Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Movie Reviews
Here a few new and new-ish movies I've watched recently:
-"The Black Dahlia" (2006 - Dir.: Brian De Palma) Muddy L.A. noir sort of revolving around gruesome real-life murder case. Starts well, drags in the middle (with a distinct shortage of De Palma-esque showpiece sequences), ultimately infuriates. Adapting James Ellroy, De Palma shows little interest in the murder story, instead gumming up the works with an overabundance of femme fatales (at least half a dozen, by my count) and loose ends. Johannsen is stunning as ever (is she the modern-day Lana Turner?), but she's barely in the movie. Even Hilary Swank looks pretty good, thanks to a black wig and a heroic push-up bra, but her character is beyond ludicrous - the hook is that she's supposed to be a dead ringer for the murdered girl, but the two don't even bear a glancing resemblance. Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart are OK as the requisite cops-on-the-edge, but they just go to show that there are no more Sterling Haydens and Robert Ryans out there. A disappointment. GRADE: C.
-"Feast" (2006 - Dir.: John Gulager) "Project: Greenlight" contest winner John Gulager bears the distinction of being the only person ever associated with that program who deserves to ever work in film. Of course, the competition is hardly feirce - season 1 product "Stolen Summer" is the most anti-Semitic film masquerading as a feel-good message of religious tolerance in Hollywood history; season 2's "The Battle of Shaker Heights", by comparison, was just run-of-the-mill terrible, but a movie only in the loosest sense of the word. "Feast" is a jolly grossout flick about a bunch of cwaaaaazy characters battling ravenous alien beasts in a middle-of-nowhere road house - it's not good, but at least it's something. If nothing else, you can appreciate that Gulager attempted something satiric and bizarre - with just a little extra time and money, it would have even been worth a regular theatrical release. I maintain that the "Project Greenlight" format set up its winners to fail by severely abbreviating their pre-production time. In "Feast", the corner-cutting manifests itself in the presentation of the aliens, who just don't look cool or scary or threatening, and Gulager's shaky-cam technique renders most of the action incomprehensible. I have to appreciate Gulager's gusto, but I can't recommend the film. GRADE: C-. [NOTE: "Feast" was held over for another weekend of midnight showings. The Friday night screening I attended was about 2/3 full.]
-"Cinemania" (2002 - Dir.: Angela Christlie/Stephen Kijak) Entertaining but skin-deep documentary about film obsessives in New York. The film profiles five kinda-creepy New Yorkers whose lives consist of one screening after another, to the exclusion of friends, family, jobs, and actual lives. All five are interesting subjects, and I couldn't help but be compelled by the subject (and feel some pangs of jealousy over the great films they get to see on the big screen), but the filmmakers never cut beneath the quirky surface. All 5 of the cinemaniacs seem have to accepted film as a substitute for certain emotional and physical satisfactions that frighten or elude them (one 40-ish adult lives with his mother, most live in squalor, and all are sexually repressed), but the filmmakers seem content to play them for laughs. GRADE: B-.
"The Ballad of Jack and Rose" (2005 - Dir.: Rebecca Miller) Daniel Day-Lewis (husband of director Miller) gives a sensitive and nuanced performance as a brilliant and utopian-minded ex-hippie living in flirty seclusion with his savage-innocent daughter on a remote East Coast island. Their routine is disrupted first by the forces of progress (a developer is building tract homes on the island's protected wetlands) and next by the father's affair with a neurotic divorcee from town played by Catherine Keener. When Day-Lewis invites Keener and her two teenage sons into their private world, the daughter (played by Camilla Belle) reacts with innocence, wonder, and vengeance. Good for the first two-thirds, but undermined by bad writing in the last third, even as the film heads toward an inevitable conclusion. Worth a look if you've got the patience, but Miller's wandering camera style has been known to drive some people crazy. GRADE: B-.
**********
OK, that'll do for now. I'll try to get my Dare Daniel review of "The Ape" out this week, but I might be pressed for time because of Almodovar screenings, so we'll see how it goes. I'll also write about the Little Richard show either tonight or tomorrow.
-"The Black Dahlia" (2006 - Dir.: Brian De Palma) Muddy L.A. noir sort of revolving around gruesome real-life murder case. Starts well, drags in the middle (with a distinct shortage of De Palma-esque showpiece sequences), ultimately infuriates. Adapting James Ellroy, De Palma shows little interest in the murder story, instead gumming up the works with an overabundance of femme fatales (at least half a dozen, by my count) and loose ends. Johannsen is stunning as ever (is she the modern-day Lana Turner?), but she's barely in the movie. Even Hilary Swank looks pretty good, thanks to a black wig and a heroic push-up bra, but her character is beyond ludicrous - the hook is that she's supposed to be a dead ringer for the murdered girl, but the two don't even bear a glancing resemblance. Josh Hartnett and Aaron Eckhart are OK as the requisite cops-on-the-edge, but they just go to show that there are no more Sterling Haydens and Robert Ryans out there. A disappointment. GRADE: C.
-"Feast" (2006 - Dir.: John Gulager) "Project: Greenlight" contest winner John Gulager bears the distinction of being the only person ever associated with that program who deserves to ever work in film. Of course, the competition is hardly feirce - season 1 product "Stolen Summer" is the most anti-Semitic film masquerading as a feel-good message of religious tolerance in Hollywood history; season 2's "The Battle of Shaker Heights", by comparison, was just run-of-the-mill terrible, but a movie only in the loosest sense of the word. "Feast" is a jolly grossout flick about a bunch of cwaaaaazy characters battling ravenous alien beasts in a middle-of-nowhere road house - it's not good, but at least it's something. If nothing else, you can appreciate that Gulager attempted something satiric and bizarre - with just a little extra time and money, it would have even been worth a regular theatrical release. I maintain that the "Project Greenlight" format set up its winners to fail by severely abbreviating their pre-production time. In "Feast", the corner-cutting manifests itself in the presentation of the aliens, who just don't look cool or scary or threatening, and Gulager's shaky-cam technique renders most of the action incomprehensible. I have to appreciate Gulager's gusto, but I can't recommend the film. GRADE: C-. [NOTE: "Feast" was held over for another weekend of midnight showings. The Friday night screening I attended was about 2/3 full.]
-"Cinemania" (2002 - Dir.: Angela Christlie/Stephen Kijak) Entertaining but skin-deep documentary about film obsessives in New York. The film profiles five kinda-creepy New Yorkers whose lives consist of one screening after another, to the exclusion of friends, family, jobs, and actual lives. All five are interesting subjects, and I couldn't help but be compelled by the subject (and feel some pangs of jealousy over the great films they get to see on the big screen), but the filmmakers never cut beneath the quirky surface. All 5 of the cinemaniacs seem have to accepted film as a substitute for certain emotional and physical satisfactions that frighten or elude them (one 40-ish adult lives with his mother, most live in squalor, and all are sexually repressed), but the filmmakers seem content to play them for laughs. GRADE: B-.
"The Ballad of Jack and Rose" (2005 - Dir.: Rebecca Miller) Daniel Day-Lewis (husband of director Miller) gives a sensitive and nuanced performance as a brilliant and utopian-minded ex-hippie living in flirty seclusion with his savage-innocent daughter on a remote East Coast island. Their routine is disrupted first by the forces of progress (a developer is building tract homes on the island's protected wetlands) and next by the father's affair with a neurotic divorcee from town played by Catherine Keener. When Day-Lewis invites Keener and her two teenage sons into their private world, the daughter (played by Camilla Belle) reacts with innocence, wonder, and vengeance. Good for the first two-thirds, but undermined by bad writing in the last third, even as the film heads toward an inevitable conclusion. Worth a look if you've got the patience, but Miller's wandering camera style has been known to drive some people crazy. GRADE: B-.
**********
OK, that'll do for now. I'll try to get my Dare Daniel review of "The Ape" out this week, but I might be pressed for time because of Almodovar screenings, so we'll see how it goes. I'll also write about the Little Richard show either tonight or tomorrow.
Comments:
<< Home
Swank is the one who should have played the Dahlia since she looks more like a hermaphrodite than crazy little Jenny from the L word.
i just saw the dahlia and it was really bad in my opinion. there was nothing to walk away with. the characters were flat, the plot lacked tension and coherence and what was up with the fuzzy camera work? it's like he smeared vaseline on the lense for 5 shots as an experiment and just decided to leave them in the final edit. disappointing for sure. and i even think hartnett is eye candy.
DB, I just wanted to let you know how funny the phrase "no jaw goes un-jutted" is. I always look forward to reading your SN&R stuff. Now, if only there was a place to read a review of a Little Richard show, the world would be perfect.
Post a Comment
<< Home
