Month: January 2012

Pick of the bunch is Haywire, easily the best action thriller since the third Bourne movie, and more evidence of Steven Soderbergh’s astonishing range. The story of a betrayed covert operative, Mallory (played by MMA champion Gina Carano) wreaking revenge is hardly original, but Soderbergh has made an wonderfully economical little movie (coming in at 93 minutes), littered with trademark interiors and some breathtaking exteriors (a fight on a beach as the sun goes down with only seagulls and waves for sound, the wide open wilderness of New Mexico), in which the moments of frenetic action alternate with long periods of stillness, and the attention to detail shows how a craftsman makes movies. The point of using Carano, one assumes, was to make the action sequences more realistic, and it works; there is nothing in the movie that looks computer-generated or as if performed by superhumans. A long chase sequence across the roofs of Dublin looks exactly as though a very fit twenty-something woman is doing the running and jumping. Finally, Soderbergh gets wonderful small performances from the ensemble cast of Michael Douglas, Bill Paxton, Antonio Banderas and Ewan McGregor. Highly recommended. Continue reading Some Recent Action Movies (now with Vampires)

I don’t think anyone has posted on Lars von Trier’s latest film yet, though I see at least one of us has expressed an interest in it. Has anyone seen it? We watched it last night and I’m still not sure what to say about it. I do know that what moved me the most, what I enjoyed most was the wedding reception which makes up Part I, entitled “Justine” who is played by Kirstin Dunst. Justine has just married Michael (Alexander SkarsgÃ¥rd), who is a well-meaning, very likeable, but very boring young man. He’s a bit thick, too. After a splendid opening (I’m not counting the over-indulgent special effects prologue, with nods to 2001: A Space Odyssey and Powaqqatsi) in which we see Justine and Michael trying to get a stretch limo up a very narrow, winding dirt road, we spend the next hour or more at a wedding reception being held at a remote estate owned by Justine’s brother-in-law, John (played by Kiefer Sutherland). Continue reading Melancholia

Toward the end of Cristi Puiu’s Aurora the always unsettled and increasingly unsettling Viorel (played by Puiu) lopes into one of his daughter’s classes, disrupting a party rehearsal. He grabs her, to get her to leave with him, and in a prototypical long fixed take, the camera gazing at the action from just over and behind the head of one of the schoolkids, we watch a teacher try to make sense of what’s happening, try to get him to let the daughter stay for a bit, while Viorel with barely-suppressed agitation gets his daughter dressed, readies her backpack, responds curtly and then with a vague menace to the teacher. His eyes frequently dart to the side, catching the schoolgirl right below the camera’s gaze. He looks at her, he goes back to what he’s doing, he looks at her, he talks, he looks at her. Then there is one extended glare, a head-shift away with his eyes on the floor (as if afraid? ashamed? completely unable to fathom human connection?); when he pulls his head back up, he stares at her–and although the set of his mouth and the look on his face hasn’t really changed, the gaze now seems furious. In a low monotone he asks “What are you staring at?” She turns away.

We can’t. Aurora isn’t a perfect film, but it may have a perfect performance. The brilliance of that performance–the slow revelation of Viorel’s desperation, and the horror attendant therewith–doesn’t really come clear unless you engage the long, long, long, long 100 or so minutes before anything specific happens. (The film then goes on for another 80 minutes. Did I warn you that it’s long? It makes Police, Adjective seem like Michael Bay.) Continue reading What are you staring at?