The Watercooler: 3/31/08
Audrey Tautou in the Watercooler pick of the weekend: Priceless
After two mediocre weekends in a row and a weekend off, I ventured back to the movie theater this Saturday and Sunday, refreshed and reinvigorated. Three of the four movies I saw were good. The fourth one wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t really the target audience for it.
First up was the erotic action thriller Boarding Gate from Olivier Assayas (Clean, Demonlover) starring Euro-hottie Asia Argento as an ex-prostitute on the run and Michael Madsen as her former pimp/lover. This wasn’t Pretty Woman, it was good sleazy fun. Assayas kept the action mostly on a low simmer, but punctuated it with bursts of sex and violence and always kept me wondering where the story was going to turn next. Any good cinematic diet needs occasionally junk food and Boarding Gate was a nice big Twinkie.
Next was Zak Penn’s comic documentary (I’m retiring the word “mockumentary” from LiC) The Grand starring Woody Harrelson, Cheryl Hines, David Cross, Dennis Farina, Richard Kind, Chris Parnell and Werner Herzog as a motley group of professional poker players competing in a Vegas poker championship. Unlike recent poker-centric films like Lucky You, the game itself is de-emphasized in favor of solid, character based, possibly improvised comedy. Relying heavily on its talented cast, The Grand takes a few pages out of the Christopher Guest playbook and while it might not reach the same heights as Guest’s best stuff, it more than holds its own. It’s easily the first genuinely funny comedy I’ve seen this year.
The third movie I caught was the French trifle Priceless. It was about a millimeter deep, but it completely charmed me. Audrey Tautou plays a sexy gold digger prowling the French Riviera hoping to marry a rich man. She mistakes hotel barman Jean as a prospect only to discover after they’ve slept together that he’s penniless. She tries to get rid of him, but he’s fallen in love. He becomes the kept man of a lonely rich woman so he can follow Audrey up and down the Riviera in the hope of winning her back. It’s the kind of comedy only the French or possibly the Italians can really pull off. It’s effervescent like French champagne and very likeable.
Finally I watched Stop-Loss which was a bit of a disappointment even though my expectations weren’t high. I didn’t feel like it was offering me anything new about the horrors of war and the trauma that follows it, but then I think it might be aimed at a late teen to early twenties audience that doesn’t remember Vietnam, wasn’t raised on Coming Home or Platoon, and is exactly the age group for whom military service seems like a viable option. In some ways it’s one of the better movies to deal directly with the Iraq war, even if it wasn’t the movie for me. The fact that it isn’t especially original in its message or its methods doesn’t mean it won’t be worthwhile to a younger audience. It was well intentioned, but a little ham handed and melodramatic. The performances by the main cast were all good and I’d sooner watch it again than In the Valley of Elah.
Filed under: Miscellaneous
Related Posts: - The Watercooler: 4/14/08
- Review: Priceless (2008) ****
- Weekend Forecast: 3/21/08
- Weekend Forecast: 3/28/08
- Cannes 2008 - Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You
Boarding Gate sounded interesting even with less-than-stellar reviews, and now that you’ve weighed in on its behalf I’ll definitely have to check it out sooner or later.
I definitely want to see Priceless.
The more I think about Stop-Loss the more I think it would probably work better as a miniseries. As it was, it was too short to delve into the many seemingly interesting characters it created, and had to resort to too many shortcuts to get to its points. It works in fits and starts but for me it just didn’t come together as I would have liked.
Thank you for your semantic stance on ‘mockumentary’. It’s truly a term that no longer has any real meaning.
Glad to hear you liked Priceless, I’ll probably see it .
My weekend was a long string of USC thesis films, and even though mine was one of them, the less said the better.
I want to see the four films you saw. In this order: Stop-Loss, The Grand, Priceless and Boarding Gate.
I am sorry that Stop-Loss was a disappointment for you, I mean there is no telling how I might react to it, but that does not make me very hopeful at all. I might be more/less the target audience and I do not know if that is good either, I am huge fan of “The Deer Hunter” and “Platoon,” and I have learnt a bit about Vietnam from my grandfather whose uncle was in the war and so on. I am just not sure how interested I am in these war-themed films anymore, none of them seem to be hitting the right mark these days. I won’t go into any kind of political crap, but I am not interested in the war in Iraq anymore, and will not be until it is over.
I did not get to see “Shine a Light” like I hoped, but did see Paranoid Park and Grace is Gone. My weekend was not spectacular, but it was not bad at all.
I was fortunate to see a film that turns out to be a near-masterpiece, Alexander Sokurov’s achingly realistic ALEXANDRA, with an unforgettable performance by Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, who portrays an 81 year-old widow, who visits her grandson at an otherworldly military camp implied be on the Chechen front. Much like his thematically linked gems, FATHER AND SON and MOTHER AND SON, Sokurov explores relationships broken by death or absence in sensuous closeups. The barren and scorched terrian again suggests spiritual isolation, and the film’s spare dialogue unearths philosophical observances that achieve inner truth. The spare soundtrack with classical motifs echoes Bresson and Bergman, yet in the end Sokurov’s cinema is highly original and compelling. Ironically, his most popular film, RUSSIAN ARK, is the one I see as flawed among his prolific output. ALEXANDRA is one of the best films so far of 2008, vying perhaps with THE BAND’S VISIT.
For those Manohla Dargis fans out there, she gave the film a spectacular review (which rates on meta as a 100, saying among other perfectly-worded observations that “Sokurov’s work is serious, intense, at times opaque and so feverishly personal that it also feels as if you’re being invited into his head, not just another reality.” At the end of her review she says that she has already seen the film three times, and that it is “a beautiful, eerie work of art about life and death and the love a grandson expresses when he plaints his grandmother’s hair. It has revealed some of its mysteries, and I’m sure it will reveal more when I return to it again.” In Dargis’ full body of film criticism, it is doubtful that she could give a more favorable review than that. I issued effusive praise in my own review of the film.
The Mexican UNDER THE SAME MOON,(seen yesterday) alas, was contrived and completely dependent on past films of this genre. The film simply wasn’t nuanced, and the forced emotions rang false.
My kids begged me to take them to see COLLEGE ROAD TRIP on Saturday afternoon, but my reaction is virtually in the “unspeakable” realm.
I had a very busy movie-going weekend and I’ll kind of go in reverse here. I already mentioned seeing Paranoid Park last night in responding to Craig’s review. I liked it but I wasn’t amazed by it. I think maybe my expectations were a little different than what the movie was intending to deliver, but overall it was pretty good.
After that though, I saw Taxi to the Dark Side. Every voting age American adult should be forced to see this movie. Definitely not for the squeamish, but it’s an honest depiction of what our government has been doing in our name for the last 7 years. Honestly, it was terrifying. The movie is unflinching in its depiction of the facts. It’s sad, disappointing, shocking, and infuriating that this country has come to symbolize the same callous disregard for human rights and freedom that our enemies in Al-Qaeda embody in their rhetoric and actions.
Saturday was a real mixed bag. I began by watching The Mist, which didn’t really do much for me. The cast just didn’t inspire much interest and Darrabont’s storytelling was absent of any real drama or weight. He followed King’s story nearly note-for-note and then tacked on an extended ending that made 28 Weeks Later look like a Disney movie. Talk about torture porn…the torture was sitting through the last 30 minutes of this movie only to discover the money shot was a kick in the groin. I’d have admired the balls behind it all if the movie hadn’t been such a slog.
Saturday evening we saw Vantage Point. It was F*CKING AWFUL. Imagine 24 crossed with Rashomon. Now take out all the good parts and waste the efforts of three talented lead actors. I’m all for popcorn and fluff, but only when it rises above the standard TV movie.
Later Saturday evening we watched Enchanted on DVD and I think I liked it a bit more than Craig, but then again I had just seen Vantage Point so anything would fare well in comparison. The musical numbers were good, Amy Adams and James Marsden were both pretty funny, and I kind of enjoyed how it managed to equally mock and pay homage to the Disney classics. But I agree with Craig that the ending was weak, the overall narrative was limp, and the opening animation sequence was just bad. Once again, this is a movie where someone had an interesting premise and then concocted a story to drape around it. Like Across the Universe or Vantage Point, the result of such gimmicky productions are decidedly mixed.
Friday night we watched The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. I liked this movie even more the second time through. I don’t have much to add to the existing conversation other than to once again wildly praise the amazing lead acting performance of Casey Affleck and the wonderful supporting work by Sam Rockwell, Paul Schneider, and Garret Dillahunt. Brad Pitt has some great scenes but he still feels a little uneven to me. Deakins’ cinematography is truly amazing. Hopefully someday this movie will warrant a special edition where we’ll get the purported hours of extra footage director Andrew Dominik supposedly shot (along with a commentary track explaining the behind-the-scenes fiasco that resulted in this movie being unceremoniously dumped by the studio).
One can hope. Otherwise, it was a pretty good movie-going weekend. Three hits, two complete misses, and one mixed bag. Not bad.
Saw The Band’s Visit. What a masterpiece, and a rallying point if there ever was one for the need to reform Oscar’s foreign film committee.
Joel, bummer you didn’t like The Mist. It blew me away, although your reaction isn’t surprising. I was stunned by the ending - you felt kicked in the balls. Perhaps our reactions weren’t all that different.
Also rewatched Raising Arizona, which is a quotable gem but hasn’t held up quite as well as I thought it would have.
And, finally, to cap it all off I took Hitman for a spin. I didn’t feel like thinking, just wanted the guilty pleasure fix. It didn’t entirely disappoint, although I found myself chuckling at all the wrong times. I don’t think Timothy Olyphant is a very good actor. Too bad Deadwood Season 4 is an impossibility, since I think that is the only positive career choice he has at the moment.
I will definitely check out Alexandra, Sam.
On Saturday I revisited the 1973 Dillinger starring Warren Oates and directed by Milius. Oates is excellent in the title role - he’s crazy and dangerous, but just likable enough. Excellent, well-acted film all around and the cast includes a very young Richard Dreyfuss as Baby Face Nelson and Michelle Phillips as Billie Frechette. The movie has a real 70’s feel to it in the way that it was made and there are some absolutely striking moments between Dillinger and Purvis.
Water Lilies was the main feature at the MOMA on Sunday, part of their New Directors series. It was preceded by a 15-minute short titled Man, a gripping little film about two sisters and their encounter with a man that one of them has met online. It was written and directed by the newcomer Myna Joseph, who was at the screening.
Parisian Céline Sciamma is the writer and director of the full-length feature, Water Lilies, a film in French with English subtitles. Sciamma wrote the screenplay as her thesis while in school and made the film shortly after. She currently writes for a French TV series and this is her only feature-length film so far. She was at the screening and there was an interesting and informative Q&A afterward, in which she discussed her vision for the story.
It’s about a teenage girl Marie, her chubby friend on the synchronized swimming team and a pretty and self-assured girl on the team to whom Marie becomes drawn. There is almost no adult presence; the two or three adults that we see are on screen for no more than a minute. Likewise, the role of men and boys in the film is not as important and Sciamma is not commenting on teenage boys or behavior. What’s important is the view of Marie and other teenage girls like her and their perception of the boys, and we see everything that goes on in the film through their eyes.
The movie shows us the shifting personal relations between Marie and her friends as they have their first sexual encounters, the competitiveness between girls, and the ways in which girls can be cruel to one another. We see this both among the girls on the synchronized swimming team and between Marie and her friends. The film has a very naturalistic feel to it, which I really liked. Sciamma’s vision was to cast actresses who were very physical, and it was the right choice. The film has a sensuality and emotional rawness that helps to express what these girls are going through. She also insisted on using actresses who were the age of the characters. Only one actress had made a feature length film before this. These were less experienced newcomers.
This is a teen film that goes over territory we’ve seen before, but it does so without being clichéd. It’s worth checking out.
Water Lilies is opening at the Landmark Sunshine Theater in NYC this Friday April 4, 2008. I’m not sure about its release in L.A. or anywhere else here yet - sorry :-(.
Cool, Alison, glad to hear you enjoyed Water Lilies. It sounds really interesting.
Evan, I wanted to like The Mist but the basic premise of King’s story has always been hard to buy for me and seeing it in a live action movie made it even harder to buy into: how is that these people are surrounded by a dizzying array of destructive otherworldly monstrosities and yet these creatures seem incapable of penetrating a building covered in cheap plate glass on one side? Further, Thomas Jane does nothing for me.
But the ending…you know, I wanted to like it but it was just too much. I could see something bad coming and I felt like Darrabont just didn’t pull it off. The buildup implies that the entire world is doomed…but apparently not. Yet our characters are. I just didn’t really see the point in it. The message seemed to be “I’m the director and I’m going to kick you in the balls for the sake of doing that. I don’t really have a point to it…I’m just trying to shock you.”
Well, thanks Frank.
Oh, and maybe we’re just of different minds on most things filmic…cause I can watch Raising Arizona over and over again. One of my favorite movies.
Glad you enjoyed the Mist though. I wanted to like it…it just didn’t work for me.
Joel, I saw that you revisited The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, something that I plan to do this coming weekend. It sounds like it plays well on DVD.
I haven’t seen Raising Arizona in a long time. Something else to add to the queue.
I think Assassination of Jesse James played better the second time when I could just get caught up in the atmosphere of it and really dig into the performances and Deakins’ visuals. I’m still trying to figure out if there’s a methodology behind when they chose to use the prism effect on the lens and when they didn’t. It seemed to be very deliberate.
Beautiful movie though. I may have to retract my earlier statements that No Country is a stronger performance from Deakins. I didn’t recall how amazing the visuals in this one are, regardless of the subtle visual beauty of No Country.
I really enjoyed The Mist in the theatre with the crowd reacting in just the right parts, but boy it doesn’t carry over to DVD. I’m willing to leap that the creatures somehow don’t penetrate the store, but I really get tired of the King trope of the religious fanatic, and the crowd’s conversion to her way of thinking so quickly (two days? maybe?) is ridiculous.
The ending never worked for me, its too self-congratulatory, Darbont trying too hard to shed his neo-Capra image that the prior films established. Darabont has a small bit in the Blade Runner doc Dangerous Days, where he describes his frustration with BR’s narration and its hammering home of certain points, that reaction is quite ironic considering that all of films do the same thing.
Yeah, Chuck, I never really liked the religious fanatic in the store. I think it works better in the written version, but it’s a lot to swallow in such a short amount of time. Marcia Gay Harden really sells it, but it’s just a lot to buy into.
I wonder if the black-and-white version on the SE DVD would play better on the small screen?
I think it might Joel, I have the DVD and intend to find out when I get the chance.
I’ve never seen The Mist and don’t plan to actually. Although I have enjoyed some of Stephen King’s writing, I’m not a huge fan and most of the films that adapt his stories (that I’ve seen) are quite disappointing. The exceptions are: Carrie and, of course, The Shining; two films that owe their success to the brilliant directors behind them and the fact that King thankfully wasn’t involved.
His stories seem to work better as TV mini-series anyway. Salem’s Lot was a pretty decent 4-parter (with the original Hutch, David Soul), and though I never saw the Sci Fi Channel’s 4-part The Shining I heard good things about it.
If you’ve got a problem with Stephen King movies in general Alison (and that’s understandable) then I wouldn’t advise that four part Shining, which is an embarassment.
I think the key to King (I’m a fan of much of his written work) is understanding, as a filmmaker should with many novels, that the film and the novel don’t have to be identical twins. King’s folksy campfire dialogue and prose is nearly impossible to capture in a film, and the films that realize that get closer to the spirit of the work.
Carrie is, for me, easily the best thing ever produced from a Stephen King novel, ironic considering the book is only so-so, but this is in large part due to the freedom De Palma obviously has, he makes it his own and invests it with real cinematic fever. In turn, he’s faithful enough that the book reigns in his indulgent instincts, its my favorite DePalma movie too.
The Shining is a good movie, but it has nothing to do with Stephen King, as has been widely discussed.
Shawshank is a King movie for people who don’t like King, and Darabont does seem to understand that folky Mayberry tone better than any other filmmaker. Shawshank is as good as a movie based on that story could be, but King didn’t get good at non-horror until his wonderful Hearts in Atlantis (another missed movie opportunity.)
I may be confused, Alison, but I think ABC did a longer version of The Shining that was true to King’s book…and I didn’t see the whole thing because it bored me. I don’t think that material has been revisited again. At least, IMDb makes no reference of it.
USA redid Salem’s Lot a few years ago…that might be what you’re thinking of.
Yeah, I just assumed that the ABC version of The Shining was what alison was referring to.
As you can see, guys, it didn’t make much of an impression on me. :-)
I remember the remake of Salem’s Lot playing on TV, but I didn’t see it. The original one from the 70’s was pretty decent though. Or at least parts of it were - I don’t think I watched it all the way through, LOL.
Chuck, I actually did like The Shawshank Redemption; it’s a great film. I never read the story. The Shining definitely veered off from the book; I read the book after seeing the film and loving it, but was surprised at just how different it was. The film is still excellent for what it is; although I hear tell that Stephen King was pissed about it and it’s for this reason that he became much more heavily involved with films made from his books after that.
Carrie is excellent. You’re absolutely right about this film capturing the real spirit of the book - the cruelty among teenagers, particularly the cruelty and cattiness among teenage girls, as well as the turmoil of being tormented and the violence in which one can strike back with once pushed beyond their limit. Sissy Spacek is sublime in the title role and they couldn’t have found anyone who would more suitably play her mother than Piper Laurie. And the dialogue was appropriate for the time that the film was made.
Young Amy Irving and John Travolta were so cute.
Alison I can be a grouch about movies like The Shawshank Redemption, I think its a fine, well made movie, but those, let’s have hope because that’s all our movie is about hope, hope, hope, type movies generally don’t move me, they appear to be about a few platitudes and little else.
Also, I know its just a movie, but the angelic nature of nearly every prisoner in the maximum security prison irritates me.
Yeah Chuck, it ain’t Oz, that’s for sure (the HBO series, not the Emerald city).
I see what you’re saying about Shawshank, but that movie just charmed with the performances.
Agreed about the performances, Joel, and for me that’s what made it. Yeah, there was only one really bad prisoner for every fifteen evil guards.
SALEM’S LOT and THE DEAD ZONE work best for me. I thought Hooper did a fantastic job of generating genuine creepy TV moments that frightened all my friends in the day. James Mason and Nosferatu! And I love the way David Soul elbows the vampire before he stakes him.
The reputation of Kubrick’s THE SHINING has rightly moved upwards, and there are a few who rate it among the iconic director’s greatest works. I am not going that far, but despite Stephen King’s controlling opinion, Mr. Kubrick made the most artistically successful of any film made from his books. I agree with Chuck on the pre-eminence of CARRIE as well, especially since DePalma has such an erratic career (I would rate most of his films negatively; I did rather like THE UNTOUCHABLES as well) THE MIST was a mixed bag, and the ending indeed was unacceptably self-congratulatory as Chuck stated. THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION was no doubt an impressive film, that time has been kind to. THE GREEN MILE much less so. PET SEMETARY was powerfully awful, but a fool would know as much. The book it was based on, despite literary shortcomings (like all of King) was terrifying in its take on Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw.”
Alison, you make a wonderful case for WATER LILLIES, and I would love to get the opportunity to see it.
and Christian I would agree that both THE DEAD ZONE and SALEM’S LOT did have their spine-tingling moments, even if neither was fully successful. They are at least entertaining.
I saw SNOW ANGELS on Friday night introduced by David Gordon Green. Definitely the plottiest of his movies thusfar, and probably my least favorite. Kate Beckinsale is kind of out of her depth- she always feels like she’s acting, even when she should feel natural. Sam Rockwell, on the other hand, continues to be awesome. Also, for as grim as the film can be, it’s surprisingly funny in spots, which bodes well for PINEAPPLE EXPRESS.
DGG is really engaging in person. Gives off a kind of Linklater-ish vibe. I believe DGG is originally from Texas, as Linklater is, so that would kind of make sense that they’d seem similar.
Other than that, not much else was notable. Cought the last three films in the Wexner Center’s OUT@WEX
GLBT series. BEFORE I FORGET was interesting- a character study of an aging gigolo who doesn’t really know how to do anything else. LAGERFELD CONFIDENTIAL only really of interest to fashion mavens, and ITTY BITTY TITTY COMMITTEE (yes, that’s the actual title) is basically lesbian activism as a sitcom.
Watched the director’s cut of ZODIAC Saturday night- the flash-forward scene, with the music montage playing under a black screen, was disorienting, but I dug it. A little disappointing that more wasn’t added though- I was hoping it might be more exhaustive. Still, I plan on checking out the bonus features when I get the chance.
Good point bringing up Pet Semetary Sam, that book was lean and terrifying, the movie is an embarrassment.
I like The Dead Zone too, and, dare I admit it, haven’t seen Salem’s Lot.
I really look forward to seeing Snow Angels, though i think that happening is a long way off. Ditto Paranoid Park. I saw The Bank Job in the theatre, and caught The Pink Panther (original), The Phantom of Liberty, and Thieves Like Us on DVD.
I would agree that Pet Semetary isn’t much of a movie but it has a few moments in it that are really quite creepy and terrifying. Kind of like The Exorcist 3, which is an awful movie with two of the creepiest, scariest scenes I’ve ever seen in a horror movie.
I did like the sequel to Pet Semetary though, as cheesy as it was. Clancy Brown is absolutely brilliant in that, as he also was in Shawshank Redemption.
Friday night I caught the closing night selection at the Women With Vision International Film Festival. From Brazil, Mutum was a pretty extraordinary look at rural life in the backcountry of Brazil. The story focuses on a young boy and his family, but the simple plot is rich with emotion and the cinematography is fantastic. The ending was symbolically and visually beautiful. I think you said you had interest in Brazil, Alison, and this might offer you a new look at the culture there. It certainly did for me.
Oh, and there was an infant in the theater who rotated between fits of crying, moaning, and hiccuping throughout the entire film. Do you know how annoying hiccuping is?
Yesterday I back-to-backed Run, Fatboy, Run and Stop-Loss.
Fatboy is not what you expect from Simon Pegg’s previous hits, but it’s not terrible, either. Probably the most conventional plot on screen this year. The casting is great across the board and some of the comedy works, but I can’t justify recommending a special trip just for it.
Stop-Loss is, in my opinion, the first important movie about the war in Iraq so far. It packed an emotional punch and made a convincing statement about the war, something no film has done yet for me, and I’ve seen quite a few of them (http://getafilm.blogspot.com/2008/03/war-in-iraq-5-years-116-movies.html). My expectations were really low so perhaps my reaction is inflated a bit, but I was really taken by it. Some of the scenes were a little melodramatic, as you all mentioned, but the reality of the whole thing was enough to overshadow any dramatization. Certainly it’s not a challenge to the already mentioned war classics, but for being made during the war the perspective it offers is quite impressive, and I think it will age well with those in its target market.
Sam, Water Lilies will be at the Sunshine Theater in NYC starting this Friday. Maybe you can catch it this weekend. :-)
Thanks for the info on Mutum, Daniel. Yes, I am very interested in Brazil. I lived and studied there for a short time. Sounds like a great film; hopefully it will make its way to NYC very soon.
There is a trailer and stills here, Alison: http://www.mutumofilme.com.br/index.php. It played at Toronto but it doesn’t look like it’s been picked up for distribution anywhere along the way. Do you speak Portuguese? I don’t, but man, I love that language.
Thanks for the link, Dan. I’ll have to check it out.
I do speak Portuguese, but I’m a bit rusty since it’s been a few years since I was in Brazil. It started to come back when I was in Portugal a little over a year ago, and surrounded by the language again - only problem is that the way they speak it in Brazil is almost completely different than the way they speak it in Portugal. Not just the accent; there’s different vocabulary and even the word order is mixed around.
It’s a beautiful language, particularly the way the Brazilians speak it. I’m partial to the Bahiano accent since I studied in Salvador da Bahia. :-)
Damn, and here I thought I had an interesting movie weekend, but you all trumped me.
Ahhh….where to begin…
Alexander, I think you might like Priceless, especially if you like Ms. Tautou…though she was nothing like her Amelie character…which is good in my opinion.
Boarding gate won’t appeal to all tastes, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Best if not taken too seriously.
Jeff, I’m going to take “the less said the better” at face value, but if you’d care to elaborate, I’d love to hear about it via email.
Sam, thanks for that wonderful Alexandra review. It’s always impossible for me to tell when IFC things are going to make it to LA (it was IFC, right?), but I’ll keep an eye out for it.
Nick, you still might really like Stop-Loss, don’t let my disappointment impact you. There were great parts, but they were squeezed in with some not-so-great parts. Much better in many ways than some of the other Iraq movies to come down the pike. Still, I’d recommend you reverse your order of preference. I’d like to hear more about what you think of Alex in Paranoid Park. Feel free to elaborate here or on the review thread…or I can wait until your own review. I found him a little impenetrable and I’m wondering what you thought he was thinking.
It sounds like we’re sort of on the same page with PP Joel, even if I liked it a bit more overall. I suppose I really ought to get off my ass and see Taxi now. I still haven’t even seen King of Kong…
Also glad to hear JJ works on the small screen. I guess it’s about time I rewatched it and Zodiac.
Opinions are so widely mixed on The Mist, I guess I’m just going to have to break down one of these days and see for myself. Horror just isn’t really my genre, though I always liked that short story, as implausible as it might be.
Nice pick with Dillinger Alison! What inspired you? The upcoming Mann film? Water Lilies is coming to the COL-COA Festival here in April. I’ll put it on my list as one to check out. Paul had recommended one too, but I’ll have to go back and see what that was…
I meant to comment on your terrific Band’s review Evan, but I haven’t had the time to do it yet. Really glad you liked it. So simple and yet so satisfying. It’s the kind of movie that just couldn’t be done right in America…at least not from a major studio.
Raising Arizona is my sentimental favorite Coen because that’s the one where I lost my Coen virginity. The first is always the most special…
I don’t have a dog in the King fight. I’ve enjoyed much of what I’ve read of his, though I find him uneven. Movie-wise has been very hit and miss. Love The Dead Zone, don’t remember Salem’s Lot well at all. Carrie of course. I like The Shining, but over the years it’s waned in terms of my favorite Kubrick films.
It sounds like I liked Snow Angels somewhat more than you Paul. Kate I thought was fine. Se was a little too movie-star beautiful, but it kind of fit the character for me. I found some of the individual stories to be more interesting than the movie as a whole. I could’ve spent the whole movie with whatsisname and Olivia Thirlby.
Paul, isn’t Melonie Diaz in IBTC? It was kind of on my radar for that reason alone, though it sounds like a bit of a disappointment.
Thanks for the head’s up on Mutum Daniel.
And I think your point about the target market of Stop-Loss is an important one. It’s something teens and early 20s should be watching for sure. Forget about the politics behind the war, but the consequences of said war should be talked about and once again the news media is largely dropping the ball on this one.
Craig, all of the recent links on the web for the new Mann film made me decide to re-view Dillinger. It’s excellent. I hope Mann’s film isn’t just a rehash of it. Hollywood feels the need to remake things over and over again, I realize, but I’m hoping Mann will put a new spin on things at least.
As Ryan pointed out in his article over at A.D., in the 1973 the actors looked the parts, particularly Purvis. Mann’s version will certainly be a glamorized one, particularly Purvis played by Christian Bale.
Craig, I don’t know how you do it, but WOW what a virtuoso job of answering all of us, and your graciousness to each and every one is peerless.
ALEXANDRA ran at the Film Forum, so it isn’t IFC. I hope it comes to you soon.
Joel, I must agree with you that PET SEMETARY has several moments of unparallelled terror, most involving the resurrected young boy. The book may be the scariest in King’s canon (he once confided that his wife made him shelve it, saying it was too unconcionable to publish) although IT! matches it in that department in my view. I would say on balance most of the film (cheesy or not) works.
Alison, I may indeed be able to catch WATER LILLIES over the upcoming weekend at the Landmark.
Here’s my weekly kick in the balls to Jeff Wells. He posted something last week complaining how Depp was too pretty go play Dillinger and blah blah blah…the dude is f’ing MENTAL about casting choices, he’s like a fanboy crying about the Bat costume…only he’s about 100 and he’s talking about regular movies.
The delicious irony for me is that it’s an F’ing MICHAEL MANN movie, whom he totally adores…and Michael Mann’s movies are ALWAYS prettied up. It’s practically his whole goddamn raison d’etre, making the universe sexier looking one film at a time.
Wells is a total f’ing clod. Cutting back my time there to once every few days has been the smartest thing I’ve done in ages.
Half the fun of this for me Sam is stirring the pot with you guys, so this part is easy. The hard part is writing reviews about movies that don’t move me.
I mixed up IFC and Film Forum. I’ll continue to keep an eye out for Alexandra.
Craig, I’m sure you already read Ryan’s article on the same topic. It was an excellently written article and he didn’t bitch and moan about the “prettying up” of the film. All he did was make observations.
That said, I did like the realistic casting of the 1973 Dillinger. We’ll see in a year or so how Mann’s sexied up take on the story works. Like I said, Christian Bale will definitely bring a different perspective on Melvin Purvis, just by looks alone.
I’m afraid I didn’t delve into Mr. Adams’ post on Dillinger, though I mean to. Perhaps it’s time I went back and did just that.
Since I’m on spring break now, I watched five movies this weekend, most of them mediocre.
First, I saw two horror flicks, Wendigo and The Shaft free through onDemand cable on Friday afternoon after a three hour drive home. I figured Wendigo might be entertaining because it had Patricia Clarkson. She’s a reliable actress, but all she does here is act blasé. The film is a serial killer flick decked out in an arthouse drama’s pretentions, and it wasn’t effective as either. The Shaft is a Sci-Fi Channel-quality horror movie about a killer elevator (with Naomi Watts as a perky reporter). It almost won me over in a so-bad-it’s-good way (one of the scenes features a group of pregnant women giving birth in the elevator, complete with cork-popping sound effects), but I took a nap three quarters of the way in and woke up for the credits.
I saw Ocean’s 13 and Knocked Up at a friend’s house Saturday night. 13 had some impressive art design (the exterior architecture of The Bank looked cool, similar to the Burj al Arab in Dubai), but I thought it was the weakest of the three sequels. It’s fun escapism, but not particularly memorable. The appearances of the “lesser” group members (Casey Affleck, Bernie Mac, Shaobo Qin, etc.) seemed more like contractually obligated cameos than parts of the plot. Knocked Up was very funny. Don’t have much else to say about it. Yesterday I saw Matchstick Men on cable. Kind of ho-hum for Ridley Scott, but it wasn’t bad.
Craig, you know I go into everything with an open mind so I have no clue how I would react to Stop-Loss. I am a mysterious being, I fall for all sorts of movies for the strangest reasons.
What Alex Was Thinking: Okay, well I have written my review but it is long and is going t take me a while to proof read. Anyway, you are right, I think that it was difficult to know exactly what Alex was thinking and I will not pretend I know the answer to that because I do not. Did Alex even know what he was thinking? So much was going on in his life; his mind must have been spinning. I think that after a while *spoiler, maybe, I do not know * he realized that the investigation was going nowhere and that he would probably not be caught, but for some reason he was still plagued by guilt.
I am off to re-watch it, not that I think it will help.
WJ. I saw a movie by Larry Fessenden, the same guy who did Wendigo, called The Last Winter. It was kind of an apocalyptic ghost story with an environmental message. The first chunk of it was pretty good, but it kind of lost its way by the end. I liked it because it was semi-original, but it wasn’t totally satisfying. Anyway…it kind of made me curious to check out some of his other stuff.
I liked Ocean’s 13 for what it was. Compared to a lot of the crap that comes out in summer, it was light and refreshing, if not exactly earth shattering. The supporting cast definitely felt like they were just a contractual obligation, but you have to admit Casey Affleck made the most of it. I though this little bit was one of the best parts of the whole thing.
Knocked Up I enjoyed while I was watching it, but I’ve found it hasn’t really stuck with me.
Thanks for your thoughts on Alex, Nick. I think one of the interesting things about PP is that he’s hard to pin down. It’s difficult to tell what’s going through his mind. I don’t think he’s an uncaring monster though. He was obviously impacted by what had happened. ***spoiler*** it really was an accident though so I’m not sure if I blame him for not wanting to take responsibility for it.
I am so in agreeance on that spoiler. I felt the same way
Look forward to your review, Nick.
Has anybody seen Flawless? I’m considering it but short for time and wondering if it’s worth the trip this week. Anybody?
Also, no mention of trailers this week? I happened to watch mine, which usually means I’m not planning on seeing the movies. Before Stop-Loss: Street Kings (eh, I’m scared away because of Harsh Times but I like the inclusion of Lupe Fiasco on the soundtrack), Son of Rambow (intrigued, especially by Craig’s recommendations), and Defiance (very interested in this, but has massive potential to disappoint).
Elsewhere I caught trailers for Baby Mama and Made of Honor. Holy Crap.
So what about Flawless? RT isn’t helping me and I can’t read a review on principle….
Flawless: I think Alexander said over the weekend that it wasn’t great. I don’t remember what the thread was though.
I saw so many trailers, they’re all kind of a blur. A bunch of them I’d seen many times before. Nothing is really jumping out.
Daniel, I wanted to see Flawless this past weekend but it hasn’t opened here yet.
I checked out the trailer and skimmed some reviews. So I’m definitely going to go whenever it arrives.
Whenever that will be…
Flawless–very flawed, very flat… Demi Moore is all right and Michael Caine is his usual good self but the film just never quite gets out of neutral. As I wrote in another thread, it’s kind of the anti-Bank Job because it attempts to delve into the psychology of the characters but does so in such a ham-handed way it negates all the efforts. And, as it relates to one character, it has that same shallow feeling of The Runaway Jury, of all movies, in that it illustrates the motivations of the character way too late, when the issue no longer matters. Just a very frustrating film because there seemed to be a good film in there somewhere, but it was smothered under a blanket of dullness. It’s just one of those films with a weak pulse and I think it’s the first film I’ve seen since Rambo 4 that I was finding myself daydreaming about other matters while viewing the film in question. Like I say, the two leads are all right, or even good, but it’s just not enough.
It’s going to be very tough to beat the Milius version of Dillinger, especially with an ostensibly glammed-up cast, but if there’s one director who could elevate the rather generic and action-centric script into something special I’d say it’s Michael Mann. Besides, as Craig points out, about Mann, it’s part of his raison de’etre to “aestheticize” things… I’ve sworn off of H-E, but having read about Wells ranting about Depp (and, perhaps, Bale and others) cast in Public Enemies, I do think one Depp performance that seems to have been forgotten with regards to this whole matter, and which would seem to contradict the point that Depp is “too pretty” to play “tough,” is, I think, one of his very best, Donnie Brasco. I think Depp can play tough, and while the Public Enemies script may not be the best vehicle for that display–though there are a couple of scenes that stick out which Depp should work wonders with… this screenplay’s Dillinger, though, is sort of the perfect Mann antihero criminal, a professional who utilizes violence with significant reluctance and who has his own code of ethics by which he lives and dies. The contrasts with Purvis are made pretty clear right off the bat, as well as the two guys’ similarities, and the plot brings the two closer and closer together, so this seems to be very much in Mann’s wheelhouse.
Most Stephen King movies are terribly flawed, but I’ll always have a soft spot for The Shawshank Redemption, which may be a tad schmaltzy but it’s sort of the Italian dessert of schmaltz–so amazingly delicious that, no matter how much you know you shouldn’t like it and eat it, you do because… it’s so good. (It’s too bad Darabont got caught in the trap of trying to strike lightning in a bottle two more times before giving up on being the neo-Capra of today as someone above said as regards to The Mist.) And I also think very highly of The Dead Zone, which is a much better film than it’s usually given credit for. It’s one of my favorite Cronenberg films, along with Scanners, The Fly, Spider and (his masterpiece) Dead Ringers. I’ll probably get booed for this but I’ve always agreed with King, at least to an extent, about The Shining, though his efforts to “correct” Kubrick’s attempt are simply horrid. Chuck, being a King aficianado, what do you think of other books by him, like The Tommyknockers and Rose Madder? I like a good deal of King but can’t call myself a real fan or anything. Oh yeah, Misery is pretty good as a book and film, for what it is, I thought.
Craig, I’m actually glad to hear Tautou has moved on from Amelie and other earlier performances.
Busy DVD night. Not to pat myself on the back too much for buying a Blu-Ray player but I am increasingly pleased with it, as it really does enhance the picture quality of all DVDs. I saw 25th Hour, which I love and consider Spike Lee’s masterpiece (dare I say it’s my favorite Spike Lee joint, just beating out the superlative Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X). One of my favorite films of the decade, it just gets better and better every time I see it. It becomes more moving with each viewing as well. Some of my favorite characterizations in a fairly recent film. Many critics assaulted it for being overdirected, and perhaps it is, but unlike the ambitious relative failure of Summer of Sam, Lee uses all of his cinematic ranting to create a haunting portrait of a wounded city and a tortured country with fine symbolic creations (leaving the black-Italian angst of seemingly all his earlier New York City films, Lee examines the richly patriotic and “tribal” Irish, and their eponymous role in New York City, pre- and post-9/11, most emphatically portrayed by the number of Irish-American firefighters, the troubled liberal Jewish high school teacher, the materialistic Wall Street animal, etceteras).
I also saw a recently recorded-from-TCM Edgar G. Ulmer film, The Strange Woman, starring Hedy Lamarr and George Sanders. Intriguing nineteenth century, New England noir, with a brutally evil Lamarr almost eating men alive like a beautiful venus fly trap. By no means a great film, it’s quite flawed with a few too many characters shifting their moral compasses for the film to remain consistently plausible and there’s a general slightness to it–as though it’s all just a Lamarr vehicle–that hinders it from being better. Some fine cinematography. Sanders is good fun. The final twenty minutes or so is very predictable, though.
The Prestige. It still feels like a magician film made by Fritz Lang, and I like a lot of it, and I like the traits it shares with Christopher Nolan’s previous films (the murky concept of justice, and the obsession of those seeking either justice or vengeance that plays itself out with tragic consequences for all) but I think it’s his weakest film, most damaged by a plot twist that seems borderline archaic. Bale and Jackman give good performances; Michael Caine, again, can’t do anything wrong these days, it would seem; Johansson is a cycpher, and a distracting, fairly wooden one at that. There are several things to like, but the film just fails to add up for me in a completely satisfying way.
Wow. Again getting to the conversation late - for once, I didn’t procrastinate yesterday, and it’s biting me in the ass.
First of all: I fully second Allison’s recommendation of Water Lilies. It was one of my favorites at the Rotterdam festival. It makes you remember exactly what it was like to be a 15-yo girl…and then be very, very happy you’re not any more. I’ve been planning to write about it for ages, but I struggled with my Dutch review for a long time and then just felt a bit talked out.
Also, I love the coincidences that come up in the watercooler. See, I didn’t actually watch many movies this weekend. I did see Repo Man on Friday, and have a blog post half-done. On Saturday I got really, extremely, embarrassingly drunk at a party (kids, eat a good meal before you drink!)…and as a result, I spent most of Sunday lying on my bed surfing channels. And I came across The Big Fix starring, yes, Richard Dreyfuss! I kinda loved it. It’s a detective movie, but it’s actually more about what it was like AFTER the sixties, and what happened to all the idealists. It was made in 1978, and well, my mind was admittedly a bit blurry, but I liked it a lot.
I’m interested in Public Enemies, actually. Michael Mann movies are generally interesting as pure movies, in any case, and well, Depp + Bale + Wenham + Ribisi…sound good to me!
Agreed on the Prestige being Nolan’s weakest film. It focuses too much on the gimmicks, and forgets, you know, relatability. Although it was refreshing not to be told who to root for. And casting Bowie as Tesla, well, that’s just genius.
I’d talk more, but I have to leave soon, and need to have breakfast and, you know, get dressed before that.
I’d like to see The Big Fix. I’ve heard mostly good things.
The Prestige was Nolan going too far, almost forgetting that an audience would likely want to relate, even vaguely, to somebody in the film. The casting of Bowie as Tesla was genius, though.
Hedwig, it’s funny how you and I are often in LiC at approximately the same time, you getting up and I preparing to go to bed. The wonders of these Internets.
I saw the first 15 minutes of “Flawless,” got distracted and couldn’t bring myself to come back and finish it. It just didn’t grab me or interest me at all.
Excellent - thanks to all for saving me the time and money spent on Flawless. I only knew that it had impressive period production design, but I trust all of you. That’s what the watercooler is for.
Alexander, I need to see 25th Hour again. I didn’t so much love Inside Man or She Hate Me and I’m longing for the Spike Lee of 1990. Jungle Fever is another great one after the two you mention. I didn’t see his Katrina doc.
I loved the Prestige as a late night trip to the theater, but I haven’t revisited it to notice its flaws. Part of me doesn’t want to…
Wow, Hedwig, Richard Dreyfuss! Where has he gone?
Alexander, I’ve seen The Prestige three times now and on the third viewing, I finally started to get past the ridiculously contrived plot and hammy direction to see the brilliance of the acting. It’s too bad the movie is so over-the-top because it has a lot going on. My girlfriend recently read the book and she said it’s fairly different from the movie, which is curious. I like Nolan but I do think he can be incredibly self-indulgent as a director, to his detriment and success. Memento always teeters on going too far but that aspect works so well with that film. I’ve only seen his version of Insomnia once, but it seemed to work in spite of itself. Batman Begins has a silly ending in my opinion, but the movie previous to that is strong enough to overcome it.
I’m excited for the Dark Knight…and also a might bit apprehensive about it.
I also think 25th Hour is Lee’s strongest movie in a long time. Inside Man has a lot of little things going on in it too but it’s really just a thriller and yet I think it’s one of Lee’s most concise and satisfying directorial efforts. He’s able to punctuate the narrative with little political comments, but they never overwhelm the film like they do in so many of his movies.
Anyway, I revisited 25th Hour a year ago and I thought it held up really well. Great supporting cast too.
I must admit, I didn’t have the stomach to sit through all of Lee’s Katrina doc. What I saw was very well-made and affecting, but coming on the heels of so much Katrina coverage it was just too much for me. I suppose that speaks to the brilliance of Lee’s work, because he crafted a heartbreaking portrait of that disaster. Maybe now would be a good time to revisit it.
I am not interested in Flawless that much. I don’t know.
Prestige grew on me. I missed certain things on the first viewing.
I am only interested in The Dark Knight for Heath Ledger, that is it.
It makes you remember exactly what it was like to be a 15-yo girl…and then be very, very happy you’re not any more.
LOL. Too true, Hedwig.
Alexander, I completely agree with you about Donnie Brasco. In my opinion it’s one of Depp’s best roles after Ed Wood (Ed Wood remains the best in my opinion).
I don’t pay much attention to reviews this time of the year (Craig being an exception) but who needs them when one has the ever reliably interesting Watercooler post and thread?
I had a movieless weekend. Yes, I know some of you are recoiling in horror at such a thought and are seriously questioning my passion for film and credentials as a human being.
I really liked The Prestige both times I saw it. I enjoyed its magic trick structure, cleverness, and acting. It didn’t matter to me that I suspected the nature of its main reveal well before it came. Like so many films it is discovering all the ins and outs of one rather than the thing itself that holds my interest. I like puzzles and films that primarily function as one, and The Prestige was a visually stunning picture, well acted as has been previously noted (I even thought Jackson, who I generally don’t much care for as an actor, was well cast for his natural tendency towards theatricality and for his physicality), and intriguing throughout. I didn’t find myself wishing for a character to better relate to, Christian Bale is such a fine and quietly charismatic performer that he made the highly driven, personally dubious, conflicted, and shaded actions and choices of his characters completely engaging.
Yes, Donnie Brasco seems to be the “forgotten film” for both Depp and Al Pacino, both of whom gave electrifying performances. In the case of Pacino, I think it stands up with his very best performances and at the very least he should have been nominated for an Oscar (as well as Depp, too, really). But the Academy usually doesn’t go for nuance or subtlety, and Depp and Pacino were both very understated. Not to say Depp hams it up in everything else (he’s quite understated, almost to a fault, in Finding Neverland) but certain roles he’s associated with, like Ed Wood and Jack Sparrow, are inherently “juicier” in terms of acting a bit broad.
Joel, that is interesting what you write about The Prestige and Nolan in general. It’s interesting because I just saw Memento again for the first time in a long time about a month ago. As much as I still enjoy the heck out of it, I have to admit I don’t think it’s held up quite as well as I thought it would. Maybe it’s because with repeat viewings, the going backwards gimmick feels more like a gimmick and actually makes the film more easily “remembered,” in great detail by a person who’s seen it, as the appearance of seemingly strange scenes leads back to the thought of what came before it to get Guy Pearce at that point. It’s still an impressive film in many ways but I do see what you’re saying about it teetering on the edge of its own concept.
Interestingly, whereas I agree that his other films have endings that sort of sabotage the excellence that came before (Batman Begins I can always tolerate because despite the somewhat silly and certainly excessively inflated ending, everything that leads up to it is a great origins story… If it had just had a tighter ending it would have been almost perfect.) I think Memento’s ending still redeems whatever missteps the narrative may have taken. I just love that ending. It’s brilliant, it’s sad, and it puts an entirely different spin on the protagonist that the viewer must attempt to reconcile with what they’ve seen before.
I really am looking forward to The Dark Knight. For one thing, I’m hoping Nolan has improved dramatically when it comes to filming action, which was one of the weak links of Batman Begins (though he covered for himself nicely by making the action sequences, mostly, more about the surprise of Batman doing whatever he was doing). The Dark Knight trailer is very good, but I hope the film remains a continuation of the character study of Batman/Bruce Wayne first and foremost, as the trailer seemed focused a great deal more on The Joker (nothing wrong with this, since he’s Batman’s most reliable nemesis) and a lot of action.
I enjoyed Inside Man when I saw it but I’ve never revisited it. I do like how Spike Lee uses the heist movie to make a Spike Lee joint, with a lot of interesting points, but despite the good performances and good story “hook,” I just never quite liked it as much as I wish I did. In some ways, I found myself with Roger Ebert’s fairly contrarian review in which he suggested Spike Lee was doing a Sidney Lumet, Dog Day Afternoon homage a little too earnestly (I think he wrote that the problem is that, while characters actually refer to Dog Day Afternoon and Serpico in the film, the problem is the audience has seen those films as well).
She Hate Me was a real misfire, the kind of which was, again, interesting enough to see but I’ve never seen it again and don’t plan to. Spike has never been one of the more consistent filmmakers, whether it comes to specific films (I love the very beginning of He Got Game, and again the ending is strong but man the whole midsection of that film is largely a huge mess) or his overall filmography. But, as others have written, I’d rather see a Spike misfire than most directors’ average outing. I actually just saw Jungle Fever again last week and though I don’t think it’s among his top tier of films, it’s a good solid film. I’m really looking forward to The Miracle at St. Anna. I’ve admittedly never seen his Katrina documentary, for reasons not dissimilar from what you write, Joel, and I’ve planned to for a while so I probably should focus on doing that in the near future.
More good Watercoolerage…but before I can wade in, I’ve got a ton of work to do…
Despite not really being a fan of Spike Lee, he really sucked me in with Inside Man and When the Levees Broke. Inside Man is a unobtrusively socially conscious, stylish, cool for cool’s sake heist film. He messes with Denzel Washington’s persona, which has gotten tiresome lately (see: Deja Vu). Plus, it has many distinct, perfectly crafted performances.
Given the rapid fire cultural and political references in the film, it might not hold up as well as Dog Day Afternoon in the long run, but it was one of my favorite films in ‘06. I think it might be one of the films that comes to define the mid-aughts — representing our anxieties, values, and place in the world. When the Levees Broke condensed a lot of emotion, residual suspicion and frustration, about one of many key failures by the Bush administration. The films also made me a fan of Terrence Blanchard, who created fantastic (if similar) scores for both films. I’ve heard some of his music for 25th Hour, but I haven’t seen the movie itself. I will soon.
After his last two films, I’m more receptive to Miracle at St. Anna than I would’ve been otherwise. I’m interested to see how Spike Lee operates within the structure of a war movie.
I’m trying to keep my expectations in check for The Dark Knight, but I can’t wait to see it. The best things are still there from Batman Begins and the dead weight thrown overboard (namely Katie Holmes). We also have Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart. Batman is the only superhero franchise I’ve looked forward to. I’ve avoided Superman, Fantastic 4, and the last Spiderman so far.