——Bob Le Flambeur——

(A-)

It is kind of hard to review a movie after only recently having just seen its excellent sequel, The Good Thief. Basically these two films are the same movie, although honestly some of the elements are a lot better in last years The Good Thief, including the acting and the much better plot. Still, the original has a lot of charm of its own to make it definitely worth seeing. The rhythmic pacing of the movie is quite excellent and the location shooting brings out an excellent aesthetic years before the French New Wave officially began. But most of all I love the ending. The Good Thief had an excellent ending, but it was also a very Hollywood ending. The Bob Le Flambeur ending is much more ambiguous in design, and you can almost see the devilish design in Melville’s eyes when he thought this up. Bob, a chronic gambler who has never come out on top, finally has amazing luck…in the worst time possible. He wins big, but his obsessive gambling has a tragic effect, giving the film a very rich texture and making it a very fulfilling viewing experience.

——The Matrix Reloaded——

(A-)

For some reason a lot of the things that really bothered me about this film in the theater didn’t bother me so much on the small screen. Maybe it was the fact that I was watching it with my sister, and was thus able to make fun of the boring half hour of exposition in Zion at the beginning of the movie. Maybe it was because I finally didn’t see the Merovingian as a boring philosophical waste of time but instead finally as the comic relief (the back and forth between his pontificating and Persephone’s eye rolling is pretty hilarious.) Perhaps it was the fact that as you get to know the philosophy of the film more and more, the film gets more and more interesting (for instance, Persephone’s eye rolling probably originates from the fact that she’s heard the same speeches through five different Matrixes.) Whatever it was, I love this movie more than ever.

Make sure you check out, if you haven’t already seen it, the MTV Music Video Awards sketch that’s on the DVD. Most of it is shit, but Will Ferrell as the Architect is hilarious. “Concordantly, Vis a Vie, Ergo…you know what, I have no idea what the hell I’m talking about.” Neither do we Wachowski brothers, neither do we.

——Kill Bill: Volume 1——

(A)

I saw this again, and it was still awesome. I have nothing more to really add, other than to say everyone should see this film, because it kicks some major ass. Anyway, I instead wish to relate a story about seeing the film for the second time. I see it in the afternoon in Bennington (my first real trip out in the car by myself, fyi) and surprisingly there is actually quite a few people there. Of course they are all around the same age, probably all college kids from Bennington College. A fun crowd though. And then right in front of me a black couple sits down with their daughter, who I swear couldn’t have been more than three years old. She was tinny and in that stage where she is still kind of figuring out how to talk. Now there is bad parenting, and then there is BAD PARENTING. I mean, seriously, this is probably the worst movie out now other than Texas Chainsaw Massacre that you could ever take a small child to. What the hell were they thinking? The little girl was actually quite well behaved, but I can only imagine how much that experience is going to fuck with her subconscious for years to come. Is it really that hard to find a baby sitter for two hours?

——A Mighty Wind——

(B+)

I actually didn’t like this as much as I should have. When I saw This is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, and Best in Show I had a great time with each one and laughed my ass off, thinking they are probably some of the funniest movies ever made. I didn’t have that reaction with A Might Wind though. It’s funny, yeah, but after the fantastic Best in Show it is kind of disappointing. It’s a little slow. Probably more of the film than should be actually feels like a real documentary, and not a mockumentary. I liked the film, yeah, but ultimately it didn’t entertain me nearly as much as I had hoped it would having heard everyone else’s enthusiastic reviews of it.

——Bend it Like Beckham——

(B+)

The direction is nothing special. They story is basically the standard sports movie formula (I don’t think it is really a spoiler to tell you that in the end the main character does in fact “bend it like Beckham”). And yet there is a lot done right with this film which makes it an ultimate delight to watch. The way that a girl playing soccer (sorry, football) is mirrored with an Indian girl’s duties to her family and tradition is actually kind of brilliant. I loved the way that the final game was intercut with her sister’s wedding, making a connection between the two that you begin to realize is actually more close together than you originally would have thought. The movie is lots of fun and kind of enlightening at the same time, and really what more can you ask for from a film?

——Sixteen Candles——

(B)

I saw this on the WB on Sunday (come to think of it, I’ve actually seen most John Hughes movies for the first time on the WB) and found myself surprised that I actually liked it (a common reaction to the 80’s John Hughes movie). I’m quickly becoming one of the cult of Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall, having also just seen The Breakfast Club for the first time recently. A fun movie, a little unrealistic, but no more than any other teen comedy really, with the added bonus that I think John Hughes got teenagers a little better than most people in Hollywood seem to.

——Lost in Translation——

(A)

I took a trip down with Ross down to Williamstown to see this at Images Cinema because I was really beginning to lose hope that Bennington would ever show this, and as it was something I really wanted to see I decided to seize the horn of the bull, as it were. Images is a lot like Upstate Films down near Bard, except that it feels a little newer and a little cheesier, but they gave me a three dollar discount because I flashed my expired Bard student ID, so I love them anyway.

Anyway, the film itself was an absolute delight, a true kind of collection of postcards from an American in Japan trying to figure it all out for the first time. Everything felt pitch perfect, giving a feeling of being lost in a very foreign land, and yet being lots of fun at the same time. A nice honest view of human emotions. I really loved it. Bill Murray is hilarious and deep as a dramatic actor at the same time; if ever there was a better time to give this man a Best Actor Oscar, especially after the snub for Rushmore, now is the time. Also magnificent was Scarlette Johansson, who only gets hotter and hotter every time I see her in something. Great movie.

——The Legend——

(C+)

I went into the video store the other day and I was like “You know what, I want to see a kung fu movie”. There were a whole bunch of Jet Li movies to chose from, but there was one I didn’t want to get because I had already seen it before on TV once. Unfortunately I hadn’t seen the beginning of it so I didn’t know what it was called. So I rented The Legend. Guess what the movie I saw was called. Yup. I can pick ‘em, can’t I?

This movie is one of those that is so shitty that it becomes awesome. The plot is absurd to say the least, and it sounds like all the voices were done by the Baldwin family. This movie is mostly a mistaken idenity comedy starting Jet Li and his odd mom, and it has just about everything that you would expect (and a lot you wouldn’t). The lines are so bizarre that the whole movie is hilarious (Sample dialog: When one official is spit on by accident by a subordinate and the subordinate looks at him with extreme fear of what he might do to him, the official replies “It is OK, I am virtuous!” Read that as extremely excited.) It’s a pretty stupid movie, but if you ever end up in a situation where you can watch it, watch it, because it’s not dull in the least.