remarkably, if the search i just did is reliable (it didn’t look very reliable), no one has posted on this yet. we just saw it, at the theatre no less, and it was a well well spent $9 (it’s a cheapo theatre). forest whitaker is, of course, fantastic (did he win an oscar? i can’t remember and i don’t feel like checking); but it’s not just him. the whole cast is really good, gillian anderson is there only long enough for us to appreciate how good her english accent is and how damn beautiful she is, and james mcavoy, whom i had never seen before, looks a bit like russel crowe and is very attractive indeed. i don’t know any of the african (or meant-to-be-african) actors, but i really thought the ensemble was most effective. this is, however, indisputably, whitaker’s film. what an actor. Continue reading the last king of scotland
Month: March 2007
A Couple of Monster Movies (with subtitles)
So, I don’t want to rain on Anthony Lane’s parade, but I’m not sure I get all the love flowing toward Bong Joon-ho and The Host. It’s an entertaining genre movie, for the most part, and it does stretch generic conventions in unique ways, but I’m not entirely sure it adds up to a coherently good film (and it could have benefited from a few more judicious cuts). If you want a good monster movie, this ain’t it (I’d recommend Carpenter’s The Thing, Spielberg’s Jaws, and Dante’s–with caveats to John Sayles–Piranha). If you are interested in a film about a histrionic dysfunctional family who band together over the loss of a loved one while traveling in a van, well . . . insert your own Little Miss Sunshine plug here. If you like your foreign films to couple wall-to-wall action with an incisive critique of post-industrial, post-Cold War national identity, I’d say Beckmambetov’s Night Watch is the better, more entertaining, more culturally engaging genre flick (as Reynolds’ enthusiasm seems to suggest when he pointed us to the trailer for part two of that trilogy). If you like narratives about the ironies of miscommunication in a digital world, I’d say pop The Departed (or even Infernal Affairs) back in the DVD player. I guess I’m saying I’m not the fan I thought I would be and that’s too bad . . . I’ve been tracking this film with great enthusiasm for well over a year. It’s a solid film but nothing I want to see again with any zeal (though there is a lovely moment over dinner where a missing character’s presence is so deeply felt, she finds her way into the mise-en-scene . . . I wanted more of that and less of everything else). I also think the film has some gender issues worth examining, particularly in the way a “changeling” appears to make everything a bit more ok in the film’s final moments.
Monster movie number two? Continue reading A Couple of Monster Movies (with subtitles)
shadowboxer
i liked shadowboxer very much. this is a little, ambitious-slash-pretentious film that i suspect no contributors to this blog will want to watch unless dragged to it by wild horses — i hope i’m wrong. helen mirren and cuba gooding jr are a team of hired killers who are also (adopted) mother and son and lovers. their different colors (as in skin) and age difference makes them triple taboo breakers, which of course is one of the main attractions of this film. director lee daniels is not timid about this. rose and mickey are frequently shown in bed and in various tender situations. their love for each other is, arguably, the main focus of the film. the visual representation of their relationship, though, betrays hidden complications. in one scene, mickey is asleep at the bottom of the bed, curled up, while rose lies normally, head to bottom. in the extras, lee says he didn’t want to show them side by side. i don’t know what kind of hierarchy he meant to emphasize, but the racial one is the one that jumped at me in that moment, even though mickey’s fetal position at the bottom of the bed evokes the mother-child theme as well. Continue reading shadowboxer
Once
Just a quick note; this film isn’t out yet, but it did well at Sundance, and got a distributor, and you should keep your eyes peeled for it at festivals or art-houses. It’s called Once and it’s set in Dublin, and it’s remarkably well acted by Irish singer Glenn Hansard of the Frames and Markéta Irglová, a Czech singer. The music can sometimes go on a bit too long (they play songs for each other in real time), but it’s remarkably well acted and written, with an ending neither sappy nor crushing. And a small plug as well. The Frames’ new album is just out, called The Cost, and is much more available than this movie is currently. I think most people here except Arnab would enjoy it.
Look Both Ways / Dominion a là Schrader
Look Both Ways is a rather good Australian movie about cancer, loneliness, uncontrollable thoughts, mortality, coping, smoking, children, purpose and family. Maybe it’s about more than that too, but it’s a good start. I’m eager to give the benefit of the doubt to any movie that tries to deal with dying, esp. when it’s both the person dying and the people left behind. I really admired The Barbarian Invasions for that reason. This doesn’t get nearly as deep and full of itself as that one; it just wouldn’t be Australian as if it did.
One characer is diagnosed with testicular cancer straight off, and another imagines scenes of her own demise around every corner. Do they meet and fall in love? Well, yeah. Nothing earth-shattering there, but the characters are believeable and try to do the right things, difficult as that may be. It’s too sappy and there’s a tendency to break into montage with some Damien Rice-esque Australian singer-songwriter strumming a tune far too often. But I give a lot of respect to the writer-director here anyway, Sarah Watt, who is primarily an animator. This is her first live-action film.
Dominion however, hoo boy. Continue reading Look Both Ways / Dominion a là Schrader
Cleveland Film Festival
Who knew Cleveland had an international film festival? I picked up the listing of films and there is a bewildering variety. There is a new Andrew Lau film, ‘Daisy,’ that I’ll try to check out, but beyond that, I have heard of none of these, and I could use some help. The listing is here: http://clevelandfilm.org If anyone has heard anything good about one or more of these films, I’d appreciate the heads up.
Zodiac
I loved this movie. Caveats: a) it’s my kind of film, and my reaction is horribly skewed given that it’s a very long, information-saturated, talky police procedural, more interested in the search for than the revelation of truth. b) There are one or two moments where a stray filmmaking detail (a Donovan song, a bit part played by a hip young actor) drew me out of the film. But more often we sink into the world constructed onscreen, and the almost three-hour running time flew by. I’d gladly have watched this for a year on HBO–it’s a film I was sad to see end, and highly recommend. Continue reading Zodiac
Tideland
I’m writing this only because it’s the first film I’ve felt very strongly about in a long time, and because it’s so much better than another much-talked about film to which it can be easily compared.
First off, my love of Terry Gilliam’s films are as deep and abiding as my love of David Lynch’s. Watching their very different, but equally spectacular failures over the past year (Brothers Grimm and Inland Empire) made me sad for many reasons – first that it will decrease their chances to get future films made, and b/c neither works very quickly and they’re not young. It’s just one fewer chance for them to make another truly great film. I have no idea what Lynch will do next. There’s at least little doubt that Laura Dern was great in IE, and it was so purposefully experimental that maybe studios will say it doesn’t count against him. Brothers Grimm on the other hand had 2 A-list stars, and a marketing budget, all of which served to just exponentially build the millions of dollars the film must have lost – and it came right after his failed Depp prodcuction of la Mancha.
So Mr. Gilliam, would you like to re-trench here and just go for an easy Fisher King feel-good re-write? “Fuck You” is his answer. Before I get too deep into Tideland, let me rail against the over-rated, empty Pan’s Labyrinth awhile. Continue reading Tideland