2000s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[swo17]

Those are some good films you're watching there! Decasia ranked high on my list last time, though that was before I'd had a chance to see any other Morrison films. These days I'm leaning more toward Light Is Calling (pure cinematic cotton candy, and addresses some of your criticisms by being shorter and lighter) and Outerborough.

[zedz]

If I can find room for Morrison, it will likely be for Outerborough.

[swo17]

You and your train shots...

[zedz]

Trains were invented to be a metaphor for cinema.

[knives]

Those are some good films you're watching there! Decasia ranked high on my list last time, though that was before I'd had a chance to see any other Morrison films. These days I'm leaning more toward Light Is Calling (pure cinematic cotton candy, and addresses some of your criticisms by being shorter and lighter) and Outerborough.

Ha, this is only prep for my next post which is going to be more along the line of good grossing than film. Where can I find those other Morrison's? I loved his actual work and figure he should be brilliant without the burden of the score. Also I assume Zedz's comment means RR is going to be number one on his list.

[swo17]

Icarus put out a set of his films on DVD last year and the BFI just recently did the same on Blu.

[knives]

Undebar, I'll unlikely be able to get it, but glad to know it's out there.

[swo17]

I just remembered that there's a standalone Blu-ray release of Decasia out in the U.S. that includes Light Is Calling as a bonus. (This same disc is also included as Disc 1 in the aforementioned Icarus set, which is otherwise DVD-only.)

[knives]

So here's that promised second group.

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... Spring
Kim would have a pretty interesting film here if he could think with more than his dick. The idea of using isolation and mistakes as a way to go through (and probably fail) the eightfold path is interesting, but Kim seems to be just presenting scenarios that allow him to be crude. If there was any real sense that they were for reasons of critique whether of man or religion it would work but they seem more out of laziness than anything else. I want to like Kim as I think he has interesting ideas, but he explores them like a 15 year old chronic masturbator.

Blissfully Yours
After a long road of masochism watching all of these Weerasethakul films finally I feel some sort of pay off. This isn't without its problems of course. He still seems terrified of telling a complete story and seems intent on adapting Tarkovsky's worst tendencies in the most tiresome fashion, but there's a lot here that reduces those issues into something basically enjoyable and often downright playful. The humour is really the film's saving grace allowing a sense of actual characterization and even an improvement of the themes of racism and industrialization that is so pervasive across his work.

The second half perhaps falters a tad by romanticizing in an over literal fashion those themes, but the plain connection to the previous story at least gives strength to it rather than leaving it as a dead end as Tropical Malady would do (though I still feel some frustration with regards to the lack of narrative conclusion for many parts of the first half). This is coming down much more negatively then I intended as overall I did like the film, but unfortunately a lot of the negatives are too clear.

The Hangover
The reason I do these list projects is to force myself to watch the sort of thing under normal circumstances I never would. This is exactly that sort of film and it is amazing. The movie itself is truly awful with close to no laughs, but is compulsively watchable thanks to one of the most regressive presentations of masculinity made in years. Just in terms of of how its respective misogyny and homophobia push the film into some weird sexless state better fitting a Lovecraft novel than a frat comedy like this.

Even in scenes suggesting sex the women are presented as aliens to the extent that the sex becomes muted. All women in the film eventually can be summed up as nags, anonymous, or plot devices. As to the homophobia, this world of men is so aggressive that the fraternity the genre suggests is absent. What little ties the protagonists together is completely missing from the main action and the plot that follows punishes any kindness they issue to one another or any outsider with aggression vocally and physically. Matt Walsh's cameo really is the film in a nutshell quietly telling them to piss off and man up when they ask for help.

My Sassy Girl
This is a truly awful film and I'm glad its success in Korea didn't translate over to anything more than a DTV remake seven years later because this would have instantly shunned Korean cinema to the same misplaced camp area as such much Indian cinema has. The closest this film has to a positive attribute is the lead woman's performance and I really want to emphasize performance since the character is a good summary of everything wrong with the film (basically the logical extreme of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl). As I understand it this is based on someone's livejournal account which is a description that makes too much sense. No film should have this many rape jokes.

Red Riding: 1980
I watched the first of these in theaters when they were making a stink, but it was so overwhelmingly mediocre I just couldn't muster the effort to see the rest till now. That was probably a good decision as this too is a mediocre little dish weighed down by its own somber seriousness. Marsh does do an improvement over Jarrold, however slightly, keeping the pace quick despite far less action going on. It probably helps that Paddy Considine is great here and can sleepwalk this kind of tough by now. The plot also reduces the crazy conspiracy plotting of the first to a less sensationalist approach. I still wouldn't call this more than an average television movie though.

Red Riding: 1983
This conclusion slinks back down to the bright colours of the original without the unifying point of view which helped the first two have some sense of coherence even as they floundered. Instead the narrative is tied to two men, a bespectacled good cop whose sections are slumber inducing and a layer whose story actually has a few points of interest thanks primarily to Mark Addy, making the thin plotting all the more so. The whole series comes across as someone's idea of a British LA Quartet only the history of Britain's recent corruption isn't as compelling and that someone simply has no talent to recognize how to work the material he does have.

3 Idiots
A three hour Indian frat comedy does not sound like a good movie, but surprisingly (especially with that name) this turned out to be about as good a movie as the confines of the genre would allow. Part of it is a genuine love of intelligence with the 'idiots' showing off smarts and a real interest in classwork. The second thing is that in terms of how the film defines the genre within the confines of Indian society makes it seem like a genuine act of rebellion rather than the whiny white kids of Dead Poet's Society or the aloof rich WASPs of Animal House. It also uses that three hour runtime surprisingly well with the few songs having a real often metatextual point adding well to the themes and the rest builds the characters well enough so that their relationships make sense for the emphasis the movie puts on them (a problem I've had with a lot of recent American films). I'm not sure if the modern day stuff works as the plot is unneeded and obvious, though it doesn't detract too hard from the rest of the movie. The movie is also fairly hilarious at times which helps too.

[knives]

Do you like Kes, but realize it was not made this century? Well, it seems that British animator Suzie Templeton has the film for you.

[flyonthewall2983]

The Hangover
The reason I do these list projects is to force myself to watch the sort of thing under normal circumstances I never would. This is exactly that sort of film and it is amazing. The movie itself is truly awful with close to no laughs, but is compulsively watchable thanks to one of the most regressive presentations of masculinity made in years. Just in terms of of how its respective misogyny and homophobia push the film into some weird sexless state better fitting a Lovecraft novel than a frat comedy like this.

Even in scenes suggesting sex the women are presented as aliens to the extent that the sex becomes muted. All women in the film eventually can be summed up as nags, anonymous, or plot devices. As to the homophobia, this world of men is so aggressive that the fraternity the genre suggests is absent. What little ties the protagonists together is completely missing from the main action and the plot that follows punishes any kindness they issue to one another or any outsider with aggression vocally and physically. Matt Walsh's cameo really is the film in a nutshell quietly telling them to piss off and man up when they ask for help.

The "paging Dr. Faggot" line has perhaps unfairly hung over my enjoyment of watching Bradley Cooper in almost anything else.

[knives]

Oasis
How to make even the most horrible story imaginable romantic or is this the reverse. What Lee does is totally messed up and horrible, but he does it so smartly and with so much humour it's impossible not to respect it even as he emphasizes the horrible potential of this story against allowances for the characters' emotions. The dealing with the social aspects against their emotional needs.

Millennium Mambo
With this, easily the worst Hou film I've seen yet, I've finally made my peace and realized this guy is just not for me. I'll probably stupidly reconsider this in the future after I forget every mind numbing detail like every other not Three Times film I've seen, but that only highlights how worthless for me these movies are. I simply could not care less how these stupid children are fucking up their lives or even to tell if this is an old man swinging at windmills or trying to look cool. Either way I can't see why anyone would like this.

The Man From London
It's very clear why this is the black sheep of late Tarr as this is a fairly light genre exercise with not much to offer beyond that. The noir pastiche on display is quite good and fits well with many of Tarr's preoccupations. The film smartly leans on the cost of money and other class issues, but it does all this only in an exceptionally good fashion, not a radical way. The specific toyings with convention to fit his shooting style is nice (though this is the most edited feature he's done in a dog's age) in how it parses and sometimes even turns literal ideas that flourish in noir, but even this doesn't lift up beyond a light joy for a light movie.

Charlie Wilson's War
This must play now better under Obama's administration then Bush's as the hawkishness parodied here seems more concerned with passivity. That's going to be my standing assumption for why this didn't get applauded on premier because otherwise this is a truly excellent film. I'm not really a fan of anyone here, exception being Amy Adams who is the most lovable actor to pop up in decades, so I'm especially surprised to see what a fun and nibbling, if totally light affair this is. Sorkin and Nichols aren't interested in tearing down American exceptionalism in the Islamic world, but just sitting back to laugh at the absurdity of it. The classical direction, egotistical title, and character uselessness is just beautiful. In short Nichols seems to have crafted a perfectly American How I Won the War. Really the only complaints is Sorkin's dumb tendency to have characters shout their credentials and a really out of place Phillip Seymour Hoffman who's dressed and acting out of a different movie though that movie is also good. Those problems don't pop up too often fortunately.

Flanders
This was a lot better then Camille Claudel if just because Dumont felt comfortable sitting with his protagonist without distractions. That said I can't really endorse the film as it never really rises beyond your typical European arthouse doodle with rote style and story. This dramatic No Time for Sergeants has been done a million times before (especially in the last ten years) and there's nothing really to distinguish it from the rest. I do appreciate how much time we are given with the cheating girlfriend character who is usually left off screen for a gag in these sorts of movies, but it really doesn't get to the level of humanizing a type as she, like most characters in the film, just walks around moping.

Love Exposure
Now, this right here is how all of these immature movies should be. Bruno Dumont should be taking many notes. It doesn't really pretend to have anything serious to say (though I think it does have many fascinating comments on sexuality, religion, trauma, and pretty much anything else I've seen in a Japanese film from the past thirty years) and just takes a bizarre, joyful glee in it. The most amazing thing about this four hour film though is the brevity. Sono packs in about ten hours of movie here at least running through the immense plot at an ADD pace while never sacrificing character or a good joke. The film is also surprisingly down to earth considering the absurdity of the story. The shooting style isn't overly fanciful and the presentation of even the most absurd elements like the pervert ninja stuff keeps at least one foot on earth at all times having a grounded humanistic aspect that is usually empty from these sorts of films.

If I had a complaint, and really I don't, is that the drag plotline stays at its Three's Company nature through most of the film without rising to some new level the way even the perviest element otherwise do. It comes across like Sono wanted these two characters to be separated and just went with the first thing to come to mind. It leaves a predictability to the film that it doesn't otherwise have. That said its such a nondescript and blatantly plotty usage of the drag plot that it doesn't particularly affect things either way. If the rest of Sono's films are even half this good he's the best director out there right now.

Private Fears in Public Places
I am utterly bewildered as to why Resnais chose this script to make which doesn't even have an interesting title in French. There is nothing here that makes it distinctive from one of those lame Garry Marshal holiday movies. It isn't, either, like he was doing this just for the money. The cast is game and across the board delivering better than their characters should be able to and while the truly great Resnais camerawork is used sparingly it pops up often enough to unmistakably be him. It's as if everyone forgot to tell Ayckbourn that they wanted to make an excellent film. There are a few interesting touches where it seems like Resnais wanting to make a filmed play in a fashion neither regular cinema nor a regular filmed play (such as with the roof shot) can't capture, but then why demean the effort with this script? Exclusively because of this one thing this is easily and by leagues the weakest thing I've seen from Resnais.

[Mr Sheldrake]

Sono is one the most unique directors around, truly crazy. I love Noriko's Dinner Table and had it in my top ten of the previous 2000 listing. Strange Circus is also good. I was surprised there was no mention (that I noticed) of Love Exposure in the films of faith project. If I do a 2000 list this time LE would almost certainly top my list.

[knives]

Thanks for the recs. Though it seems my library only has Himizu for next decade though.

[Michael Kerpan]

Needless to say I could hardly disagree more on Millennium Mambo, but if HHH doesn't resonate at all with someone, there is no way to talk them into a different response.

[knives]

To give credit where it's due I do think the first two segments of Three Times are brilliant and I wish he had done more along those lines.

[domino harvey]

Private Fears in Public Places [...] this is easily and by leagues the weakest thing I've seen from Resnais.

Allow this to stay true for yourself by avoiding Pas sur la bouche and La vie est un roman

[knives]

(Un)fortunately the former is at the library and I can't resist.

[zedz]

To give credit where it's due I do think the first two segments of Three Times are brilliant and I wish he had done more along those lines.

He did: the first segment is based on his classic style from the mid 80s (Dust in the Wind, A Time to Live etc) and the second relates back to Flowers of Shanghai.

[knives]

Dust in the Wind was okay, but to be honest I hardly remember anything about it. It was a terribly minor experience. I haven't seen the other two.

[Michael Kerpan]

Dust in the Wind is one of my very favorite HHH films (along with MM). His films require a sort of hyper-attentiveness that few others (I know of) do. If his work isn't your cup of tea, drink coffee (or Jolt or whatever) instead. There are plenty of other sorts of auteurs in the sea.

[knives]

In this case I doubt however much attentiveness I paid to the film wouldn't change the annoying characters.

[domino harvey]

the Constant Gardener (Fernando Meirelles 2005) Visually busy but narratively diverting conspiracy thriller (of sorts) with Ralph Fiennes trying to unravel his murdered wife Rachel Weisz' discoveries concerning Big Pharm's use of unwitting drug test subjects in Africa. Weisz of course stole Amy Adams' Oscar for Junebug with her work here, and it's another case of the Academy rewarding the character, not the performance. The movie equivalent of thumbing through those ten dollar art magazines at the newsstand: aesthetically engaging while in the moment, instantly forgettable afterwards.

Down in the Valley (David Jacobson 2006) Charming "Aww shucks" cowboy Edward Norton strikes up a fast romantic relationship with high schooler Evan Rachel Wood in one of the most singular and unpredictable movies I've seen in recent memory. This one follows a smart but somewhat familiar trajectory for a while, but then about halfway through the film reaches what should be a fitting and satisfying narrative end-place… and then keeps going, not so much transforming into a different film as revealing itself to be as peculiar as its protagonist. I don't want to say too much in specifics about the plot, since the film's surprises are part of its great success, but I will say that the film eventually turns into a perverse R-rated 90s Kids' Adventure Story, sheepishly innocent and fantastical while involving real and present dangers far removed from the safety of the usual markers in this subgenre. Down in the Valley is ultimately uncategorizable and therefore unmarketable, so it's no small wonder this movie barely received distribution (the central underage romance probably didn't help), but I will do my part by making this my Spotlight title.

The film is visually smart, with the requisite amount of pleasing framings, but one moment in particular struck me as wonderfully inspired: Norton and Wood are together in the bathtub, and Jacobson gives us a series of short shot-reverse shots that fade into each other with gradual slowness, before finally overlaying and holding both shot and reverse shot in the same film image as the scene plays on:



Wood is generally pretty dependable anyways but she is just fantastic here, giving us the full emotional spectrum that comes standard-issue with teenagers in vivid, all-too accurate strokes. It is one of the best portrayals of a teenage girl I've ever seen, and the film isn't even structured around it: Wood's perf just exists beautifully within what's constructed here. So, it goes without saying that a viewing for this project will also double for the Youth List coming up in a few months. Multitask!

Easy Virtue (Stephan Elliott 2009) An impossibly fetching Jessica Biel is the American race car driver who marries into a stuffy British family in this (pretty loose, if my memory of the play serves) Noel Coward adaptation. The film is well acted and often quite funny, but there are two pretty strong marks against it. One, the film is overly dynamic in its direction, constantly too clever and busy (I'm reminded of the similar over-virtuosity in Goodbye Lover) and filled with fancy shots like catching action in reflections which are interesting the first time, but exhausting on the fiftieth. The overabundance of tricks reveals a lack of confidence in the material, which is strong enough without them. The second strike is the choice of awful "period jazz" covers of modern pop hits, in a method somehow worse than Moulin Rouge!, with songs like "Sex Bomb" and "Car Wash" playing over the '20s events in the world's least funny poke in the ribs "joke." That said, miraculously the film's still pretty good for all its flaws, and I've certainly never seen Biel shine as brightly as she does here.

Heaven (Tom Tykwer 2002) I'm only familiar with Tykwer from Run Lola Run, but while his adaptation of an unproduced Kiewslowski script bears little of the visual markers of its author, the end result is an interesting tone exercise in restraint as schoolteacher Cate Blanchett inadvertently kills several innocents with a bomb and then, wracked with guilt, is saved from custody by policeman Giovanni Ribisi's crush on her. I enjoyed the art house touches, which work pleasingly well with the material, and the two leads are quite good at portraying their ciphers. This is a highly aware throwback to the world cinema of another era, but it wears its influences well. Recommended.

Mission to Mars (Brian De Palma 2000) "This couldn't possibly be as bad as everyone says it is." How many times must I fall for this line of internal reasoning? A stupefyingly bad film, with scenes of dialog that are crimes against humanity. De Palma is so focused on empty camera tricks that he doesn't even give a shit about anything else, leading to scene after scene of some of the worst "conversations" I've ever witnessed in a movie, eventually to be replaced by special effects that look so expensive for most of the film and then look hilariously cheap for the money shot at the end. I would love to learn Cahiers du Cinema's defense for placing this one on their Top 10.

Monster (Patty Jenkins 2003) Like armchair bemoaners of McConaughey's win for Dallas Buyers Club who claim he got the trophy for losing weight, I've long heard Charlize Theron won for wearing "ugly" makeup and gaining weight. Neither claim is fair or true, to the surprise of no one. I don't think this is a particularly great film, but it is a good one, and it benefits from the strong central performance Theron offers. Beyond that, as our protagonist might say, hey, whatever man.

the Painted Veil (John Curran 2006) Failed Oscar bait with Edward Norton dragging unfaithful (and brunette[!]) wife Naomi Watts off to China to work with cholera victims in the 20s. The film is visually sumptuous in the most run of the mill fashion imaginable, a kind of arid lushness that overwhelms a viewer with the dreaded "prestige." The overall humorlessness of the whole endeavor doesn't help. There is one big, big plus though, and that is Alexandre Desplat's gorgeous score-- I rarely seek out original scores, but this is one I am eager to pick up.

Runaway Jury (Gary Fleder 2003) Grisham Mania apparently seeped into the 2000s and so we have this ludicrous tale of warring factions trying to one-up each other in jury tampering. The resultant series of plot machinations are so absurd and unlikely that the film eventually turns into science fiction, but the sillier it got, the more I kind of just sat back and let it roll over me with a dumb "Here we go again" determination. Surely vehicles like this did nothing to slow Gene Hackman's desire to retire from acting!

[Murdoch]

The Host (2006, Bong Joon-Ho) - After mostly loving Snowpiercer I decided to hunt down another oft-watched Bong to dive into this project a bit. What's most effective about this is the family dynamic hiding inside this otherwise unremarkable monster movie and the chemistry between the four family members is enough to raise it from its genre confines. It speaks volumes about how well the cast works together that little moments like the father chastising his kids for insulting their brother are more compelling than a giant water monster running through crowds and swallowing up pedestrians! Which is not to say the monster stuff is in any way bad, Bong has a great eye for shooting action sequences, it's just that there's another movie lurking in here that focuses on this family of an archer, snack-stand attendant and escapist that I'm dying to see.

Cashback (2006, Sean Ellis) - A movie that can't decide whether it wants to be a twentysomething sex comedy or rumination on art and love and all those big topics. It winds up throwing in the towel and becoming an awkward mesh of both, focusing its first-half on the generic woe-is-me artist who's really good at art because he draws a lot of sketches of naked women and then turning its attention to the antics of his coworkers. I think my bitterness toward the film comes more from the fact that I was forced into watching it than the trifling criticisms I can lob but it struck me as a forgettable enough time. There is one scene that seems specifically targeted toward the trenchcoat brigade in which the lead wanders around the supermarket he works in and proceeds to undress every woman he walks by while she stands frozen. Of course each of the women look as if they walked off a Victoria's Secret runway but that's another lobbing criticism. In the end, don't bother.

Lake Mungo (2008, Joel Anderson) - I wrote about this back during the horror project but it left such a strong impression on me that it will certainly be placing high for me here. The horror mockumentary/docudrama/whatever you want to call it is a subgenre flooded with a lot of mediocre and just plain bad films. This however succeeds because of its low-concept story - a girl drowns in a pond, leaving her grieving family to deal with the loss of their loved one. The story becomes a mix of Twin Peaks and Blair Witch Project, playing itself straight and sacrificing the gore and violence of most horror films shot in this manner for a murder-mystery that continues to add layers to itself as it progresses. When thinking on what makes a truly great horror film I've often found myself returning to this one often both because of the eerie atmosphere it maintains throughout the production and how effective its final reveal is. Highly recommended.

[colinr0380]

Heaven (Tom Tykwer 2002) I'm only familiar with Tykwer from Run Lola Run, but while his adaptation of an unproduced Kiewslowski script bears little of the visual markers of its author, the end result is an interesting tone exercise in restraint as schoolteacher Cate Blanchett inadvertently kills several innocents with a bomb and then, wracked with guilt, is saved from custody by policeman Giovanni Ribisi's crush on her. I enjoyed the art house touches, which work pleasingly well with the material, and the two leads are quite good at portraying their ciphers. This is a highly aware throwback to the world cinema of another era, but it wears its influences well. Recommended.

I really liked Heaven as well (although this reminds me that I still haven't gotten to the other Kieslowski-scripted film, Hell, in my to watch pile yet!). Perhaps the best Tykwer film to look out next would be The Princess and the Warrior, the film he made in between Run Lola Run and Heaven, which acts like a good middle ground between the two: it features Franke Potente but is more languidly paced than Run Lola Run whilst still being about the growing relationship between two lovers brought together by circumstance, and the feeling that it is so tenuous and could all fall apart at any minute. Especially when the heist plot starts infiltrating its way into the story, fighting a little against the One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest other half of the story.

The Princess and the Warrior also has a great end credits song by Skin! (This was also around the same time that Skin performed the fantastic song at the end of Timecode too!)