2003: Movies Sorted By Tier
Submitted by jim on Wed, 05/26/2004 - 04:29
Tags:
Loved
Finding Nemo
... Goodness, what a streak Pixar has going! When I saw the previews for this I thought for sure it was the streak-breaker. But then again, I also bet against Michael Jordan for championships four, five, and six, so that gives you some idea of what kind of prognosticator I am. Like all the Pixar movies, Nemo is beautiful to behold, and contains themes any parent would be pleased to have their kids consider. My wife and I agree that A Bug's Life, while excellent, is our least-favorite Pixar movie. Her favorite is Monsters, Inc., but this one just might bounce Toy Story from my top spot. I'm going to reserve judgement on that call until it comes out on DVD and I've watched it a billion times with my kids, so they're on equal footing. Oh, I went to see it with my five-year-old, and she liked it when she wasn't terrified. This is easily the most intense of the Pixar movies, although they all have their moments.The Fog of War
... As much as I enjoy Michael Moore and his bombastic propaganda, it's a bit of a shame that he ends up hogging some of the limelight Errol Morris should be standing in. Morris has a remarkable ability to create portraits of people without overly simplifying them. Was Defense Secretary Robert McNamara a monster who murdered hundreds of thousands of people, or was he reluctantly doing what needed to be done in times of war in dutiful service to his country? As is often the case, the truth is probably somewhere in between. It's clear McNamara thought he was doing the right things, and watching him revisit his work with the benefit of hindsight--and even admit mistakes--is riveting. He's a fabulous storyteller, and never deflects responsibility with passive-voice "mistakes were made" half-admissions. I remember as my grandmother reached this age, her emotions bubbled far closer to the surface, and I can see some of that in McNamara as well, and it makes for one of the most emotional history lessons I've seen. And what a lesson it is! WWII, Vietnam, IBM, Ford Motors, seatbelts, this one has it all. No matter what you think of the man, what a life.I'm Not Scared
... Thank you LBangs! Given my lukewarm reaction to Night of the Hunter I had some misgivings, but this movie is quite different (still an apt comparison though). I will adhere to the policy of not giving too much away (although it's not a twisty movie - it's just good to let it unfold).Kill Bill: Vol. 1
... Allow me to cast aside any ambivalence I've expressed towards Uma Thurman's acting in the past: she was fantastic, standing out in this flashy, red-splashed movie that would normally completely obscure any attempt at acting. But heck, everybody was good, and the movie is a wild ride mish-mash of Tarantino's obsessions, many of which I happen to enjoy too (although on a MUCH more casual basis). Given all the action, I was surprised it managed to also be a fairly intelligent and insightful revenge flick, as Tarantino does a good job (I assume intentionally) deflating the normal vicarious cheerleading the audience might feel for the avenger (via Vivica Fox's daughter, or Lucy Liu's wonderful anime backstory). My only gripes would be a couple giggle-inducing moments that I don't think were intentional, and the overuse of the word "bitch" in the first 15 minutes. But who could not fall for a universe where airlines let you (and other passengers!) bring a samurai sword as a carry-on? Well hell, now I'm going to have to rewatch Jackie Brown to see if it's really as underrated as some say...The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
... What is there to say about this movie that hasn't already been said? It's marvelous and spectacular, just like the previous chapters, and I loved it (I still favor Fellowship though). I find it interesting that the emotional core of these movies is always peripheral to the central characters. In Fellowship it's Boromir's tragedy, in the Two Towers it's Gollum's pathos, and here in Return of the King the heart of the movie lies with Eowyn, wonderfully portrayed by Miranda Otto (who, along with the non-Frodo hobbit actors, own the movie). That said, this was the first time Vicky (who also loved it, perhaps the most of the three) and I left the theater after a LotR movie and spent most of our time out to dinner picking at it rather than marvelling at it. The homecoming was too melodramatic, and the slo-mo scene of Frodo in bed brought to mind a parody of Dorothy, waking up in her bed after her Oz adventure. Both the eagles and Denethor's madness come out of nowhere, and desparately needed some establishment. Minas Tirith looked great, but turned to tissue paper in the face of catapult fire. Good gravy folks, *stagger and interlock* those stones! There were a few other nits, but I won't blather on; I don't want you to leave with the impression that I didn't love it. I hope they announce a DVD box set with extended editions of all three movies so I can enjoy them all over again. Oh, and "that still only counts as one" was a fabulous line, perfectly timed.Lost in Translation
... This is exactly the kind of movie I often should like but don't, and thus walk away feeling like the unsophisticated amateurish wannabe movie critic that I am. It's character-driven and practically plotless, and is really just a slice-of-life, fishes out of water tale. But this one's perfect. Scarlett Johansson is so good, she's the only one good enough to steal away her Oscar nomination (and do it twice!). And I just know I'm going to be pissed off when I finally catch Sean Penn's sure-to-be-showier performance in Mystic River and feel like Murray got cheated. But really the thing that puts this movie over the top is just how poignantly, subtly romantic it is. At no time does it sound a false note, at no time is it overly sentimental, and at no time does take the easy route to easy satisfaction. I knew Coppola has some chops based on The Virgin Suicide, but never would I have guessed she would plumb such emotional depths in her sophomore effort.Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
... If this doesn't sound like a festival of yawns, nothing will. A wise older monk and his young disciple live alone on a secluded lake. They never (from our perspective) leave the lake and the surrounding woods, and they really don't talk much. They only get a few visitors over the course of the movie, and they also don't speak much. The movie is broken up into vignettes by season, and by the younger monk's phase of life. Dullsville, USA (or rather, Dullsville, S. Korea), right? I thought so too, and now I have egg all over my face. Entracing and beautiful, with scenes and imagery whose power will likely only be lessened by describing them, so I won't.X2: X-Men United
... This may be the best superhero movie I've seen. The action is uniformly well-done, it's got a slam-bang opening that grabs your attention, the pacing is just right, and the plot, themes, and tension aren't too shabby either. The only sour notes are fairly minor: the actor that plays Scott/Cyclops is the weak link, although I should probably cut him more slack for acting through the visor, and some of the moments in the "tell my parents I'm a mutant" scene are ham-handed lead balloons. "Have you tried NOT being a mutant." I get it, but please. That said, in a movie I enjoyed almost-uniformly, I particularly liked Hugh Jackman, the tension between the three major factions in the movie, and pretty much all the action. It's going to be hard for me to choose a favorite action scene from this one.Zatoichi
... I haven't seen such a fine effort at pure entertainment in a long time. If there's any doubt that this is purely an entertainment picture, look no farther than the song-and-dance numbers (!) interspersed throughout, beginning with one that's so subtle it slips under your radar for a few moments, and ending with a cast-wide clog dancing extravaganza. I'd describe the first such scene, which I loved, but I'll let it sneak up on you too. I will say that I toyed with the idea that its aural experience was meant to let us share in our blind masseur/swordsman's heightened senses, but really I just think it's in there because it's a hoot. The plot couldn't be more straight-forward, but only after unravelling various flashbacks and concurrent timelines (some with few visual cues, and others which still don't seem to fit in with the main story, like the fight in the rain and the bodyguard killing two people while his wife watches). A fine, fine entry into the samurai genre, CGI blood and all (I believe its obviousness was an intentional artistic effect--one that worked, by the way--rather than shoddy workmanship).Really Liked
Baadasssss!
... Wow, talk about making a movie in reaction to the times. Those were some cojones on Melvin Van Peebles, and son Mario's retelling is both loving and unsparing.Big Fish
... The Forrest Gump of Tim Burton movies. This statement begs the question. "is that a compliment or a condemnation?" That question forces me to make a confession: when critics bash Gump for its mawkish hokum I nod my head in agreement, but that's just because I'm spineless. I liked the Forrest Gump. There! I said it. Was it deserving of Best Picture? Of course not. But still, my enjoyment lingers. Anyway, to compare Big Fish to Gump still does the former a bit of a disservice, as it works a much subtler magic as it marvelously mingles our hero's life as it was, as he remembered it, as he told it, and as it was perceived by others. I won't tell you if the end reveals him to be either the teller of the most extraordinary lies or the liver of extraordinary adventures, but it satisfies without overplaying the very conventions Gump-haters revile.Capturing the Friedmans
... Who on earth videotapes their family melting down? Riveting viewing, even if (or because) it feels like keyhole-peeping most of the time. There's even one instance where we see footage of David, alone with the video camera trained on himself, ordering us not to watch because he's making the tape only for himself! Of course, he ultimately allowed the footage to be used, belying his original feelings, which is interesting in itself. The film is a great demonstration of the elusiveness of the truth, especially after it's run through the emotional wringer.Carandiru
... Based on the experiences of a doctor working in São Paulo's huge overcrowded prison, leading up to the 1992 riot and subsequent massacre where 111 inmates were killed. Even in hell there is humanity. Well before the massacre comes, we already care. It would be quite a double feature to watch this with City of God, and I'm leaning towards declaring this the better film. It eschews that MTVish style to its benefit.The Corporation
... Leans far enough left that it stumbles at times, but still makes a compelling case for "corporations as psychopaths". For me the most important lesson was the underscoring of the point that you can affect government with your vote, but you have no such power over corporations (I suppose you can vote with your wallet, and it would be interesting to know how much real power your vote is worth compared to your money, analying total voters vs. total dollars in play). Rampant privatizers have always made me uneasy. Then again, I'm no fan of protectionist trade policies either (although as a U.S. programmer I really should be). That is to say, I'm not prepared to swallow everything here without salt, but it sure was compelling viewing.The Five Obstructions
... Lars Von Trier sets out to "find the banal" in one of his cinematic heros, director Jorgen Leth. Leth agrees to remake his short film, The Perfect Human, five times, each time adhering to various "obstructions" concocted by Von Trier. It sounds like dry film school material, but the result is fascinating. It's a treat to watch Leth struggle with the obstructions, and then ultimately embrace them, and the results show that in most cases the obstructions are gifts. In particular the "12 frames" obstruction results in a brilliant piece of work, and the remake where no obstructions are placed is the weakest of the bunch (although I'm so happy Leth "cheats" and is thus punished with the "no obstructions" obstruction, as his cheat makes for a stunning work). At various times Von Trier suggests he's not trying to break Leth, but is instead trying to help him, but we all know Von Trier's a sadistic fellow, so we have to take that with a grain of salt. I suspect he was going for both pain and therapy, but I have no idea as to the proportions.Holes
... Heard this was good, but didn't realize it was going to be good. The casting is inspired and they all deliver. The intertwined flashbacks are handled gracefully, and they don't insist that the other kids at the camp be sappily won over by our hero. C'mon, Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, and Tim Blake Nelson as the bad guys, with Henry Winkler and Siobhan Fallon (look her up, she's always awesome) as the parents... you know you want to see it.House of Sand and Fog
... Is it a spoiler to call something a tragedy, or is the "fun" in watching how it unfolds, given that you know it's coming? Like many good tragedies, this one is permeated with the stench of inevitability. If you dig the characters, the smell will nauseate you as a tragedy should. If you don't, you'll be bored and/or frustrated by little lapses in communication that, if corrected, could have resolved everything. But hey, if Hamlet weren't a waffler it would be a one-act play, right? Jennifer Connelly looks radiant as a recovering alcoholic and profoundly depressed woman, but I'm not complaining. It's a bit of a shame about Ron Eldard though: he admittedly has a very tough role, but I don't think he was up to the task.Kontroll
... Dark, stylish, and impeccably acted. The best Hungarian thriller shot entirely in the subway system I've ever seen (damn, I've used that best-of-a-ridiculously-small-niche gimmick too many times - I'm such a lazy critic). The themes of good and evil were a bit blunt and I found our heros redemption problematic (), but it hardly matters as this is a popcorn flick that wears its social commentary or philosophising lightly (if at all). It's pretty funny how low you have to go before a subway ticket inspector thinks somebody else has a worse job.Spoiler: Highlight to viewthe murderers appearance/disapperance removes all ambiguity as to his identity, and the deaths can't be imaginary based on how many other people talk about themLove Actually
... First things first: Bill Nighy is drop-dead perfect as the drunken, burned out, sold out, cynical, aging rock star. The role is small (as is every role in a movie that tells 8 different loosely coupled love stories), but worth the price of admission alone. Colin Firth continues his trend of playing characters with access to FABULOUS real estate, and Hugh Grant plays the British Prime Minister (!). What more could you ask for? Oh, okay, if you insist: Emma Thompson turns in some of her best work ever.Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
... Because of a touch of the croup in our youngest, we were unable to see this on an uncrowded Wednesday in a theater with a big screen, great sound, and stadium seating and instead ended up at a crowded Friday show in a theater boasting a small screen, mediocre sound, and conventional seating. Par for the course, the audience was unable to shut the f__k up. This undoubtedly detracted from our enjoyment. That said, this beat my pre-release expectations by miles. The movie's greatest strength is by far its powerful evocation of life at sea; it just does a fabulous job of transporting you to the microcosm of onboard living. Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany are both very good, although I have the advantage of only having read one of the Aubrey/Maturin books. My wife, who has read them all, was a bit dissappointed in both the casting and the script, even though she knows better than to compare the movie to the book. The movie is somewhat inaccessible in that we are dropped right into the midst of this ship which clearly has a storied history, but we only really understand the relationships and friendships amongst the characters by the end of the movie, so at the beginning various affectations or resentments are without context. But it's an interesting approach, one that largely works, and one I'm sure will make me enjoy the movie that much more on a second viewing.The Memory of a Killer
... Since heavy medicine balls are expensive, I'm making one myself. I made a very small hole in a basketball (such that it will take a radial tire plug when I'm done) and am funnelling in a little bit of sand at a time. I have one of those diner ketchup squeeze-bottles with the tip cut at an angle so it's large enough for sand to flow through, but can still be jammed into the hole in the basketball. Inverted, the sand still only flows a little bit before jamming up, so to keep it flowing I hold my orbital sander against the bottle, and the vibration keeps the sand flowing. It probably takes a good 5-10 minutes to get one ketchup bottle of sand into the basketball, and it barely makes a dent in filling the basketball. So anyway, I'm watching this movie on my tiny 7" portable player under flimsy headphones against the whir of my orbital sander, standing on the cement floor of my cold workshop, and I was still engrossed. My only complaint is that it wasn't long enough for me to finish the damn medicine ball.Mystic River
... Finally saw it, still think Murray got screwed out of his Oscar, but I must say Sean Penn was pretty darn good. With that out of the way, on to the movie. Who would have thought that The Man With No Name, winner of countless gunfights, would go on to make such meditative movies when it comes to violence and its consequences? The movie opens with two tragedies, both low-key and yet harrowing. I think I found the abduction particularly upsetting now that I'm a parent. I got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I realized just how vulnerable kids are--even those well-schooled in the "stranger" rules--to various psychological tricks (response to authority and intimidation in this case). While the cast is uniformly excellent, the real star here is the script, both in it's excellent development of a fairly large number of primary charaters, and in it's clever unfolding of the crime, the investigation, and the gradual revelation of how the characters and their histories are intertwined. The domino-like cascade of violence and coincidence is also impressive, as is the three-tiered motive, only one of which is articulated, and unconvincingly at that. What was up with the abrupt appearance of Lady Macbeth at the end though?Oldboy
... Having now seen this and Sympathy for Mr. Vengenance I find I can't fault Park Chan-Wook for his style (impeccable), his over-the-top violence, or shocking themes and imagery. It's all to add fuel to the fires of tragedy. But while his fires burn brightly, I don't think they give off as much heat as they should. In the end, the tragedies leave me unsettled, but unmoved. Should I not weep? Still, Oldboy is highly watchable and it's hard not to be riveted as the layers are peeled from the mystery. The performances are fantastic, and the moments of dark humor punctuate the movie beautifully. Not for the faint of heart, of course. While I felt bad for the octopus, for me it was the #2 cringe. The #1 cringe was reminiscent of That Scene from American History X. Enter at your own risk.Open Range
... I can't decide if I should blame the ineffective dialog on the words themselves, or the delivery. Since I flinched in equal amounts at various utterances by Kevin Costner, Robert Duvall, and Annette Bening, I'm going to blame the script. A mere flesh wound on an otherwise strapping Western, though. Costner hasn't forgotten how to capture the beautiful wide open spaces, and the plot manages to graze leisurely without dragging. It's no Unforgiven, but then again this is an old school western in the John Wayne-ish tradition rather than a treatise on the genre itself. I suppose Costner couldn't really resist the coda, and in a way I'm grateful for it.Spoiler: Highlight to viewI'd come to care about these characters enough that a simple ride off into the sunset wasn't going to cut it for me.Peter Pan
... I'd hazard a guess that Pan himself is the best ever in this movie. Perfectly, eternally trapped on the brink of adolescence, Jeremy Sumpter's Pan miraculously avoids coming across as merely obnoxious (or, worse, cutely obnoxious). Sumpter's Pan is paired with Jason Isaacs' deliciously malevolent Hook. That he also plays Mr. Darling is a bonus, adding layers to the character, and Mrs. Darling's description of her husband's bravery. I may as well keep raining accolades on the cast: Rachel Hurd-Wood was an excellent Wendy, whose ever-so-slight budding sexuality makes her relationship with Pan hopelessly poignant. The "I do believe in fairies" scene, which should have been treacly and laughable--especially considering how long that chant goes on--was instead shockingly good. Kinda like the movie.Pirates of the Caribbean
... Despite being 20 (or even 30!) minutes too long, this movie is a hoot; everything a summer brain-washout should be. Why? Johnny Depp. I've been thinking about this off and on since last night, and I've come to the conclusion that never has an actor made such a difference in the end result of a movie. Without Depp, it's just another summer ho-hummer. With him, it's a winner, albeit one that really could have used an editor. I can't imagine the role played differently, and I can't imagine another actor playing it the same way and making it work.Save the Green Planet!
... Is this comedy, science fiction, or horror? Our hero kidnaps and tortures a big corporation despoiler-of-the-environment type because he believes the guy is an alien. Is the guy an alien, or is our hero a psycho? Despite the outlandishness of the situations, and our hero wearing a variety of apparatus designed to serve the same function as tinfoil hats, these scenes have real tension, and we can't help being sympathetic to both kidnapper and victim. I can't decide if the ending was a letdown or not. The whole thing reminded me of Vonnegut.The Station Agent
... An enjoyable and touching character piece, and I can't for the life of me really figure out how two of our three leads endear themselves to us despite being taciturn and generally uninviting. Even at only 90 minutes the movie runs out of gas a bit towards the end, but that is forgiveable. Peter Dinklage is spectacular, and it makes me sad that we live in a world where he won't be offered similar caliber projects to actors he dwarfs in talent much the same way they dwarf him in size. And what a great voice on that guy!A Tale of Two Sisters
... They should have dubbed it K-Horror. Signficantly better than the Japanese horror movies that get all the attention. Only Audition is in the same ballpark. It looks like this one isn't going to make any sense for the longest time, but really what it is are knotty twists to sink your teeth into.Glad I Saw
American Splendor
... Not quite as engaging as I'd hoped, but still good enough to be the movie Adaptation wishes it was. And of course this is the movie where the Academy first experimented with screwing Paul Giamatti.And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself
... "A story so improbable, it must be true." As a movie, I did not find this quite as involving as I would have liked, but as dramatization of a slice of history, wow! Check out the plot summary and the lengths they went to to get it right (well, as right as you can get a 90-year-old story, anyway). It's worth watching for the story alone, and as a bonus Antonio Banderas is very good.Bad Santa
... I have long professed my dislike for cringe humor. And while I cuss like a sailor myself, I dislike crude humor more often than not. So no one is more surprised than I at my liking this movie. Flinchingly funny, and downright surprising towards the end. It is probably my own sense of prudish propriety that keeps me from rating this even higher.Bright Leaves
... In an odd way, I enjoyed how I waffled on this movie as I watched it. At times it felt about as involving as somebody else's home movie (somebody you don't know, for that matter!) but then moments later it would feel like an intimate peek into somebody else's life. I did enjoy the process of our documentarian's grudging acceptance of a more complicated interpretation of the Bright Leaf film and its relationship to his family. Also, two bits were worth the price of admission: our hero being trapped in a wheelchair by a loquacious film theorist, and that impromptu, soulful banjo performance. Great.Daddy Day Care
... Between watching this and Beverly Hills Ninja a few days ago, it might seem like I'm trying to make a dent in stumpy's worst movies from Saturday Night Live alumni list. Pure coincidence, I assure you. Even I am not so masochistic. That said, the big difference between these two outings is that Eddie Murphy could read me his grocery list and I'd think it was funny, whereas you could give Chris Farley great material and I still wouldn't understand his reputation (in some circles) for comic genius (of course this is just a theory, since I don't think he ever actually worked from great material, and his untimely death will leave the question forever unresolved). Anyway, this was a "Friday Night Amelia" movie, and it was cute enough for we grownups, and Amelia liked it enough to want to watch it again the next day. And it was almost totally benign. Nothing scary, and the worst the language gets is one utterance of "sucks" and another of "pervert" (thankfully not used in the same sentence :-).Elephant
... I appreciated Van Sant just dropping me into as realistic a high school situation as possible. Very long shots of mundane activities, some great shared perspective, like when an insecure girl leaves the locker room and we hear another girl say "loser!" from a small group of girls as she's leaving. Was that about her, or was it coincidence? All too familiar. It's stark, uncompromising, and there are no answers (although we're given a smorgasboard of "symptoms"). But while the movie was almost hypnotic, shouldn't I have been devastated by the end? Why wasn't I? I'm a fairly sensitive fellow; I don't think the problem is with me.Freaky Friday
... Sometimes Disney revisiting Ye Olde Back Catalogue can work well, as it does here. Some of those old Disney classics are so badly dated they are unwatchable, so it's nice to get another shot at 'em. Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis are both excellent, with Curtis taking home the comic gold. Still, Lohan more than holds her own (particularly after the switch), and she seems like such a nice kid in the featurettes. I do hope her tabloid tailspin doesn't leave her as permanently damaged goods.Good Bye Lenin!
... An East German young man's mother goes into a coma just before the Berlin Wall falls. She recovers years later, but she is to avoid "all excitement." The son goes to great lengths to hide the fact that Germany is reunited. The trailer suggests that hilarity ensues, but really it's more gentle amusement. I kept noticing that there was more going on here than meets the eye, and my inability to decide if this was intentional or not proved distracting. "Ooh, was that intentionally clever, or just an accident?" The son's efforts seem selfless, but are so absurd we have to wonder how much guilt is involved (he may have caused her collapse). Intentional? Maddeningly (or brilliantly), we get no exposition on this. Then there are the lies upon lies. Are they selfless, or cruel, and if cruel do they rise out of the guilt? Finally, there are several lies that are left standing at the end, making EVERYONE a liar, not just our hero (). The whole thing is just one big prevarication nation, and it *mostly* seems well-intentioned, but there's that passive/aggressive undercurrent there, and I don't know if it's supposed to be there or not. I don't know why that itches so...Spoiler: Highlight to viewfirst there's the mom's lies about the father, then the mom dying w/o telling her son she knows about his ruse, and then finally via narration we find out that the girlfriend doesn't tell the son that she spilled the beans to the mother!The Italian Job
... I was genuinely concerned for this movie in the opening scenes. The dialog felt stiff and poorly delivered, and the script was audibly grunting with effort as it strained to hurriedly establish a father/son relationship between Donald Sutherland and Mark Wahlberg. Thankfully the opening heist is adequately gripping, and the cast loosens up and develops a fairly enjoyable rapport as the movie progresses. Several surprises for me in the performances: I generally like Wahlberg, but thought he was weak here. I unconsciously wrote Charlize Theron off quite awhile ago for no particular reason, but I thought she hit just the right notes as the tough-but-slightly-vulnerable heroine (and she's supposed to be great in Monster). I'll have to keep an eye on her. Seth Green was a hoot, and provided several laugh-out-loud moments that were partially script, but mostly delivery. And it was a coup casting "Handsome Rob" as "sexy ugly" (to steal a phrase from recently-watched Kissing Jessica Stein) Jason Statham rather than some conventional pretty boy. Definitely a role that was improved by playing for charisma rather than looks. Finally, I enjoyed the heists and the shell game twists at the end, despite their predicability and occasional bumbling cliche. My expectations for heist movies have lowered dramatically over time, but this one met them, and at times surpassed 'em.The Last Samurai
... When I don my critic's hat (which fits me very ill and tends to slip down over my eyes), I recognize that I should heap derision on this movie. It's cliche gumbo. A Frankenmovie cobbled together from other movies. A little "white man teaching the noble non-white man how to fight the white man", a little forbidden love story, simplified, glamorized, misleading history, etc. It's basically Dances with Wolves, Braveheart, and Shogun all rolled together. It happens that I liked at least the first two of those three, so I was well-prepped to like this, despite it's telegraphical predictability.Matchstick Men
... A con movie worth recommending if for no other reason than because the ending is highly unconventional for the genre. Perhaps even unprecedented! Con movie convention DICTATES that a character-to-be-named-later take an action-to-be-named later in a situation-to-be-named-later, and yet it doesn't happen. Stunning. Awesome. Well, perhaps just surprising, but still nice since I suspected many of the other twists along they way. Then you have Cage and Rockwell doing their respective things, which is rarely a bad thing (never a bad thing in my Rockwell experience, actually). Alison Lohman is right there in the game with those guys too, which is no small feat.The Matrix Reloaded
... Okay, let me get this off my chest: the original Matrix had plenty of portentous and scenery-chewingly (or woodenly) delivered dialog and reams of pseudo-religious popcorn philosophy. Bullet-time, while undeniably cool and ground-breaking, still looked like CGI. That the sequel would also have these things should surprise or dismay no one (unless you were expecting a totally different movie like, say, Driving Miss Daisy). So yes, the sequel has all this same hokey stuff, plus the much-complained-about (deservedly, IMO) rave scene. It also opens with a bang and then grinds to an expository halt for like 30 minutes. But then it really gets rolling and it's a ton of fun. While I've read plenty of "it looked like a video game" complaints about The Burly Brawl, I thought it was wonderful, and thought it only looked Final Fantasy-ish when they incorporated bullet-time on top of the other layers of already impressive, technically daunting stuff. I'd rather watch ambitious FX fall a bit short than watch rehashes of the same-old-same-old. Yes, Neo could have just flown away and avoided the whole fight, but who wants to watch a movie in which the hero runs away when confronted by his nemesis? The highway chase was spectacular. I even enjoyed the opening credit sequence where we zoom out from the matrix code to see the mundane object it's powering. The plot is not nearly as tight, and may indeed contain gaping holes, but then again I've only seen half the movie, so I'm going to reserve judgement until November (stick around through the credits to see a preview!). Speaking of which, what a treat to look forward to this trilogy wrapping up then, followed by Lord of the Rings concluding in December!The Mime
... A short student film from Listology's very own directorspen. The film is essentially a silent color (my first silent color movie, I might add) Keystone Kops-ish affair, shot handheld, and I quite enjoyed it. That this is a labor of love is easily apparent, and the "making of" featurette was a treat - even with a miniscule crew and a handheld camera you still need your location scout to pull permits, it appears. :-) I also watched the two other short films on the DVD, one of which is an extended fight sequence. One of the combatants executes a leap up a pillar that is clearly humanly impossible, and yet even watching it in slow motion I have no idea how the effect was accomplished. Very impressive. At this point I'm prepared to believe the guy really can jump that high.Once Upon a Time in Mexico
... Hot dog, Johnny Depp is on fire, twice in a row now elevating a movie to greater heights than it could hope to aspire to without him. While my memory of Desperado is hazy, I still think this is the most garish, bloody, outlandish, and convoluted of Rodriguez's tortilla westerns. I think I could have gotten into the meandering plot, goofy dialog, and cartoonish characters a bit more if the action scenes (with one exception) weren't handled so choppily, devolving into a series of quick shots between a gunman spraying a hail of bullets followed immediately by a cut to guys flying backwards. Sometimes I didn't even feel like the shooter and target were being filmed on the same day! But it's all done with flair and exuberance, and it's hard not to be won over by it.Ong-bak
... The plot is thin and to describe the acting as mediocre would perhaps be charitable. While the opening tree climbing sequence is impressive, the first half of the movie failed to engage me. Even the wonderful foot-chase sequence was marred by the distracting multi-angle instant replays of the admittedly more-impressive moments. But eventually I was overwhelmed and won over. Good gravy the stunts! The fights! The complete and utter lack of wires and CGI! Moves that I've only seen faked via those devices are done for real here. And hey, if a guy is brave enough to do a ridiculously athletic split-legged baseball slide under a rolling truck (!), who am I to begrudge him a few instant replays?Open Water
... It may be unfair (and dreadfully unoriginal), but I can't help comparing this to the brilliant Blair Witch Project. Both are aimed at the heart of deeply primal fears, and both strive for a kind of realism you don't get in glossier horror movies. Blair Witch nailed it, and this one fell a bit short, I'm thinking mostly in the selling of the fear. There are moments where you chill at the thought of what lies beneath, and you truly empathize, but that feeling is not sustained (whew!). But for the moments when the movie makes you ask, "how much would that SUCK?" and you feel like you truly understand the answer, it's worth it. Just don't expect the shocks to come fast and furious; there's lots of bobbing in the water (as well there should be).The School of Rock
... I'll admit it: I don't really understand why Jack Black is praised to high heaven as enormously talented. Don't get me wrong, he IS talented, funny, energetic, and charismatic, but there seems to be a cult of disproportionate adoration surrounding him that I just don't think I'll ever join. Still, this is just about the perfect vehicle for him, and is about as good a rock rendition of The Bad News Bears as you could hope for, and one that I quite enjoyed, especially as the focus shifted off Black a bit in the second half.Screen Door Jesus
... A fun little independent movie about religion in a small Texas town, where Christ's image appears on a womans's screen door. Whether or not Christ then also starts messing with people is open to interpretation, but certainly some scenes point to a supernatural hand. While the characters still have to act on faith (or lack thereof) we as viewers are given a bit more information, lessening some of the ambiguity. I'm not sure if that was the best choice, but I suppose us seeing the screen door hook lock by itself (not a spoiler, happens in the first scene) is not an incontrovertible indicator that we're supposed to believe Christ really did visit. Anyway, it's basically a bunch of intertwined short stories taking place in this town, so that along with the apocalyptic undertones reminded me of a better Magnolia. But we all know I'm alone in not liking that movie, so take that with a grain of salt (or an entire salt lick).Seabiscuit
... A better movie could have been made out of this fabulous, unbelievable true story and wonderful book, but this one works out pretty good, even if Gary Ross couldn't resist hokifying what was already a feel-good story in real life. Fortunately I have a sweet tooth. The cast performs admirably, and I thought Elizabeth Banks did a lot with a little. Much to my surprise, even though he looked the part, Chris Cooper really didn't work for me, but at least I stopped being distracted by him about a third of the way through. Of course, he was playing a guy that was known for his silence, so that's tricky. As long as I'm talking about being distracted, the David McCullough narrations really took me out of the story. Sorry, but his voice automatically makes me think I'm watching a Ken Burns documentary. But even with some pretty big flaws (including in the finale!), it's impossible not to root for the little horse that could. The race scenes were genuinely thrilling, William H. Macy rocked, and the source material simply can't be beat.Secondhand Lions
... As I browsed the shelves looking for a family movie night title, I came across this one and rented it despite two misgivings: the pacing would be too slow for the kids (ages 3 and 7), and the story would be unengaging for we parents. Wrong on both counts! Everybody liked it. It certainly helps if you indulge in the occasional weakness for Hollywood sentimentality and unrealistically endearing "eccentric" characters, as I do. Honestly, there's not that big a gulf between this movie and Big Fish, of which it's reminiscent. Hey, when did Haley Joel Osment's voice change? When he speaks for the first time, it's bizarre, like one of those Sixth Sense ghosts finally possessed him.Shanghai Knights
... I'm pretty sure I liked the original more than most critics or Jackie Chan fans, and I think I'm in the same boat with the sequel. They both hit my funny bone just right (except for insulting my intelligence by hammering home the references at the end) and this sequel features some really enjoyable fight scenes and homages. The two best ones happen kinda early (the revolving door and singin' in the rain), and the movie runs out of gas a bit in the final third-to-quarter, but I didn't mind much. The whole thing has an Abbott & Costello feel about it, and that is played to good effect. Great outtakes on this one too.Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas
... Surprisingly entertaining, but mostly because the plot does a juuuust passable job of moving us from one set action piece to another, with a few genuine laughs thrown in. I guess my biggest complaints would be that the "Book of Peace" is a pretty lame plot device, and Brad Pitt's performance is awfully flat. Catherine Zeta Jones fares a bit better, but Michelle Pfeiffer steals the show, and her character is the best-animated to boot. Although as the goddess of chaos, Eris, she's the only one that can shape shift, so it's hardly a level playing field. Still, it's almost like the animators rose to the level of the voice track they were working with. The 2D and 3D animation styles work together pretty well, but they really click during the Sirens scene. What Sirens are doing in this movie, I have no idea. Maybe the pickings got slim off the coast of Sicily after they let Odysseus and company get away.Stuck on You
... A Farrelly brothers movie with more heart than laughs; whoda thunk it? Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear are both underrated in my book, so I was pleased they were tapped to be strapped to each other for the role(s) of the conjoined twins. For directors that I keep thinking I'm going to hate, I've seen a surprisingly high percentage of the Farrelly Brothers' movies, and had some good fun in the process.Swimming Pool
... Here's a movie that works almost entirely because of the performances. Charlotte Rampling's perfectly uptight, bitchy, and spinsterish with almost enough flickering under the surface to evoke sympathy, but not quite. Whether or not this is a flaw I'll leave as an exercise to the viewer, but it worked pretty well for me. Ludivine Sagnier was riveting, and not just because she spends large chunks of the movie naked. As an actress she seemed remarkably relaxed, especially given her wardrobe (or lack thereof), and as a character her self-confidence in her hedonism was well-done and a nice contrast to Ramplings repression. The scene where she plunks down, topless, next to a disconcerted and clothed-from-head-to-toe Rampling is wonderfully played by both of them. As for the ending, well... it kinda left me flat, although here I am a day later and still turning it over in my mind, so that can't be such a bad thing. Certainly there's lots you could justifiably read into it, without resorting to forced BS.Tokyo Godfathers
... Three homeless people find an abandoned infant, and go on a quest to find the baby's parents. I liked it, but much like The Triplets of Belleville, can't really work up any enthusiasm for writing about it.The Triplets of Belleville
... And now for something completely different. This bit of French animation is interestingly distinct from both the American and Japanese animation traditions (at least in their mainstream representations, which is where I mostly dangle my toes). The look is like 40% art deco, 30% Bill Plympton, 5% Ralph Steadman, 35% unknown. While I was oftentimes lost in the visuals (in a good way), I was never really involved in the tale.The Yes Men
... What is there to do with this documentary but decribe it? These guys masquerade as the WTO, get invited to conferences, and then subvert its identity by making ludicrous presentations that talk to what the WTO does (or what these guys believe it does) stripped of spin. In one presentation on textiles, they demonstrate a "management leisure suit", which appears to be made entirely of gold lame and has a huge phallus that juts to eye level, and contains a video screen for monitoring sweatshop worker productivity around the world. This raises nary an eyebrow at the convention. Amazing. At least the shit sandwiches get a reaction. I'm going to leave that to your imagination until you see the movie.Guilty Pleasures
The Core
... Bad science aside, this is the movie Armageddon would have been had it not sucked. It starts promisingly, first getting our attention with a mystery, and then immediately establishing our hero's intelligence in regards to said mystery, in a fairly clever fashion. He can thus be forgiven for mispronouncing (I think) "nuclear" later on. I was impressed that they actually explained the enormity of the task of getting to the center of the earth accurately (as far as I know), but not so impressed that they basically resorted to magic to solve the problem (then again, what else could they have done, given the premise?). It's a disaster movie, so you have to be invested in the characters so you care when they start getting killed off, and the cast delivers. After seeing Aaron Eckhart play one of the most evil bastards ever in In the Company of Men, I wouldn't have pegged him for the geophysicist hero type, but he pulls it off, seems at ease, and gets some chuckles along the way. And they surround him with known actors of roughly equal distinction, so it's kinda hard to predict who's going to live. Uneven and overlong, but certainly one of the better of the crop of sci-fi/disaster movies we've been getting lately.The Matrix Revolutions
... Sigh. Three days ago I failed to appreciate Children of Paradise, two days ago I fast-forwarded The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and yesterday I enjoyed The Matrix Revolutions. I feel like I've hit the trifecta of questionable cinematic taste. Ah well, no sense crying over spilt milk. On to the review: the huge squid battle in Zion did indeed go on forever, but for me this wasn't a bad thing. It was very impressively done, and I particularly liked the effect of the whirling, undulating "schools" of squids. Also, despite the cumulative effect of three movies of cheesy dialog, I maintained some emotional investment in the characters, but I couldn't help noting how much greater that investment would have been had the original Tank and Oracle actors been available. Tank's character, in particularly, would have provided a much-needed emotional bridge for the goings-on in Zion, and the Oracle/Smith scene would have been so much more involving if Gloria Foster were still alive. Speaking of Smith, the kung fu battles definitely lost something as they increased in scope from intimate one-on-ones to epic Superman struggles over the course of the trilogy, but they each worked in their own ways, and all that time and money that went into getting the rain just right for the final showdown here was well spent. I'll admit to some frustration at not having the larger questions resolved for me, but at the same time I'm impressed that the Wachowskis have created a framework that allows rampant, and at times even logical, theorizing. Here's my current favorite.Out of Time
... Denzel Washington's hero starts off as a pretty dull knife to get himself into the improbable fix in the first place (man, it seems like there were an awful lot of ways for our hero to NOT find himself in any kind of predicament), the tension is drawn out only by a series of additional improbabilities (how often can Eva Mendes be distracted at the very last second by one of her underlings with some trivial piece of information?), and our hero passes up on a moment when he could have come clean and I hate that, but hey, I was still engrossed between the eyerolls, and it's still a Denzel Washington movie, and his sidekick made me laugh. You can see where, with a better script, this would have been up to par with the last Carl Franklin/Denzel Washington outing, Devil in a Blue Dress.
Cloned From:
Good to see The Mime faired well. I took a kid I was babysitting to see Piglet's Big Movie and was disappointed as well. I also noted a logical error. When Piglet is in the bathtub, he is thinking of things other characters did for him which he wasn't even around to see. Or maybe it's the other way around, but the character in question was no where near when the events the other character(s) is(are) watching in one of the bubbles. Minor stuff, but stuff I noticed because I was over the age of 10.
P.S. about the jump in Flight of the Grasshopper (in case you want to leave it a mystery, read no further), the jump was reversed. The kid hung onto the pillar then dropped down, but he did it so well that it looks smooth, which was a treat for me because I was afraid it was going to be shoddy.
Ah! I'm now kicking myself for not thinking of that. So obvious, and yet so well done. He really did get the motion right.
I agree with you on Identity; it tries really hard, but I could never get past the idea that it was an exercise in style (if that makes sense). Cusak actually has a really good performance, I think, which makes it much better than it deserves to be; and I like the way the story fits, though the ending with the crashing van is kind of dumb. Would it have been a lot better if you hadn't known very many of the actors or is it because you know who they are that it's intersting?
Hey, thanks for calling my attention to Identity. I just noticed in re-organizing these lists that I gave that an awfully good review for filing it under "Average." In re-categorizing these, I didn't go back and read my reviews - I just went with my current gut feeling. Interesting how I must have liked it at the time, but now recall it as merely average. Certainly of all the "average" movies listed here that one is closest to moving up a notch.
Oh, as to your question, I do think the cast added to the interest, as I like a handful of them quite a bit.
Oooooooooo! I saw Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and I actually like It (:?O). It hit me right below the belt and that totally malfunctioned any brain activity I had up to that point. Yeah baby.
Also a comment...Last Samurai is the worst date movie EVER! Nothing brings on those loving feelings like seeing hundreds of Samurai mowed down by a gattling gun. The door almost hit me in the arse when I was eschewed out.
Tallyho
:?)
As I have posted here many times in the past, Cronenberg's The Fly is actually the worst date movie ever (junior prom, no less!).
No. The Natural (1984) is the worst date movie ever. Especially on a prom date.
I suppose The Fly does have the advantage of scares and heads buried into shoulders.
But not if you're completely repulsed. I would think that would inhibit certain prom-oriented behaviors...
Not that I actually took a date to this movie, but I would imagine that "Requiem for a Dream" would be the worst date movie ever.
Could be. Requiem definately has distinction of a gigantic d***o in it. But that probably wouldn't help, would it?
Tallyho
:?)
Ouch. I feel your pain even though I don't actually feel your pain and actually probably couldn't imagine the pall The Fly would inflict on a date.
She didn't enjoy the whole rotting human sub-text, who was this woman? Jeez.
Tallyho
:?)
jim, i thought id try and spread some light on why Jack Black is so darn popular. i think about 60 -75 % of it is because of his band Tenacious D, there like a funny / comedy rock band. i think what happened was he got a fan base from that which helped him in his movie career, i think jack black is great and i have 4 of his movies (high fedelity,Shallow hal, Saving silverman and..school of rock)
i think he has a 'Jim Carrey' quality as well.
oh well hope i was of help bb mate
Interesting - I always thought his acting boosted the band's popularity. The two probably feed into each other in some kind of fan-driven double-ouroborosean cycle.
ah youve got a point there, lol he's like a big franchise, money making machine!!
Okay, here's my problem with Bruce Almighty and their ilk. They start with a fairly interesting story, enter "comic genius" and older actor to balance out his aspirin head-ache inducing hyperness. So everything is going okay for the first 30 minutes, it's funny, it's light, people get the payback, he uses his power un-wisley. Haha funny. :?|
But then they run into a problem, a story must be told, and instead of telling a story you get a 45 minute commercial for Trojan condoms crossed with preperation H. Everybody is feeling all lovey and frisky and very interested in their amore, but they can't seem to get past that intense burning, itching feeling in their bum (enter grimacing).
Then we just go to the last act where everything eventually collapses into turmoil and then gets corrected. Arg. The end and the beginning are good, funny, even interesting at times, if only you could axe the s**t in the middle.
And what's with the whole "I'd like peace on earth" and god's like "That's not what you really want now is it." What the heck, uh, yes it is my almighty gob-stopper. arg.
Tallyho
:?)
Agreed (noted exception: Groundhog Day). 30 minutes is about where most romantic comedies go south too, after they stop hitting you hard with the comedy and they break out the story/romance (notable exception: When Harry Met Sally). I don't think I had too much burning and itching with Bruce Almighty, but I was definitely vaguely uncomfortable enough to balance out what I enjoyed. Probably something I ate.
Sorry to lead you so far astray on Cruelty, Jim. Maybe I was loopy that day or something, but my wife and I both laughed so hard...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Never apologize! I was looking forward to it before I saw your review just based on the trailers. I did like the opening shot of Clooney's teeth, and the dull (to us) swath in the middle was bookended by some pretty good stuff. Besides, is anything more subjective than humor?
While an otherwise mediocre film, Open Range's final shootout is perhaps the best such scene I've ever seen in a Western.
I found Fog of War a bit less interesting, but I'm not really a history guy, and Vietnam was well before my time (I realize most of it was well before your time too). But that's a great review, and I'm glad you liked it so much.
Thanks AJ, it was wild watching McNamara and seeing bits of my grandmother, so the movie was quite an experience, even though I was exercising while watching it! Any movie that works so well under such odious circumstances just has to be good.
On a somewhat related note, I think I find that I find comedies funnier when I'm watching them while exercising. I don't know, maybe the energy pulsing through me causes me to laugh harder. I've watched Family Guy or Simpsons episodes on the treadmill and laughed uproariously, and then watched them again and found them pretty funny but nowhere near as funny as when I saw them originally. This doesn't happen when I rewatch things I didn't watch on the treadmill, and I've forgotten most of the jokes by the rewatch, so it's not the element of comical surprise at play.
In case you were wondering, yes, I did originally watch Ruthless People on the treadmill. And I think I watched What About Bob? on the treadmill too.
Alrighty, I'll try the exercise approach next time I'm faced with a comedy of dubious origin. Along Came Polly might fit the bill nicely.
Very true, Erroll Morris is definately the finer of the two, and his movies are generally more political and less flashy. I wanted to like it more, honestly. He's made a few of my favorite films "The Thin Blue Line & Fast, Cheap And Out Of Control". BTW thanks for the link to Zip.ca on the website. I'll now be able to watch Tati And Ozu. Yippee!
T'ho
:?)
Those are both on my "to see" list. Mr. Death was very good, though.
I think you lost me (or I'm losing my mind) on the "Zip.ca" thing. What link?
It was on the side of the screen when I came on listology more that once. I of course presumed it was of your doing. Are you joking? Am I on Candid Camera? ooooooo-weeeeeeee-oooooooooooo. :?Q
T'ho
(:?|
You mean in the Google ads?
Okay
this is the screen
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
I I
I listology header I
I I
I S article OO I
I t OO<--I---here
I u OO I
I f OO I
I f OO I
I OO I
I I
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
I suppose that could be google ads. Don't know though.
Well designed page...isn't it. Good job J.
T'ho
:?)
Yup, must be the Google ads. It's so cool that they can make those things relevant. I guess that's why they reel in the big bucks. So what's zip.ca?
Zip.ca is...finally...the Canadian equivilent of Netflix. 25,000 movies, Hard to use website, and an overall spend your freakin' money asthetic that's just adorable! Umberto D in 2 days, in my DVD player, me sitting like a spud intaking the greatness. It's a beautiful thing.
Yeah...it was kinda weird the way the adds would be for Canadian web-sites all the time.
:?D
Excellent! Now you get a taste of what all us Netflix fanatics have been enjoying.
Wait I look and it says "adds by gooooooooooogle". Yep that was a dumb moment, forever recorded in the anals of listology.
,?P*** <---dummy drooling stook
Right on with The Fog of War. Now do you remember how good it feels to watch a good movie? :-)
Ahh, blessed relief! It's like a mighty weight has been lifted.
seeing what you chose for great it's hard to believe that mystic river didn't make the cut... not that i disagree with any of the movies in the great column... just not sure how MR doesn't make it
Of all those in the "Very Good" tier, it is probably the closest to making the jump up the ladder. Maybe upon a rewatch.
You're absolutely correct in your assumption about the use of CGI in "Zatoichi". The blatant fakeness of it was meant as an artistic exaggeration (according to Kitano).
Cool, nice to have that affirmed, thanks. I liked just about everything about that movie.
Jim, I'm awfully glad you got a chance at Zatoichi and especially that you enjoyed it as much as I did. I wish that more movies were made like that, just a pure blast of fun.
Thanks! As soon as it became available it shot to the head of my queue, and I'm psyched it lived up to expectations. Have you heard a sequel is in the works? Kitano just dyed his hair again...
Regarding "Blind Shaft": Hey, I told ya. :-)
Indeed you did! But can you tell me why? I still don't know. On paper I should have loved it.
Hooray for the positive review of the Station Agent! I should really check out Spring, etc.
:-) I have you to thank for that one AJ, as some of the negative reviews almost bounced it from me queue, but I kept your review in mind and I'm glad I did.
Please do check out Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring. I'd love to hear your thoughts, love it or hate it.
"ouroborian" = +5 word power
Good on ya, mate!
Thanks, I wasn't sure if I could get away with adjectivizing that or not. :-)
I don't know why you weren't devestated by the end of Elephant, but whatever the reason it's obviously your fault because the movie belongs under 'Great'. :-)
:-) Entirely possible.
So were you devastated? Did you cry? If not, how did your devastation manifest?
I did the whole 'desperately holding the surface tension on my eyes so a droplet doesn't form' thing for a couple minutes. But I didn't weep like Dakota Fanning aiming for a child acting Oscar because I was distracted by two things. First, as the movie developed I asked the Before Sunrise question: how could they possibly end this satisfyingly? It's impossible! And again, I was wowed they pulled it off. Second, I think it worked because the Van Sant put a fair bit of distance between the audience and most of the violence - otherwise it would've been too devestating. For example, when the shooting begins in the library, the deaths/injuries are all off-screen or in the background, out of focus. There are only two deaths on-screen that I remember (though my memory ain't the best). Still, I'm surprised you weren't more deeply affected.
I thought it was an amazing work of art regardless of any emotional response from me, however - and we've talked about our differences there before.
Reflecting a bit more, I think the problem I had was that I was hyper-aware that I was watching a movie. This is ironic, given the lengths to which Van Sant successfully went in making the movie realistic. It is perhaps because of these very techniques that I was oh-so-conscious of them.
I don't think the techniques that made me hyper aware (Russian Arkian shot length, etc.) had as much to do with the realism as the dialogue, the characters, and the (actually) improvised feel. So, the movie was realistic, but the film's technique certainly made the viewer aware that it's a film.
Nah, you're right-on, Jim. I would've been more devastated if Van Sant had actually bothered to make us like the characters, but he was so obsessed with creating realism that he never bothered to create anyone interesting. This emotional distance from the characters renders the film less powerful than it could be, in my opinion - as it is, it's only as affecting as if we heard about a school shooting of people we don't know on the news, which is sad, sure, but hardly devastating.
The way in which Van Sant made me like his characters is perhaps my favorite part of the film. I liked them not because they kissed puppies or spouted witty remarks, but because I felt I really got to know them - to peer into their unprepared, unscripted lives. I saw them take the wheel from their drunk dad and then later warn people not to go inside to their possible death but not go far enough to physically block their path. I saw an average, insecure teenage girl stare at the floor as cheerleader molds joked about her a few feet away. I saw a high school jock who had a gorgeous girlfriend but wasn't a jerk or a showoff. I saw a young man try to save someone's life and be killed for it. I saw a photographer quietly hang his negatives by himself and walk down a hall casually greeting friends in an extremely ordinary way. Damn right I care about them, even moreso because they weren't living to make me care about them, or to make themselves look interesting. They were just... living. That's rare and beautiful in film.
You're right, that is pretty rare in a film, and I did like some of the subtle moments you describe, but there were so many other scenes that were far too ordinary - in fact, more ordinary than real life. Real people aren't this boring, are they? I didn't feel like I got to know them very well at all. Sure, I saw them doing things, but I yearned for more. And in addition, the realism is hurt by scenes like the synchronized vomiting, or the portrayal of the killers. Perhaps I'm just a popcorn-inhaling, explosion-loving heathen at heart, but when I go to the cinema, I expect something cinematic. I don't want to see "just living."
Fair enough, we want different things from our movies. But don't let our recent discussion of how gays are portrayed in films sour your appreciation for Elephant - I felt the killers' homosexuality was incidental to their genocide. Also: in my experience, real people are that boring. Imagine if a camera was placed on you for 24hrs. How much of that would be very exciting? And, how much would someone learn about you from the way you approach strangers, use minute shortcuts you've found in oft-repeated activities, or react to being caught in a warzone? The details are very revealing. You don't have to give a big speech to reveal a lot about yourself. I'll admit the synchronized vomiting is a little out-of-place, but I don't doubt it does happen occasionally in real life (though I'm sure most bolemic girls would rather do it with more privacy).
Keep in mind that I do like plenty of character dramas that are just slightly more cinematic than Elephant and could definitely be described as "just living." What I basically meant by cinematic was that you don't show the mundane details of someone's life. Still, I would disagree with your comment about real people. I think if you filmed someone for 24 hours and edited it down to 80 minutes, you could learn a hell of a lot about a person and really start to care and be interested in him/her. If you extended that to a week or two, you'd have pure gold.
It wasn't even just the gay thing. I mean, come on, what the hell is that video game he's playing, where you just walk around in the snow and kill innocent people who aren't doing anything but walking around? And that Hitler documentary? Gimme a break.
In a sense, movies are always as if you filmed the main characters all the time and edited out everything but the most interesting moments. That Elephant mixes the mundane with the exciting, and that one can actually get something about the characters from the quiet details of the mundane - that is very cool.
The videogame looked like some cheap internet Flash shooter (albiet in full-screen), or a weak coding experiment by an amateur programmer like I used to be (now I'm simply not a programmer at all) - both of which I've played from time to time. I'd honestly forgotten about the Hitler documentary. You're right - I could've done without that.
You two have already run this to ground, so I'll just chime in with a few thoughts, mostly retreading what you've already covered.
As you noted, lukeprog, I rely heavily on emotional response in evaluating a movie, and this one just didn't pack it for me. I think the superrealism and extended lingering on truly mundane aspects of life were designed to make us forget this was a movie, but all I could think like was:
The effect, for me, was incredibly distancing.
I did not mind that the shooters were given every stereotype in the book (gay, nazis, picked on, videogamers, artistically gifted). When you want make a movie with no answers, to give ALL the cliched answers is one approach, but not one I particularly cared for. Again, I found it distracting. More effective to give us none, or at least convey them in hints rather than so overtly.
Finally, yeah, what was up with the synchronized vomiting? Does that EVER happen? Am I'm just completely out of touch with today's bulemic? Regardless of how close to reality it is, that scene stood out like a sore thumb.
In the course of articulating my reasons for loving Elephant and hearing complaints about the movie I've become more aware of the film's strengths and weaknesses. I think it has fallen in my estimation a bit, but I still love it and I wish more films like it were made. Conversations like this one are why I so appreciation the community at Listology.
I'm sorry to hear if I've lowered the movie for you, even a bit! You sound fine with that, but I certainly wasn't trying to convert you - only to articulate why it didn't quite work for me. But yeah, I love this site for conversations like this. :-)
If I wanted to like more movies more, I'd stay far away from film criticism. Yes, the movie is now less impressive in my view, but I'm even more sure of its standing than before. The latter is more important to me.
My favorite part of Open Range was the spectacularily messy end battle.
Jim, I am often so guilty of not keeping up with your lists. I gave And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself a big thumbs up to you and then neglected to find out how you liked it. Not as much as I did, I see. I often wonder whether it's self-defeating to give someone high expectations for a movie (or whatever). I realise that such an idea is prejudicial to the expressed purpose of Listology - to garner recommendations - but, there it is. Merely "Good"? Not as good as Costner's derivative western Open Range? Do originality and authenticity count for so little? Oh well, we've diagreed before and will do so again. And how dull if we didn't.
It helps if you think of my lists as a continuum with arbitrarily placed breaks. Certainly Pancho Villa is in very good company with American Splendor, Bad Santa, Good Bye Lenin!, Matchstick Men, and Seabiscuit to name a few. I did like it. Really! Not as much as you, but I still enjoyed it, and am grateful for the recommendation. It's not a movie I would have even known about without your urging. So thanks!
When you get right down to it, I don't really have any good reasons for not liking it more/ranking it higher. My rankings are so highly subjective and really lacking in any kind of analytical evaluation. I either feel it in my gut, or I don't, and Costner's western grabbed me tighter, derivative or not. :-)
Wow! I am very happy you tried out I'm Not Scared and even more happy that you fell for it the way I did! Finishing it up well into the AM hours, I was a little afraid that my fatigued condition may have contributed too much to my love of the film. Seems the movie holds up quite well!
Again, I am smiling from ear to ear, no mean task this very busy morning...
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
Thanks again for the recommendation! I loved it. The hardest thing for me was in deciding whether to list it as "Great" or "Very Good", as often the only thing that separates those tiers is a personal undefinable something. I had to decide if I'm Not Scared had it, and it did. Certain scenes are still playing back in my mind days later, particularly the closing scene.
My tiny brain cannot seem to purge much of that movie for more useful matters, and that makes it a creepy keeper.
I am very happy you tried and liked it! Given its lack of acclaim, I did not think I would be able to entice anybody to give it a shot!
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
I had to check, and it did fare well critically, but certainly slipped under the radar regardless. Even if I don't recommend reading reviews in advance of the movie, I can tell you that I liked the last three paragraphs of Ebert's review.
I also really liked those paragraphs, especially the final one. Thanks for the link!
This illustrates what I do not like about Rotten Tomatoes. Most of the reviews linked to above are rather guarded, with a few positive ones. Since that site, however, merely considers a reviews positive or negative, that high rating is a little misleading.
Still, it is very nice to see kind words about a terrific film few people have even heard of, and I really enjoyed reading Ebert's review. I may not trust his opinions, but he is usually always interesting to read. When he hits on a truly terrific film, his reviews can be fantastic.
Shalom, y'all!
L. Bangs
GREAT Kill Bill v.1, LOTR3
VERY GOOD Finding Nemo, Lost in Translation, X-Men 2, Master and Commander, Pirates of the Caribbean, And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself,
GOOD House of Sand and Fog, Mystic River, Open Range, The Last Samurai, The Core [since when does a good sf movie have to be scientifically accurate?]
GUILTY PLEASURE: The Italian Job, The Matrix Reloaded, The Matrix Revolutions
LOWER TIER: Big Fish
Again, not so far off, but I can see from your ratings why you thought this was a weak year while I did not. Among the upper tiers you pretty consistently undercut my ratings (except for Pancho Villa, of course :-).
I love your Memory of a Killer review! That's some recommendation. I admire your dedication to finding alternatives to expensive gym equipment, and I hope your medicine ball works out well! Personally, I'm a big fan of the old-fashioned methods of toughening up, unfasionable though the medicine ball may be these days. ("In my day, boxers went 115 rounds in the ring, or we demanded our nickel back!")
Thanks! The med. ball workouts are a blast. Slamming the damn thing against the floor as hard as I can, or flinging it or shot-putting it against the wall. My last two attempts at homemade ones failed under such demanding conditions, but I have high hopes for this one. I'll post details at L&HF when I finish it and take it for a test drive.
GREAT review of Memory of a Killer.
Thanks!
I fid it extremely interesting that you likened School of Rock to a musical Bad News Bears, since Richard Linklater directed both School of Rock and the Bad News Bears re-make, and you likely didn't know that back when you wrote the review. You're wicked smart!
Knowing me, it likely has more to do with luck than brains, but thanks!