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.
Friday, August 17, 2012
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.
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.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
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.
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.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
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.
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.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Senna - 2010 - 3½ Stars
Subject: Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna's race to the top
Director: Asif Kapadia
Race car driving is a strange sport. On the one hand, a machine is absolutely essential to the competition - if your machine is not as good as the other drivers, it is not likely that your driving skill will compensate. This makes me think of it as less of a sport - the machine's doing a lot of the work. On the other hand, it's the one sport whose activity I routinely do, except on a much lower level and (presumably) non-competitively - I still drive a car. I just don't do it at 200 km/h.
Senna, with its tremendous racing footage, shows us a glimpse of what it would take, mentally, to drive a car competitively for a living. It doesn't look so hard, really, except that you don't just go once around the track, you go 70 times. It's an endurance competition - whoever blinks first falls behind or crashes. While it's easy to think of this repetitive action as blissful nothing - I think of the Repo Man quote that the more you drive, the dumber you are - Senna and this film help cast it as a spiritual moment. The car is merely the vessel by which he experiences the divine.
Director: Asif Kapadia
Race car driving is a strange sport. On the one hand, a machine is absolutely essential to the competition - if your machine is not as good as the other drivers, it is not likely that your driving skill will compensate. This makes me think of it as less of a sport - the machine's doing a lot of the work. On the other hand, it's the one sport whose activity I routinely do, except on a much lower level and (presumably) non-competitively - I still drive a car. I just don't do it at 200 km/h.
Senna, with its tremendous racing footage, shows us a glimpse of what it would take, mentally, to drive a car competitively for a living. It doesn't look so hard, really, except that you don't just go once around the track, you go 70 times. It's an endurance competition - whoever blinks first falls behind or crashes. While it's easy to think of this repetitive action as blissful nothing - I think of the Repo Man quote that the more you drive, the dumber you are - Senna and this film help cast it as a spiritual moment. The car is merely the vessel by which he experiences the divine.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Dogtooth - 2009 - 4 Stars
Actors: Christos Stergioglou, Michele Valley
Director: Giorgos Lanthimos
Sometimes art is intentionally shocking for its own sake, but other times, it uses a completely unrealistic and shocking situation to show us something about the way we live. I don't want to spoil any of what Dogtooth is about - it takes a bit to figure out what's going on, but once we do, it's a fascinating look at what might happen if this situation were ever to come about. The truths we know can be controlled, but that control has to go all the way.
Similarly, I'm impressed by movies that don't use a lot of space - this movie should've cost almost nothing to make, but its message is universal and powerful.
Director: Giorgos Lanthimos
Sometimes art is intentionally shocking for its own sake, but other times, it uses a completely unrealistic and shocking situation to show us something about the way we live. I don't want to spoil any of what Dogtooth is about - it takes a bit to figure out what's going on, but once we do, it's a fascinating look at what might happen if this situation were ever to come about. The truths we know can be controlled, but that control has to go all the way.
Similarly, I'm impressed by movies that don't use a lot of space - this movie should've cost almost nothing to make, but its message is universal and powerful.
Saturday, July 21, 2012
To Live And Die In L.A. - 1986 - 2½ Stars, 4 Stars
Actors: William Peterson, Willem Dafoe
Director: William Friedkin
To Live And Die in L.A. almost seems like an antidote to the big, dumb cop film like Commando and Cobra, where might makes right, revenge is a virtue, and body counts are envied instead of feared. Trouble is, it's just as asinine* as what it might be reacting against. Typically I'd forgive the director for such a film, but he co-wrote the script.
What is great about this film is the camera and location work - 'L.A.' in this film isn't Woody Allen's montage from Annie Hall, it's more focused on the unglamorous side of the city. Friedkin also knows how to shoot a car chase. Thus the two ratings - with a better and more thoughtful script, this could've been a darn good movie.
* The DVD skipped in two places so I missed about seven minutes of the movie - I may have missed some key exposition. But since almost all the exposition here was stupid, I doubt it.
Director: William Friedkin
To Live And Die in L.A. almost seems like an antidote to the big, dumb cop film like Commando and Cobra, where might makes right, revenge is a virtue, and body counts are envied instead of feared. Trouble is, it's just as asinine* as what it might be reacting against. Typically I'd forgive the director for such a film, but he co-wrote the script.
What is great about this film is the camera and location work - 'L.A.' in this film isn't Woody Allen's montage from Annie Hall, it's more focused on the unglamorous side of the city. Friedkin also knows how to shoot a car chase. Thus the two ratings - with a better and more thoughtful script, this could've been a darn good movie.
* The DVD skipped in two places so I missed about seven minutes of the movie - I may have missed some key exposition. But since almost all the exposition here was stupid, I doubt it.
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