Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[LSPoorEeyorick]

The great Oscar-Watch is on.

Australia won't be part of it. That is, we saw it, but it's not going to be in the race. Baz Luhrmanm has such a distinctive style... a style I've enjoyed very much in the past, particularly in Moulin Rouge. For the first fifteen or twenty minutes of the film, he clings to it that style and forces it into a story that he later tries to spread out as epic. High camp and epic? They don't go together well.

On top of that, his narrator is an aboriginal boy with an accent and lexicon that appropriates Jar Jar Binks. It was off-putting, the combination of the pushed-too-hard stylistic choices and the pushed-way-too-hard Aunt Jemima "native" - so it made it difficult to swallow the film that it eventually became, an attempt at an epic-style western with heavy anti-racism themes. I would have thought that would have been up my alley, but that crudely-made introduction distracted from the stretch I most enjoyed (the cattle drive.)

Less-than-sizzling chemistry between the leads hampered it, as did arriving at the overlong, overwrought third act wishing it had already ended. It was even oddly bad from a technical standpoint, with badly-lit and badly-focused shots. (And not in a useful, "Visions of Light" Coppola-typeway.) But, so many people like Luhrmann more than I do, and so many people are not hard, cynical, moviegoers. So although I've completely panned it here, your mileage may vary.


Milk, on the other hand, was terrific. It was elegantly shot, respectfully and movingly performed, and very effective overall. I was impressed by how much unabashed homosexual affection they showed. (I mean, I see a lot of unabashed homosexual affection in real life, but they so rarely show it honestly in film. It was refreshing to see it.) Great performances across the board... beautifully developed characters... pitch-perfect period design... and very moving, at a time when so many people need to be moved by his fight. Certainly, the modern crisis is echoed and can be informed by Milk's struggle and success. Everyone should see it.


We saw this awhile ago, but I also want to mention Rachel Getting Married, which is notably written by Jenny Lumet - daughter of Sidney Lumet. I say notably not because she's celebrity offspring, but because I think she is going to have quite a screenwriting future ahead of her. What an exquisite piece of work. It's capable of delivering a huge array of emotions, but primarily, it's the most I've ever felt like I was actually at a wedding, watching people I both care about and who frustrate me. It felt, by the end of the film, like the characters were my family... that is how effective the storytelling and performances were.

The story follows a woman just out of rehab, as she returns to her family on the eve of her sister's wedding. It's a remarkable family - full of exceptional people with complex relationships and rarely-discussed secrets. I wonder how much is informed by the Lumet family. Tom discovered, in fact, that one particular scene is highly informed by the Lumet family. There's a brilliant interaction between two people comically arguing over who can better load the dishwasher. It is apparently based on a similar interaction between Sidney Lumet and Bob Fosse. And it's brilliant... but even more brilliant is how quickly a scene of levity like that can turn on a dime. A hell of a dime. I love beat changes (I'm really into them right now, actually) and this was the best beat change I'd seen in... well, right now I can't think of a better one.

Performances were wonderful - I didn't know Anne Hathaway had it in her. This is definitely one worth watching.


We had the pleasure of seeing the Los Angeles production of Doubt, starring Cherry Jones. So I was already familiar with the play when we saw an advance screening last night. I was very curious to see how it would translate, and I was very pleased to see that it made for a wonderful film. With such powerhouse performances. I mean, Meryl Streep? Philip Seymour Hoffman? Amy Adams? How can you possibly go wrong there?

Doubt is about one nun's suspicions about a priest and his possibly untoward relationship with the first African-American boy at their private Catholic school in the 1960s. At first blush. But it's a lot more than that - it's about the push for modernization and familiarization and warmth within the historically stark Catholic church. It's about the struggle for women to be heard, to be believed, to have any semblance of power in a very phallocentric age (and church.) It's about how much you're willing to step into a gray area to address wrongdoing. It is a brilliant study on all of these things combined, and - most wonderful, to me - it requires you to make your own conclusions. Oh, delicious ambiguity.

In the translation from stage to screen, not much is lost, but a world of detail and setting is introduced, and I think that helps it immensely. (Not that the play needed help, but it works very well.)

With the exception of a few shot composition choices (I can count them on my two hands, I'm sure) that distracted me from the storytelling, it was terrific. Performances are excellent. And the play was well-served. And I look forward to hearing others' thoughts on the ambiguity, because Tom and I have different opinions about it, and both our opinions were further supported (in our opinion) by the film adaptation.


Excited by one play adaptation, we decided to catch a late showing of its main competitor, Frost/Nixon. We had not seen the play before seeing the movie, but we were familiar with the writer (who was also responsible for some of my recent favorite films, The Queen and The Last King of Scotland.) Peter Morgan has a real knack for revealing unexpected humanity and humor in tyrants and queens. And presidents, as it turns out.

Centered on David Frost - lightweight, playboy, and... the horror... talk-show host - and his quest to interview Nixon after his pardon, this is about a meeting of the minds that is not well-matched. But catching someone offguard can always change the tables, and the series of interviews catch the two men - and the audience, at times - quite off-guard. It's a fascinating look into the biggest governmental error in judgment (pre-Bush. Which is interesting - it made me realize that Nixon's struggle for respect in his life is what Bush got to avoid. So many people like Bush. And it seems to me that no Frost interview awaits him, despite his trevails in office. I doubt he would meet such an interview with the intelligence with which Nixon met Frost, though.)

Frank Langella's Nixon was positively Shakespearean. And Michael Sheen's Frost is underrated - he's terrific. Another definitely worth seeing, no matter what you think of Nixon right now.

[flippyshark]

Your critique of Australia makes it sound irresistible to me, just because it sounds like a really interesting misfire, and I often find those fascinating.

I am really excited about Doubt.

And I wish I had time to see all of these. I love "Oscar-bait" season!

[Tom]

Actually, Australia was a really boring misfire.

[LSPoorEeyorick]

I dunno, I was kind of fascinated by its badness...

[Tom]

I didn't think it was quite bad enough to be interesting in that way and did not have enough points of interest outside of that on which to engage. I just thought it was dull. And long.

[Gemini Cricket]

Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
I liked it. Funny stuff. It strayed from humor in the 3rd act but it was a good flick. Apatow movies rock. I was amused with them shooting on location at the Turtle Bay. It is a cool hotel... if you can afford it. There is no Laie hiking trail though. It's just a look out point. AND it's quite hard to get out of the water there after you jump.
"Nothing Compares 2 U" in Hawaiian during the credits was brilliant.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Caught Forgetting Sarah Marshall on our return flight from Edniburgh/London and enjoyed it more than expected.

I don't remember if I mentioned this earlier. When the movie was being marketed, I didn't pay very much attention to it and the ads. I thought the billboard campaign and the viral blog it linked to were lame, so I didn't really want to see the movie. But of course I couldn't completely avoid it, so I knew that Mila Kunis was in it. And I thought that Judge Reinhold was in it.

I know. I'm not very smart. But, I really only caught a glimpse of a commercial here and there, and never gave it much thought beyond those snippets I'd see. And damnit, dude looks like Judge Reinhold!! So, you know, I didn't really put it through the critical thinking that might have lead me to conclude, "Hey, retard, Judge Reinhold would be about 75 or something, there's no way that's him."

And being on an airplane doesn't improve my critical thinking skills.

So I watched that whole movie convinced that I was watching Judge Reinhold.

Yeah. I know.

[Gemini Cricket]

GD ~ Heh heh

For some reason, I found Judge Reinhold's doppelganger to be quite attractive.

[Alex]

I went to see it out of boredom and ended up mostly liking it.

By the way, I watched Cashback this morning and saw you (or her or both of you) hated it per your Netflix rating. I didn't love it but wouldn't rate it as worse than mediocre. Just curious what you hated about it.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Alex

I went to see it out of boredom and ended up mostly liking it.

By the way, I watched Cashback this morning and saw you (or her or both of you) hated it per your Netflix rating. I didn't love it but wouldn't rate it as worse than mediocre. Just curious what you hated about it.

Oh god, we both hated it. So much that we turned it off half way through, which we NEVER do.

In summary, we hated it because it thought it was way more clever than it actually was, and what little cleverness was in it was ruined by the f*cking narration that just. wouldn't. shut. up. "Hey, you know what's really clever about this next scene? Well let me tell you before you watch it, because, omg, it's sooo gonna blow your mind." Geebus, stop describing your movie and just let me watch it, man!

Here's what I originally posted about it.