July 2012

July 2012

Death Race 2000 (Bartel, 1975)|||||4.5
* Fool for Love (Altman, 1985)|||||7
Black Belly of the Tarantula (Cavara, 1971)|||||4
Carnosaur (Simon, 1993)|||||4
Pretty good, so far as bad movies go.
The Dark Knight Rises (Nolan, 2012)|||||6
This is a sprawling and complicated, non-sided, amalgamating look at the issues of the world and of people, putting a laudable emphasis on the critique of all parties: the complacent moneyed, the disgruntled poor, the status quo cops and criminals. In direct view of the film's sad ambivalence is the specters of Western civilization, engineered revolutions, and the desperation of the terrorists. Broadly painted but with an intention to that, idealistic but in a way that achieves some degree of horizon-widening.
The Future (July, 2011)|||||4.5
The Hypothesis of the Stolen Painting (Ruiz, 1979)|||||6.5
The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach (Straub & Huillet, 1968)|||||7
Empire of the Ants (Gordon, 1977)|||||4
Lola Montès (Ophüls, 1955)|||||8
Providence (Resnais, 1977)|||||8.5
Ganja & Hess (Gunn, 1973)|||||4.5
Monsters (Edwards, 2011)|||||4
Ted (Seth MacFarlane, 2012)|||||3.5
Ice Age: Continental Drift (Martino, Thermeier, 2012)|||||2
The Car (Silverstein, 1977)|||||4
La Chinoise (Godard, 1967)|||||8
Dark Shadows (Burton, 2012)|||||5
Gorgeous visuals, sumptuous design, dynamic directing, good horror show, bad comedy, diffuse screenplay. REC'D REVIEW: Ferdy on Film
Serenity (Whedon, 2005)|||||5
The Smiling Lieutenant (Lubitsch, 1931)|||||7.5
Discombobulating audaciousness - the most edge-of-your-seat musical romantic comedy I can recall. Stakes are high, you're on your toes, and a smiling line near the end is actually a barbed sucker punch.
The Love Parade (Lubitsch, 1929)|||||8
* Point Blank (Boorman, 1967)|||||8.5
* Lady in the Water (Shyamalan, 2006)|||||4
Shyamalan's an elegant stylist and idiosyncratic, humane voice, but also such a lamebrain. I appreciate him being around more than most seem to. Still hate The Sixth Sense.
Piranha (Aja, 2010)|||||2
Leo the Last (Boorman, 1970)|||||6.5
* In the Mood for Love (Wong, 2001)|||||7.5
Metropolitan (Stillman, 1990)|||||7.5
Beyond the Black Rainbow (Cosmatos, 2011)|||||4
An American in Paris (Minnelli, 1951)|||||7.5
The Avengers (Whedon, 2012)|||||5.5