Category: (random lists)

steve martin’s shopgirl and why we fight

why are movies as vile as shopgirl being made? why are they marketed in such a way that idiots like me fall for it and watch them? if movies such as this one can be made and sold, why don’t we make and sell really groundbreaking movies that unveil the lies and horror of what is happening to the world?

we watched why we fight last night. how do we make it required watching for everyone? anyway, i found it oddly peace-inducing. it’s all so much bigger than i. my activism is futile. i think i’ll have another mojito.

clubland: white

i have not yet seen the extras but i’m eager to write on this, so i’ll pitch a few ideas. idea no. one: is this a comedy? what makes something a comedy? i’m sure there are people on this blog who are way more qualified than i to discuss the necessary requirements of comedy, but it was hard for me the first time around, ten years ago, and it is hard for me now to see this film as a comedy. there is no laughter. there is, instead, a lot of heartbreak. surely, though, laughter cannot be considered a necessary requirement for comedy, because laughter is so subjective and culture-dependent. simon’s suggestion is that this is a comedy because karol is a schlemiel, and since this sounds interesting to me, i’ll go with it a bit. Continue reading clubland: white

frisoli, er, ribisi

the 2003 i love your work is nothing special. it is apparently this guy’s adam goldberg’s life work — he wrote it, directed it, produced it, edited it, wrote the score for it, he did everything but star in it. evidently adam had something to get off his chest, a certain, bleak, obsessive view of hollywood and celebrity. i seem to have noticed before that it is not rare for first-time directors to do films about hollywood. is it true? in any case, you have a sense with this guy that he’s working out some personal issues about hollywood. the film is original and watchable enough: it’s edited well, the colors are very good, the real and unreal sequence blend nicely. yet it took us three days to watch it. make of it what you will.

i didn’t want to talk much about the film, as about giovanni ribisi, who i find a sweetly charismatic actor. he’s really good in this. he plays a celebrity who goes nuts — literally. he can’t take it any more. surprisingly, there’s few to no drugs in this movie, so ribisi has to do all the going-nuts work inside. it has to seep out of his eyes and his gestures and the way he cocks his head. i think he’s very effective. his face is incredibly mobile and he can go from scary-looking to childish and sweet very convincingly. i never noticed him much, not even when he starred in the mediocre heaven, but here he comes into his own and shines.

Egoyan – Where the Truth Lies

Atom Egoyan’s latest film, which seems to be quite far removed, in plot at least, from his previous film, Ararat. If a few words could accurately sum up Egoyan’s obsessions and themes, it would be "where the truth lies" which would make this a nice opportunity to look back on Canada’s second best memory obsessed director, except I’m not feeling up for a retorspective.

There are some big problems with Where the Truth Lies; among them the characters, the acting, the amateurish direction, and the plot. None of these are beyond redemption, but parts of each are weak enough to end up being unsatisfying.

Continue reading Egoyan – Where the Truth Lies

Clubland: Black Narcissus

So, many of us wanted to see a film at something closer to the same time, to get a collective discussion together. I chose Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s Narcissus to start us off, and therefore I pitch at you a few, by-no-means-inclusive reactions and readings, intended merely as jumpstart: Continue reading Clubland: Black Narcissus

Violence

I have had a couple days at home alone, after taking Kris and Max to Omaha. I’d scurry about during the day to do all this end-of-year crap I need to get done, then come home and see stuff I normally wouldn’t have the time or space to see–maybe things a bit more violent than Kris would ever want to watch (and by “bit more” I of course mean “excessively, ridiculously, extravagantly more”). I can turn up the volume, go nuts.

What follows are a couple of strong recommendations and others just to be recorded. There’s a loose running issue in my responses about the ways they depict violence. But mostly it’s just a quick set of recs: Continue reading Violence

British New Wave

The Cinematheque recently ran a 2 week program of films called Angry Young Cinema: The Original British New Wave. The full list of the films can be seen here. I managed to see none of the films, despite working literally across the street from ther excellent Hollywood theater, The Egyptian.

I won’t list all of the film that played – the link above will let you see that – but I hope some here will check out the films that played and recommend a few in comments. They sound interesting, and I plan to rent a batch of them, though several have not been released on DVD. Continue reading British New Wave

United 93

This is one intense film. It is relentless and doesn’t let up until the very. last. moment. I was moved and angered but mostly impressed by the economy of the writing and filmmaking (United 93 makes Munich look like a baroque opera). The “villains” are presented as human (for the most part); you certainly feel their passion and their fear. The passengers lack character per se, but their growing desire to try to do something is palpable, admirable, heroic even (though, by the end, things do go a bit Lord of the Flies . . . puns not intended). The chaos on the ground (in Boston, New York, Newark, Cleveland and some military location) is both outrageous and completely understandable–forgiveable even. There are a couple of ideologically loaded moments (the hijackers in the airport walking past large, glossy, back-lit advertisements for various consumer products. The FAA and the military frustrated by their inability to locate the President to make a necessary leadership decision (the gossip that the Vice President over stepped his bounds by ordering planes shot down is not broached). The audience with whom I sat were visibly emotional and very, very quiet. If one was in any way close to this event, I just don’t know how they could sit through the film.