#39 — 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2007) The city the characters move through is a bleached slate gray, as if all the color had been systematically drained from it. As if a cold, winter sky … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Thirty-Nine
Swing Vote (Joshua Michael Stern, 2008). Stern builds his soft political satire around the notion of a contentious U.S. presidential election coming down to one vote, an entirely ambivalent, freshly unemployed middle-aged scamp. That role, as it must, goes to Kevin Costner, who tries to find a new side to the die he’s been casting periodically ever since Bull Durham. It doesn’t work, in part because he can’t quite get a handle on how this guy’s charm should be balanced against his more problematic behavior. It’s mostly due to the tepid script, though. The raw material is there to tackle … Continue reading It’s just another movie, another song and dance
#40 — In the Bedroom (Todd Field, 2001) There is an argument. Between a man and a woman, a husband and wife. It is fueled by their grief, their lingering shock after a tragic loss in the family. They fight … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Forty
#41 — Spider-Man 2 (Sam Raimi, 2004) It’s hard to remember when surveying the release schedule these days, but there was a time when movies populated by superheroes, either adapted from comic books or originally created, weren’t especially common. By now, … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Forty-One
(500) Days of Summer seems to aspire to nothing less than reinventing the typical romantic comedy. It doesn’t subvert the form or offer some sort of deconstruction. Instead, it seems to want to take something familiar and dose it with … Continue reading Summer, summer, summer, it’s like a merry-go-round
There was a time when I saw just about every major new release that came out of Hollywood. In particular, if a movie topped the box office on any given weekend, I felt I should have an informed opinion on it, which is how I stuck myself seeing Bulletproof (that actually may have been the film that broke the habit). Those days are long gone. I didn’t go anywhere near this weekend’s top earner. However, I might of had it looked a a little different. There are other derivations that I would have found even more enticing. (Posted simultaneously to … Continue reading I said where you goin’ with that gun in your hand
#42 — Trouble the Water (Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, 2008) It begins in the Superdome. It is mere days after Hurricane Katrina’s assault on New Orleans, the after-effects just beginning to be felt. Some officials are telling a film crew … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Forty-Two
Wanted (Timur Bekmambetov, 2008). Colossally stupid. Based on a six-issue comic book series written by Mark Millar, the film revolves around a secret society of assassins with a knack for bending the laws of physics to their favor, most notably by sending bullets on curved trajectories with a flick of their wrist while firing a gun, as if they were bowling balls hurled down a well-oiled lane. If the filmmakers are going to disregard the basic principles of science so freely and frivolously, I suppose it’s silly to expect them to care a whit for things like logic and narrative … Continue reading She walks to work but she’s still in a daze, she’s Rita Hayworth or Doris Day
#43 — The Brothers Bloom (Rian Johnson, 2009) Rian Johnson’s second feature film virtually reverberates with a love of storytelling. The main plot is driven by an elaborate con that unfolds across several nations, so there is naturally an abundance … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 00s — Number Forty-Three
There’s a moment in Kathryn Bigelow’s new movie, The Hurt Locker, which is predictably tragic and tragically predictable. A military man who’s stationed in Iraq, but largely unversed on the dangers that exist on those sun-scorched streets, tags along on … Continue reading When the day is long and the night, the night is yours alone
Coffee for Two 