Oh my gosh, I've gotten SOOOO far behind with movie reviews that I'm just going to write up a quick review of a bunch of them in order to catch myself up. So hold on, and here we go! I'll tell you about my weekend tomorrow.
Control (2007)
I've always half-understood the appeal of Joy Division, but a look at Control and the spectacular performance of Sam Riley as lead singer of the band, Ian Curtis, shows the appeal and the agony of this musician, who started life way too quickly. His early marriage and parenthood, his career, and his health problems are captured beautifully in black and white. In almost any given scene, the screen could be frozen, printed out, and framed, thanks to the vision of director Anton Corbijn. I loved this movie.
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
I'm not sure why I haven't seen this movie until now, but it's a definite classic, in theme and feel. A remake will be released in December of this film, which is about the arrival of a spaceship on our planet, from which emerges a strange but kind man who seeks to give a warning to unhearing ears. Some of the special effects and images are very striking, and Michael Rennie as Klaatu is wonderful, especially in his scenes with the little boy, Bobby.
Payback (1999)
Payback was one or Ryan's picks for our twice monthly movie nights. It stars Mel Gibson as a not-so-good guy who gets tricked and left to die by a friend. He doesn't die, so he comes back with revenge on the brain. We watched a re-edited version of the film, and from the extras we watched afterwards, I'm curious to watch the original cut. I think the shots of the original footage looked richer and more interesting. I have a hard time rooting for a person who is bad right off the bat and continues to stay that way through the entire film. I guess I was looking for a little more change in the character of Porter, but perhaps the original ending would give me what I wanted... I'm not sure, but for now, while interesting enough to watch, I had the feeling that the re-edit took away the things that I would have appreciated most about this movie, and so left me feeling a little bit empty.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Believe it or not, I had never seen this movie! A Jimmy Stewart classic about a man who's chosen to be a member of the U.S. Senate so that some crooked men can pass a bill to their benefit, this one's all about the spirit of good Americans and what our country is supposed to be. With strong performances all around, it's an absolute pleasure.
King Kong (1976)
I just happened onto this older version of the giant gorilla while watching tv, and decided to give it a go. Jeff Bridges is our hero, and Jessica Lange the heroine. A ship sets sail for a mysterious island hoping to find a good source of oil (picking up a beautiful castaway en route), and instead discovers King Kong. They manage to capture the beast, and the infamous New York skyscraper climb actually takes place on the Twin Towers. There is a little bit of cheese, but that's expected from a movie of this type. I actually thought the special effects were good and that the adaptation to a present-day situation worked well enough. It was entertaining, for sure.
The Lady from Shanghai (1948)
Ooh, while looking this up I just found out this is being remade by Wong Kar Wai in a couple of years. That could be interesting, although he's messing with an absolute classic. With an awesome pairing of an Irish-accented Orson Welles and the beautiful Rita Hayworth, this one's about a seaman who allows himself to fall for a beautiful married lady and work on her yacht as she and her husband travel the seas. As if the triangle weren't enough, the Irishman finds himself in the middle of a complicated murder plot. Full of exotic locations and wonderful dialog, this one really surprised me with how well it has held up, even at the age of sixty.
Out of Africa (1985)
Yet another of the recommended Meryl Streep movies, this one is said to be the best movie made by director Sydney Pollack, who just recently passed away. The story is of a Danish woman who enters into a marriage of convenience with a friend, and together they set out to start up a plantation in Africa. As the plans and her marriage slowly disintegrate, her friendship with a huntsman played by Robert Redford deepens, and the two fall in love, although he is not to be soon tied down. The movie looks wonderful and is an interesting premise, and is acted well enough by the two leads, but I had trouble falling for the love story, which lacked substance. I enjoyed looking at it, but not so much experiencing it, if that makes sense.
Speed Racer (2008)
A display of shockingly bright colors and an incredible mix of real life and computer animation, Speed Racer is a wonder for the eyes. It may not get you all that emotionally involved, but it is a new experience in movie-making and feels like a giant piece of candy. Emile Hirsch stars as Speed, who is wooed by a giant motoring company, but tries desperately to stay true to his family business, win the big race, and honor the memory of his dead brother, whose story is revealed to us as the movie progresses. While Speed himself is held up by his supporting characters, it all seems to come together, and both Ric and I enjoyed this a lot more than we thought we would. We were glad we decided to catch it on the big screen at the cheap theater.
Frisky Dingo (Season 1)
Ah, Adult Swim. How do you come up with this stuff? Frisky Dingo follows an evil villain named Killface, who wants to destroy the world. The only problem is that no one knows who he is, so he has to find ways to publicize himself, and as a result, doesn't have enough money to finish building his destructive machine. His enemy, although I'm not sure either of them quite realize it so far, is Awesome X, a superhero who has pretty much destroyed all the evil there is to destroy and enjoys goofing off in his real life persona, Xander Crews. I can't even describe the oddness of this show. It's got a lot of cartoon violence and obscene material, but has a wit that comes very unexpectedly. Now I understand why my husband runs around quoting it, with exultant phrases like "Cackow!" and "Booosh!" Fun times.
American Graffiti (1973)
I saw this one projected on the Fox Fullerton Theater with Ric and the Hutchinseses. Another classic that I just caught up with, American Graffiti captures a single night in the lives of small town kids who are on the verge of adulthood. Some are questioning their futures, some are dealing with relationships, some are goofing around. I never thought I would see Opie (Ron Howard) try and convince a girl to have sex with him, but here it is. My favorite stories are that of the wandering Curt, Milner and the young girl he gets stuck cruising with, and the nerd who actually gets a pretty date. It boggles the mind to think that George Lucas could be so good with writing and directing here, yet have so many problems with character development in his later films. By the way, Ric's dad's corvette makes an appearance as an extra in the film.
THX1138 (1971)
Speaking of George Lucas, this is an ambitious Anthem-esque flick about a futuristic and controlled society, from which a young man and woman try to escape. It stars an unrecognizable Robert Duvall and is penned and directed by Lucas. While full of interesting ideas, the editing and pace of the film suffer, and I fell asleep more than once watching it. I think I prefer Logan's Run, zany though it may be.
The Innocents (1961)
Deborah Kerr plays a governess to Miles and Flora in the first thriller to get me riled up in quite some time. Miss Giddens becomes convinced that the house where they stay is haunted by the ghosts of the children's former governess and her lover, who are both of questionable morale and both had mysterious deaths. Furthermore, she believes the ghosts are possessing the children. Are the ghosts real, or is everything in her imagination? At the very least, Miles and Flora, played by Martin Stevens and Pamela Franklin, are the first intentionally creepy movie children that I've actually been freaked out by. The brilliance of the film is in execution, with music, cinematography, dialog, direction, acting, and an incredibly well thought out script. I haven't read The Turn of the Screw, the James novel that inspired this movie, but it's now on the (very long) to-do list.
Semi-Pro (2008)
I'm about ready for Will Ferrell to be done with sports movies, but that doesn't mean there aren't some good-but-meaningless laughs in Semi-Pro. The idea alone of a sports team in Flint, Michigan being called the Tropics is worth the $1 price of admission I paid. It's about some underdogs who want to get their team into the NBA, and they are led by their owner, Jackie Moon. I went in with extremely low expectations and laughed more than I thought I would, so I guess that means I was okay with it. I've already forgotten most of the details about it, so that should let you know how significant it would be to your life, were you to watch it.
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days (2007)
Yet another of the wealth of Romanian films I've been seeing lately, the setting of this one is Romania, before the fall of communism, in which a girl helps her friend obtain an illegal abortion. As expected, it is an extremely heavy movie. It gives one a real picture of day-to-day life and what the effects of communism were like on people's lives. It also shows the bleakness of the situation, and is really rough to watch. While I wasn't exactly routing for our protagonist, I could feel her life falling apart as the day progressed. I'm not sure of how to rate this one, but it is effective, to say the least, and some of its scenes will stay with me for a long time to come.
Tootsie (1982)
Amy chose to show us Tootsie as her most recent pick. Let me tell you, I find Dustin Hoffman hard to look at, but as a woman, it's even worse! Despite that, this is a Sydney Pollack film that I almost find more successful than Out of Africa. It has a premise that could be destructive in the hands of different actors and directors, but it all comes together here, in a very weird way. All the movies I've been seeing lately are so mixed, but somehow they all manage to play into one another, and here again is Jessica Lange, showing off what made her famous - a truly enjoyable personality and innocent look. I just watched an episode of Bob Newhart recently as well, and she really does have great charisma. Ric would contest that some of the plot revolving around Lange's character's father is a bit too much of a muddle. I agree somewhat, but I like how it was handled, although I'm still trying to figure out how awkward family get-togethers would be in the future of these characters.
Tight Spot (1955)
When I think of Ginger Rogers and the term "brassy broad", I think of a fun character like hers in The Major and the Minor. But that's not anything close to what she plays in Tight Spot, which is actually a pretty serious movie about a woman who is taken out of prison and held in secret police custody while they try and convince her to testify against her mobster ex-boyfriend (whose goonies are all surrounding the hotel). Edward G. Robinson and Brian Keith give solid performances, but Rogers is too over-the-top here, and out of her element. The more she eased up, the better the movie got, but the overly harsh performance did this movie in for me.
The Happening (2008)
The wonderful Zooey Deschanel and sometimes wonderful Mark Wahlberg are completely wasted in this wreck of a film, about a guy and his girlfriend who try to escape from an odd phenomenon that seems to be causing everyone around them to kill themselves. M. Night Shyamalan, I'm sure, has a specific vision in his head, but I'm not sure anyone else cares to understand it. From oddball comedy to unintentionally funny violence to gratuitous gore to bad dialog, it is simply all over the place. I laughed where I shouldn't have and didn't when (I think) I was supposed to. An interesting idea was terribly executed, and one has the feeling that the actors realized what they had gotten themselves into, because they seemed to be phoning it in. Terrible.
Persepolis (2007)
Based on a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis is based on Satrapi's growing up years, from a young girl in Iran to a young woman in Austria to a young woman in Iran facing her own identity and place in life. The animation is crisp, quick, beautiful, and witty. It's an informative and interesting movie that gave me a glimpse of a part of history I didn't know much about through the eyes of a young girl. It was great.
Five Easy Pieces (1970)
With a contrasting score consisting of classical music and country, Jack Nicholson portrays Robert, a man who has left his intellectual family for a life on the oil rigs, but goes home to visit when he finds out his father is sick. The movie didn't speak much to me personally, but was in interesting glimpse of a way of life and the clash of Robert's character and his girlfriend with that way. Robert is both likable and despicable, and I can't quite make up my mind how I feel about the movie as a hole. Great music though!
Last Tango in Paris (1972)
Okay, so I didn't exactly know what this movie was about going into it, but I did know its rating, which could have clued me in. Here, Marlon Brando is trying to process the death of his estranged wife and meets Maria Schneider, a young girl who is in a playful but unfulfilling relationship with her film-maker boyfriend. The two come across each other while apartment hunting and instantly enter into an affair with each other. They leave their names and histories behind and meet up at the apartment regularly, where Brando's character pretty much treats the girl savagely yet manages to eventually sort of fall for her. The movie is written and directed by Bertolucci. I like that he tries to explore interesting ideas, but don't usually end up caring for his movies all that much. This one is interesting, but it's an exploration that I really don't need to put myself through viewing.
Number 17 (1932)
Another Hitchcockian offering marked off the checklist, here we have a young man, a young girl, and a goofy older man who get tangled up with a gang of robbers who come to apartment number 17 to track down a valuable necklace. Most of the action takes place in the dark house on the stairway, but eventually, a chase on a train ensues, which is where one can see the familiar Hitchcock touches. It's a quiet one and lasts only a bit over an hour. The sound quality of the version I watched wasn't very good, so I missed a good portion of the dialog, which is a shame. I liked all of the characters, especially Nora, played by Ann Casson, who unfortunately gets forgotten in the plot even though hers is the most interesting character. Oh well! The movie isn't exactly amazing, but of course, I'm trying to watch them all, so I'm glad I found it with the TiVo.
Children of a Lesser God (1986)
My, my! It's always interesting to go back in time and see how the older actors of our current generation were once young and more handsome. From Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces to Tommy Lee Jones in Coalminer's Daughter to William Hurt in this movie, it's fun to see why they became stars and makes you wonder about which of our current young actors will be their equivalents in the future. Anyway... Here we have William Hurt as a teacher for deaf and mute children who falls in love with a deaf woman played by Marlee Matlin, who won the Oscar for her role. The two have a very dynamic relationship and the movie is much more intense and interesting than I would have thought (assuming one can get past how people fall in love in hardly any time at all). For me, the stars of the show were actually Hurt and the screenplay, although Matlin is very talented as well. This one really surprised me.
The Apartment (1960)
I'm not sure my mind ever would have thought to pair up Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, and Fred MacMurray (as a bad guy, no less!) together in a film, but the casting is perfect for this interesting script by Billy Wilder, which goes from hilarious comedy to drama in a snap yet still manages to work. Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, who is trying to make his way up the corporate ladder by allowing high-profile company executives to use his apartment at nights for their secret trysts. Little does he know that the girl he has a crush on is one of the trystees (I like new words) who is having a miserable romance with his boss. Hilarity and sadness ensue. I think the shock of the change in mood is still lingering for me, but overall I really liked this one, both for its entertainment value and simply to look at as well.
Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
Oh, good old Marty Scorsese. I love your new "don't interrupt our movies and we won't interrupt your phone calls" bit that's playing at the movies these days. Most of the time, I'm on board with what you're making. I even think that this movie is an interesting exploration of what it was like for Christ to be both human and divine, and what his temptation might have been like. It's a movie I keep returning to in my thoughts to think about. So in that way, it's a success. On the other hand, Harvey Keitel as a curly-red-haired Judas who whines to Jesus that he's the only person in the Roman empire who can make crosses (which are basically two pieces of wood locked together, no?) is just a mess. There are so many things wrong with this movie, and yet, it's still interesting. I wouldn't say that it's good or that I loved it, or even that I'll see it again, but it did get the wheels in my head spinning around. I'm not sure why believers had to get so riled up about the movie, since it directly says, first thing at the beginning, [something like] "This is not true to the Gospels but is an exploration..." I wasn't all that offended, but I did laugh at many of the examples of a modern (in the 70s) take on Jesus, especially when Defoe would outright explain the parables in hippie terminology after he told them. Overall, I think I'll just stick with the one word, interesting.
Soylent Green (1973)
Unfortunately, I already had heard soundbites in which Heston divulges the secret of this movie, but it was still fun to watch. He seems to like the sci-fi futuristic movies, doesn't he? Well, this one is in New York after the world has polluted itself and people have been crammed into the big city for survival. One could say its story is almost like that of WALL-E, but the two go off into different directions quickly. A man who was on the board of Soylent, a food manufacturing company, has been killed in an obviously fake robbery, and Heston's character Thorn is aided by Sol (Edward G. Robinson) in discovering what's behind the murder. Say what you will about this movie, but the scene where Sol is watching clips of the old Earth set to classical music was incredibly moving to me. It ends rather abruptly, but I liked it.
Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)
The story of country singer Loretta Lynn is told in this movie starring Sissy Spacek and a young Tommy Lee Jones. Plucked by an older guy from her rural home, married at 13, and a mother several times over during the next few years, she became a music star when her husband decided to make her perform publicly. It's really bizarre to think that this movie is anything close to a person's real life, but it really is based on reality, which is what makes it somewhat engrossing to watch for the first two-thirds of the movie. It kind of loses steam when it reaches the usual things one might see in a biopic of a singer, but it's not her fault that that's how her life turned out. Another one with an unexpected stop to the story, I thought it was very well made and a story worth telling just because of its unbelievability.
High Anxiety (1977)
When a coworker told me that there was a Mel Brooks movie that spoofed Alfred Hitchcock films, I instantly queued it up. Brooks himself stars as Dr. Richard Thorndyke, who is hired on at a mental institution where some strange happenings are going on. He also suffers from high anxiety, and it cracks me up that he sings a song of the same name in a club with no anxiousness whatsoever. Madeline Kahn and Cloris Leachman are his respective love interest and enemy, and the whole thing is as over-the-top as you might expect, only slightly slow at times. I liked the new takes on the Psycho shower scene and the Birds attack at the playground the best. The movie was probably more forward leap in comedy when it came out, but it's probably only a one-time watch for me, unless I happen to see it on tv.
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