Music for the Weekend

Have a good weekend and hope you find something good in the theaters.

Weekly Summary (5/30/14)

After the break a list of my reviews for the past week and final verdicts for each of them.

Brief Reviews (5/29/14)

          

Hugh Jackman Thursday! Check out after the jump for very brief reviews of X-Men: Days of Future Past and Prisoners.

Chef (2014) - Review

I mentioned earlier in the week about how there were two films that I had seen this past weekend that seemed to be invoking old-time Hollywood emotional filmmaking, perhaps as a response to the present Hollywood of sensory spectacle. The mold obviously fits for Jon Favreau's Chef.

The Stepmother (1972) - Brief Review

File The Stepmother under "I watch it so you don't have to." What a waste of time.

The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973) - Brief Review

The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing is not so much a bad movie - it's more pointless than anything else.

The Last American Hero (1973) - Brief Review

The Last American Hero is a 1973 film starring Jeff Bridges and is a fictionalized version of NASCAR legend Junior Johnson's entry into stock car racing. Best when it sticks to character drama and Jeff Bridges' classic Bridges-esque performance, the film only sags, ironically, when the racing begins.

The Immigrant (2013) - Review

The Immigrant. Photograph: Anne Joyce

This past weekend I saw two movies, and The Immigrant was one of them, in which it seemed that filmmakers were opting for old fashioned emotional filmmaking. Perhaps for any number of reasons, not least among them the now-arrived onslaught of summer blockbusters, it was tough not to view these films as a reaction. A reaction to films that seek to appeal to sensory reaction and that tend to want to impress with awesome computer generated sights rather than putting in the hard work to connect with audiences on an emotional level. If this past weekend is any sign, I'd take the emotional over the spectacle every damn time.

The Immigrant is set in 1921. Marion Cotillard plays Ewa, who, along with her sickly sister, is fleeing from a post-World War I Poland. They lost their parents during the war and only have an address with the names of their aunt and uncle in Brooklyn. While waiting in line at Ellis Island, however, the sickly sister is put into quarantine. When Ewa arrives at immigration, she is told that she is rumored to be of loose morals and will not be admitted.

Music for the Weekend

For the weekend:

And for the holiday:

Weekly Review Recap (5/23/14)

After the break a list of my reviews for the week and final verdicts for each of them.

Brief Reviews (5/22/14)

Check out after the jump for three very brief reviews of DamNation, Black Dynamite, and The Kentucky Fried Movie.

The Double (2013) - Review

Jesse Eisenberg in THE DOUBLE, a Magnolia Pictures release.
Photo courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. Photo credit: Dean Rodgers

Every frame of Richard Ayoade's new film The Double aches to be seen as quirky, absurdist, and the artistic descendant of filmmakers such as Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, Luis Buñuel, and, dare I say it, perhaps even Wes Anderson (though Anderson might faint at the thought of such darkness in the frame). Ultimately, Ayoade is never able to achieve a singular vision and the entire film feels half-formed.

On Cruise and (Amy) Nicholson

Amy Nicholson has an interesting, readable article on Tom Cruise's career and the problems with the press he has faced. Nicholson makes a good case that Cruise has been treated unfairly by the press.

I do have a few problems with Nicholson's article, particularly some assertions made on the first page and the scope of her conclusions at the end.

Emanuelle in Bangkok (1976) - Brief Review

The world's favorite libertine returns in Emanuelle in Bangkok as Laura Gemser takes the title role for her second run in the Black Emanuelle series. There are a few chuckles to be had and plenty of skin (including the legitimately beautiful Gemser getting naked about every five minutes), but too many sour moments and a boring second half.

Godzilla (2014) - Brief Review

How do you make a movie about monsters causing havoc, and then work so hard to avoid showing us the damn monsters? That's the chief sin - though there are others - of the 2014 version of Godzilla.

Music for the Weekend

Weekly Review Recap (5/16/14)

After the break a list of my reviews for the week and final verdicts for each of them.

Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) - Review

Only Lovers Left Alive - Sony Pictures Classics

Jim Jarmusch has returned to cinemas with a vampire film, Only Lovers Left Alive, which apparently has surprised some. As if it is new for Jarmusch to approach what some might consider to be genre filmmaking with an intent to put his personal spin on it (Dead Man, Ghost Dog). I hardly think of Jarmusch as a steadfast realist. A vampire movie by Jim Jarmusch seems pretty unsurprising to me, but maybe I'm missing something.

The Pom Pom Girls (1976) - Brief Review

The Pom Pom Girls is a low-budget slice-of-life comedy about high schoolers plainly inspired by American Graffiti and also an interesting spiritual ancestor to Dazed and Confused.

Streaming Pick (5/14/14)

Frontline: United States of Secrets, Part 1: The Program

If PBS' Frontline documentary series isn't the best show on television, it has to be pretty close. And given that 60 Minutes has become quite a joke and Dateline long ago became a basic-cable level tabloid, Frontline's long-form news format might also be the most important show on TV.

The Mack (1973) - Review

The Mack enjoys its hallowed place in the exploitation cinema pantheon because it is so openly transgressive and so celebrates its male anti-hero and the misogynistic ethic that informs him. As a document of how pimps view themselves, it perhaps has some anthropological value. And the film certainly values pimps and serves as the prototypical example of the "it's hard out here for a pimp" genre that openly stomps on the worth of women and asks us to sympathize with someone because at least he's trying to get rich (even if doing so by turning women, through mental and physical brutality, into his chattel property).

The poor guy just wants to get rich via the exploitation of others and here are all these people - corrupt cops, tricks that don't know their place, white gangsters, his brother trying to rid the streets of drugs and prostitution, and other pimps with less game - that keep standing in his way. Why can't people understand he's just trying to make his own way in this world?

Locke (2013) - Brief Review

Locke is basically a stage-play rendered for the screen, but it is done so well that it doesn't matter.

Neighbors (2014) - Review

There are some laugh-worthy gags and a few jabs at mixing things up, but Seth Rogen's new comedy Neighbors is ultimately weighed down too heavily by bad sitcom plotting. This isn't normally dumb people caught up in circumstances that spin beyond their control. This is a group of people that do not exist on earth doing things nobody would do and reacting in ways that nobody would react. And so how well you take Neighbors will depend on how much you are willing to forgive a plot that makes zero sense in favor of some scattered good gags.

Music for the Weekend

Weekly Review Recap (5/9/14)

After the break a list of my reviews for the week and final verdicts for each of them.

China 9, Liberty 37 (1978) - Review

Google Street View Outside of Beaumont, Texas

I'm not going to spend a lot of time going through Monte Hellman's career - you can find scores of rapturous articles and interviews elsewhere about this persistent hero auteur of the low-budget, independent film world. Indeed, I'd recommend reading such materials, as perhaps they can help to explain why some elevate the poorly formed Cockfighter above the superior romantic western China 9, Liberty 37.

But I'm a Cheerleader (1999) - Brief Review

The first question I had when I started re-watching Jamie Babbit's But I'm A Cheerleader is whether, 15 years later, it would still hold up. The short answer is it actually holds up quite well, although its struggles with some issues that will always leave it as a worthwhile but somewhat minor film.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation (2013) - Brief Review

Jon Chu's G.I. Joe: Retaliation is closer to the spirit of the cartoon series than the earlier Rise of Cobra, which is to say that Retaliation has a convoluted plot, is gun-happy, and is completely silly. That's not to say it rises to the level of the very best of the cartoon (or comic book). Too many body bags and no moments like this. At least, however, it does not feel like a total insult to my childhood.

Want To Have More Interesting Movies in the Theaters? Start By Making More Interesting Movies.

Are audiences abandoning the likes of Gloria?

Anthony Kaufman at Indiewire discusses various reasons why audiences are not going to see foreign films.

Two points:

Blue Ruin (2013) - Review

I admit to being a sucker for the revenge film as much as anyone. Such films appeal to so many of our baser and higher instincts: e.g., the thirst for violence as well as the desire for true justice. Jeremy Saulnier's film Blue Ruin attempts to both capitalize on those instincts and to critique them. While the film is interesting and works solidly as a mood piece, it does far more of the capitalizing and less of the critiquing than the film tries to let on.

Falling Through The Cracks? Four Films from the Last Thirty Years That Could Use A Rescue

There's always a lot of talk about "lost" films from the 1970s and before that are either becoming available or need to be made available. I love the cinema of the 1970s as much as anyone, but with the fading of DVD and Blu-Ray into a collectors' only marketplace, and with fragmentation and inconsistency in streaming services, you might be surprised at some of the more recent films that appear to be falling through the cracks.

I've picked four such films. Some of these are moderately big name movies or involve name directors or stars. So there is hope that they will permanently find their way on to a streaming service or to being in print on DVD/Blu-Ray.

Availability is, hopefully, subject to change, and I hope you will let me know in the comments if you know of a place where these films are (legally) available that I've missed - particularly for streaming.

The Dissolve Interviews William Friedkin

The Dissolve has a pretty interesting interview with William Friedkin. His take on DCP and 35mm is an interesting one - let's just say he's a fan of digital exhibition.

My own view is that while I certainly understand and feel romanticism about 35mm, there simply is no point in trying to fight digital filmmaking and projection at this point. The studios have to catch up, and there are problems with how the studios are handling archiving and repertory availability, but I believe/hope a lot of those issues will be solved just through time. I'm also hopeful, but perhaps foolishly so, that once the studios catch up it might actually end up making repertory exhibition cheaper and easier, and thus more viable. Fingers crossed.

Every new format requires time. My greater concern is that not all DCP projection is quite up to snuff. Whether through poorly rendered DCPs themselves or shoddy projection equipment/handling, I've seen too many movies in the last couple years that bring to mind old video projection (i.e., not good).

Friedkin also provides an interesting story about working with the studios to try and figure out who had the rights to his film Sorceror. I think it says a lot about the studios and how some of them aren't really fully invested in their libraries. If it isn't a major work from which they can continually squeeze out money by reissuing it every few years on the latest video formats, then they do not seem terribly interested.

I really believe that the studios have not fully realized the value from their libraries to be had from internet streaming distribution. They're repeating their stubborn mistakes from early TV and the dawning of the video age. Warner Brothers, which, owing to the sheer size of their library, has the most invested in repertory exploitation, had to step in to give a jolt to re-releasing Sorceror on Blu-Ray. Paramount, which recently licensed its library to Warner Brothers for video releasing, was obstinately disinterested at first.

There's a lot more in The Dissolve's interview worth checking out.

Music for the Weekend

International Labor Day/May Day yesterday, and the 128th anniversary of the Haymarket Affair this weekend. (The reason May 1st was picked as International Labor Day in the late 19th century was the Haymarket Affair, and May Day has a lengthy history as a Spring festival.) Why does the U.S. celebrate Labor Day in September rather than in May like the rest of the world? The U.S. government instituted Labor Day after the Pullman Strike as a conciliatory gesture to labor (how nice after the government broke the strike with deadly violence!). The government selected September rather than May because they were afraid of associating Labor Day with the Haymarket Affair (perhaps realizing that it would be best if there was not a great deal of contemplation about the government's actions following the Haymarket Affair).

So how about some Billy Bragg for the weekend:

Weekly Review Recap (5/2/14)

After the break a list of my reviews for the week and final verdicts for each of them.

Streaming Pick (5/1/14)

Fat Chance (1994)

The terrific 1994 documentary Fat Chance follows Rick Zakowich, a 400 pound man struggling to lose weight and to come to terms with his situation. We learn a lot about Rick, from his talents as a singer and good works as counselor to abused children, to his self-loathing and gradual retreat from social relationships as he struggles with his identity as an obese man. Eventually, in the midst of another failed diet, Rick sets out, with the help of a doctor also struggling with his weight, to find a community of support and to learn to accept himself as a valuable human being in spite of a society that belittles him at every turn.

The first half of Fat Chance, directed by Jeff McKay, is particularly powerful and instructive about the lives of obese people. What many people don't understand is the mental aspect of obesity. As Rick notes, many people just assume that fat people are dumb, lazy, or lack self-control. As a society these days we seem to have more compassion for those addicted to heroin or alcohol than those addicted to food (even though only one of those addictions involves something that every human must take in order to survive). 

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) - Review

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a bundle of confused, self-contradicting political thoughts wrapped in a big slice of Hollywood bombasticism.

Is it criticizing the military-industrial complex? Kinda. But it also visually fetishizes the massive genocide carriers that it later decides to destroy. It suggests that the filmmakers aren't really opposed to these things under all circumstances, just to the point the slope gets too slippery for the filmmakers' tastes.