Author: reynolds

The Set-Up

When I was dissing Eastwood’s Baby, I was speaking out of turn, as I hadn’t seen it, and was playing off summaries and my own sense of his filmmaking to rant. Having since viewed it, I perhaps grudgingly admit its workmanship and persist in my rant about its cheap sentimentalized cliches about disability and remain firmly underwhelmed by aforementioned workmanship. But I wasn’t sure why, or maybe just how to pitch those complaints in a fresh way. I mean, it wasn’t Raging Bull, but it wasn’t trying to be. How do we talk about and critique its scaled-down ambitions, without pulling out masterpieces to beat it over the head?

Here’s how: Continue reading The Set-Up

Jagshemash!

Maybe I should post this under the Jesus Silverman thread–but bloggengruppenfuhrer Chakladar can make that decision later, if he so chooses. Borat lives! Given our conversation there about ‘mocking’ racism, I’m curious how people respond to Sascha Baron Cohen’s trio of disruptive personae? In particular, Borat, getting a crowd of country-western fans to sing “Throw the Jew Down the Well”….

For the trivia fans: Seth Rogen was writing for Da Ali G Show… and I hear Borat will be the star of his own film in the not-distant future.

Horrors in fancy pants

I watched a couple of films–neither great, neither bad–which grub in the troughs of contemporary horror scenarios but with some more high-falutin’ goals in mind. I could probably write an essay that excoriated the directors for not taking their slumming seriously enough; the films don’t really succeed as horror, and the pretensions swell up and occasionally burst the seams of the well-knit genre conventions. But I’ll assume they were serious fans of the genre conventions, and simply suffered from grand ambitions–in trying to make seriously scary and yet seriously serious flicks, both ends of that equation kind of suffer. We get middling melodramas, admittedly well-shot and showing promise.

Continue reading Horrors in fancy pants

Albert Brooks

I bought a comedy album by Albert Brooks when I was 12–“A Star is Bought”–and was absolutely amazed and confused. I laughed really hard, but I couldn’t share its punchlines at school; unlike Steve Martin, say, or Richard Pryor or George Carlin, who if nothing else came with value-added profanities, and who always drew an appreciative laugh from the kids who might otherwise have punched me, Brooks…. well, how could I explain that his parody of the “Mr. Jaws” records was about the funniest damn thing I’d heard?

I was able to find on video at a local hole-in-the-wall Real Life, his and Harry Shearer’s absolutely brilliant send-up of reality television made thirty years ahead of its time (riffing on the contemporaneous PBS documentary ‘inside’–and destructive of–a family’s home). Mauer and Bruns have rhapsodized about that wonder elsewhere on this blog.

And although I got almost none of the specific angst pervading his next two films–Modern Romance and Lost in America–I got the existential genius of the arrogant, doomed-to-failure character “Albert Brooks.”

I’m kind of just gushing here. I’ve watched everything since–and even relished The Mother–but haven’t seen anything close to that early genius.

So, with great trepidation but also great hopes, I thought I’d post the trailer for his new flick, Looking for Comedy in the Moslem World. The trailer hits a couple high notes, and squawks awkwardly (and sounds almost Catskillsy, in the worst way) in a few instances. But…. here’s hoping I have a devil of a time talking to my colleagues, those ones who might otherwise punch me, about why this movie is funny.

Baumbach

Okay, I am now officially very intensely waiting for The Squid and the Whale. While waiting, I got thinking about Noah Baumbach’s earlier films, and thought I ought to write something about them here. Matt Feeney beat me to it, at Slate, so I’ll just point you to him. That said, he doesn’t mention Highball, a strange little film about a cocktail party, which seems like a throwaway, except for some great dialogue and some glorious scene-stealing by Peter Bogdanovich, who keeps doing impersonations of various filmmakers and actors.

The best thing in both of Baumbach’s first two movies–despite the always brutally funny Chris Eigemann–is the strangely sincere earnest silliness of Carlos Jacott. But Feeney nails how good Jacott is, so, again, I’ll cop out and let his piece stand alone.

One small bit of dialogue, though, spoken by Baumbach and his brother in Kicking and Screaming, to the hero. They pester the protagonist about which animals he’d fuck, basically haranguing him into choosing an animal just to shut them up. But when he says, exasperatedly, “Cow,” they look bitter and hostile and call him “Cowfucker” for the rest of the movie. That, my friends, is comedy. Even the Hungarian will have to admit that.

3-iron

Around the television series which clog up our account but which Kris and I both like watching (“Lost” and the upcoming “Battlestar Galactica,” if Netflix ever releases it to us), I seem to have all these small films in the queue. (And I never get to the theater at all.) I’m not sure if I should post on any of these–I’ve liked the majority of them, but they also don’t open up whole new cinematic vistas for me… they’re just good. So, if you’re interested: The aforementioned Assisted Living is recommended, a capsule review tacked onto my incoherent post regarding good and evil.

Here’s another: Kim Ki-Duk’s 3-iron is about a guy somewhat adrift in his life, sneaking into vacationers’ homes to live for a few days while they’re gone, before moving on. One house he happens into isn’t empty; a woman is there, and emerges bruised and beaten after he’d settled in. What follows lacks grandiose conflict, although there is a brief, brutal, and powerful collision with her husband, but it is a film that manages–with little dialogue, and without too much plotting–to convey a real sense of the inner lives of its characters. It feels like a poem more than a narrative, and it looks like one, too. I’m not sure what that means, but it’d look good on the poster. It’s rare to see a film so enamored of how its characters bathe, dress, eat, just silently circle around one another in small spaces… (but, don’t worry, it’s not Bresson–there is narrative to hang our identifications on).

I liked it.

Best use of song

Okay, sitting here recovering my Mott the Hoople fixation from years bygone (and ignoring student papers), I throw out: What is the best use of a song in a non-musical film?

Some nominees:
Mott the Hoople, “All the Way From Memphis” — Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
the Ronettes, “Be My Baby” — Mean Streets
Peggy Lee, “Is That All There Is?” — After Hours
Donovan, “Atlantis” — Goodfellas (…sensing a pattern?)
Rolling Stones, “2000-year Man” — Bottle Rocket
the Stranglers, “Peaches” — Sexy Beast
Aimee Mann, “Wise Up” — Magnolia

Oh, I also saw a dandy little independent film called Assisted Living, apparently only available on Netflix. The director shot on-site in an eldercare facility in Louisville, employing many of the residents as “actors,” merging “fact and fiction” in his own brief description. I don’t care so much about that–but you may. What I found quite remarkable was its attention to aging, its cool-eyed compassion, and its wit. Plus, it was shot with a very nice, impressionistic edge…. kind of reminded me of David Gordon Green, but more interested in narrative. Recommended.

And, Howell–I really want to hear what you think of OldBoy. That film really sticks with me….

Off the Map

A small little film, directed by Campbell Scott, that very occasionally slips into a precious recalling-my-young-girlhood-and-becoming-an-adult ramble (mainly through a precariously balanced voiceover, that sometimes prances into convention), but… BUT I really liked this film.

A family lives in rural New Mexico, avoiding jobs and most commodity traffic–and taxes; a tax man (Jim True-Frost, late of The Wire, and almost a revelation in this role) shows up, falls in love, stays on. The father (Sam Elliott) suffers from an undefined, pervasive depression; the mother (an astounding Joan Allen, unlike I’ve ever seen her before) remains almost unflappable yet utterly grounded; the taciturn family friend (J. K. Simmons) seems quiet out of sheer bewilderment at the family he so clearly loves.

It’s funny, occasionally moving, almost always just that perfect small distance from conventional in its approach to dialogue and narrative. It’s full of marvelous images, ‘though sometimes the director seems a bit too intent on wondering at the environment, the camera rushing around to take it all in.

Great acting, but don’t expect a rush of narrative energy or even grandstanding actorly moments–it’s a small film.

I haven’t got much to say beyond see it.

Kontroll

I can’t recommend this film more highly; even though my expectations had been pumped up by extravagant praise in various reviews, I still found it surprising, visually quite stunning, and a hell of a lot of fun. (And Kris sat down to watch five minutes, figuring it was among the cheesy foreign thrillers I clutter our queue with, but got sucked right in.) It’s not great, but as a first film, working on a minimal budget, it’s among the most stylish and entertaining films I’ve seen all summer.

Continue reading Kontroll