I TOTALLY FORGOT ALL ABOUT MAY MOVIE REVIEWS! I'm sorry to have worried you all. I am alive and well and not being held captive in a Cleveland house. Although, if I were being held captive, my captors would probably not let me blog about it -- in fact, they'd probably make me say I wasn't!
Maybe I should have a secret code word.
Hmm... how about, if I really AM being held captive in a house in Cleveland, but they still let me blog, I will write a post about how awesome Tyler Perry movies are! THAT WAY, you'll DEFINITELY know that I AM IN TROUBLE AND YOU'LL SEND HELP! Preferably Tom Brady or Ryan Gosling, but 911 works too.
Okay, enough of my madness, you've waited LONG ENOUGH for my brilliant movie insights!
Speaking of Tyler Perry, I rented This is 40. It is not a Tyler Perry flick, but WOO BOY it may as well be. That Judd Apatow dude sure hates women almost as much as Tyler Perry does. And boy does it shine through in this movie about a shrewish wife who is unreasonably upset that her husband has squandered their money and now has to sell their house -- OH, AND HE HASN'T BOTHERED TO TELL HER! Oh and never mind his intolerable insane irrational teenage daughters! RAWR! Oh, this poor poor man! Why LAWD? WHHYYYY? *Eyeroll* The only non stereotypical part of the movie is Albert Brooks playing the overbearing money grubbing Jewish dad. Oh...wait. Seriously: EYE. ROLL.
Sixteen Candles
I was watching an episode of "Go On," Matthew Perry's underrated NBC sitcom, and they recreated a scene from Sixteen Candles, that I didn't remember, so I rented it again. Oh good lord. This movie goes from dumb to offensive and back to dumb again with almost NO warning! The gonging sound at every mention of the Asian exchange student? The fact that the "hero" gives permission to "the geek" to rape his passed out girlfriend. I can't. How is this a "cherished" classic? Ugh. I can't. Did I already say that. YARF. Incidentally, my mom also forgot my sixteenth birthday. So, really this whole movie is a tragedy.
Pretty in Pink
The experience with Sixteen Candles led me to wonder if all John Hughes movies were horror shows disguised as family entertainment, so I watched this movie too. Oddly enough, as often as I've seen clips of Duckie lip synching to Otis Redding, I HAVE NEVER seen Pretty in Pink! It's actually a cute movie and not at all a horror show. I liked the dad/daughter relationship and although the "poor girl in a rich school" thing was a bit contrived, I liked it and I liked the ending. And the lip synching was cool!
Central Park Five
Oh, America. I actually remember when these boys were arrested. All the newspapers were rife with stories about wilding and "the urban element" ruining New York City. The city's "just not safe" is a refrain I heard over and over on the news. And I remember thinking "NO SHIT." But that was before I realized no one cared that where *I* lived in New York City wasn't safe, but CENTRAL PARK?? *GASP* *FAINT* ANYWAY, imagine my surprise that those "wilding animals" were released AND EXONERATED!! DUDE!!! I HAD NO IDEA! It's sad that, like the famous quote goes, there is nowhere to go to get your reputation back. Turns out my litigation skills professor was the lead prosecutor too. Gulp! Sad. Interesting watch.
The Guilt Trip
THIS MOVIE WAS FANTASTIC! I know what I'm about to type will sound strange, but why isn't Barbra Streisand a bigger star? I can't think of a bad Streisand movie! And doesn't she also direct?? Fuck a Ben Affleck! Giimmmeeee more Babs! I had such LOW expectations for this movie because I super hate Seth Rogen, like really really mega hate, but he works in this movie and Streisand was GREAT. The script about an adult son inviting his mom along on a spur of the moment cross country roadtrip was pitch perfect. You'll laugh, you'll cry. You'll some sentence with schfitz or kvetch cause I'm totally racist. SO GOOD!
Silver Linings Playbook
You know what's NOT good? Silver Linings Playbook. From the promos, I knew this movie was about Eagles fans, so my instinct was to stay far away. But then it got nominated for Oscars and that girl won the Meryl Streep, so I figured I must be missing something. NNOOOPPPEEEE. Terrible. It's a terrible terrible terrible movie. It handles the issue of mental illness in a wretched sterotypey way (so poorly is therapy and medication handled that I assumed we were watching stuff that was only happening in the mind of the main character and that he was still just in the mental hospital. Again, NNNOOOPPPEEEE.) Bad. All bad. The black guy was funny though.
The Impossible
This is a movie about an Australian family living through a devasting tsunami that hit Thailand. First, now I'm scared of tsunamis. Second, it's an okay "based on true events" kinda movie. But the focus on how devasted the tourists are gets very annoying when you think about how the people *who live in Thailand* probably maybe kinda sorta might also have suffered because THEIR *HOMES* WERE DESTROYED. Maybe?
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
This movie was fine. But I feel like I'm still watching it. You know, cause it's long. And did they break out into song? I think that happened. But I don't wanna rewind to find out cause...you know, long. Just read the book, buddy.
Django Unchained
I don't know what I expected from this movie. I read lots of angry headlines about it (I skip reading whole reviews because I don't like spoilers) and I thought it was going to be racisty or something. But it was your run of the mill Tarantino bloodshedfest and I loved every minute of it. Tarantino gives good gratuitous violence AND I AM HERE FOR ALL OF IT!
Life of Pi
This book was the first book I ever read for a "book club." It was also the first book I read "for discussion" since I'd graduated from law school, so I read carefully and took notes of recurring themes and plot points and then, of course, I went and discovered "book clubs" were just fronts for wine drinking. That was also when I discovered people used "fronts" for wine drinking! WHAT? Anyway, I loved the book and I thought the movie captured the book PERFECTLY. I can't even explain it, but it felt like re-reading the book, even though the movie deviated in some big ways. I liked Life of Pi and highly recommend it! So good!
Mini's First Time
Unlike Mini's First Time, which was bad. Super bad, but not like Superbad, which was good. BARF. Alec Baldwin plays a stepfather who starts an affair with his stepdaughter and then they kill the mom and the police get involved and.. BLAH BLAH SO BAD! The acting is bad, the script is bad, the film quality is grainy, the sound mixing IS THE WORST. (Okay, I don't know what sound mixing actually is, but since there was NO part of this movie that was good, I stand by my assesment!) YARF!
Rust and Bone
Sometimes, I like to play this game when watching a movie. When people are talking, I'll fill in a completely inappropriate response. Or when people are casually strolling through a park, I'll imagine a meteor falling to earth and crushing one of them. Then I'll laugh and continue watching whatever drivel the movie ACTUALLY offers. WELL. Rust and Bone was all JOKE'S ON YOU, SUMMERS! Cause there I am all giggling about their casual stroll through the park when WHAM A METEOR ACTUALLY FALLS OUT OF THE SKY AND CRUSHES ONE OF THEM! (Metaphorically, of course. I don't wanna say what actually happens because IT'S SO SHOCKING! But, if you know me or have read much of my work, know this: I CALLED THAT SHIT!) Anyway, so then the meteor crushes one of them and the movie continues and you get complacent and listen to the dialogue and then you, meaning me, imagines some other crazy left field thing happening AND THEN THAT HAPPENS! And you're, meaning me, SO SORRY! YOU're ALL "I WAS KIDDING!! NOOO, Don't do that!!!" And Rust and Bone just sits there AND LAUGHS. SO CRUEL. But good. I'm sorry. SO SO SO SORRY *TEN STANCE*
Rise of the Guardians
This is a dumb animated feature about what would happen if the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy were really like a band of super friends fighting off the evil....um...death maybe? no...something...I think Jude Law was the voice. Blech. It's dumb. It's not for kids, it's not for grownups. Meh.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
April is the cruelest month
I was going to send Julius Goat a tweet yesterday containing my usual foot tapping, so he would think I had my April movie review post done. BUT THEN, nothing would be there because it WASN'T done! And then I would say "April Fool's" and laugh and laugh. But then I got distracted with Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, the Mets and the Rangers and next thing you know, it's April 2nd and the post actually IS done, so... (and this is why Dawn Summers can't get nowhere as a prankster.)
Anyhoo...this see what we have here...
Lincoln BBBOOORRRRRRIIIIINNNNNNGGGG. I don’t know why this movie isn’t called "The Thirteenth Amendment." Because that’s all it’s about. It’s not about Abraham Lincoln – not about his childhood or his marriage or his children or even his presidency, really – it’s about the twelve months preceding the ratification of the thirteenth amendment. Sadly, even though Spielberg chooses this narrow sliver of a political moment, he still mostly gets it wrong and manages to whitewash all black involvement out of it, save the occasional sad eyes of his wife’s black maid or Senator Stevens’ black lover who is unveiled in the last scene. Eye roll. Joe Morton could totes have played Frederick Douglass! I deeply and sincerely hate Hollywood sometimes. Anyway, bah. This movie is dumb and boring. And I have no idea why any of these people were nominated for anything.
Miss Dial This movie is a cute little romantic comedy about a work from home customer service representative who decides to robo call random strangers during the day. There’s a surprise ending that I didn’t see coming.
The Brother from Another Planet This movie was weird. It’s about an alien who takes the form of a black man and lands in Harlem. He is being chased by other aliens, but it’s not really made clear in the movie why or who they are. The movie chiefly runs on the premise – hey, he’s an alien, but he’s a black guy! Get it? Cause America kinda treats black guys like *they’re* aliens… eh… eh… GET IT??! Some of it works, some of it doesn’t.
A Separation This movie was great. Oh, I meant to google this before I wrote the racist-ish sentence I’m about to write, but… uh… hi, I’m super lazy. Racist sentence coming in 3…2… so this movie is about people in Iran or Iraq or somewhere in that region of the world (hangs head in shame) the woman wants to come to America, the husband doesn’t want to because he has to care for his senile father. The woman files for divorce hoping the husband will change his mind rather than get divorced. He doesn’t and then he has to hire a woman worker to do the housekeeping/caretaking. Some stuff happens and the police are called. And then it gets sad. There is a preteen daughter involved. Sniff sniff.
Killing Them Softly This is another one of those “trying to make you think” movies. Brad Pitt plays an assassin, but his work is juxtaposed with images of President Bush and Senator Obama making speeches during the great ’08 economic meltdown. I think we’re supposed to conclude that politicians and assassins are all just doing a job. Or something. There’s some funny dialogue, but it’s a pretty bad flick.
Celeste and Jesse Forever Speaking of bad flicks… This movie is basically ugh…what’s the word… something like self indulgent or narcissistic…but not that… OH It’s 100 minutes of Rashida Jones vanity shots. Oh here’s Rashida jogging. *Quick camera angle switch* Here’s Rashida dancing. *Camera switch* Here’s Rashida sitting on a couch looking out the window wistfully. Kill me. Oh, and the flimsy excuse for a plot is that her husband (from whom she is already separated) has impregnated a Brazilian art something or another and needs the divorce finalized so he can remarry. So she has to learn to get on with her own life. *Quick camera angle switch* Here’s Rashida crying a single tear into her oversized coffee mug.
Bachelorette The fat girl in a group of four high school friends announces she is engaged. The other three girls go mad with jealousy that the fat girl is the first of them to get married. They behave poorly at the rehersal dinner, get drunk, ruin her wedding dress, realize what they’ve done and spend the next 85 minutes of the movie trying to fix it before her wedding the next morning. Eh. I’ve seen worse movies.
Zero Dark Thirty Liiikkkeeeee…for instance, Zero Dark Thirty. I believe I tweeted “I feel like I’m watching the 11 year search for Osama bin Laden in real time.” This movie was not engaging. You don’t get a sense of any of the characters – I think it’s supposed to be action driven – so they crib clips and footage from the World Trade Center and London bombings, but it just doesn’t work. You care about the victims of those attacks and then wham they drag you away and you’re watching Jessica Chastain pace about in the desert. Blah. You don’t even realize they’re chasing bin laden until like 20 minutes from the end AND THEN, they don’t even show the bin laden killing. Blah. Argo was way better.
Katy Perry: Part of Me A touching documentary about the life and heartbreak of pop sensation Katy Perry. I don’t particularly care for her music and was kinda making fun of the movie as I watched… but you get sucked in. She seems like a genuinely nice person and you want to stab Russell Brand in the face for crushing her little soul.
Edward Scissorhands O_O How was this NOT a horror movie?? A GUY WITH SCISSORS FOR HANDS!!! TIM BURTON!!! I WANTED MASS STABBINGS!! Not suburban barbarism. FIE! FIE! This movie is a dumb waste of time. I want to write a screenplay called Edward Scissorhands about a man who comes to a sleepy homogenous town and murders people. Tim Burton can direct.
The Campaign OH. MY. GAWD. This movie was hilarious. I can’t even begin to tell you how hard I laughed and laughed…I didn’t even think I would like it because I generally don’t like Hangover/Old School type comedies. But The Campaign wasn’t gross out/naked ladies humor, it was good old fashioned “dog punching” funny. SO GOOD!
Sound of My Voice It’s like a documentary about a couple who goes undercover in a cult run by a woman who says she’s from the future, but it’s a movie movie. But it’s well done and you forget that it’s not real and you think it’s real and then you’re all “oh no, she’s gonna catch them!” And then the man in the couple sorta starts to believe and then you sorta start to believe and then you remember this is why you should never read any scientology literature or let those mormon missionaries into your apartment.
LOL Um. First, yes, that’s the name of the movie. And second, yes, you should point your finger and LOL at anyone who watches this Miley Cyrus/Demi Moore shitshow.
Anyhoo...this see what we have here...
Lincoln BBBOOORRRRRRIIIIINNNNNNGGGG. I don’t know why this movie isn’t called "The Thirteenth Amendment." Because that’s all it’s about. It’s not about Abraham Lincoln – not about his childhood or his marriage or his children or even his presidency, really – it’s about the twelve months preceding the ratification of the thirteenth amendment. Sadly, even though Spielberg chooses this narrow sliver of a political moment, he still mostly gets it wrong and manages to whitewash all black involvement out of it, save the occasional sad eyes of his wife’s black maid or Senator Stevens’ black lover who is unveiled in the last scene. Eye roll. Joe Morton could totes have played Frederick Douglass! I deeply and sincerely hate Hollywood sometimes. Anyway, bah. This movie is dumb and boring. And I have no idea why any of these people were nominated for anything.
Miss Dial This movie is a cute little romantic comedy about a work from home customer service representative who decides to robo call random strangers during the day. There’s a surprise ending that I didn’t see coming.
The Brother from Another Planet This movie was weird. It’s about an alien who takes the form of a black man and lands in Harlem. He is being chased by other aliens, but it’s not really made clear in the movie why or who they are. The movie chiefly runs on the premise – hey, he’s an alien, but he’s a black guy! Get it? Cause America kinda treats black guys like *they’re* aliens… eh… eh… GET IT??! Some of it works, some of it doesn’t.
A Separation This movie was great. Oh, I meant to google this before I wrote the racist-ish sentence I’m about to write, but… uh… hi, I’m super lazy. Racist sentence coming in 3…2… so this movie is about people in Iran or Iraq or somewhere in that region of the world (hangs head in shame) the woman wants to come to America, the husband doesn’t want to because he has to care for his senile father. The woman files for divorce hoping the husband will change his mind rather than get divorced. He doesn’t and then he has to hire a woman worker to do the housekeeping/caretaking. Some stuff happens and the police are called. And then it gets sad. There is a preteen daughter involved. Sniff sniff.
Killing Them Softly This is another one of those “trying to make you think” movies. Brad Pitt plays an assassin, but his work is juxtaposed with images of President Bush and Senator Obama making speeches during the great ’08 economic meltdown. I think we’re supposed to conclude that politicians and assassins are all just doing a job. Or something. There’s some funny dialogue, but it’s a pretty bad flick.
Celeste and Jesse Forever Speaking of bad flicks… This movie is basically ugh…what’s the word… something like self indulgent or narcissistic…but not that… OH It’s 100 minutes of Rashida Jones vanity shots. Oh here’s Rashida jogging. *Quick camera angle switch* Here’s Rashida dancing. *Camera switch* Here’s Rashida sitting on a couch looking out the window wistfully. Kill me. Oh, and the flimsy excuse for a plot is that her husband (from whom she is already separated) has impregnated a Brazilian art something or another and needs the divorce finalized so he can remarry. So she has to learn to get on with her own life. *Quick camera angle switch* Here’s Rashida crying a single tear into her oversized coffee mug.
Bachelorette The fat girl in a group of four high school friends announces she is engaged. The other three girls go mad with jealousy that the fat girl is the first of them to get married. They behave poorly at the rehersal dinner, get drunk, ruin her wedding dress, realize what they’ve done and spend the next 85 minutes of the movie trying to fix it before her wedding the next morning. Eh. I’ve seen worse movies.
Zero Dark Thirty Liiikkkeeeee…for instance, Zero Dark Thirty. I believe I tweeted “I feel like I’m watching the 11 year search for Osama bin Laden in real time.” This movie was not engaging. You don’t get a sense of any of the characters – I think it’s supposed to be action driven – so they crib clips and footage from the World Trade Center and London bombings, but it just doesn’t work. You care about the victims of those attacks and then wham they drag you away and you’re watching Jessica Chastain pace about in the desert. Blah. You don’t even realize they’re chasing bin laden until like 20 minutes from the end AND THEN, they don’t even show the bin laden killing. Blah. Argo was way better.
Katy Perry: Part of Me A touching documentary about the life and heartbreak of pop sensation Katy Perry. I don’t particularly care for her music and was kinda making fun of the movie as I watched… but you get sucked in. She seems like a genuinely nice person and you want to stab Russell Brand in the face for crushing her little soul.
Edward Scissorhands O_O How was this NOT a horror movie?? A GUY WITH SCISSORS FOR HANDS!!! TIM BURTON!!! I WANTED MASS STABBINGS!! Not suburban barbarism. FIE! FIE! This movie is a dumb waste of time. I want to write a screenplay called Edward Scissorhands about a man who comes to a sleepy homogenous town and murders people. Tim Burton can direct.
The Campaign OH. MY. GAWD. This movie was hilarious. I can’t even begin to tell you how hard I laughed and laughed…I didn’t even think I would like it because I generally don’t like Hangover/Old School type comedies. But The Campaign wasn’t gross out/naked ladies humor, it was good old fashioned “dog punching” funny. SO GOOD!
Sound of My Voice It’s like a documentary about a couple who goes undercover in a cult run by a woman who says she’s from the future, but it’s a movie movie. But it’s well done and you forget that it’s not real and you think it’s real and then you’re all “oh no, she’s gonna catch them!” And then the man in the couple sorta starts to believe and then you sorta start to believe and then you remember this is why you should never read any scientology literature or let those mormon missionaries into your apartment.
LOL Um. First, yes, that’s the name of the movie. And second, yes, you should point your finger and LOL at anyone who watches this Miley Cyrus/Demi Moore shitshow.
Friday, March 1, 2013
Worst. Movie. Reviews. Ever.
As I reread these movie reviews, I decided this entire post needed to be prefaced with 1. I’m not working. 2. I was drinking heavily yesterday (I bit into a red scrunchie thinking it was a red velvet cupcake. That sounds bad, but in my defense, I was eating a red velvet cupcake and the scrunchie was on the table next to the plate and was the same shade of red...um... and it was dark...) 3. My focus is not sharp under the best of circumstances, so in light of 1 and 2…uh… good luck and good night.
Argo
I saw this movie three days before the Oscars. I confess, it was a last ditch (hahaha I typed that, then I had the feeling that the expression was actually “last stitch,” which kinda would totally make sense, so I looked it up to make sure… it’s not. It’s ditch. But since google auto filled in my question, apparently LOTS of people also believe last stitch would make sense.) effort to derail the Argo best picture train. I have not seen the winner of best picture, before the awards show, since 2006 (OMG! DRIVING MISS DAISY WON BEST PICTURE???! WHAT IN THE HELL?!! DOES JULIUS GOAT KNOW ABOUT THIS??!) so I was hoping to “Dawn Summers” Argo. It didn’t work. Congratulations Benjamin Affleck. How has he not become the AFLAC spokesman yet? AFFLLACCK. I liked this movie very much. It fills in that gap between historical events that I was too young to understand and not yet covered on the AP American History exam. Pretty much 1978-1983. So, basically Canada and Hollywood saved the world? Or is it Hollywood and Canada? Canallywood? I thought the cast was good; the script takes a turn into eye roll town when the hostages are all “No way! We’re not doing this! I don’t know you, that’s my purse!” Pfft. If I’m sent to help someone and they tell me “nah.” I’m turning right around and going home. Conversely, if someone comes and says “I’m here to help you.” I’m going to be all “Thank God! Get me outta this dump, my DVR is probably at 100% full by now!”
The Letter
I don’t have words for how terrible this movie is, so I’m going to invent some. Flegadfically harminuen unwafaschatable dreft. GRAWESD! Winona Ryder is dislitching unperimsetive …making up words is harder than I thought. But don’t rent this movie, bro. I’m serious. Also, is there an “OHMIGOD I HATE JAMES FRANCO SO FUCKING MUCH” club/twitter or tumblr? I would like to join. This movie is filled with close-ups of his smug shitty face and the perennial hardened spittle crud at the side of his smirky mouth. I HATE HIM! Oh? What’s the movie about? It’s a dream. Or a play. Or a play within a dream about a play or a dream. *throws stapler*
Being Flynn
This movie is also garbage. It starts off promisingly enough … it’s funny, my biggest complaint about it while I was watching was how unbelievable it all was, then the line “based on real events” scrolled by before the credits and I laughed. Listen, if the dude really did start smoking crack at the age of thirty after his dad started living at the homeless shelter where he worked, what can I tell ya. It’s dumb. Robert DeNiro phoned in the performance from a beachfront condo in Maui. And the connection was spotty.
Seven Psychopaths
Sigh. This movie was TERRIBLE. It’s about a struggling screenplay writer who is writing a screenplay called “Seven Psychopaths.” Eye roll. So it’s half “movie” and half “stuff really happening” but all bad. Blech. There are a few funny moments, like when that guy from Pulp Fiction who hid the watch in his ass is talking about the script and says “the women are all terrible. They’re either naked or dumb” Which… you know.
Hit & Run
Yet another dreadfully stupid movie. Veronica Mars should never make movies. Ever. She makes really bad choices. The premise of this movie is that she gets engaged to a dude in the witness protection program, and then gets a job in LA, so he has to leave to program to drive her. BUT FIRST, she’s got to go to her ex-boyfriend’s house to get her teaching certificate! SO HE FOLLOWS THEM, calls the guys the fiancée is hiding from AND THE CHASE IS AFOOT. EYE. ROLL.
Taken 2
Wow. I saw a lot of AWFUL movies this month. Okay, so the people who kidnapped Liam Neeson’s daughter in the first one, are all pissed off that he killed all their sons, brothers, friends and cousins in order to get her back, so… THEY DECIDE TO KIDNAP HER AGAIN! AND HIS WIFE! DUDE. DUUUUUDDDDEEEEEEE. How do you say “worst plan ever” in Farsi? Blargh. It’s very predictable and dumb after that. There is not a single genuine moment in the whole mess. Mercifully, it’s short.
The Words
GOOD LORD. THIS FLICK? ALSO AWFUL. I had to google it to remember what the plot was. It’s Bradley Cooper playing a writer within a novel who finds a novel in an old beat up briefcase and decides to pass it off as his own. Obviously, he becomes a big success and so the actual author finds him… you know, on his break when he’s sitting on a bench in a park. Do people actually go to parks alone to sit on a bench? Does anything good ever come from this? Run. Run far away from anywhere this movie might be shown.
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Um… I was expecting much worse considering this is a Coen Brothers movie. But it was actually decent. It helps that they got an actual storyteller to draft the plot, though they do manage to Coen Brothers it up a bit and I have no idea what was going on between them finding the frog and ending up in the movie theater. But it wasn’t unbearable…
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
…which I cannot say for this movie. I decided to try to watch all of Jodie Foster’s movies. She was in this one when she was a kid. I had NO IDEA it was the precursor to Alice the TV show, WHICH I LOVED! However, this movie bears NO relation to the TV show. Alice is played to be AN ANNOYING AS HELL middle aged loser. Her son is a brat. The romantic leads are both dicks. And Mel is a shell of his lovable curmudgeony self. UGH. This movie is awful. Thank God they changed everything for the TV show.
Trouble With the Curve
I wish this movie would have just been video of an empty chair. The plot is dumb, the dialogue is dumb, the characters are dumb and then, just to give you respite from dumb, they throw in racism. Three parts dumb, one part racism, shake vigorously and drink until you pass out, fall down a flight of stairs and die from brain swelling. *throws vase*
Your Sister’s Sister
Hmm. This movie starts off strong, then gets terrible, then ends well. So, I don’t know what to tell you. You’ll be annoyed for a good fifty minutes, but by the end you won’t want to throw anything. It is sort of a romantic comedy, I can say that. Sorta.
Argo
I saw this movie three days before the Oscars. I confess, it was a last ditch (hahaha I typed that, then I had the feeling that the expression was actually “last stitch,” which kinda would totally make sense, so I looked it up to make sure… it’s not. It’s ditch. But since google auto filled in my question, apparently LOTS of people also believe last stitch would make sense.) effort to derail the Argo best picture train. I have not seen the winner of best picture, before the awards show, since 2006 (OMG! DRIVING MISS DAISY WON BEST PICTURE???! WHAT IN THE HELL?!! DOES JULIUS GOAT KNOW ABOUT THIS??!) so I was hoping to “Dawn Summers” Argo. It didn’t work. Congratulations Benjamin Affleck. How has he not become the AFLAC spokesman yet? AFFLLACCK. I liked this movie very much. It fills in that gap between historical events that I was too young to understand and not yet covered on the AP American History exam. Pretty much 1978-1983. So, basically Canada and Hollywood saved the world? Or is it Hollywood and Canada? Canallywood? I thought the cast was good; the script takes a turn into eye roll town when the hostages are all “No way! We’re not doing this! I don’t know you, that’s my purse!” Pfft. If I’m sent to help someone and they tell me “nah.” I’m turning right around and going home. Conversely, if someone comes and says “I’m here to help you.” I’m going to be all “Thank God! Get me outta this dump, my DVR is probably at 100% full by now!”
The Letter
I don’t have words for how terrible this movie is, so I’m going to invent some. Flegadfically harminuen unwafaschatable dreft. GRAWESD! Winona Ryder is dislitching unperimsetive …making up words is harder than I thought. But don’t rent this movie, bro. I’m serious. Also, is there an “OHMIGOD I HATE JAMES FRANCO SO FUCKING MUCH” club/twitter or tumblr? I would like to join. This movie is filled with close-ups of his smug shitty face and the perennial hardened spittle crud at the side of his smirky mouth. I HATE HIM! Oh? What’s the movie about? It’s a dream. Or a play. Or a play within a dream about a play or a dream. *throws stapler*
Being Flynn
This movie is also garbage. It starts off promisingly enough … it’s funny, my biggest complaint about it while I was watching was how unbelievable it all was, then the line “based on real events” scrolled by before the credits and I laughed. Listen, if the dude really did start smoking crack at the age of thirty after his dad started living at the homeless shelter where he worked, what can I tell ya. It’s dumb. Robert DeNiro phoned in the performance from a beachfront condo in Maui. And the connection was spotty.
Seven Psychopaths
Sigh. This movie was TERRIBLE. It’s about a struggling screenplay writer who is writing a screenplay called “Seven Psychopaths.” Eye roll. So it’s half “movie” and half “stuff really happening” but all bad. Blech. There are a few funny moments, like when that guy from Pulp Fiction who hid the watch in his ass is talking about the script and says “the women are all terrible. They’re either naked or dumb” Which… you know.
Hit & Run
Yet another dreadfully stupid movie. Veronica Mars should never make movies. Ever. She makes really bad choices. The premise of this movie is that she gets engaged to a dude in the witness protection program, and then gets a job in LA, so he has to leave to program to drive her. BUT FIRST, she’s got to go to her ex-boyfriend’s house to get her teaching certificate! SO HE FOLLOWS THEM, calls the guys the fiancée is hiding from AND THE CHASE IS AFOOT. EYE. ROLL.
Taken 2
Wow. I saw a lot of AWFUL movies this month. Okay, so the people who kidnapped Liam Neeson’s daughter in the first one, are all pissed off that he killed all their sons, brothers, friends and cousins in order to get her back, so… THEY DECIDE TO KIDNAP HER AGAIN! AND HIS WIFE! DUDE. DUUUUUDDDDEEEEEEE. How do you say “worst plan ever” in Farsi? Blargh. It’s very predictable and dumb after that. There is not a single genuine moment in the whole mess. Mercifully, it’s short.
The Words
GOOD LORD. THIS FLICK? ALSO AWFUL. I had to google it to remember what the plot was. It’s Bradley Cooper playing a writer within a novel who finds a novel in an old beat up briefcase and decides to pass it off as his own. Obviously, he becomes a big success and so the actual author finds him… you know, on his break when he’s sitting on a bench in a park. Do people actually go to parks alone to sit on a bench? Does anything good ever come from this? Run. Run far away from anywhere this movie might be shown.
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Um… I was expecting much worse considering this is a Coen Brothers movie. But it was actually decent. It helps that they got an actual storyteller to draft the plot, though they do manage to Coen Brothers it up a bit and I have no idea what was going on between them finding the frog and ending up in the movie theater. But it wasn’t unbearable…
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
…which I cannot say for this movie. I decided to try to watch all of Jodie Foster’s movies. She was in this one when she was a kid. I had NO IDEA it was the precursor to Alice the TV show, WHICH I LOVED! However, this movie bears NO relation to the TV show. Alice is played to be AN ANNOYING AS HELL middle aged loser. Her son is a brat. The romantic leads are both dicks. And Mel is a shell of his lovable curmudgeony self. UGH. This movie is awful. Thank God they changed everything for the TV show.
Trouble With the Curve
I wish this movie would have just been video of an empty chair. The plot is dumb, the dialogue is dumb, the characters are dumb and then, just to give you respite from dumb, they throw in racism. Three parts dumb, one part racism, shake vigorously and drink until you pass out, fall down a flight of stairs and die from brain swelling. *throws vase*
Your Sister’s Sister
Hmm. This movie starts off strong, then gets terrible, then ends well. So, I don’t know what to tell you. You’ll be annoyed for a good fifty minutes, but by the end you won’t want to throw anything. It is sort of a romantic comedy, I can say that. Sorta.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Time-Delayed Oscars 012: 2001, A Time-Delayed Odyssey
The year 2001 carries a little extra baggage in movie-world, given that the year shares a name with one of the most lionized movies of all time (appropriate, then, that we'll kick off our rundown with a sort-of Kubrick film). I was surprised as I worked on this entry to see that the year lived up to its associations, providing us with a hefty boat of classics and personal favorites (it looks particularly strong when juxtaposed with the 90-pound weakling that was 2000).
Same story as before: A look back at a year's worth of movies that had a U.S. release, comparing what was important and impressive then with what is seen as important and impressive now. Or, put another way, which are likely to be enshrined in the canon, and which are likely to be fired out of a cannon. Icons after the titles to indicate my impression of their momentum.
To quote the great Arsenio Hall: Let's get this show busy.
All The Movies of 2001
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (+): Steven Spielberg directed this as a quasi-"final Kubrick film", and it's exactly the sort of hot mess you'd expect by combining those two sensibilities. It's a real Nuts & Gum moment for cinema. Honestly, for all Spielberg's obvious talents, who thought he would be the right stand-in for Stanley Kubrick? Austere, chillingly composed, devastating meditations on the nature of existence are broken up by so many lowest common denominator grotesqueries such as a jive-talking robot and a wacky hologram, (voiced by Chris Rock and Robin Williams, respecitvely) that you get whiplash. Nevertheless, Hally Joel Osment's performance as a robot replacement boy cruelly programmed to desire love is among the finest of the year, and individual scenes, when Spielberg isn't letting his Spielbergy-ness get in the way, are killer. If only he'd had the courage to end it on the ocean floor, it still would have been a messy success. For some reason, a lot of people seem to want to read the horrifying cop-out ending as a brilliant subversion. I perceive that it's gaining both critical regard and fans, inexplicably enough.
Amelie (=): Sugar wafer of a movie with strong visual inventiveness. Juenet subverts his usual dark sensibilities to channel some of that Wes Anderson twee. A cute trifle, but one that is going to keep bringing people back.
A Beautiful Mind (-): A perfectly respectable, professionally-made movie that really doesn't do anything notably enough to compel you to put it on your Netflix queue 12 years later. Russell Crowe gives a strong performance in a movie that treats mental illness in the most reductive way possible, though I do still think the reveal halfway through, imaginary friends aside, is a trick well done. Anyway, I don't think anybody hates this movie. I don't think anybody thinks it's awful. People probably remember that it's pretty good, but I don't think anybody thinks much of anything about it anymore. It won Best Picture, which is what it was created to do.
Bridget Jones' Diary (=): Surprisingly (to me) sturdy romantic comedy, mainly on the strengths of the lead actors. Notable for being one of the earliest movies to figure out that Hugh Grant works much better as a cad than a nice bloke.
Donnie Darko (+): The movie that launched a thousand Gyllehaals (give or take 998 Gyllenhaals). A box office squib upon release, this dark time-travel fable has ridden INCEPTION-grade obsession about its twisty plot (which ultimately makes INCEPTION-levels of sense, not that it matters), a fantastically quotable plot, and a director (Kelly) with a knack for creating indelible visual moments, to become the cult classic of this year. The fact that Kelly can't make good movies anymore appears (rightly) not to have hurt the regard in which this movie is held. Feces are baby mice.
The Fast and the Furious (=): Kicked off a franchise that will not die, though it will drift. This movie will be remembered by humanity for as long as they keep making the sequels. It will be forgotten approximately twelve seconds later, and then remembered again very briefly at the 127th Oscar ceremony as a mourning nation says goodbye to Vin Diesel (choked on a shrimp).
Fat Girl (-):When they talk about uncomfortable sexuality and shocking endings that make you queasy to think about, oh yeah, they talk about FAT GIRL.
Ghost World (+): The movie that launched a thousand Scarletts Johannson (Kidding. It was only five, but they do star in a lot of movies nowadays). Highly regarded these days and gaining momentum, it deals honestly and painfully with the awkwardness of adolescence turning slowly into adulthood. Great performances, too, especially from Thora Birch (and where did she go?) and Steve Buscemi.
Gosford Park (-): Might be the Robert Altman movie that came closest to winning a bunch of Oscars, given that (1) the nominee pool was pretty weak, (2) the movie was pretty good, (3) Robert Altman was pretty old, and (4) British! It's still awfully good stuff, deftly threading upstairs/downstairs intrigue while keeping straight around 30 speaking characters, but I don't think it's going down as ruling-class Altman. It's upper-middle class Altman, which is pretty good Altman (and even lower class Altman is superior to royalty from most directors), but it won't get you invited to table at Downton Abby, squire.
Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone (-): Considered to be pretty dire thanks mainly to an uninspired director (what about MRS DOUBTFIRE and HOME ALONE made anybody think Chris Columbus was the man for this?), but it did kick off a well-loved series of adaptations from a beloved book series, so this movie will have legs for a good while yet.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (+): A cult favorite that I can't speak to with much authority, as I haven't yet seen it (I do need to correct that, if only to confirm absolutely that this isn't a movie about the glam rock double life of Harry Potter's owl). It's possible that what was once seen as edgy will seem quaint as the transgendered become happily less marginalized, but I'm guessing that as long as the stage show keeps being performed, people will seek this movie out.
I Am Sam (-): This movie, I can't talk about. I only saw the trailer. But it was such a dumb trailer, I had a difficult time believing it was really for a real movie that was really starring the real Sean Penn and the real Michelle real Pfeiffer. It seemed exactly like a parody of an actor playing somebody with a mental handicap as a magic saint in order to get an Oscar. And then he actually got an actual Oscar nomination. Then Ben Stiller made specific fun of it in Tropic Thunder, in a parody trailer within that movie, which wasn't really any more ridiculous than the actual I Am Sam trailer. And now this movie's legacy is the line "Never go full retard," delivered by an ex-druggie white movie superstar in the most extravagant blackface ever, and for which he received...yep, an Oscar nomination. This is a weird universe.
Ichi The Killer (+): A classic of over-the-top Japanese ultraviolence, and beloved among connoisseurs of such things. I'm not one of those, but if you want to see human skin doing things you hope your human skin won't ever do, I'm told you should run, not walk, to this flick.
In The Bedroom (-): The other movie (along with Gosford) that probably came close to winning gold. Still well-remembered today, though not often-remembered. Stands out for its performances (Spacek and Wilkenson in particular), probably forgotten for being a little too reserved. This movie happily resuscitated the career of Marisa Tomei (very talented, very hot).
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (=): Not remembered for being particularly good, but amusing enough (applesauce, bitch). Notable for being the moment that Kevin Smith finally pulled the ripcord on his career as a director and began his career as a guy who tweets 800 times a day and curates all things Jay and Silent Bob.
K-PAX (=): Not a success when it came out. All but forgotten today. I need to put this one in the list because it killed Kevin Spacey's career as a Big Deal Actor, making such a sharp rift between his decade of greatness and his decade-plus of dreck that "The K-PAX Moment" has become my shorthand for the movie version of "Jump the Shark" in an actor's career arc (example: Father Of The Bride was Steve Martin's K-PAX moment). Jeff Bridges survived this thing, but he did have to change himself into a wookie to do it. You thought he got too lazy to shave. No. He's in hiding.
Late Marriage (+): Still very obscure, generally speaking but then so are movies like Women In The Dunes. In other words, among cinephiles a highly-regarded foreign film that keeps getting love. I oughta see this.
The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (=): Hard to know exactly how to rate this one, since the trilogy is increasingly just seen as one massive movie (the Academy put their stamp on this view in three years, when the award-valanche for installment three was largely seen as a valedictory for the series). Taken alone, its probably the strongest film in the series (unsurprising, since the same is true of the books). Jackson's world-building still amazes. This will be a part of the fantasy gold standard forever, basically.
The Man Who Wasn't There (+): One of the most under-rated Coen Brothers movies, given that it's got an emotional vacuum at its center (Billy Bob Thornton in an amazing performance), and that it didn't get much in the way of a release, and it certainly didn't catch on with audiences, probably because black and white isn't popular even if it's the most beautifully-shot movie of the year. It's really good.
Monster's Ball (-): Oof, is this one not aging well. At all. It's a movie that thinks it's being clever by having Billy Bob Thorton (hey, look at this - back to back Billy Bob!) display a sudden proclivity for chocolate ice cream. Whether the gross racial dynamics are ham-fistedly dumb or knowingly dumb is debatable, but the histrionic tone is going to put me off either way.
Monsters, Inc. (+): Still one of the sweetest entries in Pixar's ongoing and nearly unbroken streak of awesomeness. One of my favorites in the Pixar library. Boo.
Moulin Rouge! (-): Huh. I keep writing this, but I think this movie also had a credible shot at winning best picture back in the day. Again, I think this is indicative of the relative weakness of the nominee list. However, I have to say that nowadays this is the movie among those that were actually nominated I'd be happiest to remember as a Best Picture winner. It's so completely the unique and shitbat-crazy product of Baz Luhrmann, it's so much exuberant fun, and all the principal actors are doing such good work, it seems a shame to notice that it frequently turns into a montage of music videos (albeit excellent ones). That set alone deserves a special Oscar.
Mulholland Drive (+): David Lynch's career-defining masterpiece. More on this movie shortly.
Ocean's Eleven (-): A huge hit in 2001. I'm sure it would still be fun to watch today, but it's legacy, such as it is, is losing steam, as is inevitable with a movie that is basically a bunch of rich actor buddies having fun together.
The Others (-): One of my favorite movies of the year, and one of the better ghost movies ever. I feel like it's been buried a bit, and hope it will be rediscovered. I wonder if it will be rediscovered. I don't think there's much of a sense out there that it is as good as it truly is. Perhaps I should revisit it just to confirm. Contains what I think is the best Nicole Kidman performance, though Birth is close.
The Piano Teacher (+): Haenke before Haenke became an Oscar darling, this is probably seen by consensus as his first major film, and one of the finer performances Isabelle Huppert's career. Man, I still have a lot of movies to watch. This is getting embarrassing.
The Royal Tennenbaums (+): The summit (so far) of Mount Wes Anderson, though some may argue for Rushmore, and I'm actually hearing some noise for this year's Moonrise Kingdom. For my money, this is the one where all the pieces (the meticulous diorama-like design, the font, the B-sides, the quirk) come together best. Also, I think this was the last great Gene Hackman performance — and a rare comedic one, at that.
Shrek (-): A mega-hit of 2011. Spawned who knows how many crappy sequels and spinoffs. Probably best-known as the movie that cemented the use in kiddie movies of low-grade toilet humor and Smashmouth songs. It's still borderline amusing, but the fact that it won the first-ever Best Animated Feature Oscar is going to look dumber and dumber as time goes on, especially given that it was in competition with...
Spirited Away (+): For my money, this is Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece, one of the most breathtaking imaginative works of the decade, probably the best animated movie of all time, and one of my favorite movies of any genre. So you could say I think it's held up over time. My opinion aside, this is still a highly-regarded film by an increasingly revered filmmaker, its reputation appears to be growing, and will apparently continue to be enjoyed for years to come.
Training Day (-): Denzel Washington won Best Actor for his against-type performance as the most crooked cop ever. It speaks well for him that this is still seen as a pretty good choice, given how otherwise unremarkable the movie is.
Waking Life (=): Pretty much seen as an afterthought now, unless the subject is "which Richard Linklater movies are worth checking out, after Dazed and Confused, that is?" I'll talk about this one in a bit.
Y Tu Mama Tambien (+): Alfonso Cuarón's road trip/sexual awakening opus is still seen as a minor classic.
Zoolander (+): I seem to remember that this didn't do so well upon release. Like many things which contain more than trace amounts of Will Ferrell, it was discovered on video, where it made people laugh, which made people happy, which made people quote it. It's a comedy with legs, though I wonder if it will eventually fade once vapid celebrity surpasses this to the point it seems less like satire and more like restrained documentary.
And The Time-Delayed Oscars Go To . . .
A Beautiful Mind
Gosford Park
In The Bedroom
The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
Moulin Rouge!
Winner: A Beautiful Mind
Donnie Darko
The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
Mulholland Drive
The Royal Tennenbaums
Spirited Away
My Pick: Waking Life
Probable Winner: Mulholland Drive
This is tough. It turns out that 2001 nominated all the wrong movies, or almost all the wrong movies. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is a potential exception, but it's hard to know if, in my hypothetical alternate universe, it would now be seen as the single film and thus un-nominated until the completion (also, given lukewarm critical reception of The Hobbit, we may be seeing degradation of the original trilogy's critical regard). I could easily see it replaced by The Man Who Wasn't There, or The Piano Teacher, or Ghost World. I could also see Donnie Darko falling out to accommodate one of these. Furthermore, none of the films that were nominated are embarrassing Chocolat-style head-scratchers; the weakest of them is probably eventual winner A Beautiful Mind, and even it is a fairly solid if unremarkable film, not entirely out of place on a Best Picture nominee list. The worst you can say about In The Bedroom or Moulin Rouge! or Gosford Park is that they no longer seem like essential viewing, but they're still valid. I could see any one of them still edging into the short list. 2001 was just a very strong year for movies.
So it's difficult to know just what the nominee list would be. I think that once enough time has gone by, The Man Who Wasn't There is going to be understood as one of the very best of the Coen's entire filmography, so maybe here we're seeing that even 10 years is not enough for critical consensus to shake out, or maybe we're seeing that I love The Man Who Wasn't There more than most. (I think it's the former, though.)
None of this matters very much, because the movie that would win Best Picture running away would be Mulholland Drive. This aborted TV pilot got remixed into a nightmare-addled fever dream by David Lynch, and while the plot can be pieced together to make a sort of subjective sense, its true power lies in its ability to create and sustain specific atmospheres from scene to scene, building impression of the horrible truth by showing you only the subjective fantasies of more (or perhaps more) of its subjects. It's an impressionist painting, a Picasso that splatters into a dark Pollock at the the center. It's also the movie that started topping Best of the Decade critics lists. I think it's still pretty out there for a Best Picture, but then again, so was Citizen Kane at the time. At a certain point, the critical consensus becomes inescapable.
But I said this is tough. The difficulty here is knowing who my pick would be, given that that 2001 is a year that delivered not one but three of my all-time favorite films (I'm going to exclude LOTR for now, since I personally see it as a single movie, even if I don't think it would be treated as such).
Those three are inevitable-winner Mullholland Drive, Spirited Away (which I've already gushed in the 2001 recap above), and Waking Life, Richard Linklater's animated dreamscape, and no, it hasn't escaped my attention that all three of these essentially rest on dream imagery and a highly unusual internal logic. When you consider that one of the only other movies of the decade to impress me on the level of these three is Synecdoche, New York, I think it's safe to say we've found my movie sweet spot. Personally, I hope that Waking Life is due for a major re-discovery, though it's been largely forgotten due to (1) its awesome rotoscoping technique being co-opted by insurance commercials, and (2) by occasionally digressive and unpolished performance (which I think is a completely purposeful and successful choice for what it's doing); for (3) its episodic nature (ditto previous parenthetical); and for (4) the fact that some of the episodes are rather trite or sophomoric (triple-ditto previous parenthetical). Essentially, it does all the things that I wrote about Mulholland Drive a few paragraphs up, but it does them with a much looser, hopeful, contemplative energy. Waking Life is the dream, Mullholland Drive is the nightmare.
Since Mulholland Drive has (very deservedly) all the critical attention and love it will ever need, I'll throw my own personal love to Waking Life, a movie in a minor key that certainly wouldn't make the nominee list today, nor probably ever, but which will always be Best Picture for a small tribe of like-minded dreamers.
Maybe someday I'll lead off with these awards; I'm always tired by the time I get here and rush it. Personally, I'd love to have seen Gene Hackman win for The Royal Tennenbaums or Billy Bob Thornton for The Man Who Wasn't There or Haley Joel Osment for A.I., but it's hard to see this one getting away from Denzel Washington, even if the movie that contains his performance doesn't have much to distinguish itself. He transcends the material. I don't think people still get excited about Training Day, but when Washington eventually wins his career retrospective Oscar, the clip show will either lead off or close with him standing in the street, screaming "King Kong! Ain't Got SHIT! On Me!" And he'll be right. (I did guess that he'd have won already for Malcolm X if we were in alternate time-delayed Oscar universe, so that might offset matters somewhat, but if we keep speculating about alternate universes, we'll wind up spending hours making diagrams with straws.)
In ordinary years, I'd probably say this would be Nicole Kidman's prize. She ruled so hard this year, in Moulin Rouge! and (my personal favorite) The Others that the next year she won Best Actess for what was essentially a supporting role in The Hours as what sure looked like a countervailing measure. But that's only because it hadn't yet sunk in how much the Oscars missed the boat. Kidman wouldn't win this year, either.
You guys. It's Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive. Her wannabe-actress-gone-nutso (spoilers, sort of?) makes believable one of the most wild character shifts in movie history (and David Lynch's big narrative gambit). It's a role that shouldn't work, but does, and it's all due to what seems to be getting reassessed as one of the great performances of the last decade, or any decade. The audition scene alone, in which the big shift is first revealed (foreshadowed?) has become an all-time classic. One of the most acclaimed films of the decade hinges on her, and she simply nails every scene. Watts wins the do-over.
Same story as before: A look back at a year's worth of movies that had a U.S. release, comparing what was important and impressive then with what is seen as important and impressive now. Or, put another way, which are likely to be enshrined in the canon, and which are likely to be fired out of a cannon. Icons after the titles to indicate my impression of their momentum.
To quote the great Arsenio Hall: Let's get this show busy.
All The Movies of 2001
And The Ones That Still Matter Today
 |
| "And that's how I'll invent Facebook. What's that? It's 1964? Dammit." |
Amelie (=): Sugar wafer of a movie with strong visual inventiveness. Juenet subverts his usual dark sensibilities to channel some of that Wes Anderson twee. A cute trifle, but one that is going to keep bringing people back.
A Beautiful Mind (-): A perfectly respectable, professionally-made movie that really doesn't do anything notably enough to compel you to put it on your Netflix queue 12 years later. Russell Crowe gives a strong performance in a movie that treats mental illness in the most reductive way possible, though I do still think the reveal halfway through, imaginary friends aside, is a trick well done. Anyway, I don't think anybody hates this movie. I don't think anybody thinks it's awful. People probably remember that it's pretty good, but I don't think anybody thinks much of anything about it anymore. It won Best Picture, which is what it was created to do.
Bridget Jones' Diary (=): Surprisingly (to me) sturdy romantic comedy, mainly on the strengths of the lead actors. Notable for being one of the earliest movies to figure out that Hugh Grant works much better as a cad than a nice bloke.
Donnie Darko (+): The movie that launched a thousand Gyllehaals (give or take 998 Gyllenhaals). A box office squib upon release, this dark time-travel fable has ridden INCEPTION-grade obsession about its twisty plot (which ultimately makes INCEPTION-levels of sense, not that it matters), a fantastically quotable plot, and a director (Kelly) with a knack for creating indelible visual moments, to become the cult classic of this year. The fact that Kelly can't make good movies anymore appears (rightly) not to have hurt the regard in which this movie is held. Feces are baby mice.
The Fast and the Furious (=): Kicked off a franchise that will not die, though it will drift. This movie will be remembered by humanity for as long as they keep making the sequels. It will be forgotten approximately twelve seconds later, and then remembered again very briefly at the 127th Oscar ceremony as a mourning nation says goodbye to Vin Diesel (choked on a shrimp).
Fat Girl (-):When they talk about uncomfortable sexuality and shocking endings that make you queasy to think about, oh yeah, they talk about FAT GIRL.
Ghost World (+): The movie that launched a thousand Scarletts Johannson (Kidding. It was only five, but they do star in a lot of movies nowadays). Highly regarded these days and gaining momentum, it deals honestly and painfully with the awkwardness of adolescence turning slowly into adulthood. Great performances, too, especially from Thora Birch (and where did she go?) and Steve Buscemi.
Gosford Park (-): Might be the Robert Altman movie that came closest to winning a bunch of Oscars, given that (1) the nominee pool was pretty weak, (2) the movie was pretty good, (3) Robert Altman was pretty old, and (4) British! It's still awfully good stuff, deftly threading upstairs/downstairs intrigue while keeping straight around 30 speaking characters, but I don't think it's going down as ruling-class Altman. It's upper-middle class Altman, which is pretty good Altman (and even lower class Altman is superior to royalty from most directors), but it won't get you invited to table at Downton Abby, squire.
Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone (-): Considered to be pretty dire thanks mainly to an uninspired director (what about MRS DOUBTFIRE and HOME ALONE made anybody think Chris Columbus was the man for this?), but it did kick off a well-loved series of adaptations from a beloved book series, so this movie will have legs for a good while yet.
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (+): A cult favorite that I can't speak to with much authority, as I haven't yet seen it (I do need to correct that, if only to confirm absolutely that this isn't a movie about the glam rock double life of Harry Potter's owl). It's possible that what was once seen as edgy will seem quaint as the transgendered become happily less marginalized, but I'm guessing that as long as the stage show keeps being performed, people will seek this movie out.
I Am Sam (-): This movie, I can't talk about. I only saw the trailer. But it was such a dumb trailer, I had a difficult time believing it was really for a real movie that was really starring the real Sean Penn and the real Michelle real Pfeiffer. It seemed exactly like a parody of an actor playing somebody with a mental handicap as a magic saint in order to get an Oscar. And then he actually got an actual Oscar nomination. Then Ben Stiller made specific fun of it in Tropic Thunder, in a parody trailer within that movie, which wasn't really any more ridiculous than the actual I Am Sam trailer. And now this movie's legacy is the line "Never go full retard," delivered by an ex-druggie white movie superstar in the most extravagant blackface ever, and for which he received...yep, an Oscar nomination. This is a weird universe.
Ichi The Killer (+): A classic of over-the-top Japanese ultraviolence, and beloved among connoisseurs of such things. I'm not one of those, but if you want to see human skin doing things you hope your human skin won't ever do, I'm told you should run, not walk, to this flick.
In The Bedroom (-): The other movie (along with Gosford) that probably came close to winning gold. Still well-remembered today, though not often-remembered. Stands out for its performances (Spacek and Wilkenson in particular), probably forgotten for being a little too reserved. This movie happily resuscitated the career of Marisa Tomei (very talented, very hot).
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (=): Not remembered for being particularly good, but amusing enough (applesauce, bitch). Notable for being the moment that Kevin Smith finally pulled the ripcord on his career as a director and began his career as a guy who tweets 800 times a day and curates all things Jay and Silent Bob.
K-PAX (=): Not a success when it came out. All but forgotten today. I need to put this one in the list because it killed Kevin Spacey's career as a Big Deal Actor, making such a sharp rift between his decade of greatness and his decade-plus of dreck that "The K-PAX Moment" has become my shorthand for the movie version of "Jump the Shark" in an actor's career arc (example: Father Of The Bride was Steve Martin's K-PAX moment). Jeff Bridges survived this thing, but he did have to change himself into a wookie to do it. You thought he got too lazy to shave. No. He's in hiding.
Late Marriage (+): Still very obscure, generally speaking but then so are movies like Women In The Dunes. In other words, among cinephiles a highly-regarded foreign film that keeps getting love. I oughta see this.
The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring (=): Hard to know exactly how to rate this one, since the trilogy is increasingly just seen as one massive movie (the Academy put their stamp on this view in three years, when the award-valanche for installment three was largely seen as a valedictory for the series). Taken alone, its probably the strongest film in the series (unsurprising, since the same is true of the books). Jackson's world-building still amazes. This will be a part of the fantasy gold standard forever, basically.
The Man Who Wasn't There (+): One of the most under-rated Coen Brothers movies, given that it's got an emotional vacuum at its center (Billy Bob Thornton in an amazing performance), and that it didn't get much in the way of a release, and it certainly didn't catch on with audiences, probably because black and white isn't popular even if it's the most beautifully-shot movie of the year. It's really good.
Monster's Ball (-): Oof, is this one not aging well. At all. It's a movie that thinks it's being clever by having Billy Bob Thorton (hey, look at this - back to back Billy Bob!) display a sudden proclivity for chocolate ice cream. Whether the gross racial dynamics are ham-fistedly dumb or knowingly dumb is debatable, but the histrionic tone is going to put me off either way.
Monsters, Inc. (+): Still one of the sweetest entries in Pixar's ongoing and nearly unbroken streak of awesomeness. One of my favorites in the Pixar library. Boo.
Moulin Rouge! (-): Huh. I keep writing this, but I think this movie also had a credible shot at winning best picture back in the day. Again, I think this is indicative of the relative weakness of the nominee list. However, I have to say that nowadays this is the movie among those that were actually nominated I'd be happiest to remember as a Best Picture winner. It's so completely the unique and shitbat-crazy product of Baz Luhrmann, it's so much exuberant fun, and all the principal actors are doing such good work, it seems a shame to notice that it frequently turns into a montage of music videos (albeit excellent ones). That set alone deserves a special Oscar.
Mulholland Drive (+): David Lynch's career-defining masterpiece. More on this movie shortly.
Ocean's Eleven (-): A huge hit in 2001. I'm sure it would still be fun to watch today, but it's legacy, such as it is, is losing steam, as is inevitable with a movie that is basically a bunch of rich actor buddies having fun together.
The Others (-): One of my favorite movies of the year, and one of the better ghost movies ever. I feel like it's been buried a bit, and hope it will be rediscovered. I wonder if it will be rediscovered. I don't think there's much of a sense out there that it is as good as it truly is. Perhaps I should revisit it just to confirm. Contains what I think is the best Nicole Kidman performance, though Birth is close.
The Piano Teacher (+): Haenke before Haenke became an Oscar darling, this is probably seen by consensus as his first major film, and one of the finer performances Isabelle Huppert's career. Man, I still have a lot of movies to watch. This is getting embarrassing.
The Royal Tennenbaums (+): The summit (so far) of Mount Wes Anderson, though some may argue for Rushmore, and I'm actually hearing some noise for this year's Moonrise Kingdom. For my money, this is the one where all the pieces (the meticulous diorama-like design, the font, the B-sides, the quirk) come together best. Also, I think this was the last great Gene Hackman performance — and a rare comedic one, at that.
Shrek (-): A mega-hit of 2011. Spawned who knows how many crappy sequels and spinoffs. Probably best-known as the movie that cemented the use in kiddie movies of low-grade toilet humor and Smashmouth songs. It's still borderline amusing, but the fact that it won the first-ever Best Animated Feature Oscar is going to look dumber and dumber as time goes on, especially given that it was in competition with...
Spirited Away (+): For my money, this is Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece, one of the most breathtaking imaginative works of the decade, probably the best animated movie of all time, and one of my favorite movies of any genre. So you could say I think it's held up over time. My opinion aside, this is still a highly-regarded film by an increasingly revered filmmaker, its reputation appears to be growing, and will apparently continue to be enjoyed for years to come.
Training Day (-): Denzel Washington won Best Actor for his against-type performance as the most crooked cop ever. It speaks well for him that this is still seen as a pretty good choice, given how otherwise unremarkable the movie is.
Waking Life (=): Pretty much seen as an afterthought now, unless the subject is "which Richard Linklater movies are worth checking out, after Dazed and Confused, that is?" I'll talk about this one in a bit.
Y Tu Mama Tambien (+): Alfonso Cuarón's road trip/sexual awakening opus is still seen as a minor classic.
Zoolander (+): I seem to remember that this didn't do so well upon release. Like many things which contain more than trace amounts of Will Ferrell, it was discovered on video, where it made people laugh, which made people happy, which made people quote it. It's a comedy with legs, though I wonder if it will eventually fade once vapid celebrity surpasses this to the point it seems less like satire and more like restrained documentary.
And The Time-Delayed Oscars Go To . . .
 |
| "Your skin . . . it's so . . . leathery." |
Best Picture
Real List
A Beautiful Mind
Gosford Park
In The Bedroom
The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
Moulin Rouge!
Winner: A Beautiful Mind
Today's List
Donnie Darko
The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring
Mulholland Drive
The Royal Tennenbaums
Spirited Away
My Pick: Waking Life
Probable Winner: Mulholland Drive
This is tough. It turns out that 2001 nominated all the wrong movies, or almost all the wrong movies. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is a potential exception, but it's hard to know if, in my hypothetical alternate universe, it would now be seen as the single film and thus un-nominated until the completion (also, given lukewarm critical reception of The Hobbit, we may be seeing degradation of the original trilogy's critical regard). I could easily see it replaced by The Man Who Wasn't There, or The Piano Teacher, or Ghost World. I could also see Donnie Darko falling out to accommodate one of these. Furthermore, none of the films that were nominated are embarrassing Chocolat-style head-scratchers; the weakest of them is probably eventual winner A Beautiful Mind, and even it is a fairly solid if unremarkable film, not entirely out of place on a Best Picture nominee list. The worst you can say about In The Bedroom or Moulin Rouge! or Gosford Park is that they no longer seem like essential viewing, but they're still valid. I could see any one of them still edging into the short list. 2001 was just a very strong year for movies.
So it's difficult to know just what the nominee list would be. I think that once enough time has gone by, The Man Who Wasn't There is going to be understood as one of the very best of the Coen's entire filmography, so maybe here we're seeing that even 10 years is not enough for critical consensus to shake out, or maybe we're seeing that I love The Man Who Wasn't There more than most. (I think it's the former, though.)
 |
| That typical dream where you forget that you're a floating silhouette. |
But I said this is tough. The difficulty here is knowing who my pick would be, given that that 2001 is a year that delivered not one but three of my all-time favorite films (I'm going to exclude LOTR for now, since I personally see it as a single movie, even if I don't think it would be treated as such).
Those three are inevitable-winner Mullholland Drive, Spirited Away (which I've already gushed in the 2001 recap above), and Waking Life, Richard Linklater's animated dreamscape, and no, it hasn't escaped my attention that all three of these essentially rest on dream imagery and a highly unusual internal logic. When you consider that one of the only other movies of the decade to impress me on the level of these three is Synecdoche, New York, I think it's safe to say we've found my movie sweet spot. Personally, I hope that Waking Life is due for a major re-discovery, though it's been largely forgotten due to (1) its awesome rotoscoping technique being co-opted by insurance commercials, and (2) by occasionally digressive and unpolished performance (which I think is a completely purposeful and successful choice for what it's doing); for (3) its episodic nature (ditto previous parenthetical); and for (4) the fact that some of the episodes are rather trite or sophomoric (triple-ditto previous parenthetical). Essentially, it does all the things that I wrote about Mulholland Drive a few paragraphs up, but it does them with a much looser, hopeful, contemplative energy. Waking Life is the dream, Mullholland Drive is the nightmare.
Since Mulholland Drive has (very deservedly) all the critical attention and love it will ever need, I'll throw my own personal love to Waking Life, a movie in a minor key that certainly wouldn't make the nominee list today, nor probably ever, but which will always be Best Picture for a small tribe of like-minded dreamers.
Best Actor
Maybe someday I'll lead off with these awards; I'm always tired by the time I get here and rush it. Personally, I'd love to have seen Gene Hackman win for The Royal Tennenbaums or Billy Bob Thornton for The Man Who Wasn't There or Haley Joel Osment for A.I., but it's hard to see this one getting away from Denzel Washington, even if the movie that contains his performance doesn't have much to distinguish itself. He transcends the material. I don't think people still get excited about Training Day, but when Washington eventually wins his career retrospective Oscar, the clip show will either lead off or close with him standing in the street, screaming "King Kong! Ain't Got SHIT! On Me!" And he'll be right. (I did guess that he'd have won already for Malcolm X if we were in alternate time-delayed Oscar universe, so that might offset matters somewhat, but if we keep speculating about alternate universes, we'll wind up spending hours making diagrams with straws.)
Best Actress
Halle Berry became the first black actress to win the big prize, ever, which . . . guys. It was 2001. This was the 74th Oscar ceremony. I believe the next time a lady of African descent got close was last year, ten years later, when Viola Davis nearly snuck one away from Meryl Streep... and that was for, um, The Help. Putting aside the fact that there aren't that many great roles being written for women, doesn't it seem like there REALLY has been a dearth of good roles for black actresses, ain't it? So I feel churlish for alternate-dimension taking this moment away from Halle Berry, who was quite good in a movie that was quite bad, and who, based on her acceptance speech, I think it's safe to say wanted it the most. But I don't think she'd win a do-over, today, and it's got nothing (well, almost nothing) to do with her roles afterward *cough* Catwoman *cough* After all, we've already noted that there are only about 1.073 decent, challenging roles written for black actresses each year, and right now Viola Davis is getting 0.987 of them.In ordinary years, I'd probably say this would be Nicole Kidman's prize. She ruled so hard this year, in Moulin Rouge! and (my personal favorite) The Others that the next year she won Best Actess for what was essentially a supporting role in The Hours as what sure looked like a countervailing measure. But that's only because it hadn't yet sunk in how much the Oscars missed the boat. Kidman wouldn't win this year, either.
You guys. It's Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive. Her wannabe-actress-gone-nutso (spoilers, sort of?) makes believable one of the most wild character shifts in movie history (and David Lynch's big narrative gambit). It's a role that shouldn't work, but does, and it's all due to what seems to be getting reassessed as one of the great performances of the last decade, or any decade. The audition scene alone, in which the big shift is first revealed (foreshadowed?) has become an all-time classic. One of the most acclaimed films of the decade hinges on her, and she simply nails every scene. Watts wins the do-over.
Friday, February 1, 2013
Black History Month Movie Watching!
I confess, I did not think about Black History Month when I chose these movies. However, as I wrote up the reviews, I realized many of these films had black leads, which almost NEVER happens unless I'm being intentionally racist about my choices. But there you have it!
Butter
This movie is about competitive butter sculpting in Iowa or Utah… one of those states that you don’t think about unless your guy is trailing in presidential polls. The twist is, sigh, okay, when I finished the movie I was annoyed, so I was going to tell you the twist, but it’s been three weeks, and I’ve been annoyed by so much more since then that… I won’t. But here’s a hint. The star of the movie about competitive butter sculpting *IN IOWA OR UTAH* is a little black girl. *files nails* It's an okay movie.
Half Nelson
I picked this as part of my quest to see every Ryan Gosling movie ever made so that when I meet him, I can be all “I LOVED YOU IN *insert obscure movie that ONLY I know about.*" Then he smiles at me and says “thanks.” And THEN I faint and he catches me and…wait, where was I? Right, Half Nelson. I have NO idea why this movie is called Half Nelson. No one is named Nelson and it’s not about wrestling. It’s about an “inner city” teacher who is also a drug addict (Gosling) and the little black girl who catches him smoking crack in the bathroom and how they try to save each other. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible.
Absent
Z.O.M.G. HOW DID I WASTE THREE TERRIBLES *BEFORE* I GOT TO ABSENT??!?!!?!?! DAMMIT, PATRICE! Okay, so this is a “documentary” about “absentee fathers” and the “father wound” that children from “fatherless” homes suffer, due to the absence of the aforementioned father. Now, as a child raised by a single mother, I was quite surprised to learn that I am a hypersexualized whore seeking approval from men. Evidently, I had many children when I was a teenager by many different fathers and if those children were girls, they too now are hypersexualized whores. For the men who were raised in “fatherless” households, you are rapers and arsonists who kill yourselves. So sorry. The problem is… the movie seeks out the most damaged people they can find, puts them on film and then says “SEEEEEE?” Never mind, that one of their damaged whore women WAS RAISED BY HER DAD WHO MOLESTED HER. Or that one of the "damaged" was a drummer or singer in one of those Hair Bands AND WAS RAISED BY BOTH PARENTS!?!?! AND IS A SUCCESSFUL music celebrity guy now (I don’t know who he is. Al Can’t Hang and Bad Blood would know though…(James Hatfield or something like that) ARRGGHHH. I WAS SO MAD. (Could you tell?) The movie opens with a little girl struggling to ride a bike, but she keeps falling over and then scrapes her knee and starts crying. And of course, I’m all the cameraman is the asshole here. And then at the end, a man appears from the park to help her ride AND SHE DOES. Then she probably blows him. WHAT? THIS “documentary” SUCKED IT, why wouldn’t that kid. Okay, that was inappropriate. My bad, I have a father wound!
Cinema Paradiso
This movie was great. It’s an Italian flick about a fatherless boy and his friendship with the town film runner guy (that’s not the right word…projectionist? That’s better.) It’s a bit contrived how they get it so the old man teaches the boy how to be a projectionist even though he knows it’s unsafe AND promises the kid’s mom he wouldn’t. And then it’s creepy how the old man fakes an injury so he never has to run the stupid projector ever again. But all in all, it was haunting and nostalgic and will make you very very sad… even though I think the message of the movie is that nostalgia is dumb and everyone needs parking lots. I don't know. I don't speak Italian. Sigh.
The Thin Blue Line
This is a great documentary about a man on death row after he was wrongly convicted of murdering a cop. Give you one guess what state it’s set in. ONLY ONE. NO PEEKING! If you guessed anywhere but Texas, I laugh at you.
Beasts of the Southern Wild
THIS MOVIE IS AMAZING!!! It’s a fictional survival story set in Louisiana around a Katrina-ish hurricane/flooding event. It’s about a plucky six year old and her sick, abusive dad who are basically living off the land/river. (My favorite part is when he leaves her for a few days and she thinks to herself, well, if he doesn’t come back soon, I’m going to have to eat my pets.) It’s great. Funny, terrifying, insprational. Me likey.
Looper
Julius Goat's review captures my thoughts on this movie fairly well. I liked it a lot. It’s not what you think from the trailer, though the ending is one we’ve seen before. I wonder if there is a director’s cut with an alternative ending floating around out there.
Ted
This movie is gross, homophobic, sexist, lame and juvenile. Sadly, I think that was the point, so "well done, guy who is going to host the Oscars?" Sigh. And, dear lord, someone get Ryan Reynolds' career a reboot. AND FAST. (I did like the line where the teddy bear is all "That's awesome. A quarterback who saves the world. Tom Brady could do that! And then Marky Mark is all "Tom Brady COULD do that!" Tom Brady so could.)
Frankenweenie
Um... the next two movies are both, animated "horror-flicks" starring little boys. I admit right now, I'm not quite sure which was which. However, I thought both were okay, but absolutely missable. I don't think either would be really appropriate for true kids, but I think teenagers will think they're dumb. I really don't know who the target audience is for a flick about a resurrected dog. And other pet zombies. Meh.
ParaNorman
See above Frankenweenie review. I really don't know who the target audience is for a flick about a boy who sees dead people and tries to save the town from a ressurrected witch. Meh.
The Bourne Legacy
Good glory lord in heaven this movie was bad and long and bad and...um...long. Blarf. It's about a rogue super soldier and the scientist on the run with him.
Pitch Perfect
This movie is NOT about baseball! And that's perfect! It's about college acapella group singing competitions. And there's a romantic comedy aspect to it. It's very funny and I loved it, but there is a lot of singing and dancing, so if that's not your thing etc. etc.
Premium Rush
This movie took me 24 days to finish and it's only 92 minutes long. It's about a bike messenger -- who graduated from an Ivy League Law School, mind you, who SAVES THE WORLD ONE SPOKE AT A TIME! ONE GOTDAMN SPOKE AT A TIME. I'm kidding. There are lots of spokes all going at the same time. It is laughably awful. And then it's agonizingly awful. And then it's sad, and you wonder, why didn't I become a bike messenger after graduating law school?!! I'd probably be dead by now AND NOT WATCHING PREMIUM RUSH!
Butter
This movie is about competitive butter sculpting in Iowa or Utah… one of those states that you don’t think about unless your guy is trailing in presidential polls. The twist is, sigh, okay, when I finished the movie I was annoyed, so I was going to tell you the twist, but it’s been three weeks, and I’ve been annoyed by so much more since then that… I won’t. But here’s a hint. The star of the movie about competitive butter sculpting *IN IOWA OR UTAH* is a little black girl. *files nails* It's an okay movie.
Half Nelson
I picked this as part of my quest to see every Ryan Gosling movie ever made so that when I meet him, I can be all “I LOVED YOU IN *insert obscure movie that ONLY I know about.*" Then he smiles at me and says “thanks.” And THEN I faint and he catches me and…wait, where was I? Right, Half Nelson. I have NO idea why this movie is called Half Nelson. No one is named Nelson and it’s not about wrestling. It’s about an “inner city” teacher who is also a drug addict (Gosling) and the little black girl who catches him smoking crack in the bathroom and how they try to save each other. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible.
Absent
Z.O.M.G. HOW DID I WASTE THREE TERRIBLES *BEFORE* I GOT TO ABSENT??!?!!?!?! DAMMIT, PATRICE! Okay, so this is a “documentary” about “absentee fathers” and the “father wound” that children from “fatherless” homes suffer, due to the absence of the aforementioned father. Now, as a child raised by a single mother, I was quite surprised to learn that I am a hypersexualized whore seeking approval from men. Evidently, I had many children when I was a teenager by many different fathers and if those children were girls, they too now are hypersexualized whores. For the men who were raised in “fatherless” households, you are rapers and arsonists who kill yourselves. So sorry. The problem is… the movie seeks out the most damaged people they can find, puts them on film and then says “SEEEEEE?” Never mind, that one of their damaged whore women WAS RAISED BY HER DAD WHO MOLESTED HER. Or that one of the "damaged" was a drummer or singer in one of those Hair Bands AND WAS RAISED BY BOTH PARENTS!?!?! AND IS A SUCCESSFUL music celebrity guy now (I don’t know who he is. Al Can’t Hang and Bad Blood would know though…(James Hatfield or something like that) ARRGGHHH. I WAS SO MAD. (Could you tell?) The movie opens with a little girl struggling to ride a bike, but she keeps falling over and then scrapes her knee and starts crying. And of course, I’m all the cameraman is the asshole here. And then at the end, a man appears from the park to help her ride AND SHE DOES. Then she probably blows him. WHAT? THIS “documentary” SUCKED IT, why wouldn’t that kid. Okay, that was inappropriate. My bad, I have a father wound!
Cinema Paradiso
This movie was great. It’s an Italian flick about a fatherless boy and his friendship with the town film runner guy (that’s not the right word…projectionist? That’s better.) It’s a bit contrived how they get it so the old man teaches the boy how to be a projectionist even though he knows it’s unsafe AND promises the kid’s mom he wouldn’t. And then it’s creepy how the old man fakes an injury so he never has to run the stupid projector ever again. But all in all, it was haunting and nostalgic and will make you very very sad… even though I think the message of the movie is that nostalgia is dumb and everyone needs parking lots. I don't know. I don't speak Italian. Sigh.
The Thin Blue Line
This is a great documentary about a man on death row after he was wrongly convicted of murdering a cop. Give you one guess what state it’s set in. ONLY ONE. NO PEEKING! If you guessed anywhere but Texas, I laugh at you.
Beasts of the Southern Wild
THIS MOVIE IS AMAZING!!! It’s a fictional survival story set in Louisiana around a Katrina-ish hurricane/flooding event. It’s about a plucky six year old and her sick, abusive dad who are basically living off the land/river. (My favorite part is when he leaves her for a few days and she thinks to herself, well, if he doesn’t come back soon, I’m going to have to eat my pets.) It’s great. Funny, terrifying, insprational. Me likey.
Looper
Julius Goat's review captures my thoughts on this movie fairly well. I liked it a lot. It’s not what you think from the trailer, though the ending is one we’ve seen before. I wonder if there is a director’s cut with an alternative ending floating around out there.
Ted
This movie is gross, homophobic, sexist, lame and juvenile. Sadly, I think that was the point, so "well done, guy who is going to host the Oscars?" Sigh. And, dear lord, someone get Ryan Reynolds' career a reboot. AND FAST. (I did like the line where the teddy bear is all "That's awesome. A quarterback who saves the world. Tom Brady could do that! And then Marky Mark is all "Tom Brady COULD do that!" Tom Brady so could.)
Frankenweenie
Um... the next two movies are both, animated "horror-flicks" starring little boys. I admit right now, I'm not quite sure which was which. However, I thought both were okay, but absolutely missable. I don't think either would be really appropriate for true kids, but I think teenagers will think they're dumb. I really don't know who the target audience is for a flick about a resurrected dog. And other pet zombies. Meh.
ParaNorman
See above Frankenweenie review. I really don't know who the target audience is for a flick about a boy who sees dead people and tries to save the town from a ressurrected witch. Meh.
The Bourne Legacy
Good glory lord in heaven this movie was bad and long and bad and...um...long. Blarf. It's about a rogue super soldier and the scientist on the run with him.
Pitch Perfect
This movie is NOT about baseball! And that's perfect! It's about college acapella group singing competitions. And there's a romantic comedy aspect to it. It's very funny and I loved it, but there is a lot of singing and dancing, so if that's not your thing etc. etc.
Premium Rush
This movie took me 24 days to finish and it's only 92 minutes long. It's about a bike messenger -- who graduated from an Ivy League Law School, mind you, who SAVES THE WORLD ONE SPOKE AT A TIME! ONE GOTDAMN SPOKE AT A TIME. I'm kidding. There are lots of spokes all going at the same time. It is laughably awful. And then it's agonizingly awful. And then it's sad, and you wonder, why didn't I become a bike messenger after graduating law school?!! I'd probably be dead by now AND NOT WATCHING PREMIUM RUSH!
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Film Journal: Week Ending 1/27/2013
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Jackson, 2012) **** (A)
So it's probably best at the start to admit that I'm not capable of approaching this objectively, given how hard I managed to nerd out on Tolkien in my early formative years (thinking 8-14 here), and how utterly successful Jackson was from 2001-2003 at realizing on screen most of what drew me to the material. So, though I can totally see what people are talking about when they find Jackson's hobbity films overstuffed, overlong, over-portentous, far too interested in fiddling around with extraneous junk and singing dwarves, I just can't feel it. See, that's the stuff I really love. Is this a four-star movie to me if I hadn't read the novels with near psychotic obsession in the mid eighties? Maybe. Probably not. But I did, and so they are. If you disagree with me, just indulge me my blind spot. The point of Tolkien is losing yourself in a world, and, for better or worse, that's what Jackson does. I don't know if Jackson 'gets' Tolkien, but he certainly 'gets' him in exactly the way I always did as a kid, and I guess I can't ever fault him for that. I think it's safe to say that whatever you thought of the LOTR movies is exactly how you'll feel about this.
THE HOBBIT is an odd duck, in that most film adaptations disappoint because they leave out the reader's favorite bits from the novel, but Part 1 of this series puts in bits that never made the novel. Most of this isn't Jackson's invention. Because of the Tolkien's copious notes and appendices, there's a lot of information surrounding the text of what was basically a children's novel, giving Jackson a wealth of extra lore upon which to draw. Much of this apocryphal source material lends added epic meaning to the narrative that is otherwise lost. I was fairly skeptical about the plans to turn a thin book into a trilogy, but if they're taking it in this direction, I think I can live with it. I'm guessing that the next installment will, for example, show us exactly why Gandalf decides to abandon Bilbo Bag-Of-Donuts and the Sunshine Band right before they're about to enter the most dangerous place in all of Middle Earth, which is more than the novel ever did.
There are, of course, some key Jackson 'value-adds', most in the areas of enhanced action (a massive Gandalf & Dwarves vs. All The Goblins) and character design (the Great Goblin should get that goiter under a CAT scan, stat), which are arguably unnecessary but probably valuable when it comes to translating page to Big Goddam Action Movie.
As always with Tolkien by way of Jackson, the primary characters are well-cast and well-acted. Freeman is a fine choice to play the fussy little man with a spine of steel. Andy Serkis shows up near the end, reprising Gollum, once again the character with the most depth and pathos. Ian McKellen is Gandalf like a mahfah, which is officially a good thing. Only about six of the thirteen dwarves register as recognizable characters, but since this count bests Tolkien by about two dwarves, it's better not to fuss. Balin in particular is well-realized, but Bifur scores some surprise points, even if he is overshadowed by his own hat. (Speaking of dwarf fashion, now that I think of it, I think there is a "Dwarf or Hipster?" online quiz that needs to be made.)
Note: This movie features a man with a lot of bird poop in his hair. A LOT of bird poop. It's worth mentioning.
Looper (Rian Johnson, 2012) ***1/2 (A-)
Most movies suffer from a lack of good ideas; this one seems almost
overstuffed with them. The setup (quantum hit-men) would be enough to
carry a decent sci-fi flick, but director Rian Johnson (who after this and
BRICK is now on my "don't-miss-this-director's-movies" list) uses the
setup as a way to create one of the most intriguing premises of recent
years. And THEN he effectively leverages that premise, not as an end to
itself, but as a springboard to jump us into still another premise,
conjuring AKIRA by way of BACK TO THE FUTURE. Um, sort of.
LOOPER makes such effective and startling uses of time-travel possibilities that it ultimately doesn't matter (or at least it doesn't matter much) that the mechanic doesn't make much sense. Example: during the "missing fingers" sequence, it probably doesn't follow that slicing parts off of young Seth would cause those parts to disappear off of old Seth, since at a certain point (probably after the first finger) it's unlikely that the vivisected version of young Seth would still be somebody who would try to run in the first place, and certainly if the finger trick works, then simply killing young Seth would simply make their problem-fugitive disappear (which, in fact, we later discover is the case). And I don't care a bit, because HOLY SHIT was that scene an effective little horror set-piece. Nor does it probably follow that Abe (a fantastically schlubby Jeff Daniels) would care about preserving the timeline in little ways represented by unclosed loops, given that he's effectively running an organized crime syndicate that probably didn't occur until he came from the future and started it (though it occurs me that, despite the fact there's nothing in the 'text' of the movie making this explicit, you could probably craft a fan-theory that the real reason the Rainmaker started closing the loops was so that action hero Bruce Willis would come back and shut down Abe's operation, which MUST be screwing things up down the line). And . . . well. It goes on.
Johnson effectively hand waves the quantum inconsistencies (a character even dismisses such discussions as just "making diagrams with straws") by framing it mainly as a way to set up its nested Russian dolls of existential hypotheticals. It's only in the final moments that you realize the central importance of the early scenes showing the future's desperate economic disparity, and the way they play into questions of social accountability, personal selfishness, and the futility of burning the future to try to make the present a little brighter. Typically with a movie with these genre elements the pleasure is in watching the temporal plot elements fall into place with a satisfying click (think 12 MONKEYS). With this one, it's not the plot: the pleasure is in watching the themes play the same trick.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Yates, 2007) ** (C)
Totally adequate screen adaptation that basically suffers from having as source material a 900-page novel and a fan base that wants to see all of it. It's inevitable that the whole thing seems both overstuffed and over-rushed. Really, in the post-SOPRANOS world of LOST and BREAKING BAD, etc., these sorts of properties would probably be best served by seven seasons of 8-10 episodes each. Even that wouldn't change the fact that this is one of the weaker storylines, with Darth Voldemort after a MacGuffin of little real weight, plot-wise, and a conflict that essentially boils down to bad press for Harry (dour) and Dumbledore (distant). The production quality is gloomy but evocative, and there are the usual murderers row of Britain's finest thespians (Smith, Rickman, Gleeson, Fines, etc., etc., etc.) keeping things professional, but the movie only pops when pure unctuous evil Delores Umbrage trots on screen (Imelda Staunton does fine work bringing Rowling's most horrible character to life), all pink self-satisfied sadism and giggles, and a short but intense duel between Voldemort and Dumbledore that actually for the first time (in book or film) made wizarding duels seem more awe-inspiring than silly to me.
Quiddich is a ridiculous sport. There is mercifully no Quiddich in this movie; nevertheless it needs to be said.
The Artist (Hazanavicious, 2011) **1/2 (B-)
LOOPER makes such effective and startling uses of time-travel possibilities that it ultimately doesn't matter (or at least it doesn't matter much) that the mechanic doesn't make much sense. Example: during the "missing fingers" sequence, it probably doesn't follow that slicing parts off of young Seth would cause those parts to disappear off of old Seth, since at a certain point (probably after the first finger) it's unlikely that the vivisected version of young Seth would still be somebody who would try to run in the first place, and certainly if the finger trick works, then simply killing young Seth would simply make their problem-fugitive disappear (which, in fact, we later discover is the case). And I don't care a bit, because HOLY SHIT was that scene an effective little horror set-piece. Nor does it probably follow that Abe (a fantastically schlubby Jeff Daniels) would care about preserving the timeline in little ways represented by unclosed loops, given that he's effectively running an organized crime syndicate that probably didn't occur until he came from the future and started it (though it occurs me that, despite the fact there's nothing in the 'text' of the movie making this explicit, you could probably craft a fan-theory that the real reason the Rainmaker started closing the loops was so that action hero Bruce Willis would come back and shut down Abe's operation, which MUST be screwing things up down the line). And . . . well. It goes on.
Johnson effectively hand waves the quantum inconsistencies (a character even dismisses such discussions as just "making diagrams with straws") by framing it mainly as a way to set up its nested Russian dolls of existential hypotheticals. It's only in the final moments that you realize the central importance of the early scenes showing the future's desperate economic disparity, and the way they play into questions of social accountability, personal selfishness, and the futility of burning the future to try to make the present a little brighter. Typically with a movie with these genre elements the pleasure is in watching the temporal plot elements fall into place with a satisfying click (think 12 MONKEYS). With this one, it's not the plot: the pleasure is in watching the themes play the same trick.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Yates, 2007) ** (C)
Totally adequate screen adaptation that basically suffers from having as source material a 900-page novel and a fan base that wants to see all of it. It's inevitable that the whole thing seems both overstuffed and over-rushed. Really, in the post-SOPRANOS world of LOST and BREAKING BAD, etc., these sorts of properties would probably be best served by seven seasons of 8-10 episodes each. Even that wouldn't change the fact that this is one of the weaker storylines, with Darth Voldemort after a MacGuffin of little real weight, plot-wise, and a conflict that essentially boils down to bad press for Harry (dour) and Dumbledore (distant). The production quality is gloomy but evocative, and there are the usual murderers row of Britain's finest thespians (Smith, Rickman, Gleeson, Fines, etc., etc., etc.) keeping things professional, but the movie only pops when pure unctuous evil Delores Umbrage trots on screen (Imelda Staunton does fine work bringing Rowling's most horrible character to life), all pink self-satisfied sadism and giggles, and a short but intense duel between Voldemort and Dumbledore that actually for the first time (in book or film) made wizarding duels seem more awe-inspiring than silly to me.
Quiddich is a ridiculous sport. There is mercifully no Quiddich in this movie; nevertheless it needs to be said.
The Artist (Hazanavicious, 2011) **1/2 (B-)
Stylish but ultimately thin gruel, this movie appears to have coasted
to an Oscar bonanza on the merits of gorgeous cinematography and a
sporadically-breached commitment to its 'silent movie' gimmick. (I
presume the cute doggie didn't hurt.) Not to suggest that it's bad;
quite the contrary, I'd classify it as 'breezy fun.' It's solidly made,
very pretty to look at, and I feel like a Grinch not gushing for a movie
that managed to be popular AND shot in black and white (yay!) WITH a
sense of composition and lighting (yay!) AND experiments with aspect
ratio (sure!) AND silent film (yay! or at least, OK!). The only problem
is that 'breezy fun' is all it is. Some movies are buoyed into
timelessness by their awards, others sink beneath the weight. Call it
the "Gladiator? Really?" syndrome. I suspect this will be one of the
latter (Example: I probably focus here a bit more on what I don't like
than I would have if I wasn't aware that I was dealing with work that is
mysteriously one of the most lionized films of the past several years).
Inch wide and inch deep, THE ARTIST manages to be enjoyable and pretty as pertains to whatever is on screen at that moment, and that's about it. Commenting variously on old Hollywood, the rise of the talkies, the displacement of classic silent stars, it tries but never quite manages to find anything trenchant to say about them (the plot does superficially conjure SINGING IN THE RAIN, which...is not the best movie to put in people's heads, comparison-wise, particularly if you're going climax with a big dance number). Neither does it create characters that seem like more than placeholders for ideas. Dujardin is, you guessed it, 'breezy fun', but he never seems like he's playing somebody psychologically real. That's not a prerequisite for a great performance in a great movie, unless that movie finally decides, as does this one, it wants to be a character study with a suicidal dark night of the soul. Until he gets saved, "Timmy's Trapped Down The Well" style, by the doggie. It's that sort of movie. Upstaged by a pooch and its own pretty surface.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Cuaron, 2003) *** (B+)
Without question the most enjoyable of the series I've seen so far (I've watched the first five), largely based on a hugely improved art design and overall aesthetic. Hogwarts at last seems tangibly real instead of a place that was generated in an XBox 360, which makes a huge difference when you're trying to suspend your disbelief and enter a magical world of twee British magic. Also, I suspect, my positive reaction to this movie was the result of my desperate relief at being released, hostage-style, from two consecutive Christopher Columbus films that I watched on purpose – Columbus-to-Cuarón may represent the single biggest directorial upshift in franchise movie history, and part of me wishes that he'd stuck with the series a bit longer, but then again, he had to go make CHILDREN OF MEN, so I suppose it's important to keep things in perspective. The principals are noticeably more seasoned performers their third time out, Maggie Smith is doing Maggie Smith things, Alan Rickman is doing Alan Rickman things, Michael Gambon is a superior Dumbledore to Richard Harris, if only because Gambon captures the character's playfulness, and also wasn't 96% dead during filming (too soon?). It's just not debatable that this one of the stronger books in the series, which helps. It's a happy confluence of good material meeting strong collaborators to make a rare thing: a big franchise tent-pole movie that has rewachability.
Quiddich is a ridiculous sport. That's not part of this review, but I really need to say it.
Juno (Jason Reitman, 2007) *** (B)
This movie is cute when it's not trying to be cute, and clever when it's not trying to be clever, and neither when it's trying to be either. Perhaps it's like a teenager in that way; in any event, somewhere in the rather difficult-to-swallow ersatz urban dictionary Diablo Cody cooks up, some genuine and surprising character moments can be found. I particularly found myself intrigued by Jason Bateman's adopting husband, who plays the sort of creep that is immediately believable but not usually portrayed in movies – or at least his brand of arrested-development (shout-out!) solipsism is usually played for laughs rather than understood as creepy. Ellen Page was rightly praised for finding the fear that obviously would be lurking behind Juno's no-nonsense exterior without signposting it. Simmons and Janney are also stand-outs as the parents: concerned, engaged, supportive, but not consumed only with the concerns of their kid. The film economically suggests for them lives outside of the 'parent' role and a sort of believable detachment that you see in some real-life parents (good and bad) but not usually in movie parents.
Still, that dialogue tries way too hard, and it's to the movie's detriment. Otherwise-believable people should be given believable things to say. Poor Rainn WIlson's opening "that's one doodle that can't be undid, home-skillet" scene is excruciating, and I don't think it's entirely his fault, because I can't imagine any actor being able to take those words and make them sound as if a human being would say it. That said, his caffeinated precision is exactly what the scene didn't need. (The Coens can get away with this sort of linguistic enhancement from colorful weirdos, but they are wizards.) It takes a while for this movie to recover from such contrivance. It's to its credit that it ultimately does.
Inch wide and inch deep, THE ARTIST manages to be enjoyable and pretty as pertains to whatever is on screen at that moment, and that's about it. Commenting variously on old Hollywood, the rise of the talkies, the displacement of classic silent stars, it tries but never quite manages to find anything trenchant to say about them (the plot does superficially conjure SINGING IN THE RAIN, which...is not the best movie to put in people's heads, comparison-wise, particularly if you're going climax with a big dance number). Neither does it create characters that seem like more than placeholders for ideas. Dujardin is, you guessed it, 'breezy fun', but he never seems like he's playing somebody psychologically real. That's not a prerequisite for a great performance in a great movie, unless that movie finally decides, as does this one, it wants to be a character study with a suicidal dark night of the soul. Until he gets saved, "Timmy's Trapped Down The Well" style, by the doggie. It's that sort of movie. Upstaged by a pooch and its own pretty surface.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Cuaron, 2003) *** (B+)
Without question the most enjoyable of the series I've seen so far (I've watched the first five), largely based on a hugely improved art design and overall aesthetic. Hogwarts at last seems tangibly real instead of a place that was generated in an XBox 360, which makes a huge difference when you're trying to suspend your disbelief and enter a magical world of twee British magic. Also, I suspect, my positive reaction to this movie was the result of my desperate relief at being released, hostage-style, from two consecutive Christopher Columbus films that I watched on purpose – Columbus-to-Cuarón may represent the single biggest directorial upshift in franchise movie history, and part of me wishes that he'd stuck with the series a bit longer, but then again, he had to go make CHILDREN OF MEN, so I suppose it's important to keep things in perspective. The principals are noticeably more seasoned performers their third time out, Maggie Smith is doing Maggie Smith things, Alan Rickman is doing Alan Rickman things, Michael Gambon is a superior Dumbledore to Richard Harris, if only because Gambon captures the character's playfulness, and also wasn't 96% dead during filming (too soon?). It's just not debatable that this one of the stronger books in the series, which helps. It's a happy confluence of good material meeting strong collaborators to make a rare thing: a big franchise tent-pole movie that has rewachability.
Quiddich is a ridiculous sport. That's not part of this review, but I really need to say it.
Juno (Jason Reitman, 2007) *** (B)
This movie is cute when it's not trying to be cute, and clever when it's not trying to be clever, and neither when it's trying to be either. Perhaps it's like a teenager in that way; in any event, somewhere in the rather difficult-to-swallow ersatz urban dictionary Diablo Cody cooks up, some genuine and surprising character moments can be found. I particularly found myself intrigued by Jason Bateman's adopting husband, who plays the sort of creep that is immediately believable but not usually portrayed in movies – or at least his brand of arrested-development (shout-out!) solipsism is usually played for laughs rather than understood as creepy. Ellen Page was rightly praised for finding the fear that obviously would be lurking behind Juno's no-nonsense exterior without signposting it. Simmons and Janney are also stand-outs as the parents: concerned, engaged, supportive, but not consumed only with the concerns of their kid. The film economically suggests for them lives outside of the 'parent' role and a sort of believable detachment that you see in some real-life parents (good and bad) but not usually in movie parents.
Still, that dialogue tries way too hard, and it's to the movie's detriment. Otherwise-believable people should be given believable things to say. Poor Rainn WIlson's opening "that's one doodle that can't be undid, home-skillet" scene is excruciating, and I don't think it's entirely his fault, because I can't imagine any actor being able to take those words and make them sound as if a human being would say it. That said, his caffeinated precision is exactly what the scene didn't need. (The Coens can get away with this sort of linguistic enhancement from colorful weirdos, but they are wizards.) It takes a while for this movie to recover from such contrivance. It's to its credit that it ultimately does.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Time-Delayed Oscars: In The Year 2000
Wow, it's been a while, hasn't it? There's a good reason. Holy crap, these take a long time to write up. Let's see if I can pull off one every couple weeks.
Remember the deal? Once upon a time I read that my best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who heard that Matt Damon had said they ought to wait 10 years before giving out the Oscars, because that's the minimum amount of time necessary for hype to fade and consensus to coalesce around quality. Sure, sometimes the awards get it right, but on the other hand, Rocky has a Best Picture statue and Network doesn't, so I think you see the point I'm making here. Suffice it to say, I think Mr. Damon is on to something.
Back in the olden days, when we hadn't even heard of The King's Peach and online poker was plentiful, organic and free range, I ran down the Time-Delayed Oscars of the 1990s. Decisions were made. Proclamations proclaimed.
Time to do it again. Sticking to the 10 year rules, I reckon it's time to do the years 2000-2003. Then, maybe, the eighties. I've added a (+) to movies whose profile is on the rise, a (-) to movies with profiles on the wane, and an (=) for the ones who are in a sort of holding pattern.
As a reminder, this is how I think a jury of Oscar-voting peers would vote. I make my own preferences clear but separate.
Let's start with the year 2000, which I think we can all agree was a pretty grim year for movies.
[Updated because I don't know the difference between the 2002 zombie movie 28 DAYS LATER and the Sandra Bullock flick 28 DAYS. Thanks, Dugglebogey. And, crap.]
The Notables & Quotables
28 Days (+):The king-daddy of the "fast zombie" movie, Danny Boyle's gritty flick still packs a wallop. Some of the freakiest moments of the entire genre come courtesy of these flickering lights and daytime horrors. Sort of ignored when it was released (I remember it as a modest hit, but nothing like a great, genre-influencing movie), it's now sprouted legs and now throws a mighty long shadow. I really like this movie.Um, Sandra Bullock movie that wasn't good and nobody watches anymore. 28 DAYS LATER is a 2002 movie. Never mind.
Almost Famous (=): Introduced the world to Kate Hudson, which seemed like a good idea at the time. Don't judge us, America. We were young. Still a re-watchable cable staple, if not a beloved classic. The last successful Cameron Crowe movie (perhaps coincidentally, also the last good Cameron Crowe movie). Podcast fans can keep their eyes peeled for "Lock the gates!" Everybody else can watch for strong performances, "I am a Golden God!", and the Tiny Dancer sing-along. (Note: I only thought this was OK at the time, so that's probably coloring my analysis.)
Best Picture
Memento is the Best Picture of 2000. Moreover, I think this is now recognized. I bet it would win today.
Remember the deal? Once upon a time I read that my best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who heard that Matt Damon had said they ought to wait 10 years before giving out the Oscars, because that's the minimum amount of time necessary for hype to fade and consensus to coalesce around quality. Sure, sometimes the awards get it right, but on the other hand, Rocky has a Best Picture statue and Network doesn't, so I think you see the point I'm making here. Suffice it to say, I think Mr. Damon is on to something.
Back in the olden days, when we hadn't even heard of The King's Peach and online poker was plentiful, organic and free range, I ran down the Time-Delayed Oscars of the 1990s. Decisions were made. Proclamations proclaimed.
Time to do it again. Sticking to the 10 year rules, I reckon it's time to do the years 2000-2003. Then, maybe, the eighties. I've added a (+) to movies whose profile is on the rise, a (-) to movies with profiles on the wane, and an (=) for the ones who are in a sort of holding pattern.
As a reminder, this is how I think a jury of Oscar-voting peers would vote. I make my own preferences clear but separate.
Let's start with the year 2000, which I think we can all agree was a pretty grim year for movies.
[Updated because I don't know the difference between the 2002 zombie movie 28 DAYS LATER and the Sandra Bullock flick 28 DAYS. Thanks, Dugglebogey. And, crap.]
 |
| Gladiator's gonna gladiate. |
28 Days (+):
Almost Famous (=): Introduced the world to Kate Hudson, which seemed like a good idea at the time. Don't judge us, America. We were young. Still a re-watchable cable staple, if not a beloved classic. The last successful Cameron Crowe movie (perhaps coincidentally, also the last good Cameron Crowe movie). Podcast fans can keep their eyes peeled for "Lock the gates!" Everybody else can watch for strong performances, "I am a Golden God!", and the Tiny Dancer sing-along. (Note: I only thought this was OK at the time, so that's probably coloring my analysis.)
American Psycho (+): May have gained more cred than any other movie on this list. Written off at the time for its excesses, its classic status is pretty well assured. Contains the performance that paroled Christian Bale from child actor movie jail in the most ferocious way possible. In a weird way, it's sort of the reverse stepchild of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which I hated as a comedy until I realized it was a horror movie, American Psycho took chunks of my psyche as a horror film until I realized it's the blackest of comedies. It's a carnivorous hate letter to materialism, and people are still talking about it today.
Bamboozled (+): One of Spike Lee's most flawed movies, which is probably saying something, but also one of the ones that has had one of the greatest effects of all his filmography, actually bringing some visibilty to Hollywood's long history of propagating harmful sterotypes.
Best In Show (+): The best-loved of Christopher Guest's mockumentaries (if it's not Waiting for Guffman). It's certainly my favorite, particularly for Fred Willard's absolutely bananas turn as a blinkered, idiotic, yammering dog show commentator. I think this movie has become legitimately beloved over the years. It certainly has done so for me.
Battle Royale(+): Have you heard that The Hunger Games totally ripped this movie off? You do if you ever read comments on Hunger Games reviews. Semi-famously, this is Quentin Tarantino's favorite movie of the aughts. So it's got that going for it.
Bamboozled (+): One of Spike Lee's most flawed movies, which is probably saying something, but also one of the ones that has had one of the greatest effects of all his filmography, actually bringing some visibilty to Hollywood's long history of propagating harmful sterotypes.
Best In Show (+): The best-loved of Christopher Guest's mockumentaries (if it's not Waiting for Guffman). It's certainly my favorite, particularly for Fred Willard's absolutely bananas turn as a blinkered, idiotic, yammering dog show commentator. I think this movie has become legitimately beloved over the years. It certainly has done so for me.
Battle Royale(+): Have you heard that The Hunger Games totally ripped this movie off? You do if you ever read comments on Hunger Games reviews. Semi-famously, this is Quentin Tarantino's favorite movie of the aughts. So it's got that going for it.
Cast Away(-): Hanks. Volleyball. FedEx. Remembered now mainly for (1) containing one of Tom Hanks' better performances, and certainly one of his showiest; (2) Wilson, a product placement that achieved icon status; (3) spawning Survivor, which spawned LOST, which spawned about 607,800 words from me.
Chocolat (-): This was nominated for Best Picture for some reason. I have nothing else to say about it.
Chocolat (-): This was nominated for Best Picture for some reason. I have nothing else to say about it.
Code Unknown (=): Likely the most obscure movie on this list (I admit I've not seen it yet, though I'm looking forward to rectifying that), but I'm including it because Michael Haenke is (rather unpredictably, given the confrontational nature of his work) becoming more and more prominent and admired, and this was one of his first movies to get serious critical attention.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon(-): My favorite movie of 2000, at the time at least (I haven't revisited in quite a while, but I remember it being gorgeous and compelling, and I loved the fights). I wouldn't have predicted this, but it seems to have faded considerably. I thought it would be considered a gold-plated classic by now, but perhaps critical opinion is docking it points for standing on the shoulders of an already-established genre. Or maybe it's not as good as I remember. It's been a while.
Dancer In The Dark (=): Lars von Trier is an odd one, but not as odd as Bjork. Together they made one of the most histrionic examples of miserablism into something that transcends into heart-rending tragedy; I succumb despite myself. Bjork's odd stream-of-consiousness songs work perfectly for her blind character's warped worldview. Until Melancholia this was certainly the director's most beautiful movie.
Erin Brokovich (-): Nominated for Best Picture. Won Julia Roberts a golden boy. Does anybody watch it anymore? Does anybody want to?
Gladiator (-): The official Best Picture of the year 2000. Probably one of the more Academy-embarrassing winners of the last few decades (alongside Braveheart, with which it shares a lot of similar qualities). Could be the proof-of-concept for Time Delayed Oscars, really. The thing is, it's OK. It's not terrible. But it's basically a big handsome dumb action movie with a pseudo-historical setting, top-shelf actors to lend a patina of respectability, a little bit of good CGI, and a little bit of bad CGI. It's an enjoyable enough spectacle, but about as worthy of a Best Picture as Pirates of the Caribbean.
In The Mood For Love (+): I'm guessing this is pretty obscure, but Wong Kar Wei's quiet love story quietly started showing up near the top of multiple critic's "Best of Decade" lists as 2010 drew to a close. I'm guessing ITMFL's profile is going to keep growing.
Memento (+): Christopher Nolan's debut, and probably still his best to date, an existential pretzel. The premise is one of the cleverest in years, but it's the execution that rockets this one to all-time status, turning a modern noir into a far deeper philosophical mind-bender. Now that Nolan is a Hollywood God, Memento's a small movie whose strengths are unlikely to be forgotten.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (+): The Coens are in the Kubrick zone at this point, by which I mean that all of their movies are going to at least merit consideration. O Brother isn't my favorite, but the music is top-notch, and Clooney in goof mode is fantastic. It's one of the better comic performances of the year.
Pitch Black (=): Jump-started the whole Vin Diesel thing, but it shouldn't be blamed for that. A memorable B-grade monster flick.
Pitch Black (=): Jump-started the whole Vin Diesel thing, but it shouldn't be blamed for that. A memorable B-grade monster flick.
Pollock (-): A decent biopic with strong performances, but I remember this primarily for one of the most laugh-out-loud bad pieces of dialogue ever, which I still quote to friends when the moment calls for it: "You've done it, Pollock. You've broken right through." It actually won a supporting Oscar for co-lead Marcia Gay Harden, the utterer of that line, and I think she deserved it just for surviving the saying of it. Ed Harris is a beast in this, as well.
Requiem For A Dream (-):As anti-drug screed, this is about the most heavy-handed propaganda imaginable, but it's also a master class in stylized montage and empathetic evokation of nightmare imagery. Clint Mansell's industrial score plays no small part in the sickness, but its Ellen Burstyn's aging pill-popper who sells the quease in the strongest of the four druggie threads.
Sexy Beast (+):Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!
No! No! No! NonononononononononononononoNO!
No! No! No! NonononononononononononononoNO!
Shadow Of The Vampire (=): Willem Dafoe is some kind of arch-fiend. I don't know how he got where he got to play Max Schreck. I don't want to know.
Snatch (+): On the rise since it was released to mixed, mainly confused reviews. It's an exercise in pure style, true. It's pretty much the exact same movie as Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, also true. It's still worth it. It's fun. As Brad Pitt's Pikey would say, "Marlmle flan bahley funt mable rang ding fuddle flan, brotha, nambletree?"
Traffic (-):This won Best Director and Best Supporting Actor, and probably came close to winning Best Picture. It was a well-directed, handsome sort of movie with plenty of good performances by veteran character actors. I think it's pretty decent, but it's pretty good like maybe putting 12 episodes of The Wire into a 2-hour sack would be. I could be wrong, but I think it's barely remembered these days. Let's ask the common Time-Delayed Oscars question: Is anybody still watching this? In twenty years, will it still be watched?
Unbreakable (+): M. Night Shyamalan has really taken a nose-dive, in no small part because of his insistance on writing his own scripts (as far as screenwriting goes, he's...an excellent visual stylist) and especially his bizarre fixation on putting an increasingly-ludicrous twist into every single movie. The twist is definitely the weakest part of this superhero origin story, but unless I'm mistaken, this has surpassed The Sixth Sense as the best-remembered effort from the director whose name I have to look up every time I need to spell it. Moody, dark, slow-paced, but very effective, as long as you shut it off with a minute to go.
X-Men (+): A credible start to a healthy franchise. Arguably the first strike in the modern golden age of super-heroing movies. Halle Berry providing us with the worst delivery of a Joss Whedon joke ever caught on film. And introducing Huge Ackmen.
Yi Yi: A One And A Two (+): This is also pretty obscure to the larger market, but looms large in best-of-decade critics polls. I'm guessing that, much like In The Mood For Love, it earns an ongoing reputation as years go by.
You Can Count On Me (+): A critical darling in 2000 that got shut out and is still highly-regarded, primarily on the basis of strong lead performances (both Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo came to prominance) and the contributions of writer/director Kenneth Lonergan, who has been wandering in the wilderness ever since his follow-up, Margaret, was all but stripped from him. This one is a sleeper.
And The Time-Delayed Oscars Go To. . .
 |
| "Hmmmmmm . . .looks like a mountain." |
Real List
Chocolat
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Erin Brockovitch
Gladiator
Traffic
Chocolat
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Erin Brockovitch
Gladiator
Traffic
Today's List
American Psycho
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
In The Mood For Love
Memento
You Can Count On Me
American Psycho
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
In The Mood For Love
Memento
You Can Count On Me
My pick: MementoProbable Winner: Memento
OK, let's break these down. First the movies that were actually nominated in 2000. Chocolat is such a trifle it's as though it never happened. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is probably the only movie good enough to be re-nominated, and even that might just be my own pro-CTHD finger on the scales. Erin Brockovich? I never saw this, but you know what I never hear? "Oh man, you never saw Erin Brockovich?? You have GOT to see it!" That's what I never hear. Gladiator is actually good enough to still be remembered. It's big dumb fun. It's not one of the five best movies of the year, though, and I think we've all come to grips with that now. Traffic is something that I think you'd probably like if you watched it again. But you're not going to, are you? Didn't think so.
So let's take a look at the real movies of 2000. American Psycho is now seen as one of the blackest of black satires, a horror comedy (horomedy? comorror? Sometimes words don't portmanteu like they oughta) bloodbath that's transcended its controversial source material. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon remains gorgeous, iconic, and thrilling, and not-at-all-silly-I-hope-if-I-watch-it-again. Most years there's a rather obscure art-house entry championed by critics that makes it into the winner's circle. In The Mood For Love fits the bill, and though I can't speak with much authority (having not seen it), based on the glowing decade-end retrospectives I read, you've probably not heard the last of this one. Memento is slowly building consensus as a masterpiece, and more on it shortly. Finally, You Can Count On Me has become a beloved acting/screenwriting showcase, though if I'm wrong about one movie on this list, it's probably YCCOM (I'd guess Best In Show or 28 Days Later would fill in if so – I can't quite believe that Almost Famous has gained steam since it failed to score 12 years ago).
Now, I loved Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.In 2000, it was my favorite movie of 2000. But Memento . . . Memento looms. Um, SPOILERS, YOU DUMMIES WHO WOULD COMPLAIN ABOUT SPOILERS ON A 12-YEAR OLD MOVIE. For most of its running time, it's "merely" an expertly crafted puzzle, in which you first attempt to simultaneously orient yourself within serially-amnesiac Leonard's frame of reference, as well as the forward/backward structure of the film itself; in which you next attempt to piece together the mystery that Leonard is trying to solve, namely the answer to the question "who killed his wife and left him in this condition?"; and in which finally you come, whether slowly or quickly, to the realization that there can't possibly be any answer to the questions Leonard seeks. It's something like a miracle that we come to the realization at essentially the exact same time as Leonard, that he himself is the originator and curator of the delusions which shape his worldview, and as we reach that realization, we see Leonard make the conscious decision to eschew truth in favor of fiction. It's a devastating and sympathetic portrait of the human situation. Aware, curious, entirely limited in perspective, and occasionally aware of just how limited. It's also a perfectly-toned noir, so if you don't care about the philosophical implications, you'll still have a good time at the movies.
So let's take a look at the real movies of 2000. American Psycho is now seen as one of the blackest of black satires, a horror comedy (horomedy? comorror? Sometimes words don't portmanteu like they oughta) bloodbath that's transcended its controversial source material. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon remains gorgeous, iconic, and thrilling, and not-at-all-silly-I-hope-if-I-watch-it-again. Most years there's a rather obscure art-house entry championed by critics that makes it into the winner's circle. In The Mood For Love fits the bill, and though I can't speak with much authority (having not seen it), based on the glowing decade-end retrospectives I read, you've probably not heard the last of this one. Memento is slowly building consensus as a masterpiece, and more on it shortly. Finally, You Can Count On Me has become a beloved acting/screenwriting showcase, though if I'm wrong about one movie on this list, it's probably YCCOM (I'd guess Best In Show
 |
| "This picture proves that my haircut was an inside job. Subscribe to my YouTube channel for full video evidence." |
Memento is the Best Picture of 2000. Moreover, I think this is now recognized. I bet it would win today.
Best Actor
Christian Bale is my pick. In retrospect, he's probably made to play the far-too-intense fellow with a charisma that makes you worry a little bit about your own safety when you're around him. But this is a movie that could not have worked without the button-down insanity he delivers, a quality even scarier when he's playing Dr. Jeckyl than when he lets Dr. Hyde get out the axe. Or the chainsaw. People say they had this reaction to Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lector, but I still haven't entirely recovered from Christian Bale in this thing.
Honorable mention to real-world winner Russell Crowe (who really was key to making this silly movie a monster hit and a critical darling), Guy Pierce, Ed Harris, and especially George Clooney, who was bona fide (and the gol-durned pater-familias).
Honorable mention to real-world winner Russell Crowe (who really was key to making this silly movie a monster hit and a critical darling), Guy Pierce, Ed Harris, and especially George Clooney, who was bona fide (and the gol-durned pater-familias).
Best Actress
Laura Linney. This is a guess. I don't actually have a strong opinion on this one. Julia Roberts won pretty much everything in her path for Erin Brockovich this year, and for all I know it was well-deserved. Perhaps she'd still win. However, my sense is that Linney's performance has displayed staying power, while Roberts, no longer Queen of Hollywood®, wouldn't be honored now.
Honorable mention to Bjork (that's right, Bjork) and Zhang Zyi.
Honorable mention to Bjork (that's right, Bjork) and Zhang Zyi.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
