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.

Movie Update 6

I saw some more movies. They were all pretty good. Some won awards!

Amadeus


Much like Milos Forman's earlier One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, this won a ton of Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor, this time for F. Murray Abraham as a Vienna court composer who had an equal amount of hate and admiration for Wolfgang Mozart. This was kind of an odd movie, with Mozart being shown as both a master of music and kind of a clownish person, and some of the performances felt a little off. It managed to stay interesting for three hours though, and I loved the way it depicted the writing and reading of music. Lots of interesting classical music throughout, even if some of the opera segments seemed to drag on a bit. Abraham really is good too, especially in the scenes when he's older.

Cinema Paradiso


I definitely feel conflicted about this one. I thought it was too long, at almost three hours, especially since the version to actually receive accolades was almost an hour shorter. On the other hand, the shorter version cuts a subplot that I felt added a lot of actual meaning to the story, which makes me wonder which version I actually would have preferred. It's a story about many things; the love of film, a romance that ended too soon, and a man's friendship with a mentor, whose death kicks off the flashback-heavy plot. The first thing came through the best, especially in the final scene of the movie, which is remarkably touching. And Ennio Morricone's scoring can make any movie better. Not great, but there's a lot of heart in it.

Downfall


For all of the terrible things that happen in this movie, about the final days of Nazi Germany's role in World War II, it didn't seem quite as sad as it maybe should have been. There's something just a bit clinical about all of the failure and suicides that add up over time, preventing it from becoming soul crushing but also from being a truly great film. Bruno Ganz is terrific as Hitler though, not really making him sympathetic (who would want that?), but making him seem like a person instead of an inscrutable monster. It overcomes the dozens of videos that put silly subtitles over one of the film's most dramatic moments, which is certainly worth noting.

Red Beard


Akira Kurosawa's final black and white film, and his final collaboration with Toshiro Mifune, is another solid creation from a director that I respect more than I enjoy. If it was just the story of a young, talented doctor coming to work for a gruff but singularly brilliant aging medical talent, I might have liked it more, but too much time was dedicated to the sob stories of many of their patients, which never seemed worth the time they tacked onto yet another three hour marathon of a film. No single scene is bad, and almost all of them are pretty remarkable from a pure film making perspective. I just wasn't interested in watching a lot of them. It makes the story seem choppy and missing some sort of focus. Mifune is again amazing though, impossibly awesome and captivating regardless of the age of whatever character he happens to be playing. That only fifteen years passed between Rashomon and this speaks to his talent. Which is what makes it mystifying that they never worked together again after this, though I'm sure there were plenty of factors.