Bad Boy Bubby–I had much trouble getting past the sound issues. (A prefatory note on the dvd indicates that the movie was recorded in binaural sound, replicating the way the protagonist hears. I thought–how interesting–and then struggled and grimaced my way through the movie, unable to pick up all that much of what was going on one moment, then blasted the next.)
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Another quick recommendation: this apparently came out as part of a box set of “controversial” films. It’s a doozy–in some ways structured (and scored, and shot) like a romantic comedy set in Britain during WWII, with James Garner as the hero/cad, James Coburn in the Tony Randall sidekick role (but getting a lot more action), and Julie Andrews as the perky, spunky British war widow. But Paddy Chayefsky wrote the script, and there are these dizzying moments of speechifying — Garner ripping apart the European contempt for Americans or savaging the glorification of war; a lovers’ fight between Garner and Andrews that is ruthlessly cutting, not cutesy — and a dark, dark satire on the way wars are run and remembered. I’m not sure what exactly made it controversial–the heroine’s loose (and unconcerned) sexuality, the savage demystification of D-Day and WWII heroics… but it still has a lot of bite.

It’s not Network-good, but it’s pretty damn good.

A near-excellent police procedural about a real-life, unsolved series of murders in middle-80s Korea. Often funny, occasionally thrilling — even moving. And with an excellent central performance by Kang-ho Song that compares–favorably–with Hackman in French Connection…. I kid you not. I didn’t think it as strong as Chan-Wook Park’s vengeance stuff, but it’s pretty damn good.

No analysis–just a strong rec.

I walked out of The 40-Year-Old Virgin pleased but also unblemished. The film is unremittingly sweet-natured about its scatology, not unlike Anchorman or Farrelly brothers’ goofiness. (This isn’t really a post about verdicts, but: I’d recommend it, but the film is never as delirious as Ferrell or Farrelly can get, and far from the exuberant heights of Parker & Stone or The Aristocrats.) But I’m curious about unpacking a little of the alleged return of the hard “R,” or the (now decades–or is it centuries?–old) “return” to the irreverently bawdy.

But rather than the neat either/or that pops up in so many reviews (is crude, or is compassionate, and on rare occasions like Carell’s movie is both) I was wondering if we could get at a bit broader range of options for examining the games obscenity lets us play. I’ll start. (more…)

Brilliant. Better than Elephant. A poetic mediation on celebrity, consumerism, nature, industry, purity, creativity, loneliness, youth, beautiful boys, disaffection, Mormons and death by misadventure. And Ricky Jay is in it. And so is Kim Gordon. There is no narrative, so to speak, and what little there is circles in and around itself. The soundscapes, as in Elephant, are multi-layered and complexly expressionistic. The cinematography is less showy than in Elephant, but I’d watch anything Harris Savides shoots (for a couple of minutes he simply shoots a television playing a Boys to Men video and its riveting). Worth the drive and much better than watching a bunch of people kick the ass out of a larger bunch of people (no matter how much style may be on display) for an hour and a half.