What were the last movies that you saw and what did you think of them?

Also watched Godard's "Contempt" for the first time. Surprisingly accesible--not even close to being as demanding as his other films of the late 60's like "Pierrot le fou" and "Weekend". An excellent film nonetheless, and it's certainly better than "Day for Night" as a movie about making movies.

Also watched Jem Cohen's "Little Flags" and "Glue Man" from the special features section of the "Instrument" DVD. Everything I've seen by him has been incredible.

Return of the King
Also hooray!

No Man's Land
I've been wanting to see this for some time, and as is often the case, the longer you wait, the more dissapointing the film. A piss-poor dissection of the Bosnian war, it seems to believe the fighting was entirely the fault of fruity English journalists. Plus, some of the worst plot exposition of any film I've seen (there's a documentary in the middle that explains everything).

Bus 174
Doc about a bus hold-up in Rio. Stunning; depressing.

Mr Death
Dull, phoney.

Rio Bravo
John Wayne and Dean Martin do nothing for 2-and-a-half hours, except be insanely entertaining.

La Grand Illusion
I thought the CGI in this was rubbish.

Castle in The Sky
Miyazake cuteness. It's fun comparing the Japanese translation to the (entirely different) American dub, which loses the odd references to child sexuality.

Happy new year!

Kwaidan: Who would think a couple routine ghost stories could be so awe-inspiring?

Sunrise: WOW. Given the really dark and heavy beginning, the gleeful middle section took me by surprise. Heather Graham could probably be a double for Janet Gaynor. Highly highly highly recommended. I already want to see this again.

The Return of the King: I'm so glad they pulled it off. Sitting behind me was a young adolescent girl who was really into it, emotionally. At one point, she whimpered softly, "Where's Sam?", almost crying. So, Sam's wife is obviously a beard, right?

Home:
Clockwatchers: started off with Dilbert-esque office humor (which was fine), and then it got much better, with lots of little details about the temp experience. Well written, well acted, and very funny. I'm surprised it didn't get more attention when it came out - it's excellent.

La Strada: thank you, Criterion. Transfer looks great, as always. Haven't watched the extras yet.

Auto Focus: a bit disappointing. I didn't see much insight into Crane's character. Maybe Schrader should have written the screenplay himself.

The Good Girl: as a whole, it's an okay movie, but the real strength is in the casting, I think. Jake G. should probably start moving away from the "sullen teen" role (I mean, he's been the same character in like four movies), but he does it well. I want to compile all the Zooey D. moments together and just watch those...by far, those are the funniest scenes of the movie ("Cirque du Face"!!)

Monsoon Wedding: pretty good, but I wish it were at least an hour longer, making it a sprawling Altman-esque film. I wanted more character development. And more conflict. I mean, I'm glad it ended happily and all, but it was too perfect.

Let America Laugh: this is the "behind the scenes" film about David Cross's tour. There aren't really any brilliant comedic moments here, like in Mr. Show, but I laughed quite a bit.

Seabiscuit Good cast, wack script/direction. After about 20 minutes of laborious set-up and contextual exposition (featuring Ken Burns-style scanned stills and v.o. from John effin' Chancellor), I turned to my wife and asked if she thought they were going to get to the part where the earth cooled anytime soon. The horse didn't show up until the 45 minute mark. Talk about milking it.

Jeepers Creepers 2 Not as bad as I thought it was going to be, but not good either. The first one was genuinely creepy for its first half. This one was mostly run-scream-run-scream-run-scream. Ray Wise as the avenging farmer dad with a homemade harpoon gun was a bright spot.

Dreamcatcher Not as bad as I thought it would be, but not good either. Way too much going on for one little genre picture. Morgan Freeman was actively bad, which you don't see too much, and the red-haired guy from Band of Brothers was given the utterly thankless task of personifying a malovelent alien invader via a jaunty British accent straight outta P.G. Wodehouse. What happened to Lawrence Kasdan, anyway? I did make one important discovery, though. My wife fell asleep before it ended, and the next day we were both diverted during a long drive by me telling her what happened after she dropped off. I couldn't imagine doing that with Jeepers Creepers 2.

Monster: I wanted to have an intense emotional experience and didn't. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that wasn't the point. It's really just an honest, fair-handed portrayal of this woman -- which resorts neither to exploitation or melodrama. And because it easily could have, it grows in admiration in my mind. And Theron's performance is worth the hype.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Eh. I liked Johnny Depp, but I didn't care enough about the whole adventure plot. I think I thought there weren't going to be as many battle scenes as there were.

Band of Brothers Boxset - Fabulous from the 1st disc right through disc 6. Seen it when it was on HBO, needed to see it again.

SWAT - shit sandwich

"The Thin Red Line"--I'll have to watch this again. I appreciated the beginning of the film, the pacing & sound design were excellent & it had a great "atmosphere" to it, but i fell asleep once the battles started. it just started to seem very artificial in its attempts to be realistic. Maybe I was just tired. Maybe it was Woody Harrelson. I'll watch it again sometime.

"Stealing Beauty"--Bertulucci has turned out to be what everyone expected he was all along-an overrated old pervert. If it wasn't for "the last emperor" and "the conformist," i'd dismiss him altogether.

"Northfork"--i have to agree with the consensus already expressed here--it seemed pretty weak. too much style & not enough content, trying to be felliniesque or lynchesque and not quite pulling it off.

Harvey Weinstein MUST be destroyed.

Bartleby - In some ways it's a failure - it's too stagey, most of the characters are one-dimensional caricatures, the denouement doesn't make much sense - but Crispin Glover's Bartleby is so fucking strange he insinuates himself into the other characters' psyches because that's all they can do. Since all he does is refuse to work and stare at the office extractor fan all day, his co-workers start getting pulled down into his entropic state too. He's like a living dead man, dragging everyone around him into the grave. If it had been filmed in a more experimental style I think it could have been amazing rather than an interesting oddity.

The Return Of The King - This would have been better if it had been directed by Matthew Barney. He'd have constructed Minas Tirith entirely out of vaseline and cut out the lame dialogue (i.e. all of it). Actually I think Peter Jackson did the best he could with the source material and the constraints of mega-budget film-making, but I just forget these films five minutes after leaving the cinema. Although that doesn't seem to shave stopped me from seeing all of them, so I've only got myself to blame if I didn't enjoy it much.

And for all the trials and tribulations that both Nicole Kidman and Jude Law go through, they still look damn sexy throughout

that, for instance, is one reason i liked it so much!

Thelma & Louise: I'd never seen it, saw it last week. Kind of a curveball from Ridley Scott, not bad, and a good reminder to all us guys not to say "S.. my D.." to a woman with a pistol.

Dark City: Never saw this one either, apparently I read the wrong reviews when it came out. I thought it was decent. Kiefer Sutherland was very weird, taking after his dad no doubt, and it took me a while to figure it out, but in the end, hey, pretty cool.

At the Movies:

Cold Mountain: Ultimately this turns out to be a chick flick, which is what I surmised from the commercials and the reviews. Not terrible, but kind of a snooze-fest towards the end of the movie.
Good scene at the beginning.

Return of the King: Well, I think it's the Best Picture, hands down, no contest. It seems to be pretty hip to slam this picture on the boards and in reviews, for reasons ranging from a lack of minorities to an overly-lengthy ending to an overdose of digital effects. Yes, it's long as hell... No, there are no black people in Middle Earth (which could have easily been remedied; I could picture Denzel Washington as Aragorn. Tolkien Geeks would have screamed, but to hell with those guys. Besides, Viggo Mortensen got a little squeaky in his speech to rally the troops, which probably would have drawn laughs in a more realistic depiction)... And yes, they piled on all the digital effects they could afford, and they all looked wonderful and to complain about it is akin to some old coot grousing about traveling by airplane or how nobody listens to the radio no more, Shut Up and welcome to the 21st century. Twenty years from now everyone and their Uncle Ted is going to have all 3 of these movies in their DVD collection, and people are going to look back and brand the academy a college of Idiots if they fail to recognize any of them. "Chicago" ?
Get the **** out of Dodge !

Bad Santa: I thought it was funny, John Ritter was cool and I can't believe how many idiots brought their kids with them to watch this movie.

translation: why can't everyone just like what i like in my infinite wisdom?

maybe you're failure to engage with LOTR (or any other film you deem the masses to be enjoying) is just as much your problem as it is the film's.

As I said in an earlier post, "Cold Mountain" is most guilty of the crime Jay speaks of. How can I possibly muster up ANY emotional response to the film with Harvey Weinstein sitting over my shoulder dripping glycerin tears into my eyes?

While I'm in rant mode (oh man, I am so going to lose my job), the reports I'm hearing from friends at Sundance are pretty depressing. Indie film has merged with Hollywood. End of story. An XL1, a Powerbook and a copy of McKee is all that's required these days to make a film. Lame. Sad. McKee is the root of all evil in my opinion. (I should add that I am a screenwriter, who still believes in the screenplay as an art form. Dialog is a beautiful, wonderful thing.) His influence is such that virtually every 'indie' film one sees these days is boring, trite and so, so predictable. The character arcs are laid out in front of me in the first ten minutes. No surprises.

Film, for the most part, really sucks these days. A second-rate movie from 1972 has more going it for it than 90% of the output these days.

I recently saw "The Landlord" (1970, Hal Ashby) -- not a great film, but a damn good one. It takes its time and allows itself to unfold in a way that would give McKee apoplexy. (Oh my goodness! Not everything is revealed by page ten of the screenplay!) Another example is Loving (1970, Irvin Kershner) -- no WAY would this film get a green light today. But yet it is one of the best films I've seen about a married man going through a process of self-destruction. A wonderful screenplay that doesn't hammer into your head the plot, its ideas, or how you are meant to feel about the characters. Hell, a key character doesn't even appear until about halfway through the film! McKee is foaming at the mouth!

:-)

And how can you fail with engaging with Lord of the Rings when it's shoveling the manipulation down your throat? It worse than a freakin' Leni Riefenstahl film...

But, hey, fifty million Elvis (or hobbit) fans can't be wrong, right?

I don't think it elitist to draw attention to the manufacturization of most popular film. Should we all just sit back and take our pabulum? Are we so afraid to propose radical changes? There was a time when films like "Jules et Jim" and "Band of Outsiders" were considered revolutionary -- yet today we still love these films even though they could hardly still be classified as such. If people (directors, writers, producers) don't take action and make a change, we will forever be stuck swimming in the pool of mediocrity. Studios these days care about one thing -- the opening weekend. Gotta win the weekend. Even if there's an 80% drop the following week, as long as the big coin was made the first three days, that's all that matters. If this is criteria that molds the film, we're in sad shape indeed.

And to the indie folks --
a) accept the fact that great films existed prior to "Mean Streets", and
b) rent and see a whole lot of those that did. Know your vocabulary before you begin filming.

Movie-goers! Throw away your popcorn and rally in the streets!

what does manipulation mean in this context thought? that the story expects you to care about the characters? that it consciously attempts to present a certain emotional mood? what really? (this is an honest question--sorry for being snarky earlier)

i think it's not acknowleged enough that "artistic" films pander in their own way just as much as hollywood films do.

And how do they pander in their own way?

Populist does NOT have to equal dumb. I'm not saying that film need be Brakhage to be taken seriously. But...."Kangaroo Jack"?

pander in their own way: by appealing to certain characteristics that a self-chosen high brown audience will expect. such as "challenging," (however they perceive that to be). a classic example of high brow expectations not met is when people complain that A.I. should have ended under the water, thus meeting the highbrown expectation of a depressing ending.

You've fallen into the trap serious=highbrow=depressing. NOT SO my good man!

Nobody who loves film necessarily WANTS a downbeat ending. What we don't want however, is that final-reel ray-of-sunshine that comes out of the blue. Or something 'modified' because a bunch of mid-western yahoos didn't like it at a test screening. That is inexcusable! (The same is true in reverse – don’t just tack on a downbeat ending cause you think it makes you appear ‘deep’.)

But you are right about challenging. If a film fails to challenge us on ANY level, what have we just done for the last two hours? Shoved popcorn in our face, laugh when we're told, cry when we're told, and feel superior because we guessed the ending before it occurred. As we walk to the car after the film, we think not of the film but rather "what's on TV tonight?"

Sigh.

also, i will not accept the fact that film is merely a "populist" medium, because that negates any true artifice in the cinema, denigrating it to nothing more than a craft. and while that's true of most of what hollywood churns out to popcorn-sucking weak-willed airheads, it's not true for many great films that have come out in the past 130 years.

"what does manipulation mean in this context thought? that the story expects you to care about the characters? that it consciously attempts to present a certain emotional mood? what really? (this is an honest question--sorry for being snarky earlier)"

no, that the story FORCES you to care about the characters, that FORCES you into a false emotional mood, by using time-tested technique that have more in common with propaganda than art. It's the equivalent of nostalgia and patriotism. Check the "Pet Peeves" post from last month for some good ideas on which techniques i'm speaking of.

and the scene with frodo in bed at the end of lord of the rings 3--that about sums it up right there. i laughed out loud in the theater.

This is obviously true, but I think Ryan's point was that certain critics overvalue films with depressing endings, as it's seen as a marker of artistry.

The difference in *importance*?? So which one is more important and why?

btw, I thought the scene in ROTK where Frodo's friends were so excited to see him they jumped on the bed with him was incredibly touching and sweet.

ryan--

a very good point. but i'm sure, simply by stating such a phrase, that you already know the answer yourself. We've all sat in a theater where someone is boo-hoo-hoo-ing and said "my god, i've heard that speech/that shot in a hundred other films--is this person stupid?"

some people are just succeptible to emotion. they go to the theater because they WANT to laugh or they WANT to cry, and they'll find any excuse to do so. The cinema is the emotion or dream factory for many--they don't live and feel in reality, so they do it vicariously through the cinema.

another possiblity is that someone lived through a very traumatic experience that they find some small way to relate to in a film. although i wasn't brought to tears by platoon (not saying it's a bad film), i'm sure there are many vietnam vets who were.

another explanation is that people are being caught off-guard by a powerful technique that is new to them, but not new to others. Just as when you grow up, you don't cry everytime you need to eat or go to the bathroom (at least i hope you don't), as you mature as a film viewer, you require a more (dare i say) "authentic" means of grabbing your attention/emotions than the ones you've seen a thousand times before. and while i will agree that it is very difficult (if not impossible) to trigger an emotional response without some kind of contrived "technique," it is possible to develop new techniques to touch your audience (think of the father/son relationship in harmony korine's films like gummo (arm wrestling) and julian donkey-boy (spraying with hose, the garbage can).

so to answer your question, nothing necessarily makes the emotional mood of the person crying next to you "false," but there are a lot of factors that determine this mood in different people, and it is important to know WHY a film is evoking such a response.

sorry for the delay, but i wanted to get home from work!

firstly, the norman holland quote is a typical "mr jones" response to new developments in the arts (if you dig on dylan, you'll get the reference--see i AM a rockist!) Instead of delving into the depths of what it takes to make a film like, say, "last year at marienbad" and the deeper issues behind the labyrinthine surface, it's easier just to dismiss it as a puzzle, as mental masturbation by those who like to think too much. to say it's as relevant as "fast and the furious" is an insult who the entire nature of artistic and intellectual creation (which i know is not what you're doing, but instead playing the devil's advocate).

and, no, i don't think criticism should take a disinterested approach by any means, and i also don't consider myself an aesthetician (which, again, i don't think you were necessarily implying). I view an aesthetician as someone who takes only formalistic surfaces into account. While such a practice is valid in some philosophies, I think it's mainly what makes hollywood cinema such unwatchable rubbish--it's all pretty pictures, pretty effects, pretty faces, all nice and polished--in other words, all style and no substance.

i think a critic should take as INTERESTED an approach as is humanly possible with a film. he should delve into it deeply when it deserves to be, examining every nuance and understanding how it impacts upon the culture he lives, and more importantly upon himself. Because that's what it really comes down to for me. Good hollywood cinema appeals shallowly to the masses, great cinema appeals strongly and deeply to the few. And not necessarily a "select" few, but those who can relate. An example--I watched the movie "Weekend" with an old mechanic buddy who watched nothing but action flicks. He was absolutely blown away, and soon after became interested in foreign film, modern art, and politics. When is the last time a hollywood film has had that effect on anyone you know.

I don't want to make it seem like I'm denouncing any emotional response to cinema, because that's exactly the opposite of what I want to imply. I'm just asking for new methods for evoking such responses, and one's that apply more to modern life and modern art. It is truly a sad state when we become so passive that we allow our thoughts and feelings to be manufactured and spoon-fed to us without question. Engage with art, be interested in how it affects you and WHY it affects you. You'll find that not only will the "innocent mystique" of cinema not be taken away (ignorance is not always bliss), but instead you will develop a new-found awe, like a return to childhood, when you discover unique ways that directors use to reach their audiences.

the best example i can think of right now is leighton pierce. i never thought a wordless film starring a shovel would bring tears to my eyes and change the way i view life and the cinema (which, in the end, are really one in the same anyway, right?)

One really minor point, though -- I used "aesthetician" to mean any philosopher of the arts, like Kant or Schiller, rather than someone exclusively concerned with "aesthetics."

1. Holland wasn't trying to say that Last Year at Marienbad or Red Desert are any less brilliant than they've otherwise been perceived. Nor is he trying to separate himself from that "intellectual" class (in fact, I think he's quite explict about putting himself in that category). The essay wasn't meant as a takedown; it wasn't even an evaluative review at all. It merely pointed out that the sociological generalizations made about "the masses" when it comes to mainstream cinema can equally be made when it comes to fans of art cinema. That's not a means of devaluing art films -- it's simply a recognition (which seems pretty self-evident to me) that everyone's guided toward art in a unique way, and the notion of a "perfect" critic (who is intelligent, unbiased, sensitive, knowledgeable about film history, etc.) is an impossible ideal.

2. The comment, to say it's as relevant as 'the fast and the furious' is an insult to the entire nature of artistic and intellectual creation, bothers me because The Fast and the Furious made $150 million at the box office! I still don't have much interest in seeing it, but how much more relevant can you get!

There's been a big shift in the habits of movie-goers since the age of the multiplex. Used to be that you would look through the paper, read reviews, and decide what film to see. Now, more often than not, people turn up to megaplexes and choose. What starts soon, what has tickets available, etc. I've witnessed this time and time again. Horrifying.

Perhaps 'relevant' should be limited to films that stand the test of time. Will anybody give a damn about 'The Fast and...' in ten years time. Doubtful.

Gah, I hate "the test of time" as a criterion -- it usually ascribes all the agency to the artwork, ignoring all the invisible (and visible) forces that go into preserving a film's reputation.

Are you implying that there's some sort of conspiracy involved? 'Citizen Kane' actually isn't a good film, it's just the enormous power of the Wellesian cult?

There are films where that is true -- those that become part of the vernacular, those that get quoted time and time again, those that are referenced by other filmmakers, etc.

Where then is the cultural relevance of the 'F and the F'? (The Citizen Kane of street racing movies?

While I think the film does a good job at capturing them, I sometimes got the impression the filmmakers were having a laugh at their expense.

"Performance"--i'll have to watch it again. i both loved it and hated it for some reason.

"Tales of Ordinary Madness"--it felt kind of stilted, like it was trying desperately to stay true to some kind of Bukowski authenticity. I prefered the artificiality of "Barfly".

"The Shape of Things"--yeah, I'm never trusting anyone ever again...

"Ken Park"--huge disappointment. i'm now convinced the larry clark is a horrible filmmaker & that harmony korine is only working with him for a paycheck.

"Ken Park" was the biggest piece of shit I saw last year. At the screening I saw, Clark (who was present) declared that the film was "dangerous". Oooohhh...dangerous. Teenies fucking on camera -- shocking! Please. The film is as shallow and vapid as Clark is. He should stick to still photography.

Plus, he lied to the audience by claiming that the screenplay was inspired by his diaries. Korine had written it before he wrote Kids.