Films I Watched - May, 2007
Submitted by lbangs on Wed, 05/02/2007 - 02:44
Tags:
- 5/1 - Hollywoodland - ** 1/2
- 5/5 - The Haunting - Robert Wise uses black and white contrasts, disorienting angles, sexual repressions, and an increasingly unreliable narrator to get all Henry James on the haunted house genre. He bookended this project with big budget musicals, but on this lean production, he relishes in the chance to run riot with his own strange style. It is one of the best of an incredibly weak genre, the scary house movie. *** 1/2
- 5/11 - Black Book - Paul Verhoeven is a wild man, and his checkered career never fails for too much subtlety. When he sins, he sins boldly, and he always sins. Despite some good American films (Robocop pops to mind), his films made in his native Netherlands are his best. It is no surprise, then, that his return to his home results in perhaps his best film. Unorthodoxly tackling Word War II in a style we haven’t seen in decades, he treats his material as classic heated drama with liberal doses of suspense. He flaunts sex and, often, bad taste, and he doesn’t waste time with speeches or underlined morals. He is also bold enough to include sympathetic Nazis and evil resistance fighters. The long running time breezes by, stealing your breath and pounding your pulse. It is almost enough to make you forgive him for Showgirls. Almost. ****
- 5/12 - Year of the Dog - The trailer screams romantic comedy, but don’t be fooled. This is a dark, dire examination of obsession and how we define ourselves. The acting is good, the screenplay is very funny and very depressing, and the end result isn’t pretty. You wince watching characters destroy their own lives, but it is an intelligent, well-made picture worth seeing. It is a good, perhaps cautionary film, even though it is not always a very fun one. ***
- 5/20 - Away From Her - They once dismissed Sarah Polley by sniffing she was a young Uma Thurman, as if that was in any way something undesirable. She continued her fine career as an actor and here debuts as director, and suddenly, nobody is shrugging her off anymore. She handles this wrenching, delicate tale with an understated skill rare in a first-timer, and if a few moments near the beginning lean toward a tad too precious, you won’t care. This film, studying the effects of Alzheimer’s disease on an elderly couple, will work your tear ducts overtime. Polley is wise, never going for that music-swelling emotional-overkill moment and instead allowing her cast to breathe naturally with realistic portrayals of ordinary people facing tragic circumstances. As with the best drama, it is the heroic way they choose to handle impossible burdens that makes this ultimately so moving. *** 1/2
- 5/21 - Spider-Man 3 - So the third film in a series should always worry the viewer. Sure, most people live for comfortable sequels - it helps you not have to think or face anything challenging - but for those of us who love our art as something more than an occasional mental lullaby, a successful sequel is rare enough and a third installment is almost always horrible. Is that the story here? No, not exactly. This is a mighty step down from Spider-Man 2, which is one of the two best superhero movies ever made, but it still provides plenty of fun and awe, even if it is accompanied by entirely too much flab. Like an eighties blockbuster album, it is severely hurt by being front-loaded; the action scenes never get better than the first few flighty fights, and by the time the ending tries to shove every element in the series into the climatic battle, the tableau starts to reveal a certain paint-by-numbers aspect the series hasn’t shown since the dismal first installment. Unlike the second film, the romance here is more bothersome than central, but if all the best fighting scenes are near the beginning, much of the fun is to be had in the ridiculous yet giddy scenes where Pete goes all emo on the world. The women in the street laugh, and most of the audience does also. It is ridiculous, and the film benefits from the silliness. This falls far short of the melodramatic masterpiece of the previous film, but it still packs plenty of thrills tucked between its expanding love handles. I’ll bet your bottom dollar the next Pirates film won’t be half as good. ***
- 5/28 - Waitress - Keri Russell is a waitress with a gift for cooking up divine pies and a life lacking flavor. Her husband manages to abuse her despite his stunted emotional and mental development, her job is stagnant, and now, she has discovered a baby is on the way. The only spark in her dull life is her cute new doctor. Director Adrienne Shelly folds this in with a swirl of stories covering the other two waitress at the restaurant and delivers a treat. The premise could very easily fall into predictable Lifetime movie-of-the-week territory, but by staying away from cliche and avoiding easy, unrealistic laughs in favor of honest ones, this never teeters. Even Andy Griffith pops up to provide some uncharacteristically fun grumpiness. I'd love seconds. *** 1/2
I'm rating the films on a zero to **** basis. ** 1/2 is average.