Airplane: 1980 satirical comedy directed by Jim Abrahams and David & Jerry Zucker, starring Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges and Peter Graves. An ex-fighter pilot turned taxi driver is unable to be responsible or something because of his war-related trauma. He boards a plane that his stewardess ex-girlfriend is working in an attempt to win her back over the course of the flight, everyone gets food poisoning, and he must overcome his issues and make an emergency landing. I’m not a fan of “silly” humor or slapstick, generally. I usually allow it in very small doses. But there was something about this movie that got through to me – maybe because I went in knowing what to expect. I actually really liked it, even laughed out loud. Barbara Billingsley jive-talking, a Saturday Night Fever parody, the completely over the top Queen-ness of air traffic controller Johnny. Loved it.
Le Cirque – A Table In Heaven: 2007 documentary directed by Andrew Rossi. It centers around Sirio Maccioni as he attempts to reinvent his iconic restaurant Le Cirque and keep his family’s business booming. It started out like Jiro Dreams of Sushi, but quickly got on my nerves. I watched him nitpick at his family for 30 minutes and then I just turned it off.
W.E.: 2011 romantic drama directed by Madonna and starring Abbie Cornish, Oscar Isaac, James D’Arcy and Andrea Riseborough. I’m planning a thorough review in the near future, side-by-side with The King’s Speech, but let me just say this. YOU GUYS. It’s so good. Madonna! I know! I understand your potential skepticism, but it’s honestly, really, actually a good movie. Go watch it.
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| OMG THE COSTUMES. |
Beyond the Gates of Splendor: 2004 documentary directed by Jim Hanon. In 1956 five American missionaries were killed while on a visit to the Huaorani tribe of Ecuador. So, I’m ambivalent about this one. I realize this happened like 60 years ago, and “things were different then” or whatever. But you take off for the middle of the jungle with your new wives, start families, learn about a scary isolated tribe that’s known for their extreme violent tendencies, and go “I KNOW. Let’s go visit them and teach them about airplanes and Jesus and how their culture is wrong. What’s the worst that could happen?” On the other hand, after their exposure to the white folks the Huaorani did knock off all the killing and now the descendants of the original missionaries are BFFs with the descendants of the killers. So it all works out?
It’s suspenseful, and the ending is nice. But I was sort of annoyed by it most of the time. The music is distracting, it’s hard to keep track of who’s married to who and all that, and my disdain for the missionary lifestyle was hard for me to put aside. It was just okay.
Basic Instinct: 1992 erotic (?) thriller directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone. Love on the rocks, ain’t no big surprise. SING IT, NEIL. Detective Nick is sent to investigate the stabbing death of a rock star and the only suspect is the man’s lover, Catherine Tramell. Cue famous interrogation scene. They become adversarial lovers, more people become suspects and are exonerated and then die. It all really doesn’t matter.
I’d never seen this before. Oh sure, I’d seen bits and pieces. Get it? Shut up. I had held off on watching it because it’s so hyped and now I feel validated. I just couldn’t commit to it. The dialogue is terrible. Like Showgirls terrible. It was hokey and over-the-top and kind of boring.
The Town: 2010 crime drama directed by Ben Affleck and starring Affleck, Jeremy Renner, Rebecca Hall, Blake Lively, Pete Postlewaite and Jon Hamm. Four longtime friends from Boston (of course) commit a robbery together and briefly take the bank manager Claire (Hall) hostage. After they let Claire go they worry she might have seen and heard too much, so Doug (Affleck) befriends her to assess how much trouble they might be in for. Of course Doug falls for Claire, which confuses things as he tries to date her but still rob banks with his buddies. It’s tense and quick-paced and interesting, the acting is pretty excellent all around – even from Lively, who totally surprised me. I liked it a lot. See it.
The Baader Meinhof Complex: 2008 German (yes, it’s subtitled) drama directed by Uli Edel and starring Moritz Bleibtreu, Martina Gedeck and Johanna Wokalek. It follows the first generation of the West German left-wing extremist group RAF. In 1970 a group of liberal activists formed an organization to protest the West German government, which they saw as a thinly-veiled extension of the former Nazi regime. The movie starts with the formation of the group, its early days of organizing and protesting, their flight to and training in Iraq, their devolution into violent terrorist activism, and the incarceration of the first generation leaders.
It’s apparently quite historically accurate, and made me want to read more about the RAF and its less-famous and more violent sister organizations. But it covers a lot of ground, which made it seem stretched a bit thin at times. And I had very little sympathy for any of the characters, perhaps with the exception of journalist Ulrike Meinhof. The RAF leadership keep getting into huge blowout arguments over minor philosophical differences and I don’t really understand the point because it all sounds crazy. It was decent, not amazing.
Fish Tank: 2009 British drama directed by Andrea Arnold and starring Katie Jarvis, Michael Fassbender and Kierston Wareing. Mia is a volatile 15 year-old loner living with her mother and sister in an East London housing project. She has few friends, she’s a little strange, and she spends a lot of time practicing hip hop dance routines in an abandoned apartment in hopes that it will lead to a job and an escape from her family. Her mom starts dating a surprisingly kind, handsome, mysterious man and Mia starts to soften a little. Her ensuing infatuation has terrible consequences.
Did you ever have a crush on an adult when you were a teenager? It’s awful. And what’s worse than the agony of imagining what that impossible relationship would be like is the delusion that it could actually happen. And what’s even worse than that is when it does actually happen. Teenagers do desperate things.
I love British movies with surly teens I can barely understand. This is excellent, I wanted to watch it again immediately after it ended. It’s a little heart-crushing, but absolutely worth the pain. The acting is amazing, the music is brilliant, and the final scene is a soft little punch in the stomach.
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