Movie Reviews (20)14: Modern Times Edition

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monkeyskin

monkeyskin

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Hot Tub Time Machine
Perfect Friday night beers and take away fare. Honestly funnier than I was expecting, thanks largely to the infallible charms of John Cusack and Craig Robinson. Rob Corddry got all the gross out jokes, seemed strange without him being in greasepaint. Plus, Lizzy Caplan as MPDG! Jessie's Girl! Megan Draper boobies!
 
I quite liked The Counselor even though I'm not supposed to. Still figuring out why exactly. It's fucking weird for one, I guess. And while not especially deep in its probing of human frailty, power, sexual dynamics, etc it's effective in a very Cormac-way of eroding away "important" structural supports of the story so that we're left with a series of pieces that fit together only in sideways glance, which shifts the emphasis of each individual scene and ultimately of the whole, otherwise it would be a totally conventional fucked-up drug deal type movie. Anyway it's fun and gets under my skin in a good way. Though I can't help but agree it would have been infinitely more interesting if Tony Scott has in fact been able to direct it, or somebody much more fastidious than Ridley like a David Fincher type.
 
Frozen is really good. I love the idea of a Disney animated movie centered around the relationship between two siblings as opposed to the typical girl meets boy romance thing. The songs in the first half are really awesome, too. But it doesn't completely come together for me, and I think it's a step or two short of being a bonafide all-time Disney classic.

It's how they handled the Elsa character. The whole thing was set-up from the opening to be this huge tale of redemption for her. And ultimately she fades into the background and becomes just a minor piece. Anna is the heart of the movie and just a delightful character so it makes sense to focus on her more, but I just wish that Elsa had been painted a bit differently. They seemed to spend a lot less time developing her as we rolled along, and I thought something was missing in the final interactions with her sister.

Oh, well. I still LOLd a bunch and had a lot of fun, I really appreciated the switch in the standard Disney formula, and the "Do You Want To Build A Snowman?" sequence in the first act rivals that infamous UP montage for saddest thing I've ever seen in a kid's movie.
 
Ken Russell's Lair of the White Worm is also a terrific kids movie.
 
GirlsAloudFan said:
Frozen is really good. I love the idea of a Disney animated movie centered around the relationship between two siblings as opposed to the typical girl meets boy romance thing. The songs in the first half are really awesome, too. But it doesn't completely come together for me, and I think it's a step or two short of being a bonafide all-time Disney classic.

It's how they handled the Elsa character. The whole thing was set-up from the opening to be this huge tale of redemption for her. And ultimately she fades into the background and becomes just a minor piece. Anna is the heart of the movie and just a delightful character so it makes sense to focus on her more, but I just wish that Elsa had been painted a bit differently. They seemed to spend a lot less time developing her as we rolled along, and I thought something was missing in the final interactions with her sister.

Oh, well. I still LOLd a bunch and had a lot of fun, I really appreciated the switch in the standard Disney formula, and the "Do You Want To Build A Snowman?" sequence in the first act rivals that infamous UP montage for saddest thing I've ever seen in a kid's movie.
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Saw it recently and enjoyed it. I agree its not at all time classic level, but its one of the better things Disney has released recently. Theater was packed (Sunday matinee, lots of families), but this is 2 months post release, its a box office juggernaut.
 
Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre:

Herzog is incredibly reverential of Murnau's original, stretching into a Germanic past that also encompasses the use of Wagner's compositions. Both of those factors merge into how Herzog's camera explores physical & metaphysical space: man's communion with nature, spectres, and unspoken but felt connections between its three leads -- all of which are varying degrees of spectacular.

While that reverence does exist, there's a fair degree of subversion of expectations. Ganz's Harker traverses into this phantom zone between modernity and the past on the way to Dracula's castle, which is explained to not truly exist. The other two times that I've heard Wagner's "Vorspiel" in media have been in Malick's The New World where it also serves as a type of elegy toward a past long forgotten and John Hillcoat's Malick-aping Levi's ad (the less said, the better). Herzog playfully cuts off the euphoric climax and places it as a procession toward dread & death.

By the time we reach Kinski's inhuman pestilence of Dracula, he possesses neither Max Schreck's expressive horror, Bela Lugosi's suave menace, Christopher Lee's shark-like impulse, or even the intensity one expects from a "Kinski performance;" he's simply a ghost fading in the shadows. That specific idea of parasitic vampirism had long departed mainstream portrayals of the vampire, making a return feel deliberately anachronistic and even overtly comic -- how could anyone not chuckle at Harker ignoring an obscenely evil-looking white goblin of a dude because he really wants to close this land deal?

So yeah, this is a few shades of great. I'm normally not a fan of DCP prints of flicks originally shot on film, but for the most part this restoration really shines. The foggy, ethereal vistas of beaches, graveyards, mountains, forests, and all things woodsy really pop.
 
Herzog's Nosferatu creeped the hell out of me. There's one shot of Kinski creeping towards the camera that stuck with me for days after watching the film.

Probably my third favorite Herzog/Kinski behind Aguirre (in my top 5) and Fitzcarraldo.
 
djerdap said:
Herzog's Nosferatu creeped the hell out of me. There's one shot of Kinski creeping towards the camera that stuck with me for days after watching the film.

Probably my third favorite Herzog/Kinski behind Aguirre (in my top 5) and Fitzcarraldo.
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It's the shot of him meandering down the tunnel in silhouette then coming into the light, right? Holy shit.
 
LMP said:
It's the shot of him meandering down the tunnel in silhouette then coming into the light, right? Holy shit.
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That's the one. I was watching that in the dark at about 3am. One of the very few moments in film that did manage to scare me after the age of nine.
 
Along with Lynch and Bergman, Herzog is my favourite filmmaker. As far as his fiction goes, outside of his Kinski collaborations, the two films he did with Bruno S. - The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser and Stroszek - are an absolute must. The ending to Stroszek is one of those great endings in cinema that you can't stop thinking about.
 
I saw Nebraska, liked it. Dern puts on a clinic. I gotta say though, I thought Will Forte dragged it down. Some critics seemed to like him a lot, but meh. Really stiff and uncharismatic acting on his part, it seemed like he was reading off of cue cards with some of his line deliveries. Then again, the character itself admittedly wasn't all that interesting. Maybe he was going for purposely dull and wooden.

Either way, he's not as bad as whoever plays his ex. Whew, that performance has to be seen to be believed. Where did Payne find these people?
 
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Dern didn't do much for me, to be honest.

There's restraint, and there's barely having a pulse.

Also, Forte clearly was the lead in this film.
 
lazarus said:
Dern didn't do much for me, to be honest.

There's restraint, and there's barely having a pulse.

Also, Forte clearly was the lead in this film.
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Ok, I'm glad I'm not the only one who felt exactly this way about everything you just said.
 
Apparently, Will Forte had "Oscar buzz" at one point. I would have preferred Odenkirk or that one guy that kept giving Forte shit for driving so slowly.
 
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The buzz for Forte was in Supporting , and he even received a nomination from some legit awards body. Quality aside, he's in almost every scene. It's preposterous.
 
It seems to be his story, too. It's not even screen time, it just seems to me that he's the character that goes through the growth. Dern is a device, and for that reason, despite screen time, I'd call him supporting.
 
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