This movie has received some buzz, mostly surrounding the starring performance of Carey Mulligan. She is excellent and will make a run at an Oscar. The rest of the movie was rather disappointing.
Its a familiar tale, at least all the usually mile-markers are there. A coming of age private-school lass with an overbearing father who has mapped out her life, at least as far as Oxford. She meets an intriguing, older gentleman who shows her the culture, night-life, and sophistication she has longed for but never experienced under her father's austere yoke. She is forced to make a choice between following the academic path of her unmarried and uninspiring teacher and headmistress, or live a life of fancy with an intelligent and sophisticated man, whose occupation is lucrative but morally dubious. She chooses the man, who fails her. And in the last five minutes she is redeemed.
Carey Mulligan is fantastic, and an Oscar would not be undeserved. Alfred Molina is typically good as her father. Peter Saarsgaard brings his convincing charm. Rosamund Pike stands out comedically as the lively and unabashedly dimwitted model of what Mulligan's character might become. The performances are the filet of the movie, such as it is.
While on the surface, this is the story of a young woman experiencing the caprice of youth, the moral implications are somewhat troubling. Mulligan makes what could be a life altering decision to marry Saarsgaard and the decision blows up in her face. Yet she still makes it to Oxford, where she was bound all along. The film is based on a memoir (adapted by producer Nick Hornby), so it would be hard to call this arc unauthentic, but it is certainly unrealistic to this reviewer. As an inspiration for youth, a movie such as Rushmore (both, coincidentally, featuring Olivia Williams) offers more encouragement that paths ultimately lead to the right place, even if it is seldom where you want or expect them to lead.
I would be contented with this middle-of-the-road movie, but then it ended. And it ended with a completely unfounded use of later-in-life narration that is truly stomach turning and rather dismissive of the preceding film. Surely there must have been a better way, but this film from start to finish is marked with a remarkable lack of inspiration from everyone who was not on the business end of the camera lens.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Top Albums of the Double-Aughts
I will preface this Top Ten list by saying that "top" probably doesn't really apply. I am not trying to make an argument that these are the ten best albums of the decade from some kind of detached aesthetic perspective. These are my favorite ten albums of the decade - although I find the top five or six pretty unassailable - for any white suburban males. So don't try to argue with me. Suggestions are welcome. The only other caveat is no repeat artists.
1. The Strokes, Is This It
2. Sufjan Stevens, Illinois
3. The Secret Machines, Now Here is Nowhere
4. The Arcade Fire, Funeral
5. The White Stripes, Elephant
6. Kings of Leon, Aha Shake Heartbreak
7. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Shake The Sheets
8. Brighteyes, I'm Wide Awake It's Morning
9. The Faint, Wet From Birth
10. The Sounds, Living In America
Honorable Mentions: The Walkmen - Bows and Arrows, Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare, Bruce Springsteen - We Shall Overcome, Beck - The Information, Radiohead - In Rainbows, Built To Spill - You In Reverse, Doves - Some Cities, The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium, The Stills - Logic Will Break Your Heart, Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones, The Black Keys - Rubber Factory, The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights, Feist, The Reminder
1. The Strokes, Is This It
2. Sufjan Stevens, Illinois
3. The Secret Machines, Now Here is Nowhere
4. The Arcade Fire, Funeral
5. The White Stripes, Elephant
6. Kings of Leon, Aha Shake Heartbreak
7. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Shake The Sheets
8. Brighteyes, I'm Wide Awake It's Morning
9. The Faint, Wet From Birth
10. The Sounds, Living In America
Honorable Mentions: The Walkmen - Bows and Arrows, Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare, Bruce Springsteen - We Shall Overcome, Beck - The Information, Radiohead - In Rainbows, Built To Spill - You In Reverse, Doves - Some Cities, The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium, The Stills - Logic Will Break Your Heart, Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones, The Black Keys - Rubber Factory, The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights, Feist, The Reminder
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Top Films of the Double-Aughts
My only rule is no repeat directors. I have a separate honorable mention category for runner-up films by directors in the top 10 and other movies that just barely missed the cut.
1. There Will Be Blood - Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Driven by Daniel Day Lewis, in a performance for the ages, this movie will remain supremely captivating for many decades to come.
2. The Squid and The Whale - Directed by Noah Bombach
A most unlikely comedy with consistently spectacular performances, beautifully composed by Bombach from events in his own childhood.
3. Children of Men - Directed by Aflonso Cuaron
A bold futuristic portrait of mankind at its lowest point that somehow manages to grasp some hope. Breathtaking direction and photography.
4. Inglourious Basterds - Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Tarantino raises the bar for World War II films to astounding new heights. It crackles and pops from beginning to end. Christoph Waltz is brilliant.
5. Traffic - Directed by Steven Soderbergh
An extremely innovative and riveting portrait of drugs, family, and crime in America. A great story with a unique visual flare.
6. Matchpoint - Directed by Woody Allen
A grand tragedy with little of Allen's characteristic humor yet all of his wit. Scarlett Johansen sizzles and the story is a classic that Shakespeare would envy.
7. Sexy Beast - Directed by Jonathan Glazer
A more personal crime thriller that doesn't sacrifice any exhilaration. Ben Kingsley will floor you and leave you chuckling as well.
8. A Christmas Tale - Directed by Arnaud Desplechin
A beautiful portrait of a fascinatingly unique family that touches on the intricacies of any family tree. The characters' relationship drive the narrative with their gravitational pulls.
9. Lost in Translation - Directed by Sophia Coppola
Post-modern bliss.
10. In the Bedroom - Directed by Todd Field
Tragically beautiful performances by Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek.
Honorable mentions: City of God, Memento, Idiocracy, Sideways, I (Heart) Huckabees, Closer, Brokeback Mountain, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Pianist, Babel, Pan's Labyrinth, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, No Country For Old Men, Punch Drunk Love, Kill Bill, Little Children, The Constant Gardner, Apocalypto, Bad Santa, Adaptation, The Door In The Floor, Y Tu Mama Tambien, The New World, The 25th Hour, 21 Grams
1. There Will Be Blood - Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Driven by Daniel Day Lewis, in a performance for the ages, this movie will remain supremely captivating for many decades to come.
2. The Squid and The Whale - Directed by Noah Bombach
A most unlikely comedy with consistently spectacular performances, beautifully composed by Bombach from events in his own childhood.
3. Children of Men - Directed by Aflonso Cuaron
A bold futuristic portrait of mankind at its lowest point that somehow manages to grasp some hope. Breathtaking direction and photography.
4. Inglourious Basterds - Directed by Quentin Tarantino
Tarantino raises the bar for World War II films to astounding new heights. It crackles and pops from beginning to end. Christoph Waltz is brilliant.
5. Traffic - Directed by Steven Soderbergh
An extremely innovative and riveting portrait of drugs, family, and crime in America. A great story with a unique visual flare.
6. Matchpoint - Directed by Woody Allen
A grand tragedy with little of Allen's characteristic humor yet all of his wit. Scarlett Johansen sizzles and the story is a classic that Shakespeare would envy.
7. Sexy Beast - Directed by Jonathan Glazer
A more personal crime thriller that doesn't sacrifice any exhilaration. Ben Kingsley will floor you and leave you chuckling as well.
8. A Christmas Tale - Directed by Arnaud Desplechin
A beautiful portrait of a fascinatingly unique family that touches on the intricacies of any family tree. The characters' relationship drive the narrative with their gravitational pulls.
9. Lost in Translation - Directed by Sophia Coppola
Post-modern bliss.
10. In the Bedroom - Directed by Todd Field
Tragically beautiful performances by Tom Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek.
Honorable mentions: City of God, Memento, Idiocracy, Sideways, I (Heart) Huckabees, Closer, Brokeback Mountain, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Pianist, Babel, Pan's Labyrinth, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, No Country For Old Men, Punch Drunk Love, Kill Bill, Little Children, The Constant Gardner, Apocalypto, Bad Santa, Adaptation, The Door In The Floor, Y Tu Mama Tambien, The New World, The 25th Hour, 21 Grams
Saturday, October 3, 2009
My Dinner With Andre
This movie has a reputation that precedes it. It is, in fact, a movie that consists almost entirely of a conversation between two people over dinner. You might think there isn't much to say about this movie: false.
My Dinner With Andre is a tame sort of experimental film in that way. I liken it to the Dada art movement in Europe following World War I, which challenged the very nature of art itself. This movie explores the boundaries of the definition of film to an extent. The two stars (Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory) each wrote their own dialogue and play characters with their own names. So, if they wrote their own lines and play themselves, are they really acting? And if the answer is no, is this really a film? This is what the movie is about actually.
Wallace (Wally) and Andre have not seen each other in several years, and during that time Andre has been on a series of journeys trying to rediscover himself and regain touch with reality. Wally has meanwhile been a struggling playwrite and actor, consumed with much more tangible aspects of reality. Andre imparts his disaffection with state of humanity while unconsciously revealing that he not only has the metaphysical wherewithal to take on a wild pan-spiritual journey, but the economic security to do so. Wally agrees about the sad degeneration of human relationships and social disaffection, but confesses that he has too many practical concerns and too many simple pleasures to let these issues consume his conscious.
The breakdown between the two characters is best summarized by their respective attitude towards the electric blanket. Wally relates how his new electric blanket is such a wonderful thing, a marvel in modern comfort. Andre responds that he would never use one; because it would separate him from the cold, anesthetisizing himself from it. By hiding in the comfort he would not be forced to imagine how cold and uncomfortable others are, thus separating himself from his fellow man. Wally responds that it gets cold, and life is full of so many difficulties, why should one thing of comfort be a bad thing? This conversation reveals that Andre has the luxury to reject comfort, while for Wally comfort is a luxury.
My Dinner With Andre touches on the relationships among wealth, art, and identity in very subtle ways. I come away with an intense disdain for Andre, who lauds his bizarre artistic exploits as only an elitist snob can. In all his searches for himself and his attempts to rediscover the essential in humanity, all he has accomplished is a wildly overinflated sense of his own experiences and a vast distancing of himself from humanity. Wallace is more likable, but also pathetic in his own right. He simultaneously bemoans and validates his life as a starving artist, happily relegating himself to a life of quaint comforts.
I have to give director Louis Malle some credit for remaining true to the nature of this film while attempting to give it some visual variety. That being said, I fell asleep while watching this movie the first time. I was watching it while sitting in bed at night, but that is what it is.
My Dinner With Andre is a tame sort of experimental film in that way. I liken it to the Dada art movement in Europe following World War I, which challenged the very nature of art itself. This movie explores the boundaries of the definition of film to an extent. The two stars (Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory) each wrote their own dialogue and play characters with their own names. So, if they wrote their own lines and play themselves, are they really acting? And if the answer is no, is this really a film? This is what the movie is about actually.
Wallace (Wally) and Andre have not seen each other in several years, and during that time Andre has been on a series of journeys trying to rediscover himself and regain touch with reality. Wally has meanwhile been a struggling playwrite and actor, consumed with much more tangible aspects of reality. Andre imparts his disaffection with state of humanity while unconsciously revealing that he not only has the metaphysical wherewithal to take on a wild pan-spiritual journey, but the economic security to do so. Wally agrees about the sad degeneration of human relationships and social disaffection, but confesses that he has too many practical concerns and too many simple pleasures to let these issues consume his conscious.
The breakdown between the two characters is best summarized by their respective attitude towards the electric blanket. Wally relates how his new electric blanket is such a wonderful thing, a marvel in modern comfort. Andre responds that he would never use one; because it would separate him from the cold, anesthetisizing himself from it. By hiding in the comfort he would not be forced to imagine how cold and uncomfortable others are, thus separating himself from his fellow man. Wally responds that it gets cold, and life is full of so many difficulties, why should one thing of comfort be a bad thing? This conversation reveals that Andre has the luxury to reject comfort, while for Wally comfort is a luxury.
My Dinner With Andre touches on the relationships among wealth, art, and identity in very subtle ways. I come away with an intense disdain for Andre, who lauds his bizarre artistic exploits as only an elitist snob can. In all his searches for himself and his attempts to rediscover the essential in humanity, all he has accomplished is a wildly overinflated sense of his own experiences and a vast distancing of himself from humanity. Wallace is more likable, but also pathetic in his own right. He simultaneously bemoans and validates his life as a starving artist, happily relegating himself to a life of quaint comforts.
I have to give director Louis Malle some credit for remaining true to the nature of this film while attempting to give it some visual variety. That being said, I fell asleep while watching this movie the first time. I was watching it while sitting in bed at night, but that is what it is.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
DJ Railsplitter's Not Top Ten Movies
I my last post I mentioned that El Topo was not the worst movie I have ever seen. So, to give that statement a little more definition, here are the ten worst movies that I have seen, in no particular order.
Walking Tall -- the original -- the remake could not be any worse
Tremors 2 -- never seen Tremors 3, but I hear its pretty bad
Action Jackson -- this movie is so bad, but it is hysterical without meaning to be
Money Train -- again, funny in all the ways it tries not to be. Featuring Academy Award winner Chris Cooper in a truly baffling role. Also Robert Blake is gut-wrenchingly funny.
Sleepless in Seattle -- I don't know how this movie was such a success, fucking 90s
Boondock Saints -- most . . . overrated . . . movie . . . ever
Smokin' Aces -- could have been cool, but fails epically
Gods and Generals -- over 500 speaking parts, and one of them is Ted Turner
Notting Hill -- vomit
Grand Canyon -- painful bloody vomit. A strange circumstance has forced me to watch this movie repeatedly and I cannot say enough bad things about it.
Honorable Mention: Free Jack, The Hills Have Eyes (remake), Tango and Cash, Sharky's Machine, Rambo, Pearl Harbor, Legally Blond, The Ring
What did I miss?
Walking Tall -- the original -- the remake could not be any worse
Tremors 2 -- never seen Tremors 3, but I hear its pretty bad
Action Jackson -- this movie is so bad, but it is hysterical without meaning to be
Money Train -- again, funny in all the ways it tries not to be. Featuring Academy Award winner Chris Cooper in a truly baffling role. Also Robert Blake is gut-wrenchingly funny.
Sleepless in Seattle -- I don't know how this movie was such a success, fucking 90s
Boondock Saints -- most . . . overrated . . . movie . . . ever
Smokin' Aces -- could have been cool, but fails epically
Gods and Generals -- over 500 speaking parts, and one of them is Ted Turner
Notting Hill -- vomit
Grand Canyon -- painful bloody vomit. A strange circumstance has forced me to watch this movie repeatedly and I cannot say enough bad things about it.
Honorable Mention: Free Jack, The Hills Have Eyes (remake), Tango and Cash, Sharky's Machine, Rambo, Pearl Harbor, Legally Blond, The Ring
What did I miss?
El Topo
1970
This movie has it all.
Love, heartbreak, redemption, an armless man and a legless man harnessed together and acting in concert, a lion, a disemboweled horse, a pile of spontaneously combusting dead rabbits, male nudity, female nudity, female midget nudity, voyeuristic public castration, violence, homosexuality, a naked child putting a dying man out of his misery with his father's pistol, weird costumes, some weird sex scenes, gross old women in lingerie, a soundtrack that is ironic at best, Russian roulette, and a race of subterranian deformed inbreds longing to reach the surface only to be slaughtered by weird townsfolk who are then slaughtered by El Topo who then kills himself by dousing himself in kerosene and setting himself on fire.
The weirdest movie that I have ever seen, but far from the worst.
The allegory of a principled, talented, and shockingly insane person.
Costume design, production design, screenplay, score, and direction by Alejandro Jodorowsky. He also plays the starring role, that of El Topo. I would not want to be stuck on an elevator with him.
Also John Lennon was a big fan. That is all.
This movie has it all.
Love, heartbreak, redemption, an armless man and a legless man harnessed together and acting in concert, a lion, a disemboweled horse, a pile of spontaneously combusting dead rabbits, male nudity, female nudity, female midget nudity, voyeuristic public castration, violence, homosexuality, a naked child putting a dying man out of his misery with his father's pistol, weird costumes, some weird sex scenes, gross old women in lingerie, a soundtrack that is ironic at best, Russian roulette, and a race of subterranian deformed inbreds longing to reach the surface only to be slaughtered by weird townsfolk who are then slaughtered by El Topo who then kills himself by dousing himself in kerosene and setting himself on fire.
The weirdest movie that I have ever seen, but far from the worst.
The allegory of a principled, talented, and shockingly insane person.
Costume design, production design, screenplay, score, and direction by Alejandro Jodorowsky. He also plays the starring role, that of El Topo. I would not want to be stuck on an elevator with him.
Also John Lennon was a big fan. That is all.
Friday, September 25, 2009
The Passenger
Another dense masterpiece from Michelangelo Antonioni, The Passenger follows a man who tries to rediscover himself by running away from everything he has ever known. David Locke (Jack Nicholson) fakes his own death by trading identities with a dead man, unwittingly involving himself in the dead man's dangerous intrigues. He soon finds himself running away from the man he once was and grappling with the person he has become. He meets a free-thinking, libertine woman (the always beautiful and captivating Maria Schneider) and they go on a journey that is part holiday and part getaway.
The Passenger is almost a thriller, not quite a love story, but it is primarily a study the nature of self, identity and ones relationship with others in the abstract. Locke's personal and legal rejection of everything that makes him David Locke changes the way he relates to everything and everyone around him. He adopts the dead man's persona, but never truly embraces it: so who is he really? During the course of the movie he defines himself more in terms of what he rejects (and flees) than what he espouses. His relationship with Schneider's character (significantly we never learn her name) is indissoluble and fleeting at the same time; their conversations are abstract existential musings. They never know each other, and in a sense neither are knowable. Watch: draw your own conclusions, please.
A word about Jack. I feel as though his most well-know, defining roles (One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, The Shining, Chinatown, to an extent, and others) are portrayed as vibrant dynamos, characters that truly burst off the screen. He certainly is a brilliant and dynamic actor, and fantastic in those movies. In The Passenger his character, by its very nature, will not grab you like many of his other roles -- but he is great. His lesser roles (lesser by virtue of prominence, not quality) are often of a more subdued nature, which is something I have only learned in the last year or so. I would recommend The King of Marvin Gardens and highly recommend Five Easy Pieces as good movies and another side of Jack. OK, back to The Passenger.
An Antonioni movie with a plot! The first such movie that I have seen from him, which is not a knock on the other two in any way. He achieves a striking balance between the world of Nicholson and Schneider and everyone else who is being themselves, playing the parts they have cultivated their whole lives. The opening scenes in the Sahara Desert are disorienting, brilliantly so for the opening of this movie. He makes very limited use of flashbacks, accenting rather than driving the narrative and characterization in interesting ways. The photography is, of course, brilliant. It was shot by Luciano Tovoli (god damn those Italians really have a knack for beautiful composition). I have two favorite shots. while driving down a tree-lined Spanish road, Schneider asks Jack what he is trying to get away from, Jack replies "Face the back of the car," which she does, and as she looks at everything behind them from the back seat while the car flies forward the camera catches her from below, we see only her erect figure set against the canopy rushing by overhead. Description does not do justice. The penultimate shot is sublime, and I am not quite sure how they did it; it defies description. No one knows how to end a movie like Antonioni.
The Passenger manages to be both artistic and captivating, abstract yet grounded. The plot and the point reinforce each other throughout, cemented by flawless direction. Of the Antonioni movies that I have seen, Blow Up and Zabriskie Point, being the others, I would recommend this for a first Antonioni movie. It unmistakably bears his touch but it is much more accessible than the other two. So watch this first and hopefully it won't be your last.
The Passenger is almost a thriller, not quite a love story, but it is primarily a study the nature of self, identity and ones relationship with others in the abstract. Locke's personal and legal rejection of everything that makes him David Locke changes the way he relates to everything and everyone around him. He adopts the dead man's persona, but never truly embraces it: so who is he really? During the course of the movie he defines himself more in terms of what he rejects (and flees) than what he espouses. His relationship with Schneider's character (significantly we never learn her name) is indissoluble and fleeting at the same time; their conversations are abstract existential musings. They never know each other, and in a sense neither are knowable. Watch: draw your own conclusions, please.
A word about Jack. I feel as though his most well-know, defining roles (One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest, The Shining, Chinatown, to an extent, and others) are portrayed as vibrant dynamos, characters that truly burst off the screen. He certainly is a brilliant and dynamic actor, and fantastic in those movies. In The Passenger his character, by its very nature, will not grab you like many of his other roles -- but he is great. His lesser roles (lesser by virtue of prominence, not quality) are often of a more subdued nature, which is something I have only learned in the last year or so. I would recommend The King of Marvin Gardens and highly recommend Five Easy Pieces as good movies and another side of Jack. OK, back to The Passenger.
An Antonioni movie with a plot! The first such movie that I have seen from him, which is not a knock on the other two in any way. He achieves a striking balance between the world of Nicholson and Schneider and everyone else who is being themselves, playing the parts they have cultivated their whole lives. The opening scenes in the Sahara Desert are disorienting, brilliantly so for the opening of this movie. He makes very limited use of flashbacks, accenting rather than driving the narrative and characterization in interesting ways. The photography is, of course, brilliant. It was shot by Luciano Tovoli (god damn those Italians really have a knack for beautiful composition). I have two favorite shots. while driving down a tree-lined Spanish road, Schneider asks Jack what he is trying to get away from, Jack replies "Face the back of the car," which she does, and as she looks at everything behind them from the back seat while the car flies forward the camera catches her from below, we see only her erect figure set against the canopy rushing by overhead. Description does not do justice. The penultimate shot is sublime, and I am not quite sure how they did it; it defies description. No one knows how to end a movie like Antonioni.
The Passenger manages to be both artistic and captivating, abstract yet grounded. The plot and the point reinforce each other throughout, cemented by flawless direction. Of the Antonioni movies that I have seen, Blow Up and Zabriskie Point, being the others, I would recommend this for a first Antonioni movie. It unmistakably bears his touch but it is much more accessible than the other two. So watch this first and hopefully it won't be your last.
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