Amph What was the last movie you saw?

Silent Hill Number Two. This was a terrible, confused movie. I think the primary flaw was the decision to change the nature of the cult controlling the town. From a narrative standpoint, it required them to re-litigate, in pretty excruciating detail, the mystery that had been the heart of the first film. Since unlike the first, the plot wasn't centered on an investigation here, that in turn meant a series of long, info-dumping monologues from various characters. Secondly, it just made certain plot elements non-sensical. They try to revive the sense of paranoia, persecution and over-zealotry with "burn the witch" segments, but later claim the girl was supposed to be a divine vessel. How can both be true, and if the latter, how can that be reconciled with the manner of her birth? In the third, it leaves people very unclear about the stakes of the conflict. Everyone stops treating the demon as real now, so I'm uncertain if we were just supposed to see the little girl fighting against this (apparently also evil?) pagan god? Why was merging with Alessa a second time important, and what did that have to do with ending the curse? Please don't try to watch this movie.

 

Cool World
The 90s are certainly the decade of bizarre movies. After being sucked into a cartoon world, called the Cool World, in the 50s, Frank (Brad Pitt) guards the Cool World as a detective, making sure no cartoon characters have sex with real people who stumble into the Cool World, as such an un-kosher union threatens to destroy the very fabric of both universes - both the real world and the Cool World. Zany concept to be sure. Of course, the one thing that must not happen happens and it befalls our heroes to make things right again.

This might sound like a fun idea on paper, but the execution is sadly not so. The narrative is slow and not that much happens, really. I was also put off by the grotesque art style of the Cool World environments and most of the characters inhabiting it. The 'real people in animated backgrounds'-effect is done well for the most part, but is also at times distractingly fake looking. There are some laughs, but they're sparse.

2 out of 5 from me. If the art style was a bit more pleasing to the eye, I would have given it a 3, but the way it is, it gets in the way of my enjoyment of the film.

 

Watching "The Avengers"

 

My Name is Khan
The first thing you should know before watching this movie is to take its realism with a grain of salt. A rather big one. This is a world in which Rain Man manages to be married with children and run a successful family business. If you can accept that basic premise, then you are in for a good ride, and I highly recommend it. Although it doesn't contain any dance numbers, it is stylistically quite Bollywood indeed. Expect bright colours and romantic musical montages.

 

Back in Bed with Pillow Talk (2009) – Samantha Cook, Daniel M. Kimmel, Judith Roof

This short documentary was included on the Blu-Ray of Pillow Talk I picked up. Pillow Talk itself rates a full essay, but this short doc is pretty standard fare. Lots of talk about how controversial the film was in 1959 and lots of talk, mostly correct, about how the film holds up even in a more jaded era. At one point one of the talking heads makes the dubious point that for a lot of us watching the film, Pillow Talk represents how our parents thought about sex. Okay. Thanks for that.

Chemistry 101: The Film-Duo of Rock Hudson & Doris Day (2009) – Samantha Cook, Daniel M. Kimmel, Judith Roof

Another, even shorter, documentary on the Pillow Talk Blu-Ray. This one is specifically about the chemistry of Hudson and Day, as the title attests. Once you’ve seen the movie, you don’t need anyone to tell you about the chemistry. You’ve experienced it. So this one is fairly pointless, even as these things go.

Captured on Film: The True Story of Marion Davies (2001) – Hugh Monro Neely

A Turner Classic Movies production, this hour long documentary tries to reclaim Marion Davies, forgotten film actress of the silent and early sound eras. Features a lot of clips of Davies’ work in both silent and sound films. She’s vivacious and charming enough that you wonder why exactly a decades long affair with William Randolph Hearst was actually enough to make her disappear the way she did. The documentary features a lot of clips of Susan Alexander, the analogous character in Citizen Kane to Davies and quotes Orson Welles, of all people, arguing that Davies was unjustly forgotten. I got this DVD because it also features Quality Street, a two hour silent film starring Davies and that alone was worth the price of admission and enough to make me wish some of her other films, like Show People and The Patsy would get DVD releases. But the curse is still working. Even this DVD, from 2001, is hard to get ahold of. If what’s here is any indication, she had more warmth, more energy and more naturalism than most of her peers in silent cinema. A shame she’s been so forgotten. I’d recommend this DVD and this documentary very highly if you come across it.

Charlotte & her Boyfriend (1960) – Jean-Luc Godard

This short film was made prior to Breathless, Godard’s feature film debut. It features Jean-Paul Belmondo as the boyfriend of the title, the actor who would star in Breathless. So, Criterion stuck it on the Breathless Blu-Ray release, bless them. It’s a breezy twelve minutes or so. Belmondo’s boyfriend is visited by Charlotte, winsomely played by Anne Collette. He berates her, tries to win her back, believes he has won her back, berates her some more, begs, pleads, curses and basically hangs himself with a rope of words for nearly the entire running time as she sits there, wordlessly taking it all in. The punch-line is pretty obvious from the beginning, but Belmondo is good at long, stream of consciousness monologuing and Collette has charm enough for someone who has only one or two lines in the entire piece. This is more of a joke than one is used to from Godard; it’s pure comedy. It was interesting, if not particularly essential, viewing.

Chambre 12, Hotel de Suede (1993) – Claude Ventura, Xavier Villetard

This documentary, originally done for French television, was also included on the Criterion Blu-Ray release of Breathless. If you’ve seen Breathless, you’ll recall the lengthy sequence of the two lead characters chatting in a hotel room; it takes up a third of the film’s running time and is the loose-limbed, gangly, awkward heart of the film. So, Venturay and Villetard hear that the hotel where this scene, one of the most significant scenes in French film history, was shot is due to be torn down in nine days. What to do, but check into the hotel, get the very room Godard used in Breathless and then spend the next nine days tracking down people connected with Breathless for off the cuff interviews. The film is a touching meditation on the emotional power of cinema. The interviews are better than one might expect and, shot in sloppy, hand-held, black and white, the film has a strange kind of charm. One is essentially watching two film buffs make an homage and it’s interesting and entertaining. The climax, in which the building is torn down, is a bittersweet moment of passage. If you’ve seen Breathless, this is a great bit of companion viewing.

 

An American Tale: Feivel Goes West

reliving my childhood

 

Headhunters
Norwegian thriller, of all things! But I was recommended to watch it by a friend of mine and was positively surprised. It was suspenseful and entertaining. 4 out of 5.

 

Iron Man 2. It was better the second time around, but still not nearly as good as the first one.

 

Cloud Atlas. Awesome! Epic. Even better than I had hoped! I'm going to see it again soon.

 

Poetry (2010) [Korean: Shi]
Korean slice of life film recommended to me by a film mag some time ago. An elderly woman who raises her grandson signs up for a community centre poetry writing class. This forms the central backdrop to which the rest of the plot revolves. A young local girl commits suicide and it turns out the elderly woman's grandson had been among a group of boys who used to rape her. With a runtime of 140 minutes, the narrative takes its time with a slow and contemplative pace, befitting its title and premise. Its style reminds me of the films of Abbas Kiarostami.

All in all, I think it was good. Also, well acted.

 

Return of the Jedi

My least favorite Star Wars movie, but was fun to watch with my two-year-old daughter.

 

A short chat with some of the cast and crew of Wreck-it-Ralph. You might find it interesting.

 

Last night I did a double feature after work. I watched Wreck It Ralph in 2d, cute fun kids movie. I liked it a lot. I also watched Man With The Iron Fists. I gotta give Rza credit it was a pretty darn cool movie. Reminded me of old school king fu movies.

 

The Dark Knight Rises. I rather enjoyed it...didn't like the previous one so much, but this I thought was good.

 

Argo -- Excellent film, one of the best I've seen this year. My wife and I went to see Cloud Atlas, but arrived too late and so went with our second choice. I was vaguely disappointed at first because I wanted so badly to see Cloud Atlas, but inside of two minutes I had completely forgotten about everything apart from this riveting true-life thriller. The filmmakers expertly juggle the intensity of the hostage situation with the more light-hearted, even farcical elements of the fake movie project. The characters and setting are so convincing that the film becomes almost documentary-like in its illusion of reality. The climax had me dripping sweat and wiping tears. It was a very moist experience. Ben Affleck, with the one-two punch of The Town and Argo, has completely rebuilt himself in my eyes and deserves nothing but accolades as both actor and director. 4 stars!

PS There are numerous Star Wars-related treats to be had in this film, especially in the ending text bergs, which are filmed over close-ups of 1970s sci-fi memorabilia, including Kenner action figures in pristine condition.

 

Of Gods and Men.Slooooowwww. And depressing. French cinema, in other words.

 

Sorority Row. It was meh but at least Carrie Fisher was in it.

 

Argh double post

 

Rat Race

 

Flight. Whoo boy, Denzel sure can drink. And fly a plane.

 

Ajami
Palestinian/Israeli film about a poor neighbourhood in Jaffa, from which the film takes its name. Drug dealers, police officers, illegal workers, coke addicts and restaurant owners' fates intertwine and have ramifications for each other in this multiple points of view narrative about inter-ethnic, -cultural and -religious tensions. The film neither sugar coats nor condemns, but presents an honest view of the situation as it is. It also doesn't get much into the political side of the Israel-Palestine conflict, but rather has a more general social take on the issue of different cultures living together, in a way that the film might as well have taken place in New York, London or any other place that is a melting pot of different peoples and religions. The issues that face the characters are not very foreign. I was very pleased with it. I thought it was well scripted and paced, the performances were excellent and it was well structured. It is absolutely worth your time. I give it a full 5 out of 5.

One important point of note is that the characters' dialogue changes frequently between Arabic and Hebrew, and these changes have plot significance, so if you're not able to hear the difference, which most of us probably aren't, make sure your subtitles state when the changes occur. I saw it on Netflix myself, where the English subtitles notified in brackets whenever language change occurred.

 

"Rush Hour 3"

 

To be fair, one of those is "I do like to keep my tip up."

Ah, Brozzer. What's weird about him saying that to Madonna is that Madonna's got a more masculine physique than... I was going to say Toby Stephens, but she's probably more masculine than Brosnan himself.