“Never get behind old people. Their bodies are littered with hidden metal and they never seem to appreciate how little time they have left. Bingo, Asians. They pack light, travel efficiently, and they have a thing for slip on shoes. Gotta love ’em. ” — George Clooney as Ryan Bingham Up in the Air (2009).
If you think I’ve been posting a lot of DVD reviews lately, you’re right. I’m doubling the frequency of DVD review posts in an effort to catch up with movies I’ve watched, cataloged, and previously reviewed on Facebook. Trouble is, I keep watching movies, and the backlog keeps growing!
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Capitalism: a Love Story (2009) Entertaining and thought-provoking, very Michael Moore-ish in its populism and activist outlook. Michael Moore haters will assume he’s arguing that capitalism, in and of itself, is evil and must be replaced with . . . something more equitable? But if you follow his reasoning, you’ll see that what he’s actually arguing is that more of us can prosper under capitalism, so long as it is sensibly regulated and workers protected. He provides plenty of hints as to how we might get there (can you spell u-n-i-o-n-s?). I’m all for it. I thought it was a good film, with enough comedy to keep the audience interested, and Moore is not afraid to address things polite people and our media shy away from. Everyone, whether they agree or disagree, really should see this movie. |
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The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) Three stars is too generous. This really wasn’t that good a movie. What I took out of it was that you can’t make a Coen brothers movie without the Coen brothers: what worked in Burn After Reading doesn’t work here. None of the actors seemed to have their hearts in the project, and much more could have been made of the actual historical events the movie is based upon. Entertaining at first, it quickly runs out of steam. |
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Extract (2009) A married guy pays a young stud to seduce his wife one time. When the young stud comes back for seconds, the guy punishes him by paying him again. Oh, and the guy, a wealthy factory owner, a successful self-made man, lets a bartender talk him into taking horse tranquilizers. You know, even Daffy Duck cartoons are more connected to reality than this. Unless the idea was simply to fleece rubes who’ll watch anything so long as it has Jason Bateman in it, I have no idea what the producers were thinking here. |
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Rushmore (1998) I’ve been so impressed with Wes Anderson’s recent work I decided to watch his older films again. I must say Rushmore has grown on me. It’s rich and warm and somehow coldblooded at the same time . . . existentially funny, I guess. If I ever decide to build a DVD library of my own, the films of Wes Anderson, and for sure Rushmore, will be in it. |
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Up in the Air (2009) I was impressed by the two previous Jason Reitman movies I’d seen: Juno and Thank You for Smoking. I’m most impressed with Up in the Air. This movie would have been too adult, too cynical, too depressing for any earlier era — but it’s perfect for the here & now. Twenty or thirty years for now people will watch it and think “2009,” just the way we watch a Doris Day/Rock Hudson film now and think “1959.” The three principles — George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, and Anna Kendrick — are perfectly cast, as is Sam Elliott (as the prototypical senior airline pilot). And there are some absolutely great, memorable lines: “Life can underwhelm you like that”; “Think of me as yourself, with a vagina.” It’s wonderful to watch an American movie with a genuinely adult theme, one where where grown-ups act like grown-ups, without giggling, prurience, or directorial injections of guilt. God damn, I’m glad my road warrior days are over — this movie doesn’t merely bring back the memories; it perfectly catches the feel, right down to the smells and the tastes, of the frequent-flyer life: the views of America and its cities from above, the airport scenes, those endless hotel corridors. But it also captures the feel of small-town mid-western life, and the photography is noticeably warmer in the scenes where Clooney and Farmiga attend a wedding in Wisconsin. There’s a fair amount of product placement in this movie (American Airlines, Hertz, Marriott, etc), but it doesn’t really intrude, and in any case the feeling of living inside an extended commercial is a central characteristic of the road warrior life. |
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Adoration (2008) I thought Adoration was interesting and absorbing, although ultimately I don’t think it had anything terribly profound to say. This French language film contains two stories: a false one and a real one. The false story, the one about the woman who is duped by her Palestinian husband into trying to get on an El Al flight to Israel with a bomb, turns out to be slightly less interesting than the real story, which encompasses an intense family drama that is only revealed in layers. I never fully understood the role of Sabine — she’s more than a foil for cultural intolerance, but how much more I can’t really say. The evolving public hysteria created by the false story, played out on an internet forum, was memorably effective, possibly the most gripping part of the movie. Adoration is a subtle film where most of the action is implied, and impatient viewers anxious for their exploding car fix may get restive. But if you pay attention to the story you’ll be rewarded. |
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The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008) I lived in West Germany during the events that led up to the radicalization of university students across Europe and the formation of the Red Army Faction, and was there again a few years later when subsequent generations of the RAF were kidnapping American generals and bombing Ramstein Air Base. The film reawakened memories, not least because of its superb period detail — I could practically smell the wet woolen clothing, cigarette smoke, and bodies washed but once a week, and feel once again the excitement in the air. Of course American university students were becoming radicalized at the same time, largely because of our war in Vietnam, but these German kids, man, they flat got it on. As the film progresses, you quickly sense the internal conflicts and hypocrisies in the RAF, the weaknesses of its leaders, and its cluelessness about the world outside of Germany (their behavior in the Jordanian terrorist training camp was the comic highlight of the film). You become fascinated with the intelligence and vision of the head of the German police force, charged with stopping the RAF and arresting its members. The movie pulls you in different directions. When the police brutally attack protesters at the beginning, you’re all for a student uprising. When the RAF begins to coalesce, their vision makes a certain amount of sense. When Ulrike Meinhof gets swept into their activities and goes underground with them, you can almost understand why. But then they start killing people, and the internal divisions begin to grow, and you begin to sympathize with the head of the police. By the end, you’re pretty much done with revolution. This is a long-ass movie, but it’s a long and complicated story, and I was on the edge of my seat the entire time. These Germans . . . they make kick-ass movies! |
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Bottle Rocket (1996) I’ve been working my way back through Wes Anderson’s movies, and with Bottle Rocket I’ve reached the beginning. I love the sweet off-centeredness of Anderson’s work and the way his actors get into it. I love it that bullets don’t bore into skulls in slow motion, that blood doesn’t fly, that girls don’t walk around naked for no reason. I love it that these movies are literate and character-driven. I love it that they’re aimed a few notches above the lowest common denominator. Had I not known this was a Wes Anderson movie, I would still have known it was closely related to Rushmore, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tenenbaums, and The Darjeeling Limited. And now I can’t wait to see Fantastic Mr. Fox! |
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Disgrace (2008) A brilliantly acted but disturbing and depressing movie about sad things, slowly coasting downhill to an even more disturbing and depressing ending. Jesus. The only happy faces in this film were the ones on the dogs, and the dogs all get killed. I didn’t sleep well after watching Disgrace. |
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An Education (2009) This is the movie that should have won the Oscar for best picture. It is one of the best coming-of-age stories ever, sweet and happy and heart-expanding without being sentimental (actually it is anything but sentimental), and all the actors — especially Carey Mulligan — are superb. And oh god, the sixties — give me a coming-of-age film set in the sixties and I’m yours. I hope this doesn’t limit its appeal to younger viewers, but I don’t think it will. The story is timeless; the only difference is how much better we all dressed back then. Seriously, this film will move you. You must see it. |