Movies

I haven't put up a movie post in ages. I haven't done much blogging of any kind this summer, but film posts (like Fun With The iPod), are supposed to provide a bare minimum of prose.... Well: at this point, I am not going to run through any major reviews - just run through a bunch of recent films, with some comments. A couple of these will get longer posts eventually...

Death of Mr. Lazarescu - the best film released this year, and one of the best of the decade. More will definitely be coming here.

Rome, Open City
Flowers of St. Francis
My Dad is 100 Years Old - Roberto Rossellini double feature, plus Canada's greatest director paying homage to Italy's greatest director through the medium of the latter's daughter. Staged as a kind of dialogue between RR's belly and certain of Rossellini's contemporaries (Hitchcock, Selznick, Fellini, all played by Isabella Rossellini), with interventions from Ingrid Bergman and Charlie Chaplin - it's a pretty good statement of the issues, and of Rossellini's positions. Interesting too for the way Maddin's surrealism pays homage to Rossellini's realism - and a reminder that Maddin's expressionistic surrealism is as far from the mainstream as anything Rossellini did, and that their stubborn individualism has quite a bit in ocmmon.

The 2 Rossellini films, of course, are masterpieces. Flowers of St. Francis is in a new print, looking about as good as films get the right to look. It's a joy to watch - direct and clear and simple, funny and generous - dwelling on faces, landscapes, the sky... beautiful and very moving film.

Nacho Libre - not so beautiful of moving... the idea of Jack Black as a wrestling priest is very appealing - the actual execution is not. It's an interesting problem, though, why this film is so bad - the absurd concept, the deliberate underplaying, the jokily cheap looking sets and costumes and effects, the use of actors for their faces and bodies as much as any kind of acting, and the willingness to have the actors pretend rather than act, so that it looks like a bunch of kids pretending to be in a movie - is slipping disconcertingly close to, well, Rossellini territory. Maybe Luc Moullet is a better example. But it doesn't work. Jared Hess doesn't seem to be a good enough director to make a real "bad" film. That's a strange thing to say, but it's the impression this one left me with - if they hadn't been trying to make it sort of look like it wasn't all a joke, maybe....

Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man - somewhat disappointing documentary about the great man... interesting interviews interspersed with all star tribute concert, which never really went anywhere. With dumb camera tricks to try to make it all seem - filmed. All star tribute concerts are usually pretty lame, especially on film - though they can be much improved by the presence of the star being lauded. This one didn't have much traction... Still worth seeing, given the quality of the music, and the performers are no slouches...

Withnail & I
The Big Lebowski - as quotable a doulbe bill as one is likely to see, I guess. As the years pass, I find that the Big Lebowski rises steadily in my estimation - every time I see it I like it more. It is something of a comic counterpart of David Lynch's Lost Highway - maybe because they are both about LA, and LA in the movies, in related ways - and certainly because both seem to be better films every time I see them. Anyway.... the dude abides.

A Scanner Darkly - speaking of LA masterpieces... this is one of the great adaptations, getting the tone and ideas of the source novel almost perfectly. And being an adaptation of a great book, makes it pretty much a great film.