What do you think she meant when she said “a huge black monster with giant claws”?
I’m probably not the right person to judge these films since I haven’t been fixated on this genre at any point in my life. I’ll fully admit I’ve already grown tired of most of the discussions surrounding these films and their success/failure (though I do recommend the discourse between Matt Zoller Seitz and Keith Uhlich over at The House Next Door) because they have little to do with the actual films and devote far too much energy on denouncing either the personality of the filmmakers, the concept behind the filmmaking methods being applied, or both. It seems that most of the people carrying on a conversation about these films have a heavy bias in their perspection and interpretation anyway. It’s idiotic to require everyone to be objective while evaluating a film, but I would rather avoid opinions that have been determined prior to watching a film and are adamant in having the viewing experience simply provide reinforcement of their own perspective.
Having said all that nonsense, I have to admit the most entertaining segments of this experience were the shamelessly cheesy trailers. I’ve never been a fan of Eli Roth’s films, but the man sure does know how to piece together a damn fine horror trailer, dripping with gore, admiration, and sarcasm.
Sadly, while Planet Terror has some well-earned moments, I enjoyed Rodriguez’s trailer for Machete far more than his feature. Truthfully, it appears that Planet Terror probably approximates the experience of watching a “grindhouse” feature better than its companion piece, simply due to its trashy subject matter and its stylistic flourishes intended to artificially recreate decay (they really are fun to watch). Unfortunately, Rodriguez’s feature never sustained my interest and often just became tiresome or annoying (someone has to remind Bruce Willis that he’s not actually an action-hero in real life). Also, while I really enjoyed Marley Shelton’s endless struggle, I couldn’t stand the cameos by the Crazy Babysitter Twins, which were even more pointless than Tarantino’s constant appearances (which is saying something). Perhaps some of my frustration was due to Rodriguez requiring so little of the viewer’s attention that it practically renders the film disposable. I’m sure such qualities adhere to the generally accepted perception of the genre and provide the film with an authentic, audacious, raucous charm that appeal to enthusiasts, but it’s also mildly exhausting and blatantly undemanding in its maddening superficiality.
Meanwhile, I remain unconvinced that Death Proof is actually entertaining, but I’m utterly confident that it’s intriguing and engaging as an exercise in attempting to explore Tarantino’s id. Much like Kill Bill (and I actually enjoyed Volume 1 much more than Volume 2), Death Proof is so primal, aggressive, and distasteful (and maybe even offensive) at times that it almost feels inappropriate to be strolling through Tarantino’s mind with such freedom, to the point where I wonder if Tarantino isn’t a cinematic masochist. Obviously the subject isn’t sophisticated, and the film isn’t entirely successful, but Tarantino at least makes the material feel personal, if only as a demonstration of the power that women hold within his psyche and his resentment and appreciation for that feminine death-grip.
by Chiranjit Goswami | Source: Alliance Atlantis 35mm Theatrical Print
30 Apr 2007 6:35 PM | Submit Comment
While I doubt that directing is actually 90% casting, it’s hard to argue with that expression while watching Tobey Maguire portray and wounded and weary Peter Parker. Though he does have his wise-cracking moments, Maguire never completely exudes the cocky, smart-ass, almost flippant personality that defines the Spider-man persona, but he’s nearly perfect when the script doesn’t require that he wear the costume.
by Chiranjit Goswami | Source: Sony Pictures DVD
30 Apr 2007 5:35 PM | Submit Comment
I might be alone on this one, but this film always reminds me of how poor casting can work against a decent script. Of all the couples that Lubitsch has cast, I’ve never really been entirely convinced of the potential attraction between Margaret Sullavan and Jimmy Stewart, even though the script that was mashed together by various writers creates a scenario that implies that Klara and Alfred were destined to find one another despite their initial repulsion. Perhaps it has something to do with the strange cadence and timbre that Sullavan applies to her lines that annoy me to no end, or the fact that Stewart has always been paired with women wildly out of his league in other films, but I find myself actively rooting against this couple even though I remain amused at their romantic ineptitude.
One remarkable aspect of the film is that most of the events occur over the course of a few days (though some time may have passed in between), with dramatic changes in the dynamics of relationships occurring within hours. While that’s a characteristic that is shared by a number of older Hollywood films, it almost feels like such a trait would be viewed as a weakness (or worse, as a gimmick) within any contemporary film.
Still, the script feels incredibly plausible despite its contrived scenario and allows ample amounts of time for the charming supporting characters to divert our attention away from some clumsy lines — including the final moments of the film — while also serving to highlight the film’s concerns with commerce and companionship. It’s tempting to state that the filmmakers sculpt the film to stress the concept that commerce serves as an obstacle to love, but the film remains fairly neutral, considering the shop also allows for a strong connection between its workers, even providing a few employees with their only means of friendship. Whether or not that’s a dismal comment on the dynamics created by capitalism is probably left to the perspective of the viewer.
I’m also always astonished that the film that served as source material for You’ve Got Mail includes a suicide scene.
by Chiranjit Goswami | Source: Warner Brothers DVD
30 Apr 2007 5:13 PM | Submit Comment
Welles’ best film after Kane? It certainly has more depth and humanity than Touch Of Evil, even if the edges are more ragged, the style less polished- one of the downsides of working outside the studio system. And one of the best onscreen Shakespeare adaptations, too: he seems to be having a lot more fun with the text than Olivier or Branagh ever did. Indeed, perhaps the film’s key strength is to get to the real emotional core of Shakespeare’s characters, alternating between high politics and low slapstick, with Welles bumbling around the battlefield in his fatsuit of armour a unique highlight. Falstaff was a role that could have been written for the older Orson, a portly, lovable rogue in love with his own fading legend, alternately wistful and braggadocious but never cruel. This was the director’s favourite of his own films, and it’s easy to see why- after all the trials it took to get the piece completed it stands as a genuine masterpiece, messy and rough edged like it’s maker, and equally blessed by genius.
by Tom Huddleston | Source: DVD
29 Apr 2007 3:07 PM | Comments (3)
Judd Apatow co-wrote the screenplay for this desperately predictable summer camp comedy- clearly he’s come a long way in the past decade. Ben Stiller effortlessly steals the show as the brutal, overbearing camp leader (a role he’s since repeated in, among others, Happy Gilmore and Dodgeball), but the focus stays on the overweight pre-adolescent leads.
by Tom Huddleston | Source: DVD
29 Apr 2007 3:05 PM | Submit Comment
A rather dull and patronising slice of surreal Scandinavian existentialism, as a man arrives in a nameless city where nothing tastes of anything and life is generally joyless. It’s supposed to be a critique of Norwegian middle class existence, and ends up feeling like a bad Radiohead lyric: pity the poor grasping suckers, and thank God you’re a young, hip creative artist who knows what life is really about.
by Tom Huddleston | Source: 35mm print
29 Apr 2007 3:03 PM | Comments (3)
A surprisingly hard faced look at the West African diamond trade, with DiCaprio in his best role for a very long time (perhaps ever) as an amoral and deeply unlikeable Rhodesian smuggler. It’s a shame the relationship between DiCaprio and fisherman Djimon Hounsou is shoved aside in the central act to make way for Jennifer Connelly’s predictably soft centred journalist: only in the final stages do they get the chance to indulge in some of the Defiant Ones style buddy banter that could have been one of the film’s real strong points.
I recently criticised both Richard Stanley’s Dust Devil and Oscar winner The Last King Of Scotland for telling African stories through white eyes, the excuse always being that producers won’t shell out for an African movie with a black hero. Blood Diamond pulls the same trick, but manages to get away with it: this is an important contemporary issue which needs to reach as wide an audience as possible, and when the star of the film is Leonardo DiCaprio that’s pretty much guaranteed.
by Tom Huddleston | Source: DVD
29 Apr 2007 3:00 PM | Submit Comment
A slight British romcom leavened by some nice central performances, particularly Rebecca Hall as the obligatory other woman. Shouldn’t think it’ll appeal much beyond this sceptered isle, though.
by Tom Huddleston | Source: DVD
29 Apr 2007 2:59 PM | Submit Comment
Wilder’s startlingly nihilistic vision could have done for him what Peeping Tom did for Powell- a beloved filmmaker alienating his audiences with a bleak, vicious look at human selfishness run amok, and a veiled attack on his own chosen profession. Kirk Douglas seems, at first, winningly amoral in the central role, until greed and desperation get the better of him and he takes a turn for the even darker. As a portrait of our ongoing fascination with tragedy and the media’s willingness to exploit it, Ace In The Hole has yet to be bettered.
by Tom Huddleston | Source: DVD
29 Apr 2007 2:58 PM | Submit Comment
It’s hard to see why Dreamworks put so much money into what is essentially a very British enterprise- like The Curse Of The Were Rabbit this plays with British attitudes, prejudices and class issues which must have been largely incomprehensible to the average American punter. Which could still have worked, if it had been more than a rather lacklustre kiddie adventure with a few decent jokes and some enjoyable action setpieces.
by Tom Huddleston | Source: DVD
29 Apr 2007 2:56 PM | Submit Comment
Another genre for Danny Boyle to make a complete mess of, following his experiments with romantic comedy (A Life Less Ordinary), adventure (The Beach) and horror (28 Days Later, a film I still can’t understand why anyone likes). This time he’s off in space, with a supposedly gritty, intelligent portrait of astronauts under pressure, on their way to drop a bomb into the sun. The film has been compared in the UK press to, among others, Alien, Dark Star and 2001. For God’s sake, why? If this was an American film they’d be falling over themselves to condemn it’s total absence of narrative, it’s barely-even-cardboard characters, it’s unbelievably misconceived final act. The film looks great, and there are one or two riveting setpieces. But with this sort of budget and ‘talent’ on board, there’s absolutely no excuse for Sunshine to be as desperately average as it undoubtedly is.
by Tom Huddleston | Source: 35mm print
29 Apr 2007 2:54 PM | Comments (2)
Another cautionary tale for working filmmakers- there seem to be a lot of them in British cinema. Bill Forsyth has entirely given up directing now, following the disappointing Gregory’s Two Girls and the frankly disastrous Being Human. But his early films still possess a singular vision, a genuine but unsentimental warmth, and a wonderfully sharp sense of humour. A shame that this one is now largely remembered for it’s cloying Mark Knopfler score.
by Tom Huddleston | Source: FilmFour
29 Apr 2007 2:52 PM | Submit Comment
A slightly disappointing second viewing for one of my favourite films of last year. Outside the cinema the film loses it’s intensity, and familiarity dulls the impact of it’s more shocking plot twists. The whole thing starts to feel a bit melodramatic and ludicrous, particularly in the central sections. But the climactic gun battle, and particularly Cuaron’s bravura steadicam shot, lose none of their brilliance.
by Tom Huddleston | Source: DVD
29 Apr 2007 2:50 PM | Submit Comment
Rumsey has put his finger on the problem of this film for me when he calls it Amelie for dudes. Which explains why, in spite of the fey charm of the bric-a-brac animation, I ended up finding Stephane as tiresome as Amelie.
by Ian Johnston | Source: 35mm print
29 Apr 2007 1:27 PM | Submit Comment
Essentially a French sex comedy with an overlay of imitations of Dutch painting; it’s pleasant enough but slightly lifeless. But I wonder how this comic celebration of accomodation with an occupying army played five years later, when France was suffering this for real?
by Ian Johnston | Source: BFI DVD
29 Apr 2007 1:18 PM | Submit Comment
In their books on Fritz Lang both Tom Gunning and Reynold Humphries take House By The River very seriously indeed – and there are certainly some nice things in the film (the background of the constantly flowing river, the dark scenes at the foot of the stairs, the billowing curtain) – but they don’t mention what for me are the sticking points of this film: the creaky melodrama of the screenplay, some very poor sets, and some even worse acting.
by Ian Johnston | Source: Kino DVD
29 Apr 2007 1:10 PM | Submit Comment
Westerns are such a rare occurrence nowadays that Seraphim Falls offers a double pleasure: the chance to see a western in a cinema in the first place; and one that works remarkably well. Director David Von Ancken knows his westerns and that knowledge has fed into this revenge story, obviously with influences above all from The Searchers and Anthony Mann. There’s a real expansiveness and mythological weight to the landscape here as the story descends from snowy mountains, through settled valleys and the open plains, and ending up in the desert. The story perspective is that of the pursued (rather as if The Searchers was told from the point of view of Scar), played by a marvellously shaggy-bearded Pierce Brosnan, as far away from 007 as possible, with the result that the obsessiveness of Liam Neeson’s vengeful pursuer maybe becomes too much of a given right from the start — and especially as Brosnan’s moral responsibility for the original atrocity is later softened in the inevitable flashback.
The film turns weirdly unrealistic towards the end, with Wes Studi’s wise Indian and Anjelica Huston’s snakeoil hawker turning up in the middle of the desert to dispense wisdom, but by this stage it’s clear that Von Ancken has transformed the film into an allegory of post-Civil War national reconciliation. And if you accept this change, the image of the two men wandering off away from one another and literally fading into the desert is a very satisfying one.
by Ian Johnston | Source: 35mm print
29 Apr 2007 1:01 PM | Submit Comment
One of the more enunciated examples of nerd chic, Eagle vs Shark expends roughly its first half embellishing its characters’ irregularity: Lily and Jarrod meet at a party at which one is to come dressed as a favorite animal, hence Eagle vs Shark. The party begins with a videogame contest (a rather outstanding Mortal Kombat mod entitled Fight Man), and ends with a sex scene that is consummated with a hostile prank phone call. (I have not mentioned a fight sequence that involves a crippled man.) It avoids (much of) the exploitation of Napoleon Dynamite and the bitterness of The Science of Sleep in favor for a more formulaic romantic resolution, which innovative within this company of films.
by Rumsey Taylor | Source: Miramax 35mm print
28 Apr 2007 11:27 AM | Submit Comment
This film would be too self-indulgent to be considered one of the quintessentially New York films had Woody Allen’s self-indulgence had not been instrumental in defining the city’s filmic landscape.
by Rumsey Taylor | Source: MGM DVD
28 Apr 2007 11:19 AM | Submit Comment
The characters in Year of the Dog often veer towards caricature, but writer-director Mike White seems to have an underlying affection for them, a factor that distinguishes this film from similar works by Todd Solondz and Alexander Payne. Molly Shannon is pitch-perfect in the lead role.
by Beth Gilligan | Source: Paramount Vantage 35mm print
27 Apr 2007 11:57 AM | Submit Comment
The Sci-Fi Network has carved out a comfortable niche for itself in the Bad Cable Horror industry, with such memorable films as S.S. Doomtrooper and Locusts: The 8th Plague among its recent yield. And while the films are almost always B-quality, with from-the-past actors and bad special effects complementing rather formulaic screenplays, they are undoubtedly worthy of cult followings. They are outwardly self-aware, sensitive without question to how bad they really are, while simultaneously offering some blithe midnight-movie entertainment. (I imagine their target audience falls somewhere between “Insomniac” and “Drunk.”)
After feasting on a pasture of dead cows, ravens begin attacking the residents of a requisite small farm town. Sheriff Wayne, played by Sean Patrick Flannery, happens to be facing this nightmare on his final day; tomorrow, he and his wife leave for greener pastures, a new life, the Big City, etc. At the same time, social outcast Clyde—Stephen McHattie—escorts the high-school soccer team through a dangerous forest, where ravens begin dive-bombing the bus; sadly, not all the young, beautiful athletes will survive.
As is later explained by Oscar, an Amish farmer, “They have the sickness that you call mad cow disease.” That you call is, of course, screenwriter Benjamin Sztajnkrycer’s means of ostracizing and demonizing the film’s Amish characters, who are portrayed as two reticent men with strange Old English inflections and an ashen-skinned little girl. They are the obligatory catalysts—strange, foreign, unfamiliar, they are burdened with introducing terror to nature. But unlike past mediums of destruction—meteors (Slither, Creepshow), man-made toxic waste (Return of the Living Dead, Prophecy), and even experimental hormones (Alligator)—the depiction of the Amish as morally aloof is nothing but ignorant hogwash, as well as cowardly and safe: the Amish can’t complain because, of course, they don’t watch television.
Having spent my adolescent years watching and rewatching George Pal’s The Time Machine and Hitchcock’s The Birds, I am predisposed to liking anything with Rod Taylor, even something as awful as Kaw. In the end, Rod Taylor is grand, the only true gleam of professionalism throughout, though his rather innocuous “Doc” leaves much to be desired. When he’s not acting grandfatherly to the corner-store cashier or swatting away crazed ravens with a broom, he barely exists. A real shame that such a revered actor, having been gone from film for a decade, could wind up doing such forgettable midnight-movie waste.
by Adam Balz | Source: The Sci-Fi Network
27 Apr 2007 10:46 AM | Submit Comment
Having missed the grindhouse era by twenty years and a thousand miles, I looked to this film for some insight—a lesson in the ways of dirt-cheap, thrills-without-shame cinema, as much of the 1970s “exploitation” crop is now available without scratches, crackling sound bubbles, or missing reels on VHS and DVD at the local library. Which takes away something, considering genuine grindhouse films were shown in dark, dank, cramped, uncomfortable theatres wedged between porno huts and sweltering alleyways; the closest thing I have to this sensation today is a small, outdated theatre back home with sticky soda floors and a bad speaker system. And there was an audience, always a throng of the willing and open-minded to bask in an evening of mindless, sensationalist entertainment.
Which makes the widespread reaction to Grindhouse so disappointing. Despite being praised by critics, the film has earned less than half its budget and never rose above third place at the box office. Perhaps it’s the three-plus hours of mind-numbing action—no plot, purposefully bad character development, endless gratuity—the generational cast, or maybe even the directors, but Grindhouse never seemed to catch on. An especially sad notion, considering this is the most fun I’ve had at a theatre for some time. Even the fake trailers, shamelessly amusing cameos and all, were well worth the price of admission.
by Adam Balz | Source: Dimension Films 35MM Theatrical Print
25 Apr 2007 3:33 PM | Comments (2)
I don’t quite agree with Ian’s take on The Philadelphia Story, but it’s clear that it’s an altogether different film from Bringing Up Baby. Hepburn’s pursuit of Grant in the earlier film was aggressive (even feral?), but far too bumbling to seem masculine (at least to contemporary eyes); and Hepburn’s much skirted-around divorce from Grant’s upper class roué never seems like anything less than a necessary separation. The Philadelphia Story spends much time peeling off layers of Hepburn’s sense of certainty, and while this definitely treads closely to patriarchal defensiveness, it should be noted that the men in the film are rarely admirable. A reformed drunk, a social climber, a cynic, a pincher, and an adulterer (who presents the most frighteningly patriarchal, if beautifully worded, attempt to tame his daughter into submission and compliance) comprise a picture of masculinity that is effete at all social levels. And it is only those two — Grant and Stewart — who accept and do not try to conceal their vulnerability that can possibly be worthy of Hepburn, a woman who must learn, she is repeatedly told, to accept the vulnerability of others.
Still, this is quite a mouthful, and it can only seem slow, stagebound, and over-serious when compared to its hyperactive predecessor.
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Warner Bros. DVD
23 Apr 2007 6:27 PM | Submit Comment
With the grace of a twelve-year-old, Hepburn unleashes a leopard (and much other havoc besides) in order to stake her claim on Grant’s stuffy paleontologist, saving him from the dour frigidity of Miss Swallow and ensnaring him in a world of bucolic, infantile mischief. The result is as hilarious and exhausting as a day at the circus, only with a lot more double entendres about bones and tails.
Tom’s review | Jenny’s screening log entry
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Warner Bros. DVD
23 Apr 2007 6:26 PM | Submit Comment
Proof enough that a film can be genuinely effective in spite of an astonishingly thin plotline, dreadful acting, and even worse dialogue (“God got Wendy’s periods reversed. About every 28 days she starts acting nice.”). Most of the film consists of Prince dressing and behaving strangely and Morris Day hilarious mugging with his sidekick Jerome. But when the performances kick in — and there are many of them — the paper-thin characterizations and very tenuous plot-threads suddenly become credible and even touching. This is thanks, first, to Prince’s simply being Prince and, second, to some very smart sequencing of songs, with “The Beautiful Ones” (see above) and “Darling Nikki” revealing The Kid’s emotional and professional unhinging far more succinctly than the script. And, of course, the ominous words of The Kid’s Dad are translated into The Purple One’s squealing pop awesomeness in “I Would Die 4 U” … “darling if u want me 2!”Baby,
Baby,
Baby,
Baby,
What’s it gonna be, baby?
Do u want him?
Or do u want me?
Cuz I want u.
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Warner Bros. DVD
23 Apr 2007 5:00 PM | Comments (2)
Make time for this one. Well, one should should always have a thoughtful hour or two to spare for Samuel Beckett On Film or otherwise. John Hurt is magnificently tragic as Krapp, a 69 year old alcoholic, who realizes after listening to a tape he recorded 30 years prior that he ended a relationship which proved to be the best thing in his life.
The usual Beckett approaches are employed but work astonishingly well here. The more I look at the 19 plays in the complete box set the more I’m impressed with the handling of Beckett’s explicitly theatrical yet unbelievably static stage directions. It’s fairly easy to see how a film treatment can bring out visual subtleties and nuances missed in live theatrical productions. And the performances, for the most part (and the production value, in general), are so first rate that even a listening proves rewarding. Krapp’s Last Tape is one of the high points.
by Marlin Tyree | Source: Ambrose DVD Boxed Set
19 Apr 2007 7:14 PM | Submit Comment
In Shaun of the Dead, director Edgar Wright and actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (among others) pulled off the tricky feat of crafting a supremely amusing parody of a zombie film that was also a great zombie film in its own right. Substitute the word “cop” for “zombie,” and you have Hot Fuzz, a film that, as Leo notes, is as hilarious as its predecessor.
by Beth Gilligan | Source: Rogue Pictures 35mm print
18 Apr 2007 11:28 AM | Submit Comment
I haven’t read The Namesake, but being familiar with Jhumpa Lahiri’s short stories, it was easy for me to imagine how certain tropes and plot points that are rendered in a somewhat shallow manner onscreen might have packed a punch on the page. This, along with the miscasting of Kal Penn, is my chief complaint about the film – director Mira Nair seems to be in awe of her source material, relying on it rather than her own directorial abilities to convey certain truths.
Jit’s more articulate, personal comments can be found here.
by Beth Gilligan | Source: Fox Searchlight 35mm print
18 Apr 2007 11:17 AM | Submit Comment
It’s the theatricality of Dial M For Murder that I enjoy the most. No attempt is made to hide its origins as a middlebrow stage play, and Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, and John Williams do their stuff to perfection. As, of course, does Hitchcock.
by Ian Johnston | Source: WB DVD
15 Apr 2007 12:50 PM | Submit Comment
Boyle, one-time (Trainspotting, a long time ago) Great White Hope of Brit cinema stuffs it up again. A real pity, as for most of the film Sunshine has the makings of a great – if derivative (2001,Silent Running – sci fi classic. But then in the last half hour a monster-on-the-loose slasher flick gets stupidly, stupidly grafted on, from which the film barely recovers in its last few minutes. Too late though, for the damage has been done.
by Ian Johnston | Source: 35mm print
15 Apr 2007 12:45 PM | Comments (4)
Midway through Zodiac many of the film’s central characters are at a screening of Dirty Harry, a film partially based on the exploits and correspondence of the very killer that remains at large during this scene. The case’s lead investigator (Mark Ruffalo’s Columbo facsimile) exits early, incapable of finding entertainment in the ostensibly fictionalized film, and is later approached by another, an amateur sleuth also obsessed with identifying the Zodiac killer. At this instant, we, too, are invited to disparage the fiction in our neurotic desire to have all the facts straight. In a later letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Zodiac writes: Waiting for a good movie about me, I wonder who will play me. It is an announcement of the film’s metafictional intentions, and this is – by and far – David Fincher’s best film.
by Rumsey Taylor | Source: Paramount Pictures 35mm print
13 Apr 2007 2:15 PM | Comments (1)
Eric Schlosser’s text loses much of its bludgeon in its translation into a fiction film, but his agenda is honored amply, even if the film is more subversive than explicit. There’s a masterful turn of events when Greg Kinnear — a white collar for a fast food corporation entitled “Mickey’s” — faces the difficulty of explaining to his boss the unclean nature of a meat processing plant. “We all have to eat a little shit from time to time,” an informant explains to him. Convinced of the absolute futility of his plight, he returns to home, and exits the film halfway through.
Fast Food Nation illustrates such futility from a number of facets: some high-school students attempt to stage a protest by freeing a herd of cattle—upon dissecting a metal fence in the middle of the night, they find the cattle perfectly content to graze exactly where they are. There is also the perpetual delivery of illegal immigrants to the filthy Colorado slaughterhouse, the enormous travel rewarded with what are among the worst, most dangerous jobs available. In a fashion less affronting than Schlosser’s text but nonetheless caustic, Fast Food Nation intends to instill in the viewer the alarming realization that the individual may be incapable of diminishing the velocity of one of the most profitable and inhumane economies on Earth.
by Rumsey Taylor | Source: Fox DVD
13 Apr 2007 2:08 PM | Submit Comment
by Rumsey Taylor | Source: 35mm print
13 Apr 2007 1:55 PM | Submit Comment
People go on about how much a student of Andrei Takovsky Aleksandr Sokurov illustrates with this deftly drawn portrait of a young man attempting to deal with the death and burial of his father. But Sokurov is his own man. There are aspects of this film that Tarkovsky was not especially adept (or didn’t have an inclination or interest) at showing; particularly, the inherent comedy in situations involving human beings under extreme duress or the effects of class division on the human spirit. Sokurov displays both here. It’s an exceptionally moving film in the vein of his earlier film, Mother and Son (1984). That film, which includes the death of a parent, however, is a celebration of life. In Second Circle, because the son is dealing with the closure of his relationship with his father I’ll say that this film is more of a validation of life. Nonetheless, I highly recommend it.
by Marlin Tyree | Source: Kino Video
12 Apr 2007 6:25 PM | Submit Comment
No, not the uber-foul Wes Craven flick from a few years ago, but a semi-foul 80-minute mishmash from Japan. A convenience store is the epicenter of strange happenings: birds crash into windows, eyes peer out from behind refrigeration shelves, a mysterious figure in a hefty parka stares endlessly into magazines. The owners, a husband and wife who sit like zombies before a security monitor, are psychological grenades—they yell, glare, accuse, and laugh demonically, all while their part-time employees manage the store with blissful ease.
The problem with Cursed is that first-time director Yoshihiro Hoshino refuses to commit. For most of the film, the camera’s attention drifts relentlessly. Much of the focus is on the store’s fated customers, who are stalked by an array of murderous one-scene-only apparitions and variations on the number 666, rather than the store itself; when the store’s curse is revealed—and by a crazy homeless woman, nonetheless—we are left with more than a few questions, as well as a few reasons to groan. But the film ends without resolution.
by Adam Balz | Source: Tokyo Shock DVD
12 Apr 2007 12:57 PM | Submit Comment
More sweeping in scope than Land and Freedom, but lacking the grittiness and searing emotional intimacy that made some of Loach’s previous offerings, such as My Name is Joe and Sweet Sixteen, so memorable. To be honest, I’m a bit surprised that this captured the Palme d’Or at Cannes last year – while it boasts an absorbing narrative that touches on the complexities of the political situation at hand, it lacks the formal inventiveness that has characterized recent winners such as Dancer in the Dark, Elephant, and L’Enfant.
by Beth Gilligan | Source: IFC 35mm print
10 Apr 2007 12:15 PM | Submit Comment
Two scenes toward the end of The Awful Truth provide as good a working definition of love as I can think of. In the first scene, Cary Grant bungles his way into a recital being performed by his soon-to-be ex-wife, Irene Dunne; in the second, Dunne bungles her way into the home of Grant’s new fiancée’s family. Each proves him- or herself willing to suffer embarrassment for the other’s sake; the other, recognizing this humiliation, chooses not only to share in it, but also to laugh at it.
Buffoonery, humiliation, and laughter may not be everyone’s idea of true romance, but they nonetheless combine to form an intimate understanding: Love is an inside joke for two people, conscious and accepting of weakness and idiosyncrasy, and constituting a shared view of the world. At the back of the auditorium, Cary Grant tries and fails to noiselessly extricate himself from a pile of furniture and tousled hair, and unlike the disapproving crowd of audience members, Irene Dunne gazes at him with pity, amusement, understanding — and a lust that is so obvious, it borders on indecency.
See also: My Favorite Wife>
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Sony Pictures DVD
06 Apr 2007 6:07 PM | Submit Comment
I was expecting some near-inevitable sophomore slumpery from this follow-up to Wright & Pegg’s last hilarious fanboy dorkfest, but, a rather tired premise notwithstanding, Hot Fuzz is in fact just as funny and winning as its predecessor. This mostly stems from the filmmakers’ determination to make this as good an example of its genre as a parody of it and, with this in mind, it doesn’t hurt that it perfectly invoking a specific audience’s fetishes: He-Man, Point Break, cozy Britishness, and so on. To its credit, and in sharp relief to a lot of similar comedy on these shores (I’m looking at you, Family Guy), it only rarely pushes these fixations too far and never relies on them wholly. And with judiciously interspersed parodies of those dumb jerky-flashy CSI montages and some surprisingly adept action sequences, the film comes across as something slightly smarter and better crafted than a white, male TV junkie’s wet dream. Slightly, but distinctly.
Bonus points for the inclusion of not one, but two selections from one of the greatest albums ever.
Here’s what Tom had to say.
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Rogue Pictures 35mm Print
06 Apr 2007 4:38 PM | Comments (1)
Viewing this on my paltry TV somewhat weakened the visceral impact of watching it on the big screen, but Cuarón’s film nonetheless continues to affect me in ways I find it difficult to articulate. Many will try to parse the film’s morality, politics, or narrative logic and find it wanting, but in the face of its overwhelming emotional force — achieved not only through the astonishing immediacy of its handheld photography but also through Clive Owen’s massively sympathetic protagonist — I find the whole thing very hard to fault. Whatever you think Cuarón ought or ought not to be saying (about Bush, Abu Ghraib, Homeland Security, and so forth) is to me immaterial in the face of the questions it poses and often fails (or refuses) to answer. And regardless of the arguments about its relative depth or shallowness, it’s a classic and ultimately quite simple chase film — dense, economical, wrenching, and provocative.
Here are some earlier entries from Adam, Tom, Jenny, Rumsey, Beth, and me, the last time I watched it.
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Universal Pictures DVD
06 Apr 2007 3:00 PM | Submit Comment
by Leo Goldsmith | Source: Kino / Ruscico DVD
06 Apr 2007 2:36 PM | Submit Comment
Otto Preminger’s 1962 film Advise and Consent is exhausting in scope, utilizing 139 minutes to explore a plethora of ever-shifting subjects: An executive nominee for Secretary of State, a closeted gay Senator, Communism in America, presidential succession, vindictive conservativism and blind hypocritical liberalism, the gyre that is Congressional bureaucracy, American democracy, and so on. And while the film’s outlook is painted skillfully between optimism and downright despair—the final minute is a confounding moment, as it’s both uplifting and heartbreaking—Preminger follows through with brilliant performances, many of them occupying exiguous amounts of screen time: Charles Laughton, Burgess Meredith, Franchot Tone, Gene Tierney, Lew Ayres, Walter Pidgeon, George Grizzard, Inga Swenson, Don Murray, Betty White (Congress’ lone female senator) and Henry Fonda. Each is a scarred, burdened, emotionally complex figure seemingly burned into the celluloid.
by Adam Balz | Source: Warner DVD
06 Apr 2007 9:53 AM | Comments (1)
Beautiful, brazen, astounding, shameless, ugly, essential, perfect.
by Adam Balz | Source: MGM DVD
06 Apr 2007 9:15 AM | Submit Comment
The Ox-Bow Incident broke the Western mold when it was released during WWII. Daryl Zanuk at 20th Century Fox rightly guessed that because of the social consciousness of the film – and because American audiences wanted trivial/lighthearted fare during wartime – the movie wouldn’t make a dime. The critical reception of the film was highly favorable, however, and it has since become one of the great films of that era.
Actually, the novel, The Ox-Bow Incident, by Walter Van Tilburg Clark, and the film, written by Lamar Trotti, are depictions of the social and political climate of Nazi Germany, cloaked, of course, in a Western get-up. Henry Fonda stars (but is only one of several notable characters) in a dramatization of a Nevada mob hanging. Three men, among them the ever defiant and unflappable Anthony Quinn as a sharpshooting Mexican and Dana Andrews as an outraged and articulate cattle rustler, are accused of killing a local man, whose wherabouts are curiously uninvestigated. But investigation is the last thing on the minds of the townsfolk who go after the accused with the tenacity of bloodhounds.
A great moral tale, which edgier Westerns have been taking cues from ever since, The Ox-Bow Incident really is a classically lyric work.
by Marlin Tyree | Source: 20th Century Fox DVD
05 Apr 2007 2:52 PM | Submit Comment
by Rumsey Taylor | Source: Eureka! / Masters of Cinema DVD
03 Apr 2007 12:54 PM | Submit Comment
Synopses of this film will describe Ben Gazzara’s Cosmo as a nightclub owner, and this fact may instantly encourage certain prejudices that are not entirely sound. He deals in smut and his unfulfillable promises are inordinate, but he is sincere and, above all, deeply honorable.
The film becomes an increasingly tragic portrait; as he becomes manipulated by gangsters he shares none of his hardship with either his employees — his family — or his cherished clientele. The finale, in which Cosmo tends to a gunshot wound on the street outside of his club, alone, is among the most sympathetic of Cassavetes’ portraits.
by Rumsey Taylor | Source: The Criterion Collection DVD (1978 cut)
03 Apr 2007 12:52 PM | Submit Comment
A horror film about deadly fish courtesy Joe Dante and John Sayles. What fascinated me about this film was that the killer in this case is already a killer, only removed from a comparatively lethal South American river to a mid-Western location, one populated exclusively by middle-aged parents and their children, all of whom attend camp together. Aside from a modicum of villainy (the piranhas were genetically mutated to sustain both fresh and saltwater environs; once deployed in a freshwater river, they will instinctively head toward its mouth and in turn the ocean) and that fundamental staple of horror films films, the Lecherous Teenagers, Piranha remains neither creative nor suspenseful. Dante generates suspense rather generously — the camp counselor is such a douche bag he warrants the most grisly piranha-related death imaginable — but at every instance the payoff is tired. (In a particularly exciting instance, one of the killer fish leaps straight out of the water to bite the inestimable camp counselor right in the face; exciting to be sure, but it is nowhere near the grisly death he deserves.) An effort to apply the phobia introduced in Jaws to more landlocked regions, Piranha succeeds not in sustaining a fear of water, but in creating a glossary of characters (many of whom pronounce pi-ra-nha differently) you pretty much want to see die.
by Rumsey Taylor | Source: Warner Home Video VHS (clamshell!)
03 Apr 2007 12:46 PM | Submit Comment
While I was growing up I wasn’t really allowed to watch movies, so the few films I did watch as a child usually had a big emotional impact. However, I have to admit I rarely identified entirely with everything that was presented on-screen, since I was always watching the lives of Caucasians as the traversed through the typical events within western cultures. No matter how often I related to certain moments within a film, there were usually at least a handful of moments where I felt severely disconnected. Of course, even though I watched a great deal of Amitabh Bachchan action films when I was a kid, since I grew up in North America, most East-Indian (ie. Bollywood) films seemed even more foreign and slightly ridiculous (I swear that every 2nd Bollywood film somehow incorporates a zoom to a woman holding a shotgun on a hill. Don’t ask me why. It’s just a rule).
While watching Mira Nair films, I’m always struck by how effortlessly familiar and comfortable they feel, without becoming shrill. Though I probably wouldn’t call her methods subtle, Nair is able to exhibit East-Indian culture smoothly, in a manner which feels natural, while avoiding the brash delivery or contrived scenarios that directors such as Gurinder Chadha seem to apply so easily. Nair is actually one of the only filmmakers that my parents pay close attention to, so we usually watch her films as a family.
I wouldn’t characterize The Namesake as an entirely successful film. Though Nair’s films hardly ever follow a typical structure in terms of western story-telling conventions, her latest narrative seems particularly scattered. Also, though I’m a huge fan of his comedic talents, I never really bought into the casting of Kal Penn. Penn’s charm is that he’s slightly unscrupulous, devious, and juvenile. Unfortunately he appears considerably uncomfortable while attempting serious drama, as if he is barely suppressing his goofy antics.
However, there is an endearing quality to The Namesake, simply because it’s about the closest reflection of my life that I’ve watched on film. Nair includes an abundance of recognizable moments, from the uncomfortable interaction with Western culture, to the necessity of calling every adult “uncle” or “auntie.” She even includes the requisite yelling during long-distance phone conversations to India.
Truthfully, the highlight of the film is the acting of Irfan Khan and Tabu, as Mr. and Mrs. Ganguli. Their weary demeanors were almost painfully familiar and often reminded me of similar somber looks of exhaustion, apprehension, and disenchantment that I’ve witnessed flash across my parents’ faces. Their performances were also reminiscent of Ben Kingsley’s work in House of Sand and Fog, particularly the scenes in which the disgraced commander he portrays displays a defeated and drained expression as he tends to his convenience store counter. Much like Kingsley’s quite moment of humility, Nair is able to use the expressions of her actors to exhibit the sacrifice and disillusionment these parents are willing to endure for the benefits of their children, which often goes unnoticed by the world around them.
Of course, though this was one of the few films my father was able to stay awake through, my mother thought this film was a piece of crap. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised.
by Chiranjit Goswami | Source: Fox Searchlight 35mm Print
02 Apr 2007 7:16 PM | Submit Comment
HERMAN BLUME: What’s the secret, Max?
MAX FISCHER: The secret?
HERMAN BLUME: Yeah, you seem to have it pretty figured out.
MAX FISCHER: The secret, I don’t know. I guess you’ve just gotta find something you love to do and then do it for the rest of your life. For me, it’s going to Rushmore.
At least once a year I’m beleaguered by a distressing kinship to Max Fischer – whose seemingly endless optimism is warped into an overly cynical disposition through the trials of adolescence – and I get the overwhelming feeling like the world is determined to destroy my Rushmore. I tend to find comfort in Wes Anderson’s peculiar private school. Usually this happens in the autumn months, but this year this sensation arrived in the spring.
by Chiranjit Goswami | Source: Criterion Collection DVD
02 Apr 2007 5:44 PM | Comments (1)
This film includes what might just be one of the most awkward date scenes I’ve ever watched. I was a little bit disappointed that Will Arnett was so woefully underused, though the moment between him and Will Ferrell on the escalator was priceless.
by Chiranjit Goswami | Source: Dreamworks SKG 35mm Print
02 Apr 2007 5:07 PM | Submit Comment
Subhash Jha: You’ve repeatedly saluted Charlie Chaplin, for instance in [actress] Rani’s walk?
ong>Sanjay Bhansali: No, that was an imitation of a girl at the Helen Keller Deaf and Blind School. I guess it was close to the way Charlie Chaplin walked. But yes, there’re references to Chaplin in Black. For me he’s the most poignant character ever seen in cinema. Chaplin’s pursuit for goodness recurs in my films. Michelle epitomizes Chaplin’s loneliness. Finally she has to walk alone.
Sanjay Bhansali’s Black is a film so seemingly perfect, made with such arduous devotion and skill, I hate myself for finding fault. But outside the breathtaking cinematography and ingenious acting is a creeping, almost ridiculous nod to Charlie Chaplin. Shot from behind, Michelle walks in large shoes and with a white cane in what appears to be an homage to the shuffling waddle of Chaplin’s Little Tramp. And while Bhansali may have dismissed the idea of a tribute-via-gait in the above interview, the image of Michelle walking outside a local theatre, one that happens to be screening Chaplin’s Gold Rush, is disturbingly suspicious. It’s a distraction that keeps you from reentering a story that, by the film’s end, has begun to boil with eye-rolling melodrama.
by Adam Balz | Source: Yash Raj Films Home Entertainment DVD
01 Apr 2007 1:26 PM | Submit Comment