Author: reynolds

Vvvvvvvvvvvvvvaaaa – HEEEEEEE – na

The Ten perhaps deserves no major acclaim–as a sketchy chapter-driven film, it misses often enough to make it casually pleasurable. But it’s never less than amiably and enjoyably silly, and there are a few bits that are amazing, especially Liev Schrieber as a suburban homeowner sucked into a competition with his neighbor over CAT-scans. And it makes casual fun out of religious law, anal rape, and the death of children — what’s not to love? Certainly worth your time, although I’ll recommend Smiley Face again as being the best bet for funny-films-that-did-poorly-at-the-box-office-and-are-now-available-on-dvd.

I also have been watching The Love Bug with Max, who John is probably wondering about. I forgot the power of Dean Jones. And there’s a scene where Herbie tries to commit suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. The car actually perches on the railing, teetering precariously over the Bay. Hilarity! Now I’m going to queue up The Apple Dumpling Gang for its long-forgotten opium-withdrawal scene, Knotts and Conway wracked with feverish rage….

Smiley Face

I don’t go in much for pothead humor, always finding Cheech and Chong too much like hanging out with pothead friends of mine to really enjoy the experience. (I liked them at first, but then I kept hoping they’d just fall asleep already.) I gave Half Baked a shot, but–nah. Maybe it’s my own non-pothead back-story. (Alas, I probably identify more with Foster Brooks.) So maybe pot movies are a genre beyond me. Until I saw Harold and Kumar, which was a loony delight, ineffably (or just effing) funny. That’s it, then. Found the one true pot film.

Then I saw Smiley Face, and–now THIS is a pot film. Continue reading Smiley Face

Offside

This goes on my year’s list, a great film about a sport that bores me silly. The film seems to be in real time, following first a man seeking his daughter who’s snuck off to see the Iranian team struggle with Bahrain’s for entrance into the World Cup, the catch being that women aren’t allowed to go to public sporting events. The film smoothly leaves the man behind, jumping to another van (as it passes by, flags waving, excited fans chanting) where a poorly-disguised woman nervously tries to avoid attention.

Continue reading Offside

Juno

Kris and I both loved this, its acid-tongued stream of one-liners a tart complement to its openhearted appreciation of all characters. Every performer in this film is pitch-perfect, special mention for Ellen Page who is as vivid and lovely and moving as everyone says, and has as good an ear for her lines as the always-remarkable Michael Cera (who seems to have an uncanny ability to find whole new symphonies of nuance in the blank-faced befuddlement of the poor guy to whom things happen).

I was most impressed by how the film, even as it turned into the skid toward certain generic expectations, confounded the tendency to lay blame or find a convenient villain or foil.

[Minor spoliers ahead]

Continue reading Juno

Johnny T—just kidding. Lift

DeMane Davis and Khari Streeter’s low-budget Lift never quite escapes the gravity well of certain over-determined conflicts or plot dynamics, but that’s the only negative thing I’m going to say about it. After reading about this in some article (I think at Slate) about indie films that slip between the cracks, I stuck it on my Netflix queue and found it pretty damn rewarding. Niecy (an excellent, excellent Kerry Washington) is a young woman trying to move past service to more leadership roles at a department store, grappling with a complex relationship with her demanding mother (Lonette McKee), and struggling with a relationship with her trying-to-go-straight (off the pot, off the game) boyfriend (Eugene Byrd). Oh, and she makes a real good living by stealing the very finest of designer products. Continue reading Johnny T—just kidding. Lift

Instead of another Johnny To thread…

…let’s call it “Reconceiving the Action Flick.” I’ve seen in the last week three pretty strong, strange films which seem bound up in the generic constraints of the action film but, with Houdini’s flair, slip the shackles to become (in 2 of the 3) something kind of wonderful, odd, sui generis. Continue reading Instead of another Johnny To thread…

The Mist

A gut-punching horror film that captures with almost perfect pitch the pervasive dread of Stephen King’s best work. Okay, sure: this is a giant other-dimensional bug movie, with a creature-feature set-up (a group of civilians trapped in a small space, facing this aggressive unknown), and laden with many of the sorts of corn-poney character tics that sometimes drowns King’s work. Even with such constraints, though, Frank Darabont works some wonders: the creatures are generally be-misted, foggy hints of things we’re left imagining, or–when dragged into the limelight for stop-motion or goofy-puppet attacks, they’re consistently freaky; the group trapped in the supermarket hew to certain stock traits but the actors and the writing make the human dynamics something consistently stronger than you’d expect from a skeletal plot outline (particularly fine are Toby Jones and William Sadler).

But what fucking nailed me was the way the camera would turn and face–unflinchingly, for far too long–raw human fear and anxiety. Sure, the set-up’s silly, but you take the leap (there are things in the Mist!) and suddenly Thomas Jane trying to console his terrified crying boy for what seems like three full minutes is beyond unnerving–it’s deeply unsettling. Continue reading The Mist

Medieval Horror Chiller Theater

Watching Beowulf in digital 3D, I’d occasionally “ooh” or “ah” at a very long track back through snow-covered tree branches or men grounding a boat at a great distance from our perspective on a beach made of millions of carefully-rendered grey rocks.

Otherwise, the film sucked. Complete waste of time, unless you like yelling. Oh, maybe Crispin Glover’s interesting–gives his most intelligible performance in garbled pidgin Middle English, with his lower jaw jutting to the right (I kept waiting for him to tell me about sling blades) and oozing blood and pus and mucus from every pore.