Fear of sounding like a philistine kept me silent for quite a while about the fact that I simply did not like this movie. However, I finally feel free to say it: My name is Brooke, and I did not like “La Dolce Vita”.
Never before has a film so highly regarded in the canon disappointed me so greatly. Its sin was not to be offensive; while I don’t particularly care for “Salo”, I respect its boundary-pushing and don’t begrudge it an inclusion on anyone’s great films list. Nor was it impenetrable; you’re talking to one of the great evangelists for “Last Year at Marienbad” here. I have no problem with a movie making an artful sort of nonsense. No, “La Dolce Vita”’s sin was that it bored me.
I am not a newcomer to Fellini, as anyone who knows me well is already aware. In fact, I adore “8 ½” and am generally fond of many of his other works despite our differing sensibilities. (Give me one mid-century European art-house director’s films for a desert island, and I’m going to take Bergman every time.) However, “La Dolce Vita” had me checking my watch in several places as it appeared that entire scenes were taking place for no reason. Whole conversations would pass without a single interesting line and without any discernible point.
The plot concerns a playboy who has grown disillusioned with his life of endless parties and women and seeks out a series of escapes from the “sweet life” to which he has grown accustomed. None work, however, and he ends the film resigned to continue living the life of pleasure he is immune to enjoying. I could understand the point of long, seemingly endless scenes at parties as a way to make the audience understand the plight of our hero. However, these scenes also contain no poetry, no sense of connection; the filmmaker has aligned himself instead with the bores our hero longs to escape.
Roger Ebert adores this film and claims that it improves with viewings throughout life. I admit to the possibility that I will see this film again in my forties or fifties just to see if his opinion, which I so greatly respect, but for now I must file it under “possibly misunderstood, probably just overrated”.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
2012, 2.5 stars
Roger Ebert gave this film a nearly perfect review, and in a way I see his point. No one who knows anything about this movie will leave feeling disappointed. The special effects are hilariously over-the-top, as is the acting, the plot, and just about everything else. The plot is this: through typical disaster-movie pseudoscience, solar flares have caused the earth's crust to boil and shift and the magnetic poles to reverse. Of course, this means many long scenes of explanation where scientists are asked to explain things, "in English, please!", another scene wherein a man and his daughter outrun the Yellowstone supervolcano, and many feats of physically impossible aviation.
However, I could have done with a bit less of the kitchen-sink approach to throwing cliches into the film. In a way this felt like a perfect disaster-movie corollary to Michael Bay's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which did the same for summer action blockbusters. However, Roland Emmerich as a director is above such postmodern nonsense. Trimming a few subplots and characters or including fewer completely improbable sequences would have made this a tight yet still excessive action film. Emmerich has a better eye for spatiotemporality than Bay does and should use it to make a disaster film that is truly interesting, instead of one that simple grinds its gears, goes through the motions, and then shuffles quietly out the door.
However, I could have done with a bit less of the kitchen-sink approach to throwing cliches into the film. In a way this felt like a perfect disaster-movie corollary to Michael Bay's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which did the same for summer action blockbusters. However, Roland Emmerich as a director is above such postmodern nonsense. Trimming a few subplots and characters or including fewer completely improbable sequences would have made this a tight yet still excessive action film. Emmerich has a better eye for spatiotemporality than Bay does and should use it to make a disaster film that is truly interesting, instead of one that simple grinds its gears, goes through the motions, and then shuffles quietly out the door.
The Brothers Bloom, 4.5 stars
OK, Rian Johnson really needs to get out of my head. First he sets a film noir in a high school, creating one of the most original and charming genre blends of the past decade. It's one of those ideas that left everyone wondering why they hadn't tried that before. Now here he comes with a film that blends a classic con-game plot with the trappings of an aggressively quirky indie film such as those lovingly crafted by Wes Anderson.
Stephen and Bloom (whose last names are actually never given) are brothers who have made a career out of long cons. Unsurprisingly to anyone who has seen even one con-game film, one of the brothers wants out but is talked into one last con before retirement. The object is an heiress right out of Bringing Up Baby by way of Garden State. She is played by Rachel Weisz, a perfect choice for the role because she is a woman who can never seem dumb. Despite her character's inherent ditziness, she is never an object of our pity because her warmth and intelligence make her a believable target for con men.
The film is laugh-out-loud funny at times and quietly poignant at others. It suffers from the common con-game film reversals at the end which leave some audiences feeling cheated. However, anyone familiar with the films Johnson is referencing will realize that this is homage instead of derivation, and leave the theater with a smile on their faces at the lovingly crafted mashup that has resulted.
Stephen and Bloom (whose last names are actually never given) are brothers who have made a career out of long cons. Unsurprisingly to anyone who has seen even one con-game film, one of the brothers wants out but is talked into one last con before retirement. The object is an heiress right out of Bringing Up Baby by way of Garden State. She is played by Rachel Weisz, a perfect choice for the role because she is a woman who can never seem dumb. Despite her character's inherent ditziness, she is never an object of our pity because her warmth and intelligence make her a believable target for con men.
The film is laugh-out-loud funny at times and quietly poignant at others. It suffers from the common con-game film reversals at the end which leave some audiences feeling cheated. However, anyone familiar with the films Johnson is referencing will realize that this is homage instead of derivation, and leave the theater with a smile on their faces at the lovingly crafted mashup that has resulted.
Orgazmo, 1.5 stars
I really wanted to like this film, and caught hell on Facebook for disliking it. Living in the thick of Mormon country as I do, I wanted to appreciate a spoof on the religion's squeaky-clean adherents; as a former resident of Los Angeles I was also willing to see the cultural cesspool beneathe the surface of L.A. parodied equally.
Instead I was treated to a film so sophomoric and poorly shot that at times I was convinced that the directors had used a single camera. No other excuse could explain some of the film's shots. There were a few mildly funny running gags (such as the "I'm not gay, but..." spiel) but overall the production seemed haphazard and overlong. Folks, a 95-minute movie has no business feeling overlong.
Even the execrable "Idiocracy", which runs in a similar vein of humor, had more genuinely funny moments than this. I failed to laugh aloud even once. Skip this and rent "Borat" or "The Hangover" for scatological, risque humor that still...well, works.
Instead I was treated to a film so sophomoric and poorly shot that at times I was convinced that the directors had used a single camera. No other excuse could explain some of the film's shots. There were a few mildly funny running gags (such as the "I'm not gay, but..." spiel) but overall the production seemed haphazard and overlong. Folks, a 95-minute movie has no business feeling overlong.
Even the execrable "Idiocracy", which runs in a similar vein of humor, had more genuinely funny moments than this. I failed to laugh aloud even once. Skip this and rent "Borat" or "The Hangover" for scatological, risque humor that still...well, works.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
The Number 23, 2.5 stars
Wow, what a hideous mess of a movie. Here is a movie that goes so completely to the side of "wrong" that it almost makes a full circle and comes back around to being gloriously, irrepressibly right. Jim Carrey plays dual roles, one as a mild-mannered dogcatcher whose life changes when he chases a dog into a graveyard one afternoon, and the other as the fictional detective hero of a story read by the dogcatcher character. Carrey attacks this as if it's an assignment from an acting class; he sets up the two characters as polar opposites of each other and refuses any actions which might hint that they have something in common. While this helps keep the film's big twist under wraps, it also robs both characters of their humanity.
It fails to rob them of their power to amuse, however. Walter, the dogcatcher character, finds himself obsessed by a book about the 23 enigma that he finds in a used bookstore. The author, incidentally, is named Topsy Kretts, and with a name like that I think it's unnecessary to issue a spoiler warning for what follows in my review. Walter gradually alienates his family and friends by obsessing over the number 23 and its permutations in his life. In the parallel storyline of the book Walter is reading, a modern noir-type detective antihero is watching beautiful blondes throw themselves out of windows to the accompaniment of painfully emo music. Walter eventually comes to the realization that the book was written by him about events he suppressed, including a murder he committed. Freed of his burdens, he cheerfully allows himself to be carted off to prison.
Plot summary cannot describe how campy and humorous this movie is. Director Joel Schumacher actually succeeds at creating some striking images within the parallel world, but such skill is immediately negated by Carrey's hilariously intense brooding over a saxophone while flaunting tribal tattoos. In the more mundane world, Carrey's attempts at acting retiring and unassuming (used to far better effect in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind") simply serve to make his histrionics when he finds out what he has done all the more humorous. This film was a notorious failure, but I enjoyed every minute. I was not bored even once and laughed aloud numerous times. The film's two-star rating, in fact, was gathered from an average of 0 stars and 5, since I still remain undecided as to whether this film is utter trash or some sort of perverse masterpiece.
It fails to rob them of their power to amuse, however. Walter, the dogcatcher character, finds himself obsessed by a book about the 23 enigma that he finds in a used bookstore. The author, incidentally, is named Topsy Kretts, and with a name like that I think it's unnecessary to issue a spoiler warning for what follows in my review. Walter gradually alienates his family and friends by obsessing over the number 23 and its permutations in his life. In the parallel storyline of the book Walter is reading, a modern noir-type detective antihero is watching beautiful blondes throw themselves out of windows to the accompaniment of painfully emo music. Walter eventually comes to the realization that the book was written by him about events he suppressed, including a murder he committed. Freed of his burdens, he cheerfully allows himself to be carted off to prison.
Plot summary cannot describe how campy and humorous this movie is. Director Joel Schumacher actually succeeds at creating some striking images within the parallel world, but such skill is immediately negated by Carrey's hilariously intense brooding over a saxophone while flaunting tribal tattoos. In the more mundane world, Carrey's attempts at acting retiring and unassuming (used to far better effect in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind") simply serve to make his histrionics when he finds out what he has done all the more humorous. This film was a notorious failure, but I enjoyed every minute. I was not bored even once and laughed aloud numerous times. The film's two-star rating, in fact, was gathered from an average of 0 stars and 5, since I still remain undecided as to whether this film is utter trash or some sort of perverse masterpiece.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Black Christmas, 3 stars
This was praised to me as a classic of the slasher genre, and I must admit it takes several stylistic risks that I was not expecting. Possible spoilers are ahead, although I'm fairly confident most of my readers will be aware of the plot points that this film was the first to use.
Most importantly, this film is apparently the first to use the "the calls are coming from inside your house!" ending, wherein the police discover that the harassing phone calls that have tormented a group of women all night were actually placed from another floor of the house. It also features extensive subjective camerawork from the POV of the killer, and the killer's identity and motives are deliberately left open-ended. For a film that at times seems mechanical (a fault many slasher movies share), it broaches the subject of abortion and seems surprisingly comfortable not tying up all the loose plot ends. It makes extensive use of the Christmas setting to create a feeling of dread about a holiday that, if we're honest with ourselves, we've all felt a little discomfort about for one reason or another. Overall, a tight little slasher picture with a few surprises up its sleeve: an ideal gift to give yourself on a dark night this holiday season.
Most importantly, this film is apparently the first to use the "the calls are coming from inside your house!" ending, wherein the police discover that the harassing phone calls that have tormented a group of women all night were actually placed from another floor of the house. It also features extensive subjective camerawork from the POV of the killer, and the killer's identity and motives are deliberately left open-ended. For a film that at times seems mechanical (a fault many slasher movies share), it broaches the subject of abortion and seems surprisingly comfortable not tying up all the loose plot ends. It makes extensive use of the Christmas setting to create a feeling of dread about a holiday that, if we're honest with ourselves, we've all felt a little discomfort about for one reason or another. Overall, a tight little slasher picture with a few surprises up its sleeve: an ideal gift to give yourself on a dark night this holiday season.
Border Incident, 3 stars
Let me make one thing clear: this is a two-star film with a four-star premise, particularly for the time. Plotwise it is a typical film noir: g-men infiltrate an illegal operation and one of them gets put in mortal danger in the process. The difference is that this time the illegal operation is the smuggling of immigrants across the US-Mexico border. A plot that addressed this issue at all would have been quite progressive for the time. Yes, there are stereotypes of Mexicans, including sombreros and banditry, but the main characters are fleshed out and the plot does not shrink from showing the human toll of the operation.
Anthony Mann apparently directed this film in his sleep, save for a few striking nighttime sequences such as a harrowing scene where a man is chased relentlessly by an approaching combine. Ricardo Montalban is excellent in an early role that gives him little to do; he makes the most of it. The other performances are undistinguished, but this is definitely a B-movie with an edge that elevates it above other stock entertainments of the time.
Anthony Mann apparently directed this film in his sleep, save for a few striking nighttime sequences such as a harrowing scene where a man is chased relentlessly by an approaching combine. Ricardo Montalban is excellent in an early role that gives him little to do; he makes the most of it. The other performances are undistinguished, but this is definitely a B-movie with an edge that elevates it above other stock entertainments of the time.
Crazy Stone, 3 stars
This is a film I watched because it apparently typifies the films actually seen by Chinese people, in contrast to the serious art-house films we Americans are fed. It was sold as a Chinese "Ocean's Eleven", and while it doesn't quite live up to the slick coolness of that film's veneer, it was a perfectly entertaining example of popular cinema. Of course, China's cinema is so varied that no one film can encompass the tastes of the country, but it was nice to have something to contrast with widely praised, stiff films like "Yi Yi".
The plot, which is as straightforward and uninvolved as caper plots usually are, concerns a valuable piece of jade which several groups of men are attempting to steal. Many reversals occur, a replacement piece wounds up stolen, then it turns out not to have been, and all the while flashy editing and over-the-top performances are keeping our interest in the proceedings high. Many of the cuts and zooms reference classical Hong Kong action films, and the characters are recognizable as stereotypes even to Western eyes. I probably missed some economic commentary (the jade is being displayed in a factory by a social-climbing factory owner). However, none of the film was a waste of time and I appreciated its insights into what draws bodies into Chinese theaters. I'll take this over "Farewell My Concubine" or an American blockbuster like "Transformers" any day.
The plot, which is as straightforward and uninvolved as caper plots usually are, concerns a valuable piece of jade which several groups of men are attempting to steal. Many reversals occur, a replacement piece wounds up stolen, then it turns out not to have been, and all the while flashy editing and over-the-top performances are keeping our interest in the proceedings high. Many of the cuts and zooms reference classical Hong Kong action films, and the characters are recognizable as stereotypes even to Western eyes. I probably missed some economic commentary (the jade is being displayed in a factory by a social-climbing factory owner). However, none of the film was a waste of time and I appreciated its insights into what draws bodies into Chinese theaters. I'll take this over "Farewell My Concubine" or an American blockbuster like "Transformers" any day.
Surviving Desire, 4 stars
Perhaps the McCarran airport after a week in Vegas was not the ideal setting for watching a literate, heartfelt exploration of love and lust. However, I think my opinion of Hal Hartley's sweet, lightly humorous romantic drama was actually improved by the louche hedonism all around me. Martin Donovan portrays a literature professor who enters an affair with one of his students, a Jean Seberg type who insists on discussing her feelings in eloquent, insistent monologues.
In a parallel storyline, Donovan's best friend enters a strange and impulsive romance with a street woman who proposes to any man who walks by. These opposite and complementary relationships provide a charming, featherweight commentary on the extremes of attraction and love. Hartley can be a filmmaker of very big hits and wide misses, and with this short film he pushes no boundaries but simply gives us characters who say the things we wish we could say to those we desire. The title is misleading; this is not a film to be survived but enjoyed minute by precious minute.
In a parallel storyline, Donovan's best friend enters a strange and impulsive romance with a street woman who proposes to any man who walks by. These opposite and complementary relationships provide a charming, featherweight commentary on the extremes of attraction and love. Hartley can be a filmmaker of very big hits and wide misses, and with this short film he pushes no boundaries but simply gives us characters who say the things we wish we could say to those we desire. The title is misleading; this is not a film to be survived but enjoyed minute by precious minute.
9, 3 stars
Here is an example of why one should never mix new age psychobabble with steampunk aesthetics. (Yes, I'm sure the world was clamoring for more proof that this should not be attempted.) Here is a film that has the look of Little Big Planet and the half-baked plot and ideas of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The plot concerns a group of sentient sack-people who awaken self-aware in a postapocalyptic wasteland. They struggle to understand how they got to this world and why they have been awakened.
I will not give away the ending here, since to do so would be to invite a long diatribe on its new age treacle, but suffice to say it requires a belief in a higher power and an afterlife that I just couldn't summon, particularly not after a buildup so visually interesting as the one that "9" establishes. For about the first 20 minutes of this movie I was entranced by its visual style, which borrowed from "The Triplets of Belleville" and certain Marilyn Manson music videos as well as from the classic steampunk look. However, as I realized there was another hour of the film left and not much substance to fill it, the look of the film suddenly became repetitive and hollow, as I longed for the characters to do something besides engage in another chase sequence or go through labored plot mechanics. Steampunk should not mean that we can hear the gears of the plot creaking.
I will not give away the ending here, since to do so would be to invite a long diatribe on its new age treacle, but suffice to say it requires a belief in a higher power and an afterlife that I just couldn't summon, particularly not after a buildup so visually interesting as the one that "9" establishes. For about the first 20 minutes of this movie I was entranced by its visual style, which borrowed from "The Triplets of Belleville" and certain Marilyn Manson music videos as well as from the classic steampunk look. However, as I realized there was another hour of the film left and not much substance to fill it, the look of the film suddenly became repetitive and hollow, as I longed for the characters to do something besides engage in another chase sequence or go through labored plot mechanics. Steampunk should not mean that we can hear the gears of the plot creaking.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The Holy Mountain, 2.5 stars
I think I have come to Alejandro Jodorowsky backwards. I started with his short "La Cravate" and moved on to "Fando & Lis", which I found perfectly maddening in that art-film way that I love. Now I come to one of his most praised works and find it simply dull.
It tells an allegorical story of a priest gathering people to symbolize the nine planets and then taking them to the top of a holy mountain for mystical knowledge. However, Jodorowsky insists on telling this story through amateurish camerawork and a script that focuses on long monologues full of new age psychobabble. I checked my watch multiple times and broke the movie up over two nights to relieve the boredom. I can't see much to recommend this film unless you have an ample supply of pot or other intoxicants available. That might make this film feel something like its 2 hours, instead of the 4 it felt like to me.
It tells an allegorical story of a priest gathering people to symbolize the nine planets and then taking them to the top of a holy mountain for mystical knowledge. However, Jodorowsky insists on telling this story through amateurish camerawork and a script that focuses on long monologues full of new age psychobabble. I checked my watch multiple times and broke the movie up over two nights to relieve the boredom. I can't see much to recommend this film unless you have an ample supply of pot or other intoxicants available. That might make this film feel something like its 2 hours, instead of the 4 it felt like to me.
Sorority Row, 2.5 stars
Well, well. Here is a typical slasher film, full of bad acting, undeveloped subplots, and the world's nosiest cats. I had a special relationship to this film, in that the lead role was played by Leah Pipes, a former client of a talent scouting agency I worked for in Los Angeles. This was probably the largest role I had ever seen anyone I know play on the big screen, and I had trouble properly evaluating the movie for that reason.
However, from what I could discern, the film was shot and edited in workmanlike, indistinguished fashion. It concerns a sorority prank gone wrong when a group of friends tricks a boy into thinking one of their group is dead. When they go to hide the "body", the boy takes things too seriously and actually kills the sorority sister. The rest of the movie is taken up with plot mechanics so rusty we hear the gears grinding. Is the killer now stalking campus the sorority sister resurrected from the dead? Do we care?
As a paint-by-numbers thriller this is perfectly serviceable, but I have trouble finding anything to recommend it over many better options in the genre.
However, from what I could discern, the film was shot and edited in workmanlike, indistinguished fashion. It concerns a sorority prank gone wrong when a group of friends tricks a boy into thinking one of their group is dead. When they go to hide the "body", the boy takes things too seriously and actually kills the sorority sister. The rest of the movie is taken up with plot mechanics so rusty we hear the gears grinding. Is the killer now stalking campus the sorority sister resurrected from the dead? Do we care?
As a paint-by-numbers thriller this is perfectly serviceable, but I have trouble finding anything to recommend it over many better options in the genre.
Gamer, 3 stars
After the pyrotechnic pastiche of the Crank films, I had such high expectations for the next stop on the Neveldine/Taylor thrill ride. Their sly humor and offbeat palette were sadly missing for most of this serviceable but strangely heartless action film. Shot mostly in a gray color scheme that shows all the flaws of digital video, it concerns a future where people control real-life avatars in video games that end in real death. Gerard Butler, whose emotional affect often implies that he is being controlled by outside forces even when the plot suggests otherwise, is our hero, who must win only one more battle to be released from the prison where he has landed after being framed.
There are moments of genuine wit and near-brilliance in the film. There is a choreographed dance fight set to "I've Got You Under My Skin" near the end of the film that is largely carried by Michael C. Hall's calmly villainous performance, and there are a few easter eggs for the eagle-eyed, such as the screen behind an obese gamer that displays nothing but an endless loop of bacon frying. Overall, however, the film is shrill without the self-referential humor and bright, thoughtful production design of the Crank films. Let's hope this is Neveldine/Taylor's sophomore slump, and that they soon come back with another fantastic postmodern mishmash that doesn't waste most of its time in a grayscale, oh-so-predictable gaming set.
There are moments of genuine wit and near-brilliance in the film. There is a choreographed dance fight set to "I've Got You Under My Skin" near the end of the film that is largely carried by Michael C. Hall's calmly villainous performance, and there are a few easter eggs for the eagle-eyed, such as the screen behind an obese gamer that displays nothing but an endless loop of bacon frying. Overall, however, the film is shrill without the self-referential humor and bright, thoughtful production design of the Crank films. Let's hope this is Neveldine/Taylor's sophomore slump, and that they soon come back with another fantastic postmodern mishmash that doesn't waste most of its time in a grayscale, oh-so-predictable gaming set.
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