Subject: How Los Angeles is portrayed in movies
Director: Thom Andersen
Los Angeles Plays Itself is a remarkable chronicling of Los Angeles's history through the films that are set there. What do directors focus on about the LA landscape? What do they tend to leave out? What landmarks are often shooting locations? What kind of sociopolitical commentary can we gin up from their choices?
Los Angeles Plays Itself has the difficulty of overcoming its idiosyncratic narrator - it's unclear exactly what his thesis is or how much of his documentary's opinions we should attribute to mere taste. There's a lot of interesting points made about life in LA through film - the fact that there are several locations around town that appear from the outside to be regular businesses but that function only as film sets is certainly an unnerving commitment to unreality. With his final conclusion built around the greatness of Los Angeles set Neorealistic films - a genre I certainly enjoy, but I recognize its fundamental boringness - it's clear that this person wants something different out of film than most of us.
Friday, December 25, 2015
Django Unchained - 2012 - 3 Stars
Actors: Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz
Director: Quentin Tarantino
It's neat to see a film where you think 'Only one person could have made this movie.' Django Unchained is a singular vision, a whirlwind of constant motion and violence. Beyond that, Tarantino is still a master of creating tension through dialogue and dramatic irony. He is also not a master of reining himself in - 150 minutes of this near-mythical story hung on characters who are barely 2 dimensional is certainly a nod to Leone and Peckinpah, but not a good one. The film loses all tension in the final 20 minutes as the film glories in its own ethos some more.
Part of me finds Quentin Tarantino the person so amusing that when I see a really creative setpiece in one of his films, I just imagine him excitedly explaining it to whoever's around him.
Director: Quentin Tarantino
It's neat to see a film where you think 'Only one person could have made this movie.' Django Unchained is a singular vision, a whirlwind of constant motion and violence. Beyond that, Tarantino is still a master of creating tension through dialogue and dramatic irony. He is also not a master of reining himself in - 150 minutes of this near-mythical story hung on characters who are barely 2 dimensional is certainly a nod to Leone and Peckinpah, but not a good one. The film loses all tension in the final 20 minutes as the film glories in its own ethos some more.
Part of me finds Quentin Tarantino the person so amusing that when I see a really creative setpiece in one of his films, I just imagine him excitedly explaining it to whoever's around him.
The Kid Stays In The Picture - 2002 - No Rating
Subject: The life of producer Robert Evans
Director: Nanette Burstein, Brett Morgen
Is the Robert Evans documentary good? You betcha. Does it rely too much on Robert Evans ridiculous narration style? Oh yeah. Is it still fascinating because it covers a rise to prominence that is probably impossible in today's corporate, dollars-first cinema world? Can't say that it doesn't.
The Kid Stays In The Picture assembles a impressive amount of photos, newspaper headlines, and archival footage to build around Robert Evans' absurd narration of his own life. Some of the stories are both amazing and amazingly told - if you want to hear about film in the 1970s, this is a good place to start. Are some of the stories here clearly false? You know it. Do you enjoy hearing them anyway? You betcha.
Director: Nanette Burstein, Brett Morgen
Is the Robert Evans documentary good? You betcha. Does it rely too much on Robert Evans ridiculous narration style? Oh yeah. Is it still fascinating because it covers a rise to prominence that is probably impossible in today's corporate, dollars-first cinema world? Can't say that it doesn't.
The Kid Stays In The Picture assembles a impressive amount of photos, newspaper headlines, and archival footage to build around Robert Evans' absurd narration of his own life. Some of the stories are both amazing and amazingly told - if you want to hear about film in the 1970s, this is a good place to start. Are some of the stories here clearly false? You know it. Do you enjoy hearing them anyway? You betcha.
Monday, November 9, 2015
Spectre - 2015 - 3 Stars
Actors: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz
Director: Sam Mendes
Surveillance culture has a huge problem with the spy film. When your location is known at all times by various shadowy organizations, the notion of sneaking around is gone. A spy such as James Bond is only allowed to pry inasmuch as those seeking him allow. Rather than try to evade this 21st century reality, the film steers into this particular skid. I'm not sure I like the results.
There's some excellent action setpieces in this film - a great opener, as all Bond films should have, a car chase, some fun bits with a helicopter. There's also a disquieting amount of backstory - Bond's past, always something best left to the viewer's imagination, is used once again to support the film's present. There's some very hoaky plot jiggering going on in this movie beyond that as well. The James Bond film franchise is a franchise for a reason - people like seeing a spy do cool spy stuff, have sex with a woman he barely knows, and beat up who needs beating up. They don't want to know who James Bond was as a child.
This is the last film with Daniel Craig, and I'm hoping very much that they abandon this form of light serialization and go back to the old formula - sure, Bond plots are both dumb and forgettable, but that's the point. You remember a villain, maybe a setpiece, the girl, and a joke. All these plot details I'm remembering now did not make my theatergoing experience a better one.
Director: Sam Mendes
Surveillance culture has a huge problem with the spy film. When your location is known at all times by various shadowy organizations, the notion of sneaking around is gone. A spy such as James Bond is only allowed to pry inasmuch as those seeking him allow. Rather than try to evade this 21st century reality, the film steers into this particular skid. I'm not sure I like the results.
There's some excellent action setpieces in this film - a great opener, as all Bond films should have, a car chase, some fun bits with a helicopter. There's also a disquieting amount of backstory - Bond's past, always something best left to the viewer's imagination, is used once again to support the film's present. There's some very hoaky plot jiggering going on in this movie beyond that as well. The James Bond film franchise is a franchise for a reason - people like seeing a spy do cool spy stuff, have sex with a woman he barely knows, and beat up who needs beating up. They don't want to know who James Bond was as a child.
This is the last film with Daniel Craig, and I'm hoping very much that they abandon this form of light serialization and go back to the old formula - sure, Bond plots are both dumb and forgettable, but that's the point. You remember a villain, maybe a setpiece, the girl, and a joke. All these plot details I'm remembering now did not make my theatergoing experience a better one.
Friday, October 2, 2015
The Warriors - 1979 - 3½ Stars
Actors: Michael Beck, James Remar
Director: Walter Hill
In a lot of my recent reviews, I've mentioned my teenage self as the ideal viewer for films. I think perhaps that's why I haven't watched a lot of movies lately - I feel disengaged from them in some way. Few people I know seem to watch many movies anymore. Netflix's selection of movies is quite dismal. Regardless, they've got The Warriors, and I wondered again about how my teenage self would engage with this, especially since I know it's a favorite of people born between, say, 1965 and 1975. I don't think he'd like it very much.
The Warriors is a lot about notions of masculinity and adherence to codes; even within violent groups of men, there are codes. There's also a threadbare plot and threadheavy costuming - seriously, the costumes in this movie are ridiculous. I cannot tell if this film was attempting campiness or a very strange form of seriousness - I think given the times, director, and location of this movie that it was doing the latter. It grows tiresome in its latter third but does not overstay its welcome. Like so few films I've seen from recent years, it suggests a world outside the movie that the viewer can wonder about - why is there a disc jockey who cares about gang wars? How do these gangs form? But who cares about all that, it's just a well-directed action film - it's just a little too ridiculous and movie-ish for me to love.
Director: Walter Hill
In a lot of my recent reviews, I've mentioned my teenage self as the ideal viewer for films. I think perhaps that's why I haven't watched a lot of movies lately - I feel disengaged from them in some way. Few people I know seem to watch many movies anymore. Netflix's selection of movies is quite dismal. Regardless, they've got The Warriors, and I wondered again about how my teenage self would engage with this, especially since I know it's a favorite of people born between, say, 1965 and 1975. I don't think he'd like it very much.
The Warriors is a lot about notions of masculinity and adherence to codes; even within violent groups of men, there are codes. There's also a threadbare plot and threadheavy costuming - seriously, the costumes in this movie are ridiculous. I cannot tell if this film was attempting campiness or a very strange form of seriousness - I think given the times, director, and location of this movie that it was doing the latter. It grows tiresome in its latter third but does not overstay its welcome. Like so few films I've seen from recent years, it suggests a world outside the movie that the viewer can wonder about - why is there a disc jockey who cares about gang wars? How do these gangs form? But who cares about all that, it's just a well-directed action film - it's just a little too ridiculous and movie-ish for me to love.
Monday, June 1, 2015
Snowpiercer - 2014 - 3 Stars
Actors: Chris Evans, Song Kang-Ho
Director: Boon Jong-Ho
Note: Theoretical spoilers ahead
Sometimes I'd like to send a film to my former self because I feel like he would enjoy it more than I did. Snowpiercer is exactly the kind of film I would've liked a lot in 2000 and bought on DVD in 2003 - it's got some great setpieces, it's not wilfully stupid, and it has a point to make. Ultimately, I just wasn't able to sympathize with the characters, even after a great reveal more than halfway through the film. The film submarines itself beyond that, resorting to crude Nolanisms that may have elicited a lot of 'Wows' among more naive theatergoers such as my 18 year old self. Regardless, this is by and large a dystopian film, and I like my dystopias to be messy and have lots of ideas - as societies, even well-controlled ones, do - this one simply didn't have enough. Some very excellent scenes though.
Director: Boon Jong-Ho
Note: Theoretical spoilers ahead
Sometimes I'd like to send a film to my former self because I feel like he would enjoy it more than I did. Snowpiercer is exactly the kind of film I would've liked a lot in 2000 and bought on DVD in 2003 - it's got some great setpieces, it's not wilfully stupid, and it has a point to make. Ultimately, I just wasn't able to sympathize with the characters, even after a great reveal more than halfway through the film. The film submarines itself beyond that, resorting to crude Nolanisms that may have elicited a lot of 'Wows' among more naive theatergoers such as my 18 year old self. Regardless, this is by and large a dystopian film, and I like my dystopias to be messy and have lots of ideas - as societies, even well-controlled ones, do - this one simply didn't have enough. Some very excellent scenes though.
Sunday, April 5, 2015
Last Action Hero - 1993 - 2 Stars
Actors: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Austin O'Brien
Director: John McTiernan
Note: Spoilers Ahead
If action films are like eating Doritos - sometimes delicious, never nutritious - Last Action Hero is like reading the ingredients of Doritos - incomprehensible and depressing. This film is a solid deconstruction of the action genre and includes some excellent Naked Gun-style slapstick comedy and parody. The trouble is, it gets all this out of the way in the first 45 minutes or so, leaving a leaden 85 minutes for this film to try our patience as it heaps one bizarre sequence on another. The trouble with deconstructing an action film and then trying to have one is that what little tension action films generate is gone, and what's left is the intentionally bad and weird dialogue of an action film and action set pieces which no longer thrill or amuse. There was probably a good movie in here - although hiring Schwarzenegger and giving him reams of dialogue is going to be tough sledding even with a better script - but the film tries to get us to care about these characters while flashing a neon sign above them at all times that says 'These are characters in a movie, which is fake'. It doesn't work.
Director: John McTiernan
Note: Spoilers Ahead
If action films are like eating Doritos - sometimes delicious, never nutritious - Last Action Hero is like reading the ingredients of Doritos - incomprehensible and depressing. This film is a solid deconstruction of the action genre and includes some excellent Naked Gun-style slapstick comedy and parody. The trouble is, it gets all this out of the way in the first 45 minutes or so, leaving a leaden 85 minutes for this film to try our patience as it heaps one bizarre sequence on another. The trouble with deconstructing an action film and then trying to have one is that what little tension action films generate is gone, and what's left is the intentionally bad and weird dialogue of an action film and action set pieces which no longer thrill or amuse. There was probably a good movie in here - although hiring Schwarzenegger and giving him reams of dialogue is going to be tough sledding even with a better script - but the film tries to get us to care about these characters while flashing a neon sign above them at all times that says 'These are characters in a movie, which is fake'. It doesn't work.
The Giant Mechanical Man - 2012 - 2 Stars
Actors: Jenna Fischer, Chris Messina
Director: Lee Kirk
There's a strange intersection between indie film and sitcom comedy - as sitcoms get more sophisticated and indie film gets more conversational, the twain have met and know one another. This evolution has enabled indie films to generate more regular laughs, in the manner of a comedy, but has impacted characterization - sitcom-type characters carry far, far too much in this film.
This film has some very good performances and the writing is strong in places, but it relies on some worn out tropes. If we want to make food analogies, and who doesn't, the sauce was quite good but it could not cover up the taste and texture of the meat.
Director: Lee Kirk
There's a strange intersection between indie film and sitcom comedy - as sitcoms get more sophisticated and indie film gets more conversational, the twain have met and know one another. This evolution has enabled indie films to generate more regular laughs, in the manner of a comedy, but has impacted characterization - sitcom-type characters carry far, far too much in this film.
This film has some very good performances and the writing is strong in places, but it relies on some worn out tropes. If we want to make food analogies, and who doesn't, the sauce was quite good but it could not cover up the taste and texture of the meat.
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Her - 2013 - 3½ Stars
Actors: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson
Director: Spike Jonze
Note: Minor spoilers ahead
I will give her credit for this - it is not laughable. This premise could've very easily fallen apart and been a Hindenburg-sized disaster, except it'd be a Hindenburg you laugh at. So the film works on that level. And the film's dialogue writing is pretty excellent. Setting a film in the near-future is one of the trickiest things to do. Even more tricky is setting a film in the near-future while having it be about mundane day-to-day life - this movie is not really interested in the world around the movie (good thing, too, because that's almost certainly its largest weakness). It's a large story inside a small story inside a large story, and the performances carry the smallness of the story perfectly. Johansson does incredible voice work - rarely does voice work have to convey the range that she manages here.
Director: Spike Jonze
Note: Minor spoilers ahead
I will give her credit for this - it is not laughable. This premise could've very easily fallen apart and been a Hindenburg-sized disaster, except it'd be a Hindenburg you laugh at. So the film works on that level. And the film's dialogue writing is pretty excellent. Setting a film in the near-future is one of the trickiest things to do. Even more tricky is setting a film in the near-future while having it be about mundane day-to-day life - this movie is not really interested in the world around the movie (good thing, too, because that's almost certainly its largest weakness). It's a large story inside a small story inside a large story, and the performances carry the smallness of the story perfectly. Johansson does incredible voice work - rarely does voice work have to convey the range that she manages here.
Saturday, January 17, 2015
In A World... - 2013 - 3½ Stars
Actors: Lake Bell, Demetri Martin
Director: Lake Bell
There's a style of writing that I don't want to call 'sitcom writing' but I'm going to - it's the kind of writing where the person thinks that the script needs a laugh in a particular place. 'This needs a laugh'. And so you get people saying mildly funny things in exposition or everyone in the movie is just constantly quipping. It's what modern audiences are accustomed to. It unfortunately sounds awful to me if it's not done really well, and there's parts in here that are, and parts in here that aren't. Either way, I think this is a debut film, and it's a hell of a debut if so - plot contrivances and the sitcom style of writing aside, this movie reminded me of Woody Allen, but in a good way - it's an examination of a very small, very competitive place. I'm excited to see what's next.
Director: Lake Bell
There's a style of writing that I don't want to call 'sitcom writing' but I'm going to - it's the kind of writing where the person thinks that the script needs a laugh in a particular place. 'This needs a laugh'. And so you get people saying mildly funny things in exposition or everyone in the movie is just constantly quipping. It's what modern audiences are accustomed to. It unfortunately sounds awful to me if it's not done really well, and there's parts in here that are, and parts in here that aren't. Either way, I think this is a debut film, and it's a hell of a debut if so - plot contrivances and the sitcom style of writing aside, this movie reminded me of Woody Allen, but in a good way - it's an examination of a very small, very competitive place. I'm excited to see what's next.
Seven Psychopaths - 2012 - 3½ Stars
Actors: Colin Farrell, Sam Rockwell
Director: Martin McDonagh
A friend of mine once did a brilliant deconstruction of the 'Writer's Block' genre of film - where a once-successful (and recently divorced) writer grapples with difficulty in coming up with new ideas but is brought out of his isolation by his friend who takes life as it comes and isn't so hung up on thinking about things. Not only was it a pitch-perfect satire, but it made me re-evaluate the entire genre - I hadn't realized it was something so formulaic. Martin McDonagh here blows up that genre in a very weird way, making a fun, watchable film that lacks the navel-gazing and mopery that normally marks the 'writing about writer' film. There's a good bit of wit and a lot of fun scenery chewing. And of course there's also Christopher Walken.
Director: Martin McDonagh
A friend of mine once did a brilliant deconstruction of the 'Writer's Block' genre of film - where a once-successful (and recently divorced) writer grapples with difficulty in coming up with new ideas but is brought out of his isolation by his friend who takes life as it comes and isn't so hung up on thinking about things. Not only was it a pitch-perfect satire, but it made me re-evaluate the entire genre - I hadn't realized it was something so formulaic. Martin McDonagh here blows up that genre in a very weird way, making a fun, watchable film that lacks the navel-gazing and mopery that normally marks the 'writing about writer' film. There's a good bit of wit and a lot of fun scenery chewing. And of course there's also Christopher Walken.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Inherent Vice - 2014 - 2 Stars
Actors: Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Thomas Pynchon is not my favorite author. People who like him always recommend reading a different book than the one I've read, but I think I've read enough to make my decision on him. Everything I found difficult about the novel of his I've read, I also found difficult about this adaptation. In addition to the various plot and character issues, there are aspects that simply don't translate to the screen (names!). The film seems like it's about to take off in the middle but quickly stops, the larger themes around the main character seem unexplored, and a lot of the gags simply don't work. Granted, I felt this way about The Big Lebowski (a definite cousin if not brother to this film), but that film has Walter Sobchak's loud insanity that steals the film whenever Goodman's on screen. This did not -- kudos to PTA for trying to adapt this, but it doesn't work for me.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Thomas Pynchon is not my favorite author. People who like him always recommend reading a different book than the one I've read, but I think I've read enough to make my decision on him. Everything I found difficult about the novel of his I've read, I also found difficult about this adaptation. In addition to the various plot and character issues, there are aspects that simply don't translate to the screen (names!). The film seems like it's about to take off in the middle but quickly stops, the larger themes around the main character seem unexplored, and a lot of the gags simply don't work. Granted, I felt this way about The Big Lebowski (a definite cousin if not brother to this film), but that film has Walter Sobchak's loud insanity that steals the film whenever Goodman's on screen. This did not -- kudos to PTA for trying to adapt this, but it doesn't work for me.
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