Movies by Month: March 2011

Due to general busyness and my decision to re-watch every season of Alias (shut up, it was a totally solid show), my March edition of Movies by Month is a little less robust than usual.

That’s Entertainment III:  1994 documentary about the history of the MGM musical.  See review.

For Your Consideration:  2006 comedy with Christopher Guest et al.  I did not expect this to be sad, but it kinda was.  Especially Catherine O’Hara’s character’s evolution throughout the film.  Yikes.  I enjoyed this mainly for the little cameos:  Scott Adsit (Pete on 30 Rock), Sandra Oh (of Grey’s Anatomy and Sideways), Mary McCormack (who played Deputy National Security Adviser/Will Bailey fan Kate Harper on The West Wing), but I probably wouldn’t watch it again.

True Grit:  the 2010 Coen Brothers.  I was not a huge fan of the original, nor am I a rabid John Wayne aficionado.  So I had no qualms with casting the earlier version aside for this remake.  Which was freaking outstanding.  As good as No Country for Old Men, but less depressing.  The acting was excellent all around, and I was very pleased to see Barry Pepper.  He’s one of those sleepers who randomly pops up and makes everything just delightful.

The Fighter:  the 2010 David O. Russell film about the boxers; you may have heard of it.  I didn’t know anything about the Ward brothers before I saw this, which definitely helped.  I have a soft spot for Marky Mark, Melissa Leo is amazing, as is Mr. Bale.  So so good.

Client 9, The Rise & Fall of Eliot Spitzer:  2010 documentary by Alex Gibney about the sex scandal surrounding the former governor of New York.  Glass houses, dude.  If you’re going to gun for rich, powerful white guys then maybe you should make sure you’re above reproach.  This was really interesting and skin-crawly and made me think even a little less of politicians.  All of ‘em.  I will commend Mr. Spitzer ever so slightly for not hiding behind the words “sex addiction.”  My only quibble with this was that they had an actress portray his most frequent escort “Angelina,” using her interview materials.  It was weird.  And there were a few unnecessary timeline sidesteps.

My Own Private Idaho: 1991 Gus Van Sant film starring River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves.  Look.  I really tried.  I did.  I got about an hour into it and just turned it off.  Even with movies I initially dislike I always try to make it through to the end, hoping that it will somehow redeem itself.  I just couldn’t get into this one.

Strictly Ballroom:  1992 rom-com by Baz Luhrmann, starring a bunch of Australian actors no one’s ever heard of.  Frakking adorable.  Utterly predictable ugly duckling scenario:  Girl gets gradually less dumpy through vigorous dance montages, sudden use of acne cream, and disuse of dorky glasses.  Boy is rebellious with a heart of gold.  Everyone does the right thing in the end.

Kings of Pastry:  2009 documentary by D. A. Pennebaker that follows several contestants of the MOF pastry competition (which is apparently kind of a big deal in France).  The gist is that these people train for FOUR YEARS, and then have a 3-day marathon of pastry-ing to prove that they’re the best of the best.  The film was akin to those baking competition shows they have on the Food network, but way more intense.  And French.

I wasn’t that enthralled at first.  And then I found myself rooting for a particular contestant just because he seems nice, and when his sugar sculpture collapses it’s just heartbreaking.  He keeps himself composed for a few minutes, and then breaks down crying.  And then the JUDGES start crying, and then I start crying, and we’re all crying.  Over a sugar sculpture.  The ending is bittersweet, and what’s super crazy is that several of the contestants who didn’t receive the MOF immediately start talking about training again.  So they can go through this whole process all over.

Shooter:  2007 thriller directed by Antoine Fuqua, starring Mark Wahlberg, Kate Mara, Michael Pena, and Danny Glover.  A halfway decent action movie.  Glover overdoes it a bit.

Alexander (Revisited, Director’s Cut):  2007 director’s cut of the 2004 movie starring Colin Farrell, Angelina Jolie, Val Kilmer, bla bla bla.  I just don’t know what to do with you, Oliver Stone.  I can’t seem to find a middle ground; I either love your movies or hate them with the fire of a thousand suns.  This’n would go in the “thousand suns” category.  It was a giant waste of time.  Epically boring.  If you’re going to make a 3 ½ hour movie, then you need your audience to connect with and, you know, give a crap about the characters.  The chronological jumping around was really annoying, Rosario Dawson’s presence instantly makes everything worse, and there wasn’t nearly enough time to ogle Jonathan Rhys Meyers.

A Fish Called Wanda:  1988 crimedy starring John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline, and Michael Palin.  Cute and funny and totally worth seeing.  Kline is surprisingly tolerable.

Happy Campers:  2001 comedy by Daniel Waters, starring Brad Renfro, Dominique Swain, Justin Long, and everyone’s favorite Swedish weirdo, Peter Stomare.  The last movie I saw Brad Renfro in before he died was Deuces Wild.  Which is fantastically bad and chock full of mediocre actors who I secretly and inexplicably love (Fairuza Balk, Stephen Dorff, Norman Reedus, Drea de Matteo).  Renfro just brought the whole thing down a notch.  And I didn’t want that to be my last memory of him:  sweaty, puffy, really overdoing his whole pouty lip thing, the worst Brooklyn accent I’ve ever heard.  I choose to think of him in roles like Witchita in Happy Campers, and Josh in Ghost World.

        Aside from rekindling my strange fondness for Mr. Renfro, this movie was kind of cute, but kind of weird.  I never went to the kind of summer camp where one goes away from home (I went to a day camp for latchkey kids called Summer Safari), so I can't say how authentically the camp experience is portrayed here.  But yeah.  Kind of weird.