The main gimmick of this movie is the narrator, who maintains his kind of breathy 1950's "Aw shucks" attitude throughout the whole film, even while the story is at its darkest noir moments. It really holds up pretty well as a device, giving the movie a tone that I don't think I've seen in any other movie. The closest thing I could think of would be the scenes from Natural Born Killers with the laugh-track and Rodney Dangerfield, but this is so so much better than that. I think Stone was pretty much mocking the sit-com tone in those scenes (it's been such a long time since I saw that movie), but I don't think Dassin was strictly going after satire with the voice-over in this movie.
The only other Dassin movie I've seen before this was Rififi, which is one of the most amazing movies I've ever seen. I was expecting some kind of flair here, after I realized it was the same director, but there's really not a whole lot in this movie. That's probably necessary. I think if too much of it had looked like a really well-shot movie, it would've undermined the thing it had going with the voice-over guy. I do, though, wonder if it was intentional that the most compelling actor in the whole movie doesn't show up until the end: the killer. He actually managed to convince me they'd somehow got the wrong guy, despite the obvious impossibility of that.
And what was up with Niles's smokin' hot housewife?! Was she supposed to represent some kind of extremely subtle critique of late-forties societal sexism (because structurally she doesn't occupy a position that's supposed to be sexualized on the screen, but, seriously, she sure made me feel sexualized...)?
Ultimately, though I did want the actual noir part of the story to be darker and more intriguing. The actual plot itself just wasn't up to par with the device built around it. Also, I think the photography of the city was supposed to be impressive, but I don't think I know enough about the context or about the way cities were normally photographed in movies at the time, because I didn't see a whole lot that I felt impressed by, other than the final chase scene and the killer's ascension of the bridge tower.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Vertigo
It was pretty awesome to get to see this at the Castro. I should've known, I think, that this was filmed in San Francisco, but I didn't. I guess that made me enjoy it even more, since I was watching it at my favorite place in the whole city.
Hitchcock fuckin' knew how to make movies. It's as simple as that. And this one is probably about as perfect as they get.
My five favorite things:
1. The opening shot, with the extreme closeup of the ladder rung, the city all blurry behind it, and then the fairly quick pull out until it's just a small part of the overall shot, and then the criminal guy, the least important person in the whole movie, is the first guy we see.
2. The animation in the dream sequence. It surprised me, but it was beautiful.
3. The opening credits. I didn't get to watch the whole of 'em, but what I did see was astonishing. Possibly the best title sequence ever. No joke.
4. Midge literally painting herself into the position of object of desire, since no way would James Stewart ever actually do that himself. This was all really transparent Freudian stuff, but done so well that all you can do is just applaud it.
5. The whole introductory sequence of Madeline/Carlotta. That should be studied in school the way they make you study the Odyssey.
Hitchcock fuckin' knew how to make movies. It's as simple as that. And this one is probably about as perfect as they get.
My five favorite things:
1. The opening shot, with the extreme closeup of the ladder rung, the city all blurry behind it, and then the fairly quick pull out until it's just a small part of the overall shot, and then the criminal guy, the least important person in the whole movie, is the first guy we see.
2. The animation in the dream sequence. It surprised me, but it was beautiful.
3. The opening credits. I didn't get to watch the whole of 'em, but what I did see was astonishing. Possibly the best title sequence ever. No joke.
4. Midge literally painting herself into the position of object of desire, since no way would James Stewart ever actually do that himself. This was all really transparent Freudian stuff, but done so well that all you can do is just applaud it.
5. The whole introductory sequence of Madeline/Carlotta. That should be studied in school the way they make you study the Odyssey.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Conquest
I want to say something more than that was ultimately kind of boring. But this movie frankly had no reason to be as boring as it was, so I'm kind of mad at how boring they managed to make it. The music was almost worth it, though. Hard to beat late-seventies synth stuff, especially when it's trying to sound all mysterious. But with some really great beats in there, as well, almost like whoever made the score had been sent back in time from the mid-nineties to show the fools some beats. I bet whoever did the score here hated Vangelis.
Oh, and the glowing bow with its light arrows. Well, okay, so it was actually lame, but it looked fookin' grand! So much prettier done this way than it would've turned out done by some discount CGI time, which is what would happen if this movie were made these days. I just like the fluidity of light they got with the old method of drawing right on the frame (I think that's how they did it...). Likewise, the black arrows from the... um... well, apparently the two dudes got attacked by some kind of plant? That hummed and shot hundreds of arrows of pure darkness right above their heads? Really pretty great to watch, though.
Okay, I take it back, this movie did pull some things off. How, though, did they manage to get Monty Python's Flying Circus to lend them all their hermit/cavemen to populate the countryside?
Rarely does it bother me when a plot is completely stupid. In fact, I generally would say, at least with a movie like this, that the stupider the better. But I did find myself wondering if whoever wrote this movie actually thought the plot was not stupid. Because it was absolutely moronic. And it wasn't even fully realized moronicness. It was just like this half-assed moronic idea that I hope they were making up as they shot, because if they thought about it at all then they deserve to have their brains gnawed out of their severed heads by a naked chick wearing a bronze chick-mask over her head, which was actually about the coolest idea in the whole movie.
Oh, and the glowing bow with its light arrows. Well, okay, so it was actually lame, but it looked fookin' grand! So much prettier done this way than it would've turned out done by some discount CGI time, which is what would happen if this movie were made these days. I just like the fluidity of light they got with the old method of drawing right on the frame (I think that's how they did it...). Likewise, the black arrows from the... um... well, apparently the two dudes got attacked by some kind of plant? That hummed and shot hundreds of arrows of pure darkness right above their heads? Really pretty great to watch, though.
Okay, I take it back, this movie did pull some things off. How, though, did they manage to get Monty Python's Flying Circus to lend them all their hermit/cavemen to populate the countryside?
Rarely does it bother me when a plot is completely stupid. In fact, I generally would say, at least with a movie like this, that the stupider the better. But I did find myself wondering if whoever wrote this movie actually thought the plot was not stupid. Because it was absolutely moronic. And it wasn't even fully realized moronicness. It was just like this half-assed moronic idea that I hope they were making up as they shot, because if they thought about it at all then they deserve to have their brains gnawed out of their severed heads by a naked chick wearing a bronze chick-mask over her head, which was actually about the coolest idea in the whole movie.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Alucarda
I felt like it probably would have helped me enjoy this movie a little more to have had some kind of stake in the Catholic Church. Which is not to say at all that I didn't enjoy it, but that the movie was really serious in a way that most movies this ridiculous are not serious, and ultimately I don't think the serious aspect of it really got to me.
I mean, I really did appreciate the way all this really fucked up iconography from was being manipulated, cuz I think stuff like that is pretty interesting. And as far as pure blood and gore and satanism and nudity: totally satisfactory. Another thing about all that: with almost all horror movies that contain nudity it is really obviously there as fulfillment of the purported viewer's desire. That is especially the case with exploitation films. In Alucarda, though, I think Moctezuma was trying to do something more with the nudity. What exactly that was, I'm not really sure. But it didn't seem to just be an answer to the demand of the audience that the chicks' clothes get removed.
Oh! And the scenes with the nuns and the priests flagellating themselves were pretty frickin' rad. And the little switcharoo the movie manages, where it seems really obvious that we're supposed to be go along with how totally messed up and evil the church leaders are, that there's this free/subversive aspect to the satanic girls and it's evil that the church leaders are trying to oppress that and only couching it in terms of good vs. evil, but then as soon as the burned chick's body came back to life and priest guy has to hack away at it with a giant machete, and suddenly you realize you have no actual choice but to side with him.
Finally, I'm sad the chick who played Alucarda was apparently not in much else. She was totally compelling in a way that I think is pretty rare in cinema, in that she wasn't necessarily attractive and you didn't (or at least I didn't) want to be around her or whatever, but I just wanted to keep watching her. She really wasn't even a good actress, I think. She was just compelling in a very real way.
I mean, I really did appreciate the way all this really fucked up iconography from was being manipulated, cuz I think stuff like that is pretty interesting. And as far as pure blood and gore and satanism and nudity: totally satisfactory. Another thing about all that: with almost all horror movies that contain nudity it is really obviously there as fulfillment of the purported viewer's desire. That is especially the case with exploitation films. In Alucarda, though, I think Moctezuma was trying to do something more with the nudity. What exactly that was, I'm not really sure. But it didn't seem to just be an answer to the demand of the audience that the chicks' clothes get removed.
Oh! And the scenes with the nuns and the priests flagellating themselves were pretty frickin' rad. And the little switcharoo the movie manages, where it seems really obvious that we're supposed to be go along with how totally messed up and evil the church leaders are, that there's this free/subversive aspect to the satanic girls and it's evil that the church leaders are trying to oppress that and only couching it in terms of good vs. evil, but then as soon as the burned chick's body came back to life and priest guy has to hack away at it with a giant machete, and suddenly you realize you have no actual choice but to side with him.
Finally, I'm sad the chick who played Alucarda was apparently not in much else. She was totally compelling in a way that I think is pretty rare in cinema, in that she wasn't necessarily attractive and you didn't (or at least I didn't) want to be around her or whatever, but I just wanted to keep watching her. She really wasn't even a good actress, I think. She was just compelling in a very real way.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
The Majorettes
Well, it satisfied my desire to watch a slasher flick. Really bad acting, although not atrociously so. Oddly enough, though, actually a pretty good screenplay, and well done cinematography throughout. I'm not sure if I've actually ever seen a small non-suburban town shot so well, and there were a few moments of actually kinda exciting framing, especially the marching band scene. And the typeface of the opening titles made me really happy, as well. I wasn't expecting all that.
Maybe in a different mood I would've been more pleasantly surprised when about 2/3 of the way through it suddenly turned into a Rambo style action flick, complete with shirtless gun-toting guy, but really I just didn't want it to stray from the crazy-psych-with-a-knife-randomly-murdering-majorettes theme. Oh, well. I'm glad I watched it anyway.
Maybe in a different mood I would've been more pleasantly surprised when about 2/3 of the way through it suddenly turned into a Rambo style action flick, complete with shirtless gun-toting guy, but really I just didn't want it to stray from the crazy-psych-with-a-knife-randomly-murdering-majorettes theme. Oh, well. I'm glad I watched it anyway.
Monday, March 17, 2008
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
It's hard after watching 12:08 East of Bucharest, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, and now this--it's hard not to assume that Romanians are just built for making movies, or something. All of these movies--made by different people--are so good, and so good for a lot of the same reasons.
I put off watching this movie for a long time, clogging up my Netflix account pretty badly, mainly because of it's length (two and a half hours) and how bleak I assumed it'd be. I mean, did I really want to sit down and watch two and a half hours of a guy dying? Awesome... I finally put the movie in but started out by only giving it half my attention, I think kind of as a way to prevent myself from becoming overly attached to the character, but by the time an hour had gone by it had my full focus. It's done with much less of a flourish, ultimately, than 4 Months was, but it's no less perfectly crafted. Where are these Romanian directors finding all these amazing actors? They're all so good at seeming like their not acting--I don't mean just that they're good at playing their characters, but that they really don't even seem to be putting on a performance ever. Part of that, I'm sure, is a trick of directing. I wonder if it helps that I don't speak Romanian? Maybe they'd sound a bit more like amateur line readings if I spoke the language? Don't know.
I wound up thinking this movie is a lot like Garcia Marquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold, both because of the obvious thematic similarity, but also in the way story not only worked in spite of the climax being the first thing you know about, but actually made use of that fact throughout the telling/showing of the story. Although, the movie seems nowhere near as semi-biblically fatalistic as GM's novel. We don't sense that some external power is pushing everything toward the climax of Mr. Lazarescu's death, rather that... I don't know how to finish that sentence. It's certainly a failure of a system, but it's also just the way minor everyday dramas can end up taking up yr whole existence and prevent you from really weighing properly the importance of what's happening around you.
I put off watching this movie for a long time, clogging up my Netflix account pretty badly, mainly because of it's length (two and a half hours) and how bleak I assumed it'd be. I mean, did I really want to sit down and watch two and a half hours of a guy dying? Awesome... I finally put the movie in but started out by only giving it half my attention, I think kind of as a way to prevent myself from becoming overly attached to the character, but by the time an hour had gone by it had my full focus. It's done with much less of a flourish, ultimately, than 4 Months was, but it's no less perfectly crafted. Where are these Romanian directors finding all these amazing actors? They're all so good at seeming like their not acting--I don't mean just that they're good at playing their characters, but that they really don't even seem to be putting on a performance ever. Part of that, I'm sure, is a trick of directing. I wonder if it helps that I don't speak Romanian? Maybe they'd sound a bit more like amateur line readings if I spoke the language? Don't know.
I wound up thinking this movie is a lot like Garcia Marquez's Chronicle of a Death Foretold, both because of the obvious thematic similarity, but also in the way story not only worked in spite of the climax being the first thing you know about, but actually made use of that fact throughout the telling/showing of the story. Although, the movie seems nowhere near as semi-biblically fatalistic as GM's novel. We don't sense that some external power is pushing everything toward the climax of Mr. Lazarescu's death, rather that... I don't know how to finish that sentence. It's certainly a failure of a system, but it's also just the way minor everyday dramas can end up taking up yr whole existence and prevent you from really weighing properly the importance of what's happening around you.
Doomsday
I really wanted to like this movie. And in the end, I think, I did. Sure, the whole thing is just a series of blatant rip-offs of Escape from New York, The Lord of the Rings(?), and The Road Warrior, in that order, and nothing new is brought to the table w/r/t any of them, but at least they chose the right movies.
I liked that this movie was really in love with its gore, and wanted you to enjoy it as well: it was never trying to gross you out or make you feel bad about it. And, and, and... really, there is a lot here to like, if you like these kinds of movies.
But: wtf was up with the music? The only times the music in this movie succeeded at all were the parts when it was blatantly copying John Carpenter's score from Escape from New York, and it wasn't doing that enough. But what made them think the appropriate music for the cannibal carnival scene should sound like Huey Lewis and the News with more distortion? Really, the music was about the only really horribly wrong step in this movie. Also, the movies this movie was sourcing everything from had waaaaaaaay the fuck better cinematography, and I couldn't help but be disappointed after just about every pointless cut. What's the point of having two chicks have a swordfight when you don't even get to see the fight because there's a .66 second time limit between cuts? The blinking of the severed head that the fight culminated in, though, (nearly) made up for it.
I'd like this movie to become a hit just so it could maybe lead to more ridiculous movies like it with a real passion for ridiculous movies, but I don't think that's gonna happen... too bad.
I liked that this movie was really in love with its gore, and wanted you to enjoy it as well: it was never trying to gross you out or make you feel bad about it. And, and, and... really, there is a lot here to like, if you like these kinds of movies.
But: wtf was up with the music? The only times the music in this movie succeeded at all were the parts when it was blatantly copying John Carpenter's score from Escape from New York, and it wasn't doing that enough. But what made them think the appropriate music for the cannibal carnival scene should sound like Huey Lewis and the News with more distortion? Really, the music was about the only really horribly wrong step in this movie. Also, the movies this movie was sourcing everything from had waaaaaaaay the fuck better cinematography, and I couldn't help but be disappointed after just about every pointless cut. What's the point of having two chicks have a swordfight when you don't even get to see the fight because there's a .66 second time limit between cuts? The blinking of the severed head that the fight culminated in, though, (nearly) made up for it.
I'd like this movie to become a hit just so it could maybe lead to more ridiculous movies like it with a real passion for ridiculous movies, but I don't think that's gonna happen... too bad.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
10,000 BC
At least this movie manages to be kinda funny, albeit completely without charm or likability.
What, though, is the point of calling it 10,000 BC and sort of pretending that it's taking place in the ancient past on our planet, when nothing about it makes any sense if you assume it is supposed to have anything to do with the past of our planet (the holes are innumerable, so I won't even bother...). This movie is really just a Fantasy movie, but by calling it 10,000 BC and then having the climax take place at the pyramids, it's like a really clumsy way of avoiding being just a fantasy movie. I guess then they're hoping to get people to come who wouldn't go to something that is obviously a fantasy movie. Except, even then, I'm not sure the people making this movie even realized that they've just made a really bad and generic fantasy movie...
It's kind of amazing, though, to see how bad Hollywood can be at making bad movies. They overdo the seriousness through the whole movie and as a result bleed out every possibility there was for a charming ridiculousness. How can you make a movie called 10,000 BC and not realize that the one thing the movie actually has to have is some charm? I guess they used it all up on the title...
What, though, is the point of calling it 10,000 BC and sort of pretending that it's taking place in the ancient past on our planet, when nothing about it makes any sense if you assume it is supposed to have anything to do with the past of our planet (the holes are innumerable, so I won't even bother...). This movie is really just a Fantasy movie, but by calling it 10,000 BC and then having the climax take place at the pyramids, it's like a really clumsy way of avoiding being just a fantasy movie. I guess then they're hoping to get people to come who wouldn't go to something that is obviously a fantasy movie. Except, even then, I'm not sure the people making this movie even realized that they've just made a really bad and generic fantasy movie...
It's kind of amazing, though, to see how bad Hollywood can be at making bad movies. They overdo the seriousness through the whole movie and as a result bleed out every possibility there was for a charming ridiculousness. How can you make a movie called 10,000 BC and not realize that the one thing the movie actually has to have is some charm? I guess they used it all up on the title...
Monday, March 3, 2008
The Other Boleyn Girl
So so so so so so fucking stupid.
I don't really know why I went to this movie, actually. But it sure sucked. Everything, literally every single thing, about this movie was bad.
Storywise, on a scene-by-scene basis, it was basically the equivalent of a two-year-old telling you a story: "This happened and then this happened and then this happened and then this happened," with not really any sense of meaningful connections between events beyond chronological. Then, they way it was photographed was completely sloppy and inconsistent. Sometimes, at completely random moments, the camera would be still and characters placed in such a way that it was like they were acting out a tableau; other times, at completely random moments, the camera would whoosh around with that sweeping "historical" whooping you see sometimes; once the camera even came down from the clouds onto a castle scene--again, randomly, for no apparent reason, and completely jarringly since nothing like that had ever happened in the movie before or after, and it wasn't like the scene called for some kind of "god's-eye-view" any more or less than other scenes. Seriously, the people who made this movie just had no fucking clue what they were doing.
The one thing that was potentially cool in the movie was the scene when Princess Amidala wakes up in the middle of the night, lifts up her covers and then pulls this absolutely ghastly horrified face--and it's only cool if you just ignore the context around that scene, which I did, for my own amusement. Other than that, the movie, which already was playing it pretty loose with history from what I understand (and, normally, that type of thing wouldn't bother me, except that with how crappy the script was the only reason I could think of for this movie to justify its own existence would be its portrayal of history, and they didn't even get that part right) totally missed an opportunity for a pretty great scene, when Amidala and that attractive british kid from that shitty Beatles musical thing, brother and sister here, were gonna do it to save Amidala from having to tell the king she'd lost the baby, and then they chickened out--absolutely the movie should have had the scene where british fellow's crying and Amidala's crying and they're faking sex, so for that one moment the actors on the screen would be acting out exactly what it feels like to sit through the movie: having crying sex with your sister.
So many stupid and clumsy things:
-The Boleyn's mother is not really a character but is obviously a mouthpiece for a contemporary semi-feminist critique of the society of the day--semi-feminist because the things she rails against or just so obviously evil according to our standards, so it's only feminist insofar as the idea that it's bad for men to whore out their daughters for political gain is feminist.
-I actually laughed out loud toward the end, when the movie goes into that mode where there are static shots of characters along with words at the bottom of the screen explaining what happened to them, and there's a shot of The Hulk (King Henry) brooding at an empty table, and it says, "Henry's decision to split from the Catholic Church changed the face of England forever." AAAAhahahaha!
I don't really know why I went to this movie, actually. But it sure sucked. Everything, literally every single thing, about this movie was bad.
Storywise, on a scene-by-scene basis, it was basically the equivalent of a two-year-old telling you a story: "This happened and then this happened and then this happened and then this happened," with not really any sense of meaningful connections between events beyond chronological. Then, they way it was photographed was completely sloppy and inconsistent. Sometimes, at completely random moments, the camera would be still and characters placed in such a way that it was like they were acting out a tableau; other times, at completely random moments, the camera would whoosh around with that sweeping "historical" whooping you see sometimes; once the camera even came down from the clouds onto a castle scene--again, randomly, for no apparent reason, and completely jarringly since nothing like that had ever happened in the movie before or after, and it wasn't like the scene called for some kind of "god's-eye-view" any more or less than other scenes. Seriously, the people who made this movie just had no fucking clue what they were doing.
The one thing that was potentially cool in the movie was the scene when Princess Amidala wakes up in the middle of the night, lifts up her covers and then pulls this absolutely ghastly horrified face--and it's only cool if you just ignore the context around that scene, which I did, for my own amusement. Other than that, the movie, which already was playing it pretty loose with history from what I understand (and, normally, that type of thing wouldn't bother me, except that with how crappy the script was the only reason I could think of for this movie to justify its own existence would be its portrayal of history, and they didn't even get that part right) totally missed an opportunity for a pretty great scene, when Amidala and that attractive british kid from that shitty Beatles musical thing, brother and sister here, were gonna do it to save Amidala from having to tell the king she'd lost the baby, and then they chickened out--absolutely the movie should have had the scene where british fellow's crying and Amidala's crying and they're faking sex, so for that one moment the actors on the screen would be acting out exactly what it feels like to sit through the movie: having crying sex with your sister.
So many stupid and clumsy things:
-The Boleyn's mother is not really a character but is obviously a mouthpiece for a contemporary semi-feminist critique of the society of the day--semi-feminist because the things she rails against or just so obviously evil according to our standards, so it's only feminist insofar as the idea that it's bad for men to whore out their daughters for political gain is feminist.
-I actually laughed out loud toward the end, when the movie goes into that mode where there are static shots of characters along with words at the bottom of the screen explaining what happened to them, and there's a shot of The Hulk (King Henry) brooding at an empty table, and it says, "Henry's decision to split from the Catholic Church changed the face of England forever." AAAAhahahaha!
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