Flipside Movie Emporium

[Rob Vaux]

[mfritschel]

Northfolk (2003) B+ : laden with religous and american inconography I thorougly enjoyed this movie. Especially the part where they are trying to sell the wings. I haven't laughed that hard in a while. The best part and most memorable is when James Woods looks dead pan at his son and goes "Whatch you talking about Willis?"

Something's Gotta Give (2003) C- : Speaking of how you react to movies at different stages in your life, maybe when I am fifty or so I will find this movie enjoyable, as for now it just appears to me to be another standard date movie with a superb cast, and really all not that funny.

Nine Queens (2000) B+ : Simply put a well done caper movie. After watching recently such failures as Confidence and Matchstick Men it was refreshing to see a well done con movie. I can honestly say that I felt no pity for one character at the end. Where as in Matchstick Men you feel sorry for Nicholas Cage, because maybe he's not that bad of guy, this movie doesn't seem to hide the truth as much.

The Kid Stays in the Picture (2002) B : A bit of a one sided account, but still entertaining. It would have been nice to have heard other people's points of view, but then I guess it really wouldn't have been an autobiography.

[beltmann]

[beltmann]

[the night watchman]

[matt header]

[beltmann]

[beltmann]

2/9 ? 2/15/04

Three terrific pictures, one major disappointment:

Imitation of Life (Sirk 1959). Melodrama is somewhere at the root of all arts, and I believe in Sirk as one of its great practitioners. Let?s do away with Taza Son of Cochise, Thunder on the Hill, No Room for the Groom, and Sign of the Pagan. We?re still left with Imitation of Life, All That Heaven Allows, All I Desire, and Written on the Wind. That?s four terrific pictures, which is more than even many of the best auteurs can claim. Life is about two women, two mothers, and two daughters, and these interlocking, pinball relationships are examined within the racist and sexist context of 1950s America?or, more specifically, the 50s that existed in Sirk?s candy-colored psyche. He set-designs the heck out of the movie, devising vibrant color codes and also an elaborate system for representing emotional distance: Many conversations use doorways, frames, mirrors, and bedposts to divide the characters. Sure, it?s overwrought, but in the best, most engrossing way. If we can accept action and horror movies that go way over the top, and find artistic glory in their excesses, why can?t we extend the same courtesy to emotional melodramas? Surely we can find the same art in tears as we can in blood?

Miracle (O?Connor 2004). Kurt Russell gives a great, intense, controlled performance as coach Herb Brooks, which helps the movie achieve terrific verisimilitude. I may know that real history is tougher, and more complex than this Disneyfied version, but while watching, the movie has the appearance of being real and true. It feels like 1980, and while the ice scenes are bone-crunchingly tense, they aren?t embellished by CGI or false, strained suspense. This is hockey as I know it. Best of all, the movie manages to be the story of an entire team?in other words, by eschewing sappy subplots about individual players, it expertly recreates and dramatizes the tension of being a spectator. This is one of the best sports movies in recent memory.

Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (Blier, France 1978). Attempting to make his forlorn wife happy, an open-minded man (Gerard Depardieu) enlists the help of a sports instructor, but even together they can't seem to help her feel better. Halfway through the film, though, all three are running a summer camp and only there, in the arms of a 13-year-old wunderkind, does the wife find the satisfaction she seeks--sexual, yes, but only as an extension of intellectual and emotional bonding. A friend compared it to Rushmore, and I assume he was referring to the plot. Yet for me, the clearer connection to Anderson?s picture is in terms of tone. Both films achieve a dry, subtle, witty rhythm, and derive great comic mileage out of composition, strong characters, and emotional poignancy. I can?t say it deserved that Best Foreign Film Oscar, but it definitely deserved to be in the running.

City of God (Meirelles and Lund, Brazil 2002). Bodies stack up at an alarming, detached rate in this spiffy action drama about a Rio de Janeiro slum peopled by youngsters armed to the teeth. When the desire of one young hood to become a ?mob boss? leads to all-out gang warfare, an aspiring photojournalist attempts to document the brutality. Of the two characters, the second is easily the more compelling. Unfortunately, the co-directors make the same mistake so many young American directors make: Infatuated with the ?exotic underworld,? they focus on the gangsters and their drugs, firepower, and general nastiness. Despite nearly wall-to-wall massacres, there?s not a single tense or credible moment?there?s more flinching intensity in just one of Miracle?s body checks?and not a single fresh idea regarding such social violence. I was also annoyed by the reliance on narration, which might account for the movie?s dramatic transparency: While we?re watching endless shots of guns discharging, the voice-over alone gives them their proper context. Strip away the lurid visual stylings (which, to my eye, inadvertently glorify these cardboard thugs), and we?re left with just another assembly-line actioner that might as well have featured Jet Li or Steven Seagal. Comparisons to Scorsese are very, very generous. Side question: Why has Meirelles been nominated for Best Director while his credited co-director has not?

Who would have guessed that I?d much prefer a live-action flag-waver from Disney over a tough, highly acclaimed film in Portuguese?

Eric

[the night watchman]

Just came back from Monster. I'm awestruck. There's nothing in this movie that doesn't work. I was worried that all the superlatives used in most reviews would set me up for disappointment, but, really, there's nothing that prepared me for the experience. It's like the greatest exploitation movie ever made.
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"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

-David Cronenberg

[Danny Baldwin]

I don't understand my choices this week...but that's the way it goes.

Joe's Apartment (Payson, 1996) C

Manic (Melamed, 2003) B-

Touching The Void (Macdonald, 2004) A-

The Perfect Score (Robbins, 2004) C+

50 First Dates (Segal, 2004) C+
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Danny Baldwin

View My Reviews

[Rob Vaux]

Fairly busy for me this week. From 2/9-2/16:

? 50 First Dates

? Dark City

? The Limey (working on a noir project at work and these two made a nice double bill)

? Dead Man Walking (interested in the common links between this film and Monster)

? Stevie (powerful film, though a trifle intrusive; I think Capturing the Friedmans was more delicate and effective)

?The Philadelphia Story (It was on TCM, and I was inspired by the comedy thread; first time I'd seen it since college)

?Welcome to Mooseport (Aggressive medicority reigns supreme)

?Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (review pending)

[beltmann]

[beltmann]

[the night watchman]

Nice analyzation of Dead Man Walking, Eric. Ironically, your break down seems to point up why that movie flashed through my head once or twice, for obvious reasons, while watching Monster, but never really locked in. The movie I constantly thought about was, in fact, Taxi Driver.
_________________
"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

-David Cronenberg

[the night watchman]

Just re-read Rob's review of Monster. Capital, old man, I think you hit the nail on the head. I do, however, slightly disagree with your assessment that "Theron brings a predatory intensity to Aileen, letting her seethe with [...] barely concealed contempt for even the fundaments of morality." Or perhaps I misunderstand. It seemed to me she was striving to convince herself (and Selby) of the morality of her actions. She tries to make her victims as monstrous as she can (fixing in her mind that one of her johns is a child molester because he asks to call him "daddy"), and at one point claims that she's "right with the Lord." Did you mean that Aileen was contemptous of the hypocritical expressions of morality she saw in the society around her?
_________________
"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

-David Cronenberg