Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Mostly Mediocrity

I am on some kind of with watching movies that are neither good nor bad. Well, some bad, but most of them fall smack dab in the middle, which is to be expected, I guess.

The Vixen (Les femmes) -- Jean Aurel
I totally get the appeal of Brigitte Bardot. She's beautiful and has amazing eyes, but dear lord, has she been in some bad movie! The Vixen exists pretty much to play to Bardot's sex appeal, but it fails at being remotely sexy. OK, not entirely. The credits are somewhat sexy, but they are still photos and Bardot's lips. The rest of the film is about a writer who recounts his sexual mores to his new secretary (Bardot). Eventually, she falls for him, even though his history (of which she's very aware) shows he's fickle, fickle man. I don't even care about the plot. The movie is supposed to be sexy and it's simply boring.

Howl's Moving Castle -- Hayao Miyazaki
I really didn't like Princess Mononoke (I post as ncapp24). My expectations for Miyazaki were relatively high given his reputation and the film failed on many respects. I was very pleased to discover that all of the failings I felt Mononoke had, Howl's Moving Castle didn't. It was everything I hoped Mononoke would be. The animation is wonderful and dreamy. The fantasy is imaginative and the characters run the gamut of gruesome to cute to just awesome (I love the weird black, blobby agents of the Witch of the Waste). The film kind of falls apart at the end, rushing to try to bring everything back together without doing an adequate job of explaining what's happening aside, "it's magic!" That aside, the film is great and I'm now looking forward to more Miyazaki (though that could change if I run into another Mononoke scenario... now I'm the fickle one).

Shadows -- John Cassevetes
My thoughts can be found here (I'm really whoring out Sunday Screenings today. And for some reason I post as Nate Capp on that thread. Shouldn't be confusing for you smart people). Short review: I liked it!

Muppets from Space -- Tim Hill
It's remarkable that it took me this long to see Muppets from Space. In my mind, it was more like Pigs in Space than the actual film than it is. I kind of wish it had been Pigs in Space. It's not that Muppets from Space is bad, just that it's disappointing. I love the Muppets. They have always been huge part of my life as Capp. The elements were there to make a funny, touching movie, something The Muppets have always been good at, but it wasn't, and I think I know why: funk music. I couldn't believe that the film opened with Brick House and continued with all sorts of other funk songs. One of the great things about Muppet movies has always been the original music. Yes, Muppets from Space needed a Paul Williams injection. It could have been a poignant exploration of identity and what a family is, but it's just a mildly amusing diversion in the vast world of Muppets.

Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts -- Scott Hicks
I got to see Philip Glass speak at the Portland Art Museum shortly after I moved here and it was very inspirational, though all I appear to have taken from it is that it's OK to not achieve your dreams until you're 40. Regardless, the experience (along with his music for Koyaanisqatsi, which I just spelled correctly on my first try) instilled an interest in Glass that moved beyond, "I can't believe he did the score for Candyman." The problem with A Portrait in Twelve Parts is that it thinks we want to know about Glass' domestic life. Unfortunately, like most people, his domestic life is pretty boring. Pleasantly boring for him, but not for the viewer. I don't think I'm going out on a limb too much to suggest that the reason people are watching this documentary are to get insight into Glass as an artist. What goes in to writing an opera? Where do his influences come from? What's the creative process like? Instead we get to see him make pizza and hear his wife talk about how they're drifting apart (and giving away her computer passwords).

Come and See -- Elem Klimov
Come and See is World War II seen through the eyes of a child and maybe that's why the film seems so damn simplistic. The only thing I got out of the film is that war sucks and you don't need two and a half hours to tell me that (and really, I've already been told that by a million other movies, books, news broadcasts, etc, but I won't give it too much offense since the movie came out when I was three and could have affected me more so had I seen it before I became jaded). I always feel callous when I say that about a film that depicts the horrors of war so realistically, but just because it was real doesn't mean it's a movie. I think the biggest problem is that the main character never seems to be doing anything but reacting to the horrors. He does have an arc, but it all has to do with his frustration at the war. I didn't not like the film, but at this point, it feels like well-worn territory (again, not the film's fault).

The Case of the Grinning Cat -- Chris Marker
Marker uses the Grinning Cat tags as a jumping point to do a documentary about protests in Paris around 9/11/01. I don't think it works completely, but it's nice to see someone doing something different with the form (which he's done for years, even though I couldn't really make it through San Soleil even with its Vertigo hook). The film is frequently funny in a dry sort of way and the subject matter is interesting, though I think there's a gap since I never followed French politics. One thing I do know, the French people will protest and riot for anything. My mind started to drift off toward the end, which tells me it could probably have been shorter to make its point. At one hour, though, it wasn't much of an issue. It's kind of the perfect movie for our cat-meme obsessed culture.

The Killing Fields -- Rolande Joffe
I had a similar reaction to The Killing Fields that I had to Come and See, though it was a take on the war (conflict) in Vietnam that we hadn't seen much of: the expansion into Cambodia. At first, the film felt like a self-indulgent piece based on the writings of journalist-subject Sydney Schanberg, but then I found out that not only is it an original screenplay, but it was written by Bruce Robinson (who wrote/directed Withnail and I, which kind of blows my mind). The story of Dith Pran is pretty amazing and you should look it up. While you're at it, you should look up Haing S. Ngor because his story is similarly amazing and sad. The following story (taken from IMDB) greatly endeared me to him:
At the Oscar's, when Haing S. Ngor won the Oscar for best supporting actor, he walked onto the stage with his 15-year-old niece. Upon walking up to the stage, John Malkovichjokingly shouted something in Cambodian to him which shocked his niece and made Haing Ngor laugh. He shouted, "The award's mine, asshole!" In Haing Ngor's autobiography, he describes John Malkovich's keen interest in learning Cambodian swear words.
Sid and Nancy -- Alex Cox
I'm not a fan of the Sex Pistols, but I'd heard lots of good about Sid and Nancy (plus, we have a poster of the film autographed by Alex Cox at the theater), so I'd figure it's worth a shot. The film didn't make me a Sex Pistols fan, but I really wasn't expecting it to (just like Rock 'n' Roll High School didn't make me a Ramones fan, but that movie still owns). Aside from a great performance by Gary Oldman and the film's grungy aesthetic, I didn't really care much for it. I didn't know much about the Sex Pistols and Sid and Nancy didn't do much to fill in the gaps, which is fine, it's not about the Sex Pistols, but the film turned out to be little more than I thought it was going to be, which is some junkies being assholes. And they were assholes. I couldn't wait for Nancy to die, she was so obnoxious, and I wouldn't have minded if Sid died either. The story that I found far more interesting that's just touched upon is Johnny Rotten's attempts to keep the band together despite the destructive force of Sid Vicious, Nancy, and heroine. Because, from what I understand, the Sex Pistols needed Sid. He was a Personality. As it stood, I watched people I didn't like destroy their lives. Good. Fuck 'em.

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