Run All Night. Second viewing. (The first.) Not sure why I gave it another shot. There’s not enough running! I like the looks at the various intra-gang relationships here and there.
Tag: edharris
The Truman Show
The Truman Show. So, so great. Really lovely blend of comedy and drama. Everyone is perfect in their role.
A History of Violence
A History of Violence. I remember reading the graphic novel way back in the day. Pretty solid small-town drama. Reminded me of The Equalizer, with the focus on some tidy local drama that caps off with a little road trip to the rich bad guy’s house.
Gone Baby Gone
Gone Baby Gone. Second viewing (I like my first write-up). One thing I hate in this movie is how a disfigured villain character distances us. Seems like kind of a weasel move. You see similar in True Detective, which also really bothered me. So much of the series lingers in mundane evil and violence, and then… the final villains are freakshows. Lame. I suppose it’s a bit different here with the denouement, but the earlier raid still gets under my skin.
Absolute Power
Absolute Power. A jewel thief witnesses the President murdering his mistress. I’d put this in the upper middle-class of movies Eastwood has directed.
Run All Night
Run All Night. Well there’s nothing new here, but some good stuff, and also a groaner of a villainous re-appearance. I was surprise at how many nice photographs there are in this one, in particular some really lovely nighttime city scenes. Makes me more curious about Unknown and Non-Stop.
China Moon
China Moon. Florida noir! I wish I remembered this one better, but I liked it. Fun to see such a young Benicio del Toro. Director John Bailey did the camera work for the excellent American Gigolo and also contributed to Two-Lane Blacktop and Days of Heaven.
Snowpiercer
Snowpiercer. I keep thinking about this one. There are plenty of logical flaws, loopholes, heavy-handed messaging, whatever. But it’s so cool. The railroad car constraint lends to some great invention with sets and storytelling and form. Evans shows some range you don’t get to see in the Marvel movies. Swinton drives me nuts sometimes, but I really appreciated her role here for both evil and levity. I rank this highly among 2014 releases, in the good company of Edge of Tomorrow, The Grand Budapest Hotel, and The Lego Movie.
The Firm
The Firm. Better than I remember! I like that the early parts stay upbeat while maintaining the foreshadowing. You can be ominous without being dark. Good momentum through the whole thing. An even better Sydney Pollack film is Three Days of the Condor.
Gravity
Gravity. It’s definitely worth seeing. Very stressful in an entertaining way. Gotta respect a movie with moments where just grabbing a rail feels like the most important thing in the universe. It’s a steady sequence of disasters and new problems. The special effects are just tremendous. I love the way Cuarón plays with the sound, changing with the environment or how the camera or the viewpoint would experience it. The score is omnipresent, for better or worse, depending on how you feel about that sort of thing, but I liked its spacy abstraction.
The writing is a real weakness I was willing to ignore in the moment, but made me sour a little bit when thinking back. The plotsplaining was a bit tedious at times (“But now we have to do X, but we have to look out for Y.”, or “It’s getting really hot in here!”), and there’s some backstory and associated melodrama that probably could have been excised, but it’s a popcorn genre film, sooooo whatever. Deal.
Gone Baby Gone
Gone Baby Gone. I kinda wish the movie had stopped after the second voiceover. It would have been amazing (if maybe predictable in an ambiguous, artsy way). But it’s a genre film, so it kept going, and while the second, twisty act was a little mystery-novel page-turner-y, Ben Affleck does a great job with it. I assume he was being more or less faithful to the source. Great, great cast. The end offers an interesting tension between Monaghan’s ethic-of-care/consequentialist perspective and Casey Affleck’s ethic-of-justice/deontological take. I also like the sound in this one, working with the full range. I’m not sure whether it’s better or worse than The Town, which I mean as a compliment to both.
Other great movies that are heavy on the Boston:
- Mystic River
- The Social Network, sorta
- The Town
- The Departed
- Good Will Hunting
- Next Stop Wonderland
Mark Larson 