March 2011

March 2011

Fort Apache (Ford, 1948)|||||7
Sucker Punch (Snyder, 2011)|||||4.5
Interesting. Snyder trades in objectifying men and battle for objectifying women and victimhood, and suddenly I'm sympathetic to Snyder's moronic cinema. And he's a-okay with me as a moral person (vis-a-vis as a filmmaker), since, as his first originally written work, it's not a black hole of morals.
I have to admire Sucker Punch for one thing: it baits moviegoers pretending to be a kick-butt-female action-fantasy movie, and then it turns out to be the grimmest of women's pictures, with a surprising deal of compassion for the weakest of the female suffering and a surprise theme that promotes the story of the complex and internal girl over the merely female or kickass.
I can't recommend the film, though, and I mean that in the most non-pretentious, "Is it a good time out to the movies?" way. It's a real chore to sit through. The script itself is a complete misstep: the film's series of systematic action sequences are the definition of redundant and pointless to endure. You need to seriously beware if even the trailers had you rolling your eyes.
Scream 2 (Craven, 1997)|||||5
The Pillow Book (Greenaway, 1996)|||||8
Alamar (Gonzalez -Rubio, 2010)|||||7
Paul (Mottola, 2011)|||||4.5
The Big Store (Reisner, 1941)|||||4.5
Paranormal Activity 2 (Williams, 2010)|||||4
Battle: Los Angeles (Liebesman, 2011)|||||3.5
Queen Christina (Mamoulian, 1933)|||||7.5
Private Fears in Public Places (Resnais, 2006)|||||7
Life is a a Bed of Roses (Resnais, 1983)|||||8.5
Go West (Buzzell, 1940)|||||6
Stray Dog (Kurosawa, 1949)|||||8