Log for 2010

The Yellow Handkerchief (Udayan Prasad)
A carefully detailed film about forgiveness, atonement, relationships, and love. Kristin Thomas’ youthful skill and energy as an actress bumps up against William Hurts minimalist tendency to stare a lot. But he’s a wonderful physical actor, and though the conclusion may feel too plotted, it’s an engaging and honest road and coming of age story.
Fish Tank
Starts slow and builds and builds never really letting you off the hook. I found myself surprised the abundant credits because the film felt so intimate and natural throughout, like one person with a camera. Full of keen details, insinuations of behavior. Unfolds casually, but you gotta watch carefully. A real surprise.
Avatar
I guess it has to be seen. I don’t think 3-d changes the game of movie making, but it’s fun being back in the 50’s. It’s also fun to look at your watch exactly at the half way point where Pocahontas/Dances with Wolves morphs into GI Joe.
The White Ribbon –
Great Heneke. A really creepy and an interesting context with which to implicate the contemporary audience, and look at the roots of fascism through some questionable adult behavior, and in horrid way children were raised in this pre-industrial rural Germany scenerio. This was to be the new Germany? There are crimes, but as usual, the point isn’t whodunit. Discussing the possibility answers to everything is what makes it endlessly discussable and haunting..
The Last Station -
Interesting piece of history even if some details had to be fabricated to keep the story inspirational. The two leads are hammy, but its right for these the figures of Mr and Mrs Toylstoy, so it makes for good fun.
6. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1943)
Really corny and unlikely with tons of holes in the plot, but watching Basil Rathbone in one scene singing and dancing in disguise, and say “Hello” at each new discovery is worth the 70 minutes.
7. I’m Gonna Explode
Mexican with great great teen actors. Another film where the behavior of the characters is disturbing and the depiction of these two alienated teens ambivalent. It leaves unsettled, and ready for a conversation with somebody. I saw it alone.
8. Julie and Julia
I met Julia Child several times and once outside of a Dunkin Donuts in Cambridge, I commented on her indulging on these chain donuts. “Well, they are rather good aren’t they” she squawked in her best Meryl Streep voice. I liked this movie, but do think Rich Little, David Frye, and even Robert Morse as Capote were good, too. I suppose impersonation is the way to go, and the gimmick of the movie. Stanley Tucci knows how to get out of the way, but it’s Amy Adams who gives it real heart.
9. Halloween (’09 Rob Zombie)
Cheesy psychology and lacking real suspense, but, man, Jason really wackes his victims good, and loudly, and to rock music! I guess somebody has to make movies like this. Boo. (as in scared ya)
10. Northface (German)
I guess people really get vertigo in the movies and can’t take this movie about really extreme repelling during the Nazi error. Another cheeseball love story services the audience, but the rest is exciting and convincing.
11. Whip it!
I love Drew and her whole history and her crooked smile and sense of fun, but boy does this suck. Ellen Page is miles beyond this good time had by all.
12. The Gleaners and I (Agnes Varda)
13. Valkyrie (Bryan Singer)
The (your) problem is I LIKE Tom Cruise. My expectations are noncombatant, and I assume he’ll be good, and if his church and he have approved of the project, I may even get a good yarn. That was the case.
14. I Stand Alone (Gasper Noe)
Expect it to be severe and you’ll be fine. Toward the end he has a ten second “countdown” so you can leave the theater if you don’t want to experience what comes next. Clever, but the isolated framing, the disquieting narration of the unemployed butcher at the story’s center, and the puzzling lack of a moral point of view serve to bury you deep into the mind of one very fucked up Frenchmen.
15. Waiting for Hockney
16. Fantastic Mr Fox
27. La Danse
28. My Son the Fanatic< small>(Udayan Prasad)
29. The Beaches of Agnes
30. 5×2 (w/ Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) (dir.by François Ozon -Criminal Lovers (1999),Swimming Pool (2003) Under the Sand (2000)
I loved this. Ozon is always a surprise. He chooses 5 scenes from a marriage and depicts them in reverse order. There is lots of room for viewers to discuss the psychology and behavior of the characters, which is fun. Tedeschi is just fascinating to look at, and a bold actress.
31. The Apartment (1960)
32. Die Die My Darling (Tallulah Bankhead 1965)
Dreadful, but not boring dreadful.