Tag: 2009 movies

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Klores and Stevens, Schrader, Toback, Wyler, Zonca

Dan Seeger

Blue Collar (Paul Schrader, 1978). Two years after the breakthrough success of Taxi Driver, which he scripted for Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader made his directorial debut with a film about struggling auto workers who battle their callous bosses, inept union heads and ultimately each other. As should probably be expected from Schrader, especially at this point in his career, the film is raw and potent, getting into the muscular, profane urgency of these men as they struggle to accept their lot in life, including the inherent betrayals of principle that come with any efforts at upward mobility, and the dangers … Continue reading Klores and Stevens, Schrader, Toback, Wyler, Zonca

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Capra, Kubrick, Morel, Peli, Reed

Dan Seeger

Taken (Pierre Morel, 2009). An entirely unimaginative action film poured into the form of a parental nightmare turned revenge fantasy. Liam Neeson plays a retired CIA operative who calls upon his formidable combat skills when his teenage daughter is kidnapped by sex slave traders on a trip to France. It lurches from violence-saturated scene to violence-saturated scene with a little bit of empty seediness thrown in for variety. It’s hard to develop emotional investment in the characters when the actors shuffling through it and even the movie itself seem to have already given up on the notion of being anything … Continue reading Capra, Kubrick, Morel, Peli, Reed

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Ephron, Hunt, Kieslowski, Kieslowski, Tykwer

Dan Seeger

Three Colors: Blue (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993). The first film in Kieslowski’s famed Three Colors trilogy stars Juliette Binoche as a woman dealing with the recent death of her famous husband and young daughter in a car crash. She retreats from the world, getting drawn back only reluctantly, in part due to interest and controversy over her spouse’s last, incomplete work. There’s tremendous thematic heft in the work, with the specter of mortality drawn over the entire work, enhanced by the sense of all the ways in which life itself drifts away from us. Binoche is moving and insightful in her … Continue reading Ephron, Hunt, Kieslowski, Kieslowski, Tykwer

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Cassavetes, Dick, Donaldson, Frankel, Mottola

Dan Seeger

Adventureland (Greg Mottola, 2009). Clearly Greg Mottola decided the Superbad path was the one to follow. He edges ahead a few years, focusing on college-aged youth who are all spun around by their romantic anguish and general horniness. Noticeably autobiographical in nature, the film is set in the late nineteen-eighties and features Jesse Eisenberg as a bright young man whose plans for graduate school are derailed causing him to seek summer work at the crummy amusement park in his hometown. It’s amusing enough, but also shaggy to the point of being aimless. Nothing sticks beyond the suspicion that Kristen Stewart … Continue reading Cassavetes, Dick, Donaldson, Frankel, Mottola

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Cassavetes, Gilroy, Jarrold, Martin, Park

Dan Seeger

Duplicity (Tony Gilroy, 2009). Gilroy’s follow-up to Michael Clayton is a smart, witty film that uses corporate espionage as a backdrop for a creative romantic comedy. Julia Roberts and Clive Owen play a pair of former spies who use their background to gain entry to the incredibly sophisticated security divisions of dueling pharmaceutical companies, weaving an elaborate moneymaking scam they plan to implement from within. Gilroy’s script is dense and complicated, but always clear, and provides the two leads with ample opportunity to show how movie star charisma can be mixed with shrewdly insightful acting to build great performances. Roberts … Continue reading Cassavetes, Gilroy, Jarrold, Martin, Park