I went to see A Serious Man, the new Coen bros. movie today. I'm a little hesitant to be at all critical of it, as it's got rave reviews, but I didn't exactly love it. It was quite a miserable film in a lot of ways, for a film that has been billed as a comedy. The characters are very real, which I liked, and is not exactly true for all Coens movies, but I found it hard to see anything deeper than just a man who's life is getting worse and worse (in realistic ways). It can be quite funny, but all the jokes are almost groans at the protagonist's expense. For what it is, it was very well realised, but I guess I was just expecting something more substantial. I'd love for anyone and everyone to tell me why I'm completely wrong though...!

The Road.

Remember the tense feeling in your chest during the last parts of Requiem For a Dream, or that came and went throughout There Will Be Blood?  Imagine it for an entire movie.

Which is not to say I didn't like it, because I did, but there's a good chance I'll never watch it again.  Very, very, very bleak; visually as beautiful as Fallout 3.

The kid's pretty good, though a bit on the healthy-looking side.  Didn't recognize Guy Pearce.  I think Viggo might have a vestigial tail.

Coincidentally, my date and I were discussing cannibalism at dinner beforehand.

Two thumbs up -- feel-bad hit of the winter.

Great review, Jamie!  The last bit should be the tag-line on the DVD box when it comes out.

I saw the Inglorious "Inglourious Basterds."  Zzzzz.  I have never felt more... dead?  uninvolved?... more vacant while watching a movie from the director who spawned my AOL email name back in the day.  I have to say I was always worried about QT.  How would that early breaking out of the gate with True Romance, (the script), Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction play out.  Say what you will about being an auto-didact, it seemed to me that dropping out of school in 9th grade leaves an intellectual deficit that's difficult to make up for.  

Oh.  The movie.  I felt like I was trapped in a lousy comic book.  Not a graphic novel either but one of those comic books they'd give you at the dentist office for good oral hygiene or something.  Not engaging.  I found myself so distracted that by the end when Brad Pitt (in what has to be his single worst ever perf) is confronting his final Nazi, all I could focus on was the continuity error with his untied bowtie.  First you see two sides dangling.  Then one.  Then back to two.  And two.  

Not a humanoid to be found in that movie.  And the amount of actorly mugging!  Geez!  I visualize Eli Roth and Quentin hanging around smoking pot and dreaming up adolescent film fantasies.  And the Weinstein brothers sycophanting, "YEAH!"

I pretty much hated the score too.  I did think there were some beautifully shot scenes however and kudos to the cinematographer for that.  

FEH. I'm a little sad that we chose that movie over my current Netflix pic, "The Station Agent" which I'm pretty sure will be much better.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I saw Sherlock Holmes.  I really enjoyed it and it was a fun movie for the holidays.  It isn't a very deep movie, but a lot of action.  I like watching movies with action or family films on Christmas instead of an "arty" film.  So, it was a lot fun in the same way as movies like Young Sherlock Holmes, Lethal Weapon and From Hell are fun. 

 I also saw Finding Amanda a few nights ago.  I liked it although it was very slow in parts.  But I really liked the ending and how the characters were written.

"The Act of Seeing with One's Own Eyes"  - incredible, but also very hard to watch.

There was a fiish..iinn the percolatrr!

Since Wednesday:

- All three recent Ocean's movies.  Eleven still stands up as a film, but Twelve and Thirteen are pretty weak -- they're fun enough to watch as long as you don't think about them.  I have to admit I enjoyed seeing something with intrigue and danger, but with nobody getting killed or even seriously injured.  For some reason, the picture quality for Thirteen was slightly above fullscreen YouTube videos, which makes me a bit angry since I own it now.

- All three extended Lord of the Rings movies.  These improve every time I watch them, even as some of the CGI effects start to seriously date themselves.  I absolutely do not care about the books, which might help.  Third one drags in the last hour, but they've obviously edited it with an awareness of this fact and tried to compensate.

- Quantum of Solace, which I enjoyed more on this second viewing because I already knew the weaknesses.  You can't have your suspension of disbelief punctured if you go in with none to start with.  I should probably stick with Bourne when I want to be emotionally involved with my escapism.

- This Gun For Hire.  Veronica Lake.  Long, wistful sigh.  The movie had some good parts, and some not so great parts, but it was entertaining overall.  I haven't made up my mind about Alan Ladd's performance yet.  And did I mention Veronica Lake?  Did I sigh when I did it?

I had a fun, entertaining time with Topsy Turvy, Mike Leigh's film about Gilbert and Sullivan.  They were like the Tim Rice and A.L. Webber of the 1800's.  I hadn't realized their importance in the history of musical theater. Jim Broadbent plays Gilbert (the funny-word-guy), who apparently was the first to bring focussed direction to musical productions.  It's a movie about the world of the theater as much as a biopic about G and S.  Anyone who is interested in the nuts and bolts of what it takes to bring off a production will love this movie.   It pulls you into the repertory company's world, great performances all around, lots of G and S numbers (movie runs long, near 3 hours).  

Avatar was about what I expected. Unbelievable visually, but a uninteresting story, and I didn't like the way Cameron put across his message. Still a lot of fun though. So glad I chose to see it at the IMAX in 3D too.

I watched Moon too. For a directing debut, it was a really good film. Exactly my kind of sci-fi too (unlike Avatar), little-to-no action, lots of reflection on what it is to be human etc. Perhaps, it was a little too close to Solaris, and having seen both Solaris films and the Lem book, I am vey familiar with that kind of story. Moon was a lot less confusing and the story was (almost) completely explained by the end, which is nice once in a while.

The Limits of Control by Jim Jarmusch.  Tough movie.

If I describe it, it sounds like something I should like:  Mystery Dude walks around a lot through beautiful environments, doesn't speak Spanish but receives a lot of philosophy, changes suits as plot events, and ultimately carries out a physically impossible mission, the instructions to which seems to have been communicated to him obliquely through coffee dates and random events in his surroundings.

There is so much walking in this movie.  And de Bankole is really good at being blank, which leaves nothing to chew on during the scenes of sitting and looking, walking and looking, standing and looking...

The end -- five minutes that contain 80% of the movie's action -- I found jarring and sudden, but that's inevitable given the structure of the film, and is maybe one of the points.

I want to like it more than I actually liked it, but I'll probably watch it again when I'm in the mood for something super-minimal.  I do feel like there's more to get there than I'm currently getting.

No Country For Old Men, finally.  I was as impressed as I expected to be (as a Coens fanboy), and I had managed to avoid spoilers for the last two years, so it was swell.

I think he was in the room to the right.

Ace in the Hole  

Billy Wiilder's 1951 prescient tale of an amoral newspaper reporter (Kirk Douglas) who will stoop to the most heinous actions to get  a story, fame, and fortune. This would be dark by today's standards, let alone 1951.  Great final shot (that Spike Lee pays homage to in Malcolm X.)  Pair this with Kazan's A Face in the Crowd and you've got a knock-out double feature.

The Limits of Control

I love what Jarmusch did with this movie. I experienced it as a symbolist poem with a backdrop of fantastic landscapes, works of art, droning music, and the most minimal action thriller plot possible.  A fantastic nod to Almodovar in a scene of a Flamenco dance rehearsal (and shades of Mulholland Drive, too, as the singer's lyrics communicate to the main character.)  Ego, control, reality, perception, power of the imagination--expansive ideas communicated with very little dialog.  I enjoyed the long walks with the Lone Man, felt like I was exploring Spain street by street, in between the Lone Man's encounters with his contacts. I salute Jarmusch for making this kind of movie.

Here's a link to a good interview with Jarmusch:  

Morse, Erik (May 06, 2009). "The man in Control: Jim Jarmusch interview". Pixel Vision. San Francisco Bay Guardian.
 

Jim Jarmusch's new film has got terrible reviews, from what I've seen.

I've never actually seen any of his films apart from the Cousins? segment from Coffee and Cigarettes. I loved that scene though! Can anyone recommend me a Jarmusch film to watch?

Dead Man.

I recently watched Brothers, Men Who Stare at Goats, and Up in the Air.

Up in the Air blew me away. Brothers was pretty intense. Goats stank miserably.

I saw Parnassus a few nights ago.  It's a Terry Gilliam film.  I could probably stop there.  Instead, randomly-ordered opinions:

The entire thing was shambling, chaotic, and off-balance from start to finish.  Kind of exhausting, and occasionally exhilarating.  A fair number of reach-backs to his own previous work here and there, and some familiar themes...

The girl and her partner were appealing, and gave the story some heart.  I didn't find Christopher Plummer quite as amazing as some did, but he was certainly good.  Tom Waits was Tom Waits, but since he's playing such an unreal character that wasn't a negative for me (his delivery of "You're probably not a betting man, are you?" is a performance highlight for the whole film, so please avoid watching the trailer).  Verne Troyer was impatiently irritated pretty much from start to finish, and the strength of his performance can best be considered via the fact that I nearly forgot to list him at all.

Johnny Depp was okay, Jude Law made up for not looking the part by finding the right kind of manic intensity for his twist on the character, and I'm mixed on Colin Farrell, who had a few good moments but who I didn't really accept as Tony as I did the other two (despite his working the hardest to capture some nice subtleties of mannerism, etc.) but he was all right.  They all brought forward more of the darkness of Tony that Heath Ledger was constrained to hold back.

And he was kind of fragile as the "real" Tony.  It's very hard for me to read his performance right now, with one viewing, and the twin ghosts of the Joker and Celebrity Death Heath Ledger hovering behind me.  But I'm sure I'll watch it a few more times and eventually get my own handle on it.

The police song was out of place, disruptive, and was way too much time spent on something that had nothing to do with anything -- which would have been fine if it was also funny, but it's not.  In fact, the zanier gags tend to also be the ones that work the least well, and the darker, drier, smaller moments of humor are much more effective.

The film looks terrific, art direction was very tasty and fun, but there were occasional sound mix issues.   Questionable typographical choices for the end crawl.

Up in the Air and The Hurt Locker.  The first was an ennnnh for me while the second was wonderful. 

Wow, The Hurt Locker is macho city!!!  And to think it was directed by a woman.  Like Angel, I have a special place in my heart for masculinity maybe because the condition seems to be in such a sorry state of decline.  So I enjoyed it on that level but it also had that thing I love but rarely encounter -- a GOOD and satisfying ending!  Plenty of tension in between, compelling non-generic, complex characters. 

At first I was wary.  A lot of people liked this movie which seemed a bad sign.  (think last year Slumlord Millionaire)  Then there was the subject matter.  It generally seems like a Hollywood (or European or even an Israeli war film) depicts the warrior in one of two ways: either a victim a perpetrator of atrocities.  But if you look back through any magazine from the 1940s, you'll see there used to be a third category = there were "heroes" back then.  To be a hero in wartime, often means that you have to kill the enemy and nowadays, violence is icky.  At least for those who make movies about war so you don't see such films.  Count the number of films or documentaries that focus on the maimed, the sufferers of PTS, the drug addicted, the suicidal soldiers returning home.  Then there are the other stories.  Bad guys who torture innocent detainees.  You-can't-handle-the truth narratives. I loved the Jeremy Renner and hope his career is gangbusters after this, though I'd never heard of him before. 

Back to Up In the Air.  Maybe what I disliked most about this movie was the visual quality. Airports.  Blah.  Bland hotel rooms in Anywhere, USA.  Or maybe it was just not involving enough beyond the setting.  Or maybe I found it hard to believe anyone would really enjoy the main character's life style -- flying from city to anonymous city firing people.  Whaddever.  I'm sure I'll forget I ever saw this film in a matter of days unless the Academy force feeds it to us next month.  Like they did with "Crash."  Oh perish the thought!  Please NO!  Or will it be "Avatar"? Probably.

Susan

PS  Just noticed you liked Up In the Air, Angel.  Maybe I should've stayed awake for the whole thing.

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Point Blank  

In Jim Jarmusch's commentary on Limits of Control, he says John Boorman's Point Blank (1967) was a huge influence on him.  So I duly ordered it from the library.  Wow, what an amazing film.  Lee Marvin is amazing as Walker, seemingly back from the dead and bent for revenge on his wife and best friend who took his share of a heist and left him for dead in an empty Alcatraz.  Hey, Booth, are you still out there?  What a powerful walk down that airport hallway, cutting to his wife in the beauty parlor (ah, the mirrors!),  cut to the loud steps of Walker, his wife heading home, the loud steps, his wife opening her door, the loud steps ending as Walker bursts in behind her, grabs her, the shots into the empty bed.  Ah ha!  Recognition!  The screen shot Booth posted months ago in the Guess The Movie thread.  Now I remember, Point Blank.  See it, folks.

Here's a great documentary by John Boorman about Lee Marvin.  Jarmusch appears several times, once pulling a business card out of his pocket that Tom Waits had made up for their "secret society", The Sons of Lee Marvin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soA0_5oZ8LY&feature=related