Actors: James Gandolfini, Tom Hollander
Director: Armando Iannucci
In The Loop is an exceedingly British film. Not that people are jamming toffees down their throat while discussing the latest footie match, but its humor is alternately understated and bombastic - most of what is funny comes from what is said.
A political satire mostly in name, In The Loop is more a showcase for its one-liners, callbacks, and call-forwards - it's a dense knot of recurring jokes. There's not any Dr. Strangelove-esque heavy-handedness - in this film, politicians are largely vain, stupid people. There's also not many better targets for satire than vain, stupid people.
I suspect this film gets better on second watch. The punchlines are in no discernible rhythm, and there's just so many of them.
Monday, May 31, 2010
District 9 - 2009 - 3½ Stars
Actors: Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope
Director: Neill Blomkamp
District 9 asks a real simple question, and it asks it from its moderately inventive faux-documentary opening - What if aliens landed on Earth, and instead of being malevolent and powerful or all-knowing or beautiful, they turned out to be merely squatters? What would we do with them?
Unfortunately with such a solid setup, the film loses the ambiguity of the question along the way, shedding it for gore, propulsive action sequences, and black-and-white morality. It also employs a trick that I can only accept in science fiction films, coming up with one deus ex machina after another. That's the great thing about technology that never existed - all you have to do is invent it in the script, and voila. There's nothing Independence Day bad (the aliens don't use the same OS that we do), but the astute viewer is certainly left with a few questions.
Director: Neill Blomkamp
District 9 asks a real simple question, and it asks it from its moderately inventive faux-documentary opening - What if aliens landed on Earth, and instead of being malevolent and powerful or all-knowing or beautiful, they turned out to be merely squatters? What would we do with them?
Unfortunately with such a solid setup, the film loses the ambiguity of the question along the way, shedding it for gore, propulsive action sequences, and black-and-white morality. It also employs a trick that I can only accept in science fiction films, coming up with one deus ex machina after another. That's the great thing about technology that never existed - all you have to do is invent it in the script, and voila. There's nothing Independence Day bad (the aliens don't use the same OS that we do), but the astute viewer is certainly left with a few questions.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
The King Of Comedy - 1982 - 4 Stars
Actors: Robert Deniro, Jerry Lewis
Director: Martin Scorsese
Having everyone know your name - blessing or curse? It's not hard to figure out where Martin Scorsese falls in The King of Comedy. Deniro stars as Rupert Pupkin, the up-and-coming comic whose name people always forget, Lewis as the established late-night talk show host who is harassed by fanatics. Deniro is unbelievably creepy - his permanent cheeriness and amusement, aping those of a talk show guest, are even creepier than his general demeanor in Scorsese films. His character is obsessed with being a stand-up comic on Lewis's show, even though it appears that he's never actually performed his act to a live audience.
Scorsese and writer Paul Zimmerman play around with delusional behavior and the power of fantasy - the notion that fame compensates for the slings and arrows we might suffer in our youth. We're not treated to actual scenes from Pupkin's youth, but to build up into such a steeled lack of self-awareness, it must have been awful indeed. We're often told about famous people who have terrible childhoods - what if you have a terrible childhood and you dream of being famous.. but you're totally untalented?
Director: Martin Scorsese
Having everyone know your name - blessing or curse? It's not hard to figure out where Martin Scorsese falls in The King of Comedy. Deniro stars as Rupert Pupkin, the up-and-coming comic whose name people always forget, Lewis as the established late-night talk show host who is harassed by fanatics. Deniro is unbelievably creepy - his permanent cheeriness and amusement, aping those of a talk show guest, are even creepier than his general demeanor in Scorsese films. His character is obsessed with being a stand-up comic on Lewis's show, even though it appears that he's never actually performed his act to a live audience.
Scorsese and writer Paul Zimmerman play around with delusional behavior and the power of fantasy - the notion that fame compensates for the slings and arrows we might suffer in our youth. We're not treated to actual scenes from Pupkin's youth, but to build up into such a steeled lack of self-awareness, it must have been awful indeed. We're often told about famous people who have terrible childhoods - what if you have a terrible childhood and you dream of being famous.. but you're totally untalented?
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Gosford Park - 2001 - 3 Stars
Actors: Maggie Smith, Clive Owen
Director: Robert Altman
Gosford Park is a charming film about whose characters I really didn't care at all. There's some pretty standard Altman stuff here - the fact that there are around 20 characters and they are breezily introduced. Gosford Park is ultimately about class warfare in Britain before the fall of the British Empire, which, again, is not a subject I particularly care for. The film does make an interesting study of upper-class society - in this film, it's the servants who know everything and gossip endlessly about their masters; their masters are so reserved and polite that they try not to divulge anything about their true feelings to anyone besides those who must know them most intimately.
Altman makes perfect use of the camera in his study of secrets - the camera tends to move all the time, as though we're there - he is fantastic at making us really seem like an observer to the action.
Director: Robert Altman
Gosford Park is a charming film about whose characters I really didn't care at all. There's some pretty standard Altman stuff here - the fact that there are around 20 characters and they are breezily introduced. Gosford Park is ultimately about class warfare in Britain before the fall of the British Empire, which, again, is not a subject I particularly care for. The film does make an interesting study of upper-class society - in this film, it's the servants who know everything and gossip endlessly about their masters; their masters are so reserved and polite that they try not to divulge anything about their true feelings to anyone besides those who must know them most intimately.
Altman makes perfect use of the camera in his study of secrets - the camera tends to move all the time, as though we're there - he is fantastic at making us really seem like an observer to the action.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Satantango - Part 1 -1994
Actors: Mihaly Vig, Putyi Horvath
Director: Bela Tarr
Satantango opens with a five-minute shot of cattle - and it's at this point that you know you are settling in for the long haul. Tarr loves exceptionally long takes with the camera sweeping around the action or following behind or ahead of our characters as they walk.
Like other long-take directors (e.g. Fassbinder, Tarkovsky), sometimes Satantango shows us something that other films will pass over, and other times it's just plain dull. The story is told in parts - the first disc of Satantango has 3 vignettes, all of which concern each other - the characters in Vignette 2 are mentioned in #1, and #3 concerns an observer of all the action. Tarr's story concerns a rather dim and despondent farming community in Hungary - it's a difficult slog, and I guess I'll have to see if it's worth it, as there are still nearly 5 hours left.
Director: Bela Tarr
Satantango opens with a five-minute shot of cattle - and it's at this point that you know you are settling in for the long haul. Tarr loves exceptionally long takes with the camera sweeping around the action or following behind or ahead of our characters as they walk.
Like other long-take directors (e.g. Fassbinder, Tarkovsky), sometimes Satantango shows us something that other films will pass over, and other times it's just plain dull. The story is told in parts - the first disc of Satantango has 3 vignettes, all of which concern each other - the characters in Vignette 2 are mentioned in #1, and #3 concerns an observer of all the action. Tarr's story concerns a rather dim and despondent farming community in Hungary - it's a difficult slog, and I guess I'll have to see if it's worth it, as there are still nearly 5 hours left.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story - 2007 - 3 Stars
Actors: John C. Reilly, Jenna Fischer
Director: Jake Kasdan
Walk Hard was not a successful film at the box office, and I suspect that's because it was just a little too good at what it does. A send-up of recent biopics, it skewers the genre without love; it reveals how hollow and silly all of the tropes in these films are. Of course, I've never actually seen these films.
The jokes that don't work are the ones that seem to refer directly to those films - Walk the Line and Ray, for example - these references instantly make the film dated. Still, Walk Hard has some fantastic laughs, and shows the absurdity of trying to capture a person's entire life story in 2 hours.
Director: Jake Kasdan
Walk Hard was not a successful film at the box office, and I suspect that's because it was just a little too good at what it does. A send-up of recent biopics, it skewers the genre without love; it reveals how hollow and silly all of the tropes in these films are. Of course, I've never actually seen these films.
The jokes that don't work are the ones that seem to refer directly to those films - Walk the Line and Ray, for example - these references instantly make the film dated. Still, Walk Hard has some fantastic laughs, and shows the absurdity of trying to capture a person's entire life story in 2 hours.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
A Serious Man - 2009 - 3 Stars
Actors: Michael Stuhlbarg, Sari Lennick
Director: Coen Brothers
Note: Spoilers Ahead
Horrible things are always befalling the characters in a Coen Brothers' film. So when we see a character who happens to be holding an ice pick at the opening of the film, we know that that's going to end up in someone's neck or chest by the end of the scene.
The Coens are so meticulous that they almost certainly nail all of the period details from 1970s Minnesota, as well as all the Jewish family foibles. Tremendous, too, is the way the children swear in this film - they're terrible at it, and yet they do it constantly. The Coens are always spectacular in the details.
However, I'm often left confused by Coen films on first watch - I do suspect there's a lot of symbolism that passed over my head. Larry Gopnik's troubles made me wince, not laugh, nor do I think I was supposed to be laughing. But nor did I really care, it's a Coen brothers film, so I figured he'd continue to be tortured, and I'd have to sit there watching it.
Director: Coen Brothers
Note: Spoilers Ahead
Horrible things are always befalling the characters in a Coen Brothers' film. So when we see a character who happens to be holding an ice pick at the opening of the film, we know that that's going to end up in someone's neck or chest by the end of the scene.
The Coens are so meticulous that they almost certainly nail all of the period details from 1970s Minnesota, as well as all the Jewish family foibles. Tremendous, too, is the way the children swear in this film - they're terrible at it, and yet they do it constantly. The Coens are always spectacular in the details.
However, I'm often left confused by Coen films on first watch - I do suspect there's a lot of symbolism that passed over my head. Larry Gopnik's troubles made me wince, not laugh, nor do I think I was supposed to be laughing. But nor did I really care, it's a Coen brothers film, so I figured he'd continue to be tortured, and I'd have to sit there watching it.
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