Actors: Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly
Director: Adam McKay
Spoilers, but c'mon.
Step Brothers seems to be the apotheosis of the man-child genre - I'd think that Ferrell and O'Reilly are too old to play man-children, but not so. Each plays the son of a parent getting re-married, and thus the title - Step Brothers.
The film climaxes at Ferrell and Reilly's bizarre rendition of Con te partiro which seems to indicate that we should be ourselves, and everyone will like us. I'm probably reading into the film too deeply. Sight gags abound - post-Something About Mary, it seems that filmmakers are convinced that showing something disgusting is inherently more humorous than leaving it to suggestion. I don't think this is true, but then again, comedy really doesn't have any boundaries anymore - we're living in an entertainment world where 'everything is suggested'.
As a side note, the man-child genre has to be put to bed - it's almost meta, since comedy is itself a 'boyish' pursuit - it's almost as embarrassing as writers writing novels about writers.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
North By Northwest - 1959 - 4 Stars
Actors: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Note: Spoilers Ahead, but even if you haven't seen the film, you'll already know them
North By Northwest, like Psycho, is a film best seen without any awareness of what's about to happen. In our reference-obsessed culture, this is absolutely impossible - surely North By Northwest's two most iconic scenes are already ruined. In fact, they are ruined enough for us to question the plausibility of both of them, even as we watch them for the first time. The 'airplane' scene is rather incredible, but even our protagonist comments on its absurdity in a later scene. The climactic scene down Mount Rushmore falls prey to typical cinema convention - I was just waiting for the scene to wrap up so the film could end.
Regardless, it's an enjoyable film that asks a real simple question from the very beginning - what if a shadowy, powerful organization thought you were a spy? How could you go about proving that you weren't? It's a deeply paranoid film - sometimes I wonder how Hitchcock's works were so popular. However, the protagonist may as well be named John Everyman - he and everyone else are kept mostly traitless, as they continue deceiving one another.
The plot of the film is masterful overall, despite the scene where several characters nicely provide all of the exposition we need for the film - there's a lot of plot to carry, and a lot of off-screen drama we really cannot be privy to without making the exposition even more tedious. Hitchcock even throws in a MacGuffin, though he invests so little in it that I'm not even sure it's a successful usage of the practice.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Note: Spoilers Ahead, but even if you haven't seen the film, you'll already know them
North By Northwest, like Psycho, is a film best seen without any awareness of what's about to happen. In our reference-obsessed culture, this is absolutely impossible - surely North By Northwest's two most iconic scenes are already ruined. In fact, they are ruined enough for us to question the plausibility of both of them, even as we watch them for the first time. The 'airplane' scene is rather incredible, but even our protagonist comments on its absurdity in a later scene. The climactic scene down Mount Rushmore falls prey to typical cinema convention - I was just waiting for the scene to wrap up so the film could end.
Regardless, it's an enjoyable film that asks a real simple question from the very beginning - what if a shadowy, powerful organization thought you were a spy? How could you go about proving that you weren't? It's a deeply paranoid film - sometimes I wonder how Hitchcock's works were so popular. However, the protagonist may as well be named John Everyman - he and everyone else are kept mostly traitless, as they continue deceiving one another.
The plot of the film is masterful overall, despite the scene where several characters nicely provide all of the exposition we need for the film - there's a lot of plot to carry, and a lot of off-screen drama we really cannot be privy to without making the exposition even more tedious. Hitchcock even throws in a MacGuffin, though he invests so little in it that I'm not even sure it's a successful usage of the practice.
Vernon, Florida - 1981 - 2½ Stars
Director: Errol Morris
I used to think that I would watch Errol Morris film a bunch of weirdos reading the phone book. That thought has been extinguished by Vernon, Florida, an extremely loose collection of interviews that Morris did in the Florida town. The film almost functions as an anthropological study of rural people - we see how they spend their leisure time, what they believe in, how they work, and so on.
Like Gates of Heaven, Morris's preceding film, there's something much deeper going on in Vernon, Florida, but I'll be damned if I actually want to find out what it is. Compounding the general inscrutability of the film are the subjects' thick accents, which make them near-incomprehensible at times. The film is also funny, but as a college-educated Northerner, I'd feel like a real asshole if I put on this film to laugh at the people in it. However, restricting my laughter just made viewing the film a tense experience. I don't think it was Morris's intent to make fun of these people, but with so many television shows featuring ill-informed people 'deserving' of our ridicule (e.g. Jerry Springer, the early incarnation of The Daily Show), it's unfortunately my impulse. Mercifully, the film is only 55 minutes long.
I used to think that I would watch Errol Morris film a bunch of weirdos reading the phone book. That thought has been extinguished by Vernon, Florida, an extremely loose collection of interviews that Morris did in the Florida town. The film almost functions as an anthropological study of rural people - we see how they spend their leisure time, what they believe in, how they work, and so on.
Like Gates of Heaven, Morris's preceding film, there's something much deeper going on in Vernon, Florida, but I'll be damned if I actually want to find out what it is. Compounding the general inscrutability of the film are the subjects' thick accents, which make them near-incomprehensible at times. The film is also funny, but as a college-educated Northerner, I'd feel like a real asshole if I put on this film to laugh at the people in it. However, restricting my laughter just made viewing the film a tense experience. I don't think it was Morris's intent to make fun of these people, but with so many television shows featuring ill-informed people 'deserving' of our ridicule (e.g. Jerry Springer, the early incarnation of The Daily Show), it's unfortunately my impulse. Mercifully, the film is only 55 minutes long.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Dead Man - 1995 - 3 Stars
Actors: Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Jim Jarmusch is cool. His films evoke a kind of cool even if they are often about losers. When it comes right down to it, I can imagine Jim Jarmusch making decisions about the content of his films based on exactly how cool it be. Wouldn't it be cool to have Robert Mitchum in my movie? Yes, it would - put him in. Iggy Pop likes acting, let's give him a role. Oh, and everyone should ask everyone if they have tobacco. Unfortunately, past all the coolness, there's not very much substance - things just kind of happen. I don't know why I'm so disposed to dislike these very open-ended, 'life-like' films - I suppose because we never really get a sense that Johnny Depp's character has anything to him at all. Also grating was Jarmusch's use of fades in and out to begin and end scenes, a technique that worked better in Stranger Than Paradise. The film is very cool, and that's cool - it strikes me as the sort of film that if the viewer is in the right mood, can seem excellent. Evidently I was not in the right mood.
Another 'cool' choice was having Neil Young do the soundtrack - a bunch of twanging, amelodic, distorted guitars that really seemed to add nothing. I suppose it was Young's interpretation of typical Western soundtracks.
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Jim Jarmusch is cool. His films evoke a kind of cool even if they are often about losers. When it comes right down to it, I can imagine Jim Jarmusch making decisions about the content of his films based on exactly how cool it be. Wouldn't it be cool to have Robert Mitchum in my movie? Yes, it would - put him in. Iggy Pop likes acting, let's give him a role. Oh, and everyone should ask everyone if they have tobacco. Unfortunately, past all the coolness, there's not very much substance - things just kind of happen. I don't know why I'm so disposed to dislike these very open-ended, 'life-like' films - I suppose because we never really get a sense that Johnny Depp's character has anything to him at all. Also grating was Jarmusch's use of fades in and out to begin and end scenes, a technique that worked better in Stranger Than Paradise. The film is very cool, and that's cool - it strikes me as the sort of film that if the viewer is in the right mood, can seem excellent. Evidently I was not in the right mood.
Another 'cool' choice was having Neil Young do the soundtrack - a bunch of twanging, amelodic, distorted guitars that really seemed to add nothing. I suppose it was Young's interpretation of typical Western soundtracks.
Monday, March 8, 2010
The Bitter Tears Of Petra Von Kant - 1972 - 3 Stars
Actors: Margit Carstensen, Hanna Schygulla
Director: Werner Fassbinder
Note: Minor Spoilers Ahead
Roger Ebert's review of Gerry mentions a quote from a film big-shot who told him, "Roger, if nothing has happened by the end of the first reel, nothing is going to happen." This is certainly true of The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, which is the stereotypical 'foreign film' - dialogue-loaded, action-light, meandering, and certainly dull (at times). After fifteen minutes, I had realized that the 'action' of the film had only taken place in a single room, and was convinced that the rest of the film would also take place there - spoiler alert, but I turned out to be correct.
Perhaps it's my gambling nature, but the film feels like a bet - can you have a 2 hour film whose action only takes place in one room, and still make it interesting? The answer is, 'Sort of', and I think Fassbinder would have a push with whomever he made the bet. Fassbinder does manage to make several interesting characters out of this non-action, including the titular Von Kant around whom the film revolves, but a movie that's only dialogue and in a single room had better accomplish that much. It's an intriguing experiment, no doubt, but the film just has too many scenes that lose our attention for me to rate it any higher than 3 stars.
Director: Werner Fassbinder
Note: Minor Spoilers Ahead
Roger Ebert's review of Gerry mentions a quote from a film big-shot who told him, "Roger, if nothing has happened by the end of the first reel, nothing is going to happen." This is certainly true of The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, which is the stereotypical 'foreign film' - dialogue-loaded, action-light, meandering, and certainly dull (at times). After fifteen minutes, I had realized that the 'action' of the film had only taken place in a single room, and was convinced that the rest of the film would also take place there - spoiler alert, but I turned out to be correct.
Perhaps it's my gambling nature, but the film feels like a bet - can you have a 2 hour film whose action only takes place in one room, and still make it interesting? The answer is, 'Sort of', and I think Fassbinder would have a push with whomever he made the bet. Fassbinder does manage to make several interesting characters out of this non-action, including the titular Von Kant around whom the film revolves, but a movie that's only dialogue and in a single room had better accomplish that much. It's an intriguing experiment, no doubt, but the film just has too many scenes that lose our attention for me to rate it any higher than 3 stars.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Carnal Knowledge - 1971 - 3½ Stars
Actors: Jack Nicholson, Ann-Margret
Director: Mike Nichols
Note: Minor Spoilers Ahead
I was tempted to split Carnal Knowledge's ratings in two, since the film divides nicely that way. It concerns two college friends and their romantic escapades, from college until middle-age. The first part of the film is simple, straight-forward, and well-told - the second is, intentionally, an uneven mess. I suspect this is merely form following function; as our lives grow more complicated, our reasons for doing things become even more inscrutable - our protagonists' decisions reflect that.
The film feels French in its wandering narrative and use of long, dialogue-heavy scenes - the film was going more for shock value, as I've heard it's the first American film to use the 'fuck' word. Still, some of the director's choices seem pretentious and for their own sake.
Director: Mike Nichols
Note: Minor Spoilers Ahead
I was tempted to split Carnal Knowledge's ratings in two, since the film divides nicely that way. It concerns two college friends and their romantic escapades, from college until middle-age. The first part of the film is simple, straight-forward, and well-told - the second is, intentionally, an uneven mess. I suspect this is merely form following function; as our lives grow more complicated, our reasons for doing things become even more inscrutable - our protagonists' decisions reflect that.
The film feels French in its wandering narrative and use of long, dialogue-heavy scenes - the film was going more for shock value, as I've heard it's the first American film to use the 'fuck' word. Still, some of the director's choices seem pretentious and for their own sake.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Under The Volcano - 1984 - 3½ Stars
Actors: Albert Finney, Jacqueline Bisset
Director: John Huston
A portrayal of an alcoholic diplomat set to live out his days permanently drunk in a jerkwater Mexican town in the late 1930s, Under The Volcano feels like a Graham Greene novel improperly adapted to film. There's lots of attempts at providing subtext as well as hint at larger forces at play - there's references to the coming war between Germany and Britain - but these were either ineffective or were simply beyond me on the first viewing. They feel like literary elements that don't quite translate to the screen. Even so, the main story of the film works for me.
One great thing about movies where characters spend most of their time wasted is that they get to talk in the backwards, wandering, half-logical way that drunks often will - it really gives a screenwriter a chance to jam a lot of gold in the character's mouth.
Director: John Huston
A portrayal of an alcoholic diplomat set to live out his days permanently drunk in a jerkwater Mexican town in the late 1930s, Under The Volcano feels like a Graham Greene novel improperly adapted to film. There's lots of attempts at providing subtext as well as hint at larger forces at play - there's references to the coming war between Germany and Britain - but these were either ineffective or were simply beyond me on the first viewing. They feel like literary elements that don't quite translate to the screen. Even so, the main story of the film works for me.
One great thing about movies where characters spend most of their time wasted is that they get to talk in the backwards, wandering, half-logical way that drunks often will - it really gives a screenwriter a chance to jam a lot of gold in the character's mouth.
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