Damn, I only have time to watch movies on weekends part 22: to be honest, the first part of this title hasn't been true for like four years now
Submitted by AJDaGreat on Wed, 03/30/2011 - 10:13
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- As usual, my reviewing is lagging behind my viewing and I have to kick this off with some short, half-assed comments.
- 1. Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)
- A wonderfully depressing film, nearly-forgotten but revived into the film buff community's eyes by the recent Criterion release. It's bittersweet and thoughtful, with some touching performances.
- 2. Now, Voyager (1942)
- Oftentimes films like this are too melodramatic for me, but Now, Voyager has a more unpredictable ebb and flow, which appealed to me even 70 years after its release. Bette Davis is obviously one of the all-time great actresses and she nails a complex emotional range here in this fascinating film.
- 3. Cedar Rapids (2011)
- My first 2011 film was... well, pretty good. Ed Helms veers too far into caricature at times, but for the most part he keeps his performance grounded and humanistic. The plot is standard fare, but the dialogue is good and the supporting cast is very strong. Loved seeing Isiah Whitlock, Jr. in a major film role and LOVED the Wire references. Also, since when is Anne Heche hot?
- 4. Gaslight (1944)
- A brazenly emotional performance by Ingrid Bergman and some gripping individual scenes almost makes this film work, but it's weighed down by its big, dumb twist. Spoiler: Highlight to viewI'm sorry, but if you wanted to search for jewels in a vacant London townhouse, would you really spend years romancing an opera singer, marrying her, convincing her to live in the townhouse, and then searching for them while psychological torturing her? Or would you devise a much, much easier plan?
- 5. El Norte (1983)
- A passionate melodrama fueled by the frustrations and difficulties of living as a third-world immigrant in the U.S. It's engaging and gorgeously constructed, if a little too simplistic.
- 6. Animal Kingdom (2010)
- This melancholy Australian film has none of the panache of many American gangster films. This one's somber and unsettling, and it's the best environment for communicating the disturbing nature of these crimes. The excellent cast helps as well.
- 7. Dirty Harry (1971)
- An iconic, stylish film about the frustrations of the complex system of law enforcement. Smarter than one might give it credit for, and totally thrilling.
- 8. Winchester '73 (1950)
- I appreciate creativity in classic Westerns, and this film has the intriguing hook of following the path of a famous gun as it travels through different hands, all of people in the same interconnected plot. That might sound gimmicky, but it's totally effective, adding a fascinating layer to an already very good Western tale.
- 9. Superman II (1980)
- I didn't know about all the Richard Lester/Richard Donner drama before I decided to watch this. This is the original 1980 Richard Lester cut, rightfully criticized for having some confusing and nonsensical moments when it deals with Superman extinguishing and, later, revitalizing his superpowers. Other things just don't make sense about this too, like why he didn't just use his powers to save Lois from the rapids if he knew all along he could erase her memory, but hey whatever, this is still plenty entertaining and fun, and that's the main point here, right?
- 10. The Red Violin (1998)
- A swirlingly time-shifting film that jumps from century to century in following the lifespan of a red violin, this epic drama could have been classic Oscar bait if it had fared better with the critics. Instead, many found it hokey, but I liked the originality of the ambitious premise enough to get hooked into this beautiful movie. Samuel L. Jackson is certainly playing against type here, but he proves effective here, and the rest of the international cast, if less famous, is just as terrific. A charming, underrated film.
- 11. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003)
- I admit I've been putting off watching this film despite its acclaim. Really, how interesting could a film about Buddhist monks actually be? And it's true that I was bored for all of the first five minutes. As soon as things started happening, though, I just got it. These characters are Buddhist monks, but they're just like us. The film is simple but never simplistic; it's almost a silent film, and it very well could have been one: there are probably not more than 10 lines of dialogue in the whole film that are necessary. The film deftly uses its images to tell a story that is sectioned into episodes but isn't episodic, that is about Buddhist monks but is also totally universal. A totally brilliant film.
- 12. Eating Raoul (1982) (watched again)
- Some films you just have to return to, to pick up on all their nuances, like Eating Raoul. Nah, I watched this with some friends for its camp value. And it's still just as ridiculous as I remembered.
- 13. Stroszek (1977)
- I like that I watched this within a few weeks of El Norte, since it's sort of like the bizarre version of The Plight of the Immigrant. Unlike El Norte, which cranks up the melodrama as it goes on, Stroszek actually gets stranger and more darkly humorous at the end when things look bleak, and its final sequence is both completely random and also the perfect way to end the movie. All of Werner Herzog's films are really weird, of course, and I wouldn't have it any other way.
- 14. Woman in the Dunes (1964)
- There was a time when I had seen few classic films, so actually most of the films I was discovering were acclaimed masterpieces. That time is over now and the masterpieces are few and far between, so it's always nice when I stumble upon a new one. This film starts innocently enough, albeit with a jarring score and some off-kilter avant-garde shots, which are the only clues to the maddening path that the film will soon take the viewer along. The film basically takes the motif of sand, which most of us regard as innocuous at best and a mild annoyance (ya know, like when you get it all over you at the beach) at worst, and fully convinces you of its nightmarish powers. I would say more, but I really knew nothing about this film going into it and I think that was definitely the best way to experience it. So just see it.
- 15. Modern Times (1936) (watched again)
- I watched this movie once again and enjoyed it just as much as I always do. Still one of the funniest and most uplifting slapstick satires out there. Every stunt is astonishing, every scene is memorable.
- 16. East of Eden (1955)
- I like stories that add layers of depth to iconic but undeveloped characters, so I must say I thoroughly enjoyed this updating of the Cain and Abel tale. It infuses that classic narrative with a multidimensional emotional core, supplemented with some incredible cinematography replete with uncomfortable Dutch angles. The shot with James Dean on the swing will linger in my brain; it's an odd image, frivolous yet haunting. The film thankfully avoids getting too wrapped up in its own melodrama or allegory, turning out to be a great drama with some terrific acting.
- 17. Source Code (2011)
- Am I crazy for thinking this April release is a fantastic movie? Sure, it'll help if you don't think too much about the purported "science" in this science-fiction, but I can easily suspend my disbelief and appreciate the creativity of this winning film. This could have turned out to be nothing more than an engaging mystery and it still would have been a good movie, but in the last half-hour we see that the script has something deeper in mind, which takes the film to even greater heights. The end result is a film with both brains and heart: clever, thrilling, sweet, and life-affirming. It's also remarkably well-filmed by Duncan Jones, who proves that his great work in Moon was not a fluke. May be too early to tell, but I think Jones has the talent to become one of our most celebrated directors.
- 18. Win Win (2011)
- I loved The Station Agent so much that I want to keep rooting for Thomas McCarthy. Unfortunately, though he hasn't directed a bad film yet, his movies do seem to be getting progressively worse. Win Win is a good movie, but it lacks the quirky personality of his previous two films, and replaces the quirks with cliches. The wrestling subplot predictably takes every turn you expect it to take and ends up terribly uninspired. Non-actor Alex Shaffer is surprisingly effective as the wrestler, but the treatment of Shaffer's character seems like a script doctor took all the rough edges and smoothed them into the most palatable rebel possible. The cast is quite good, with the hilarious Bobby Cannavale stealing most of his scenes; the writing works in most of the family drama moments, but this isn't the direction I wanted McCarthy's career to go in. His first film was unique, and this one is conventional.
Comments are always welcome, always have been, and always will be.