Bad Day at Black Rock & A Little Princess

Bad Day at Black Rock is, apparently, one of the first movies to deal with the anti-Japanese racism so prevalent during WWII. And it has a great cast, with Spencer Tracy, Robert Ryan, Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, and Walter Brennan. I appreciate the movie, as it's very well made. It just seems a little too easy.

A Little Princess is another one of those films I've wanted to see ever since I first saw Y Tu Mama Tambien. Cuaron is a freakin' genius. After watching this, it's abundantly clear why producers thought that he would do very well with Harry Potter. Damn shame that he wasn't able to keep working on them. Too bad about that map when Sara goes to America. Yugoslavia? A post WWII Germany? Syria? Iraq? At least make the effort to get an accurate map. There was Cincinnati on the American map, which was very appropriate, as it was a very important city for a while there. The movie is absolutely gorgeous and very green. Which is as you'd expect. And since I'm frequently a little girl, I loved the film. Eleanor Bron was excellent, and it's always fun to see Vincent Schiavelli. Yeah, the ending was kinda hokey, and really coincidental, but it doesn't detract too much from what had come before.

Lancelot of the Lake

Lancelot of the Lake has a decapitation within the first minute. And a crotch stabbing soon after. Too bad the movie gets boring soon after. Well, not boring, but not nearly enough violence for the middle hour. Lots of violence at the beginning, lots of violence at the end. In the middle is a look at a screwed up idea of loyalty. And that the entire myth of the Knights of the Round Table was just a pipe dream of impossible ideals. Although the use of cramped locations and ridiculous costumes just points out how most views of the Arthurian legend are not realistic at all. And I liked that it uses the French names and locations, because that just reminds me of Marie de France, a Frenchwoman probably living in England in the 12th Century. I read her lais back at summer camp. A week of mythology was a week of the most fun I had in a long time. I loved the stories, I loved that we watched Star Wars and Joseph Campbell (and I wrote a paper about the mythology common to them both), and wrote bad poetry (well, I just love writing bad poetry in general...). It was also the first place I remember learning anything about Freudian symbolism. A bunch of 7th graders discussing phallic symbols just led to a lot of giggling, but I do remember it all. Makes me giggle just thinking about it. Anyway, Bresson again pulls out all the stops with no acting and closeups of hands and legs. It just wouldn't be a Bresson film without them.

Little Miss Sunshine, Hearts and Minds, Head, Hold On!, & Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter

I saw Little Miss Sunshine at a free preview on Wednesday. Yay for free movies. It was also a good movie. Yay for free good movies. Actually, it was a great film. Steve Carell and Paul Dano and Alan Arkin and Toni Collette and Greg Kinnear and Abigail Breslin were a very good dysfunctional family. There was a considerable danger of the film becoming just way too quirky, especially the scene in the hospital, and of course all the coincidences that just happen to come out on a cross New Mexico, Arizona, and California trip was somewhat bothersome. But these were just small complaints, as any movie that ends with that kind of scene at a beauty pageant was nice. Beauty pageants are evil, and child beauty pageants are vastly more evil. So disturbing. Although I'm not sure about how appropriate that last scene was, but oh well, it lead to a happier family, which was nice. And it was weird to see Mary Lynn Rajskub in a small role. I'm so used to seeing her on TV, and parts with lines. Not too many for her in this one. Although really, I just thought of Rush Limbaugh and that was disturbing.

Hearts and Minds is strangely more important and a better look at Vietnam than many films with a lot of distance from the conflict. I'm not sure about that scene in the whorehouse, seemed a little gratuitous for me. A very important film, and one that more people need to see. An outstanding film. And even better with the knowledge that John Wayne denounced it. What a good sign for a film. Stupid right-wing ass.

Head is bizarre. And it leads to some funny misunderstandings, like when I said, "I apparently need to be on drugs to fully appreciate Head." Yay for silly things. Well, pretty much everything in it is bizarre. And there's a lot of very clear drug influences, and there's anti-war statements as well. Not as sure about the soundtrack, as really the only song I was familiar with was The Porpoise Song. Well, you'd have to be a huge Monkees freak to know any other songs from the soundtrack. At least there were lots of cameos... because what a disjointed drug movie really needs is a way to make people think, "Whoa, that's Frank Zappa." At least it's more obviously a joyous mess than Magical Mystery Tour, which pretty much only had a better soundtrack than this. But this movie was just a movie for people on hallucinogens, which really takes me out of the intended audience. And of course, watching lots of movies just leads to strange coincidences like the fact that Bert Schneider, producer (and Oscar winner) for Hearts and Minds also produced Head. And Five Easy Pieces, The Last Picture Show, and Days of Heaven. Not a bad bunch of films. Well, except for Head. And of course, this movie that seems like a bad trip and is clearly very drug influenced was rated G. Of course.

Hold On! is a movie I have wanted to see for a long time. For some reason it's very hard to just come across a Herman's Hermits film on TV. Or get someone else who wants to watch it. Of course it's terrible. Nowhere near as good as A Hard Day's Night or Help!, which the film shamelessly apes at every chance. At least it's utterly ridiculous. And they barely moved during the songs. No stage presence. At least they tended to have a lot of women in 60s clothes dancing around them. Seriously, Herman's Hermits make almost no impact on the movie. Whoever decided to use the same screams and make them alternately loud and absolutely quiet doesn't really understand how this all works. You don't have a screaming mass of girls just go silent and then all start at once. And an 18 year old Herman just can't be the center of a film. Man, this depresses me. Stupid guilty pleasure. Certainly not the movie.

Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter finishes off my little manufactured 60s pop group movies. It's just as ridiculous as Hold On!, but with the added bonus of being shot in lovely 60s Manchester. Such a beautiful town. Oh, but there is a song about Manchester United and Bobby Charlton, It's Nice To Be out in the Morning, which does elevate it over Hold On! As little as that means. Slow movie though, and the writer didn't write anything else ever, so there goes that. It feels more like a movie rather than an excuse to string songs together. Too bad the acting from the Hermits is just as bad. The lower emphasis on songs would only work if the rest of the film made up for it, which it doesn't.

Be Cool & War of the Worlds

Be Cool is not cool. Be Cool be sucks. Be Cool is be bad. Be Cool shouldn't be made. Well, actually Andre Benjamin was just about the best thing in the movie. Well, besides the playing of Bob Dylan's Knockin' on Heaven's Door. Andre Benjamin was good with everything he did. Seth Green was utterly wasted. And the music sucked pretty much. Man, that sequel just didn't need to be made at all. Why was it made? Were there things that needed to be said after Get Shorty? And then there was the changing of the soundtrack, almost the entire cast, and especially the style.

War of the Worlds bothers me for a lot of reasons. Mainly it's that Miranda Otto and Tom Cruise would never produce a kid that looks like Dakota Fanning. Also, I was rooting for Tom Cruise to die. Not because he's Tom Cruise, but because he was wearing a Yankees hat. His son, of course was in good because he was wearing a Red Sox hat, well, at least he was until he decided he wanted to get up close and personal with the aliens. I have an inherent bias towards the story, due to both being a big reader of science fiction, a fan of Orson Welles, and especially, of a collection of short stories written about the invasion as imagined by a lot of real people. It was a fascinating collection, full of crazy stories, some better than others, but they're all interesting. Anyway, I am a big nerd, and I liked it even if most of the reviews didn't. The movie, on the other hand just feels like a crappy Hollywood film. The obvious linkage of the aliens to terrorism was the only interesting part of it, and even then, beh. Why bury the tripods underground? Why make that much effort to take over a planet and then miss out on figuring out that the atmosphere is toxic? It just doesn't make any sense? Is it right that I'm rooting against the humans? Every one in this movie is a moron. And the payoff was ridiculous.

Apparently it was crappy recent movie last couple of nights. Dunno why that happened. I am however planning a bunch of 60s non-Beatles pop music movies. Monkees and Herman's Hermits, here I come!

The Blue Kite, Dead Man Walking, & National Treasure

The Blue Kite is actually pretty depressing. Oh, wait, because every movie banned in China for being an accurate portrayal of post-revolution China and the many re-education programs that went on, leading to many, many deaths and very little progress. This is really messed up, but I guess that's why China is so messed up and why people study that time period so much. I would like to know more about this time period, although really, my best bet is to talk to my friend who is going to start studying China next month. Or at least ask her advice as to how to learn about this. Anyway, I really don't have a lot to say besides man, China was messed up, and the constant need to be counterrevolutionary is a serious problem with every communist country (and pretty much all authoritarian regimes). So messed up.

Dead Man Walking is really well-made. I'm not sure what else I can really say about it, because there was nothing wrong with it at all, and it's just well-done in every way. I can't think of anything wrong with it, and nothing I can make fun of it for. Sort of makes it difficult. I mean, if there's a movie that is so utterly ridiculous, it's easy to write about, or if it deals with something I want to talk about, that's easy. But when it's a reasonable look at the death penalty and I really hate the death penalty, that's about it. I just don't think anyone should be ending anyone's life, for any reason. Then again, I really haven't had anything horrible happen to me or my family, so I can't say ultimately what I would want in the situation in the film.

National Treasure is actually better than I was expecting. But why does Sean Bean keep getting typecast as the bad guy or someone who's completely incompetant? Have people not seen the Sharpe series? And if not, why don't they watch those to get an idea of how good Sean Bean can be. Nic Cage is too hyperactive in it, but that's a fairly normal thing for him. It's full of fun little historical facts, most of which are pretty easy, and fairly well known, but still, the movie promotes early American historical knowledge, which is good. I do know that the mason stuff is generally hokum, but it's a thrill a minute thrill ride. Of course there are serious problems. But somehow it's also so horribly cheesy and ridiculous that it doesn't really matter. I'm happy that a movie like this did fairly well, when it could have been a movie with no redeeming values at all.

King Arthur

King Arthur was one of those movies that had a great concept. In fact, a good friend of mine was working on a script with this same concept before the movie came out and was pissed that they ruined it for him. That is, of course, not the biggest problem with the film. The biggest problem is the bloated and craptacularness of it. Plus, it's really distracting to try to put names with faces, at least the Arthurian legends names. It's a typical Hollywood action film, with the faux historical trappings that were an attempt to make the movie more important. It's fluff, not good fluff, and silly to boot. I can't recommend it to anyone, even if it wasn't terrible. Just so utterly worthless that it isn't bad enough to mock, just bad enough not to be worth the over two hours I spent in the same room with it playing. Thank you, Internet, for giving me something to take my mind off it. Oh, and Antoine Fuqua can continue to Fuq-off. Yes, I'm a 12-year-old boy, what of it?

Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream

Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream is about the 1970s Midnight movies. So it's about a lot of movies I don't entirely like, like El Topo, Pink Flamingos, and Rocky Horror Picture Show. And some better films like Eraserhead, The Harder They Come, and Night of the Living Dead. Only Night of the Living Dead was actually a good movie, one that is a serious film, one that isn't a mess in some way. The Harder They Come has an amazing soundtrack, but a rote story. And Eraserhead feels a lot like a film student's film. Which it really was, but a hell of a lot better than pretty much every other student film. The first three, however, were trash, intentionally maybe, but trash none-the-less. The 90 minutes of the documentary, however, is about the right amount to deal with those films. More and I would have just gotten pissed watching more of Rocky or El Topo. Oh, and the movie had almost all of Bambi Meets Godzilla, which unfortunately cuts some of the effect of it. I'm happy to have seen all these movies, even the ones that are terrible, just because of the importance to film history, or more. If you weren't as interested in film history, you wouldn't enjoy the film as much as I did.

Johnny Mnemonic

Johnny Mnemonic is horrendous. Just as bad as everyone said. I've enjoyed the few short stories of Gibson I've read, so either he was just completely out of his depth writing the screenplay, or, much more likely, hiring a music video director and having Keanu Reeves try to act was a horrible decision. Gibson is, of course, an extremely prescient writer, but his writing was better for the ideas rather than the writing style. Too bad the movie doesn't really get the style right. The cast is also full of people who do some terrible work, and only Takeshi Kitano has really been in a good movie, so I was rooting for him to win. Would have made me much happier. Dolph Lundgren, Dina Meyer, Ice-T, Tracy Tweed (younger sister of Shannon), Henry Rollins, and the great Udo Kier are all horrible. Well, actually my choice of great as an honorific for Udo Kier is only somewhat tongue in cheek, since he was actually enjoyable in Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula. And Henry Rollins can be non-horrible, but certainly didn't try very hard in this role. And, seriously, Dolph Lundgren? What the hell are people thinking when they give him a role? Besides, "I have a role that could be acted by a hamster. Wait, that would actually mean there was some acting talent involved. Damn, let's just get Dolph Lundgren." Anyway, the whole 80GB storage in Keanu Reeves's brain may actually be about accurate. I love that 320 is too much for him though. If you were to digitize memories, you'd come up with something much, much more than 320GB. Strange how that is. And it's 2021, and 320 GB is supposed to be a lot of space? I mean, I have 60 GB in a container that only five years ago used to hold 5 GB. Which means that by 2021, we're talking over 100 TB of data in a container the size of an iPod. And, of course, you wouldn't need the audio or video capacities, meaning it could be much smaller. Ridiculous just how small technology has become over the past few years. It's just an utterly ridiculous movie that probably would have been better had it been made ten years later by someone who was a talented director.

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid is a movie that I had heard many horrible things about for years. That the casting was horrendous and that the only thing worthwhile in it was Knockin' on Heaven's Door. Which is an awesome song, and is used beautifully. I saw the reedited version, apparently done last year by Roger Spottiswoode, which still had some awkward castings, but it's not like Bob Dylan ever could act. This longer version has more character development, although I imagine a large portion of the nudity was also added. Because if you take out all the character development, all you have left is nudity and violence. Probably wouldn't sell. And appropriately the first version didn't sell. This version was much better. Peckinpah can make a western like no one else. Even when he wasn't making a western by location, he made a western by plot.

Clean

Clean is the a movie that should have, again, made Maggie Cheung a huge star in the US. I mean, she is, by far, the reason to see this film. That's not to say it isn't a good movie, because it is, but Maggie deserved her award. I knew she was good in Cantonese and English, but I really didn't know she knew French. Impressive. And I didn't know that she could sing, even if it was about the same way that Nico sings. I wasn't too happy with the kid playing Jay, but that's because there are so very few good child actors out there. The music was interesting, and good for the most part, although a little ambient for the most part. Of course, I did go and try to find out what it all was before the end of Metric's song. Mainly because I recognized that song, but couldn't place either the band or the song. Of course it was Dead Disco. Good song. Anyway, the movie is Maggie's, and she owns it like few people are capable.

Bill Maher: Victory Begins at Home & Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

Bill Maher: Victory Begins at Home was watched because yesterday sucked. For a lot of reasons. So I decided to watch a three year old Bill Maher special to remind myself of just how much I hate Bush, and why the hell he should never have been reelected. It was funny, but really, it's three year old material.

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence made no sense. I really don't know what was going on in it at all. I mean, I almost thought the DVD skipped for a while there. Plus, the CGI looked very good. The handdrawn animation looked good. But putting them both on the screen just made it abundantly clear what was CGI and what was handdrawn. Especially when there was a simulated camera movement. Geez, you'd think that a large budget film could merge the two better than a TV show like Futurama, but the CGI, while pretty clear in Futurama, never just screamed CGI nearly as much as it did here. It's because the CGI isn't trying to be hyperrealistic, it's trying to ape the handdrawn. In GITS2:I, it's just trying to be as realistic as possible, meaning it really doesn't fit the handdrawn style at all. And whenever there's movement in front of a CGI background, it just was too freakin' obvious. At some point, someone besides Studio Ghibli is going to make an anime film that I actually like, right? It's not like I don't like sci-fi or action films, so why can't they make one that actually makes any sense?

The Exterminating Angel, Diary of a Country Priest, & Weeds

The Exterminating Angel is Bunuel being his typical anti-religion, -bourgeois, and -fascist self. The entire movie is pretty much making fun of the upper class and how they're not really human and are just going from one prison to another, from the dinner party that doesn't end to the church. I wonder about the summoning of the devil, though. That just seemed a little much. And that bear should have been attacking people, not the most sensible character in the movie.

Diary of a Country Priest is reason enough for me to go through my entire Netflix queue to make sure I don't have too many movies by the same director too close to each other. And sometimes I just add movies just because I want to see the director's movies. I regret that sometimes. But I know that I'd just sit there and wonder about how the movie is. I have a serious problem. My anti-religious nature really makes me not particularly care for religious movies. It's a fairly typical one, although done with a little more style than some. I was not particularly happy with that final shot though. And there was too much narration. If you see something on screen, you don't need someone explaining it.

I also watched all of the first season of Weeds. It's not as good as HBO shows, but I didn't regret watching it at all. Maybe I just need a deaf girl.

Into the Woods & How To Steal a Million

Into the Woods is a Sondheim musical, and as such, has very complicated and well-structured music. I first saw it, I think, 12 years ago, in Manchester with my family. As a much younger person, I didn't realize what Sondheim and James Lapine were trying to do, and while I vastly enjoyed the first act, I didn't care for the second. Now that I've had enough time to become extremely cynical, I realize that they were pointing out how even the "good" people in fairy tales don't always think through their actions and are selfish. And Sondheim has, what I believe to be, his best score ever. Vastly better than the badness that was Pacific Overtures, and better than Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I certainly remembered Into the Woods, but I had forgotten Children Will Listen and No One Is Alone, the two best songs in the musical. And some of the best Sondheim ever did. The entire cast was very good, but Bernadette Peters as the witch and, especially, Joanna Gleason as the baker's wife were standouts. It's too bad that this was such a weak DVD, with no subtitles, which are occasionally needed with Sondheim's music, since he puts a lot of very important words in not that much space. At least he's a hell of a lot better than Andrew Lloyd Crapper.

How To Steal a Million is Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole as a pair of art thieves. Well, sort of, but to say much more about it would spoil the fun. It's delightfully flufftactular. There's a nice Hitchcock reference early on, but all that does it heighten the fact that the movie would have been vastly better had it been done by Hitchcock instead. That's not to say that Wyler isn't talented, even though he made Jezebel, a movie so horrible I can't begin to describe how much I hate it, but it feels like To Catch a Thief, but not nearly as good. About the only real reason to watch it is to see Peter O'Toole and Audrey Hepburn together. Although Hugh Griffith is also good. The movie just never coheres like it should.

A Man Escaped & Dead Reckoning

A Man Escaped is a brilliant escape film. Knowing that it's a true story unfortunately gives some hint as to what will happen, but Bresson's film style fits perfectly with the tension created by the almost constant repetition, closeups of hands, and the completely uninflected acting. Weirdly Francois Leterrier, the lead, started to be a director and directed Goodbye, Emmannuelle. Pretty much everyone did nothing before acting in it, which is just how Bresson liked it. I kept thinking back to Le Trou, another film about escaping from prison, and they're very different films, though. Maybe it's the fact that A Man Escaped was set in a German prison in occupied France and has Mozart as a soundtrack, while Le Trou is set in a normal prison and focuses more on the hammering that was needed to build the hole. The thing is, there need never be another French prison escape film. These two have been the ultimate in the genre. No American film has come close to it. People who love The Shawshank Redemption should see these films to know what a great prison film should be. Too bad the subtitles and filming style would turn most of them off. Few films piss me off for being so highly regarded as The Shawshank Redemption does. I can't figure out what makes me annoyed about it so much. Maybe it's the fact that the IMDB rates it as the #2 film of all time, when it was the fourth best film nominated for the Best Picture Oscar that year, behind Four Weddings and a Funeral, Pulp Fiction, and Quiz Show. Only better than Forrest Gump, mainly because Forrest Gump sucks. I could go on listing other films much better than The Shawshank Redemption like Heavenly Creatures, The Madness of King George, Hoop Dreams, Red, and Eat Drink Man Woman. All of which are great films. The Shawshank Redemption is one of those films that frat boys think are great films. There are vastly better films that people need to be exposed to or else they say that Titanic is a brilliant film. And that is the sure sign that someone needs to have a full frontal lobotomy.

Dead Reckoning is almost too hard-boiled. The almost constant voice-over and dialogue was over the top, too wordy, and too distracting. Also distracting was Lizabeth Scott, who was attractive but not as good as the role demands. Apparently, she's a lesbian, and that kept her from being a bigger star. I do wonder about that being her actual singing voice. It seems dubbed. Of course, the role should have been for Lauren Bacall, who would have been absolutely perfect in it. Anyway, I just wish that the film did a little more showing and a little less telling. I mean, it shows it, mainly, but then it has to explain just what happened. The audience is apparently twelve years old. At least it has Humphrey Bogart in the lead, making it watchable.

Broadway Danny Rose & The Ox-Bow Incident

Broadway Danny Rose is a Woody Allen film I hadn't seen. Probably because it was a Mia Farrow serious film. At least I think it was supposed to be a serious film. It certainly wasn't a comedy, because I didn't laugh very much. Then again, it could have just been a failed comedy. It does work as a slightly comedic drama, though.

The Ox-Bow Incident was a short movie, looking at the dangers of mob justice. Henry Fonda is very good, as is most of the cast, although you really don't get much chance to get familiar with most of the other characters, since 75 minutes and many characters means not enough time for characterization. It's very well-constructed, although a little too easily moral, with the bad guys clear and the good guys just as clear. Then again, mob justice is pretty evil, no matter the evidence.

I guess I just wasn't too inspired by either of the two movies to write a lot, even though they weren't bad movies. I do want to add Holly Hunter to the list of actresses of whom I've seen their hoo-has and respect as an actress. I completely forgot about that little bit in The Piano. Which I saw years and years ago and keep forgetting on that very short list. Actually, I mainly just wanted to write hoo-ha in a post. Such a ridiculous euphemism. I heartily endorse it. By the way, the other actresses are Jenny Agutter and Toni Collette. I had to go through my entire archive of my old blog searching for various vagina euphemisms to find those two. In case you were wondering, the magic word was labia.

Downfall

Downfall is great. Fascinating, horrible, insane, claustrophobic, well-made. I am not entirely sure whether the movie portrays Hitler as the insane person he clearly was, or whether it humanizes him. It does, but the fact that he's a friggin' insane person doesn't entirely help. Yeah, the people who surrounded him at the end were just as insane as he was, mainly, so just showing him going about his business with a bunch of crazy people will make him seem less insane. Put him together with a bunch of normal people, then he is clearly the nutter he was. There's really not that much else to say, considering the film ends the way it does. A lot of reviews out there blame the film for humanizing Hitler, but it does only to people who are capable of forgetting not only the history not entirely stated in the film, but also the touches added where Hitler complains about the international Jewish conspiracy. They're all insane in the film, it's just the one's who start to feel bad about it that you start to feel for. And then you see the SS uniform and realize that no one is free from guilt. Although Traudl Junge, Hitler's secretary, was young and unaware of what was going on, she clearly recognized, before the end, that she should have figured out about the Holocaust.

Faces, A Woman under the Influence, & Colossus: The Forbin Project

Faces is a hard to watch film, although in this case, it's not because of its uncomfortable subject matter or because it was bad. It's because it's intentionally shot mainly handheld, but also a lot of closeups, which were very distracting. The acting is outstanding, and it was so strange to see Seymour Cassel as young, because I really hadn't seen any of his earlier films when I knew who he was. But really, it's because he always looked old. I don't remember his small role in The Killers, even though I saw it very recently. It's a powerful film, worth seeing if you can handle your films depressing.

A Women under the Influence is from a similar emotional place as Faces, although it's far more polished. Some of it may be the higher budget and the use of color, and some may be that Peter Falk is a good actor. Although his eyes will never stop being freaky. I know it's very superficial, but they're just freaky. The movie is just outstanding. Definitely one you need to see. I'd like to thank TCM for having a little John Cassevettes mini-fest last week, and I'd like to thank Comcast for stopping the signal for around a minute right after the ending of the movie, so I didn't actually miss any of this film. Otherwise, I would have been pissed, since TCM never replays films within a reasonable time.

Colossus: The Forbin Project is a precursor to Wargames, but without the goofy Matthew Broderick fooling with NORAD. It's also very late 60s/early 70s, not quite as paranoid as mid-late 70s films, and there's a little bit of flower power anti-war thrown in. Not that Wargames also wasn't anti-war, but this one is more explicitly pro-peace. I don't know any of the actors in it (although most main people were in other films I've seen) besides James Hong, who's there so you have the token Asian, and there's a token black guy (who, of course, dies), and a couple women, making sure that all races and sexes are well-covered. Wouldn't want to suggest that all scientists are white men. Pretty progressive for a film make in 1970. Anyway, it's sort of like the difference between Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove. Both about similar plots, but they take very different approaches. At least we should be pretty sure that giving all power to a computer to control nuclear weapons is a bad idea. I mean, is there a movie where that ends up where a computer controlling things doesn't go insane? At least the nude scenes were very tastefully done, up there with those early ESPN the Magazines.

11'09''01 - September 11

11'09''01 - September 11 has an unwieldy title. And some of the segments are terrible. The Egyptian one was some of the worst 11 minutes of my movie watching life, completely self-centered and just stupid in every way that a film could be stupid. And Sean Penn's wasn't much better, although seeing Ernest Borgnine still alive was a surprise. Alejandro Gonzalex Inarritu (too lazy to pull accents) for him was very uncomfortable. But the others: Claude Lelouch, Amos Gitai, Shohei Imamura, Ken Loach, Samira Makmalbaf, Mira Nair, Isrissa Ouedraogo, and Danis Tanovic all did a good job. Imamura's was, by far, the strangest. Very snake-y. Ken Loach definitely took advantage of the coincidence of September 11th, and our completely fouled up relationship with dictatorships. Lelouch's was hokey, but still done well. Makhmalbaf's was interesting, as was Mira Nair's, although neither really stood out. Ouedraogo's was a goofy little story about Osama being seen in a small Burkina Fasoan town, but turns out that it's actually about how much our money that we waste could actually help improve the lives of most Africans. The Bosnian one was, by far, the most heartfelt, as sufferers of one tragedy are capable of remembering more than one at a time. Something of which not enough Americans are capable. But my favorite one was Amos Gitai's segment. An outstanding 11 minute shot of the aftermath of a car bombing in a crowded Jaffa marketplace. As much as I couldn't stand Kippur, this one makes me very impressed with his fimmaking abilities, as making an 11 minute shot is difficult, especially one as complicated as this one was (although that hesitation at the beginning distracted me a little... you'd think they could have covered that up better). My favorite tracking shot is still the opening to Touch of Evil (the restored version, of course), and then The Player, but all extremely long tracking shots are impressive. Unless they're done by Brian DePalma at the beginning of Snake Eyes, and then they suck, because the movie was so terrible.

The Last Days & Zhou Yu's Train

The Last Days is about the destruction of the Jews in Hungary at the end of WWII. But really, it's about five particular Hungarian Jews. Unfortunately, I'm really just Holocaust-documentary'd-out. I know it's really evil for me, a Jew, to say this, but there's no escaping it: a Holocaust documentary really needs to be outstanding to rate. About the only thing that really stood out in this one was that it included interviews with Tom Lantos (D-CA), the only Holocaust survivor to be elected to Congress. I found him more interesting than the others. Otherwise it's just a 90 minute very, very brief overview of Hungarian Jews in the Holocaust with some footage of some of them going to the camps afterwards. But very little makes this one stand out from others. It's clearly just the Zionist conspiracy that got this one the Oscar. Well, I haven't really seen any of the other documentaries that could have won an Oscar then, but I doubt it could be better than Regret to Inform. That one is probably outstanding.

Zhou Yu's Train has the bad Tony Leung. Well, he's actually the not quite as good as the awesome Tony Leung, but that's way too long of a title. And the movie had censorship problems in China because of some sex scenes. Appropriately, it was rated PG-13 in the US. At least I'm not trying to watch movies there. My complaining about NC-17 films here probably would be a serious issue there. Then again, Category III films in Hong Kong are pretty much all R-rated here as well. As for the movie, as much as I find Gong Li extremely attractive, was there a need for her to play two parts? And then edit the film in a very confusing fashion so that it's not really clear as to whether the characters are the same person at different times in her life or if they're two different people. I mean the ending seems to suggest one thing, but beh. It's a well-filmed movie, but the plot was a mess. It also was an obvious attempt to use crappy slo-mo to heighten the effect of some scenes. Just because Wong Kar-Wai does something very well doesn't mean you all have to rip him off. Be your own director! I need to avoid renting films just because attractive Asian women are in them. I need to stick to renting films that have attractive Asian women in them and are good! At least the movie makes me want to go on long train rides...

The Education of Shelby Knox & (the bad) Breathless

The Education of Shelby Knox is the story of a 15 year old girl in Lubbock who wants comprehensive sex education in school and then begins to work for equal rights for the gay students. It's depressing that there could be that many people out there who are so clueless about sex education. Then again, I'm not really sure what the sex ed was in my school. I know it was a rich suburb, so I imagine it wasn't as repressed as in Texas, but I don't really remember it. It was taught by this guy who was clearly very uncomfortable. There was at least one class that was split into male and females. I'm pretty sure there was no hands-on putting condoms on anything resembling a penis. There were probably diagrams, and there was some movie, but I don't remember how explicit or anything about it really. Anyway, it's good to know that some kids of very Republican families can turn out tolerant, even if their pastors feel that that is somehow not Christian. What the hell-ass bitch? Seriously, Christianity is not a tolerant religion? Do these people just read the parts about what you're not supposed to do and then ignore the parts that Jesus actually says? There's a serious problem when you ignore your religion's prophet. It makes me happy that I'm Jewish and not very religious. You don't see too many Humanistic Jews going on and on about how everyone is doomed to go to hell. Mainly because there's no hell in Judaism, but also because we just like people. People are inherently good. It's just when they get taught to hate that they become dangerous. Anyway, I've gotten off my soapbox for this film, and I just wanted to say that I wish the movie were longer. 75 minutes is just not enough time to spend dealing with this issue. And Corey Nichols is a prick. As is Fred Phelps, but he's a very different type of prick.

Breathless is unbelievably annoying. Plus, it's not actually good. The whole remaking a great film, one that's almost perfect, is stupid. Remaking one that's 20 years old, and only adding Jerry Lee Lewis, Richard Gere's penis, and the Silver Surfer is utterly worthless. Why was this remade? Was it really just an excuse to see Richard Gere naked a couple more times? If so, I clearly am not the target audience for the movie. There are just some movies I have to see to be able to complain so much about them. This is crappy acting from Gere, horribly fake rear projection during car scenes, and just in general bad. Oh, and Valerie Kaprisky is horrible and only notable for her nudity. Which is shown enough in the movie to be almost worth watching. But then you realize that you could actually watch a good movie to see nudity. Much better to do that than support some crappy movie by spending your time on it. I am quite capable of multi-tasking, so I don't feel like I'm wasting time.

My Sassy Girl

My Sassy Girl is a little Korean film that just happened to be a huge hit based on a blog. Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my closeup! It's Caseus Velox: The Movie time! Ok, not really, but man, I want my blog to be rich and famous someday. Maybe it'll share some of the spoils and give me some of its castoffs. I'm better than Turtle. Why would a Korean kid in 2001 have a Colorado Rockies pennant on his wall? Apparently, no Korean players played for them then, so he had to like the Rockies. What the hell-ass? And why am I such a total sap? Yeah, I cried at the end. There's just something about a completely hokey ending that can get me. I think I saw a little too much of myself in Kyun-woo. At least my relationships have rarely been that abusive. I know there's supposed to be an American remake of this film. It will suck. There is no doubt in my mind. The complete unpredictableness of the plot and some very Korean aspects of it (The Shower? What?) will resist all translation to America. And there's just something about an attractive Asian girl that makes it hard to take her beating the crap out of a guy seriously enough to have a major problem with it. It was much better than every other Korean comedy I've seen, although that isn't really that many. A few years ago, I said that every Korean film I saw was crap. Of late, I've seen quite a few movies that put that statement to rest. I apologize to the Korean film industry. You're not complete crap. Just make more movies like this and Tae Guk Gi and 3-Iron and less like Sex Is Zero and Lies and I'll be a much happier person.

The Man Who Loved Woman & Wide Sargasso Sea

The Man Who Loved Women is interesting, but I really didn't care for the main character, or pretty much any of them. It does have a lot of fairly famous French actresses in the late 70s, but I just felt it was eh, due to the fact that I don't like people in it. That's a serious problem for a film that depends on one person to carry it. I know that the unlikable character was intentional but I just got tired of women falling for this ass. I'm probably just bitter.

Wide Sargasso Sea is one of the most ridiculous NC-17s ever. Most of the NC-17s I've seen have been ridiculous and very little more than an R-rated film. Stupid prudish country. This may have been somewhat more sensual than some crappy R-rated film, but it's certainly not more explicit. Seriously, did you see how many penii there were in Before Night Falls? Just when you think you're all penised-out, the film just throws another at you. Not like this movie. Not that much full frontal nudity. But at least there aren't any horribe fake breasts in it. Maybe there was one too many thrusts, or one too many grabs of the crotch. Either way, it's a gorgeous film, but ultimately, it will only be remembered because it's NC-17. I imagine having read the book or Jane Eyre probably would have improved it a little. I'd hope at least. Based on the reviews, though, it seems like the movie just sucked. It was sort of strange to see Naomi Watts. It's not like it's her first film or something, but it was definitely weird.

Valley Girl, Ugetsu, Walk Don't Run, Out of Africa, & Last.fm

Valley Girl has one of the best soundtracks of any 80s films. Yes, I'm, like, totally serious. The Plimsouls, Josie Cotton, and, of course, Modern English, with one of the best songs of the 80s. I Melt with You was outstanding, but the third homage to The Graduate in the film (after Plastics and the entire scene between Skip and Suzi's mom) with that song playing was great. I know the song was great, but I thought it wasn't entirely necessary to play the song so often in the movie. But the music just was very good overall. And Nicolas Cage (in his first appearance as Nicolas Cage) was not too goofy, and there was much gratuitous toplessness, as is the point of a good 80s teen movie. Very few people in the movie really went on to do anything much afterwards besides him, but that's a shame.

Ugetsu, based on reading some reviews when it was released on DVD, was supposed to be a ghost story. After watching it, it still is, but it's much more about the problems with being very greedy, and the ghost story parts just happens to further emphasize that main moral. It feels very much like an early Kurosawa film, and subsequently, it was very good, even though it was more moral than I would have liked. I know that even a movie like Seven Samurai has a very pro-farmer message, but they just didn't feel as if they were morals.

Walk Don't Run is Cary Grant's last film, and it's also a remake of The More the Merrier, about a housing shortage in WWII DC. This time it's 1964 Tokyo during the Olympics. Jim Hutton is a starched shirt, making this film not nearly as good as The More the Merrier, especially as Jean Arthur and Joel McCrea were very good, as was Coburn, and only Grant really stood out in this one. Mainly because he's Cary Grant, and he's always the best thing in the whatever film he's in. This one does have George Takei as a policeman though, so that was a sort of strange thing to see. Then again, it does make sense, considering he's Asian, he was a somewhat famous actor in America, and the movie was set in Japan. Yay for Hollywood having a very small list of non-white actors to choose from in roles. It's clearly gotten better, and, in this case, Takei is at least Japanese, so it's better than others. Back to the movie, it's nothing particularly special.

Out of Africa is long and beautiful. I have a very strange strange mind and I won't say what I was thinking. Of course, Meryl Streep is very good. And the movie is beautifully shot. Robert Redford was British in the movie? Really? Did you know that Kevin Costner was English in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves as well? My, what outstanding accents these men had. If you haven't seen this, block out three hours of time and she it, it's worth watching.

I also added a little bit to know just how awesome my musical tastes are. Look on the bottom right under the Blogger button and the counter. And you'll see the last ten-ish tracks played by me on iTunes and my iPod, and by clicking on it you get to see a lot of info about how much music I listen to and what I do listen to. As it only goes back to March 2005 and doesn't even include a lot of the songs I played on my iPod, it's not entirely accurate, but it'll give you an idea of just how much my musical taste rocks. Note that I don't listen to songs over and over again. So that explains why songs I absolutely love don't get played hundreds of times.

Madagascar

Madagascar is too typically Dreamworks animation. Full of pop culture references in lieu of humor. Sure, it looks ok, even good at some times, but Dreamworks hasn't figured out what Pixar does perfectly. Although I haven't seen Cars, so maybe that's just as bad as it looks. Why exactly did I watch this? I like penguins and I read the penguins were good. Unfortunately, the penguins weren't in enough of the movie, and I had to sit through the annoyance of Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett Smith, and David Schwimmer. And it's also too bad that Sascha Baron Cohen and Andy Richter have little to work with. Such a stupid movie. Why are Dreamworks animation movies so insistent on being so "likable" rather than being good? Trying to add things for the parents watching by adding in a nod and a wink to a movie doesn't substitute for a good story, likable characters, impressive animation, and heart. Things this movie is sorely lacking. It does have monkeys who like to throw poo, but they're also sorely lacking in both lines and screen time.