Thursday, January 26, 2006

 

Proof

So I saw Proof on Tuesday night (even though it was not on Entertainment Weekly's list of 25 movies i have to see to be in the know on Oscar night, see I go to the movies for other reasons).

So here was the problem with the movie, Jake Gyllenhall, was just too much of the perfect man. A 26 year old math professor at the University of Chicago, who of-course was in perfect shape, had the perfect hair, taught a hockey team, played in a band, a band of math geeks (how adorable) and seemed to like Gwenyth Paltrow's character for no apparent reason, except for maybe the fact that she was a math genius. So he liked women who are smarter than he is, even better. But god, this was too little realism in a movie, even for me. I wish they would have given him glasses or maybe one ugly shirt. I need those tricks that symbolize nerd.

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

 

Casanova Sucked

I saw Casanova over break and it was such a bland movie that I decided it was not worth mentioning. However, it had one upside, which Stanley Kauffman captures perfectly in The New Republic,

It must be a fluke. It could hardly have been planned, in the dank entrails of the film business, that Casanova should be made and released in time to emphasize Heath Ledger's performance in Brokeback Mountain. Fluke or not, the conjunction is a boon, because the only imaginable excuse for Casanova is that it adds luster to Ledger.

Saturday, January 21, 2006

 

Movie Club

I just finished reading Slate's movie club from 2005, here are my three favorite quotes.

From Scott Foundas

something wonderful the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami once said to me in an interview: "I make one film as a filmmaker, but the audience, based on that film, makes 100 movies in their minds. Every audience member can make his own movie. This is what I strive for. Sometimes, when my audiences tell me about the mental movies they have made based on my movie, I am surprised, and I become the audience for their movies as they are describing them to me." I think that's true of what the majority of the most interesting filmmakers hope to achieve with their work, whether or not they could articulate it as eloquently as Kiarostami.

I like this quote just cause it makes me feel better for not getting out of movies what all the other much smarter people around me get out of movies.

From David Edelstein.

I'm stunned to see among your top 10 Woody Allen's Match Point, which on a second viewing seemed even more gratingly superficial and out-of-joint than I'd thought the first time through—when I enjoyed the change of venue (to England) and was delighted to hear a Woody Allen protagonist (played by Jonathan Rhys-Myers) who did not sound remotely like Woody Allen. This time around it occurred to me that he did not sound like any human, full stop. I mean, period. See, writing with an English accent does wonders for one's rhythms. Myers plays a former professional tennis player of modest means who totes around a copy of Crime and Punishment and bonds with the wealthy aristocrats over his love of opera … only in Woody World. For a change, Allen doesn't indulge in showy long takes, and he even manages to generate some suspense. But a Crimes and Misdemeanors transplant in which a character says, in effect, "If I commit a crime and am not punished, this is proof of the nonexistence of God" makes me want to grab his chicken neck and throw him on a plane to Darfur with Nick Kristof and Bill O'Reilly. Why doesn't Allen adapt a good novel or, better yet, direct someone else's script? He has surprises left in him as a director, but not as a human being.

This quote crystallizes some of my problems with Match Point. The character of Chris Wilton really just didn't seem like anyone I know, or even all that real to me.

From Scott Foundas

David opened the floor to suggestions of the year's worst movies, and Crash is certainly a good starting point for me. Admittedly, Paul Haggis' directorial debut wasn't one of those so-bad-it's-mesmerizing debacles, like Town & Country or The Bonfire of the Vanities, that Tony so lovingly remembered a few weeks back in the Times—if it had been, it wouldn't have made my blood boil nearly as much. No, Crash is an Important Film About the Times in Which We Live, which is another way of saying that it's one of those self-congratulatory liberal jerk-off movies that rolls around every once in a while to remind us of how white people suffer too, how nobody is without his prejudices, and how, when the going gets tough, even the white supremacist cop who gets his kicks from sexually harassing innocent black motorists is capable of rising to the occasion. How touching. Haggis is trafficking in much the same territory here as Michael Haneke is in Caché, only he lacks the guts to pull out his paring knife and fillet his bourgeois characters with the mercilessness they deserve. (Instead, when Sandra Bullock's pampered Brentwood housewife accuses a Mexican-American locksmith of copying her keys for illicit purposes, Haggis doesn't condemn her reprehensible behavior so much as he sympathizes with it.) People who say that Crash is an insightful portrait of life in Los Angeles clearly don't live in the same town I do. Watching it, I wondered if Haggis hadn't sat down with a copy of Thom Andersen's brilliant essay film Los Angeles Plays Itself and deliberately written a script that reinforces every bogus assumption about life in the city—from the thesis that the only way people in L.A. connect with one another is by getting into car crashes to the depiction of the untold dangers of driving south of the 10 Freeway—that Andersen so skillfully shoots down. And in a year that brought many (and in some cases justified) accusations of racial insensitivity against movies from King Kong to Memoirs of a Geisha, it was Crash that gave us Larenz Tate and Ludacris as carjackers who view their actions as a form of civilized protest, and Terrence Howard as creepy embodiment of emasculated African-American yuppiedom. Not since Spanglish—which, alas, wasn't that long ago—has a movie been so chock-a-block with risible minority caricatures or done such a handy job of sanctioning the very stereotypes it ostensibly debunks. Welcome to the best movie of the year for people who like to say, "A lot of my best friends are black."

I thought this bit on Crash was interesting. I agree with him that there were a lot of caricatures in Crash. I also agree with his sense that the movie was heavy handed and full of race movie cliches. But I don't know in the end (to use a cliche myself), I felt like that whole was greater than the sum of the parts. I do not know who Scoot Foundas interacts with, but it seems that at the end of the day, the movie rings true because race is such a big deal in our society. I have never met a person who does not hold racial stereotypes. My least favorite current stereotype are those who criticize people who don't act like their race, (asian people who act "white," white people who act "black," black people who act "white"), or alternately criticism of people who spend too much time with another race, you always hear of people calling white guys who hang out with Asians all the time as having some sort of fetish. I find this idea that we should always hang out with large groups of our own race really upsetting. I think a movie like crash being as main stream as it was, made me think about this for the 5th millionth time, and that is a good thing.

Friday, January 20, 2006

 

Yay, food.

I find it hilarious that the second most e-mailed article in the New York Times is a half a page tid bit on Trader Joes opening in New York City. Now don't get me wrong, even though I have never been to Trader Joes in my life, I am really excited about cheap fancy food. But I also think that this fact proves two things:

1. Really, the New York Times online is dominated by people like me, who think a fancy food store is more exciting than lawyers excusing wiretaps.

2. A Trader Joes opening in Union Square is more exciting than wiretapping.

Saturday, January 14, 2006

 

A History of Violence

I saw A History of Violence, and of-course I liked that too. A few thoughts (these include spoilers so don't read if you have not seen it)

Viggo Morteson is great. When he turns from Tom to Joey, you can actually see the in his face contort into the different character. This is making me actually consider seeing these Lord of the Rings movies everyone keeps talking about.

Of-course the last scene drove me crazy. Tom/Joey comes back from Philly and enters his kitchen at dinner time. No words are exchanged. But his wife looks at him meaningfully and then the movie ends. I hate ambiguity. I wanted to know what happens next. Does she really forgive him? How in the world do they go back to the way things were before? Does his son become more violent because he now feels betrayed by his mobster father? The same thing happens at the end of Sideways. Paul Giamatti's character goes to knock at the woman's door and that is all we see. This is why I prefer television. You can't simply end on a note like that in television. If the show is popular, the writers always have to answer the question, what happens next? Get two beloved characters together, then the writers have to answer, do they really get along? Movies can brush all that stuff aside by simply ending the story. Sure, we watchers of movies can guess for ourselves what happens next. But we can do the same thing with television, but we also get to see the writers' opinion.

Cynthia pointed out to me that Tom says to his wife early in the movie that he knew the moment she was in love with him, by the look in her eyes. In the last scene, she is looking at him the same way, and that is how we know things go back to normal. This actually sounds totally right. However, you know what the situation would make? A perfect tv show. Maybe on HBO on something. The story of a woman who loves her husband and wants to keep her family together, but at the same time, has to deal with the fact that she knows that her husband has a violent past. I think the next few months of the Stahls would make a very compelling television show.

Friday, January 13, 2006

 

Good Night and Good Luck

I saw Good Night and Good Luck last Sunday and of-course I loved it. I know I have now been saying that about every movie I have seen, so at some point I am going to have to make a list of movies I really loved and those I only sort of loved so it all makes sense.

Anyway, what I liked best about Murrow's news reports were how precise and clear they were. He would say, this is what I intend to do, this is why I am doing it, and this is what you can do if you disagree. Then he would proceed to give a report exactly as he outlined it. It was brilliant. The thing is, while I would like to say that the movie inspired me to be a journalist, I think what really appealed to me was the fact that his reports were in easy to outline form. Maybe I am destined to be a lawyer after all.

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

 

Match Point

I saw Match Point this weekend, and I loved it. However, not finding either Chris Wilton nor Nola particularly charming or attractive, I had a lot of trouble understanding the motivations of the characters.

Thursday, January 05, 2006

 

SAG nominations

The SAG award nominations came out today. It looks like I have to add North Country to the movies I have to see category. Sigh. Also, of note, Amy Adams, of Junebug was nominated. Her performace has been praised to the high heavens by every critic I have read. So that is also going on my list.

Also, Don Cheedle was nominated for Crash. Yay. He is great. Though I wish we go back in time and give him the award for Hotel Rwanda.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

 

Munich

Let me make something clear. I know very little about filmmaking or whatever. Anyway, so the way I tend to judge acting is the extent to which the actor makes me forget that he is the actor playing a character and I just think I am watching the character himself. This of-course gives a huge advantage to lesser known actors, since it is easier for me to forget all of Don Cheedle's other roles in Hotel Rwanda, then ever forget all the other parts that Tom Hanks played.

All that being said, I was blown away by Geoffrey Rush in Munich. I did not realize it was him until about 2/3 through the movie and then only because I suddenly remembered that he was supposed to be in the movie. I am appalled that he was not nominated for a Golden Globe. He was definately better than Matt Dillon, and while I am still refusing to see the Producers, I have no doubt he is better than Will Farrell.

Also, Eric Bana was quite good as well. Why is Munich being shafted in the acting department?

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

 

Tears for Tinkerbell

So I just found this out from VH1 All Access celebrity break-ups 2005, apprently in August Paris Hilton dumped her famous dog Tinkerbell for another smaller (read skinnier) version named Bambi. Who the hell dumps their pet? Even Hitler was loyal to his dog. Yes, I just compared Paris Hilton to Hitler. No, I am not taking it back.

Sunday, January 01, 2006

 

Crash

I saw Crash. I really liked it and was totally engaged. But I feel like I was just punched in the face over and over with an idea.

Also, I can't figure how of all the actors, the Golden Globes chose to nominate Matt Dillon. I mean the whole racist cop doing a heroic thing was cool and all, but Ludacris had nearly the same arc and his smile in the van at the end was just perfect. Maybe it is because he is black. (See that is a joke, because it is a funny idea that an award nomination for movie that is so heavy handed in pointing that everything is about a race would be based on race. Unless of-course it is actually true, then it is very upseting. oy)

One more point. i think explaining jokes is a really funny concept. I am writing this now because I am convinced that eventually the rest of the world will catch up with my sense of humor, and I will need proof that it was mine first.

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