Monday, January 30, 2006
A Man Escaped
The visual style is so spare there isn't even room for austere. Bonus: by the middle of the movie you will know how to make a rope out of anything.
Labels: movie note
Sanjuro
Sanjuro is no Yojimbo. It's a bit cardboard and obvious, but it's done well. Everyhting is exactly as it seems. It's an honest and naive movie, which is a relief.
Labels: movie note
Major Dundee
(Not the extended, restored version which may not be completely awful.) What a stinker! So many people want this to not suck and I am here to tell you: it does. A few random scenes, a couple of moments that are interesting are all trapped in purest pâte de train-wreck. As soon as Senta Berger shows up on screen, you may as well stop watching because it is strictly silly from there on in. Warren Oates has a big scene in the midst of the "love" "story" but you will still be agape at the completely ridiculous scenes between Senta and Charlton and unable to appreciate Oates's scenery chewing. Preposterous!
The score by Daniele Amfitheatrof is not good. Dogmatically by the numbers, the result is completely out of touch with the mish mash on the screen.
The score by Daniele Amfitheatrof is not good. Dogmatically by the numbers, the result is completely out of touch with the mish mash on the screen.
Labels: movie note
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Exo Force Villain Is Cute As a Bug
Lookit! It's a wee little robot! He's like a little bronze wallaby.
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According to the back story, this delightful little gnome of a robot has taken up arms against humanity, but he's so-o-o-o-o cute! Who's a grumpy wumpy soulless assassin?
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And here's his little death machine. Also pretty darn cute with its workaday color scheme and shiny black shoes. Makes you want to give it a nickel to go get something at the malt shop.
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According to the back story, this delightful little gnome of a robot has taken up arms against humanity, but he's so-o-o-o-o cute! Who's a grumpy wumpy soulless assassin?
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And here's his little death machine. Also pretty darn cute with its workaday color scheme and shiny black shoes. Makes you want to give it a nickel to go get something at the malt shop.
Sin City
Looks great, feels bad. Between this and Crumb, I start to wonder if India ink can make artists angry.
Labels: movie note
Bush Administration = New Bionicle Villains
Greg Farshtey, author, discussing his in-progress Bionicle novel, posted a snippet on BZP, "There were plenty of opportunities to increase one's personal wealth while engaging in random acts of destruction. Of course, it wouldn't do to overlook the fun of exploiting lesser species, sparking environmental disasters, and ending the existence of the occasional Toa, all in the name of profit."
Replace 'Toa' with 'enemy combatant' or 'Constitution of the United States' and it could just as well be a memo from Cheney to Bush.
Replace 'Toa' with 'enemy combatant' or 'Constitution of the United States' and it could just as well be a memo from Cheney to Bush.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Battle of Algiers
Pepe le Moko meets City of God. As I watched, appalled, I could not help but be reminded in every important, damning particular of the war in Iraq. So when I read in the supplemental materials that it had been screened in the Pentagon in 2003, my blood ran cold. I am numb with fury.
I have somehow managed to be ignorant of this movie, except perhaps for its reputation, a fact which is deeply embarrassing for me. And I didn't know that Ennio Morricone provided the music. I feel that I am an ignoramus.
I have somehow managed to be ignorant of this movie, except perhaps for its reputation, a fact which is deeply embarrassing for me. And I didn't know that Ennio Morricone provided the music. I feel that I am an ignoramus.
Labels: movie note
Algae!
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
City of God
The documentary included as a special feature is worth the rental by itself. The interview with the chief of police was a seminar in realpolitik that you could never get at a university.
Labels: movie note
Crumb
So much weirder, sweeter than I could have imagined. Terry Zwigoff also responsible for Bad Santa. Whadya know! R. Crumb mentions Goodfellas. Good thing I have been catching up on my movies so i knew what he was talking about. Someday I will graduate to the movies of the late nineties.
Labels: movie note
American Splendor
Friday, January 20, 2006
Kill Bill vol. 2
What a hoot! More talk and less gravitas than the first volume, I was thoroughly amused many times. I was not moved, however.
Labels: movie note
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Pepe le Moko
Pepe is like any other man, only more so. And how!
Labels: movie note
The Place Promised In Our Early Days
The what, when?
Labels: movie note
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Millennium Actress
Casually recursive - what's not to love?
Labels: movie note
The Two Jakes
An unworthy successor to Chinatown - almost disrespectful. A muddled, inconsequential plot fails to support an inane theme. It's just as well that the movie was not scored by Jerry Goldsmith because that would have been a silk dress on a pig.
Labels: movie note
Friday, January 13, 2006
Goodfellas
All through the movie I want the one guy to be whacked already and eventually he is and I feel a little bad about that and then the other guy the one that I don't so much want to be whacked I think now is a louse and maybe it would have been better if he had been whacked a long time ago and he should shut up about himself already.
Labels: movie note
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Chinatown
Until the DVD started, it had not occurred to me that I had never really seen Chinatown except on broadcst TV which meant pan & scan and commercials. What a dope I have been. What a great movie!
Labels: movie note
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
The Machinist
Having already seen Batman Begins, I know that Christian Bale recovered from the state that he put himself into for this movie. The director made the most of it, turning this pat schizo-thriller into a genuine, no-kidding freak show. The queasy, artificial palette plays like the fluorescent light from Joe vs. the Volcano, except that it doesn't stop for the entire movie.
Labels: movie note
Ghost Dog
Moody. Forced. Could have reduced cast to Forest Whitaker and Henry Silva and saved some payroll. (Nothing wrong with the other characters or performances, but they are not strictly necessary.) Paced like Solaris.
Labels: movie note
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Pulp Fiction
What do you know, it's really good! I knew that already but I managed to know that without having seen the movie, only hearing its reputation. Weirdly enough, a co-worker asked me who played Captain Koons in Pulp Fiction. I had no idea. As it turned out, Pulp Fiction was in my mailbox. If it had arrived as expected yesterday, I woulf have known the answer to the question. O fate, your ways are mysterious.
Labels: movie note
Enigmatic Image from Cheapo Digital Camera
Monday, January 09, 2006
Pen Is Fish!
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Kaminsky Reader
Piraka is Olda
Piraka is Olda
The first Toa (known in some circles as 'olda' - back-formed from 'nuva') and the Piraka share some design similarities.
The first Toa (known in some circles as 'olda' - back-formed from 'nuva') and the Piraka share some design similarities.
Bend It Like Beckham
Bubbly. Too many music montages by a long order. I lost track of how many such interludes there may have been. The use of 'Nessun Dorma' is only a little less forgivable than it's utterly inappropriate use in Sum of All Fears.
Labels: movie note
res ipsa loquitur
Jenerator's Grad School Rant
malynsmusing
OK, my yard is a mess.
"V" has offered to do yard work. I find this handwritten note written on a leaf from a reporter's notebook very interesting.
No new DVDs for the weekend
Aiee! I am addicted to Netflix! I want more DVDs! More!
Card in the Mail
Friday, January 06, 2006
Kung Fu Hustle
Kung Fu Hustle was better than I expected and less wacky. Great score by Vincent Wong.
Labels: movie note
Yo yo yo, Yorick!
Team America: World Police
It's no South Park: The Movie. It is the most ambitious marionette movie ever, and I say that not because I have a marionette in the corner (I do) but because it's just so obvious. If there were an approximately similarly ambitious marionette movie previously, it would have had some effect on my existence. Some shadow of a rumor! But no such shadow, rumor or effect has there been. Therefore, this is the most ambitious marionette movie ever.
The greatest achievement is in the hilarious sculpting of the characters. The overall joke does wear thinnish, though.
The greatest achievement is in the hilarious sculpting of the characters. The overall joke does wear thinnish, though.
Labels: movie note
Grave of the Fireflies
I was warned, but I wanted to see for myself. This movie is indeed devastating. There is almost no plot to speak of, but the tale is very minutely rendered.
Labels: movie note
Thursday, January 05, 2006
A Beautiful Mind
This is the movie all the hullaballoo was about? I am underwhelmed in every regard. Everything was perfectly acceptable but that means it was just a TV Movie of the Week, a really good Movie of the Week. John Nash's Nobel info is much more interesting.
The unsensational treatment of schizophrenia was welcome but I'm not convinced it was intentional. The relative lack of explosions and gunfire was also welcome, but it does not add up to anything like a great film.
The unsensational treatment of schizophrenia was welcome but I'm not convinced it was intentional. The relative lack of explosions and gunfire was also welcome, but it does not add up to anything like a great film.
Labels: movie note
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Artist binds feet in desert, loses key
Monday, January 02, 2006
Thanks, Ben!
My mind has been freed from the background processing of trying to remember 'prognathous.' Thanks, Ben!
Bourne Identity
Matt Damon has convinced me that he is capable of portraying a character that has no personality with the utmost degree of fidelity. A stroke of casting genius on a par with casting John Malkovich as John Malkovich in Being John Malkovich.
Labels: movie note
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Memento
This movie does not make me sad even though it does not have a happy ending. I think.
Labels: movie note
12 Monkeys
This movie makes me sad even though I think it may have a happy ending.
Labels: movie note
March of the Penguins
How does this sort of system evolve? On the other hand, what kind of perverse God puts the Cutest Things on Earth at the bottom?
The narration was chock full of scientific and logical groaners. And a fair amount of gratuitous anthropormorphisms.
The narration was chock full of scientific and logical groaners. And a fair amount of gratuitous anthropormorphisms.
Labels: movie note
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (extended)
I really like these movies but is it so infeasible to digitally replace Sean Astin? I'm just not buying him as a hobbit, much less the particular hobbit, Sam. He works well enough but something about him is as distracting as the not-quite-right lighting of Gollum's eyes.
Labels: movie note
