Day: March 18, 2005

Guarded Stare

Garden State A FILM ABOUT TROUBLED YOUNG PEOPLE… WITH NO TROUBLES.

Is Zach Braff just not good enough – or confident enough – to let certain things remain unsaid? Or is the audience that dense that we need to have every little thing spelled out for us? Braff lets his cast off very easy in this film, particularly himself and Portman. Blinding headaches? Oh, they just go away halfway through the film. Been on lithium, Zoloft, Paxil for ten years and decide to take yourself off all at once? Well, the worst thing that will happen to you is that you’ll joyously shout while standing in the rain! Continue reading Guarded Stare

russian ark

we watched this last night. that is to say, i watched it all, while sunhee fell asleep at about the 50 minute mark. i don’t really know what to make of this. i found the opening 20 minutes or so to be very absorbing but then it sort of fizzled out. perhaps one needs to be much more familiar with russian history to get what the film is doing with it. but in the absence of that knowledge it felt more and more like a celebration of pomp and circumstance for its own sake. doing it one take was apparently the director’s attempt at a filmic version of doing something in “one breath”. i suppose, but i don’t know if a colder approach a la kubrick in “barry lyndon” might not have suited his purposes better. then again maybe it works really well on a large screen. anyone else seen this? amy, if you’re still reading, i think you’d recommended this–what am i missing?