Entries in the Category "movies"
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!)
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Tonight's Mad Men: "The Gypsy and the Hobo"
I just watched tonight's episode of Mad Men twice in a row. In the words of Groundhog Day's Ned Ryerson, "it was a doo-hoo-hoozy!"
SPOILER ALERT for those of you not keeping up with the show (i.e., Mom) but Don Draper 'came out' to Betty about his true identity, telling more truths in a row than I believe he has ever done before. This all occurred while his most recent dish-on-the-side waited for him in the car so they could go away for the weekend. He never made it back to the car--did he forget that she was there, or, did he, cool-as-a-cucumber, just let her figure out that he wasn't coming back? Oh, Don.
But forget all that, because none of it was as awesome as the moment Joan clocked her husband over the head with a vase.
This guy's a real jerk, not in the least because when she married him, Joan quit working at Sterling Cooper and is thus in the show less than she used to be. Less Joan = bad. But also, he's a bastard who failed out of his surgery rotation (or...whatever) and can't get himself back on track. Also he's a jerk, he doesn't talk to her, he belittles what's important to her, he fails to recognize the real contributions she could make as a wife, because he thinks women are useless and just bred to sit around, when Joan's smart and super-capable. He's been nothing but trouble for her, dashing all her dreams for her marriage.
Well, in this episode, after another bad interview, which all of her helpful preparation couldn't keep him from screwing up, he snapped at her that she couldn't tell him anything, that she didn't know what it was like to want something your whole life and have it not work out. Which of course she does--it was marriage she planned for, and that he has single-handedly ruined. And then she clocked him over the head with a vase. Oh, Joan.
Note: this weekend I put together preparation for my Halloween costume. It is Mad Men-inspired (think sassy Sixties secretary!) and I am incredibly excited. I have cat's-eye glasses!
Woo. Too much excitement for a Sunday night.
Edited to add: Joan SMASH!
Abandon Familiarity!
Old movies are always great opportunities for analysis--seeing what’s different, but also seeing what’s the same. It’s fascinating to me, and yet some people, especially those my age, really resist that opportunity.
You’d think a roomful of college students, like the ones taking the film class I'm taking now--and it’s not an intro film class either, they’ve all made it through at least one full class already--would be willing explorers. I’m surprised at how often they react negatively to black and white, to subtitles, just to differentness. (The 400 Blows is not boring, twerps! You're boring.)
Let me describe an old movie experience: several years ago, when I still worked an office job, I saw a portion of a movie. I used to watch TV while I got ready for work, from about 7am to about 7:35, and what I watched varied, but if there was an interesting movie on at the time it usually won. So, this particular morning, I saw a bit of this movie in which a bunch of characters were trapped on a raft after a shipwreck. Tyrone Power was among them, and in the bit that I saw, the characters were discussing whether or not the sick and doomed among them should be thrown overboard, because they were running out of food, water and supplies. The concept of sacrificing a few people to save a few people was, I thought, an intriguing one for a movie. I love when movies address hard questions, when there’s a little ambiguity about the proceedings, so this was right up my alley. I didn’t get to see the end, because I had to go to work, but the first thing I did when I got there was put Alfred Hitchcock’s Lifeboat, which is what I assumed I had watched, into my Netflix queue.
Some time later, Lifeboat appeared in my mailbox and I sat down to watch it. Imagine my surprise when Tyrone Power wasn’t in it. And it was about Nazis. And they were in a lifeboat, but it was a different boat and different people. It was a damn different movie. We live in the age of Google, so I found the movie I’d seen relatively quickly. In fact, it didn’t take me longer than the time it took to hit Tyrone Power’s IMDB page. I realized I had watched what was probably a B-movie from the 50s, released under both the title Seven Waves Away, and the far greater title, Abandon Ship! Yes, the exclamation point is theirs.
Well, Abandon Ship! is out of print, never been transferred to DVD, so I had no way to view it again until it played last week, incredibly, on Turner Classic Movies at like four in the morning. I DVR’d it and watched it today.
Abandon Ship!, especially compared to Lifeboat, is pleasantly sensational. Tyrone Power is strutting around (you know, on the raft) from the beginning, salvaging clothes off dead bodies and rolling them into the sea. People are all, “No! We need to give that man a funeral when we get to shore!” They’re menaced by sharks, they have no hope of rescue. Eventually they get to the point where they decide to control their rations by throwing the sick overboard.
From the film class I’m taking right now, I know that the 1950s were a turning point in the movie business; it was when “art movies” and “popular movies” began to take really different paths and the gap between culture and entertainment got wider. Old movies, especially from the 30s and 40s (probably my favorite old-movie era) are wonderful, but watching them is like visiting foreign countries. They just have moments that feel strange, and you take that into consideration as you watch and evaluate. Abandon Ship! (I can’t stop putting in that title, it cracks me up) was obviously popcorn fare, slick and cheesy and dark and fun, and for that reason, it felt really quite close to the movies we have in the theater today. The rhythms we’re familiar with now—like “We’re out of water,” DUN DUN DUN—were beginning to be developed. It's not exactly the same, of course--there's a little more melodrama in older movies--but the gap is just not as wide as people think.
For my part, I’m glad I learned to trek around in that foreign territory, and to feel comfortable doing so, because it’s brought me endless enjoyment.
Freudian slips, or Joke of the day for graduate students
(Freud says a cigar
is not just a cigar)
This morning in film class, discussing Laura Mulvey's "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," my prof commented that the essay was, "dense but penetrable."
HA HA!
Cliff notes version: Mulvey applies Freudian psychoanalysis to film, explaining that classic Hollywood cinema (c.f. Hitchcock) serves men who experience movies as symbolic opportunities to touch a beautiful woman. Imagine the filming camera as caressing the Hollywood beauty, the camera as eyes, as hands, as phallus or penetrating object.
I know, riotous! OK, you had to be there, but the class was in stitches. I think my prof made the joke on purpose, because the next thing he said was, "You DID read it!"
MASH, Cuckoo’s Nest, and Internalized Sexism in American Culture
MASH
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
I promised earlier that I would elaborate on why both of these classic films made my AFI hate list and why I pegged them as being sexist. Here I am. Let me first note, for the record, that I have not read Ken Kesey’s book, on which one film is based, nor have I seen any episodes of the TV show spawned by the other film. All my criticisms are restricted entirely to the two movies.
It’s like this; both of these movies were all about that seventies-era rebellion (Easy Riders and Raging Bulls) in which any kind of institution is bad, and rocking the boat is good, even if it makes you an ass. The characters played by Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland in MASH were, frankly, jerks. Not just to the nurses, not just to their nemesis “Hot-Lips” O’Houlihan (I report that nickname with the same distaste I would have holding a dirty diaper between two fingers). They are jerks to each other, to their superiors, to everybody. Being a jerk was apparently very edgy and cool in the 70s, or so this movie would have you believe. Jack Nicholson in Cuckoo’s Nest was also a jerk. It seemed that he was put into the mental institution because he had played crazy to get out of work duty while in jail, and that he thought this was a pretty awesome plot. Forgive me if I don’t think the same.
Click ahead for more.
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Movie Review: Western Round-Up
I watched four westerns in one day during my Summer Movie Watch, and a fifth before it was over. Recently, I watched a sixth western just for the hell of it, during TCM’s Summer of the Stars. (It was Glenn Ford day, which was also the first time I saw the amazing Gilda.)
Anyway, that’s a lot of movies to juggle for a single review; also, my recall is not so strong that I can devote tons and tons of words to all of those movies. Still, I have westerns on the brain because I've been researching Tarantino movies for my film class and his work is heavily inspired by classic westerns (including his recent WWII epic, Inglourious Basterds).
So, instead of writing standard reviews, I have commented on a few interesting aspects of the individual films I watched and will allow my readers to draw their own comparisons. Please note: Spoilers ahead, though the majority of them are 40 years or older.
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Shameful Movie Cliches
Seen yesterday at The AV Club: Which movie clichés would you like to see abolished from culture?
They hit a lot of my favorite bad clichés—even “Cool guys don’t look at explosions!”—and Tasha Robinson’s inclusion of the suddenly whiny wife is one of my favorites. Gone Baby Gone had a pretty terrible one—I remember commenting to Jeremy after that movie, “Hey, you know why Michelle Monaghan left Casey Affleck at the end of the movie?” “Why?” “So we would know how completely the case destroyed his life. You know, in case we weren’t getting that.”
Here are some other clichés that make me groan, roll my eyes, slap my forehead comically, or sometimes just say, “Oh, hell no”:
- characters explaining who they are to each other so that the viewers at home understand the relationships: “Jennifer, we’ve been best friends since we were 5! We shouldn’t have any secrets from each other”
- revealing that a character is pregnant by having her faint or vomit in one scene and facing the positive pregnancy test (and/or doctor) in the next
- guys who jog on sandy beaches at sunrise live charmed lives, but if they are running on a treadmill, they are soulless, bourgeois go-getters
- the hero is a crack shot who can take out the villain with one bullet between the eyes; the villain's forty-seven henchmen were unable to so much as wound the hero, instead sending bullets whizzing past his head, where they lodge themselves in the drywall
- crime thrillers in which detectives input evidence into ADVANCED HIGH TECH MACHINERY and get all the answers they needed, and/or seek the assistance of psychics or otherwise spiritual people who can “envision” the crime, all so the detective may avoid any type of critical thinking or, you know, investigation
- the mom bustling around the kitchen in the morning serving eggs and bacon and orange juice; while the dad and the kids race through, on their way to somewhere, mom idles away, as though she has nothing to do until 6pm when it’s time for her to serve everyone another meal
- the morbidly obese person as un-self-conscious sex maniac
- the girl who was a nerd in high school who (for some reason) wanted to date the dumb, sadistic captain of the football time
- superhumanly attractive actresses who are thought to be more relatable if they have boy’s names like Alex, and/or fall down a lot
- montages where an actress tries on a bunch of outfits or different pairs of shoes
- romantic comedies where the couple's fights are about the guy leaving the toilet seat up or the cap off the toothpaste (get better things to fight about!)
- romantic comedies where the protagonist whines that they “just want to grow old with somebody!”
- romantic comedies where the couple’s relationship is established through a series of still photos of the two of them gazing into each other’s eyes and/or kissing—who continually takes pictures of themselves nuzzling each other?
- romantic comedies in general
There's room for more hated cliches in the comments!
Julie and Julia, and the Lure of the Self-Imposed Challenge
Just recently I saw the movie Julie and Julia, and the similarity of Julie’s self-challenge to my own (recently, my Summer Movie Watch and more broadly, my 30 before 30 list) prompted me to think about the impulse towards self-improvement.
I think age—Julie was in her late twenties when she embarked on her project, just as I am now—was a crucial component of both projects. There’s a certain amount of stasis associated with being a grown-up. At 14, I thought I might grow up to be a travel writer—why not? At 14, you can do anything. At 18, I effectively crossed that off the possibility list by being too chicken to major in writing, choosing instead to major in literature and spending the next four years passively reading instead of actively writing. No idea at that point what I thought I would do when I graduated—that’s part of the dodge of college, that you have four years to put off thinking about that.
Fast forwarding a bit, I’m in the waning days of my 20s and on what might be called a career track. (Early on the track, way early. But on it.) I’m in a stable relationship. Conceivably, my life will not change except by small margins over the next five to ten years. It would be easy in that case for me not to change for the next five to ten years. For a compulsive self-improver, that is not OK.
Julie and Julia, and my summer of movies, after the jump.
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"Future events such as these will affect you...in the future!"
Tonight I saw Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space in a live Rifftrax event. (Once upon a time, I wrote about Rifftrax here.) The famous riffers were in Nashville commenting on a live viewing of the film, and it was aired via satellite in hundreds of movie theaters nationwide. In addition to the famously awful Plan 9, the show included a 60s-era short about the glamorous life of air stewardesses, and a live performance from a guy who did novelty songs about zombies (which zombie aficionado Jeremy really liked). All I can say is, I hope the event makes money so that they can do it again and again.
The entire show was hilarious, but the movie (plus riffs) really delivered. The MST3K guys poked fun not just at Wood’s indifferent production values, not just at the amateur actors with whom he populated his films (although a great deal of hilarity was generated over the actor who played the police chief and his obvious unfamiliarity with how people handle guns—seriously, he scratched his face with it at one point) but also over the sloppiness of the narrative itself. “Do any of these characters have any connection with each other?” the riffers asked at one point. “Where are they in relation to one another?” Wood’s notions of night and day were clearly fluid as well, not tending to remain consistent throughout the longer scenes. (For example, a chase scene would begin at night, the characters would race through a sunlit glade, and then inexplicably stumble back into nighttime.)
I loved the movie Ed Wood, which I watched as part of my Summer Movie Watch, and I will admit that the obvious affection Tim Burton showed Wood, Bela Lugosi and Plan 9 itself sort of colored my viewing of the film. It wasn’t hard to laugh at, thanks to the MST3K guys, but I found myself trying to ferret out what was good about Plan 9, as though I could have a psychic conversation with Wood and say reassuringly, “I can see what you were trying to do. That line might have been really chilling delivered by a gifted actor. And I bet those costumes were way scarier in your sketches!”
Regardless of this minor guilt factor, it was supremely entertaining. Jeremy and I quoted lines to each other all the way home.
Movie Reviews: Epic Wednesday Ghetto Life
I’m more Gilmore Girls than ghetto, of course, and so I can’t say that the realism of the movie really struck me or that I felt a spiritual connection with the characters or anything like that. Yeah, good stories are universal, but there’s a certain wall between me and this kind of life that sort of absents me from having anything real to say about it.
I know narratives, though, and this was a good one. The threads of the story were woven quite skillfully together, what seemed to be isolated incidences reverberating later, until they all came together in one explosive tangle. (Does that work?) There was also a nice parallelism with Caine’s childhood and Anthony’s, including the nearly-identical scenes on the stoops. The guy who will eventually be Anthony’s father teaches Caine how to be a thug; years later he finds himself in the same situation in the opposite role, with a kid at his feet. I don’t know what to make of the fact that he didn’t speak at all, and waited for Ronnie, Anthony’s mom, to come out and rescue him.
It is a bit puzzling—though moments in the film were clearly telegraphed from the get-go (I’m at home saying, “Someone’s gonna die right about now, I don’t know who, but…”), other moments were more careful and ambiguous. The character of Ronnie (Jada Pinkett later Smith) was the biggest puzzle, for me. In fact, she seemed to exist in a different movie altogether. She complained that Caine had become hardened, but how was she living in this environment without being hardened herself? How was she not filled with the rage that was fueling everybody else? “Do cops hate us?” her kid asks her and she says, “no, of course not, it was a misunderstanding.” That’s an extremely generous view to take of things—where is she drawing that strength from? Caine’s grandparents are explicitly drawing their optimism from their religious faith; Ronnie didn’t seem to have devoted herself to anything in that way.
Maybe we were supposed to understand that she had devoted her energy to Caine himself, who was a pretty questionable idol, seeing as he became more and more of an ass throughout the film. Was it for his benefit that she invited all those thug guys to her house for her going-away party? She couldn’t be friends with them if all she does is hassle them about their lifestyles and what they’re smoking and the kind of role models they are for her son. Just don’t invite them, Ronnie.
Spike Lee, and Michael Jordan wannabes, after the jump.
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Movie Review: The Westing Game
A made-for-TV movie based on one of the best children’s books ever written. I saw it playing on Showtime and decided to watch. A mistake, always. Very few movies retain the charm of the books on which they are based—and even fewer manage this feat when they are packaged to be ultra-palatable for even the dumbest of children. Just look at the DVD cover art for this movie.
I know, yuck.
The book, in comparison, does not pull its punches; I read it for the first time in the third grade, and damn if I understood what had happened when it was finished. I had to read it another time or two to grasp how the mystery came together, but eventually I did, admiring its cleverness along with its indelible characters, its funny non sequiturs and its strange, disaffected tone.
I probably would not have watched this if I had seen that DVD cover art first (and known what kind of movie this was going to be), but I did, so, with all apologies for bashing something too pathetic to defend itself, here are my complaints.
The trimming of the potential heirs down to ten (or was it twelve?) from sixteen was probably done for character economy. However, it laid waste to the thematic tie-in to chess, and the way Sam Westing plays the characters as pawns against each other. Presumably Flora Baumbach, Theo Theodorakis, and Mrs. Hoo were considered too boring to be included. The actor who played high school track star Doug Hoo had the worst running form I have ever seen (all plodding and floppy) and I’m convinced it was because he was disappointed that Doug was written out of the inheritance plot and thus served little to no purpose in the movie at all.
The one character I wish had been excised was our fair protagonist, Tabitha Ruth “Turtle” Wexler. The character is a preteen oddball with a prickly temper, a curious nature and a gift for playing the stock market. The girl in the movie was a full-fledged movie moppet, all perky enunciations and side ponytail. When she got emotional her voice quavered unconvincingly. The actress grew up to be a scenester who gets made fun of regularly on Go Fug Yourself, which seems about right.
Turtle’s sister Angela occupied a strange position in the movie, too. There is a bunch of invented BS about the girls’ father having lost their house to gambling debts and needing to regain his position in the finance world (in the book he’s a podiatrist). This is all meant to explain why her fiance from the book was relegated to a tertiary character and a tertiary character from the book was promoted to fiance status. This actress was not terrible, incidentally, but the character was pitched so bitterly she was unrecognizable from the Angela of the book, who is described as being too timid to have ever learned how to drive.
How about Chris Theodorakis? Well, besides handling the struggle of being a combination of himself and his brother Theo from the book, the character dealt with a completely nonsensical medical condition. The character in the book has an unnamed illness which was probably supposed to be cerebral palsy. The actor in the movie was in a wheelchair and spoke haltingly. When asked about his condition, he replied that he “thinks fast but speaks slow,” and that was that. For some reason, the character to whom he gave this response did not say, “…and the wheelchair is for what?”
They kept the chess game that Chris Theodorakis (actually Theo) plays with a mystery opponent, but wedged it uncomfortably into the 90s by making it an Internet chess game (like octogenarian Westing would hop onto Pogo to play a game—whatever). Turtle and Chris also figured out the key to the clues by plugging them all into a search engine and seeing what came up. WEAK! But I guess in ’97 the Internet was still exotic.
Ray Walston plays Sam Westing as well as his various alter egos in bad wigs. Diane Ladd, too good for this movie, plays Mrs. Crow. The settings and locations were actually the only thing I really liked about it; the city as well as the apartment building where the majority of the action takes place seemed old, musty, bleached-out and run-down, which is the perfect atmosphere for the story. I wish as much thought as went into picking those locations had been expended adapting the script. And that the little girl who played Turtle had been unceremoniously fired.
The movie predates the Harry Potter movies and all of the Pixar films except for the first Toy Story, a time when standards for kids' movies were a little lower. Even keeping that in mind, this was still a weak effort.
And so it ends...
It's over! The Summer Movie Watch has been completed!
The celebration was marked by cake. (Yes, it was store-bought.)
Here's the moment of triumph: the end credits on the last movie of the day, and the last movie of the list, which was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Squint really hard and you'll see Jack Nicholson's name in there.
I guess tomorrow I go back to books? Who knows? I'm not yet used to my freedom.
Epic Wednesday: Here Comes the Counterculture
Tomorrow's Epic Wednesday viewing looks at hippies, sleazebags and antiheroes:
9am: Easy Rider
11am: Midnight Cowboy
1pm: Taxi Driver
4pm: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
And that's the end of the road! I'm looking forward to getting the privilege of movie choice back (returning to the Netflix queue already in progress) but I couldn't be happier to have finally seen for myself all these old classics that I've been hearing about my whole life. I recommend the experience to anyone.
Movie Review: Funny People
Being major Judd Apatow fans, Jeremy and I saw this Friday night. We were pretty shocked at how empty the theater was, actually (it was maybe a third full) and wondered if maybe the "Adam Sandler plays serious, has cancer" thing was scaring off comedy fans. The film ended up pulling off a paradox, hitting number one at the box office this weekend, but still playing way below expectations. More on that from the Los Angeles Times here.
The paradox is sort of apt, because the movie in general was both brilliant and disappointing. It doesn’t have the same ring as The 40-Year-Old Virgin or Knocked Up, the sort of guys-sitting-around-talking-about-ridiculous-things-foul-mouthedly-and-hilariously thing. It’s really quite different; it’s a more mature film, and I don’t say that just because it’s more serious, which it also is. Those movies were like specific gags revolving around a premise; this movie puts more of the focus on the premise, and the gags that do appear are only incidental. What I mean is, how do you make a movie about a handful of people (and cancer) funny? Well, make the lot of them comedians, and then you’ll have to show them doing their acts from time to time, and it will lighten the mood.
This seemed to be the thought process, and it somewhat works. For the first hour and a half, though, I wasn’t really concerned that it wasn’t that funny because it was so good. The movie settles itself amongst the inner tensions of these three roommates who are aspiring comedians and actors (Seth Rogen, Jason Schwartzman, and Jonah Hill), how they pretend to support each other but secretly compete with each other, and how the dynamic shifts when one guy (Rogen) becomes apprenticed to the most famous funny guy in the movies, played by Adam Sandler. Also, the famous guy has terminal cancer.
Let’s get it out of the way right here: Adam Sandler is actually terrific in the role; he’s both playing himself and not playing himself. (Several reviewers have felt the need to point out in their reviews that Sandler is, in fact, married with children. I guess because they were afraid that people at home would be worrying about him.) He has the career of Sandler (he’s a huge star who can’t even walk through the vestibule of the hospital where he’s received his diagnosis of untreatable cancer without being asked to pose for pictures taken via iPhone) but his personal life is in shambles because he’s a huge jerk who has alienated everyone. David Denby at The New Yorker described Sandler’s character as “frighteningly intelligent,” and yeah, it seems right, only in the sense that the character zeroes in on people’s weaknesses and exploits them. It’s this quality that made him a great comedian and a terrible friend, and the movie shows all that without having to say it explicitly, and it’s really quite wonderful.
And then… well, the movie takes a turn about halfway through, when Sandler’s situation changes. He picks up the movie and takes it with him on a journey that is not nearly as fun as the stuff that came before it. Seth Rogen had a very important role in the first half--he bridges the gap between Sandler’s world of fame and paying gigs and his friends’ world of amateur night and good faith loans, as well as playing the guy on the precipice, the guy who could sell out if he wanted to, but isn’t yet sure that he wants to. Again, bridging a gap, this one between cool Hollywood ruthlessness and old-fashioned affability. Unfortunately, Rogen becomes a pointless hanger-on in the second half. The movie coasts to what seems like it will be a very bleak, cynical ending, and then it chickens out and closes on a scene that is both hackneyed and implausible. And we walk out of the theater, Sad People.
A writer I really like, Linda Holmes at NPR’s Monkey See blog, had a really different perspective on the movie: she connects the first half and the second thematically and declares the film a success. I think she’s right about theme, but I think that the changes of both tone and focus are too egregious to declare the movie a success. Still, as they say on the Internet, your mileage may vary.
For what it's worth, I will watch Funny People again for that first movie; I will probably turn it off when it hits the second. Overall, it’s worth seeing, provided you can deal with major tonal shifts, the two-and-a-half hour running time, and newfound respect for Adam Sandler.
Edited to add: see also Sling Blog's Editors' Recap of Funny People
Entertainment Weekly's 100 New Classics: Summed Up
I’m coming closer and closer to finishing up the AFI lists—with the most minimal effort it will happen this week—but before that happens I thought I would sum up the EW list with my two favorite things, opinions and statistics.
Here’s how I felt about the list:
Least enjoyed: Blue Velvet, Drugstore Cowboy, Evil Dead 2, Fatal Attraction, Natural Born Killers
Most enjoyed: A Room with a View, Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Ed Wood, Glory, Hannah and Her Sisters, In the Mood for Love, Schindler’s List, The Incredibles, The Lives of Others
Most enjoyed (pre-list favorites): Back to the Future, Clueless, Donnie Brasco, Edward Scissorhands, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Fargo, Ghostbusters, L.A. Confidential, Lost in Translation, Memento, Men in Black, Moulin Rouge, Office Space, Rushmore, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, The Naked Gun, The Silence of the Lambs, The Truman Show, Thelma and Louise, Witness
Additionally, I’ve been compiling a list of Notable Omissions--movies which were released between ’83 and ’07, and thus eligible for the list, but which are unaccountably absent. The list will appear in a future entry (or, if it keeps expanding, in two of them).
Here’s some stats that interested me:
The breakdown of the list by decade is 30 films from the 1980s, 45 from the 1990s and 25 from the 2000s. Even so, the majority of the films I watched were from the 1980s, which is easily enough explained: while my movie coverage has been adequate in the ‘90s and ‘00s, I’m still playing catch-up to movies that came out when I was a child.
The directors whose films I watched the most of were Steven Spielberg, Ang Lee, Alfonso Cuaron, Sam Raimi and James Cameron, at 2 films each. Cameron actually had 3 films on the list, but I had already seen Titanic (January 1997, the afternoon after I took my SATs, in case anyone cares). Other twice-appearing directors were Tim Burton, Rob Reiner, and Paul Thomas Anderson--each of whom had one movie I had seen previously and one movie which I watched this summer for the list--and Martin Scorsese, Peter Weir, Ridley Scott and the Coen brothers, each of whom had two films I had already seen.
One benefit of the EW list which I have mentioned previously is that its horizons extended beyond American-made movies. Another feature of the list, which I didn’t notice until I began compiling these stats yesterday, is that the EW list includes female directors--only five of them, but that still trounces either AFI list at zero and zero, respectively. Three of the female-helmed movies were massive hits: Shrek (co-directed by Vicky Jenson and Andrew Adamson), Clueless (Amy Heckerling) and Big (Penny Marshall). I had seen all of those movies, multiple times on multiple occasions.
The other two were critical darlings, and represent the only two Oscar nominations for Best Director that have ever happened to women. Ever. [Edited to add: I have since checked IMDb and realized that I misread Jane Campion's biography. One other woman received a Best Director Oscar nomination, Lina Wertmuller in 1975. My indignance is, I think, still warranted.] Those movies are The Piano (Jane Campion, in 1994—this was a list movie) and Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, in 2004, already seen). Though neither woman won the directing award, both took home the same consolation prize: Best Original Screenplay. At this rate, another woman should be due to lose Best Director in another five years. That’s not a fault of the list, of course, but of Hollywood standards in general.
One final observation: the Entertainment Weekly list feels, in general, darker and more gothic than the AFI lists. It seems densely populated with drug movies, mob movies, serial killer movies, sci-fi creature-on-the-loose movies. I don’t think this is necessarily because those darker genres are being made more of today. Look again at my Ed Wood entry and all those movies Bela Lugosi made.
The difference is that genre movies are becoming increasingly more respected; probably Francis Ford Coppola started things off by making operatic mob movies (popular since the 1930s) which so effectively utilized the concept of the American dream that the Corleones became a part of our cultural fabric. These days, any serious director can make a critically-acclaimed crime movie (see last summer’s The Dark Knight, or, from two summers ago, Zodiac). On the flip side, so-called “feelgood” movies are losing respect. Too many brainless romantic comedies which force two patently unlikeable characters to kiss in the rain and get married as the end credits roll, too many of those disposable kids’ movies where the kid discovers his dog can fly and that helps him stand up against a bully, or whatever.
Basically, it’s hard to scrounge up the sincerity that elevates a movie like It’s a Wonderful Life above its Hallmark-y premise, and they just don’t do it that much anymore.
Movie Reviews: Hollywood Satires
I loved this movie, in no small part because of Johnny Depp’s performance. I don’t know who first decided that Ed’s main character trait would be unflappable optimism--whether it was the screenwriter, whether it was director Tim Burton, or whether Depp brought that to the performance himself (I wouldn’t be surprised, honestly)--but damn if it didn’t elevate a pretty standard biopic to something unusual and sparkling. Depp did the same in his Oscar-nominated (remember?) performance in the first of the truly silly Pirates of the Caribbean movies. He said, “Pirate? Only if I can play it drunk and gay.”
Just a note on Johnny Depp: this guy is such a fascinating creature, honestly. You just don’t often find a character actor with a face as perfect as his. He is quite beautiful. Jeremy and I saw Public Enemies a few weeks ago and I couldn’t get over it then, either.
Martin Landau was terrific, too, of course, as Bela Lugosi—he won an Oscar, and for a comedy, which almost never happens. His one-sided rivalry with Boris Karloff made me feel somewhat uncomfortable watching Frankenstein the next day (like I maybe should have thrown Lugosi’s Dracula into the mix, too, just to be fair). Incidentally, Lugosi has the most insanely entertaining IMDB page ever. Just read the titles of some of the movies he graced with his presence! (Ghosts on the Loose, The Ape Man, Night Monster, The Corpse Vanishes, Black Dragons, The Wolf Man, Spooks Run Wild, The Black Cat, Invisible Ghost, The Devil Bat, Black Friday, The Dark Eyes of London, The Phantom Creeps ETC.)
Anyway, the movie has plenty to recommend it besides Depp and Landau. It shines a light on the motley crew of actors and producers and Baptist financiers who helped Wood to realize his cracked visions and shape them for the big screen; it does it in that special Burtonian way where viewers feel the need to align ourselves with the outsiders, cheer them on. It’s shot gorgeously in black and white and it even piqued my interest in seeing some of Wood’s notorious flops; so much so that, in a few weeks, when a theater in the area plays a Rifftrax version of Plan 9 From Outer Space, I’ll be there.
More satires from Preston Sturges and Robert Altman after the jump.
Continue reading "Movie Reviews: Hollywood Satires"
Movie Reviews: Drug Addicts and Their Inspiring Stories edition
The story of Sid Vicious, chronically unstable bassist for the Sex Pistols, and Nancy, his girlfriend and/or wife (the movie was contradictory about whether they were actually married). Nancy introduces Sid to hard drugs (if the movie can be believed) and they both gradually implode until Sid accidentally-on purpose kills Nancy. It’s all a disturbing, unbelievable-but-true story.
Of course, as the page I linked above will attest, no one knows what really happened, including Sid himself, who was too incapacitated to remember (or too guilty to admit). The movie has to make a choice about the events leading up to Nancy’s death, and it actually presents, I think, a plausible one. The movie represents Nancy as becoming increasingly suicidal as Sid’s career flounders, their money runs out, and their lives become unmanageable. She asks Sid on several occasions to kill her; on one fateful night, barely in control of his own faculties, he stabs her once, in the stomach. The situation rid of all tension, both of them relieved, they fall asleep on the bed together. And then she bleeds to death, because they are both too out of their minds to realize that a stab wound needs to be attended to.
Basically, the death reinforces the idea that Sid and Nancy’s relationship was violent but committed, that their love for each other destroyed them in a way that’s sort of ironically touching. They are portrayed as being kind of a nicely-matched pair, honestly. There’s one scene where they’re holed up in his mom’s house and they’re talking about cartoons or something, the cartoons they watched when they were children, and they are flipping out laughing, and seem utterly in sync. In fact, I wish a few more movie romances would show a scene where the characters are joking and bantering, chattering about nothing, and not in that stupid, fake When Harry Met Sally way, in the way that couples actually do it.
Gary Oldman gives an incredible performance as Sid, the music is great, the London and New York locations are very cool. I liked it, but it should go without saying that those with weak stomachs or no appreciation for irony need not apply. Maybe I sugar-coated it in my own mind, because I will admit to flashing constantly back to the episode of The Simpsons which spoofs this movie, where Lisa plays Nancy to Nelson’s Sid and they derail his career with their addiction to candy.
First of all, this is officially the most drug-less drug movie I have ever seen.
The movie’s about a quartet of drug addicts who engage in highly choreographed heists of pharmacies and drugstores and hospitals. They are the Ocean’s 11 of junkies. What I want to know is, why are they so much more interested in robbing drugstores and pharmacies and hospitals than they are in taking the drugs? They get a huge haul and they can’t stop talking about their next theft long enough to actually smoke or inject (or whatever) what they’ve got. Compared to Sid and Nancy--compared to certain characters from behind-the-scenes-of-the-meth-industry opus Breaking Bad--God, it seemed like these characters were never actually stoned.
And then when Matt Dillon decides to go clean, all we see is a lot of shots of him looking out the damn window! I didn’t realize narcotics withdrawal was so pensive, so tedious. The guy got a job operating a drill press, for crying out loud. Pretty steady hand for a recovering junkie. The movie became quite philosophical at that point, too, in the most navel-gazing, junior high way possible. This life, this life; it’s all so meaningless. Life as a law-abiding citizen is such a soul-crushing bore and drugs are the only way to experience love or passion; what a painful choice.
Dumb.
Notes for a Tuesday night
On Boxing Movies
I've had a super busy day, but even so, I'm forcing myself to watch Rocky right now so I can mark a movie off my list today. I don't have anything against the movie necessarily--I understand that the stupidness of the many sequels is not a reflection on the value of the first. But, I gotta say--I hate boxing movies in general. They are so sweaty and armpitty and...and what's with that goo they rub on the boxer's wounds? It's just the grossest sport in existence.
Raging Bull, which I did not much care for, is not at all exempt from this.
Epic Wednesday for July 29
Here is tomorrow's viewing schedule for Epic Wednesday: (Vietnam) War is Hell edition.
9:00am: Platoon
12:00pm: MASH
3:00pm: The Deer Hunter
Notable Quotables
I went to a money management seminar tonight on Case's campus (my parents will be extremely excited to hear this) and one of the people who ran the seminar said something very quotable. This is not a direct attribution, of course, but it was something along these lines:
"People want to say that the hit the economy took last year was just a speed bump. The truth is, it wasn't a speed bump, it was a pothole, and when we hit it, the tire came off."
Who knew a financial analyst would have such a flair for metaphor?
The Champagne is on Ice
Last night, Jeremy and I watched Unforgiven, a Clint Eastwood-directed, Oscar-winning flick about amorality in the Old West. This movie, from 1992, is one of just a handful of films that landed on all three of the top 100 lists that I’ve been working through this summer.
The big news is that it also represented the last of one of those lists for me. As of last night, the Entertainment Weekly list has been completely exhausted!
So, the champagne is on ice, so to speak, but it’s not ready to drink yet. One list is down, but 17 movies remain. Still, with Natural Born Killers and Drugstore Cowboy out of the way, I feel safe in assuming that the worst is behind me.
I have a viewing schedule all set, which, including my two remaining Epic Wednesdays, will finish me on all lists completely by Wednesday, August 5.
The Most Wonderful Time of Year?
In case the word hasn't been adequately spread, I love movies, and especially old movies. I got hooked on them in 1994, when I was thirteen years old and the dual successes of Pulp Fiction and Clerks had every director in Hollywood filling his movies with comic violence and profanity. Age restrictions kept me out of the local cineplex and, out of desperation, I tried a new aisle in the video store.
These days, Turner Classic Movies in one of my go-to channels. For the past couple years, the month of August has been designated "Summer Under the Stars," with each day dedicated to a single legend of the silver screen. Here's this year's schedule:
August 1: Henry Fonda
August 2: James Mason
August 3: Marion Davies
August 4: James Coburn
August 5: Harold Lloyd
August 6: Judy Garland
August 7: Glenn Ford
August 8: Bette Davis
August 9: Cary Grant
August 10: Dirk Bogarde
August 11: Audrey Hepburn
August 12: Clark Gable
August 13: Gloria Grahame
August 14: Sidney Poitier
August 15: Deborah Kerr
August 16: Elvis Presley
August 17: Jennifer Jones
August 18: John Wayne
August 19: Red Skelton
August 20: Miriam Hopkins
August 21: Gene Hackman
August 22: Sterling Hayden
August 23: Angela Lansbury
August 24: Fredric March
August 25: Merle Oberon
August 26: Yul Brynner
August 27: Ida Lupino
August 28: Frank Sinatra
August 29: Peter Sellers
August 30: Jean Arthur
August 31: Claire Bloom
Some of my favorites have been moved out of the rotation, like Katharine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, and Jimmy Stewart. Their absence leaves room for more obscure stars, though. I'm excited about Ida Lupino day; she was one of the first female directors to make it in Hollywood. And I know I'll be glued to the TV on August 9, when the dapper fellow above gets his day: My Favorite Wife, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, To Catch a Thief and Notorious are all first-rate.
Epic Wednesday: Ghetto Life
Today's viewing schedule:
9:30 Menace II Society
12:00 Do the Right Thing
3:00 Hoop Dreams
I have six movies left on the EW list, these three and three others. All six are on my shelves right now, and so I could conceivably finish the EW list in as much time as it takes me to watch those movies.
Unfortunately, two of the other three that remain are Natural Born Killers and Drugstore Cowboy, which both look terrible. The last is Unforgiven, which I would quite like to watch, but which I'm saving to for Friday night to watch with Jeremy.
Upcoming Movies (with trailers!)
I swear that over the next few days I will write some posts that are not about movies. People are getting burned out on them, I understand that.
What may surprise you is that I have not reached that point at all. In fact, I'm beginning to anticipate the end of my Summer Movie Watch by thinking about the movies I'll get to prioritize when the challenge has been exhausted.
There's plenty of them on DVD--my Netflix queue has almost two hundred movies in it, and I Love You, Man! (which comes out August 11) has been on our rewatch list for months.
There are a few hitting theaters soon that I'm eager to see, too. Usually I'm pretty reserved about announcing this before reviews come out; my interest can chill considerably when the Metacritic number hovers on the wrong side of 50. Still, barring any unforseen flops:
Julie and Julia comes out August 7. This one has got your name on it, Mom. Should we see it next time I'm home?
Funny People is supposedly Judd Apatow's big dramatic opus, coming out July 31. You can see the trailer anywhere on the web--many people are complaining that it tells too much of the story, often a problem with trailers.
Here instead is a marketing video they created for the movie; the character played by Jason Schwartzman (from Rushmore, and one of my favorites, The Darjeeling Limited) is apparently a sitcom actor on a cheesy show called Yo Teach! a portion of which you can see here:
Also looking to indulge in some thrills and chills courtesy of Marty. Here's Shutter Island, coming out October 2.
Epic Thursday?
I had to shift my epic day this week; yesterday I was out of town.
Today's schedule:
10:00am - Sophie's Choice
2:00pm - Schindler's List
It's the Depression Special! All Holocaust, all the time.
For anyone who, like me, is obsessed with my list statistics, the viewing of Schindler's List will finish me on the top ten films of both AFI lists. I have quite nearly finished the top twenties as well; just One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (AFI 1998) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (AFI 2007) will do it.
Schindler is on EW's list, too, being less than 25 years old. (Such a serious movie, and it's just a teenager! That's so cute!) It doesn't fall within the top twenty at all, but at number 21, below such masterpieces as The Matrix and Casino Royale. When I mark it off, I will have just one film left in EW's top twenty-five, Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.
I'll watch Lee's film during next week's regularly scheduled Epic Wednesday. It'll be joined by other portraits of ghetto life Menace II Society and Hoop Dreams.
Reviews: Musicals
TOO LONG. Too long.
Look, I think Julie Andrews is legitimately wonderful. I watched Mary Poppins about a thousand times as a kid. I may have even sat through one of the Princess Diaries movies just to see how a class act maintains her dignity throughout the Disney cheese. (The answer to that one seems to be, by having a British accent and by looking approximately twenty years younger than she actually is.)
This movie was too long, though, for the amount of actual plot that it had. The problem is (bear with me, I know how this sounds) they just kept breaking into these pointless, story-stalling songs. I remember at least two songs which seemed to be primarily about birds that went “Cu-ckooo, cu-ckoooo.” Giving up three hours of your afternoon, being forced to watch a bunch of perky children singing about cuckoo birds just begs the question…what’s the point? (It might also have been just one song, but sung twice.)
OK, I know what the point is. They’re juxtaposing the innocence of the children with the evil of the Nazis. I get it. I just find it really boring—and I feel better admitting that since I read the Wikipedia entry of the movie, which reveals that legendary film critic Pauline Kael panned the movie so bad she was ultimately fired from the magazine that was employing her at the time. Pauline Kael rocks!
Click ahead for Jimmy Cagney, Fred and Ginger, and more musical bashing!
Continue reading "Reviews: Musicals"
Reviews: Sweeping Romances in Remote Locales
I read this book about two years ago; I found it a bit of a slow-go at first and then devoured the second half. The author/narrator, Isak Dinesen (a nom de plume for Karen Blixen) has a bit of that intellectual reserve (comparable, I think, to Joan Didion’s in The Year of Magical Thinking) and rather than be drawn into the story, I had to meet her in the middle; it ended up being worth it, in the end.
The only thing I knew about the movie version—other than that it starred the divine Meryl Streep and the also quite divine Robert Redford, and that it was on the list—was that back in 2000 I was in a women’s literature class and we read a short story by Dinesen. My professor (an awesome lady who later oversaw my senior thesis) recommended Out of Africa as a great read and then said, with a roll of the eyes, “Not like that horrible movie version.”
Now having seen it, I can answer as to what’s horrible about it. The answer is, objectively, nothing. It was beautifully acted (not that there would’ve been any doubt about that), the scenery was breathtaking (even on a grainy VHS copy). The love story sweeps one up, as love stories attempt to do. Here’s the problem: Out of Africa, the book, is not a love story at all. In fact, the character that Robert Redford plays is barely in it. He’s mentioned a few times, and his (SPOILER!) death is recounted, emotionally, by Blixen, as one tells the story of the death of a friend. The only reason the characters get together in the movie is because the real-life people were rumored to have had an affair (because of course Karen Blixen was married to someone else).
More on Out of Africa, and later, wolves are danced with.
Continue reading "Reviews: Sweeping Romances in Remote Locales"
Epic Wednesday: Films of David Lean
I've been looking forward to this Epic Wednesday--today I watch two films from master director Sir David Lean, Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago. Lean was known for sweeping epics full of beautiful camerawork. I'm halfway through Lawrence now, and even on my modest TV the desert seems to stretch a hundred visible miles in each direction. Seeing so much empty space involves the viewer in Lawrence's journey, makes us feel as though we too must take each step. Here's an article on the work of David Lean that perhaps does his genius a bit more justice than I can.
IMDB reminds me that Lean also directed one of the best list movies I have watched so far, The Bridge on the River Kwai--and amazing movie about prisoners of war struggling to maintain their dignity in the enemy camp.
Yet I think my favorite Lean film might still be Brief Encounter, one of the most beautiful thwarted romances ever. If I have any stamina left after today's two films, both of them 3 hours and change, then I will put on Brief Encounter, which doesn't appear on any of my lists but is a masterpiece regardless.
Join me next week for Epic Wednesday: Depression Special: Schindler's List and Sophie's Choice.
By the way, if anyone is interested in my summer movie watch statistics, here are today's calculations:
After today's two films, I will have a total of 38 films left to watch. That's 42% of the total films I needed to watch; I passed the halfway point last Wednesday amidst the westerns.
Fourteen movies will finish the EW list; twenty-seven will finish both the AFI lists. (Note: There are three films which appear on both the EW and AFI lists which are being counted on both sides.) My plan right now is to exhaust the EW list first and end on the AFI list--I want the last movie to be a fantastic one.
My Epic Journey
The other day I wrote about the difficulties I’ve encountered trying to obtain Lawrence of Arabia. By some miracle, I got my hands on a copy yesterday, checked out of the Cleveland Heights-University Heights library system.
Another problem had already taken its place: the Lord of the Rings problem.
Jeremy and I have been planning an Epic Sunday in which we watch all three Lord of the Rings movies back to back. (In case you’re curious, the first LOTR movie appears on the AFI redux list from 2007; the complete trilogy appears on the EW list--in one slot, cheat much EW?)
Unlike most nerds of his caliber, Jeremy does not have the LOTR movies on DVD. We've been trying not to pay for any of our rentals if possible (libraries are free, and my Netflix account is a standard expenditure) so I set about trying to obtain the movies that make up the trilogy. In the following story, I will identify the three films as LOTR1, 2 and 3 respectively.
Earlier in the week, in preparation for Epic Sunday, I checked Case’s library. LOTR1 and LOTR2 are in the system, but not LOTR3. No problem; I’ll get #3 via Netflix. I put what I think is the right movie in my queue. It'll be here in time for the weekend.
I go to Case’s library Tuesday of this week and discover that, while LOTR2 is on the shelves, LOTR1 is “missing.” Code for “someone took it out and then they disappeared off the face of the earth,” usually. Jeremy says no problem, we will download LOTR1 from one of the many nefarious web outlets that he knows about. We check; only the extended edition is available for download. I would prefer not to add 30 minutes of probably unnecessary extra scenes to a 9 hour+ movie viewing. We will return to that only if necessary.
Friday, we get the Netflix disc in the mail. I open it and discover that it is LOTR2, not 3. Let’s recap: two days to go, and I have two copies of LOTR2, and zero copies of the other two movies. The mix-up is my fault; I got confused between my queue and Jeremy’s (both of which are filled with my movies right now, incidentally).
I know I’ve already checked the Cleveland Heights library system; on Friday, I try Cuyahoga County. The closest branch, South Euclid-Lyndhurst, has LOTR3 in DVD and LOTR1, in video only. Good enough; I still have a working VCR. I go to that branch and find LOTR3 easily enough; the video wall is a bit of a mess and I’m unable to find LOTR1. Anybody I ask for help just tells me to request it from another library. Easy enough; wish I’d thought of that four days earlier when it would have mattered.
I go back to Cleveland Heights library because a book I wanted (unrelated to this story; but also a book I’ve been attempting to track down for weeks which was “missing” from two different libraries, story of my life). I wander into the audiovisual section just to see. What do I find? Lawrence of Arabia! Also, LOTR2, because apparently that’s the wallflower of the trilogy--the one who never has a date on Saturday night and is thus always available. LOTR1, needless to say, is currently checked out.
I go home and check the online catalogs again. I’ve only been looking at libraries I know; is it possible I can find it at a library that’s not familiar? I checked Clevenet—a consortium of a huge number of libraries in the Greater Cleveland area. I filed away the names of a few branches that were relatively close to me. Then I searched on the first movie again, and lo and behold, the DVD of LOTR1 was available at the Rice branch of the Cleveland Public library, less than 4 miles away. The only drawback? They don’t deliver, because at this point I am so done with driving to and searching around libraries.
I head out anyway. The library is easy enough to find, but I sail right past it in my car because the parking lot is closed due to construction. No problem; I U-turn around a fast food parking lot and park in the street. I wander around the library for a few minutes, find the DVD section, and scan over the L's. Nothing. I try the F's, in case it's filed under the subtitle, "Fellowship of the Ring." It's not. Increasingly desperate, I begin asking strangers standing nearby who have DVD cases in their hands if they have Lord of the Rings. I'm too frantic to even be embarrassed.
And then, there it is. Its alphabetic identifier sticker missing, filed amongst the K's. Somewhat breathlessly, I check out the disc and bring it home.
And so, tomorrow is Epic Sunday: Lord of the Rings edition. Jeremy is excited, I am dubious.
But that's tomorrow; today is the remainder of the 4th of July. In honor of our nation's birthday, here's a clip of Homer Simpson buying fireworks. Enjoy.
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.
Continue reading "Reviews: Foreign films"
Epic Wednesday: Westerns
Tomorrow was meant to be a double header of two classic films based on novels, films which decided to recreate the experience of reading the novels by taking approximately as long to watch them as it would take to read them. I.e., Doctor Zhivago and Lawrence of Arabia.
Unfortunately, Lawrence of Arabia is apparently an extremely hot property. It's been borrowed from both Case's library as well as Cleveland Heights'.
Subbing in, then, are the following movies:
High Noon
Shane
The Searchers
The Wild Bunch
Unlike war movies or mob epics, westerns actually tend to clock in at extremely short and manageable times. High Noon is an impressive 83 minutes long. Shane and The Searchers both fall just on the sweet side of two hours at 118 and 119 minutes, respectively. The Wild Bunch is slightly over two hours, but this is not a problem both because my movie stamina is at Olympic levels right now, and also because it's got William Holden in it.
See you tomorrow, Bill!
Reviews: Epic Wednesday: Mob Rule
I started with Scarface, figuring that I wouldn’t want to watch it after six hours of Godfathering. All I really knew about it was that it was a remake (but not really) of a crime film from the 30s, and that at the end Al Pacino says, “Say hello to my leetle friend.” And shoots people. Also, you can buy the poster at any college bookstore.
More about Scarface, as well as The Godfather(s) after the jump.
Continue reading "Reviews: Epic Wednesday: Mob Rule"
Some Thoughts About EW's 100 New Classics list
I watched Evil Dead 2 last night, which was a singularly terrible experience. I won't go into too much detail about the movie itself other than to say that watching it was not unlike watching one of the many pieces of trash I used to see on Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Saturday mornings, the only difference being that the hilarious commentary provided by Mike and the robots which made the movies watchable was missing. (Click here for a clip, if you're uninitiated in the wonders of MST3K and you have no idea what I'm talking about.)
Anyway, this terrible movie, which Entertainment Weekly considers the 83rd best movie of the last 25 years (nestled comfortably between Oscar-baits Lost in Translation and Sideways, and a full eight spots above legitimate classic Back to the Future) prompted me to think about the EW list, and to question why so many of the movies I have hated watching have come from this list.
The one thing I've continually said about all these movies I didn't like--Fatal Attraction, Spider-Man 2--and the ones I already knew I didn't like--this is where The Matrix and Pretty Woman come in--is that they're iconic. They're movies people know and recognize. I hate Pretty Woman, but I would never argue that other people didn't love it, or that Julia Robert's performance wasn't star-making. And I know that Evil Dead 2 is a cult film, loved by horror geeks for its potent combo platter of slapstick and gore.
What the Entertainment Weekly list has not promised, so far, is well-crafted movies. Movies that make sense, with stories that hold together, with strong performances, with sure-handed direction. Those movies have occurred on the list, you understand, but they are not guaranteed like on the AFI lists. It's good that I know that now, so I can manage my expectations going in to the next one, which is, frighteningly, Blue Velvet.
By the way, besides being the writer-director for the travesty that was Evil Dead 2, Sam Raimi also produced and directed the Spider-Man movies. I feel pretty confident that I can write this guy's movies off as "not to my taste" from now on--or, in the immortal words of Christian Bale, "you and me, we're f***ing done professionally," Mr. Raimi.
Epic Wednesday: Mob Rule
A preview of tomorrow's viewing schedule:
9:00am: Scarface ('83)
12:00pm: The Godfather
3:00pm: The Godfather Part IIRun time: just over nine hours, total
Al Pacino quotient: high
Body count: presumably will also be pretty high
My mobster movie education has been pretty limited up to this point; or so I was told when I dared to tell somebody that my favorite mob movie was Donnie Brasco.
But really, a film buff such as myself going almost 30 years without seeing The Godfather is in itself a crime. Tomorrow I will make amends.
Lots of thanks to Sis and Husband of Sis for lending me the DVDs.
Movie Reviews: Men versus Women edition
Well, is the movie good? The performances are good. The film itself is memorable to the point of being iconic—it has incredible cultural value, providing a snapshot of male-female relations during this screwed-up period in the 70s and 80s when women were making these huge strides towards independence and equality amidst a really severe backlash. I think the movie accurately presents the fear men must have felt about the way women were usurping their cultural roles.
But it’s a man’s fear, not a cultural fear, and that fear was/is irrational, and the movie doesn’t make that point; instead it uses the filmic conventions of a horror film where the “monster” is a needy, aggressive woman, and then it destroys her, because that’s what you do with the monster at the end.
More about Fatal Attraction, plus Harry Meets Sally and I hate the world, after the jump.
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Epic Wednesday: Ancient Rome
Due to last month's move, and the attendant difficulties, I've not been making the progress on my movie list that I should have by this point in the summer.
So, starting yesterday, I established Epic Wednesday to knock off two to four movies in one day, preferably those which are "epic" in nature (i.e. insanely long) or those which are part of a series. Though I got a bit of a late start, I made it through Spartacus (3 hours, 18 minutes) and Ben-Hur (3 hours, 34 minutes). Spartacus is about the uprising of slaves, trained as gladiators, in ancient Rome. Ben-Hur is about the conflict between Jews and Romans in the Roman-ruled Jewish-inhabited historical land of Judea.
How did the films compare?
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More Movies, More Problems
Last night, I made a poor personal choice...I watched almost the entire remake of Halloween. No, this was not on my approved viewing list. And I paid for this stupid decision to watch this movie by having to actually have watched it.
The entire conception of the movie is weird: despite the fact that Halloween (the 1978 film directed by John Carpenter) had a kajillion sequels, someone (it was Rob Zombie, a heavy metal musician turned director) decided to remake the first film. In keeping with Mr. Zombie's (heh) aesthetic, the new Halloween creates a backstory for murderous, masked rampager Michael Myers so that the audience is forced (yeah, forced is the right word) to feel empathy for an ax murderer.
I'm not going to write too much about this movie, which is just god-awful from beginning to end. I will remark on two things (after the jump).
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Cool Guys and Explosions
I've got tons to say on the subject of our recent move, but I'm too tired to approach that right now.
In the meantime, I have to link to this video from MTV's Movie Awards. By some amazing coincidence, last night Jeremy and I discussed the same cinematic cliche which is mocked in this video while Jeremy watched the end of Shooter. In fact, the very moment from Shooter that prompted my comment is in the video: the "Mark Wahlberg is wearin' a hat" moment.
I should get around and watch one of the million reruns on the Movie Awards on the off chance of there being more Andy Samberg hilarity. This link will bring you to a bunch of the digital shorts he's put on SNL since joining the cast. Do me a favor and skip ahead to page 4 to watch "Cookies," which is my favorite.
Sad to say that Will Ferrell's Neil Diamond impression is a bit rusty, though. The impression is in full force in this Gap commercial:
Reviews: ALL! ABOUT! ACTION!
I am not the audience for this movie. I can complain about it until the day ends, but this movie is designed to hit particular, comic book-inspired notes that, to my ears, sound tinny and unpleasant. And that's nobody's fault; it's not inherently wrong. I just hated it.
The way the characters talk, for example. Almost every scene opens with a character monologuing their heart out, declaring their motivations aloud for no reason other than that the story wants to feel transferred directly from a panel in a comic to the screen. I found myself imagining these stupid lines in a bubble over the character’s head, and they fit that way, they made sense. It’s nothing personal, I just want dialogue that sounds like how people actually talk, not the expository snippets that tell a story in a comic.
What did sort of offend me about this movie was the emotional manipulation required to keep dragging Tobey Maguire (whatever his stupid alter ego was called) back into the fray. Example one: the elevated train sequence. One of the many “scared passenger” extras in this movie is a young, beautiful woman who is holding a baby. A baby wrapped in a blanket. Because nothing looks more vulnerable than a beautiful young woman holding a baby wrapped in a blanket. (Maybe if she’d had a kerchief on her head like a movie immigrant.) But there is no reality to this situation, OK? What woman gallivants around town holding her baby wrapped in a blanket? The kid would be in a stroller or in one of those backpacky things.
Example two: the building on fire sequence. Don’t ask me, first of all, why, exactly, this is Spider-Man’s responsibility, and not the responsibility of firefighters, who DO exist in the universe of the film but for some reason are unable to reach any crime scene until after all the shit’s already gone down. Also don’t ask me whether or not I think the firemen would later tell old Tobey, “You’re a hero!” because they wouldn't. I don’t speak from experience, of course, but I’m guessing that people who risk their necks on a regular, professional basis don’t take too kindly to amateurs, and that the more likely remark would’ve been along the lines of, “What the eff did you think you were doing?”
But worse, the whole “there’s a kid in there!” rescue sequence made no sense from beginning to end. First of all, the kid had parents—we see them, out on the street, huddled and scared—WHY THE HELL did those parents not get the kid out when THEY got out? I can conceive of no situation where the parents end up on the street and the kid is inside the burning building—IN THE CLOSET—that doesn’t immediately point to Child Protective Services. Don’t ask me to care about the parents of the kid, is what I’m saying, because if they had been doing their jobs, Tobey wouldn’t have “had” to do it for them. The problem is, this movie wants to draw explicit lines between hero and citizen, between good and evil, etc., which again, fits a comic book world, but which is just not a world I’m interested in seeing. There’s so much dramatic potential in questioning those roles—see Gone Baby Gone or The Dark Knight, for examples—and so I find these movies where everything fits into its little boxes just really disappointing.
I wouldn’t make such a big deal about it, but it was on the list, and some of the reviews I read afterwards really exulted over what a triumph this movie was (for example, Entertainment Weekly’s). And it made no sense to me.
A better movie than Spider-Man 2, because there was a little ambiguity involved, particularly with the question of whether or not the inventor (of the machines which would eventually rebel) should be killed. That’s all I’m talking about, Spider-Man! A little debate, a little ambiguity! It’s not hard! James Cameron can do it! The guy who said, “I’m the king of the world!”
This is one of the few list movies which Jeremy agreed to watch with me—and which, in fact, he already possessed on DVD. In keeping with the dictum that I’m allowed to watch the movies in whatever frame of mind I choose, I approached this one with a full glass of Jack and tea, and indulged myself in Arnold-themed ridicule throughout. With the accent and all, it’s just so much fun to attribute dialogue to him: “I ahm da tehrminehter; I cuhm fruhm da fewture wehring lehhther.” I know I had cleverer ones, incidentally, but I can’t remember any of them.
As for the movie itself, it was not as dumb as I thought, nor as good as it could have been. The narrative was a little looser than I liked. For example, the Robert Patrick liquefying-terminator-guy disappears for about half an hour while the movie is figuring out the whole Sarah Connors: ASSASSIN? thing. This guy is striding so purposefully every time we see him, giving the impression that he will not give up until all are dead; but when we don’t see him, it sheds some doubt on how dynamically he’s really searching. Personally, I picture him kicking back with an iced tea at some highway rest stop. Would it have been so difficult for Cameron to cut to a shot of Patrick, striding purposefully, once or twice during that 30 minute period? It would’ve built the tension and everything…
Also, the relationship between Arnold and the kid (Edward Furlong, later arrested for freeing some grocery store lobsters while in a drunken stupor). The way the kid was endlessly nattering on to this futuristic robot, about his childhood, about whatever was on his mind. It was a very awkward way to relate the history to the audience, and it just made the kid seem sad, like he needed a friend. Still, somebody clearly liked this “gruff accented giant” plus “talkative child” energy, because Arnold replicated it several times.
The movie did have potential, though. It didn’t really explore the technology versus humanity theme, but that hasn’t stopped scholars from doing it—want a link to “Making Cyborgs, Making Humans: Of Terminators and Blade Runners” from The Cybercultures Reader? (And by the way, isn’t academia AWESOME?) Another positive point, like I said above, is that the movie was not afraid to debate. To question what was right or wrong! All you need is a dollop, Hollywood. It’s like cayenne pepper. It goes far.
Incidentally, Jeremy went to see the fourth film in the series (the one in theaters right now) and found it only OK.
Reviews: Classic adventures
Stagecoach
Mutiny on the Bounty
I watched these two on the same day; in fact, they were my first two official list efforts.
Stagecoach was not that bad, I guess, fast-paced and full of what in the 1930s passed for action. Sometimes when I watch these really old movies with great reputations, I discover that the story is unexpectedly clever or inventive, though I can’t say that was the case here; the story was fairly average. That could mean either that it was basically a vehicle for John Wayne (this movie was his breakout performance) or (and this is often the case with old movies, too) the movie had a hand in establishing the now-familiar theme. Anyway, it was entertaining enough for 90 minutes; if I was really bored, I might even watch it again.
I can’t say I paid a hell of a lot of attention to Mutiny on the Bounty. I like Charles Laughton, one of the ugliest actors to ever become a movie star, and I love Clark Gable, but, like George Clooney these days (and don’t think I’m the first person to make the Clooney-Gable connection; I’m so not) he’s playing to his strengths when he’s being witty and charming, as opposed to when he’s being Big Action Star or Serious Leading Man. And I really couldn’t tell which of those two this movie was asking him to be (or whether the movie even asked that question; old movies tend to be more generically ambiguous than those of today).
Mutiny on the Bounty was TCM’s Essentials feature, which means it was introduced by this season’s host, Alec Baldwin, and though I wanted to like it for Alec’s sake (he raved), I couldn’t seem to get a foothold in the story. They were on the ship, then they were on an island, then they were back on the ship, and I kept leaving the room to get my laundry (got about four loads done during this flick) and I couldn’t follow. Also, I was expecting some big action scene with swords and whatnot when the actual mutiny happened; I either missed that, or it did not happen. A closer watch would certainly have served me well here, but I can’t say I will prioritize that too highly in the future. Especially this summer when my movie-watching time is at a premium.
Birthday weekend
Saturday: My birthday
Jeremy decided to gift me with two experiences checked off my 30 by 30 list! So thoughtful, that guy. In the afternoon, I went to a massage, which was wonderful, and afterward, we had dinner at Melt Bar and Grilled. I had the Godfather, basically ricotta, tomato sauce and spices between two huge pieces of garlic bread.
Yes, it is literally a lasagna sandwich. A carb, re-carbed.
We came home and, after some debate, chose Spider-Man 2 (a list movie) for the evening’s viewing. I’d seen parts of that movie, on TNT or whatever, always when Jeremy turned it on and I was reading or otherwise engaged in the same room. I’ve never sat down to watch it for its own merits, and now I can for sure state that I will never do so again. What a crap bag of a movie that is!
Sunday
A lazy day. We did some packing, I watched another House marathon, and spent most of the evening letting the precious hours of my life slip away while I surfed the Internet.
On the plus side, I visited SimpsonizeMe.com and Simpsonized Jeremy and myself.
Hee! Jeremy is blond Milhouse! I couldn’t get mine to look like me no matter what I did to it, but I’m posting it anyway because it’s a flattering non-resemblance.
Monday: Memorial Day
More packing! Jeremy went to see the new Terminator movie, and I watched two list movies: All Quiet on the Western Front and Bonnie and Clyde.
Jeremy made burgers and hot dogs on the grill and homemade fries, and we had s’mores for dessert; classic Memorial Day fare.
In other news, we have our new address now and I’ll be e-mailing it around to friends and family this week. Moving day is set for Sunday, May 31! It will be a relief.
Summer project!
As people who know me know, I am a huge follower of award shows, and of “best of” lists. I love to see stuff ranked, and to see quality get celebrated (or even debated: I’ve argued with a good many people over the years about whether Shakespeare in Love should have bested Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture at the Oscars back in ’98). Award shows and “best of” lists are great guides for someone who wants to actively seek out movies with great reputations.
One of the best movie list-makers is the American Film Institute. They release a new list pretty much every year (they’ve done 100 Best Comedies, 100 Best Characters, etc.) and they have two 100 Best American Films lists, the original from 1998, and then a revision in 2007. The difference between the two lists is 23 films, some of which were movies that people thought had been overlooked, and some of which first appeared after 1998 (for example, Saving Private Ryan, mentioned above).
Entertainment Weekly also has a 100 Best list, but they do not compete with the AFI; the Entertainment Weekly list is “new classics,” all films originating in the 25 years between 1983 and 2008.
I am a notorious goal-setter and list-maker, and these kinds of lists indulge both of those attributes (or flaws, depending on how you run your life). So, the first in a series of goals I’ll be releasing out into cyberspace (check back on my birthday for more) is this: see 91 specific movies, the ones missing from those three lists, and thus become master of three “best of” lists.
Before I began the project, my record was as follows:
AFI 1998: seen 58, not seen 42
AFI 2007: seen 54, not seen 46
EW: seen 61, not seen 39
With overlap (Schindler’s List and Unforgiven are two movies I haven’t seen, which both appear on all three lists; some other movies appear on two) the number of movies I need to watch to lay waste to these lists is 91.
I created a website where I’m tracking my progress; I've linked it on the sidebar as well. I’m off to a pretty good start, having seen five new movies since my summer vacation began.
Am I serious about this? Well, I watched Stagecoach last week, and Terminator 2. That's serious!
A Celebration of Dudes
Hey, did you know that there is a Lebowski Fest? It’s a two-day celebration based around worship of the Dude, the protagonist of the Coen brothers’ 1998 cult film, The Big Lebowski. Lebowski Fest involves a viewing of the film, followed by drinking, bands, and bowling. And probably more than a few controlled substances.
Apparently the Coen brothers based this character around a film producer they knew named Jeff Dowd, who attended a west coast Lebowski Fest a few years ago and wrote about it here.
This year’s LA-based fest (which transpired last weekend, although other fests occur through the summer) featured Dowd, the rug-pissing thugs, and little Larry of the mediocre history essay. (I could quote the line of dialogue most associated with Larry, but it’s insanely inappropriate in this forum. Google it if you are curious.)
Anyway, all this talk of Lebowski makes me happy, because I associate this movie with good things: Jeremy and I have a Lebowski tradition.
Despite the relative brevity of our relationship, we have moved together (by which I mean changed houses) a couple of times already. During the first move, from our separate abodes into a shared apartment back in Kalamazoo, we had a 12-week-old puppy to contend with, among other difficulties, and the move was a strenuous one. Our moving day goal was aimed as low as possible: just get all the crap out of the old places, and into the new one, and we’ll deal with it all in the morning.
In that mindset, after all the boxes had been piled high into our new shared living room, we decided to doctor up a couple of White Russians and put on The Big Lebowski, just to wind down. The 12-week-old puppy was uncharacteristically cooperative, falling asleep in Jeremy’s lap and not stirring for the entirety of the movie. It was, all in all, an enchanted experience, and a lovely way to begin our cohabitation.
And so our tradition now is, every time we move, we pack one box of immediate necessities, the bare minimum of things we need to make it through the night so that we can leave all the rest until the morning: that’s sheets, toilet paper, our cell phones, and the DVD of The Big Lebowski. It’s really a nice juxtaposition: a new start in a new house, celebrated with two guys (Walter and the Dude) who haven’t evolved since the 70s.
We’ll watch The Big Lebowski again May 31. I’ll let you all know how the tradition holds up.
UPDATE: Look what The A.V. Club did a day after me!
Why I will always love Ghostbusters
This may sound utterly ridiculous, but seeing Ghostbusters on the big screen last weekend has really prompted me to realize how terrific a movie that really is.
It’s a comedy, and a silly one, at that, which is an immediate disqualifier for some people. Not for me, of course, because smart-silly is my absolute favorite brand of comedy.
But let’s look at the facts:
The script is perfect. The narrative progresses perfectly, with a relatively slow build to the establishment of the ghost-busting business, the period of success with just small hints of obstacles to come (in the form of the EPA guy, the big supernatural event on the horizon) and then the grab bag of problems that hit them in the third act which they have to work through to reach the film’s resolution. And just when the audience is begging for a climactic moment, we get a giant marshmallow man stomping through the streets of New York City.
Speaking of which, this movie loves New York City. The film’s got sort of a gritty look to it, like they didn’t clean up the garbage in the streets before filming, and all the extras look like real people. Compare this to the New York of some glossy chick flick like The Devil Wears Prada—that’s a young, sleek, rich, clean New York and it’s not real. But when these guys battle with the mayor for the chance to be allowed to save the city, it’s truly affecting. This same theme cropped up—much more literally (supernaturally animated Statue of Liberty, anyone?)—in the sequel.
Also, the movie is sort of legitimately scary. I mean, I can remember watching this movie without any fear at the age of like, six. But in the theater I was really struck by how effectively ominous some moments are—like Ray and Winston talking about Judgment Day, and Egon describing the rituals that rendered the building possessed by spirits.
I also love that that backstory is so plausible—I mean, for what it is. The movie sets up only one “just go with it” conceit: ghosts are real. And everything else is completely logical within that conceit. OK, a worshipper of this ancient god built the building as a conductor of supernatural energy. A door between dimensions has been opened. They’ll reverse the streams, and send the energy flowing back where it came from. It sounds preposterous, but in this world that they’ve established, it all works!
And the way the characters talk to each other—they really sound like scholars, bouncing ideas off one another. They sound like people who know how to do research. They talk like scientists, weighing evidence and making logical conclusions.
“Ray—pretend for a minute that I don’t know anything about metallurgy, engineering, or physics.” “You never studied.”
Do you think any character in the average (for example) Adam Sandler movie even knows that there are such things as metallurgy, engineering, or physics?
Jeremy asked me at the end where on my “best movies of all time” list this movie falls. I said it had to be top five, at least. It’s just so, so good, and so, so funny—and the good serves the funny, and vice versa. Here's a 3.5 star review from Roger Ebert (circa 1984) which says some more about what separates this movie from the rest.
And I promise the next post will not be about Ghostbusters.
Tally of accomplishments, vol. 5
That's right, my Shakespeare paper finally got finished (except for some little editing things, like citations and stuff that I'm going to fix tomorrow) and I went ahead and celebrated that accomplishment thusly:
YES! I went to cult film night to see Ghostbusters, and it was incredible. An entire theater of people chanting along with Bill Murray as he says, "The flowers are STILL STANDING."
Here's that scene.
The theater was showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show tonight, too, so the lobby was full of Ghostbusters people and Rocky Horror people mingling (you could tell who was who because the Ghostbusters people had greasy hair and glasses, and the Rocky Horror people were wearing fishnets).
In addition to seeing the movie and the nine hours I spent finishing the Shakespeare paper (really), we also signed a lease this morning! We are the proud renters of the first floor of a house in Cleveland Heights! Such a full day. Incidentally, the house is right around the corner from my new favorite movie theater.
Tally of accomplishments, vol. 3
Today was my last official teaching day for the year! Something like 65 lesson plans, approximately half of them successful in execution, and not another one to make until the fall!
Today's reward (the DVD of an awesome movie that until today I only had on VHS):
I Love You, Man!
That's right, I saw I Love You, Man tonight! Jealous?
Case had a free screening tonight, two days before it hits those movie theaters that only suckers go to. Jeremy and I saw the film, although we did have to give up our cell phones (and any other potential recording devices) at the door.
I won't write a full review (those get too spoilery) but I will say that Paul Rudd and Jason Segel are both memorable and hilarious in the movie. They both play full-fledged characters with lives, with believable personalities, with motivations that make sense--and it's all still funny. Hardly any actors (or movies) can show both sides of that coin at once. I wish I could describe some of their best moments, but I will not ruin them. Just know that both guys are funny in completely unexpected and unusual ways.
What else you can expect: a pretty typical Apatow experience, although Apatow was not involved in this one as far as I know. Lots of swearing and other kinds of naughty talk. A quite savvy satire of the difficulty of "making friends" as grown-ups and the fine line walked between male bonding and utter gayness. And they do say, "I love you man" to one another, and it's magnificent.
By the way, The 40-Year-Old Virgin is on television right now, and I'm watching it. Jeremy should consider himself lucky that Paul Rudd is too married and too famous to ever offer himself to me, because I would take him up on it so fast.
Websites of Note, 1st Edition
I have tons of websites that I’m obsessed with and visit regularly or more than regularly; I expect that, like “Why am I watching this?” from the other day, this topic will recur.
LOSING THE COW
This short blog I found in sort of a roundabout way; the blogger was a recapper at Television Without Pity (which I’ll cover on another day), then I followed her from there to her personal blog, on which she linked to this blog, which was devoted solely to her weight-loss efforts. Though she updated it a couple of times in 2008, the posts are largely from a few years earlier.
People who know me know that I am emphatically anti-diet, and, while I don’t discourage physical fitness for anybody, I find the obsessive pursuit of it a bit pointless. (It’s like this: I’ll walk the dog and do Pilates sometimes, but I won’t beat myself up if I skip a month or two. And I’m never giving up cheese.)
What does this site offer me, then, that I find so noteworthy? Philosophy, plain and simple. You have to start with the first post, in which the blogger (whose name is Linda Holmes, incidentally, and who now writes for yet another site that I like) explains how her approach, honed over 30 years of lifetime overweight-ness, differs from everyone else’s.
It’s like trying to win a tug-of-war, and you pull as goddamn hard as you can, and you don’t make any progress at all. And it seems like you should be able to do it, but you just don’t. And when you seek advice, you get the same piece most of the time: “Pull harder. You’re not pulling hard enough.” ... Here’s the advice you don’t get, that you should get:1. Tie the rope to something secure.
2. Walk along the rope until you find the other end.
3. There will be a guy standing there. Kick the shit out of him.
...More after the jump.
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Why am I watching this? 1st edition
("1st edition" means I expect to make similar posts in the future.)
It's Wednesday night, I have plenty of work to keep me busy--a very interesting novel I'm reading--a kitchen half-full of dirty dishes--and yet, here I sit, watching The Devil Wears Prada for the umpteenth time, and I wouldn't even have a problem with this sloth, seeing as I am on vacation, except for one thing.
I hate this movie.
So why am I watching it?
Continue reading "Why am I watching this? 1st edition"
In Praise of Netflix
I’ve had a Netflix account since January 2005 (so my accounts page tells me) and I continue to love it. I know people who have tried and dismissed the system, but I find that for my renting habits, it’s just about ideal. The fact is, Jeremy and I haven’t even visited a bricks-and-mortar video rental place since we’ve moved. He mostly obtains movies through Internet savvy (all methods are super legal…of course…) and I have my Netflix. (Turns out geeks aren’t file sharing Sullivan’s Travels…)
The main drawback to Netflix is that you can’t get big movies the day they’re released into video stores. If that’s a priority for you, Netflix is not ideal. DVDs are usually released on Tuesdays; you can ‘save’ the disc before it’s released and it appears in your queue even before that Tuesday comes. Still, you’ll have to wait for shipping, and possibly, if there’s great demand for the movie, for other people to cycle through it before you can get your hands on it. I tend not to care if I see movies the week they came out, the year they came out, the decade they came out (the two discs in my possession currently are films from 1961 and 1999). I can say, from anecdotal evidence (a former co-worker who had Blockbuster online) that the waits at Netflix were shorter and the selection much better.
Selection is one of the real benefits of Netflix. Every film is exhaustively categorized, so you can find it in a number of ways: searching on “comedies of the 1940s,” or “movies about movies,” or “Oscar winners” or “movies based on books” etc. The queue is the list of wanna-sees, and you can slide movies up and down the list at will. I am not great about keeping the discs moving through the queue—I tend to sit on the films that got mailed for a long time—but Netflix has also instituted a Watch Instantly feature, which is basically awesome. I can watch movies on my computer (which I do, while e-mailing, or doing schoolwork at the more brainless end of the spectrum) or I can hook the computer up to the TV and watch the movie there. (Regarding that: Netflix users take heed! Do not pay a hundred bucks for the Netflix instant viewing device. All you need to watch movies on your TV is a laptop computer and a $10 cable.)
The Watch Instantly catalog started out a bit weak, but then Netflix allied themselves with, like CBS.com, and Starz Online, and a bunch of other video-streaming services, so the choices improved immensely and immediately. They do sometimes rotate out of service, so you have to keep an eye on the end dates. Anyway, that means that entire seasons of popular TV shows are watchable (The Office, 30 Rock), as well as movies that just came out, older classics, foreign films (Jeremy must have watched this Russian action film about ten times) and just really great stuff. Plus, Netflix marks the films that are in your existing queue which are also available to watch instantly; plus, they let you maintain a Watch Instantly queue which can be separate.
Speaking of separate queues, that’s another feature we use. I established a queue on my account for Jeremy, which he can access and into which he can put anything he wants. So if I hold on to The Innocents for two months (I’m watching it this week, I swear!) that doesn’t hold up the movies Jeremy is watching.
Further, the recommendations are excellent; I just rate movies I’ve seen, and they offer “you might also enjoy” picks. They’re more accurate, in general, than, say, Amazon’s similar recommendations. I’ve found some good stuff I would not have heard of, as well as stuff I’d heard of but wouldn’t have thought of to rent. Like I said, I appreciate the organizational effects of the queue; you can also access a complete list of your rentals, so I don’t forget what I’ve watched. I’ve never had a problem with any of their mailers, and I think I’ve only had maybe two lost discs in the four years I’ve had the account.
There's a community feature which I admit, I don't use much. There are some people I don't want to know that I consider Bridget Jones's Diary a 5-star movie, or that I found Being There really boring. My sister and brother-in-law are on there, but my taste in movies is pretty different from theirs, so we don't do a lot of sharing and advising. But the feature is there for those who are interested.
No, Netflix paid me nothing for this free advertisement.
Slumdog Millionaire
I’m going to start this review by patting myself on the back: I did not jump on the bandwagon to see this movie. I was more like a pioneer in seeing this movie; I was the Lewis and Clark of this movie. I had read about way before it was news, did some online detective work and found a free screening in town before it hit wide release. Jeremy and I saw it in Shaker Square back in December.
I already knew the director, Danny Boyle (in short: Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, 28 Days Later and Millions), and the story sounded awesome. It’s about a young guy who grew up in the slums of Mumbai, India, who is participating on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and doing quite well. He’s doing so well that they believe he’s cheating, and demand that he tell them how he knows each answer. As he tells the stories, we learn about his rough childhood, including the girl he loved who he struggled to save from the streets.
Anyone who reads my reviews is going to find out that I adore a non-linear narrative, flashbacks, any unconventional narrative device, really. Plus, this is a story set in India, and I have a fairly inexplicable, probably colonialist and un-PC fascination with all things Indian. I saw The Darjeeling Limited a bunch of times. I read Jhumpa Lahiri and Bharati Mukherjee and Kiran Desai. I get incredibly excited when The Amazing Race goes to India. I drink Indian tea.
Anyway, I loved the movie; it was just what I expected and wanted to see. It was wistful and epic, heartbreaking and life-affirming all in the same moment. Some reviews have complained that this film relies too heavily on coincidence, and I always take issue with this point of view. I did it back when Signs came out (because in that case it wasn’t even coincidence, it was the hand of God, duh) and I do it every time we read a Dickens novel in an English seminar. As it happens, Slumdog Millionaire is hugely Dickensian. The young protagonist is orphaned and survives by his wits on the streets. He’s ambitious, and rises to a position of gentility, albeit an unsteady one. The love of his life, meanwhile, is in the clutches of an evil man. And through a series of increasingly unlikely coincidences, the protagonist and his love overcome their obstacles.
The class struggle is classic Dickens, too—the effect of the Industrial Revolution on England made some men rich and gave the rest black lung. In Slumdog, the industrialization is equivalent to westernization. In one scene, the protagonist and his brother stand at the top of a building and look over the part of Mumbai which was once the slums where they lived and is now a solid mass of skyscrapers and condos. The characters may be “better off” now—they have regular meals, probably, and clean clothes and cell phones—but a part of their national identity has been lost, just like the employees in call center where the protagonist works use English names and accents.
But all I’m really foregrounding here are the more sober elements of the film, and the fact is, it’s a lot of fun. There’s some violence that some reviewers got really squeamish about, but I’m pretty desensitized to movie violence thanks to Freshman Film class (1999) where we had to watch Full Metal Jacket and Alien and The Exorcist and The Shining etc., not to mention the Steven Seagal movies my dad had on the TV throughout my entire childhood. There’s dancing, there’s against-all-odds awesomeness. It was just amazing on all counts.
The review in brief: Slumdog Millionaire for Best Picture!
Movie Review Double Shot
Milk
Sean Penn was amazing in the movie (glad that he won the SAG award a few weeks ago, though I imagine Mickey Rourke has him at the Oscars). I say this even for the benefit of people who seethe with hatred for Sean Penn (Shout out--Andra!) because he is remarkably un-Sean Penn like for the entire movie. He scarcely looks like himself, in a way I can’t quite describe, but which seems to have something to do with an elasticity in his face, neck and shoulders that he’s usually lacking. Also terrific are Emile Hirsch (who I only like sometimes) and James Franco (who was the only watchable element of The Crapapple Express) and especially Josh Brolin (who’s awesome in everything lately, but who tops off this performance with the best seventies hair ever).
So, this kind of movie is usually primarily about the performances, and, like I said, the actors didn’t disappoint. Still, one thing I got that I did not expect to see was a seriously compelling glimpse into the ultimate grassroots campaign; a primer for how a fight for rights insinuates itself into government. I didn’t know that much about the real Harvey Milk, and I couldn’t believe how many times he ran for office and lost before he finally ran and won. He chipped away at hate, prejudice and indifference for years. There was so much vigorous activism onscreen, that I—well, basically, if I had been able to walk out of the movie and into some kind of freedom march I so would’ve done it. The awesomeness of the scenes where the characters would assemble and walk to City Hall made me long to take part in some political action, this despite all the violence and frustration the activists in this movie faced.
Though that verb should not be in past tense, should it? It was savvy of the filmmakers to release this film right now; people are still hot (and rightfully so) about California’s Prop 8. It’s a vivid reminder that prejudice didn’t die with seventies hair.
Gran Torino
There’s plenty in this movie about violence and racism and the increasing anachronism of alpha male posturing, but I’ll direct you towards other reviews to muse on that. Metacritic is a great place to start.
What I want to talk about is how totally alien almost all the characters in this movie were in the way they interacted with each other. The weirdness was leaking out of the screen. The characters all related to each other like they had all been born in laboratories and were just growing accustomed to human interaction. This occurs from the very first moments of the movie, and the way everyone acts at the funeral of Clint Eastwood’s character’s wife. First, the priest who’s trying to reach out to him, who continually addresses him by his first name (which escapes me at the moment) despite the fact that Clint demands that he not do it. Who does that? The grandchildren also slouch around the house and check their text messages like it wasn’t their grandmother who just died. Of course, all of this is in service to reinforcing Eastwood’s theme of “it ain’t like it used to be.” Kids today have no respect. Not even that little pipsqueak priest.
We see the same thing with his adult son and daughter-in-law, in the birthday scene. We open at the dining room table where Clint sits in front of a sad, tacky birthday cake while the others stand awkwardly at his sides. Then, they awkwardly hand him extremely thoughtless birthday gifts—not wrapped, of course. He sits there and grumbles, and we’re meant to commiserate with him as, yet again, assholes surround him. And in the theater I’m saying, “Sit down. Why are you hovering like that? Sit down.” I couldn’t help but feel that these scenes were directed (by Eastwood) to be purposely awkward, to make the audience join the character in his discomfort. If that’s the case, it was certainly effective.
Either that, or this is just how people act around Clint Eastwood, and he’s doesn’t realize it’s not normal.
Movie Review Double Shot
Milk
Sean Penn was amazing in the movie (glad that he won the SAG award a few weeks ago, though I imagine Mickey Rourke has him at the Oscars). I say this even for the benefit of people who seethe with hatred for Sean Penn (Shout out--Andra!) because he is remarkably un-Sean Penn like for the entire movie. He scarcely looks like himself, in a way I can’t quite describe, but which seems to have something to do with an elasticity in his face, neck and shoulders that he’s usually lacking. Also terrific are Emile Hirsch (who I only like sometimes) and James Franco (who was the only watchable element of The Crapapple Express) and especially Josh Brolin (who’s awesome in everything lately, but who tops off this performance with the best seventies hair ever).
So, this kind of movie is usually primarily about the performances, and, like I said, the actors didn’t disappoint. Still, one thing I got that I did not expect to see was a seriously compelling glimpse into the ultimate grassroots campaign; a primer for how a fight for rights insinuates itself into government. I didn’t know that much about the real Harvey Milk, and I couldn’t believe how many times he ran for office and lost before he finally ran and won. He chipped away at hate, prejudice and indifference for years. There was so much vigorous activism onscreen, that I—well, basically, if I had been able to walk out of the movie and into some kind of freedom march I so would’ve done it. The awesomeness of the scenes where the characters would assemble and walk to City Hall made me long to take part in some political action, this despite all the violence and frustration the activists in this movie faced.
Though that verb should not be in past tense, should it? It was savvy of the filmmakers to release this film right now; people are still hot (and rightfully so) about California’s Prop 8. It’s a vivid reminder that prejudice didn’t die with seventies hair.
Gran Torino
There’s plenty in this movie about violence and racism and the increasing anachronism of alpha male posturing, but I’ll direct you towards other reviews to muse on that. Metacritic is a great place to start.
What I want to talk about is how totally alien almost all the characters in this movie were in the way they interacted with each other. The weirdness was leaking out of the screen. The characters all related to each other like they had all been born in laboratories and were just growing accustomed to human interaction. This occurs from the very first moments of the movie, and the way everyone acts at the funeral of Clint Eastwood’s character’s wife. First, the priest who’s trying to reach out to him, who continually addresses him by his first name (which escapes me at the moment) despite the fact that Clint demands that he not do it. Who does that? The grandchildren also slouch around the house and check their text messages like it wasn’t their grandmother who just died. Of course, all of this is in service to reinforcing Eastwood’s theme of “it ain’t like it used to be.” Kids today have no respect. Not even that little pipsqueak priest.
We see the same thing with his adult son and daughter-in-law, in the birthday scene. We open at the dining room table where Clint sits in front of a sad, tacky birthday cake while the others stand awkwardly at his sides. Then, they awkwardly hand him extremely thoughtless birthday gifts—not wrapped, of course. He sits there and grumbles, and we’re meant to commiserate with him as, yet again, assholes surround him. And in the theater I’m saying, “Sit down. Why are you hovering like that? Sit down.” I couldn’t help but feel that these scenes were directed (by Eastwood) to be purposely awkward, to make the audience join the character in his discomfort. If that’s the case, it was certainly effective.
Either that, or this is just how people act around Clint Eastwood, and he’s doesn’t realize it’s not normal.