Wednesday, January 30, 2008
My K2K leads me to another great movie.
Anatomy of a Murder is a long, somewhat complex, but completely engrossing courtroom drama. I don't know if it really breaks down the murder so much, what it really does is show the way the lawyers try to spin or manipulate the jury with their poise, questions, showmanship, etc. It finds a nice moral gray area... it's never clear just how innocent the defendant is, so we;re not always sure how to feel about what is going on. For a movie from the late 50's, it talks about rape in (relatively) blunt terms, which is a bit of a surprise. (Although, the rape victim seems a little too laid back. Then again, it is somewhat ambiguous if she is actually a victim).
It's got some great black and white, deep focus type photography, the kind where some of the shots are quite complex, but without ever feeling show-offy. I dig that.
James Stewart is perfect as the lead. This movie is a little dark, and very long, and it could be a slog with the wrong actor. But he adds a touch of charm and humor that carries you along... you're sympathies are with him, even if you aren't so sure about his client.
I Netflixed this one because I have heard good things about director Otto Preminger, and so I looked up his filmography and picked one that was considered good and had a good cast. (Not only Stewart, but also George C Scott and Roadhouse's Ben Gazzera. Nice). Well, I'm sold. I will definitely have to check out another one of his films. Laura is now on my queue.
So my point is, good call Dan for your K2K this year.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Killer of Sheep
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
The story behind the movie is pretty interesting. It was shot over 30 years ago as a student film, on a small budget. Due to (I believe) rights issues with the music, it was never really exhibited, except at the occasional film festival. Until this last year, when it was released proper, and now it's being hailed by some as a masterpiece. Not bad for a black and white student film.
This is the kind of movie I appreciated more than I actually enjoyed. There's not a plot, it's a cheaply but confidently made film that's basically just a collection of small moments of life in the ghetto. Since it's such a low budget film, it has the kind of actors who aren't always very good at their line readings, but also look and poise themselves more realistically than in most films. Some of it is perfect, insightful, hits just the right notes, but a lot of it is so simple and true to life that it's mundane. It feels a little bit too much like a chore to watch at times.
Multiple viewings of this would probably help. I sense a lot of care in the construction of the film, and I suspect a lot of the smaller moments will have more resonance the more you focus on them.
The story behind the movie is pretty interesting. It was shot over 30 years ago as a student film, on a small budget. Due to (I believe) rights issues with the music, it was never really exhibited, except at the occasional film festival. Until this last year, when it was released proper, and now it's being hailed by some as a masterpiece. Not bad for a black and white student film.
This is the kind of movie I appreciated more than I actually enjoyed. There's not a plot, it's a cheaply but confidently made film that's basically just a collection of small moments of life in the ghetto. Since it's such a low budget film, it has the kind of actors who aren't always very good at their line readings, but also look and poise themselves more realistically than in most films. Some of it is perfect, insightful, hits just the right notes, but a lot of it is so simple and true to life that it's mundane. It feels a little bit too much like a chore to watch at times.
Multiple viewings of this would probably help. I sense a lot of care in the construction of the film, and I suspect a lot of the smaller moments will have more resonance the more you focus on them.
The Magnificent Seven
Monday, January 28, 2008
As promised, I watched The Magnificent Seven. It's a good western with a great cast, good writing, good action... it's pretty good, but unlike John Sturges' The Great Escape it's not pretty great. Still worth seeing.
It's not as poetic or as intensely visual as I think the best westerns are. (Jesus, did I really just type "best westerns"? Gee, I really didn't think this movie looked as good as other Holiday Inns or Motel 6's. Fuck.) I don't know if there is much of an underlying message here (other than what was carried over from Seven Samurai), it's mostly just entertainment. Good entertainment, don't get me wrong. And also, considering that this bad boy was shot in wide-ass-screen Panavision 2.35:1, you would think we'd get some more lush shots of the scenery. Not so much.
I do still like Sturges framing a lot. It's a wide frame, and he does a good job of containing a lot of characters/action/information in his shots. I like that he stays wider on a lot of the dialogue scenes, resists going close-up and instead opts to shoot all the characters together. And it really pays off in spades during the great final shootout.
Okay, I said I was going to do a little comparison with Seven Samurai and with The Great Escape. That's good, you know, to have a theme or something for these posts. Do a little more than just a thumbs up or down.
As a remake, it follows the original rather closely. Most of the major story beats are there, a lot of characters are very similar, and even a number of scenes are near identical. No one in the western is quite as badass as that one samurai that runs behind enemy lines in the middle of the night to steal a gun, but overall the gang holds up strong, and maybe are a little more distinguishable than the samurai? (Or maybe I'm just racist). They do add a much bigger role for the villain here, in this case Eli Wallach pretending to be a Mexican, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly-style. Apparently that was okay back then.
One flaw in the adaptation is how they translate the Toshiro Mifune character to the west. In Samurai, he's some drunken, hyperactive weirdo who's not really a samurai, but his will is so strong that the others can't really turn him down. It's an over the top performance, but also very easily the best part of the whole movie... so strange and funny. In MS (as I will now call it, possibly as a tribute to Multiple Sclerosis) the character is more of an inexperienced kid trying to prove his mettle... not a bad character, but more of a cliche, and much less memorable.
I think the big problem with the adaptation is that it tries to keep some of the major themes intact, but they don't really translate to the wild west. In Samurai, the heroes do what they do because their place in society makes them feel it is their duty, and because they love battle. Here, the cowboys do it because... they are nice guys, I guess?
In both movies, the villagers never fully accept or respect the heroes, even though the heroes are putting their necks on the line to save the villagers. In Samurai, this feels tragic because the samurai have been pretty much screwed over by the class system that they feel obligated too. It's truly sad and poignant at the end when the samurai realize that even though they won, they are really the losers.
In MS this class system doesn't apply, the villagers are just kind of dicks for reasons undeveloped. And then I think they try to spin the ending a little more positively... the wise old man gives them some words of encouragement, and it suggests that the Seven's nobility is their reward (or something).
One unexpected twist: late in the film, those wonderful seven fellers get ambushed by the villains and they actually stand down and admit defeat. Of course, they all feel like assholes and decide to head right back in guns ablazin', but I still didn't expect them to first run away with their tails between their legs.
As compared to The Great Escape, MS is also an inferior take on some similar themes/ideas/style/etc. We again have a cool ensemble of badasses. In addition to Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and James Coburn, we now have Yul Brenner as the lead cowboy. The focus is on men bonding through adventure, and there aren't many women to speak of in the story. Both films believe in the idea of a noble sacrifice. The ending is ultimately happy, but perhaps darker than expected (in Escape most of the heroes end up recaptured or dead, in MS 4 of the 7 end up dead).
The big finale here is great, but the story doesn't have nearly as much going on as The Great Escape, and it meanders a bit too much. Also, for such an awesome ensemble, the characters aren't as funny or memorable as the Escape team. McQueen and Brenner have decent chemistry, but the rest of the cast isn't given much to do except scowl and rely on their natural presence (which, don't get me wrong, is considerable).
Oh and one guy's big character development is that he's secretly a pussy. I could have done without that.
So, bottom line: it's a good movie, but far from the greatness of Seven Samurai and Great Escape.
As promised, I watched The Magnificent Seven. It's a good western with a great cast, good writing, good action... it's pretty good, but unlike John Sturges' The Great Escape it's not pretty great. Still worth seeing.
It's not as poetic or as intensely visual as I think the best westerns are. (Jesus, did I really just type "best westerns"? Gee, I really didn't think this movie looked as good as other Holiday Inns or Motel 6's. Fuck.) I don't know if there is much of an underlying message here (other than what was carried over from Seven Samurai), it's mostly just entertainment. Good entertainment, don't get me wrong. And also, considering that this bad boy was shot in wide-ass-screen Panavision 2.35:1, you would think we'd get some more lush shots of the scenery. Not so much.
I do still like Sturges framing a lot. It's a wide frame, and he does a good job of containing a lot of characters/action/information in his shots. I like that he stays wider on a lot of the dialogue scenes, resists going close-up and instead opts to shoot all the characters together. And it really pays off in spades during the great final shootout.
Okay, I said I was going to do a little comparison with Seven Samurai and with The Great Escape. That's good, you know, to have a theme or something for these posts. Do a little more than just a thumbs up or down.
As a remake, it follows the original rather closely. Most of the major story beats are there, a lot of characters are very similar, and even a number of scenes are near identical. No one in the western is quite as badass as that one samurai that runs behind enemy lines in the middle of the night to steal a gun, but overall the gang holds up strong, and maybe are a little more distinguishable than the samurai? (Or maybe I'm just racist). They do add a much bigger role for the villain here, in this case Eli Wallach pretending to be a Mexican, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly-style. Apparently that was okay back then.
One flaw in the adaptation is how they translate the Toshiro Mifune character to the west. In Samurai, he's some drunken, hyperactive weirdo who's not really a samurai, but his will is so strong that the others can't really turn him down. It's an over the top performance, but also very easily the best part of the whole movie... so strange and funny. In MS (as I will now call it, possibly as a tribute to Multiple Sclerosis) the character is more of an inexperienced kid trying to prove his mettle... not a bad character, but more of a cliche, and much less memorable.
I think the big problem with the adaptation is that it tries to keep some of the major themes intact, but they don't really translate to the wild west. In Samurai, the heroes do what they do because their place in society makes them feel it is their duty, and because they love battle. Here, the cowboys do it because... they are nice guys, I guess?
In both movies, the villagers never fully accept or respect the heroes, even though the heroes are putting their necks on the line to save the villagers. In Samurai, this feels tragic because the samurai have been pretty much screwed over by the class system that they feel obligated too. It's truly sad and poignant at the end when the samurai realize that even though they won, they are really the losers.
In MS this class system doesn't apply, the villagers are just kind of dicks for reasons undeveloped. And then I think they try to spin the ending a little more positively... the wise old man gives them some words of encouragement, and it suggests that the Seven's nobility is their reward (or something).
One unexpected twist: late in the film, those wonderful seven fellers get ambushed by the villains and they actually stand down and admit defeat. Of course, they all feel like assholes and decide to head right back in guns ablazin', but I still didn't expect them to first run away with their tails between their legs.
As compared to The Great Escape, MS is also an inferior take on some similar themes/ideas/style/etc. We again have a cool ensemble of badasses. In addition to Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson and James Coburn, we now have Yul Brenner as the lead cowboy. The focus is on men bonding through adventure, and there aren't many women to speak of in the story. Both films believe in the idea of a noble sacrifice. The ending is ultimately happy, but perhaps darker than expected (in Escape most of the heroes end up recaptured or dead, in MS 4 of the 7 end up dead).
The big finale here is great, but the story doesn't have nearly as much going on as The Great Escape, and it meanders a bit too much. Also, for such an awesome ensemble, the characters aren't as funny or memorable as the Escape team. McQueen and Brenner have decent chemistry, but the rest of the cast isn't given much to do except scowl and rely on their natural presence (which, don't get me wrong, is considerable).
Oh and one guy's big character development is that he's secretly a pussy. I could have done without that.
So, bottom line: it's a good movie, but far from the greatness of Seven Samurai and Great Escape.
Monday, January 28, 2008
Waist Deep
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Talk about wasted potential.
Well, I'm not really sure why I was looking forward to this one. It was made by the director of Mariah Carey's Glitter.
That's a cheap shot, he also did Gridlock'd which was pretty good. I like Tyrese a lot, and Stephen King had put this on his best 10 of 2006 list. This movie got no love when it came out, but I thought maybe this was one of them underappreciated action films.
Nope.
It gets off to a great start. We got Tyrese, being all likable and whatnot. We got Meagan Good, who good lord is a looker. There's a pretty good shootout. The bad guy is named Big Meat, is played by The Game, and when we first meet him he chops a guy's arm off and then smacks him with it.
After that it's all downhill. Right when the movie really seems to be taking off, and we're expecting another hour or so of Tyrese and Meagan Good going on a crime spree, possibly ending in shootout... it's like someone puts the movie on pause. It begins taken itself seriously, and is mostly a bunch of character scenes, without much action. The big shootout is short lived, and it happens like 25 minutes before the end so that they can fit in some more character development. There is kind of a chase scene at the end, but it's not very exciting because instead of showing crashing cars, it's mostly close ups of Tyrese talking on the phone and having a dramatic conversation with Meagan Good. Some of this shit is so dumb it's almost funny. Almost.
Ugh. When I watch an action movie, I want to see some fucking action. This blows.
Talk about wasted potential.
Well, I'm not really sure why I was looking forward to this one. It was made by the director of Mariah Carey's Glitter.
That's a cheap shot, he also did Gridlock'd which was pretty good. I like Tyrese a lot, and Stephen King had put this on his best 10 of 2006 list. This movie got no love when it came out, but I thought maybe this was one of them underappreciated action films.
Nope.
It gets off to a great start. We got Tyrese, being all likable and whatnot. We got Meagan Good, who good lord is a looker. There's a pretty good shootout. The bad guy is named Big Meat, is played by The Game, and when we first meet him he chops a guy's arm off and then smacks him with it.
After that it's all downhill. Right when the movie really seems to be taking off, and we're expecting another hour or so of Tyrese and Meagan Good going on a crime spree, possibly ending in shootout... it's like someone puts the movie on pause. It begins taken itself seriously, and is mostly a bunch of character scenes, without much action. The big shootout is short lived, and it happens like 25 minutes before the end so that they can fit in some more character development. There is kind of a chase scene at the end, but it's not very exciting because instead of showing crashing cars, it's mostly close ups of Tyrese talking on the phone and having a dramatic conversation with Meagan Good. Some of this shit is so dumb it's almost funny. Almost.
Ugh. When I watch an action movie, I want to see some fucking action. This blows.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Saturday, January 26, 2007
Oh Zemeckis, how I love you so. You have such a technical mastery of the medium, and you make movies that a heavy on the special effects. Yet, you're not some hollow, artless hitmaker (cough cough Paul W.S. Anderson), you always use your effects and big budgets to make movies with heart, and magic. It's you and Spielberg and practically no one else who knows how to do this.
You don't think about the technical aspects of Roger Rabbit when you're a kid. You don't realize just what an achievement it is until you start to become more movie-savvy. Here's the thing though. Whenever I watch Roger Rabbit, I usually try to see how they did all the effects. Only after about 20 minutes or so, I totally forget that I'm trying to do that, and I end up just getting wrapped up in the movie.
And that's why Robert Zemeckis is a great filmmaker.
Oh Zemeckis, how I love you so. You have such a technical mastery of the medium, and you make movies that a heavy on the special effects. Yet, you're not some hollow, artless hitmaker (cough cough Paul W.S. Anderson), you always use your effects and big budgets to make movies with heart, and magic. It's you and Spielberg and practically no one else who knows how to do this.
You don't think about the technical aspects of Roger Rabbit when you're a kid. You don't realize just what an achievement it is until you start to become more movie-savvy. Here's the thing though. Whenever I watch Roger Rabbit, I usually try to see how they did all the effects. Only after about 20 minutes or so, I totally forget that I'm trying to do that, and I end up just getting wrapped up in the movie.
And that's why Robert Zemeckis is a great filmmaker.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
The Great Escape
Saturday, January 26, 2008
This is the kind of klassik I'm talking about, great entertainment. I'm pretty sure I had seen about 70% of The Great Escape before, and thought now would be a great time to actually see the entire thing. So the Saturday night gang all watched it with me, and I think whether we had seen it before or not, we all loved it.
John Sturges, the director, keeps the movie tight and exciting, an impressive feat considering the film's length. And the screenplay does a great job of presenting a lot of information and making it interesting and funny, and then manages to smoothly transition to a little darker/more somber feel in the finale, then go back to feel-good for the very end. Again, impressive.
But if I had to really point at what makes the movie work, it's the cast. First off, we have Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Garner, James Coburn... it's like they figured if the movie ended up sucking, it would still function as a Convention of Cool Actors and Badasses. And the rest of the cast is top notch, too. There's so much going on here with the that it's great how dominant the character work feels. I mean, it's not like the most searing, empathetic, insightful stuff going on, but they establish a lot of strong personalities and flesh them out. This is to the screenwriters' credit, but even moreso to the actors, who I think use their screen personas to help make the characters seem more fully realized.
I suppose most of this is lighter entertainment without much of a point (other than, you know, America: fuck yeah!), but it's great entertainment and great filmmaking.
Later this week, I will be watching Sturges' The Magnificent Seven, an earlier film of his with some of the same cast, that is also a remake of Seven Samurai. So it will actually be a follow up to 2 of my posts. Hopefully, unless I'm feeling lazy, I can do a little Auteur Theory type analysis, as well as some remake-comparison.
This is the kind of klassik I'm talking about, great entertainment. I'm pretty sure I had seen about 70% of The Great Escape before, and thought now would be a great time to actually see the entire thing. So the Saturday night gang all watched it with me, and I think whether we had seen it before or not, we all loved it.
John Sturges, the director, keeps the movie tight and exciting, an impressive feat considering the film's length. And the screenplay does a great job of presenting a lot of information and making it interesting and funny, and then manages to smoothly transition to a little darker/more somber feel in the finale, then go back to feel-good for the very end. Again, impressive.
But if I had to really point at what makes the movie work, it's the cast. First off, we have Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Garner, James Coburn... it's like they figured if the movie ended up sucking, it would still function as a Convention of Cool Actors and Badasses. And the rest of the cast is top notch, too. There's so much going on here with the that it's great how dominant the character work feels. I mean, it's not like the most searing, empathetic, insightful stuff going on, but they establish a lot of strong personalities and flesh them out. This is to the screenwriters' credit, but even moreso to the actors, who I think use their screen personas to help make the characters seem more fully realized.
I suppose most of this is lighter entertainment without much of a point (other than, you know, America: fuck yeah!), but it's great entertainment and great filmmaking.
Later this week, I will be watching Sturges' The Magnificent Seven, an earlier film of his with some of the same cast, that is also a remake of Seven Samurai. So it will actually be a follow up to 2 of my posts. Hopefully, unless I'm feeling lazy, I can do a little Auteur Theory type analysis, as well as some remake-comparison.
Rambo
Saturday, January 26, 2008
I thought that Rocky Balboa had turned out surprisingly good, all things considered, so I had some faith in Rambo. Not that I was a huge fan of the series, but I thought that Stallone would know how to revisit old-fashioned 80s action and do it right.
I can't for the life of me remember if parts 2 and 3 were this corny. Probably they were. So what, though? There's a 15 minute sequence where Stallone fires a high-powered machine gun at an entire army, and we just kind of watch them explode into millions of pieces. That's right, I got my money's worth.
The action in the last half hour or so is pretty great, but all the build up is... not so much. I was pretty much just pumped for the action, so it took me a while to realize how much of the dialogue and action might just be unintentionally hilarious. I did appreciate the part where all the missionaries are on Rambo's boat, and one girl turns to talk to him, and the lead missionary is all "Hey, where are you going?" Uh, nowhere, dipshit, the boat's like 10 feet long.
The accidental humor is what's going to make or break this movie if/when I rewatch it some day. I know the conclusion is great, but the rest is gonna be pretty boring unless it turns out to be funnier than I realized. So, we'll see.
I thought that Rocky Balboa had turned out surprisingly good, all things considered, so I had some faith in Rambo. Not that I was a huge fan of the series, but I thought that Stallone would know how to revisit old-fashioned 80s action and do it right.
I can't for the life of me remember if parts 2 and 3 were this corny. Probably they were. So what, though? There's a 15 minute sequence where Stallone fires a high-powered machine gun at an entire army, and we just kind of watch them explode into millions of pieces. That's right, I got my money's worth.
The action in the last half hour or so is pretty great, but all the build up is... not so much. I was pretty much just pumped for the action, so it took me a while to realize how much of the dialogue and action might just be unintentionally hilarious. I did appreciate the part where all the missionaries are on Rambo's boat, and one girl turns to talk to him, and the lead missionary is all "Hey, where are you going?" Uh, nowhere, dipshit, the boat's like 10 feet long.
The accidental humor is what's going to make or break this movie if/when I rewatch it some day. I know the conclusion is great, but the rest is gonna be pretty boring unless it turns out to be funnier than I realized. So, we'll see.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Affliction
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Paul Schrader. Wrote a few Scorsese movies. Wrote and directed a whole bunch of his own. Sorta Scorsese-esque himself, but without the visual panache. He's maybe a little more workmanlike in his technical abilities.
I've seen a few of his movies, and they range from kinda bad to pretty good, but none have really blown me away. That is, none ever blew me away until I saw Affliciton... which still didn't blow me away. But I liked it. It falls smack dab in the middle.
Sorry Paul, I must yet again damn you with faint praise.
This is a character study, but I like that on occassions it pretends to be a murder mystery. Ever see The Big Easy? It's a great detective movie that keeps pausing every so often to hang out, forget the plot, and flesh out the characters and their relationships. Affliction is sort of the inverse of that: it's a talky character movie that every now and then pauses to be a detective story. Only the detective story turns out to be a red herring.
Nick Nolte is very good in this, but Nick Nolte is very good in everything. In fact, I think Nick Nolte has made a career out of being very good in slightly above average but not often great movies. I guessHere he plays a small town cop who had an abusive childhood, and he becomes obsessed with a possible murder and slowly loses his mind, and ends up essentially turning into his father, etc etc, you get the gist.
It also has a distracting and unneccesary (although only sporadically used) narration, and some really heavy-handed flashbacks (James Coburn won an Oscar for this?). The good outweighs the bad, but it's flawed.
Anyways Paul, let's get things more on the Auto Focus or Hardcore side of your spectrum here. You know, next time I arbitrarily pick one of your movies to watch, I'm saying. Make it a great one.
Paul Schrader. Wrote a few Scorsese movies. Wrote and directed a whole bunch of his own. Sorta Scorsese-esque himself, but without the visual panache. He's maybe a little more workmanlike in his technical abilities.
I've seen a few of his movies, and they range from kinda bad to pretty good, but none have really blown me away. That is, none ever blew me away until I saw Affliciton... which still didn't blow me away. But I liked it. It falls smack dab in the middle.
Sorry Paul, I must yet again damn you with faint praise.
This is a character study, but I like that on occassions it pretends to be a murder mystery. Ever see The Big Easy? It's a great detective movie that keeps pausing every so often to hang out, forget the plot, and flesh out the characters and their relationships. Affliction is sort of the inverse of that: it's a talky character movie that every now and then pauses to be a detective story. Only the detective story turns out to be a red herring.
Nick Nolte is very good in this, but Nick Nolte is very good in everything. In fact, I think Nick Nolte has made a career out of being very good in slightly above average but not often great movies. I guessHere he plays a small town cop who had an abusive childhood, and he becomes obsessed with a possible murder and slowly loses his mind, and ends up essentially turning into his father, etc etc, you get the gist.
It also has a distracting and unneccesary (although only sporadically used) narration, and some really heavy-handed flashbacks (James Coburn won an Oscar for this?). The good outweighs the bad, but it's flawed.
Anyways Paul, let's get things more on the Auto Focus or Hardcore side of your spectrum here. You know, next time I arbitrarily pick one of your movies to watch, I'm saying. Make it a great one.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
The Descent
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
I hadn't seen The Descent since it was in theaters, and I was glad to watch it again. It's a real rarity for us genre fans: a serious horror film. Despite on the surface being a gore-heavy monster movie, it tries genuinely to be an intense and disturbing experience, as well as one that is visually and thematically complex. Even some of last year's horror flicks that I raved about don't seem this layered, or as willing to deal with such loaded imagery.
Which is why it's such a shame that it's not quite a great film. It's a damn good one, but it just missed the bullseye. For one, it does start to get repetitive during the last 30 minutes or so... a few too many scenes of monsters suddenly JUMPING OUT OF THE DARK OMG!!! until it grows tiresome. It actually played better for me the second time, but some of the tension still drains. The acting/writing occasionally (not too often, but sometimes) is off, especially when the movie labors a little too hard to pull all the plot strands together. And there is once in a while some distractingly bad animation effects. (Especially those bats. Why didn't they just cut that shit right out of the movie?)
Enough with the bitching, because there is still a lot to love, especially in the imagery. Most notablly, I don't think it's a stretch to say that in a movie with only female characters, that maybe tries to explore the darker side of femininity... the tight caverns they crawl through are vaginal symbols. Not to mention the imagery that calls to mind motherhood, menstruation, fertility, birth, and so on.
Oh and of course, more broadly, the title doesn't just refer to a literal descent, and the dark caves suggest traveling into the darkest parts of the main character's mind (certainly into revenge, and perhaps madness).
I was happy to see the original ending in tact, which I have no idea why the American distributor removed it. It's all of a minute longer, and it adds the final dark, ambiguous touch that the movie needs to tie the atmosphere of the film together. In theaters here, in ended a minute earlier on a (kinda cheap) scare that was essentially the ending of The Grudge, and not the appropriate final word for this film. What did the distributor think? That Americans would love this movie until the last minute, and then tell their friends not to go see it because they hated the very end? Or just that we're too stupid to understand it? Assholes.
I hadn't seen The Descent since it was in theaters, and I was glad to watch it again. It's a real rarity for us genre fans: a serious horror film. Despite on the surface being a gore-heavy monster movie, it tries genuinely to be an intense and disturbing experience, as well as one that is visually and thematically complex. Even some of last year's horror flicks that I raved about don't seem this layered, or as willing to deal with such loaded imagery.
Which is why it's such a shame that it's not quite a great film. It's a damn good one, but it just missed the bullseye. For one, it does start to get repetitive during the last 30 minutes or so... a few too many scenes of monsters suddenly JUMPING OUT OF THE DARK OMG!!! until it grows tiresome. It actually played better for me the second time, but some of the tension still drains. The acting/writing occasionally (not too often, but sometimes) is off, especially when the movie labors a little too hard to pull all the plot strands together. And there is once in a while some distractingly bad animation effects. (Especially those bats. Why didn't they just cut that shit right out of the movie?)
Enough with the bitching, because there is still a lot to love, especially in the imagery. Most notablly, I don't think it's a stretch to say that in a movie with only female characters, that maybe tries to explore the darker side of femininity... the tight caverns they crawl through are vaginal symbols. Not to mention the imagery that calls to mind motherhood, menstruation, fertility, birth, and so on.
Oh and of course, more broadly, the title doesn't just refer to a literal descent, and the dark caves suggest traveling into the darkest parts of the main character's mind (certainly into revenge, and perhaps madness).
I was happy to see the original ending in tact, which I have no idea why the American distributor removed it. It's all of a minute longer, and it adds the final dark, ambiguous touch that the movie needs to tie the atmosphere of the film together. In theaters here, in ended a minute earlier on a (kinda cheap) scare that was essentially the ending of The Grudge, and not the appropriate final word for this film. What did the distributor think? That Americans would love this movie until the last minute, and then tell their friends not to go see it because they hated the very end? Or just that we're too stupid to understand it? Assholes.
Hail the Conquering Hero
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Hail the Conquering Hero is a beloved, WWII era Preston Sturges comedy. It's about a dude who is discharged from the Marines for his hayfever, and is too embarrassed to tell his mom back home. So he lies to her and tells her he's overseas, until he runs into a group of real Marines, who decide (against his wishes) to stage a fake homecoming for him where they pretend he's a war hero. The town's outpouring of affection towards him reaches such a fever pitch that they eventually nominate him for mayor.
This is a good idea for a comedy/satire, and I think I enjoyed it, but it suffers the same problem for me that a lot of old comedies do... it didn't make me laugh enough. There is some kind of cultural-generational gap with comedies where it just doesn't tickle us young people's funny bones like it did to the old timers.
Yeah, there are some movies or filmmakers that are just timelessly funny, but this is the second Preston Sturges film I've seen, and I don't think he quite transcends generations. I think you know the feeling... there are a lot of jokes that you recognize as being funny or clever, but you don't actually find yourself laughing at them. You appreciate it, maybe, but you don't respond enough.
It's enjoyable though, and damn sure is charming. And it might play better if I watched it with others instrad of by myself. Still, it might be best limit the number of pre-late 1960s comedies I watch during my K2K.
Hail the Conquering Hero is a beloved, WWII era Preston Sturges comedy. It's about a dude who is discharged from the Marines for his hayfever, and is too embarrassed to tell his mom back home. So he lies to her and tells her he's overseas, until he runs into a group of real Marines, who decide (against his wishes) to stage a fake homecoming for him where they pretend he's a war hero. The town's outpouring of affection towards him reaches such a fever pitch that they eventually nominate him for mayor.
This is a good idea for a comedy/satire, and I think I enjoyed it, but it suffers the same problem for me that a lot of old comedies do... it didn't make me laugh enough. There is some kind of cultural-generational gap with comedies where it just doesn't tickle us young people's funny bones like it did to the old timers.
Yeah, there are some movies or filmmakers that are just timelessly funny, but this is the second Preston Sturges film I've seen, and I don't think he quite transcends generations. I think you know the feeling... there are a lot of jokes that you recognize as being funny or clever, but you don't actually find yourself laughing at them. You appreciate it, maybe, but you don't respond enough.
It's enjoyable though, and damn sure is charming. And it might play better if I watched it with others instrad of by myself. Still, it might be best limit the number of pre-late 1960s comedies I watch during my K2K.
The Devil's Rejects
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
The consensus seems to be that Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses is a weird, style-heavy piece of shit, and his sequel The Devil's Rejects is not only a stylistic improvement, but better in every other way, too.
I am a genuine fan of both movies, but I fall into the vast minority that loves Corpses, and only really really likes Rejects. Corpses to me is just such a weird, fucked-up, original, wild-hair-up-Rob-Zombie's-ass type of movie... it's like some strange nightmare you might have after watching a marathon of the first two Texas Chainsaw movies and a few episodes of Lost in Space. That's not a perfect analogy, but it somewhere in that realm.
Rejects is still awesome, and I particularly like how skillfully Zombie manages to veer back and forth from dark, disturbing, road-to-nowhere style horror, and broad, ironic humor. A lot of times in other movies, this is attempted and done poorly and it ends up making the movie just kind of offensive (I'm looking at you, Mother's Day). Zombie does it better than just about anyone else.
My favorite stuff is the really dark stuff, the stuff that gives you that kind of hopeless, sick feeling in the bottom of your stomach. Not that I like cynical, sick movies that just want to disgust you, but I do greatly admire a movie that can give you that true feeling of dread. As I mentioned before, I think of these movies as "Road to Nowhere" films, and Rejects has at least one scene that has a place amongst the best ever sequences in the genre.
Otis, one of the killers, marches two hostages down a desert path to retrieve some guns. He talks to them, and there is a lot of inappropriate or weird humor that I think gets a dark laugh. (Especially when he yells "Consider me fucking Willy fucking Wonka. This is my fucking chocolate factory!"). It slowly becomes apparent that he has no intention of letting them live. When they finally break and try to fight back, Otis beats them and gets the upper hand. One of them spits in his face and says "fuck you." Otis laughs, and launches into a little monologue about how everyone he kills says that, and when he explains that "it doesn't scare me, and it won't save you," I think Zombie cuts right to the heart of what is chilling about these films.
What I think keeps it from greatness is a few structural problems. Late in the film, Zombie pulls some subplots to the front and kind of forgets to use the Rejects for a while... I think that loses focus on the real meat of the story. And also, there are just too many fucking slow-motion montages set to country-rock songs, and they drag on too long. He needed to dial that back it bit, it starts getting really tedious.
Still, if you like these kinds of movies, this one is a gem... a sort of roller coaster of oddball humor, and disturbing violence. I'm glad I watched this last night. I'd been in a weird mood the past 2 days. On Monday, I started watching T2 but just couldn't focus and cut it off. Then I tried watching the commentary for Bourne Ultimatum, but it got a little bland maybe halfway in and I stopped. Then Tuesday night I watched half of Killer of Sheep, which I Tivoed and is supposed to be great, but I just couldn't muster the attention to finish it. I was feeling all blah and couldn't decide on a movie to watch... until at around 11 or so when I decided on this one. And it jostled me right out of my weird mood.
The consensus seems to be that Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses is a weird, style-heavy piece of shit, and his sequel The Devil's Rejects is not only a stylistic improvement, but better in every other way, too.
I am a genuine fan of both movies, but I fall into the vast minority that loves Corpses, and only really really likes Rejects. Corpses to me is just such a weird, fucked-up, original, wild-hair-up-Rob-Zombie's-ass type of movie... it's like some strange nightmare you might have after watching a marathon of the first two Texas Chainsaw movies and a few episodes of Lost in Space. That's not a perfect analogy, but it somewhere in that realm.
Rejects is still awesome, and I particularly like how skillfully Zombie manages to veer back and forth from dark, disturbing, road-to-nowhere style horror, and broad, ironic humor. A lot of times in other movies, this is attempted and done poorly and it ends up making the movie just kind of offensive (I'm looking at you, Mother's Day). Zombie does it better than just about anyone else.
My favorite stuff is the really dark stuff, the stuff that gives you that kind of hopeless, sick feeling in the bottom of your stomach. Not that I like cynical, sick movies that just want to disgust you, but I do greatly admire a movie that can give you that true feeling of dread. As I mentioned before, I think of these movies as "Road to Nowhere" films, and Rejects has at least one scene that has a place amongst the best ever sequences in the genre.
Otis, one of the killers, marches two hostages down a desert path to retrieve some guns. He talks to them, and there is a lot of inappropriate or weird humor that I think gets a dark laugh. (Especially when he yells "Consider me fucking Willy fucking Wonka. This is my fucking chocolate factory!"). It slowly becomes apparent that he has no intention of letting them live. When they finally break and try to fight back, Otis beats them and gets the upper hand. One of them spits in his face and says "fuck you." Otis laughs, and launches into a little monologue about how everyone he kills says that, and when he explains that "it doesn't scare me, and it won't save you," I think Zombie cuts right to the heart of what is chilling about these films.
What I think keeps it from greatness is a few structural problems. Late in the film, Zombie pulls some subplots to the front and kind of forgets to use the Rejects for a while... I think that loses focus on the real meat of the story. And also, there are just too many fucking slow-motion montages set to country-rock songs, and they drag on too long. He needed to dial that back it bit, it starts getting really tedious.
Still, if you like these kinds of movies, this one is a gem... a sort of roller coaster of oddball humor, and disturbing violence. I'm glad I watched this last night. I'd been in a weird mood the past 2 days. On Monday, I started watching T2 but just couldn't focus and cut it off. Then I tried watching the commentary for Bourne Ultimatum, but it got a little bland maybe halfway in and I stopped. Then Tuesday night I watched half of Killer of Sheep, which I Tivoed and is supposed to be great, but I just couldn't muster the attention to finish it. I was feeling all blah and couldn't decide on a movie to watch... until at around 11 or so when I decided on this one. And it jostled me right out of my weird mood.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Seven Samurai
Monday, January 21, 2008
Yeah, that's right, naysayers. I'm demonstrating an honest to fucking goodness Kommitment to Klassiks here watching Seven Samurai, a legit klassik. No strings attached. It's not some weird genre film I'm counting because one guy told me it was good. This one is a recognized, consensus-agreed upon masterpiece. And I am so god damned Kommitted to Klassiks that I was willing to devote 3 1/2 hours of my life to it.
That's something I've noticed, by the way. A lot of these beloved motion pictures require a pretty serious chunk of your time. And that can be hard to do sometimes, you know, when you're tired after work and you're not sure you have that long of an attention span. Or that you want to spend every free minute on the weekend with your girlfriend, and she's maybe not interested in seeing a 3 1/2 black and white, subtitled movie without hardly any female characters in it.
Well, to get used to this, I thought I'd just right in and watch the one on my queue that was the longest, and Seven Samurai it was.
Then I realized that Lawrence of Arabia is 20 minutes longer. Mother fucking Peter O'Toole.
Oh yeah, I was actually going to say something about this one. The reputation is earned, this is a great film. An epic done right. A long, but entertaining journey that builds to a powerful conclusion. As opposed to a long and tedious epic journey that has 20 endings too many and then ends with a bunch of hobbits hugging each other.
It's a lot more cynical about human nature and society than I really was expecting. We think of the Japanese as maybe putting the society's interests over the individual, but Seven Samurai seems to argue against that. The samurai risk their lives to save a bunch of villagers for no better reason than it's the honorable thing to do, and maybe because they like to fight. The villages treat the samurai like shit even though they are relying on them for help, and they are shown as prone to mob mentality. In the end, by following their code, the samurai fight off the enemy, lose 4 of their 7 and... and what? They don't gain anything from it, the villages still won't mingle with them. The victory is short lived.
Well, I had thought maybe this one would have a happy ending. Guess not.
This isn't exactly a movie I'd watch all the time, but the greatness is evident. The story is long and complex, but it flows well because of the memorable characters. You know, again, kind of exactly what the Lord of the Rings movies failed at. Here, I especially liked this Toshiro Mifune individual, who plays some impulsive, reckless weirdo who isn't really a samurai, but pretends he is. It's such a unique, bizarre, energetic, spirited, etc performance in the middle of this big epic.
So this is I think the 3rd Kurosawa film I've seen in my life, and I am definitely planning on seeing some more. Also, I might try more of Mifune's movies... I hear he's a pretty reliable badass.
Yeah, that's right, naysayers. I'm demonstrating an honest to fucking goodness Kommitment to Klassiks here watching Seven Samurai, a legit klassik. No strings attached. It's not some weird genre film I'm counting because one guy told me it was good. This one is a recognized, consensus-agreed upon masterpiece. And I am so god damned Kommitted to Klassiks that I was willing to devote 3 1/2 hours of my life to it.
That's something I've noticed, by the way. A lot of these beloved motion pictures require a pretty serious chunk of your time. And that can be hard to do sometimes, you know, when you're tired after work and you're not sure you have that long of an attention span. Or that you want to spend every free minute on the weekend with your girlfriend, and she's maybe not interested in seeing a 3 1/2 black and white, subtitled movie without hardly any female characters in it.
Well, to get used to this, I thought I'd just right in and watch the one on my queue that was the longest, and Seven Samurai it was.
Then I realized that Lawrence of Arabia is 20 minutes longer. Mother fucking Peter O'Toole.
Oh yeah, I was actually going to say something about this one. The reputation is earned, this is a great film. An epic done right. A long, but entertaining journey that builds to a powerful conclusion. As opposed to a long and tedious epic journey that has 20 endings too many and then ends with a bunch of hobbits hugging each other.
It's a lot more cynical about human nature and society than I really was expecting. We think of the Japanese as maybe putting the society's interests over the individual, but Seven Samurai seems to argue against that. The samurai risk their lives to save a bunch of villagers for no better reason than it's the honorable thing to do, and maybe because they like to fight. The villages treat the samurai like shit even though they are relying on them for help, and they are shown as prone to mob mentality. In the end, by following their code, the samurai fight off the enemy, lose 4 of their 7 and... and what? They don't gain anything from it, the villages still won't mingle with them. The victory is short lived.
Well, I had thought maybe this one would have a happy ending. Guess not.
This isn't exactly a movie I'd watch all the time, but the greatness is evident. The story is long and complex, but it flows well because of the memorable characters. You know, again, kind of exactly what the Lord of the Rings movies failed at. Here, I especially liked this Toshiro Mifune individual, who plays some impulsive, reckless weirdo who isn't really a samurai, but pretends he is. It's such a unique, bizarre, energetic, spirited, etc performance in the middle of this big epic.
So this is I think the 3rd Kurosawa film I've seen in my life, and I am definitely planning on seeing some more. Also, I might try more of Mifune's movies... I hear he's a pretty reliable badass.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
The Dead Zone
Sunday, January 20, 2008
This is the saddest movie ever adapted from a Stephen King book, and it has one of Christopher Walken's best performances. He plays a man who awakens from a 5 year coma to find his fiancee married to another man, his job gone, and his youth ended. He also wakes up with the ability to see into the future, but it proves more of a burden than a gift.
David Cronenberg directed this one, and even though it's one of his most mainstream, it's also one of my favorites of his. Of course, it's got his great visual style and sense of the macabre, and it's a pretty exciting genre film all around. Despite the fantastical premise, Cronenberg keeps it feeling grounded, real and serious. The only misstep (and I think what holds it back from being a great film) is with the subplot about a crazy politician who may one day destroy the world, because it's too silly compared to the rest of the movie. Martin Sheen's over-the-top performance as the politician doesn't help, although I suppose he did the best he could with weak material.
Like I said, it's an excellent genre film, but it's really the sadness and pathos that it achieves that make it stand out. I tend to admire Cronenberg for his fucked up visual imagination, but you got to give the guy credit for infusing many of his films with a strong emotional core. The Dead Zone has some real power, because of the tragedy Cronenberg and Walken express through the main character. What becomes clear is that things would be better for Walken's character if he never awoke from the coma. And the movie's "happy" ending can only be achieved with his death.
But if you're not into Cronenberg for his art, there's a sweet part where a guy commits suicide with a pair of scissors.
This is the saddest movie ever adapted from a Stephen King book, and it has one of Christopher Walken's best performances. He plays a man who awakens from a 5 year coma to find his fiancee married to another man, his job gone, and his youth ended. He also wakes up with the ability to see into the future, but it proves more of a burden than a gift.
David Cronenberg directed this one, and even though it's one of his most mainstream, it's also one of my favorites of his. Of course, it's got his great visual style and sense of the macabre, and it's a pretty exciting genre film all around. Despite the fantastical premise, Cronenberg keeps it feeling grounded, real and serious. The only misstep (and I think what holds it back from being a great film) is with the subplot about a crazy politician who may one day destroy the world, because it's too silly compared to the rest of the movie. Martin Sheen's over-the-top performance as the politician doesn't help, although I suppose he did the best he could with weak material.
Like I said, it's an excellent genre film, but it's really the sadness and pathos that it achieves that make it stand out. I tend to admire Cronenberg for his fucked up visual imagination, but you got to give the guy credit for infusing many of his films with a strong emotional core. The Dead Zone has some real power, because of the tragedy Cronenberg and Walken express through the main character. What becomes clear is that things would be better for Walken's character if he never awoke from the coma. And the movie's "happy" ending can only be achieved with his death.
But if you're not into Cronenberg for his art, there's a sweet part where a guy commits suicide with a pair of scissors.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Death Wish
Sunday, January 20, 2008
A few years back I watched Death Wish 3 on American Movie Classics with Patrick. We weren't so sure that it was truly a classic American movie, but we sure did laugh a lot when Charles Bronson shot a man point blank with a rocket-launcher.
For such a silly, excessive action movie, I found it intriguing that it came from a somewhat well-regarded 70's exploitation drama. So I had been wanting to see the first Death Wish for many years.
Well, I'm glad I saw it, because it turns out to be a well-made, well acted exercise in audience manipulation.
It does get some shit for maybe being a pro-violence/vigilantism movie, but I actually think the movie was a little more complex than that. Yeah, the scumminess of New York may be over-exaggerated, and it does at times suggest that the protagonist's action have some sort of positive effect on the community. But it shows the other side of things too. Like when Bronson comes home after beating a man, he comes home and needs a drink. Later, after killing a man, he vomits. His vigilantism/revenge is shown to overpower him, attract him and I suppose even excite him. And I don't think all these are meant to be positive associations.
Most significantly, I think, is that he never gets the guys who murdered his wife. The movie builds empathy by showing the initial attack in graphic detail, so that we are more sympathetic to Bronson's reaction. However, a truly pro-violence movie would show him finding those responsible, and killing them. Instead, all the people he kills are strangers.
I can see how it could be read the other way, though. I can even imagine sympathetic audience members being excited by the final scene, where Bronson points his finger at a couple of hoods and mock-shoots them. Suggesting that his revenge will continue. But I thought it was chilling, not exciting.
Certainly it's a more ambiguous payoff than shooting a man with a rocket-launcher.
A few years back I watched Death Wish 3 on American Movie Classics with Patrick. We weren't so sure that it was truly a classic American movie, but we sure did laugh a lot when Charles Bronson shot a man point blank with a rocket-launcher.
For such a silly, excessive action movie, I found it intriguing that it came from a somewhat well-regarded 70's exploitation drama. So I had been wanting to see the first Death Wish for many years.
Well, I'm glad I saw it, because it turns out to be a well-made, well acted exercise in audience manipulation.
It does get some shit for maybe being a pro-violence/vigilantism movie, but I actually think the movie was a little more complex than that. Yeah, the scumminess of New York may be over-exaggerated, and it does at times suggest that the protagonist's action have some sort of positive effect on the community. But it shows the other side of things too. Like when Bronson comes home after beating a man, he comes home and needs a drink. Later, after killing a man, he vomits. His vigilantism/revenge is shown to overpower him, attract him and I suppose even excite him. And I don't think all these are meant to be positive associations.
Most significantly, I think, is that he never gets the guys who murdered his wife. The movie builds empathy by showing the initial attack in graphic detail, so that we are more sympathetic to Bronson's reaction. However, a truly pro-violence movie would show him finding those responsible, and killing them. Instead, all the people he kills are strangers.
I can see how it could be read the other way, though. I can even imagine sympathetic audience members being excited by the final scene, where Bronson points his finger at a couple of hoods and mock-shoots them. Suggesting that his revenge will continue. But I thought it was chilling, not exciting.
Certainly it's a more ambiguous payoff than shooting a man with a rocket-launcher.
Planet Terror
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Immediately after Superbad, he's another movie that I've just watched recently. My boy Chris, and Shenan's friend Sarah were over my place hanging out with us, and I figured this one would be up both their alleys. I think I was correct.
I have a pretty fond college memory of watching Return of the Living Dead with Chris. We were watching it on my roommate's XBox for some reason. That movie is a shitload of fun... a well made, funny, clever b-movie. And that's what Planet Terror is too, a good time at the movies. It's got zombies and music that sounds ripped off from an 80's John Carpenter movie. How can you not love it?
Immediately after Superbad, he's another movie that I've just watched recently. My boy Chris, and Shenan's friend Sarah were over my place hanging out with us, and I figured this one would be up both their alleys. I think I was correct.
I have a pretty fond college memory of watching Return of the Living Dead with Chris. We were watching it on my roommate's XBox for some reason. That movie is a shitload of fun... a well made, funny, clever b-movie. And that's what Planet Terror is too, a good time at the movies. It's got zombies and music that sounds ripped off from an 80's John Carpenter movie. How can you not love it?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)