I’m way behind, and haven’t much time, but–quick and dirty reactions and recommendations:
I liked Tideland a lot less than Mark, but not enough to challenge his enjoyment.
I liked Host more than Jeff, but haven’t gotten around to defending it, and perhaps didn’t like it enough to challenge Jeff’s displeasure.
Loved The Amazing Screw-On Head, which was as strange and funny as (and far shorter than) the other action-comedy-secret-government-agency-occult film based on a Mike Mignola comic should have been. Abraham Lincoln’s got a spy–the eponymous head–who in this short battles arch-enemy Emperor Zombie. A chimpanzee with a machine gun plays a prominent role.
Liked Shortbus more than Jeff, and it seems (from my friends list) more than Gio. Amateurish acting and thus often hyperbolic in its melodrama . . . but artfully edited and shot, and often very funny and very moving–and, damn, willing to take some strange risks? When’s the last time a film you watched opened with a man masturbating into his own mouth? If your answer is more than never, please post more frequently.
Am loving two strange television shows. One’s from Japan, so it might be redundant to write “strange television show,” but Satochi Kon’s Paranoia Agent is a strange character study–following a number of interconnected, alienated characters in modern-day urban Japan–disguised as a Twin-Peaksy mystery. The link from episode to episode are random attacks by a spectral kid in baseball cap and inline skates, swinging a bat at various lonely figures. It’s pretty engrossing, but I’m parcelling the season out slowly.
And Kris and I are halfway through last year’s Sci-Fi miniseries The Lost Room which is far more fun than ever expected–the plot: a mysterious motel room’s “objects” accrue strange powers, and various cabals and lone nuts are trying to get a hold of them. Sounds all twilight-zoney, and it is, and yet far slyer in its humor and full of smart, effective storytelling. (I.e., it avoids all that aggravating dumbness of television plotting, whereby exposition of every little detail drowns the halfway-intelligent viewer in a sea of repetitive blather.)
Hmmm, what else? I like listening to the Fratellis. And I bought Jarvis Cocker’s new album. And it fucking snowed in Saint Paul yesterday.
mike, i didn’t like or dislike shortbus. in fact, i was intrigued by what i saw. but it was, quite simply, too much dick for me. i’ve promised myself that i’ll watch it again when i’m more willing to embrace screen dick for one and half hours (or however long this film lasts). then i may revise my netflix rating for it.
michael, i sent you an email at your lefthand account.
it fucking rained in miami yesterday.
In the spirit of Mike’s topic heading:
‘Harsh Times’ was a failure, but an interesting one. Too overwrought, but still a fine performance from Christian Bale as a vet with serious psychological problems, and it was nice to see Freddy Rodriguez emerge from ‘Six Feet Under’ (I guess he is also in ‘Grindhouse’). I’m not sure Bale can manage the accent, but he really puts everything into his character.
‘Volver.’ I don’t know. It seems like every other Almodovar movie to me. Truth be told, I stopped watching his movies after ‘High Heels’ and I was hoping that this would convince me to start again. I suppose his gender politics are generally good (though I remember finding ‘Tie Me Up’ offensive and he seems incapable of portraying Spanish women other than as excitable and self-obsessed) but his movies all seem to veer wildly between slapstick and melodrama, and this one is no exception.
did anyone see The Namesake? i found it very compelling and moving.
Here’s a rec. for a blog:
http://x818.blogspot.com/
As he says, “One img. One mp3. It’s complicated.”
Every day he posts a photo, usually from a movie, and an accompanying song. The choices are always quite good, well thought out, and juxtaposed to make me re-think both song and image.
Some favorites of late:
http://x818.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html
http://x818.blogspot.com/2007/02/keep-your-dreams-nevver-one.html
we watched the namesake tonight. finally, a mira nair movie that did not annoy me. unfortunately, also the first mira nair movie that completely bored the pants off me. well, not literally. it was dull, dull, dull. sunhee shared my opinion of the film, though she generally likes nair more than i do. i have not read the book, but it felt like it might have suffered from being too faithful an adaptation: the film seemed to be driven by an external motor. i found it completely uninvolving. the only bright spot were the great performances by irfan khan and tabu as the parents, ashoke and ashima. but even they are much better in the hindi movies that are their normal stomping ground (and particularly great together in maqbool). kal penn might have seemed a far less terrible actor if he hadn’t been in so many scenes with them.
as i said, i liked the namasake, though i, too, was greatly irritated by kal penn’s awful acting, especially when he was meant to be an adolescent. the actress who played his sister was better only because she had a smaller part. and yes, you’re right, the book follows the novel too closely, down to the sequence of events, which doesn’t make for nimble filmmaking.
irfan kahn is in the upcoming movie about daniel pearl, which makes me want to watch it just as much as the fact that angelina jolie is in it, too. is he in other not bollywood films? how about tabu?
irfan khan is the one good thing about the terrible the warrior, which came out a couple of years ago. i don’t think tabu has been in any other non-indian films. netflix has maqbool which is an adaptation of macbeth to the bombay underworld; they’re both in it as the leads.
The Namesake couldn’t hold my interest even on a 12-hour flight from Amsterdam to Cape Town; I tried to watch, but ultimately–about 3/4 of the way in–paused it and spent time listening to the passengers in my row bicker in Dutch. I know Arnab’s never much liked Nair’s films, but when I’ve enjoyed them–which is often–it’s because her filmmaking, particularly with messy ensembles, always seems almost improvisational, catching stray details and moments despite the often-constricted narrative arcs of her films’ plots.
(The hundred-millionth variation on Montagues and Capulets in Mississippi Masala, for instance, never bothered me because minor characters seemed to bubble up and over, not swamping the very charismatic leads but buoying the film over the windless flats of cheesy and obvious father-daughter conflicts.)
I too liked Khan a lot, but the film gave him little to do, and I found its paint-by-numbers adaptation absolutely deadening. There was none of the vitality I have so loved in her other films. I was really disappointed.
The Lives of Others, on the other hand, was excellent. It was my other long-flight choice, and it was as others have mentioned brilliant, suspenseful, moving. And I almost watched Shooter, but I’m not sure I want to go back to the earnest Mark Wahlberg after his “fuck”-riddled fun in The Departed.
And just to further annoy Mauer, I’ll also note that Lucky Louie–we’re halfway through the season–is occasionally great and always good. I never thought I’d hear the phrase “cuntity cunt cunt,” perhaps especially not in a sitcom (of sorts), but I can now die happy in my profanity-obsession. It’s gonna be hard to top that.
I still haven’t seen the last three episodes of “The Sopranos,” but every schmoe on the street has given me plot synopses, so I gather that the ending was a non-ending in ways that I had been predicting. But I’ll come back to that.
As I’ve not seen one second of Lucky Louie, I have no opinion of it, so I’m not sure why that would annoy me (further annoy me yet). In fact, I noted earlier that I was inclined to
think it was good .
I did however love Old Joy and will try to post a comment there soon, though I’d prefer to see it again before trying to do so.
Well, I had meant to annoy you by posting about a bunch of movies deep in a vague topic. (Re Battle Royale, Arnab noted how “mark [had] urged recently in a comment that we not hide posts about movies that don’t yet have topics of their own in comment threads for topics from years ago.”) But I scored points by annoying you through claiming to have annoyed you about something, which, because you didn’t feel annoyed, did actually annoy you. I win.
nice to have you back, MR! how was cape town? did the kid have fun? did you?
SA was astounding–I’ll post more at the book site, G, and/or I can send you a blathering note. I’m still kind of processing, and still working off the long flight’s impact on my brain. I went alone, kid- and Kris-less, to take part in a seminar on the new South Africa, so it was lots of lectures, but even more on-the-ground visits, tours, discussions. Spent a week in Cape Town then a few days in Pretoria & Johannesburg. I cannot wait to go back….
send me a blathering note, post it on the book site, do whatever you’ve got to do, but tell me more. i’m intensely interested. i didn’t even know you were interested in SA! where does this interest come from? tell tell tell.