Saturday, March 29, 2014

Diary of a Chambermaid

Diary of a Chambermaid (1964) starring Jeanne Moreau, Michel Piccoli. Directed by Luis Bunuel. Bunuel takes a look at the rise of Nazism in Europe in the 1930s and a chambermaid's view of  bourgeois society in the same time frame. Moreau stars as a chic domestic worker who travels from Paris to the hinterlands to work for a decidedly eccentric family. She witnesses men talking with satisfaction about killing "wops" and "kikes." She suspects Joseph, the groundskeeper of her employer, of raping and killing a little girl who lived next door. (The omniscient camera knows that she is right.) It's a strange movie with some strange characters, but more conventional the Bunuel's usual offerings. It's in French, with English subtitles. Grade: B+   

Friday, March 28, 2014

The Anniversary Party

The Anniversary Party (2001) starring Jennifer Jason Leigh, Alan Cumming, Jane Adams, Mina Badie, Jennifer Beals, Phoebe Cates, John Hickey, Parker Posey, Kevin Kline, Gwyneth Paltrow, John C. Reilly. Written and directed by Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming. A recently reunited couple (Jason Leigh and Cumming) hold a party to celebrate their sixth anniversary. He is a writer, about to become a director, and she is an actress. Their friends are mostly movie industry people or writers, and they all come over to interact and make drama, and in real life they are mostly actor friends of Jason Leigh and Cumming. The movie is modestly entertaining, but it kind of runs off the rails when one of the guests (Paltrow) offers the gift of Ecstasy to the married couple, with enough thrown in for everyone at the party to take Ecstasy. The characters in the movie do not act as I would have expected a bunch of people on Ecstasy to act, but what do I know? It strikes me as kind of a Hollywood insider film, and that makes it kind of interesting, but mostly it just seems like a low-budget vanity project. (English subtitles are available on the disc for the hard of hearing.) Grade: B  

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Camelot

Camelot (1967) starring Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, Franco Nero, David Hemmings. I recall really liking this movie when I saw it in 1968. Oh what a difference 45 years make. It now strikes me as a surprisingly bad movie musical, with Harris being rather weak in the lead role of King Arthur, and Redgrave not really that beautiful as Queen Guenevere. The scene where Nero, as Sir Lancelot, kills his opponent in a jousting match, then brings him back to life, stands out as extremely phony. The songs are generally pretty good, but the  singing isn't strong. The introduction of Hemmings as Arthur's illegitimate son Mordred, and the subsequent downfall of the Round Table, is just a downer. Not enjoyable at all. (English subtitles are available for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: C  

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Gravity

Gravity (2013) starring Sandra Bullock, George Clooney. Directed by Alfonso Cuaron. Bullock and Clooney play astronauts who get stranded in outer space by satellite debris which strikes the shuttle they came up in. It seems that there is no way for them to get back to Earth, but they formulate a plan which involves going to the International Space Station and using the Soyuz escape capsules to safely descend from orbit. This is a propulsive nail-biter of a movie, with seemingly accurate depictions of what it would be like to be marooned in space. I found the soundtrack to be a bit intrusive at times, but that is a minor quibble. My main regret is that I didn't see this film in an Imax 3D theater. I imagine it would have been spectacular. Cuaron won the Academy Award for Best Director, and the film won in several technical categories. (Subtitles in English are available for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: A-

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Tristana

Tristana (1970) starring Catherine Deneuve, Franco Nero, Fernando Rey. Directed by Luis Bunuel. Tristana (Deneuve), upon her mother's death, becomes the ward of a family friend named Don Lope (Rey). Though Lope is a trusted family friend, he soon seduces the innocent Tristana, who is, after all, only a teenager. Later, though, Tristana becomes disgusted with Don Lope and begins going out on her own. She falls in love with an artist named Horacio (Nero) and eventually ends up running away with him. This has been called by some the quintessential Bunuel film, and it is filled with deformity and scary dream sequences. The more I studied it, the more I liked it. It's in Spanish, with English subtitles. Grade: B+ 

Friday, March 21, 2014

Rififi

Rififi (1955) starring Jean Servais, Carl Mohner, Magali Noel, Robert Manuel, Jules Dassin. Directed by Jules Dassin. French crime noir in which four jewel thieves pull off an incredibly lucrative heist -- only to find that a slip-up by one of them endangers not only the take from the robbery but the life of one of their sons. Dassin is actually an American director who was blacklisted during the early 1950s, and had to go to Europe in order to be able to make films. This movie is actually a pretty great crime film. Of particular note is the actual heist scene itself, in which the four men go about the business of breaking into a jewelry store and cracking the safe with no soundtrack -- no dialogue or music -- except the incidental sounds of the break-in and safe-cracking. The actors were not well known, even in France. An entertaining and involving movie. In French, with English subtitles. Grade: B+   

Thursday, March 20, 2014

A Night at the Opera

A Night at the Opera (1935) starring Groucho, Chico and Harpo Marx, Kitty Carlisle, Allan Jones, Walter King, Margaret Dumont. The Marx brothers take their insane brand of humor to the opera and chaos reigns. Carlisle and Jones provide a romantic substrate which propels the movie forward and gives it form. Of particular note are the stateroom scene, the tearing up of the contract by Groucho and Chico, and the single-handed destruction of the opera set by Harpo. And of course Chico plays the piano and Harpo plays the harp. One of the best Marx Bros. films. (English subtitles are available for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: A- 

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

American Hustle

American Hustle (2013) starring Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence. Directed by David O. Russell. The acting is excellent in this retelling (with variations) of the Abscam scandal of the late '70s and early '80s. Of course the film's producers have gone to town with the period detail, period music and late-'70s-early-'80s fashions in clothes. That's half the fun of the movie. Bale and Adams play a con-man and -woman who team up to rip off clients, then get busted by FBI agent Cooper, who co-opts them into helping him in a sting operation, in which several high-ranking politicians are induced into taking bribes and then arrested. The movie is based on fact, but there is a lot of wiggle room allowed by the script, with several important departures from real people and events. It's a very entertaining movie that got Oscar nominations in all four major acting categories. (English subtitles for the hearing-impaired are available, and are highly legible.) Grade: B+   

The Spectacular Now

The Spectacular Now (2013) starring Miles Teller, Shailene Woodley, Brie Larson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kyle Chandler. Uninspiring romantic comedy-drama, in which zero-charisma Teller pursues Woodley, although it is mostly a one-sided relationship (she really likes him, while he is just toying with her). This is an independent, low-budget movie, and it shows in scene after scene. This film struck me as just a cheap remake of so many teenage romantic comedies that have come before, and it lacks a spark to make it really special in any way. (Subtitles in English are available for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: C-

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) starring Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison, George Sanders. A lonely widow (Tierney) is romanced by the ghost of a dead sea captain (Harrison) in her cottage by the sea. The movie sustains its charm by allowing the characters to maintain their decorum (the sea captain never touches the widow, although he is shown touching other characters in the movie). When the widow falls for a flesh-and-blood man (Sanders), the sea captain voluntarily fades out of the picture to let events go where they will. It's a well mounted film, with scarcely an off note. (Subtitles in English are available for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: B

Monday, March 17, 2014

Cabaret

Cabaret (1972) starring Liza Minnelli, Michael York, Helmut Griem, Joel Grey. Minnelli gives Oscar-winning performance as Sally Bowles, young American woman caught up in phony glitter of Berlin in 1931, just as the Nazis were beginning their rise to power. The movie is nicely paced, with romance between Minnelli and York being interspersed with cabaret numbers, concluding with Minnelli's spirited rendition of "Life is a Cabaret." The film won eight Oscars in all, and is very entertaining while at the same time being ominous (those dang Nazis again). (Subtitles in English are available for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: B+

The Grandmaster

The Grandmaster (2013) starring Tony Leung, Zhang Ziyi. Actually a fairly typical chop-socky movie with high production values, will be of interest only to martial arts enthusiasts and perhaps people of Chinese ancestry. I found it to be pretty much a bore. In Chinese, with English subtitles. Grade: C

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Inside Llewyn Davis

Inside Llewyn Davis (2013) starring Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Garrett Hedlund, Justin Timberlake, F. Murray Abraham. This is a rather depressing movie about a week in the life of Llewyn Davis, a folk singer in New York in 1961. The film has an interesting structure, as it loops back on itself and the opening is repeated at the end, a very unique approach. But in between, it is all about how Davis can't get it together, and how he is forced to sleep on friends' couches every night because he can't afford a place of his own to live. There is a lighthearted bit about a cat, which comes into Davis' possession after he accidentally lets it out of a friend's apartment. But mostly the film just seems downbeat to me, and Davis is not a very appealing protagonist. (English subtitles for the hearing-impaired are available on the disc.) Grade: B-

Friday, March 07, 2014

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Donald Sutherland. Katniss Everdeen (Lawrence) takes another giant step toward becoming the leader of a revolution. In this film, the evil President Snow (Sutherland) contrives to have past winners of the Hunger Games come together as Tributes to battle each other -- thus, he believes, snuffing out any revolutionary sentiments among the people of Panem. But his plan backfires as the past Victors unite behind the saying, "Remember who the real enemy is." This was a very entertaining, if far-fetched, movie. Hoffman makes one of his final film appearances as a Gamemaker who is secretly a revolutionary. (Subtitles in English are available for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: A-

Thursday, March 06, 2014

Veronica Mars

Veronica Mars (2004 TV series) starring Kristen Bell, Enrico Colantoni. Veronica Mars (Bell) is a spunky teen-ager who is learning how to be a private eye from her father (Colantoni), the disgraced former sheriff of the fictional town of Neptune, Calif. Her father's disgrace has fallen on Veronica, costing her her social standing at Neptune High School, where she was once part of the "in" crowd. Now Veronica hovers about the fringes of the school's social stratus, doing her own thing, investigating crimes and just trying to get by. The show has lately been in the news, as Veronica Mars the movie is going to be made thanks to a Kickstarter campaign on the Internet. Many of the original stars from the TV series will appear, although they'll all be ten years older now. It's something to look forward to. (The DVD provides English subtitles for the hearing-impaired.) Grade: B+

Tuesday, March 04, 2014

About Time

About Time (2013) starring Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy. Tim (Gleeson) learns on his 21st birthday that the men in his family can travel in time. When he falls for Mary (McAdams), he finds that his talent is essential to winning her love for himself. Complications inevitably ensue, but for the most part they work out. The movie has its heart in the right place, but the time-travel paradoxes are not very well worked out, and ultimately, for me, the film failed. It was entertaining and the ending was satisfying, but the internal logic just didn't work. Plus, in a practice I find increasingly common and very irritating, the "bonus" part of the disc is off limits to renters and can only be obtained by buying the Blu-ray disc. (Subtitles for the hearing-impaired are supplied on the disc.) Grade: B-

Sunday, March 02, 2014

Paisan

Paisan (1946) starring Carmela Sazio, Gar Moore, Bill Tubbs, Harriet White, Maria Michi. Directed by Roberto Rossellini. This movie is one of Rossellini's neorealist films, which takes a look at conditions in Italy near the end of World War II. In this case, he looks at the Allied invasion of Italy, starting in Sicily and working its way up the peninsula. His object is to illustrate the problems that were caused when the liberators (mostly Americans who spoke only English) were unable to communicate effectively with the Italians they were liberating. My problem with this film is mainly that when the Americans spoke, their English was not subtitled, and I could rarely understand what they were saying. So I missed out on a large part of the movie. Nevertheless, there was enough that I could understand that I was able to get the gist of most of the scenes, and I really felt that this film had a lot to say. It's an episodic movie, told in six parts, and each part takes place a little further north in Italy. Some of the episodes were better than others, but in general they were very well done. The film is mostly in Italian, with English subtitles. Grade: A- 

Saturday, March 01, 2014

Scenes from a Marriage

Scenes from a Marriage (1973) starring Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson. Directed by Ingmar Bergman. A married couple, played by Ullmann and Josephson, seem perfectly matched, except that he goes and falls in love with someone else, named Paula. This movie explores the years in which they fall apart, contemplate filing for divorce, get divorced, and eventually end up married to other partners. But still, at the end, they meet up while their spouses are away for a liaison at an old country cottage. It's basically a relationship movie, and it's very talky. In fact, almost all the action is talk. That's not necessarily bad, but in this case that talk is in Swedish, translated into English, and I can't help but think that something was lost in the translation. It's certainly a watchable movie, even mildly entertaining, but I didn't find it to be the great Bergman movie that some have made it out to be. It is, of course, in Swedish with English subtitles. Grade: B