Actors: James Cagney, Edward Woods
Director: William Wellman
The Public Enemy opens with a statement that this film is intended as a cautionary tale about hoodlumery and gangsterdom. It then sets out very methodically showing that by way of vignettes - we see James Cagney's rise to being on the payroll of a prominent bootlegger, then his fall when the winds of the mob world shift against him. The trouble is, few of these scenes feel real - they all feel as though they are in the service of the opening statement. Worse, Season 3 of The Sopranos spoils the best scenes. Still, James Cagney's performance is worth seeing, even if the rest of the film is ho-hum by today's standards.
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
A Separation - 2011 - 4½ Stars
Actors: Peyman Moadi, Leila Hatami
Director: Ashgar Farhadi
There are films where the individual pieces fit together to form a much greater whole, and films where the whole spills out all over the pieces - the pieces don't form a whole. I was going to call this film Cassevetes In Iran, but that's doing this film a disservice - Cassavetes films are spilling films, they might end up somewhere or nowhere at all. This one knows what it's doing at all times, and it's all here - class, culture, love, family, and ultimately what we value highest. Confident direction also helps what could be a visually uninteresting film.
Director: Ashgar Farhadi
There are films where the individual pieces fit together to form a much greater whole, and films where the whole spills out all over the pieces - the pieces don't form a whole. I was going to call this film Cassevetes In Iran, but that's doing this film a disservice - Cassavetes films are spilling films, they might end up somewhere or nowhere at all. This one knows what it's doing at all times, and it's all here - class, culture, love, family, and ultimately what we value highest. Confident direction also helps what could be a visually uninteresting film.
Friday, March 8, 2013
The Imposter - 2011 - 4 Stars
Subject: An adult in Spain poses as a missing child from Texas
Director: Bart Layton
The Imposter features at least one Errol Morris moment - I'm defining an Errol Morris moment as a point at which you have been watching utter insanity unfold on screen for a good long while, and then things get exponentially crazier. As such, I can overlook the fact that it seems to be a made-for-TV documentary that got dropped into a theater release - an alternate title for the film could be The Establishing Shot (and indeed, its actual title is pretty bad). Regardless, it pulls off something I'm not sure I've seen a documentary film attempt. A must-see.
Director: Bart Layton
The Imposter features at least one Errol Morris moment - I'm defining an Errol Morris moment as a point at which you have been watching utter insanity unfold on screen for a good long while, and then things get exponentially crazier. As such, I can overlook the fact that it seems to be a made-for-TV documentary that got dropped into a theater release - an alternate title for the film could be The Establishing Shot (and indeed, its actual title is pretty bad). Regardless, it pulls off something I'm not sure I've seen a documentary film attempt. A must-see.
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
The Getaway - 1972 - 4 Stars
Actors: Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Note: Very Minor Spoilers
A film directed by Peckinpah and written by Walter Hill, while watching it I felt that two testicles simply wasn't enough - all male viewers of this film should be issued an extra ballsack to hang under their existing one. At the very least, all theatergoers should've been given a Stetson. Regardless, this was still quite an enjoyable film, featuring some excellent setpieces and tension building.
Even though this film is unnecessarily long at 123 minutes, I like the strange twists and turns at the margins. There are Buffalo films like Cabin In The Woods, and then there's anti-Buffalo ones like this, featuring bizarre scenes with Virgil Salazzo coercing a veterinarian to clean a gunshot wound while he has a kitten perched on his naked chest. Sometimes unnecessary scenes - the development of secondary characters, or interactions between our main characters and people who have no bearing on the plot - suggest life how it's lived.
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Note: Very Minor Spoilers
A film directed by Peckinpah and written by Walter Hill, while watching it I felt that two testicles simply wasn't enough - all male viewers of this film should be issued an extra ballsack to hang under their existing one. At the very least, all theatergoers should've been given a Stetson. Regardless, this was still quite an enjoyable film, featuring some excellent setpieces and tension building.
Even though this film is unnecessarily long at 123 minutes, I like the strange twists and turns at the margins. There are Buffalo films like Cabin In The Woods, and then there's anti-Buffalo ones like this, featuring bizarre scenes with Virgil Salazzo coercing a veterinarian to clean a gunshot wound while he has a kitten perched on his naked chest. Sometimes unnecessary scenes - the development of secondary characters, or interactions between our main characters and people who have no bearing on the plot - suggest life how it's lived.
Monday, March 4, 2013
The Cabin In The Woods - 2011 - 3½ Stars
Actors: Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth
Director: Drew Goddard
Note: Minor Spoilers Ahead
I feel like the most ignored aspect of our age as it relates to art is just how many stories we are bombarded with. As a consequence of this irradiation, story-makers come up with new stories by nesting them in older stories, or relating them to process of creating stories. Cabin in the Woods's gimmick establishes that if we are familiar with the artifice of horror films, why not add an additional insane layer of artifice over and above that one?
There's all sorts of play with the idea of a horror film viewer as a cruel person - the implication of the Cabin gimmick is that by exposing ourselves to a story where youngsters are needlessly maimed or killed by a strange force, we need and/or want that death to happen. I give this film high marks for inventiveness, but it plays in a territory of cuteness that I have a difficult time loving.
Director: Drew Goddard
Note: Minor Spoilers Ahead
I feel like the most ignored aspect of our age as it relates to art is just how many stories we are bombarded with. As a consequence of this irradiation, story-makers come up with new stories by nesting them in older stories, or relating them to process of creating stories. Cabin in the Woods's gimmick establishes that if we are familiar with the artifice of horror films, why not add an additional insane layer of artifice over and above that one?
There's all sorts of play with the idea of a horror film viewer as a cruel person - the implication of the Cabin gimmick is that by exposing ourselves to a story where youngsters are needlessly maimed or killed by a strange force, we need and/or want that death to happen. I give this film high marks for inventiveness, but it plays in a territory of cuteness that I have a difficult time loving.
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