On more than one occasion I have said, “I love Quentin Tarantino so much, I’d watch him take a crap on film for 2 hours and love every moment of it.” Well, last night I saw him do just that. And let me tell you, I didn’t enjoy every moment of it.

Yes, one way to make your car chase seem better is by padding it with the most atrocious, long, pointless dialog ever recored outside of a college campus, but then the car chase really has to be fucking great, not just SO-SO.

Planet Terror was fucking amazing though.

Tags: 24fps, film, moviereview

It’s flawed, for sure, but when it’s good it’s really good. It also wins for best movie moment of the year.

Tags: 3stars, moviereview

(Spoilers) I’d say if you already had interest in the new Superman movie you should definitely go see it because it’s a big action movie, lots of Superman moments and very competently made by Singer. But it was seriously underwhelming and emotionally flat and I was completely incapable of caring about what happened next. I found myself impatient when any emotional character moments were happening. “Come on… OK, music swell, meaningful looks, let’s move it along…” There are no surprises. Superman will always succeed. He’s so strong he can do anything. I mean, his solution to the central problem of this movie was to just throw the problem into space. Solved. In theory, this could be the ending to every movie. It’s a writer’s dream to have such an out! Just throw the problem into space! To some degree this is true of every Superman story. The problem is that this movie choose a conflict that could be solved by the ol’ space toss. There are limits to Superman’s powers, why not focus on a plot involving those things?

To be fair, they did delve into some of the personal issues Superman has (alienation, inability to be close to those he loves, etc) but those are the only interesting parts and they are very few and far between.

Kryptonite is required for any real sense of doubt but the problem with that is that the audience is so familiar with the kryptonite device that it’s effect is lost. He gets all sick and weak then figures out a way to get past it… kryptonite is always just as powerful as is necessary to makes things hard but not impossible. We’ve seen it too many times. Ebert has a good point in his review :

Does he think Lex Luthor would pull another stunt without a supply [of kryptonite] on hand? Why doesn’t he take the most elementary precautions? How can a middle-aged bald man stab the Man of Steel with kryptonite?

Garrett said that he’d probably like the movie even if the whole first hour was just a shot of the cape flapping in the wind. And I kinda suspect that’s how Singer felt too. The movie goes through the motions and reminds current fans why they love Superman but does little to excite those of us who don’t automatically get a boner when we see blue, red and gold.

Also, I’m sorry but Kate Bosworth’s forehead is huge. I couldn’t stop staring at it. I want to paint a mural on it. I mean, I know it’s not her fault but still. Wow. (Which hits on the more serious point that Lois Lane is supposed to be this absolutely smokin’ hot “Super” fox that is worthy of Superman. Kate Bosworth felt like someone’s bitchy kid sister.)

(NOTE: To clarify, I’m not saying that the only people who like it are fan boys or vise versa, I’m saying if you’re already a fan, it helps a lot.)

Tags: 2stars, moviereview

Just in case you thought I gave every movie 4 stars, here’s proof for you. Ultimately I couldn’t find enough in this movie to get behind it. I felt like after about the half-way point it stopped having anything new to say about its characters. That said, it’s certainly a well crafted film and one that had me thinking for days and now a full week afterward. It’s always worth seeing a movie that can do that but ultimately it just didn’t work for me. Maybe it was the all too common curse of expectation. William Hurt was nominated for an Academy Award and Ebert raved about him in his review… and sure, Hurt did some things he’s never done before but his character was a cartoon. I thought he was terrible. And I love William Hurt. He’s in the category for me of “Would pay to watch him read the phone book.” But not this time around. Sad because the film opened with one of those long-take gems that was surely setting up for a phenomenal film. Oh well.

Tags: 2stars, moviereview

Can we talk about the scene in the dentist’s office with the lead singer of Butt Hole Surfers? Can we just discuss that briefly? And that’s the least strange scene in the film. How about the plane crash. Or the time Daniel Johnston was released from a mental hospital on a clerical error and that night opened at CBGB’s? That moment in particular sort of summed up his whole story for me. But really, not one moment alone could do Johnston’s life justice. There’s just so many bizarre but genuinely moving puzzle pieces to his story that you sort of just have to see the movie and listen to the music. At one point his manager talks about someone asking which of Daniel’s albums he should listen to first and his answer was, quite appropriately, “All of them.”

I think by the time the credits rolled the only thing that truly surprised me was just how personal and moving the film was.

IMDb | Ebert

Tags: 4stars, moviereview

At first I was disappointed that this wasn’t the movie version of the Ben Folds Five song*. And after seeing it, extremely relieved that is wasn’t. The standard description of Brick is that it’s a Dashiell Hammett novel set in high school with the same stakes. And that’s just what it is. The plot borrows from the Maltese Falcon and similar books, yet instead of Sam Spade it’s some teenager named Brendon. The most shocking thing is that it works without any irony. But you get over that real quick and suddenly it’s one of the best noir crime movies of recent memory and now the fact that it’s set in high school is almost showboating.

*Joking.

Tags: 4stars, moviereview

God there’s a lot of smoking in this movie. The audience actually chuckled seeing Strathairn as Edward R. Murrow smoking while on camera. The smoke was perfect in the black and white cinematography. It was also interesting having the film look old and archival on the one hand with docu-style handheld and rack focuses on the other. It was like what a Truffaut documentary about Murrow might have looked like.

Tags: 4stars, moviereview

If you’ve seen a lot of Woody Allen movies you are familiar with the concept that if Allen isn’t in a movie, he has cast a surrogate. Will Ferrell in Melinda and Melinda, Kenneth Branagh in Celebrity, etc. So let’s assume there has to be a Woody Allen character in Match Point. I say it’s Scarlett Johansson. Obviously a hot 21 year old blonde will not invite many comparisons to Woody Allen but it’s there, the one-liners, the speech patterns. Look for it.

Also, awesome moment in the theatre. As the ring flew through the air and bounced back onto the ground the lady next to me exclaimed “Match point!” I think she thought the tennis event described at the top of the film about the ball hitting the net was a “match point.” This lady, needless to say, was a miraculous idiot.

IMdB - Match Point / Woody Allen

Tags: 4stars, moviereview, woodyallen

I didn’t love Melinda and Melinda. I barely liked it. Well, I guess I really didn’t like it, but my fondness for Woody Allen made it watch-able. Can a movie be bad but still watch-able? Absolutely. It’s a strange and rare little niche.

The premise of the movie is that one story is alternately told as a comedy or a tragedy with different casts. The story flips back and forth, certain scenes play out in both versions. The result was that it wasn’t a particularly moving tragedy or a particularly funny comedy.

My theory is that Match Point is Woody Allen’s attempt to reconnect with his sense of dramatic conflict. From what I hear, he succeeded.

Tags: 2stars, film, moviereview, woodyallen

This movie sort of works despite itself. It’s obviously about the “evils of modern society” but the best parts for me were the awesomeness and majesty of the city imagery. The high speed footage exposed the patterns of city life, but that was more fascinating to me than a problem. Ultimately a movie without text or dialog (aside from the very end) is more easily open to interpretation. I loved what Ebert said “If the people in all those cars on all those expressways are indeed living crazy lives, their problem is not the expressway … but perhaps social facts such as unemployment, crime, racism, drug abuse and illiteracy—issues so complicated that a return to nature seems like an elitist joke at their expense.”

Tags: 3stars, moviereview

Not an emotionally involving movie, but with a ton of great visual moments and and some strong acting by my new fav Sam Rockwell as well as Clooney and Barrymore, there was a lot to enjoy. It’s clear Clooney has learned everything he knows from Soderburgh, but that’s a good thing in this case.

Tags: 3stars, moviereview, soderburgh