Quick Thoughts about Indy

Ah. The hat that first gets tossed out of the truck. Then the man. We see the man’s shadow on the car as he puts on his hat, revealing his immediately recognizable profile. Then the camera swivels around like it does so much in this movie, we see the man’s back…and then finally, his face is revealed.

“Russians”, he says with disgust.

I really am easy. I had a grin pasted to my face from the moment the paramount logo dissolved into a mountain like in Raiders, only to be revealed to be a molehill instead, and things like the introduction of our hero above just made it widen. The familiar beats of it delighted me: the action opener, the betrayal, the ludicrous escape, the scene at the university…

Ludicrous really is the operative word here. But to explain that, I’ll have to go into SPOILER territory.

Iron Man & Gender Politics

I haven’t written a review of Iron Man here yet. It’s partly because I already wrote one, partly because everyone else already seemed to have said their bit (and gotten responses), but mostly because I didn’t really think I could add anything different to the discourse.

Good thing there’s such a thing as commenters.

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

There Will Be Blood

I never quite know how to start a post about a movie I get to late. I don’t mean classics - I like discussing classics because it frees me from saying the obvious, and allows me to reflect purely on my own reaction, and the small things that stick out to me. But movies that have been discussed and quoted and analyzed to death by the time I finally get around to them. Discussion, I might add, that in the case of There Will Be Blood I’ve been extremely careful to avoid. And as much as “I drink your milkshake” became an inescapable catchphrase, I needn’t have worried so much, because this is not a movie that can really be spoiled, or even described in a way that prepares you for what you’ll see, nay, experience once you sit in that theater. I’d originally appended a spoiler warning for after the jump, but after writing realized I hadn’t really revealed anything myself, either.

There Will Be…

… a post on PTA’s grand opus. Tomorrow. I think it’ll be good to let my brain process the images and sounds - God, the sounds! - in dreams tonight before I even try to write anything. Let things gel a little. Also/mostly I’m too tired and overwhelmed/confused to make any kind of sense right now.

Before I turn in though (say it with me now: uh-oh) let me just say one thing: I am extremely happy that I did not succumb to the temptation to use my 100 mbit connection for nefarious purposes. The movie was worth the wait, and despite the rebellious hair on the head of the guy just in front of me (the infuriating tuft kept poking right into the bottom of my field of view) I wouldn’t have wanted to see it any other way. The cinema is the only place to see grandiose, operatic, insane works like these: where the images loom large and both the awe-inspiring score and Daniel Plainview’s roar can come to you unfiltered, undimmed, without any distraction. A movie this big, with this kind of ambition, you just can’t experience if it’s scaled down in any way.

(so, film studios: can you now make sure the legal DVD’s I buy no longer have that awful anti-piracy clip? Pretty please?)

Ok. Bed now. Dream of atheism and bowling pins, milkshakes and oil, lots and lots of oil.

Back to no country

The Coen series finally came to a conclusion yesterday with my second viewing of No Country For Old Men. And well… there is something I feel I should confess: I try mighty hard to come across as determined and opinionated and right, but the truth is I’m someone very prone to doubting her own thoughts and opinions. So after a number of friends told me they didn’t see the point of the Coens’ latest, and a rather vicious discussion in response to my review on filmtotaal, I started to question my dedication to this movie.

Who knew? Maybe it really wasn’t so great. Maybe I was influenced by writers I admire, maybe I was just practicing “intellectual masturbation”. Maybe I was just kidding myself, pretending that I “got” the movie, to feel superior and smart. Maybe I was simply too afraid to disagree with critical consensus. Maybe the emperor did, in fact, have no clothes on.

I needn’t have been scared: not only is the emperor fully dressed, but my, does he look handsome. ***SPOILERS WITHIN***

Catching up with 2007: Shoot ‘em up & Gone Baby Gone

Shoot ‘em up

Is exaggeration inherently funny? Your answer to that question probably determines in large part whether Shoot ‘em up, in which Clive Owen literally shoots over a hundred ‘them’s up, will work for you. Me? Exaggeration is one of my favorite tricks, and I had fun with the movie.It did become rather repetitive in the end, and I could have done without Monica Belluci the italian lactating hooker. Interestingly enough, Clive Owen plays it straight, and so does Paul Giamatti: his character overacts, but Giamatti resists the urge to winkat us. I’m not entirely certain it was the right decision, and I can’t really recommend the film, but I’m not sorry I watched it - possibly the weakest positive judgment you can give a movie, but there you have it.

Gone Baby Gone

In this assured debut from Ben Aflleck, it was mostly his brother who impressed me - though I wouldn’t mind if he articulated a smidgen more. The story twisted and turned more than I expected, all the way to an ending that leaves you uncertain about how to feel. It isn’t sad, perse, but uplifting isn’t it, either. I understand the fuss about Amy Ryan, but still think Cate Blanchett deserves the top prize. The biggest achievement of this film is in how it captures a certain mood in a certain place, and while I wouldn’t call it a masterpiece or even original, it’s worth two hours of your time.

Jumper

I like Doug Liman. I really do. Go was fun, I still think The Bourne Identity is the best of the trilogy (though that can be credited largely to Franka Potente and Clive Owen), and I enjoyed Mr. and Mrs. Smith a lot. Yes, a lot. It might have been because I saw it in the ideal setting, with a big group of people, most of them rowdy girls, but I still think it holds up as a fun, light, action-comedy-romance. And the story? What story? It makes no sense, I know, the end especially is entirely ludicrous, but I didn’t care.

But now, with Jumper, I have to admit I’m getting a little worried. Not so much by Jumper itself, which manages to be quite entertaining despite an even more absent/lame story and a hollow performance by Darth Vader Jr, and at just 88 minutes it doesn’t outstay its welcome. It’s just that it’s now impossible not to see a trend: every new Doug Liman has less substance than the last. And a movie with less substance than Jumper is something I shudder to behold. He’s supposedly working on a Valerie Plame movie with Nicole Kidman, but that might just be a maneuver to distract us from the wonder of vapidness he’s really working on.

Luckily, Jumper has a redeeming feature, and it’s not the cool shots of the Sphinx. Nope, it’s Jamie Bell, who absolutey steals the show, and is easily ten times as interesting as the main character. Who’d have thought the little ballet dancer boy would turn out to be so sexy (see Glenn’s blog if you don’t believe me), but even dangerous-sexy and funny and well, full of life. Which alas, dear Anakin is not. Rachel Bilson, who’s as adorable and perky as anyone can be, tries her hardest and sends plenty of sparks in his direction, but he seems utterly incapable of sparking back.

The ending of the movie, of course, leaves plenty of space for a sequel. The movie’s basically a pilot episode of a very pricey TV show. So if there has to be a sequel, can I make one small request? Dump the dull one. And gimme more of that Griffin kid.

____

For those of you who read Dutch, a more conventional review can be found here.

Sweeney Todd

I hate giving star ratings. I have to do it for my ‘official’ job, and every time it’s a struggle. How can you put movies in just 11 categories (half-stars are also allowed), and even more crucially, how can you say all 3.5 star movies, for example, are ‘worth’ the same? Oddly enough, I don’t have a problem with the more reductive “see it”, “skip it”, “wait for DVD” grading method employed by MaryAnn Johanson, the FlickFilosopher, because it gives judgment on one clearly defined point, namely the watchability/enjoyability of a movie. Star ratings, on the other hand, are an attempt to summarize all your feelings about quality, fun, suspense, the absence of presence of a deeper meaning, the enjoyability/watchability AND your personal reaction into just one number. And I just don’t think it can be done.

Case in point: Sweeney Todd. The Burton/Depp combination ensures that my ass will be in that seat. It also makes for relatively high expectations: I might not love all their collaborations, but I haven’t disliked one yet. And in a way, Sweeney Todd delivers what I expected: it looks fabulous, full of baroque decay with blood spurting out on desaturated images. Johnny Depp is a perfect fit as Sweeney, and although you can tell his voice has limits, he knows them. The same goes for Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, who compensates for her rather weak voice with pitch-perfect characterization and comic timing, and Alan Rickman can of course do no wrong. The music is great, elegant and unpredictable (if not very suited for sing-alongs), “A little priest” being a highlight for me.

Cloverfield

I can’t resist a good viral campaign any more than the next girl. And surprisingly… Cloverfield kind of lives up to the hype. It’s not really scary, aside from a couple of moments, but I don’t thing it intends to be. It is a gripping experiment, which managed to do something new in this season of derivativeness.

And best of all? It’s all of 85 minutes long. Thank you, thank you JJ, for realizing that sometimes less is more. and that not every single movie needs to be over two hours long. On the other hand, curse Pathé cinemas for inserting a break even in such a short movie: especially with a movie like Cloverfield, staying in the experience is crucial