Sucked

I should have posted on Dark Knight and schooled Arnab, but instead I watched other things. The Last Winter was an indie horror about global warming, and Larry Fessenden is an interesting director, and it had a good cast, and it mostly sucked. So I tried Six Reasons Why, a Canadian indie that Netflix convinced me was something I’d like, and it has Colm Feore in it, and was a post-apocalyptic Western thingy shot on about a 48 cents per day budget. And you can see almost every penny in it. Sucked. Sucked, sucked, sucked.

So then I watched about 45 minutes of Blades of Glory, which didn’t suck, but wasn’t good. And Netflix wouldn’t send me Spaced or Mad Men, and that, too, sucked.

The Dark Knight

I’m still kind of reeling, stunned by this, but I’ll jump out on the limb and assert (and later reflect and expand upon the assertion): this is the best American pop/genre film since Silence of the Lambs.

How’s that for pumping up your expectations? More crazy-ass assertions to come on the centrality of anarchy and disorder to great American pop . . .

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

I’ve been expecting someone to post on this all week. Since no one has, I’ll clear the decks before the Dark Knight comments appear (sadly I’m in Europe, where it doesn’t open for another week or so, so I’m looking forward to hearing your reactions). I was very enthusiastic about the second Hellboy right after watching it; a week on and I’m a little less enthralled. Still, this is the most visually inventive and lush movie I have seen in a long time. Setting aside plot, character and dialogue, the movie is worth watching just for the endless delight of its imagery. There is a forest god straight out Princess Monokoke, a bustling troll market that looks better than anything George Lucas managed, a character who is entirely gaseous, and a massive mechanical army, complete with cogs and clockwork machinery.

The movie itself is perfectly fine. The leads play off each other well, with Selma Blair particularly good. There is one wonderful scene involving a Barry Manilow song. But you watch this primarily to drink in the imagination of Guillermo del Toro.

On the fundamental ridiculousness of a certain kind of horror film

You’ve got to wonder how certain pitch meetings ever closed the deal. Imagine sitting down with this Irish fellow, a hot young prospect in an industry starting to stretch its global legs and move past the endless green hills & spirited lasses & the troubles & gnarled-wise-drunken old men & pubs of romanticized Eire. He says he’s got this crackin’ idea for horror (horror? in Irish film? feck yeah!), feeding on the European terrors of gen mod. “Great,” says the Film Board, “jes great. So what’s the pitch?”

Cows. Yeah, no, I know what you’re thinking, but hear me out. End of meeting. Except… Continue reading On the fundamental ridiculousness of a certain kind of horror film

romulus, my father

biopics are tricky. they can go on and on, and always teeter on the edge of lacking a narrative focus. life, of course, has no narrative focus whatsoever, which is why we invented stories. this is a story of personal and familial disintegration set in the 40s or 50s on the australian frontier. the protagonists are middle european immigrants. romulus, playes by eric bana, is a loving father and doting husband with a boyish face and an appropriately indomitable work ethic. he’s a generous and forgiving man who always does the right thing and will captivate you. franka potente plays his wayward wife, a woman who cannot stay away from relationship with other men but is welcomed at the farm with open arms whenever she makes her way back. raimond is their only son, a 9 year old with blue eyes and a terribly earnest-sweet face whom the first-time director chose wisely to make the moral and psychological center of the film. the actor is terrific. he portrays the easy joyfulness and the dead seriousness of childhood with heartbreaking facility. Continue reading romulus, my father

Hancock

This is a slight but nevertheless enjoyable July 4th outing for Will Smith. I assume you have all seen the previews, so the basic plot setup requires little explanation. The movie divides neatly into three 30 minute segments. First segment has Smith, as John Hancock, the foul-mouthed, intemperate superhero. He drinks, swears, appears to have been sniffing coke, and does a pretty miserable job of saving the citizens of LA. Second segment sees Hancock persuaded by Ray, a mild-mannered media relations guy (Jason Bateman), to clean himself up, wear a nifty leather costume, and generally endear himself to the police and populace. The third segment is much darker, involves the origin story, and brings Ray’s wife, played by Charlize Theron center stage. Revealing any of that segment would require spoilers so I’ll wait until someone else sees the movie. Continue reading Hancock

WALL-E

This is not my favorite Pixar feature. I’d put it a notch above Cars. WALL-E (or Waste Allocation Load Lifter – Earth class) is the last remaining moving thing on the planet (apart form a dedicated and unnamed roach). The year, we learn later, is roughly 2815, and for approximately 700 years, the WALL-E units have been cleaning up the Earth in order to make it, once again, life sustainable. All of the other WALL-E units have fizzled out and stopped working, but our one little WALL-E happily goes about his business compacting units of waste and piling them into tall, sky scraper-like formations. If one of his parts breaks or malfunctions, there are plenty of other dead Wall-E units lying around to pilfer from. In fact, WALL-E keeps a large supply of spare parts (and other curiosities, ranging from rubber duckies to zippo lighters) in his little home, which is something of a shrine to the mindless consumerism that destroyed the planet. This is one of the few interesting ideas of the story: WALL-E is pretty much like us. He’s a pack rat. But the idea isn’t really developed into something one can wrap one’s head around. Anyway, while at work, WALL-E finds a small plant growing in an old refrigerator. He takes it back to his home and puts it with all the other stuff he’s accumulated. Continue reading WALL-E

Dexter

Has anyone watched this? All I can find on the blog is a brief but positive aside from Jeff. It airs on Showtime, which I don’t get, but season 1 is available to watch instantly on Netflix. The concept seemed rife with opportunities to produce something really horrible: forensic investigator with the Miami police who specializes in tracking down serial killers, and he is especially good at his job because he himself is a serial killer. He handles his urges to kill by only going after those who has escaped punishment by the criminal justice system. Three episodes in, I am very impressed. Michael C. Hall (of Six Feet Under fame) plays the lead, and he owns the role. Many of the characters are pretty flimsy (especially Jennifer Carpenter who plays his sister), but Hall give a multi-layered performance managing to convey vulnerability and menace at the same time. A small smile plays across his lips most of the time, and his shows genuine delight at coming across a true master serial killer. The series plays cleverly and in non-obvious ways with issues of abuse, emotion, sex and vengeance. Hall has chosen to be in a relationship with a deeply damaged woman in part because it avoids the need for sex. His foster father, a cop, recognized his urges and essentially taught him how to get away with it, but also how to channel it towards “taking out the garbage.” Creepy, clever, compelling.

Fuck you, I’m getting in the plane.

Steve Martin is the first comedian I mimicked, whose work I eagerly bought up, whose routines I (pathetically) aped in my room. Richard Pryor was the most lacerating and challenging (the impact of which hasn’t faded, whenever I rewatch), but man he was funny, even when I got the edge and anger more than the punchline; Richard Belzer’s breezy nihilism (on a talk show, no less!) gave the adolescent Reynolds too much confidence in his own sarcasm, and; Albert Brooks was the guy I loved to love ’cause so few other people seemed to know him (or, as often, understood or found him funny)–my god, a parody of the Mr. Jaws records that was patently unfunny?–Brilliance!

But George Carlin. Ah, damn. I can come upon an old routine–about planes, pieces of corn in shit, God (“But he loves you!”), the infamous seven words and the lovely extended riff of further words (“Mongolian cluster-fuck” the one that sticks with me)–and I pull up short and watch, as I did about seventeen times today, and they still make me laugh. Routines from the ‘seventies, ‘eighties, ‘nineties, and more recently–funny, pushy, witty, biting stuff in each decade. No one pitched as neatly smart and silly and scatological as Carlin.

Get Smart

Better than I expected. It is quite intelligently directed with strong supporting roles from Arkin and The Rock (I’ll never call him Dwayne Johnson), and a lovely cameo from Bill Murray. I even liked Terrence Stamp’s bitter one-liners about Hollywood actors. The moments of homage to the TV series are unobtrusive so that the younger set can enjoy the movie. There are a couple of set-piece action sequences and a handful of silly jokes, but overall it is actually quite a sweet movie, which seems an odd description for this genre of remake of old 60’s TV show. This quality comes from Carell’s portrayal of Maxwell Smart as not so much dumb, arrogant and loud, as awkward, perceptive and surprisingly skilled as an operative. Smart is the one who is right more often than more experienced agents. The central part of the movie follows Smart and Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) on a mission to Russia. The object is to show how they grow to respect each other as agents and even fall in love. The movie doesn’t quite pull off this feat, because too often the gags get in the way, but it comes close. This is probably not the place for an examination of Carell as a comic actor, but he has carved out an interesting space between the sad sack bumbling fool and the self-assured spewer of one-liners.