I Saw the Devil

This is a brutal film. Pipes, chairs, broken glass, rope, all appear sticking through someone's body parts. Beatings, rape, Coen-esque evil, severed limbs, are all present. And yet it is all stylized, it's all pretty entertaining. The start of the film is probably the best part of it. In the first twenty minutes, a young secret agent talks to his girlfriend, who has a flat tire in the snow and is waiting for the tow truck. He sings her a song, she seems happy and bites back her tongue from telling him she's pregnant. And then horror. In a car with two lights at the front that look like wings, evil flies down to her car. The boyfriend gets off the phone, the man in the car comes up to the girl. She's beaten, raped, sliced up into pieces. It's horrific, and beautifully filmed with lush contrast between an array of colors. This is the set up for what is essentially a revenge thriller as the boyfriend played by Byung-hun Lee stalks and tortures the killer of his pregnant girlfriend. It's thrilling. The action sequences are very well done, and the lush colors are omnipresent. The only cringe that comes about is not to the disgusting actions within the film, but the fact that the boyfriend allows them to keep happening so that he can keep torturing the killer (who is played by OLDBOY's Min-sik Choi). The film does become aware of this, but late in the film, which is 2 and a half hours long. The ending is great, and so is the beginning, but the middle is practically intermittently exciting and occasionally barf-bag warranting. I SAW THE DEVIL is a good film, but at a shorter, crisper length it could have been much better.
I Saw the Devil: ★★★

Fair Game

FAIR GAME tells a story that everyone should know about, but by that criteria alone it cannot be called a good film. Just because a film talks about some noble event or cause, that doesn't make it good. (See: FOOD, INC. or THE ART OF THE STEAL). FAIR GAME, however, not only uses the medium of film to bring to light things we would not have otherwise known about, but employs concealed truths within the midst of its obvious truths. The film tells the true story of Valerie Plame Wilson, who was a spy for the CIA and was outed by the Bush Administration in retaliation to her husband's public explanations of the in-congruency between his own report on nukes in Niger, and that same report that the admn. used to further fear for the Iraq war. The film does a good job in two fields. The first is that it shows the effect of the media upon this couple, and the hell they're put through. More importantly, it shows why Plame Wilson acts in one way and why her husband acts in another. A lot of the credit there goes to Sean Penn and Naomi Watts, who play the couple brilliantly, accurately, and smoothly (meaning, without chewing up scenery purposefully). They give in sincere performances. The second strength of the film is that it brings to light why Plame Wilson was outed, and gives a pretty clear reason for it. After her outing, the film smartly shows the repercussions of that action concerning other agents abroad, and a group of scientists who were supposed to be taken out of Iraq prior to the outing. A good film.
Fair Game: ★★★

Detour

DETOUR is a very good example of what a film noir is, and yet it is not a very good film. Characteristic of noir films, DETOUR has a down on his luck man (a musician in this case played by Tom Neal) who is chasing after a girl. However, things keep getting in his way, and because the film is told in flashback by the musician, we know at the beginning that this man is doomed. In gritty, striking black and white the musician traverses across the California desert for Hollywood and his girl, spouting sci-fi-esque musings about the nature of the world. These half-assed Chandler-esque sayings are part of DETOUR's slightness, but the troubles that befall the musician are even slight in their executions. The musician makes his way by hitchhiking and comes across, luckily, he presumes, a man named Haskell who's going the whole way. This turn of luck is not the good king, he finds out, as Haskell mysteriously dies on the way. The musician figures he'll be fingered for the crime, as he isn't the most credible source as a hitchhiker, so he throws the body in the bushes with his own ID, and assumes the identity of Haskell. However, in this brisk transformation, the musician comes across more bad luck in the form of Ann Savage, who takes advantage of the hold she has over the man pretending to be Haskell, and gets everyone into a whole lot of trouble. DETOUR, as I have mentioned, is slight. But it is nevertheless an entertaining B film. And a lot of its charm comes from its director: Edgar G. Ulmer, who made many low budget films back in the 40's and 50's.
Detour: ★★★

Little Odessa

The most recent two films (TWO LOVERS and WE OWN THE NIGHT) from James Gray showed how he was advancing as a filmmaker. TWO LOVERS was crisper than WE OWN THE NIGHT in its storyline, and even though both films are great, TWO LOVERS transcended whatever expectations there already were. LITTLE ODESSA (Gray's first film) shows how much he has progressed since then. The film tells of a young boy, about the age of all young boys in films, who hears his brother is back in town. The brother is a hit man, Josh, (Tim Roth) who was kicked out of the house for murdering someone. The kid is eager to meet up with Josh, because their mother is dying of cancer. Josh and the kid, it seems, were beaten on a regular basis by their father. The truly interesting part of this tale is the relationship between Josh and his father: that tension from unnamed events in the past. However, Gray's necessity in this film to fit everything he wanted to accomplish in makes for an unwieldy and awkward film. There are action and chase scenes, perhaps because he thought this would be his only film and he would have to fit them in somehow. When considered under specific scenes and camera movements, this would seem to be quite a good film, and it is truly well directed and acted. However, there is just so much going on in such a small grouping of events, that the film seems to take itself too seriously and accentuates itself by simply being and acting.
Little Odessa: ★★1/2

Unstoppable

Tony Scott is an underrated director, and here in UNSTOPPABLE he exhibits his knack for the action movie. There's a sort of 'fuck-you-this-is-what-an-action-movie-is' aspect to his film, while simultaneously utilizing relatively low-key action that reminds of Frankenheimer's build-ups, trains, and endings. In UNSTOPPABLE, Scott tells the true story of two railmen who saved a town from a runaway train with explosives aboard. The tale is quite remarkable, and exhibits real heros who acted based solely out of the goodness of their hearts and perhaps even a classic 'nothing-to-lose' aspect that cowboys had. Like men-of-war, they act abruptly and in awesome ways. Jumping from one train car to another while its going 75mph is quite a feat, and the film conveniently makes you feel as if you're watching the events unfold on television. A good tale, and, here, told well. Scott's use of subtle camera movements and brisk intercutting and shots allow for the film to have a specific, even tone. The characters are played by Denzel Washington (whose been in a few of Scott's other films) and Chris Pine. They bring an intimacy to the film, for their characters are real, problematic, courageous in spite of that, and finally buoyantly prodding each other throughout the film from frivolity to seriousness. UNSTOPPABLE is an excellent action film, even reminiscent of the low-key, one-note action of SPEED that allows for a marination of ideas and style within the film itself.
Unstoppable: ★★★1/2

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Narrated, written, and directed by auteur Werner Herzog, CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS has a specific tonality to it that is awe-stricken but fascinated. Accentuated by the excited, poetic voice of Herzog, a tale of impenetrable art is undertaken. Back in 1994, a cave in France was discovered by three explorers. It contained art that was around 30 to 40 thousand years old, the oldest art by humans that is known. It has been meticulously documented for scientific and art historians' use, but is closed to the public. Herzog was given permission to film the site, but was forced to walk in a two foot wide metal walkway, had limited lighting, and a limited crew. What has come out of that obstruction is in fact, a brilliantly filmed movie. It looks fantastic, and is spectral and ghostly as Herzog allows us to sit in awe of such incomprehensible footage. We hear from various scientists and speculators on what the art in the cave means. Why are the paintings like this, why are they like that. We hear of how they might have been ceremonial, and also hear quite a lot of interesting facts about the cave. Herzog's interests are expressed here in the form of a constricted view of something larger than himself. The most beautiful shot in the film is the outside of the cave where a large rock arch resides over a river. Later in the film, we see this shot again and hear the roaring of a miniature plane which Herzog has fashioned a camera to. As Herzog makes his own speculations, it is clear that he is attempting to penetrate and understand that which is impenetrable. At the end of the film, a strange scene is revealed that I would not spoil as it is so strange. However, the enigmatic nature of the film is accentuated by this final footnote, which is sublimely strange, but lies within the realm of what exists. Perhaps Herzog is suggesting that the strangeness of the world is an impenetrable existence, but we can just watch it and perhaps learn something interesting from it.
Cave of Forgotten Dreams: ★★★1/2

The Five Obstructions

THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS has a pretty cool concept. The general idea is that director Lars von Trier is forcing an old mentor, Jørgan Leth, to remake his 1967 short film THE PERFECT HUMAN five times with different obstructions. The first time Leth remakes it, he can only use very short shots, no longer than 12 frames, has to film in Cuba, and must not make a set. The second time he must make it in the worst place on earth but he can't show that place. The third time it must be however Leth wants to make it (which is a lot harder than it sounds). The fourth time he must make it as a cartoon. The fifth time is a suprise I would not spoil, but is quite anticlimactic when it is revealed. Although the shorts within THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS are quite good (the first in particular), the original short is shown in clips intermittently, and we never get a sense of what it was like. A better idea for this movie would have been to just have each short with a description on a DVD, or shown back to back. The scenes with Leth waking up in the middle of the night or just walking around are at about the same caliber of work as the pre-previews before a film at the movies. The fifth obstruction short-film even loses its power after we've seen all of these middle scenes with either Leth or Lars von Trier talking at length about nothing. It's boring. The shorts, however, aren't.
The Five Obstructions: ★★1/2

We Own the Night

Described in all the reviews I've read of it as: violent, bloody, gory; or simply just described by what its plot involves, WE OWN THE NIGHT is a film that is purely about ideas, and uses vessels like violence or brothers or family to present these ideas. Not only are all of its plot points played up in the reviews, but it seems as if those elements have dominated the perception of the film. For example, the film utilizes Russians as drug dealers, but the film is not about Russian drug dealers or the fights the cops get into with them. Rather, WE OWN THE NIGHT is about how a man's loyalties can change, and how violence can make a hell of a lot of sense. While simultaneously directing introspective performances from Joaquin Phoenix as the screw-up, but liberated child of a police officer, director James Gray also offers brilliant action sequences which are used with restrain, Robert Duvall and Mark Wahlberg as stoic cops, and striking imagery. Gray shows us Phoenix, who runs a club in Brooklyn, and looks the other way when drugs come into the club. His father (the chief of police) and brother (right hand man to the chief) bust into the club, and Phoenix is outraged that they have gone into his neck of the woods. When the guys he's been ignoring shoot his brother, a line is crossed, and the lethargic Phoenix becomes as determined as a gunslinger in an old western. Duvall plays the chief, and wants blood. The idea that cops just kill people because they're trigger-happy is a pervading idea in culture, but here James Gray shows how the chief of police wants blood because his territory has been breached. This film is primal, striking, and revelatory, great and profound.
We Own the Night: ★★★★

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

A man, a senator, a purported killer walks into an old western town. His hair is grayed, a woman is by his side, and a few people recognize him in the town. Rather than waiting around or making small talk, the man (James Stewart) walks to the mortuary to see the coffin of a dead friend. He is in this rustic, small town to see a coffin, and see it buried. He explains to a few men around him, press, what the man meant to him. The question the film poses is: why is this man, an esteemed senator, here to see an old gunslinger buried? The answer is so far from what is expected, that it doesn't even matter as director John Ford exemplifies different aspects of character and motivation. In flashback, Ford tells of how the young senator, then a lawyer, rode into town, was beaten by Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin), and thought he could lawyer the man into jail. John Wayne plays Tom, the man in the coffin at the beginning of the film, who looks over the lawyer. THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE is expertly crafted, reminiscent of CITIZEN KANE in where it ends up, but entrenched in the good gunfights, colorful characters, and playful humor of the classic western.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: ★★★★

Kick-Ass

Creating a world that completely adheres to every wish of its creator is a silly prospect. When comic-book films like THE DARK KNIGHT or SPIDER-MAN come out, there's always some ridiculous outcry from devoted fans of the comics who say that the film has forgotten some major aspect of the character. But in viewing a film like THE DARK KNIGHT, it would be ridiculous to try and adhere to every wish of the fans, because then the film would be just for the fans of the comics and for nobody else. This is what has happened in KICK-ASS. Every detail of the film has been over-scrutinyzed for the sake of the original graphic novel's fans. This film has everything I hate about comic book films: the nerdy geek who gets the really hot girl, the rock music placed at fight scenes, and the obligatory super-weapon that fucks up whoever you run into. In KICK-ASS, the beginning of the film is promising, where we are introduced to a nerdy high-schooler (Aaron Johnson) who, while contradicting himself in narration, wonders why no one has actually decided to dress up as a superhero and fight crime. When he tries this, his ass is inevitably kicked. But the real superheros are Nicholas Cage as Big Daddy and Chloe Moretz as his daughter, Hit Girl. Big Daddy is one hell of a fighter, and his scenes are the most satisfying in the film. But he has been training Moretz in an african-child-soldier fashion, and she is a brutal killer who only makes her audience wince when she says: cunt, or fuck in every other sentence. This 11-year-old killing machine is anything but empowering and seems just gratuitous to some misplaced moral idea within the heads of a comic book geek. Sure, this film is fantasy, but when your fantasy is cringe inducing and idea implanting, the fantasy becomes the reality. Besides that quibble, for Hit Girl is only a good third of the film, which would allow for the film to get a decent 2 1/2 stars, every other aspect of the film is gratuitously swayed to its fans. Consider rock music playing to slicing and dicing, killing people who surrender to you, killing someone who pissed off your girlfriend, the geek getting the girl, a bad script that is Bond-esque in its goofiness, and a slow middle. Not a good film
Kick-Ass: ★1/2

No Strings Attached

Most of the recent romantic comedies are pretty bad, and the ones that are good are far too referential of how culture has changed, and thus implants awkward lines of dialogue plowing home how we text and post on facebook within speech. GHOSTBUSTERS director Ivan Reitman has made a romantic comedy that fits into the latter description. With NO STRINGS ATTACHED he has created a film not only that kind of movie, but a good example of that movie, and why its good because its not the former description. For, despite how many annoying lines it has like that, or lines that plow home how women are now sexualized, the the film has a charm about it, and its pretty funny. The film stars Asthon Kutcher as Adam, who, since college, has had his eye on Emma (Natalie Portman). After years of just bumping into her, he ends up at her house naked and drunk one night, and the next morning they have sex. Adam is infatuated with Emma, but she's an aspiring doctor, and 'just wants someone in her bed at two in the morning who she doesn't have to lie to.' So, they become friends with benefits, and with such a modern-day practice, this is where Ivan Reitman (who is pretty old now) doesn't know how to seamlessly implant modern-day references without sounding like a bemused old man talking about how children use these strange iPods. As for the rest of the film, its done quite well, and even though we know where the film is going, the star power of Portman, and a surprisingly charming Kutcher create a compelling story. Greta Gerwig is also especially good as Portman's best friend who begins to have a relationship with Adam's best friend. In truth, watching a movie about these two characters would have been just as satisfying: and that's a good sign for a film's supporting characters. Kevin Kline awkwardly plays Kutcher's father, and that doesn't play well, because it's in the same vein as the cultural awareness that undermines itself by not being culturally aware. All in all, NO STRINGS ATTACHED is charming with good performances, and that's enough for a romantic comedy.

No Strings Attached: ★★★

House of Flying Daggers

Perhaps too reminiscent of CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, which came only four years before HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, and perhaps trying to hard to be profound in its close, HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS is nevertheless an extremely entertaining martial-arts film that is not just about martial arts. As fun as it is to watch Jet Li and Jackie Chan flip about, those films are too one-note, too orchestrated. HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS is surprising, lurid, violent, and devious. The plot is complicated: a blind girl who was working as a dancer at a brothel attempts to assassinate the captain of the corrupt Chinese dynasty. She is defeated by him, however, and ends up in jail, where she is rescued by a man who may or may not be on her side. The film likes to take us down many different paths that it suddenly refuses to finish by showing that what we have just seen wasn't how things were. There is romance, and there are scenes of devious trickery involving fake deaths and betrayal. These are all put around intermittent battle sequences that are reminiscent of the playfulness of CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, but rooted in more reality than that film. It would have been easy to create a stupid plot around this film, for the action sequences and the film's art production is what is most attractive, but the filmmakers created a complicated plot around what can be viewed as simply-executed action sequences. Meaning, CGI is easy to create if you know what you're doing with it, but deciding to create an exciting plot around exciting scenes is something rare. HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS is quite a good film.
House of Flying Daggers: ★★★1/2

Mother and Child

Through the first hour of MOTHER AND CHILD, I had my problems, but for the most part the film was eerily charming despite these problems. The film is about mothers and their children, and yet its so unconventional and manipulative, that its impossible to like. It attempts to be profound, and is profoundly revealing about how bad it is. In the film, everyone is connected through an adoption agency. There is an older women named Karen, who, when she was 14, had a child and left it up for adoption. Karen is a bitch, and Annette Bening plays the part well. (Actually, everyone in this film plays their part well). Karen is cruel and demanding to the point of being demented. But she ends up meeting a kind man her age at work. He's an extremely likeable man, like all of the men in this film. But why would he ever like Karen? As the film progresses in Karen's storyline, she is softened by this man, but her transformation is unbelievable, and the film's gestures are so obvious and inane, that she is ultimately an unbelievable character. Then, there's Elizabeth (the wonderful Naomi Watts). She is Karen's daughter, went through hell in foster homes, and turned out to be an extremely independent, but ultimately cruel and selfish, lawyer. She has an affair with her boss (a kind Samuel L. Jackson) while also screwing her married neighbor. Turns out she's pregnant, and not knowing whether her baby is the boss' or the neighbor's, she flees. At her new home, the film exhibits its stupidity with scenes where a blind girl explains that her mother is always frightened for her safety, but she delivers this speech on the roof of an apartment building. Lastly, there's Lucy (Kerry Washington), who is trying to adopt a boy from a crude mother who wants to get the life-tour of the adopting parents. The routes the film takes from there I will not spoil, but christ are they manipulative. Every character we hate, and then they meet hateful people who do hateful things to them. We're supposed to sympathize, don't, and then film compromises with a death or interconnecting these stories. Arcs are fine in films, but the arcs here are ridiculous. This is a bad film with actors who deserved better for their fine work. There are so many scenes that are so frustrating because of how they were written and directed, that actually, these scenes make up just about the entire film.
Mother and Child: ★★

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

McCABE & MRS. MILLER is a film about tone and feel, more than it is about being committed to genre or dialogue. It was directed by Robert Altman, and released in 1971. It's one of Altman's earlier pictures, and yet it feels as if it were a film he was working towards his whole life. It's so defined, so perfect in all of its movements, and feels spontaneous. Altman called it his "anti-western" because he wanted to keep away from all of the usual western movie clichés. The film stars Warren Beatty as McCabe. He's aggressive, possibly an old gunslinger, but now he's trying to make his way in a small Northwestern town where it's always snowing or overcast. He's as unclear as the images, which are gritty, striking, and have the look of "noise" regarding sound. Sometimes when McCabe speaks, you can't tell what he's even saying, as if his words couldn't get past his beard. This could be taken as a fault, but its actually a strength. It reflects the world within the character, and emphasizes that McCabe's actions, his movements are what is important. McCabe makes a name for himself, sets up a saloon that acts as a whorehouse, gets a few whores, and goes steady for a while. Then, Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie) shows up, tells McCabe she knows the business better than him, and they end up working together. This is a depressing film. As McCabe & Mrs. Miller work together as a business rather than lovers, we see a respect that is as deep as love. McCabe is not a smart man, and Mrs. Miller can't do much to help that. This leads to an inevitable fate, which is handled wonderfully. McCABE & MRS. MILLER works as a great western, despite not wanting to be that.
McCabe & Mrs. Miller: ★★★★

Wristcutters: A Love Story

This film has a great premise and not enough intelligence to follow through with it. I'm unsure as to whether I'm being too hard on it because I wanted it to be something else, and it was what it was despite that. The general premise is that when you commit suicide you go to a limbo-esque world where everything blows in a quasi-suckish way: things break down, people are unable to smile. The premise is upheld through Zia (Patrick Fugit of ALMOST FAMOUS), who has slit his wrists and has been living in this limbo-world for a few months. He killed himself because he wanted to show his ex-girlfriend how much she hurt him, but instead of ending everything, he started everything: living in misery and apparently setting off a few more suicides. Here lies two problems with the film. 1) It creates this other world without explaining any logistics. Is it so much worse that a slum in Africa? Why do people work when they're dead anyway? How do they sleep? Why hasn't anyone tried to kill themselves again? This is where the film exhibits how it isn't intelligent. It doesn't take advantage of its premise and uses ugly coloring to create an uninteresting parallel world. Problem 2) Everyone has killed themselves to stick it to someone still living, but then they get it stuck to them because they don't get to die. How is that moralistically teaching anyone anything? The strength of WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY is its characters and how appealing they are. Zia meets a couple of friends on his quasi-road trip, and they make the movie with smart exchanges and dreamy musings about the world. I couldn't get past its primal problems, but WRISTCUTTERS: A LOVE STORY is a decent film that never took any obvious missteps except that it didn't go far enough. Were they afraid? Is this a one-joke, one-line film?
Wristcutters: A Love Story: ★★1/2

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN is a good film. It's a farce, and it's a lot more appealing/charming than most of director Pedro Almodóvar's other films. Those films try to convince us of certain facts, and bring attention to themselves in strange ways like lingering on cleavage to say that women have rights or a ubiquity of whores and transvestites. WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN is only concerned with its silly story, and a buried feeling of superstition. It's funny in ways that are held out for long moments, and it is as wonderfully colored as all of the Almodóvar films. In WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN, the director introduces a cast of characters who all have strange occupations, like voice dubbing, and do strange things, like dating shiite terrorists. As the film progresses, the lead, is dumped by her boyfriend Iván, and she wallows in gazpatcho and her apartment. When she has friends over, however, she learns of a plot to kill Iván and rushes to his rescue as best she can. This is all pretty funny, well shot, and cleanly acted. The only problem with the film lies in its gestures that are obviously bringing importance or self-awareness that the film doesn't require to the forefront. For example, when our lead feels that her life is in the dumps, she burns part of her apartment. There are smaller gestures like this throughout, and that drags the film down, along with it being perhaps too farfetched.
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown: ★★★

Shotgun Stories

SHOTGUN STORIES begins with cinematic music in an un-cinematic setting. Sure, there are striking images throughout, and occasional lingering upon images to provide a sense of place, but for the most part, SHOTGUN STORIES is not a cinematic film. I should say, it does not call to attention that it is a portion of the cinema. Only its music does this, coming in between scenes, and then fading away to let the action happen. The film, made on a shoestring budget, concerns two groups of feuding sons of the same father. This father was a drunk, and married a "hateful woman." With her he had three sons whom he named: Son, Kid, and Boy. Then, he walked out on them. Apparently though, the father cleaned up his act, remarried and had a second group of sons who only share the last name Hayes with the neglected sons. Son Hayes (Michael Shannon) is the rock of his side of the family, looking after Kid and Boy, both of whom don't do much except drink beer on porches, sit by the river, and watch life go by. What's interesting here is that although the second group of sons had a steady-going father, they are no less trashy than the first set. When the father dies, and Son talks hatefully of him at the funeral, the hatred that has been welling up in the neglected sons' heads comes out, and the second set of sons fight back for their fathers memory. From that point onward, there is a feud. It's ugly and realistic in the way it unfolds. What makes SHOTGUN STORIES so great though, is not its striking imagery, storyline, budget woes, or music, but the way the actors work. Everyone is so matter-of-fact and in-urgent despite the presence of urgency that we see the way a group of people act, and why.
Shotgun Stories: ★★★1/2

The Exterminating Angel

Luis Buñuel is a surrealist filmmaker. This is hard to accomplish within the realm of film, for many gestures can be taken as wanton or purposeful ones. But when Buñuel tells his story in THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL, things fall into place seamlessly. He begins with a party. The servants are strangely leaving, they all have different reasons, none of which are very convincing. All they know is that they must leave. The guest arrive. They actually arrive twice, once from a low angle shot, the second time from a high angle shot. Nevertheless, despite these strange beginnings, the party goes well, and far into the night. A woman plays the piano, people gossip, and by the time its around 5am, everyone just stays the night. However, when the morning comes, small groups of people begin to discuss why no one has made any attempt to leave the room. As this realization becomes apparent within the group as a whole, they panic. There is no explanation for why no one can leave. And no one can get inside the house as well. "We sent soldiers in around 6PM and now they're back at home enjoying a drink". "They never really tried to get in." Buñuel handles the material well, his actors are intense and focused, plotting and complex. But despite their schemes, the simple answer to their predicament would be to just walk out the front door. They are not able. I do not know what Buñuel's statement here is. It is clear that he believes that in confined, claustrophobic spaces, people become savage. But why can the guests not leave? Why are they stuck? My theory is that this is a statement on complacency or perhaps even on laziness. Are they not convicted enough? Do they think they will be saved, and thus wait? Either way, Buñuel's surreal film is wonderfully crafted, and a joy to be puzzled with.
The Exterminating Angel: ★★★★

A Nightmare on Elm Street

I've seen every Nightmare on Elm Street movie. This is the worst. The story is over-familiar. A dead man comes back for revenge on parents who killed him years ago, and decides to kill their teenaged kids. His name is Freddy Kreuger, he has a theme song, and he kills people with razor sharp knifes on a leather glove. In this version, when people die, no one cares. Everyone looks out for themselves. Also, a terrible event transpired years ago, where Freddy, then a gardener, had a great relationship with all the kids. Unfortunately, Freddy (played in this version by Jackie Earle Haley instead of the usual Robert Englund) molested all of these kids. As teenagers, not only do they not remember what happened back in preschool, but they don't remember they all went to school together. Not only is this hard to believe, but so is the stupidity of everyone in the film. Everyone uses tired lines like "We have to do something!" or the ever-present "Just don't fall asleep!" This NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is sick and gross. Everyone dies as if they were being crossed out on a list, and the film is so inane, that that is what is actually happening. Not only are the nightmares not even happening on Elm Street, but Freddy Kreuger ends up looking like a retarded, alien, snake. Even by a schlock standard, no one in the film is interesting, and their kills are boring. We learn about twenty minutes into the film, that after seventy-two hours of being awake, we start dreaming while we're awake, and then we go into a coma and die anyway. Basically, there's nothing anyone can do in the film, except wait for their turn to be killed. A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is stupid and dumb, sick and actually pretty boring. It's impossible to care.
A Nightmare on Elm Street: ★

Closer

Mike Nichols' film CLOSER is about four people whom you would never want to meet. There's Dan (Jude Law) who writes the obituaries of people who are still alive, Alice (Natalie Portman) who's a stripper, Anna (Julia Roberts) a professional photographer, and Larry (Clive Owen) a dermatologist. Dan has just written a book, and he's being photographed for the jacket by Anna. He starts to play with her though, teasing her, seducing her. They kiss, and the devious Dan brings his girlfriend Alice into the room, asking if Anna will photograph her. From this point, the lives of these characters are intermingled, and the dermatologist, Larry comes into the picture when he meets Anna at an aquarium. Everyone in the film wants to have sex with each other, and they use a million different key words of seduction to convince each other that they love them. The film spans years, and as we delve deeper into each character's shady lives, we see that they are all detestable people: crude, but smart. The last two adjectives could also describe this entire film, and at one point, the characters began to seem ridiculous and idealistic to portray a cultural degeneration. This is Nichols' miscalculation. For his character are all so well played that they should have been able to speak for themselves. CLOSER is still an entertaining film, but it is not as profound as it thinks it is. The entertainment value and the strong performances outweigh whatever delusions it has, and it ends up being a pretty good fantasy film, exhibiting the different sides of a kinky-sex that people would like to think of.

Closer: ★★★

True Heart Susie

TRUE HEART SUSIE begins with a feminist titlecard, warning us of the few rights we give to women. The film was made in 1919, when such issues were pertinent, and yet the human story of D.W. Griffith's silent film: TRUE HEART SUSIE seems just as real. Susie is in love with William, and under Griffith's ease with the camera in brilliant yellow and blue tones, we revel in their love. William looks kind of goofy, and Susie (Lillian Gish) is described as merely a "plain girl". Susie won't marry an uneducated man, and William is too poor to pay for college. Susie thus makes a sacrifice unbeknownst to William, and sells her best friend, a cow for money. Susie and her mother look sadly upon the departing cow, and the true of heart Susie begs the man to consider her "part of the family." William goes to college, and when he returns, he appears manly: with his hair back and a dashing mustache. Susie discovers that by sending William to college, that she herself is now beneath him. William is an educated minister now, and she is just a plain girl. William marries Bettina, a party-girl, and Susie is devastated in real scenes that show her screwed up face or her stoic stare. I love TRUE HEART SUSIE. It was a great film experience in its intelligence and ease. I think the film is more than a feminist statement, and undeserving of the term "you have to see this" when its delivered to a feminist. You have to see this, because it is about people and how they act. It's political, romantic, beautiful, transcendent, creative.
True Heart Susie: ★★★★

Me and Orson Welles

The travel-minded director Richard Linklater has made what could have been weak and phony, a wonderful film. ME AND ORSON WELLES is not so unlike his earlier films which transport us to a place and time and watch its characters move around that place and time. But in ME AND ORSON WELLES we inhabit the 1930's with more of an idea than a genuine feel. Injections of swing music, omnipresent hats and trenchcoats and the word: swell, only make us begin to believe in the place and time. But RL's injection of Christian McKay as the genius Orson Welles is what makes his film great. It often plays like an inspirational schoolboy drama, with the dreamy-eyed Zac Efron as a young actor basking in the creative light of Welles. Even events and sayings within the film play as if it belongs in TO SIR, WITH LOVE or some british boarding house drama. But Christian McKay and how RL directs him is so perfect that we believe or even want to believe that this is how Welles was. He gets the voice perfectly, but doesn't make a show of it. ME AND ORSON WELLES is a wonderfully directed and acted film.
Me and Orson Welles: ★★★★