La Course en Tete

1974 cycling documentary

Rating: 13/20 (Mark: 15/20)

Plot: A look at Belgium cycling superstar Eddy Merckx as he trains and races and juggles a family life.

Best thing about this one: I get to use my "bagpipes" label. A bagpipe-heavy score, by the way, never really made sense to me. I was tricked into watching this by my brother who translated La Course en Tete as "The Way of the Tits" and told me it was "boob kung-fu" which, as a warm-blooded American male, I was excited about. And then this didn't have kung-fu or boobs, just a bunch of cycling. And I mean lots of cycling. For the cycling enthusiast, this might make a lot of sense on its own. I had to have a lot explained to me by a cycling enthusiast, almost as much I need comic book movies explained to me by comic book enthusiasts. I also had problems with the chronology of this, and I suspect that it was all sort of random. There was a lot of exciting cycling action, but after a while, enough was enough. Once this hit the four hour mark, I had hit my limit. I did come away with a respect for Eddy Merckx though which I suppose was the point. My favorite bits: an opening montage of a bunch of old-timey bicycle footage and a later montage of a lot of horrendous accidents. One of those probably was accompanied by inexplicable bagpipe music.

The Beaches of Agnes

2008 biographical documentary

Rating: 17/20 (Mark: 18/20--I think.)

Plot: Director Agnes Varda strategically places mirrors on a beach, finds some naked people, converses with an animated cat, and reminisces about her life and work and marriage to Jacques Demy.

Varda directed one of my favorite movies from a few years ago--Cleo from 5 to 7, a movie that nobody saw based on my recommendation because nobody cares a bit about what I write here or takes me very seriously. I'm not sure why I haven't seen any more of her movies, especially since one of her documentaries has been sitting on my shelf for months. Varda is funky old avant-gardist with two-toned hair, a ten-year-old artist in an eighty-something-year-old's body. She's how I like my avant-gardists actually--frothy and whimsical. I loved how this traced her development as an artist, from her photography to her movie making, and I was touched at the stuff about her director husband Demy, the guy who did The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, another flick I really dug. The way she chooses to tell her own story is very playful and borderline pretentious. But that aforementioned froth and whimsy makes this not only a palatable but an absolutely delicious experience. See? Maybe it's sentences like that that cause people to not take me seriously. I was a little apprehensive about seeing this because my brother had promised me Captain America and I thought this might be boring compared to that, but it was definitely not boring. This was a fun little documentary to absorb. I would probably recommend you get your hands on a few of Varda's movies though. You know--like I didn't. Also, for you randy avant-gardists out there: This does have both trapeze artists and a beach sex scene, neither which involve Annette Funicello. Oh, and the animated cat was Chris Marker, director of this and this. They're both good films, but you're not even going to click to see what they are because you don't respect me.

Step Brothers

2008 "comedy"

Rating: 6/20 (Anonymous: 4/20; Pump or Astro-Pretzel: 3/20)

Plot: A couple unemployed middle-aged good-for-absolutely-nothing jackasses become the titular step-brothers after their parents hook up at a convention and later marry. Initially, they can't stand each other, but once they realize they have a lot in common, like their shared affinity for night vision goggles, they become friends. But their shared interests and attempts to start their own company threaten to tear the happy newlyweds apart.

I wanted to watch In the Line of Fire, but my step brother wanted to watch this instead. We fought over that for a while--rolling around on the floor, poking eyes, farting on each other, giving wedgies, kicking nutsacks, etc.--before realizing that we had a love of Mary Steenburgen in common. Then, we high-fived each other awkwardly, and he broke his finger. And that story, ladies and gentlemen, is just as clever as the one in the movie Step Brothers. Attempting to recapture the magic of Talladega Nights, a movie I've been told is a classic, Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly stupid it up in this one that reminds me simultaneously of a whole bunch of predictable 80's crap and every single other Will Ferrell movie I've ever seen. There's not a single laugh to be had in this thing. It fits right in with that disturbing trend in modern comedies where lazy writers assume that creating really uncomfortable situations for characters who could never actually exist is automatically going to be funny. Awkward is not a synonym for hilarious. I should know because I looked it up, and I'm an English teacher.

It took me a while to remember it, but I made a promise around Christmas that I would not have another Will Ferrell movie on this blog. See? I'm really sorry that my own step brother made me break that promise. Maybe I'll fart on him later.

Hunger

1966 Dutch feel-good movie

Rating: 17/20 (Mark: 17.5/20)

Plot: It's late-19th-century Norway, and everything is grayish brown. A hopeful writer wanders despairing streets. He looks for work, loses his sanity, dreams of love, and has a rumbly in his tummy. Gradually, his grip on reality slips more and more. He takes his frustrations out on a candle.

Ah, anonymous, this film's actually Danish and filmed in Oslo. I don't know what's in the gray waters in Scandanavia, but something's got to making the Dutch so bleak. Now that I know it's Danish, I'm instantly reminded of Carl Theodor Dreyer's work. This is a bleakness with a fervor, a provocative bleakness. I love this kinds of movies where almost nothing at all happens for almost two hours, yet it somehow remains captivating and moving. And I was moved by this haunting, dismal movie. At the center of things is the performance of Per Oscarsson who plays the starving protagonist. He's in nearly every single shot and luckily, was very easy to connect with. He effectively uses abnormal nonverbal communication and body movements to realistically portray this guy who is very obviously losing it. You can't quit put your finger on it, but from the very first scenes where he eats a piece of paper and promises a woman he'll buy bread from her at ten o'clock the next day, you know that something's not right with this guy. My brother had previously seen this and had read the Knut Hamsun novel and kept making the claim that we were dealing with an unreliable third-person narrator. That's a funny thing to say about a movie, but in a way it's accurate. There seems to be a point in this movie where the guy and reality officially part ways, but thinking back, I can't decide what that moment is. A lot of this seems to be happening and a lot of this seems to be an interpretation of a sick mind of what's happening and a lot of this might not be happening at all. The ambiguity is fascinating and adds a depth to the story. Hunger is shot starkly and beautifully, one of those movies where the setting, filthy and desolate, is as much a character in the movie as any of the people. The guy's rotten teeth are also almost a character on their own. And although there's this staggering, almost engulfing bleakness, there's also a bit of humor in this. This is a great movie, and I'm really glad my brother made me watch it. I still feel bad about eating sausage while watching this poor guy.