Tag: catch-up reviews

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Dugan, Lubitsch, Mangold, Reitman, Taccone

Dan Seeger

One Hour with You (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932). It’s a basic necessity to mention “The Lubitsch Touch” when evaluating one of the films from the great comic director, even if it’s simply to point out the absence of his trademark deftness in the work in question. One Hour with You is considered a fairly early effort–nearly a decade before revered classics like Ninotchka and The Shop Around the Corner, but, in the way of the era, the director already had dozens of films under his belt by this point. The film is a pretty odd duck, a soft-stepping musical about flirtations … Continue reading Dugan, Lubitsch, Mangold, Reitman, Taccone

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Boorman, Capra, Jarecki, Koster, Lang

Dan Seeger

No Highway in the Sky (Henry Koster, 1951). This murky little thriller casts James Stewart as an American engineer working with Great Britain’s Royal Aircraft Establishment. He’s convinced that the design of the flagship Reindeer airliner is tragically flawed, causing the tail to fall off after a certain number of hours in flight. His worries comes to an head when he’s taking a transatlantic journey on the plane in question and discovers it’s nearing the fatal number of logged hours. It’s a fun premise, but the film unfortunately lacks either the ratcheted up suspense of an Alfred Hitchcock thriller or … Continue reading Boorman, Capra, Jarecki, Koster, Lang

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Arnold, Coppola, Nadel, Smight, Wallace

Dan Seeger

Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold, 2009). At it’s strongest, Arnold’s film is as scrappy as its protagonist, a teenage girl in lower class Britain who pushes against what little disinterested authority exists in her life. The film expertly gets at the way passion burns to the surface so quickly at that age, while also considering how simple, inelegant endeavors like hip hop dancing can fuel dreams of escape. As an observant, uncompromising character study, the film is sharp and sensational. As it gets more plot driven, especially in a misguided third act, it falters terribly. The one thing that’s consistent throughout … Continue reading Arnold, Coppola, Nadel, Smight, Wallace

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Affleck, Curtis, Ford, Jarecki, Thompson

Dan Seeger

Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson, 1962). This beloved film classic only had its notoriety bolstered when Martin Scorsese remade it in 1991. Though my helpless affection for Scorsese is well-documented by now, I must concede that the the original is far superior, largely due to the performance of spectacularly relaxed menace by Robert Mitchum as recently sprung convict Max Cady, who decides to terrorize the prosecutor whose testimony was instrumental to his incarceration. Mitchum is so good developing a fearsome quality out of little more than the way he glares across a room or strolls into a scene that the … Continue reading Affleck, Curtis, Ford, Jarecki, Thompson

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Audiard, Curtiz, Elliot, Polanski, Vaughn

Dan Seeger

Mary and Max (Adam Elliot, 2009). A beautifully downbeat stop-motion animation feature about unlikely penpals on the opposite side of the Atlantic who correspond over a number of years, developing a moving, warm, fragile and occasionally fractured relationship. Despite the distance–or, arguably, because of it–they drawn strength and even courage from one another, muddling through the unique challenges of their respective lives in part because they’ve got a lifeline out there somewhere in the world, someone who may not understand them, but at least takes the time to try. Max, voiced by Philip Seymour Hoffman, is an especially wonderful creation, … Continue reading Audiard, Curtiz, Elliot, Polanski, Vaughn

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Almodóvar, Campion, DeBlois and Sanders, Lumet, Pontecorvo

Dan Seeger

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (Pedro Almodóvar, 1988). Almodóvar’s international breakthrough is almost quaint in its kitschy simplicity when held up against the rich, lush films that have sprung from his off-kilter cranium in recent years. It involves a tangled web of romantic and sexual relationships, largely converging in a Spanish apartment that has a convenient batch of sedative-laden gazpacho in the fridge. There evidence of Almodóvar’s sterling eye, especially in the earlier scenes, but it’s mostly an engagingly casual farce, played with a relaxation that feels nicely cultural. Carmen Maura is especially good in the lead … Continue reading Almodóvar, Campion, DeBlois and Sanders, Lumet, Pontecorvo

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Banksy, Jackson, Parker, Scorsese, Wright

Dan Seeger

The Lovely Bones (Peter Jackson, 2009). So poorly conceived that it borders on tragic. Jackson and his regular collaborators adapt Alice Sebold’s acclaimed and beloved 2002 novel about a murdered teenage girl, demonstrating such a bizarre lack of empathy that whole film takes on an off-putting robotic sheen. The movie is senseless in every definition of the word, over-directed and utterly tone-deaf. The actors all seem to have stumbled in from other movies with Susan Sarandon and Stanley Tucci approaching satire in their broadly drawn roles, Rachel Weisz looking bored and Mark Wahlberg thoroughly perplexed. It is cluttered with garish … Continue reading Banksy, Jackson, Parker, Scorsese, Wright

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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

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Eastwood, Kusama, Ritchie, Roeg, Vallée

Dan Seeger

Sherlock Holmes (Guy Ritchie, 2009). I fully expected that Ritchie’s first real stab at crafting a blockbuster entertainment would be an over-directed mess. Instead, it’s fairly drab, a generic exercise in filling the screen with bigger, louder, grander nonsense at every turn. Of course, it’s still a mess, a clumsy attempt at making the most famous detective in literary history relevant for a modern audience that’s more interested in quipping tomfoolery than feats of logic. Robert Downey, Jr. plays the title role with the sort of chomping fussiness that’s too often the defining characteristic of his acting, and Jude Law … Continue reading Eastwood, Kusama, Ritchie, Roeg, Vallée