Movies

[bcholmes]

So, I watched a big stack of DVDs this weekend (I haven't done that in a while, so there were a bunch I wanted to see).

The Prestige: I really enjoyed this film. I thought they played with an interesting set of ideas. And I didn't even recognize David Bowie. I later read a blurb on Wikipedia saying that some people felt they were trying to play with too many themes. I ask myself: who are these people who can only handle simple movies, and could they stop trying to influence the few, richly complex films out there? I was talking to someone about Heat (the last good film Michael Mann has done?) In Heat, Robert DiNiro says, early in the film, "Don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner." And then, two thirds of the way through the film, he says it again, but shortly it's gonna be an important concept, and the audience needs to be reminded that the thing was said. Always in threes. Once to lay the groundwork. Once to remind the audience. Third time, it becomes important. I've always felt that was a bit of a club on the head. Anyway, I mention this to say that I like how The Prestige doesn't feel the need for the reminder in the middle. It's a challenging film, in terms of structure. There are flashbacks within flashbacks. And we see things that we only later understand the significance of. I really enjoyed it.

Crank. Uhm. One of my co-workers once said, "I see too many movies to worry about whether or not they're any good." And. Uh. This one highlights that idea.

Catch a Fire. I also enjoyed this film. I'm interested in the first 30 minutes, which seem content to take their time setting up the different lives of the two main characters. There's no hurry, and it almost seems like it's not going anywhere. Then it becomes a story about South Africa's war on terror during its Apartheid era, when the terrorists were the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela. Patrick Chamusso, an innocent man, is arrested as a suspected terrorist. In the course of torturing him, a South African Jack Bauer-esque cop, Nic Vos (played by Tim Robbins) infuriates Patrick to the extent that after his release he seeks out the ANC and becomes a terrorist/freedom fighter. In a sense, it seemed like it was going to make the same point as Munich: that violence begets violence, and once you start down this path, there's no happy ending place. But then, something happens at the end that makes you realize that things can get better.

The Others. Meh. Y'know, I'm reminded a bit of M. Knight Shyamalan's films: I'm always aware that there's a script, and it's the script that's driving everything I see. Everything is sooo... writerly (I'm looking for a word comparable to the Fine Arts concept of "painterly", rather than, say, Barthes' idea of writerly). It's like campfire stories, where you know that the storyteller could just jump to the point at any time, but the build-up is the story. This film was like that. Not particularly successfully.

The Order. I'm a bit interested in the concept of sin eating at the moment. I'd seen this film once before, but I wanted to rewatch it. It's okay. It's a bit of an unusual filmic narrative, though.

Man of the Year. I really don't think they pulled off quite the movie that they seemed to want to pull off. Or maybe they didn't know what kind of movie they wanted. There was so much promise that it could be a commentary on politics, or a story about the outsider who takes over power (a la Dave), or just a comedy. It instead got mired in a plot about voting machines, and didn't know where to go from there. It was also really hard to watch the film, based around the idea of an accidental voting machine glitch, and not have anyone comment about exit poll discrepancies. I don't know what they were trying to pull off, but it didn't work for me.

Do the Right Thing. I'd never seen this film, despite it being a classic. It's a slow film (since so much of it seems to rely on getting to know the large set of characters), but I like its ambivalence about protest and violence.

Stranger than Fiction. I hafta confess that I was prepared to hate this film, since Will Farrell gives me the screaming heebies. But I liked the premise, and it got good reviews. So I rented it. And I really, really enjoyed it. It's well done, and a little bit surreal, and it kinda choked me up in the emotional parts.

House of Sand. I had debated renting this film a number of times, but kightp's recommendation swayed me. It took me a bit of time to get into it, but it ended up being quite beautiful.

Hollywoodland. I liked how this film doesn't try to make an answer stick. I like how it is open to multiple ideas, and the "we can't ever really know"-ness.

Comments

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed all the movies on this list that I saw (Hollywoodland, Stranger than Fiction, Catch a Fire, The Prestige). Well, I've seen Do the Right Thing when it was in the theatres but can't recall if I liked it or not. I was most torn about Catch a Fire. It seemed like the sort of story that you couldn't possibly make a bad movie about, so they didn't, but it also seemed like a story that you could make a really great movie about and I don't think that they did. I think they just made a good movie.

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

Based on your comments about The Prestige (which now I really want to see -- and I get why the previews didn't make me think that), I'd like to recommend The Spanish Prisoner to you. We had to watch it 5 times before we could hold the whole plot sequence in our heads, and get all the ramifications of each scene.

[kat-chan.livejournal.com]

The first time I saw Do the Right Thing was when I was in college and it was an option for my multi-cultural ed class. It was a very interesting look at the tensions that slowly build over a hot, steamy day in Brooklyn, eventually boiling over. The pacing is intentionally slow, to mimic the sort of lazy day that Mookie is working his way through. The characters have a depth to them that you rarely see in films. There are no bad guys, even as Sal bemoans the way the neighbourhood had evolved, and his sons almost speak to Sal's internal struggle; one embracing the new clientele and the other looking at them with disdain and wondering what has happened to the world around him. It's a very powerful movie.