August 2009

August 2009

* The Awful Truth (McCarey, 1937)     7.5

* The Leopard Man (Tourneur, 1943)     9

* Carnival of Souls (Harvey, 1962)     8.5

* I Walked With a Zombie (Tourneur, 1943)     9

Kill Bill Vol. 1 (Tarantino, 2003)     7

Inglourious Basterds (Tarantino, 2009)     8.5

Inglourious Basterds is a vibrant and sensitive resurrection of old-fashioned filmmaking.  It recalls the day when films could move slowly, replete with full-blooded dialogue scenes, as long as they were taut with drama and emotions. Inglousious Basterds is actually Tarantino's most traditional film, classical Hollywood entertainment in all its theatrical and steadied beats. Mixed in, though, is Tarantino's meta concerns and, now, thankfully, a regard for history that is educated, strongly researched, and deals seriously with war, its mechanics (witness the Hans Landa character's playing of the field), and its repercussions (seen in the tragic failed romance-made-in-cinema-heaven of Shosanna and Fredrik Zoller)  - critically, with a sense of distance, and with a straightforward and clearheaded refusal to exploit (even the big death of You-Who-Watched-the-Film-Know-Who is dark and burdened instead of a glorious ahistorical shenanigan).  

Finally, Tarantino's Godard-channeling is finally clicking, since Tarantino and his staccato beats choreographed to human movement are now backgrounded by the most politically loaded and genuinely rarefied symbols he's utilized yet - period pomp, officers in full raiment, old foreign movie posters, etc.

* The Village (Shyamalan, 2004)     5

* Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1993)     8

Pulp Fiction is really good. It's not loud or over-the-top - it's quiet and atmospheric, and without being dry. Tarantino's directing is unobtrusive, observant. Very soulful, too, with his use of music. We can sit and listen to Marcellus methodically lay out instructions to Butch because he makes it so Rhames' voice seems to croon to the accompanying beat. I thought I'd have a sour reaction to his screenplay and dialogue here, but it's pretty consistently evocative and poetic.
Now does the film and its vignette nature and its evocations have much of a "thematic center"? I'm having problems pinpointing its ultimate moral and philosophical intentions. If Tarantino didn't write and direct human behavior and a textured world so well, Pulp Fiction would be too high concept for me to like very much or find much meaning in. "Deconstruction, yay!" of course, and, like I said, the dialogue never isn't flirting with social and emotional quandaries (the Mia-Vincent exchanges surprised me - the Somoan never put a finger on her feet, it seems!), but the film is undoubtedly set on "confection" mode.

* Opera (Argento, 1987)     6.5

Opera is a ridiculously awesome platter of Argento goods. Of course, it's no where nearing profound, it's dramatically non-existent and typically (of Argento) dry, the subtext or meta-commentary on high art and sadomasochism is pretty basic, etc. etcetera... but Argento sure knows how to make a freaky, exciting, sweeping, and most importantly visually witty film.  And it doesn't disappoint with the funky opening credit sequence, surely one of Argento's funkiest in a career of groovy and funky opening credit sequences.

You Can Count On Me (Lonergan, 2000)     8

* "Cigarette Burns" (Carpenter, 2007) (Masters of Horror, Season 1) (TV Series)     ****

* "Dance of the Dead" (Hooper, 2007) (Masters of Horror, Season 1) (TV Series)     ***

* Lifeforce (Hooper, 1985)     5.5

Vampires (Carpenter, 1998)     4.5

Notre Musique (Godard, 2001)     6.5

Strange Circus (Sono, 2002)     6

* "Dreams in the Witch House" (Gordon, 2007) (Masters of Horror, Season 1) (TV Series)     ***

* Assault on Precinct 13 (Carpenter, 1977)     8.5

"The Damned Thing" (Hooper, 2008) (Masters of Horror, Season 2) (TV Series)     *1/2

"The Washingtonians" (Medak, 2008) (Masters of Horror, Season 2) (TV Series)     ***

"Pro-Life" (Carpenter, 2008) (Masters of Horror, Season 2) (TV Series)     * (out of 5)

Made in U.S.A. (Godard, 1966)     6

July 2009

July 2009

[REC]  (Balaguero/Plaza, 2007)     4.5

Not bad and better than I expected. It successfully becomes more intense as it goes along, and the climax is excellently atmospheric and despairing. The religious angle that is brought in all of sudden at the end is a bit too obligatory of Catholixploitation, and is ultimately rather simplistic oogie-boogie backstory, but the quasi-mysticism provides undeniable atmospherics and it offers the viewer a somewhat evocative little tale of religion's rose-colored exploitation of facts morphing into terrifying science, with the final menace being a specter of disconcerting biological, anatomical decay.

The Tenant (Polanski, 1976)     7.5

Not as visually eloquent and crisply dynamic in expressing visual ideas as Rosemary's Baby, but it is much more expansive thematically, with much to intimate about the selfsameness of experience - the experience here being alienation due to the pressures and hypocrisy of apartment-dwelling life. It reminded me a bit of Inland Empire, both being about psychotic emanations of shared emotional existences under specific circumstances (Inland Empire: method acting, The Tenant: apartment living, both: Polishness).  Well, by "Polishness," I really mean "foreignness," which I suppose only The Tenant is particularly about.

Eaten Alive (Hooper, 1977)     6

* Spontaneous Combustion (Hooper, 1990)     5.5

Escape from L.A. (Carpenter, 1996)     5.5

Brüno (Clark, 2009)     4.5

Good for what it is: an outrageous stunt film with, just barely, the rhetorical purposes of making gayness prominent in a piece of mainstream entertainment, as well as a cornucopia of other topical stuff like [talking penises, and] absurdist mock peace talks... all of it surely weak and little-researched (it takes a while to realize these films, Borat and Brüno, are actually not trying to be like classical documentaries - their "mockumentary" status is weak in a way because they're more like mocku-"diary films"), but strengthened by the sheer novelty and daring-do of Baron Cohen's schtick.

* Scream (Craven, 1996)     4.5

* Death Proof (Tarantino, 2007)     9.5

* Tobe Hooper's Night Terrors (Hooper, 1993)     6

* Dead-Alive (Braindead) (Jackson, 1991)     8

The Sentinel (Winner, 1977)     3

The Sentinel is occasionally beguiling - Chris Sarandon's sturdy but two-sided, ultimately prosecutable lover; the moment where Cristina Raines insists a book is inscribed in Latin when it's not - but this is quite the woefully misguided film, that only deals with its rather implicative religious tale in the manner a cheesy horror movie would. And this is undoubtedly a cheesy horror movie. It's quite the representation of holy callings, and what exactly is it's correlation between its innerly troubled super model heroine and the gauntlet she's forced to take up?  Sexual trauma as sure enough conditioning for the life of monastic diligence? SPOILER The final shot of this beauty Cristina Raines relegated to a habit and the suddenly weathered skin of the cloistered does ring with sort of tragedy.

* The Fog (Carpenter, 1980)     5.5

A beautiful-looking and strikingly photographed film, that boasts the creepiness desired by Carpenter who aimed to create simply an old-fashioned ghost story. But it's perhaps too modest for its own good, its small-scale, slasher film approach and prop-costume, smoke machine aesthetic being inadequate for its story about a town damned by its ancestors, and not matching up to the smarts it occasionally possesses. The film ultimately comes off feeling rinky-dink and frivolous, especially considering Carpenter's film in its original print ran so short, the opening campfire scene (a good scene, though) and the autopsy room walking-dead scare (a bad scene) were shot after initial wrap in order to pad out the running time.

* Escape from New York (Carpenter, 1981)     6.5

June 2009

June 2009

Ghosts of Mars (Carpenter, 2001)     5

Oh, this wasn't so bad. I thought the material ranged from not bad to fantastic: the characters, the screenplay, plot developments, dialogue, etc. I found it, actually, very dense and intelligent in its comic-book sociology. I was struck by how comprehensively Carpenter both adopted old Hollywood Western story elements with implicit deconstructivist commentary, but simultaneously never disfavors or pacifies the survivalist pragmatism of its cop/criminal characters, nor makes them any less than likable, as is the practice in the old-fashioned Hollywood action films of yore.

Carpenter takes this pragmatism and satisfactorily splays it, so as not to just be about "brave vs. cowardly" or "good vs. bad" as is conventional in the classical Western of pre-progressivist era. Now, Carpenter mixes in the push of societal shifts (the film takes place in a mankind under a new matriarchal order), modern urban upbringing, and the nitty-gritty of what gets a pure survivalist through the day (which includes here, most interestingly, the good and bad of recreational drug use). It was great seeing faces like Jason Statham and Clea Duvall playing characters not glamorized or de-glamorized, instead ones that would usually be played by anonymous background actors. I was really struck by the Ice Cube-Henstridge interplay, too.

But, despite that, in the end, this is definitely not an improvement on Assault on Precinct 13, which also offers an open look at criminality and which this film is practically a remake. Carpenter's directing has always been characterized by its flat beats and mechanical, no-less-than (or, arguably, more-than) efficient style, but before it was in service of really careful sequencing and often lovely mise en scene. Here, his cinematic vocabulary seems to have disappeared and he's speaking like a thorough layman. The film has its formal idiosyncrasy, though. The rhythm of the film and its use of dissolves is particularly effective. It's too bad Carpenter was content with the film's cheap-looking production design and villain costuming, which go a long way in sinking the film. I think the film is very competent. It's just Carpenter sets his visual standards so freaking low here for some reason.

Friday Night (Denis, 2002)     8
Martyrs (Laugier, 2008)     6
* Full Metal Jacket (Kubrick, 1987)     9
4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (Mungiu, 2007)     7
* Prince of Darkness (Carpenter, 1987)     5.5
The Ruins (Smith, 2008)     5.5
Brief Crossing (Breillat, 2001)     7
The Game (Fincher, 1997)     6
Beau travail (Denis, 1999)     8
Claire Denis' technique isn't quite as polished as I like to see in my films - in fact, I'd call it almost sloppy at times - but deliberateness and authorial command definitely come through, with stunning elegance at numerous times, even if Denis' style of impromptu visualization leads to too many moments utilizing the grace of a slowly crawling camera to little effect. I wasn't with the film beat by beat - as a story told with explicit fragmentation and a willful avoidance of continuity and clarity, I can't help but feel we don't understand the two central characters as much as we should. But it's a preferred trade-in for what the film does so elliptically evoke concerning the legionnaire life, environment, and what it nurtures. This thoroughly expressionistic but finely detailed sketching of masculine regimentation is even more impressive and daring knowing a woman is behind the camera.

About the last scene, while it's certainly very affecting, I can't help but wish there was some context given to it, which might lend it a certified reality. I find I need to think of it as a moment that actually happens and not just as a fantasy scene if I want to appreciate it fully. As something that happened, it means he could dance. As a fantasy scene, it's inexplicable and just something Denis would throw in mid-filming when she found out her lead actor could dance.

UP (Docter, 2009)     7

Bram Stoker's Dracula (Coppola, 1992)     6

Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell would have been an achievement much in the same way Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula is, if Raimi had made Drag Me To Hell, you know, better. The two films even have similar slam-bang openings and shock, tactile title cards (which never fail).

As Raimi wishes to throwback to certain old-school schlock, Dracula also takes a classical-type story burdened with lots of codings and de-codes them using overt artificial style, Coppola throwbacking majorly to silent film aesthetic and storytelling beats.

Bram Stoker's Dracula is an uneven film that gets increasingly tiresome once Helsing and the men start actively seeking out Dracula, leading to a very weak climactic act, but there's too many great moments here to completely dismiss, especially in the first half of the film. The number of gleefully bizarre moments only Coppola's capable of is unbeatable, such as the extravagant visual feast that is Harker's first entrance into Dracula's castle and the shot of the spectacularly made-up Giant Bat form of Dracula moping out of sight when Mira catches him in the garden with Lucy, complete with a practically slapstick iris out. The characterization of the Lucy character takes on a particular poignance, her chipper and giving personality seemingly irrepressible even as all her vitality is slowly being sucked from her - perhaps Coppola's way to undermine our expectations that the vapid sex kitten is always easily susceptible to the draining of inner character, as the whole film serves to re-evaluate the Victorian era and its gentrified sexual mores, drained of the true, potent, and certainly blasphemous passion that Dracula embodies.

Fight Club (Fincher, 1999)     8
Se7en (Fincher, 1995)     5.5
* The Funhouse (Hooper, 1981)     7
Beyond Therapy (Altman, 1987)     7

Yeah, Altman lyricism is just too irresistible for me, even if the film makes very little in the way of concluding, transcendent statements and this film probably shows off the worst of Altman's tendency for puerile caricature. There's too much silliness here to make the film work dramatically, but if that final scene (starting with the hilarious "shoot em up") doesn't tie things up nicer than I'd expected. Glenda Jackson is fantastic and hilarious.

May 2009

May 2009

Star Trek (Abrams, 2009) 7

Drag Me To Hell (Raimi, 2009) 5

Orca (Anderson, 1977) 3.5

Recommended Reviews: Film Freak Central on Orca

Snatch (Ritchie, 2000) 4

Sleeper (Allen, 1973) 6.5

Love and Death (Allen, 1975) 6

Adventureland (Mottola, 2009) 6

Body Bags (Carpenter & Hooper, 1993) (TV) 4

Irreversible (Noé, 2002) 5.5

The Piano (Campion, 1993) 9

Best demystification of hoop skirts ever.

Shocker (Craven, 1989) 3.5

Wes Craven is the showman of the horror auteurs. He's modish and trendy and he shows it in his horror films. He's also a goofball, though, and a sucker for novelty, and that shows most explicitly in Shocker. Mitch Pileggi, a face known to any X-Files fan, tries valiantly to be the next Freddy Krueger, rolling off one-liners in mid-slaughter. It would all be just dull if the film didn't benefit from Craven's dream logic-inspired, sight gag-inclined knack at inanity. The otherworldly presence of the dead girlfriend, who seems to appear with the alternating and counter-productive purposes of either assisting, turning on, or fruitlessly freaking the hell out the film's hero, is one of the film's stranger plot elements, in a film full of strange plot elements. This includes the entire high school football team helping out foil the killer's plot, and a lecherous psychopath body-jumping into a six-year-old girl. Amusing, but pointless.

Splinter (Wilkins, 2008) 5.5

JLG/JLG (Godard, 199 ) 6.5

Nouvelle Vague (Godard, 1990) 7.5

Passion (2nd) (Godard, 1985) 7

* War of the Worlds (Spielberg, 2005) 4.5

April 2009

April 2009

The Midnight Meat Train (Kitamura, 2008)     4.5

Passion (Godard, 1982)     7

Slumdog Millionaire (Boyle, 2008)     3

* Images (Altman, 1972)     7.5

Sauve qui peut (la vie) (Godard, 1980)     7.5

The Apartment Complex (Hooper, 1999)     4

Tarnation (Caouette, 2003)     5.5

* Tobe Hooper's Night Terrors (Hooper, 1993)     5.5

March 2009

March 2009

Four Flies on Grey Velvet (Argento, 1971)     6.5
* The Wicker Man (Hardy, 1973)     8.5
Smiley Face (fullscreen) (Araki, 2007)     4
* Quantum of Solace (Forster, 2007)     3.5
Saw IV (Bousman, 2007)     1.5
Tobe Hooper's Night Terrors (Hooper, 1993)     5
Sexy Beast (Glazer, 2000)     8
Tokyo Sonata (Kurosawa, 2009)     7
License to Live (Kurosawa, 1998)     7.5
Eyes of the Spider (Kurosawa, 1998)     n/a
Serpent's Path (Kurosawa, 1998)     7.5
A Scanner Darkly (Linklater, 2006)     5.5
Stuck (Gordon, 2008)     8
South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut (Parker & Stone, 1999)     5
Week End (Godard, 1967)     7.5

February 2009

February 2009

Two or Three Things I Know About Her (Godard, 1967) 7
Coraline (Selick, 2009) 7
* Night of the Demon (Tourneur, 1957) 8.5
Milk (Van Sant, 2008) 7
Friday the 13th (Nispel, 2009) 2.5
Oh my God so fucking dull.
If this remake is of any conceivable use, it'll be making non-fans realize what relative (or absolute, if they really come around...) joys the 80s Friday flicks were. The 80s Friday's were stupid slashers, but they were eccentric stupid slasher films, where part of the fun was their lampoon of an eclectic set of stereotypes and caricatures.
Gran Torino (Eastwood, 2008) 6.5
* Night and Fog (Resnais, 1955) 8.5
Marnie (Hitchcock, 1964) 8
Culloden (Watkins, 1964) (TV) 9
Wendy and Lucy (Reichardt, 2009) 7.5
Contempt (Godard, 1963) 7.5
Emma (McGrath, 1996) 5.5
Zack and Miri Make a Porno (Smith, 2008) 3.5
First Kevin Smith film, so I wasn't expecting anything nor was I expecting nothing.  Likeable enough, I guess, but I did start feeling hostile towards the film once the ridiculous "Three months later..." card went up and the film completely gives in to irrepressible formula.
* Re-Animator (Gordon, 1986) 6
Vivre se vie (Godard, 1962) 8