Ponyo

2008 fairy tale

Rating: 16/20 (Jen: 14/20; Dylan: 5/20; Emma: 12/20; Abbey: 15/20)

Plot: An animated version of the trippiest episode of The Golden Girls. Dorothy, Blanche, Sophia, and Rose are caught shoplifting make-up from a Walgreens and spend the night in prison. They meet a drug dealer named Ponyo behind bars, and once they're all back on the outside, the girls after paying a small fine and promising to never do it again and Ponyo on a technicality, the girls score some hallucinogens which they ingest by a dumpster. Ponyo says, "Enjoy the dope, ya old bags," before riding off on a scooter. Dorothy, Blanche, Sophia, and Rose begin to hallucinate. Blanche mistakes Rose for a scorpion and stabs her seventy-four times, later claiming that it was in self-defense. Dorothy walks into the sea, mistaking herself for a mermaid, and, because she's not really a mermaid, drowns. Sophia flees, eventually winding up in Tokyo. Ponyo is never heard from again.

I just don't get the logic of Miyazaki's worlds. The world these characters inhabit doesn't obey any of the laws that hold the real world together, and the narrative progression doesn't always make complete sense. Plot holes? More like plot canyons. You'll walk away from Ponyo with something that almost looks like a completed puzzle, but then you'll check your pockets and find fifteen (maybe sixteen) more pieces that you didn't realize you had. And how did the puzzle pieces get in your pocket anyway? You didn't put them there. It must have been an evil wizard, you figure, and then you laugh at yourself because there's no such thing as evil wizards. I don't try to completely understand any of these Ghibli studio movies, at least the first time I watch them. I just let the evil wizards in through the crevices and permit them to tickle me. As with other Miyazaki cartoons, there are some environmental themes, lovely animation, and surreal touches. And like the others, it seems to be told from the perspective of a child, almost to the point where you feel like you're missing things as an adult or even peeking in on a world you're not necessarily supposed to peek in on. The settings are beautiful, especially the unnatural underwater scenes filled with creatures (and colors) that don't really exist. I also liked most of the characters although I was never sure what was going on with Ponyo's father or the grumpy old woman. And I really like the anthropomorphizing of the water during the tsunami scene. I have to go now because an evil wizard is going to try to hide my car keys.

Army of Shadows

1969 war movie

Rating: 17/20

Plot: The precursor for MTV's reality show The Real World, this follows some members of the French Resistance as they find various ways of resisting, stopping only to bicker about who put his finger in the peanut butter or ate the last of the ice cream. Unlike the MTV show, however, some of these guys die instead of just being people you wish you could see die on camera.

Here's the cool thing about this one: there's (if I recall correctly) no violence shown on screen in this one, yet there's this incredible underlying but palpable fear of violence. This is the quiet side of the French Resistance, and nearly all the action takes place inside the characters. Most of the suspense comes from these characters simply making difficult decisions, so instead of getting a gripping action-packed film, you get a gripping reflective and philosophical film, albeit one that is just as exciting. I just love how all the characters go about their business nonchalantly. There's nothing stunning about the performances, but you can see fear beneath the pores and a resignation that they will more than likely die because of what they're doing. They're great characters doing extraordinary in really ordinary ways. They really are more shadows than they are men and woman. The story is almost frustratingly episodic, and many would consider the ending a bit of a let-down, but each individual anecdote is intriguing and packed with tension. But it's that quiet, relaxed tension, almost like Melville was filming this in a library or near sleeping children and had to use an inside voice the entire time. This film is as good as any at showing the human side of this sort of thing. There's nothing tricky here--no special effects, no explosions, no shoot-outs. Just good drama. Man, this Melville cat was good. Expect a review of his Bob the Fumbler, an action-packed tale of a French running back with tiny hands, later this week.

Another solid Cory recommendation.

Where the Wild Things Are

2009 piece of garbage

Rating: 10/20 (Jen: 5/20; Emma: 5/20; Abbey: 1/20)
[Original "6" rating traded for a "10" with my brother.]

Plot: Max is youngster suffering from schizophrenia and endangering the lives of those around him. Where the Wild Things Are is a glimpse at his battered mind, a trip to his world inhabited by CGI-furballs. If there is ever a Where the Wild Things Are II, proving beyond a reasonable doubt that there is either no God at all or that He has abandoned us, it would most likely be about Max's experiences in an asylum.

This might be one of the most joyless film experiences I've ever had. There wasn't a single moment in this movie where I was glad I was watching it. In fact, I wouldn't have finished this if I had been watching it alone. And I had high hopes for this one, curious to see how Spike Jonze would be able to stretch a fairly thin picture book into a full-length movie. Turns out, he doesn't. This has virtually no plot, existing only as jumbled symbolism or half-assed allegory. The people part of the movie is depressing. The wild things part of the movie, a part I eagerly awaited as I figured it would be filled with fantastical imagery and whimsy, was somehow even more depressing. And the imagery? It just looks stupid. The monsters don't always move fluently, especially when they leap, and there's never enough background to make this look like a finished movie. All attempts to attach any of Max's fantasy to his real-world problems--childhood fears of things like war, the eventual demise of the sun, global warming, etc.; alienation; growing up fatherless--come across as offensive. There is absolutely no reason for children to see this movie, absolutely no reason for adults to see this movie, and absolutely no reason why this movie should have been gotten the greenlight in the first place. See that monster behind the tree in the poster? I can only imagine that he's trying to hide from embarrassment at his involvement in this movie. I sincerely hope this is the least enjoyable experience I have with a movie this year.

My brother tried to warn me about this one. I didn't dream it would be this abysmal.

Once

2006 musical

Rating: 17/20

Plot: A Dublin busker, busking when he's not repairing Hoovers in his dad's shop that is, meets and falls for a Czech immigrant who lives with her mother and her young daughter. They spend lots of time together, eventually writing and recording music.

This is a unique musical and love story with two extremely likable leads. They're played by a pair of non-actors, played very well as a matter of fact. Admittedly, I thought I was going to hate this movie ten minutes in. The camera was shaky. It sort of has a faux-documentary feel. And I just didn't know where things were going. I wasn't sure I liked the guy's voice. However, there were so many moments that just got me, mostly moments that were way off in the fringes, subtle glances and barely whispered lines. The (nameless?) busker's father isn't in a lot of scenes, but the father-son relationship is given some emotional depth with no extraneous dialogue or wasted time. I also like the guy who pushes buttons in the studio. He makes this quick transition that, for whatever reason, almost made me like human beings. The acting is wonderful throughout, otherwise these characters just wouldn't work and a scene where they're playing with a frisbee on a beach would just seem silly. The main relationship in Once is between the guy and the gal, of course, and there's not a single moment in that evolving relationship that doesn't ring true. These are two people who need each other, at least for a week or so, and their discovery of each other at just the right time is so beautiful. I guess I can't write about Once without mentioning the music. There may be a few times when a song goes on a little too long, as well as a couple times when I felt like I was watching a music video, but the songs are awfully good. I wasn't able to catch all of the lyrics though. This is simple and cheap storytelling, and it's the better film because of it. This is the type of movie, like Kaurismaki's work, about likable everyday folks struggling with life, and like Kaurismaki's work, it somehow just hits the spot.

A Cory recommendation, and one that I'll also be recommending to people.

Dogtown and Z-Boys

2001 skateboarding documentary

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Details the genesis of extreme skateboarding with California's Zephyr surfing (later skateboarding) team near Venice Beach in a small community called Dogtown. When the waves were quiet, they'd be forced to surf the concrete, eventually, thanks to a terrible drought, finding their way to empty swimming pools. In the mid-70s, they find overnight fame and success and go their separate ways to influence future generations of skate punks.

Great documentary by a couple of the Zephyr gang. There's an astounding amount of video and still photographs, and the participants give comprehensive and, for the most part, humble anecdotes and details to create a complete story. I was surprised with how interested I was in this stuff considering I'm old enough to chase people like this off my lawn. Even more impressive is how director Piralta was able to make clear the impact these kids had on the sport to a guy like me who wouldn't be able to attempt standing on a skateboard without breaking an arm. I was left with very few questions. And I imagine, a skateboarding fan and aficionado would find this just as rewarding. The story's very well-paced although it nearly grinds to a halt at one point when there's a focus on a few of the individual members instead of the collective. That punk Sean Penn narrates. There's also a terrific soundtrack. I'd type more, but I have to go buy a skateboard and empty out somebody's pool. I'm about to get gnarly, bitches.

This was a Kairow recommendation that I finally got around to watching.

Chronos

1985 Koyaanisqatsi clone

Rating: 14/20 (Mark: 14/20)

Plot: Time-lapse footage of nature juxtaposed with time-lapse footage of people. Sound familiar?

This is reminiscent of Koyaanisqatsi, far too reminiscent. There's a bit more emphasis on art and architecture. It lacks the cohesion of Koyaanisqatsi, and the music, though not nearly as redundant, lacks the power of the Glass stuff. There's some stunning imagery here, but it's not organized very well. Slowly evolving desert images or shots of immobile pyramids butting up against high-speed tours of canals just didn't mesh very well. A lot of the footage didn't need the trickery of the time-lapse photography, although I did like seeing the time-lapse stuff combined with panning. I just can't recall seeing that before. This is worth seeing, and short enough to not seem like a complete waste if somebody doesn't think it's worth seeing. It's artful enough; it's just not well organized. Koyaanisqatsi builds to a crescendo and makes its (similar) point poetically and powerfully. Chronos hiccups a few times, stumbles around, and then ends. This did teach me one thing though--I'm not a very cultured fellow. I didn't even know where a lot of the landmarks were located.

Ninja Assassin

2009 ode to stabbing

Rating: 9/20 (Mark: 6/20; Amy: 6 or 7/20)

Plot: Jack at the video store told us that there wasn't one. There was one, but it really didn't matter.

I don't know what the Wachowskis had to do with this, but somebody needs to stop them. If you look up "stylized violence" in the dictionary, you'll have a description of this movie. There's blood flying all over the place, mostly startlingly contrasting to a swampy darkness on the rest of the screen, probably to hide any lack of real kung-fu skills. I correctly predicted that there would be a decapitation within the first five minutes of the movie. My brother said that characters were losing more blood than people actually have in their bodies. I had to wring my shirt dry when the movie finally ended. I'm not saying that this much violence is necessarily a bad thing, but that's all this movie has going for it. There are some gorgeously brutal moments, some fine but ultimately repetitive action sequences, and some more brutally gorgeous moments. But that's it. You won't care about the characters, you'll stop worrying about what's going on, and you'll slap your forehead as things get more and more preposterous. It's all just a bunch of showing off, lots of "Look at what my computer can do!" moments, and I think any real ninja watching this movie would be offended. Lots of laughable dialogue, laughable bad acting, and laughable action scenes, most memorably a scene when ninjas are running against the highway. I looked this movie up and discovered that the Wachowskis didn't care much for the original script, and writer J. Michael Straczynski apparently finished his rewrite in just fifty-three hours. It shows. I did pick out a Wilhelm scream when a ninja is blown off a roof with a rocket launcher. Yeah. That's the type of movie this is. It's the type of movie the Academy usually loves, the type where you can watch ninjas being blown off roofs with rocket launchers. The problem isn't that it's impossible to take any of this nonsense seriously. The problem is that this nonsense takes itself way too seriously.

Breaking Away

1979 Indiana movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Dave and his three friends are in limbo, recent high school grads who have no plans to go to college and no real plans to get jobs either. They're just free-floating in Bloomington, Indiana, swimming in the quarry, brawling with the college kids, and cruising in a borrowed clunker. Except for Dave that is. Dave spends most of his time on his bicycle, dreaming of racing with the Italians and even pretending to be an Italian foreign exchange student to impress a coed. His friends and parents are annoyed with his obsessions.

Filmed entirely in Bloomington, and it's cool to see some familiar sights. This is another well-written story about Hoosier underdogs, but in a way, it's the anti-Hoosiers. There's no way anybody could accuse Breaking Away of being overly sentimental. The story is told unpretentiously, and the characters grow on you naturally with very little trickery. Breaking Away also has a better score, mostly Italian opera pieces accompanying Dave's workouts. There's really no bombast at all with this movie. It's as quiet as a small town, and the human drama and themes are almost submerged beneath the, at times, barely important plots and subplots--the conflicts between the "Cutters" and the college kids, the troubles Dave has connecting to his father, the boys' search for love, their half-assed search for employment, the individual bicycle races including the climactic Little 500. My brother, a cyclist, calls this the best sports movie ever. I'm not sure about that, but I do think it is a great portrait of that confusing time between high school and real life and another chance to root for some likable underdogs.

Hoosiers

1986 Indiana movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Based on the true story of the 1954 high school basketball team from Milan, Indiana, a small-town team that overcame all odds to win the state championship after the hiring of coach Lex Luther.

A real schmaltz-fest, just dripping with treacle, but this Hoosier unapologetically loves it. The synth-laden score fixes it firmly in 1986, but that's one of its few flaws. Solid performances by Hackman and Hopper as the unorthodox and much-maligned coach and town drunk respectively, but the supporting cast--namely, the players--brings a down-home realism to rural Indiana. I'm so glad my state wasn't painted with the same brush that painted the landscape and characters in Deliverance or something. Good dialogue, too. The movie's got a ton of heart. I could have been spared the lackadaisical love story between Hackman and Barbara Hershey's character, but the other main subplot, Shooter's redemption, develops realistically, allowing you to care and root for his character. The basketball action itself, and there's a whole lot of it, is shot well, each of the games becoming their own little stories. I also enjoyed seeing the old gymnasiums. This is a well-written underdog story about second chances, worth seeing even if you have no opinion on whether or not Indiana moving to a class system was the right move or not.

The Gold Rush (again)

1925 movie

Rating: 19/20

Plot: Same as it was the last time I wrote about this movie.

Here's the deal. Friday was a wasteful party day at my school, and my team decided to show the students a movie. It was decided that the team would watch Old Dogs, the classic film featuring the comedic stylings of Robin Williams and John Travolta. I protested mightily, not because I didn't think my students would enjoy Old Dogs, but because I don't really care what my students like and didn't have any interest in watching Old Dogs. My teammates wouldn't listen to me, but I decided to bring in my own movie to show the students in my classroom. "But they'll like Old Dogs. You can't show a silent movie to them." "Yeah, they would like to eat chocolate frosting straight out the can for lunch every day--doesn't mean it's good for them." I gave the good news to my students. They groaned and whined. I told them that I was only doing it because I loved them. They reached for their weapons. I quickly started the movie. I had my students write down their ratings (figured I'd get more honest ones that way), and here's what they had to say. They'd probably better articulate their feelings about The Gold Rush if they had a better writing teacher.

Elizabeth: 17/20. It was good. Funny, interesting.
Harley: 13/20. It had a lot of comedy, but there was just too much. It had romance and little action.
Candice: 10/20. It was OK I guess. It had interesting parts.
Sean: 16/20. Narrated, would've been better if own voices
Kayla: 20/20. Unique
Jasmine: 10/20. It was okay the action wasn't that bad but we could tell it was fake.
Robin: 9/20. It was boring. Well at least to me it was. There were some funny parts here and there.
Morgan: 1/20. A waste of my time, boring. (Morgan later admitted that she rated and wrote that during the opening credits.)
Kris: 5/20. This was moderately humorous movie back in the "20's" but as times change, the hearts (?) of funny does too. It is also has no audio which means there is more showing the audience what happens rather than telling us. Overall it was an OK movie. It was better than it seemed.
James: 15/20. It was funny, and the narrator said different things than they were. (Note: Funny-looking kid.)
T. T. : 15/20. Boring, funny, good but depressing. (I can't even figure out who "T.T." is.)
DeArion: nr. DaArion snuck out of my classroom and didn't watch the movie. He apparently watched Old Dogs somewhere else.
Makaela: 5/20. It is at least a motion picture. It wasn't very interesting to me. (Note: I couldn't figure out what she meant with "It is at least a motion picture." I finally figured out that she was talking about how it was silent but at least the characters were moving.)
Brad: -20/20. (Note: This kid's a doofus. He whined loudest of all before the movie started, put his head down for a lot of the first fourth, and watched the last three-fourths with interest. I even caught him laughing.) Terrible.
Mireya: 18/20. Because you had to imagine what they were saying. It was funny because of the man. I like when the house was going to fall.
Jared: -20/20. It's retarded. It's black and white. (This kid's grade just plummeted.)
Kore: 15/20. It was funny and good. But it was boring.
Bria: 11/20. Boring.
Courtlyn: 2/20. To be honest, I hate black and white movies, and I would of liked the other movie.

I was disappointed. They watched with interest and laughed at the appropriate times. I really thought they were liking this more than they said they did. Oh, well. What should I show them next time? (Must be G or PG.)

The Mighty Peking Man

1977 monkey movie

Rating: 15/20 (Dylan: 8/20)

Plot: A expert hunter is called upon to find a giant ape that flattened a jungle village in the Himalayas. They travel to his supposed location, and after the group encounters a lot of problems, the hunter is abandoned. Oh, snap! Luckily for him, there's a scantily-clad jungle woman nice enough to help him out. And she just happens to be the Mighty Peking Man's girlfriend. To make a long story short--King Kong.

There are a lot of things about this movie that nearly convinced me it's the greatest movie ever made:

1) It's really a great telling of the King Kong story, much better than the dismal 70s version or that Peter Jackson masturbationathon.

2) The hero! He's savvy and brave, but he's also very human. The love triangle (actually, I guess it's a square) is realistic.

3) The giant ape! Like the brothers in War of the Gargantua, it's a guy in a velvety-fur suit. He stomps around, beats his chest, climbs buildings, throws rocks, squashes bystanders, swats at helicopters. He does everything that King Kong can do but in Chinese!

4) Watching the wild jungle girl climbing up and down a tree. It's likely the best tree-climbing scene in the history of cinema.

5) The miniatures. Does anybody use toy Tonka trucks and plastic tanks better than the Shaw brothers do in this? Loved watching the mayhem unleashed upon the big city once Peking Man escapes.

6) The dubbing. It's fairly enthusiastic, and I love how one very minor character pronounces it as PAY-king man. I don't know what nonsensical grunts sound like in Mandarin, but the English actress who dubs the jungle girl's in does a fantastic job.

7) Tiger vs. Man wrestling matches! And something you learn from The Mighty Peking Man: When a tiger bites a man's leg off, it's accompanied by a "ching" sound effect like you'd hear in a kung-fu movie. There's also a bitchin' elephant stampede. Jungle madness!

8) The music! The score's fantastic!

9) Possible wardrobe malfunctions.

10) I can't think of a tenth reason.

11) I can't think of an eleventh one either.

I've seen this movie twice now. Next time, I'm watching it with my pants off!

The Fearless Vampire Killers or: Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck

or, Dance of the Vampires

1967 horror comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: A pair of clumsy vampire hunters travel to Transylvania in search of vampire hearts to hammer some wooden stakes into. They stop at an inn because Professor Abronsius needs thawing, and Alfred, his young assistant meets and falls for the beautiful red-headed daughter of the innkeeper. She's swiped by a vampire while bathing, however. Oh, snap! Can the professor and Alfred get to the castle and save her in time?

I'd only known Sharon Tate as a name. I'm not going to claim that she's the greatest actress who ever lived or anything, but there sure was something appealing about her. There is a lot to see in this movie. The cinematography is often stunning, the settings are sensual, and the quirky goings-on in the backgrounds force your eyes to examine every inch of the screen to suck it all in. But despite the gorgeous imagery, my eyes were a little angry every time Sharon Tate wasn't on the screen. But my eyes needed to calm down since most of her scenes seemed to take place in bathtubs. This is an unusual movie, a sometimes baffling movie. Unfortunately (I guess), it's neither scary or funny, and you'd figure that a "horror comedy" would be at least one of those. But there are enough of those How's-Polanski-Doing-That? moments to make it not really matter. I did have a lot of trouble understanding the actors, especially the Jack MacGowran who at times looked like Dana Carvey doing some failed Saturday Night Live character. And after a bit, I really stopped caring about the plot so that I could focus on Sharon Tate and the way Polanski weaves his camera through the gray corridors of this really cool castle. There are some really cool mirror tricks, and a great vampire ball scene where the vampires are all gray, like they've been borrowed from a Roy Andersson movie. Seeing them mingle with the still-human characters in an ornate ballroom was a nifty effect. Cool vampire flick! It does have too many names though.

Body Heat

1981 noir retooling

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Ned Devine, a womanizing lawyer, is trying his best to sweat through a hotter-than-hot summer. He meets married and rich Matty Walker whose husband is conveniently out of town five days a week. They become friends and have many adventures together, mostly playing badminton. One sultry afternoon, Matty serves wildly, and the couple watch their last shuttlecock somersault right into the gutter. Oh, snap! Without a shuttlecock, they can't play badminton. They brainstorm substitute activities and finally decide on having sex and killing Matty's husband which, if you think about it, is a lot like badminton.

Here's my favorite thing about this movie: It is so reminiscent of other movies, borderline ordinary even. On the surface, it seems derivative, a modern update on noir. It's like somebody was carrying around a box of noir and accidentally dropped it down the stairs and all the noir shattered and scattered all over the place so the clumsy guy had to clean up the mess and piece it all back together and glued pieces together randomly and came up with Body Heat. That might sound like a bad thing, but in this case, I don't think it is. Although everything about Body Heat is familiar, I can't place exactly where I've seen any of it, although there's a whole lot of Double Indemnity. Oddly enough, the borrowing of ideas, moods, textures, and maybe even shots somehow makes this seem timeless. This is stylish, right from the opening shot of Hurt watching a fire from his hotel window. I really liked the jazzy score and the banter between Ned and Matty. I thought it was great how their "hookin' up" (or whatever the youngsters are calling it these days) was stretched out and developed, almost to the point where you were on the edge of your seat waiting for the couple to finally get naked. Steamy stuff, so steamy that I had to wipe off my glasses. There's also great mystery burbling beneath the action of this movie; you know something is askew although you can't quite figure out exactly what that is. There were a few awkward moments. The conversation the married couple and Ned have at the restaurant seems contrived, and I think every scene with the niece could have been deleted. I had questions about the random appearance of a clown, the use of the word "dorkus," and a strange scene where everybody in a room decides to smoke at the same time except for the flamboyant Ted Danson. I also had to rewind and pause one scene so that I could read the writing on a bathroom wall:

"Eat my shorts"
"Death to tourists"
"Sofa sucks"?
"Big Al eats here"
"Whip it good"
"Surf Punks"

This was a Cory recommendation.

Take the Money and Run

1969 comedy

Rating: 15/20

Plot: Virgil Starkwell is a career criminal. Unfortunately for him, he's terrible at it. The inept bungling burglar finds love but can't find a way out of his life of crime which humorously makes things difficult for him. He also looks a lot like Woody Allen.

There are some very funny moments in this faux-documentary--"gub," a scene with a ventriloquist dummy, a bad spit shine, a cellist in a marching band, glass theft. I'm bugged that Woody can't keep documentary consistency and loses cohesion because of it. There are scenes with multiple cameras, and more than likely, the events being captured wouldn't even have one camera. The typically absurdist slant is mostly fun, and even though this isn't exactly a Woody Allen classic, it's still worth the time.

Boudo Saved from Drowning

1932 Renoir comedy

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The titular ragamuffin decides to jump into the river and end it all, presumably because rude Frenchmen won't stop laughing at his beard. Middle-class bookseller Listingois spots the suicide attempt from his window and runs to the river, dives in, and saves Boudo from drowning. That's where they get the title for the movie! Boudo turns out to be a pest, a filthy and crude house guest who ends up making life miserable in the Listingois household. Oh, snap! Lesson learned, Monsier Listingois: Don't invite a dirty hippie into your home.

Cool little comedy which stands up surprisingly well for a movie nearly eighty years old. Maybe it's because it's in French. There's very little flare though Renoir's direction is still unspectacularily great, assured and confident. I really liked the character and Michel Simon's performance as Priape Boudo. Priape? Yes, the randy bum did play on the name, alluding to the Greek fertility god Priapus who is known for his gigantic permanent erection. Something about Michel Simon reminded me of Will Ferrell, never a good thing really, and I imagine Ferrell could easily pull off this type of character in a reimagining of the story. Or maybe he could just jump off a bridge? I didn't really understand the satiric elements of Boudo, likely because I don't live in France in the 1930s, but I still really enjoyed this amusing little tale.