Breathless (1983): Another movie that I watched primarily because it was filmed in Venice. With this one it really was a waste of time watching it in order to see Venice locations, though, because the scenes following the main characters around Venice are all filmed in relatively close shots, so you barely see anything (except for a bunch of classic murals in the background). Non-Venice Bonus: it features a shot through the hole in Randy's Donuts. (1/08, on my computer in Meredith's office in the Charlottesville house)
Sweeney Todd (2007): What, exactly, do people like about this? It was boring and the music sucked. (1/08, with Meredith, Ben, Jess, and Matt in Charlottesville)
Mother, Jugs, and Speed (1976): I watched this primarily because it was filmed in Venice. The story's actually centered around 4th and Rose Aves, just two blocks from our bungalow. It wasn't horrible--certainly nothing compared to "Miracle Mile"--but I can't exactly recommend it, unless you want to see the Venice locations. (12/07, in the Clarendon apartment)
Another Woman (1988): In response to a mention of the University of Chicago, the main character (a philosophy professor) says something to the effect of "They have a great philosophy department." (10/07, alone in Nat & Melody's apartment)
Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948): Jay C. & I watched this in Nat & Melody's apartment in Hyde Park. (10/07)
Superbad (2007): Supergood. McLoved it. There were enough other people in the theater, laughing along, that I laughed harder than I would have if I'd watched at home. That said, I laughed the hardest of anyone in the theater. Ben pointed out that the scenes with the cops drag the movie down, and that's true enough. I think the problem is that they don't even pretend to be the characters they're portraying. (8/07, with Meghan in Charlottesville)
The Science of Sleep (2006): This looks like a Charlie Kaufman movie, because Michel Gondry directed it, but I didn't have very high expectations for it because Kaufman didn't write it. But I actually enjoyed watching it, though I worry that there ultimately wasn't really any point to the dream and dream-like sequences (beyond the sheer fun of how they looked). Light years better than that other recent wanna-be Kaufman movie, "Stranger Than Fiction", though. (8/07, with Meredith and Jessica in Charlottesville).
Star Dust (2007): It's very hard for me to appreciate movies like this. Its idea of humor is have Robert De Niro play a tough pirate captain who is secretly a flamboyant cross-dresser. It's an interesting question why such a joke is so stupid. (8/07, with Meredith in Charlottesville)
Shaun of the Dead (2004): Watched this on my computer while hiding out in O'Malley 300 after CTY ended and I was supposed to have moved out. I thought 'Hot Fuzz' was funnier, but maybe that's just because it was the first one I saw and I saw it in a theater. (8/07)
Key Largo (1948): (5/07)
Pillow Talk (1959): (5/07)
Paris Je T'Aime (2007): (5/07, with Jay S. in Santa Monica)
Hot Fuzz (2007): (5/07, with Ben in Culver City)
Music with Lyrics (2006): (5/07, on the plane from VA to LA)
Apocalypse Now (1979): (5/07, on the plane from LA to VA)
On the Waterfront (1954): (5/07, with Eliot)
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935): (5/07, with Eliot)
The Bridesmaid (2004): (5/07, with Eliot)
Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962): (5/07, with Eliot)
The Doors (1991): I watched this mainly to see the scenes shot in Venice, but as far as I could tell the only scene that was likely to be shot here was one on the beach. And that could've been shot almost anywhere. (5/07)
Miracle Mile (1989): (5/07)
The Player (1992): (4/07, with Meredith)
Tokyo-Ga (1985): (4/07)
Casino (1995)
Reservoir Dogs (1992)
The Office Special (2003)
Kicking and Screaming (1995): (with Eliot)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
Take the Money and Run (1969)
Babel (2006)
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Sleeper (1973): (with Meredith and Eliot)
The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002): Stylistically speaking, this is the most innovative documentary I've seen in a really long time. And I think some serious thought about the nature of truth went into its creation as well. The entire film is from the point of view of the subject of the film, Hollywood producer Robert Evans (he produced Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, the Godfather, among others), who is also the narrator. There's a resolute avoidance of the kind of back-and-forth, opposing viewpoints, approach to objectivity that dominates contemporary American news. Which is not to say that I think they've discovered a better route to the truth. What they've done is raised some interesting questions about the truthfulness of telling the story of someone's life entirely from their own point of view. (2/07)
Office Space (1999): It's been years since I watched this, and the beginning segments were as funny, if not funnier, than I remembered them. But the second half, in which the plot takes over, was less engaging than I remembered it, and felt almost tedious at times. (2/07)
Swingers (1996): Although I was looking forward to re-watching this, having finally moved to L.A., I was afraid it was going to seem very dated, like swing revival bands. But I was wrong. The ending's a bit trite, but on the whole it's a well-made movie. The background music, in particular, is pretty damn good. As are the characters, dialogue, locations, etc. (1/07, with Meredith, Wesleigh, Scott, Natasha, and Kim)
Taxi Driver (1976): I'll admit it: I'd never actually seen this before. What I liked most about it were the long night time shots of the seedy areas of NYC. The colors were amazing. What I liked least: the shot-out at the end, which just bored me. And the "Are you talking to me" scene was a bit of a disappointment. (1/07)
Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe (1980): I discovered that this is available, in its entirety, on YouTube, so I re-watched it. I first saw it on a VHS tape that I rented from Facets, in Chicago, in 2002 or so. At that time, I don't know where else one could possibly see it. Although being able to watch it on YouTube makes it less exotic, it still remains one of my favorite documentaries of all time. I think that all of Herzog's comments in this short movie are deeply intelligent and deserve to be taken seriously. (1/07)
Romancing the Stone (1984): I was pleasantly surprised to catch this just as it started on cable late one night in a hotel room en route from VA to LA. I had been thinking about it recently, wondering if it was any good. All that I knew about it was that it was an Indiana Jones knock-off, but I didn't (and still don't) know if it was meant as a serious attempt to make a movie like Indiana Jones, or if it was meant as a parody of Indiana Jones. It seems seriously intended, but it was rather absurd nonetheless. I should say, however, that it wasn't half-bad and I enjoyed watching it. I can't exactly recommend it, though. (1/07)
Munich (2005): (1/07)
The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (1974): This medium-length documentary by Werner Herzog is currently available on DVD, combined with two of his other 70's documentaries: How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck (1976) and La Soufrière (1977). Of the three, this is the only one I liked. The others both start out pretty well, but ultimately bored me. This one, on the other hand, is consistently engaging.(1/07)
The Front (1976): I've always been wary of this movie. I think I felt like there was some kind of bait-and-switch going on, since the cover makes it look like a Woody Allen movie but he didn't actually write or direct it. He only stars in it. But I recently decided that him staring in it should be enough, so I finally got around to renting and watching it. It took me multiple evenings to watch all of it, probably because I only put it on late at night when I was already tired, but also because it is rather slow. The story revolves around a talent-less cashier (Allen) who acts as a front for his blacklisted writer friends during the commie-witch-hunt years of the entertainment industry in the early 50's. The story itself is rather lame, even though it focuses on an interesting aspect of the commie-witch-hunts themselves: namely, the pressure put on entertainers to name other suspected commies in order to avoid being blacklisted. This pressure is depicted as a perverse exercise of power for its own sake, since the entertainers are merely asked to name names that are already known to the investigators. The film contains an at-times incredibly charismatic performance by Zero Mostel. Although the ending is predictably fantastic, it is touching, in watching the credits, to find out that it was writen and directed by folks who were blacklisted, and that several of the starring actors (including Mostel) were also blacklisted. Overall, I don't exactly recommend this movie, but I'm not going to warn Woody Allen completists not to bother watching it. (1/07)
Play It Again, Sam (1972): Watching this for a second time, I laughed a lot more. I don't know if it was just because I was watching it with someone else, or because I'm now more appreciative of Woody Allen's humor. Probably both. Anyway, this may contain the most one-liners of any Woody Allen film. As well as some of his best physical comedy. (1/07, with Chauncey)
Stolen (2005): This documentary investigates the still-unsolved 1990 heist of a Boston art museum. Although no progress whatsoever is made in actually tracking the missing paintings, the movie does a decent job of illustrating the depressing effect a successful heist has on museum visitors and employees. Call this an "anti-heist" film. (12/07)
The White Diamond (2004): There was a recent article about Herzog in Harper's, and the author claimed that this lesser-known documentary by him was better than his aclaimed Grizzly Man (2005). That's not true, and I'm unsure whether it's even worth watching, but it does contain a few humorous Herzog-esque moments. There's more than one moment where Herzog himself tries to get the subjects of this documentary to say bombastic things, only to have them let him (and us) down. And there's one moment where the main subject of the documentary, in a rather forced effort to be bombastic, claims that people cannot perceive things that they don't have specific concepts for. While this later moment would be good to watch in a philosophy class, I don't think it's worth tredging through the rest of the film for. (12/07, with Ben C.)
The Deadliest Catch (2005): This isn't a movie. It's a Discovery channel series, a season-long documentary about Alaskian crab fishing. But I watched it on DVD, and the experience wasn't totally unlike watching a long movie (thought it was unlike it in many respects), so I'll include it here in my list of movies I've watched. It's about the dangerously unsafe crab fishing industry in Alaska, and the sailors who risk their lives for it. The conditions are "brutal", as they say, and for once they're right. Tiff's friend Josh told me about it when I asked whether anyone had been on a boat on the ocean (I've been a bit obsessed with the ocean of late), and Tiff eventually borrowed Josh's copy of it for me. It's actually not that well-made--in particular, the narrator is a bit of an idiot--but the situation is so good it doesn't matter. It's not the sailors themselves that are so interesting: they're surprisingly unarticulate, actually; and even the captains don't have that much to say. It's the sheer horror of the conditions in which they work that's so amazing. It's ass-cold and the waves are enormous. And they're exposed to these conditions for days on end, with little or no sleep. (11-12/06)
Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior (2003): Thai kick-boxing is pretty brutal, as demonstrated by this decent martial arts film. (12/06, with Tiff and Jay C.)
Public Enemy (1931): I find a lot of Plato's claims about art in the
Republic hard to swallow (I mean, come on, can you really take seriously his claims about the different musical modes and their different effects on the formation of our souls?), but I think he's right that we're attracted to artistic portrayals of bad people, in ways that subvert our better judgment about whether or not the people portrayed are actually attractive/admirable.
Public Enemy makes this aspect of art explicit, by trying, and failing, to counter-act it. At the end of this dramatic film about the rise and fall of a mobster, there's a moralistic conclusion in which we're supposed to realize that said mobster's obsession with crime doesn't only bring him down, but also has a devastating effect on his family. Of course this is true, but
Public Enemy doesn't make us feel it. It just makes us (me) lament a mobster's fall. (11/06, in a hotel room in Wilkes-Barre, PA)
Klaus Kinski: My Best Friend (1999): This starts out strong, with a trip to the apartment where Herzog first met and lived with Kinski--when Herzog was a child and Kinski was a violent young actor--but the subsequent story lags (at times) and recycles an awful lot of Les Blank's footage of the making of
Fitzcaraldo that's put to better use in Blank's
The Burden of Dreams. Overall, it's worth watching, but only because any footage of Herzog talking about the things that are important to him is worth watching. To be totally honest: I think Herzog's more interesting than all of his movies put together. (11/06)
Casino Royale (2006): The love-on-the-beach interlude went on a bit long for me, and I expected a final blow-out scene at the end that I didn't get, but I appreciated the inquiry into Bond's psyche. (11/06, with Meredith)
Talladega Nights (2006): This was the first movie I've watched on a domestic flight in a really long time. I watched it on an Amercian Airlines non-stop flight from Dulles to LAX. And, although it was heavily censored, it was still pretty funny and perfect for watching on a flight. There's a scene in which Will Ferrell says grace that was pretty damn funny: I imagine in the un-censored version it is laugh out loud funny. I don't really have any other thoughts about this movie, except to note that Will Ferrell does seem to have figured out a way to be consistently mildly funny. And, given that very few have figured out how to do that, it's quite an accomplishment. (11/06)
Expo: Magic of the White City (2006): I first became aware of this documentary about the Columbian Exposition (i.e., the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago) when I saw that it was playing at the Building Museum in DC. I missed it when they played it, though, and feared I might not get another chance to see it. But then, sometime later, I saw a DVD of it for sale at the Building Museum's Gift Shop, and then put it on my Netflix queue. In the meantime, I read "Devil in the White City", which was a good time and which only encouraged my interest in watching this documentary. As for the documentary itself: well, it's the best there is, and it's worth watching, but it wasn't put together with much serious thought. It walks you through the various buildings and areas of the fair, and contains a lot of photos and pictures, but it's not exactly absorbing. And it contains ridiculously cheesy video footage from today that they intersperse with the archival photos and pictures. For instance, belly dancing was introduced to an American audience at the Columbian Exposition, so they repeatedly return to this cheesy footage they've shot of a contemporary belly dancer. (11/06)
Marie Antoinette (2006): This is the real problem with non-discursive thought: it's just so damn hard to tell what someone's thinking if they don't just come out and say it. This movie contains very little dialogue, and what they do say doesn't really seem to matter--e.g., it doesn't push the movie forward. (In fact, I think it would've been more interesting if they had just eliminated the dialogue altogether. That would have been a more interesting movie, one which could've contained all the same action as this movie, but without the needless dialogue.) So I have no idea what the apparent heart of this movie--its long, almost tedious, visual segments--are meant to express. And I think, given that we have every reason to think that Sophie Coppola's a very smart person, that these segments are mean to express something. That said, the locations and costumes are, unsurprisingly, wonderful, and the musical selections are, also unsurprisingly, quite good. I do have a gripe about the sound, though: in the movie theater I watched it in, there was a tremendous amount of background noise on the audio track, almost as if they forgot to turn on the noise reduction. And this appeared to be part of the audio of the movie itself. The scenes shot outside or in large cavernous rooms, for instance, had tons of background noise, and *not* the sort you'll hear in "Nashville". More like the sort you hear on old analog tape recordings, when the microphone isn't close enough to the sound being recorded. (11/06, with Chauncey and Erin)
Borat (2006): I knew it would happen: if I saw too much of Borat before going to the movie, it would be a lot less funny. I tried to avoid watching the previews, and I didn't watch the clips they played when Borat was on talk shows promoting the movie, but I still saw too much. I watched the Dave Letterman and Jay Leno interviews, minus the movie clips, and, as it turns out, in his conversations with them he used a lot of the same jokes he uses in the movie. In fact, I think Borat's funnier in these interviews, where Dave and Jay (and Martha Stewart) played along with the joke and gave Sacha Baron Cohen free reign to say ridiculously offensive things--funnier than he is in the movie itself, where he's more constrained by his interlocutors and their unpredictable reactions. Of course, the interactions in the movie are ultimately more interesting, as the reactions of his unknowing interlocutors give us a very clear picture of the depths of their own prejudices; and that is, I think, what ultimately makes the Borat character so interesting. But it's too bad the movie never made me laugh in quite the same way watching the Dave and Jay interviews did. Ultimately, in the movie, Sacha Baron Cohen comes off as much less inspired than he does in those apparently rather well-rehearsed interviews. (11/06, with Chauncey and Erin)
Blues Brothers (1980/2005): They recently brought out a 25th Anniversary Edition DVD of "Blues Brothers": the cover says it contains a longer version of the movie, with additional scenes, so I thought I would take a trip down memory lane and re-watch it. Growing up, this was one of my absolute favorite movies, alongside "Stripes". Watching it again, I still really like it. Unlike "Animal House", which re-watching as an adult made me like (a little) less, "Blues Brothers" still possesses just as much charm as ever. If anything's changed about my appreciation, it's that I now enjoy the musical performances by James Brown, John Lee Hooker, Aretha, etc., more than when I was a kid. If I saw this movie now, for the first time without knowing who was going to appear in it, I think I would be amazed at the line-up of great black performers. As for the new edition: the additional scenes don't really add anything to the movie, except that the car chase at the end is longer and contains more absurd destruction (not a bad thing). Overall, I'll probably re-watch the original theatrical version next time, for old times sake. (11/06)
Congorilla (1932): A couple of weeks ago I went to dinner at the mall with my girlfriend's Mom. She was running late, so I was walking around the mall (Tyson's Corner, if you must know) and I almost fainted when I came across a clothing store named "Martin & Osa". I immediately walked in and asked the nearest store employee whether the store was named after Martin & Osa Johnson. She said it was. I then looked around, noted that the store itself was pretty much indistinguishable from J Crew, and couldn't help but comment, outloud, that if I were to imagine a store named after Martin & Osa Johnson, it wouldn't look like this. It would look like Banana Republic used to look like, in the 80's, when it was a pioneering themed shopping environment, designed to take you on a mini-safari. The reason is that Martin & Osa, if you don't know, were an enterprising married couple who, in the 1920's and 30's, made a series of travel documentaries that depicted their adventures in the South Seas and Africa. They weren't saints: they explicitly went out of their way to find the most unusual (to western eyes) people and places imaginable, in order to film them and make a buck. In Martin's first trip to the South Seas, for instance, he was very disappointed not to be able to find any genuine cannibals. And "Congorilla", their first sound picture, documenting a trip to East and Central Africa, is full of racist moments; but there is something charming about the spunk with which they travelled the world and, in many cases, brought back the first movie footage of far-off people and places. Aside from excerpts of their other movies that I saw while at the Martin & Osa museum in Chanute, Kansas, "Congorilla" is the only movie of theirs that I've seen. But it was interesting enough that I think I'll seek out some more of them. (10/06, with my Mom)
About Schmidt (2002): It's pretty hard to buy Jack Nicholson as a reserved insurance executive with a stilted walk (it's almost like trying to buy Harrison Ford with a Russian accent), but Nicholson does a decent job of it. I guess you're supposed to keep expecting the real Jack Nicholson to surface sooner or later, and for all of his pent-up hostility and frustration to explode, but it never does. And there's something interesting about a movie that intentionally plays off a false expectation like that, one that assumes a prior knowledge of the Jack Nicholson-type, only to ultimately work against it. I don't know what to make of the conclusion, though, in which the only thing that seems to give meaning to his life is his $22 a month check to an orphan in Tanzania. (There are his letters to this orphan as well, but it's hard to take them seriously as a genuine attempt at conversation.) I mean, *I* think there's something meaningful about sending $22 a month to an orphan in Tanzania, but in the context of a movie such as this--which relentlessly paints all other sources of meaning in contemporary American life as illusions--it's hard to think that we're supposed to think that sending money to a TV charity somehow avoids the meaninglessness of everything else. Overall, I found the moodiness of this movie attractive, but its rather nasty portrayal of the tackiness of American life unattractive. The depiction of his daughter's wedding, as a cliche-ridden cheese-fest, for instance, left a sour taste in my mouth. Which is not to say that it didn't feel accurate. It just felt sort of mean. (10/06)
The Departed (2006): There are times when you start reading an essay or book, or start watching a movie, and you just know that it's smart, right off the bat. This is one such movie. And it largely delivers, although the conclusion was a little bit of a let-down. Overall, though, this was a very, very well-acted movie. If I thought movie awards were any indication of excellence, I would saw that Di Caprio should get some kind of award. (10/06, with Chauncey)
The Killing (1956): This may be the perfect heist movie, at least in English. ("Touchez Pas Au Grisbi" (1954) may the perfect one in any language.) It moves along surprisingly fast, especially for a 50's movie, and all of the crucial generic components are there, including the inability of even the most detailed planning to foresee every possible contingency. (10/06)
Boogie Nights (1997): I'm really not a very big fan of P.T. Anderson, and sitting through all 3 or so hours of this only cemented my disinterest. I did really like "Punch Drunk Love", but I now think it was a true exception from his other works. I found both "Magnolia" and "Boogie Nights" self-indulgent and tedious, and "Boogie Nights" painfully predictable as well. Also, was I supposed to find the cheesy acting in the porn movies contained in this one funny? If so, then this really is the height of sophmoric humor. Will someone please tell me what I'm missing? The music was really good, though. (10/06)
The Prestige (2006): Finally, a return to movies that keep you thinking until the end, but not by having everything that you see for most of the movie turn out to be an elaborate illusion, a la "The Usual Suspects" or "The Sixth Sense". This is a pretty smart movie, one that glosses over only a single philosophical difficulty that I can think of, and one that provides plenty of fodder for subsequent conversations. I don't want to say any more, because I highly recommend this movie and don't want to ruin it for others. (10/06, with Meredith) [Note added 12/06: Now that you've had a chance to see it, what I thought was cool about it was that from the very beginning, they tell you the structure of the magic trick you're about to see: i.e., the trick with the birds at the beginning has exactly the same structure as the trick at the end, and not just in the sense that it has three parts.)
Charley Varrick (1973): Part of my Walter Matthau film festival. This is a pretty good heist film, with Matthau as a washed up crop duster/bank robber. Like "Hopscotch", Matthau is on the run and always several steps ahead of his pursuers. Although I have to admit that I love movies in which good planning triumphs over power, money, etc., I think true heist movies are about the fantasy of being able to anticipate and control everything that the world might throw at you. So this isn't a true heist movie. But it's a good time. (10/06)
The Odd Couple (1968): I've been a fan of Jack Lemmon ever since I saw "The Apartment", but I now love Walter Matthau just as much. He's really quirky. It's hard to think of contemporary analogues, at least in movies, for either of these guys, but Matthau's really sui generis. I mean, I think he was kind of a romantic lead at the time, as hard as that is to believe if you just look at him. But he's got real charisma, so once you see him in action it's not at all hard to believe. The movie itself was alright: portions of it really dragged along for me, although my viewing conditions were far from ideal. (I had heartburn and couldn't sleep, so I watched it from 5-7am on a Wednesday morning.) The situation that the movie centers around is actually probably better situated for a serial TV show than a feature length movie. As it is, in the movie Felix and Oscar pretend to be transformed by living together for just 3 weeks, but I didn't buy it. A real transformation would've involved Felix coming out of the closet, for instance. (10/06)
Jackass Number Two (2006): Although I don't think it's as good as the gushing reviews in the New York Times, LA Weekly, etc. make it out to be, watching this was a good time. I didn't laugh as hard as the first one: it's lost a lot of the spontaneity that made the sheer fun of that one so palpable. (I don't want to describe to you what this one tastes like. I did almost throw up at one point.) And I'm unsure of the claim that this is the contemporary incarnation of slapstick humor. Of course there's *something* right about that, but I don't really laugh in the same way about this movie as I do in response to Buster Keaton, so I think the analogy might be a real distortion of what it is we find interesting about movies like this. That's a good topic for discussion, though. (09/06, with Chauncey)
Hopscotch (1980): Walter Matthau as an ex-CIA agent on the run, trying to publish an expose on all of the bungled intelligence operations he's witnessed over the years. Matthau's quite charming, and funny, as the expert spy who's always one step ahead of his pursuers. And Ned Beatty's great as his douchebag ex-boss. At one point, when the FBI gets involved in the hunt and wants to know why the CIA's after Matthau, Beatty says, "That's on a need to know basis; it's a matter of national security." The FBI guy's response: "That's a phrase that's lost a lot of meaning lately." It just goes to show you: in 1980, people immediately became distrustful when someone invoked that phrase. What's happened since then? (09/06)
