Tag: 2008 movies

Everything ElseLeave a comment

Kosinski, McQueen, Melville, Reichardt, Young

Dan Seeger

Tron: Legacy (Joseph Kosinski, 2010). “You’re messing with my Zen thing, man!” Is there another actor working today besides Jeff Bridges who could deliver a line like that and make it sound plausible? In the never-ending quest to mine every cinematic artifact from the past three to four decades and turn it into a sparkling new franchise, Disney delivers the sequel, almost three decades in the making, that almost no one waited anxiously to see. What’s more, someone apparently decided that the best way to honor the zippy innocence of the original digital groundbreaker was to heap a whole bunch … Continue reading Kosinski, McQueen, Melville, Reichardt, Young

Everything ElseLeave a comment

Burnett, Roach, Singer, Smith, Varda

Dan Seeger

Vagabond (Agnès Varda, 1985). Varda’s sedate, stirring drama follows a young itinerant woman, paying special attention to the variety of ways society expresses its disdain for her. To a degree, it’s because of her place on the tattered fringe of the social structure, but a remarkable amount of the pain she endures is provoked by her gender rather than her place in class culture. She’s used, dismissed and disregarded repeatedly. Sandrine Bonnaire is evocative and moving in the leading role, clearly investing deep feeling into the performance. It would be easy for the film to lapse into woeful melodrama, but … Continue reading Burnett, Roach, Singer, Smith, Varda

FilmLeave a comment

Gray, Herzog, Meyers, Mulligan, Ritt

Dan Seeger

It’s Complicated (Nancy Meyers, 2009). It’s not, really. It is, however, inane, phony and empty-headed. What’s more, it’s borderline offensive in its complete detachment from the problems that most people experience, positing the height of stress that someone could face is planning a wildly expensive addition to the already sizable house. Some of this could be forgivable if the comedy was funny in the slightest, but there’s a barely a laugh to be found in the strained story that wants so desperately to be farce, but no involved wants to sully their hands with such crass entertainment. Meryl Streep may … Continue reading Gray, Herzog, Meyers, Mulligan, Ritt

FilmLeave a comment

Blitz, Miller, Newman, Rudolph, Thurman

Dan Seeger

Lucky (Jeffrey Blitz, 2010). After a middling sidetrack into fiction filmmaking, Blitz returns to the sort of quirky documentary that first earned him attention. Lucky is about lottery winners. Blitz follows the trajectories of several different individuals that became instant millionaires when a few kinetic ping pong balls bounced their way. While some of the asides are good, especially those that consider the incredible unlikelihood of actually striking it rich this way, Blitz struggles to find a clear narrative to give the film some structure and cohesion. It winds up instead as a smattering of human interest studios. Some are … Continue reading Blitz, Miller, Newman, Rudolph, Thurman

FilmLeave a comment

Acker, Cronenberg, Denis, Heckerling, Sturges

Dan Seeger

Clueless (Amy Heckerling, 1995). I’m prepared to concede that Heckerling’s gum-snap reworking of Jane Austen’s Emma is better than I would have said after seeing it upon its original release. It’s also, despite its reputation, not some glistening pop gem. It’s an agreeable bit of fluff with some charming moments, and a suitably bright performance from Alicia Silverstone, who’s more a beneficiary of shrewd casting than anything. Writer-director Amy Heckerling–here fresh from a couple dippy crowdpleasers about the inner monologues of babies, let’s not forget–is a sloppy, unfocused filmmaker. Just because her attention span may sync up with those of … Continue reading Acker, Cronenberg, Denis, Heckerling, Sturges

FilmLeave a comment

Benedek, Lang, Morris, Scorsese, Wilder

Dan Seeger

Standard Operating Procedure (Errol Morris, 2008). The Oscar-winning documentarian turns his attention (and his Interrotron) to the appalling abuse of prisoners inflicted by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison. The resulting film is exhaustive and exhausting, laying out the ugly details of the matter with an appropriate relentlessness. Morris corrals interviews with most of the principals, and their collective testimony seems painfully honest if sometimes buffered down in the name of understandable self-preservation. Morris inserts a handful of subdued and yet entirely unnecessary recreations. It’s a tactic that he’s notably employed before, but this time out it’s just intrusive. The … Continue reading Benedek, Lang, Morris, Scorsese, Wilder

FilmLeave a comment

Aldrich, Huston, Kore-Eda, Lee, Sanders

Dan Seeger

Black Dynamite (Scott Sanders, 2009). An inspired spoof of nineteen-seventies Blaxploitation films, Black Dynamite stars Michael Jai White as the title character, who dispenses justice on the mean streets while searching for his brother’s killer. Sanders gets the tone exactly right, mocking the conventions of the subgenre without lapsing into condescension. There’s a clear affection here, a conviction that no matter what else the original films may have been, they were also fun. How many movies can have claim major climactic sequences taking place on Kung Fu Island? Clever as it is, it’s a hard conceit to sustain over the … Continue reading Aldrich, Huston, Kore-Eda, Lee, Sanders

FilmLeave a comment

Bertolucci, Boden and Fleck, Bozzo, Coffin and Renaud, Levinson

Dan Seeger

The Last Emperor (Bernardo Bertolucci, 1987). Bertolucci’s masterwork probably won its Best Picture Oscar due to its effortless embrace of the epic, but its the acute realization of the most intimate portions of its story that makes it a great film. It follows the life of the last emperor of China from his coronation while still a toddler to his later years toiling as an anonymous gardener after his royal role had disappeared. The sweep of history is what the film moves through, but Bertolucci and his co-screenwriter Mark Peploe rightly realize that the intricacies of the different personality entanglements … Continue reading Bertolucci, Boden and Fleck, Bozzo, Coffin and Renaud, Levinson

FilmLeave a comment

Edel, Farrow, Hitchcock, Jordan, Siegel

Dan Seeger

His Kind of Woman (John Farrow, 1951). How many other actors completely own a genre of film the way that Robert Mitchum does film noir? It’s like he was born into a delivery room filled with murky shadows and cigarette smoke, the doctor instructing the nurse to slap his bottom by growling, “Give him what’s comin’ to him, and make him sing when you do it.” He moves through this story of scheming and duplicity at a Mexican resort as if he’s walking through his own front door, tossing of aloof wisecracks with the ease of a guy who’s already … Continue reading Edel, Farrow, Hitchcock, Jordan, Siegel

FilmLeave a comment

Anderson, Charles, Krasinski, Miller, Moeller

Dan Seeger

Break of Hearts (Philip Moeller, 1935). Katherine Hepburn was a mere twenty-eight when this thin romance was released, just a few films into her storied career. She already had an Oscar and at least one solid hit to her credit, but doubters were plentiful. This was one of the string of flops that famously got her labeled “box office poison.” If nothing else, the film is evidence that Hollywood didn’t really know what to do with her yet, shoving the camera into her face to capture a dewy glisten that may have been the standard of the day for leading … Continue reading Anderson, Charles, Krasinski, Miller, Moeller