August 2010: 15 Mini Reviews
August 22, 2010
The last fifteen films I've seen.
Hannah Takes the Stairs ('07): Ultra low-budget and talky
slice of life about a series of 20 somethings trying to get their
feet off the ground, professionally and romantically, while remaining
true to themselves.
Greta Gerwig is Hannah, a temp
screenwriter for an independent television production company who
dumps her lazy boyfriend and begins to experiment with two fellow
co-workers, both equally as befuddled on how to proceed with the
aggressive, emotionally flighty, pretty girl.
This is
obviously a labor of love for director/writer/editor/cinematographer
Joe Swanberg, and it's apparent that these dudes aren't the only ones
who don't know how to handle Hannah, for Swanberg's camera, at times
jittery, at times unbroken and stationary, looks on her with a naked
eye that borders on obtrusive.
It's all super realistic,
improvisational, and indie precious, and if that equals tedious, so
be it.
Close-up ('93): In a remarkably complex bit of stunt
film-making, Iranian master Abbas Kiarostami re-stages the trial of
Hossain Sabzian, a poor worker who passes himself off as a famous
film director for seemingly unknown reasons, and straddles a nearly
invisible line between reality, perception, entertainment, and the
art of cinema itself. That all of the principal characters play
themselves, with Kiarostami himself serving as an off-screen
documentary presence, with re-creations cut into grainy footage of
what looks like the original trial, makes it all the more confusing,
but fascinating and unique.
Criterion has done an admirable
job of re-releasing this borderline great film on Blu-ray, complete
with two documentaries and a new interview with the director, a
commentary track by Kiarostami scholars, and the director's 1974
feature debut, "The Traveler".
The Traveler ('74): A young Iranian boy scrimps and scams
his way onto a bus to see his favorite soccer team play in the big
city of Tehran, but seeing the game becomes just as hard as getting
to the game, in this memorable first film by Abbas Kiarostami.
In
beautiful black and white, Kiarostami echoes the Italian Neo-realist
films of the 40's, and there's no denying that the boy's
determination has a similar doomed aura to it as the desperate man
searching for his stolen bike in "Bicycle Thieves", but
there's also a playful childlike quality that lends itself to
comparisons with "The 400 Blows" as well.
A final
dream sequence, rare for Kiarostami, and Neo-realism, is haunting and
frightening, and literally represents the end of this boy's
innocence.
Hot Tub Time Machine ('10): Moderately funny, raunchy, and sentimental comedy about a group of middle-aged dudes, losers in their 2010 lives, who re-visit a particularly hectic weekend at a ski resort in 1986, via the title contraption. Lots of bathroom humor and sex jokes, and lots of easy 80's jokes, most of which offer laughs, especially coming from Rob Corddry. Craig Robinson and Clark Duke are also funny, though John Cusack, the star, and really the only one of the group (besides cameos by Chevy Chase and Crispin Glover) who can claim a piece of the 80's as an important career step, isn't what I'd call a bathroom humor kind of actor, and he feels awkward next to Corddry, who is a natural.
Harvie Krumpet ('03): Wonderfully strange and sweet claymation film from Australia, directed by Adam Elliot, about a mentally disabled man who makes of life what he can as one bit of bad luck after another comes at him. The lesson is terrific; despite the obstacles, live life to the fullest, and in Harvie's case, that's becoming a nudist, marrying a nurse, adopting a handicapped baby, and cramming his scarred, magnetic head with as many "fakts" as possible. Elliot won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, and the success led him to the brilliant, expanded "Mary and Max", which bears many similarities to Harvie, including it's warm, whacked sense of humor.
Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family ('41): Following the death of the family patriarch, the siblings of an extended family grapple with what to do with their mother and youngest sister, in this film by Ozu that continues his examination of generational obligations and differences, and points the way towards "Tokyo Story". Always a master of time and space, Ozu passes the time here (roughly a year in the life of the family following the funeral) with seemingly invisible ellipses, passing the mother and youngest daughter from one sibling to the next, finding petty ways in which the married older siblings, inconvenienced but trying to remain polite, look for excuses to make the pair uncomfortable. It can be a bit confusing, but with Ozu you never have to struggle to catch up with the characters; the aesthetics are remarkably contemplative, and the film, at times funny and satiric, is bathed in melancholy.
Up in the Air ('09): Flying over an economically reeling
America, George Clooney lands from here and there to deliver
platitudes to the workforce that his company has been commissioned to
sack, and finds out that what he likes - the frequent flier miles,
the hotel privileges, the anonymity - is just a facade for
loneliness, and an easy escape.
Director/co-writer Jason
Reitman fashions a sleek, gut-punching entertainment out of this most
horrible of professional jobs, adding an examination of modern
romance in an age of smart phones and text messaging, as Clooney's
relationship with fellow flier Vera Farmiga, and his teaching of
young go-getter Anna Kendrick (all three Oscar nominated) come to
form his need to get out of the box.
Clooney is a true
leading man, and though this script is so good it's likely anybody
with a reasonable amount of charisma could have knocked it out, he is
especially perfect for it, with charm, humor, sex appeal, and
contemplation to spare.
Salt ('10): Angelina Jolie continues to kick ass and take
names, this time as a CIA agent who may or may not be a long planted
Russian spy. Whether she is or isn't is the crux of the first half of
the film, which is filled with one exciting chase scene after
another, but when it's (sort of) decided, Cold War politics come into
play, and let's just say there's still some bad blood.
Love
the banter between Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the two
agents in charge of bringing her in, each one with their own
differing opinions on her loyalties, but they, and the entire plot,
owes a shred of inspiration to Tommy Lee Jones, Harrison Ford, and
"The Fugitive", which had a one-armed man and a train
wreck, instead of a sexy Russian spy and a freeway chase.
Familiar
and enjoyable, director Philip Noyce knows how to handle this kind of
thriller material, and Angelina Jolie is certainly a knockout action
star, in a vehicle that could, and should, pick up easily into sequel
territory.
Memento ('00): Christopher Nolan is on top of the world
right now with "Inception", but go back ten years and he
was doing similar experiments with memory, time, and narrative with
this mesmerizing head-scratcher, only now, thanks in part to the
accolades earned here, his budget and production schedule isn't as
restricted as it was a decade ago.
The plot is relatively
simple; a man with short term memory loss (Guy Pearce, in a star
turn) is struggling to put the pieces of his wife's murder together
so he can enact his revenge, the trouble is, he can't remember twenty
minutes ago, let alone volumes and volumes of crucial information.
Which leads us to what makes the film so groundbreaking and
engrossing, Nolan's complex structure, in which Pearce pieces
everything together through Polaroids, notes, body tattoos, and
physical intuition, setting up each scenario with a conclusion, and
then working backwards to deliver the narrative, putting out spare
bits of info, daring the viewer to conclude on what is important, and
what may be a lie. If ever there was a movie that literally puts you
into the head space of it's main character, this is it.
It's
dizzying, for sure, but rewarding, and holds up under scrutiny and
multiple viewings.
Leon: The Professional ('94): Luc Besson's first English
language film is an entertaining mix of action, sentiment, comedy,
and brilliantly conceived, over-the-top shoot-outs.
Besson
imports his favorite star, Jean Reno, to star as Leon, a quiet
hit-man for a mob boss who, quite inadvertently, takes in young
Natalie Portman after her entire family is wiped out by a psycho
drug-dealing DEA agent (Gary Oldman, in full throttle). The hit-man,
an emotionally distant, childlike auto-bot, begins to feel a sort of
parental responsibility for the girl, who wants to learn his craft
for revenge purposes, but when she starts feeling a true love for the
older man, we're made to feel as uncomfortable in the situation as
Leon.
Portman, only eleven at the time, holds her own against
vets like Reno, Oldman, and Danny Aiello, and she's really what makes
the film work so well, blending a Lolita-like precociousness with the
vulnerability of a school-girl who just saw her family murdered by
drug dealers; it's a tricky, edgy part for a first time actress, and
she's unforgettable.
As for the action scenes, anyone who
remembers "La Femme Nikita", Besson's most successful
French film, knows what to expect; lots of cool close-ups and
dizzying tracking shots, blood packets, and loud explosions.
Exciting, but the unusual relationship between Reno and Portman is
the key, and they're fascinating.
A Prophet ('09): Jacques Audiard's second Cesar award winner
is a brutally realistic prison film, with Tahar Rahim as a young Arab
man staring down six years in a maximum security prison, where the
political and racial make-up pits the Corsican mob and their iron
fist against the pacifist French Muslims for yard rule. When the boy
is tasked by the mob to kill a snitch, in grisly fashion, he quickly
becomes an underling in boss Cesar's (Niels Arestrup) mob, but when
most of the gang is shipped home from outside political pressure,
Rahim's power rises, and his status as the boss's "Arab"
becomes ever more confrontational.
Audiard's film straddles a
fine prison film line between pure realism and poetic surrealism,
especially when Rahim begins to see the ghost of his murder victim in
his cell (and where the film's religious title comes from). It's a
bit too long, and at times the politics outside and inside the prison
are confusing, but this is a powerful film, and Rahim and Arestrup
are never less than brilliant as the lead antagonists.
What's Up, Doc? ('72): Noted film buff Peter Bogdanovich
does his best to emulate his comedy master's with this nutty romantic
screwball comedy, which pits a young, sexy Barbra Streisand opposite
heartthrob Ryan O'Neal and a strong cast of supporting players, as
everybody chases after four mixed-up plaid carryalls.
Like
even the best screwball comedies of the 30's and 40's, the jokes are
hit-or-miss, especially from Streisand and O'Neal, who can hardly be
considered top comedians, but the supporting cast is so good,
including Mel Brooks regulars Kenneth Mars and Madeline Kahn, that
they make up for the sometimes awkwardness of the leads.
And
then there's that 15-minute San Francisco chase sequence, dedicated
certainly to the Keystone Cops and every chase scene ever committed
to film by Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, which is so funny and
crazy, the final two scenes of the film flop in comparison.
Bogdanovich was never a master film-maker, but he's an expert
film historian, and this homage is proof positive.
There Was a Father ('42): Ozu's second and last film made
during the war is a melancholy affair, with the great Chishu Ryu as a
widower who moves to Tokyo to take a thankless job so his son can
afford a higher education, and thirteen years later, when the son
comes to visit, the old man gets sick.
This notion of the
sacrifice of the father (and honoring the father) is an appeasing
concept for a Japan that was suddenly and brutally losing it's
fathers and sons by the hundreds every day, but Ozu is certainly less
concerned with thinly veiled patriotism than he is with his usual
hangups, namely, the divide between generations, the dissolution of
the family (whether intentional or sacrificial), and an underlying
sense of regret.
A companion piece, of sorts, to "The
Only Son", though as is the case with Ozu from here out, poverty
is no longer the harbinger of troubles, but tradition and a natural
societal evolution towards a better future, which can oppose
mightily.
Joe Kidd ('72): John Sturges directs this standard Eastwood western with a certain flair for Anthony Mann-esque use of landscape, but nothing else suggests the deep psychological territory of a Mann western; this is pretty cut-and-dry revenge stuff. Clint plays an ex-bounty hunter, and sometime town drunk, who hires out to a land baron (Robert Duvall, giving good villain) to find a Mexican national terrorizing the countryside, adamant that an ancient treaty entitles him to the dirt. Eastwood plays both sides, ala "A Fistful of Dollars", but neither has a convincing argument, and of course it'll be settled with a shoot-out anyway, it's just how we get there that's part of the fun, and with our man driving a locomotive through a saloon, in a sort of weird Buster Keaton homage, the film has its moments.
Little Dieter Needs to Fly ('97): Another from the Werner Herzog file of obsessive individuals who put themselves through torturous circumstances to tell their story, only this time Dieter Dengler's story is remarkably true, and his narrative is as much psychological catharsis as it is adventure myth-making. Herzog has Dengler re-enact his capture and imprisonment in the same territory it happened, and at times, even though Dengler is spinning an incredible narrative, even he feels that it's going a bit far, surrounded by guns and jungle, using real rope and torture devices, but if anything it makes it all the more realistic, and coming from a guy who has resorted to hypnosis to get his subjects through his far-reaching tales, maybe not that extreme after all. This is such a great story Herzog would film it again a few years later as "Rescue Dawn", with full studio money backing to re-create the harrowing escape, but missing is Dengler's voice, and Herzog's own penetrating narration, which makes this documentary invaluable.