3:10 to Yuma (2007). Well, Russell Crowe is no Glenn Ford, but who is. Loved the original movie, which fleshes out the very short story really well. This movie adds in a bit too much extra material for me, which dissipates the tension. Good, though. Themes of pride, circumstance, honor. Love this line on insurance/forced retirement, basically: “They weren’t paying me to walk away; they were paying me so they could walk away.” Filed under: westerns.
I read Elmore Leonard’s Out of Sight and it was just what I needed. Fun crime/love caper with great dialogue, always moving to the next thing. Makes me want to watch the movie again.
The Salvation. I feel like Mads Mikkelsen’s face was just begging to be put in a Western. This one sometimes feels like it was assembled from a western-movie kit, but has some really good moments – I particularly like the conversation with the priest in the jail, the parallel funerals, and a silent escape on a train.
Friendship is not a pale imitation of sexual romance. It is a romance unto itself.
The Aviator. I often struggle with biopics, but I liked this one a lot. I like how the film stock and coloring shifts with the passage of time, the recurring hands imagery, and the sympathy we feel as we see this man changing. “Nothing’s clean, Howard. But we do our best.”
I loved this dive through the history of pockets and gadgets and little daily conveniences we keep with us.
Shutter Island. Better than I thought it would be. Scorsese takes some simple genre stuff to some good creepy heights.
The first draft is always perfect. perfect. Its only job is to exist.
In telling the story of how you became who you are, and of who you’re on your way to becoming, the story itself becomes a part of who you are.
The best way to “educate yourself,” for most people at most stages in your life, is to make marginal adjustments in your peer group.
The Gift. I loved this movie for 90 minutes and then I hated it so much. There are a couple late plot decisions that totally broke the spell. But, credit is for a spell-binding run up to that point. It’s amazing how much tension Edgerton wrings out of thin air. I liked it.
Mission: Impossible 3. Better than I remembered. Hoffman is casually one of the most terrifying villains of the past couple decades. It’s a shame that Keri Russell didn’t have a larger role. Current Mission: Impossible rankings:
It seems the rule of thumb here is that the quality of the MI films is inversely proportional to the length of Tom Cruise’s hair.
As I grow older, I hope to become more like my father, who caused much amusement by firmly declining a ride by the White House when we went to Washington DC to visit my in-laws. “It’s the White House,” my mother-in-law said to me. “Anyone would want to go.”
Anyone except my father. Over the years of saying no to other people’s adventures, he has retained his triangularity in a world of round pegs with well-rounded to-do lists. He loved what he loved – the bridges of New York, the Halal street food vendors, the ferry to Staten Island – not because they were iconic but because they pierced his indifference.
My new attitude to travel is to skip the iconic – and I thank my father for that
When you take a class with the Harvard University art historian Jennifer Roberts, your first task is always to choose a work of art, then go and look at it, wherever it’s displayed, for three full hours.
Diamonds – Kurt Pio. These paintings are awesome.
My creative process begins with: just thinking. I do a lot of thinking, a lot of pondering. I rarely watch films in airplanes; I just sort of sit there, looking at the ceiling. Day dreaming is the equivalent of doodling; it’s mental doodling.
Composition no. 62 is from Rear Window (1954, dir. Alfred Hitchcock) Cinematography by Robert Burks
I love love love that you can see the reflection of the window through the lens.
The tendency to associate classical music with murderous insanity is a curious neurosis of the American pop-cultural psyche.
Finally, A Non-Embarrassing Classical-Music Scene in a Blockbuster Movie – The New Yorker
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation. It’s fun! I wish it were as stylish as some of its predecessors. I wasn’t picking up on a McQuarrie directorial stamp like we saw in the De Palma, Woo, and Abrams movies. Also a little bit disappointed with Hunt this time around. Seems like he was a bit overmatched at times – more like something you saw in the early stages of Edge of Tomorrow, or something out of Indiana Jones. I’m use to a Hunt that’s more ruthlessly (absurdly) competent. But still, really solid, and I love the pace. That Ferguson is Cruise’s equal (superior?), the opera scene is top-notch, the villain is perfect, and it’s nice to see an action movie that doesn’t feel like it needs a built-in romance. Filed under: Tom Cruise, Mission: Impossible.
Mark Larson 