Month: November 2006

Altman favorites and successors

And so it goes. But he leaves behind a remarkable string of work that will go in and out of favor for decades, being rediscovered, evaluated and fawned over. I am sorry that Prairie Home Companion was his last film. It’s nice that it was that rather than The Company or something, so that he got to see another film of his play for more than a week in LA, but even up to Gosford Park, he managed to bring a good sized audience along with him.

So what are your favorites? I love the music scenes in Kansas City, and almost everything about Gosford Park. I’ve watched The Player maybe half a dozen times and could watch it again in a second. Nashville never moved me, good as I realize it is, but it did come in the middle of that remarkable string of films from 70 to 75. For me it’s MASH, The Long Goodbye and California Split, for Elliot Gould as much as Altman, for their creation of a mumbling oddball character and reimagining him three times over. Continue reading Altman favorites and successors

Bond, James Bond

I thoroughly enjoyed this incarnation of Bond. Making grandiose claims for an action adventure franchise would be foolish, but it is hard to quibble with the choices made in ‘Casino Royale.’ You get a much harder edge to Bond with Daniel Craig (actually similar to the excellent but much-maligned first Timothy Dalton outing as Bond), and the external scars that he sports at several points in the movie (you see bruised knuckles several hours after a fight, along with the lacerations to the face) speak to someone who is much more clearly only one step away from an assassin rather than the dandy spy that we have seen in recent years.

The main action sequence comes early in the movie and is utterly satisfying, not least because the guy Bond is chasing appears to have learned his moves from B-13: he climbs impossible surfaces, bounces off hard objects and his body appears made of rubber. Craig huffs and puffs behind him.
Continue reading Bond, James Bond

Borat

I saw Borat with Arnab and Jeff, so I know there’s stuff to say about the movie, based on our initial post-film discussion, and many I’ve had with students and friends since. I guess I’ve been waiting, hoping that others would say it. In a nutshell, the movie will make you laugh. It’s often very, very, very funny. And often a bit tamer and somewhat padded and not as exciting as we’d been hoping. . . but then again part of me is plain excited to see a mainstream(ish) comedy with such transgressive energy, with a sly sharp political edge, with a fat man and a skinny man wrestling nude. So complaining seems like whining (like my dessert was pie, and I’m crying for ice cream), and yet trumpeting seems mere repetition of arguments we’ve made before. I would be curious if someone hates it, then I could pull out my enthusiasm for a defense. I do recommend it, just can’t muster up enough sense of conflict to “make a case” for it.

advertisements for the apocalypse

i haven’t watched a lot of movies of late, but if i may be allowed to extend this blog to a discussion of advertisements i’d like to direct your attention in mock-horror to a recent visa check card commercial. this is the one in which everything in a large cafeteria is moving like clockwork when a man shows up with cash and brings it all to a grinding halt. the ad itself seems like it must be a direct riff on the famous modern times sequence in which chaplin inserts himself into the assembly line and brings it to a halt with his body. here, however, the action of the human who breaks the chain, stops the line from moving is greeted with scorn, and mechanization of everyday life is presented as cheerful and hip. mechanization no longer evokes horror; it is presented instead as the bright, sunny prerequisite of paradise.

Recently watched

I thought the documentary (Street Fight) on Newark’s 2002 mayoral race was pretty engaging, largely because its ‘star,’ the rising political bigwig Cory Booker, is as smart and self-effacing and … well, grounded as you’d want a politician to be. I caution: the narrative of the documentary never digs deep into party politics, represents but doesn’t really interrogate or historicize or even explicate the racial tensions which emerged between the two black democrats vying for the job. It shows a collision of corruption, race, poverty, class, politics, and urban realities, but it doesn’t really do much more than make a good showing of such problems. That said, it’s a decent film. And as a complement to the Carcetti/Royce race on The Wire, it was even more compelling to this viewer.
Continue reading Recently watched