The Great White Hype & Scarface

The Great White Hype is pretty darn bad. Maybe Ron Shelton did only have one good screenplay in him. And the cast (Samuel L. Jackson, Jeff Goldblum, Corbin Bernsen, Jon Lovitz, Cheech Marin, John Rhys-Davies, Jamie Foxx, Damon Wayans, and Method Man) is much better than the material deserves, but can't make up for the craptacularness of the material. And it is craptacular.

Scarface is a movie I hadn't seen in so long I couldn't remember much of it (but I still had on my list as having watched it, and with the same rating as I gave it this time...). Then I watched it and remembered why I had blocked it out. Overlong and boring. Oh, yeah, just like many other Brian De Palma films. At least the worst ones. And why are so many of the Cubans played by Italians? Ugh. About the only time I thought anything good about it was when Harris "Quentin Travers" Yulin showed up. I always enjoy recognizing actors from the Whedon-verse. The movie just doesn't end, is full of either cardboard cutouts or completely despicable characters, and is just another example of De Palma and his desire to remake everything. I know, Stone did the screenplay and De Palma joined the film late, but ugh. And the soundtrack is the worst of 80s excess in overuse of synthesizers. Moroder, ummm, really didn't do much good in soundtracks. Cat People has a good song, cowritten with David Bowie, but man, most 80s soundtracks sucked, and Moroder is at least partly responsible for that. Why the hell can this movie be so popular? I mean, I know why it's so popular, but why do people like it so much? It's not a good movie, there are much better gangster films. And why the hell would anyone want to be Tony Montana, unless you're seriously messed up in the head? A drug-addicted asswipe in love with his sister? Man, I want to be him!

Silver City, The Saddest Music in the World, & Princess Raccoon

Silver City was a disappointing Sayles film. It felt like it was going to build up to something much better than it ended up as. He's clearly very capable of putting together a sprawling cast and making a brilliant film, but in this case, it just didn't work nearly as well as it could have. Had I not been such a big Sayles fan, I probably would have been more forgiving to the film, but I can't. And I only seem to like Billy Zane when he's making fun of himself, which both doesn't happen nearly enough and is a really bad sign for him and his almost non-existent acting talents.

The Saddest Music in the World is bizarre. I didn't recall that it was filmed like an early talkie with a filter for an almost black and white effect. But it was, and it was um... strange in a funny way? I really didn't know that Kazuo Ishiguro wrote the original screenplay. If you haven't read Remains of the Day, you need to, by the way, because it's excellent. Beer-filled glass legs, a ridiculous contest that rewards winners with a slide into a beer vat, and a crazy Canadian family are some of the things that make this film completely unique. Plus, there were lots of stereotypes and (I hope, intentional) mergings of cultures of the other countries involved in the contest.

Princess Raccoon is another unique film. Well, actually, I find it sort of a weird amalgamation of the crazy musical stylings of The Happiness of the Katakuris, the tanuki of Pom Poko, the colorwork of Tokyo Drifter (makes sense since it's also a Seijun Suzuki film), and both Snow White and Romeo and Juliet for plot. Oh, and it's also done with CGI and green screen work to make it look like a play. Seriously, just a weird frickin' movie. Some of the songs were also terrible, and in the styles of Edith Piaf, classic movie musical, rap, Metallica-ish rock, mariachi, and Buddhist chant, of course some were going to suck. But it's very hard to get past the pairing of Zhang Ziyi and Jo Odagiri, two very attractive people. Oh, and the subtitles were typical horrible mistranslations and grammatical mistakes. And how much more difficult is it to write out Princess Raccoon rather than just Princess? I know little Japanese, but even I know that tanuki hime means Princess Raccoon. Well, tanuki aren't exactly raccoons, more like raccoon-shaped forest sprites, but it's close enough. I know I say this a lot, but there are no movies like this. Even the closing dance sequence, somewhat reminiscent of Zatoichi's (Takeshi Kitano's brilliant film), just messes with you.

The Great White Hope & Chris Rock: Never Scared

The Great White Hope has very strong performances from James Earl Jones and Jane Alexander. You can tell that Jones is comfortable in the role, and it makes perfect sense when you know that he played the role on Broadway before, which won the author, Howard Sackler, a Pulitzer and a Tony. It also features a horrible Uncle Tom's Cabin musical. In Hungary. The entire thing is just depressing, because this all comes down to a bunch of white racists tearing a black man down for being better than the whites at something (in this case, it's boxing). Fight the power! It's based on Jack Johnson's life, which really makes me want to see that Ken Burns movie, Unforgivable Blackness. Or, maybe I could just watch The Civil War another time. That always makes me happy. Man, I've seen that so many times. What a great theme song.

Chris Rock: Never Scared wasn't nearly as good as his earlier work. It's still funny, but it feels like retreads of other comics and his earlier work. Shame about that. Plus, his yelling style just gets on my nerves now.

Not One Less & Bill's Run

Not One Less is depressing as hell, I mean, it's about how horrible the education system is in rural China. It was gutwrenching, and the ending didn't fit at all with the rest of the movie, but that was required by the Chinese government, because otherwise it would just be about how kids are being educated by people only slightly older than them and communities have to decide whether they'd have chalk or fixed desks and education in the rural areas is backwards. It's really depressing. And it's painful to see that people live like that. Damn white male liberal guilt.

Bill's Run is about a political race in rural Kansas. Well, it's not like there's that much that isn't rural Kansas, and it's not even that rural for Kansas. It's freaky though, that this guy ran as a Republican. Seriously, he's a pro-education, tax-and-spend, and pro-choice guy. But he does have a good name in Kansas politics: Kassebaum. And is therefore, the son of Nancy Kassebaum and grandson of Alf Landon, two big names. It's short and not nearly as much detail as I would have liked. It's still interesting, and the woman he's running against seems entirely evil (and unfortunately, she's in the legislature).

FLCL

FLCL (or, Fooly Cooly, or Furi Kuri, or lots of other things, but not eff-ell-cee-ell) is insane. And I generally hate insane anime. I mean, really a lot. But this is... insane in a good way? I think that it's actually making fun of a lot of anime conventions, like the almost constant upskirt shots (and the rest of fanservice) and robot battles. I think, so I could be wrong. But it has a soundtrack by the Pillows, a band I first found out about a long time ago on a messageboard far, far away. Or, more accurately, the old Superchunk board when someone linked to Hybrid Rainbow and said they sounded like Superchunk. I sort of saw the resemblance, but mainly I saw just how good they are. Yay for Japanese indie-rock! Increase hipster quotient immensely! Woo! Anyway, the anime makes up for being completely crazy by also being about the love of a 12 year old boy for an older alien who hits him with her Vespa and a guitar. And his older baseball playing brother's pyromaniac girlfriend. Seriously, what the hell, Japan? It can't be normal at all, can it? This all being said, I did enjoy it. And I highly recommend it to anyone who can sit for almost three hours and just accept that you'll be confused, but that it looks and sounds pretty good.

Pulse & Nine Queens

Pulse is both very creepy and about the dehumanizing effects of technology. Plus, it was directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who, while no relation to Akira, clearly is very talented, as he'd have to be to have a last name of Kurosawa and direct films. I think there are good things about having an enormous Netflix queue, and one of them is the ability just to sit down and watch a movie without even remembering much about why you wanted to watch it in the first place. I knew it was J-Horror, and was supposed to be much better than run of the mill stuff like Ringu and Ju-On, but I really didn't expect it to be so much better. There were some typical horror aspects to it (especially that the typical Japanese ghosts look the same as they do in most other J-Horror, but Kurosawa is capable of making it slightly less than cliched), but it was just vastly better than most. Almost makes me want to see the apparently terrible American remake. Well, it's mainly for Kristen "Veronica Mars" Bell (and Samm "Neal Schweiber" Levine and Ron "Arvin Sloane" Rifkin). Man, put a bunch of TV people in a movie directed by someone who only has one other movie to his credit and remake a Japanese horror film that's practically perfect (as in, I can't see a way to make the film better than it already was), and of course you're going to get dreck. Well, I can't blame those three, I blame the fact that Hollywood feels the need to remake great foreign films because people can't read subtitles. SPOILER: And the best thing about it is you think it's just a normal little horror film about terrorizing a few college kids when you get to the end and realize that it's about the end of the world.

Nine Queens was, speaking of remakes of great foreign films, remade a couple years ago, but this time it was remade with John C. Reilly and directed by someone who hadn't directed a movie before, but had been assistant director on a hell of a lot of great films. And Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, but really, he's worked with the Coen Brothers, Soderbergh, Hal Hartley, John Sayles, and Jodie Foster, so he probably has at least some talent. Of course, since I saw the original Argentinian version, I don't entirely see the point of watching what is probably a weaker remake. As I have a weak spot for twisty little thrillers that don't entirely give their plots away, I should have loved it, and I did, to a certain extent. My problem was that I've seen so many movies, I knew that the big plot reveal was going to be one of two things, because really, with two con men joining forces you're never going to get a straight forward plot. I think the writer-director, one Fabian Bielinsky, clearly has talent, and the movie was very well-made, but unless he wants to be an Argentinian Mamet, he needs to show that he's capable of making something more than a complicated and twisty thriller. I'm not saying that's bad, because we certainly could use more movies that don't insult the viewer's intelligence, but it's sort of disappointing to know a little about Argentinian history and see where one plot point was going. I mean, really, I wrote papers about it in college.

The Lower Depths (again)

The Lower Depths by Renoir suffers immensely from being watched so soon after Donzoko, a superior film. That one feels more like a play than this one, but that one felt much more real. Probably because the ending seems a lot better in the Kurosawa one, as this one just seems too forced. And I really don't like that the beginning of the movie just feels like an attempt to expand the play from basically one set. I have never read the play, and I'm not at all familiar with it, but the expansion just seems a little forced. After doing a little looking (yay for Wiki), Kurosawa filmed it in a much more accurate fashion than Renoir. Sometimes I like a happy ending, sometimes I like a sad ending, but I just don't think a happy ending fits with the rest of the story. And I don't like Jean Gabin nearly as much as Toshiro Mifune. So, basically, Kurosawa version=excellent, Renoir version=good.

Slacker & Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story

Slacker is really a lot more like A Waking Life than I was sort of expecting. Well, it's a mess, but it's a strangely watchable mess. Some of the stories were great. Some were boring. The Kennedy assassination, Leon Czolgosz, and Mars stories were my favorites. And the Madonna pap smear, but come on, it's about someone stealing a pap smear sample.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story is pretty funny, and ridiculous. Especially the dueling Al Pacino impressions during the end credits. And pretty much anytime that Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are on the screen together. It's definitely a great movie. I think that this is my new, "Michael Winterbottom is a genius" film. Gillian Anderson and Kelly Macdonald are also great, and the cast is full of English actors I'm fans of, with Stephen Fry, Benedict Wong, Shirley Henderson, Naomie Harris, Ian Hart, Kieran O'Brien... It's just a long list of fun actors. Seriously it's just really really good. I really should read the book, but I have a feeling it might take me a while to get through it. Anyway, the movie's battle scenes were hilariously ramshackle, and the cast was bizarre, but brilliant. And the references to Fassbinder just remind me of my distaste for what I've seen of his work, but the Bresson was right on, sort of, but in an intentionally too emphatic way. And the use of the tongs to birth the baby was pretty darn disturbing. All the stuff about Tristram's nose was great. Anyway, back to the movie...

Mrs. Brown

Mrs. Brown you've got a... No, dear god, I didn't rewatch that. This is the Judi Dench-Billy Connolly movie about Queen Victoria and a Mr. John Brown. Who's body was apparently not lying a-mouldering in the grave. Important for the movie. Let's see... John Brown... Nope, I should stop making bad jokes and references. Anyway, it's interesting, and especially the look at Disraeli. I don't think I ever really put a face to the stories of Disraeli I'd read before. Didn't expect him to look so evil. It's the goatee. It makes pretty much every look evil. The acting is generally good, although a few characters were just there to be evil. Unfortunate. It's good, and it's certainly worth watching if you can handle British accents and not too much action, but lots of backroom political machinations.

The Lower Depths, The Aviator, Play It Again, Sam, & The Last Hurrah

The Lower Depths is unfortunately, the second movie on the two disc The Lower Depths Criterion set. I think someone is stealing my Netflix DVDs. I didn't get Slacker or the Jean Renoir's version of it, so I was just stuck watching Akira Kurosawa's version, with the always outstanding Toshiro Mifune. It fits very well with his other films. Not quite as comedic as I was lead to believe, it was just fairly humanist. And a little depressing.

The Aviator is a movie I really should have seen a while ago. Pretty strong and amazing cast, and it's always good to see Loudon Wainright, even if I also had to deal with Rufus. Man, he's overrated. Of course the movie is great. I mean, it's Scorsese, even when the movie is bad, he's still capable of greatness. This movie, however, was great, so he didn't have to do anything to improve it, but he did. My favorite scene was, of course, the censorship board. Stupid censors. About the only real problem with the film is that it's really too long. It's good, but not almost three hours good. Very few films are almost three hours good.

Play It Again, Sam is an early Woody Allen film, and so it's very hit and miss. Well, it's a Woody Allen film so it's hit and miss. It's less miss than some of his, but it's a minor Allen. Of course, my love for Casablanca clearly makes me more inclined to enjoy it than a lot of people would. I always used to get it confused with The Purple Rose of Cairo. I always seem to imagine Jeff Bridges getting on the plane at the end of the movie. Which is difficult, since Jeff Bridges isn't in this one, and that one isn't about Casablanca. I think it's just that I imagine Jeff Bridges in the Tony Roberts role.

The Last Hurrah is a fictionalized version of a corrupt Boston mayor. It's really not hard to figure that out, just like every other political movie based on a real person but fictionalized enough so that names are changed. I do sort of enjoy the old school politics, even though it's really set up to be rooting for a corrupt guy. And rooting against a guy who works for Planned Parenthood. I didn't realize just how old Planned Parenthood was. I mean, since I support them in everything they do, I never really spent a lot of time learning about them. I didn't realize that Margaret Sanger created the organization that later became Planned Parenthood. Thanks John Ford, for keeping that line in the film so I would be interested enough to look that up. Makes me think better of the group, even if I didn't already. Anyway, I seem to be incapable of talking about any movie without going off on a tangent somehow. Well, not somehow, that's how my brain works. I mostly don't feel like writing those all down. Back to the movie, it's a very interesting look at how candidates are created and other ones stay in power. Those parts were much more interesting to me than the family dynamics. And of course, it mainly ignores the fact that the center of the movie is a political creature who we really should be happy that he gets his just deserts. Plus, why is it that so many movies give the character a heart attack or something else illness-related to drum up a little sympathy at the end of a movie for someone we should hate? So cheap and easy.

Primer

Primer is an extremely low budget film about guys in a garage who invent a time machine. I'd heard good things, and, if you can accept that the film makes very little sense. It's very complicated, much like Pi, another film about complicated processes, and a very low budget. I don't entirely think that it's clear what the hell happens. The multiples of the characters made it less clear what was going on. This all being said, it's interesting. You don't see a movie like this too often, or even at all. I'm intrigued by Shane Carruth, and would be interested in seeing his next film. Probably'd have a much higher budget than $7k.

King of New York

King of New York was apparently produced by Silvio Berlusconi, through some intermediaries. Makes the movie about a drug dealer rising to power in New York and then giving the money to the poor slightly more interesting. Because man, it's pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty bad. Abel Ferrara, he of Ms. 45, the 93 version of Body Snatchers, and Bad Lieutenant, still wallows in the muck. I need to work on my interests. Just because it has Christopher Walken doesn't mean it's worth seeing. Especially this film. Seriously, man, just stop watching crappy movies just to say you've seen them. There's a lot of good actors in this film. And David Caruso is also in the film, for that matter. But no one shows that they have any talent. The movie is just both despicable and horrible in every way. Do not see. DO NOT SEE.

A Tale of Two Sisters

A Tale of Two Sisters has a English title that's unfortunately Dickensian, with a story that's anything but. In the middle is a twist that is both completely unexpected and also completely sensible. And after that happens, you keep waiting for everything to fall into place, and for everything you've seen to make sense. And in a devastating final scene it does. It's an outstanding horror film, in the finest tradition of being relentlessly creepy with only one or two jump scares, but it's more about regret. Regret for everything missed, everything ignored, everything family. I don't want to say too much more, because it would ruin it. Just know that while it may seem confusing at the beginning, it will make much more sense by the end, if not perfect sense. The movie itself was very well made, the house being a very important character, the cinematographer really bringing out the colors, and there were some very impressive scenes. I really can't say much, because going in with little information would be vastly better than knowing too much. It's nice to see an Asian horror film that, while it does have the creepy girl with hair covering her face that is the blight on vastly more popular films, is not afraid to have a movie that makes sense. Too few are capable of that simple request.

She Hate Me

She Hate Me is weak, and way too long. I do think that there are some interesting ideas, but did we really need to see two separate childbirths in close detail? I mean, I know I've seen some horrible things on Discovery Health, but did we need to see two enormously stretched vaginas? I just think he bit off more than he could chew with this very ambitious film. But there are some very terrible things in it, and it was very strange that the lesbians seemed to be enjoying the sex so much, and why did he need to service 5 women in one night? Couldn't they, I don't know, try to limit it to like three or so? I also didn't appreciate the fact that people seemed to be so concerned about the fact that John was having sex for money to sire kids. Why should anyone be upset about that? I mean, do we think that everyone who has ever gone to a sperm bank is evil? And man, that just is sad. So is some of the terribly heavy-handed political commentary. So basically, the few good scenes are more than made up by the messed up tone, messed up characters, and messed up plot. Oh, and a messed up title, that needed to be explained in the film for anyone to even attempt to get. I still don't think it makes any sense, but then again, I dislike the misuse of the English language by people other than me. Well, I dislike people misusing the English language when it makes no sense.

Election

Election (the Johnny To film, not the Alexander Payne film, which I immensely enjoy) is one of the better Hong Kong Triad films I've seen. Actually, it's by far the most realistic gangster film I've seen in a very long time. These gangsters aren't glamorous, they're just petty greedy thieves who'd throw their own mother overboard if they thought it would make them some cash. And Simon Yam... well, he's almost normal compared to some of the roles he's done before, but he's his typical great self. Especially when compared to the less-talented Tony Leung (Ka Fai), who overacts in almost every scene. But the movie doesn't suffer from that. It may be a little heavy-handed when it comes to pointing out just how ridiculous and stupid most gangsters are (the fat one's pants in jail and the monkeys in the last scene are a little obvious, aren't they?), but once you get past the slightly confusing loyalties and actors (it's generally easier in American films because you're more likely to know some of the actors and you don't have to keep putting names to faces you haven't really seen too often if it all), it shows that Hong Kong films are clearly competing directly in quality with American films. And, a lot of the times, vastly superior to them.

The Cocoanuts, Horse Feathers, & Mr. & Mrs. Smith

The Cocoanuts and Horse Feathers were two Marx brothers films I apparently hadn't seen. I know I've seen all of the other famous ones. I thought I'd seen these two before, but I hadn't. The Cocoanuts suffers immensely from having craptacular musical numbers that really just drag down the film and make it the worst Marx Brothers film I've seen. Plus, there were many points that just screamed early (sound) film and each of those things was worse in this one than in any later Marx film. Horse Feathers has Whatever It Is, I'm Against It and Everyone Says I Love You, two of the best songs in the entire Marx Brothers film catalogue. That really helps, and that the film is a very streamlined 70 minutes helps as well. Of course, the ending football game is silly, but there's enough other stuff that's worth watching that it falls just behind Animal Crackers, Duck Soup, and A Night at the Opera as the best Marx Brothers films.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith has two very attractive leads. Everyone else really doesn't do much in it, although Vince Vaughn continually wants to remind everyone that he exists. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are more than capable of carrying the film themselves, and Doug Liman lets them. Of course it's ridiculous, worse than a John Woo film for amount of bullets shot to amount of death brought, and the ending gunfight is very silly (you're telling me these guys are worse shots than stormtroopers?), but it doesn't really matter much because Pitt and Jolie are so very good together. Considering I don't really care for Jennifer Aniston, I say Go Brad (and Angelina). Make movies that are at least fun.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Clerks II, & A Canterbury Tale

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is pretty darn good. Mainly because of Alec Guinness and his voice. It was unbelievable just how much better that voice can be when he's delivering sensible lines rather than ridiculous Lucasisms. And the entire cast is outstanding. It's weird to see Patrick Stewart in a very minor role. Weird how that is. It's a pretty complicated, but, typical for le Carre, it's a well structured complicated mystery. If you can handle nearly five hours of spies, there's not many better ways to spend that time than watching this film. Just took me a very long time to find those five hours, as work was very long this week.

Clerks II was much better than I was expecting. It felt much more like an early Kevin Smith film than the last few. Not as good as Clerks or Chasing Amy, but not too far behind them. And the only part that didn't feel quite right was the ending, which seemed a little like a cop-out. I just think that it was a little too happy of an ending, one that just didn't quite fit right. Maybe it's just that I hate it when people have to learn a lesson in a comedy that was going along just fine beforehand. That switch from comedy to "life-lesson" is very tricky to carry out, and very few films have been able to do so. I can't even think of one right now, but I'm sure in a few days I'll come up with a few. If it weren't for that ending, I would have enjoyed it much more.

A Canterbury Tale is pretty darn special. I love that the Archers made movies like this to support the war effort, trying to promote Anglo-American unity. Man, if they could only make more great movies to promote friendship, we'd probably have a lot less conflict. Interestingly, the Criterion DVD has the prologue and ending from the American version, just going to show that American and English audiences just needed something slightly different. The opening stats to the American version were very funny. Although I kept wanting to know how they were doing these statistical analyses that came up with those numbers. Seemed a little made up to me. Apparently, though, the American version premiered in 1949, so maybe they were accurate, at least up until the time when it came to be very specific near the end. Anyway, it wasn't nearly as good as The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp or A Matter of Life and Death, two of their other war films, but it's still very good. Makes me want to read A Canterbury Tale.

Mean Creek & Buffalo Bill and the Indians

Mean Creek has a great soundtrack. Spoon, Wilco, and (easily the best song from) Death Cab for Cutie, and there's a few other bands like the Eels, which I respect, but don't really listen to. And is a nice small little film. It's pretty good as well. Still can't see a Culkin without thinking about how terrible the Home Alone movies were. Maybe if they grow up a little, I'll stop thinking about them. Or, more accurately, I never will.

Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson is Robert Altman messing with us. Which is a lot of fun. It's still a mess, like most Altman films, and it's nowhere near his best 70s films, but I certainly preferred it to some. And it has a great line: "Listen, my glass got empty somehow, can you put a couple of fingers in there?" I do sort of wonder about how that glass got empty. I do wish that there was a little more Deadwood in it. It seemed like it could have gone there a couple times, but it was rated PG, so there went that.