Mansfield Park, The Barchester Chronicles, & The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear

Mansfield Park is the 1983 BBC miniseries version. As such, it luxuriates in the time period, and in an extended running time. And it has a bunch of actors who are extremely recognizable if you've seen enough British miniseries made around the same time. I didn't really like Sylvestra Le Touzel's performance of Fanny Price, and as a whole, I am not really that big a fan of Mansfield Park, but it is the most accurate version of it (plus it doesn't have frickin' Billie Piper in it or basically messing with everything in it like the 1999 version, which I really liked anyway). So, um, see it if you really want to see the most faithful version of Mansfield Park?

The Barchester Chronicles has an amazingly good cast: Donald Pleasence, Nigel Hawthorne, Alan Rickman, Phyllida Law, Geraldine McEwan, and Clive Swift, among many others, all give great performances. Alan Rickman, in particular, is perfect as the extremely slimy Rev. Obadiah Slope. Anything where he gets to be remotely slimy is extremely worth watching, and this has him at his slimiest. Really, he is pitch perfect. I've never read Anthony Trollope, but I don't feel like I ever will now. Even with the long running time, and far too easy of an ending, it's definitely worth it, especially if you don't mind the BBC video filming, which, along with the aforementioned Mansfield Park, suffers greatly from blurring whenever there's a camera move outside.

The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear is a 2004 documentary that's all about how the neocons and al Qaeda basically use the same tactics to get what they want. This, unfortunately for its arguments, makes the claim that al Qaeda was a made up organization that was created in 2001 by the US Government to prosecute terrorists under organized crime laws. This is insane. And pisses me off. Otherwise, it's an ok version of events important to current international relations, but it's also three hours long, and spaced over three DVDs. What the hell? It could have very easily fit on one DVD. Why on three? I don't know. Basically, it was frustrating because it could have been so much better.

The Cat Returns, Summer Palace, & Come Drink with Me

The Cat Returns is the second to last of the full length Studio Ghibli films that I haven't seen yet (My Neighbors the Yamadas is the last). As such, it was the one that I actually took out of my Netflix queue at least once, and didn't re-add for quite some time, due to my belief that it wasn't going to be all that good, not being directed by Hayao Miyazaki, and a sequel to the excellent Whisper of the Heart. Why I took it out? I didn't want to ruin my feelings for Whipser, maybe? Anyway, it was pretty good, but not nearly as strong as the better ones, as this wasn't as meaningful as the best, or as beautiful as them either. If you like cats, that helps. The voice cast for the English version (including Anne Hathaway, Cary Elwes, Kristen Bell, Andy Richter, Peter Boyle, Elliott Gould, Tim Curry, Rene Auberjonois, and Kristine "Joyce Summers" Southerland) were alternately too distracting ("Hey that's Andy Richter!" or "Who is that... Oh, it's Elliott Gould") and pretty on target. Basically, it's not a must-watch by any stretch of the imagination, but it's still good.

Summer Palace is a film that got the director banned from making films in China for five years. He also directed Purple Butterfly and Suzhou River, both of which are about the same quality as this one, although this one has many more nude scenes. Surprisingly, it wasn't the nudity that bothered the Chinese censors, it was the use of brief bits of Tiananmen Square footage, and probably the use of characters involved in the protest as heroes. And we can't have that. Back to the movie. Once the characters left the university, the movie strated to drag slightly and become less interesting. It could also have been the length of the film. I liked it, but could have stood some cutting near the end.

Come Drink with Me is King Hu's last film from Hong Kong, before he moved to Taiwan. It's about a brother who is kidnapped by bandits, so his sister (who is maybe disguised as a man for the first part? It's hard to tell) has to fight the bandits, with the help of a drunk. It's a seminal first wuxia film, clearly important to the genre, with some good fight scenes and impressive indoor sets. Of course, it strains credulity many times, but pretty much is notable for the use of a female protagonist (Cheng Pei-pei) who kicks ass (although her needing to be rescued by a drunk multiple times is less awesome). So good for that mostly feminist character.

The Darjeeling Limited, Hotel Chevalier, & Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

The Darjeeling Limited & Hotel Chevalier should be taken together, although there really is no big point to Hotel Chevalier besides being an excuse for a naked Natalie Portman (not that there's anything wrong with that) and getting Peter Sarstedt's Where Do You Go To (My Lovely) stuck in my head whenever I think about this movie. But it's an effective enough mood piece, and completely unnecessary to the plot. Speaking of unnecessary, the main movie, The Darjeeling Limited, frustrates me to no end. Wes Anderson is a very talented guy, but maybe he really does need someone to rein him in with reasonable plots and remotely likable characters, of which there are fewer and fewer in his movies. And with the fewer likable characters, they become much harder with which to identify, and I like the movies less. It's basically been a downhill slide from Rushmore. It's frustrating because he's a talented guy, but he is just too busy distancing himself from reality. Maybe The Fantastic Mr. Fox will be better.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is the sixth movie in the series, and the second directed by David Yates (he of the awesome State of Play and the less awesome but still good The Girl in the Café). As a Harry Potter film, it was pretty good, up with The Prisoner of Azkaban as the best, and far, far better than the Chris Columbus abortions. Oh, man, maybe I should use a different word... Anyway, I really didn't like the ending they chose, as it really lessened the emotional impact, but I bet they move some of it to the next film. And I knew that jump scare was coming, and it still got me. Kudos to you, David Yates, for one of the best ever jump scares. The movie focused a lot on the relationships, which was nice, but it could have stood to have a little more plot with the actual Half-Blood Prince, as the reveal itself just felt extremely perfunctory.

Caseus Archivelox: Shiri & Donnie Darko

2002-07-30 - 10:52 p.m.
Ultra violent, somewhat convoluted plot, only two particularly bad subtitles, neither of which I can recall at this time. And of course, they stop the bomb with .05 seconds left. Sure. It's so easy to time it that way. Also, the movie was very easy to figure out where it was going and all. The convoluted plot was only somewhat explained, because I couldn't figure out how it was going to cause a war. Anyway, you don't watch the movie for the plot. It had surprisingly poor action choreography, and it was frequently difficult to figure out what was going on in the myriad shoot-outs. Too much American John Woo, not enough Hong Kong John Woo. And not enough two fisted gunplay, and way too much reloading. I want my gunfights fast, furious, and full barreled furious fast firing. Yes...

That's not to say I didn't like the movie, but it just wasn't as good as the hype. And believe me, the movie was overhyped. Not as much as Titanic which sucked behind its lots of money, Shiri was just eh.

2002-07-31 - 10:53 p.m.
You know what else is creepy? Donnie Darko. And you know what else? It was really good. Really good. A little too creepy to get a 10, but a 9 from me. Thought provoking, and it had one of my favorite songs in it, used perfectly. Love Will Tear Us Apart needs to get more respect for the awesomeness that it has.

The movie itself was just lots of stuff in it. I can't even figure some of it out right now, because my mind is still spinning. Good soundtrack, and I've always been a big fan of people going around in bunny costumes, but this may be too weird for that to continue. Weird similarities between the movie and The Day When People Flew Planes into Buildings. Why is it that I can't even look at dates in September without thinking, "That was two days before the 11th." Even though it was 1996 or something like that. Argh.

Jena Malone (the g-i-r-l-fren, as Jonathan Richman would speak-sing) was good in it, as was Gyllenhaal, but Malone gets more props because she was on the best cop show of all time: Homicide. Wow that was such a good show. Puts most of what is on TV now to shame. And would not be out of place on HBO Sunday Nights. Which is saying a lot, because that's where the good shows are now, not Friday nights on NBC where no one watches it, even if it is better than everything else on NBC except for Seinfeld. Damn you NBC, damn you all to hell.

Caseus Archivelox: Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Killer's Kiss, The Pirates of Penzance, & Jurassic Park III

2002-07-06 - 12:51 a.m.
Movies just were better in the 40s. Or maybe they're just better because they aren't the crap of today, or other remakes (EDIT: it's because I hadn't seen enough terrible movies of the time). Here Comes Mr. Jordan was a really good movie, and it had enough surprises to make it much better than I was expecting. That crappy remake with Warren Beatty (Heaven Can Wait (not to be confused with the excellent Gene Tierney movie of '43, also called Heaven Can Wait)) can't hold a candle to it, and I haven't seen Down to Earth (with Chris Rock (not to be confused with Here Comes Mr. Jordan's sequel (which I haven't seen) also called Down to Earth, with Rita Heyworth)).

Claude Rains is one of the best actors of all time, and I don't think I've seen a movie with him in it that I didn't really like (except for The Wolfman, which I already said was really disappointing, as it stuck to the '30s horror framework too much, without adding anything except for the voyeurism). But Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia, Notorious, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Invisible Man, The Adventures of Robin Hood (the excellent version with Rains, Olivia De Havilland, and of course, Errol Flynn): all excellent movies.

"Flynn's offscreen life was, incredibly, even more colorful than his movies. An unabashed hedonist and insatiable womanizer, he was notorious for his nonstop drinking, wenching, and general highspirited bacchanalia. In 1942, at the height of his popularity, he was charged with (but later acquitted of) statutory rape." He is also the reason for the line "In Like Flynn", referenced in the sequel (not as good as the original, but still funny) to my favorite spy spoof of all time (Our Man Flint), In Like Flint.

2002-07-08 - 10:59 p.m.
I watched Killer's Kiss and The Pirates of Penzance. Killer's Kiss was Kubrick's second feature film, and at only 67 minutes long, that's debatable. However, it was really good. Nothing compared to his later movies, but an enjoyable film noir anyway. The Pirates of Penzance was one of those movies that I had been seeing in the library for a while and I thought I should watch. It was a v. v. silly musical, but that's to be expected from a Gilbert & Sullivan musical. I'm still more familiar with most of H.M.S. Pinafore, even though I just saw The Pirates of Penzance, and only know of H.M.S. Pinafore from The Simpsons. That's still how I'm most familiar with G&S. Even though my grandparents love them. I did like the songs where they had to sing very quickly. Because they all got very red faced. I think that I really need to stop referencing everything to the Simpsons, because the only song I recognized from TPOP was the Major General song (I am the very model of the modern major general) which Barney sang when doing acrobatics when Homer and Barney were trying to go into space (Woohoo! Default! The two sweetest words in the English language!). Anyway, that's weird. The movie had Kevin Kline, who was very good, and Linda Ronstadt, and when I saw her, all I could think of was her singing the Plow King jingle in Spanish. It also had Angela Lansbury. I once said, when asked by one of my friends what my ideal woman was like, "Angela Lansbury". Immediately. This wasn't something where I tried to find some old woman and it took me a while. This was immediate. I think it's more for her role in Bedknobs and Broomsticks than for Murder She Wrote. Or maybe for The Manchurian Candidate, but that one not as much as she's an evil Communist mother. I don't think she was ever on the Simpsons. Again, too much Simpsons. Although that's impossible, unless it's from the last few seasons. Then it's quite likely to be too much. I think that The Simpsons early references in two of the best episodes (Deep Space Homer and Cape Feare) to Gilbert and Sullivan are somewhat weird, but they do show why I love the show: they're actually referencing more obscure things than I do. Which is good.

2002-07-09 - 11:03 p.m.
I also watched Jurassic Park III. The movie just had no reason to exist. It wasn't bad, but it was boring.

Caseus Archivelox: Vanilla Sky & Tortilla Soup

2002-06-26 - 3:09 p.m.
So the two movies my dad rented from Saturday night. Just by looking at them you wouldn't expect them to be related, but they are in an unfortunate way: both are completely unnecessary remakes of good foreign movies. Vanilla Sky was by far the better movie, because while it did dumb down and add unneeded bells and whistles to a good plot, it was still well directed and acted (by everyone besides Penelope Cruz who continues to be absolutely terrible in English-language films, no, I'm not forgetting Blow, she was easily the worst thing in that movie, and don't get me started on Woman on Top or All the Pretty Horses for her bad acting). Penelope can act in Spanish films, but eesh, she was very bad in this. And it's not that she didn't know what she was talking about, it was a very similar plot to Abre Los Ojos which she had done much better in. But I liked Vanilla Sky.

Tortilla Soup on the other hand. Ok, let me try to recreate what the moviemakers were thinking when they decided to make the movie: Two very white men are sitting in the office of one. They are giggling constantly, have problems making coherent sentences [ed. note: I've made them slightly more sensible, because they really were giggling too much, and it would have taken longer had I included every "Oh wait... wait..." and breaking down in laughing, and their long digressive rant about how hot Velma was and that Shaggy was banging all the women on all the 70s TV Shows, and that he once walked in on a threesome of Ginger, Farrah Fawcett, and The Fonz... but I digress, and you don't care]. One is saying, "Ang Lee is really hot now. Look at Crouching Tiger, and I'm sure The Hulk will be big. But his earlier Hong Kong films are too inaccessible to American audiences. They're stupid. Let's remake one." Another says: "We haven't made a good Latino movie in years. That's a growing audience, and all the pot I've been smoking is giving me some serious munchies, so let's remake Eat Drink Man Woman as a Latino movie." The first: "That's the best idea I've heard since I was passed the script for Big Momma's House." The second: "But we need all the Mexican actors and actresses we can find for the movie." The first: "I don't know any." The second: "What about Hector Elizondo? I'm sure we can find lots of them. And they'll all be incredibly talented, and we can have another Oscar caliber film like Eat Drink Man Woman." Then they both took more hits from the prodigious bong lit with the scripts of people like John Sayles and Charlie Kaufman and started to giggle. 6 months later this piece of recycled claptrap was released and caused me to waste 100 minutes of my life. Every plot twist was obvious from the beginning, I only cared about the youngest daughter (because she looked fairly good) and the eldest daughter because it was Elizabeth Peña who was in one of my favorite movies (and has incredible relevance to my love of serious movies, not to mention my love of dark hair) Lone Star. I loved that movie when I saw it when I was 16 (which is one reason why I can forgive Matthew McConaughey for almost any number of bad films he's been in, although if Reign of Fire sucks because of him, any goodwill will be completely gone). I liked movies before then, but it was more as one of the uneducated masses like movies rather than the more cultured lover of non-s---ty movies I am now. Tortilla Soup was terrible. My dad who normally reads the New York Times reviews to figure out what movies to see listened to some friends (he declined to mention who they where when I asked) who said it was a great movie. Reading the review (which has lines like "There hasn't been this much forced wackiness since what some consider the golden days of sitcoms, and poor [Raquel] Welch doesn't have the acting skills to make her anything other than an embarrassment. She's important in an unforeseen way: she makes you focus on the other performers in any given scene. Martin and his grown children are missing something, besides a script. Even if you haven't seen "Eat Drink Man Woman," "Tortilla Soup" is still as predictable as a fast-food restaurant" in it) would not make me want to see the movie. The only good thing about it is the food preparation scenes. But there is too much crappiness between the food scenes to make it worthwhile. If you want good looking food, go for Like Water for Chocolate, Tampopo, Big Night, or the aforementioned Eat Drink Man Woman. Those are great movies with mouthwatering food. Tortilla Soup wasn't.

The Campaign of the Century & The Blind Side

The Campaign of the Century is all about the 1934 California Governor's election, which is both a turning point for political campaigns (in that this was the first campaign run by full-time political consultants rather than the candidate and this was the first campaign to make large use of televisual advertising (in this case, short trailers before movies)) and for California. Before then, Hollywood wasn't all that involved in political campaigns, but after this campaign where liberal and progressive Hollywood stars were moved to actually be more vocal in the political views, and was the last big hurrah of the political views of the studios being dominated by the studio heads. They were actually garnishing wages and blacklisting people for not supporting Merriam against Sinclair. As enjoyable as the dirty tricks stuff was, I really loved the sections about what was going on during the same time, like the capture of Bruno Hauptmann, killing of Pretty Boy Floyd, William Randolph Hearst visiting Hitler, and many, many more. Really just a fascinating book.

The Blind Side is a fascinating look at the importance of the left tackle in professional (and increasingly college) football. And an interesting inside view of the recruiting and creation of one of the best left tackle prospects in the last decade, Michael Oher. I really enjoyed the book, as Michael Lewis is a great author, who knows just what to include and to exclude, never writing too much when he's putting his stories together. The NCAA regulator interviews were what really made me find this fascinating, though. To me, it seemed like a clear case of where the NCAA should have declared him ineligible to go to Ole Miss based on the rules, but it's also one of those cases that is so ridiculous that it could have ever possibly been a violation that it just pisses me off. Then again, I had just read about what they had done for the kid, and the NCAA didn't have the book. Also, Lawrence Taylor is a beast, I lost a lot of respect for Paul Brown not hiring Bill Walsh when he could have in 1976, and I kinda liked Jonathan Ogden a little more. And I'm terrified about how good of an LT Oher's going to be for the Ravens.

Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes & Man on Wire

Garrison Keillor: The Man on the Radio in the Red Shoes is a documentary about Prairie Home Companion, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the fictionalized movie. Of course, that was designed to be extremely enjoyable, as opposed to an accurate representation of the radio show and the people involved. This one also doesn't have Kevin Kline as Guy Noir. So it works as a documentary but it isn't as good as actually watching a fictionalized version or listening to a show.

Man on Wire took me a while to figure out that the scenes of the young people on wires were not reenactments, and that they had actually filmed themselves so much talking about their plans and practicing. There are times in my life where I wish I had some point when I was 8 or so and had had an epiphany about what I had to do in my life. Would have made my life go in a slightly more direct fashion. It's a story that really is one of a kind, as wirewalking between the two towers will never be done again, and was only done for one day. Fascinating story though.

The Cell & Speed Racer

The Cell looks interesting, but JLo and Vince Vaughn are terrible actors. And so it's basically a somewhat interesting film, but anytime that they're not in someone's mind, it's a terrible at best manhunt film. And man, terrible is an accurate description of the film.

Speed Racer is all bright and shiny colors. It's basically a live action cartoon. Which it does very, very well. It's too bad that the film itself is not all that good. But it looks very pretty. And the cast is surprisingly good, although I wonder just how many of these people had actually seen the second or third Matrix films. Because after the second one, there was no way that they were actually anything other than visually interesting people who are incapable of putting anything on film that means much of anything.

Burn After Reading & My Blueberry Nights

Burn After Reading is a Coen brothers film in the ridiculous comedy vein of their recent "failures" Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers, but it is both funnier and more substantial than both. It's a paranoid film for a paranoid age. I enjoyed basically all of the characters, especially J.K. Simmons as the CIA manager. And I felt so bad for Richard Jenkins. Such a good guy, and such an ignominious ending for him. It really felt like they were just having an immense amount of fun with this film, from the opening scene with Frances McDormand to the ending zoom out from the CIA mirror image of the first shot. And George Clooney's character is hilarious, with his sleaziness and ability to save money.

My Blueberry Nights would have been so much better had Norah Jones not been the star. She can't act all that well. So the thing that gets me is that it's quite possible that I had no idea how any of the stars of his Hong Kong films can act, and the difference in my view of this film is based entirely upon my knowledge of the language. Because it looks just like a Wong Kar-Wai film, from the slow-motion to the camera tricks to the soundtrack. I really hate the fact that I have this feeling after basically all the really good foreign directors move to the US. Because it makes me second guess their abilities. But man, even usually reliable actors like Frankie Faison, David Strathairn, Rachel Weisz, and Natalie Portman are terrible. It seems like it's just horrible miscasting, but man, that's just painful. Only Jude Law is somewhat acceptable, but that's small comfort in this film.

Margot at the Wedding & Rachel Getting Married

Margot at the Wedding is Noah Baumbach clearly having had a very bad experience with a wedding. I'm not all that sure that it's a remotely good film, but it was interesting. Jack Black is only acceptable in small doses, as otherwise he is overbearing. Acceptable in some cases, but here, he's so low key that he's not really doing all that much. And I just didn't like or care for any of the characters in it.

Rachel Getting Married is such a hipster wedding that it was painful. Hindu themed with belly dancers, two hipsters playing the wedding march and an interracial wedding? Yep, hipster. Anne Hathaway was very good, and she didn't even show her nipples this time, unlike when she was very good in Brokeback Mountain. But pretty much, I just wanted it to be a little less indie. It was so, so indie. And the wedding itself should have ended way sooner than it did. But hey, that dude from TV on the Radio isn't that bad of an actor. Hurray! And the dishwasher scene was funny. Although, seriously, I feel like I have to apologize for not hating this film. At least it isn't mumblecore.

I Shot Jesse James & The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

I Shot Jesse James is actually Samuel Fuller's first film. As such, it's of interest mainly as a curio, because it's certainly not a good film, and the clear change to the facts of his life (made even more explicit by watching The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford almost immediately after) made me appreciate it less. However, it's interesting to see how much of Fuller's style was already existent in his first film. The longer titled one is a pretty film and the acting was much better, but the earlier film still has a bit of charm, partially because it was so much shorter and focused. I bet the book was pretty good though. I like that Brad Pitt is willing to do films like this. Because I like Brad Pitt.

Poor But Sexy at Fort Reno 7/13

I had to look up the first two bands' names (Laura Zax and mittenfields, although I think Laura Zax was going by Laura Zax and the Alternative Rock Band at the show?). I wasn't all that impressed, and based on some of the overheard comments from other people, they also didn't really care for them. mittenfields was a good idea (I like people dressed up in a tiger suit and panda pajamas and I like indie rock), but the lead singer's screams were annoying. Laura Zax was just kinda quiet indie-rock type stuff. Just eh. EDIT: See comments below.

Poor But Sexy, however, I'm totally biased for. I am friends with the lead singer (who is also the brother of one of my roommates) and the guitarist is from one of the best bands I've ever seen live, The Dismemberment Plan. So I'm not an unbiased observer. And I'd heard and enjoyed their EP before. But they were a pretty fun show, with a lot of ridiculous lyrics and awesome stage presence. Basically, I highly recommend you go see them live. The crowd, too, seemed to enjoy it, with huge groups of highschoolers dancing up front. I chose to rock out while being nearly immobile near the back on a blanket, but it was just a good night for it, once the sun went down and you could see the stars above while listening to a dancy show that was kinda a mix of Prince and Steely Dan and Michael McDonald-y Yacht Rock. Or something, MBG and I were trying to decide on this. I say Prince mainly, but David needs to wear more purple, high heels, and do splits to get it just right. But he has the confidence and sense of humor just right, dedicating The Only Good Thing to the dogs in the audience.

Anyway, I also wanted to congratulate DC for having Fort Reno, a great place to spend an evening listening to a concert twice a week. As long as the bands aren't all that bad. But you can get fancy food at Whole Foods (how much do they have to love seeing a whole bunch of young people with disposable income coming in and spending $8 on salad bar fixings before the show?), then hang out and look at babies, dogs (there was a Great Dane there that had to weigh more than me), and hipster douchebags, gawk at Ian MacKaye (I laughed with him at a funny situation!) and other famous for DC music people (I got introduced to Joe Easley last night!). Yeah, um, I didn't geek out to them, but I did to others.