So, Reynolds attacked me not too long ago for wallowing about in the mindless fields of television entertainment (I think he used the word pablum). Still, bang for buck I’d choose “The Office,” “30 Rock,” “Entourage,” “The Colbert Report,” “The Sopranos,” “24,” “Friday Night Lights,” “Heroes,” and “LOST” (these are the shows I make an effort to see weekly when they are delivering fresh eps), over much of what passes for entertainment in the movie theatres these days. And week to week these shows consistently deliver in ways that even our favorite filmmakers and our favorite boutique indie houses can only imagine. Newsweek has published a very interesting article worth pondering. I think they are on to something.
Author: jeff
Breach
Breach is a pretty damn entertaining cat and mouse spy thriller–the kind where one is never quite sure who’s the cat and who’s the mouse. Director Billy Ray tells us exactly what’s going to happen in the first 30 seconds (well, John Ashcroft does) and for the next 110 minutes, you’re on the edge of your seat trying to figure out what actually is going to happen. That alone seems worth celebrating. Oh, I don’t know, it’s probably not as good as all that, but we are in the February doldrums (the flaming Nic Cage pic made $15 million on Friday!), and Breach is a smart, unpretentiously ambitious genre flick that works on a variety of levels and is acted to the hilt by Laura Linney, Gary Cole, Ryan Phillipe and, in perhaps his strongest performance in an already stellar career, Chris Cooper. It’s also one of the most virulent pieces of anti-Catholic propaganda I’ve seen on the big screen in a long time. Continue reading Breach
The Science of Sleep
I guess we could start with screwball comedy. The film vaguely resembles Annie Hall; albeit one rewritten by Tristan Tzara, directed by Luis Buñuel with sets and props by Joseph Cornell and Mike Kelly. And sure, throw Duchamp, Magritte, Beck, Breton and Dalà into the mix for good measure, but all this name dropping and genre marking simply ignores the singular talents of writer/director Michel Gondry. The Science of Sleep is charming, hilarious, poignant, sad, confusing, glorious, fantastical, inventive, mesmerizing, playful, hilarious, poignant, sad, goofy, silly, serious, beautiful, ethereal. It’s like pixie stix wrapped in cellophane, dipped in chocolate and covered with cloud fluff. This is the first movie Netflix has sent me that I will turn around and purchase. The commentary track alone is worth the price of admission. I love this movie. If I had been smart enough to drive the eight miles to Uptown, it would have been my best film of the year. This is why I like to watch; c’est mon dada.
Little Children
Ugh . . . I still don’t know what to make of this film. I walked away feeling queasy, uncomfortable and frustrated. I can’t rightly dismiss it because it reveals such great promise, but Little Children’s bizarrely alchemical mix of earnest melodrama (think Eugene O’Neill) and black comedy/satire (A.M. Homes, Tom Perrota) just didn’t add up for me (imagine Douglas Sirk directing an episode of “Desperate Housewives†and you get the idea). Still, Todd Field can direct. There is this one montage sequence at a local swimming pool that is so beautifully shot and cut; it is easily the most elegantly edited sequence of the year. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Field isn’t afraid to slow things down; he palpably lingers on moments (I’ll never look at Hummel figurines in the same way again) and the way he uses rhythm to generate specific moods is exemplary. Additionally, Field’s confident utilization of long takes and beautifully orchestrated tracking shots as well as his eye for unique and dynamic compositions makes him one of America’s most exciting young filmmakers. He is also generous with actors; each and every performance in the film is bold and exploratory (Phyllis Somerville I’m talking to you). So why didn’t I like the film? Continue reading Little Children
Dreamgirls
The most remarkable thing about this film is how old fashioned it is. Bill Condon has managed to “reinvent” the musical by simply ignoring MTV, and for that I guess many a purist are quite satisfied. The camera doesn’t move so much; the editing is not pushed to front and center; performers are allowed to sing and emote in full and medium shots. There is little razzle-dazzle (Krieger and Eyen ain’t no Kander and Ebb, that’s for certain and Bill Condon ain’t no Baz Luhrmann for that matter). Is it entertaining? Sure, in fits and starts. Continue reading Dreamgirls
Children of Men
Films in which the future of the human species is at stake tend to be problematic; the commodification of despair is tricky stuff. Alfonso Cuarón’s adaptation of P.D. James novel is certainly a very entertaining, emotionally and intellectually powerful film with one of the best endings of the year. And it is beautiful to look at. But that’s kind of ironic, yes? Here the landscape of broken, bombed-out buildings (shot in muted, blue-grey tones) approaches something best described as rubble-chic (the art direction is superb, but one questions if the end of the world should be reminiscent of early mornings at Hogwarts). That’s cinematic dystopia for you. But I’ll not labor the point; Clive Owen looks appropriately grizzled and that will do. Continue reading Children of Men
The Departed
During the first hour or so the film is all about the cut as Scorsese and Schoonmaker juggle a lot of heavy exposition, three complex central characters and three integral secondary characters. There are plenty of pleasures to be had–it is a return to form–and the way we move from scene to scene and character to character is handled with the kind of craft we expect from Scorsese (the intricate temporal and spatial shifts seem effortless and Scorsese uses pop and rock songs, once again, to hold everything together). Still, something was missing; the film felt a bit rushed and I wasn’t as invested as I thought I would be. And then Scorsese slows the train down a bit, tightening his focus and racheting up the suspence as the “cat and mouse” narrative kicks in. There is a set piece I won’t spoil by describing, but it is a blistering, anxiety inducing, white hot sequence in which the dramatic action takes its inevitable turn for the worse. For the next 75 minutes, the film is an unrelentless yet highly entertaining masterclass in cinematic, edge of the seat, tension. The acting is excellent; DiCaprio, in particular, is a marvel and Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg accomplish a lot in very small bursts of energy. Jack does his best, but I think a scene or two explaining a turn to oddball behavior ended up on the cutting room floor. Still, it was a damn fun, ugly, brutal, bloody ride. I probably need to see it again.
Two Films
Down in the Valley is a strangely ethereal, contemporary western (deconstructed yes, but not overtly so) which centers on a tender/tragic love affair between Harlan (Edward Norton), a drifter pushing thirty, and a seventeen-year-old girl, October (Evan Rachel Wood), who picks him up one afternoon and takes him to the ocean. They fall in love. Dad (David Morse) gets in the way. Tobe’s diffident younger brother Lonnie (Rory Culkin) believes Harlan to be a kindred spirit; he’s the avuncular ideal Lonnie’s father can never be. Conflicts arise. Harlan’s desire to forge a new family unit by pushing dad aside sets into a motion a series of events where things go uncomfortably awry. I’ll leave it at that. It’s a great film. Continue reading Two Films
duck season
I watched this Mexican film last night, Duck Season, which was released by Warner Independent Pictures under Alfonso Cuarón’s deal with the studio. This is a charming, unforced, wry ensemble comedy about four characters who spend a lazy Sunday in a middle-class apartment complex in Mexico City. The apartment belongs to fourteen-year-old Flama, and it is currently something of a battleground as the kid’s parents are raging through a messy divorce. The one pleasure is Sundays when Flama’s mom travels to another city for the day leaving Flama and his best friend Moko alone to eat pizza, drink Coka-Cola and play video games. All is well until a power outage shuts down the game and then Flama’s sixteen-year-old neighbor, Rita, interrupts and asks to borrow his kitchen to bake a cake. When the pizza delivery man, Ulises (who looks to be in his mid to late-twenties), arrives eleven seconds late, Flama refuses to pay and Ulises refuses to leave. Continue reading duck season
the hills have eyes
Speaking of gore, I watched The Hills Have Eyes remake last night. I’m not much of a horror fan but this creepy, fucked up, gruesome and grisly shocker is quite good. It’s all in the writing, I think. The main characters are unusually believable, honestly drawn, sympathetic even (you actually feel a bit sad when certain characters die). I guess that shouldn’t surprise me but it does. The violence, of course, is ugly and graphic but the film is well shot and edited and rarely overplays its hand. While not everyone’s cup of tea, this is worth the rental. The first act is probably as good as any horror film I’ve ever seen. It starts to go a bit downhill from there but don’t they all. Oh, and as a nod to big Al, the film has its own tidy little eco-political subtext that the former next President of the United States would probably appreciate.