And did they help?
I think so: http://www.screened.com/primer/16-61068/all-images/132-637554/primer_timeline/131-248887/
Le Havre 8/10
The great Cannes trickle begins. I think this one only came out earlier because the distributors think it has a shot at the Best Foreign Film Oscar.
Have you ever noticed Kaurismaki’s films get lighter and lighter the later you get in his career? This one is about immigration laws, but more directly it’s about the cases when legal rules conflict with moral rules. It explicitly argues that when they do, law enforcement officers are faced with the choice of violating their professional ethics, or violating their personal ethics. If they choose the latter they could destroy their careers, if they choose the former the community will despise them. A very interesting film, and a sure sign Kaurismaki has kicked his depression.
The Skin I Live In 7/10
Sullivan’s Travels 8/10
This film has the one thing old school Hollywood comedies desperately require: A very clever script.
Straits of Love and Hate 7/10
A Mizoguchi film. Not much else to say about it.
“What is it you kids like about this?”
Nothing. Timecrimes was stupid.
“What is it you kids like about this?”
Nothing. Timecrimes was stupid.
Captain America: The First Avenger (Dir. Joe Johnson, 2011)
Entertaining enough. It had an Earthiness about it at times. And when it wasn’t preoccupied with cool battle/fight scenes, it did actually encourage noble values – bravery, valor; values that American’s do not hold the copyright on.
Deconstructing Harry (Dir. Woody Allen, 1997)
One of my favorite Allen movies. The scene where he visits his sister is downright hilarious.
Close-Up (Dir. Abbas Kiarostami, 1990)
I was sold from start to finish with this one. Kiarostami gives us a chance to observe someone in detail. Some of the court proceedings were oddly fascinating. The ending was probably a bit too much for me, but it’s something I’ll be considering as I go forward with Kiarostami. I’m really looking forward to seeing some of his other stuff.
The Sleeping Beauty (Dir. Cathrine Breillat, 2010)
I haven’t seen Bluebeard yet, but if The Sleeping Beauty is any indication, Breillat should stay the hell away from fairy tales. What an incoherent bore. I eventually got the sense that she was just including shit she thought was cool, paying no mind to what it would mean to the whole movie. 82 min of wasted time. I welcome any fan of this movie to explain what the hell all the dreaming sequences were supposed to mean.
@Santino
Nothing. Timecrimes was stupid.
Hey, I’m supposed to be the movie-hater.
Puss n Boots — 5 out of 5 — very amusing!
dp
Jack and Jill reminded me of a Jerry Lewis film, there is a lot of non-sequiter and that works to its advantage. The best of Jack and Jill involves Pacino who does his best work in years (finally he is over the top for a reason) and some of his lines are very enjoyable: “I feel lost. I try to find my kids and don’t know where they are. I end up talking to lemon trees.”
the worst parts of J and J are like the worst parts of a Lewis film, more reliant on caricature than humor but Sandler, like Pacino, is the most commited he has been (since Punch Drunk), some of it works much of it does not. But Pacino’s role works and since he is onscreen almost 2/3rds of the time, the film works as a minor fun comedy
Grade 2.7/5
I also snuck into Puss and Boots. This is a suprise coming from the makers of the Shrek films (some of the worst cartoons in memory). This is an enjoyable film. Humpty Dumpty is a character you end up feeling great empathy for almost right away (it took the whole of J and J before I sympathized with Jill). The film is very good in its Zorro surroundings. It loses its way for about 20mins in the fairy tale section but gains it back for a rousing final.
3.8/5
Jazz – lol. I’ll take over your job for this one movie.
Nathan – Skip Bluebeard. Similar to Sleeping Beauty. crap.
@Santino
You didn’t think they at least fit the pieces together fairly well, even if the overall film was just OK (Well, in your case, less than OK.)
@Nathan
I think the only other two Kiarostami films I’ve seen are The Wing Will Carry Us and Taste of Cherry. I’d be pretty surprised if you like those two.
@HoL
Thanks for the link. I need to bookmark that site.
Rare Exports: A Tale of Christmas
Screw Ralphie and his stupid bb gun, this is my idea of a entertaining Christmas story.
In Time
Niccol really needs to get beyond his ‘cool’ concepts of the future and not rely on other, better movies with similar looks and themes. There is more preaching in this than a televangelist channel. The film wastes a good Cillian Murphy performance, everything else was flat.
4/10
Tabloid
A real miss for Errol Morris. It seemed he had nobody but Joyce McKinney to really get anything for a story, and with that came a lot of disturbing, uneven accounts that felt way too over-extended. I was waiting for a critique on her whole story becoming a phenomenon but he just indulged her and the people from those worthless publications that trashed her to get more punches in. Now, I think she’s crazy, I sort of gave up by the home videos and the puppy cloning, but I don’t think there was enough levity on the whole story and that falls on Morris.
5/10
The Sleeping Beauty (Director: Catherine Breillat)
1/5
Julia Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty was bad but this is worse, a surrealist bore that looks like a tv movie (which makes sense since in France it WAS a tv movie!) Just plain dull.
I also watched the Brothel-set comedy A Spanking in Paradise but I watched it so passively that I’m not going to even rate it.
After Leigh’s Sleeping Beauty and House of Pleasures and now Spanking in Paradise, I realize I must not like movies about brothels.
Although I did love Jon Hewitt’s X. Does that count? I mean, they were prostitutes but there was no brothel in it lol
@Cait
Re: In Time
It’s not a great movie by any means, but check out the thread. I think we can have some interesting discussions about the implications of the premise.
See also the thread on Tabloid. I think I basically agree with your take on the film. If McKinney is not crazy, she has some problems, and that just made the situation sad, not something I found interesting.
@Greg
Screw Ralphie? “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch!” Btw, I never heard of the film you mentioned. When did it come out?
2010 I think, it’s from Finland and it comes from some ideas the director worked on in a couple of short films made earlier in the decade. It’s an amusing and dark Santa Claus tale, and its pleasure for me lies in the way it handles its shifting tone. It’s pretty representative of the current vogue for quasi-fairy tales done in a way to reemphasize something of the harsher side of the tales, but I thought the director and crew just did a bang up job on making these somewhat modest elements fit together well without going too far. Think of it as being in something of the same school as Troll Hunter or perhaps a somewhat toned down Hanna, but told with a sort of wry Christmassy twist to it.
I’ve yet to see Rare Exports (which did indeed come out last Christmas)
the movie Saint (which I also have not seen) is similar and available on demand!
Zodiac (David Fincher) : 6/10
The Fighter 2010
DIR David O. Russell
SCR Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, Keith Dorrington
CAST Christian Bale, Mark Wahlberg, Amy Adams, Sean Patrick Doherty, Melissa Leo
120 Min
Terrible filmmaking, but even as trite story it is…..true.
5/10
^^Robert, the main issue i had with that film is that it’s caught ackwardly between an inspirational sports film, and a kitchen sink drama. The balance is completely off imo. i appreciated the effort to move into that sort of environment, but ithey should have just picked a direction and went with it imo.
Yeah, it was terrible. On his first date with Charlene, she alludes the fact he has to get away from his family – huh? If the fights were the way depicted, one punch wonders, they probably wouldn’t have made good viewing anyway.
I agree with Robert. The Fighter was middling – one of the worst bits of directing I’d seen in a long time. Bale and Leo were entertaining though.
@ Jazz – No, I felt Timecrimes was just a cute idea but got really boring really fast.
@ Greg – I agree that Rare Exports is a holiday treat! And proof that along with Troll Hunter, all the fun ideas are coming from places where it’s cold.
Yeah, I thought Bale was pretty good.
^^his wide eyed stare was pretty laughable though imo.
there is something about that guy that bothers me. I don’t get the fuss about his acting. He isn’t that good, you know?
I thought his appearance was really distracting in The Machinist, which i guess is kind of my way of saying this performance didn’t rise above the gimmick.
His character arced a tad from to wide-eyed stuff in the beginning.
4 screenwriters might be a clue overall ….
Surrogate Valentine (Director: Dave Boyle)
3.5/5
yes, most of the characters are charicatures and it all feels very conventional, broad and trite BUT there really are a few good-to-great moments in this movie and I really saw myself identifying with the Goh character even though he was way too much of a straight man. Yes, the comedy is very broad but some of the film works quite well.
Going to attempt to catch up with my watching since late October (there isn’t a whole lot to post)
Office Space (1999, Mike Judge): Blah. Kind of like something you’d expect to see on some tv sitcom. Not desperately funny. A bit of me wants to be harsher to it but I just don’t care. 5/10
The Intruder (2004, Claire Denis): An absolutely beguiling piece of impressionistic filmmaking. I can only imagine it will become richer on repeat viewings as Denis’ style (pushing the plot to the periphary of the film so that she can instead focus closely on individual details) is taken to such an extreme here that it’s very hard to know quite what to latch on to in what could almost be called stream of consciousness. 8/10
Princess Mononoke third watch (1997, Hayao Miyazaki): Brilliant film. Gets better every time I watch it. 9/10
The Land Before Time third watch (1988, Don Bluth): Almost ridiculously adorable at points. I do tend to find the bluntly stated “Power of friendship” stuff and such quite cloying, and at times the mannerisms of some of the dinos got a tad irritating, but in general it was alright. Yup yup yup. 5/10
Jurassic Park fourth watch (1993, Steven Spielberg): I know the effects in Jurassic Park are fairly convincing but…the characters aren’t so much… I like the mathematician (even if his explanation of chaos theory was quite silly…), but the rest of the characterisations are either annoying (especially Wayne Knight’s character) or just not very interesting. And the build up is kind of painful… I do love the scene with the raptors in the kitchen though, which is very tense! I also like the t-rex chase. 5/10
House of Leaves
Yeah, I’ve seen a few of these over the years.