Iro's One Movie a Day Thread

Early talkies were still in the "show me" mode rather than the "tell me", and most which did that were far more interesting than the latter. The really creaky early talkies have people standing around talking at each other in the most-boring way imaginable.

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I understand what your saying. I try not to compare older films to newer films while watching them. Sometimes it is a very hard thing to do though. Many times they come across as corny to me and it makes it hard to enjoy them. What goes around comes around though and I am positive my kids will feel that way about many films that I love.

Case and point.

I also watched All Quiet on the Western Front this month for the Hall of Fame, and I was blown away by it.

I also love Platoon.

Why should they? If they are German then they should speak in German and have subtitles so since they speak in English anyway having German accents doesn't make sense to me.

Yes that's true. You can see it was made before modern directing style/techniques were well established but it works wonderfully anyway, in it's simple and powerful style. It didn't feel dated at all to me and it's perfectly watchable as any modern movie is.

Actually the movie I feel to be the hardest to watch among those I watched so far is Dragon Age Origins: Dawn of the Seeker and Kiarostami's Ten, which are from 2012 and 2002, respectively.

#237 - Room 237
Rodney Ascher, 2012



A handful of theorists share their own extremely distinct interpretations of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

It's a concept that is at once intriguing yet ridiculous - an entire feature-length documentary where a handful of people lay out their own pet theories as to what Stanley Kubrick was secretly trying to say when he made The Shining. The film is an adaptation of the Stephen King novel about a man who brings his family along while he has to take care of a remote hotel during its wintry off-season - unfortunately, it turns out that the hotel is also home to some especially malevolent spirits. As far as Kubrick films went, it was definitely one of the most straightforward with its tale of supernatural horror. However, the theorists who are interviewed in this film insist that the film actually hides some far more complex and near-incomprehensible truths, which is apparently a given considering Kubrick's notorious perfectionist tendencies and fundamentally peculiar style of filmmaking. Of course, the film is quick to put up a disclaimer stating that the views expressed in the film don't necessarily reflect those of Kubrick or anyone involved in the making of The Shining. After seeing the film, it's not hard to understand why.

One of the main problems I have with Room 237 is that it's made up almost entirely of existing footage, which becomes a bit of a problem when it comes to understanding the theorists. Five theorists are interviewed but since you never see any of them on-screen and the film doesn't remind you who's talking at any given moment, it can be hard to tell most of them apart (the exception being Juli Kearns, the film's sole female interviewee). Some of the footage is cribbed from other movies, often with footage of The Shining imposed over them to prove a point (such as audio interviews where people talk about seeing the film in theatres being synchronised to movie theatre scenes from Lamberto Bava's Demons of all movies) The theories all tend to be extremely far-fetched ones that are rooted in the slightest of clues; one theorist claims that the film is about the genocide of Native Americans based off labels of tinned food, while another claims it's a Holocaust metaphor due to a recurring number and the presence of a colour-changing typewriter. Naturally, there's one theory that even ties in with the long-standing conspiracy theory that Kubrick actually filmed the Apollo 11 moon landing and filled The Shining with subtle clues regarding his supposed involvement in the alleged hoax.

While most of these do basically come across as reading too much into things (especially the Native American genocide theory, which just seems to overextend on the canonical fact that the Overlook Hotel was built on an Indian burial ground), there are some points that genuinely make for fascinating insights into the film as it is, especially Kearns' incredibly detailed 3-D graphics outlining the physically impossible architecture of the building. This distinguishes itself because, out of all the supposed evidence of the posited theories in the film, the idea of Kubrick making a deliberate attempt at weird architecture in order to set a mood seems the most plausible, though that isn't saying much compared to the other theories. At one point in the film, one fan reads a claim that the film "should be seen forwards and backwards" and responds by literally combining two versions of the film - one playing backwards, one playing forwards - in order to spot the overlaps (as you can see in the header image). As with the 3-D graphs, this makes for interesting original visuals on the documentary's part, though the point it's trying to make does feel like quite a stretch even by this film's standards.

Depending on how much you like entertaining bizarre left-field theories that manage the impressive feat of seeming believable yet ridiculous at the same time, Room 237 will definitely get some kind of emotion out of you, even if it is just frustration at having to spend 100 minutes listening to some seriously overreaching arguments. Fittingly enough, one could interpret Room 237 as something more than a mere recording of these theories set to film. On the one hand, it could be a metaphor for the magical nature of film as an art form due to how it inspires people to come up with such elaborate yet contradictory observations over something as seemingly basic as a horror movie. On the other hand, it could be a really subtle way of satirising the type of navel-gazing viewers and critics whose contest to provide the most outlandish yet seemingly well-founded interpretation of the film should be passed off less as legitimate cinematic theory than as a kind of obsessive over-thinking. Sometimes a ghost story is just a ghost story. In any case, it was an interesting watch, but I'm hesitant to think of it as a great one.

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#238 - Wristcutters: A Love Story
Goran Dukić, 2006



A young man commits suicide after his girlfriend breaks up with him, only to end up in a limbo-like state populated by other suicides.

Back in the 1980s, a young John Cusack starred in Better Off Dead, a very bizarre high-school comedy where Cusack played a teenage weirdo whose response to getting dumped by his vapid social-climber girlfriend is to attempt suicide multiple times. Wristcutters: A Love Story feels like a "what if?" variation on that, where this time the heartbroken guy (Patrick Fugit) succeeds in killing himself. Of course, this just causes him more problems as he learns that not only is there an afterlife for suicides, but it basically amounts to an even more miserable version of real life where people still have to get jobs and share apartments. In addition, everyone still has scars left by their "offing" and not a single person is able to smile. Things take a turn when Fugit ends up joining his best friend (Shea Whigham) and a newly arrived mystery woman (Shannyn Sossamon) on a road trip to search for answers to all their own questions, including who exactly is in charge on this bizarre purgatory.

I should have anticipated it given the film's incredibly dark premise, but Wristcutters: A Love Story is actually an incredibly dour affair. I know it's supposed to be a black comedy and thus not that likely to generate any real belly laughs, but not even the various little quirks in the world-building or the characters are enough to provide much amusement. There are naturally plenty of casually comedic references to suicide, whether it's flashbacks to the deaths of various characters or the flat manner in which the characters tend to interact. Given the effort put into developing this drab, grey world (the petrol station where people are constantly forgetting to disconnect the pump because they keep having existential crises was an interesting gag), it's rather disappointing that it follows a very dry and predictable road-movie kind of narrative full of extremely disjointed scenes held together by the slightest of threads. The moodiness of the film's setting and characters also hinders the actors' ability to deliver decent performances, especially the lead trio. It's a shame because this film does boast some solid comedic and dramatic performers - of note are Tom Waits as the leader of a group of miracle performers, John Hawkes as his offsider, and Will Arnett as the leader of a suicide cult. Unfortunately, these side characters seem much more interesting than the lead trio and they are all introduced in the second half of the film.

Wristcutters: A Love Story scores points for having an original premise, but it loses them by wasting it on a rather uninspired romantic storyline and struggling to make the finer details pay off. The love triangle that develops between Fugit, Sossamon, and Fugit's recently-deceased ex (Leslie Bibb) is another reason I unfavourably compare this film to Better Off Dead, while the film's general grimness doesn't provide much in the way of amusement or most other emotions save for boredom. There are also some on-the-nose soundtrack choices - yes, there is a Waits song, but does a film about suicidal people really need to have "Love Will Tear Us Apart" on its soundtrack? There are good moments scattered throughout, but they tend to congregate in the film's second half and the film builds up to an ending that actually doesn't make a whole lot of sense once you stop to think about it. Despite its rather macabre subject matter, it's not all that disturbing and is ultimately just as dull as the afterlife it depicts.

#239 - Team America: World Police
Trey Parker, 2004



Follows the titular squad of elite American commandos as they try to stop acts of international terrorism by any means necessary.

It's been about a decade since I first saw Team America: World Police. It cracked my top 20 in a Top 100 thread I made back in 2005, then dropped to the 91-100 part of my next version of that list in 2013. Chances are it'll be off the list completely next time, but nostalgia is an unpredictable thing and will guarantee that Team America: World Police will always be a favourite in one way or another. Of course, that's neither here or there - let's see how well it holds up after a decade.

At the very least, despite the uncanniness that is part and parcel of marionette puppets, the puppets are of good enough quality to underscore much of the humour based around their limitations. There's also the pitch-perfect parodying of big-budget blockbusters, especially those made by the notorious Michael Bay. Everything from effects-heavy extravaganzas (and the film itself has the practical effects to back up its mockery) to awkwardly shoehorned romances are skewered not just by the inherent silliness of the puppets, but also the crackling yet immature dialogue. The film's humour also manages to hold up reasonably well - though there are aspects that do date the film pretty severely, they don't do much to make the film any less funny. Otherwise, it's about what you'd expect from the partnership of Trey Parker and Matt Stone - though I've learned in recent years not to take their work at face value and actually criticise their own attempts at criticism, I still find it amusing enough. The film does showcase their usual attempts at libertarian impartiality - though it's debatable as to how well their political views serve the film (or vice versa), on the surface it's still damned hilarious.

While Team America: World Police does edge closer to guilty pleasure territory with each passing year, I'm not sure it'll ever quite get there. There is some genuine quality underneath its incredibly fake and crass surface that still makes me think of it as a sincere favourite. Though both rating and ranking have dropped, it still manages to work on just about every level. An appropriately grandiose soundtrack, an extremely twisted but not too offensive sense of humour, and an impressive visual aesthetic all contribute to one of my favourite comedies of the 2000s.

#240 - Judgment at Nuremberg
Stanley Kramer, 1961



During the Nuremberg trials of 1948, several German judges are put on trial by the Americans for passing laws that would allow crimes against humanity to take place.

Judgment at Nuremberg is definitely a daunting watch. It's a three-hour-long black-and-white courtroom drama putting men on trial for their roles in causing the Holocaust. Of course, it's made more than tolerable (if such a film can be measured in terms of tolerance) by some powerhouse performances, solid direction, and a staggering script. I'm starting to develop quite the appreciation for Spencer Tracy - as a judge from small-town America called to Germany to preside over the trials, he makes for an earnest yet world-weary viewpoint character for the film. He leads an impressive ensemble cast - Burt Lancaster plays Tracy's opposite number, a defendant who is quite possibly the most complicit in carrying out war crimes but is shown to be a lot more complex due to being haunted by his actions. The stand-out is Maximillian Schell in an Oscar-winning role as a German defence attorney whose passionate defence of these seemingly indefensible men gives him an electrifying screen presence and more depth than you'd expect from such a thankless antagonistic role. The cast is otherwise peppered with strong supporting parts - Marlene Dietrich provides an interesting foil for Tracy as a German widow, while Montgomery Clift and Judy Garland put in good turns as witnesses for the prosecution.

Stylistically, Judgment at Nuremberg is appropriately monochromatic and lacking in music, which suits the story and characters perfectly. There are some interesting cinematography choices - I was not expecting such a serious black-and-white drama to involve the repeated use of crash-zooms, for instance, though there are plenty of long takes and shots that revolve around monologuing characters. The decision to feature actual footage taken during the Holocaust in one sequence is disturbing even now - I have no idea what it must have been like to see this in 1961. Though it's debatable as to whether or not it really needs to be three hours long, it still has its fair share of compelling scenes that feature stellar performances from all involved. Definitely recommended for those who like well-written and well-acted films with just the right level of visual panache.

#241 - 22 Jump Street
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, 2014



A pair of screw-up police officers are assigned to go undercover as college students in order to break up an organisation of drug dealers.

There's a moment early on in 22 Jump Street where the film tries to endear itself to an audience jaded by sequels by having a no-nonsense police chief dryly complain to the leads that the reason the powers that be are tweaking the concept of cops going undercover in a high school to cops going undercover at college is because they lack imagination. Unfortunately, this film doesn't have enough creativity to overcome the supposed lack of inspiration that a sequel to a comedic reboot of a popular drama would imply. There are a variety of recognisable faces on display here, some of whom are decent enough given their roles but never truly excel. Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill play the mismatched yet friendly leads - Hill is surprisingly tolerable as the awkward nerdy type, while Tatum is a meathead who remains likeable throughout the film. Ice Cube almost steals the show as the pair's supervisor, an angry black captain who knows just how much of a stereotype he's playing into (again). Other characters aren't given all that much to do, such as Amber Stevens as Hill's love interest or Wyatt Russell as the dim-witted but friendly fraternity brother that Tatum befriends.

Despite demonstrating an apparent self-awareness about its nature early on in the film, the film does follow a sequel's shameless recycling of jokes and references with too much in the way of meta commentary. The attempts to mix action and comedy don't always work, especially when they do run through a series of very familiar set-ups to varying degrees of comedic success - the car chases being the most obvious examples of how the balance doesn't deliver as much as it should (even with a bigger budget than the original, and comments on how expensive the car chases are due to said budget). In fairness, there are some tantalising glimpses of decency throughout the film - of particular note is the sequence where Cube gets especially angry at Hill because of reasons and also one especially unforgettable credits sequence. It's not an enjoyable enough comedy - I don't recommend it to anyone except people who enjoyed the first film, plus it definitely feels like it could have been quite a lot better. As amusing as the credits sequence may have been, I genuinely hope that it does negate any chances of there being a legitimate threequel.



P.S. Yes, this is basically the same as my review for 21 Jump Street with a few alterations. I thought this was appropriate.

Nice reviews Iro Thanks

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#242 - Daredevil
Mark Steven Johnson, 2003



After being blinded by radioactive waste during childhood results in him being gifted with radically heightened senses, a lawyer decides to become a crime-fighting superhero.

Even though I'm not the biggest fan of superhero movies in general, I don't think being a big fan would make that much of a difference to one's enjoyment of Daredevil (or lack thereof). For one thing, it's terribly inconsistent in its treatment of its protagonist (Ben Affleck). After a lengthy flashback explaining how Daredevil acquired both his powers and his thirst for justice (including an especially improbable instance of exposure to radioactive waste that somehow blinds him and gives him super sonar yet only manages to hit him in the eyes), we are introduced to Daredevil as he fails to prosecute a stereotypical scumbag during his day job and then (after a rather nonsensical and badly-shot action sequence) allowing said scumbag to get run over by a train. That's without mentioning that the extremely ancillary romantic subplot between him and Elektra (Jennifer Garner) starts with a bit of stalking and a public fist-fight. This just serves to make Daredevil's constant internal struggle over whether or not he's a hero or a villain seem especially ridiculous - and that's without taking into account the presence of Affleck at a serious low point in his acting career.

Aside from Affleck, the cast still isn't good. Garner is a pretty bland action girl, while Michael Clarke Duncan adds his usual charisma to an otherwise generic crime boss villain with mediocre results. Colin Farrell, on the other hand, practically steals the show as Bullseye, the wacky assassin with an extremely unusual set of skills who makes for the film's few good moments. This is in spite of the fact that there is no logical reason why he's even involved in the movie's plot other than to give Daredevil an equally dangerous rival. As far as peripheral characters go, Joe Pantoliano deserves to be in a better movie as he plays the civilian who believes in the existence of Daredevil, while Jon Favreau makes for terrible comic relief as Daredevil's obnoxious, oblivious co-worker. Daredevil does a lot of things wrong. Bad performances are used on worse characters, the special effects and action are terrible even by 2003 standards, the soundtrack is loaded with nu-metal and post-grunge, and the script is poor enough to frequently undermines what little depth or interest it actually has. Time will tell if I decide to give the new Netflix series a chance, but I can't imagine it being much worse than this.

So disappointed I can't get a hold of Judgement At Nuremberg for the 60's list. I had it on the DVR too, went to watch it and satellite must have went out that night. Sounds like my kind of film.

Sorry to hear that. I DVRed it myself but fortunately the film was intact when I watched it.

Team America: World Police is a favourite of mine too. Sometimes I wonder if its too childish or stupid, but when I'm laughing that much I don't care, a great comedy.

Judgement at Nuremberg looks like a film I'll need to get to for the 60s list, it seems to be getting a lot of positive reviews recently.

22 Jump Street is one of those films that I'll probably end up seeing whenever its on TV and I've got nothing else to watch, as I've mentioned in this thread before (I think) I didn't find the first one anything that good or memorable, so I'm in no rush to watch this one.

Daredevil was awful, that's all I remember of it. I've only heard good things about the Netflix series though, so I wouldn't let the film put you off, although I'm not sure it would be my cup of tea. I'm not the biggest fan of all this super hero expansion stuff they're doing nowadays, I remember people talking about how good "Gotham" was, I watched an episode and thought it was pretty bad.

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I watched the film version of Daredevil on Netflix the other day. After posting that review, I proceeded to watch the first episode of the series. It's actually rather good, but it probably helped that I had no real expectations for it and just felt like having something on in the background. Will definitely watch more, though.

#243 - The Cable Guy
Ben Stiller, 1996



A recently-separated man gets cable TV installed in his new apartment but soon has to contend with the cable installer's increasingly unhinged behaviour.

I've noticed a pattern across all four of the Ben Stiller-directed films I've seen (the exception being The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, which could very well fit the pattern if I ever decided to see it). All of them are comedies that are fundamentally satirical in ways that are never as clever as Stiller seems to think they are. Reality Bites was a meandering and misguided take on Generation X, Zoolander mocked the vapidity of the fashion industry, while Tropic Thunder was basically a wartime version of Three Amigos! with a few jabs at celebrity culture thrown in for good measure. The Cable Guy tends to focus its satirical energy on a culture obsessed with television, though the satire is pushed to the side in favour of a rather dark odd-couple comedy involving a strait-laced ad executive (Matthew Broderick) whose desire to get cable TV in his new apartment leads to him being suckered into a very one-sided friendship with the titular cable guy (Jim Carrey). While Broderick tolerates Carrey's weirdness at first, his attempts to resist result in Carrey pulling every trick in the manipulator's handbook in order to keep himself in Broderick's life.

Despite the film's Kafkaesque premise having some darkly comic potential and being made during the peak of Carrey's comedic career, the film squanders all its promise within its first half-hour. Carrey's turn as the cable guy - a lisping, hyperactive, reference-making string-bean of a human being - starts off funny but he wears out his welcome very quickly. Despite the film focusing on the escalation on his antics, the character sadly gets less amusing as the film progresses. It's hard to tell whether that can be credited to the film dropping its straightforward comedy premise in favour of its stalker narrative or if the joke really does wear that thin that quickly. Broderick is relegated to being little more than a straight man who spends the film's entire running time suffering various milquetoast indignities as a result of Carrey's machinations. A handful of recognisable faces pepper the rest of the film but don't do much of note, whether in terms of being funny or aiding the narrative.

Really, though, it's probably not a good thing that the film is much more effective at being a paranoia-driven thriller than it is at being a wacky comedy. It gets points for its first half-hour raising some chuckles but as things wear on it becomes more and more tiresome. What there is in the way of satire falls flat even by the fairly low standards of Stiller's other directorial efforts. The extent of it seems to be making Carrey into what Hans Gruber would probably call "another orphan of a bankrupt culture" and making him oddly sympathetic in the process - oh, yeah, and some heavy-handed condemnation of television watching thrown in to boot (especially thanks to the sensationalised celebrity murder trial that plays out in snippets throughout the film and also the sheer power Carrey commands simply by granting cable to the right people). Of course, this is all swept under the rug so we can get a load of Carrey's goofing off and Broderick's increasingly flustered reactions. One wonders if efforts to make the film any darker would have helped the film out in any significant way. Probably not, though. The Cable Guy starts off as a decent enough joke - unfortunately that joke isn't enough to sustain an entire movie.

I always call The Cable A Guy a underated comedy. I haven't watched it in years though and am kind of scared to go back to it.

#244 - The Last Stand
Kim Jee-woon, 2013



The ageing sheriff of a sleepy small town on the U.S.-Mexico border gets more than he bargained for when a dangerous cartel boss plans to escape justice through said town.

The only other Kim Jee-woon film I've seen is The Good, The Bad, The Weird, his weird and wonderful homage to Western-like caper films. This makes him a fairly sensible choice for the director of The Last Stand, a film that feels like a homage to classic Westerns with its plot about a handful of misfits being galvanised by an honourable yet dangerous sheriff into defending a small town against a big bad villain heading straight for them. This also makes for a nice and simple vehicle to mark the big-screen return of Arnold Schwarzenegger. So if you're giving this any attention then you're probably not expecting much more than a bit of solid action, but does The Last Stand deliver on that front?

Unfortunately, the answer is "not really". The Last Stand may have a fairly simple plot engineered towards providing an audience with entertaining action above all else, but that doesn't stop it from being so full of narrative clichés that it becomes a tiresome watch for at least the first two-thirds of its running time. Escaped fugitive, gang of crooks, useless feds, etc. While the plot could be somewhat forgiven in this regard, it doesn't help that the characters are pretty flat as well. The worn-out sheriff with a mysterious and violent past, the town oddball, the rookie deputy, etc. Not even the collection of dependable character actors that this film has assembled do much to liven up the characters or make them all that memorable. Schwarzenegger is Schwarzenegger only older, but at least he's not as prone to making the usual corny one-liners.

On the action front, the film doesn't deliver much of note until the third act, when the titular last stand takes place. Though it is filled with the kind of explosive thrills that the film promised from the start, it ultimately feels like too little, too late. How you'll feel about The Last Stand will depend upon how much you like action movies, and I mean really like action movies. I'd wanted to see this since I first heard it was being made, but I think the fact that I'm seeing it on TV a couple of years after its initial release and not thinking it's much chop might reflect just as much on me as it does on this film. Or maybe it's just not good enough to overcome my changing tastes. In any case, it's a pity how much this film ultimately didn't live up to my expectations.