Entries in the Category "foreign films"
Movie Reviews: Stuff I've Seen Lately
This movie was a real strut for Warren Beatty—throughout he’s the smartest, craftiest, stealthiest, studliest guy around. When his character—a journalist—literally won a barfight, I gave up expecting anything else. That made the movie sort of silly, in addition to the narrative, which was quite obscure and impenetrable for an action-thriller. Also, the last section went on for ages. There are some really great suspense movies from the 70s, but this isn’t one of them.
I saw the remake, with Jude Law, way back when, and thought at the time that it felt old-fashioned. The refrain of, “What does it all mean?” was, I think, by 2004, a question that people born in the era of self-help were a little more used to asking themselves. I was interested, then, in seeing the original, with a youthful Michael Caine, to see if it made more sense in a historical context. The answer is, yes, it does. The incredibly shallow journey to selfhood really should belong to a guy with sideburns, who calls women “birds.” I could quibble with the sexism in the movie, but it was positively quaint, with Alfie having a moment of realization that his victimized girlfriend “has feelings! Just like me!” As a period piece, it was fun. (It seemed weird, though, to have Shelley Winters in a glamorous role—could Roseanne’s Nana Mary really ever have been a sex symbol?)
Click ahead for five more films (but only two produced in my lifetime!)
Continue reading "Movie Reviews: Stuff I've Seen Lately"
Reviews: Foreign films
I recently ranted about the quality of the movies on the Entertainment Weekly 100 New Classics list. I will now, and not grudgingly, point out one positive attribute of the list: it has foreign films on it. The AFI lists necessarily would not—they’re explicitly counting down great American movies (though they have slipped a few films in there which are arguably British)—but it’s been a treat to experience films from other countries, not in the least because I have no prior knowledge of them.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
This I knew about, of course. I was conscious and following award ceremonies back in 2001 when it was the biggest thing. "They fight crazy Asian fights and fly over trees and stuff!" was pretty much all anybody had to say about it. I knew that it was important artistically, but I had no idea that the plot would be so compelling, and that was an unexpected pleasure for me.
The story was interesting from all angles--who was avenging who and who had trained who and who was the masked bandit and who’s going to defeat who--even the romantic angles of the thwarted romance between the two older characters and the potential romance between the younger ones. I don’t have a problem with movies having love stories in them, just with movies foregrounding the love story and leaving everything else in the dust. Crouching Tiger did it exactly right; the love stories were interwoven with the more action-oriented stuff, and not a minute of storytelling was wasted.
I also have to mention how awesome it was that chicks fought dudes, and chicks fought chicks, all through the movie and without anyone batting an eye. Not only were the women as well-trained as the men in whatever kind of martial arts this was (never said I was an expert), not only did women meet men as equals in combat, but the fights between two women were just as important as the fights that had men in them. There was no indication that the director ever thought, “This scene with the two women fighting? The men in the audience are gonna get bored…better have them rip each other’s clothes off.” They just took it for granted that the women’s plots were as important as the men’s. That is so…not the way things usually go. And it was quite beautiful to behold.
Two more great films, after the jump.