Movie Review: The King's Speech

My reviews are now on my blog. Please visit.

I am moving movie reviews (True Grit)

I am moving my movie reviews off of my personal blog and onto Basket of Kisses. If you're not reading Basket of Kisses, shame on you. We blog Mad Men, The Walking Dead, and now movies. With more to come!

Here's the link to the first "moved" movie: True Grit.

Monday Movie Reviews: The Kids Are All Right and Laurel Canyon

I saw High Art a couple of years ago, and I was blown away by it. So after I saw The Kids Are All Right I decided to look up Lisa Cholodenko and see what else she'd done; I was surprised to realize she was responsible for High Art as well. Since I liked two out of two Cholodenko movies I'd seen, I added Laurel Canyon to my Netflix.

The Kids Are All Right (2010) 10/10
Jules (Julianne Moore) and Nic (Annette Benning) are a long-standing couple with two teenagers. When the kids decide to seek out the sperm donor who "fathered" them (Mark Ruffalo) the family structure is shaken.

More...Cholodenko writes serious, moody films. This time, she brought in Stuart Blumberg to work on the script, turning it from drama to comedy (or at least "dramedy"). The lightness really enhances the story; it's truer, and realer, because it's funny. There are a lot of out-loud laughs, so many, in fact, that I want to see it again at home when it comes out on DVD to catch the ones I missed because of on-going audience laughter. The three leads have surprisingly good comedic timing, given all three are best known as dramatic actors. Benning and Moore just feel like a couple; they feel lived-in and real. They react to one another like people who have been reacting to the same things for twenty years. Mia Wasakowska and John Hutcherson really work as the kids, too.

This is just a flat-out recommendation. The script is witty, the body language is as perfect as I've seen in a movie in years, the kids refer to "Moms" (as in "Moms will be mad"), Nic drinks just a little too much, and is just a little sick of Jules's flakiness, and Ruffalo comes in like an awkward superhero whose kryptonite will eventually be revealed. It's sexy, it's fun, and it's true down to the bones.

Laurel Canyon (2002) 7/10
Sam (Christian Bale) and his fiance, Alex (Kate Beckinsale) move into Sam's mother's Laurel Canyon home temporarily. Sam is a psychiatrist starting his residency and Alex is working on her dissertation. Jane, Sam's mom, comes home unexpectedly to produce a rock album in her home studio. Jane's rock and roll lifestyle creates challenges for Sam and Alex.

I am not the world's biggest Christian Bale fan. I know everyone thinks he's the best thing since Cheerios, but fuggit, I don't like Cheerios either. Still, I keep watching him, because everyone things he's All That and he keeps being in movies I want to see. Beckinsale is not much better in my estimation; neither fascinates me. But Frances McDormand always fascinates, and she is magnificent as Jane.

I liked this movie. It's thoughtful and introspective about sex and commitment and choice and confusion and the normal ways that people screw up and then stand there and look at the mess, and that's definitely Chodolenko's milieu. It could have used Blumberg's touch, because it's fairly grave in a way that doesn't really improve the story.

The Cross-Post is All Right

Dueling Movie Reviews: RED versus Salt

Over recent weeks, I've seen two movies with striking similarities, so I'm reviewing them both at once. This also helps to catch up on my enormous movie review backlog.

Salt stars Angelina Jolie as a CIA agent accused of being a Russian spy. Rather than allow herself to be taken into custody, she goes rogue, exhibiting superhero-level abilities in the process. An excellent supporting cast includes Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

RED (technically, it's "Red," but the title is revealed to be an acronym), stars Bruce Willis as a retired CIA agent marked for assassination. Fighting back, he assembles a rogue team, exhibiting almost superhero-level abilities in the process. The astounding supporting cast includes Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, Mary-Louise Parker, John Malkovich, Brian Cox, and Karl Urban.

So, you can see why I'd place these two movies side-by-side.
More...I really enjoyed Salt, don't get me wrong, but on a long list of things that RED did right, Salt did all of them wrong, and the primary thing is, RED had fun.

Salt is a really slick action movie, and Jolie as Salt does action really well, but it is ponderously serious. It's absolutely grave the way the CIA setting is established, including Salt's relationship with her boss (Schreiber). The whole thing, really, is treated as an action-adventure drama, made more dramatic by the presence of Serious Actors who are Not Allowed to Smile. And all this would be great, I love that kind of movie, except that in truth, this is not a serious movie at all, it's simply a movie that takes itself seriously.

RED, by contrast, knows it's a comic book, knows there's a silly component to it, and kicks back and relaxes. It does this in a way that enhances the plot points. If you're going to take the whole assassination thing seriously, then you have to take the deaths seriously, but if you make sure to portray every murder and attempted murder in a manner that emulates a cartoon, then you're allowing the audience to enjoy the mayhem. (And remember, I absolutely enjoyed the mayhem in both films.)

More importantly, the seriousness of the script confine's Salt's actors, whereas the looser RED script allows the talent to play. RED is basically Space Cowboys with killers instead of astronauts. The old farts are having fun. There's not a lot of wit; the script sort of backs away and lets the hams ham it up. Fun!

I really enjoyed Angelina Jolie's super-spy shtick. Arthur was annoyed by it; she's too super-human and the back story explaining it really isn't a justification. In fact, the whole back story is full of holes, which is important since it's clearly designed to establish a series. The ending ("Here Comes the Sequel!") was egregious in that regard. In thinking it over, I decided that James Bond started out relatively low-key, great but not super in his earliest films, and only gained strength and abilities as audience expectations increased; he expanded with the series. But Salt starts at the peak that Bond achieved after ten pictures—where can she go from here?

So, RED definitely wins this duel. A couple of months after seeing Salt, I remember almost nothing about it. I expect that, given a couple of months, the same will be true for RED. In that regard, it's a really a matter of taste; do you want a dark stupid movie or a light stupid movie? As stupid movies go, they're both pretty good.

Cross versus post

Monday Movie Review: The Town

The Town (2010) 8/10
For Doug MacRay (Ben Affleck), Jim Coughlin (Jeremy Renner), and their friends, bank robbery is the family business. They live in the Charlestown section of Boston, a center for bank and armored car robbery. Now Doug wants out. He's falling for Claire (Rebecca Hall) and the FBI is looking into his last robbery. But getting out isn't going to be easy. Directed by Ben Affleck.

The Town makes an art of gritty, but it still looks good. Maybe I should say Affleck can't make up his mind, but instead I feel like he recognizes the fine line between realistic and annoying. There's certainly a trend towards documentary-style, hand-held, muted colors, and the like, to broadcast to the audience, "Hey, we're authentic!" Yeah, sure. What Affleck does is cut in little bits of grittier filming, blended with a more conventional look, and it works. It's important, because it's the kind of movie where people say "the city is a character," and so you do have to feel the locations. There's a strong sense here of alleys, bars, shops, crappy apartments, gentrification—the whole way in which a city lives, breaths, and grows.

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Speaking of the city as a character, The Town features one of the best car chases I've seen in years; a real throwback to movies like The French Connection and Bullitt. Those movies, both famous for their car chases, were also very much about the cities in which they were located. The French Connection had a car chase that could take place nowhere but New York, and The Town's is strictly Boston. It's a great chase because it's down to the ground, connected to its streets in a specific way. I know nothing about how it was filmed but it felt real, not CGI, not overly staged. It had a thrillingly haphazard quality to it.

It's a very modern movie, with exciting, slightly over the top action, that is essentially a film noir. The two movies that came into my head watching it were Criss Cross and The Killing. The strange notion of romancing your former hostage actually makes more sense if you look at it in a noir context: fate, wrong decisions, harms done in the past returning to the present.

The crime gang, led by Affleck and Renner, are of a piece with their neighborhood. They all seem almost to look alike, the way they blend in with their environment. Affleck is smart and weary, Renner a loose cannon and over-eager; these are cliches, of course. We've seen that before, as well as the way loyalty makes the smart one stupid. But it's well done; lived-in and fleshed-out. Blake Lively has a nice turn as Jim's sister and Doug's ex, as does Chris Cooper as Doug's incarcerated father. It's a movie full of very lived-in actors who really get down to the bones of their characters.

Which brings us to Jon Hamm, as FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley. He's in town to investigate our boys' most recent bank robbery. In it, the assistant bank manager was beaten brutally, and the bank manager (Rebecca Hall) was taken as a hostage and then let go.

Jon Hamm does not belong in this movie.

I feel bad saying it, because he's a terrific actor, and he does great with the part. Like the rest of the cast, he's really earthy and direct. He's also got real movie star presence, which is not something you know about an actor you've seen on TV until you actually watch him on the big screen. The problem is, Hamm has a lot of presence. He's startlingly handsome, and yet he's not the leading man, nor a romantic presence, nor is he meant to be dashing or exciting. It's as if he was cast in a role written for Charles Durning. And really, he acts the shit out of it, but it's distracting to see Durning's lines coming from that face.

(Criss-Cross-posted)

Monday Movie Review: Inception

Inception (2010) 7/10
Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) leads a team of dream extractors, who use cutting edge medical technology to manipulate shared dreams. The team is hired to attempt "inception"—creating, rather than extracting, an idea. But Cobb is haunted in dreams by the presence of his late wife (Marion Cotillard), endangering the team. Written & directed by Christopher Nolan.

There is no question that Inception is a would-have-could-have-should-have movie. It screams from unrealized potential. At the same time, it's smart, beautiful, and enjoyable. Arthur and I have been talking about it for a week, and that's a lot of engagement for one movie.

What Inception does right is commit fully to its concept. Yes, it's exposition-heavy, but it grips its dream reality with two hands and doesn't let go. This is a smart, well-made movie by a master of movie logistics. It doesn't falter in its delivery of Chris Nolan's theme, the theme of all of his films: A haunted man struggling with the unreality of a life transfixed by grief. Whether that haunted man is struggling with memory loss or insomnia, whether he's Batman or a magician, Nolan's motif is pretty clear, if not always successful.
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There are some very clever moments in delivering the film. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, left to improvise in a Things Go Wrong scene, comes up with some very creative stuff, and it's a pleasure to watch.

Inception has a great cast, although I have to say that Ellen Page as Ariadne seems like she's in a different movie from the DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Deelap Rao, et al. It also has one bravura scene; Ariadne learning how to explore, construct, and manipulate dreams. It's a visual masterpiece, and if the rest of the movie had that sense of creative excitement, there would be "10/10" at the top of this post.

Ariadne is a lot of what's wrong with this film. Not that I dislike the actor (I don't), but she's a non-character with no personality of her own. She exists solely to ask obvious questions, and here, Nolan's distrust of the audience is an irritant. It's not enough to depict grief, we need Ariadne there to say "That's grief you're experiencing!" And this happens not once or three times, but often.

I had certainly heard, before I saw the movie, that Inception was heavy on exposition. I don't mind all the explaining of their pseudo-technology (I cut my teeth on Star Trek, after all), but the exposition about every thought and feeling was simply heavy-handed. Dreams, after all, are mysterious, but there are no mysteries in Inception until the final one. Audiences groan aloud at the ending (which I am not giving away); in my theater, there was definitely a loud groan/gasp; it was hard to tell by the sound whether it was a positive or negative reaction. Perhaps the reason there is such intense reaction to the ending is that nothing in the preceding film led one to expect it. Oh, sure, we expected a plot element to twist at the end, but the film was simply not mysterious. It was not (for the most part) dream-like. It handled its plot exposition in a way that made dreams just one more bank or casino to break into and out of. It's a heist movie.

And I do like heist movies, I like heist crews, I like heist plotting. It had an old-fashioned feel that way. But in truth, there were about 10 minutes of truly twisty, dream-logic visuals, and almost all of them were in the previews. The rest of the movie could have easily been Ocean's 14.


(Cross-posted. Or is it?)

Monday Movie Reviews: Macho Men in Tough Situations

Property of a Lady is finally back online! I'm going to be doing some shorter reviews of multiple movies to get myself caught up here; it's been a long time.

Breaker Morant (1980) 9/10
Harry "Breaker" Morant and two other Australian officers are court-marshaled in an act of scapegoating during the Boer War.
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This true story of honorable behavior in insane circumstances is told without sentiment; harsh, rough, and compelling. If you know Edward Woodward best as the weaselly cop from The Wicker Man, his dignity and strength here may surprise you.

The Hill (1965) 8/10
During World War II, a military prison is run with the harshest possible discipline and sadistic punishment.

An early Sean Connery attempt to break free of James Bond typecasting, this is a difficult movie to be with. Evil Prison Guard is as macho a story as can be told, so in that way, it's still an expected Connery movie, but his Joe Roberts is no 007. Director Sidney Lumet does a remarkable job of portraying heat, exhaustion, and the physical effects of abuse.

Apache Trail (1942) 6/10
An Arizona outpost throws people together when the Apaches are on the way.

This is the Stagecoach model of Western—a bunch of people, some good, some bad, some destined for romance, are stuck together because of Indian attack. It's Western as Lord of the Flies, with everyone revealing themselves as the plot unfolds, and it's the revelation, not the plot, that's the point.

It's a middling movie but entertaining.


Cross-posted at last!

Basket of Kisses is back!

You can read about the whole thing here. The outage affected Basket of Kisses, Property of a Lady, and JamesBondFanBook.com.

Property of a Lady is still down, although the parent site, DeborahLipp.com, is back up. The Ultimate James Bond Fan Blog is also still down. Both of these are Wordpress installation issues that should be ironed out any minute now.

My entire life history of movie reviews is gone with PoaL, so thank the Gods a lot of them are cross-posted here.

Monday Movie Theater Review: Love, Loss, and What I Wore

Love, Loss, and What I Wore
An intimate collection of stories by Nora & Delia Ephron
10/10

Love, Loss, and What I Wore is presented as a theatrical reading: Five chairs in a line on the stage, with lecterns in front of them. Oh, geez, I thought, I'm seeing this? I'm not even seeing a play? I needn't have worried. The show is presented with a rotating cast of 28, and every cast, as far as I can see, is stellar. We saw Carol Kane, Jayne Houdyshell, Fran Drescher, Didi Conn, and Natasha Lyonne.

Stories, anecdotes, and characters are presented through the context of clothing and accessories. We open with Gingy (Carol Kane), who decided during (an illness? insomnia?) to sketch outfits she remembered. As she showed each outfit, she reminisced. From Brownie uniforms to bridal dresses, Gingy told her life through clothing. None of the other characters stay on-stage past individual tales, so that all five are voicing many women, but every woman's memories are intertwined with what she wore.

We left feeling like we had shared in a full range of woman's lives. Houdyshell even presented a character who has just never related to or remembered clothing. Only one item of clothing ever stuck in her mind, and yet that item moved us to tears.

I don't do the "sisterhood" thing very well. I don't find myself on board with a lot of what passes for sharing women's experience or women's empowerment. As often as not, I feel marginalized by it. But here, honestly, I felt so connected to other women, to being a woman, to sharing womanhood through the vehicle of this text and these performers.

Mostly we laughed. We laughed a lot, and loudly, and sometimes we spontaneously applauded, but yes, there were tears. These were stories about loving black, and hating your purse, and wrangling with your mother over what you're going to wear, and buying a bra in anticipation of breast reconstruction, and maternity dresses, and prom dresses, and these are women who love and hate their mothers, their bodies, their men, and their lives. Unsurprisingly, these women skew heavily towards Jewish New Yorkers like the Ephrons, but characters portrayed also include a lesbian and a Latina, and in the joys and laughter are also stories of rape, the loss of a child, the loss of a parent, and really bad therapy.

Much more laughter than tears, though. I have a bad laugh. I have a series of bad laughs: Snorts and barks and squeaks and guffaws that burst forth from me at inappropriate moments, and the theater audience got to share every one of them. And I shared theirs.

Fran Drescher kind of stole the show. Everyone was great, but the revelations were Drescher and Lyonne, both of whom had more raw performance power than I could ever have anticipated. Drescher owned. Drescher cracked the other women up so they momentarily lost their places. What a pleasure!

So, on I go to Amazon to buy the original book upon which this show is based, and if I find a text of the play I'll buy that too, because I want to experience these stories over and over. While wearing black.

(Cross-posted in blue jeans, a black t-shirt, and a structured leopard jacket)

Monday Post-Oscar Thoughts

Was this the dullest Oscars ever? Quite possibly. The only real drama was whether Cablevision and ABC would come to terms in time; they did, but we Cablevision subscribers missed the opening schtick. What I saw of Baldwin & Martin left me profoundly unimpressed; Martin was much funnier when he had the gig solo. Plus, most of the presenter humor was worse than in the past, and that's going a ways.

There were no surprises among the winners. Of the four acting awards, 3 were a sure thing and one almost as sure, and none surprised. Congratulations to Kathryn Bigelow for being the first woman to win Best Director. Not that the glass ceiling is all shattered or anything.
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Cutting out the song performances is overall a good idea, although I'd have loved to see Jeff Bridges or Colin Farrell perform Weary Kind. That Adam Shankman, producer of the show, choreographer, and So You Think You Can Dance judge, decided to present the best soundtrack nominees with an interpretive dance is not surprising, nor is it surprising that he used League of Extraordinary Dancers. What was surprising was how lame the dance was; these are terrific dancers and it could have been, well, dance.

Thank Gods for the absence of absolutely meaningless montages this year: Times People Have Sneezed On Film will not be missed. But dude, the cinematography nominees really require clips; that was a bad thing to remove.

On the fashion front, there wasn't much that was actually hideous. The trends are metallics, pale blush/rose/champagne shades, shredded gown bottoms, and weird things attached to hips. My favorite may well be Zoe Saldana; her colors and shapes were a little unusual, a little daring, and really gorgeous. Rachel McAdams also made a different choice that really worked, going for a multi-colored print that made me go oooh.

Barbra Streisand appeared to be wearing the same dress she wore last time she was at the Oscars. Charlize Theron looked like there was someone standing behind her feeling her up. J-Lo looked great, but she could have been hiding the twins in that weird hip-train. Other than that, it was just a lot of pretty, shiny people.

I saw some movies, but not a lot, and the only winner I saw was Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart. I'll try to get that review up this week.

(Crazy Cross-post)

Monday Movie Review: (500) Days of Summer

(500) Days of Summer (2009) 4/10
Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meets Summer (Zooey Deschanel) and begins a romance that we know from the outset will end. Title cards show us which of the 500 days we are looking at in each of the scrambled-time-sequence scenes.

About half the reviews I've seen of (500) Days of Summer were delighted and laudatory. Most of the others suggested that the movie was too cutesy and self-satisfied with its own happy cuteness. In response to those, I thought, Wow, sounds like the movie for me! I love cute. Finally, some reviews suggested that the movie was sexist, and while I don't love that, I love movies, and a lot of them are sexist. I survive.

Boy, was I not prepared for the hellfest that was (500) Days of Summer.
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First of all, cute just doesn't cover it. Cloyingly cute. Smugly cute. Derivatively cute. Me shouting at my TV "STFU with your cuteness you stupid cute thing!" cute. Dude, you are not Ferris Bueller, stop trying to trick me into thinking so. Your cute checklist is so obvious! Wise-beyond-her-years preteen, adorable musical moment, cute jobs (at a greeting card company, of all things), cute drunkeness, and Zooey Cute-chanel.

Now, all of this is not to say that the movie isn't often witty. It is sometimes well-written, and its stars are six kinds of awesome. My love of Joseph Gordon-Levitt is well-established at this point. And yes, there were several times I laughed out loud. Even during greeting card scenes.

But in order to fully examine what's wrong with this movie, we have to move on to the sexism. By which I mean, the deep-seated misogyny. The movie opens with three screens of white text on a plain black background: (1) The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. (2) Especially you Jenny Beckman. (3) Bitch.

When I saw that, my stomach knotted up. Anything that followed, no matter how cute, was now tainted by this angry, gendered outburst. Later, during one of the late-relationship days (circa 280), Tom writes a greeting card that says: Roses are red, violets are blue, Fuck you, whore. Fuck you, whore. For the record, Summer has not cheated on Tom; the only thing she's done to warrant being called a whore is to be female and hurt Tom's feelings. There's just this deep undercurrent of misogyny throughout the film, and again, no matter how sweetly it's painted, how do you forget that? Even the final scene, which is obviously going to be about closure and moving on, seems pointedly designed to erase Summer as if she no longer deserves to exist.

So I dunno. Some people liked it. But if you're reading my reviews and going by my opinion, I have to tell you, Do Not See This Movie.

(Cross-post: Day 21)

Monday Movie Reviews: Quick Hits

Escape From Alcatraz: Clint Eastwood stars in a real-life escape story set in 1960. Directed by Don Siegel.
Everything you'd expect from a Siegel movie of the 1970s. Hard-boiled, intelligently spare, ultra-masculine, pacing that grips you like a vise. Clint Eastwood & Don Siegel were such a great collaboration. 8/10
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Lady Sings the Blues: Biopic of Billie Holiday, replete with gritty drug addiction, starring Diana Ross.
I'd heard, long ago, that this was a bad movie. Recently, some folks in some film discussions praised it highly, so I decided to see for myself. Dear Gods, this is bad. 4/10

Quigley Down Under:
Tom Selleck is the sharpshooter, Alan Rickman is the bad guy, in the Wild Wild Australian West.
You know I love Westerns. You know that. But this one is just so-so. San Giacomo's crazy lady thing is way too over the top, and everything else is serviceable and by-the-numbers, except in Australia instead of the American West. Alan Rickman is always a great bad guy, and Selleck is pleasingly macho without being a jerk; he actually has a lot of soul. 7/10.

Revolutionary Road: Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio really goddamn hate suburban life.
I got about 20-25 minutes into this horror before I gave up. Histrionic, obvious, and obnoxious, full of tell-instead-of-show, and just relentlessly loud. Unbearable. 3/10

(Quick cross-post)

Live from New York it's Friday Random Ten

1. My Father—Judy Collins (The Best of Judy Collins)
2. Which Way Does That Old Pony Run—Lyle Lovett (Lyle Lovett & His Large Band)
3. Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood—Yusef (An Other Cup)
4. Innocent Not Guilty—Garland Jeffreys (Times Square: Soundtrack)
5. Know Now Then—Ani DiFranco (Up Up Up Up Up Up)
6. Sweet Toxic Love-Deliverance—Culture Club (At Worse...The Best of Boy George & Culture Club)
7. Sweet Baby James—James Taylor (Sweet Baby James)
8. Turn Turn Turn—Judy Collins (The Best of Judy Collins)
9. Sunny Skies—James Taylor (Sweet Baby James)
10. Under the Milky Way—The Church (Living in Oblivion: The 80s Greatest Hits, Volume 1)

Bonus: Manhattan—Ella Fitzgerald (Kissing Jessica Stein: Soundtrack)

Bizarrely repetitive day.

(Sweet Baby Cross-post)

Movies of the Decade

I've been working on this list for over a week! It's totally personal and utterly not comprehensive, since I've missed more movies than I've seen, hated movies everybody loved, and loved movies despite themselves. But that's me. Original reviews are linked where available. Boy THAT took time.

The movie of the decade:
Brokeback Mountain: Structurally, visually, emotionally; in every way, a perfect movie, with a wrenching romantic ache and a deep understanding of what it's like to have no place and seek to find one. Few movies have moved me more. And really, this has got to typify the decade, doesn't it? The great acting, the emergence of amazing young talent, including the loss of that talent, the internationalism of the production (a Chinese director and an Australian star) in a quintessentially American milieu, and of course, the importance of gay themes in this decade.

Top ten (with two cheats) favorites of the decade—here are movies that don't need a decade-end list for me to list them as favorites; they've moved to my permanent favorites list (long though it is):
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Casino Royale—a phenomenal "reboot" that surprised everyone. Especially me. Do we even *remember* the anti-Craig blowback?
Adaptation—one of the most brilliant examinations of a writer's process, and the heart of creativity. Great performances all around too.
49 Up—The only "Up" entry of the decade, this is the most compelling documentary series ever conceived, and 49 was a particularly fascinating and surprising entry.
Murderball & Trembling Before G-d—Perhaps the biggest impact Netflix has made in my life (and the lives of many movie viewers) is the accessibility of documentaries. These two stand side-by-side as my personal favorite documentaries; I am deeply moved by both.
Once—I cannot explain this movie, it is glorious for reasons that elude words.
Brick—Whereas this one is all about words; the extraordinarily clever language and brilliant conceit of having noir take place in a high school, and a breathtaking performance by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I've seen it again and again and it loses none of its power.
Kissing Jessica Stein—Of all of these movies, perhaps KSJ is the most precious and personal to me. Like Wendy Wasserstein's work, this explores the gray place between love and friendship, between love and "love," and it's full of heart. Another one I've seen again and again.
Monsoon Wedding—Joyous, full of life, love, pain, loyalty, betrayal, beauty, and family.
The Station Agent—I kind of fell in love with Peter Dinklage in this movie about misfits finding one another. Plus movies set in New Jersey have a special place in my heart.
The Incredibles & Monsters, Inc.—The aughts were definitely the decade of Pixar. These are the ones I find flawless.

Other favorite movies of the decade:

Mainstream movies or huge indies that everyone loved & got awards and DUH of course they're movies of the decade
Milk
Little Miss Sunshine
Good Night, and Good Luck.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Garden State
Chicago
Gangs of New York
Spider-Man
The Hours
Mulholland Dr.
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
The Royal Tenenbaums
Memento
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Wonder Boys
X-Men
You Can Count on Me

Documentaries
Man on Wire
This Film Is Not Yet Rated >
Inside Deep Throat
Capturing the Friedmans
Devil's Playground
Spellbound

Tragically unsung and/or unwatched
In Bruges
3:10 to Yuma
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Marie Antoinette
Shortbus
Bubble
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Mozart and the Whale
Serenity
Before Sunset
Stage Beauty
Auto Focus
Secretary
The Secret Lives of Dentists
Bandits
Series 7: The Contenders

Not really guilty about these pleasures
Inside Man
Sin City
The Family Stone
Bridget Jones's Diary
Legally Blonde
Return to Me
The Whole Nine Yards

Animation
Spirited Away
Howl's Moving Castle

(Cross-post Forever!)

Monday Movie Review: Up in the Air

Up in the Air (2009) 9/10
Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) travels over 300 days a year on business, and is most at home in airports and hotels. He considers his unattached life a virtue that he is teaching to Natalie (Anna Kendrick) a newcomer to his company. Directed by Jason Reitman.
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It is obvious that Up in the Air is about connection. Hell, it's in the tagline (The story of a man ready to make a connection. Haha, get it?) Ryan Bingham is deeply disconnected, and doesn't see the problem with that. He has no connection to any kind of home, he is more comfortable using a suitcase than a closet, and his family relationships are as minimal as he can keep them. And surely there are dozens of movies about disconnected people finding that they need love after all, although perhaps the movies have never seen a character as committed to his disconnect as Bingham. Hell, he's a motivational speaker on the subject! Bingham isn't a creep or a cheat, he's utterly honest about who and what he is, and apparently at peace with it.

I'm drawn to a comparison with Alfie, but Michael Caine's Alfie is a scumbag and a cad from the get-go, and he lies about who and what he is as often as possible, except to the fourth wall.

At another level, Up in the Air is not just about connection but efficiency, and that has more subtlety. It's easy, even facile to say, we all need connection, even loners like Ryan Bingham. It's quite another to notice that the quest for efficiency; faster, easier, smarter, better-packaged, more-streamlined, and less-painful, is itself disconnected and leads to disconnection. Bingham's life is perfectly streamlined, his suitcase is perfectly packed, its wheels do not stick. He may be racist in choosing who to stand behind at airport security, but the fact is he gets through security quite easily. And if you've been to an airport lately, well, that's not nothing.

But can we have this efficiency and connection? Up in the Air sees a dotted line between them, as a life without friends and loved ones is obviously more streamlined, and the explicit way in which caring "weighs you down" is a motif. This is smarter and deeper than it sounds, because it is presented with wit and gentle humor, and also because we really want both; we really want our love but also to get the fuck through airport security. So Bingham is truly speaking to us in a way that, at first, we listen to.

This may well be George Clooney's finest moment. He is incredibly nuanced, and every line has layers and layers of presence and personality. There's a scene, late in the film, in which he gives a speech he's given before, and I had no doubt that it was time for A Movie Thing to happen, but I also knew that it didn't need to happen, because just the subtle shift in his tone of voice told the whole tale. It was exquisite.

At the beginning of the movie, Bingham meets Alex (Vera Farmiga), a woman apparently as unfettered as himself. It's one of the film's best scenes, as they heat each other up talking about car rental upgrades and mileage rewards. She's absolutely perfect in this film as well, warm and real despite having very little character on which to hang her hat.

The whole cast is solid, the film looks just right, the script is a dream of humor and pathos and poignancy, flowing with enormous grace, and hey, did I mention Clooney? No really, Clooney's performance is everything any actor can hope for. There are no big gut-wrenching moments here, no tearing your hair out for the Academy, just subtle, deep, honest work from beginning to end.

The previews sell this film as an adorable sort of thing, but it's not The Bucket List. Up in the Air is truthful about the cost of an efficient life, and is not interested in pulling punches.

(This cross-post earns frequent flier miles)

Monday Movie Review: Dogfight

Dogfight (1991) 8/10
It's November 1963. A group of Marines on liberty has a "dogfight;" a contest to see who can bring the ugliest date. Corporal Eddie Birdlace (River Phoenix) brings Rose (Lili Taylor), but finds there's more to her than he'd thought. Directed by Nancy Savoca.

This is a waaaay below-the-radar movie (the IMDb tells me it was almost but not quite direct-to-video). Hanging out on movie discussion boards, I end up hearing about, and renting, an awful lot of obscure and interesting movies, but I had never heard of this one until my sister and I were discussing Lili Taylor (we do that sometimes) and she mentioned this movie. So I added it to my Netflix, but you know how that goes, it's a big list. Then we were discussing Lili Taylor again (we do that sometimes) and it came up again, so I moved it to the top of my list, and here we are.

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Dogfight exists in the small spaces between things said. It is not interested in being demonstrative. There aren't a lot of histrionics in this film, and opportunities to go overboard are kind of shied away from. There was one spot in particular where I felt like the movie was telling me, 'Don't worry, we're not going there,' in a way I appreciated. For example, most of the action takes place on the night of November 21, 1963. The Kennedy assassination looms, and indeed, we ultimately see a news report, and people's faces as they watch. But the assassination is not a centerpiece of the film. It is more that, in the days before, we are breathing the last of a particular kind of air; an innocent air that Americans will never again breathe. We don't need to see a lot of weeping and rendering of garments to know that.

When Eddie Birdlace picks up Rose because he spots her as a "dog" he's a jerk, but warm enough that we understand why Rose says yes. Later, Rose finds out what kind of invitation it actually was, and it is in the course of his efforts at apology that the audience, Rose, and Eddie himself discover that he cares about being kind, and decent, and a gentleman.

Contrasting Eddie and Rose's gentle and tentative evening are Birdlace's three buddies on a more typical leave. The four of them comprise the "Four Bees;" four Marines who became friends standing in formation in alphabetical order (their names begin with B). After the dogfight, Eddie goes off on his own while the other Bees drink, get in fights, get tattooed, and get serviced by a prostitute. Eddie is one of these men after all, even if he is also the guy seeking forgiveness for insulting a nice girl.

Rose is not just a "nice girl" and the object of Eddie's self-realization. She's a complex and human character. Intensely awkward, she is obsessed with folk music and longs to change the world through peaceful action, but she's tied to a family-owned coffee shop and a mother who appears strict and controlling. As the proto-hippie opposite a military man, she could easily be shrill or cliché, but she's also observant and self-possessed. She challenges Eddie when he starts in being nasty to a snooty maitré de, and because he is being nasty, and because it won't end well, her challenge isn't just some peacenik versus soldier scenario, but an angry boy with no life skills being schooled by a girl with nothing on her plate that pleases people except a sweet nature and a pocketful of insight. I like that she goes along with Eddie, but doesn't swallow bullshit for the sake of going along. I like that she finds a way to express herself in a way that is uniquely hers, and I like the way she makes her own decisions, so that ultimately it is Eddie being led by Rose, not the other way around.

I imagine there must be ten thousand ways for this movie to have ended the wrong way. I was surprised by the ending, and kind of said "wha?," and then I was terribly, terribly pleased.

(Direct-to-Crosspost)

Monday Movie Review: The Omega Man

The Omega Man (1971) 8/10
Robert Neville (Charlton Heston) is the only survivor of biological war. With the world dying of plague, Neville developed a vaccine too late; and only he was treated. Everyone else is dead or mutated into vampire-like creatures lead by Matthias (Anthony Zerbe) that are blinded by daylight.

Giving a numeric rating to a cult classic is kind of a fool's game. You know there's a cheese factor, you know there are things that are overblown, and yet that's part of its charm. I like to take my movies seriously, and I seriously think that Omega Man is a terrific movie, but there are definitely major flaws.
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For one thing, the soundtrack is horrific. It's a nightmare of seventies-style sweetness. At one point, Neville plays Theme from a Summer Place on the radio, and that's pretty much the tone of the whole thing, including during the scary, horror, and action sequences. The soundtrack actively works against any tension the movie successfully builds (which is considerable). The other major flaw is the direction of the action sequences. Whether it's a car chase or a fist fight, it's very staged and posed and transparent; groan-worthy.

And yes, Omega Man is overblown. It sells its message too hard, and paints its metaphors with too broad a brush. But given the moody atmospherics, the intensity of the last-man-on-Earth scenario, and a powerful flow of events, I really don't mind the broad brush.

Lots of people criticize Charlton Heston's acting, but he holds the screen like a magnet. It requires something special to be alone on screen, babbling to your household objects, and retain audience interest. Heston's dynamic presence makes it work. Is Neville crazy or just lonely? We are never sure, but neither is he, and that makes him sympathetic. It turns out, of course, that Neville is not the last man on Earth, and his vulnerability in the sudden presence of people after years alone is touching.

Matthias, we learn, is a former news reporter watching the plague unfold and reporting on it. Gradually, he comes to hate the technology that is destroying the world, and before succumbing, he has already turned his news broadcasts into polemics. Now, he is the cult leader of the mutant victims, called "the Family," they celebrate the scars on their skin as cleansing them of the world's sin. All this is very over the top, which, let's face it, is what you want when you cast Anthony Zerbe. The Family is a mishmash that serves to criticize witch hunts, superstition, religious fervor, and anti-science bias, but the reality is that science did destroy the world. The Family is vile, monstrous, and not entirely wrong.

This is all very juicy stuff; our lone heroic survivor paints an iconic figure even before the messianic metaphors start flying. Visuals of an empty and abandoned Los Angeles are stunning, and paint a sharp contrast with Neville's home, fully of knick-knacks, art, science, and luxury. My overall assessment is that Omega Man absolutely earns its cult status.

(Last cross-post on Earth)

Friday Random Ten (OMG Deborah got an iPod!)

1. Little Green -- Joni Mitchell: Except the sound was screwed up, so now I have to figure out if I need to remove and re-upload this one.
2. Whispers from a Spiritual Garden -- Yusef
3. Louisiana 1927 -- Randy Newman
4. My Romance -- Michael Feinstein
5. Know Now Then -- Ani DiFranco
6. El Matador -- Los Fabulosos Cadillacs: I had no idea this thing was on my iPod. Turns out it's from the soundtrack of Grosse Point Blank, which is continually rewarding.
7. Don't Touch My Hat -- Lyle Lovett
8. Come Away With Me -- Norah Jones: I almost want to remove this one, it's so familiar and so beloved that it lacks something of the surprise and delight of using shuffle.
9. I Was Doing All Right -- Annie Ross: Another one I didn't know I had.
10. Farewell to Tarwathie -- Judy Collins: I swear to the gods, I thought I removed this from my iPod already. It's lovely, but not really iPod music, y'know?

(Randomly cross-posted)

Monday Movie Review: I've Loved You So Long

I've Loved You So Long (Il y a longtemps que je t'aime) (2008) 8/10
Juliette (Kristin Scott Thomas) has just gotten out of prison after fifteen years, and moves in with her sister, brother-in-law, and young niece.

I've Loved You So Long is a quiet film, quietly watching a broken woman be...broken. We don't know about Juliette's crime at first; as an American viewer, I did not at first realize that 15 years was an incredibly long sentence in the French prison system; a French viewer would know right away that the crime must be terrible indeed. Yet it is quickly clear to anyone that the revelation of the crime will be the film's dramatic center. Perhaps the major flaw of the film is the obviousness of this structure: We know we're building to The Big Confession, and when it comes, there's a certain self-consciousness to it. Don't get me wrong: It's a moving scene, and Thomas is amazing, it's just that it's been over-broadcast; nothing can live up to a whole movie building to that one scene.

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Which is a shame, because I've Loved You So Long excels in the small scenes. Thomas's acting is delicate, and as she struggles to interact in a normal way, as she seeks work, as she tries to joke, she reveals herself and her story without apparent effort. She is like a vision of feeling; so obviously agonized that the denouement is almost unnecessary. As we begin to know how terrible Juliette's crime is, we also can see, through her every pore, her regret and sorrow, and we cannot condemn her.

Of course, her family and the people who know her have struggles of their own. There is, apparently, a monster in their midst, but also a sister, a lovely woman, a friend. How to manage this contradiction?

Although freed from prison, Juliette is still imprisoned by her own deep loss and pain, and in allowing herself to be so raw, Kristin Scott Thomas shows us how many of us are truly imprisoned by invisible walls.

(I've cross-posted so long)

Monday Movie Reviews: Quick hits

I may do a few of these three-at-a-time jobs until I get caught up.

The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) 7/10
Meryl Streep is a "fallen woman" in Victorian England, and Jeremy Irons is a man who becomes obsessed with her. At the same time, Streep and Irons are actors filming a movie about these Victorian characters.

To a great extent, I Don't Get It. I really don't. I didn't feel like the juxtaposition added anything to the story. I know it has Deep Meaning, but that meaning is obtuse to me.
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The Fountain (2006) 5/10
Hugh Jackman is Tomas, a conquistador serving Queen Isabella (Rachel Weisz). At the same time, he is Tommy, a research scientist, and Izzi is his dying wife. There's also a big bubble with a tree.

Speaking of I Don't Get It. This is not the same situation as The French Lieutenant's Woman; this is a purposely obtuse movie so in love with its Big Ideas that it forgets there's an audience who might like to follow along.

Hugh Jackman naked, though.

Dreamland (2006) 7/10
Audrey (Agnes Bruckner) and Callista (Kelli Garner) are best friends in a trailer park in the middle of nowhere. Audrey cares for her drunk, phobic father (John Corbett). When a cute new guy (Justin Long) moves in, the stress of longing to be more and the desire for the same boy stir things up.

This is a lovely little coming of age movie, very gentle and enjoyable. It relies a tad too much on cliché, and is perhaps not exactly fascinating, but I enjoyed it.

(Quick cross-post)