Actors: Will Ferrell, Steve Carell
Director: Adam McKay
Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues is the It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World for our generation - get a bunch of the era's funniest people together in a movie that is supposed to be 'funny' but is not. The film's humor lies mostly in recognition - 'I recognize that cameo!' 'I recognize that joke - it's from the previous movie!' I guess I shouldn't've expected different. The film also decides that Steve Carell's character needed more lines and more time on screen. It's not like this film lacks inventiveness - some of its new bits are inspired, absurd comedy. It's just dragged down by all the other stuff. The Ron Burgundy character's obliviousness barely survived one film, but here it reaches tedium.
Friday, December 26, 2014
Blue Ruin - 2013 - 3½ Stars
Actors: Macon Blair, Devin Ratray
Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Note: Minor Spoilers Ahead
Perhaps it's watching Indie Game that has me thinking this way, but Blue Ruin is a film with clear video game logic. Our main character doesn't seem to be making choices - he appears to be programmed. His world has a few stark options, but he is not given free motion. He picks up and discards certain objects. Critical information is given to him by other people which assists him on his quest. It's not hard to imagine Blue Ruin: The Video Game and it could be rather interesting. It's a good movie, but it's limited by the fact that everything that drives the action happened off-screen to characters we never meet. I suppose that's suggestive of something about the way that life works, but how life works doesn't always make for great movies.
Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Note: Minor Spoilers Ahead
Perhaps it's watching Indie Game that has me thinking this way, but Blue Ruin is a film with clear video game logic. Our main character doesn't seem to be making choices - he appears to be programmed. His world has a few stark options, but he is not given free motion. He picks up and discards certain objects. Critical information is given to him by other people which assists him on his quest. It's not hard to imagine Blue Ruin: The Video Game and it could be rather interesting. It's a good movie, but it's limited by the fact that everything that drives the action happened off-screen to characters we never meet. I suppose that's suggestive of something about the way that life works, but how life works doesn't always make for great movies.
Drinking Buddies - 2013 - 3 Stars
Actors: Olivia Wilde, Jake Johnson
Director: Joe Swanberg
I've not seen a Joe Swanberg film before - I do know they have a reputation for being improvisational and talky and mumblecore-y and whatever words you want to throw on it. The film definitely meanders, but sometimes a film needs to meander in order to hit the notes it's going for. Relationships - romantic or otherwise - are generally unspoken agreements, and this film explores what happens when people try to say as little about those relationships as possible. I suspect the main criticism of this film is that none of the characters are likable, but I also think that for the film to exist in the space that it does, they can't be likable.
Director: Joe Swanberg
I've not seen a Joe Swanberg film before - I do know they have a reputation for being improvisational and talky and mumblecore-y and whatever words you want to throw on it. The film definitely meanders, but sometimes a film needs to meander in order to hit the notes it's going for. Relationships - romantic or otherwise - are generally unspoken agreements, and this film explores what happens when people try to say as little about those relationships as possible. I suspect the main criticism of this film is that none of the characters are likable, but I also think that for the film to exist in the space that it does, they can't be likable.
Indie Game - 2012 - No Rating
Subject: Video game designers who make 'auteur' games outside of the confining system of corporate video games.
Director: Lisanne Pajot, James Swirsky
I don't really play video games made after 1998. It's not a 'holier-than-thou' stance on gaming, I just lost interest in the medium and when it came time for me to possibly return to gaming, I found the idea boring. Indie Game makes me think there are people out there who still have the idea I do about games, they just happen to love them and program them. We've seen plenty of films about people who make art for a living - video games are an even trickier business, I think, because they have to be programmed properly (i.e. without bugs) and they have to be 'fun'. How can someone tell after spending years on a project if it's still fun anymore? What do we ultimately want out of a game as a consumer? I didn't expect a documentary on video game designers to remind me of Andrei Rublev, but here we are.
Director: Lisanne Pajot, James Swirsky
I don't really play video games made after 1998. It's not a 'holier-than-thou' stance on gaming, I just lost interest in the medium and when it came time for me to possibly return to gaming, I found the idea boring. Indie Game makes me think there are people out there who still have the idea I do about games, they just happen to love them and program them. We've seen plenty of films about people who make art for a living - video games are an even trickier business, I think, because they have to be programmed properly (i.e. without bugs) and they have to be 'fun'. How can someone tell after spending years on a project if it's still fun anymore? What do we ultimately want out of a game as a consumer? I didn't expect a documentary on video game designers to remind me of Andrei Rublev, but here we are.
Stardust Memories - 1980 - 3½ Stars
Actors: Woody Allen, Charlotte Rampling
Director: Woody Allen
Stardust Memories is the kind of film that picks you up and shakes you by the lapels (and assumes you are wearing lapels). It's Woody Allen screaming 'Can't you see?! Don't you get it?' And yes - this film principally exists as an apologia for his turn away from outright farce into more dramatic territory. It's hard not to read authorial intent into this film, but it also seems to think that Allen's turn into dramatic territory is also funny, just on a cosmic level rather than a Three Stooges level. His apartment having a blown up picture of the famous picture of a man being shot in Vietnam is just as funny to me as having a famous Marx Brothers scene. Stardust Memories also pounds us over the head with its examination of fame's downside - indeed, we see it conferring almost no advantages on Allen's character, as even his chaffeured Rolls Royce becomes a burden. This would make a solid double feature piece with The King of Comedy, but then again, just about anything would.
Director: Woody Allen
Stardust Memories is the kind of film that picks you up and shakes you by the lapels (and assumes you are wearing lapels). It's Woody Allen screaming 'Can't you see?! Don't you get it?' And yes - this film principally exists as an apologia for his turn away from outright farce into more dramatic territory. It's hard not to read authorial intent into this film, but it also seems to think that Allen's turn into dramatic territory is also funny, just on a cosmic level rather than a Three Stooges level. His apartment having a blown up picture of the famous picture of a man being shot in Vietnam is just as funny to me as having a famous Marx Brothers scene. Stardust Memories also pounds us over the head with its examination of fame's downside - indeed, we see it conferring almost no advantages on Allen's character, as even his chaffeured Rolls Royce becomes a burden. This would make a solid double feature piece with The King of Comedy, but then again, just about anything would.
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Interstellar - 2014 - 3½ Stars
Actors: Matthew Mcconaughey, Anne Hathaway
Director: Christopher Nolan
Note: Vague spoilers ahead
Oh, Christopher Nolan, you rascal, you. You get me to see your movies because they are really cool - and Interstellar is indeed cool. It's one of the most visually captivating films I've ever seen. The characterization isn't bad or lazy. The world is as developed as a Christopher Nolan world is ever going to get - and indeed, while this world does not feel lived in, who needs a film world to feel lived in? Kubrick's films don't feel lived in either. Furthermore, the film is ambitious as all get out. So why do I think this movie is not a success? The same reason why I don't think any other Christopher Nolan films are great - the plot. The characters don't feel like they are real people - they feel like they are slaves to a plot that requires them to do these things. And indeed, this is true intra-film here. It's hard to feel like you've seen something compelling when the movie itself tells you that its characters are slaves. So while I think this is a good movie and that people will probably enjoy it, it's the last Christopher Nolan film I will see unless I get word that this movie does not fall prey to Nolanism.
Director: Christopher Nolan
Note: Vague spoilers ahead
Oh, Christopher Nolan, you rascal, you. You get me to see your movies because they are really cool - and Interstellar is indeed cool. It's one of the most visually captivating films I've ever seen. The characterization isn't bad or lazy. The world is as developed as a Christopher Nolan world is ever going to get - and indeed, while this world does not feel lived in, who needs a film world to feel lived in? Kubrick's films don't feel lived in either. Furthermore, the film is ambitious as all get out. So why do I think this movie is not a success? The same reason why I don't think any other Christopher Nolan films are great - the plot. The characters don't feel like they are real people - they feel like they are slaves to a plot that requires them to do these things. And indeed, this is true intra-film here. It's hard to feel like you've seen something compelling when the movie itself tells you that its characters are slaves. So while I think this is a good movie and that people will probably enjoy it, it's the last Christopher Nolan film I will see unless I get word that this movie does not fall prey to Nolanism.
Monday, October 13, 2014
The Sacrifice - 1986 - 3½ Stars
Actors: Erland Josephson, Susan Fleetwood
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Note: Vague spoilers ahead
It's been quite some time since I watched a Tarkovsky film, and indeed there are not many left for me to see for the first time. The thing I forgot about Tarkovsky is that one has to be prepared to be clueless for part of the film, and indeed I was both confused and bored for the middle third of the film. What follows is one of the most captivating and audacious endings to a film I've seen in quite some time. You get your usual Tarkovsky features here - philosophical conversations, lots of mirrors, lots of shots of flowing water - and like many a Tarkovsky it will probably make less sense as the film ends, but oh how I'd like to be in some 1980s coffee shop discussing what this film means after having seen it in a theater. I really should rate this one twice - 2½ stars for the first 2 hours, and then a big 5 stars for the finish.
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Note: Vague spoilers ahead
It's been quite some time since I watched a Tarkovsky film, and indeed there are not many left for me to see for the first time. The thing I forgot about Tarkovsky is that one has to be prepared to be clueless for part of the film, and indeed I was both confused and bored for the middle third of the film. What follows is one of the most captivating and audacious endings to a film I've seen in quite some time. You get your usual Tarkovsky features here - philosophical conversations, lots of mirrors, lots of shots of flowing water - and like many a Tarkovsky it will probably make less sense as the film ends, but oh how I'd like to be in some 1980s coffee shop discussing what this film means after having seen it in a theater. I really should rate this one twice - 2½ stars for the first 2 hours, and then a big 5 stars for the finish.
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