December 14, 2015 – December 20, 2015
Monday, December 14, 2015
1) Swords and Hearts (1911)
Why I watched: Attempting to watch at least 15 movies released in every year of the twentieth century.
Impression: D.W. Griffith loved the Civil War era. He was born in 1875 in Kentucky, and you get the impression he grew up hearing stories of the war from his parents and grandparents. He paints the era in nostalgic tones as if it was an idyllic time in American’s recent past and often used the war as a backdrop for a melodramatic love story.
Here, a young girl is in love with a rich planter who’s in love with someone else. After the war, he returns home to discover he’s lost his wealth. The girl helps him escape from the Union soldiers and confesses her love.
It’s starkly different from our current view and impression of the war, but in Griffith’s time the historical record was still in flux, which makes you realize how difficult it is to place events in context.
1 star.
2) Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
Why I watched: Jamie Porter’s Pick of the Week
Impression: When truck driver Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) goes with his friend Wang Chi to pick up his fiancée Miao Yin at the airport, he’s inadvertently dragged into a plot by the evil Chinese wizard Lo Pan (James Wong) to marry and sacrifice Miao Yin to break a longstanding curse placed on him by Quin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China.
The film does a great job playing with ignorance about Chinese customs and practices, using a hybrid of western medieval traditions and eastern mysticism to create its own version of Chinese mythology.
Russell is awesome, James Wong is great as the evil Lo Pan, and it cracks me up to think fifteen years before she played the lascivious Samantha Jones, Kim Cattrall was in this campy film.
Director John Carpenter is best known for horror films (particularly the slasher genre), but his collaborations with Kurt Russell in Escape from New York, The Thing, and this film are great examples of 1980s aesthetic: cheesy dialogue, macho action, over the top special effects, and a driving rock / synthesized score; an amalgam of Sam Fuller, Russ Meyer, and Jack Arnold.
Carpenter’s films were moderately successful at the box office, but they premiered when the home video market was in its infancy and found a beloved place in the hearts of many Generation Xers as they wore out VHS copies of his films. As a child of the 1980s, I have a fondness for his work, but I like it better as a representative memory of my childhood than as a movie I’d watch over and over again.
2 ½ stars.
3) Infinitely Polar Bear (2015)
Why I watched: Mark Ruffalo was nominated for a Golden Globe.
Impression: Cam Stuart (Mark Ruffalo) suffers from manic-depressive disorder which causes immense strain on his wife Maggie (Zoe Saldana) and their two young children which reaches a crisis point when Maggie leaves to study for an MBA at Columbia University.
For this fictionalized account of her childhood, director Maya Forbes took the additional step of casting her own daughter, Imogene Wolodarsky as her fictional avatar.
The film captures the competing priorities of dealing with the mentally ill, but Ruffalo’s performance is too overwhelming. While I understood Maggie’s motivation to leave her family for such an extended period of time, I couldn’t help but think she would rather abandon the situation than find a workable solution.
I’m not sure this self-congratulatory film does enough to highlight the immense pain and sacrifice typical of families suffering with mental illness.
1 ½ stars.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
4) Seconds (1966)
Why I watched: Included in the book 1001 Movies You See Before You Die.
Impression: As listless and depressed Arthur Hamilton muddles his way through a midlife crisis, he’s approached by a man he thought was dead and told about the “Company,” a secretive group conducting illicit surgeries to give people second chances in life by placing them in younger, more virile bodies.
Hamilton is given a new body and renamed Tony Wilson (Rock Hudson). At first, he’s enamored with the experiences this affords him, but soon yearns for the relationships of his previous life. After he checks in on his wife, pretending to be an old friend of her deceased husband, he’s visited by a member of the “Company” and foolishly asks for his old life back.
John Frankenheimer’s paranoia filled films of the 1960s, including this, The Manchurian Candidate and Seven Days in May, foresaw the rampant paranoia of the 1970s.
This is a brilliant rendering of our arrogant assumptions about the possibilities of scientific progress and the limits of science as religion. We’ve been led to believe all problems can be solved by science, if we are patient, but Frankenheimer points us in a different direction. His argument is twofold: 1) scientific progress may solve a problem, but there will inevitably be additional problems as a result and 2) without an underlying ethical and moral principle, the result may look different than what we anticipate.
Frankenheimer suggests science is a tool, not an end in itself and laments what the elevation of science has done to our human experience.
4 stars.
5) That Touch of Mink (1962)
Why I watched: One of the highest grossing films from 1962.
Impression: When committed bachelor Philip Shayne (Cary Grant) splashes Cathy Timberlake (Doris Day) with mud on her way to a job interview, the two are drawn into a tangled romantic web.
Phillip sees Cathy as his next conquest. She sees Philip as a potential future husband.
I enjoy Day’s banter with Rock Hudson in a similarly themed series of films from the era and I thought I would enjoy Cary Grant stepping into the Hudson role, but I didn’t. It felt like Grant was annoyed. His delivery was flat and perfunctory and not as animated or engaging as his work in the zany screwball comedies like Bringing Up Baby or His Girl Friday or even his later work in Charade.
It was a nice surprise to see Yogi Bera, Mickey Mantle, and Roger Maris cameo as themselves. I was happy to see Audrey Meadows (Alice from The Honeymooners). Gig Young and John Astin do a very good job. However, the film is generic and has absolutely no energy.
2 ½ stars.
6) There Once Was a Dog (1982)
Why I watched: Included in a list of the top 50 short films.
Impression: As the family dog ages, his usefulness fades. Unable to smell as well as he once could or defend the family and their livestock, he makes a deal with a wolf. The wolf will make it look like the dog is still able to fend off an attack, and the dog will provide food for the wolf during the leaner, winter months.
This short Soviet cartoon plays like a modern-day fable. It’s cute and provides a little insight, but not particularly original.
1 ½ stars.
7) Winnie Pooh (1969)
Why I watched: Included in a list of the top 50 shorts.
Impression: This Russian adaptation of the beloved story from A.A. Milne is similar to the cute Disney short released a couple of years earlier (Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree), but this version seems a little more anarchic and has more edge to it.
Director Fyodor Khitruk removed Christopher Robin and all human elements from the story. While this seems like a sacrilege, it actually helps Pooh Bear become a more well-rounded and independent character instead of merely Christopher Robin’s toy.
It’s not as sentimental or sweet as the Disney version, but it’s funnier.
3 stars.
Wednesday, December 16, 2015
8) Suspiria (1977)
Why I watched: Included in Empire‘s top 500 films of all time.
Impression: Suzy Bannon arrives in Munich to attend a prestigious dance academy, but discovers it’s a front for a coven of witches.
It sounds a lot cooler than it was. The film bounces around from one scene to the next with no attempt to develop a flow or rhythm. The actors didn’t speak the same language and all of their work was later dubbed, creating an obvious distance in their performances.
Director Dario Argento is well-known and his films have been highly influential in the horror genre. While the mood is effective and score is eerie, it’s too uneven and wooden. American Horror Story: Coven (which I’m sure was at least partially inspired by the film) did a better job with the material.
2 ½ stars.
9) Iraq in Fragments (2006)
Why I watched: Included in a list of the top 1000 films released in the 21st century.
Impression: James Longley went to Iraq in the aftermath of the US-led invasion and documented the effect on the Sunni, Shi’ite, and Kurdish communities in the war-torn nation.
Some of the footage is harrowing. Someone (I’m not sure it was Longley) filmed as terrorists accosted and threatened people, and as angry riots whirled around them. There were a few times I could have sworn the scenes were staged, but I have no reason to believe they’re not legitimate.
It’s chilling to hear the Iraqi people discuss the situation in their country, lamenting the lack of humanitarian aid and complaining because US forces seem keen to protect oil-reach areas despite public declarations it’s not about oil.
3 ½ stars.
10) Fantastic Planet (1973)
Why I watched: Included in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.
Impression: In the future, huge blue aliens, Draags, have brought humans to their planet as pets.
One of the humans, Terr, surreptitiously receives an education alongside his owner, Tiva, then escapes and teaches other humans in the wilderness. Their new-found knowledge allows them to avoid extinction and fight back against their captors. Eventually, realizing their antagonism will lead to mutual destruction, the two species come to an understanding and lead a peaceful coexistence.
The cut-out animation and the trippy design make this film a perfect representative of early 1970s aesthetic, and its naive politics (a rejection of the real politik of Kissinger and Nixon) are a knee jerk reaction to the Vietnam War and the growing military-industrial complex.
This hopeful film and its message of peace are important, even if it seems antiquated.
3 stars.
11) Skin Game (1971)
Why I watched: I love James Garner.
Impression: In the pre-Civil War south, con men Quincy Drew (James Garner) and Jason O’Rourke (Louis Gossett Jr.) crisscross the American South playing an elaborate con: Drew sells O’Rourke as a slave, then helps him escape.
The plan works until they meet a particularly nasty slave owner and the well-educated O’Rourke begins to question the morality of perpetuating the “peculiar institution” of slavery.
There are echoes of the film in Django Unchained, but this film’s use of racism as the foundation for humor leads to some very awkward scenes. The casual and supposedly humorous way characters use racial epithets seems radical now.
It’s a fascinating marker for where race relations were in 1971, but it doesn’t quite hold up.
2 ½ stars.
12) In the Fog (2012)
Why I watched: MUBI’s film of the day.
Impression: Set in Belarus during WWII, this film explores the moral dilemma facing people in the area during the conflict. If you opposed the occupying Germans, they would most likely kill you. If you collaborated with them, your fellow citizens, resentful and hurt, would ostracize or kill you.
It’s a fascinating look at the moral relativism which accompanies war and the competing desires to do the right thing and survive. The only problem with the film is its glacial pace.
3 stars.
Thursday, December 17, 2015
13) Kate & Leopold (2001)
Why I watched: Hugh Jackman was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance.
Impression: A 19th century British duke (Hugh Jackman) is transported to present day New York where he meets advertising executive Kate McKay (Meg Ryan). Although she doesn’t believe his tale of time traveling wonder, the two fall in love.
This was the tale end of Ryan’s run as America’s sweetheart. It’s predictable, and Ryan, perhaps bored with the limitations of the romantic comedy genre, appears to be phoning it in, but Jackman is immensely charismatic.
The time travel aspect is not explained well. Liev Schreiber and Brecklin Meyer are a little too enthusiastic. Bradley Whitford is fine in a small role. It’s amusing seeing Kristen Schaal and Viola Davis in early cameo roles. However, there are better romantic comedies available, including several starring Ryan.
2 ½ stars.
14) Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
Why I watched: It’s freaking Star Wars.
Impression: Thirty years after the events in Return of the Jedi, not much has changed. The First Order, a splinter group from the evil empire, is terrorizing the galaxy. Leia still leads the resistance. Han has returned to smuggling. C-3PO is still annoying.
Both sides are desperately searching for Luke Skywalker, the last surviving Jedi. After one of his trainees went berserk, Luke went into a self-imposed exile.
The Resistance has located a map to his location and send their best pilot, Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) to retrieve it. The First Order, led by Vader disciple Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) arrives as he receives the map; Poe places the map in his droid, BB-8, just before he’s captured.
In the desert, BB-8 befriends scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley); while a disgruntled storm trooper FN-2187 (nicknamed Finn) (John Boyega), helps Poe escape back to Jakku to locate BB-8.
The first act capably introduces a new crop of characters to carry the series forward through a third trilogy, but when Han and Chewie show up at the beginning of the second act, the film kicks into another gear.
In many ways, it feels more like a remake than a sequel. There are callbacks to every film in the original trilogy: a major confrontation on a catwalk, a Yoda stand-in (Lupita Nyongo’s Maz Kanata), a semi-dream sequence in a cave, a massive weapon designed to destroy planets. There’s even a subtle reference to Ford’s role as Indiana Jones.
My experience watching the film with a packed house undoubtedly influenced my impression of the film. Every time a returning character appeared, there was a loud cheer and applause, reminding me the Star Wars films are one of the last vestiges of a dying breed of cultural event films.
I have a few minor complaints, the great Max von Sydow was wasted, there was no need to introduce Captain Phasma in this film, there were too many cameos given to JJ Abrams’s friends. However, I loved the movie, I loved the nostalgia, and I loved the new characters. It was a fantastic experience and feels like a well-deserved victory lap for Harrison Ford.
The best thing: for the first time in thirty years, we don’t know what happens next. The prequels are often trashed and ridiculed, but the main problem with those films was we knew where we were headed, barreling to the day when Anakin would find his destiny as Darth Vader.
This film ends as Rey approaches the long hidden master Jedi Luke and asks him to rejoin the fight against his former student. We don’t know his answer. We don’t know Rey’s or Finn’s heritage, although we suspect it will be important. We don’t know much about the leader of the First Order, Supreme Leader Snoke. Until the still unnamed Episode VIII arrives in 2017, we get to engage in every fanboy’s favorite pastime, rampant speculation and formulation of elaborate theories.
4 ½ stars.
Friday, December 18, 2015
15) Blonde Cobra (1963)
Why I watched: Included in the book 1001 Must See Movies.
Impression: This weird, hodgepodge of eclectic moments revolves around famed NY underground filmmaker Jack Smith who wears dresses, plays with dolls, and rants wildly.
Most people will have no experience with Smith, director Ken Jacobs, or this film. Their lives will not be worse for the lack of experience.
½ star.
16) The Ridiculous 6 (2015)
Why I watched: I’ve seen almost everything else Adam Sandler was in.
Impression: Tommy Stockburn (Adam Sandler) is raised by Native Americans after his mom dies and his dad leaves. Years later, his bank robber father, Frank Stockburn (Nick Nolte), returns with a story about a large amount of money he hid next to a pine tree.
When Frank is kidnapped by Cicero (Danny Trejo), Tommy decides to retrieve the buried money to use as ransom. Along the way, he meets several other men fathered by the philandering Frank, Chico (Terry Crews), Herm (Jorge Garcia), Lil’ Pete (Taylor Lautner), Ramon (Rob Schneider), and Danny (Luke Wilson). Together, they form an outlaw gang, The Ridiculous Six.
A rival gang (led by Will Forte) wears eye patches and claims to have removed their right eyes. Lil’ Pete and Herma are horribly offensive parodies of mental illness. There are a pair of disgusting scenes involving a barber (played by Steve Buscemi) and the removal of an eye as an act of initiation.
I’ve defended Sandler in the recent past. I didn’t think Pixels was as bad as most critics, but this is lazy, sloppy, gross, and pointless.
Sandler is to be commended for the loyalty he shows his friends. The cast is littered with costars from his previous films, Terry Crews, Nick Swardson, Will Forte, Harvey Keitel, Jon Lovitz, Norm Macdonald, Chris Parnell, Dan Patrick, David Spade, etc. I wish this admirable loyalty translated to a better film.
When the highlight of your film is Vanilla Ice as a rapping Mark Twain, it’s unlikely to be a rich cinematic experience.
1 ½ stars.
Saturday, December 19, 2015
17) Ol’ Blue Eyes is Back (1973)
Why I watched: I like Sinatra and this aired on TCM to commemorate his 100th birthday.
Impression: Frank Sinatra announced his retirement from show business in 1971. In 1973, he staged this comeback concert. It’s occasionally entertaining, but nothing spectacular, except for the lively ten minute sequence featuring Sinatra and his old friend / frequent costar Gene Kelley.
2 ½ stars.
18) Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015)
Why I watched: Nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature.
Impression: Bored with the routine of life on the farm, Shaun the Sheep spices things up by putting the farmer to sleep and locking him in a trailer for a day. This plan goes awry when the trailer rolls into the city and the farmer is involved in an accident, developing amnesia.
While leading a group of his fellow sheep on a rescue mission, Shaun must deal with the nefarious Trumper who works for animal control.
Too many kid’s films feel they have to either placate adult audience members by making as many sly adult themed jokes as possible or assume kid’s film equals lowest common denominator requiring no creativity (I’m looking at you Cats vs. Dogs).
This mostly silent film belongs to an increasingly rare breed of earnest and genuine children’s films. There’s no trick, no edge, no product placement, or toys to sell.
Aardman Animation is a poor man’s Pixar, a place where making films which elevate the tone and quality of films aimed at children is the primary goal, and their latest offering is a pleasant way to spend an afternoon with your family.
3 ½ stars.
19) Tabu (2012)
Why I watched: MUBI’s film of the day.
Impression: Octogenarian Aurora, asks her friends Santa and Pilar to help locate Gian-Luca Ventura. Years earlier, Aurora and Gian-Luca were involved in a sordid love affair in Portuguese Africa.
As Aurora looks back on her life, a wave of nostalgia washes over her. She longs for the simple days of her youth, which are intimately linked with Portuguese colonialist efforts.
The film reminds me of the work of William Faulkner in the early twentieth century. Faulkner was occasionally interested in deconstructing the romanticized myth of the antebellum South, but mostly he was focused on how this myth impacted and influenced contemporary actions.
Filmmaker Miguel Gomes attempts to do the same thing with mid twentieth century European colonialism of Africa. He’s interested in how the natural tendency to remember things better than they were has impacted our understanding and appreciation of the past.
3 ½ stars.
20) Election (2005)
Why I watched: MUBI’s film of the day.
Impression: Every two years, the Wo Shing Society (one of the oldest organized crime groups in Hong Kong) elects a new leader.
When Lok wins a close election, his chief rival Big D plots his revenge. Like players on opposite ends of a chess board, the two men send their pawns in waves to kill each other, angering many of the older members of the group, who see theirs as an honorable profession.
The film reminds me of one of my favorite television quotes, Omar Little from The Wire explaining why he doesn’t consider what he does morally wrong, “A man gotta have a code.”
Eventually, Lok and Big D agree to a tentative truce: Big D will support Lok in exchange for Lok’s support for Big D as his successor.
This is an okay film, but would have worked better in a longer format with more time to get to know the characters.
2 ½ stars.
Sunday, December 20, 2015
21) The Man from Nowhere (2010)
Why I watched: MUBI’s film of the day.
Impression: When heroin addict Hyo-jeong steals drugs from a powerful crime syndicate, they retaliate by kidnapping her and her young daughter, So-mi.
Their next door neighbor, Cha Tae-sik runs a pawn shop and has befriended So-mi. When he realizes what’s happened to them, he embarks on a vengeful quest against their captors.
The crime bosses don’t anticipate he’ll be difficult to deal with, but Tae-sik was a special operative for the Korean government who resigned after an attack by an assassin left him widowed and wounded.
It’s a solid film about impromptu families and the ways violence effects and impacts the lives of children, but there are better films which cover the same material.
3 stars.
22) The Revenant (2015)
Why I watched: Nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Dramatic Picture.
Impression: During a fur hunting expedition, Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is mauled by a mother bear protecting her cubs. His party tries to bring him with them to their encampment, but their leader is convinced he won’t survive the journey and asks a small party, including Glass’s son, to stay behind, wait for Glass to die, and give him a proper burial.
One of the men entrusted with the task, John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), kills Glass’s son and convinces everyone else to abandon their responsibility because of the threat of eminent attack by Native Americans.
Glass, an apparent 18th century MacGyver, survives and slowly makes his way back to the base to extract his revenge, crawling 200 miles over a six-week period to reach his destination.
Much has already been written about the infamous mauling scene. It’s as intense a scene as I’ve seen in a while, and Glass lasts longer against the bear than Ronda Rousey against Holly Holm.
The rest of the film is a probing tale about the depths people will go for revenge and the limits of vengeance to provide closure, but the most striking aspect is the cinematography. This is to snow-covered forests what Lawrence of Arabia was to the desert.
Between this, Ex Machina, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Domhnall Gleeson has had a helluva year. He’s excellent as Andrew Henry, the leader of the expedition.
Leo may not win the elusive Oscar for his work in the film, but it will be one of the first roles mentioned in his obituary. It’s a demanding physical performance and an astounding transformation for an actor frequently thought to be a matinee idol.
I slightly prefer Iñárritu’s previous film (and Best Picture winner) Birdman, but this is an impressive achievement.
4 ½ stars.
23) High School Musical 3: Senior Year (2008)
Why I watched: In a list of the highest grossing films of all time.
Impression: The further adventures of high schoolers Troy (Zac Efron) and Gabriela (Vanessa Hudgens).
The singing and dancing are top-notch. The stuff in between, including the angst of Julliard vs. Berkeley, all I can muster is: who cares?
Efron has proven he has staying power and should be taken seriously as a legitimate talent. The rest: not so much.
2 ½ stars.
24) Summer with Monika (1953)
Why I watched: Included in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die and I love Ingmar Bergman.
Impression: Unsatisfied with their monotonous lives, lovers Harry and Monika (Harriet Anderson) steal her father’s boat and spend an idyllic summer in the archipelagos of Stockholm. By the time they return home in the fall, Monika is pregnant.
Harry gets a job to support his family, but when the baby is born, Monika abandons them to seek more adventure.
Scandalous in the conservative 1950s for its brief depiction of nudity, this is a minor Bergman film. It’s a whiny examination of infatuation and expectation, but it’s fodder to psychoanalyze Bergman who was in a relationship with Anderson and frequently struggled with the constricting demands of family life.
3 stars.
25) Room (2015)
Why I watched: Nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Dramatic Picture.
Impression: When Joy (Brie Larson) was seventeen, a stranger kidnapped her and imprisoned her in a garden shed in his backyard. Seven years later, Joy still lives in the small room with her son Jack (Jacob Tremblay), the product of repeated rape by her unnamed captor, whom she calls Old Nick.
Just after Jack’s 5th birthday, Joy concocts an escape plan. Jack will play dead and, when Old Nick takes his body outside, run for help.
The plan works and the pair are released from their imprisonment, but find adjusting to life in the outside world difficult. Joy’s parents have long ago divorced and her mother (Joan Allen) is with another man, while her father (William H. Macy) is emotionally distant and unsupportive.
Based on the novel by Emma Donoghue, the story is sensational and the performances of Larson and Tremblay are heartbreaking. Their chemistry and skill make the reality of imprisonment in “Room” a harrowing experience.
This simple film is among my favorite of 2015 because of the deep resonance of its emotions. It’s a call to appreciate the life we’ve been given and never give up hope.
4 ½ stars.
Best movie I saw this week: Room (2015)
Worst movie I saw this week: Blonde Cobra (1963)