Screening Log: February 2010

Note: This one is late and anemic, but March's should be a doozy.

The Damned United (Tom Hooper, 2009) (v) * - Sheen, Broadbent, Spall, and Meaney are all very fine. The movie itself, though, is the kind where every beat is played exactly as you'd expect.

Hunger (Steve McQueen, 2008) (v) ***

13 Rue Madeleine (Henry Hathaway, 1947) (v) **

Bright Star (Jane Campion, 2009) (v) *** - A surprise.

Killshot (John Madden, 2008) (v) **

Lorna's Silence (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2008) (v) ** -

24 City (Jia Zhangke, 2008) (v) **

Julia (Erick Zonca, 2008) (v) ***

The Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans (Werner Herzog, 2009) (v) ***

Frontier of Dawn (Philippe Garrel, 2008) (v) ***

An Education (Lone Scherfig, 2009) (v) - A few really strong performances (although not from Carey Mulligan, who's much better in the Bleak House miniseries) trapped inside a preposterous movie.

Whip It (Drew Barrymore, 2009) (v) *** - I was surprised by how much I liked this movie. Lots of nice, low-key touches and a true generosity of spirit.

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

My Year in Movies

I'm putting the finishing touches on my February Screening Log, but since I've now been doing these for just over a year I thought it would be a good time to share my "Top 20" list for 2009 NYC releases, which serves as a shorthand for "my year in (new) movies".

I've enjoyed putting together these monthly screening logs. For one thing, "monthly" is just about the only kind of blogging schedule I'm able to stick to. For another, making quick notes about what I've watched - even if it turns out to be nothing more than a quick star rating - works as a memory aid. Finally, it's interesting to see how my take on a movie is shaped (to a certain extent) by the other movies I saw around the same time.

Due to some big changes in my work and personal life, I don't believe I'll be able to see so many movies next year. I think it will be especially difficult for me to see things outside the house. I'll probably be making even more use of services like IFC's In Theatre/On Demand cable offerings. But I plan to keep plugging along with these Screening Logs, even if I'm watching only a handful of movies a month.

Anyway - here's my favorites of 2009:

01. Two Lovers (James Gray)
02. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
03. A Serious Man (The Coen Brothers)
04. Night and Day (Hong Sang-soo)
05. Hunger (Steve McQueen)
06. The Headless Woman (Lucretia Martel)
07. Pontypool (Bruce McDonald)
08. The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call: New Orleans (Werner Herzog)
09. Crank: High Voltage (Neveldine/Taylor)
10. Duplicity (Tony Gilroy)
11. 35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis)
12. Julia (Erick Zonca)
13. Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas)
14. In the Loop (Armando Ianucci)
15. Taken (Pierre Morel)
16. Still Walking (Hirokazu Koreeda)
17. Whip It (Drew Barrymore)
18. The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh)
19. Police, Adjective (Corneliu Porumboiu)
20. Frontier of Dawn (Philippe Garrel)

The Gray is, IMO, just about a perfect movie. My friend asked me what my favorite scene was and I listed off five of them before I had to give in and say that they're all my favorite. (Right now, though, Phoenix standing on the beach, looking out to sea, holding that glove in his hand is my "favoritest").

I kind of surprised myself by putting Inglourious Basterds in the second place. In the "ongoing" list I had been keeping throughout the year, Basterds was always solidly in the top 10, but not always in the top 5. But the movie ended up taking up a lot of my headspace and it was hands down the best, most exciting movie going experience I had all year. So #2 it is.

As for the rest of the list: it is what it is. In general, things that aren't there aren't there for a reason (although I still want to get to The Last Station before it leaves town).

As for "old" movies, my big discovery of the year was how much I like Hong Sang-soo's films. And I was truly grateful to finally see Jim Henson's "Time Piece" (thanks whoever uploaded it): what a great film!

My goal for the year ahead is to continue catching up with some of the more respected movies of the last ten years, to keep watching and re-watching John Ford movies, and to (finally) dive into Bunuel. It should be fun.

Questions and comments always appreciated.

Superman: Secret Origin #1-4

One of the things I liked the most about Geoff Johns' run on Action Comics was the commonsensical, kitchen-sink approach to what I call "the Mythos". Johns' stories all grew out of earlier Superman stories, but there was something agreeably laid back about the way that, say, "Last Son" (co-written by Richard Donner) riffed on the Superman movies and "Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes" picked up from old (i.e., three or four retcons ago) Legion comics without any unnecessary time spent performing any kind of stage management duties. Johns seemed interested in using the strongest (or at least most personally relevant) elements in the Superman mythos, regardless of whether or not this use was coherent according to the nuts-and-bolts of continuity. Johns' approach was similar to the one Grant Morrison had been taking in his Batman stories: the idea that anything from any Batman comic ever was fair game and that no number of fictional, multiversal crises could ever get rid of earlier, weirder, or off-model takes on the character.

So, even though these Superman: Secret Origin are well-written and really, really good-looking (Gary Frank ranks just below John Romita Jr. and Frank Quitely in my contempo super-hero artist pantheon), they're more than merely unnecessary (no one needed another retelling of Superman's origin): by trying to retroactively connect the continuity dots from Johns' earlier stories, they seem to actively undermine one of the best features of those stories (and one of the best features of the recent work on the regular,monthly Superman comics).

Charitably, I might phrase this as "this just isn't the series for me," but I'd like to make a stronger case. The DC Mythos is a unique pop cultural phenomenon. It not only has the potential to be very powerful inspiration to creators like Johns and Morrison, but it's an interesting, fascinating thing in its own right. That said, from my perspective, it always seems like DC editorial is confusing the importance/power of the Mythos with the importance of micro-managing all the continuity details.

Screening Log: January 2010

Apocalypto (Mel Gibson, 2006) (v) (r) **** - Mel Gibson's best movie and, I think, one of the key action movies of the aughts, if only because it bucked so many of the decade's trends.

Wanted (Timur Bekmambetov, 2008) (v)

Pandorum (Christian Alvart, 2009) (v) * - Effective, if derivative, videogame inspired sci-fi horror flick. Marks the first time I have liked Ben Foster in anything.

The Final Destination (David R. Ellis, 2009) (v) ** - Clunkier and not quite as imaginative as the earlier entries - maybe because of the added burden of 3D - but gains momentum as it goes along and turns into a nice & nasty little horror movie.

The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh, 2009) (v) ***

Crazy Heart (Scott Cooper, 2009) (v) - I'm not inclined to say anything bad about this movie. It's well-intentioned and tasteful, but there aren't any surprises and none of the relationships are believable outside of the context of a conventional redemption story. Bridges is good, but no better than he was in any number of other movies. And I don't think this performance is up there with the ones in Fat City, Cutter's Way, Starman, The Fabulous Baker Boys, The Fisher King, and, especialy, The Big Lebowski. This is a case of "mainstream" critical opinion being 10 to 20 years behind reality.

In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000) (v) ***

Gamer (Neveldine/Taylor, 2009) (v) * - Neveldine/Taylor play it safe and it backfires. The highlights are the gonzo elements - the live-action "Second Life"-type game "Society", Michael C. Hall's performance - which are sprinkled into an otherwise fairly conventional, Paul W.S. Anderson-like 80's-action movie update. Now, I like Anderson's movies - they're modest and effective - but I expect more from the guys who made Crank: High Voltage, currently the high-water mark of post-Matrix American action movies.

The Beaches of Agnes (Agnes Varda, 2008) (v) ** - Beautiful and touching, but also (and maybe I'm just being a cynic) a bit calculating in the way that Varda softens her ambitions and her possessiveness of Demy's legacy. Overall, doesn't reach The Gleaners & I's level of cultural and artistic criticism, but still very nice as a ciné-memoir.

Thirst (Park Chan-wook, 2009) (v) ** - Starts out as if it will be a piece of Cronenbergian body horror, but mutates into a meandering exploration of the vampire story as Park approaches the concept from four or five different directions. Because of this the movie doesn't build narrative or thematic momentum, but individual scenes and sequences are quite powerful and striking (my favorite is the final Mah Jong game).

Synecdoche, NY (Charlie Kaufman, 2008) (v) **** - Even the choices that at first don't seem to work (the perpetually burning house, for instance) end up paying off.

Yes Man (Peyton Reed, 2008) (v) * - I am a snob: I prefer Jim Carrey in high-brow movies (Eternal Sunshine) or ones where he talks out of his ass. This aspirational comedy is inoffensive and Peyton Reed is, at least, an actual filmmaker, but it still seems like everyone involved is slumming.

Avatar (James Cameron, 2009) *** - 21st Century Technology with a 19th Century sensibility. For me, the way the "Avatar" technology works in the fiction is a metaphor for how Cameron hopes his 3D technology will work in the real world: that it will create an enveloping experience that will radically shift the users/viewers point-of-view. His experiment isn't quite a success: his conception of the alien p.o.v. is too familiar, too conventional. But I still found the movie thrilling, moving, and interesting. Just not as transformative as it could have been.

The Proposal (Anne Fletcher, 2009) (v) - This is the kind of movie that makes me feel that I'm on the right track by taking an auteurist approach to cinema. Why? Because as much as anti-auteurists like to go on and on about the importance of writers, stories, etc., the reality is that this story is no more nonsensical than those of 90% of the classic screwball comedies. And in the hands of someone like Frank Capra or Leo McCarey or George Cukor, I can easily imagine just about everything here working perfectly. Not the bit with the eagle and the dog, though: that would have required at least a Chaplin to make it work.

A Perfect Getaway (David Twohy, 2009) (v) *** - I'm not joking when I compare this to Hitchcock.

The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2009) (v) ** - Solid action movie with a very good performance by Jeremy Renner.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson, 2009) (v) * - The key phrase for this set of capsule reviews is "I enjoyed this, but..." Here, the "but" leads to feelings that the middle-class striving and father/son issues are bizarrely out-of-place. Though they're obviously organic to Anderson and Baumbach, they feel crammed into Dahl's story as if any children's book could have given them the kind of vehicle they needed.

Moon (Duncan Jones, 2009) (v) ** - Good, solid sci-fi movie that ultimately can't quite keep up with its premise.

Invictus (Clint Eastwood, 2009) (v) *** - Understated and unconventional in the way that it looks at the sports underdog story through the lens of cultural & historical details that most movies of this sort gloss over or fudge (i.e. Miracle, Glory Road).

Flooding with Love for the Kid (Zach Oberzan, 2009) *** - A very moving experience, for me, partly because I was caught up in Oberzan's obvious passion for the material and partly because his approach brings out something truly profound in the material that the "Hollywood" approach would smother.

Up in the Air (Jason Reitman, 2009) (v) - I had no trouble watching this and thought it was enjoyable enough for what it is, but "what it is" is a slick, slight movie with only a tangential and opportunistic relationship to reality. I'm more bugged by the idea that people are taking this seriously than by the movie itself, but it's crazy to be bugged by what other people think about movies, right?

Southland Tales (Richard Kelly, 2007) (v) ** - Each scene feels like a big slab of weirdness and, during the first half, the link between one scene and another, one character and another is so opaque that I got a sense of just sitting in this weirdness - not moving through it or able to make connections. A pattern does emerge, though, and the movie ends up, if not completely earning its "difficult" earlier half at least making up for it with some insightful and funny satirical vision of contemporary America.

The Brothers Bloom (Rian Johnson, 2008) (v) * - Hey Nick - you are absolutely right: Mark Ruffalo knows how to wear a hat.

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

Punishermax #1-3 by Jason Aaron and Steve Dillon

I have to admit that I like the bizarre naming conventions of mainstream super-hero comics that Tom Spurgeon makes fun of. "Punishermax" isn't as gloriously, needlessly confusing and baroque as, say, Final Crisis Aftermath Dance, but there's still something off about it. For one thing, shouldn't the "Max" Punisher title be the one where he's running around as a Frankenstein monster killing zombies? So far, this is much more like Punishermin or Punishercomparativelylowkey.

Punishermax is the follow up to Marvel's MAX-imprint Punisher series, written first by Garth Ennis and titled The Punisher MAX, which changed to The Punisher: Frank Castle MAX after Ennis left and Duane Swierczynski took over.* Jason Aaron's brief seems to be to MAX-ify certain elements of the Marvel U that Ennis had left out of his MAX stories. (As far as I know, the only Marvel U character in Ennis' MAX series was Nick Fury, but I could be missing someone). First up, the Kingpin.

So far, this is a "just OK" Punisher comic: there's nothing revelatory about it. Unlike Ennis' work, I doubt this has the power to convert doubters into Punisher fans. Aaron's take on Frank Castle is pretty standard and what he's doing with Wilson Fisk a.k.a. the Kingpin seems like retcon-101. Part of the appeal of crazy-ass super-hero comic villains is that they are larger than life, so making a more "realistic" version of the Kingpin undercuts the character and turns him into a much more conventional crime fiction bad guy. The original villains Ennis created for his Punisher MAX series were more copelling and had a lot more personality than what's on display here.

And though I like Steve Dillon's work in general (he is one of the few "mainstream" artists for whom I've stood in line to get a sketch and signature), his work here reminds me too strongly of the pre-MAX Marvel Knights Punisher series he did with Ennis, which was heavy on slapstick, splatterstick, and jokey black comedy. Dillon's deadpan style is perfect for that kind of over-the-top take on the concept, but when combined with Aaron's understated, more conventional approach it becomes a bit underwhelming. Dillon and Aaron both put all the pieces in the right place, but the picture that emerges isn't (yet) that compelling.

*Gregg Hurwitz also wrote five issues in between Ennis and Swierczynski.

Screening Log: December 2009 and Early January 2010

(500) Days of Summer (Marc Webb, 2009) (v) * - You know how sometimes people complain that film critics can't enjoy movies because they watch too many of them? In general, I think that's a bogus complaint, but, here, specifically, I think that I would probably have enjoyed this movie a lot more had I not spent the last year catching up with Hong Sang-soo's very clear-eyed relationship movies and trying to watch the rest of the Rohmer films I still needed to see. That's probably completely unfair to this movie, but, as I think about it, it's much less unfair to compare this to Annie Hall, and when a Woody Allen movie feels less self-involved and self-indulgent, well... Anyway, the leads are definitely charming and there are some very nice moments (hence the one star rating). I can definitely see why this is a breath of fresh air for audiences who are more or less resigned to stuff like He's Just Not That Into You, but it just didn't do it for me.

State of Play (Kevin MacDonald, 2009) (v) ** - A modest political thriller, with a lot going for it, and, thankfully, no big point to make, although I suspect it's depiction of "how journalism works" is more-or-less b.s. If movies were still made like they were in 1955, Phil Karlson could have turned this into a B-movie classic. Instead, in MacDonald's hands, it's an A-picture that happens to be a lot less bloated than it could have been. This is my favorite Russell Crowe performance in quite some time, and the supporting cast is also pretty strong (even though Rachel McAdams continues to not bring much to the table).

Taking Woodstock (Ang Lee, 2009) (v) ** - A modest comedy/personal memoir that would make a nice double-bill with A Serious Man. Demetri Martin is a good performer, but not an actor, so the scenes requiring him to do more than give a funny line reading have a hole in their center. But there are enough other, interesting observations around the edges to make up for that.

Time Piece (Jim Henson, 1965) (v) (s) ***** - I can't believe it took me so long to find this on the internet. Wow. Among the best "new to me" movies I've seen all year.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Gore Verbinski, 2003) (v) (r) **** and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (Gore Verbinski, 2006) (v) ** - I have more to say about these movies and at some point it might show up on my blog.

Taken (Pierre Morel, 2008) (v) (r) ** - Better the second time around, in that I know when to pay attention to the awesome parts and I know when the lame parts are coming so I can sit back and read X-Men comics.

Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, 2000) (v) ** - Ambitious, interesting, and daring, but too on-the-nose for my tastes. I mean, I know that's part of the point, but that's why it's a question of taste more than anything else.

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (Stephen Sommers, 2009) (v) * - Enjoyably dumb action movie.

Rabid (David Cronenberg, 1977) (v) ****

Precious (Lee Daniels, 2009) (v) **

Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze, 2009) (v) - Every visual choice, every design choice makes perfect sense for the kind of movie Jonze and Eggers seemed to want to be making, but I the movie they seemed to want to make is pretty bizarre. Nothing wrong with bizarre, per se, but this seems less constructively bizarre and more symptomatically/pathologically bizarre - like, I feel I learned a lot about how Eggers & Jonze view childhood, growing up, the parent-child relationship, the best way to deal with anger, etc. that I really didn't need/want to know. I also thought it was kind of weird/curious/notable that so much of the movie reminded me of The Science of Sleep and/or Synecdoche, NY (both of which I liked a lot more than this).

Extract (Mike Judge, 2009) (v) *** - This doesn't have the comic highs of Office Space or Idiocracy, but it manages to sustain its comedy in a way that those movies don't. Appealingly modest.

The Hangover (Todd Phillips, 2009) (v) * - Promising opening.

Sherlock Holmes (Guy Ritchie, 2009) * - Like Star Trek: enjoyable to watch, depressing to think about. Take (1): This is the Batman movie for people who found The Dark Knight to be too dark, too gloomy, and too serious. Take (2): There's something desperate about a movie that's trying to be so up to date, but, at the same time, is driven by character dynamics taken from an 80-year-old play and has taken its trappings from 10-20 year old super-hero comics. I much prefer a more straightforwardly "square" entertainment (like National Treasure).

The Five Obstructions (Lars von Trier and Jorgen Leth, 2003) (v) *** - The key movie for unlocking Lars von Trier?

The Perfect Human (Jorgen Leth, 1967) (v) ***

Gomorra (Matteo Garrone, 2008) (v) ***

Funny People (Judd Apatow, 2009) (v) * - Apatow seems to diminish as a director with each movie. Funny People feels haphazardly put together: there doesn't seem to be too much logic of how he puts shots together and his reliance on improvisation means that scenes often feel like a reel of "highlights" instead of organic conversations. That said, Apatow is attempting to delve into Albert Brooks territory here and there are some great moments when Apatow-the-writer doesn't let Apatow-the-director do him in. Plus, Adam Sandler is very good.

Four Christmases (Seth Gordon, 2008) (v) * - The first two Christmases are pretty funny, but then it seems to sputter out. And the insightful humor is eventually done in by the clichéd, sitcom-y humor.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001) (v) (r) ****

Me and Orson Welles (Richard Linklater, 2008) ** - Nicely done, in some respects (I loved the recreation of Welles' Caesar), but a lot to quibble with, in others. The main problem, as I see it, is one of casting: Christian McKay "does" a great Orson Welles, but he is about ten years too old for the part. A small detail that changes a lot. For one thing, part of what made Welles so special was that he was so young. For another, the film sets up Welles as a sexual rival with a young actor played by Zac Efron, and the age difference seems to skew how this plays out, so it's all more conventional than it should have been.

Violent Saturday (Richard Fleischer, 1955) (v) *** - Some thoughts, here.

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

Screening Log: November

The Limits of Control (Jim Jarmusch, 2009) (v) *** - Trippy.

Platform (Jia Zhang Ke, 2000) (v) **** - Time still changes everything.

House of Bamboo (Sam Fuller, 1955) (v) *** - Location, location, location.

The Box (Richard Kelly, 2009) *** - I.e., Richard Kelly's Eyes Wide Shut.

The Roaring Twenties (Raoul Walsh, 1939) (v) (r) **** - Time changes everything.

The Plow That Broke the Plains (Pare Lorentz, 1936) (v) ****

Humpday (Lynn Shelton, 2009) (v) * - Points for attempt to subvert Apatowian morality.

Little Odessa (James Gray, 1994) (v) ***

The Big Mouth (Jerry Lewis, 1967) ***

The Matrix Revolutions (The Wachowski Brothers, 2003) (v) (r) ** - I liked this much better on second viewing. I think it's rather ballsy of the Brothers to stage an elaborate James Cameron-style action sequence featuring characters that we've never really seen before and that no audience anywhere at anytime ever gave two shits about.

The Matrix Reloaded (The Wachowski Brothers, 2003) (v) (r) **

Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2003) (v) ***

The Girlfriend Experience (Steven Soderbergh, 2009) (v)

Everlasting Moments (Jan Troell, 2008) (v) *** - Subtle and moving.

Woman on the Beach (Hong Sang-soo, 2006) (v) **** - At this point, my favorite of Hong's movies. I think I'll have more to say about this later, when I compose my "best of the decade" comments.

Up (Pete Docter, 2009) (v) ** - Entertaining and, for the most, inventive, but the action-packed final Act hits all the familiar Pixar notes and the story itself grabs onto Spielberg-style emotional manipulation instead of reaching for its own kind of profundity à la Wall-E and Ratatouille.

Comedy of Power (Claude Chabrol, 2006) (v) **

Predator 2 (Stephen Hopkins, 1990) (v) (r) * - Enjoyable hodge-podge of 1980s action movie clichés.

Little Big Horn (Charles Marquis Warren, 1951) (v) *** - Trust Manny Farber.

Antichrist (Lars von Trier, 2009) (v) * - I'll have more to say about this later, but, for now all I have is: "Live by the stunt, die by the stunt."

Universal Soldiers (Roland Emmerich, 1992) (v) - See here.

Metropolitan (Whit Stillman, 1990) (v) (r) ****

Elephant (Gus Van Sant, 2003) (v) (r) ** - As a take on an event - or as an "event" in its own right - it comes up short. As an experiment in perspective and long-take, though, it's effective and moving (if a bit slight). I do think, though, that the tracking shot through the cafeteria, following the three girls, is better than any of the similar moves Alfonso Cuaron pulls in Y Tu Mama Tambien.

A Serious Man (The Coen Bros., 2009) **** - This movie inspired my new blog. I think it's pretty great: the Coens have, in a way, made an "inside-out" version of the kind of movie they usually make. Their movies always ask their audiences to look for clues, patterns, webs of meaning (i.e., the importance placed on names and "nomenclature" in The Big Lebowski, the way P.O.V. shots work in No Country for Old Men), but A Serious Man is about that search for meaning and the (im)possibility that we can find any kind of answer in a story. Or, rather, the possibility that instead of an answer all we can ever hope for is mere surmise.

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

Another blog...

I started another blog for short, slightly more estoric posts on film criticism and related matters. I'm keeping my informal, off the cuff screening log entries here, though.

Screening Log: Halloween Weekend

Predator (John McTiernan, tktk) (v) (r) ** - Truly, a strange movie: the sci-fi actioner that pares itself down as it goes along, so that the last act - far from being an fx-extravaganza - is a nearly naked Schwarzenegger playing boy scout in the jungle.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Gavin Hood, 2009) (v) * - I really like the second string Marvel movies, especially when I catch them on cable TV: they tend to keep things simple and have the easy-going feel of solid B-movies. From that angle, the problem with Wolverine is that it tries to hard and too many moving parts (all those characters, all that mythology). From another angle, though, it doesn't try hard enough: more visually imaginative filmmakers could have gotten a lot out of Frank Miller's Lone Wolf and Cub-inspired take on the character as a modern samurai. The movie ends up being enjoyable to watch, but disappointing and depressing to think about afterwards (not unlike the recent Star Trek thing).

Coraline (Henry Selick, 2009) (v) (r) ***

Isle of the Dead (Mark Robson, 1945) (v) (r) ***

Return of the Living Dead (Dan O'Bannon, 1985) (v) (r) **** - My favorite 1980s splatterstick movie.

The Haunting (Robert Wise, 1963) (v) (r) ** - Big-budget, big-production version of a Val Lewton movie shows that Wise hadn't forgotten everything that he learned. Cinephile that I am, I prefer the more subtle touch of the Lewton films, but appreciate that this one towers over most of the ghost movies that have come after.

Man in the Shadows (Kent Jones, 2007) (v) *** - A lot of the time, these filmmaker-centric documentaries will be informative, without ever really seeming necessary, but Kent Jones' look at Val Lewton's horror films is a great piece of criticism and a very good movie in its own right, particularly in the way Jones builds his argument more through how he orchestrates images from Lewton's films than through the voice-over narration.

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

Screening Log: October

Jerichow (Christian Petzold, 2008) (v) *** - An exploration of the nuances and biases of viewer identification, in stripped-down B-movie drag. It would all be a bit too clinical, academic, and even pedantic, if it weren't for Himli Sözer's performance, which gives the movie an emotional depth to match its intellectual ambitions.

Still Walking (Hirokazu Koreeda, 2008) (v) *** - If I had more free time for writing, I'd try to turn my thoughts on this and on 35 Shots of Rum into a longer post. For now though, all I have is a question: is there any other major director who had as narrow focus in terms of themes and subject matter as Yasujiro Ozu?

Scandal Sheet (Phil Karlson, 1952) (v) **

Night and Day (Hong Sang-soo, 2008) **** - My thoughts on this movie still are nowhere near fully-formed: I've been mulling it over since I saw it earlier this week and moments from it are haunting my waking life. Right now second only to Two Lovers as my film of the year.

Europa (Lars von Trier, 1991) (v) *** - I'm glad I finally caught up with this movie, which would make an interesting double bill with Inglourious Basterds. I've liked every von Trier movie I've seen, but, until now, I've managed to miss most of the "major" ones.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Terry Jones and Terry Gilliam, 1975) (v) (r) *****

Spectres of the Spectrum (Craig Baldwin, 1999) (v) (r) **

E.T. (Steven Spielberg, 1982) (v) (r) *** - I used to say I preferred this to Spielberg's "later, stodgier, darker" work, but, on revisitation, the movie (or at least the first half) was creakier and stiffer than I remembered. Too often good, lively business - like the kids playing Dungeons & Dragons - stops dead for poetry-of-suburbia image-making. The young actors are all good - they're very cute and funny - but they seem to be trapped by Spielberg's compositions in a way that the more seasoned actors in Close Encounters and Jaws aren't. It isn't until everything is in place and things start to move that the movie starts working. (I had a similar problem with Ratatouille, and, watching E.T. this time I kept thinking "Pixar avant la lettre" - sharing Pixar's movies' usual problem of having a strong half and a weak half). I don't mean it as (much of) a dig to say that Spielberg makes a better action filmmaker than he does a poet. The chase on the bicycles at the end of the film is a masterful sequence: built off of a particular kind of suburban sub-development geography, it's rousing, suspenseful, and expressive of the characters (exactly how great action movies should work). The kids on bikes riding down those terraced hills? That's real poetry.

The Curse of the Demon (Jacques Tourneur, 1957) (v) ****

City Lights (Charles Chaplin, 1931) (v) ***** - To my shame as a cinephile, this is the first time I've watched City Lights from start to finish, though I've seen numerous excerpts from it over the years. I'm now inspired to come with a aphorism along the lines of: "An excerpt from a truly great movie will only mislead you as to the nature of its greatness."

35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis, 2008) ****

Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954) (v) (r) ***** - 50 years later, Rear Window is still more audacious, more formally daring than just about any of the "entertainments" that have come out of Hollywood since.

Year One (Harold Ramis, 2009) (v) ** - Everything here feels tossed off (some scenes just end, there's very little in the way of elaborate gag-building), which is a little disappointing coming from the director of Groundhog Day and vacation, but turns out to be the perfect approach to this kind of movie. I generally don't like to praise movies (especially comedies) for their low ambitions, but I thought this was enjoyably old fashioned and down to earth in its approach to its "high concept".

The Signal (David Bruckner, Dan Bush, Jacob Gentry , 2007) (v) * - Neat idea, hobbled by inconsistent/uneven execution.

High School Confidential (Jack Arnold, 1958) (v) *** - There's a mini-genre of movies that I like to think of as "The Kids Aren't Alright" movies that includes, well, Kids, River's Edge, and, going somewhat farther afield All About Lily Chou Chou and Afterschool. High School Confidential is, if not the "best" of them, then, at least, my favorite.

Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2009) * - Not a "real scary" movie, but, rather, a "fun scary" movie that is clever enough to get you to do most of its work for it. The ending is a misjudgment and the movie overall is no big deal, but it is made with thought and is a more than worthy diversion. The subtext - about finding out about the true extent of your romantic partner's psychological/emotional baggage only after you move in with them - gives the movie a little more substance, but it isn't explored or developed as similar material is in movies like Rosemary's Baby and The Brood.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005) (v) ** - I'm sure someone has already written an article/essay explaining exactly why we shouldn't lump these "New Romanian Cinema" movies together, because each director has their own style, concerns, but, from where I'm standing, they have enough in common in terms of what questions they're interested in (namely those about how personal life is shaped political systems) and how they go about answering those questions (through a symbol-heavy, realist approach to dramatic "everyday" events) that I'm comfortable talking about them as a group and comparing one against the others. In this case, though I liked Lazarescu, it's my least favorite of the RNC movies I've seen so far, because the symbolism here feels just a bit too generic - the specificity dissolves as the movie goes on and it turns into a more general anti-bureaucratic satire, rather than one that is rooted to its time and place.

Genesis of a Meal (Luc Moullet, 1978) (v) **** - Funny and insightful throughout, but the last movement - where he engages in self-reflection/analysis - really takes the movie to a deeper level: complicating what we've seen, but also clarifying the dilemma of what it means to be a good global citizen.

Anatomy of a Relationship (Luc Moullet, 1976) (v) **** - Moullet continues to impress. I described this to a friend as a Woody Allen movie for grown-ups, which really isn't fair to Woody. Maybe a better way to put it would have been: a Woody Allen movie that doesn't have to play by the rules of American commercial cinema.

The Phenix City Story (Phil Karlson, 1955) (v) *** - I thought it was somewhat appropriate that I watched this right after Capitalism.

Capitalism: A Love Story (Michael Moore, 2009) * - The first half of the movie is as good as anything Moore has done, with many black comic WTF? moments. Not coincidentally, Moore stays in the background during this part. He steps to the fore in the second half, and the movie takes a turn for the worse. His schtick is simply uninspired: he seems to be going through the motions (and the low level employees he's dealing with also seem to be going through the motions), which takes the edge off the righteous anger that has been building up. There are other problems, too (deliberately obscuring the difference between an economic system and a political system, glossing over Obama's role in the push for the bank bailouts), but it's the half-assed nature of his stunt that does the movie in.

Around a Small Mountain (Jacques Rivette, 2009) *** - A work of a master: not a masterpiece, but a statement or summing up, not unlike A Prairie Home Companion.

Afterschool (Antonio Campos, 2008) (v) ** - When a film is this well made and this thoughtful, does it matter that it isn't very "likable"? That it keeps its distance and discourages the usual kind of emotional connection/response to its characters? I'd say that it probably shouldn't. Still, this works better when Campas seems to be observing (all the stuff with the kids) than when he seems to be making a point (a lot of the stuff with the adults). And speaking of making a point: I think reading the movie purely for its "message" does it a disservice. Moment-to-moment what's onscreen is too complicated, too unresolved, to be reduced in that way.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2007) (v) *** - More on the theme "the personal is political" from the "New Romanian Cinema". For some reason, watching this movie - which I really loved - reminded me of a movie I don't much care for: Y Tu Mama Tambien. Maybe because I imagine that the relationship between the two friends here will fall apart like that of the two friends in Mama (even though there's really no other similarities between the pairs)? My favorite scene here is her conversation with her boyfriend following the extremely awkward dinner party.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (David Yates, 2009) *** - Truly magical.

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

Screening Log: September

Police, Adjective (Corneliu Porumboiu, 2009) ***

Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954) (v) (r) ***** - Did I say On Dangerous Ground was my favorite Nicholas Ray movie? I hadn't seen this in years, and the image quality of the VHS tape I had first seen it on really did not do it justice. Also: most of the discussion of this movie talks up its unconventionality (less sympathetic viewers might phrase it as its near hysteria), but from a distance of 55 years, what strikes me is how classical it seems.

12:08 East of Bucharest (Corneliu Porumboiu, 2006) (v) *** - A little movie on a big subject. It reminded me of Greil Marcus writing about Elvis Costello, re: the relationship of the personal to the political.

District 9 (Neill Blomkamp, 2009) ** - Ignore the conventional fx-driven ending, and you have a subversive, quick-witted, and surprisingly moving action-adventure movie. I am amazed that it's thoroughly South African-centric p.o.v. clicked with a relatively big audience here in the U.s.

The Miracle at St. Anna (Spike Lee, 2008) (v) ** - Spike Lee is our Sam Fuller.

Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004) (v) ***

Cloak and Dagger (Fritz Lang, 1946) (v) (r) ** - Watching something like this (or Man Hunt) makes me think that Fritz Lang has to have been one of the greatest "pure" filmmakers ever, in that he manages to get the greatest amount of "cinematic interest" out of any scenario he's given.

Broken Flowers (Jim Jarmusch, 2005) (v) (r) **** - I've written a little bit about the way that certain movies or directors have taught me how to watch other movies and directors. One of my big "aha" moments came when I found myself watching and really liking The Pink Panther (which I had always thought of as a prime example of a great performance trapped in a so-so movie) and realized that watching Jacques Tati's movie had trained my eye to the point where I could really appreciate what Edwards was doing. (Had I not grown up watching so many movies mutilated on tiny TV-screens, I'm not sure my eyes would have needed to be trained in that way, but that's a longer digression than I probably need to make here.) So, with Broken Flowers, which I had thought was pretty amateurish when I watched it when it was first released on video, having since seen and come to appreciate the films of Hong Sang-soo (and having even thought they were a bit "Jarmusch-esque") helped me get what Jarmusch was up to here. (Another way to put it might be that it helps to think of Jarmusch more as a "world cinema art house filmmaker" than as an "American Indie filmmaker").

Nickelodeon (Peter Bogdanovich, 1976) (v) * - To me, this is a good example of an "academic" movie that works on paper - conceptually it's all of a piece - but didn't quite come off. Ryan O'Neal seems comparatively uncomfortable and the slapstick is clumsy: I couldn't help thinking that Blake Edwards should have directed it and that John Ritter should have had O'Neal's role. Despite that, I liked it: the concept is strong, the supporting cast is good.

The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel, 2008) ***

Crank: High Voltage (Neveldine/Taylor, 2009) (v) ***

Park Row (Sam Fuller, 1952) (v) *** - For the first hour, mannered and stiff, but filled with interesting details about the 19thC newspaper business: then it explodes into brawls and beatings.

Liverpool (Lisandro Alonso, 2008) **

I'm Going Home (Manoel de Oliveira, 2002) (v) ***

Idiocracy (Mike Judge, 2006) (v) (r) *** - Mike Judge's genius is that every day the world looks more and more like his movies. So even if you, like me, thought they were good-but-not-great on first viewing, by the second or third time through, you've caught up with them and even the weaker stuff turns out to be funny because it's true.

How Green Was My Valley (John Ford, 1941) (v) (r) ***** - This isn't the only measure of a great director, but it is, IMO, a pretty good one: this is one of about a dozen John Ford movies that if you told me was "his best" I'd nod and say "I can see that." I mean, I think his best movie is Wagon Master, but who'd argue against this one? This time around, I ended up having to watch it with the volume way down and, though I like the score, the music cues are the only "dated" part of the movie. Walter Pidgeon and Maureen O'Hara's final kiss is one of those timeless moments, when you feel you could be watching a great movie from 1917, 1930, 1941, 1957, 1972 - well, you get the picture.

The Cloud-Capped Star (Ritwik Ghatak, 1960) ***

Adventureland (Greg Mottola, 2009) (v) * - The major problems with Adventureland:
(1) It buys into its main character's stunted, limited worldview. (Mottola's actual worldview?) (See Kicking and Screaming for an example of a similar movie that calls its main characters' worldview into question in a number of ways, including: presenting characters with a reductio ad absurdum version of that worldview, validating the different worldview of other characters). (2) Partly because of that, the other characters are nothing more than obstacles/props for main character's "journey", with no meaning apart from what they mean to the main character. Any potential conflict is swept under the rug (notice how Martin Starr's character shows up at the end to support the main character, without any mention/resolution of his earlier criticism). All of that said... Mottola has a comparatively light touch and, moment-to-moment, there are nice details. And Jesse Eisenberg is good: he doesn't do schtick and is believable as an entitled-but-sensitive juvenile lead. Kristen Stewart, on the other hand, I couldn't watch without thinking of her performance in Twilight - which is unfair, sure, but every time she "uhh"'d or "umm"'d I started giggling.


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

Top 9 as of 9/9/09

I feel that I'm finally caught up enough with my movie-watching that I can throw out an interim "best list" that (a) doesn't have any filler and (b) took some thought/reflection about what didn't make the cut.

1. Two Lovers (James Gray)
2. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
3. Pontypool (Bruce McDonald)
4. Duplicity (Tony Gilroy)
5. Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas)
6. Liverpool (Lisandro Alonso)
7. Public Enemies (Michael Mann)
8. You, the Living (Roy Andersson)
9. World's Greatest Dad (Bobcat Goldthwait)

Number 10, right now, would be a tie between Beeswax (Andrew Bujalski) and Coraline (Henry Selick).

Screening Log: Late August

Halloween 2 (Rob Zombie, 2009) * - This is the first Rob Zombie movie where I haven't been shaking in anger, fear, or disgust when I left the theatre. In other words, a bit of a disappointment. Though many of his strengths are on display - the worlds in his movies feel lived in, there's a weight there that most Hollywood filmmaking (and I'm not just talking about horror/genre filmmaking) lacks that comes across through his attention to details; he has a gift for striking, expressionistic images that emerge from a more naturalistic surface - the entire movie doesn't quite seem to work the way I think he means it to work. I get the sense that Zombie wants the dream symbolism - the images of Michael's mother, the white horse, etc. - to work directly, intensely on the audience, but it has the opposite effect, creating a distance and, with that distance - with room to think about it rather than feel it - the symbolism seems half-baked. I should add, though, that I saw it under less than ideal circumstances: the sound was really off in the theatre (the Regal E-Walk on 42nd St) and the management did nothing to correct it despite numerous complaints. The dialogue was comprehensible, but muffled, which was quite distracting and it seemed to throw the audience off. It also didn't help that someone had brought several children to the screening, who were crying and making noise throughout. The fact that an adult could think that Halloween 2 is a good movie to take a bunch of kids to is scarier than anything in the movie itself.

On Dangerous Ground (Nicholas Ray, 1952) (v) (r) ***** - Probably my favorite Nicholas Ray movie. I love (a) how it keeps wandering outside of the boundaries of Hollywood convention (this is one of those movies that looks like it belongs to a particular genre but doesn't behave that way), (b) the shift from city to country, and (c) Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino's performances.

Terror in a Texas Town (Joesph H. Lewis, 1958) (v) **

Duplicity (Tony Gilroy, 2009) (v) ***

A Girl Is a Gun (Luc Moullet, 1971) (v) **** - I think I'll have more to say about both of these Luc Moullet movies after they've sat with me for a while. Right now, though, I'll just say that these movies spoke deeply to that part of me that is still a huge Greil Marcus fan.

Les contrebandières (Luc Moullet, 1967) (v) *****

Entre les murs (Laurent Cantet, 2008) (v) ** - Cantet really manages to capture the shifting dynamics of the classroom and the performances are all really strong. Considering that the cast is made up of (formerly) non-professional actors, this is an amazing technical feat of directing. I wouldn't want to make any larger claims for it, though, as it seems to shy away from - if not bury - the most interesting issue it raises: how the teacher's fear of losing control and shame at losing his cool turns into a passive-aggressive vendetta against a student. Andrew Bujalski should direct the American remake.

The International (Tom Tykwer, 2009) (v) **

I, Robot (Alex Proyas, 2004) (v) - This is the kind of big summer movie that depresses me more than something like Transformers, if only because there are bits and pieces of a good movie peeking out amid all the by-the-numbers blockbuster nonsense. Spielberg can sometimes get away with this, because he's a master of blockbuster nonsense, but Proyas' gifts lie elsewhere.

Blissfully Yours (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2002) (v) ****

Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009) **** - Audacious, thrilling, exciting, maddening. On the one hand, I'm more sympathetic to the movie's harsher critics than I have been to those of any other movie I've liked this much since The Lady in the Water: you need to take a leap of faith over the gap between intention and execution. On the other hand, I think a lot of the movie's supporters are, if anything, guilty of hedging their bets. Me, I line up with Sean Collins (my favorite piece of writing on the movie so far) and Ed Howard (the most insightful comments from one of the movie's supporters so far) in thinking that this is a gen-u-ine masterpiece. And in the spirit of the hype and hyperbole that the movie seems to provoke, I'll call it an American Weekend, using a "warts and all" definition of "American". (As an aside: I think Eli Roth is just fine. He comes across as an overgrown boy, barely keeping it together, which seems to make perfect sense for that character. I can't imagine he'd be getting dissed like that if he hadn't directed Hostel, which - by the way haters - is one of the best Hollywood movies of the decade).

I Love You Man (John Hamburg, 2009) (v) - I didn't mind sitting through this, but it's an all around lazy movie. Paul Rudd is funny, as usual, but he's been funnier in better movies. All the big third act stuff that is meant to solve all the problems doesn't even rise to the level of being perfunctory.

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

JPL

After watching Luc Moullet's A Girl is a Gun last night, I started mulling over this question: exactly what kind of an actor is Jean-Pierre Léaud? I have someone's comment (was it a critic's, from one of my acting teachers, a film prof's?) to the effect that he isn't an actor stuck in my head. If I squint, I can see what that means - he's not a chameleon, he's not overtly theatrical, and he doesn't play off a star persona à la Belmondo - but obviously he's doing something: Billy le Kid is a different character than Tom in Last Tango in Paris who in turn is a different character than Alexandre in La maman et la putain.

Maybe it's because I'm still under the influence of the Moullet, but I want to say that what Léaud is doing is closer to what Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati do than it is to what Belmondo or Michel Piccoli do.

Screening Log for July and part of August: Short Version

I've been too busy to keep up with this properly, so not much in the way of notes this time around - just ratings. However, I'm always happy to chat about movies, so questions and/or comments about the ratings are welcome. As always, anything that I've starred is recommended. Anything not starred I couldn't, in good faith, ask that anyone else sit through.

Ordet (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1955) (v) ***** - Glad I saved this one for the proverbial rainy day, rather than rushing to check it off a list back when I was seeing movies just to say I had seen them.

The Inglorious Bastards (Enzo Castellari, 1978) (v) **

Kings and Queens (Arnaud Desplechin, 2004) (v) **** - I know: I'm a rube and a philistine for preferring this to Esther Kahn. (Or myabe I don't put such a high value on severity and perversity?)

Beeswax (Andrew Bujalski, 2009) ***

The Power of Kangwon Province (Hong Sang-soo, 1998) (v) ****

Momma's Man (Azazel Jacobs, 2007) (v) *

Hannah Takes the Stairs (Joe Swanberg, 2007) (v) **

Sleeping Dogs Lie (Bobcat Goldthwait, 2006) (v) ***

Brigham City (Richard Dutcher, 2001) (v) ***

In the Loop (Armando Iannucci, 2009) (v) **

You, the Living (Roy Andersson, 2007) ***

La deuxieme souffle (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1966) (v) *****

World's Greatest Dad (Bobcat Goldthwait, 2009) (v) **

Esther Kahn (Arnaud Desplechin, 2000) (v) ***

Two Lovers (James Gray, 2009) (v) **** - My favorite movie of the year, so far.

The Number 23 (Joel Schumacher, 2007) (v)

The Day the Earth Stood Still (Scott Derrickson, 2008) (v)

12 Rounds (Renny Harlin, 2009) (v)

Eagle Eye (D.J. Caruso, 2008) (v) - It's rare that I ever want to use the word "turgid", but this film did it for me.

Public Enemies (Michael Mann, 2009) ***


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

Screening Log: Vacation Catch-Up: Late June and (Very) Early July 2009

Knowing (Alex Proyas, 2009) (v) * - It loses points for having a hero who lost faith in a higher power after losing a spouse (exactly the same set up as in The Reaping), but gains some back for its look (lots of black, like a heavily inked comics page), an(other) Nicolas Cage-as-enjoyably-weird-version-of-himself performance, and for not trying to dumb things down too much for us. Proyas makes good use of his sense for creepy moments around the edges, but this still isn't going to satisfy those of us waiting for a new Dark City or Crow from him.

Hung "Pilot" (Alexander Payne, 2009) (v) *** - I don't usually list my TV viewing here, but the first episode of Hung shows off some genuine filmmaking from Alexander Payne. Though the premise is as gimmicky as that of Weeds, the details are spot on. This may be my favorite HBO "first episode" since David Chase's Sopranos pilot.

The Reaping (Stephen Hopkins, 2007) (v) - Not as terrible as the review lead me to believe. Still, after this and The Unborn, I'm tempted to write about how contempo horror filmmakers completely don't get what makes something like The Exorcist a great scary movie.

The Uninvited (Charles and Thomas Guard, 2009) (v) ** - A real surprise to me: I watched it mainly because I'm a fan of Elizabeth Banks' work in comedies and wanted to see what she'd do in a thriller, but the movie won me over. Despite being conventionally made, it's clever and well-acted and much more solidly put together than most scary movies of its type.

Bottle Shock (Randall Miller, 2008) (v) - I like loose, ambling movies, but this one was just a tad too sloppy. It needed Altmanesque diffusion, but instead it feels more like laid-back John Sayles. That said, I nearly gave it one star because the subject was interesting and Alan Rickman and Bill Pullman are both very good, but I can't recommend it in good faith.

The Heartbreak Kid (The Farrelly Bros., 2008) (v) *** - In the universe I live in, the Farrelly Bros. are major filmmakers, but even I stayed away from this one when it was in theaters because (a) I have a lot of admiration/affection for Elaine May's Heartbreak Kid, (b) I have a developed a real aversion to Ben Stiller (There's Something About Mary isn't my favorite Farrelly Bros. movie, either), and (c) the reviews were bad across the board. I'll give myself a pass on (a) and (b), but I think I might need to stop reading anything about movies until after I see them. More and more, I'm coming to see film critics as herd animals, as if their takes on movies are mostly formed even before they see it. On the one hand, I can appreciate how this might be a more efficient way to work, but it makes for lousy film criticism. In this case, I think that the "storyline" for this movie was going to be about how it didn't live up to the original. What that particular storyline misses, though, is that while the Farrelly Bros. take the general premise from the Friedman story/Simon script, this is really a very different movie that needs to be seen on its own terms. The original was a dark comedy about ethnic identity, but this is a slapstick nightmare, playing off the fear that you'll find out your mate is a monster only after you're married to them. In some ways, this is the anti-Mary, and part of what makes the movie so good is that the Farrelly Bros. don't shy away from the Ben Stiller character's creepier side. One of my pet peeves about contempo comedies is that guy filmmakers tend to present pretty unpleasant behavior from their guy heroes as being cute and funny (see Wedding Crashers, Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, etc.), but the Farrellys keep Stiller dangling on their hook. Also, as one of the only people I know who thought that Malin Akerman was good in Watchmen, I was glad to see her give a very funny and unself-conscious performance here. She's no Anna Faris, but she pulls off the gags here and is, as the say, a real sport. (Michelle Monaghan does nothing, as usual, but that doesn't stop the movie from working).

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

Screening Log: June 2009

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

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

Dave Arneson Memorial Gameday in NYC

More information here:

Last month Dave Arneson, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons and the originator of the first fantasy campaign, passed away. On Saturday, May 9th the Complete Strategist will host an afternoon of gaming as a tribute to his memory. Dave's work has inspired three decades of roleplaying, from the original D&D to its 4th Edition, and from noon until 5 pm, we'll play games using both of these rules systems as well as some created just for the occasion. The common denominators will be fun, imagination, and heroic adventure!

I'll be running an Old-School D&D-style dungeon crawl:

- Game Name: The Fane of St. Toad
- Run By: Jon Hastings
- Maximum Players: 8
- Brief Blurb: We're going to try to answer the question of what kind of person would trek across a dismal swamp to loot an abandoned temple that was once dedicated to the worship of a sanity-shattering Toad god from beyond the stars. The Fane of St. Toad is a scenario written by Michael Curtis for the "Original Edition" of D&D. We'll be using the three "Little Brown Books" along with Supplement II: Blackmoor ('natch) (but no experience with that or any other particular version of D&D is necessary).
- Recommended For: Brave souls interested in dungeon crawling, problem solving, and traditional, non-nerfed adventure gaming.

Screening Log: March/April 2009

Ride Lonesome (Budd Boetticher, 1959) (v) (r) **** - Great opening shot - a landscape that turns into an extreme longshot of our hero that takes a surprise right turn into a potential ambush - and a great closing shot - poetic and devastating. Lots of good stuff in the middle, too.

Play Dirty (Andre De Toth, 1968) (v) **** - There's a focus on process here - with process: using a pulley system to get a truck up a too steep hill, changing tires, infiltrating a fuel depot, setting up an ambush - that makes this movie work very differently from movies with a similar set-up (The Dirty Dozen), not to mention other Andre De Toth movies. From today's p.o.v., these sequences seem like they're coming out of an "art" movie. And, in that way, reminiscent of both Rififi and The Wages of Fear.

American Violet (Tim Disney, 2008) (v)

The Night Stalker (John Llewellyn Moxey, 1972) (v) * - Not all that good, but I dig the grubbiness - maybe because it's a nice change from today's too-slick dumb mystery shows (Castle, Fringe, etc.).

Journey to the Center of the Earth (Eric Brevig, 2008) (v) * - Just a thrill ride, but a fun one and goofily old-fashioned in a lot of ways.

Dragonslayer (Matthew Robbins, 1981) (v) (r) *** - Not quite the gold standard of post-Harryhausen fantasy movies (that would be Excalibur), but pretty damn close.There's a lot of subtlety and nuance here - much more than I expected or remembered. (My favorite moment: the Dragon's grief on discovering its sluaghtered hatchlings). It's also probably the movie that comes closest to capturing the kind of fantasy in Lloyd Alexander's Prydian novels.

Tokyo Chorus (Yasujiro Ozu, 1931) (v) ****

The Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors (Hong Sang-soo, 2000) (v) ***** - One of those movie-watching experiences - like seeing The Mother and the Whore for the first time - where the movie's initial, superficial resemblance to other movies (at first I was getting a real Jim Jarmusch vibe) is eventually overwhelmed by its strong, idiosyncratic identity.

White Dog (Samuel Fuller, 1982) (v) **** - There are definitely rough edges here, but it's a fascinating and powerful movie, nonetheless. I think it would make a great double-bill with De Palma's The Fury.

Shoot 'Em Up (Michael Davis, 2007) (v) - Thinking back on it, I'm not quite sure why I gave Crank one star and this no stars. I guess I like that Crank more thoroughly embraces the unpleasant bits and pieces of the male adolescent fantasy it indulges in. Clive Owen is too much "the good bad guy", whereas Jason Statham is a bad ass, straight up.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (Peter Sollett, 2008) (v) - Too much Hollywood coincidence and bullshit to work as a Richard Linklater-like look at a specific kind of adolescent trapped in a specific scene. But too sloppily put together to work as a "clever", teen romantic comedy (like 10 Things I Hate About You or some other enjoyable-enough product).

The Fast and the Furious (Rob Cohen, 2001) (v) (r) ** - Pales in comparison to genuine exploitation flicks, but refreshingly modest when compared to contemporary prestige/event action movies.

The Da Vinci Code (Ron Howard, 2006) (v) ** - This reminds me a bit of tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow: the story itself is a bit dumb, but the real show comes from how the directors' choices and techniques draw attention to how storytelling - and specifically telling mystery stories - works.

The Ruins (Carter Smith, 2008) (v) * - Effective enough, with some good moments, but it never really brings the A-game and fails to do justice to the book (which is the best 1980s Stephen King-style novel since Stephen King was writing novels in the 1980s). My "gut feeling" is that because the book spends so much time on the "inner life" of the characters, the movie should have done just the opposite: approached the story completely from the outside, with as little hand-holding as possible. But that's just me.

Watchmen (Zack Snyder, 2009) ** - As Sean points out, this is not The Godfather of super-hero movies. It's more like an "adult" version of the Spider-Man movies and, probably not coincidentally, falls as far short of the Moore/Gibbons graphic novel as Raimi's Spider-Man movies fall short of the original Ditko/Lee and Lee/Romita runs on The Amazing Spider-Man.

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