Road Trippin’

Usually, with my Weekend Double Features, I try to find two movies that have a theme in common, or a central story, or, you know, something. Last weekend I couldn’t think of any movies related in a meaningful way to any of the four movies I watched. But two of them had a tenuous connection: they were pretty much as disparate as two movies that arguably belong to the same genre can be. So, this is not a “Weekend Double Feature” in the strictest sense of the word (not least because it’s already Thursday), but rather a study in contrasts.

The Genre? The road movie.

The movies? Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle and … My Blueberry Nights.

Schlubs

Jeff Wells is on a crusade. A holy enterprise of grand importance. He’s spotted something wrong with the world (of film), and he’s not going to stand for it. The phenomenon he’s discovered is to him a sign of the impending apocalypse, and he sees himself as the last defense.

The big threat? Schlubby guys getting beautiful girls in movies.

The Librarian

The battle over who’s going to get to review the new Indiana Jones sequel for filmtotaal is already raging, even if no press screening dates have been announced yet. I’m keeping out of it. I don’t want to see Indiana Jones at a press screening by myself, even if it’s bound to be full of illegally brought guests. I want to see with Indy 4 with a group of friends, of specific friends, in a crowded theatre on opening night, where we’ll hopefully get to mock it and thrill at it in equal measures.

The thing is, Indiana Jones was always a throwback with a wink, inviting you to laugh at it a little, winking at you, while at the same time offering a bigger, better version of the action scenes and heroic acts seen in old adventure serials. The enormous boulder rolling towards the hero, the macho posing: it’s not just a cliché because of Indy, it was a cliché BEFORE Indy. Indiana Jones is a mockery cum homage of the serials George Lucas and Steven Spielberg loved when they were little boys, and that’s part of what makes those movies so enjoyable.

So what happens if you double that, and pay a slighting mocking homage to Indiana Jones, without the budget, the filmmaking skills of Spielberg and, well, Harrison Ford?

The Lady Eve

It’s crazy how quickly you adapt to insane prize levels. The film museum in Oslo (which I actually haven’t visited yet, but I will on Tuesday) has an amazing DVD selection, but after seeing so many great DVDs (Gun Crazy, The Killers, Touch of Evil) that cost between 170 and 300 kroner, the 100 kroner they asked for The Lady Eve sounded like a bargain. Of course, that’s still more than 13 euro, or about 20 dollars.

Anyway, The Lady Eve was worth it.

Weekend Double Feature: Bogie learns to stick his neck out

How much can you tell from people’s celebrity crushes? Not too much, I hope. For instance, I blogged before about liking brooding baddy Guy of Gisborne in the new BBC series about Robin Hood more than the title character, wondering what that said about me. Luckily, my friend Lani (who I’m visiting in Oslo right now) recently caught up with the show, and wholeheartedly agrees. She’s a little disturbed by her predilection too… but at least we’re not out there posting robin/guy slash fanvids on iTunes, right? Right?

Back to the topic at hand, my old-time movie star crushes aren’t exactly typical either. It’s not the dashing Errol Flynn (another Robin Hood), the dreamy Cary Grant, or the recently departed Charlton Heston that I drool over. Nope, instead, it’s Orson Welles I can’t resist, Claude Rains I root for in Notorious, and my favorite of them all, the movie star I find most attractive, is a short drunkard with a lisp called Humphrey DeForest Bogart.

Now in Dutch Cinemas

This post is slightly useless as a guide for Dutch people, I suppose, since they can read my reviews in Dutch on Filmtotaal. For me, though, it’s a way of finally writing something in English about all these movies. After the jump, reviews of

Margot at the Wedding
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
Naissance des Pieuvres/Water Lilies
Paranoid Park
The Band’s Visit
Mio Fratello e Figlio Unico/My Brother is an Only Child

Weekend Double Feature: Delusional Dudes

Now that I write on a regular basis about Weekend Double Features, I’m always on the lookout, consciously or unconsciously, for echoes between movies. Connections. A same actor or character in a different light, perhaps. A different approach to a similar problem, or a similar approach to a different problem.

So as I watched Don Juan deMarco for the nth time yesterday, all I could think of was how that movie illustrates perfectly why Lars and the Real Girl didn’t work for me as well as it did for others.

Weekend Double Feature: Grant vs. Hepburn

I know, I know, it’s already quite late in the week… but hey, at least I’m still going this thing. Up this week: two screwball comedies I’d somehow managed not to see until now, The Philadelphia Story and Bringing up Baby. The link? Both star the inimitable Cary Grant and indomitable Katherine Hepburn.

They do, however, have a rather dissimilar power dynamic.