I’m getting to it. It looks amazing. That was going to be my second, but I read about this one so I had to check it out.
The Dark Knight Rises
-I cannot really put on my film critic cap on this. I have been too engrossed with the Batman universe for so long. Satisfying conclusion though very conclusion-ish, Anne Hathaway gives a nice performance that finally gave Christian Bale something close to an energetic performance which should make Nolan hate himself for not unleashing the great female characters of the canon much sooner. The film is very operatic and feels closer to a Dickens serial than your Adam West show but also not the pseudo-intellectual dissertation on Nietzsche that felt pretty hollow at times in The Dark Knight. Yes, there uses of narrative and script that are too pronounced but I feel like the film succeeded in its aim of it being all about Gotham City.
8/10
Killer Joe
-Film suffers too much its play origins where certain situations for the characters being off-screen read exactly like something out of play. Emile Hirsch’s character is in one sense given too much to do and also given too little depth. He is by far the weakest performer on the bunch as a not believable enough dumb hick. Hirsch shares a resemblance to Leonardo DiCaprio, another actor that I personally have had some trouble seeing him disappear into a role, so maybe it is that but for the central performer he feels like a black hole to this black hole comedy. McConaughey and Temple are very good but the film feels like a bunch of different things from Temple’s Dotty as a dreamy, child-like character out of Tennessee Willams, the Gerhson and Thomas Haden Church scenes feel like something out of a Roseanne or Grace Under Fire episode (sometimes works as a much needed break in tension but this part gets pretty sullied in the last act), and the infamous last 15 minutes of the film that is probably the best boycott tool for fried chicken (Chick Fil A protesters take note). That said scene is pretty brutal and it is a testament to how committed McConaughey is as the evil, insane, and possible moral compass of the film but it left me very cold. I usually like Tracey Letts works, and I cannot imagine seeing that last scene as a live audience member, but his script is so problematic that I cannot even recommend this as a curiosity. I hope McConaughey’s performance is recognized that he can actually act but that is about it.
5/10
Moonrise Kingdom
-A very nice, sweet, albeit minor Wes Anderson film where the kid performances more than hold their ground. The Bob Balaban as omnipresent narrator pretense manages to work. Bruce Willis and Edward Norton as maligned men in not-so powerful power positions are probably the best among the veteran actors though Tilda Swinton in an all too minor part is pretty game playing the villain entity of Social Services. Beautifully shot and beautiful colors. I forgot to mention I saw this as an unexpected double-header to TDKR and really, its sorbet-like palate cleanse of epic dark pulp (that I enjoyed mind you) may have made me appreciate it a whole lot more.
8/10
I consider Ionesco’s rhinoceros to be the best play of the 20th century so had high hopes for the film version and it was abysmai. Gene Wilder was good but everyone else was too broad. There were some odd additions and 60s counter culture that had nothing to do with anything
Bad
1.5/5
LONESOME 7/10
Paul Fejos’ little film about two lonely city folk who meet and fall in love at Coney Island has a lot of charm and warmth, I found myself getting more invested than I usually do in this kind of thing. Some lovely moments in it, to be sure. Was Coney Island really that frantic?
HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR (Alain Resnais, 1959) – 5 out of 5 stars
VAN HELSING (Stephen Summers, 2004) – 4 out of 5 stars
HELLBOY (Guillermo Del Toro, 2004) – 4 out of 5 stars
HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY (Guillermo Del Toro, 2008) – 4 out of 5 stars
One Hour Photo
B+
I think it’s kind of cool how Williams got under my skin just from the way his eyes look. Really good performance and an intense final half, but besides that I don’t see what is so special about it.
We The Party
After Ebert’s review and one of my heroes Melvin Van Peebles touting this film I expected big things; outside of a few strong scenes (the ending is top notch) this is just an uneasy mix of house party and where the day takes you. The music is great (though it drowns out all the dialog).
2/5
LOVER: Agree abut One Hour Photo not being special, but B+ is a pretty high rating in my book. I’d struggle to give it anywhere near that.
Robin Williams was very effective though. He was even better in World’s Greatest Dad. The guy should try acting more often ;-)
Williams is pretty good in the film The Final Cut which went pretty unseen. And if seen, hardly liked.
LOVER: Agree abut One Hour Photo not being special, but B+ is a pretty high rating in my book. I’d struggle to give it anywhere near that.
My thoughts as well.
I give LOC’s rating system a 2/5.
@Mogambo
Lol, my rating system took offense to that ;)
@Joks
A B+ isn’t a very high rating to me. B+ is 3 stars. After that there is A-, A, and A+. Anything I gave a 3 star or B rating is just forgettable in the long run, but good or passable while you’re there. The + comes from Williams’ performance. It takes a lot for an actor to get under someone’s skin just from the way they look. How he was written and the little things that were done with his hair, eyebrows, and the way he runs was exceptional. Everything else, not special. It’s just Williams that made it close to special/memorable.
Even his narration was chilling. He never really speaks of himself, but the whole concept of photography. What is there to be said about him? Nothing.
In short: his performance brought it up some points. Nothing else did.
Also
A- and A are just 4 stars. A+ is 5 stars. (in my rating book)
^^Ok, i tend to go by a number system(roughly). So a B+ would be like a strong 7, or 7.5. it’s a carry over from high school ;-) it’s a 3.5 star film. 3 stars=6/10.
i watched greed today. yeah greed d. erich von stroheim (1924). i have put this off for literally years. the butchering of this film is one of the great tragedies of the cinema. i watched the ‘original’ cut of just over two hours and found much to be impressed by including one of the all time great endings, the famous death valley scene. i know of course that whole plots and characters were jettisoned in the editing down of this film from over 10 hrs in length. only 12 people saw the original 24 reel version of greed. i wonder how many here have seen the turner ‘reconstruction’ of the film and is it worth seeking out. i think it’s on youtube. as it stands i give the film 8/10
I saw the reconstruction a couple of years ago for the Director’s Cup and gave it 5/5.
@House
For One Hour Photo?
@Ruby
I need to stop putting that off and see it!
A ten hour long movie made in the 20s? Why do I find that extraordinary? I guess it’s superhuman length is why it got it’s ass kicked.
The best thing ever would be if Martin Scorsese, on his death bed, said “look under my bed, I have a present for you all”…
@Joks
Your system seems more legite. B+ is nowhere near strong for me, but it might have one or two strong things (but never enough to elevate it to A territory, where memorable stuff lies).
BRB studying algebra to figure out what LOC and JOKS just posted.
LOC: ok, at least i know now, because you post reviews often, so at least i have an idea what’s going on ;-)
For me a B+ movie is a really good film that comes close to being great but just misses out for whatever reason. It’s still very worthy though.
still wish we could award half star ratings here too ;-)
Ruby, the 4 hours reconstruction of Greed is exactly that, a “reconstruction” with LOTS of still photos and intertitles following the original screenplay. It’s NOT a film. Continuity a rhythm are completely lost. You have done the right thing seeing the 140’ version, that’s the remaining film. Now you can read of original screenplay and/or take a look at the reconstruction to imagine the original film.
I was referring to Greed.
Yes, the reconstruction contains many stills but it is surely a film. Tell Chris Marker that La Jette isn’t a film. I think he’d disagree (even from the grave).
I haven’t seen the shorter version, but the reconstructed one was utterly captivating and a wonderful experience.
@HoL – To be fair to Angel, Marker created La Jetee to be a series of stills; Greed was not. So while I haven’t seen the reconstruction of Greed yet (I have seen the 140 min version), I think Angel’s suggested course of action is correct. One of these days I’m going to go back and watch the 140 again and then read the screenplay, which I have up on my shelf waiting.
Yes, fair enough. But it was still an amazing film. I loved every second, so I don’t think I was cheated, and given the volume of multi-hour films on my slate, I may never get to the other version, but I won’t feel like I missed out.
@Joks
Yeah so do I.
Sorry if my system threw y’all off. B or B+ is not a great movie to me.
I’m pretty sure I saws the 4 hour version of Greed (with the stills), and the stills did hurt the film. It’s really hard to judge the film given the circumstances, but I didn’t really care for it. I believe at the beginning of the film, there’s quote by von Stroheim expressing how devastated he felt by what happened to the film; I really felt bad for him.
Ruby, I saw the 3 and a half hour version and I thought it was fantastic. I would definitely recommend watching that as well. I didn’t find any serious problem with the rhythm of the film, as there is so much that I feel I would have missed out on if I had watched the 140 min version first, which makes me wonder how much we’re all missing out on from the original 10 hour cut.
Yes. After everything that had happened before, I was stunned by where the characters where at the end of the film. I won’t for a second regret that the restored version was my first introduction to this film.
RE: Greed
The 140 min “Studio Cut” is one of the great masterpieces of cinema. Who knows just how astonishing von Stroheim’s original cut may have been.
The 4 hour reconstruction with stills is an important document of von Stroheim’s original intentions. It’s great to have for analysis purposes and to dream about what might have been, and it is entertaining and quite compelling in its own right. But I found it a bit less successful as a cinematic experience than the 140m version. This is because much of Greed’s emotional resonance comes from movement and momentum as the film escalates in drama along its downward spiral of immorality: the volcanic outbursts of the characters, the intensity of their eyes and facial expressions, and their interactions with eachother.
Hour of the Wolf-Bergman (1968) 7.5/10 …amazing…elliptical, surreal, haunting, profound…perhaps Bergman’s most underrated film… (NOTE: 7.5 from me tends to be about the equivalent of 4.5/5 stars on most scales)
Encore Suspense has been doing Hitchcock films for the past month now. It’s awesome. The following two films were on the past two nights. (Marnie, a new personal favorite, comes on tonight.)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (Alfred Hitchcock, 1956) – 7.5 out of 10
an important picture for me in that it was the Hitchcock film that got me into Hitchcock, I remember stumbling upon it one day during summer vacation back when I still got a summer vacation, and for whatever reason I turned it on, and I had missed only about fifteen minutes or so, not enough to ruin the whole picture, so I ended up watching the rest of the film and I was caught up in it every minute of the way, and after that I was hooked; over time I’ve come to appreciate the film a little less (for me, Vertigo is his masterpiece, with Psycho as a close second); the kid is particularly annoying, and at times I really wanted them to just kill the kid, and boy! whatta twist that woulda been; but the fantastic last twenty minutes, during the concert, when there’s no dialogue and all music and direction, this is about as pure Hitchcock as you can get, and it’s still thrilling no matter how many times I watch it
The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963) – 8.0 out of 10
a perfect companion to Marnie, which would come out a year later, both films touch on female sexuality and animal instincts and urges; I’ve always enjoyed The Birds, and have come to realize that I seem to put Hitchcock’s more “supernatural” (read: unexplainable phenomena) films like this one (and Vertigo) on a higher pedestal than his more human-driven films (such as The Man Who Knew Too Much, or Strangers on a Train); to me, this could be Hitchcock’s most allegorical film; perhaps, most of all I love how Hitchcock doesn’t let up until the very end (and even then you’re left with the eerie lasting image of the people walking out from the house surrounded in a sea of birds), how the film is literally a two-hour buildup, and how it continues to get more and more intense as it goes on
My local multiplex is playing the NC-17 rated “Killer Joe” this weekend.
I’m definately going to go see it.
It just kinda shocks me that my multiplex is showing it (then again, they showed “Blue Valentine” but that was NC-17 and then appealed and changed to R so that makes more sense)
ruby stevens
oh dude u have to see the saragossa manuscript!