I haven’t been an avid movie-watcher in the past while, so I’ve been holding off on posting about the films I’ve watched until they built up a bit. Well, here are some few reviews. For a change, let’s go in reverse order. In fact, I’ll start with movies I want to see — the NYT just did a section on upcoming releases.
releasing Dec. 25: L’Illusionniste (The Illusionist), dir. Sylvain Chomet. I read about this movie a few months ago; Chomet is the guy who made The Triplets of Belleville, and this movie looks wonderful. It’s animated, which is obvious if you’ve seen Triplets. The story behind the film is that Jacques Tati, this famous French comedian/director, wrote an unfinished screenplay; his daughter conceived of animating it and passed it on to Chomet, who finally made the film. The plot is about a magician and his relationship with a young girl who thinks he does real magic. I don’t really know more, but I’m excited nonetheless.
releasing Dec. 10: The Tempest, dir. Julie Taymor. She’s the one who did Across the Universe and, more importantly, 1999′s amazing Titus (Andronicus). She makes Prospero into a woman (played by Helen Mirren), but I’m excited. Like: Shakespeare. Like: Taymor.
releasing Dec. 3: Black Swan, dir. Darren Aronofsky (of Requiem for a Dream and Pi fame). Natalie Portman is a ballerina who goes crazy while training for dancing the lead in Swan Lake. Everything I’ve heard sounds good.
releasing Nov. 5: 127 Hours, dir. Danny Boyle. (See: Trainspotting, 28 Days Later.) Strangely, I often think of Boyle and Aronofsky as similar, because Trainspotting and Requiem are such strangely parallel films. Anyway, this movie is about Aron Ralston, the real-life hiker who cut off his arm to free himself from being trapped under a boulder. James Franco plays him. It will be awesome.
The rest of these I’ve seen:
Howl (2010), dir. Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. Starring: James Franco as Allen Ginsberg. Another movie carried primarily by Franco, this is more or less an art film, about Ginsberg’s marvelous poem and also about Allen Ginsberg. The movie has six layers, interspersed (I should note from the first that Franco plays Ginsberg in all of these; there is no documentary footage): (1) an interview with Ginsberg, quoting directly from a real interview, and delving into (2) scenes from Ginsberg’s recent past, re-enacted; (3) Ginsberg’s writing of “Howl,” at a type-writer, illustrated by (4) animated sequences showing interpretations of the poem as it is read; (5) Ginsberg’s first live reading of the poem in 1955, in front of an audience in San Francisco; (6) segments (drawn from court records) of the obscenity trial of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, for publishing the book.
Obviously, only the last and first segments are really narrative (spoiler: they win the trial); 3, 4, & 5 are all just the poem. Which is awesome, and beautiful — but really only interesting if you like the poem. Which I do — so I say, go see the film. But maybe read the poem first.
They finish with him reading “Footnote to Howl,” which is one of my favorite poems. I kind of like the part where it shows up in The Best of Youth (see: youtube: scene from The Best of Youth, skip to 3:00), too. But it’s a great poem.
Paranormal Activity (2007), dir. Oren Peli. I watched this Friday night with my friend Briana and her boyfriend. I liked it all right, I guess — I like the way they play with the narrative by having it be in the documentary style — but it’s not particularly novel, and the movie didn’t really scare me at all. Maybe it would have more if I had any sort of belief in these things.
The Secret of Kells (2009/2010), dir. Tomm Moore and Nora Twomey. This is an animated movie; it was nominated for an Oscar this year, and with good reason (although it lost to Up; stiff competition this year). It’s absolutely gorgeous; they took a lot of time in the art, and it shows. It’s much more art-based than a Pixar film, which is nice but a bit un-modern in a way that feels almost strange after so much art that’s not actually hand-drawn. It’s about a young boy living in a monastery during the 9th century; he helps to illuminate a biblical text. I really don’t think you need to know more, but suffice to say that there are threats to the art, to the place they live, and to the boy’s world-view. Also a really cool girl living in the forest. I watched this with my mother a few weeks ago, on Netflix Instant; we both really enjoyed it.
Outrage (2009), dir. Kirby Dick. This was a documentary about anti-gay rhetoric, as practiced and promoted by politicians, especially closeted gay politicians. It had some really good interviews, and focused on hypocrisy. I thought it was reasonably well-made, and I thought they at the very least did a good job of trying to find evidence for what they were claiming. I’d also say I learned some stuff I didn’t know, although perhaps not all that much.
Banlieue 13 (2004; District 13 / District B13), dir. Pierre Morel. This is a ridiculous action movie, which I primarily liked because I think parkour (freerunning) is awesome. It’s French, the action is good and done without wires, the acting is fine, the plot is interesting. Ain’t that enough?
Nowhere Boy (2009, released 2010), dir. Sam Taylor-Wood. This film is about John Lennon when he was a teenager. It’s pretty good; I read the review in Slate and thought it sounded good which it was. She makes some good points in the review, including the weirdness of seeing Aaron Johnson (from Kick-Ass) play John Lennon, but you get used to that. All in all, I really enjoyed this movie. As with other Beatles movies (Across the Universe comes to mind), if you love the Beatles (I like them, but love isn’t the word I’d use) you might hate it, but you also might like it. Otherwise, it’s a movie with a great soundtrack, a good story, and some quite good acting.
Tokyo Godfathers (2003), dir. Satoshi Kon. I watched this primarily because the director just passed away. I’d seen his film Paprika, which I thought was really cool and insane (it’s the film that I most connect to Inception because of the way it treats dreams); this was not as good. It’s anime, which I am willing to like when it’s done well, and the art is actually quite good, but the characters weren’t particularly likable and the plot was odd. It’s about three homeless people — a runaway girl, an older bum, and a drag queen — and the baby they discover on Christmas eve, and try to return to its mother. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t terribly exciting either.
Planet Terror (2007, dir. Robert Rodriguez) and Death Proof (2007, dir. Quentin Tarantino) — together, these were released as Grindhouse. I didn’t end up seeing these back-to-back as I was supposed to. Then again, they weren’t released with the ridiculous previews, so I couldn’t've re-created the theatrical experience anyway. I wasn’t a big fan. I know what they were getting at, but Planet Terror was a bit too dumb, and Death Proof a bit too overtly misogynistic. I liked parts of both of them, but was overall kind of bored.
Yossi and Jagger (2002), dir. Eytan Fox. I liked this Israeli film about two gay soldiers on the border with Lebanon, and their relationship. It’s cheaply made, and it shows. But I found the story interesting enough. I wouldn’t recommend it highly, but I also wouldn’t knock it down.
Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), dir. Wes Anderson. This animated film, based on the Roald Dahl book, was a lot of fun. I’m assuming most people have seen it, which is probably inaccurate but whatever. It’s quite good. Definitely worth seeing, if not just for the fact that it’s stop-motion animation, and that’s impressively done.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2010), dir. Edgar Wright. I like Michael Cera; I like comic books. Having said that: I also liked this film. I thought the directing very cleverly evoked comics (in general), and played well with the comic book it’s based on (I’m on the fourth volume now). The plot is that Scott Pilgrim, a 22-year-old Canadian dating a 17-year-old, suddenly meets the (literal) girl of his dreams, Ramona Flowers, and falls for her — but in order to date her, he has to defeat her seven evil ex-es (in battle). In the movie, Jason Schwartzman plays the head of the evil ex-es. There’s been some criticism of the way the film dropped female characters, but as a romance and as a comedy and even as an action-film (sort of) it does quite well. I enjoyed it, and some parts were really excellent.
Marie Antoinette (2006), dir. Sofia Coppola. I’d never seen this, and I’m glad I finally did, although the point that it was kind of boring was not lost on me. I liked the filming, the art direction, the a-historical stance, and so forth. I enjoyed the not-quite-vapidness of Kirsten Dunst’s character. Jason Schwartzman is in this one, too, as her husband; he does quite well. But all in all, I kind of wished it were shorter.
The Prestige (2006), dir. Christopher Nolan. I’ve liked Nolan since I saw Memento (I own it on VHS!). I actually have seen all of his movies but his first, now that I take a look. I’ll have to see that one, too. Anyway — I had never gotten around to seeing this one, for whatever reason. I’ve associated it with the similarly-themed film released around the same time, Neil Burger’s The Illusionist (not to be confused with The Illusionist at the top of this entry), starring Edward Norton, but never saw this one, which was often compared favorably to that film. The Prestige stars Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale; they’re both excellent as rival stage magicians. Essentially, the story is that they both keep on one-upping the other. Bale’s character has a trick that Jackman’s cannot replicate, so he tries to figure it out, and does him one better. I liked a lot about the film, although had some reservations at the ending.
At some point, I watched Little Ashes (dir. Paul Morrison, 2008) and An Education (dir. Lone Scherfig, 2009); I don’t think I ever wrote about them. The former was kind of crap, about Lorca and Dalí but with Robert Pattinson and a kind of weird imagined story. The latter was actually really good, and a lot better than the title might suggest. I probably saw it in April, though.
Anyway, a bunch of good movies, right?