Movies By Month: May 2011

Burn After Reading:  2008 Coen Brothers dark comedy with George Clooney, John Malkovich, Frances McDormand, Brad Pitt, etc.  Meh.  I'm more partial to their dramas, as I’ve likely said before.  Pitt pretty much saved me from disliking it entirely.  I know.  I’m just as surprised as you are.

  

The Panic in Needle Park:  1971 Jerry Schatzberg drama with Al Pacino & Kitty Winn.  The movie is about this fairly naïve girl who falls for a heroin addict.  You can guess where it goes from there.  Oh, the allure of ill-behaved men.  I found Winn’s character entirely unsympathetic, but Pacino pretty much nails it.  Without giving too much away, she ends up doing something he’s not on board with and the scene where he realizes it is flawless.  No words, just his facial expression.  Amazing.  Raul Julia makes a brief appearance, and I heart and miss him.  But overall, I wasn’t thrilled with it.

This Is England:  2006 British drama by Shane Meadows, with Thomas Turgoose, Joe Gilgun, Vicky McClure, and Stephen Graham.  This is such an amazing movie.  I’ll be giving it a more thorough write-up in the near future.  But you should probably add it to your Netflix queue right now.

V for Vendetta:  2006 thriller (I guess?) by James McTeigue, starring Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, and Stephen Rea.  Future dystopia, you get used to Portman’s really bad English accent, over the top but entertaining.  My biggest issue with this is that they talk about all the civil rights violations that this futuristic government has put in place, but the only issues we hear about in depth deal with gay rights.  Not that it isn’t important, I just would have liked more variety.  Perhaps it’s because it was written by the Wachowski brothers?  And Larry Wachowski may or may not now be Lana Wachowski?  Dunno.  Whatever, it was fine.

The Boys:  The Sherman Brothers Story:  2009 documentary about Richard and Robert Sherman, the Academy Award-winning Disney songwriting geniuses.  I am such a sap for kids movies of the 1960s and ‘70s.  The Sherman brothers wrote the music for Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Bednobs and Broomsticks, I could go on and on.  Basically every song I ever loved as a child.  I still get goose bumps every time I hear “Feed the Birds.”  For serious.

                  Not only are their lives interesting outside of their careers (Robert was a WWII vet who participated in the liberation of Dachau); it’s also fascinating how two such opposite personalities were able to work together to write some of the most beloved songs of all time (with perhaps the exception of “It’s A Small World,” am I right?).  Their sons directed the movie, and they interviewed Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke, John Williams, Leonard Maltin, and John Landis (who adds a touch of much-needed snark).  Excellent movie.

Bridesmaids:  2011 comedy by Paul Feig and Judd Apatow, starring Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, and Melissa McCarthy.  I’m not really into GROSS humor, so there were moments that got to be a bit much for me.  But overall I thought it was hilarious.  As a skittish flier, I very much related to the airplane scene.  Kristen Wiig was subdued in the best possible way, and Melissa McCarthy totally stole the whole thing.  I recommend.

  

Gonzo:  The Life & Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson:  2008 documentary by Alex Gibney.  “He never paid his rent, broke up my marriage, and taught my kids how to smoke dope.”

Jimmy Carter!  Pat Buchanan!  George McGovern!  Damn, they really pulled out all the stops.  I must admit I had no exposure to Thompson except through the movie Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.  I always thought Depp laid it on a little thick, but turns out he had it dead on.  I liked it.  He was a weird, talented guy.  I’ll probably read one of his books now.

Wings of Desire:  1987 German romantic fantasy by Wim Wenders.  Think City of Angels if City of Angels wasn’t absolute shite.  It grew on me very slowly.  I didn’t start liking it until the last 20 minutes or so, and even then it took me like a week to figure out if I really, actually liked it or not.  Chronological train of thought while watching:

• THIS is why people make fun of art house movies.  Any minute now I’ll see a clown flipping a pancake while Diane Simmons cries in the background.
• Booooriiiiiing.
• Oh hey, Peter Falk!  Weird.
• That’s nice.
• That’s nice.
• That’s too bad.
• Wow, walking through the Berlin Wall!  When was this movie made?  Was the wall down in ’87?  Shit, I should know this.  When did Hasselhoff sing on the Wall?  That was like ’89, so . . .
• I could totally do that with my hair [pause movie to retrieve teasing comb from bathroom closet].
• Oh hey, Nick Cave!  Weird.
• Awwwwwwwwwwwwww.
• Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!
• OK, I liked it.

 Red:  2010 action-comedy with Bruce Willis, Mary-Louise Parker, Morgan Freeman, Brian Cox, basically everyone awesome.  Retired CIA agents are being hunted down by shadowy government peeps.  I really liked this.  It was funny and cute and I liked everyone who was in it and the actions scenes were absurd in a good way.  And hot damn, could Brian Cox BE any more spectacular?

What Would Jesus Buy:  2007 documentary directed by Rob VanAlkemade and produced by Morgan Spurlock.  It took me a good 10 minutes before I figured out what the hell was going on, so let me save you the trouble:  this dude has a performance-based protest group called The Church of Stop Shopping and they go around the country encouraging people to buy goods responsibly and within their means.  It was pretty good.  I gotta admire the balls on a guy who would walk into a Disney store yelling that Mickey Mouse is the Antichrist.  My favorite of his many catchphrases:  “Are you people, or are you sheeple?”  Heh heh.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye:  2008 documentary about the life of Tammy Faye Bakker, narrated by RuPaul.  There were so many things I didn’t know about Tammy Faye!  She was the first evangelical to publicly reach out to the gay community during the AIDS epidemic in the ‘80s, waaaaaaay before any other person in that gaggle of TV personalities.  She had 40 albums!  She was super into puppets!  Honestly, you could just read her Wikipedia page and get all of this information.  I wouldn’t call it a must-see.

8 ½:  1963 Fellini.  This movie stressed me out, because he’s so stressed out.  Is this seriously what making a movie is like?  Count me out, thanks.  I don’t think I could hack it.  The fantasy scene with all the women is just outstanding.  Yes, it’s very good.

3:10 to Yuma:  2007 remake of the classic western, directed by James Mangold and starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.  Father and son duo aid in taking a fugitive to jail whilst being hunted by the fugitive's gang.  I was surprised by how much I dug this.  Crowe isn’t obnoxious, Bale does a pretty decent job.  Good plot, good pace.  And then there’s Ben Foster!  Whom I love and will sing the praises of forever more.  Do you remember Flash Forward?  Great show.  He was in it.

Movies By Month: April 2011

I have finally completed the Re-watching Alias Project.  You can stop after Season 3.  Trust me.

Until the Light Takes Us:  2009 documentary about Norwegian black metal, focuses on the rash of church burnings and murders in the ‘90s that have been associated with the genre.  I vaguely remember hearing something about this, but I really had no idea.  Even though I’m a big fan of Metalocalypse.  The main interviews are with Gylve “Fenriz” Nagell and Varg “Count Grishnackh” Vikernes.  I mean, they both talk about feeling dissatisfied with McDonald’s coming to Norway bla bla bla which could be a justification for the music, but not murder.  You know.  But it was good.  And is making me rethink dudes with long hair. 

Shoot ‘Em Up:  2007 Michael Davis action movie with Clive Owen, Paul Giamatti, and Monica Bellucci.  Movies like this are only good when they take themselves way too seriously.  Think Roadhouse.  This movie tried to be funny, so it wasn’t funny.  And the carrot thing got old fast.  I wanted to like this because on paper it seemed like I should:  shitty action movie + three actors I really like.  But yeah, you should skip it.

Igby Goes Down:  2002 Burr Steers dramedy with Kieran Culkin (heart), Claire Danes, Jeff Goldblum, and Susan Sarandon.  It was pretty good.  The music was excellent.  Goldblum and Sarandon were fantastic, not that that should surprise you.

The Boston Strangler:  1968 Richard Fleischer thriller with Tony Curtis, Henry Fonda, and George Kennedy.  Oh, really?  NO ONE in Boston has an accent? 

Good things:  the split screen effects were interesting, and what they chose not to show kept up the level of suspense.  We don’t see Albert DeSalvo (Tony Curtis) until an hour into the movie.  Before that he’s just a menacing pair of gloves or a dark shadow.  In the beginning we see just enough of the bodies (nearly nothing) so that it’s scary without being gruesome; then it builds to show more of the attacks.  I thought that was very effective.

Bad things:  Not even close to accurate.  And if you’re going to make a movie like this based on real events, it should be as accurate as possible.  I think doing less is a disservice.  Zodiac is still the gold standard.

Insomnia:  1997 Erik Skjoldbjaerg Norwegian thriller with Stellan Skarsgard, Gisken Armand, Maria Bonnevie, and Bjorn Floberg.  Stellan was very good, as usual.  But it was sooooo predictable.  Too predictable.  I may watch the American remake just to see how it stacks up.

The Secret of Kells:  2009 animated movie with Brendan Gleeson, Evan McGuire, and Christen Mooney.  The animation (by hand!) was beautiful, the accents are delightful, it almost makes me want a cat, it’s short, and it’s cute but not twee. 

The Manson Family:  2003 Jim Van Bebber.  When I borrowed this from my friend Louis he said, “Keep in mind that this was filmed over 30 years.”  I thought he meant that it covered a 30-year period of time.  No.  They started making it in the 80s, and it wasn’t released until 2003.  Which might explain some of its disjointedness.

Watching this made me want to reread Helter Skelter, and also made me really glad I never did acid.  The acting quality is all over the place; some excellent, some awful.  Not for the weak-stomached.  The most interesting scenes were the portions filmed like interviews.  The Tate murder scene is powerful weak.  There’s an interview with Manson on the bonus disc that’s worth watching.  On the whole, I’m torn.

The Ruling Class:  1972 Peter Medak British comedy with Peter O’Toole, Alastair Sim, Coral Browne, and Carolyn Seymour.  So bizarre.  O’Toole’s character has just inherited a peerage, and also thinks he’s Jesus Christ.  Through his family’s efforts to cure him and/or take his inheritance from him he comes to believe that he’s Jack the Ripper instead.  It was weird.  I liked it.  Definitely not for everyone.

The Man Who Knew Too Much:  1956 Hitchcock thriller with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day.  I didn’t realize until I started researching this that it’s a remake of his 1934 film of the same name.  Huh.  I’ll have to look that one up, I do like Peter Lorre.  The acting is good all around, and I was especially impressed by Day.  It was a bit too long and there were a lot of loose ends, but overall it was decent.

The Trouble with Harry:  1955 Hitchcock dark comedy with Shirley MacLaine, Edmund Gwenn, and John Forsythe.  A group of adorable New Englanders finds a body in the woods; hijinks ensue.  Cute but underwhelming.

The Hudsucker Proxy: 1994 Coen Brothers comedy with Tim Robbins, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Paul Newman.   I’m going through a bit of a Coen Brothers thing, since I realized I haven’t seen all of them.  Believe I’ll skip The Ladykillers.  JJL does an annoying Hepburn impression.  This was all right.  I prefer their dramas.

AFI 100 Movies: The Worst of

And now the worst.  Just don’t bother.  You’ll thank me.

Shane:  1953 George Stevens western with Alan Ladd, Jean Arthur, and Van Heflin.  Booooooriiiiiiiiing.  The scenery is beautiful, Jack Palance is a total badass, that kid is obnoxious, and the rest of the cast couldn’t act their way out of a paper bag.  Snoozefest.





Wuthering Heights:  1939 William Wyler with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon (isn’t that name awesome?).  2009 PBS Masterpiece Classic version starring Tom Hardy and Charlotte Riley:  see that instead.

Heathcliffe as portrayed by Tom "Pillow Lips" Hardy

Platoon:  1986 Oliver Stone Vietnam drama with Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, and Forest Whitaker.  I have seen a LOT of war movies, many of them featuring gore and violence and uncomfortable, morally ambiguous situations.  I’ve never had to look away in utter disgust at any of them.  And then Platoon happened.  This movie gave me nightmares.  It made me feel physically ill.  Roger Ebert loves it, it won like a gojillion Academy Awards.  I don’t care.  There are other movies about Vietnam that deal with the same issues in a much less fucked up way.  Watch The Deer Hunter or Full Metal Jacket instead; they’re also violent and disturbing, but they didn’t make me want to vomit up my popcorn.

Bringing Up Baby:  1938 Howard Hawks with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.  “Screwball comedy” is not a genre I generally like.  This would be a key example of why.

Intolerance:  1916 silent film by D.W. Griffith, starring every actor ever.

Dear Mr. Griffith,

So, your career took a nosedive after you released the most racist movie in our culture's collective memory.  Inflicting Intolerance on us to make amends did not help my opinion of you.  I’d like those 27 hours of my life back.

Sincerely,

AJ

p.s. Inform Lillian Gish that she can take that cradle and stick it where the sun don’t shine. 

Blade Runner:  1982 Ridley Scott science fiction.  I KNOW, ok?  Everyone is supposed to love this movie and drool over every iteration released.  It was all right.  Just all right.  It was visually interesting.  I like Rutger Hauer, Harrison Ford (in that era), pre-plastic surgery Darryl Hannah, I’m 50/50 with Ridley Scott, and while Sean Young is totally crazytown I thought she did very well in this.  But all that adds up to is a mildly entertaining movie I’d just as soon catch on the SyFy channel and barely pay attention to while folding my laundry.  My dislike of it is directly proportional to how many times I’ve been told it’s the best sci-fi movie EVAR.  So stop pushing so hard, nerds.

Chinatown:  1974 Roman Polanski “neo-noir” with Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.  Meh?  Just not my cup of tea.  I hated the ending, which is apparently what makes it so great.  Polanski and I don’t see eye to eye on a LOT of things.

Maltese Falcon:  1941 John Huston noir with Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, and Peter Lorre.  If you're going to delve into classic noir for the first time, don't start with this.  Practically turned me off the genre forever.  Watch Laura or The Big Sleep or Double Indemnity instead.  I love Bogey, but this just didn't do it for me.

AFI 100 Movies: The Best of

Last year I finished watching the AFI 100 Movies list.  Yes.  Everything from the original 1997 and reedited 2007 lists.  That’s 123 movies.

To be fair, I’d seen quite a few of these before.  And if I still felt very familiar with the movie (Snow White & The Seven Dwarves, for example), then I skipped watching it again.

The AFI has its detractors, and I agree with most of their criticisms.  But the list seemed like a good place to jump into Movie Nerdery, and I stand by that decision.  I will say that I’ve now started in on Ebert’s Great Movies list, and have liked them much much more.

Some background:  according to Wikipedia, the films were judged according to the criteria listed below.

1. Feature-length: Narrative format, at least 40 minutes long.
2. American film: English language, with significant creative and/or financial production elements from the United States.
3. Critical Recognition: Formal commendation in print.
4. Major Award Winner: Recognition from competitive events including awards from organizations in the film community and major film festivals.
5. Popularity Over Time: Including figures for box office adjusted for inflation, television broadcasts and syndication, and home video sales and rentals.
6. Historical Significance: A film's mark on the history of the moving image through technical innovation, visionary narrative devices or other groundbreaking achievements.
7. Cultural Impact: A film's mark on American society in matters of style and substance.

Of the movies on the list that I’d never seen before, here is my assessment of the Best.  A list of the Worst will follow shortly.  The movies you should absolutely see and the ones you can skip.

Best:

Sunset Blvd:  1950 Billy Wilder noir with William Holden, Gloria Swanson, and Erich von Stroheim.  I named my blog after it.  Watch it, and then read this (especially the "Touches of Authenticity" section).  META.  Swanson’s hands could be a character unto themselves.  Woman could act.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest:  1975 Milos Forman drama based on the Ken Kesey novel.  I know that Jack Nicholson gets a lot of crap for playing the character of JACK in like every movie, but there are occasions when that’s totally okay.  Like this one.  And Five Easy Pieces.  And The Shining.  Also, because of the constant caricaturizing references to Nurse Ratched in pop culture I was expecting something way more ridiculous; but Louise Fletcher’s performance is subtly creepy.  Good job.

Dr. Strangelove: 1964 Kubrick comedy with Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Slim Pickens, and James Earl Jones.  Embrace the hilarity of Cold War paranoia.  Peter Sellers plays three characters, all of them brilliantly.  It’s funny, it’s scary, it’s bizarre.

The Best Years of Our Lives:  1946 William Wyler war drama with Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Dana Andrews, and Harold Russell.  OK, so this won’t appeal to everyone.  It’s a little dated, it’s a little schmaltzy, and there are many more powerful WWII movies.  Do yourself a favor:  don’t read anything about this movie, not a single thing, not even the Netflix summary, and then watch it.  If your mind isn’t blown by the revelation in the first 10 minutes, then don’t bother watching the rest.

MASH:  1970 Robert Altman war satire with Donald Sutherland, Elliot Gould, Tom Skerritt, Sally Kellerman, and Robert Duvall.  I hated the TV show, loved the movie.  It’s hilarious. 

Network:  1976 Sidney Lumet satire with Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, and Robert Duvall.  Just when I think television can’t get any worse, it does.  SISTER WIVES.  But at least this phenomenon is nothing new.  Bloodsucking TV executives have been around for a while.  This movie is darkly funny, interesting, and feels surprisingly modern.

The Manchurian Candidate:  1962 Cold War thriller with Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, and Angela Lansbury.  This movie is the jam.  I’ll be giving it a more thorough write-up in the near future.

Rocky:  1976, yes THAT Rocky.  I avoided this movie like the plague.  Sylvester Stallone, FIVE sequels, about boxing; I thought it would be terrible.  Talia Shire and Burgess Meredith are adorable.  It’s sweet, it’s endearing, the ending is totally appropriate (if you can get past the whole “Adrian!” thing).  Ladies, I promise:  it’s totally worth seeing.

A Place in the Sun:  1951 George Stevens drama with Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor, and Shelley Winters.  Clift and Taylor are okay, but Winters is on FI-yah!  She does neediness and desperation so well that at moments you almost forgive Clift’s character for feeling so trapped by her.  And there’s a reason Raymond Burr could never quite get from under the Awesome Lawyer typecasting:  he’s freaking brilliant at it.

Dr. Zhivago:  1965 David Lean EPIC with Omar Sharif and Julie Christie.  It’s really long, takes place over roughly a 10-year period that included World War I, the Russian Revolution, and the Russian Civil War.  That’s a lot of stuff to cover.  But it’s okay, because just look at Omar Sharif’s eyes.  So pretty.

Rebel Without A Cause:  1955 Nicholas Ray drama with James Dean, Natalie Wood, and Sal Mineo.  I’m one of those people who thought James Dean was overrated without ever having seen one of his movies.  Yes, he was quite attractive.  So are a lot of crappy actors who die young.  But then I watched this and had to admit that yes, dude was very talented.  I was slightly annoyed by that whole instantly-fall-in-love thing that used to be so common in movies.  “My boyfriend just bit it in a Dead Man’s Curve situation but you’re cute so let’s make out.”  Not likely.  But it was still pretty good.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?:  1966 Mike Nichols drama based on the Edward Albee play, with Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, and Sandy Dennis.  Freaking dynamite.  The back and forth between Taylor and Burton is a joy to watch, even as they’re tearing each other to pieces.  Definitely not a happy movie.  Good to watch if you’re feeling mean.

The Searchers:  1956 John Ford western with John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, and Natalie Wood.  I don’t care for westerns, as a rule.  John Wayne’s niece is kidnapped by Injuns (and yes, I feel the use of that word is appropriate because this is one of those movies where Native Americans aren’t portrayed by Native Americans); wild, years-long chase ensues.  Basically it’s about Wayne’s character’s total obsession with revenge and racism.  Best western I’ve ever seen.

Awesome Movies You Might Have Missed: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

When the movie begins, the Northfield robbery that led to the end of the original James gang has already happened.  As a kind of last hurrah, Jesse James (Brad Pitt) and his brother Frank (Sam Shepard) hire a new gang to pull off a train robbery.  The group includes Robert Ford (Casey Affleck), a man who Frank admits gives him “the willies,” and who from the very beginning is desperate to prove his mettle, to show that he’s reliable and worth keeping in the gang permanently.

After the success of the robbery, Frank leaves the gang and Jesse becomes increasingly paranoid about the other members, convinced that at any moment one of them will turn him over to the authorities for the sizeable reward on his head.  Most of the movie is about the deterioration of the gang and the downswing of James’s career, including his eventual death at the hands of Ford.  That’s not a spoiler.  It’s in the title.

The acting is superb all around:  Sam Rockwell, Sam Shepard, Jeremy Renner, Paul Schneider; and Garrett Dillahunt (who you may know from Fox’s Raising Hope or as Deputy Wendell from No Country for Old Men) is outstanding in the minor role of Ed Miller.  He plays this totally dim character flawlessly (I mean that as a high compliment, I swear).  Playing sympathetically stupid this well has to be harder than it looks. 

And Brad Pitt does a fine job; exactly what you’d expect from him.  Nothing beyond what you’d see in his other major roles.

But Casey Affleck blows the whole thing out of the water.  He nails it.  He kills it (no pun intended).  Robert Ford vacillates between creepy, desperate, funny, kind, brave, cowardly, simpering, decisive, indecisive—and Affleck transitions through each of these effortlessly.  I sympathized with Ford, I felt sorry for him.  Throughout the film he’s bullied, ignored, talked down to.  But he’s also a total creeper.  Affleck simultaneously inspires feelings of disgust and empathy.

Casey Affleck was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Oscar in the Supporting Actor category, and lost both to Javier Bardem for his portrayal of Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men.  I love that movie, I love Javier, but honestly that would have been a toss-up for me.

While I'm crazy about the movie, I did have a few very minor quibbles with it.  After the shooting, in the course of a single day the Ford brothers were indicted, found guilty, sentenced to death by hanging, and two hours later pardoned by Governor Crittendon (played by James Carville in the movie with sinister excellence).  While this is largely considered to be the most historically accurate depiction of Jesse James on film, this part of the story is omitted.  I think it would have been amazing to see Affleck’s portrayal of how Ford would have handled that kind of rollercoaster stress.  Alas.  It was 2 ½ hours long anyway, adding all that would have pushed it into Epic territory.

The music by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis is fantastic, but when Cave makes a cameo at the end of the film to sing “The Ballad of Jesse James” the song seemed a bit too modern even though it was apparently written shortly after James’s death.  And while the cinematography is beautiful, some of the camera affects got annoying after a while.

But all in all, a must-see.

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.

Review: That's Entertainment III

Basically:  a nice little something for musical-lovers and movie nerds; all others need not apply.

In the third and probably most interesting installment of their “That’s Entertainment” series, MGM pulls out all the stops.  They trot out aging musical stars to talk about the good ol’ days; like Gene Kelly (drool), Esther Williams, Debbie Reynolds, you get the idea.  What makes this volume worth watching is the never-before-seen and behind-the-scenes portions of the MGM Musical from its beginning through its decline, and a few hilarious tidbits that I’d totally forgotten about.

Like Mickey Rooney as Carmen Miranda:

They discuss the use of vaudeville and “novelty” acts, both adorable (The 5 Locust Sisters)

 . . . and TERRIFYING (The Ross Sisters)

There are several alternate versions, shown side-by-side with the original.  There’s the original version of “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” before MGM dubbed Ava Gardner’s voice, and we hear these back to back.  There’s a song that was cut from Singing in the Rain (whatever, I didn’t think it was that interesting).  And there’s an amazing mash-up of two different versions of Fred Astaire’s “I Wanna Be A Dancin’ Man” which demonstrates just how bananas this dude was because the two are completely identical down to the nuances.

They show a few previously-unseen Judy Garland numbers, including two that she shot for Annie Get Your Gun before her nervous breakdown.  I like Judy and all, but I can’t imagine anyone but Betty Hutton in that role.

Sidenote:  Howard Keel is a BADASS.

They do a fairly decent job at not glossing over the Production Code and the prejudices of the musical heyday.  I have to admit that after watching Girl 27 I was hoping for a little more brutal honesty.  They discuss the “beautification” process that every contract girl had to go through, how long it took to get a screen test and even then it was no guarantee of a career outside the chorus line.  Lena Horne keeps it pretty real.  She talks about being excluded from Show Boat because the depiction of interracial relationships onscreen was strictly verboten at the time, and suggests that her song “Ain’t It the Truth” was censored from Cabin in the Sky because peeps couldn’t deal with seeing a “black girl in a bathtub.” 

And they don’t shy away from some scenes using blackface (it happened, let's be honest), and include a dance number from Good News called “Pass That Peace Pipe.”  Which may as well be “Culturally Insensitive Down at the Hop.”

All in all, it's interesting if you're really into this sort of thing.