Crazy Love

2007 documentary

Rating: 12/20

Spoilers below (if you don't know the story of these two)

Plot: This documents the love story of the century (the last century) in which boy falls in obsessive love with girl, girl loses interest, boy hires thugs to throw acid in girl's face which blinds and disfigures her, boy goes to jail for a long time, and boy and girl later marry and live happily ever after. Sweet stuff.

Intriguing, head-scratching story here, but the documentary style is so talky and dull. There's so much exposition here, and I lost interest in hearing about their childhoods and other things that really had very little to do with their relationship. The story of these bizarre people is definitely better than the documentary. Pugach's eyes might keep me awake for a few nights.

Night and the City

1950 British noir

Rating: 16/20

Plot: The night could be any night. The city is London. And Harry Fabian is an artist without an art, a two-bit hustler with a big imagination, bigger aspirations, and big plans that generally go nowhere. He's got a gal, he's got a lousy job with a nasty boss, he's got the wife of that nasty boss who apparently has the hots for him, and after he runs into a legendary wrestler, he thinks he has the perfect plan to weasel his way into being the top wrestling promoter in all of London. It doesn't work out so well for him, however.

On paper, this is sort of a goofy story, but it turned out to be a very nice piece of noir, stylish and complex and layered. From a moody shadowy chase scene at the very beginning to an ending that is predictable because you know it can't end any other way, this is quality story-telling, very well written with rich characters and great seedy settings in the underbelly of London. This is a lame thing to type, but this seems like a Coen brothers' movie. Not a very large role for Tierney here.

Shoot the Piano Player!

1960 French American gangster movie

Rating: 17/2o

Plot: Charlie's plays piano nightly in a jazz club before going home to sleep with his neighbor, a prostitute, and take care of his much younger brother. He's got a past, part of which includes playing concert piano and being in love, but in his present, he just wants to blend in, be shy, exist subtly. His older brother busts in one night looking for help as two guys he and the other older brother cheated out of money are after him. One of them wears a hat; the other wears a cap. Charlie and the waitress who loves him get involved in the mess.

Truffaut's follow-up to The 400 Blows is a neat blend of whimsy and drama. My favorite parts of this are the unnecessary parts, the bits that don't really seem to belong and may even distract from the main narrative but add a color or a texture that make this memorable. I know nothing about French actors, but I really like the guy who plays the title pianist. I also like the interior monologue that pops up every once in a while, mostly when he's with the waitress character. Great flick!

My Kid Could Paint That

2007 documentary

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 14/20)

Plot: Marla is a four-year-old girl living with her family in New York. She just might be a painting prodigy, an abstract artistic genius whose work has been compared to Pollock. Or she could be the tool of an ambitious parent wanting to fool the art world and make some money. As her work creates a stir amongst art collectors, that money does start rolling in. But when 60 Minutes comes along, questions about the true artist behind the work emerge.

Good companion piece for the Who the Bleep Is Jackson Pollock? documentary I watched earlier this year. Both raise similar questions about the hypocrisy within the art world and about what makes modern art good art. The subject of Marla is approached objectively (in fact, the director seemed to be doing this all as a human interest story until the 60 minutes expose) and there's enough here to start conversation and/or argument although Jen and I both think we know exactly what's going on here. Interesting story, and I did like a lot of the paintings regardless of who painted them.

Funny Games

2007 remake

Rating: 15/20

Plot: A family of three make the drive up to their lakeside property for some relaxation. A soft-spoken young man in golf gloves comes over to borrow eggs. He drops them. She gives him more eggs. The dog scares him, and he drops them. He and his friend then terrorize the family with an unwanted game night.

I was worried about this one, but it seems to be a scene-by-scene remake of the original, also directed by Mr. Haneke. I probably prefer that original just because I don't recognize any of the actors. I'm still not completely sure what I think of this movie. It's a challenging couple hours for sure, maybe a little gimmicky. It's also quietly suspenseful with fine acting and interesting direction, especially in a long extended shot around the middle point of the movie. I'm a sucker for those. A terrifying experience with some scenes that still shock but nothing really new if you've seen the original foreign-language version. Well, other than Naomi Watts in underpants.

Anchorman: The Ron Burgundy Story

2004 classic comedy

Rating: 9/20 (Jen: 1/20 although she only half-watched it)

Plot: Step 1--Get Will Ferrell. Step 2--Figure out a profession and time period for Will Ferrell to have. Step 3--Think of some hilarious subplots. Step 4--Think up a bunch of really goofy things for Will Ferrell to say, things that college kids can quote when they're drunk. And boom! You've made a Will Ferrell movie! This time, it's the 1970's, and Will Ferrell is a local news anchorman in San Diego. It's a man's world. San Diegoans trust him with delivering the news and then he hangs out with the other male reporters and parties and talks about girls. But when a gorgeous anchorwoman with a cute butt comes along, it threatens to send his world topsy-turvy. Oh, snap!

This was recommended by a poker buddy who couldn't believe I had never seen it and referred to it as "a classic." It's not.

The Falls

1980 fake biographical catalogue

Rating: 18/20

Plot: A mysterious event (V.U.E. or Violent Unknown Event) has affected the world. Lots died, but others were affected in other ways--immortality, anatomical changes (chambers added to the heart, wings, webbed fingers), the obtaining of new languages, new genders, recurring dreams of water, the need to drive in circles. The Falls is an encyclopedic chronicle of 92 of these people, all with a last name beginning with F-A-L-L.

The cinematic equivalent to Gravity's Rainbow? I have a confession to make--it took me nearly an entire year to watch this three hour, twenty minute film. I started it in January, watched a little more in October, and finished it tonight. It's bewildering, frustrating, and difficult. However, it's also a work of unquestionable genius. As far as I know, there is nothing else even close to being like this. Self-referential with interlocking mini-biographies and themes or motifs or even characters who will pop up in later Greenaway movies, the focus isn't necessarily on the collection of stock footage, found footage, shots from early Greenaway shorts, and stuff Greenaway shot specifically for this film, but on the narrators (there are at least five) who dryly deliver dadaist details--magically realistic, absurdly humorous, head-scratching. The music--mostly Greenaway regular Michael Nyman but there's also a snippet of Syd Barrett and lots of Brian Eno in here--is really terrific. There's so much to digest here, so many parallels and so many allusions to literature, other films, folklore, science and anatomy, etc. that it makes me wonder what multiple viewings will reveal. Is this a grand, elongated joke, a riddle, a game, maniacal masturbation? Whatever it is, I dug it.

Lynch (one)

2007 documentary

Rating: 11/20

Plot: A portrait of the artist as a strange man. Footage of Lynch making Inland Empire and interviews with the director as he expounds on subjects like film, transcendental meditation, art, and hitting bloated animals with pick axes.

I guess I knew I was in trouble when the director's name popped up on the screen and it was blackANDwhite. What a self-indulgent mess this turned out to be. I truly enjoyed listening to a lot of what Lynch had to say and watching him work with his actors or on his set design. Whether you like his movies or not, he's an interesting and funny guy, and as a glimpse into the creative process, this should have worked. But the direction of this thing was such a distraction. Do I really need to see Lynch from the perspective of the floor? Do I really need to see Lynch through a layer of gauze? This became less about David Lynch and more about how clever blackANDwhite could be. Shame on blackANDwhite.

Mysterious Object at Noon

2000 thing

Rating: 10/20

Plot: ???

Allegedly inspired by the surrealist parlor game The Exquisite Corpse, this sort-of documentary tells a fragmented story of a crippled boy, his teacher, and a star child. Intermingling throughout, there are fairly random shots of Thailand daily life--folks selling tuna, kids playing soccer, people driving. And that's about it. This is probably the most boring movie I've seen all year. I like the idea, but the execution of that idea just doesn't work. Chunks of this dragged so much that I had to work hard just to stay awake. This starts nowhere, goes nowhere, and ends nowhere. I'm sure my tiny brain is completely missing the point of this one, but I'm not sure I care enough to ever figure it out.

Medea

1988 adaptation of the mythological tale

Rating: 16/20

Rating: Based on the play by Euripides, this is the dismal tragedy of the title bitch who, scorned by her lover Jason (the apples and Argonauts guy), goes apeshit and starts killing everybody. After all, hell hath no fury.

This is the realization of great director Carl Th. Dreyer's Medea script by wannabe great but pretentious director Lars von Trier. Dreamy, dreary, and beautiful, this old-looking and almost otherworldly film resembles Joan of Arc and the vampire movie as it lilts through a poetic sludge. The film starts and ends with water, and in between, a whole bunch of stuff--grasses, sheets, character's clothes, clouds--is filmed in a way that also reminds you of water. Definitely not for everybody as the fuzziness and unorthodox camera angles will likely get on most people's nerves. But it works to create a haunting atmosphere and wipe out any memory you might have of any Shirley Temple movies you might have seen. The acting's strong although the script sometimes isn't. I don't know if Dreyer was intending this as a silent film or talky, but I almost think this would have been more effective sans dialogue. Likely, I'll revisit some of the macabre imagery of this one in my nightmares.

The Littlest Rebel

1935 confederacy propaganda film

Rating: 4/20

Plot: (Warning--Spoilers!) Sweet little Virgie lives with her mother and father on a southern plantation. Her existence is a perfect one--she hosts her own birthday party with her young friends, bosses around the family's slaves and chastises them when they do wrong, and lives it up in the luxuriant comfort of her father's mansion. But then war breaks out and her father must run off to help the southern cause. Virgie has to deal with her father's absence, the burning down of her house, her mother's death, and her father's eventual execution in the only way she knows how--tap dancing and singing!

I had promised somebody that I would watch a Shirley Temple movie by Christmas. I thought it was my first, but she's apparently in Fort Apache. But this is my first time seeing Shirley Temple in her prime, when she was six and tap dancing and dimpling her way into America's hearts. And I've got to say that it was a worse experience than I ever could have imagined. This is a movie seemingly made in a topsy-turvy America, one where the Southerners have the moral high ground; where Northerners are arrogant, cruel brutes; and where slaves are perfectly content with the hand they've been dealt. Maybe the best compliment I can give this movie is that it is Birth of a Nation-esque. Because of the way black and white relationships work in this movie, I don't think it's appropriate for children. There's the stock clown character (a slave, of course, portrayed in a fashion that looks like it's straight off a minstrel show stage) who falls in holes he's dug as traps, contemplates why shoes are called shoes, says the Union can make the weather change because whenever they's around he don't know if it winter or summer out cause he's a-sweatin' and a-shiverin' at the same time, and is told to shut up by multiple characters. And there's something almost shocking about watching Shirley Temple verbally abuse slaves although, admittedly, she seems to be friends with them throughout most of the movie. More offensive to anybody who likes good realistic movie fiction would be scenes in which the soldiers interact with each other, the range of emotions Shirley Temple displays when her mother dies, and the melodrama displayed when Shirley Temple's character shares an apple with Abraham Lincoln. The dated humor will make you cringe rather than laugh, and the dated story might make any intelligent viewer physically ill. But the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae? Five words for ya: Shirley Temple in black face. That's right. Check it:

Disorderlies

1987 comedy

Rating: 3/20

Plot: Up to his neck in gambling debts, Winslow concocts a plan to hire the world's worst orderlies with hopes that they will kill his uncle so that he can inherit his riches. Unfortunately, the only thing that winds up dead in this is the script.

80's rappers The Fat Boys--the Three Stooges of Rap--star in this unfunny 80's comedy. And it's completely obvious why they didn't follow this up with more movies. It's the type of thing you watch and just wonder how in the world anybody thought this was a good idea. The best thing about it might be some of the music. The Fat Boys rap a little bit, and 80's avant-poppers Art of Noise provide some of the soundtrack. The worst thing about this just might be the incredibly goofy cartoonish sound effects (boings, squelches, trumpets, birds, horns) that accompany some of the slapstick. Nothing in this even approaches funny. My brother and I saw this in the theater in '87 and didn't like it then either. And as white kids from rural Indiana, we were likely the target audience. The only reason I picked this up is because I was so stunned it had even been released on dvd that I lost my ability to think rationally.

Viridiana

1961 Bunuel drama

Rating: 18/20

Plot: The title character, a soon-to-be nun ready to take her final vows, is persuaded by the head nun to pay a final visit to her only living relative, a rich but reclusive uncle. He's not a very good person. Viridiana reminds him of his wife who unfortunately died in his arms on their wedding night (sadly, that sounds only a little worse than my honeymoon), and begs her to marry him. She's a bit shocked, refuses, and prepares to leave immediately. So the uncle has her drugged in order to take advantage of her and find a way to force her to stay. Then she leaves. Then something else happens. Then something else happens. And then she decides that she wants to devote her life helping vagabonds and cripples. Then some other things happen.

Incredibly uplifting Bunuel criticism of (surprise!) organized religion and society. Ok, not uplifting at all. But it's brilliant film making! There's a flawless quality to the direction here that comes across as so effortless, and although this doesn't have the weirdness of other Bunuel movies (no cows in beds or eyeball slittings here), there are some fantastic moments, most notably a "last supper" scene and a somnambulist sequence that is dreamy enough to allow me to use my surreal tag. Speaking of tags, I thought I had an incest one. I'm not sure why I don't! I love the final scene of this movie despite its goofiness. Apparently, censors didn't approve of an original final scene, but from the description I've read, it seems like Bunuel managed to sneak a little something extra into this one.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

2008 piece of galactic poo-poo

Rating: 4/20 (Dylan: 14/20; Emma 15/20; Abbey 19/20)

Plot: It's a time of war in the galaxy as Count Dooky and his Seperatists take on the Jedi and a bunch of clones. Dooky and Emperor Palpatine form an intricate plan involving a plot to kidnap Jabba the Hutt's baby in order to turn the Hutts against the Jedi and gain an edge in the war. Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Anakin's new apprentice (whose name I didn't bother learning) have to save the day.

Crap this is. Hate it I did. Now, keep in mind that I like Star Wars. I liked the originals as a kid, and I liked a lot about the prequels as an adult. I have a Jar Jar Binks tatoo on my scrotum. I make my own Boba Fett t-shirts. I speak fluent Ewok. I've swallowed exactly four Lando Calrissian action figures. I can't have sexual intercourse without first picturing Admiral Ackbar. But this is just bad, and it was bad from the get-go. I'll put it this way--this is a Star Wars movie that actually manages to make Yoda unlikable. The animation looks stupid when nothing exciting is going on and whatever plot there is is being moved forward. The action scenes aren't bad looking at all, but there are so many of them that my eyes started bleeding and then I got yelled at for getting eye blood on the couch. And the fight scenes you really wait for have absolutely no emotional punch at all. They're just there. How can you title a movie after a war and then show only a small percentage of the war that winds up having no impact on the war at all? None of this crap is vital to the Star Wars story. This is a very poorly written, incomplete movie that I wish didn't exist. And if I ever meet an adult who likes this movie, I'm taking a swing at him. I'm not even joking.

Tropic Thunder

2008 comedy

Rating: 13/20

Plot: With a big budget and big-name actors, a director attempts to film the story of a Vietnam War hero. Problems with that budget and with those actors drives the director and some of the crew into the wild to improvise and add some realism to the shoot. Unfortunately, the actors find themselves in the territory of some murderous drug smugglers. Oh, snap!

Me after the first 15 minutes of Tropic Thunder: Ha ha ha! Ha ha ho ha! This might be the funniest movie I've ever seen!

Me from minute 16 on: Oh, no! What happened? This thing's lost steam and has really turned into a mess! Oh, wait. Ha ho! That was sort of funny.

Yeah, I don't know what went wrong. There was a real spunk at the beginning of this and laughs aplenty, the humor somehow managing to work as this stupidly clever hybrid. Or a cleverly stupid. Then it seemed to lose that adventurous spirit and that edge and became sort of like every other comedy like this. Lots of really funny moments peppered throughout, of course, but unfortunately, a lot of script work was needed. Good cast though. And most impressive is maybe that the actors weren't all trying to overdo it, to outfunny each other. This could have been a really obnoxious movie. And I will say this: Robert Downey Jr. might be the best actor alive. He continues to take risks and show off a versatility that's impossible not to appreciate. Maybe it's the drugs?