That Obscure Object of Desire - 1977 - 4 Stars

Actors: Fernando Rey, Carole Bouquet

Director: Luis Bunuel

I think that where foreign films can often excel domestic pictures is in their examination of love. I brought up Truffaut/Hitchcock in my review of Husbands and Wives, and I'm going to cite it here again - too often directors think that dialogue is the way to tell the story. So when dialogue is basically reduced to reading, we end up watching instead of listening. Not a word of dialogue is meaningful in this film - it could even be silent for very long stretches.

The plot is so paper-thin that it's difficult to write anything about this film without spoiling it. An older, wealthy man pursues a younger, poorer woman. The film details their time together. There's also a bizarre underlying story about terrorism which I couldn't quite fit with the main story, but I know there's many connections.

One of the drawbacks of the film is that the story is so 'universal' (even though it's not, it's easily generalized to be so) that it is somewhat bland until the second half.

The Apartment - 1960 - 4½ Stars

Actors: Jack Lemmon, Shirley Maclaine

Director: Billy Wilder

Note: Minor plot spoilers

It's hard to know where to begin with The Apartment, a story that is as old as written stories are, yet so carefully updated to modern times. The titular apartment is that of C.C. Baxter (Lemmon), who rents it out to his philandering superiors at the behemoth insurance company he works for. This causes some obvious discomfort for him, and that discomfort begins to grow as the film progresses.

There's some brilliant visual work on display in this film, but what really sells it are the acting performances. Lemmon is superb as the put-upon Baxter, MacLaine excellent as the lovelorn Fran Kubelik, and Fred MacMurray might even outdo both of them as the swaggering personnel manager.

Wilder's detractors cast him as a cynical misanthrope, and I can kind of see that here. Still, aside from some broad performances by supporting players and minor quibbles with the film's ending, this is a stunning achievement.

The Achievers: The Story Of The Lebowski Fans - 2008 - No Rating

Subject: The Big Lebowski's Incredibly Devoted Fan Base

Director: Eddie Chung

I give this film no rating because it deserves none. I'm not quite sure how this ended up on my queue, but I do know that it took over a year for me to see it. It's a documentary about how Lebowski fans throw big parties called Lebowski Fest where people dress in costume, answer trivia questions about the movie, bowl, and generally hang out. There were a few interviews with actors from the film and people who the film is based on, but mostly there were interviews with fans.

What I was ultimately confused about was this film's existence at all. It's generally a community of people talking about how great it is to be a part of that community. Who decided this needed to get made? It's one thing to say 'I like and am really passionate about this thing.' It's yet another to be filmed saying it as part of a documentary. Is my passion about something that important? (Yes, I've noted the irony of writing this on a blog about my passion for movies, so shut up). There's some funny Lebowski-related stuff in here, but what I came away with is that people explaining why they like something is almost always boring. The run-time is also too long at 70 minutes - it should likely be 50.

The Last Detail - 1973 - 3 Stars, 4½ Stars

Actors: Jack Nicholson, Otis Young, Randy Quaid

Director: Hal Ashby

I decided to give The Last Detail two ratings because I think it's unfair to downgrade the films for the limitations of its time and genre. The Last Detail is a 70s 'road' movie in the aimless 70s way - there's a lot of scenes where people sit in a room, on a bus, or in a car, and talk. They don't talk in some sort of stylized speech, they're not throwing out punchlines, and they're not much more vivified than any person you may meet. Some of the time the characters are bored, and so the audience is likely to be bored as well. The plot is paper-thin and doesn't offer very much tension.

However, given the limitations of this genre, The Last Detail is still an engrossing character study. Nicholson gives an outstanding performance, playing basically the same character he plays in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Young and Quaid are similarly outstanding. It's hard to talk about the film's themes, or what it's all ultimately about - everything is so buried in the mundane. Underneath all that, there's a very rich examination of the way people live their lives.

The Postman Always Rings Twice - 1946 - 3½ Stars

Actors: Lana Turner, John Garfield

Director: Tay Garnett

Film noir is often difficult to write about. It's so stylistic and showy that it doesn't exactly relate to our normal lives, unless we are down-on-our-luck private detectives or possibly a femme who may have some fatale qualities. It doesn't say all that much about the world, necessarily. It just promises to be a story of sin where you get thrown in and don't know the end.

The Postman Always Rings Twice ends up being that, but it is a touch long for an older film (113 minutes), and may contain one or two too many twists. It is an interesting examination of love, lust, and trust. Unfortunately our protagonist doesn't have much going for him, and the most interesting male characters are bunted aside. Lana Turner is outstanding as the femme fatale. Hardly a must-see, but an enjoyable watch.

Gran Torino - 2008 - 4 Stars

Actors: Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang

Director: Clint Eastwood

I try not to hear anything about films I intend to see - I'll usually read a review when the film comes out, but other than that, I steer clear of other information. My initial impression was that Gran Torino was Get Off My Lawn: The Movie, a tale about a beleaguered elderly man whose neighborhood is changing all around him. This is partly true, but it's incredibly reductive.

Note: Spoilers Ahead

I want to dislike this movie very much, but Eastwood's performance drives the film. He manages to play an old man as neither doddering nor completely with it, as both inflexible and willing to change, and both callous and sensitive. This kind of performance is needed because the rest of the film is filled with archetypes. Eastwood himself is an archetype - again, he's playing a widowed man as he did in Unforgiven (and as he might have in Million Dollar Baby, I can't recall), and there's some Dirty Harry in his bearing, but he pulls off a unique performance.

I'm not a huge fan of Eastwood's work - there's something incredibly Hollywood about all of the characters in this film, much as there was in Million Dollar Baby. There's also a neatly divided line between good and evil. Still, there's something to be said for a good movie that's not trying to be subtle and that's not about some repressed manchild. Eastwood will be missed when he retires.