Tromeo & Juliet

Saw Tromeo & Juliet. That movie was bullshit. It got tedious near the end, but I dug the ridiculousness of it all. I liked how it kept (trying to) top itself in every scene. Dirty and cheap-looking, but well-meaning.

The Jazz Singer

Saw The Jazz Singer. I was thinkin' it was goofy old-timey fun (oh mammie!) and then BAM! Blackface. Well, I guess it was pretty tame fun, just much more suddenly edgy than I thought it would be.

The Killing Room

Saw The Killing Room. It's about four people locked in a room, tortured, etc. by the government (no wait, this project exists "outside the government" (?)) The magic words "post-911" are said as is the phrase "MK-ultra" and we're then expected to swallow the absurdities of the next hour or so without complaint. Perhaps I'm being too sensitive, but this premise fills me with more dismay and discomfort than the rest of the movie. Just the idea that this is now a plausible thing. Ugh. I was also annoyed by the loud bangs following barely audible dialogue (which was mumbled. Seriously, this was a big problem. I had to keep rewinding it.) Nice "scares," guys. An uncomfortable watch for me, but I think not in the way it was intended to be.

Kingdom of Heaven

Saw Kingdom of Heaven. It was very overblown and showy, but all epics are like that. Near the end, perhaps only because I was feeling tired of it, I began noticing some spoon-fed symbolism and some distracting set-pieces (a climactic sword fight takes place in an alley where brightly colored bolts of cloth have been hung for no reason. Also, a bowl of yellow has been left out solely for one of the characters to throw into the air.) But the subject of the movie was more than just political maneuvering (though there was a lot of that) and had more to do with religious tolerance vs organized religion vs power-&-money-tee-tum-tee-tum. This is shockingly unusual for an epic and I like to be shocked, so I liked this. Also, it gets bonus points for having one character always wearing a mask. I love masked characters.

My Darling Clementine

Saw My Darling Clementine. I didn't like it that much. It had a lot of prototypical western-genre stuff (a shootout at the OK Corral, for example) which was interesting but not very gripping. The story was complex and interesting and the characters were not too terribly thin but I just couldn't get into it.

Dark Knight Rises

Saw Dark Knight Rises. It was very loud fun. I'd read a theory somewhere that the trilogy is aaaallll about the war on terror. I can see the connections, what with bombs and some quotes ("we don't negotiate with terrorists!") but apart from maybe-reference-spotting, I can make neither head nor tail of this theory. Well anyway, I liked the movie okay.

The Dark Night of the Scarecrow

Saw The Dark Night of the Scarecrow. It was surprisingly good. It has obviously no budget and is a horror film but despite these flaws, it draws great effect from the isolation of countryside and the claustrophobia of a small town. The characters set their deaths up a bit (one is shown sharpening and using a wood-chipper, one very pointedly grabs his chest and gulps pills.) The ending is especially great. There is a shot of a harvesting machine blindly grinding up pumpkins that perfectly captured this sort of stupid, implacable malice. Much better than you'd expect out of a made-for-TV movie.

Patton

Saw Patton. It was a film mainly about Patton himself - a fascinating character. Tellingly, the Germans seem to understand him best. His greatest source of consternation seems to be his allies. He shows himself to be so addicted to the romantic rigors of war that he's beginning to loose hold of the realities of it. He is riding on the tail end of the era when there was any romance to be had in war. The film was vast and sweeping, yet still personal.

Romancing the Stone

Saw Romancing the Stone. Fluffy and not surprising but not boring either. Suffers a little from the bad habits of the 80s (saxophones can add a touch of class to any scene.) Solid entertainment.

Cinema Paradiso

Saw Cinema Paradiso. It was very sweet and heavily sentimental. The kind of movie that inspires great affection. There was a shot of a lion's head breathing fire near the beginning of the film that blew me away so completely that the rest of the movie felt kind of flat in comparison. Too bad. Also, it sneakily argues against nostalgia and sentimentality while simultaneously hitting those two notes really hard. This would make me love it all the more if I hadn't seen through this ruse. Nice try, Cinema.

An American Werewolf in London

Saw An American Werewolf in London. It was a lot of spooky fun. More goofy than I expected but still a bit creepy. Thankfully, it wasn't as annoying as most horrors are (though the main character somehow has trouble getting himself arrested. Dude, just punch a cop.)

The Piano

Saw The Piano. It was quite good. The ending is really haunting and really nice. I wish the start of the film could have sped up the trite seduction/betrayal plot to get to the nice, weird ending.

Total Recall

Saw Total Recall by Paul Verhoeven. It was pretty good. It fell in line with my obsessions about reality and memories. They even bring the real/not real theme up explicitly within the context of the movie making me smile. It's got all kinds of cleverness and of course a heavy dose of action-movie stupidness as well. It's special effects have aged slightly badly, but are still quite good for the most part. Liked.

Il Pianeta Degli Uomini Spenti

Saw Il Pianeta Degli Uomini Spenti by Antonio Margheriti (AKA, Battle of the Worlds, dubbed) it was a whooole lotta cheese. Full of sci-fi nonsense like "Human feelings are inconsistent. In fact, they're the only inconsistent elements in all nature." I wish I'd seen it with friends as it was (as usual) a high-minded sci-fi thriller marred by its pitiful budget and lacking imagination.