I watched Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior the other night and enjoyed it. Tony Jaa seems to defy gravity and the big set pieces were well constructed and entertaining, and, I think, there was little use of wires to manufacture the illusion (though I may be proved wrong). One chase scene through the Bangkok streets was excellently orchestrated and a Tuk-Tuk chase scene was a lot of fun. Pure genre flick–nothing necessarily original–and though it lacks the audacious high style of Kung Fu Hustle, I would argue this modest tale of rural values overcoming urban corruption has a lot more heart.
Also saw Godard’s Weekend. Wow! What a wacky piece of cinematic deconstruction. Was this meant to be a comedy or did Godard really believe he was sticking it to the man (i.e. corporate everything)? It plays like farce and is so far-fetched and over the top that I couldn’t help but enjoy it a little. That being said, it is about as subtle as a brick turd in Bill Gates’ driveway.
SuckerPunch: Wow, I was disappointed. I don’t get the point of the sadism and misogyny in this thing. Molestation, torture, rape and prostitution take up the bulk of the movie, and let’s not forget lobotomization, which is introduced in the first act and hangs over the rest of the movie like a stiletto heel waiting to drop.
It’s enough to make me not enjoy watching four hot women (and one homely one) run around in tight clothes shooting everything and blowing shit up.
That part I dug. The first fight scene is excellent against giant samurai robots. There are also steam-powered Nazi zombies, orcs in catapults, fire-breathing dragons, dirigible warfare, exploding church ruins, and lots of knives. I thought that was going to be the whole movie actually. It’s not at all. The bulk of it is needlessly bleak, sickening and dreadful. By the time the fourth fantasy set-piece ramped up I was tired of the whole thing, and didn’t even care about the robots with a bomb on a train on a moon of Saturn set to blow up when it reaches the city.
Spoiler:
It blows up. The whole city is destroyed. Two of the heroines are shot in the head. And the girl gets lobotomized. The end.
I appreciate you seeing this so we don’t have to. I gotta admit: “steam-powered Nazi zombies” still produces a reflexive scan of my local movie times. I was pretty sure that this looked asinine, which is dandy, but if it’s mean, too…. screw that. Has Snyder made a good movie? I didn’t mind his Dawn of the Dead remake, but the rest of his films have been dreck. He’s got oodles more style than Michael Bay, but at least Bay is on occasion entertaining.
There’s no comparison to my mind. Bay is far and away the worst successful filmmaker working today. Snyder is nowhere near that level of incompetence – or sheer disinterest in such peripherals as “acting” and “characters.”
His Watchmen was bloodless, but I believe he was trapped by the idea that he should not mess with the book. Never saw 300 – I wanted to wait for a version with hot chicks. So when I thought he made that, I that laid down my bucks and got ready to be entertained. It’s like he hit me in the stomach when I was really wasn’t expecting it.
I wasn’t trying to get at competence; I think we agree on assessments–Bay makes a ridiculous hash, and Snyder is seeking in each film to define as fully as he can a whole world, visually and narratively coherent. What I was trying to get at is that, for all his painstaking attentions, Snyder’s work is as dull as dishwater. Bay can achieve something that is hamburger, but can be palatable….
ah hell, it’s like arguing about your preferences regarding macaroni and cheese. Snyder’s using rotini, and a delicate Jarlsberg sauce, with a sprig of parsley. Bay is stirring in the orange powder over elbow macaroni. Either way, it ain’t much of a meal.
Under the quick takes heading: Paul is worth renting, but it lacks the delirious fun of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. The jokes are mostly too obvious, but there is also some sly stuff enlivened by a deadpan Jason Bateman. I’m still waiting for the authentic third part of the Blood and Ice Cream trilogy.
I almost went for a new post, but I haven’t much time, and my read on Doug Liman’s Fair Game is brief, and mixed. Its first half is really strong, particularly as it traces the ways that intelligence is gathered. (I was even surprised–I’d thought its focus was all after the release of Plame’s name to the press, but that assholishness doesn’t occur ’til late in the Game.) Where it stumbles is in its depiction of the other side, which is minimal and cartoonish. I’m okay with Scooter Libby as a tool, but he’s a thin device here, collapsed into a few character traits (tilted head, rooster walk, self-importance) and given no insight. (Karl Rove is simply fat and sweaty.) Sean Penn’s Joe Wilson is also a little thin, or maybe I just got stuck on the impersonation–always thinking, hey that’s Sean Penn with a Joe Wilson haircut.
But the first bit is indeed very good, and I think Naomi Watts smartly underplays Plame.
Fair Game. Entertaining enough and not as ideologically loaded as I thought it might be (doesn’t mean right wingers will be rapt with attention). What got me was how the narrative trajectory is structured around Joe Wilson’s character (and Sean Penn’s performance; and, yes, his hair deserves an award of its own). At the beginning Ambassador Wilson is something of an emasculated male while his wife runs around the globe playing James Bond. Her “outing” has less to do with her safety than it does with those marginalized figures (in particular, an Iraqi woman physician) whose trust in Plame compromises their lives and the lives of their families. But Joe . . . Joe grows more powerful as he sets out to right the wrongs of the Bush administration and their violation of his wife’s “true” identity. This is marked by three speeches or presentations he delivers over the course the film. The first at Boston University is sparsely attended to say the least. Seemingly, no one wants to hear him speak. By the end of the film he is filling the house. His voice and his journey is privileged, and I thought that to be an odd thing for a film about a woman who was a high-ranking CIA spy.
Sharp points.