Watercooler: Apocalypse, ZzzzZZzzz
Everyone who told me not to see 2012 was right. It wasn’t as bad as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, but there are better ways I could’ve spent 2 hours and 40 minutes of my Friday night – trimming my nose hair for example.
All of the best bits were in the trailers and none of them had any kind of gravity in context. Everything in between was a waste of time. I went in with minimal expectations in the mood to be entertained by some mindless destruction and I came away underwhelmed. It could’ve been worse – at least there were no robots humping anyone’s leg – but it could also have been better.
Ah well. I should’ve known better.
In box office news, Precious pulled in a respectable $6 million after expanding from 18 theaters to 174 this weekend. It should do even better next weekend when it goes wide. Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox meanwhile had the best average with $65,000 per theater in 4 locations in New York and Los Angeles. It opens wide on 11/25.
That’s all I’ve got from a quite weekend. What about you?
Filed under: Watercooler
Despite your advisory, Craig, I still have a morbid urge to see 2012. I think it’s that (teeny tiny) part of me that wants to identify with the unwashed masses.
Finally I saw Flame and Citron. It was quite good, but the best parts of Inglourious Basterds soared higher for me. Still, the script of the former was intricately done and in an interesting and thought-provoking way.
I enjoyed a great weekend of movie watching. Sorry for long comment.
35 Shots of Rum takes its time, has sans exposition, and presents an organic slice of life story with none of the usual dramatic hooks. Yet we gain such a comprehensive sense of its characters, their complex relationship to each other and the past, and their sub-culture. You know how powerfully a film has drawn you in when a small character moment towards its end – which taken out of context would seem completely unexceptional – delivers deep emotional resonance.
Le Cercle Rouge had directorial flourishes, great faces/costumes/sets, terrific suspense, and triple tres cool. A wonderful homage to American gangster/heist/film noir movies and an engaging if reasonably familiar genre story within its very own, unique Franco-American romanticized cinematic universe.
Memories of Murder owes a huge debt to Se7en but Joon-ho Bong is a genuine and immensely talented auteur capable of fashioning an influence into a film only he could make. There is a touch of the wacky oddball South Korean humor that he and Chan-wook Park share but the tone is generally dramatic and suspenseful. There are lots of superb shots and sequences and the epilogue which finishes with a tight close up of a main character still haunted by the past serves as a stunning conclusion.
Like 35 SoR Three Monkeys is slow, particularly the first act, and I’m not sure that this pacing decision pays off as well as it did with the French film. But the story has the deep power of a fable and is well served by the cinematography and the post-production color grading. Scenes often show compartmentalized space with characters placed within the confines of a sub-section – underscoring their aloneness, secrets, and emotional compartmentalization. The color scheme almost presents the world as a bruise (this sounds dire but it actually has a melancholy beauty) which is the perfect metaphor for the central characters who all live with pain and confusion. Not as miserable as it sounds and well worth a look for the quality of its craft and the director’s commitment to the integrity of his vision.
Wendy and Lucy was a film I had been looking forward to for a long time. It was much smaller and less ambitious than I had anticipated. A fine central performance and script (making each small turn of events engaging and an opportunity to deepen the sense of the main character). A good and well crafted film but for me a little underwhelming.
Why apologize for the “long” comment, Sartre? It was magnificent, and I am thrilloed to read that fantastic and eloquent reaction to 35 SHOTS OF RUM, which in the end does deliver that ‘emotional resonance’ you speak of. I also love LE CIRCLE ROUGE, and actually would say it’s my favorite Melville. Likewise, I feel that WENDY AND LUCY is slight.
Pierre, I am completely with you on FLAME AND CITRON. A sure contender for the year’s ten-best list.
I managed to see four films theatrically this week, as well as an American Opera, which I saw at the New York State Theatre at Lincoln Center on Sunday afternoon. The opera, Hugo Weisgel’s Esther, was a torturous atonal work that recalled Schoenberg, a crushing melody-less grinding bore that is basically an encore of the 1993 staging. The venture gives opera a bad name, and only elitist masochists seem poised to withstands this sonic assault of discordance. I have always supported City Opera, and am pleased with the resurgence in sales for the 2009-10 season, (and appreciated famed soprano Lauren Flanagan in the lead) but I hope this one doesn’t reappear anytime soon. What sane person would listen to this drivel and come out singing its praises?
On the movie front here is what I saw:
The Box *** (Wednesday night; Edgewater multiplex)
2012 * (Friday evening; Edgewater multiplex)
Uncertainty ** 1/2 (Saturday night; IFC Film Center)
Fantastic Mr. Fox **** (Sunday morning/afternoon; Sony)
Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) directed this film based on a Richard Matheson short story, and it devolves into a narrative mess, but the main deceit – the “choice” – in an intriguing plot hook, and there are enough ideas to make the film intermittenly interesting.
2012 is another Roland Emmerich disaster opus that is overlong, ludicrously implausible even for this genre, poorly written and in the end a film that is forgettable within an hour after leaving the theatre. I convinced myself beforehand that I’d still have a good time, but there was nothing but laughable tedium here.
It was nice to have the engaging Q & A with actor Joseph Gordon Levitt (The Lookout) and the film’s director at the IFC, but the film Uncertainty wore out it’s welcome, and the two story threads dis not quite come together. There were some fine individual chase scenes on the streets of Manhattan, and the location shooting was eye-catching, but there was really no story to tell here.
The extraordinary children’s writer Roald Dahl, whose sardonic and sometimes sadistic humor turned some potentially ordinary stories into work’s of great philosophical insight and irreverance, was the sourse of Wes Anderson’s mostly ingenious animated stop-motion film that is only marred by the “Americanization” of some of the material and a dead patch in the middle. The visual innovation and voice work by actors like George Clooney and Meryl Streep is outstanding.
Don’t got much, but I got something.
I watched Unmistaken Child, which was good but left me feeling a little disappointed in an odd way. The record of an attempt to find a reincarnated Buddhist holy man felt more like a personal journey than a spiritual one and although I thought it was very well made and engrossing, the film unraveled some fo the mystery and mysticism of the process for me. Oddly sad, but that’s my personal reaction, not the doc.
Also revisited Saboteur on Turner HD and watched the Blu-ray of The Third Man. I can never get over how unrelently patriotic Saboteur is and it’s a rollicking good movie to boot. The Third Man continues to please.
Thanks, sartre, for the rundown. I envy all the moviewatching you did this weekend. And Sam, too!
Joel, although I’ve seen most of Saboteur here and there over the years, it wasn’t until this weekend (yes, on TCM) that I finally got to view the entire film. Although Bob Cummings is a likable and serviceable actor, what this film needed was someone in that role with a little more skill. Regardless, a very good film, certainly much better than the gung-ho patriotic flicks typical of the early 1940s.
“I watched Unmistaken Child, which was good but left me feeling a little disappointed in an odd way.”
I felt exactly the same way about this documentary, but I am not certain why.
I guess I agree that Cummings is ultimately a little weak for the role but the film is so adamantly patriotic and unabashedly pro-American that I think Cummings actually fits in a simple, everyman sort of way. He feels like the guy he portrays and his lack of action-lead pretension gives the more physical aspects of his role more emotion and heft. Plus, I love that Norman Lloyd is the main heavy in this. Their lack of physicality plays well off each other in the climax of the film. According to IMdb, the lead originally was intended for either Gary Cooper or Joel McCrea.
You almost have to wonder how much of this film was written as a direct result of Pearl Harbor. It came out in April, 1942, so it’s possible the script was written after that event. It sure feels like it.
As with Pierre, I remain mysteriously drawn to still seeing 2012 despite everything tell me not to, including the surprising running time that I saw in the listings. Maybe tonight, but if I don’t see it in this window I’m sure I’ll lose interest and give in to the cynicism.
I would love to see 35 Shots of Rum but that doesn’t appear likely around here until at least the spring, and even then maybe only as part of a festival.
I have no excuse for not seeing Flame & Citron as it’s likely in its last week in theater. I know Craig has been championing it along with many others. Too bad. But then on the other hand I feel a little better about missing Unmistaken Child a couple of weeks ago, from what you guys describe.
Speaking of documentaries, I have to report that I must side with Sam on Crude. I should go back and see what your issues were, Craig, but I found it riveting and I appreciated that it didn’t provide a lot of easy answers or “what you can do’s” in the closing credits. I’ll admit it took a little while to establish the characters and get going, but by the end I was hooked.
And then on Friday night I saw It Happened One Night at a local theater, which was great fun despite a smaller than expected crowd.
You should see Unmistaken Child, Daniel. I don’t know what Sam’s issues were with it, but mine were my own. I reacted to it in a personal way but I think it’s a very interesting doc. I rented it, so if you miss it in the theater it’s now on DVD.
I saw 2012, which was bad. Fun to make fun of, but not inherently fun. I didn’t mind it too much, but there should be a drinking game made out of that movie’s many preposterous lines, laughable music cues, death-defying destructo escapes, completely ridiculous coincidences, token multiculturalism and “science.”
I saw Zombieland, which was good. First time I’ve ever paid money for a zombie movie, and I didn’t regret it. Funny and tight screenplay. I was surprised.
Watched Army of Shadows, also good. Bleak as hell. I like Melville.
Finally watched Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired. Didn’t change my mind about anything, but was interesting. I thought the filmmakers needed to make a few more choices about what to excise–was a little bloated w/ footage & montages since they had so much available. I almost fell asleep a couple of times, but was glad I watched it.
Daniel, my reaction to Crude was even stronger than Craig’s, since I left about 60% of the way through and went and sat in my car. I just hated it.
Daniel, I saw 35 Shots of Rum so soon because Sam alerted me to its availability to buy on UK Amazon for the price of a couple of theater tickets ->
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shots-Rum-DVD-Alex-Descas/dp/B002G265RM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1258402154&sr=1-1
You get a good interview with Claire Denis thrown in.
Are Americans brainwashed from a young age to spend money on dreadful no-brain disaster movie adventures? How else to explain the inexplicable desire among so many of the astute film lovers here to see 2010 despite their better judgement? Taking a punt on Zombieland I get, but Emmerich?
Craig, you have nose hair…? I thought that was for old guys.
sartre, you don’t ever have to apologize for the length of your comments. You’re always articulate and insightful. I could read your stuff all day.
This isn’t over the weekend. I always have too much to do these days. But say over the past week…
I saw PIRATE RADIO in the cinema on Friday night. Review’s up now if anyone wants to take a look. It’s flawed but quite the crowd pleaser. Big applause and cheers at the end from the audience. It was very enjoyable.
In terms of DVDs, I’ve almost worked through my stack. I bought DUPLICITY and WHATEVER WORKS – two of my big favourites of the year. They’re the only ones I haven’t sat down and had a look at yet.
I hadn’t seen THE COTTON CLUB for many years. But it must have left an indelble impression. Watching it on TV as a kid I thought that it was overly stylized and that thoroughly annoyed me. Looking at it now, I realize that that was probably the entire point of the exercise.
Francis is so brilliant. He really makes the period come alive. It’s so lavish and extravagant. Diane Lane and Richard Gere have great chemistry in whatever project they happen to be in. They’re electric together.
Plus there are a ton of people in it that went on to other notable projects and bigger fame: Gregory Hines, Nicolas Cage, Bob Hoskins, Laurence Fishburne, Jennifer Grey…
I get such a kick out of Tom Waits. Lonette McKee should have been a MAJOR film star. She’s got fierce glamour and unrivalled charisma.
I also had WATERLOO BRIDGE on hand. That was one of my favourites as a little girl. I haven’t seen that for a long time either. It was more melodramatic than I remembered. But you can’t do much better than Vivien Leigh and Robert Taylor.
It was tragically beautiful. Vivien was monumental. Such a great actor and so gorgeous.
When I was watching CHERI (first time I’d seen it since the summer), they showed one of the deleted scenes. Rupert Friend said: “If I expected women to want me for my brains, I’d still be a virgin.”
Don’t think I can top that one. Kudos to Christopher Hampton.
One of our big local papers finally published the dates of all the holiday releases. Frankly, this just blows.
Last year it wasn’t too bad. Everything major opened either long before Christmastime or in January. So there wasn’t a lot of pressure. The pace was easy which helped because it was my first holiday season with the site.
Supposedly that won’t happen this year.
We get PRECIOUS at the end of the month, ME & ORSON WELLES on December 4, INVICTUS and THE LOVELY BONES on the 11th.
Good enough.
But 5 (that’s right…FIVE) big films hit my home town on Christmas Day. I know that I want to see at least four of them.
Let’s hope there’s some kind of a schedule change. That’s one hell of a lot of reviewing….
2012 is one of the most god-awful movies I’ve seen all year. Absolutely terrible.
35 SHOTS OF RUM, on the other hand, is one of my very favorites. Ditto UNMISTAKEN CHILD, which is by far and away the finest documentary of the year, in my opinion. It plays out like a narrative film, and is deeply moving. Don’t miss it if you have the chance to see it.
Oh, yes. I also saw Whatever Works while I was home sick. Flawed, but enjoyable. Really like the central “Whatever works” credo about love and relationships. Patricia Clarkson was my favorite.
Thanks for the tip on Unmistaken Child, Joel, and on Rum, sartre.
Haha, JB, your reaction to Crude both surprises and amuses me. A movie would have to be really bad for a walk out and car sit, but hey, I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong, cuz it was your reaction. I’m curious – what was the scene that you sent you out?
2012, well I’m just unable to explain my desire to see it (I had no problem skipping 10,000 BC and I hated The Patriot and I hated Godzilla). Matthew’s statement is more frightening than most, and there’s no chance this thing deserves 150+ minutes of my attention. But yet…
My argument against the newest Emmerich softcore CGI-pornfest:
I sat through The Day After Tomorrow (what a hilariously insipid title) and it was one of the most asinine disaster movies I’ve ever seen. It also had laughably bad effects, so I figure there’s no way Emmerich can top all the unintentional knee slappers in that bore. Most importantly, it’s 150 minutes I will never get back.
I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to add that it encourages them when you give them your money, although that’s a mute point when it made $65 mil this weekend.
Is anyone honestly shocked that 2012 is bad? Come on guys!
Sartre, Americans are certainly brainwashed to waste money, of that there is no question.
I’m not sure what many see in 2012. Perhaps the sheer spectacle. Americans do tend to love explosions. I have readily defended our national anthem to people who say it’s all about deadly mayhem and bombs bursting in the air–I find that to be rather oversimplified and mistaken in its lack of empathetic understanding of historical memory–but sometimes I do wonder. :-) I’ll be sitting at home watching Tarkovsky’s Stalker. And Saturday the 14th. :)
Films this weekend for me:
Friday–Donnie Brasco in Blu ray for the very first time! Yay. Mike Newell’s underrated gangster saga features one of Al Pacino’s last great performances and one of Johnny Depp’s more inspired efforts. This was the director’s cut, which featuers approximately twenty minutes or deleted scenes. Most deleted scenes are enjoyable; some may have been correctly removed for being too straying in their tonal construction, but I found them all worthwhile. Twice Upon a Yesterday, starring some English people and Penelope Cruz (haha). Cute, if very slight, romantic comedy with a rewardingly unorthodox conclusion. Couples looking for a breezy date movie may enjoy it–nothing too fantastic (though Cruz gives a good performance) but agreeable. Vera Cruz, I simply watched on TCM HD. Hadn’t seen it in a few years. Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper had even better chemistry than I remembered. The Road to Denver, an adequate western starring John Payne and Lee J. Cobb. Unfortunate cop-out ending diminishes it. Within the Law, one of many women’s pictures about female empowerment from 1939. Ruth Hussey is quite delightful.
Saturday–All the Right Moves, a 1983 drama that had somehow escaped me starring Tom Cruise and Craig T. Nelson. Predictable but earnest character study. Best understood as an acting showcase. Cruise is regularly assailed but this is a performance that displays certain sensitivity that is quite winning. Greaser’s Palace, a bizarre Robert Downey, Sr. “western” film that plays as an allegory of the life of Jesus Christ. I hadn’t seen this one in years, either, but DVR’d it from TCM. The ending is too slack but the film is engaging, if admittedly quite strange and almost the definition of “offbeat.” Heaven Only Knows, only intermittently entertaining “western” about a celestial angel (Robert Cummings–they had just covered him on TCM with Saboteur, as nearly everyone here has discussed) trying to save Brian Donlevy’s soul. Cummings and Donlevy are all right in their roles but the film is just too doughy for its own good. Watched Italian grade-B horror film from 1976 with about 153 different titles on local channel KOFY 20, known to me as Werewolf Woman. Trashy fun.
Sunday–Francois Truffaut’s most pleasant and beautifully rendered Small Change. Arguably excessively loose in its vignette-style unfolding, nevertheless consistently sweet. The teacher’s speech at the end is genuinely moving. I greatly admire the Hitchcockian scene with the child playing where he shouldn’t be; a wondrous melding of Truffaut’s thematic interests and the great technique of Hitchcock. The Power, a misshapen sci-fi “mystery” whodunit starring a bland George Hamilton. My favorite sci-fi directors, Byron Haskin’s, last film (for producer George Pal), it is truly a disappointment despite a solid supporting cast. Hamilton is severely miscast, but the screenplay is the source of most problems. Visually unexciting as well, a definitive “miss.” A Thunder of Drums, a 1961 cavalry western starring a powerful Richard Boone, who singlehandedly carries the picture on his back. The pretty boy supporting cast members–led by, yes, George Hamilton–are completely blown off the screen. Boone is terrific in this tortured, multilayered role. Wish I could get this in widescreen; perhaps it’s available? Watched Marine Raiders, a poor US Marine propaganda film starring Pat O’Brien and Robert Ryan; the actors try, but there just isn’t much to it. Is it the fault of the first Best Picture winner Wings (caveat–Sunrise won for artistic merit) that approximately five hundred thousand movies out of Hollywood were military love triangle pictures? Some are better than others, but if you look back it is crushingly pervasive.
“Sartre, Americans are certainly brainwashed to waste money, of that there is no question. ”
Hey, let’s be fair: 2012 made $160 million *outside* the US. Apparently people like to see the world die outside this fair country too, no matter how well (or poorly) said world destruction is depicted.
Even Transgenderforminators 2 made as much worldwide as it did domestic: $431 mil international vs $400 mil domestic.
Adoration for stupidity is universal, present company excluded of course.
Joel, the overseas box office was the result of ex-pat Americans attending the film in droves with a few mentally ill, intellectually disabled, and lobotomized non-Americans thrown in :-)
I didn’t mean to imply that other countries don’t have an audience for populist popcorn fare showing CGI disaster on a biblical/Mayan mythic scale. I just don’t get why the esteemed American folk of LiC can’t resist handing over their cash and 150 minutes of their lives to see 2012 despite their better judgement. It’s like suddenly realizing that a friend has been replaced by a pod-grown identical twin that possesses no capacity for individuality and artistic judgement. For God’s sake Joel, hold out for as long as you can.
Wow Alexander, your amazing capacity for watching multiple films in a single weekend continues unabated.
As always, learning what people thought of the films they recently watched makes for great reading.
Hahahaha, Sartre, good one. Of course, I kid. Emmerich isn’t any worse than the rest of the mainstream director crop that crowdpleases regular, to the chagrin of fun-hating people like myself.
Daniel, in all honesty, it was 1/2 the movie’s fault and 1/2 being tired and headachey and cranky after a long day of film festival watching. I was watching it through my PR/journalist brain and saw the filmmakers a) compromising journalistic integrity for the sake of emotional frisson on more than one occasion–though some of that is attributable to the way politics is played in these 2nd world countries–and b) making their arguments so weakly or emotionally that it would be very easy (I thought) for the big oil companies to refute. I felt they were incredibly passionate, and probably morally right, but their methodology was so flawed as to be distancing, distracting and damaging to their cause and that the narrative was not nearly tight enough. I kept getting angry at the wrong side, and that really pissed me off. Perhaps the film would have won me over if I had stayed, but I was feeling tremendously irksome by that point, restless, and tired of the tedious, cheap ploys for my emotional engagement at the expense of intellectual and journalistic rigor.
I saw the film with two other journalists, and one non-journalist. Both the journos had major problems with it, if not to the extent I did. The other friend thought it was remarkably good and moving. Not drawing any conclusions from that, just sayin’.
Thanks, JB, and I can understand that, really. For one, had I watched this at the end of a film festival day – or even a work day for that matter – I probably would have been just as frazzled. But I caught it on a Sunday late afternoon, so I guess I was emotionally ready to connect. Maybe I was manipulated, but it didn’t feel like it, at least not in the same of many other documentaries. There were some questionable edits and music choices and interviews bordering on emotional milking, but by and large I think I was more drawn in by the legal drama and the personalities on display, particularly the American and Ecuadorian attorneys.
So I’m not denying that the story could have been told better or the case better explained (and I was frustrated by the evidence and the Ecuadorian legal system as well), but at the end of the day I found it to be a much better example of the “one person can really make a difference” cliche than I’ve seen in so many other films. I really felt that Pablo, while not entirely successful, still made a huge impact on many people’s lives, and if I saw Crude as only a story about him, then that may explain why I was so impressed.
Fantastic, stupendous, extraordinary overdue news!!!!!!
My favorite TV show of all-time has FINALLY been announced for release on DVD. I have purchased close to a dozen bootleg sets and have ceaselessly promoted this for many years. As I child it gave me nightmares:
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Thriller-Press-Release/12892
Thank you to Troy Olson for the news.