Tag: movies

Film Century 1.5

Well here we go, down to the wire.

Dec. 22 The Simpsons Movie – There are probably movies with more jokes per minute, but few with as many good jokes per minute. 142/150
Dec. 23 Red Dragon – Sometimes more of the same just isn’t the same. 143/150
Dec. 23 The Silence of the Lambs – The difference between these movies is one of emphasis, I think: is Hannibal Lecter a hissing maniac who happens to be brilliant, or an impossibly perceptive mind without any moral center? 144/150
Dec. 26 Sherlock Holmes – Rocky Balboa and the Case of There Is No Goddamned Case 145/150
Dec. 27 Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle – Producer Drew Barrymore is proud to present Drew Barrymore’s Ass: A Drama in Two Parts. 146/150
Dec. 28 Brazil – There are several accounts of Kafka reading his stories to friends in which both author and audience are forced to stop, wiping tears of mirth from their eyes and clutching sides that ache with laughter. 147/150

Michael Moore Should Stick to Documentaries

Via Primer, came across Slashfilm’s compilation of reactions to Avatar from various nerd-film leading lights. Many are pleasantly gushy, though I’d frankly be more interested to read them when

A) The 3-D IMAX dopamine rush has worn off of these poor fellows and a few months’ time has restored some perspective and

B) The Oscar-quote/poster-quote/get-on-the-internet-hype-train vibe has worn off a bit.

Still, these are professional nerds who make nerdy movies for the entertainment of nerds, and perhaps their initial reaction is valuable if only to make an estimate of the immediate sensation the film might grant another nerd (i.e. me) should he choose to see it. That is to say, if all these guys are excited, maybe that’s a good sign.

But then, halfway through the list, Michael Moore (who apparently counts as nerdy based on his girth and glasses) lets loose this glistening nugget of a tweet:

“Go see Avatar – a brilliant movie 4 our times. Don’t worry if theater doesn’t have 3D – the 2D is awesome & it’s all about the story anyway!”

It kind of speaks for itself, but if you need it spelled out: the plot in Avatar is not what it’s all about. I already know the plot – without having seen the film – because it was delivered in its entirety in every trailer for the film. The plot is a contrivance that allows for the effects to be delivered. The plot is a cellophane-thin culture on which the visual trickery is grown. The plot is a familiar, slender bouquet of tropes on which you may comfortably hang your sense of understanding in order to anchor it in the face of a punishing visual assault.

I am not being mean or judgmental when I say these things; I don’t even mean it as a criticism, really. It’s just that kind of movie. Hell, it’s being marketed as that kind of movie. But if Michael Moore thinks that a $300 million 3-D sci-fi remake of Dances With Wolves is a movie for our times thanks to its story, he is off his ass.

-ssr

Film Century 1.5

Dec. 19 Monty Python’s Life of Brian – It’s a damn shame that the Santa Clause gets played on TBS every Christmas and this doesn’t. 137/150
Dec. 19 6ixtynin9 – Sort of a peanuts and lemongrass version of Jackie Brown. 138/150
Dec. 20 Up In The Air – Imagine what would have happened to Jack if Tyler Durden never showed up. 139/150
Dec. 20 LA Confidential – A glittering, ticking Rolex of a film. 140/150
Dec. 21 Wild Zero – OK, so Alex Cox, Ryuhei Kitamura, and Link Wray walk into a bar… 141/150

Film Century 1.5

Dec. 11 Fantastic Mr. Fox – Spend a charming hour watching Wes Anderson play with his dolls. 133/150
Dec. 12 Say Anything – So does Lloyd Dobler grow up to be Dale Cooper, or is the universe just fucking with me? 134/150
Dec. 14 The Botany of Desire – I never thought domestication was a one-way street where humans do all the exploiting and none of the getting-exploited: I’m a cat owner. 135/150
Dec. 16 Good Night and Good Luck – George Clooney delivers a black and white movie that is – not coincidentally – shot in monochrome. 136/150

Death at a Funeral: The Bionic Movie

Frank Oz’ Death at a Funeral (a movie I only recall because of Naked Wash) is being remade by Neil Labute, a mere 2 years after its release. As unneccessary as most American remakes are, this one seems even worse. I get that there’s a language barrier that lots of US moviegoers just aren’t willing to hop over; subtitles are surely repellant to folks who head to the movies specifically because reading doesn’t entertain them. I get that there are occasionally cultural differences portrayed in films that can be confusing or even scary to people who are uncurious about the rest of the world or uninterested in seeing characters who aren’t exactly like themselves.

But for fuck’s sake, this is a remake of a movie that was filmed in English just two years ago. There are no subtitles to hold people back. I guess you could argue on the “cultural differences” front that the original was a bit British, but the best thing about British farces is the contrast between old-timey propriety and ludicrously inappropriate behavior. How can that dynamic possibly be improved by the addition of Martin Lawrence cringing “Ohhhhh Daddy!”?

Aboslutely the only interesting thing I can imagine coming out of attempting to remake this British black comedy as an African American slapstick farce is the possibility of exploring the Black community’s attitudes toward homosexuality and race mixing. And I’m not talking about some bullshit feel-good thing where everyone just suddenly decides hey it’s not such a big deal if Dad was gay and had a white lover. With the amount of homophobia pervading Black pop culture, trying to just breeze through the gay dad angle without a really violent confrontation would take this film beyond “unrealistic” to a realm more like “a dimension of existence so utterly foreign that you kinda can’t conceive of it anymore”; it’ll be like the moviegoing equivalent of what happens to Dave Bowman at the end of 2001.

Hit the jump to watch both trailers and compare for yourself.

Continue reading Death at a Funeral: The Bionic Movie

Film Century 1.5

I’d been worried that December would be a crunch, but we’re heading into that final stretch with a strong head of steam and only a couple more movies to thrash.

Dec. 4 Red Cliff – Impossibly luscious but with an odd quality of being not-quite-there, like a cinematic version of Megan Fox. 129/150
Dec. 5 The Nightmare Before Christmas – So what’s St. Patrick’s Town, some kind of green-beer brewery full of belligerent leprechauns? 130/150
Dec. 6 Identity – For all you budding Shyamalans out there, a quick primer on twists: a good twist recontextualizes past events in a way that’s suprising, entertaining, and still makes sense. 131/150
Dec. 7 Four Christmases – American studio filmmaking is based around the fact that the lower you aim, the more likely you are to hit your target. 132/150

Film Century 1.5

Nov. 11 Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto – Having been raised on a steady diet of Shogun and Seven Samurai, I’m gonna go ahead and pretend this is Toshiro Mifune’s autobiography. 118/150
Nov. 12 Bart Got a Room – I tried writing a script for a romantic comedy where the protagonist quickly realizes that his quirky best friend who is not-at-all-secretly in love with him would be a good match and they get together without any antics or confusion, but it turned out to only be 5 minutes long, so we get stuff like this. 119/150
Nov. 13 A Christmas Carol – Startlingly expressive in its quiet moments, it eventually drowns them out with needless roller coaster antics. 120/150
Nov. 15 Ghost World – Where do teenagers get the idea that being a sarcastic, judgmental bitchass makes them more grown up? 121/150
Nov. 17 Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple – Cranks the combat, chivalry, and cinematic misogyny from the first film up to 11. 122/150
Nov. 24 Barbarella – Say what you will about Altamont, but at least it put an end to this sort of thing. 123/150

Amid Other Seemingly-Reasonable Questions

Dear Skynet,

When you created your incredibly evil human-slaughtering 2-wheeled Termicycles, why in the name of Steve McQueen did you give them handlebar grips, shift levers, brake levers, and the rest of the control systems that would allow a human being to ride them?

Just askin’. Cause, y’know, you could have saved yourself a lot of trouble if you’d left off even one of those many components. I mean, if you wanted to.

Love,

-ssr

Film Century 1.5

Hell yeah, power movie weekend!

Nov. 4 The Professional – For all the blood and smoke, there’s something charmingly innocent about a tale of perfectly chaste love, no matter how many bullets are involved. 112/150
Nov. 6 (Untitled) – A well-deserved blowtorch up the ass to self-obsessed artists and the assholes that enable them. 113/150
Nov. 7 Nerdcore Rising – Shockingly honest and instrospective at times for a documentary about novelty music. 114/150
Nov. 7 Franklyn – What do you bet people will still whip out the tired old gambit of calling this director “visionary” even when his vision consists mostly of other people’s movies? 115/150
Nov. 8 Resident Evil – 100 minutes of stuff that isn’t fucking Resident Evil! 116/150
Nov. 9 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – Too goddamned much of a good thing, like being forced to eat a gallon of ice cream at gunpoint. 117/150

Film Century 1.5

Oct. 22 Fast & Furious – Some movies wear their stupidity proudly, like a badge of honor, but then there are those movies so profoundly, prophetically stupid that they think the badge is actually for being smart. 106/150
Oct. 26 Hellboy II: The Golden Army – Relentlessly grim and hopeless in its way, like a post-modern Lord of the Rings where the good guys and bad guys have all been shuffled up. 107/150
Oct. 27 Death Race – Wait wait wait, did Paul W.S. Anderson, of all people, seriously try to bite Ridley Scott’s style from Gladiator for this? 108/150
Nov. 1 Man On Wire – Looks like a documentary about tightrope walking, but is actually a mash note to the beauty in urban landscapes, a search for the cathedral in every building. 109/150
Nov. 2 The Goonies – It’s probably a sign of a life lived completely out of order that this movie reminded me of the Deadmines instead of the other way around. 110/150
Nov. 4 The Mummy – Bastardizes Indiana Jones, splitting a single complex character (two-fisted adventurer, passionate intellectual, and treasure-hunting rogue), into an ensemble of 1-dimensional ones; and you know, it’s still better than half of the actual Indy movies. 111/150