The cover of Bob Dylan’s “Going to Acapulco” by Jim James and Calexico.
The Richard Gere sections of “I’m Not There” were my least favorite parts…except for the performance of this song which was both beautiful and mesmerizing. Don’t think it’s what I want played at my funeral, but I am loving it a lot.
Oh right, I never even told you I went to that movie. Ah well. NOW YOU KNOW.
Super (awesomely!) violent and sometimes gross. It’s from a McCarthy book so you should know that going in / shouldn’t come as a shock.
Super freakily (psychologically) messed up villain (Javier Bardem. Spooky as shit. Crazy entrancing eyes).
Great performance from Tommy Lee Jones and solid from Josh Brolin (and I’m not even a fan of his!) and it’s fun to see LOTS of random actors popping up in bit parts (the coach from “One Tree Hill”, the nasty lady who ran the grocery store on “Jericho”, Woody Harrelson (what a relief to see him in something good again after that other shitehole movie which I actually think was way worse than I seem to have written there), Garrett Dillahunt who just played a Russian mobster on “Life”)…
I have to say: what made this movie for me was pure Coen brothers; you can tell/feel where they inserted themselves into this script: the small-town, down-home country humor and the warm personal relationships and comfortable feeling between many of the characters (despite the nasty killings and brutal stuff). And believe you me, humor and warmth = those are NOT things you will find in a McCarthy book.
Really excellent filmmaking and I (given my extreme dislike of McCarthy’s writing) wasn’t even really sure I wanted to see this…
Really good. Maybe not Oscar winning levels of accomplishment, but certainly respectable, compelling filmmaking. Kudos to you, Ben Affleck, I’m pretty impressed. There was only one thing I would consider a directorial gaffe / and it was perhaps a difficult moment of filming? I don’t know, but only one moment where I thought “That’s not right.” I’ll give you one or two (or maybe four depending) of those and still consider it a good flick.
Casey Affleck = also very impressive here. As I felt with Leo in “The Departed”, this is the movie where Casey really became sexy to me. In the past = attractive but in a kinda skeevy way. In this movie = H-O-T, hot. Really liked watching him play this role, lots of subtle moral struggles. He did a great job.
Also nice bits by Ed Harris and Amy Madigan.
Although here is the conversation as I imagine it: Ed (says to Ben): “Hey, Ben, yeah I’ll be in your movie but only if you have a part for my wife too. And here’s the deal, you have to make me look super, super hot and older man sexy, but you have to make her look as crappy, old and bedraggled as possible. Does that work for you? Yeah? OK then! We’ll do it!” (Yes, her part requires that she be somewhat more bedraggled than his does…but still…it was a bit…noticeable.)
I had high expectations for this movie and I was glad to not be disappointed. That said, the first 20 minutes or so (out of almost three hours) were not really what I was expecting. Story had some unusual twists.
Denzel and Russell were both really strong, although both looked crappier physically than I’ve seen them look in a while. There was one scene in which Denzel looked so bloated and slackjawed and I thought “oh are they going to make his character go all crazy and loose cannon now? To match how he’s falling apart physically?” But he seemed to recover a bit from that. There are TONS of other “oh oh I know that guy, what’s he been in?” actors in this. The police chief (?) from Monk. Josh Brolin (Man, I can’t stand that guy. And fortunately, in this movie, he plays someone to hate so my natural feelings weren’t fighting the storyline). “Stringer Bell” (yay!). This scrawny dude who was, I believe, the male lead in that movie everyone on earth loved (EXCEPT ME!!) “Me and You and Everyone We Know”. A dude who recently was on an episode of K-Ville. A small role knocked out of the park by Cuba Gooding Jr. and an even smaller part played by Common.
It was long and sprawling and really followed two distinct storylines (led by their respective stars) that ran parallel but didn’t truly overlap until about the last five minutes. It was violent and scrappy and sometimes offensive (in the spirit of its time). And I really (really) liked it.
I really didn’t fall for this movie as much as I thought I might after I read Jen’s reaction.
I did think George Clooney and Tom Wilkinson were great. Sydney Pollack’s character pissed me off just as much as he was supposed to. Tilda Swinton was good although I felt her “accent” slipped a few times (into frigid English bitch rather than frigid American).
But…I felt like it was an excellently acted/directed movie of something that’s been done before. So I wasn’t wowed. If you’re going to do a movie on corporate malfeasance, I think there’s a lot more to choose from these days than the same old/same old chemicals cause cancer role, and things that are more pressing/more topical (how about the government continuing to handout defense contracts to companies which were the ones already “supplying” the troops with inadequate supplies, non bullet proof “armored” cars, etc.).
Not only has the chemical angle been done before (going all the way back to Silkwood! and on through Erin Brockovich), along with the “those companies kill people who get in their way”, but also the sense of a whistle-blower (The Insider, among others).
So while I thought the performances were excellent, I didn’t think the movie really took a reach. I didn’t think it went somewhere that blew my mind, or should be award winning. (My mom called it “very competent and enjoyable.”)
But Jen loved it. So you might. And the friend that went with me came out of the theater saying “Wow, that was awesome!” (She felt this movie did some “new” spins on an old subject, say, the scenes of Tilda Swinton spreading out her clothes in the hotel rooms…)
Not so much, to me.
Dir: Anton Corbijn
Actrs: Mostly fairly unknowns (Sam Riley = awesome!!), with Samantha Morton as Deborah Curtis.
A biopic of Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division, the remaining members of which became New Order after Curtis’ suicide. Based on the biography written by his wife, Deborah. Reading up on details in various places, sounds pretty true to events, with some scenes/dialogue obviously imagined due to lack of other people in the room.
Corbijn is protesting in interviews being known only as a “rock photographer” although I’d say the skills of a rock photographer add greatly to the filming of this story. Regardless, it’s beautifully filmed in black and white, does a good job of showing the extreme bleakness of the surrounds, where they grew up, Curtis’ mental and emotional bleakness. Pondering whether either a) the side effects of his epilepsy medication made him not take the medication thus leading to more (and more?) epileptic fits on stage or whether b) he was indeed regularly taking it leading to more and more depression, paranoia, etc. The scene where the drugs are prescribed and the extreme lack of medical knowledge at the time around epilepsy was pretty scary. (Is it better now? One has to hope so.)
If not for Curtis’ suicide, you feel like you could be watching a movie about the early Stones or the Beatles. The music business was such a different animal, even in the late 70s when JD was getting their start. You see the evolution not only of the band, but of their manager and record company.
Some of it is just maddening, particularly the events that appear to lead directly to his suicide. Basically couldn’t handle being married and a father at his young age (they got married at 17 or 18, had a kid around 22, suicide at 23), was involved in at least one extramarital affair, (although I think the movie may have trimmed out other affairs for time), but prospect of wife divorcing him over him a) being unfaithful and b) stating to her that he doesn’t love her anymore! makes him completely despondent. Yet, he’s having an affair, so… Classic case of digging one’s own hole, yet his mental state left him completely unable to handle it or face up to his own actions. Interesting to see events in his life tied to songs writtenly shortly thereafter (“She Lost Control” and “Love Will Tear Us Apart” particularly).
Great acting here. Actors playing the band play the music themselves. If you liked Ray for Jamie Foxx’s incredibly Ray-like interpretation, or Walk the Line for a similarly incredible performance by Joaquin Phoenix, you should see this. Although Sam Riley’s voice is much higher than Curtis’, the band does a more than credible job of interpreting the songs and it all feels very, very real. Thought Riley did an incredible acting job, as well as Samantha Morton playing his wife and Alexandria Maria Lara playing his other love Annick (she’s breathtakingly gorgeous).
In my own “rock history”, given that he committed suicide in 1980 when I was whatever, fucking young as shit, I knew the music of New Order much better, became a huge fan thanks to my friend Pete freshman year of college who was the first person to play New Order for me, as well as The Replacements, and so many more bands that certainly owe some musical debts to Joy Division. Even today, bands like The National, would their lead have considered a rock career without having heard similarly low-voiced Ian Curtis, one has to wonder. Curtis was a big Bowie fan early on, there are lots of other bands up and coming alongside them (the Buzzcocks, hilarious bit in the film about the name; The Sex Pistols), and watching the movie just made me need to go home and sit down in front of the stereo…
New Order site lists showings around the country. Go! Highly recommended. Might want to bring kleenex.
Yay, Joaquin.
I thought most of the individual performances were really good and there’s some pretty intense cop-on-drug-dealer action. But I wasn’t totally thrilled. Felt like the movie was really divided into three parts: part 1) before Joaquin gets involved, part 2) the long middle involved and sometimes in hiding and part 3) the final confrontation. Felt like the middle part 2) was too long and there wasn’t enough in the first part 1). Things started to happen too fast / I needed a few more set up scenes to get involved with more characters than just Joaquin. And then part 3) again gets short changed (due to too much middle) and things just sort of…end. And the very last scene felt a bit like an add-on. Like they needed to add a little moment / put in sort of throwaway nod to the girl. It could have ended when Joaquin walked over to the car after handing the gun over to his “uncle” (or I thought that older police dude was their uncle anyway).
Seeing previews for American Gangster and thinking “hmm, so this fall they’re both making Westerns again (3:10 to Yuma, Assassination of Jesse James) and they’re also making ’70s NY cop/bad guys flicks (We Own the Night, American Gangster)…”
There’s a pretty gratuitous Joaquin/Eva Mendes sex scene at the very beginning of this movie. At least, so far, I can’t think of a way in which it advances the plot. But I’m not saying I minded. It may be gratuitous…but it is H-O-T hot. Very sexy. Smooches to you, Joaquin.
Dir: Helen Hood Scheer.
A documentary about the sport of Jumprope, a rising phenomenon in what appeared to be mostly inner cities. Despite not being an official sport for any schools, universities, etc., it’s highly organized with regionals, nationals and world championships. Film follows primarily kids from four (or five? i’m starting to forget) groups as they practice their routines, appear at the meets, etc. I was really into the Razzmatazz kids.
If the highlight of the Olympics for you is gymnastics, I think you’d probably enjoy this. These kids are pretty amazing athletes and their jumprope routines incorporate all kinds of tumbling/gymnastic skills as well as just plain muscle and endurance. There are speed competitions of several kinds, and jumprope routines done in singles, doubles, triples and quads. (When they get to worlds, seems like there are routines done there with many more kids at once.)
Unlike the competitive backstabbing world of gymnastics (no I’m not joking about that), and probably partially because this is a more intramural/extracurricular activity, these kids are very friendly with their opponents. Practicing together before meets, sharing new “tricks”, teaching younger kids… The sharing and “hey try this!” bit at the worlds is really cool, and very interesting to see the different styles evolving in different parts of the world: all the Asian kids seem to incorporate breakdancing into their jumprope routines!
And just like Olympic gymnasts, these are young kids, pouring their hearts into this sport, practicing for hours on end, devoting themselves physically AND mentally. Their collective goal is to get the sport into the Olympics. They need 5 continents (they have the 5), 74 or 75 countries (they only have about 35 right now) and all under the same rules (that part was unclear). Seems less structured rule & scoring wise than gymnastics, which is something that probably comes with regulation / the more structured a sport it becomes, the more spontaneity it will lose.
Made me cry several times. Really engaging.
Dir: Paul Oremland
Actrs: Mostly unknowns with a great performance by Simon Callow (who you might know as the overweight gay guy who dies in Four Weddings and a Funeral)
A young teacher with a secret gay nightlife. A rich (sometimes gay) playboy with a connection to the royal family is kidnapped and murdered. London’s incredible network of surveillance cameras are the only leads.
The entire film is done on CCTV and surveillance cameras, cameraphones, handhelds, etc. While this had a very direct tie-in to the plot and the point of the movie (thus a plus), it also lends itself to a very amateur look (a minus). Similar to when you’re watching a well-produced, well-photographed TV show and then a super cheap commercial comes on and the filming is just flat / no depth / feels two-dimensional. While part of the point of this is the “it could happen to anyone” and “you never know what’s being caught on film” and “we’re being watched/ photographed/ surveilled at all times”…on the other hand, you’re in a theater watching it on the big screen, and it just doesn’t have the visual zing of a more traditionally produced, high quality camera & film movie.
Raises some very intriguing questions. Good performances. (The lead is a little hottie.) A very 20/20 investigative feel. Really enjoyed the Q&A with the director afterward. Some of his conversations with MI-5 and MI-6 were quite…astonishing. And followed by “I never knew whether to believe anything they were telling me. Those guys get so caught up in their own mystique.” My only quibble would be: is there a way to do this, but have it look better, yet still have the “feel” of the surveillance cameras?
Very hard to describe. Definitely an “art house” or “film festival” flick. Starts with a sunrise. That seemed to take approximately 20 minutes. Twenty minutes!! With nothing but the sun slowly lightening up the sky. No sounds but the wind and the birds and…maybe you can hear trees growing?
A lot of the movie is that silent. And that slow. And that ponderous. Not in a bad way. But definitely in a disconcerting way. I found my mind racing, racing, racing. Any scene with even a hint that disaster could happen had me imagining the wildest things…things that would never actually happen in this movie.
Technically the “action” of the movie is about a Mennonite farmer, with a wife and six kids, who has fallen in love with another woman. And struggles with how to go on from that moment. Although he stays with his wife, she ultimately dies (of a broken heart?)…but then there’s this one moment of magical realism at the end… Which was lovely, but a bit odd considering the very very NOT fantastical rest of the movie.
It was the opposite of, say, a three hour movie that feels like it only took 45 minutes. It was only a little over two hours, but oh sweet monkey sundae, I felt like I was in the theater for 25 years. Sitting in such utter silence, broken only by, say, the sound of someone’s feet walking through grass. Or walking on snow. Or occasionally having a very slow, very drawn out, very few sentences conversation.
Some of it was really beautiful. And the tension in it was very powerful, despite being such non-tense kind of tension. (Maybe you had to see it to even make any sense out of that sentence.)
But it was not an easy movie, on the mind. It totally wore me out. Consider yourself warned.