Movie Update 18

Does this even need an introduction?

Brazil


Terry Gilliam has a long history of misfortune trying to get his movies made, but if nothing else I think he can look back on this as one film that he got to do completely on his terms. Unless he actually didn't, but it sure seems that way. Brazil is a combination of satire, violence, slapstick, and oppression that I don't think I've ever seen in a story before. Maybe something Kurt Vonnegut would write, I guess. It's set in an odd dystopian future where a gigantic bureaucracy seems to control everything. Johnathan Pryce is part of the system, but he gets caught up in something bigger involving a terrorist played by Robert De Niro and a beautiful girl he's been seeing in his dreams. It's both very funny and extremely dark at points, featuring some really great imagery and a killer ending. Unique and worth checking out.

Halloween


Despite really marking the beginning of the slasher movie craze, Halloween has a remarkably low death count and lack of a focus on gore. It's almost like a Hitchcock movie in its focus on suspense over shocking the audience. Like all older horror movies, it doesn't register quite as terrifyingly as it probably did in the past, but it's still a pretty effective little film. I definitely think I like John Carpenter's work in the horror genre a little more than action. Some teenagers do things Michael Myers doesn't like, he stalks them and kills them brutally, and he repeatedly fails to die. A lot of tropes, but it's a tight, tense movie.

Ponyo


As far as Hayao Miyazaki movies go, the plot in Ponyo is pretty slight. His films have always balanced family-friendly whimsy with deeper ideas, but I think this is easily his most child-focused movie, even more than My Neighbor Totoro. That doesn't make it bad though, of course. I still liked it a lot, from the undersea mythology it quickly builds to the gorgeous animation and painterly backgrounds. The environmental themes and dialogue (at least in the American dub) are a bit too obvious and expository, but they just flavor a fun little fairy tale. Not the best Miyazaki movie, but still a really good one.

Wings of Desire


This is a weird movie. I actually saw the American remake (and hated it) around when it came out in the 90s, without realizing it was based on this German film. The original is a lot better, but still really weird. It's based on the creepy idea that angels are always walking around outside our vision, watching over us and sometimes longing to be one of us. Bruno Ganz, also known as Hitler from Downfall and those funny youtube videos, plays an angel who falls in love with a human, and considers becoming a human to be with her. There's a lot of extended scenes with the angels just listening to the thoughts of humans, which can get repetitive, but they are really artfully shot, and the use of black and white and color is another effective touch. There's also a very strange subplot where Peter Falk plays Peter Falk. Yeah, it's a weird movie.

Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown


What do you call a dark comedy that you really like, but isn't really that funny or that dark? I'm not sure, but that sort of describes Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. Carmen Maura stars as an actress whose affair with a costar has recently ended, and now finds herself caught trying to figure out what happened. At the same time, her friend recently slept with someone who turned out to be a terrorist, and she's considering subletting her apartment to an awkward, nerdy looking Antonio Banderas, who happens to be the son of her lover. Also, his wife is crazy and wants to kill her, or really anyone. It's a twisty, entertaining little movie, though it never reaches the crazy sort of climax or fevered pitch that the best movies of its ilk tend to. Still, a fun, well made movie.

Monty Python's Life of Brian

A lot of people think Life of Brian is the best movie Monty Python did, some going so far as to call it the best comedy film ever made. I disagree, on the basis of it not being nearly as funny as their other two films. Obviously there's more to movies than laughs, and in some ways, Life of Brian is their most impressive work. It actually tells a story, with a cohesive plot and recurring characters through the whole thing, without many scenes that just feel like disconnected sketches thrown together to tell a few jokes. The cast is still mostly the Python members playing multiple roles each, but there's definitely more people involved than usual, and there's actually a point to the whole thing, as they have several interesting things about faith and the role of the church to say that are actually still relevant thirty years later. But it's just not as funny, and I don't think their admirable stab at making a movie like normal people makes up for that gap.

Brian is played by Graham Chapman, who fits the leading man role fairly well again, and ever since he was born next door to Jesus Christ, he's grown up in his shadow. He's been to a few sermons, though they aren't as effective when you're too far away to properly hear what's actually being said. He lives a usual life for a Jew in Rome, until he is so incensed at learning that his father was actually Roman that he decides to join one of several splinter resistance groups. He spends a fair amount of time rebelling and being chased by guards until it leads him to giving an incidental sermon of his own, which leads to him developing his own following. His story follows a parallel to Jesus' as you might expect right to its natural conclusion, which is fairly easily the best ending to anything the members of Monty Python ever wrote. All of the members get a few moments to shine, and the movie's also notable for some of its more bizarre ways to get Brian from point A to point B and its clever use of comedic nudity. Like I said, it's not as gut-bustingly hilarious as their other work, but it's still a really enjoyable watch, from the tone-setting opening scene to the somehow darkly upbeat finale. It really should be seen by anyone who wonders about religion, provided they can actually see what the movie is trying to say.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

So this was a strange movie. The whole thing is practically one long drug trip as Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro wander around Vegas hallucinating and acting crazy. It's frequently very funny, although just as often merely bizarre. I struggled to find a point to the whole thing, as it's based on a semi-autobiographical book by Hunter S. Thompson and just seems to be a snippet of one of the crazier times in his life. Based on a few old interviews I've seen, Depp's portrayal of the fictionalized version of Thompson was pretty spot on, although with some extra flair on some things like the odd way he walks everywhere while tripping. There's a lot of brief appearances by recognizable people sprinkled around, like Cameron Diaz and Christina Ricci. I got the sense that they enjoyed making the movie, although in practice it's not as fun to watch. I liked a lot of it for the most part, but in general it was just a bit too intensely strange and wandering for my taste. For some reason del Toro's always been a bit of an enigma to me. He plays a lot of interesting parts and does unique things with them, but I rarely think of his performances as truly great or memorable. He gained a lot of weight for this part and has his moments (I love how he couched all his advice with the "as your attorney" bit, even when it had no relevance whatsoever), but in the end I struggled to find a point to his presence. Sort of like the whole movie I guess. I like Terry Gilliam as a guy, but so far I've yet to see his style really make a whole movie work. This was interesting but flawed, and I thought 12 Monkeys was held back a bit. He's allowed to keep trying, though.

12 Monkeys

Another time travel movie. I've never seen any of Terry Gilliam's non-Monty Python work before, but it's really not too different in feel. The plot is an interesting, violent science fiction story, but there's a fair amount of silliness in certain scenes. There's something odd about the way he films things. I don't know if it's a lens or what, but just like his short before Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, it feels flat and contained or something, not exactly low budget, just a little antiquated in the apparent scope of the image. It doesn't make the film worse, it just seems unusual. The performances are odd, too. Bruce Willis is totally not his in his standard mode for serious movies, and Brad Pitt's character is completely nuts. A couple of his quirks seemed forced to me, but otherwise it was an extremely entertaining job.

Basically Willis lives in a post-apocalyptic Earth ravaged by a deadly virus, and he's sent back in time to gather information about what happened. I like how the plan isn't to change the past, just to help make the future better. Of course, things in time can become distorted and everything's not quite what they assumed, as the plot gets more and more convoluted. What I found interesting was how the main characters became more mentally disturbed and confused as they went on. In movies like this the characters always take things more in stride than we might realistically expect, but here they begin to seriously question whether they're imagining everything or not. It all leads to the inevitable circular ending. Really enjoyable film.

Monty Python's Flying Circus

Netflix' unlimited free online streaming is really quite nice.

I've seen a couple of the movies and some of the more famous sketches before, but this is the first time I've sat down and really watched the series that is loved by so many and inspired so many others. These 45 episodes are filled with both brilliance and nonsense, a lot of which doesn't hold up too well but most of which does. Everyone knows some bits like the dead parrot and the Spanish inquisition, but there's plenty of less famous stuff that's just as clever. The wordplay, absurd situations, and prototypical mockumentary make for a pretty consistently enjoyable program. They like playing around with expectations, breaking the fourth wall a lot and having the credits play halfway through the episode and stuff like that. They also tend to tie all the sketches together loosely with little bits in between to create a slipshod, strange narrative through an episode, something which I wish more sketch shows did.

Not everything is great though. I believe when people say that Terry Gilliam is a good director even though I haven't seen his movies, but most of his wacky animations in the series are more just odd than really funny. I guess it doesn't take much of a real gag to make the English laugh. Sketch comedy is a bit of a hit-or-miss proposition, and it wasn't terribly rare to be more bored by something than I should have been. The Monty Python films are pretty darn consistent, but that's easy when you don't have to put out half an hour every week. John Cleese easily had the most post-Python success of any member, as an actor at least, and he left the show after the third season, leaving the shortened fourth as a shell of the show's former self. It's not that he's so much funnier than the other members, but his inclusion is essential to the group's success as much as anyone else's, and while there are some decent laughs in the end, it's just not the same show. Sort of a disappointing end for a groundbreaking series, but at least they made those movies to redeem the name.