Movie Tab II

Magnolia (Anderson, 2000)

Wow. I didn't think it was ever going to be over.

This is the Transformers 2 of overly dramatic Oscar hopefuls. Too many characters, too many breakdowns, too many long scenes. I can handle drama, but this is a flat-out cacophony of disastrous living situations that practically runs the entire gamut. And I still didn't connect.

Anderson was trying too hard to make his film seem poignant and true, and in some respect, it is. There's just too much of it. It tries to do too much too fast, and stumbles over its own feet. I'm giving it points for having some great extended performances, most notably from Tom Cruise, Jason Robards, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and a delightfully subtle turn from John C. Reilly. (Why is this guy still doing films with Will Ferrell?) But the labyrinthine story and confused presentation ultimately make the film a terribly boring endurance test. Not recommended.

I agree that the film is indeed a long one and it would hurt it to lose a character or two, but I found myself entangled in these characters lives. Tom Cruise does give one hell of a performance and it is my favourite in the entire film...and his career.

The opening montage is my favourite part of the film, followed by the random ending bit. All the stuff in between is the hard stuff to get through and a lot of people could do without it, you seem like one of those people.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

Wristcutters: A Love Story

With its interesting premise (people who commit suicide are sent to an alternate reality where everything is pretty much the same as before, only worse), oddball characters (gotta love Will Arnett as "The Messiah"), and WTF quality, this little movie has a certain charm to it that made it very enjoyable.

The actual plot, however, has a very "that's been done before" quality to it and drags the movie down some. After he learns that his ex-girlfriend (who left him and caused him to become suicidal) had commited suicide and is somewhere in that alternate place, Zia (Fugit) convinces his friend Eugene (Whigham) to go with him on a road trip to find her. Along the way, they meet and befriend a woman named Mikal (Sossamon) who, without realizing it, Zia begins to fall in love with (take out the suicide factor and you've got the plot of many other movies). Still, it's a nice way to spend 90 minutes.

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Magnolia 1999

I hated Magnolia a lot the first time I saw it , nothing but pure hatred for this movie and I considered it one of the worse I've seen - but after subsequent viewings I realized how flawed my logic was on frowning on the movie for what I wanted to see as opposed to appreciating such a rich and realistic feature that dug at something I hadn't seen done in a similar fashion ever.

Each of the characters exhibit something of an exaggerated problem that I'd like to think we've all shared at one point - so even if you've never been in a similar situation , you understand the reasons and motivations for their behavior. It's a hard movie to watch if your looking for classic movie fun , but it's very technically adept and I think it's skilled composure gets overlooked because of the giant scope it tries to connect on.

There are a lot of parts that are depressing and at times not enjoyable at all , but as a whole I heartily declare Magnolia as a movie about why our lives our special - that each individual person is equally important and our existence as a whole is important and that every decision we make is important , which is a giant counter to the nihilistic tone many of my favorites share : it fleshes out clichéd messages which I've seen a hundred times in movies and makes them real.

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Or to summarize , I loved it and you didn't understand it , thought the whole film was fake , or simply didn't enjoy the individual scenes - which I thought were all beautifully written.





Tokyo Sonata 2009

A familiar tale that isn't poorly done , but not exceptionally crafted either. With jobs at a minimum in the U.S. it's easy to relate the father's unemployment and the problems it causes. There is an excess of materialism in this and had it been put in the hands of a more exciting director it may have been amazing.





Chasing Ghosts : Beyond the Arcade 2007

A lot of familiar faces from King of Kong , although the films themselves do share the common element of retro gaming and Twin Galaxy's Walter Day - the documentaries themselves couldn't be more different. This is much more free-form which sounds just as good , but it's so formless that it's not exciting at all - and even worse it's repetitive.





The King of Kong : A Fistful of Quarters 2007

You know from the start it's giving you an uneven view of the two contenders , but that's the point. It completely dramatizes the rivalry (Steve and Billy actually went head to head before this movie started filming) , but continues to offer a truthful depth about gaming and what I love about it. The wild cast of retro masters become very memorable in the little screen time they are given and I appreciated their brief appearances in the background a lot on this later viewing.

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Twilight (with Rifftrax) - Twilight itself I didn't go for that much but this with the crew from MST3K doing the narrative to it, made it absolutely hillarious. And worth watching nonetheless lol.


Here's a clip:

Kiss Of Death (1947)

I watched this one on my computer from Netflix. I'd been meaning to see it for awhile and the discussion I've been having on another thread made me decide to finally give it a shot.

I must say that I was rather unsure of this one at first. The beginning was a bit slow and I was a bit put off by the narration (narration has always been a peeve of mine in films). Also I found myself, for once, not liking Victor Mature's performance. Now don't get me wrong, I've never held him in high esteem in terms of acting talent, but here he not only doesn't emote well, but he doesn't even have that "ham" and "cheese" quality that I loved so much in other films of his I've seen.

Still, the movie kept me well engaged despite the shortcomings of its leading man. The giggling Tommy Udo was more than sufficiently creepy, the plot was quite suspenseful and the ending was a bit unexpected. All in all, an entertaining watch and one I may very well add to my own personal collection.

This lot of movies I've watched over the past few days have ranged from about average to dismally below average, perhaps with one exception, so I'm not even going to write up mini-reviews like I usually do; I'll just do a run-down with ratings.

Surf's Up -

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(Ash Brannon, 2007)



The Seventh Sign -

(Carl Shultz, 1988)



Bug -

(William Friedkin, 2006)



I just want to note here that the concept of this film is really cool, but I'm not a big fan of its overall execution and how things eventually play out in the end of the movie (I just sat there shaking my head when the final scene came to an end and the credits began to roll). Bug has a lot of decent stuff, but...well, it's a really weird movie that doesn't remain thoroughly engaging enough to warrant any higher of a rating than what I gave it.

Turistas -

(John Stockwell, 2006)



This was my second viewing of Turistas, and I'm fairly surprised to say that it held up well with a rewatch. I liked it a lot the first time through, and I still do now, several months later. It packs some genuine scares and reveals a story that turns your stomach. Some pretty memorable characters (Kiko) and some pretty memorable dialogue.

"In any situation, the best thing you can do is the right thing.
The next best thing you can do is the wrong thing.
But the worst thing you can do is nothing."
[The man kills his henchman in front of a young boy, talking to him.]
"If ever you find yourself in a situation ... do something."

Chills.

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"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven."
John Milton, Paradise Lost

My Movie Review Thread | My Top 100

I get what Anderson wanted to say with the film - that we're the ones steering our lives, and at some point, we've got to take responsibility and make amends for the directions we've steered them... or start steering them in the directions we want them to go. In some respect, he succeeds. The characters are mostly wonderful, although a few are tacked on and feel extremely forced (namely Julianne Moore's character, and the game show host, who's big reveal is completely unfounded). The performances are completely heartfelt and honest.

It's just that a film has got to have some kind of focus. Magnolia likes to boast that it's a tale of many lives interwoven into a complex, enriching tapestry of meaning. But it's really just a loose menagerie of downtrodden people with [insert token social or psychological damage here] and little or no real connection with each other, aside from the occasional familial one. Unlike Crash, which uses a similar ensemble structure of interwoven characters (and much better, I might add), Magnolia doesn't tie them together through an over-arching truth or significant issue. It's enduring message is simply, "Life can really suck. But sometimes, you do (a). Other times, you do (b). And other times, you do (c)." I'm sorry, but that's no message at all.

In reality, Anderson wanted nothing more than to hit people over the head with intense dramatic breakdowns and tragedy in the hopes that his viewers would buy into its validity as a meaningful piece of film. Sure, great acting is definitely a treat. But without a focus, all these vignettes just float in the film's ether as side-stories that are never brought together. Because of this confusion, the film is begging to choose a main one, which runs completely perpendicular to what the film feels like it really wants to be. It shouldn't be about one character over another. But currently, it's not really about any of them.

I just think it's a classic case of pulling the audience's heartstrings to death, and hoping for a standing ovation. Without a cohesive focus, what would normally have been very substantial content is reduced to fluff. A gimmick. A superficial means to an end. And that's a real shame.

And it's way too long. And often pretentious. I was almost laughing out loud at the end listening to John C. Reilly's voice-over, which was obviously intended to be - in some coincidental way - a summary statement of the truth of these people's lives, and how they live them. But it didn't work. It was ridiculous and unnecessary. But hey, everybody's gotta have a vision, right?

Simon of the Desert (1965, Luis Bunuel)



Night and Fog (1955, Alain Resnais)



Vampyr (1932, Carl Theodor Dreyer)



Strike (1925, Sergei Eisenstein)



Waltz with Bashir (2008, Ari Folman)



Let the Right One In (2008, Tomas Alfredson)



Salesman (1968, Albert and David Maysles)



The Leopard (1963, Luchino Visconti)



Under the Roofs of Paris (1930, Rene Clair)



Mafioso (1962, Alberto Lattuada)



Earth (1930, Aleksandr Dovzhenko)



Alexander Nevsky (1938, Sergei Eisenstein)

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"Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."

MILK

This movie gets better every time I watch it. It's so incredibly well acted and is at once uplifting and infuriating, funny and incredibly sad. It has easily become my favorite movie of last year.

Still, watching this movie leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. It's a painful reminder of how far the movement was able to go some 30 years ago and how far it still must go, especially given the shameful event that was the passing of California's Proposition 8. Why people can't just learn to live and let live, I'll never understand.

Drag Me To Hell (Sam Raimi, 2009) -

Ah, this is my kind of film. Loved it.



Juno (Jason Reitman, 2007) -

Urgh, this is NOT my kind of film. Hated it.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired (2008, Marina, Zenovich)

4/5

I'll get this out of the way early - Polanski is one of my favourite directors and has been for years.

Like the majority of film fans I'd known about the reason he doesn't return to the US but I hadn't sought out to read about it in great detail - The Smoking Gun and other websites of that ilk have never really done anything for me. I was only 4 at the time it happened so didn't appreciate the media circus which surrounded events in 1977. That he had pled guilty to sex with an underage girl was proof enough, as far as I was concerned...

Having said that, Wanted and Desired is fascinating - not regarding the sordid details (all of which, I assume, are covered here) but in the way it approaches the legal machinations of how to try and sentence a very famous man.

The prosecuting DA and Polanski's defence lawyer both come out of this as honourable men, the presiding Judge appears as a completely different animal. But, hey, watch the film for the reasons why.

As a piece of documentary cinema, Wanted and Desired tries hard to be impartial. Really really hard. Alas, the talking heads on show come mainly from the director's friends and colleagues. The Judge has passed away, the girl (well, woman in her early 40s now) in question, who seems as sensible and grounded as one could imagine, appears sitting alongside her lawyer throughout and the resulting interview just doesn't have the immediacy one might expect. I wonder what would happen if the story had played out in today's instant internet age, where everyone not only has an opinion but the ability to broadcast it to the world?

All in all, Wanted and Desired shows how the Justice system failed not only the young woman concerned but also the man accused of the crime(s), and shows it pretty well.

Not essential but pretty darned interesting nonetheless and told with a surprisingly light (but never disrespectful to any of the parties) touch. Well worth a look.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

Meatwad - Have you seen Short Cuts? This flick is very similar in structure to Magnolia, but I like it a lot more. Altman did it first, and he did it better, IMO.


Meanwhile:

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Yates, 2007)



I like this one quite a bit, as it is darker and more adult. The final act is some of the best material in the entire series, but the middle act suffers from some pacing issues. I wanted to get a refresher before seeing the latest one, so I popped this in to get caught up.


Excalibur (Boorman, 1980)



Still a classic! My lady had not seen this, and she got into it immediately. The tone of the film still holds up really well, and the performances are really fun to watch, especially Nicol Williamson and Merlin.

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Two words - Helen Mirren.

Spaceballs (1987)
Director: Mel Brooks


Not the best Mel Brooks movie, but still fun.

She is quite fetching in the flick, but the incest thing squeems me out, so I feel dirty gazing upon her chestly lumps as she gets down to business with her brother. Morgan is creepy in both her young and old incarnations in this flick.

Ach, sure 'twas the middle ages! They were up to all sorts back then!

When I was a child I kept getting Excalibur mixed up with Krull, lord knows why. Only one of those films contains Helen's thrups...

That would've been the good one, yes?

Emphatically.

Helen gets racy in quite a few films, from what I remember... Post favs if you wish!