Before Sunrise

Saw Before Sunrise. It was really good. I came in wanting to hate it, but it completely won me over. The protagonists were sweet and young and just a little stupid, like puppies or kittens. Just adorable. A sweet and soppy film. I'm gonna go annoy John now.

Glory

Saw Glory. It was about one of the first black regiments of the civil war and the bravery and courage of their white generals, to say nothing of the racism tirelessly fought by these white men. Okay, it's maybe not that bad, but there seem to be only four actual black characters in the film. Everyone else is just a face in a crowd. Which is kinda silly. Also, the movie is trying hard to be an Important film, with weeping violins and wailing choruses ready at the drop of a hat. I didn't really like this one much.

Out of the Past

Saw Out of the Past. A good noir. Full of noble sacrifice and doomed heroes. A paragon of the genre.

Way of the Dragon

Saw Way of the Dragon. It was a bit silly. It had a lot going against it though. The version I saw was dubbed entirely into English, despite the fact that the characters were speaking different languages was a major plot point. When lines like "I come from the country. In the country... wheeee!" came out, I began wondering if it was this goofy in the original. Slightly unfashionable morals in the movie, with simpering gay bad-guy sidekicks and various groin-punches. However, all of this aside, the point of this movie was clearly the martial arts and that was all good and fun and pretty and well-delivered. I noticed an ongoing theme of cat vs mouse vs dog, with Bruce Lee's cat-like face and yowls squaring off against Chuck Norris who was apparently turning into some kind of wolf-person at the time of filming.

Naked Lunch

Saw Naked Lunch (thanks, Steven Gilbeau!) It was wild! Im not exactly sure of everything that was going on (de rigueur for Cronenberg) but it seemed to use homosexuality as a symbol for the terrifyingly otherworldly and alien. I don't agree with the methodology but I can't deny the results. A trip of a film. I kept wanting to show it to someone, just to enjoy their confusion. A strange and delightful film.

Who Killed Teddy Bear

Saw Who Killed Teddy Bear. It was a pretty lurid and exploitative film, about sexual predators in the 60s. Its central monster is played by the baby-faced Sal Mineo doing his best crazy. Perversely, the film seems equally interested in this monster as it is with his unfortunate victims (some of whom simply stop existing afterward.) I'll probably remember it best for the swimsuit-clad workout Mineo does in the middle of the film. Lurid.

Shaun of the Dead

Saw Shaun of the Dead. It was great. Dramatic, funny, exciting, a bit scary. I think it's a great, smart zombie movie.

King Kong

Saw King Kong. It was a lot like when I read War of the Worlds. I knew the highlights, but not the less-interesting details. There's a lot of 1930s assholishness (useless dames, face-painted tribesmen, 'he was a king in his country. We'll teach him fear!') but some bits were still effecting. There's a bit where Kong grabs a woman out of a building and idly drops her. Sweet and terrible. Unfortunately, old enough that you have to kind of work to see those moments.

The Artist

Saw The Artist (at last) (Thanks, Leannasaurus Rex!) It was a lot of fun. A nice pastiche of old silent-era stuff. It cleverly used some hoary old conventions (the clever mutt, the cigar-smoking exec) but skewered them simply by incorporating them. No mean feat to have your cake and eat it too. Similarly, the melodrama would feel overbearing in a modern film but for an anachronism like this, it's just right. A friendly, goofy, swooning movie and boy did I need it.

JCVD

Saw JCVD. It was a lot more interesting than I expected. Jean Claude Van Damme (note the initials) tries to execute some kind of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and makes a post-modern parody of his own films, complete with reality-show-style confessional. It was a bit strange to me because frankly I've only ever seen Bloodsport and didn't really like it, so this peek at the man behind the persona falls a bit flat because I never really knew the persona to begin with. Also, I wish the whole thing hadn't been in that brown-metal shade a lot of modern movies are using. Interesting though. I love movies that play (in an accessible way) with what is real.

Grizzly Man

Saw Grizzly Man. It was the most Herzog movie I've ever seen. It hits everything he loves. He seems to go out of his way to protect Treadwell, but frankly Treadwell is such an easy target, I'm glad he did. It was especially interesting to hear him musing over the footage Treadwell shot. "He seems to linger in the last shot of his film, unwilling to leave the screen."

Evil Dead

Saw Evil Dead. Turns out I've been confusing it and Army of Darkness for the longest time. Pretty good for a horror. A lot of jump scares, but I weathered them alright. A lot of fake blood and special effects. The height of cheap horror.

The Lady Eve

Saw The Lady Eve. I think I hate screwball comedies. They always work everything out when I wish they wouldn't. I always want the lighthearted disaster turning into an actual disaster. To hell with their little one-liners and arched eyebrows.

Help Me Eros

Saw Help Me Eros. A chilly and inaccessible film about the redemptive and destructive powers of sex. Full of inexplicable sequences (the ending in particular) and weird sex acts. The bits linking food to sex I found a bit too carnal though they were interesting. A trip of a film, in both a good and bad sense.

My Dinner With Andre

Saw My Dinner With Andre (Thanks, Steven Gilbeau! I've actually Seen Coffee and Cigarettes and also Waking Life, but thanks anyway, Laura) It was a dense film. It reminded me of when I was back in the theater what with the talk of energies and performance and slightly hysterical phrases. The film is very spare in its staging with only a few slow zooms to keep your eyes busy. It worked for me on some level, I feel because I keep wanting to rebut and respond to the characters which of course means they've made some kind of emotional impact on me. I would like to hear the film-maker's take on the modern internet-fueled panopticon we live in. As a CS graduate student I'm sure it would annoy me, but it would be interesting.

Talk To Her

Saw Talk To Her. It was very interesting but, like most Almodovar's work, I could almost hear the whoosh it made as it sailed over my head. An interesting humanization of a man who falls in love with a woman in a coma. This one-sided love was done to much more comic effect in Lars And The Real Girl. Some excellently integrated dance sequences and a Wes Anderson-esque diorama quality to some shots.

Seven

Saw Seven. It was lurid and fun. I like films where you get to go into the homes of cartoon-evil-crazy people. It really gives the set/props people a chance to go nuts.

Manhattan

Saw Manhattan. I think I've seen enough Woody Allen for now. Either I've exhausted his shtick or he's flying over my head, but either way I feel he's blurring together for me. Saying the same thing over and over. Also this movie features a barely legal love-interest which gives it a mighty creepy feel in the light of Woody's later life.

The Amityville Horror

Saw The Amityville Horror. It was pretty good, with some homages to/thefts from other famous scary movies (shrieking violins, axing a door down, an old priest and a young priest) but enough original fun images (blood seeping out of the wallpaper, a pig's eyes seen through a window, a black pit) to make me happy. It was a little jumpy but I was calm enough to weather the storm for those images. Not bad.