Thursday, January 10, 2008
Does this count for my Kommitment to Klassiks? I don't know. I caught this one because it's a movie by a great director (Altman), but it seems to be regarded as one of his worst.
Well, fuck the naysayers. I liked it. It's not one of Altman's best, but it is interesting. He's doing his thing where he takes an established genre an adds his off-beat, meandering Altman-touch to it, like he did to the western with McCabe and Mrs. Miller, or to the detective movie with The Long Goodbye, or to the shitty 80's teen comedy with OC and Stiggs. This time he's taking on the John Grisham legal thriller.
Well, I can see why a Grisham fan might be thrown off by this one, because it doesn't play like a usual thriller. Altman's style does not make for the typical experience... it's not as fast paced or snappy, the main character is deliberately unlikable, he avoids using closeups, etc. However, his Altman-ness adds a unique, atmospheric quality that I thought kinda worked well for a thriller. Especially his visual style. The way he likes to film scenes from far away, with object in the foreground passing in front of the characters. The way he'll listen to 2 characters talking, but then have the camera wander off and follow another character doing something else while we still hear the other conversation. The way he'll zoom into a seemingly innocuous detail at the end of a scene, suggesting something ominous. It gives the movie a mysterious, creepy effect that I liked.
It was also kinda funny to see a car chase in an Altman movie.
Also, you know the acting is good all accross the board here. That's a given. But like I said, this isn't one of Altman's best. There's not a lot of insight or any great characters, either. Just characters servicable to this story.
I think the final result would have been better if they have an improved screenplay. The dialogue isn't as snappy or as clever as it sometimes seems to want to be (some of this may be due to Altman's taste for improvisation), and I don't think the final solution to the plot makes much sense. It's not a superior thriller, but it is an interesting one. At least, it is for an Altman fan.
Terrible title for the movie, though.
One last thing. I went through a big Altman phase about 2 years ago, and watched so many that I got burned out. I might now try to get back into the swing of things and catch up with more I haven't seen. Only, I feel like it would maybe be better if I rewatched some instead of finding new ones. I've mentioned this before, but Altman has a great number of movies that I really, really like, but not one that I can quite say I love. But I have this nagging suspicion that this will change if I go back and rewatch, say, Three Women (my favorite of his), or Nashville. Afterall, I got a lot more out of McCabe the 2nd time I saw it. (Not so much with The Player, but I still like it).
So maybe that should be part of my Kommitment to Klassiks: rewatch the Altman films.
2 comments:
I love Nashville. I might buy that and 3 Women off deepdiscount.com soon. I DEF need to see more of his movies, like Shortcuts and Thieves Like Us, and I think OC and Stiggs sounds hilarious.
I can guarantee that O.C. and Stiggs is not, in fact, hilarious.
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