Meme going around...
Summer wrap up poll time. Give me your choice for...
1) Best movie - Sunshine
2) Worst movie - Captivity
3) Biggest creative winner - Stardust for the summer's highest difficulty:success ratio. Superbad for Jonah Hill and Michael Cera, the most inspired pairing since Lemmon and Matthau.
4) Biggest creative loser - Talk to Me for neutering Kasi Lemmons' talents.
5) Most overrated - Transformers. Yes, I know it wasn't that well-liked. The fact that it was tolerated is enough.
6) Most underrated - Spider-Man 3. Raimi took a beating for trying something new and interesting. Ang Lee endured the same with Hulk. Stay tuned for Renny Harlin remake. I'll also mention George Ratliff's Joshua here.
7) Biggest surprise - The awesomeness of Live Free or Die Hard.
8) Favorite scene - Opening assault in 28 Weeks Later.
9) Breakout star - Gotta be Seth Rogen. Fingers crossed for Michael Cera too.
10) Most unfortunate success - Transformers. Why do people keep feeding the Bay?
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
The Invasion
The Invasion (Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2007) - B-
Bizarro, somewhat gutsy subtext -- we should resign ourselves to genocide, war and famine because it's an inescapable part of the human condition -- makes this kind of a downer, if you ask me, though it works for a while. At its best when depicting the invasion itself; the body snatchers' gradual, inevitable takeover is pretty creepy, most effectively so in the frightened faces and voices of people realizing that something is going horribly wrong -- Veronica "My Husband is Not My Husband" Cartwright is perhaps the best thing in the film. Inexplicably gets hung up on the medi-babble about the mechanics of the alien virus, or what not -- who gives a shit? I wonder if this too was a Wachowski addition, or just that damn car chase? -- and the ending really is a shame, but if nothing else it does take advantage of its premise, still killer after all these years. Hirschbiegel's original cut must have been better.
Bizarro, somewhat gutsy subtext -- we should resign ourselves to genocide, war and famine because it's an inescapable part of the human condition -- makes this kind of a downer, if you ask me, though it works for a while. At its best when depicting the invasion itself; the body snatchers' gradual, inevitable takeover is pretty creepy, most effectively so in the frightened faces and voices of people realizing that something is going horribly wrong -- Veronica "My Husband is Not My Husband" Cartwright is perhaps the best thing in the film. Inexplicably gets hung up on the medi-babble about the mechanics of the alien virus, or what not -- who gives a shit? I wonder if this too was a Wachowski addition, or just that damn car chase? -- and the ending really is a shame, but if nothing else it does take advantage of its premise, still killer after all these years. Hirschbiegel's original cut must have been better.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Becoming Jane
Becoming Jane (Julian Jarrold, 2007) - C
Too long, and too wishy-washy -- if you're going to invent an elaborate backstory for Jane Austen, then at least take some sort of stand, goddammit -- for all its feints toward finding poignancy in Austen's youth, the movie winds up neatly packaging everything and tying a bow around the result. In any event, giving her a passionate, if ultimately unfulfilled, youthful romance destroys the fundamental sadness of her story, which is that she embarked on a career writing about matters of the heart in which she herself had little involvement (the man portrayed here as her love interest apparently received two fleeting mentions in Austen's letters to her sister). The only meaningful path left to the film -- the notion that Austen loved, lost, and retreated to the worlds she created in her novels -- is equivocated into oblivion by the screenplay's compulsion to tie up every end, loose or not, and drag the characters kicking and screaming to strained, illogical happy endings. Some superficial pleasures remain, among them the intractable presence of Maggie Smith as a haughty noblewoman, but Ann Hathaway is tragically a lightweight among the accomplished cast, and the movie is too pointlessly glum and poker-faced to be chick-lit-style fun. Austen wouldn't have approved.
Too long, and too wishy-washy -- if you're going to invent an elaborate backstory for Jane Austen, then at least take some sort of stand, goddammit -- for all its feints toward finding poignancy in Austen's youth, the movie winds up neatly packaging everything and tying a bow around the result. In any event, giving her a passionate, if ultimately unfulfilled, youthful romance destroys the fundamental sadness of her story, which is that she embarked on a career writing about matters of the heart in which she herself had little involvement (the man portrayed here as her love interest apparently received two fleeting mentions in Austen's letters to her sister). The only meaningful path left to the film -- the notion that Austen loved, lost, and retreated to the worlds she created in her novels -- is equivocated into oblivion by the screenplay's compulsion to tie up every end, loose or not, and drag the characters kicking and screaming to strained, illogical happy endings. Some superficial pleasures remain, among them the intractable presence of Maggie Smith as a haughty noblewoman, but Ann Hathaway is tragically a lightweight among the accomplished cast, and the movie is too pointlessly glum and poker-faced to be chick-lit-style fun. Austen wouldn't have approved.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
I Now Pronounce You
I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (Dennis Dugan, 2007) - C
Still shitty, but not the offensive stereotype-giggle-fest I feared -- or rather it is, but kind of in a good way. Wha? Well, it occurred to me that it might better to turn this stuff into fodder for a raunchy, unabashedly mainstream Adam Sandler comedy than to ceaselessly treat it with PC kid gloves. And Chuck & Larry is doing it ("it" being rampant comic displays of homophobia and soap-dropping gags) out of love, if you get me -- at various points I questioned the filmmakers' IQ and choice of profession, but never their good intentions. So in this context, the PG-13 puerility ("penis department" instead of "pension department") and weird gay panic non sequiturs (Adam Sandler's faux-shocked response to the notion that people out there will fake homosexual relationships to get government benefits: "It makes me so sad... and gay... to hear about people like that") seem appropriate and almost charming. What's not remotely charming is the film's two-hour length, the ridiculous "I am Spartacus" climax, the cloying, dishonest denoument, the neverending Rob Schneider appearances, and general confusion about what constitutes comedy (i.e. Allen Covert leaping about dressed as a gay butterfly = not comedy; please make a note of it). One of these days someone will have the guts to cut one of these movies to a tight, funny 85 minutes and we might have something.
Still shitty, but not the offensive stereotype-giggle-fest I feared -- or rather it is, but kind of in a good way. Wha? Well, it occurred to me that it might better to turn this stuff into fodder for a raunchy, unabashedly mainstream Adam Sandler comedy than to ceaselessly treat it with PC kid gloves. And Chuck & Larry is doing it ("it" being rampant comic displays of homophobia and soap-dropping gags) out of love, if you get me -- at various points I questioned the filmmakers' IQ and choice of profession, but never their good intentions. So in this context, the PG-13 puerility ("penis department" instead of "pension department") and weird gay panic non sequiturs (Adam Sandler's faux-shocked response to the notion that people out there will fake homosexual relationships to get government benefits: "It makes me so sad... and gay... to hear about people like that") seem appropriate and almost charming. What's not remotely charming is the film's two-hour length, the ridiculous "I am Spartacus" climax, the cloying, dishonest denoument, the neverending Rob Schneider appearances, and general confusion about what constitutes comedy (i.e. Allen Covert leaping about dressed as a gay butterfly = not comedy; please make a note of it). One of these days someone will have the guts to cut one of these movies to a tight, funny 85 minutes and we might have something.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Simpsons Movie; Captivity
The Simpsons Movie (David Silverman, 2007) - B+
Funny how after all these years, and the recent incessant complaints about The Simpsons having "jumped the shark," the long-awaited film opens with a huge splash, and droves of critics and filmgoers return to fawning over Matt Groening's now-timeless satire masterpiece. Truth is, the show has never lost its edge, and the Movie s less a "return to form" than a particularly polished iteration of its brilliance. The material does lose something in its translation to the big screen, as gags that would have been showstoppers in tv viewing sort of float by serenely in the larger context. But the show's notorious arsenal of humor - social satire, pop culture jabs, general weirdness (the riotous opening sequence awesomely embodying all three) -- s in fine shape, the laughs coming furiously and some of the jokes immediately attaining classic Simpsons status. The show has been the best thing on tv for 18 years, or at least since the demise of Twin Peaks; it makes a certain sense that its cinematic incarnation is better than most of what's in theaters this summer.
Captivity (Roland Joffe, 2007) - F
I hate to say it, but this lends credibility to certain pundits' otherwise retarded tirades against what they call the torture porn genre. Not that the movie is all that graphic, or all that horrifying -- in fact it fakes us out so many times that we quickly learn to disbelieve what we see, no matter how gruesome. It's just that it's so schlocky, dumb and nonsensical that prevailing sight-unseen impression of films in this sub-genre* (because of course these people are too outraged to actually watch them) consisting of "just people being tortured" might as well be true. The twisted, baroque storytelling of the Saws and the sly satire of the Hostels is nowhere to be found here. Not sure what the deal is with the suggestion that Cuthbert's character is the "girl with no heart," but if the notion is one of conquest -- the big reveal has the villains wind up talking about their predictions about how long it would take for her to submit to "hero sex" -- then I have only two things to say: 1) eew; and 2) the accusations of moral depravity might actually be on point for once.
*I feel like I'm surrendering just by calling it a "sub-genre," since really they're just horror films like any other, but it's hard to ignore trends.
Funny how after all these years, and the recent incessant complaints about The Simpsons having "jumped the shark," the long-awaited film opens with a huge splash, and droves of critics and filmgoers return to fawning over Matt Groening's now-timeless satire masterpiece. Truth is, the show has never lost its edge, and the Movie s less a "return to form" than a particularly polished iteration of its brilliance. The material does lose something in its translation to the big screen, as gags that would have been showstoppers in tv viewing sort of float by serenely in the larger context. But the show's notorious arsenal of humor - social satire, pop culture jabs, general weirdness (the riotous opening sequence awesomely embodying all three) -- s in fine shape, the laughs coming furiously and some of the jokes immediately attaining classic Simpsons status. The show has been the best thing on tv for 18 years, or at least since the demise of Twin Peaks; it makes a certain sense that its cinematic incarnation is better than most of what's in theaters this summer.
Captivity (Roland Joffe, 2007) - F
I hate to say it, but this lends credibility to certain pundits' otherwise retarded tirades against what they call the torture porn genre. Not that the movie is all that graphic, or all that horrifying -- in fact it fakes us out so many times that we quickly learn to disbelieve what we see, no matter how gruesome. It's just that it's so schlocky, dumb and nonsensical that prevailing sight-unseen impression of films in this sub-genre* (because of course these people are too outraged to actually watch them) consisting of "just people being tortured" might as well be true. The twisted, baroque storytelling of the Saws and the sly satire of the Hostels is nowhere to be found here. Not sure what the deal is with the suggestion that Cuthbert's character is the "girl with no heart," but if the notion is one of conquest -- the big reveal has the villains wind up talking about their predictions about how long it would take for her to submit to "hero sex" -- then I have only two things to say: 1) eew; and 2) the accusations of moral depravity might actually be on point for once.
*I feel like I'm surrendering just by calling it a "sub-genre," since really they're just horror films like any other, but it's hard to ignore trends.
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