* The Pianist (Polanski, 2002)|||||6.5
* Munich (Spielberg, 2005)|||||6
The White Ribbon (Haneke, 2009)|||||8
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (Harlin, 1988)|||||4
Lottery Ticket (White, 2010)|||||3
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (Russell, 1987)|||||4
Giant (Stevens, 1956)|||||7
* A Wedding (Altman, 1978)|||||8.5
The New World (Malick, 2005)|||||9
* Tropical Malady (Weerasathakul, 2004)|||||8
Certainly a wondrous, open-hearted movie whose spell over people is completely justified. I still find it uneven - it's not a very tight film, it prides itself in cinematographic imprecision too often (a sort of shapeless visual pretension that often dogs Claire Denis films), and it feels like a lot of shots are thrown in there without form or sustained impact. I think Weerasathakul definitely stepped it up in Syndromes and a Century with much more controlled and carefully orchestrated cinematography. But these really are all nitpicks for a quite magical film.
My favorite aspect of the film is how our point of identification remains the rough, experienced soldier character, yet how - in the second half explicitly, but even the first half - the unassuming boy he falls for is the teasing, unaccountably cunning and careful-footed figure of mystery (Ed Gonzalez perceptively calls out the boy's hand-licking as vaguely "condescending"). The soldier's earnest hunt for him in the 2nd half follows perfectly organically, and the moody 2nd half I didn't care for before (and still have my qualms with...) really effectively elevates their relationship to the mystic and all-natural.
* Nashville (Altman, 1975)|||||8.5* Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (Altman, 1976)|||||7.5
Very likely to be considered one of Altman's less immediately impressive and affecting films, and for legitimate reasons, but it's still a strong and indelibly atmospheric work. Its commentary is a bit thudding and on-the-nose, its humor often broad, without the expected amount of Altman's off-kilter strangeness and seizing ambiguity to elevate the material.
Too many characters seemed uninvolved in the thematic fabric. Nashville has many caricatures, but it made each surprise us with extreme moments of pathos; this doesn't do that. Things were too clear cut, like making Annie Oakley the lonely humanist in the troupe. Also, this employs Nashville's flat, documentary-like directing, but Nashville had much more varied and malleable environments to cover, as opposed to the campground of this set.
A Nightmare on Elm Street Part II (Sholder, 1985)|||||3* A Nightmare on Elm Street (Craven, 1984)|||||5.5
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Huston, 1948)|||||8
* The Masque of the Red Death (Corman, 1964)|||||8
* The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (Hooper, 1974)|||||7
* The Funhouse (Hooper, 1981)|||||8
A Town Called Panic (Aubier & Patar, 2009)|||||6.5
* Match Point (Allen, 2005)|||||7
Doubt (Shanley, 2008)|||||6.5
Uncanny. Who knew Doubt would turn out to be The X-Files: I Want to Believe without the genre trappings... and resultant, 2008 the year of contemplating the plight of the pedophile! Thematically, they're practically twins, with the Catholic Church the stuffy institution instead of the FBI. Doubt is of course the more implicating (the Roman Catholic Orthodoxy as topical as it is) and even-handed film, with no miracle of retribution allowed to either the deluded, rationalizing, ultimately culpable priest or the dying, oppressive, morally naive order.
I liked and respected Doubt very much, even though, especially after reading reviews, I can see how the austerity of the stage is far more appropriate for this than the theatrical, visual melodrama of film. What would be enticing ambiguity on stage is distracting fishing-for-clues in routine medium close-up. The film makes the material seem evasive and intent on tricking the viewer. I think it was Walter Chaw that aptly criticized it as devolving into a "whodunnit" by the end.
Young filmmakers should just drop everything and adapt a Tennessee Williams play.
Despicable Me (Coffin & Renaud, 2010)|||||5
What Punch-Drunk Love does for love, this does for parenthood, only, for this film, that isn't a compliment.
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