OK, as you might have noticed lately, the Monday Movie Review has been, how should we say? AWOL. I’ve slacked off the last month and am now paying the price. Sorry guys. You might also have noticed that I haven’t really posted much of anything lately. Sorry about that. I’ll work on it. Try to get better. We’ll see what happens.
Anyway, in the meantime, I give you the last three weeks of reviews. I’m still working on the two weeks before that, but I plan on at least trying to have this weeks reviews in on time before I tackle those. I make no promises (mainly because I always fail to keep them). Anyway, enjoy after the jump!
(May 8)
——Natural City (2003)——
This Korean film takes the best parts of many great American sci-fi films (Blade Runner, Aliens, The Matrix, Ghost in the Shell) and manages to absolutely nothing new or original with them. Despite the flurry of amazing visuals, so little original or engaging is seen on screen that I actually spent most of the film bored, thinking instead of the films Natural City was ripping off instead of what was right there on hand. It’s not that the film is incompetent, it is just completely disengaging. I was bored. Where were the big ideas, the spectacular action pieces, the “Wow” factor? It just wasn’t there. It never dug deep enough into what was actually a pretty decent idea.
In the future, people have cyborgs as companions, domestic help, even soldiers. Those cyborgs usually “die” in about three years, when you have to upgrade to a new model. When some of those military cyborgs revolt because they do not want to die, R, part of the human military police, is sent into stop them. But poor R is in love with his cyborg, Ria, and has secretly been working with a scientist on a way to save Ria before he time is up. This makes him a very bad cop, that is until he finally figures out that the cyborgs want the same scientist that he is using to try to transplant their consciousness into a human host. I like the set-up, but the execution of it all just sucks. Yawn. Don’t be sucked into the hype on this one.
(MISS)
(May 9)
——Karas: The Prophecy (2005)——
I haven’t really seen much anime lately. There was a time when I was addicted to the stuff, but there hasn’t really been much of interest for me aside from the odd new Miyazaki movie. Karas sounded kind of cool though, so I gave it a shot. Fans of animation and specifically anime shouldn’t be disappointed.
The story is a little confusing at first, as all of the pieces of the story don’t really fall into view until about the halfway mark of the film. It basically involves a break in the worlds of the living and of the spirit world. Traditionally a Karas protects the balance between the two worlds, but now a former Karas wants to tip the balance so that demons can run free through the world of the living. The new Karas has to save the day. I’ve got no idea if he actually does so or not, though, as this is just the first part of a larger journey. So far, so good in my book.
The animation is really good, especially the battle sequences. It uses a combination of traditional hand drawn animation with CGI and motion capture to give the movements of Karas a real fluid feeling. The action sequences are pretty kick ass, worth seeing even if you are just a fan of giant robot fighting. I’m curious to see where the next part takes us.
(SEE)
——Mission: Impossible III (2006)——
Easily the best of the Mission: Impossible movies, the only flaw seems to be that J.J. Abrams plays this film just like an episode of his show Alias, but even that isn’t really all that of a bad thing. Abrams works his same Sydney Bristow genius on Ethan Hunt, giving him a home life (and thus real stakes if he loses), crazy action sequences in lots of exotic locals, and giving him lots of team based missions filled with humor and suspense. One thing I wonder though, Has IMF thought at all about fixing their traitor problem? Every movie, somebody turns on IMF, and in turn, Ethan Hunt. This guy has turned into a grand master of finding the mole.
Ethan has gone into operations retirement, instead focusing on training new recruits and getting ready to settle down with his soon to be bride. But when one of those recruits (TV’s Felicity, from another Abrams show) is taken hostage by an international arms dealer, Ethan is called out of retirement to get her back. Insert here lots of crazy/awesome action sequences. But what is done really well is that there is actually something at stake. The movie starts nearly at the end, where Philip Seymour Hoffman has Ethan tied to a chair, helpless, with a gun to his wife’s head. We hear a bang, fade to black, start up the Mission: Impossible theme music. Abrams just loves starting at the most exciting point, then working his way up to the artificial cliffhanger he’s created for himself. And it works. I honestly had no idea how Ethan was going to get out of it. But boy, was it fun trying to find out. It reminds me a lot of my favorite Bond film, Goldeneye, where a similar burst of creative energy hit an old franchise.
(MUST SEE)
——The Notorious Bettie Page (2006)——
The Notorious Bettie Page doesn’t dig real deep into who Bettie Page was or what made her tick, which is the only real fault of the film. It stands back at the fringes of her personality, watching and observing her like one does her risque photos that helped change how pornography was viewed in America in the 1950’s. A lot of the film is just that: us watching Bettie pose for this photo shoot or that one. It was weird, but the fact that I was alone watching the film, coupled with the sleazy guy in the back doing the heavy breathing, made me feel like I was in some porno theater from back in the day. It managed to be erotic, but more so…fascinating. And a lot of the credit for that has to go to Gretchen Mol. She adds so much personality and depth to the role that the script lacks that you can’t help getting sucked into the film. She easily carries the weight of the film on her shoulders. The movie quickly becomes a glimpse into a foreign era of American life, where film, television and magazines painted one perfect view of the American nuclear family, while on the fringes of society others explored their sexual desires in private. It’s a fascinating glimpse into a side of life we don’t usually get to see.
(SEE)
(May 13)
——Danger: Diabolik (1968)——
Danger: Diabolik is a crazy, psychedelic movie based on a comic book, and the movie retains most of that comic book energy through odd camera angles, kinetic energy in the acting and the editing and unbelievable locals and situations. Oddly enough the hero of the film, Diabolik, is a master thief, and in the opening sequence he pulls off a daring theft of ten million dollars right underneath the watchful eyes of the government. They take it upon themselves to catch him by any means necessary, but Diabolik has the resourcefulness of Batman and only manages to make them look like bigger and bigger fools as the story progresses. They set up impossible obstacles with priceless objects as bate, only for their master thief to out-trick them time and time again.
Diabolik is a bit of a James Bond character, driving posh Jaguars during his capers, pulling out exotic gadgets to help him on his way, sleeping with his extremely hot Euro-girlfriend who assists him on his jobs all while hanging out in a secret underground ultra-mod lair, looking like some combination of a 60’s sci-fi set and one of Dr. No’s mysterious hideaways. No obstacle is too big for Diabolik. He pulls a crime boss out of a plane with him, interrogating him the entire way down, when really it was the crime boss who thought he was throwing Dibolik to his death. A giant tower is no obstacle. He just uses a suction cup device to climb it, undetected. In a final act of desperation the authorities melt all of their gold down into one giant twenty-ton gold bar, thinking there is no possible way Diabolik can lift it. I won’t ruin the how, but let’s just say they were wrong about him not being able to steal that ridiculously enormous gold bar. Even certain death doesn’t seem to phase Diabolik. The final image is striking for its sheer absurdity. It taunts the audience, making them think he’s done for when all the sudden a wink lets us know he’s OK, even though we’re left still oblivious to how he actually plans to free himself.
Danger: Diabolik is sexy and sensual, filling the senses with one giant feast for the eyes after another. This isn’t a great film, it’s a fun as hell film. John Phillip Law plays the character exactly as he should, with eyebrows cocked impossibly high upon his forehead. He makes you believe that all the impossible you see is possible in this world. This is a real fun ride, ridiculous, yes, but amazing as well.
(MUST SEE)
(May 15)
——The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave (1971)——
This Italian horror mystery has an awesome title, abundant nudity (always a plus), and a weird story involving a man so obsessed with his redhead ex-wife that he picks up red-haired prostitutes only to beat and kill them, and yet the movie still fell a little flat for me. It came part of the incredibly cool Emilio P. Miraglia boxset just put out by NoShame Films. Unfortunately, the movie isn’t quite as cool as the box. The man eventually decides to stop being crazy and settle down (with a blonde) but soon enough Evelyn is apparently back with the living causing trouble for our “hero” and driving him right back to the brink of madness. It follows a lot of the standard conventions of the Italian giallo film, and while there are a few cool twists here and there, they really aren’t enough to justify watching the movie unless you are a fan of the genre.
(MISS)
(May 16)
——Delicatessen (1991)——
Available for the first time on DVD in America, Delicatessen is one of the first films by the director you all probably know for the delightful Amelie. And if you are like me, and you love Amelie, you’ll probably want to check this one out as well. The story takes place in an apocalyptic future where all food is scarce, but especially fresh meat is a rare commodity that everyone wants. So much so, that some of them have resorted to cannibalism. One apartment building has one of these delicatessens, and what they do is hire a handyman from the city, have him do some odd chores around the place, and then carve him up to split between all of the tenants. I know what you are thinking right now. Laugh riot. Trust me though.
The newest handyman is an ex-clown (played by the actor in Amelie who was the obsessed ex-boyfriend who fell in love with the hypochondriac cigarette girl) oblivious that everyone wants to eat him and who happens to fall in love with the bookish daughter of the butcher/landlord. All of the tenants are given their own screen time and happen to be nice and quirky, much like all of the characters in Amelie. One scene in particular delighted me to no end, in which the squeaking of a bed made by two people having sex dictates the rhythm to which everyone does their chores in the apartment building. As the couple’s pace quickens, approaching climax, so does the activities of everyone else in the building until all action explodes with the orgasm. It reminded me a lot of Beat Takashi’s remake of Zatoichi, where the rhythm of the common people working set the beat to the rest of the film. A really nice stylistic choice.
While I don’t think Delicatessen is quite as good as Amelie, I do really like the film and suggest that any of you who haven’t already seen it check it out. You’ll never believe that you could have so much fun watching a movie about cannibalism.
(SEE)
(May 19)
——Footlight Parade (1933)——
If it weren’t for one sequence in particular I probably wouldn’t have given Footlight Parade any thought at all. The plot isn’t particularly engaging for some reason, and things for the main character (James Cagney) are depressingly bleak up until the ending. Things for this brilliant producer/dancer aren’t going well, as he starts of the movie getting a divorce and no one wants to make musical theater now that talkies are all the rage. He somehow finds a way to work though by making “prologues,” apparently little mini-theater shows that go on before a movie starts. Still, he comes up with all of the ideas while his partners steal all of the prophets from him and his writing partner moves to a rival firm stealing all of his ideas. He isn’t any luckier in love, as his blonde secretary, the only person that truly loves him, pines away only to be ignored and passed over for a hussy just looking for some money. When he proposes to said hussy, the ex-wife then comes back to announce that she never really got the divorce and now wants all of his money. What a bleak story, huh?
The irony of this film is that it condemns film for ruining the theater industry, and yet in this film the Busby Berkeley musical numbers are so big and elaborate that they could only be done in Hollywood. Which brings me to the highlight of this film, a highlight so luminous that the rest of the movie could just be a monkey pooping into a hat and the movie would still be must see. Honeymoon Hotel and Shanghai Lil are interesting enough numbers, but they are just grains of sand in the beach compared to By a Waterfall. This musical sequence will blow your mind, especially if you try to keep in the back of your mind the whole time that this sequence is supposed to take place on a theater stage and was conceived by James Cagney in all of one day, with no apparent sets ever being built for it.
In this sequence two lovers sing to each other on an elaborate hilly forest set, when the man falls asleep and dreams that his woman goes behind the set to a gigantic waterfall filled with water nymphs. They jump in the water and do the crazy hundred girl Berkley thing. Then somehow they are transported to another completely different, more art deco set where the numbers get even more complicated (Check out the cover to the boxset if you want to see what I’m talking about). If you’ve got drugs, you want to take them before this number starts up because the whole experience alone sober will blow your mind. If the whole movie were filmed like this it would be a better known film than Citizen Kane. Jaw dropping. That’s the only way to describe it. For this sequence alone, Footlight Parade is
(MUST SEE)
(May 21)
——Pretty in Pink (1986)——
There is nothing quite like a good John Hughes movie to get you happy and in a good mood. This maybe shocking to most, but I never really got into his films until just recently. Ferris Bueller, Sixteen Candles and the Breakfast Club I all saw on network TV on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. But I love them all, and do love the Molly Ringwald, so when I saw Pretty in Pink for seven dollars I thought, why not? After getting myself in a bit of a movie rut, it was just the kind of movie to get me back on my feet and ready to see a billion more movies for you folks.
Poor Molly Ringwald. She lives in the 80’s. Regan is in office and everyone’s motto from Wall Street is “Greed is Good”. So despite the fact that she is actually a pretty cool girl with her own sweet pink car, she can’t move into the upper echelons of yuppie power because she’s poor. Her dad (played by an unusually bright and cheery Harry Dean Stanton [seriously, it creeped me out]) hasn’t held a full-time job since her mother left them, and because of that she works at a record store and makes her own cool 80’s clothes. There is just something about her though and all the guys want her, whether it be her best friend Duckie (yep, that’s one of the Two and a Half Men!), slumming skeezbag James Spader (the man just oozes skeez), or yuppie heartthrob Andrew McCarthy, who doesn’t know how to be with her and still hold off the insane amounts of peer pressure flak he is getting. I felt a little bad for Duckie in the end, but all ended up well for Ringwald. Hey, she even got her own Psychedelic Furs song! You probably don’t need me to tell you this, but Pretty in Pink is pretty
(MUST SEE)
——Breakfast on Pluto (2005)——
What an odd, weird little movie. You’re either going to love it or hate it. I fell more in the first category, as I found this Neil Jordan film about a cross-dressing Irishman trying to find his mother in 70’s England utterly charming and engaging. Cillian Murphy plays the unapologetic cross-dresser with such an innocent playfulness that he carries the entire film gracefully on his dainty shoulders. It’s just really funny, really weird.
Patrick “Kitten” Braden was conceived by a priest and a housekeeper who looked like a fifties film star and was immediately put by the priest in someone else’s adoptive hands. He grew up an outsider, showing early on an unusual attachment to woman’s clothes. His life goal becomes to find the mother he never knew to maybe gain some acceptance that he never had. Along the way he has a series of misadventures that balance between the gleefully happy and the painfully sad on his quest through London to find his mother. The whole thing has a bit of a fairy tale feel to it. I liked this one a lot. Hopefully you all will too.
(SEE)
(May 22)
——Art School Confidential (2006)——
I wrote a review for this movie. Then my computer freaked out because of how hot it was. Trying to recreate the masterpiece that was my original review of this film is probably going to be pretty tough. Anyway, the gist: I quite enjoyed this film because it reminded me so much of my days as an artist in high school, and then later of my time at an art school very much like the one in the film (except without, you know, all the murders and stuff). The Thanksgiving barrage of comments from the family who knows absolutely nothing about art rang especially true to me. I remember back when I showed some promise as an artist and everyone had ideas about what I should do with that talent (understanding, of course, nothing about the actual business aspect of what they were talking about). I found particularly funny the comments from the grandmother about someone she knew that painted pictures on sneakers and how he should get into that business after school. Yeahhhh. Thanks, Grandma.
I either was the characters in this movie, did or felt something they did, or at least knew that type of person when I went to Bard. I think that’s why I enjoyed it so much. I identified with it so much because it was so true to my own experiences (again, not with the whole murder thing). The only thing that didn’t really work all that well for the movie was the plot. Harry ultimately decided that he didn’t like the film because he didn’t like the choices that the main character made at the end. I can see that. I still liked it though. To anyone who is interested in seeing it, you should
(SEE)
(May 23)
——Modern Romance (1981)——
My previous experience with Albert Brooks? Finding Nemo. Yep, the movie where he is a computer generated clown fish. So yeah, I wasn’t too aware that he made his own films at one point in his career. I’d never heard of Modern Romance, but some others seemed to like it, so I bought it to check it out. It’s very similar to a Annie Hall/Manhattan era Woody Allen movie, but more realistic with less obvious winks to the audience and set in La-la Land instead of NYC. The whole movie is about a movie editor who breaks up with his long time girlfriend (who he’s broken up with numerous times in the past) for good, only to realize that he is meant to be with her. He spends most of the film trying to avoid thinking about her until he then realizes that he needs her back, she’s the only woman for him, yadda yadda. Of course as soon as they get back together the self-destructive behavior starts right back up again…
The movie was quite charming (as long as you can get over all of the neurotic bullshit) and often quite funny. The sequence towards the beginning where Albert Brooks basically has a 15-minute monologue with himself (talking also on the phone and to his bird) is especially brilliant. Super Dave is also in it (as the best salesman ever)! My favorite parts, however, were those where he was doing his job as an editor, putting together a crap low budget 70’s sci-fi movie. The part where he pulls out the “Hulk running” audio clip to give the scientists footsteps more muscle is just hilarious. This would be a pretty good date movie to see with someone who you can’t figure out if you should be together or not.
(SEE)
——Kingdom of Heaven: Director’s Cut (2005)——
After seeing Kingdom of Heaven for the first time in the theaters right after it came out, I was left a little disappointed. The movie was fine and everything, well made, but it lacked any heart or depth. Having studied the Crusades in college I walked out feeling as if I missed out on something. The movie didn’t feel complete or fleshed out at all. It was all too bad. That’s why when I heard that there was a longer, better director’s cut version of Ridley Scott’s film available and that it would soon be released to DVD I got extremely excited. And I tell you, it was worth the wait. Ignore that theatrical cut of the film that’s on DVD right now. This is the only version of the film you need to see.
What stayed in the movie for the theatrical version was obviously the stuff that cost the most money. You’re not going to get one more frame of one of the battles in this new director’s cut. What was lost was what happens to be the most important part: the character building. Once the movie is allowed to move at its own pace everyone’s motivations make so much more sense. While it is true that what was cut out of the film was nonessential to the plot, it is also true that the plot isn’t nearly as colorful or dynamic without it. Take for instance the entire subplot with Eva Green’s son, who becomes king after the other king dies of leprosy, only to soon show signs of leprosy himself. I can’t even remember if he appeared in the original version of the film. And his scenes do slow down the mid-portion of the film. And yet, those scenes add so much to the historical meaning of the film, as well as going to explain some of the character motivations that are otherwise a little confusing in the theatrical cut. Why does Eva Green go so far as to cut off all of her hair and become a nun? It seems a little over dramatic in the theatrical version. But it makes perfect sense in the Director’s Cut and helps explain why it was so easy for Eva’s dink of a husband to become king. I really like this new version. I suggest you all seek it out.
(MUST SEE)
(May 25)
——A Streetcar Named Desire (1950)——
I had never seen this before. Watching it, I was all over the place. At first I didn’t like Vivien Leigh’s performance as Blanche, thinking it too over the top. Then I realized it was a part of the character and actually liked how over the top it was. But then there was the whole ending. To those who haven’t seen this, I’ll just state that it is really depressing.
Like I said, Vivien Leigh was pretty interesting. Her performance was like a take off of her character in Gone with the Wind, still the Southern Belle, but now one on the skids. Blanche goes to live with her sister Stella and her husband Stan, as she’s lost all of her money and developed the reputation as a bit of a harlot in her home town because in her old age she has become desperate for a husband. While Stella is just happy to see her sister, Stan is immediately suspicious of her. And what about that Stan? This is a role that could easy have been played wrong, but as you all probably know Marlon Brando made the role famous by adding such a depth of realism to the character that you can’t help sympathize with the rage-prone brute. Brando is just fantastic. He brings a real softness to Stan’s actions up until he freaks out and starts breaking things. His performance, like the character, is totally unpredictable. The writing is really gripping, too. I guess that’s to be expected from something based on one of Tennessee Williams’ most famous plays. But I just love it when you are watching a movie with not much action and yet you are still glued to what’s going on. I didn’t love A Streetcar Named Desire, but it is still very much worth seeing.
(SEE)
(May 26)
——The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1943)——
Not often am I taken as off guard by a film as I was with Preston Sturges’ hilarious The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek. I wasn’t expecting more than a few good laughs when I put it in the DVD player. I hadn’t really heard much about it before watching it and in fact it had been sitting in my Amazon wish list quite some time before I finally took the plunge and bought it. What a dumbass mistake that was. This is seriously one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen. Slapstick heaven, I call it. It’s silliness and absurdity knows no bounds. Fall gags normally don’t do a whole lot for me, but in this movie I was dying. The actors go so far to sell a joke that you just have to admire the sheer audacity of it all. Slap on all of that a brilliant screenplay by Sturges and you’re in for a good ride.
The story is quite risque for the time: Trudy Kockenlocker is the prettiest girl in town and sees it as her civic duty to show all of the boys a good time before they go off to war. Norval is the boy next door who has always been in love with Trudy, even though she never noticed him, and who is feeling real down on himself because he has high blood pressure that prevents him from joining the military to impress Trudy. Well, Trudy makes a little mistake. Drunk on “Victory Lemonade” and dazed from a hit to the head in the heat of dancing, Trudy marries a serviceman and gets herself knocked up, except she doesn’t remember who she married and can’t find out because she used a fake name. She’s gotten herself into a bit of a pickle. She tries to use Norval to get herself out of it but can’t do it once she realizes how much he loves her and then she loves him. So they try to pass Norval off as the missing soldier to get married again to annul it, but all doesn’t go well when Norval signs his real name and gets caught by the authorities.
That doesn’t even let you in on the big secret of the film, the Miracle of the title, which I won’t ruin for you here. I will say that it is a brilliant surprised milked for all of the comic gold possible. The cast is great. Aside from the two leads, also fantastic are Trudy’s stern and strict single father the town cop, and her 14 year old sister, who tries as hard as she can to help her sister out of this mess. Oh my God, this movie is good. It’s been a while since I’ve had this much fun seeing a movie. Please, check this out (it would make for a great double-header with Flirting.)
(DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH)
(May 27)
——Patton (1969)——
Patton is less about the major battles found in Europe in World War II and more about one dramatic figure whose wild personality greatly helped defeat the Nazis and at the same time almost cost him his job when he was at his most successful. Everything about Patton was big, and the backgrounds always accentuate that fact. From the famous opening shot of Patton in front of a giant American flag to the battles of the film being shot from a God’s eye view everything around Patton is larger than life, and instead of making him look small, caught inside of all of these giant landscapes, he always seems to dominate the shot and our attention. This was a man who moved an army farther and harder than anyone else in history and who almost lost the chance to do so because of an incident where he slapped a man for battle fatigue, calling him a yellow coward.
George C. Scott is obviously the main reason why this movie succeeds. He brings a depth of reality to Patton that might have been lost on a lesser actor faced with the many dramatic lines Patton is forced to say. What could have been a one-note caricature becomes the realistic portrait of a real man, a larger than life man, but a realistically portrayed one, nonetheless. The script, co-written by Francis Ford Coppola, is just chockfull of delightful lines that have been quoted endlessly by men ever since the film originally came out. After seeing it I went into work and was surprised to hear how many of the lines from the movie the guys remembered verbatim. It’s just one of those movies.
(SEE)
(May 28)
——The New World (2005)——
I’ve already reviewed this movie when I saw it in the theater (the best place to see it) in the Monday Movie Review (January 23). I still love it, and think it one of the best films of last year. I really love how Terrence Malick films nature and edits it into the rhythm and flow of the film. Things I noticed this time around was how the cut away shots to nature and their environment directly related to what was going on onscreen. Like how the Indians were commonly paired with flowing water and shots of wind, while the settlers in their darker hours were cut in together with shots of the dead of winter and with spiders. Then, of course, there is the trip to London at the end, which comes as such a shock to the system after all of the time Malick had spent thus far with nature. Amazingly enough you have almost the same reaction Pocahontas does to seeing this “New World”. Highly recommended.
(MUST SEE)
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