RED CLIFF I AND II
Here's the movie that screwed up my whole top 10 rule about ranking ONLY movies I've seen in theaters in 2009. This was released in theaters a couple months ago, but thanks to my friend Steve, who spent his second summer in China in 2009 teaching English, I got to see this movie in DVD form... which he purchased while he was in that country. It didn't play on my big TV so I had to go back to my pre-Netflix PS3 days and watch it on my computer. What emerged was a sprawling two-part epic that never dragged, containing morally complex characters and engaging battle scenes, and all sorts of interesting diversions. I know there are so many subtle things going on behind the scenes with direction and pacing to make a film this long so entertaining from start to finish, but what results is direct non-pandering entertainment. If only every 'popcorn' movie could be this well-made and intelligent. Fans of any kind of Chinese / Hong Kong cinema should see just about every recognizable actor in here as a bonus.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
A move for Tuesday
Break from the top 10 for a movie report:
THE EDGE OF HEAVEN
A double bonus movie, both on my 2008 Wisconsin Film Festival list and a critical favorite from metacritic. I'm ashamed to say that this wonderful movie was only a Plan B after my Blu-Ray of Tropic Thunder from Netflix started skipping 5 minutes in.
What I'm loving about a lot of recent indie films, for some odd reason, is the multiculturalism of everything. There are 3 languages (at least) in this movie, and they flow so naturally from scene to scene. The story is really incredible, with limitations, restrictions, and a difficult lack of resolution that only the best non-indulgent movies can pull off without having the view feel cheated.
THE EDGE OF HEAVEN
A double bonus movie, both on my 2008 Wisconsin Film Festival list and a critical favorite from metacritic. I'm ashamed to say that this wonderful movie was only a Plan B after my Blu-Ray of Tropic Thunder from Netflix started skipping 5 minutes in.
What I'm loving about a lot of recent indie films, for some odd reason, is the multiculturalism of everything. There are 3 languages (at least) in this movie, and they flow so naturally from scene to scene. The story is really incredible, with limitations, restrictions, and a difficult lack of resolution that only the best non-indulgent movies can pull off without having the view feel cheated.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
#9 and #8
9. AFTERSCHOOL
A selection I saw at the Wisconsin Film Festival that suprisingly appeared very high on an Ain't it Cool News Critic's top list of the DECADE. There's nothing better for a film snob that to see a movie no one else will be able to see normally in theaters show up on a critic's list! A very confident, very disturbing movie that is almost a textbook lesson in using film style and framing to depict alienation and dehumanization. And anything that hints on those themes and seems to suggest a new unique variation on Kubrickian perfection is very exciting to behold. While so many interpretations of modern society in the cyber-age seem to me to be portrayals by creative people that seem to know better because they have more fullfilling lives, Afterschool brings all that emotional distance to a cold and personal level. Of course, since I'm fullfilling many avenues of personal expression (and used to take care of some my social needs) through a computer screen, this was a film that hit a little too close to home. But this is a subject that has to be broached as interacting with physical people becomes less of a necessity that it used to be for many of life's functions.
8. OBSERVE AND REPORT
Of course, every year contains lots of comedies, but aside from a few chuckles, can they really stick with you after watching it for the first time. Observe and Report succeeds because it adds just the right dark twists to things to make every outburst of sexual deviancy and violence less of a cheap shot and more part of a grand scheme to have you disgusted at and cheering for the main character at any given time. A consistent state of depravity is much better than perhaps a more conventional comic movie mold, where someone has to "learn" something by the end, and the big bruiser that pushes everyone around is relegated to supporting act status, instead of Seth Rogen in this film, who gets kudos for pulling off this character extremely well.
A selection I saw at the Wisconsin Film Festival that suprisingly appeared very high on an Ain't it Cool News Critic's top list of the DECADE. There's nothing better for a film snob that to see a movie no one else will be able to see normally in theaters show up on a critic's list! A very confident, very disturbing movie that is almost a textbook lesson in using film style and framing to depict alienation and dehumanization. And anything that hints on those themes and seems to suggest a new unique variation on Kubrickian perfection is very exciting to behold. While so many interpretations of modern society in the cyber-age seem to me to be portrayals by creative people that seem to know better because they have more fullfilling lives, Afterschool brings all that emotional distance to a cold and personal level. Of course, since I'm fullfilling many avenues of personal expression (and used to take care of some my social needs) through a computer screen, this was a film that hit a little too close to home. But this is a subject that has to be broached as interacting with physical people becomes less of a necessity that it used to be for many of life's functions.
8. OBSERVE AND REPORT
Of course, every year contains lots of comedies, but aside from a few chuckles, can they really stick with you after watching it for the first time. Observe and Report succeeds because it adds just the right dark twists to things to make every outburst of sexual deviancy and violence less of a cheap shot and more part of a grand scheme to have you disgusted at and cheering for the main character at any given time. A consistent state of depravity is much better than perhaps a more conventional comic movie mold, where someone has to "learn" something by the end, and the big bruiser that pushes everyone around is relegated to supporting act status, instead of Seth Rogen in this film, who gets kudos for pulling off this character extremely well.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Countdown
#10. WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE
The reaction to this was very mixed. Even a favorite political cartoonist of mine is joining in on the act of blasting a movie expanding a children's book with only a few lines into a feature length movie that's more often than not aimed directly at grown-ups. But you can't lump this into something like the movie adaptation of The Grinch, which really did pad out a perfectly fine Christmas story into an ugly tedious movie. Rather, Where the Wild Things Are captured the complexities that come with adults looking back on their innocent past. Spike Jonze, is his previous two movies, captured some odd disturbing emotions that are challenging to express conventionally. This time he taps into the nostalgia some might feel when they're packing their old childhood things away and see that fading dog-eared copy of a children's book they gobbled up with all their senses when their minds were wide open. The disturbing, mature elements that creep into the movie are just those bits of reality creeping into unfettered imagination, the types of elements that begin to necessarily take over when the world gets more complicated. But it's a low but respectable number 10 because even I couldn't completely love a movie so single-minded as this one, mostly because Being John Malkovich and Adaptation were so far-out that I expected something more after 7 years of waiting for Jonze's next movie. I think this is a movie of incredible quality if thought of within the confines of the realm of children's literature, and in the restricted but in cases boundless world of a 10-year old's mind.
The reaction to this was very mixed. Even a favorite political cartoonist of mine is joining in on the act of blasting a movie expanding a children's book with only a few lines into a feature length movie that's more often than not aimed directly at grown-ups. But you can't lump this into something like the movie adaptation of The Grinch, which really did pad out a perfectly fine Christmas story into an ugly tedious movie. Rather, Where the Wild Things Are captured the complexities that come with adults looking back on their innocent past. Spike Jonze, is his previous two movies, captured some odd disturbing emotions that are challenging to express conventionally. This time he taps into the nostalgia some might feel when they're packing their old childhood things away and see that fading dog-eared copy of a children's book they gobbled up with all their senses when their minds were wide open. The disturbing, mature elements that creep into the movie are just those bits of reality creeping into unfettered imagination, the types of elements that begin to necessarily take over when the world gets more complicated. But it's a low but respectable number 10 because even I couldn't completely love a movie so single-minded as this one, mostly because Being John Malkovich and Adaptation were so far-out that I expected something more after 7 years of waiting for Jonze's next movie. I think this is a movie of incredible quality if thought of within the confines of the realm of children's literature, and in the restricted but in cases boundless world of a 10-year old's mind.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The Ten: 2009 Movies
It's time to lock in my votes and call it the most intense movie-watching year of my life. There was some last minute shuffling (including a demotion of my #1) but these are the best movies I saw in theaters in 2009, including one that was released in 2009 but which I saw at home. This year I think I can say that there really wasn't any completely sweeping film that hit all the notes of perfection that I look for in a movie. I don't think that means it was a bad movie year for me. Because even though I haven't yet finished my series of essays on film snobbery, the entries I have written convince me that I am perceiving movies on a different plane than perhaps a casual viewer. What I mean by that is there is a quality movie, and a movie that is mesmerizing because of the incredible way in builds and turns expectations in the niche genre it decides to present itself in. My favorite movies are exciting not just because they are very very good, but because their expression dances in areas outside of traditional film expression and taps into my appreciation for other types of art, or parallels a little bit of a subversive attitude I personally adopt towards some of life's complexities. Does it take me out of an ideal movie-watching experience when these films do this? Sometimes... but like my favorite musician Frank Zappa exemplifies in his sounds and lyrics, sometimes the best way to fully enjoy something is to have half yourself in sublime escapism, and the rest in the messy emotions and crudeness of the real world.
I'll begin this a little later...
I'll begin this a little later...
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Tues. Movies...
SHERLOCK HOLMES (2009)
CHUNGKING EXPRESS (1994)
Well, I've done it again... I've listened to an entire commentary track of a movie. This time because I was frustrated and compelled by this movie's placing on Time's 100 greatest list.
I had a feeling, that just like with L'Avventura, I was missing something in a unique film language.
Although the commentary track didn't live up to L'Avventura's 'best ever' commentary track as said by a critic, it did help me understand it more. In the case of L'Avventura's metonymic filmmaking, the film images served as actual commentary on emotions of the characters. In the case of Wong Kar-Wai's style (I was also equally initially frustrated by his two other films I've seen... In the Mood for Love and 2046), the film style serves to capture moments and unfulfilled potentials that are part of many courtships and relationship pursuits... but nonetheless can never be articulated in any poetic way through words or blatant romanticisms. Not an easy film to take in, but the wide pallete of real-life sentiments people feel when their caught up in love isn't very easy to summarize by a long shot.
CHUNGKING EXPRESS (1994)
Well, I've done it again... I've listened to an entire commentary track of a movie. This time because I was frustrated and compelled by this movie's placing on Time's 100 greatest list.
I had a feeling, that just like with L'Avventura, I was missing something in a unique film language.
Although the commentary track didn't live up to L'Avventura's 'best ever' commentary track as said by a critic, it did help me understand it more. In the case of L'Avventura's metonymic filmmaking, the film images served as actual commentary on emotions of the characters. In the case of Wong Kar-Wai's style (I was also equally initially frustrated by his two other films I've seen... In the Mood for Love and 2046), the film style serves to capture moments and unfulfilled potentials that are part of many courtships and relationship pursuits... but nonetheless can never be articulated in any poetic way through words or blatant romanticisms. Not an easy film to take in, but the wide pallete of real-life sentiments people feel when their caught up in love isn't very easy to summarize by a long shot.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
First Tuesday of 2010
Time to begin this year, with lots of movie watching interrupted with things like work, sleep, courtship, and figuring out comprehensive life goals.
Through Netflix Instant...
RACHEL GETTING MARRIED
While this movie seemed like it would go over some conventional themes of a drug addict seeking redemption, this was a critical favorite and was part of my Critic's top 10 project that began over the past couple weeks.
This turned out to be incredible and pretty emotionally devastating. After just watching the Visitor though, I see how this performance-based movie seemed to be more effective, because the style of the movie was to have Anne Hathaway's character blend in with the surroundings. With the handheld homey look to everything, her performance absolutely shines but doesn't overshadow the supporting players and the atmosphere. I'll remember this for a while. Hathaway performs so perfectly you squirm and get really wrecked watching her suffering. Excellent.
Through Netflix Instant...
RACHEL GETTING MARRIED
While this movie seemed like it would go over some conventional themes of a drug addict seeking redemption, this was a critical favorite and was part of my Critic's top 10 project that began over the past couple weeks.
This turned out to be incredible and pretty emotionally devastating. After just watching the Visitor though, I see how this performance-based movie seemed to be more effective, because the style of the movie was to have Anne Hathaway's character blend in with the surroundings. With the handheld homey look to everything, her performance absolutely shines but doesn't overshadow the supporting players and the atmosphere. I'll remember this for a while. Hathaway performs so perfectly you squirm and get really wrecked watching her suffering. Excellent.
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