Cynthia (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cwfilmbuff) wrote2008-03-28 07:10 pm
cwfilmbuff) wrote2008-03-28 07:10 pm
Entry tags:
catching up on the past couple months
Movie 10: The Spiderwick Chronicles
Quasi-interesting story, but the CG effects didn’t blend with the filmed action, and there was never really enough investment to get me excited. When I am more entertained by one of the trailers before the movie than the movie itself, there’s a problem.
M11: Doomsday
I’m starting to like Neil Marshall. Sure, his movies aren’t great works of art, but they’re consistently fun and entertaining, and he tends to use women in leading roles that would normally default to men, without turning them into sex objects or having them be motivated by motherhood. The movie itself is a retread of Mad Max, Escape from New York, and other post-apocalyptic fare, and is utterly unapologetic about it. Plus, the Scottish setting is used in a clever divergence from other films in the genre.
M12: The Bank Job
This one’s being called a heist movie, but I’m not sure that fits. Sure, there’s a bank robbery, but the focus of the movie isn’t the ingenious way they pull it off. In fact, it’s a very basic plan that works more because of luck than skill. Where the movie gets interesting is after the robbery, when it seems like half of London is after the heroes because of what was in the safety deposit boxes they raided. The reason this movie works is that the criminals aren’t smooth professionals, they’re small-time crooks in way over their heads who are just trying to bluff and improvise their way through.
M13: Stop-Loss
Kimberly Peirce doesn’t make many movies (this is her first since Boys Don’t Cry nine years ago), but there’s something to be said for quality over quantity. Stop-Loss succeeds where a lot of Iraq movies have failed by not trying to condemn the entire war, but rather focusing on how one policy affects a few specific individuals. Strong performances throughout really make this movie, especially Ryan Phillippe, who makes it easy to understand the difficulty of his situation and the decisions he has to make concerning himself, his family, and his fellow soldiers.
DVD 9: Lust, Caution
Typical Ang Lee fare, which makes it one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. This story of WWII intrigue is what Paul Verhoven’s Black Book wished it could be. The lengths that the characters go to are incredible, and the payoff is incredibly moving. Unfortunately it didn’t get a very wide release due to its NC-17 rating. It deserved the rating (although the title card before the movie said it was just for sex, no mention of the graphic violence) - this was definitely a movie for adults, but not the stigma that goes with it. And to completely change gears, on a minor note, I wish I knew more about Mahjong. I’ve played it a couple times, just enough to realize the action in the games were reflections of the how the characters related to each other, but not enough to completely grasp the subtext.
D10: American Gangster
By-the-numbers mafia movie. A couple interesting twists, but not enough to elevate the movie to anything more than a typical gangster movie.
Book 5: Above the Line: Conversations about Movies by Lawrence Grobel
Transcripts of interviews with filmmakers in the mid-90s. The interviews are interesting in how they form a picture of the producers, directors, actors, and critics profiled, but the concentration was more on personality than profession for my taste. There is a certain amusement factor in reading a decade later how big a star Van Damme knew he was going to be, and seeing the very real spite between Siskel and Ebert is interesting, but things like that are the rare gems in an otherwise dry read.
B6: I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
This would have made a good movie. Heck, if the WIll Smith film had just kept the ending of the novella it would have been exponentially better. As it is, the title story in this collection is the best in the book. The rest are hit-and-miss, often being more about the supernatural process than the characters involved - making for ideas that never really develop into stories.
Quasi-interesting story, but the CG effects didn’t blend with the filmed action, and there was never really enough investment to get me excited. When I am more entertained by one of the trailers before the movie than the movie itself, there’s a problem.
M11: Doomsday
I’m starting to like Neil Marshall. Sure, his movies aren’t great works of art, but they’re consistently fun and entertaining, and he tends to use women in leading roles that would normally default to men, without turning them into sex objects or having them be motivated by motherhood. The movie itself is a retread of Mad Max, Escape from New York, and other post-apocalyptic fare, and is utterly unapologetic about it. Plus, the Scottish setting is used in a clever divergence from other films in the genre.
M12: The Bank Job
This one’s being called a heist movie, but I’m not sure that fits. Sure, there’s a bank robbery, but the focus of the movie isn’t the ingenious way they pull it off. In fact, it’s a very basic plan that works more because of luck than skill. Where the movie gets interesting is after the robbery, when it seems like half of London is after the heroes because of what was in the safety deposit boxes they raided. The reason this movie works is that the criminals aren’t smooth professionals, they’re small-time crooks in way over their heads who are just trying to bluff and improvise their way through.
M13: Stop-Loss
Kimberly Peirce doesn’t make many movies (this is her first since Boys Don’t Cry nine years ago), but there’s something to be said for quality over quantity. Stop-Loss succeeds where a lot of Iraq movies have failed by not trying to condemn the entire war, but rather focusing on how one policy affects a few specific individuals. Strong performances throughout really make this movie, especially Ryan Phillippe, who makes it easy to understand the difficulty of his situation and the decisions he has to make concerning himself, his family, and his fellow soldiers.
DVD 9: Lust, Caution
Typical Ang Lee fare, which makes it one of the best movies I’ve seen this year. This story of WWII intrigue is what Paul Verhoven’s Black Book wished it could be. The lengths that the characters go to are incredible, and the payoff is incredibly moving. Unfortunately it didn’t get a very wide release due to its NC-17 rating. It deserved the rating (although the title card before the movie said it was just for sex, no mention of the graphic violence) - this was definitely a movie for adults, but not the stigma that goes with it. And to completely change gears, on a minor note, I wish I knew more about Mahjong. I’ve played it a couple times, just enough to realize the action in the games were reflections of the how the characters related to each other, but not enough to completely grasp the subtext.
D10: American Gangster
By-the-numbers mafia movie. A couple interesting twists, but not enough to elevate the movie to anything more than a typical gangster movie.
Book 5: Above the Line: Conversations about Movies by Lawrence Grobel
Transcripts of interviews with filmmakers in the mid-90s. The interviews are interesting in how they form a picture of the producers, directors, actors, and critics profiled, but the concentration was more on personality than profession for my taste. There is a certain amusement factor in reading a decade later how big a star Van Damme knew he was going to be, and seeing the very real spite between Siskel and Ebert is interesting, but things like that are the rare gems in an otherwise dry read.
B6: I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
This would have made a good movie. Heck, if the WIll Smith film had just kept the ending of the novella it would have been exponentially better. As it is, the title story in this collection is the best in the book. The rest are hit-and-miss, often being more about the supernatural process than the characters involved - making for ideas that never really develop into stories.