Slacker - 1991 - 3½ Stars

Actors:  Who Cares
Director:  Richard Linklater

Slacker is like a strange time-and-place capsule film - the content of the movie is not all that important, and indeed I've already forgotten most of the dialogue even though it's a talk-heavy film.  Concerning an interconnected group of underemployed twentysomethings in Austin, the film doesn't have an overarching plot - in fact, usually once a character's journey gets interesting, it gets shunted off screen.  I mentioned 'dialogue', but the film seems more like a series of monologues - no one seems to listen to anyone else here, they're too busy trying to be themselves.  I suppose the film makes the point that watching 90 minutes of different people trying their damnedest to be interesting can at times be quite exhausting.  Regardless, we get philosophy, conspiracy theories, pop culture commentary, and the sense that these people actually existed.

M - 1931 - 4½ Stars

Actors:  Peter Lorre, Ellen Widmann
Director:  Fritz Lang

'We have it down to a science' is something that gets said a lot of times, and that's a desirable thing.  It  means that if we follow certain steps, we'll end up at our desired result every time.  Filmmaking is to a large degree a science now, especially with larger budget movies.  Scripts are split into acts, conflicts arise at certain points, they get resolved, and it's all very clean - audiences are rarely upset with this sort of film if it's well-made, well-acted, and plausible within its own logic.

M is not a film like this.  It wasn't made when filmmaking was a science - it's an art picture.  There are long stretches of silence.  There are scenes that go on too long.  There are loose threads.  Regardless, it's a stunning achievement in film, one that manages to engage the viewer philosophically while still managing to tell a story visually.

Thief - 1981 - 3 Stars

Actors:  James Caan, Tuesday Weld
Director:  Michael Mann

I really wanted to like this more.  Opening with one of the best action setpieces I've seen - not in terms of exhilaration but in terms of sheer cool, both on the confidence of Caan and the director - Thief rumbles through a bunch of character beats over the course of its bloated 120 minutes to arrive at a perfunctory conclusion.  Mann does not seem entirely sure whether his main character lives in the real world or MovieWorld, but by the time he decides, I've decided that I don't really care about the character.  There's some great shots in this, it's just a shame that it doesn't add up to something better.

Old Joy - 2006 - 3 Stars

Actors:  Daniel London, Will Oldham
Director:  Kelly Reichardt

Note:  Minor Spoilers Ahead

Old Joy might be considered mumblecore - or maybe mumblecore is one of those genres where everyone who makes films supposedly in it loathes the name and applies some even more ghastly word to it.  Whatever the case - Old Joy is a film in which not much happens - two guys take a trip to a spring and get lost on the way there.  It's tough for me to recommend a movie like this highly - it's well-made and clearly with a puny budget, but it's not that memorable, which is part of the point.  It depicts an experience that people who've attended college and have since moved on can relate to, that sometimes the only momentous thing that might occur on such a trip between two friends is that the distance between people grows with time and circumstance.

Another Earth - 2011 - 3½ Stars

Actors:  Brit Marling, William Mapother
Director:  Mike Cahill

There are some people who enjoy science-fiction in part because of the technical aspects - how a man or woman might imagine future technology to look and function.  I'm more interested in the philosophical aspects, seeing instead how we as people change as a result of technological advances.  Another Earth was billed as a science-fiction film, but to a large degree it isn't - it's more about remorse and penance and all that icky human stuff.  Still, while this film has some visual touches I don't much care for (sorry filmmakers, zooms during dramatic moments are really hard to pull off due to overuse), it's audacious - it's ballsy enough to introduce the titular conceit and then back away from it when necessary.

Broadway Danny Rose - 1984 - 3½ Stars

Actors:  Woody Allen, Mia Farrow
Director:  Woody Allen

Allen really puts the 'broad' in 'Broadway Danny Rose'.  A story about a down-on-his-luck talent agent who has to bring his best client's mistress to the culmination of his comeback and the absurdities that arise from that adventure, Rose is tonally inconsistent but perhaps that's one of its charms.  The story is, after all, mostly told by someone else - perhaps we can see the broader elements of the plot being the narrator's inventions rather than elements of the original story.  The film is strongest when it's waxing nostalgic about show business; the weakest elements come when we turn away from that world.  Still, I feel like this could've been a great film instead of just a good one.

God Bless America - 2011 - 3½ Stars

Actors: Joel Murray, Tara Lynne Barr
Director:  Bobcat Goldthwait

Bobcat Goldthwait has carved out a little niche for himself making small, dark comedies, and God Bless America certainly continues that tradition.  Attacking the inanity of mass culture, God Bless America could be viewed as a revenge fantasy, but I take it more as one man's journey to express himself.  It's not that reality television, shock jocks, and celebrity culture are eo ipso bad - it's that they stifle thought in favor of regurgitation.

I don't know about the characterization in this film, and it's often far too 'tell-not-show', but there should be more movies like this.