Category: (by verdict)

Resolved

Greg Whiteley’s 2007 documentary on debate as she is practiced in the high schools today is entertaining and smart, and maybe that’s all you need to know. Following the exploits of two schools/teams, one from well-off suburban Texas and the other from an underfunded public h.s. in Long Beach, the film engages all our narrative expectations about the role of the underdog–even refers to such expectations early on–and then goes in other directions. These two teams never meet, and that failure to meet is illustrative of both a central thesis (about the systemic relations of class and privilege to this activity) and the film’s own sly wit. We get a film about underdogs winning and one about underdogs losing. And in both cases the film is clearly valuing these showcased participants while also clearly more interested in the subculture and its relation to the broader culture.

Continue reading Resolved

Two Lovers

This is a simple story and simple movie. We have all seen this setup before, and the opportunities for missteps and a sentimental mess are rife. But somehow, Two Lovers works. It is a love triangle with Leonard (Joaquin Phoenix) caught between the solid, careful and loving daughter of his father’s business partner, Sandra (Vinessa Shaw), and the wild, glamorous, and more than slightly nuts, Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow). Written and directed by James Gray, the movie follows Leonard’s ambivalence towards two women that represent different futures: marry Sandra and please his parents, go to work in the dry cleaning business, be sure of someone who really loves him; or escape Brooklyn and his past with Michelle, who could explode at any minute, and whose love for him is never more than glancing.

All the performances are impressive, especially Vinessa Shaw and Leonard’s parents (played by Moni Moshonov and a wonderful Isabella Rossellini). They are small, careful performances, eschewing any violent displays of emotion. The emotion is worn on the faces of the protagonists, not in their speech. There are a few small missteps (the opening scene with an attempted suicide), but they are more than outweighed by moments of delight. At the very end of the movie Leonard suddenly switches his affections, and while one would expect it to feel artificial and forced, but it seems perfectly natural.

So the cheesy existential angst of Watchmen‘s heroes didn’t do it for you?

Big Man Japan, Hatsuhiro Matsumo’s stone-faced documentary about the lonely, tedious life of one of Japan’s last monster-fighters, is among the most cussedly determined comedic visions I’ve seen in some while. It’s not always terribly funny, it’s pacing is more long-range Tati than zippy & slapsticky, and the locus of its concerns (avoiding the larger cultural context except as implied by conversations with hero Masaru Daisato) remains frustratingly parochial. Yet–whether as antidote to Hollywood or just deadpan pop-culture remix–it is a dizzy, idiosyncratic vision.

Daisato seems to be at the tail-end of way too many bong hits, slowly and dazedly talking to his interviewers about his expanding umbrella, his daughter. He doesn’t really give answers about, and the film doesn’t really investigate, what his isolation might mean, or how to interpret his alienation. And yet he’s mostly the only talking head, his interviews stitched together around his encounters with a series of lovely huge grotesques. The movie avoids the typical mockumentary conventions, where the film’s thesis comes through its deployment of “experts” (or just a range of voices) to underline the satirical vision. I’m not even sure this is satire. It’s more like a perfect alternate/cover version of a familiar set of cultural tropes. I particularly liked the protagonist’s constant brushing of his long hair off his face, and his impotent screaming at the equally-bellicose and -deadpan Stinking Monster.

Half-Blood Prince

This entry in the Harry Potter franchise constitutes four-fifths of a great film. The good? First, the art direction and special effects are excellent. The sequences involving the pensieve and the “liquid memories” are gorgeously unsettling. There is a Quidditch match which looks fantastic, and an early sequence in what appears to be a ramshackle manor house is playfully fun. In terms of art direction, David Yates seems to have cast a thick veil of coal smoke over everything. Hogwarts has never looked so dilapidated and distressed. More impressive, Yates ratchets up the emotional angst and agony, capturing strong performances from all and delivering one of the most ominously creepy installments of the series. Continue reading Half-Blood Prince

Torchwood

Torchwood is a spin off from Doctor Who. The marketing strategy is pretty clear: the BBC created one spin off for younger viewers (the Sarah Jane Chronicles) and this one for more adult viewers. Torchwood has much more sex and plenty of gore. Characters from Doctor Who move back and forth between the two series, with the lead being Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman). He leads a secret unit (Torchwood) set up by Queen Victoria to save the world from aliens. The first two seasons are enjoyable, and occasionally very good, but the third season — Children of Earth — is something special. It is a five-part miniseries, shown on five consecutive nights, dealing with a single alien threat. It is some of the best British drama I have seen in a while. If you get BBC America, look for it starting July 20th.

XXY

really great, complex, and thoughtful movie about an intersex kid who, although not reassigned at birth, has been raised as a girl and given appropriate medication to develop as such. am not sure about the biological accuracy — at 15, alex has small but nonetheless existing breasts, a high-pitch, definitely feminine voice, and looks most certainly like a girl — but the issues this small film (from the film movement) raises are doubtlessly rich and, it seems to me, as true to reality as fiction can make them. Continue reading XXY

Bruno

You know the story. Bruno is the host of a gossipy Austrian fashion TV program, enjoying inventive sex with Diesel, his long-time lover. His velco suit causes havoc at the Milan fashion show, he is fired and Diesel leaves him for another man. So Bruno heads for Hollywood to become a star. What to say? Well: Continue reading Bruno

This is creepy

Does anyone know how Facebook works? Or, more precisely, how it can be that today it recommended Gio to me as a possible “friend”? I have never met Gio. I am not “friends” with anyone on this blog. I am not aware of traveling in any circles in common with Gio. She and I disagree about every movie ever made. And yet Facebook has somehow ferreted out this slim connection. I recently re-watched Enemy of the State and nothing the CIA could do in that movie comes close to this kind of deep knowledge produced by some software algorithm.