Actors: Jared Gilman, Kara Hayward
Director: Wes Anderson
It's been a long time since I've seen a 'new' Wes Anderson film - likely close to five years - and I think the layoff has energized me as well as him. I've forgiven his dollhouse aesthetics - Ozu has this fussiness about interior spaces, what's wrong with wanting to be precise? I've forgiven his unnecessary archness, and oversincerity cast as humor - a trait certainly on display in this film, but limited to the background. And I love his strengths here, as he invents a fake geography and literature (and I think new songs) as well for his world.
Most of all, I think Wes Anderson's aesthetic works best with children. All of his films feature children, but many of them are played by adult actors and are actually adults. These characters are children in that they haven't yet realized that the world isn't their playground, and that shooting for the moon and missing slightly isn't the end of the world. Awkward dialogue works for children, too, because children are awkward - I could see some of this film being laughed at in a theater, but I'm not sure I laughed once. That doesn't mean I didn't still enjoy myself.
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Marathon Man - 1976 - 4 Stars
Actors: Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier
Director: John Schlesinger
Marathon Man is what I'm going to term a Buffalo film - the sort of movie where every part of it gets used. No element is introduced and forgotten. This can feel satisfying or manipulative - I tend towards manipulative, because it increases the amount of artifice. While every part here gets used, I'm not sure every part is necessary. That said, Marathon Man features at least three excellent setpieces, strong visual work, and solid plotting. Maybe I'm jaded, but they just don't do paranoia like they did in the 1970s.
William Devane plays a creepy guy in this - I don't know how, between this and Family Plot, he didn't get more work as a go-to slimeball. Maybe William Atherton kept beating him out for parts in the 1980s.
Director: John Schlesinger
Marathon Man is what I'm going to term a Buffalo film - the sort of movie where every part of it gets used. No element is introduced and forgotten. This can feel satisfying or manipulative - I tend towards manipulative, because it increases the amount of artifice. While every part here gets used, I'm not sure every part is necessary. That said, Marathon Man features at least three excellent setpieces, strong visual work, and solid plotting. Maybe I'm jaded, but they just don't do paranoia like they did in the 1970s.
William Devane plays a creepy guy in this - I don't know how, between this and Family Plot, he didn't get more work as a go-to slimeball. Maybe William Atherton kept beating him out for parts in the 1980s.
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
The Fugitive Kind - 1961 - 3½ Stars
Actors: Marlon Brando, Anna Magnani
Director: Sidney Lumet
The Fugitive Kind is based on a play, and plays often present big challenges to movie writers and directors. There tend to be more monologues, and these can be difficult to stage and frame in an interesting way. Plays often take place in a limited number of locations, so the film version can start to feel hemmed in by its setting. Plays get by on the vitality of the actors right in front of us - movie acting has a larger barrier.
The Fugitive Kind is loaded with symbolism, and this is one element of plays that I don't think translates well to the screen - plays are clearly bounded by three walls. We know at all points that it is a production, and we're more willing to forgive unrealistic choices for the sake of symbolism, because we're always confronted with the artifice. (This is part of why Dogville works as a movie - stage that film on a set made to look like a small town and it likely falls apart). Lumet makes some great choices - his close-in work reminds me of 12 Angry Men - but he cannot fully overcome the play-ness of the source material.
Director: Sidney Lumet
The Fugitive Kind is based on a play, and plays often present big challenges to movie writers and directors. There tend to be more monologues, and these can be difficult to stage and frame in an interesting way. Plays often take place in a limited number of locations, so the film version can start to feel hemmed in by its setting. Plays get by on the vitality of the actors right in front of us - movie acting has a larger barrier.
The Fugitive Kind is loaded with symbolism, and this is one element of plays that I don't think translates well to the screen - plays are clearly bounded by three walls. We know at all points that it is a production, and we're more willing to forgive unrealistic choices for the sake of symbolism, because we're always confronted with the artifice. (This is part of why Dogville works as a movie - stage that film on a set made to look like a small town and it likely falls apart). Lumet makes some great choices - his close-in work reminds me of 12 Angry Men - but he cannot fully overcome the play-ness of the source material.
Monday, February 18, 2013
Jeff, Who Lives At Home - 2012 - 3 Stars
Actors: Jason Segel, Ed Helms
Director: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
The Duplass brothers seem like the new Millenium's answer to John Cassavetes - their films are about the moment that is happening on screen. While Jeff, Who Lives At Home builds to a crescendo, that crescendo is not very sensible if one considers all the action before it, but those moments are irrelevant - it's about what's happening now. They get solid performances out of excellent actors, and their films are more about performance than super-sharp dialogue or plotting.
One thing I've found difficult to parse in movies that are kinda comedies such as this one is the reality of certain comic characters - it's as if the comic aspects are heightened to soothe what might be a very bored audience otherwise, but this heightening robs the film of some pathos it could have otherwise elicited.
Director: Jay Duplass, Mark Duplass
The Duplass brothers seem like the new Millenium's answer to John Cassavetes - their films are about the moment that is happening on screen. While Jeff, Who Lives At Home builds to a crescendo, that crescendo is not very sensible if one considers all the action before it, but those moments are irrelevant - it's about what's happening now. They get solid performances out of excellent actors, and their films are more about performance than super-sharp dialogue or plotting.
One thing I've found difficult to parse in movies that are kinda comedies such as this one is the reality of certain comic characters - it's as if the comic aspects are heightened to soothe what might be a very bored audience otherwise, but this heightening robs the film of some pathos it could have otherwise elicited.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Modern Romance - 1981 - 4 Stars
Actors: Albert Brooks, Kathryn Harrold
Director: Albert Brooks
There are lowercase c comedies which involve ridiculous people getting into ridiculous situations saying ridiculous things. Hollywood has made an industry of these. Then there are capital C Comedies that try to get at the way people actually are, where the humor often derives from seeing a heightened version of ourself on the screen. Modern Romance belongs in the latter category and succeeds beautifully at portraying the neuroses involved with an on-again, off-again love affair.
Brooks utilizes a device I have almost never seen in a comedy film: the long take. After his breakup we get a several minute long shot of him bouncing around his apartment with uncertainty. Comedies usually excise the mundane, but this one revels in it, mining Brooks's character's self-doubt beautifully. Furthermore, Brooks's character exists in a lived-in world - he has a real job that's not just a series of montages. The film uses this job to comment on his love life in two brilliant sequences.
Director: Albert Brooks
There are lowercase c comedies which involve ridiculous people getting into ridiculous situations saying ridiculous things. Hollywood has made an industry of these. Then there are capital C Comedies that try to get at the way people actually are, where the humor often derives from seeing a heightened version of ourself on the screen. Modern Romance belongs in the latter category and succeeds beautifully at portraying the neuroses involved with an on-again, off-again love affair.
Brooks utilizes a device I have almost never seen in a comedy film: the long take. After his breakup we get a several minute long shot of him bouncing around his apartment with uncertainty. Comedies usually excise the mundane, but this one revels in it, mining Brooks's character's self-doubt beautifully. Furthermore, Brooks's character exists in a lived-in world - he has a real job that's not just a series of montages. The film uses this job to comment on his love life in two brilliant sequences.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
The Ambassador - 2011 - No Rating
Subject: A journalist attempts to pass as a 'business diplomat' in Africa
Director: Mads Brugger
When I was young, I had a National Geographic book called Our World that contained maps and blurbs about all the countries of the world. Since it was a National Geographic book, positive traits were accentuated and negative ones softened - countries with intractable civil wars were also described as beautiful, etc. African countries's vast resources would also be mentioned, as though those were a way out of poverty and suffering for its nation's citizens. As The Ambassador shows, suffering is only increased by the presence of valuable resources, as the world's wealthier nations figure out ways to bribe corrupt governments for cheap access to said resources.
The Ambassador is part investigative journalism, part satire, part weird Morgan Spurlock/Sascha Baron Cohen stunt. We see secretly filmed conversations and events as Brugger obtains papers that claim he is Liberia's ambassador to the Central African Republic, papers which would enable him to transport conflict diamonds from the Republic back to Europe without scrutiny. It's one of the strangest documentaries I've seen, but it adds up to less than the sum of its parts, in part because we're unsure just how deep the stunt goes.
Director: Mads Brugger
When I was young, I had a National Geographic book called Our World that contained maps and blurbs about all the countries of the world. Since it was a National Geographic book, positive traits were accentuated and negative ones softened - countries with intractable civil wars were also described as beautiful, etc. African countries's vast resources would also be mentioned, as though those were a way out of poverty and suffering for its nation's citizens. As The Ambassador shows, suffering is only increased by the presence of valuable resources, as the world's wealthier nations figure out ways to bribe corrupt governments for cheap access to said resources.
The Ambassador is part investigative journalism, part satire, part weird Morgan Spurlock/Sascha Baron Cohen stunt. We see secretly filmed conversations and events as Brugger obtains papers that claim he is Liberia's ambassador to the Central African Republic, papers which would enable him to transport conflict diamonds from the Republic back to Europe without scrutiny. It's one of the strangest documentaries I've seen, but it adds up to less than the sum of its parts, in part because we're unsure just how deep the stunt goes.
Friday, February 1, 2013
Across 110th Street - 1972 - 2½ Stars
Actors: Anthony Quinn, Yaphet Kotto
Director: Barry Shear
I was trying to get information on Wikipedia about the titular song (played so memorably at the beginning of Jackie Brown) and ended up seeing information for this movie. According to critics, 'it is elevated above normal blaxploitation fare'. I'd agree with that assessment, but I'd also lament that elevation. The film sets up to be better than what it turns out to be - the second half of the movie is perfunctory in almost all respects.
One thing Across 110th St does really well, as do many 1970s on location New York films - they get all kinds of interesting shots when they're in apartments. This is because New York apartments are so damn small that the director has to be creative.
Director: Barry Shear
I was trying to get information on Wikipedia about the titular song (played so memorably at the beginning of Jackie Brown) and ended up seeing information for this movie. According to critics, 'it is elevated above normal blaxploitation fare'. I'd agree with that assessment, but I'd also lament that elevation. The film sets up to be better than what it turns out to be - the second half of the movie is perfunctory in almost all respects.
One thing Across 110th St does really well, as do many 1970s on location New York films - they get all kinds of interesting shots when they're in apartments. This is because New York apartments are so damn small that the director has to be creative.
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