Surprises and the Sheen/Estevez Family

I had to hold off on writing the Roundup because I use Wikipedia quite a bit for it and, even though there were some simple workarounds, the blackout would have made things at least slightly annoying. I spent a lot of time with the Sheen/Estevez clan in the past week or so. One of the films (which won't be spoken of here since it wasn't a Netflix rental), Young Guns, actually features TWO members of the family. What fun I have!

Cobb -- Ron Shelton
Cobb is a piece of shit. The title should really be "Tuesdays with Cobb-y" or "Stumpy: The Story of Ty Cobb's Biographer While He Spent Time with the Man before Cobb's Death," but that's a bit unwieldy. I guess I can see why they went with the most recognizable name. Basically, we get a brief, barebones history of Ty Cobb's playing days and the rest of the time we spend with Cobb (Tommy Lee Jones) and Al Stump (Robert Wuhl). Cobb is ancient and insane and Stump's having marital woes. Maybe my disappointment in the film is that I was expecting an actual biopic about Cobb and this isn't it. However, who the hell cares about Al Stump? And, you know what? I might. But not in a movie called COBB!

Another You -- Maurice Phillips
The last of the Gene Wilder-Richard Pryor movies and, though I have yet to see Stir Crazy, I feel comfortable saying this is the worst. It's not that it's bad, it's just bland. Pryor was already diagnosed with MS when he made this film and it's evident. He doesn't have the physicalness and the dynamic way with words that made him such a great performer. As a result, he comes off as pretty wooden. Another You is almost oppressively silly at times and I felt a little embarrassed for both Pryor and Wilder, but it actually picks up some steam as everything comes together. Definitely not essential viewing, but if you like Wilder and Pryor and don't mind extremely dated movies, there are worse ways to spend your time.


Elephant -- Gus Van Sant
Things would be so much easier if directors I don't care for would just make movies I don't like so that I can write them off completely and get on with watching the other movies on my queue. But since going from disliking Brian de Palma to his placement in my top ten filmmakers of all-time, I don't know what to believe anymore. I've seen a number of Van Sant's movies (and even served him coffee!) and, as of Elephant, have like exactly three. But two of them were the last to Van Sant movies I watched (the other was My Own Private Idaho). Elephant should be everything I hate about a movie. There's no plot or story, no real characters (meaning no character arcs), and it's all hand-held. What the movie lacks in the elements that enhance my enjoyment of a movie, it makes up for in craftsmanship and structure. Elephant takes place on a school day that ends in a massacre. It creates a normal, realistic world where no one could ever see it coming (and if the viewer didn't know the gist already, it would be a shock for them, too). There's loads of long steadicam shots through the halls and grounds of the school with scenes overlapping at different points to orient the viewer on the timing of the various diversions. It's almost like a stream-of-consciousness form of storytelling and becomes hypnotic. The shear amount of coordination with extras kind of blows my mind. I fully expected have a miserable time watching Elephant and I was shocked to discover it's easily my favorite film of Van Sant's.


Badlands -- Terrence Malick
Speaking of surprises, The Tree of Life is easily in my top five films of the 2011 list (accompanied by Drive, I Saw the Devil, Trollhunter, and Hobo with a Shotgun [thus far, still plenty to see]). I started watching it a midnight after work and fully expected to doze on and off throughout. It utterly mesmerized me (I think I have a weakness for steadicams). It was also the only Terrence Malick film I'd ever seen. Going in to Badlands, I didn't know what my expectations should be other than looking beautiful, which it is. Badlands is the story of two fugitives on the run from the law, but there's never really a sense that the outside world cares about them until the end. It's almost like we live in the Kit's (Martin Sheen) delusions of grandeur. Except, it turns out they're not. What I wasn't expecting at all was how funny the film is. I don't know if I'd call it a comedy (I guess that would depend on one's mindset), but there's almost never a moment where I wasn't chuckling to myself whether it was something Kit was rambling on about or the nonchalance he and Holly (Sissy Spacek) have about their crime spree. Badlands is terrific and I can't believe Criterion hasn't been able to get the rights to it for a release.

Mission: Impossible -- Brian de Palma
And hey! Here's de Palma. Even though I've admitted to loving de Palma, I'm wary of his work in the 90's and 00's. I do like Femme Fatale, though, so who knows? However, I also can't stand Tom Cruise (let's lump Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts in there, too). It didn't take Mission: Impossible to win me over, though (I've never seen the show, so I didn't have that hurdle to, well, hurdle). First, Emilio Estevez! I never thought I'd be so excited to see him. Then I see the Rob Bottin (The Thing) did the make-up effects and Robert Towne (Chinatown) co-wrote the script. A pretty impressive pedigree. The ultimate bonus is that Tom Cruise actually seems like he has believable human emotions in this film. Like a sense of humor. The pre-credit scene is pretty good, but the opening scene for the main plot is what really hooked me. I was afraid Cruise' influence would overwhelm de Palma's style, but those fears were unfounded. Particularly neat is the elevator sequence where the wall is cutaway so we can see the action in the hall and the elevator shaft. I remembered people talking about how confusing the film is when it came out, but it was pretty predictable to me. Maybe I'm just used to the conventions at this point. That didn't diminish the ridiculous (and it gets pretty ridiculous) fun. The only reason I watched Mission: Impossible is because I want to see the Brad Bird directed fourth film, but feel obligated to do my homework. I'm glad I did, though I'm not so excited about John Woo's second installment...