Flipside Movie Emporium

[mfritschel]

Once Upon a Time in Mexcio (2003) - The great epic it was suppose to be it is not. It is definetely no The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly but Johnny Depp is great, as always, even though the plot makes no sense and has no coherence really.

Rules of the Game (1939) - There is not a director around these days that is in tune to social critique and what is going on in society as Renoir was in his day. Between this movie and The Grand Illusion I really can't think of two movies more openly critical and in tune to society evolution then him. This movie was brillant, I loved it, great New Historical work.

Open Range (2003) - This movie was good in parts and horrible in parts. The love story was just two forced and added nothing to the movie. Robert Duvall and Kevin Cosnter played well off each other, but you never really got a feel for the bad guys, and the rivarly was never really built up in true wester fashion.

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) - It is defidently no dollars triology, but it steals greatly from all of them. Leone doesn't really do anything new hear, but repeat his success from the dollars triology.

Monster (2004) - Theron was great, I especially liked how it presented a flipside to the murder scenes. At first you felt no pity for her victims cause they were scum bags, but the last couple of guys she kills one really feels sorry for, and helps the movie from humanizing her character to much. One doesn't really feel pity for her at the end.

The Man Without a Past (2003) - And the point was? And the hype was all about? It wasn't bad and it wasn't great, I have seen two movies from Finland now and neither of them have really excited me.

[mfritschel]

[the night watchman]

[Danny Baldwin]

12/20 - 12/26

Torque (Kahn, 2003) - The primest example of masturbatory filmmaking in years. I suppose the 'laugh-at-it' factor runs high, but other than that, it's a pointless waste of time, as I expected it to be.

Cold Mountain (Minghella, 2003) - It's masterful up until Ruby comes along, but since Zellweger is so strong in the role, she saves the character from almost ruining the end we'd waited for, and allows it to be a good movie.

The Station Agent (McCarthy, 2003) - Just beautiful--beautiful in every way. I was captivated, intrigued, sorrowed, angered, and humored. Probably the most poignant work of the year.

The Cooler (Kramer, 2003) - Funny and bubbly. Great entertainment and an interesting premise.

I also revisited Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg, 1981) and Finding Nemo (Stanton, 2003).

If it weren't for Torque, which, for some reason, I couldn't find it in me to miss, it would've been a perfect week.
_________________
Danny Baldwin

View My Reviews

[matt header]

"Open Range" was okay - I think I'd side more with mfritschel that I loved some of it and disliked some other parts. I also appreciate the attention it pays to setting up for the shootout, to the sort of gloom that hangs over both of them because they realize the violence they are about to enact. But it has a subtle feminist aspect that seems unrealistic; when Annette Bening runs out into the street in the middle of a shootout yelling, "Stop it! Stop it right now!," I had to laugh in ludicrous disbelief. I also think the introduction of Butler was very abrupt and not anywhere near as momentous as it should have been, especially considering the rage-filled vengeance that Costner enacts upon him.

"Once Upon a Time in the West" is one of my favorite movies of all time; I think in terms of music-like composition, film technique, creativity, and exact integration of sight and sound it far transcends any movie in the Dollars trilogy. The way that the images flow like musical notes, like a bloody opera, is astounding; this is aestheticized violence and drama at its finest. I really found it brilliant.

As for "Elephant," I prefer to look at it as realism, and I personally think it succeeds at it. It takes the issue of school violence - the elephant too large to comprehend - which has assumed a somewhat mythical status recently. It has become a philosophical token, a focus of conversation instead of a very real tragedy to be looked at from a perspective grounded in reality. I think Van Sant does an excellent job at regrounding it in reality; he doesn't attempt to philosophize about school violence because his intent seems the opposite: he tries to pull the Columbine incident and similar tragedies back into the emotional realm of the real world, and after following around these student for about an hour (before the mayhem begins) I was reminded of the very real, very intense, very depressing and disturbing sense of tragedy that's digressed in our society into scapegoating and hysteria. That, I think, was Van Sant's intent.

[beltmann]

[Danny Baldwin]

[Rob Vaux]

[beltmann]

[beltmann]

[Rob Vaux]

[the night watchman]

[beltmann]

1/26 ? 2/1

Only the Strong (Lettich, 1993). Not good, but that Brazilian martial art of capoeira sure is cool!

Live and Let Die (Hamilton, UK, 1973). I?ve now seen every single Bond flick. This one surely ranks among the worst in the series, and the manner by which Yaphet Kotto is dispatched is one of the most embarrassing send-offs in cinema history?he actually inflates and pops!

Q & A (Lumet, 1990). What begins as a well-acted study of two interesting men, tough in their own ways, becomes a standard-issue police corruption film. Once the "and then" episodes start piling up, and multiple point-of-views muddy the narrative engine, the movie becomes interminable.

Grass (Mann, Canada, 1999). A war documentary. Mann provides an overview of the U.S. government's war on marijuana users, breaking down its history into eras that are easily digestible. If the approach is rather simplistic, the cumulative effect is still instructive: More than $250 billion dollars later, has the money been well-spent? Mann doesn't make a case in favor of weed--its virtues are not extolled--but certainly makes a case that drug laws have been far more detrimental to society than the drug itself. Souped-up graphics help sell the idea that such laws are motivated by politics, hysteria, greed, power, and a culture of fear.

Naked Lunch (Cronenberg, Canada, 1991). I?m normally game for this sort of thing, but I?ve never been a fan of Burroughs (nor the Beats in general), and this hallucination failed to take hold. As a metaphor for the creative process, I found it rather cursory, giving too much weight to chemical inspiration and not enough to hard work. Perhaps I just wasn?t in the mood for it, but I thought it was rather silly. I like Cronenberg, but this doesn?t compare favorably to his best work?eXistenZ, Dead Zone, The Fly, Dead Ringers, even Videodrome.

Decasia (Morrison, 2002). I wrote this for another topic: Morrison strings together clips of decaying, archived "found" film, all set to a pounding, mechanical score by Michael Gordon. I was immediately reminded of Brakhage and drip painting--the slowed-down clips are twisted into moving, abstract images, blotted by emulsion failing; the distortion flickers in front of us in the shape of balloons, sponges, bubbles, etc. At first the goal seems to be finding beauty in these dying films--the state of decay as represented by cinema, which records humans in an attempt to defer their inevitable loss to time--but it ultimately becomes an elegy for how cinema dies right along with us. Plus, if you look carefully, it appears that the clips have been organized into thematic movements, to accompany the musical symphony. I liked it immensely, although I must confess that I'm not sure I gleaned much from the last 30 minutes that I didn't get from the first 30.

Seven Years Bad Luck (Linder, 1921). Frenchman Max Linder is one of the forgotten clowns of the silent era, although some rank him favorably to Harold Lloyd, if not Chaplin or Keaton. This US feature is one of his landmarks, containing a classic bit similar to the Marx Brothers? famous (and later) mirror scene. (Incidentally, I prefer Linder?s version.) The story as a whole--Max endures "bad luck" after breaking a mirror, and uses his wits to get out of jam after jam, to win back the heart of his girlfriend--is rather episodic and formulaic, but there are comic sequences here that are original, clever, funny.

Troubles of a Grasswidower (Linder, France, 1908) / Love?s Surprises (Linder, France, 1913) / Max Takes a Picture (Nonguet, France, 1913) / Max Sets the Style (Linder, France, 1914). All shorts with Max Linder. None have the entertainment or historical value of Seven Years Bad Luck. Most are simple premises with few deviations from a master shot.

Intimacy (Ch?reau, France, 2001). Every Wednesday, a man and a woman meet for anonymous sex, until one day he follows her home and learns about her personal life--he even befriends her husband, a sadsack taxi driver. The drama is punctuated with very graphic, raw sex scenes, and while it doesn't qualify as porn, I wonder how much explicit imagery is necessary for the movie to score its points regarding intimacy, desperation, and anger. (The man, in particular, seems to have a serious grudge against women, and uses his "intimate" personal knowledge about the woman as weapons.) Kitchen-sink realism, with very few insights.

Bitter Moon (Polanski, UK, 1992). I know I didn?t like Intimacy despite its high reputation, so perhaps it?s strangely fitting that I deeply enjoyed Polanski?s widely reviled gothic melodrama. Peter Coyote is an American expatriate in Paris, who enters into a blissful, lustful relationship that sours into sado-masochistic violence, both physical and psychological. (I partially read it as a metaphor about freedom, especially in terms of Americans in relation to foreign places, but that might be a stretch.) He tells his story aboard a cruise ship, to straight-laced listener Hugh Grant, who is simultaneously appalled and fascinated. Complaints about the purple dialogue misses the point--Coyote's character is a failed writer, spinning his life into what he thinks is a cautionary fable of urgent, cosmic proportions, a tale of romantic and sexual intensity that he mistakes for passion. His overripe words are intended as comedy?aided immensely by Coyote, Polanski's humor here is as strong as anywhere?and yet we are also invited to doubt their veracity. I also think we're meant to take seriously the wounded psyches on display, and I was more than willing to oblige. Too many critics wanted to pigeonhole this picture?either as horror film or complex psychodrama, either as camp comedy or moral fable?but I didn?t want to reject any of those options: To me, the significance of this picture lies in its ability to satisfy all of those functions simultaneously. Has anyone else seen this one?

Eric

[the night watchman]

[mfritschel]

Capturing the Friedmans (2003) - I loved the objective look the movie took towards the case, and type of witch hunt atmosphere that seems to surround these cases. As far as a movie goes, I found it working on so many different levels. Some of the most intersting aspects for me was the way the three boys ganged up on their mother, and the different dichotomies this presented. At times you would feel sorry for the mother, and then other times you wonder why she can't stand behind her family more. The whole movie seemed to present these type of paradigms and I think that is why it worked so well. Especially, with the fact you knew what Albert Friedman was doing was disgusting and wrong, and yet one still felt pity for him. However, I never felt his character humanized to the point were I felt that he did not deserve to go to jail.

The Girl With a Pearl Earring (2004) - Rod Stewart sang how every picture tells a story, the this movie is a perfect example. It's just too bad that some stories are more interesting then others. I loved the cinematography and how the movie seemed to take on the feeling of art and paintings from the time. But I never really related to the characters, and just never got into the flow of the movie. It just didn't seem to do enough to capture my imagination.

Hidden Fortress (1958) - I loved Seven Samurai, but I just couldn't get into this one. It seemed to lack some of the humour, mysticism, and great characters that Seven Samurai presented us with. It just felt a bit shallow and empty.