10 posts tagged “movie”
Fargo (1996). Oh, that was pitch-perfect. Absolutely sincere and patient and wonderfully made. In some ways, I prefer it to even No Country. No Country was weighed down by its grim spectres, but Fargo has complete free range and the purity of its plot, its characters, and its dialogue ring through each and every scene. And best of all, everything is so completely seamless, no rude announcements of the effort that went into the production, just the smooth, confident beauty of the finished product.
Resident Evil (2002) For all the jackboot critical snobbery eviscerating its reputation, Resident Evil is surprisingly grim, tense, and excellently executed. Granted, it uses flashbacks like a crutch, makes a mockery of science, and lacks any flights of scriptorial wit, but damn, it's completely effective and masterfully confident. I mean, I don't know about you but I flinched.
MINUTE 24:41: OK SO BASICALLY ALL I EVER WANTED TO SEE IN MY ENTIRE LIFE WAS MILLA JOVOVICH KICKING A DOG THROUGH A PLATE GLASS WINDOW.
CONCLUSIONS:
I. MILLA JOVOVICH IS A STUD.
II.Michelle Rodriguez is Vice Stud.
III. James Purefoy, I saw your wang once in Rome*! Call me!
IV. Eric Mabius, no worries, I think they've got a cream for what you have! Keep up the good work in Ugly Betty, but lay off the hair gel.
V. Red Queen, you're the finest bitch alive.
* Lie, I saw it many times. Nice.
Little Miss Sunshine (2006).
Sweet at its core, but flimsy. Mistakes dysfunction for plot and quirks for character.
Lucky for it, I'm a sucker for dance montages.
Mean Creek (2004). Mean kids suck, action is taken, things go awry.
Mean Creek is suprisingly deft at portraying the emotions and lives of its adolescent characters in a rural Oregon town. While the constraints of each character sometime chafe (troubled bad-boy, sensitive Aryan girl, misunderstood bully), the film, for the most part, details with perfect accuracy the discomforts of a child desperately trying to fit in. It roils along, flirting with poignancy at times and buoyed by its beautiful scenery and cinematography. Unfortunately, after its climax (a scene that veers a little too close to parody. YO DADDY'S BRAINS), the film seems to sag under the weight of the plot. It struggles to keep close to reality which is a credible boon, but the execution unfortunately shows the director's relative inexperience. The script blindly feels its way through to a resolution, disoriented by the events, and never really regains its confident portrayal from the previous half.
However, kudos to its (mostly) uncondescending look at adolescence and its excellent, excellent young cast. Hopefully a sign of great things to come.
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988):
THE PREMISE: A woman's lover leaves her with no explanation, and she steadily attempts to contact him with growing desperation.
THE CONTINUATION: Fuck the premise.
PROCEED TO: Diverge wildly with glamour and spirit.
Women on the Verge of Nervous Breakdown had all the hallmarks of a potentially unbearable and melodramatic film. Exotic foreign pedigree! Impeccable critical praise! The promise of mental instability! Baby mama drama! But Almodovar neatly bypasses all expectations to create a sort of super-glossy, candy-dipped, mega-telenova comprised of a revolving (and interesting!) cast and a mad-cap plot. Women on the Verge explodes with exuberance, but even the wildest moments are tempered by Almodovar's steady and sure direction. While Almodovar likes to play on the edges, the film never veers out of control, and the effect is more of a well-coordinated explosion. Furthermore, the movie has a finer grain than any old slapstick comedy; there is a well of bitterness and resignation, that gives some of the laughs a noticeably darker edge and Women on the Verge a richer overall tone.
Women on the Verge is far from a perfect film, but its flaws seem more like personal quibbles, and they're quickly overwhelmed by the sheer energy of the final product.
Oldboy (2003). After being locked away in a private prison for fifteen years, Oh Daesu seeks vengeance. There is a bacchanal of blood, gore, and sex.
Oldboy is a virulently purple melodrama, completely lacking in any breed of subtlety, and enamored with its own chop-shlocky violence and twisty, sordid plotline. It skimps on detail, oozes from genre to genre, and takes a Mike Tyson sized chomp out of feminism's ear*. Everything comes to a head near the last minutes of the movie where Daesu's impromptu skit as someone's "bitch" loses sight of its goals and the movie stops skirting the edge and completely devolves into a cheap and tawdry B-movie. However, all in all, Oldboy is deadly and effective, holding you by the collar and dragging you through a grim, seedy, and very visceral horror show.
*I'm still applying for my misogynist badge, but this movie even made me wince at some of the tin-eared, clammy dialogue that the female characters have to say.
Everything is Illuminated (2005). Jonathon Safran Foer travels to Ukraine to find the woman who saved his grandfather's life during the Holocaust, and Liev Schreiber swerves off the beaten path.
Having read Everything is Illuminated, I expected to recall all the shots and plots. I did not count on the film taking so many... liberties, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. So, I will list my thoughts in bullet form instead!
- Hello Ukraine! Goodbye self-indulgent, dime-store Mexican realism. While Jonathon's search and his translator's spastic, discount Roget's vocabulary was was equal parts hilarious and painful in the good way, Foer's unfortunate forays into the magical fairy-tale of a Ukraine shtel's foundings was slow, self-indulgent, and painful in the bad way. It's nice to see that Liev Schrieber shared my exact sentiments and gave said sections the boot. The most they figure into the movie is through sparkling lights and a Ukranian Enya solo on the soundtrack. Whatever, we can't all escape unscathed.
- Ukraine is beautiful! Lots of pristine sunshine, waving sunflowers, and skulking remains of Communist decline all around. Also, roads smoother than butter and blacker than sin. If Liev is to be believed, the Ukranian highway system is better maintained than the Beltway. Liev also takes pains to frame everything beautifully - beautiful, bright saturated colors, and lots of meticulous framing. Think Wes Anderson in Eastern Europe.
- The... ending? Schreiber takes the easy - and puzzling - way out, making Grandfather into an escapee survivor with a guilt complex instead of a Ukrainian executioner with a guilt complex. I'm not quite sure why since it completely confounds the lead-up, drains his death of any meaning, and completely detracts from the complexity of the odd (and awkward! Very awkward!) tableau.
Coach Carter (2005).
Art School Confidential
Sideways (2004).
Igby Goes Down (2002). I wanted to love this movie. I didn't. While it has some very acidic and very funny set pieces, Igby Goes Down isn't half as charming or witty or biting as it thinks it is or wants to be. The movie as a whole is aimless and meandering, and at its worst, petty and overly precious. With the exception of Susan Sarandon's WASP mother from hell, the characters are rushed and sporadically developed, and everyone involved seems to have mistaken snideness for quality.
Knight's Tale (2001). MTV's Spring Break: 1440. Also known as, every time a medieval historian breaks down into sissy tears, Heath Ledger gets his wings. There's not a thought in this pretty little head, but the film is both guileless and enjoyable. Completely predictable and initially a bit off-putting (a bunch of peasants chanting Queen's We Will Rock You? That would've made World History so much more interesting), but thoroughly entertaining.
10 Things I Hate About You (1999). Some deliciously sharp writing, a wonderfully scathing supporting cast of adults, and sheer 90's pop-punch make this rolling cliche funny and charming, but in the end, a cliche is a cliche and 10 Things I Hate About You is forgettable, light fluff. The "alternative" spin that the movie tries to take with Julia Stiles' bracing pan-leftist feminista is schlocky, unconvincing, and makes the Nazi in me want to take a wood chipper to Julia's enormous, pan-faced head.
Waiting for Guffman (1996). A small town in Missouri puts on a musical in celebration of its 150th anniversary; Christopher Guest crashes their party and is ruinously mocking. Waiting for Guffman is impeccable; the costumes, the acting, the lines are all perfectly crafted to show all the terrible embarrassments of living in a small town. Guest is usually merciless - just about everyone and everything is skewered - but the movie is more than a collection of cheap shots; towards the end, Waiting for Guffman picks up a whiff of empathy, fleeting capricious empathy, but empathy nonetheless for its guileless, endearingly-earnest cast.
Equal opportunity winces and hysterical laughter included in the package.
EDIT: Balls to studying! I demand MORE TV.
Super Size Me (2004). Morgan Spurlock eats a McMeal 3 times a day, everyday, for the month of February - conveniently the shortest month of the year - to become a fatty fatty moo moo atty.
I'm of two opinions on Super Size Me. On one hand, it's clearly a gimmick. Utterly unsophisticated, amateurish in both concept and execution, heavily biased, politically awkward and clumsy, and even occasionally abrasive. I grew up watching Nature and National Geographic (a: because I was an enormous prick, b: because I was also an enormous nerd, c: because I was into gay things like cheetahs and porpoises, and d: because sometimes they showed boobies and animals doing it) which places me firmly in Team Ken Burns and Stately Narration by David Attenborough territory. Meanwhile, Super Size Me clearly has its roots in Michael Moore's school of documentary. We will forever be at war.
However, getting past the film's obnoxiousness, it really is pretty effective. It shows the effects of a hazardous diet and at least sheds light on a new and probably dangerous phenomenon. Also, it's got a magnificent soundtrack.
I also watch movies. Mostly terrible, some terrific.
Nacho Libre (2006)
To a Just God,
How can a movie so stupid be so consistently unfunny?
Signed,
Mortified and Embarrassed for Mexico
Now out of the kindness of my heart, I offer advice. Watch two scenes and two scenes only: (1) The midget wrestling scene. I have a sneaking suspicion that this might only be funny to frat boys, but I also suspect that I DON'T CARE. One of the most beautiful ten minutes commited to celluloid. (2) The corn scene. Shit was lost; shit was not found until a good twenty minutes passed.
Stage Beauty (2004)
Ugh. A hamhanded and actually sort of gross attempt to explore sexuality and gender, replete with period costumes and Billy Crudup as the ugliest drag queen in all of mankind. All of RuPaul's nightmares must consist of Billy Crudup in his powedered, female glory. The entire script is so stagey and uncomfortably earnest that you begin to suspect that the movie was penned by a freshman who took his first Gender Studies course. Also, the characterization is careless and I've seen better development in a Tom Clancy novel.
She's The Man (2006)
I think my IQ just dropped by fifty points. Dumb and sometimes even fun, but only when you're shrieking with laughter at home TERRIBLE THIS MOVIE IS. I like to think of it as the PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE of teen Shakespeare adaptations.
Which is probably the most damning review you can give.
The Good Shepherd (2006)
The rare spy-thriller that refuses to condescend towards its audience! The Good Shepherd wonderfully complex and tightly plotted, and even has rare moments of poignancy. The general consensus seems to think it tepid, but that's because you all are cretins! That's not slow, that's deliberate! It's development, you fools!
Recommendation: Watch with friends for maximum confused babble about all the identical-looking spies and g-men. Also, be on the look out for Matt Damon's creepy deaf-girl fetish.
The Departed (2006)
Martin Scorcese's Recipe for Plagiarizing Hong Kong Action Flicks as Follows:
1. Elaborate, labyrinthine plot
2. Razor-Sharp dialogue
3. God's Own A-listers
3a. i.e. JACK NICHOLSON AND MARKY MARK TOGETHER AT LAST.
Results: A brilliant, brilliant film. Completely involving for the entire duration (which... was long), as well as emotionally draining! I feel like I need to take up yoga and listen to nothing but Enya for a good month to unwind. I've heard vague kvetching that the original Infernal Affairs was better, but I can't really see how. It's odd to see Scorcese out of his New York stomping grounds and in Boston, but he still has a keen eye for nasty old barbs and ancient bad blood - one that I can't see translating to a culture like China's.
