Movies By Month: July 2011, part 2

Harvey:  1950 comedy directed by Harry Koster and starring Jimmy Stewart, Josephine Hull, and Victoria Horne.  Elwood P. Dowd (Stewart) is a charming, friendly, eccentric drunk whose best friend is a giant invisible rabbit named Harvey.  His sister Veta (Hull) and niece Myrtle Mae (Horne) are desperate to keep Harvey under wraps, which makes it difficult for them to have any sort of social life.  Fed up with his shenanigans, Veta attempts to have Elwood committed at the local sanitarium, which of course leads to adorable misadventures.  It’s a really cute movie.  I like Stewart in every movie I’ve seen him in.  I think a lesser actor could have pushed Elwood’s drunk aloofness to an intolerable place, but Stewart nails it, as always.

Battlefield Earth: 2001 sci-fi based on the novel by L. Ron Hubbard (duh), directed by Roger Christian and starring John Travolta, Forest Whitaker, and Barry Pepper. It’s the year 3000, and Earth is under the rule of the Psychlos (such a clever name), a race of neon green liquid-drinking, dreadlocked, huge-handed aliens who dress like it’s Industrial Night at the local dance club.  Humans have reverted to their hunter-gatherer roots and do their best to avoid the aliens, who frequently enslave the humans to man their mining operations.  Barry Pepper leads a revolt after reading an ancient text called the Declaration of Independence.  Not hard to figure out what happens from there.  This movie is so bad.  I often like really terrible movies (Starship Troopers, for example), but Travolta pretty much ruined the whole thing for me.  If he were just slightly less annoying I would have been all over it.  But damn if Pepper isn’t just as sincere and honest as he could be in this ridiculous mess of a movie.

Descent: 2007 thriller directed by Talia Lugacy and starring Rosario Dawson and Chad Faust (the pleasant gay boyfriend in Saved).  Maya (Dawson) is date raped by Jared (Faust) and tries to heal herself by working a crappy retail job and hanging out with DJs.  This is a terrible movie.  It’s awful.  I’m gonna go ahead and spoil it for you, because I highly recommend you never see this:  she gets her DJ friend to rape and torture her rapist.  That’s how the movie ends.  She lures him on a second date, and gets her revenge.  That’s it.  Nothing after that.  We don’t see how she gets on with her life, or what happens to Jared; the movie simply ends.  Just . . . no.  OK?  No. 

                  The single redeeming thing is that Dawson is actually really great in it, considering what she has to work with.  Which is huge in my book, because I’m trying really hard to get past my irrational dislike of her.

The City of Lost Children:  1995 French fantasy directed by Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet and starring Ron Perlman, Judith Vittet, Daniel Emilfork, and Dominique Pinon.  There’s a lot going on here, but I’ll try to sum up.  One (Perlman) is a circus performer whose adopted little brother is kidnapped by Krank (Emilfork) and his bizarre evil scientist family so they can steal the boy’s dreams.  One enlists the help of adorable street urchin Miette (Vittet) to get his brother back.  See everything Jeunet has ever done.  I mean it.  The man is brilliant.  I haven’t seen all of his movies yet, but I’ve loved the ones I have seen:  Amelie, A Very Long Engagement, and this.  My tolerance for whimsy is very low, but there’s something about his movies that’s whimsical and not at all precious.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert:  1994 Australian dramedy directed by Stephan Elliot and starring Guy Pearce, Hugo Weaving, and Terence Stamp.  Three drag queens on a vision quest through the Australian Outback?  OF COURSE I liked it.  This movie manages to cover both stereotypical and less-common issues in the LGBT community without being too preachy (I think, anyway).  And I've been friends with at least one Adam (Pearce) in my life: uber-bitchy, semi-cruel, mildly obnoxious, and the most fun to be around.  Not to name names.  Bryan.
                It’s obvious at times, and often ridiculous, but who cares?  It’s adorable.  It’s fun.  It’s To Wong Foo in Australia.  Loved it.

Play Misty for Me:  1971 thriller directed by and starring Clint Eastwood, with Jessica Walter (Lucille on “Arrested Development”) and Donna Mills.  Dave Garver (Eastwood) is a late night DJ for a jazz radio station who is trying to get back together with the girlfriend he cheated on (Mills).  But that doesn’t stop him from having a little fling with his number one fan, Evelyn Draper (Walter), who of course turns out to be totally nuts.  I enjoyed how epically ‘70s it was, and it was definitely entertaining, but I had a very hard time mustering sympathy for Garver.  His stalker’s moves were totally predictable, but his weren’t.  At every turn he does the exact opposite of the sane thing to do.  He keeps letting her back into his life, and his interactions with the police are ludicrous.  Yeah, let’s get pissy with the detective who’s trying to save your ass.  Dipshit.

Easy A:  2010 teen comedy directed by Will Gluck and starring Emma Stone, Penn Badgley, and Amanda Bynes.  Olive (Stone) tells a little white lie to her best friend that travels the gossip grapevine and turns her into the school slut overnight.   This snowballs into helping various guys at her school gain a better reputation by pretending to have sex with her, which garners her the attention of a group of overzealous Christian teens, led by Marianne (Bynes).  She also manages to catch the eye of a former crush, Todd (Badgley); but is he interested in her for her or for her notoriety?

                  It’s super cute.  Lots of intentional nods to John Hughes, an irrelevant but satisfying song-and-dance number, ridiculous ensembles.  Amanda Bynes doesn’t do the Christian cheerleader thing quite as well as Mandy Moore in Saved (yes, I’m referencing that movie again, it’s also cute if a little heavy-handed at times, you should see it, Macaulay Culkin is great in it).  But other than that the acting is really goodfor a teen movie.

Fat, Sick, & Nearly Dead:  2011 documentary by Joe Cross.  Cross is an Australian businessman and filmmaker who decides to turn his life and poor health around by embarking on a juice fast and cross-country trip across America.  On the way, he meets a truck driver who has similar ailments, and who later calls on him for assistance in his own juice fast.  I liked it okay, in the same way I like “Biggest Loser.”  Both men are very charming, and they don’t push their agenda too hard on the people they talk to about fasting.  There are some cartoon interludes during the narration that weren’t my cup of tea, but it wasn’t super annoying.

                  Sidenote:  I ate a beef brisket sandwich while watching this movie.  And it was delicious.

The Last Rites of Ransom Pride:  2010 B-Western directed by Tiller Russell and starring Lizzy Caplan, Dwight Yoakam, and Jon Foster.  Ransom Pride (played by the oh-so-delicious Scott Speedman) is dead, and his former-prostitute/current-badass widow (Caplan) has promised to bring his body back from Mexico to be buried alongside his mother.  She enlists the help of his brother Champ (Foster), much to the chagrin of his drunk preacher father, Early (Yoakam).  Jason Priestly, the amazing Peter Dinklage, and Kris Kristofferson also have smaller roles.  It’s just great.  If you like bad action movies or bad westerns or Dwight Yoakam you should totally see it.

Shampoo:  1975 satire directed by Hal Ashby and starring Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, and Julie Christie.  George (Beatty) is a womanizing hairdresser in Beverly Hills, who is trying to juggle the women he’s womanizing, raise capital to start his own salon, and dress the hell out of some ‘70s hair.  It’s the most depressing comedy I’ve ever seen.  I’m not sure I can say I disliked it.  But I might have disliked it.

The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T:  No, it’s not porn.  Nor is it a sequel to Dr. T & The Women.  It’s a 1953 children’s musical written by Dr. Seuss, directed by Roy Rowland, and starring Tommy Rettig, Mary Healy, and Peter Lind Hayes.  Bart (Rettig) hates practicing the piano.  He dozes off and has a totally crazy dream about being trapped by an evil piano teacher in a totally crazy Seussian world.  It’s one of those movies that I probably would have liked more if I’d seen it as a kid.  I imagine that a lot of children could relate to this movie, but not me.  I really liked my piano teacher.  Mrs. Blonek was awesome.

Rewatch!  Hackers:  1995 thriller directed by Iain Softley and starring Johnny Lee Miller, Angelina Jolie, Matthew Lillard, and Fisher Stevens.  A corporate jerk is trying to embezzle millions of dollars and blame it on innocent hackers.  So the hackers unite to take down The Man.  Also involves Marc Anthony at his scrawniest, a very young Jesse Bradford, Penn Jillette, and Lorraine Brocco.  I hadn’t seen this movie in a really long time, and it totally holds up.  It’s hysterical.  Totally '90s in the best possible, dated way.

 

Movies By Month: July 2011, part 1

I watched even more movies than usual this month, due to various happenings:  a mild hangover, an extremely lazy Sunday, a few more days off work than usual, the strong desire to do anything except clean my apartment, etc.  So I’ve broken July’s reviews into two posts.

The Wizard:  1989 “adventure dramedy” directed by Todd Holland and starring Fred Savage, Jenny Lewis, Luke Edwards, Christian Slater, and Beau Bridges (in the time before his eyebrows fully took over the upper half of his face).  Jimmy (Edwards) develops an unnamed mental disorder after the death of his twin, and his mom and step-dad are thinking about sending him to a home for disabled children.  His brother Corey (Savage) decides this is totally bogus and busts him out.  They head west, realize that Jimmy’s a video game savant, and befriend a cute runaway with a mommish haircut (Lewis).  The trio decide to put Jimmy in the “Video Armageddon” tournament to win a huge cash prize and prove that Jimmy is still mentally with it.  The mom hires a private detective to track the kids down, and the father and other brother (Bridges & Slater) set out to find them before the P.I. does.  It is a story of adventure, redemption, and the Nintendo Entertainment System.  There is gratuitous product placement, including use of the Power Glove, and dammit, that’s just fine with me.  In the words of their nemesis Lucas Barton:  “I love to Glove.”

The Magnificent Ambersons:  2002 TV movie (I should have known!) remake of the original 1942 Orson Welles film that was supposedly more faithful to his script and editing notes.  Directed by Alfonso Arau, and starring Madeleine Stowe, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Bruce Greenwood, and Gretchen Mol.  It was intolerable.  Rhys Meyers was just awful.  I love him, but he cannot pull off bratty.  I turned it off after 30 minutes, a-feared I would die of boredom.

The Good Shepherd:  2006 thriller about the birth of the CIA, directed by Robert De Niro and starring Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, and a bunch of other awesome people.  A tale of rich white dudes running the country behind the scenes, not trusting anyone, killing enemies and friends who know too much.  It’s good, but pretty much a total bummer.

Centurion:  2010 Neil Marshall action film about the famous Lost Ninth Legion of Caledonia starring Michael Fassbender (purr), Dominic West, and Olga Kurylenko.  The Romans are inhabiting the Scottish Highlands and fighting the Picts.  The Ninth Legion is sent out to do some more fighting with some more Picts when they’re betrayed by their mute guide, Etain.  The few raggedy survivors now have to avoid the Picts, rescue their captured general, and return safely to Roman territory.  All whilst being hunted by Etain and her band of merry mercenaries.  It’s pretty gory (apparently Picts had flesh so soft that it exploded on impact), and fairly predictable.  But I liked that at no point was there a romance angle with Etain and anyone.  She’s just a pissed off Pict (you’d be angry if someone cut your tongue off, too) who’s out to kill dudes, and has no time for longing glances and seducements.  It’s fluffy but good.  I’d recommend, if you’re into this kind of thing.  Or if you enjoy the Fassbender.

Persuasion:  2007 PBS movie based on the Jane Austen novel, starring Sally Hawkins and Rupert Penry-Jones.  Anne was engaged to Frederick when they were young, but due to the mores of Edwardian society regarding status and money she broke off the engagement.  Now she’s approaching Old Maid territory (unmarried at 27!  The scandal!).  Frederick went off and made a fortune in the navy, and now he’s back in town, looking all dapper in his frock coat.  Can he forgive Anne for breaking his heart?

            As an Austen adaptation goes, it’s awesome.  I love Hawkins (have you seen Happy Go Lucky?  Because it’s adorable and she’s adorable in it and you should).  I love all this stuff.  If you are also into this stuff, definitely see it.

Class of 1984:  1982 Mark L. Lester action thriller, starring Perry King, Roddy McDowall, Timothy Van Patten, and a young Michael J. Fox.  Andrew Norris (King) is an optimistic teacher who’s just transferred to a school with a serious disciplinary problem.  It’s essentially run by a gang of punks who deal drugs, pimp, fight, and use copious amounts of hairspray.  But Norris is going to turn things around.  He’s going to fight and win.  With classical music!  Turns out the gang leader is actually a talented pianist.  Sadly, Norris doesn’t allow him to join the band.  So the gang goes totally shithouse and starts killing, raping, destroying lives. 

            It’s completely over the top.  Ludicrous.  I don’t know if I would say I liked it, necessarily, but it was definitely entertaining.  The best part was watching the behind-the-scenes snippets in the Special Features, because Lester kept saying how this was a clarion call to the public about the state of our schools.  Stuff like this happens every day!  The massacre of lab animals!  If we had just listened to the warnings set forth in this movie!  If he honestly set out to shine a light on the evils lurking in our public schools, maybe he should have reeled it in just a touch.  It was so outlandish as to be campy.  So entertaining, but not educational.  Oooh, see what I did there?  WORD PLAY.

Super 8:  2011 sci-fi J.J. Abrams film, produced by Spielberg and starring Elle Fanning, Joel Courtney, and Kyle Chandler.  Joe (Courtney) and his friends are making a zombie movie when they witness a train derailing which turns out to be part of a government conspiracy.  Someone made the comparison of it being like The Goonies crossed with E.T.  I can’t remember who said that, but it’s dead-on.

            It’s unabashedly Spielbergian, but that’s okay.  The acting is excellent all around (I’m always impressed by child actors who can be convincing instead of just cute), and the special effects are outstanding.  I loved it.  That pyromaniac kid in the braces (played by Ryan Lee) made the movie for me.

All Good Things:  2010 mystery directed by Andrew Jarecki and starring Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst.  David Marks (Gosling) is the son of a powerful NYC real estate mogul who just wants to run an organic market with his girlfriend Katie (Dunst).  When he caves to real pressure from his father (Frank Langella) and perceived pressure from Katie and takes up the family mantle, his life starts to slowly unravel.  He’s terrible at his job, there are misunderstandings in his marriage, and, oh yeah, he’s clearly schizophrenic.  Katie goes missing, he goes into hiding after being questioned by the cops, and then shit gets weird.

            It was just all right.  The movie was based on the life of Robert Durst, and is pretty close to the real deal.  Which is messed up.  I don’t know.  I thought reading about Durst was more interesting than the movie.

The Battleship Potemkin:  1925 silent Russian propaganda film directed by Sergei Eisenstein.  The crewmen of the Potemkin are sick of eating borscht or whatever, so they overthrow their cruel superiors and in doing so endear themselves to the people of Odessa.  It’s an important film, thought of by many as the finest propaganda film ever made (eat your heart out, Riefenstahl), one of the best silents ever made, historically and culturally significant, the Odessa Stairs scene is iconic bla bla bla.  I’m not a fan of silents.  I mostly watch them because I feel like I should.  They are the Brussels sprouts of my movie diet, if you will.  But I’ll admit this is close to the top of the list for me.

My Left Foot:  1989 biopic directed by Jim Sheridan and starring Daniel Day-Lewis, Brenda Fricker (the mom in So I Married an Axe-Murderer), Ray McAnally, and Fiona Shaw (the muggle aunt in Harry Potter).  I put off watching this movie for over a month.  Every night I would come home from work and find it staring at me from atop the DVD player, and every night I would ignore it because I wanted to watch something fluffy and mindless and I figured this would be unspeakably sappy and depressing.  I should have known that DDL would never associate with himself with anything that’s less than spectacular (you shut your mouth, Gangs of New York is an excellent movie).

            The movie is based on the life of Christy Brown, a man born with cerebral palsy in the 1930s to a large working-class family in Ireland.  It’s heartwarming and at times the tiniest bit sappy, but never depressing.  Brown is a scrappy, funny SOB and his antics keep the film from being saccharine. 

Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Pt. 2:  2011 finale to the awesome movie series.  I love these movies.  I decided early on not to read any of the books until all of the movies had come out lest my happy feelings towards the movies diminish.  So I had no idea what was going to happen.  It was a nice ending to it all, but definitely not my favorite in the series.  My two favorite characters didn’t die, so that was good. 

Kidulthood:  2006 British drama that follows two days in the lives of a group of London teens.  It’s like Thirteen or Kids but British.  There’s suicide, fighting, drug use, awkward casual sex, popularity contests, pregnancy.  The standard totally sad stuff.  I practically needed a slang dictionary; I only picked up about 75% of the dialogue.  I didn’t realize they were saying the word “blood” until like halfway through the movie.  Clearly I’m not up on my London teen-speak.  It’s good, just sad in the way that most teen dramas make one feel sad.  I liked that the ending leaves some things unresolved.

That’s Dancing:  1985 documentary about the history of dance on film, specifically the MGM musical.  I’m a sucker for dance and/or musical retrospectives.  In this one we see Gene Kelly talking about breakdancing and ragging on chubby chorus girls, and Ray Bolger without a scarecrow costume on (which is weird).  I liked it, but that was to be expected.  I like anything involving Gene Kelly.  Except Xanadu.

Movies By Month: June 2011

Valhalla Rising:  2009 thriller(?) by Nicolas Winding Refn, with Mads Mikkelsen and Maarten Stevenson.  In 1000 A.D., a one-eyed mute warrior (Mads—how bitchin’ is that name?) is held captive by Scottish Highlanders and forced to fight to the death against other captives in some sort of medieval Thunderdome-esque situation.  One-Eye kicks ass (figuratively and literally), gains his freedom, befriends a boy named Are, and falls in with a group of would-be Crusaders trying to reach Jerusalem.  And then things get weird.

I liked it a lot, even though it was ridiculously gory and I was thoroughly confused by the ending.  It’s a bit slow at times, but not plodding.  

Elephant:  2003 Gus Van Sant drama starring John Robinson, Alex Frost, and Eric Deulen.  The second film in Van Sant’s “Death Trilogy,” (I totally added Gerry and Last Days to my Netflix queue), it’s a school shooting brought all too vividly to life; told in overlapping vignettes from the point of view of several main characters.  I seriously can’t even talk about this.  It was brilliant and beautiful and gut-wrenching and I cried a lot.  Not only during the shooting, but also because of just how accurate the day-to-day crap of teenage life is portrayed.   DAMN.  Like, if you went to public high school in the United States in the ‘90s or ‘00s, you know these people.

                  I will say the shower scene jumped the shark for me a little bit; I didn’t totally buy it.  But still.  Totally solid.  Watch it on a sunny day, though.  And do something super fun afterwards to take your mind off all the saaaaaaaaaad.

Watermarks:  2004 Yaron Zilberman documentary about the Hakoah swim team that fled the Nazis in Vienna in 1938.  It was just okay.  I didn’t know about Hakoah, or this particular team.  It was an interesting story, it’s nice to see what these ladies are up to now.  It was fine, but not amazing.

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead:  2004 British crime drama by Mike Hodges starring Clive Owen, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, and Malcolm McDowell.  Owen is a former member of an organized crime syndicate in London who’s gone off the grid to escape his past life.  Rhys-Meyers plays his brother, a smalltime drug dealer who dies for reasons I still don’t understand.  Owen rolls back into town to avenge his death and bathe.

Might have been more aptly titled I’ll Sleep Right Through This Lame-Ass Movie.  It was way too predictable and, frankly, boring.  The music was distracting, “Oooooh I’m all dissonant and sparse.”  Also, I might hate Malcolm McDowell.  I can’t think of a single movie he’s been in that I actually liked.  So his presence might be my new litmus test for “shitty.”

Thin:  2006 Lauren Greenfield documentary about The Renfrew Center in Florida, a residential treatment facility for women with eating disorders.  It follows four women ranging in age from 15-30 who are at varying stages of recovery.  Polly is clearly the ringleader, Brittany is the angry teen who doesn’t want to be helped, Alisa is the veteran who can talk the talk but clearly can’t walk that walk, and Shelly is the psychiatric nurse (seriously) who is dealing with a host of other issues besides her eating disorder.

It was interesting subject matter, but I found it really hard to muster sympathy for them (with the exception of Shelly).  I know it’s an illness, I understand that it’s ridiculously hard to overcome; that’s not why I couldn’t sympathize.  For several of these women the entire thing seemed like an exercise in getting attention and indulging in childish behavior, which detracted from those who were there to really work on their problems.  So it didn’t grab me the way I thought it would.  There’s the expected psychobabble, passing of the Talking Stick, crying and lying and drama.  It was well done, but yeah.  Didn’t really grab me.

Black Death:  2010 historical horror movie by Christopher Smith; starring Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, and Carice van Houten.  Seriously, how did anyone survive the Middle Ages?  Osmund (Redmayne) is a monk who accompanies a group of soldiers on their journey to investigate rumors of a village that’s been miraculously untouched by The Plague.  Except of course it can’t be a miracle, right?  Gotta be a witch.  Only explanation.  They get to the village and things do indeed get witchy.  But is it the pagan villagers or the Christian soldiers who are in the right?  Oooooooh, interesting!

Why wasn’t this a bigger movie?  It’s totally good.  The accents are awesome, the action scenes are great, it’s morally ambiguous without getting too serious, and Bean pretty much has that whole medieval knight thing nailed.  Has a Wicker Man feel to it.  But with less naked singing.

A Raisin in the Sun:  1961 drama directed by Daniel Petrie; starring Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, and Diana Sands.  And the hits keep on coming.  Lena Younger (McNeil) is about to get a substantial insurance payout after the death of her husband, and each of her family members has a different plan for the money.  Over the course of a few days the family navigates the prejudices of an all-white neighborhood in 1950s Chicago, schiesters intent on ripping them off, conflicting feelings about cultural identity, and the generation gap.  Man.  I mean, it’s really good.  It is.  But it’s also a bummer.  Really good, total bummer.

Jumpin’ Jack Flash:  1986 spy comedy by Penny Marshall; starring Whoopi Goldberg, Jonathan Pryce, and Stephen Collins.  Terry Doolittle (Goldberg) is a bored bank employee who starts talking to some dude online who turns out to be a British Intelligence officer on the run from the KGB.  It’s up to Terry to infiltrate places and get cryptic messages to people and run from government spooks in order to get “Jack” safely home.

                  Fantastically ‘80s.  Worth watching it just to see the computer equipment.  So many green screens!  It’s Goldberg at the height of her cuteness, it’s funny and light and full of good cameos.

Bronson:  2008 British biopic by Nicolas Winding Refn (weird!  I had no idea he directed this one, too) starring Tom Hardy.  It follows the prison life of Charlie Bronson (not to be confused with the actor Charles Bronson), who is widely regarded as Britain’s most notorious prisoner. 

I love Tom Hardy.  I love Tom Hardy’s voice.  That was really the only reason I rented the movie, and to be honest it wasn’t that great.  I’d say if you are also a rabid Hardy fan, then have at it.  Otherwise maybe skip it.  It was weird and kind of funny, but honestly not that great.

                  You could probably just watch this instead and get the gist:

Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony:  1999 Ken Burns documentary.  3 hours of the suffragist movement.  It’s Burns, and therefore great, but you’d better be reeeeally interested in this piece of American history before you invest the time.  That being said, I really liked it.  I had to split it up over the course of several days to get through it all, but I did like it.  Stanton and Anthony were very different women with very different ideas on how to get women the vote, and that tension keeps things interesting.  And can I say, I feel like a total slacker compared to Anthony.  She never married, never had children, never wavered from her cause, probably never slept.  That wonk-eyed, grim-mouthed bitch got.  Shit.  Done.

The Watcher in the Woods:  1980 Disney mystery by John Hough; starring Bette Davis, Lynn-Holly Johnson (you know, that chick from Ice Castles), and Kyle Richards.  Johnson and Richards play sisters who move into a new house and get wrapped up in solving a mysterious disappearance that took place on the grounds 30 years prior.  Ghosty things start happening.  Richards appears to be possessed at times with all the backwards writing and the talking in a Danny-Tony-Shining voice.

I watched this movie so many times as a kid.  Sadly, it doesn’t hold up.  I was always terrified of the elderly woman, and didn’t realize it was Davis until I rented it this time.  God, I love Davis.  Those eyes!  That voice!  But aside from her, the acting was mostly subpar.  Ian Bannen was pretty good (you know, the guy with leprosy in Braveheart?).  The alternate endings on the DVD were way too scary for their target audience, but were better than the original.  Awesome spaceship.

Red Riding 1974:  2009 adaptation of the David Peace novel; starring Sean Bean and Andrew Garfield.  Garfield plays Eddie Dunford, a cocky young reporter out to make a name for himself at a Yorkshire newspaper.  He starts investigating the disappearances of several young girls in the area, which seems somehow connected with a plan to build a shopping mall nearby.  The further Dunford delves into each of these subjects, the crazier his life gets. Which is typically how these things go.  Colleagues start dying, his boss pulls him off assignments, the police start harassing him.  But then he starts a relationship with the mother of one of the missing girls, and that’s gotta be a good move, right?

                  It was pretty good, but also really depressing.  I doubt I’ll watch the other two movies in the trilogy.

Dogtooth:  2009 Greek drama (dramedy?) directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, starring Christos Stergioglou, Michelee Valley, Aggeliki Papoulia, Mary Tsoni, and Christos Passalis.  Due to some traumatic event we’re never told about, a nameless couple has decided to raise their nameless children in complete isolation from the outside world.  The three children are now in their teens to early twenties, and are totally fucked up.  They’ve never seen movies or television, their reading is restricted, they’re fed misinformation about life outside their compound (that domesticated cats are highly dangerous animals, for example).  When the film starts, the father has apparently decided that it’s time for his son to learn about sex.  So naturally, he hires a prostitute and brings her to the house (blindfolded) once a week to be with the son.  As this girl spends more time with the siblings she starts leaking information from the outside, and the parents start to lose their absolute control.

                  It was so messed up.  I don’t even know what to say.  There were moments here and there that were pretty hilarious, but I didn’t like it.  Wouldn’t recommend it. 

Friends with Money:  2006 Nicole Holofcener film starring Jennifer Aniston, Catherine Keener, Frances McDormand, Joan Cusack, and some dudes.  Poor Olivia.  After quitting her job as a teacher at a posh private school and being dumped by her married boyfriend, she now cleans houses to make ends meet and smokes a lot of pot.  And all of her friends are totally loaded.  Thus the title.

                  McDormand is a fashion designer with a serious attitude and hygiene problem, and a husband who everyone thinks is gay.  Keener is a TV writer with her husband, who’s a total jerkwad.  Cusak is a bored housewife with a giant trust fund who struggles over whether or not to lend Aniston money.  Not a whole lot really happens in this movie, but I still thought it was great.   The acting was excellent all around; even Aniston, who I normally can’t stand.  I was really surprised that I wasn’t annoyed by her or her character.  It’s kind of a chick flick, let’s be honest.  But not in a bad way.

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.