Tag: catch-up reviews

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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

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Bailey and Barbato, Bogdanovich, Herzog, Kurosawa, Margolis

Dan Seeger

Stroszek (Werner Herzog, 1977). There’s certainly no reason to expect anything less than inspired lunacy from a Werner Herzog movie, especially one he made back in the nineteen-seventies when thew rules of cinema were falling away like worn paint from a waterlogged wall. Stroszek follows a German man whose perilous romance with a prostitute causes him to move with her and his elderly neighbor to, of all places, rural Wisconsin. From there, Herzog’s examination of the general travails of the downtrodden trying to forge better lives takes on the added harsh tinge of the false promise of the American dream … Continue reading Bailey and Barbato, Bogdanovich, Herzog, Kurosawa, Margolis

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Carpenter, Cronenberg, Ford, Truffaut, Wright

Dan Seeger

Hanna (Joe Wright, 2011). Well, I’ll say this for director Joe Wright: He’s not going to be pinned down. He made his feature debut with a Jane Austen adaptation and followed that with a prestige picture based on a Ian McEwan novel. Then came a fairly drab issues picture largely about the homeless community in Los Angeles. The bank shot away from that reunites him with Atonement Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan for a bizarre action film about a teenage girl who was raised in isolation to be an unstoppable assassin. The film is balanced awkwardly between stylish action and moody … Continue reading Carpenter, Cronenberg, Ford, Truffaut, Wright

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Conway, Garbus, von Sternberg, Weir, Yates

Dan Seeger

The Hucksters (Jack Conway, 1947). Based on Frederic Wakeman’s novel from the previous year, The Hucksters burrows into the intersection between advertising and media as a sharp-witted, upstanding man returns to the former field after years away. Clark Gable plays Victor Norman, a crafty operator who views his soap company overlord largely with sardonic superiority. The portions of the film that survey the ever-shifting terrain of the radio environment are uniformly strong, thanks in no small part to the boisterously effective performance of Sydney Greenstreet as the corporate bigwig who sets everyone but Gable’s Norman aquiver. The stretches that deal … Continue reading Conway, Garbus, von Sternberg, Weir, Yates

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C.K., Gluck, Hitchcock, Yates

Dan Seeger

Louis C.K.: Hilarious (Louis C.K., 2010). It’s probably too much to ask that a stand-up comedy concert film reach the artistic peaks of the only example of the form that can reasonably by called cinematic art. There are limitations built right into filming a comedian on stage and too much effort to compensate for them just leads to undue fuss. Better then to be as unadorned as possible and count on the material to make the endeavor worthwhile. C.K. brings the same dedicated understatement to his directing work that shapes his darkly brilliant FX series. Luckily, C.K. is near the … Continue reading C.K., Gluck, Hitchcock, Yates

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Brooks, Buzzell, Freudenthal, Matzdorff, McKay

Dan Seeger

Best Foot Forward (Edward Buzzell, 1943). Less than a decade before a certain TV series elevated Lucille Ball to the stratosphere of stardom, she was merely the “Queen of the Bs,” which makes it a little odd to see her playing herself in this film about a cadet at a military academy who convinces the redhead to come be his date for a big dance. She’s also far removed from the ditzy whirligig persona that she’d soon be known for, playing scenes instead as the smartest person in the room with a disdainful, withering comment for everyone and everything she … Continue reading Brooks, Buzzell, Freudenthal, Matzdorff, McKay