accosted by a motley group of biker fucks lead by Danny Carmody (Jeremy Slate), and featuring men with names like Cueball (who isn't bald), Gangrene (who is quite scruffy) and Crabs (whose name is quite literal, ha), and she's taken in and attemptedly raped, but escapes...and is recaptured. Thus, supposedly half-Indian (but more like half random-acceptable-stereotype-for-villains-to-use) Billy Jack springs into action, and more of less goes to kick everyone's ass. (Although, if not for Vicky "taking one for the team" in a crucial scene, they'd pretty much all be dead.One of the better B-grade biker pics I've seen, but that's not saying much. 6.5/10 (#13 in my 14 of '67)

Bed & Board (1970)

2007-05-04T22:23:00.000-07:00

If Godard is the French director to open your mind, Truffaut is the one to open your heart.

I haven't seen many of his films past The 400 Blows (and in fact, had planned to watch the second and third films in the Antoine Doinel saga, but we only had the fourth, and it stood up remarkably well as a stand-alone film.

Bright, sweet, whimsical, quirky, humorous, all adjectives that come to mind when watching Bed & Board...it struck me as very similar to Annie Hall (which happens to be one of my three favorite movies ever).

Francois Truffaut's cinematic alter-ego Antoine Doinel (played yet again by Jean-Pierre Léaud) is now married to Christine (the staggeringly beautiful Claude Jade) and having a grand ol' time, working at a few of the silliest jobs you'll ever find in film (he dyes flowers, and later on, has a inexplicable job driving little model boats). They have a baby (and have a highly amusing argument about what to name him.)

He starts a completely unnecessary affair with a Japanese girl who is nowhere near as attractive as his wife (who even as a pregnant woman is as beautiful as Catherine Deneuve on her best day), but I'm sure it all works out in the end.9/10, #2 in my list of 1970

Hot Fuzz (2007)

2007-05-04T16:19:00.000-07:00

Man, these guys are good.

After making the best horror movie AND the best comedy in some time with Shaun of the Dead, and one of the best parts of Grindhouse (the hilarious Don't trailer), the brilliant team of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg comes together to bring us a film that was BETTER than Grindhouse: Hot Fuzz.

Pegg plays Nicholas Angel, a veritable London supercop (his arrest record is noted as being 400% higher than any other officer), and he's making his colleagues look bad, so they send him to the sleepy, crime-free country village of Sandford. Angel arrives and immediately arrests half the town, including what he finds out is his new partner, Danny Butterman (the always-fun Nick Frost), and his general annoyance with the situation takes on a new turn when a series of grisly murders occur, which everyone in town seems to pass off as accidents.

Many films that attempt to mix action and comedy wind up being lame in one or the other; they either are keyed in on comedy and give short shrift to the action, or they focus on the action, and the comedy seems forced and lame. It's rare these days to find a satisfying action movie or a highly amusing comedy standalone, much less to find one that is staggeringly fabulous at both, such as this.
There are definitely constant, laugh-out-loud moments and yet, when the action ramps up, it's more thrilling than any number of generic, faceless battle scenes that we have been inundated with recently.

Pegg and Frost are awesome, as expected, and a parade of awesome characer actors do wonderful work (Jim Broadbest is sweet-natured and simple. Paddy Considine is...a douchebag, and Timothy Dalton gives off a mustache-twirling air of menace)

All in all, a preposterously entertaining action-comedy. 8.5/10 (#2 of 2007 so far)

Spider-Man 3 (2007)

2007-05-03T19:36:00.000-07:00

Well, it ain't everyday you get to feel like a real pirate.

Well may I just say:

Yar.

I've gotten quite used to relying on my imagination to enrich any poor-quality film I can see, akin to how one used their mind to visualize a story, this one, I use my mind to imagine how it would look with better quality (and, in this case, a small part of the screen blacked out by a shoulder.)

So with absolutely no hesitation and with great trepidation, I quickly and arduously downloaded a movie I had little interest in seeing: Spider-Man 3.

And I agree with some of the advanced buzz that it doesn't seem to have the spectacle of the first film, much less the glorious second installment, an inordinate amount of time seems to have been spent on "relationship issues" and petty high-school bullshit rather than focusing on actual crime fighting and real human interaction (neither villain gets all that much screentime until very late in the film, and even then, it's mostly anticlimatic (in a few decisive scenes, there's a sense of comic relief before there's been enough action to demand relief, you're giggling when you should be enthralled, and that doesn't bode well for the film...), in addition to much of the last sequence reeking of computer-generation...

Tobey Maguire is still a lame sissy Peter Parker (which I guess is what Parker's supposed to be, but it's still annoying how clueless and nerdy he seems (and don't even get me started on Emo-Peter or his pathetic attempt to emote when Mary Jane breaks up with him)), Kirsten Dunst is still a generic damsel-in-distress comic book love interest, Thomas Haden Church is given possibly eight words total, and is staggeringly underused, computer or not (although Maguire and Church's first fight scene is easily the coolest thing in the film)...the only person who gives a half-decent and noteworthy performance was Topher Grace, who was perfectly cast as a smarmy asshole who thinks he's smarter than everyone around him, a role which Grace has done before and can play pitch-perfect.The rest of the cast was like the film: Solid, but unremarkable entertainment.

If you're a Spider-Man fan, I would definitely see it regardless, but I don't think this will hold as much weight with casual movie fans as the first or definitely the second.

My recommendation? Save your hard-earned dollars for that other pirate coming up soon.

7/10, #6 of my now-Nine of 2007.

Crossover (2006)

2007-05-03T14:54:00.000-07:00

I watched this film for one specific reason: It had long since held the top spot on the IMDb's Bottom 100, which I held was utter and complete bullshit.

After watching the film, I still contend that fact.

Yes, it's mediocre. Yes, it's unbelievably cheap-looking and doesn't make much of an attempt to hide it. Yes, it's poorly-written, poorly-acted, and predictable. Every moment is utterly obvious, and despite nominally being a "basketball" movie, there's exactly three basketball scenes, and between the opening and closing scenes, and they were all shot fairly poorly.

Anthony Mackie and Wesley Jonathan are fairly stupid basketball players (Mackie has troubled making simple addition, Jonathan has a scholarship to UCLA and plans to become a doctor, but gets immediately captivated by an attractive gold-digger). Mackie showed charisma and silent menace as Papa Doc, the de facto villain of 8 Mile, but here, he's one of many completely wasted by the terrible script)
Anyway, the following things happen, sorry to spoil it for you: A man lets his friend down because of some ho, a sleazy agent attempts to get a man to ruin his dreams, a man loses his scholarship because of said ho and said agent, and finds out ho's baby is actually the villain's (played by real streetballer Hot Sauce), a man gets a debilitating injury, and inspires his friend to triumph (in slow motion, of course), when all looks lost...

It most certainly should have been direct-to-video, and despite its obvious flaws, I think it deserves a 3.8, not a 1.8.

It sucks, but not that much.

Our Daily Bread (1934)

2007-05-03T04:19:00.000-07:00

It's fascinating to me that in many of these "of the land" pictures, the biggest problem facing the modern farmerman isn't suffering crops, drought or starvation...it's always just some slut. They were always so hopeful that it'll rain someday, or the crops will cash out, but the slut always ruins everyone's lives.

Anyway, this film is a fascinating exercise as much for how it was made and received as the film itself. This film was directed by King Vidor, who had to finance the film out of his own pocket after MGM dismissed it as communist propaganda, and Charlie Chaplin took money out of HIS own pocket to help out (a situation that would later lend to screwing him over with a certain House Un-American Committee).

Anyway, the film is a standard-but-well-told tale of rookie farmers trying to make due living off the land, with one big, communal difference: He calls up a lot of people to do various jobs and live as their own little happy commune, that, other than a few scoundrels (a guy trying to take another guy's land here, a guy attempting to sell some goods there...BUT HE GOT A STERN WARNING!), everyone seems to have bought in to the commune idea (a wanted felon turns himself in and gives the reward for his capture to the commune, AWW! AIN'T THAT SWEET!). But then, that old stalwart slut Sally (Barbara Pepper) tries (and temporarily succeeds) in getting dumbass John (played with atrocious gusto by Tom Keene) to leave his not-only-smarter-and-better-equipped but far-more-attractive wife Mary (played with glorious subtlety by Karen Morley).
But, thankfully, he comes to his senses (purely by chance...a generator happens to be working, which convinces him to not give up on his entire life and run off with an idiot slut), and they have a wonderously edited sequence that takes up the entire last fifth of the film, digging an irrigation ditch to save their farm (almost...Eisensteinian...as if the film wasn't Russian enough, now it's emulating Soviet directors, ha)

All in all, a pretty enjoyable and worthwhile flick, despite the naive optimism of the idea and the terrible lead performance...8/10

The Lookout (2007)

2007-05-02T22:50:00.000-07:00

Well, I don't like beginning a review by mentioning other reviews, but I must say, I'm perplexed. Richard Roeper called this film "an instant masterpiece -- a movie I know will stay with me for the rest of my life", and it is easily the most acclaimed film of the year on Rotten Tomatoes, and, I just don't see it. I mean, the film was a fairly-well plotted character drama plotted around a 'heist' plot, but it's fairly mundane and samey, and involves a weak, bloody finale and an important character getting dropped and forgotten for no apparent reason...

It deals with a janitor at a bank who was formerly a star high school hockey player and got into an accident that killed his girlfriend and a couple other friends, and now he has a memory problem (although nowhere near as harsh as Leonard Shelby's; he just has trouble sequencing memories), and he gets caught up in a bank robbery by a charismatic stranger who claims to know him (and the beautiful Isla Fisher doesn't hurt the convincing process either)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt is consistently one of the better actors of his generation, and is rewarded with critical acclaim and complete ignorance by the general public; Matthew Goode was fantastic, especially considering I've seen him before in Match Point (and could so hardly recognize him that I had to look at pictures of him from both films...amazing), who exudes an air of charm and menace almost simultaneously, and had a better American accent than most of the AMERICAN cast; Isla Fisher and Jeff Bridges do their jobs (be cute; provided comic relief), although they're mostly superfluous...

The film plods along basically how you would imagine a job about a meek guy convinced to do a bank heist would be, and then turns random near the end, to its defecit.

I give it a 7.5 and put it at #6 in my Eight of 2007.

Spartacus (1960)

2007-05-01T19:33:00.000-07:00

Now this is how you do a sword-and-sandal epic.

The first half of the film was shockingly ordinary, exhibiting the fact that Kubrick was placed on this film, as opposed to his baby. It goes pretty much the way you would expect this sort of film to go, what with the near-shoulda-been death and such, but even then, the film never dragged...I looked up and 105 minutes had passed...it almost seemed perfunctory, like the film was acknowledging it had to go through these motions to get to the good part (including the age old tradition of Romans being British and slaves being American), and when it got good, I was captivated...this was the film Ben-Hur should have been...this was 195 minutes that felt like 95 minutes, as opposed to that "tale of the Christ", which was 212 minutes and felt like 412 minutes, and ended with 45 minutes that had NOTHING to do with the main character!

In addition, the acting in this film was top-notch; all the heavy hitters were in full effect, Douglas, Olivier, Ustinov, Curtis, Woody Strode, and ESPECIALLY the great Charles Laughton all delivered glorious performances...about the only sore thumb in the whole spectacle was Jean Simmons, who I felt was out of place and miscast, but it was a minor qualm, and for the most part, just a stunning achievement...
I don't feel the stamp of Kubrick and feel it would probably have been more or less the same with Anthony Mann at the helm (a quality director in his own right), but I did highly enjoy the film, and think it a wonderful, towering achievement.

Anyone who says Ben-Hur is better than this is a big dumbfacehead.

9/10!

Fires on the Plain (1959)

2007-05-01T03:04:00.000-07:00

Well, yet ANOTHER Criterion cover convinces me to watch this film over all others.
I mean, tell me this picture doesn't intrigue you:Exactly. On to the movie...

Man, I thought Germany, Year Zero was depressing and hopeless...this grim, bleak, deliberate motion picture details a soldier near the end of World War II. This particular soldier happens to have tuberculosis. Because of this, the army won't take him, and continually sends him to the sick bay. The sick bay won't take him because he has tuberculosis, and don't have any extra beds (unless of course he has food.) So, he is doomed to wander around the jungle, starving to death, and waiting to die.
Wheee.
(Oh, and I have even mentioned that he runs into cannibals on at least two separate occasions. As if life wasn't fun enough.)

This was an amazing, sobering motion picture, and perfectly captured the bleak futility and horror of war more than any other war film I can think of, even more so for the fact that every shock grows naturally; nothing is included just to shock or gawk at, except perhaps for how beautiful the camerawork is...it's filmed in luscious 2.35:1, and there are many shots of the landscape, swallowing the main character whole.

Didn't make my #1 spot of '59, but came damn close.

Germany, Year Zero (1948)

2007-04-30T00:59:00.000-07:00

A 12-year-old boy gets fired from a job as a gravedigger when his age is found out, so how he hawks crap and scams people on the black market (and he's constantly getting stuff stolen by adults, and gets near-molested by an ex-teacher that helps him out)...his sister prositutes herself to Americans soldiers every night of the week...their brother won't go sign up for a permit to get work because he's a former Nazi soldier, and is afraid of being found out...their father is an invalid who constantly yearns to end his life, and they all live together with four other families in a tiny apartment they can't pay for, with a landlord with a short fuse.

Ahh, soak in the joys of post-war Germany.

In one of the most bleak and nihilistic films I've ever seen, this is a story of a family whose lives are hopeless at film's opening, and are even worse by the final reel...of course, this is the film's intent, and both Germany and director Roberto Rossellini's home country of Italy were really like this in the late '40s, and neorealism was born as much out of the dour, depressing reality of life as the limited supplies...

So I will end this review with what is essentially the neorealist credo: Life sucks, and then you die. Indeed.

Next (2007)

2007-04-30T00:34:00.000-07:00

Well, I mostly watched this because I got the chance and it was free...

Also, I had intended to finally usurp 300 as the "Worst Film of 2007" (so far)...

Although it had started off niftily enough (Cage foils a robbery in a casino that he then gets accused of, and uses his neat "see-two-minutes-into-the-future" talent to avoid them altogether (the film taking careful notice to fuck with you and what you think is real or not)

But then, the film loses the plot, so to speak, gets mired in pointless subplots, and had possibly the worst ending this film could possibly have, pure, unadultered, "Aww, are you fucking kidding me?!?" bullshit...

Cage is adequate enough, although his entire head is completely off-putting, rocking the anti-mullet (bald in the front, long-but-certainly-no-party in the back, the Tom-Hanks-Da-Vinci-Code look)...Biel is also adequate, and, as per this sort of film, she's given pretty much nothing to do but be the victim, and Julianne Moore is completely generic, but that's mostly due to the writing also giving her nothing interesting to do...

It's fascinating to watch the metaphorical plane crash tragectory Lee Tamahori's career has taken...he began his career with two acclaimed dramas, the first being the highly-acclaimed Kiwi family drama Once Were Warriors, and the slick, noirish mystery Mulholland Falls...then he went middle-of-the-road with the Anthony Hopkins adventure flick The Edge, but since then? His last four films: Along Came a Spider, Die Another Day, XXX: State of the Union, and now this.

Still, I must say: This was better than 300. It may be a 6/10, but a 6 beats a 5.5, last time I checked.

Anyway, here's a picture of Jessica Biel's ass:

Black Narcissus (1947)

2007-04-30T00:18:00.000-07:00

I had made attempts to see this film for many years, but had continually missed it, and wasn't that sad about missing it, for it seemed like a dreary, black and white religious drama...

...And then the movie started.

First off, it's INSANELY VIBRANT! It's possibly the most colorful film I've ever seen, and some of the shots are breathtakingly beautiful (most notably early on in the film, when Deborah Kerr throws open the door and her light blue dress flows next to the light blue walls and light blue sky...it's captivating...

And, even here, there was still another surprise...once Sister Ruth falls in love with A MAN *gasp*, she decided to relinquish her vows, and GOES FUCKING APESHIT; All of a sudden, it turns into a near-horror movie, as the Technicolor brings out the vibrantly INSANE red bands under Sister Ruth's eyes as the score kicks into full-out madness strings, and it ends...pretty much like Vertigo ends...

AAAHHH!!!

Awesome flick...

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

2007-04-29T23:35:00.000-07:00

Well, I wrote an eloquen, detailed, lengthy review, but apparently Blog does not like when you attempt to copy whole blocks of text, because it deleted the whole thing:

So here's some key phrases of the review:
"revisionist western"
"made the time pass quickly"
"Treasure of the Sierra Madre = awesome"
"Jesus = fish"
"play the same characters, but the results are flipped"
"the naive weakling gets the glory, the big masculine cowboy gets nothing"

Anyway, to make it look like I still got that same length, here's Lee Marvin about to do something bastardly:

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)

2007-04-28T00:16:00.000-07:00

Holy bejeezus, I didn't realize movies were allowed to be this fun!

A glorious story of three big-breasted sociopath go-go dancers on a crime spree...well, perhaps not a crime spree, but she does randomly kill a dude because he was reckless in a race, and by 20 karate chops and a backbreaker, BAM, that motherfucker's done...

Then she runs into a lecherous old cripple and his mute son (The Old Man and Vegetable, as they're credited) with the dead guy's little girlfriend in tow, and they have a silly chicken dinner and a fabulous couple chase scenes as the girl runs away and everyone keeps finding her (first the Old Man's other son Kirk, then the Old Man and Vegetable)...and, goddamn, I'm out of breath, I'm having too much fun to even type anymore. Easy top 250 place and narrowly beats out Alphaville for best of '65 (this may change, but man...)

To suffice, here's a picture of some of the main draws of this film:

Tight, consise and full of titties. What else could one want?

Day of Wrath (1943)

2007-04-27T18:55:00.000-07:00

A fascinating film, thankfully closer to the staggeringly moving Ordet than the staggeringly boring Passion of Joan of Arc, this is a fascinatingly despondent dour of a film, with witchcraft, intolerance, forbidden, confused love, and like all of his films, a hatred of Puritanical persecution...narrowly my top film of 1943, it may also narrowly make my top 250...

Alexander Nevsky (1938)

2007-04-27T17:11:00.000-07:00

And man, what a first hour that was...it was propaganda, but damnit, it was GOOD propaganda...by the time they're preparing to go fight them (and in fact up until the big famous ice battle begins), *I* was really do go fight for ol' Mother Russia...the Germans throw babies into FIRES! WHAT!)

...but then the battle started.

In what amount to endless shots of a bunch of Russians with determined looks and pointy helmets waving axes around while a bunch of other people shook sticks around in the background; it slaughtered the momentum as well as the Germans, and after that, I was just waiting for the credits...

But that first hour at least puts it to a strong 8 (although I was ready to give it the crown of 1938, but the fact that The Adventures of Robin Hood's swordplay was eons more exciting, better choreographed and more personal, this ended up barely making third (losing to The Lady Vanishes and nearly to Angels with Dirty Faces)

I still definitely prefer it to Ivan the Terrible, Pt. 1, though...

Hour of the Wolf (1968)

2007-04-26T17:31:00.000-07:00

My eighth Ingmar Bergman film is, as always, excellent...

A stark, psychological story examining...something, I was never really sure what...perhaps something about artists becoming too full of themselves and their work...either way, a haunting, masterful film...

Max von Sydow is an artist living with his pregnant wife Liv Ullman, and he's been getting haunting, disturbing visions, and she's beginning to have them too (including this old, faceless woman who tells her to read his diary, where she finds out about his affair with another woman long ago, and then there is a baron and his Rogue's Gallery of friends (be they real, imagined or hallucinated) which leads to surreal scenes culminating in one involving near-necrophelia that turned into almost a prank...

Crazy sh-t...thanks, Ingmar...

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926)

2007-04-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

Man, was that neat...

Easily the first full-length animated film of all time, beating Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs by over a decade, it was meticulously filmed over the course of three years using carefully cut-out pieces of cardboard and metal in front of colored glass, and man, was it cool-looking...

Another main proponent was the magical score, which soared over ever scene, a same ol' 1001 Arabian Nights story, but it is infused with such glory, such love, such care, such grandiose, that any criticisms melt away...

This film really sweeps you away to another world, and reminds you how magical cinema can be, and why you fell in love with movies in the first place. Expect it to make the top 250.

Vacancy (2007)

2007-04-24T18:56:00.000-07:00

A tight, concise little thriller.

Manages to establish the main couple as real three-dimensional people without mincing words or getting mired in unnecessary passages or subplots, working on a lean, mean 85 minutes, it thrils, it chills, and other than ending fairly perfunctory (although I thought even that worked out of a real situation, with one glaring question I won't disclose here)

Good performance by Luke Wilson, although even his comedy has that kind of smarmy, fearful air that fits well for both sides of this performance (both pre- and post-scaryasshotel), and Kate Beckinsale doesn't have a lot to do for most of it, but then again,she really shouldn't anyway, since they're both just scared and confused, and a preposterously creepy Frank Whaley performance who I would claim to be a bit over-the-top if I didn't know guys exactly like that (including one who lived in my basement for an entire year. ha)

Good stuff, even if a bootlegged Spanish-subtitled cam-vid...8/10

Some Came Running (1958)

2007-04-24T18:15:00.000-07:00

Pure, uncut melodrama...

It was decent, but nothing more...Sinatra was flat and ill-defined, the rest of them were caricatures (the icy blonde intellectual spinster, the dumb chatty floozy)...and did Dead Martin's character serve ANY purpose WHATSOEVER? It almost seemed like he just showed up with Sinatra on the first day of filming and they decided they would add him to the movie...

Also, it's obvious they couldn't think of a way to actually end the story, so they just through outlandish plot turns (he suddenly up and marries her! And then that random dude just shows back up and shoots him! But she jumps in the way and dies! I SMELL OSCAR!"
Not the best way to spend 2 1/2 hours, but oh well, it was decent, 7/10

Dead Ringers (1988)

2007-04-24T02:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I just watched Dead Ringers...and just like every other Cronenberg movie I've ever seen, it's definitely "original" but that doesn't necessarily make it "good"...Crash had an intriguing, original premise, and look at the monotonous movie that turned out to be...Naked Lunch cheapened something meaningful into appearing "weird for the sake of being weird"...A History of Violence was praised for being "an art film masquarading as a thriller", a statement which seemed to be based purely on reputation, because it seemed to be a pure ol' thriller to mine eyes...an above-average thriller, but just a general thriller...Videodrome was the only one so far that I really "liked", and I certainly was miles from loving it, but it's the only one I would ever considering showing to anyone or watching again...

Anyway, on to Dead Ringers...it has an "original" premise (twin gynecologists trade off women and are for all intents & purposes, the same person)
...the fact that they're gynecologists seems to not be notable (there are definitely references to it, but it seems to almost be a throwaway (any other doctor would have sufficed...the fact that they deal with the vaginal cavity comes off to me sounding like Cronenberg trying to be "original" again (and the fact that it's based off of real people exhibits my point)), and in fact seems to have been added as an occupation strictly because it's an odd, almost-taboo occupation (once again being "weird for the sake of being weird"), and just like every other Cronenberg, it was an interesting idea that lost steam as it went on...

...although I will say, I enjoyed this one far more than I enjoyed either Crash or Naked Lunch, and about on pace with A History of Violence (actually, it's far deeper than that, and it's one of those films that is far more mind-enriching to consider afterwards than to actually watch)

Also, two amazing performances from Jeremy Irons, I was confused over who was who during most of the film, but that was due to deliberate writing choices attempting to confuse the two, as opposed to any fault of Irons' to distinguish the two...(and although I wasn't that in love with the film, the technique used to get both Irons' on screen at the same time was staggering...

if something had said he had a twin brother named Jerome, I would have emphatically believed it)

So, to sum up, like many of his films, it was okay (but, also like the rest of his films so far, amazingly forgettable...and any credit is mostly thanks to Irons)...I'll give it an 7/10 (just a notch below A History of Violence) and I'll put it at #13 in the unnaturally good year of 1988...

Belle de Jour (1967)

2007-04-24T02:29:00.000-07:00

Possibly my least-favorite Bunuel...

Although that has far more to do with how stupefyingly briliant his other films are...because I thought this was excellent (after A Short Film about Love earlier, another excellent meditation on love, sex and obsession, although this was far more surreal thanks to the master (would anyone be able to tell me what the hell exactly she and Herron were doing under the table with the lillies in the envelope? Same with the guy when she was in the coffin )

And as if I didn't love Deneuve enough...
she's like Brigitte Bardot except she's a brilliant actress and she's more attractive and aged better, haha...

Put it at #5 in my list of 1967 (behind Le Samourai, Bonnie & Clyde, Cool Hand Luke and The Graduate)

A Short Film about Love (1988)

2007-04-24T02:28:00.000-07:00

Thankfully, it went the way of Three Colors: Red and not The Decalogue (although I've only seen the first four films of the 'logue, apparently the sixth film IS THIS MOVIE, just edited down, so I'm really going to look into re-watching the first four and watching the rest...

(Also, considering my recent luck with Stalker, perhaps I'll rewatch all the classics I didn't like (ha, okay, I won't get ahead of myself )

But The Decalogue I definitely gotta recheck because I guarantee you I will love it this time!

Anyway, back to this movie,
amazing meditation on the torments of love (and strikingly similar to one of the main sequences in Happiness a decade later...)

Bad luck for it though, although it might make my top 250, it will be no higher than sixth in my 'favorites of 1988' (my #5 film, The Vanishing is #162)

Stalker (1979) (THE RE-BIRTH!!!)

2007-04-24T02:26:00.002-07:00

You may recall the achingly disappointed review I gave Stalker earlier...

Well, I decided to try again.

I don't rewatch movies I love, much less movies I hate, but I thought there might be something here.

And guess what?

YOU WERE ALL RIGHT!

I didn't watch the film the entire way through...I started about 10 minutes before my attention flagged, knowing everything before it was top-10 anyway, so it helped me focus more sharply on the part I needed to focus on, and man, I GOT it. Don't cut a minute! (Okay, maybe a few minutes, but...)

I'm guessing it was just fatigue, because I watched like 5-6 straight movies yesterday, and just suddenly tuning out like I did, I realized I had actually zoned out quite a bit and missed quite a bit.

Now the film has reformed in my mind, and for any of you who read my analysis, remember that first version, where I had it in my top 10?

...Just pretend that's the one I posted It's #10. (I also decided, out of nowhere, that I liked The Treasure of the Sierra Madre better than Duck Soup...so, check the profile for the updated standings...if I can ever figure out how to do it.

Sleeper (1973)

2007-04-24T02:26:00.001-07:00

Another excellent, fun early Woody Allen, although easily my least-favorite of that bunch so far...my SIXTEENTH Woody Allen-directed film...wow...

Guys & Dolls (1955)

2007-04-24T02:23:00.000-07:00

There's a certain feeling you get from a good musical that is unlike any other feeling in the world, and this one...came close. Didn't quite hit all the right notes, and was insanely brightly-lit and fairly wooden. "Sit Down, You're Rockin' the Boat" still kicks ass though.

(P.S.: What the fuck was Brando doing singing "Luck Be a Lady" while FRANK SINATRA is standing right the fuck to his left?)

Stalker (1979)

2007-04-24T02:22:00.000-07:00

Ha, damnit...100 minutes into this movie, this is what I wrote and prepared to send:

"And MY GOD, what a staggering, stunning experience that was... While Andrei Rublev was overlong, and as much as I loved The Mirror, sometimes it would get too insular and opaque for its own good, THIS...this...was something else. This never struck a false note, never hit a wrong key, no shot held too long, or cut too quickly, no line fell flat or sounded wrong...This is one of the closest examples of cinematic perfection I've ever seen... This film is easily spirited itself into my top 20 [Only the second film in the past YEAR to do that], and it may even be the first film to make it into my top 10 since the winter of 2004...these 10 films have sat where they are since I was 16...and now, this may just knock Bogie out of my top 10 of all time... And although I'm not analyst (most of the time, I don't get the depth of many complex films until after at least mild research), and although I'm certainly no writer, I think I got the general idea from it: Ya gotta have faith, baby. Hey, I may even watch this again...and I rewatch NOTHING."

See how I wrote that it wasn't "overlong" like Rublev? Well, that was before we got to the overlong part! The entire last hour has killed the momentum, and the message has gotten a bit muddled, I think, and it will barely make the top 100, sadly enough...this last hour has SLAUGHTERED the staggering momentum it had...just standing around and arguing about the same thing over and over, and then random speeches, that I'm not even interested that this girl is moving this jar with her mind...BOO! Damn you Tarkovsky...damn you...just as happened with Happy Feet (not an apt cinematic comparison, but the feeling is the same), the last quarter of the film totally, totally spoiled everything that came before it, and ruined the amazing feeling I had, and it became laborious, and a chore to sit through...ugh...how horrendously disappointing...

Still one of the best movies I've ever seen, but among the HUNDRED as opposed to the TEN

And this PAINS me that it became so drawn out and boring, because I SO loved it. and if I rewatch it, I'll rewatch the captivating first 100 minutes, and skip the rest...but I won't, because it'll piss me off that there's still the "Need to be cut" section after it...

The Jerk (1979)

2007-04-24T02:20:00.002-07:00

Well, I finally saw The Jerk, and although there were definitely times when it decended into silliness for silliness's sake (that you see the actor trying to be funny, rather than the character making a comment...this was the main problem with, say, The Naked Trucker & T-Bonez Show...T-Bonez was never a character, he was just an actor doing a silly voice)

But for most of the part, it was a lot of fun, a blast of pure, unadultered silliness ("He hates these cans! Stay away from the cans!")

Freaks (1932)

2007-04-24T02:20:00.001-07:00

I agree with many that the story behind the film would be far more interesting than the story told, although yes, the whole "one of us" thing is creepy (although I loved the guy with no legs or arms, with the knife in his mouth...what the hell was he gonna do?)...

And damnit, Hans is the cutest thing I've ever seen...he's tiny, frowning, and has a thick German accent coming from the voicebox of a 6-year-old... 7.5/10

I Think I Love My Wife (2007)

2007-04-24T02:19:00.002-07:00

Ended up liking this one a lot...it definitely dragged in the middle and had a lot of random "blue" humor (lots of jokes about erections and Michael Jackson), but the last 45 minutes or so ended up being quite touching and interesting, and there were definitely a lot of fun jokes to go along with it...

As my 5th movie of 2007, it didn't quite crack my top 3 (Black Snake Moan, Grindhouse, Bridge to Terabithia), but it definitely knocked the hell out of 300, to get a firm #4 spot, 8.5/10

Knock on Any Door (1949)

2007-04-24T02:19:00.001-07:00

A solid if suddenly-preachy court melodrama...Bogart always rocks, although this time playing a lawyer (!), and it mostly designed as a vehicle for an adequate-but-not-amazing John Derek...although it does have one claim to fame: The origin of the oft-repeated "Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse" line...Gets suddenly preachy at the end about how society is at fault for causing him to kill, but Bogart delivers the bad speech well, and the movie as a whole was pretty solid...

The Killer Shrews (1959)

2007-04-24T02:17:00.000-07:00

Man was this shit silly... It was hilariously bad, but I think it definitely overstayed its welcome, even at barely an hour...

A bunch of people are stuck in an ADOBE house on an ISLAND during a HURRICANE while "shrews" (which are really, REALLY obviously just like...dogs with tarps thrown over them...like, they don't even TRY...the puppets are a small improvement(although only when its dead...in motion, it's fakey) [Also, possibly the most hilariously amusing 'heroic escape' ever...here's a hint: it involes trash cans and duck-walking]
Completely preposterous in every way, something actually lost to Ben-Hur...and anyone who knows me knows how much I HATE Ben-Hur...

...Okay, it's still better than Ben-Hur...

Bride of the Monster (1953)

2007-04-24T02:16:00.002-07:00

Considering it and its director's reputation, this film was...surprisingly decent... I mean, okay, numerous people wrestle with the fakest-looking octopus in cinema history
, but other than that, it was a fairly decent B-picture, scripted and acted far better than many I've seen, including actually having a halfway interesting story!

It's half-disappointing that it's so decent, but it also made it better considering my likeminded roommate fell asleep, so I had no one to riff with anyway...

Plan Nine from Outer Space (1959)

2007-04-24T02:16:00.001-07:00

It seemed a bit unforgivable to be a bad film connoisseur and not having had seen the supposed "best of the best", Plan Nine from Outer Space (seems a bit like claiming to be a pop music expert and not having actually listened to the Beatles)

Anyway, it mostly lived up to expectations, with the preposterous opening exposition by Criswell, the "Bela Lugosi" scenes, the hilarious spaceship and the relative idiocy of the aliens (and the fact that they had reanimated a whole TWO PEOPLE to dominate the entire world...

It's not even my worst film of 1959 (it was more fun and 2 1/2 hours shorter than Ben-Hur)

Gayniggers from Outer Space (1992)

2007-04-24T02:15:00.004-07:00

Fun ass short film...nothing really that offensive about it at all, other than the title, which was simply attempting to be provocative (which of course it is...if the film was called anything boring, no one ever hears about it, but it was funny...was made on the cheap, and does all it can to make it LOOK like it was made on the cheap...

No shame in enjoying this...

Future War (1997)

2007-04-24T02:15:00.003-07:00

And it was as hilariously terrible as I had been led to believe...

Thankfully, I had the Mystery Science Theater 3000 cut, with a handy mocking guide to tell me anything they cut (which was "not much")

And thankfully it was hilariously terrible, as opposed to, say, Adrenalin: Fear the Rush, which was simply unbearably rough and boring.

Westworld (1973)

2007-04-24T02:15:00.001-07:00

And it's an entertaining, forgettable little film...

It was there to entertain me for an hour and a half, and that was it. Nothing to consider after. It's about a high-tech amusement park, and then how that park goes crazy and kills...and that's it.

It did its job well. 8/10

Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932)

2007-04-24T02:14:00.003-07:00

Ha, what a fun little flick...easily became my favorite film of 1932 (although the mind-boggling insanity of The Old Dark House comes close)

Just a wonderful little comedy...

The Blood of a Poet (1930)

2007-04-24T02:14:00.001-07:00

Neat little flick, not at interesting as Bunuel's 1930 avant garde offering (The Golden Age), and from what I've been reading, it's apparently esoteric and meaningless...which is all good with me,

I've made quite a few nonsensical, meaningless films, so I'm right there.

And God Created Woman (1956)

2007-04-24T02:13:00.001-07:00

Take out Bridget Bardot's naked ass, and it's a pretty middle-of-the-road, average melodrama...and since it's not worth talking about much more, I won't.

Extreme Boredom: Generic Sequel (1986)

2007-04-24T02:12:00.000-07:00

I think it was released in the United States under the title "Aliens"

Check my "1:43" post to see exactly how it turned out.

It was bigger, louder and tremendously stupider than a film I didn't love all that much anyway.

James Cameron, boo.

Aliens (1986) (1 hour, 43 mins through)

2007-04-24T02:11:00.000-07:00

And I have to say, I'm completely perplexed as to when this relentless white-knuckle terror all these reviews keep mentioning is going to show up...

Every review mentions how there's no down time, and we care about what happens to these people because they have personalities and aren't just fodder to aliens to pick off...in addition, Bill Paxton is "entertaining comic relief" and Paul Reiser is an "easy-to-hate total slimeball"...

So far, it's been 90% down time, I care NONE what happens to these people, they're one-dimensional fodder for aliens to pick off...Bill Paxton is horrendously obnoxious and Reiser has been eh but fairly reasonable for a moneyman...

Apparently it gets really exciting near the end, so I'm making this post now in case I die of old age before it ends...this movie is ROUGH...I don't know if I just can't get with this story (I thought Alien was okay), but I'm really struggling to get through this movie...I'm sitting here just praying that the time is wrong and the aliens are coming to pick off everyone but Weaver so she can kill it by herself...

WHY WON'T YOU END!

Mouchette (1967)

2007-04-24T02:10:00.002-07:00

And I have to say, a major disappointment...

I had heard all about the unbelievably rough life of this girl and how spiritual and tragic it was...and, considering I had heard the same things about the prior year's Au Hasard Balthazar, I was intrigued by this one.

This ain't no Balthazar.

The extremity of this situation was unduly exaggerated...yes, she isn't having a happy childhood, but it's certainly no worse than many...It almost causes me to say, "So she had a rough childhood, who didn't?" A few traumatic incidents in adolescence, even a few right in a row, yeah, sounds like pretty much everyone I've ever met...

Au Hasard Balthazar is heartbreaking, life-enriching and incredible. This was uneventful and underweighted. 6/10

The Parallax View (1974)

2007-04-24T02:10:00.001-07:00

This was one of the most massively thrilling and enjoyable films I have ever seen... In the market for a political thriller? I don't know that you could do much better than this'un (it's easily the best I've ever seen)... No down time, no false notes; it starts off with a lot of contrived "nobody believes me!" BS but quickly dispatches of that...and dispatches of pretty much everyone else, too...whew, I'm exhausted and exhilarated...hells yeah... (That shot in the convention center of the dead man on the cart plowing through empty tables is in itself worth a slot on my list) I'll put it at #193 on my top 250...

Point Blank (1967)

2007-04-24T02:09:00.001-07:00

Man was it mediocre...it was attempting to supplement the fact that it had a meager story by using psychedelic "'60s visuals" and random New Wave techniques, and, unlike Payback, which used the same story to far more devilishly fun technique, in this, Lee Marvin, at least to mine eyes, has absolutely NO screen presence and when he demands his money, it almost just seems like someone who forgot his lines and so just attempts to improvise but is a poor improvisational actor, so he just keeps repeating, "Uh...um...oh...I want my money?" ("CUT!") Easily the worst film I've seen from 1967...5/10

Lessons in Darkness (1992)

2007-04-24T02:07:00.001-07:00

Man am I a sucker for sweeping strings over slow panning shots of landscape...and if there's MEANING behind the landscape, it's even better. Amazing film. Goes on too long, but is breathtaking in spurts.

Patton (1970)

2007-04-24T02:04:00.000-07:00

I have to say, I like it a bit more now than I did during the film...there's nothing to cut but it still seemed overlong, ha...

It seemed to be in three distinct parts:

1. "Don't be a pussy! Go die!"
2. "WAH! I wanna go fight!" *pout*
3. "Yay, I knew you'd come back, now let's go kill!"

...and then he resigns himself and leaves on a somber note...

It was okay, but I'd never like to see it again...

This is probably the highest-rated "eh" ever...8.5/10...ha, how bizarre...I'm comnpletely ambivalent, but I can't bear to give it any lower than that...

L'Atalante (1934)

2007-04-24T01:59:00.002-07:00

Embodies the phrase "nice little movie"...

I think all these calls to greatness obscure its little pleasures, the little scene in Jules's room (with possibly the scariest ass puppet I have ever seen), and especially the scene where 'the bossman' dives in the water because he misses his wife...that was pitch-perfect, and if I ever needed to show 'longing for a lover', I don't know that I could find a better, more well-made example than that...

It may not make my top 250, but it'll come damn close, 9/10

Carrie (1976)

2007-04-24T01:59:00.001-07:00

Slow and aggravating going for the first hour as they were patiently, arduously setting everything up for the big showdown in the last 45 minutes, but, like Revenge of the Sith, man did that last 45 redeem all the film before it... 8/10

The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

2007-04-24T01:57:00.000-07:00

So strange and wonderful it was immediately spirited right to my top 250, ha...I can admire a film that has an odd story to tell, casts odd actors, films it oddly and doesn't even ATTEMPT to explain it to allow for mass consumption...great stuff

#197 on my top 250

Blood Gnome (2003)

2007-04-24T01:56:00.000-07:00

A tremendous film...

...because it helps you realize, "I can do this too"

Tremendously silly, cheap and terrible, although some of the BSDM scenes actually manage to have of modicum of (*gasp*) eroticism, and the main girl has a bit of charm and actual screen presence...(AND THE BLOOD GNOMES THREATENED THE HERO BY *INSTANT MESSAGE*!!! AAAH!)

A lot of fun. I'd watch it again 100 times before I'd watch The Benchwarmers again.

The Big Heat (1953)

2007-04-24T01:55:00.001-07:00

And it reminded me a lot of Out of the Past with Robert Mitchum: decent but not GREAT but held in high esteem...

There are some definite quality (such as Lee Marvin being evil and Gloria Grahame being adorable) and definite things to analyze (such as the oft-mentioned quality about how Bannion is almost a reverse-femme fetale where he's completely willing to have as many women die for him as need be...), but overall, not that memorable...7/10