2004: 5x2

Ozon's film about a marriage that doesn't work out is aesthetically tame and would be pretty lame if it weren't for the film's central gimmick (which may have inspired 500 Days of Summer): narrating the story in five sections that are arranged counter-chronologically. The movie gets quite a bit of mileage out of that gimmick. (6.5)

2004: 36 Quai des Orfèvres (36)

The neo-noir about the policemen Léo Vrinks and Denis Klein, who try to catch a gang of big-time robbers while at the same time competing for the post of Paris Chief of Police, keeps just the right balance between being too simple and being so complicated one can't follow all the twists and developments. Otherwise, no mistakes. (7)

1984: Broadway Danny Rose

It's got the right colours for a Woody Allen film - black and white - but is little more than an anecdote. Cool idea with the helium, he should have made more of that. (6.5)

1958: Dracula (a.k.a. Horror of Dracula)

The first film to star Christopher Lee as the Count is too trashy to be reasonably good and not trashy enough to be so bad it's good, but still a decent bit of afternoon entertainment. (6)

1960: Jungfrukällan (The Virgin Spring)

Bergman picture, black & white, 14th century, the Swedish woods: Three brothers rape a girl, kill her, steal her distinctive dress and go on to ask for a nights rest at - tadaaa - her parents' house. They offer her mother the dress to buy, which turns out to be a bad idea, cause daddy's got a knife. This film might have been more fun if directed by Tobe Hooper. Bergman, one feels, lacks the right sensitivity for the topic. What's more, like a 19th century novelist, he simply tells everything there is to tell as if there's no hurry in the world; the film's got no rhythm. (5.5)

1914: Cabiria (123 min.s Kino Restored Print)

It's set during the Second Punic War between Rome and Cathargo, and apart from that the intricacies of the plot are hard to follow; this probbably isn't helped by a third of the footage missing from the version I saw - anyway, at its centre are Cabiria, who gets seperated from her parents as a little girl and the impressively muscular slave Maciste. Writer-director Giovanni Pastrone, who seems a little biased in favour of the Romans, fires on all cylinders: Volcanos! Elephants! Earthquakes! Armies! Camels! Mirrors that set ships on fire! Stuff falling down! Lots of it! The film's real megalomania, however, is in the title cards, which not only sometimes introduce multiple characters and plotpoints, but also have a tendency to summarize the entire scene we're about to see: Sandra pleads with the noblemen to be released, but to no avail, followed by a three-minute scene in which Sandra pleads with the noblemen to be released, but to no avail - that kind of thing. Sorta fizzes out at the end. (6)

1960: Les yeux sans visage (Eyes without a Face)

A dead girl is found who's missing her facial skin. A surgeon's daughter, alive, is missing her facial skin. Coincidence? I think not! - The B-ish French b/w shocker is jolly good fun overall, but a bit slow at times; a good editor, I think, would have cut it down from 86 minutes to 75 or so, which is a good length for a film. (6.5)

1983: Rumble Fish

Coppola's film about a juvenile delinquent trying to emulate his older brother suffers from a wildly lacklustre script and, to a lesser extent, a phoned-in performance from Harry Dean Stanton Dennis Hopper. Yet it's sort of enjoyable for its 1980s aesthetics: Filmed in black and white except for the fish, the frames depict a dirty, run-down neighbourhood, but in a squeaky-clean way: I bet all the dust you see onscreen is designer dust. (6) A better treatment of this kind of topic by Coppola is Outsiders.

1983: Prénom Carmen (First Name: Carmen)

Godard's comedy about love&terrorism has nothing to offer in terms of plot, cinematography or whatever one might expect from a film, but it's really very funny. Finally I know where Helge Schneider got his humour from. (7)

2008: Choke

It's very tricky to build a narrative around quirky little ideas, but in the case of Chuck Palahniuk's off-kilter comedy novel Choke, and this movie that it's based on, it works just fine. (7)

2001: Werckmeister harmóniák (Werckmeister Harmonies)

Bela Tarr's somewhat Kafkaesque film about a Hungarian town, long on the quality of the b/w cinematography and the music, and short on cuts, is told in a low number of very deliberately paced scenes of varying quality and should be something for everyone who liked Vozvrashcheniye. Perhaps the right kind of contrast if you need to relax from having watched Clash of the Titans. Although it doesn't feature a kraken, it does have a whale. (7.5)

I knew this film was highly regarded by many critics, but what finally made me watch it was Robin Hanson's pointer; in particular the link to the opening scene, the best long shot in a movie that has no shortage of them:

1984: Blood Simple. (Director's Cut)

Though it suffers from the same nondescript cinematography that reduces so many '80s pictures potential quality, the Coen brothers' debut - a sort of noir comedy about the nastiness that ensues when a man finds out his wife has an affair - is a neat enough movie. Like all Coen brothers pictures, though, it is overrated. (6.5)

1970: Patton

Never having read anything about the film's content, but having seen versions of the film's poster multiple times, I naturally had assumed that this was some anti-patriotic war comedy, sort of like M*A*S*H, but apparently, a man looking somewhat silly saluting in front of a giant national flag does not signify parody or satire in the USA.

No comedy then; rather, this is a biopic about an actual US general during WWII, co-written and well-made except for the fact that most of the indoors scenes look like having been shot in the studio. On the plus side: In the original (undubbed and mainly English) version of the film, all of the dialogue in German is delivered by native speakers, which is fairly unusual. (6.5)

2009: Star Treck

Though somewhat unengaging in terms of plot (guess what, they have a planet to save), the film about Kirk, Spock et al. coming of age offers enough little injokes and eye candy to be nonboring. (6)

1978: The Boys from Brazil

Josef Mengele, alive and well in South America, gathers nazi friends old and new to tell them about planned assassinations of 65-year-old fathers around the world; nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman learns of this plot. While this is still believable, the story will take a totally whacky twist later on. Filmed in the indiscriminate pale colours, the film features a dream opportunity for Gregory Peck who plays Mengele - look at his cutesy photo - but only manages a run-of-the-mill villain (written, one must add, in a run-of-the-mill villain way). Overall, a decent enough bit of seventies thriller entertainment. (6.5)

1999: Il mio viaggio in Italia (My Voyage to Italy)

Martin Scorsese's very entertaining tour through the history of Italian cinema up until the 1960s, featuring all the films you might expect in such a documentary. Though I wish he'd bashed a famous director's film from time to time rather than criticizing by omission (Le notti di Cabiria gets about a third of a sentence), one couldn't imagine a more affa- and knowledgeable tour guide than Scorsese. And those eyebrows! Those eyebrows do me every time. (7.5)

2002: The Mothman Prophecies

Basically, what happens in this film is that Richard Gere talks on the phone to an omnisicient moth that's up to no good. The movie doesn't seem as stupid as that sounds; rather, it's a decent thriller of the supernatural using standard noughties mainstream film aesthetics. The disappointing ending is less disappointing for it disappointingness being visible from half an hour away. Still a 6 overall, though.

If this film had been more successful, maybe we could have hoped for Mothman vs. Kraken, à la Alien vs. Predator. Alas, it's not to be.

1928: Steamboat Bill, jr.

Buster Keaton stars as the son of a steamboat captain in this loser-turned-hero story. The storm sequence is great, but it makes up only about a fourth of the film, and, let's face it, the rest is not that hot. (6.5)

1960: La dolce vita

Fellini's famous film, which I've finally seen, has not so much a plot as a series of scenes presenting the life of tabloid journalist Marcello Rubini and his estrangement from that life. Also portraying the life of the rich and famous in late 1950s/early 1960s Italy as vacuous in brilliant b/w pictures, La dolce vita may be seen as the more accessible, fun companion piece to Antonioni's "Incomunicabiliy Trilogy" and at almost three hours is not a minute too long. Just don't expect to see Anita Ekberg playing a major role. (8)

1961: La notte (The Night)

Of the three films in the unofficial "Incomunicabiliy Trilogy", the others being L'avventura and L'eclisse, this one - chronicling a night an estranged couple spend in part together, in part apart - is my favourite because it is the tightest in terms of "stuff happening on the screen". Put differently, as I think I have made clear in the reviews linked to above, the films, brilliant in visual terms, suffer from being too deliberately paced and offering to little in terms of plot developments in my book, and this problem is relatively small in La notte. (7) Now, an Ernest Lehmann screenplay directed by Antonioni, that would have been something.

2007: Disturbia

The film directed by one D.J. Caruso - no, I'm not making this up - is so close in its basic setup to Rear Window that some might say it faces copyright issues. Here it is a stereotypical male teenager that may not leave his house, his clownish mate and the dream girl who's just moved into the house next door spying on the neighbour who may or may not be hauling body parts around in his garage. The film does what it wants to do pretty well, but must stay within the self-chosen confines of its mediocricy, most clearly demonstrated by the almost constant playing of nondescript pop songs for no discernible reason. (6)

I'm generally a fan of the mainstream approach to film, but the more I watch, the more I'm coming to the conclusion that there are more great artsy films out there than great mainstream films, despite the preponderance of the latter.

1903: Alice in Wonderland

The fragment of the first-ever film version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (more info) is a bit weak in terms of overall narrative structure, the growth-shrink scene is too long and, worst of all, the cheshire cat is badly miscast! (5)

1959: Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus) (Restored 107 min.s Version)

Though I realize it is set during Carnival, I still have a feeling that Rio in the late 1950s may not have been the magical place where everyone is always happy (except when throwing a mighty funk on jealousy grounds) and the samba is always playing (except when the bossa is playing). But who cares, it's not a documentary. As for the plot, Orfeu is set to marry Mina - but then Bambi-eyed Eurydice arrives from the countryside. O&E are soon getting it on, but Eurydice is being followed by someone who is either a bloke dressed up as death or Dr. D himself. Never mind the plot, though; the main actor here is the magical Rio described above, filmed in glorious Eastmancolor. (8)

1998: The General

Martin Cahill, the Irish gangster boss this John Boorman picture is about, is no Don Corleone, and The General is no Godfather. It is one of those colour-to-black-and-white jobs that usually go wrong, suffers from an awful soundtrack remindful of the early 1980s (saxophone!) and, like most biopics, lacks a decent narrative arc. Having said that, there's enough happening here to keep you decently entertained for two hours. (6)

1920: Convict 13

Buster Keaton finds himself in a convict's uniform, and soon he's in a prison and about to be hanged. Rioting and lots of standard silent comedy jokes, in particular people falling down. Not the reason Keaton's famous. (5.5)

1897: Old Man Drinking a Glass of Beer

I like it! (7.5)

2009: District 9

In retrospect, it seems like a stroke of genius: Do a film basically using the aesthetics of the Bourne pictures, but

• with aliens
• use a nerd-turned-hero, i.e., a character the kinds of people who like this kind of movie can identify with better than with a brawny hunk such as Bourne or a million other action heroes

Laugh all the way to the bank. (6)

1922: Daydreams

In this 22-minute fragment of a short, Buster Keaton writes home misleading letters to his sweetheart - when he writes about his success on Wall Street, it means he's actually cleaning it, etc. More than most old comedies this one suffers from its visual jokes having become not simply commonplace, but cliché. Reasonably entertaining nonetheless. (6)

1962: L'eclisse ([The] Eclipse)

I recently complained that Antonioni's 1960 L'avventura, while visually brilliant, was too "deliberately paced and loosely plotted" for my taste, but compared to L'eclisse, released two years later and dealing with a woman who breaks up with her socialist fiancé and soon starts a relationship with a superficial and selfish stock-broker, it feels as though the earlier film was written by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond. In terms of visuals, Antonioni exchanges L'avventura's old churches and castles for modernist architecture, which, while meant to look cold, perhaps even dehumanizing, still makes for extremely attractive frames. Even so, I found much of the film to be a bit of a bore, but the ending must be one of the greatest in the history of cinema. How do we squeeze all that into a single mark? I'll go for a straight 6, but am not sure this is the right choice.

2006 (?): The Easter Bunny Hates You

I may or may not have seen this before, but anyway Drek points me to this near-masterpiece just in time. Judge for yourself . . .



. . . I'm giving it 7.5 points, which puts it slightly above Citizen Kane.

1997: Insomnia

A cop goes to northern Norway, where the sun never sets, to investigate the murder of a young woman. Not the most untroubled man to begin with, he can't sleep. Slow descent towards madness, morally questionable behaviour. Special mention for the camera work: To call the colouring pale would be an understatement; rather, there seems to be an abundance of light on the screen. Good, off-kilter neo-noir. Or blanche. Well, you get the idea. (7)

2009: Up (in 2-D)

The Pixar movie, about an old man who wants to fulfill his lifelong dream of going to South America by flying there using his house (with lots of helium balloons attached) only to find there's still a boy scout on the porch after he's left the ground, is visually attractive and generally done with the level of professionalism that one expects from Pixar, but suffers a bit from a slump in the middle. Better than Happy Feet or The Incredibles, but not as good as Madagascar or Ratatouille. (6.5)

2009: (500) Days of Summer

You know what? I totally understand what this guy is trying to say. But he's wrong. It's lovely, in an excrutiating way. (7.5)

The Best of March 2010

1. Targets (1968) - 7.5
2. Le Million (1931) - 7.5
   
3. Serpico (1973) - 7.5
   
4. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) - 7
5. Shutter Island (2010) - 7
   

Films Not Finished: March 2010

Silent Running, Smokin' Aces, Vargtimmen