Five Movies

[bcholmes]

Synecdoche, New York: I feel like a total film faker for admitting this, but Charlie Kaufman's stuff doesn't make me squee. I don't dislike any of the films, but I sometimes find them a bit self-indulgent. More often than not, I think that moments are really clever, and then I find myself growing a bit restless with a sequence that's going on a bit too long. Synecdoche is like that. There are parts where I go: "wow, the amazingness of that particular image almost pays off the long, long, long build-up.

I'm reminded of what Dorn says about Constantine in The Seagull: "He thinks in images; his stories are vivid and full of colour, and always affect me deeply. It is only a pity that he has no definite object in view. He creates impressions, and nothing more, and one cannot go far on impressions alone."

There's also a weird set of queer elements to the film that leave me wondering what they're doing there and which confuse me.

The Day the Earth Stood Still: Okay, maybe because I'd heard this film slagged so fully, I had sufficiently low expectations. I thought it was a relatively fun SF-adventure flick. I thought Reeves was surprisingly good, and I was pleased to see Connelly play a scientist hero: I feel like the scientist hero has fallen out of favour in film (they're not "average person" enough, I guess). It would have been nice if she'd used a bit more science, though.

I remember seeing the original version on TV when I was a kid, and I thought this version did a pretty respectable job out of remaking it. I am a bit tired of the "oh, gosh, you humans are special snowflakes -- every other alien species is very simple to understand, and you're not, but I'm glad I finally understand you" trope.

Seven Pounds: on the one hand, this film dials up sentimental to eleven. But on the other hand, it's exactly the film that I wanted to watch when I did. It's hard to talk too much about the film without giving away its premise, but it has to do with guilt and an insane plan to make amends for a past mistake.

Rachel Getting Married: I think of all five films I've watched recently, this one is the one that I enjoyed the most. Initially, I found it very difficult to watch; it's about Kym, an addict in recovery, and Anne Hathaway perfectly does the whole self-centred/"my recovery must take centre stage" thing that reminded me waaaay too much of my mother.

And then Debra Winger enters the picture, portraying Kym's (and Rachel's) mother, and her character is just devastating to watch. It's amazing how her character is mostly defined by her absence. Partially, it made me think about my own withdrawal from my parent's lives and how that's similar or different than the Winger character's withdrawal from her daughters' lives. It's a challenging film.

Happy-Go-Lucky: I didn't like Poppy. I found her annoying, and I found her attempts to try to make people happy for her own benefit were rude. Oddly, I found myself siding with Poppy when her sister started talking to her about behaving like an adult and saving for retirement. Mostly, I didn't like the film.