Movie Update 12

At this point I'm starting to see the finish line on the list of classic movies I compiled last year (and have repeatedly expanded on since), about in time for Netflix' two disc plan with streaming to increase in price. I might just watch regular old crap for a while after that, though there's plenty of lists I haven't gone through yet, mostly consisting of winners of various awards. Anyway, movies.

American Graffiti


This is the first non-Star Wars film directed by George Lucas that I've seen... not very surprising, since only one other such film exists. It's an entertaining and charming nostalgia-laden film about mid-century cruising culture, which consisted of teenagers in California hooking up and aimlessly driving their cars around town while listening to music. It's obvious Lucas has a history with this sort of thing, and it comes through in the movie, which is too light on plot to really be a sex comedy or anything like that, but tells a simple and interesting story about two high school graduates struggling with whether to go to college at the other side of the country while summer comes to a close. The young cast is pretty good, it's funny, and it's shot well enough to make you forget for a little while what Lucas' career has turned into. Nothing too incredible, but a good film.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button


I liked this more than I expected, but it's still pretty far from the best work by David Fincher. Despite the apparent grab for awards with the sentimental, broadly-reaching script and big name cast, you can still definitely tell it's a Fincher movie from the specific color scheme and interesting using of CGI (the effects to create young/old Benjamin are far from real looking, but they're definitely interesting) among other things. And I liked most of the performances, especially surprising ones like Mad Men's Jared Harris as a salty, drunken sea captain. It's just much too long of a movie for how much story it has. It's like screenwriter Eric Roth couldn't think of anything beyond combining an intriguing short story concept with an earlier-set version of Forrest Gump. Some cool ideas, but the experience is kind of a drag.

La Dolce Vita


This is the third film by Federico Fellini that I've seen, and I was again impressed by some things he did without being really drawn in or terribly entertained by the work itself. It's very much a 60s European art film, and is very identifiably good at that. I was somewhat intrigued by the episodic nature of the story, as it progresses through various mostly unrelated events, examining the mindset of the central character. Really though, the part that grabbed my interest the most was when Anita Ekberg was just sort of walking and dancing around on screen, so maybe I'm not quite the target audience. This is another film that was quite long, and I got through it fine but wouldn't want to watch it again.

Nashville


Robert Altman is definitely known for those ensemble casts, and this is a premiere example of that. Nashville is about the coming together of many people, lots of them musicians, at a political rally for a candidate that is never actually seen. Much time is dedicated to the musical performances, and it's quite a long movie, giving fair shake to a lot of different stories. It's a well put together film, and while I'm not familiar with a lot of the cast, they all tend to do good jobs. I didn't like a lot of the movie though, which I found to be incredibly uncomfortable and hard to watch. It's the product of a very dark sense of humor, some real proto-cringe type stuff. I understand what they were going for, but too much of it was too far on the painful side of the spectrum without being that funny. It's just personal taste, and I respect the movie, but I had trouble with it.

Sullivan's Travels


Sullivan's Travels is about a comedy director who thinks people don't know enough about the real suffering going on in the world, and tries after a few false starts to discover real trouble so he can honestly make a movie about it. I tend to like movies that hold up mirrors to Hollywood, and Travels does it about as well as any. It's a nice snappy 40s road comedy, which happens to take a strange, dark, and surprising turn near the end. It's a little off-putting, but not enough to really damage a film that's otherwise got a pretty good point to make about what people really want to get out of cinema, and is honestly just entertaining on its own. The biggest issue is perhaps the movie trying to get me to believe a girl who looked like Veronica Lake would have trouble getting a break in Hollywood, but that's pretty much how movies work. Somehow not as famous as other movies of similar type and quality from the period, but deserving of a watch.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

The Chronicles of Narnia is sort of the more child friendly, overbearingly Christian cousin of The Lord of the Rings, and after the success of the latter as a film franchise, there's little surprise that someone would follow suit with the former. The first movie, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was pretty decent to my memory. It's less of a war movie in places and more of a kid's fairy tale, but it had some interesting ideas.

I liked Prince Caspian more though, as it seems more focused on telling a complete story and is just more confident with everything. There's no Mr. Tumnus prancing around or Turkish Delight being eaten, just the story of a war for the future of the land. The action scenes are actually pretty darn good for a PG movie, from a clandestine assault on a castle by moonlight to a deadly show of single combat on the field of battle. They make a point of showing how hundreds of years have passed since the last time the kids appeared in Narnia, with most of the mystical creatures sequestered into the forest and the rest reverted into wild animals. A human empire has taken over the land, and the battle between them and the natives is a nice contrast with the first movie which had their loyalties divided between a magical lady and a magical Jesus cat.

Um... yeah. Movies. A lot of the humor is kind of obvious and cheesy, but there are a couple chuckles to be had. Eddie Izzard plays a talking mouse, and his lines all kind of suck but it's still cool because he's Eddie Izzard. The kids are uniformly less annoying than the first movie, which is good. If there's one thing sequels have over initial installments it's not having to waste time establishing familiarity with setting and characters and all that. The uh... the special effects are pretty good. The battles are nice but the ending was fairly Deus Ex Machina. I'm willing to watch more of these movies, especially since the next one has such a bad ass title. Go look it up. Seriously, bad ass.

Burn After Reading

As far as movies by the Coen brothers go, Burn After Reading is merely in the middle of the road. Fortunately, it's such a damn good road that saying it's in the middle is hardly a knock. I didn't love it as much as their best work, but I've only come to appreciate it more since I've watched it, and it's not nearly as close to bad as say, The Ladykillers. It's a unique addition to their body of work, mixing the humor of their sillier movies with the very frank violence of their serious films. It's sort of a satire of espionage thrillers, but also not really. It's pretty short, but also takes a while to really get going. The plot's a pretty tightly coiled knot by the end, although I kind of wished there was some more convolutions to really take it all the way. I feel like it could have been great with a tighter script, but as it is, it's still pretty good.

Production-wise, it's as good as the Coens have ever been. The score is bombastic and completely over the top for the content, adding to the satirical vibe. It's their first film without their usual cinematographer in a long time, but they don't miss a beat, with plenty of wonderfully shot moments, especially the ones at the CIA headquarters. There's some really cool zoom shots that show the location, and I love the way the camera follows people's feet as they walk from room to room. The CIA scenes in general are great, with JK Simmons hilarious as usual as the man in charge of the incident, and the coda where they talk about what happened sums up the movie perfectly. The cast is their biggest yet, with Oscar winners George Clooney, Frances McDormand, and Tilda Swinton, and nominees Brad Pitt and John Malkovich. They all play their roles very well. Swinton's character seemed more pointless than the others, and Malkovich's dialogue wasn't as funny as it tried to be, but they still fit appropriately into the story. Pitt was great as a moronic gym instructor, and I ended up wishing the movie had more of him. McDormand and Clooney are in a lot of their movies, which makes sense for Frances since she's married to Joel, and they're great again in parts written for them.

After a good amount of time introducing the characters and how they know each other, the story begins when Pitt and McDormand find what they believe is Malkovich's "secret CIA shit" and try to ransom it back to him, and then a bunch of crazy things happen that result in some characters dead, some on the run, and some intact. The CIA is paying attention, but even they're not sure what's happening and don't seem to care too much. They're pretty much in the same position as the audience, wondering what the point is. It's kinda gutsy to make a movie with no point, but in a way that IS the point, and the way they go about showing it is pretty great. It's pretty funny too, and I'm looking forward to watching it again more than No Country for Old Men, so take that for it's worth. They're already filming their next movie, which has a cast of unknowns instead of one of stars, so we'll see what happens.

PS: I just noticed that this is the second review of a Coen movie in a row that I've derided The Ladykillers, which I didn't intend to do. It's really not a terrible movie, it's just definitely not what you should watch if you want to see what they're about.