Tag: catch-up reviews

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Allen, Coppola, Cukor, Gunn, Mills, Scorsese, Winterbottom

Dan Seeger

New York Stories (Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Woody Allen, 1989). I remember reading Roger Ebert’s review of this anthology film and thinking he cheated by giving individual star ratings to each of its three segments. After all, no one going to movie theater had the option of just paying for a third of a ticket to see the one part of the film he recommended. Now that I’ve seen it, however, I completely get why he chose to take that approach: one part of the film is significantly better than the others. Woody Allen’s segment is amusing but … Continue reading Allen, Coppola, Cukor, Gunn, Mills, Scorsese, Winterbottom

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Antin, Duplass and Duplass, Fellini, La Cava, Ray

Dan Seeger

Cyrus (Jay Duplass and Mark Duplass, 2010). After establishing themselves as slightly cheekier members of the mumblecore movement with the fun, cleverly self-referential Baghead, the Duplass brothers made their first venture into a film with actors carrying impressive resumes with them with the genially bleak relationship comedy Cyrus. John C. Reilly plays a despondent guy who begins to emerge from his post-divorce funk when he stumbles into a relationship with a beautiful woman played by Marisa Tomei. Matters are complicated, however, by her dependent son played by Jonah Hill, in one of his first real attempts at breaking the typecasting … Continue reading Antin, Duplass and Duplass, Fellini, La Cava, Ray

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Arteta, Bergman, Howard, Newman, van Heijningen

Dan Seeger

Cries and Whispers (Ingmar Bergman, 1972). This intricate, cerebral, elusive drama from the acknowledged master of intricate, cerebral, elusive dramas takes place at stately mansion at the end of the 19th century. A woman named Agnes, played by Harriet Andersson, is on her deathbed and is seen to by her two sisters, both returned home due to their sibling’s terrible need, and the loving household maid. Each character gets their own individual segment, usually devoted to a flashback to some terrible emotional incident in the past, Bergman scraping at their existential agony like a merciless physician slicing at a poisonous … Continue reading Arteta, Bergman, Howard, Newman, van Heijningen

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Ficarra and Requa, Friedkin, Gillespie, Penn, Rafelson

Dan Seeger

Night Moves (Arthur Penn, 1975). Gene Hackman plays a seedy private detective named Harry Moseby who gets drawn into a case that involves tracking down a missing teenage girl, played by Melanie Griffith in one of her first real film roles. The film is entirely of its era, in good and bad ways. It’s nicely gritty and dark, but it also gets completely mired in a sense of existential dread until it become subsumed by its own fatalism. Nothing good can even come of this world, which the film labors to proves across its overly calculated third act. The film … Continue reading Ficarra and Requa, Friedkin, Gillespie, Penn, Rafelson

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Epstein, Greno and Howard, Nichols, Penn, Rush

Dan Seeger

Carnal Knowledge (Mike Nichols, 1971). Working from a script by by the great cartoonist Jules Feiffer, Mike Nichols explores the fraught, shifting dynamics of sexual relationship by following a few characters over the course of several years, putting special focus on a randy, rambunctious, sharp-edged man played by Jack Nicholson. The movie may have been most noted for it’s frankness about sexual matters, still remarkable for the time, but it remains engaging because of an even bolder willingness to plumb the emotional rigors of the various characters. Nicholson is especially strong, shrewdly carrying his character from an impetuous, greedy youth … Continue reading Epstein, Greno and Howard, Nichols, Penn, Rush

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Cassavetes, Corbijn, Fellini, Lumet, Scott

Dan Seeger

Unstoppable (Tony Scott, 2010). There are few funnier things a Tony Scott movie can offer than a “Inspired by True Events” credit at the beginning. Scott isn’t a director completely devoid of charm and panache (like his rough American equivalent Michael Bay), but a reasoned approach to preserving the integrity of a story that has its grounding in real life is simply not something that’s going to happen with the director of Top Gun and Days of Thunder at the helm. At least his usual camera jitters are toned down a bit, although he maintains his penchant for the shock … Continue reading Cassavetes, Corbijn, Fellini, Lumet, Scott

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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

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Arteta, Feig, Hayward, Malick, Ritchie

Dan Seeger

Youth in Revolt (Miguel Arteta, 2009). This was Arteta’s first film in almost a decade after some quick, buzzy success to kick off his career. All the time between features didn’t eliminate his slightly arid style, which has a tendency to deaden the drama after a while. More problematically, the film exhibits a offbeat pushiness as it heaps in quirky details and disaffected anguish. It simply tries to hard. Michael Cera plays a sweet, timidly pining young man who conjures up an imaginary tough-talking alter ego who drives him to get the girl while also slipping deeper into a quicksand … Continue reading Arteta, Feig, Hayward, Malick, Ritchie

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Bernhardt, Bicquet, Donen, Huston, Pakula

Dan Seeger

Two for the Road (Stanley Donen, 1967). This comic drama about the evolution of a marriage, with particular focus on the sharp degradation it experiences, is playful with its chronology in a way that must have been completely novel at the time of the film’s release. Now, it’s a more familiar cinematic approach, which doesn’t make Two for the Road terribly ineffective, though it does undercut some of the sillier moments that were presumably inserted to make the film easier to grasp a hold of for perplexed audiences. Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney are both terrific as they play the … Continue reading Bernhardt, Bicquet, Donen, Huston, Pakula

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Avakian, Mankiewicz, Rohmer, Tavernier, Vidor

Dan Seeger

Suddenly, Last Summer (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1959). Tennessee Williams is such a bold, distinctive writer that watching a film adaptation of one of his works sometimes consists largely of gauging how effectively the various actors wrestle with his challenging words and emotions. As a stalwart young doctor who gets drawn into the tangled affairs of a wealthy New Orleans family, Montgomery Clift is solid enough, although, at this relatively late point in his troubled career, he’d lost whatever lightness of touch he once had. Elizabeth Taylor strains beautifully as the fragile, damaged girl whose state of mind the plot hinges … Continue reading Avakian, Mankiewicz, Rohmer, Tavernier, Vidor