A bit early because I'm on vacation next week.
Whatever Works (Woody Allen, 2009) ** - Best when it's at it's stagiest: like all of Allen's recent films - with the exception of Vicky Cristina Barcelona - the filmmaking is sloppy. There are weird, seemingly mis-matched cuts to reaction shots that are jarring enough that I was reminded of the spatial dislocations in Alain Resnais' Couers, but with the sense that Allen wasn't doing it for any aesthetic purpose. All that said, as a peice of filmed quasi-theater, I liked it quite a bit.
Hitman (Xavier Gens, 2007) (v) - Standard contemporary action movie bullshit: layered-on style and solemnity instead of interesting action sequences and wit.
Highway 61 (Bruce McDonald, 1991) (v) ***
L'ami de mon amie (Eric Rohmer, 1987) (v) ** - The English title, Boyfriends & Girlfriends is dumb. I'll want to see it again after making my way through Rohmer, but my take now is: interesting from a formal perspective, but shallow.
A Canterbury Tale (Powell & Pressburger, tktk) (v) (r) **** - I love this mainly for how weird it is. Also - one of my favorite kinds of movies: "war movies without any battle scenes".
Transporter 3 (Oliver Megaton, 2008) (v) - I don't expect that every romantic comedy is going to have as good a screenplay as It Happened One Night, every thriller as good a screenplay as The Third Man, and every action movie as good a screenplay as Die Hard. But just compared to what Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen came up with for the other two Transporter movies, this is some dumb shit. A note to the people making Transporter movies: your fans were not waiting for you to give Frank Martin a cutesy romantic interest.
He's Just Not That Into You (Ken Kwapis, 2009) (v) *
Drag Me to Hell (Sam Raimi, 2009) - Tired and sloppy. Raimi, unlike, say, Martin Scorsese, has always been a director more suited to "small films", so I was looking forward to this. Maybe my expectations were too high, but even though this is better than a lot of current horror movies and Raimi doesn't make any stupid mistakes it pales in comparison to genuinely good horror movies, like, say, The Evil Dead or Dead Alive (both of which I kept wishing I were watching instead of this).
Transporter 2 (Louis Leterrier, 2005) (v) * - Not as good as the first one: Leterrier has about half the skill set necessary to be a great action movie director. He's good on invention and directing his actors to express their character through how they fight, but he still puts his sequences together rather haphazardly. Like most contemporary action filmmakers, he goes for impact over clarity almost every time. The bit with the firehose, though, is an instant classic.
Pontypool (Bruce McDonald, 2008) (v) *** - Lots of good things about this movie, but mainly: Stephen McHattie's performance. Also - with this and The Tracey Fragments, Bruce McDonald is becoming one of my favorite directors. I'm very happy that I have many more of his movies left to see.
Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939) (v) (r) ***** - I think it's natural, normal, and overall a good thing that we movie buffs tend to champion a director's lesser-known works. There's a bit of the snob factor there, sure, but, really, if I'm not going to make the case for Wagon Master as one of John Ford's greatest movies, who will? All that said, watching Stagecoach again reminded me that "championing lesser-known works" doesn't have to be done at the expense of their most popular and best-loved movies. Stagecoach really is up there with the best American movies ever made.
Pauline at the Beach (Eric Rohmer, 1983) (v) ****
Key:
(v) = Seen on home video (dvd, dvr, etc.).
(r) = Not my first viewing.
(s) = Short film.
Star system ("borrowed" from the Chicago Reader)
No stars = Not recommended
* = Redeeming feature(s)
** = Recommended
*** = Highly recommended
**** = "Masterpiece"
***** = A place in my personal pantheon
Friday, June 26, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
Screening Log: May 2009
Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas, 2008) *** - A melancholy equation? Memories + Stuff = Culture.
Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand, 1983) (v) (r) * - My approach to the Star Wars movies is to treat them like I would other movies - that is, through an auteurist lens as "George Lucas movies": not like sacred texts, as if George Lucas was merely an intercessor or high priest of a New Age-y Great Geek God. So, while I don't mind arguments that the prequels are bad movies, I don't have much patience for arguments that they're heretical or a betrayal of "our" collective childhood in some way. Star Wars is George Lucas's creation: he can do with it what he wants. If you don't like it - fine, but only George gets to decide what Star Wars is or is not. (It's a different case with something like the new Star Trek movie, where the original creator(s) have been replaced by a brand management team). All that said, the prequels are different beasts than the original trilogy and the six movies do not fit together seamlessly. Watching them this time around, what I noticed is how apolitical the original movies are compared to the new ones. I think a lot of fans see this as a downside and I know that some people (i.e. my wife) think that the senatorial maneuverings and double-crossing is needlessly convoluted. For me, though, it gives the movies a symbolic/allegorical power that the earlier ones lacked. And it gives them a bit of a backbone: watched in a row like this, the New Agey-ness of the originals sticks out a lot more.
Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980) (v) (r) ****
Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977) (v) (r) **** (v) (r)
Revenge of the Sith (George Lucas, 2005) (v) (r) *** (v) (r)
Attack of the Clones (George Lucas, 2002) (v) (r) *** (v) (r)
The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999) (v) (r) * (v) (r)
Angels and Demons (Ron Howard, 2009) * - Ron Howard handles the grisly hokum just about as well as he handles the majestic hokum. Ultimately, not as good as his Da Vinci Code movie, where the equally nutty storyline but larger historical and geographic scope gave him more to work with: this one ends up feeling a little bit cramped.
Role Models (David Wain, 2008) (v) ** - Reminds me of The House Bunny in that it's mainly notable for a great lead performance, but the surrounding stuff is done with just the right touch so that the whole experience comes off as being much more enjoyable than equally funny but more ambitious movies (e.g. Knocked Up). The LARP stuff is perfectly handled.
JCVD (Mabrouk El Mechri, 2008) (v) **
The Happening (M. Night Shyamalan, 2008) (v) (r) *** - I'm not sure I have anything more to say about this, except that I think it really does hold together well and that my ideas about what Shyamalan is doing here seem to hold up, too.
Star Trek (J.J. Abrams, 2009) * - Really about as enjoyable as National Treasure, which, because you don't expect National Treasure to be anything special, means that Star Trek actually felt a lot less enjoyable than it. I have a problem, too, in the way that Abrams et al. got rid of all of the things that really make Star Trek Star Trek - the ethical dilemmas, the sci-fi puzzles, the utopian vision of the future - and replaced it with standard, contemporary action movie shenanigans. This is part of a trend that includes the Lord of the Rings and Narnia movies where every element of the source material that can't be fit into the action/adventure-movie-for-14-year-old-boys template gets chucked out. So, for instance, we have young adult heroes instead of actual adult heroes (Frodo was 55 when he started his journey) and everyone is still working through their daddy issues. In other words, this is Star Wars dressed up in Star Fleet uniforms, with none of Gene Roddenberry's original vision remaining intact.
Frost/Nixon (Ron Howard, 2008) (v) ** - Too many sports metaphors, but otherwise quite engaging. Neither of the leads is doing an impersonation: they're both giving real performances, which is nice.
Quarantine (John Erick Dowdle, 2008) (v) - More effective and more thoroughly conceived than, say, Cloverfield, but not nearly as original. Some good performances, though and the Blair Witch riff/rip-off at the end freaked me out righteously.
Woman Is the Future of Man (Hong Sang-soo, 2004) (v) *** - OK, so I believe the hype!
Key:
(v) = Seen on home video (dvd, dvr, etc.).
(r) = Not my first viewing.
(s) = Short film.
Star system ("borrowed" from the Chicago Reader)
No stars = Not recommended
* = Redeeming feature(s)
** = Recommended
*** = Highly recommended
**** = "Masterpiece"
***** = A place in my personal pantheon
Return of the Jedi (Richard Marquand, 1983) (v) (r) * - My approach to the Star Wars movies is to treat them like I would other movies - that is, through an auteurist lens as "George Lucas movies": not like sacred texts, as if George Lucas was merely an intercessor or high priest of a New Age-y Great Geek God. So, while I don't mind arguments that the prequels are bad movies, I don't have much patience for arguments that they're heretical or a betrayal of "our" collective childhood in some way. Star Wars is George Lucas's creation: he can do with it what he wants. If you don't like it - fine, but only George gets to decide what Star Wars is or is not. (It's a different case with something like the new Star Trek movie, where the original creator(s) have been replaced by a brand management team). All that said, the prequels are different beasts than the original trilogy and the six movies do not fit together seamlessly. Watching them this time around, what I noticed is how apolitical the original movies are compared to the new ones. I think a lot of fans see this as a downside and I know that some people (i.e. my wife) think that the senatorial maneuverings and double-crossing is needlessly convoluted. For me, though, it gives the movies a symbolic/allegorical power that the earlier ones lacked. And it gives them a bit of a backbone: watched in a row like this, the New Agey-ness of the originals sticks out a lot more.
Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980) (v) (r) ****
Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977) (v) (r) **** (v) (r)
Revenge of the Sith (George Lucas, 2005) (v) (r) *** (v) (r)
Attack of the Clones (George Lucas, 2002) (v) (r) *** (v) (r)
The Phantom Menace (George Lucas, 1999) (v) (r) * (v) (r)
Angels and Demons (Ron Howard, 2009) * - Ron Howard handles the grisly hokum just about as well as he handles the majestic hokum. Ultimately, not as good as his Da Vinci Code movie, where the equally nutty storyline but larger historical and geographic scope gave him more to work with: this one ends up feeling a little bit cramped.
Role Models (David Wain, 2008) (v) ** - Reminds me of The House Bunny in that it's mainly notable for a great lead performance, but the surrounding stuff is done with just the right touch so that the whole experience comes off as being much more enjoyable than equally funny but more ambitious movies (e.g. Knocked Up). The LARP stuff is perfectly handled.
JCVD (Mabrouk El Mechri, 2008) (v) **
The Happening (M. Night Shyamalan, 2008) (v) (r) *** - I'm not sure I have anything more to say about this, except that I think it really does hold together well and that my ideas about what Shyamalan is doing here seem to hold up, too.
Star Trek (J.J. Abrams, 2009) * - Really about as enjoyable as National Treasure, which, because you don't expect National Treasure to be anything special, means that Star Trek actually felt a lot less enjoyable than it. I have a problem, too, in the way that Abrams et al. got rid of all of the things that really make Star Trek Star Trek - the ethical dilemmas, the sci-fi puzzles, the utopian vision of the future - and replaced it with standard, contemporary action movie shenanigans. This is part of a trend that includes the Lord of the Rings and Narnia movies where every element of the source material that can't be fit into the action/adventure-movie-for-14-year-old-boys template gets chucked out. So, for instance, we have young adult heroes instead of actual adult heroes (Frodo was 55 when he started his journey) and everyone is still working through their daddy issues. In other words, this is Star Wars dressed up in Star Fleet uniforms, with none of Gene Roddenberry's original vision remaining intact.
Frost/Nixon (Ron Howard, 2008) (v) ** - Too many sports metaphors, but otherwise quite engaging. Neither of the leads is doing an impersonation: they're both giving real performances, which is nice.
Quarantine (John Erick Dowdle, 2008) (v) - More effective and more thoroughly conceived than, say, Cloverfield, but not nearly as original. Some good performances, though and the Blair Witch riff/rip-off at the end freaked me out righteously.
Woman Is the Future of Man (Hong Sang-soo, 2004) (v) *** - OK, so I believe the hype!
Key:
(v) = Seen on home video (dvd, dvr, etc.).
(r) = Not my first viewing.
(s) = Short film.
Star system ("borrowed" from the Chicago Reader)
No stars = Not recommended
* = Redeeming feature(s)
** = Recommended
*** = Highly recommended
**** = "Masterpiece"
***** = A place in my personal pantheon
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