August 2011

August 2011

Our Idiot Brother (Peretz, 2011)|||||5.5
Close-Up (Kiarostami, 1990)|||||7
* Andrei Rublev (Tarkovsky, 1966)|||||8
Nightjohn (Burnett, 1996) (TV)|||||7
* Fright Night (Gillespie, 2011)|||||6
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (Nixey, 2011)|||||4
Werckmeister Harmonies (Tarr, Hranitzky, 2000)|||||8
* One, Two, Three (Wilder, 1961)|||||6
Kiss Me, Stupid (Wilder, 1964)|||||6.5
* All About Eve (Mankiewicz, 1950)|||||7
A Woman Is a Woman (Godard, 1961)|||||6
Valhalla Rising (Refn, 2009)|||||5.5
Ten (Kiarostami, 2000)|||||7
* Alphaville (Godard, 1965)|||||8
* The Servant (Losey, 1963)|||||8
The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Pasolini, 1964)|||||7.5
* The Exorcist (Friedkin, 1973)|||||5.5
Network (Lumet, 1976)|||||6
Ossos (Costa, 1997)|||||5.5
The Phantom of the Opera (Argento, 1998)|||||4
Twin Peaks, Season 2 (Lynch, et al., 1990)|||||+
In a Year With 13 Moons (Fassbinder, 1978)|||||7.5
* The Prowler (Zito, 1981)|||||3.5
Performance (Cammell, Roeg, 1970)|||||7.5
Friends With Benefits (Gluck, 2011)|||||3.5
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Wyatt, 2011)|||||4.5
Muriel, or The Time of Return (Resnais, 1963)|||||8.5
Taken (Morel, 2009)|||||3.5

July 2011

July 2011

Twin Peaks, Season 1 (Lynch, et al., 1990)|||||+++
La Ronde (Ophuls, 1950)|||||7.5La Ronde is formally exquisite, but the film's conceit, while finely observed, is just barely interesting. Also, rather like a (500) Days of Summer of the day - too cleverly unequivocal about romance.
* The Woods (McKee, 2006)|||||6
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Weerasethakul, 2010)|||||7
Evening Primrose (ABC Stage 67 Episode) (Bogart, 1966)|||||+
The Tree of Life (Malick, 2011)|||||7.5
I prefer all other Malick films, with their sturdier narratives and bolder technique less dependent on fragmentary graphical saturation (nothing quite like Thin Red Line's battle scenes here), but this is certainly a wonderful creation. Talk about recapturing childhood textures. It's the film's biggest boon, how closely it recounts, almost methodically, encyclopedically, all the feelings of childhood.
New Year's Evil (Alston, 1980)|||||3.5
* 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick, 1968)|||||9
Boarding Gate (Assayas, 2007)|||||7.5
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II (Yates, 2011)|||||5.5
Super 8 (Abrams, 2011)|||||6
Supreme entertainment. If anything, Abrams has guaranteed my butt in a seat for all his movies, just for his lightning-fast filmmaking instincts, creating absolutely dynamic, exciting, and dramatically strong movies and effectively becoming the (if undeniably regressed) heir to the Spielberg mantle by sheer extent of visual adeptness. In matters of substance, Super 8 manages to beguile in a number of ways, mostly fall-out from all the indulgences and personal emotional places Abrams readily throws into his admirably ambitious coming-of-age/family drama/action romp/sentimental tapestry/monster flick melange of a screenplay. Ambition does not mean audaciousness, and Abrams's script and directorial appetites prove first-class escapism and juvenilia and not much more (I'll readily concede, what pizazz it has, though!). Meanwhile, Abrams's sprawling concoction of a story flirts with richness, so that, even if the story kind of disintegrates in the weak final stretch, the soaringly emotional and suddenly the-utmost-ridiculous finale works as an absurdly beatific, beatifically absurd, and vaguely knowing encapsulation of the worth of high sentimentality in escapist cinema, fantastically merging a double-reconciliation of families with a judgmental monster's divinely-tinged magnetic swiping of humanity's petty articles (consumer items, a memento mori, and soldiers' guns - one soldier even clinging to it so desperately he gets served with a moment of small humiliation), all into the ultimate Spielbergian finale and a be-all, end-all of beautiful final fade-outs.
Window Water Baby Moving (Brakhage, 1962) (short)|||||+
Let Me In (Reeves, 2010)|||||5.5
* Being John Malkovich (Jonze, 1999)|||||7.5
35 Shots of Rum (Denis, 2008)|||||7
The Food of the Gods (Gordon, 1976)|||||4
The Earrings of Madame de... (Ophuls, 1953)|||||8
* 8 1/2 (Fellini, 1963)|||||8
* Insidious (Wan, 2010)|||||4
Larry Crowne (Hanks, 2011)|||||2.5
Bridesmaids (Feig, 2011)|||||5.5

June 2011

June 2011

* Antichrist (Von Trier, 2009)|||||7
Sita Sings the Blues (Paley, 2008)|||||7.5
Bad Teacher (Kasdan, 2011)|||||3.5
What a weird, pointless movie. Almost translucently thin in story and real-life-resembling connective tissue. (It's not unenjoyable, though.)
Green Lantern (Campbell, 2011)|||||3.5
Summer Hours (Assayas, 2008)|||||8.5
Source Code (Jones, 2011)|||||6
The Adjustment Bureau (Nolfi, 2011)|||||3
The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, 1928)|||||8
Kick Ass (Vaughn, 2010)|||||5
Silent Light (Reygadas, 2007)|||||5.5
1941 (Spielberg, 1979)|||||4.5
The Silence (Bergman, 1963)|||||7.5
Nick's Flick Picks review
Kung Fu Panda 2 (Yuh, 2011)|||||7
I think I liked this much better than the first (and I did like the first one). Do away with the conventional, plot-based action and replace it with whimsical, almost metaphorical action. Replace a funny and endearing good guy-vs.-bad guy plot with a not-quite-as-funny, rather dark tale that evokes historical tragedy and world-shaping ancient politics.
And the square-one, anti-any-and-all-technology, pro-inner-peace-and-simple-things message plain and simply trumps every other preaching I've seen in any recent movie in a long time.
* X-Men: First Class (Vaughn, 2011)|||||6
X-Men: First Class (Vaughn, 2011)|||||6.5

May 2011

May 2011

* Schindler's List (Spielberg, 1993)|||||7
Mean Streets (Scorsese, 1973)|||||8
The Hangover Part II (Phillips, 2011)|||||4
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (Craig, 2010) (Incomplete Workprint)|||||4.5
* Dressed to Kill (De Palma, 1978)|||||7.5
* Phantom of the Paradise (De Palma, 1974)|||||7
The Rite (Håfström, 2011)|||||3
A Man Escaped (Bresson, 1956)|||||8
The Dark Night of the Scarecrow (De Filetta, 1981)|||||5
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (Murnau, 1927)|||||8.5
Juliet of the Spirits (Fellini, 1965)|||||8
Thor (Branagh, 2011)|||||5.5
Energetic fun with a good sense of wit and irreverence, and also a well-gauged moral-political backbone.
Though I suspect I don't have proper comparison for superhero movies, as the only one I've seen in the last 3-4 years is The Dark Knight.
Love Unto Death (Resnais, 1984)|||||6.5
Ordet (Dreyer, 1955)|||||7.5
Sweet Home (Kurosawa, 1989)|||||6
It's a nifty Japanese horrorfest, a Poltergeist/Evil Dead/House on Haunted Hill-remake mash-up. The material is weak, but Kurosawa's brilliance is still noticeable, both as a horror film director and as a director of beatific emotion. Unfortunately, a solid first half ultimately gives way to the ho-hum climactic act, trafficking in standard (and boring) maternal angst themes, and mostly saved by slam-bang FX.
* I Walked With a Zombie (Tourneur, 1943)|||||8

April 2011

April 2011

Force of Evil (Polansky, 1948)|||||8
Fast Five (Lin, 2011)|||||4.5
Jane Eyre (Zeffirelli, 1997)|||||6
These Are the Damned (Losey, 1963)|||||6.5
Time of the Wolf (Haneke, 2003)|||||8
A Taste of Cherry (Kiarostami, 1997)|||||6
* Mortuary (Hooper, 2005)|||||5.5
Your Highness (Green, 2011)|||||5
I did not find this horribly odious (though isolated, minor scenes approach the "Not funny, not cool" spectrum) or unpleasant, and I'd say I enjoyed it about as much as Pineapple Express. I'd say Green and writer Danny McBride's spoof/gag film comedy benefits from having the structure of fantasy film's formula and action set-pieces, and provides a clearer path for [half-assed] satire and lampooning, over Pineapple Express's vague pot proselytizing and vague character-driven dramatizing.
As with Sucker Punch, if you hated the trailer, you'll hate the film. But even McBride's "profanity in a period setting" running joke is handled much better than the critics would lead you to believe, and Green, as in Pineapple Express, does not lack for interesting and idiosyncratic directorial decisions, even though these comedies of his have no interest in being good or of any higher purpose.
Stage Fright (Hitchcock, 1950)|||||7.5
Day of Wrath (Dreyer, 1943)|||||8
Day of Wrath, Church of Cinema by Sam Boone at The House Next Door
Fright Night (Gillespie, 2011) (Preview Cut)|||||5
Passion (Sondheim/Lapine musical, TV broadcast)|||||+++
Jane Eyre (Fukunaga, 2011)|||||5
Bless the Child (Russell, 2000)|||||3
The Lady from Shanghai (Welles, 1947)|||||8
Insidious (Wan, 2010)|||||4
Band of Outsiders (Godard, 1964)|||||7.5

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

February 2011

February 2011

The Lair of the White Worm (Russell, 1988)||||||5.5
Autumn Sonata (Bergman, 1978)||||||8
True Grit (Coen Brothers, 2010)||||||7
This movie drags its feet a lot, with a middle section that seems grossly lackadaisical for the Coens, but it gains its footing again for a rousing - but also unusual - final twenty or so minutes. I also think it has more on its modernist plate than given credit for, as the revelation of the Josh Brolin character and that whirlwind, elegiac final night ride that leaves an ever-growing series of dead or tired out bodies behind it (never again seen in the film) are prime bits of Western deconstruction. Also thought the epilogue was of an exquisite wryness and absolutely integral to the film's gentle poignancy.
127 Hours (Boyle, 2010)||||||6
Has virtues similar to Sean Penn's Into the Wild, but this would be Into the Wild but dumber.
Buried (Cortes, 2010)||||||6
Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Akerman, 1975)||||||8
Greenberg (Baumbach, 2010)||||||6.5
Nick's Flick Picks on GREENBERG
Event Horizon (Anderson, 1997)||||||3.5
Vincere (Bellocchio, 2009)||||||7.5
Wild Grass (Resnais, 2009)||||||8
Hairspray (Waters, 1988)||||||7
A Prophet (Audiard, 2009)||||||7.5
Enter the Void (Noé, 2010)||||||5