Tag: film

Barcelona

~ Mark

Barcelona. I think it’s the weakest of the three loosely-related movies (Metropolitan is great; The Last Days of Disco is really enjoyable, too.), but there’s plenty to like. I appreciate the layers of themes. You’ve got two cousins working out how to be family. They each are figuring out their careers and romantic relationships. And they as Americans are navigating what it means to be a foreigner. Along with other less character-specific stuff like ‘80s self-help/management trends. Whit Stillman is a good writer. Ebert says.

I Am Legend

~ Mark

I Am Legend. Ah, dude. This could have been so amazing. The early scene in the dark building has to be one of the most intense film moments ever, because Smith is not a commando and he is scared as shit. It’s also filmed just about perfectly. I love the early gut-clenching mood anxiety, and the exploration of the toll of solitude (see also: Moon, Alien, Solaris). The movie goes off the rails by the end. The CGI-fest is jarring enough, but the shift in tone is really disappointing. But man, 90% is incredible. David Bax puts it well:

There’s more to a movie than how it ends. Take, for example, Francis Lawrence’s I Am Legend, which spent an hour building one of the most daring and intense genre blockbusters in years before the third act from some other, dumber movie swooped in and delivered the automatic weaponry and explosions no one was asking for at that point. It’s a shame but it doesn’t obliterate the experience of what came before it.

The Act of Killing

~ Mark

The Act of Killing. It follows a few semi-retired Indonesian gangsters/mass-murderers as they make an increasingly bizarre movie about their youth. Probably the most intense documentary I’ve seen. And not at all because it’s graphic (It’s not – the most wrenching scene for me, spoiler, was when you see these guys go on a neighborhood shakedown for cash. It is completely heartbreaking.). It’s just morally rich and a really interesting text, excuse the academic-ese. All about storytelling, memory, forgetting; the influence of movies; youth vs. age. Totally worth it.

Only God Forgives

~ Mark

Only God Forgives. Almost fell asleep. Veeerrry nice to look at, here and there, but it’s kinda boring. Even setting aside plot and taking everything as symbol or allegory or myth or archetype, the tension didn’t hold for me. None of the energy or electricity you see in Drive. Not quite as starkly focused as Valhalla Rising. No knockout performance like in Bronson. All that said, I did dig the ongoing hands/power/potency theme, and the use of an international setting without a ton of dumb exoticizing.

Sullivan’s Travels

~ Mark

Sullivan’s Travels. A good light comedy aimed at deflating Hollywood pretension and moral bluster. It took a minute in the first act to catch up with that rapid-fire dialogue. So good. And there’s an insane chase scene with delightfully escalating slapstick. The third act shift to high drama caught me off-guard, but it works. Bonus trivia: this film is the first appearance of the fake novel O Brother, Where Art Thou? This was another edition in an irregular series of road movies, loosely defined. I think Weekend is next.

Pacific Rim

~ Mark

Pacific Rim. It’s a pretty mediocre-to-bad movie that I had a lot of fun watching. The dialogue is merely serviceable when it isn’t just blatant crib notes for the audience. It borrows from many good sources (Japanese montster/mecha/anime traditions, Top Gun, Star Wars, Star Trek, Transformers, Aliens, and more…), but doesn’t rise to their level. It trades in some really terrible international typing. The comic-relief duo is cringe-worthy. It also got caught in a weird zone where it was too long, they edited it down so there are strange gaps and emotional undertones that aren’t prepared well. And it’s still too long. And yet… I had fun. Guess I lucked out with good company and a good attitude that afternoon. The fights are good corny spectacles that activated my brain’s primitive comic fanboy region. It’s not good, but you might have a good time.

Side Effects

~ Mark

Side Effects. I made this a Soderbergh-takes-on-controlled-substances double-feature with Traffic. Hitchcockian psycho-thriller here. It gets too clever in the final act, but I like that you see new facets of these characters all the way up to the end. I think his understated style helps manage those swings. Soderbergh can be pretty overt with his themes, especially with some side characters that are basically there for social commentary. The leads are strong, though. I totally forgot about the intro and did the jaw-drop forehead-slap thing with the kitchen scene. Good soundtrack tends to linger and push things along, like in Contagion.

And now to catch up on rankings for all the Soderbergh movies I’ve seen:

  1. Haywire
  2. Out of Sight
  3. Magic Mike
  4. The Girlfriend Experience
  5. Solaris
  6. Contagion
  7. The Informant!
  8. Ocean’s Eleven
  9. Traffic
  10. Side Effects
  11. Ocean’s Twelve
  12. Ocean’s Thirteen

Seriously, what a great director. I don’t think you can credibly use the word “mediocre” or even “average” about any of those movies until you get down to number 10 or 11 maybe.

Traffic

~ Mark

Traffic. It took a good hour before I realized I’d seen it before. It took a good two seconds before I remembered that I have a huge man-crush on Benicio del Toro. He’s so good. Don Cheadle, too. The movie as a whole is pretty straightforward, docudrama-ish style, not played up for emotions like Babel or other multi-storyline, “highbrow globalist tearjerkers”. A few interesting things… the cool blue tint for U.S. interiors vs. the overexposed yellows in Mexico; the tension between identity and professional image; and the anecdote about Khrushchev and the two letters:

You know, when they forced Khrushchev out, he sat down and wrote two letters to his successor. He said, “When you get yourself into a situation you can’t get out of, open the first letter, and you’ll be safe. When you get yourself into another situation you can’t get out of, open the second letter”. Well, soon enough, this guy found himself into a tight place, so he opened the first letter. Which said, “Blame everything on me”. So he blames the old man, it worked like a charm. He got himself into a second situation he couldn’t get out of, he opened the second letter. It said, “Sit down, and write two letters”.

The French Connection

~ Mark

The French Connection. It’s a great “mean cop” flick. Gene Hackman’s “Popeye” Doyle is pretty unlikeable, but you still find yourself on his side despite all the recklessness and disregard for, y’know, the law. I love the attention to detective details here, the surveillance stuff with all the stake-outs, and the car tails, and the cat-and-mouse following on foot with a switching team. Also: that final chase is legit.

The Conversation

~ Mark

The Conversation. Great, great flick. The scale is so small and focused, and the protagonist is a perfect tragic character, in turns expert and inept. Themes: Surveillance and paranoia. Temptation vs. dull professionalism. Signal, noise, interpretation, expertise. I love how the movie’s opening and closing mirror each other, or maybe I should say echo each other. Gene Hackman is fantastic. Harrison Ford has one of the best scowls in the game. Fun fact: Coppola released both this and The Godfather Part II in 1974. That’s a good year, huh?

Man of Steel

~ Mark

Man of Steel. The best part of this movie was seeing Michael Shannon in Kansas, which reminded me I need to watch Take Shelter again. Otherwise, very disappointing and a waste of a good cast. Snyder bit off more themes than he could chew, even with 2.5 hours to work with. All dull rush and no impact. Then it devolves into heartless, comprehensive destruction. This is not a Superman that speaks to me. Oh, well. I’ll always have the teaser.

Before Midnight

~ Mark

Before Midnight. I’d call it a must-see if you’ve seen and liked the previous two movies. It’s been a real treat to see these fictional people grow and change. There’s a couple moments in there (a dinner table monologue, a sunset countdown) that are so perfectly heartstring-tugging and bittersweet. I also liked the expanded cast with some couples older and younger to add some ground or contrast, and the timely nods to new technology and ways we connect. Somewhat in the same vein, I have to recommend Certified Copy, a brilliant walk-and-talk Mediterranean maybe-romance.