Inglorious Basterds - 2009 - 1½ Stars, 4½ Stars

Actors: Brad Pitt, Christoph Waltz

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Note: Spoilers below.

I give this film two ratings because I feel it is unfair to combine my absolute abhorrence of the plot with my appreciation for the superb manner in which Tarantino works within this horrid conception.

The plot is awful for two reasons: the overwhelming presence of the Nazi, and Tarantino's self-congratulatory insistence on having his film revolve around the power of film. Beginning with Nazis: I don't like World War 2 films in general because of the total lack of moral ambiguity much of these films demonstrate. We are turned into Romans waiting for the Germans to be tossed to the lions. No doubt there's some particularly evil and conniving German, with immaculate suit, boundless ambition, and solely propaganda in his heart and head - oh, to see him killed, what glory! Tarantino revels in this - there are few other people whom an audience would tolerate seeing scalped, but Nazis, let's see that brain.

Second, the fact that this film revolves around the movie world in the 1940s is an even poorer choice. We get it: film has the power to transform minds, to make us laugh and cry and think and all of that wonderful stuff.

The film excels at creating and increasing tension - the scene in the bar is particularly impressive, with its game of shifting identity framing the Allies' attempt to disguise themselves. That is a virtuoso scene done by one of our greatest directors. So, too, is the opening scene of the film, an opening that immediately makes us tense. There are other flourishes throughout the movie that show that despite his love for himself and for lifting shots directly out of other films, Tarantino is really good at this whole movie-making thing.

I'm still confused by the scenes of Hitler and Goebbels laughing at the violence in the German film - is Tarantino implicating us as evil by watching his film, as we jam popcorn down our gullets being entertained by his depiction of extreme violence towards our 'enemies'? I have no idea, and I don't really care - Tarantino's film within a film device is just as loathsome a conception as the entire film.

Sunset Boulevard - 1950 - 4 Stars

Actors: Gloria Swanson, William Holden

Director: Billy Wilder

It's a real shame that most of Sunset Boulevard's behind-the-scenes tropes have been taken by lesser entertainments: the reclusive ex-film star, those who enable her fantastical life, and the crippling effect that diminishing fame and obsolescence has had on said film star. Even so, Sunset Boulevard still stands out. Its power mostly resides in Swanson's performance as silent film star Norma Desmond - she plays all the parts, from doting, to self-important, to pathetic, all quite believably.

Not helping the film is Wilder's need to reveal the end of the film at the beginning - he also does this in Double Indemnity, but here it seems to serve two purposes, neither good: it hooks the audience unnecessarily, and it makes the ending more believable. In both films, Wilder fails to trust his lead actor Everyman to hold the audience's attention, here larding up the first quarter of the film with reams of narration. While the overwhelming voiceover is cutely ironic in light of Desmond's insistence that films used to be done better without words, Holden's wry asides age poorly.

Inception - 2010 - 4 Stars

Actors: Leonardo Dicaprio, Ellen Page

Director: Christopher Nolan

Note: There are no spoilers here.

Inception is a terrifically inventive film, showcasing Christopher Nolan's talent for building fully fleshed out worlds. I am hoping, rather hopelessly, that this does not inspire a wave of imitators, but I am almost sure that it will. Nolan locates his film in a place that no one has really tried to do in this full a fashion, and pulls it off with a minimum of hokeyness and a minimum of exposition.

Ideally, this should have been two films, but unfortunately films with this kind of budget need to be brutally successful; they cannot pussyfoot around with greatness. Perhaps two films would have ruined things - the Wachowski brothers built an incredibly elegant house of cards with the opening film to the Matrix trilogy, then spent the remaining two films piling on more cards until it all collapsed.

Tokyo Story - 1953 - 4½ Stars

Actors: Chishu Ryu, Chieko Higashiyama

Director: Yasujiro Ozu

Tokyo Story is like if Curb Your Enthusiasm and King Lear had a Japanese baby together. Or perhaps it's more like an Oriental John Cassavetes film. Whatever the case, I had plenty of time during the film to think of these witticisms - it moves at a jarringly glacial pace. Detailing an elderly couple's trip to Tokyo to visit their grown children, the film is relentlessly mundane as their children take them around the city and are generally inconvenienced by their parents' visit. This pace is absolutely necessary and pays off in the second half. A film that could have very easily devolved into melodrama or mawkishness rises above both. Like Ikiru, it attempts to get at the heart of why we do anything at all.

Buffalo '66 - 1998 - 3½ Stars

Actors: Vincent Gallo, Christina Ricci

Director: Vincent Gallo

Note: Spoilers ahead.

Buffalo '66 would be better if it were in French. It's very much a foreign film - the plot is spare and wanders around, almost all the action of the film is talking, and Gallo lifts without hesitation from directors like Godard and Ozu. This is my second viewing of this film, and one thing I've never been able to get around in the film is Christina Ricci, who has almost no characteristics besides her ability to playfully lie. We know almost nothing about her by the end of the film, besides the fact that she's now attached to the mess of anxiety and repression that is Vincent Gallo's character. Does she follow him out of pity? Does she have a genuine interest in him? It makes less sense to me on a second viewing. If it were a foreign film, I would just attribute her character's bizarreness to the fact that foreign people are either completely crazy or wholly committed to fantasy. Alas, it's in English.

The film does a great job of capturing the shabby, blue-collarness of Buffalo - the bowling alleys, cracking sidewalks, cheap motels and ranch homes. That doesn't help me understand this bizarre film any better, though.

The 39 Steps - 1935 - 3½ Stars

Actors: Robert Donat, Madeline Carroll

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

My totally haphazard old film knowledge fails me when I see a film like The 39 Steps - I should probably not even bother rating such a film. The 39 Steps could be re-named the 39 Deus Ex Machinas - our heroes fall into and out of trouble so fast that we might miss it if we blinked. The film's plot is also exceptionally similar to North By Northwest (regular dude hears some spy shit, has to lam it).

One of the film's strengths is its 86 minute running time - modern directors would've made this 125 minutes, with a jive-talking pop-culture referencing panda and ponderous scenes of exposition where all the nonsense that happens in this movie gets explained - Hitchcock merely lets it all happen. Hitchcock also throws in a few inventive camera shots that suggest his later genius.

Zodiac - 2007 - 2½ Stars

Actors: Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo

Director: David Fincher

Zodiac belongs in a genre I call a theater movie. I suppose all films are theater movies - better experienced on a giant, mind-blocking screen. What's more important about a movie theater is that it's generally time-blocking. We get immersed in the film and time disappears.

On a small screen, however, Zodiac's 2 hour and 40 minute running time is painfully obvious. And while it's a solid thriller that follows the story of the mysterious Zodiac Killer, it is simply far too long for what it tries to accomplish. There has to be a way to tell this story more economically. Fincher stuffs everything in because he doesn't want the film to be merely a police procedural, so we're treated to bone-chilling murders and murder attempts. We're also treated to Jake Gyllenhaal's character, who appears entirely irrelevant until halfway through the film.

If I saw Zodiac in the theater, I'd've given it 3½ stars, maybe 4. 2½ hours of this film, however - Hitchcock correctly noted that any film can always be shorter.

Ratatouille - 2007 - 4 Stars

Voices: Patton Oswalt, Brad Garrett

Director: Brad Bird

It's been a long time since I've seen a Pixar film - I think the last one was the original Toy Story when it came out. I really want to hate Pixar - critically acclaimed and wildly popular? There has to be something insidious going on. Maybe Brad Bird rapes pelicans, or The Incredibles is actually an allegory about Aryan supermen. That all may be so, but they make a damn fine film. Ratatouille is thankfully free of pop-culture winks, it has a simple, timeless story that's told effectively.

Helping me through was the voice of Patton Oswalt, a most unlikely lead voice in a children's animated film, but he is pretty much note-perfect as Remy the Rat.

Dogville - 2004 - 4 Stars

Actors: Nicole Kidman, Stellan Skarsgaard

Director: Lars Von Trier

Dogville opens with a shot set above a 'street' - it clearly isn't a street, but a representation of one. We can see the tops of people's heads as they are in their homes - their homes are labeled Other items around the town are also labeled. I thought this was a cute Wes Anderson way to begin a film - that we'd soon be transported to a real movie set with actual houses, streets, etc. As it turns out, that's the entire film set.

A film with basically no set must rely very heavily on acting, and this film is lucky enough to have amazing actors. Though I give it full marks for the acting performances and utilization of style, the film fails in many other respects. It can also be painful to watch at times. Still, this sort of experimentation should be encouraged, even if it does result in an overwrought and heavy-handed film that runs nearly three hours in length.

Glengarry Glen Ross - 1992 - 4½ Stars

Actors: Jack Lemmon, Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey, Alan Arkin, Alec Baldwin

Director: James Foley

Glengarry Glen Ross has lost little of its luster since I last viewed it four years ago. A tale of four real estate salesmen in competition to keep their jobs, using every sales deception imaginable, with the least ethical path usually winning out. It's also an acting clinic - watching these great actors alternately squirm and bluster, wince and connive.

Writer David Mamet tries to show the pitfalls of wrapping up one's identity in one's job - for if a person like this is no longer good at their job, what are they? Lemmon's Shelley Levene, who is at points confused, scared, confident, triumphant, pleading, and wheedling, manages to state this central point without saying it.

My Best Fiend - 1999 - 4 Stars

Director: Werner Herzog

Note: Spoilers for Fitzcarraldo ahead

My Best Fiend looks at Werner Herzog's relationship with the legendarily troubled actor Klaus Kinski, with whom Herzog made five films. Kinski's incredible intensity on screen was dwarfed by his intensity off it, as he constantly stormed into rages whenever something was not the way he wanted it.

I get the sense that Herzog is stretching the truth in this documentary - he seems like that sort of truth-stretching sort. Regardless, there is one moment that captures their relationship - as they are filming the famous scene near the end of Fitzcarraldo where the boat is smashing into the sides of the river, a cameraman gets seriously injured when the boat rams into a bank with great force. Kinski and Herzog are unharmed and recounting how far they flew while this cameraman nurses his bloodied hand - there is little concern for him, as both are more interested in telling their experience of what went on. It is this self-absorbed quality that a great artist must have.

The Taking Of Pelham 123 - 2009 - 1 Star

Actors: John Travolta, Denzel Washington

Director: Tony Scott

I don't normally review films this putrid on this blog, but I alighted upon this stunning piece of drivel on television and was compelled to watch it.

Why remake a masterpiece? The original Taking of Pelham 123 is a great film, a gritty 70s New York triumph about an attempted takeover and ransom of a New York City subway train. This movie is a complete disaster, substituting Robert Shaw's taciturn, meticulous terrorist with John Travolta ham, several subplots that are totally unneeded, a bizarre commentary on the nature of Wall Street, and terrible direction - it's as if the director thinks that if the camera stays still for more than three seconds that we will immediately become bored.

Film remakes can have some value - they can provide new interpretations of old classics, or update films for a new generation. One gets the sense in watching this, however, that Gone With The Wind needed a backtalking chimpanzee, or that The Godfather needed a courtroom scene. All Hollywood 'style', absolutely no substance, and utterly forgettable - stick with the original.