September MOTM Poll-Biopic
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Showing posts with label Best of the Noughties. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Best of the Noughties. Show all posts
07/02/2010
The Best Films of the Noughties Series Continues...
... but not before Thursday, until which day I have lots of other, more important work to do. Hold your collective breath, o millions!
27/01/2010
The Greatest Films 2000-2009, #6: Cidade de Deus (City of God) (2002)
Directed by Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund; written by Bráulio Mantovani, based on a novel by Paulo Lins; cinematography by César Charlone
130 mins.; 1.85:1; colour; language: Portugese
At Wikipedia, IMDb (8.8), Metacritic (79)
Starting in the mid-1990s, world cinema has seen a series of films that achieve a thoroughly pop feel by employing techniques quite possibly inspired by music videos: A high frequency of cuts, hyperrealsitic colouring, quick camera movements and extensive, expressive use of pop music, to name but the most obvious elements. This school of directing has produced excellent pictures such as Requiem for a Dream, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Romeo+Juliet, but the textbook specimen - in the sense of most clearly exemplifying the style we're talking about - must be City of God.
Much in line with another trend in recent years, City of God is episodic, telling a number of related anecdotes. But this film, unlike Magnolia or Amores Perros, has a narrator as its center of gravity, our hero Buscapé, who lives in Rio de Janeiro's government-constructed slums the film's title refers to, where crime isn't a disruption of the normal course of life, but rather the normal course of life itself. Though that's where he lives, Buscapé himself quite clearly isn't cut out for crime, which makes him an insider-outsider and hence the ideal narrator for the film. And so we learn about drugs, revenge and the ever-prevailing need for honour and respect that fuels so much violence. While our hero finds - modest - success in the face of adversity, the narrative makes it quite clear that there is no development for the better in the City of God - nor for the worse, for that matter, things will just stay as fucked up as they have always been.
If that sounds like depressing viewing, it's not. The movie has been compared to Scorsese's Gangs of New York for the subject matter and Goodfellas for style, but it is more akin to the film that had a large hand in starting the wave of pop looking films, Danny Boyle's Trainspotting. As Trainspotting makes great entertainment out of heroin addiction, City of God allows you a look at the grimness of Brazilian slum life while keeping it a lot of fun. It's verging on the immoral, really.
130 mins.; 1.85:1; colour; language: Portugese
At Wikipedia, IMDb (8.8), Metacritic (79)
Starting in the mid-1990s, world cinema has seen a series of films that achieve a thoroughly pop feel by employing techniques quite possibly inspired by music videos: A high frequency of cuts, hyperrealsitic colouring, quick camera movements and extensive, expressive use of pop music, to name but the most obvious elements. This school of directing has produced excellent pictures such as Requiem for a Dream, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Romeo+Juliet, but the textbook specimen - in the sense of most clearly exemplifying the style we're talking about - must be City of God.
Much in line with another trend in recent years, City of God is episodic, telling a number of related anecdotes. But this film, unlike Magnolia or Amores Perros, has a narrator as its center of gravity, our hero Buscapé, who lives in Rio de Janeiro's government-constructed slums the film's title refers to, where crime isn't a disruption of the normal course of life, but rather the normal course of life itself. Though that's where he lives, Buscapé himself quite clearly isn't cut out for crime, which makes him an insider-outsider and hence the ideal narrator for the film. And so we learn about drugs, revenge and the ever-prevailing need for honour and respect that fuels so much violence. While our hero finds - modest - success in the face of adversity, the narrative makes it quite clear that there is no development for the better in the City of God - nor for the worse, for that matter, things will just stay as fucked up as they have always been.
If that sounds like depressing viewing, it's not. The movie has been compared to Scorsese's Gangs of New York for the subject matter and Goodfellas for style, but it is more akin to the film that had a large hand in starting the wave of pop looking films, Danny Boyle's Trainspotting. As Trainspotting makes great entertainment out of heroin addiction, City of God allows you a look at the grimness of Brazilian slum life while keeping it a lot of fun. It's verging on the immoral, really.
21/01/2010
The Greatest Films of the Noughties, #7: The Virgin Suicides (2000)
Directed by Sofia Coppola; written by Sofia Coppola, based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides; cinematography by Edward Lachman
97 mins.; 1.85:1; colour; language: English
At Wikipedia, IMDb (7.2), Metacritic (76)
A group of men remember the events that transformed their lives forever, and not for the better: Back in their youths, in a 1970s US suburb, there were five unattainable girls, and they killed themselves.
The film starts with a suicide attempt by the youngest one, Celia, and once she succeeds, the girls' parents isolate their daughters even more than they had before. Later, after the girls have broken a curfew, they'll take them out of school. The unattainability, of course, only heightens the boys' fascination with them. And that's what the film is about: Despite the film's title (identical to that of Jeffrey Eugenides' novel it's based on), the film is not so much about the five sisters but about the boys' fascination with them, or, to be more precise: their memories of their fascination with them. "Some readers (in my experience they were mostly women) were frustrated with Eugenides' book for the way it fixated on the men's view of the women instead of the women themselves," writes Stephanie Zacharek. The film does not change this focus. Complaining about it is a little like complaining that Einstein made no contributions to the theory of evolution. The 95% of the film that are set in the 1970s should be seen not as a depiction of reality, I think, but rather as a depiction of rememberance.
That interpretation is certainly fueled by the film's atmosphere: Drenched in pastel and accompanied by the ambient music of brilliantly chosen collaborators Air, the movie's positively dream-like, seeming at times to be set underwater. I've seen a thousand pictures set in American suburbs, but none of them made them look like a world apart. This one does.
In the film's most impressive sequence, we learn that one of the young men finally attains what he desires, and that it fucks up his life forever. Take heed, o young ones!
97 mins.; 1.85:1; colour; language: English
At Wikipedia, IMDb (7.2), Metacritic (76)
A group of men remember the events that transformed their lives forever, and not for the better: Back in their youths, in a 1970s US suburb, there were five unattainable girls, and they killed themselves.
The film starts with a suicide attempt by the youngest one, Celia, and once she succeeds, the girls' parents isolate their daughters even more than they had before. Later, after the girls have broken a curfew, they'll take them out of school. The unattainability, of course, only heightens the boys' fascination with them. And that's what the film is about: Despite the film's title (identical to that of Jeffrey Eugenides' novel it's based on), the film is not so much about the five sisters but about the boys' fascination with them, or, to be more precise: their memories of their fascination with them. "Some readers (in my experience they were mostly women) were frustrated with Eugenides' book for the way it fixated on the men's view of the women instead of the women themselves," writes Stephanie Zacharek. The film does not change this focus. Complaining about it is a little like complaining that Einstein made no contributions to the theory of evolution. The 95% of the film that are set in the 1970s should be seen not as a depiction of reality, I think, but rather as a depiction of rememberance.
That interpretation is certainly fueled by the film's atmosphere: Drenched in pastel and accompanied by the ambient music of brilliantly chosen collaborators Air, the movie's positively dream-like, seeming at times to be set underwater. I've seen a thousand pictures set in American suburbs, but none of them made them look like a world apart. This one does.
In the film's most impressive sequence, we learn that one of the young men finally attains what he desires, and that it fucks up his life forever. Take heed, o young ones!
17/01/2010
The Best Films of the 2000s, #8: The Pledge (2001)
Directed by Sean Penn; written by Jerzy Kromolowski, based on a book by Friedrich Dürrenmatt; cinematography by Chris Menges
124 mins.; 2.35:1; colour; language: English
At Wikipedia, IMDb (6.9), Metacritic (71)
Jerry Black, a homicide detective is about to retire as the mutilated body of a young girl is found. He is the one who tells the dead girls parents the bad news and her mother makes him swear to find the killer. Soon a suspect is arrested, a mentally retarded man who sort of admits to the murder before killing himself. Jerry doesn't believe the dead man was the killer, but is told in decreasingly uncertain terms that he is now retired and the case is closed. He (a) lets it go and spends the rest of his days gardening or (b) can't forget the pledge he made and tries to find the real killer? Come on, make a guess!
The film's plot has a somewhat winding history: The screenplay for the 1958 German mystery Es geschah am hellichten Tag (recommended!) was written by Swiss author Friedrich Dürrenmatt. However, he thought that the story was too obedient to the conventions of the genre and reworked it into a novella with the telling title Das Versprechen: Requiem auf den Kriminalroman, adequately translated into English as The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel. Which is the source for this film.
It's a bit hard to explain why this film is great. For one, it doesn't have any weaknesses one might point out, which you can't say about most films. It also has the finest Jack Nicholson performance I've ever seen, and I've seen quite a few. But maybe the key lies in the trailer?
Like no other trailer before it, the clip tries to make it look (and sound!) as though the film becomes all fast and shocking and dramatic towards the end. I think even if you haven't seen the film but look at the trailer really closely, you can see it's a pretty desperate effort: He's taking a gun! He's talking to someone! The truth is that the ending of the film isn't like that at all. Slowly and painfully it grinds to an end. In that it is violating the rules of its genre more clearly than Dürrenmatt's novella ever did.
That may still not make it sound like a great movie, but that's the best I can come up with. Alternatively, maybe all the people who thought it was so-so are right. But I doubt it.
124 mins.; 2.35:1; colour; language: English
At Wikipedia, IMDb (6.9), Metacritic (71)
Jerry Black, a homicide detective is about to retire as the mutilated body of a young girl is found. He is the one who tells the dead girls parents the bad news and her mother makes him swear to find the killer. Soon a suspect is arrested, a mentally retarded man who sort of admits to the murder before killing himself. Jerry doesn't believe the dead man was the killer, but is told in decreasingly uncertain terms that he is now retired and the case is closed. He (a) lets it go and spends the rest of his days gardening or (b) can't forget the pledge he made and tries to find the real killer? Come on, make a guess!
The film's plot has a somewhat winding history: The screenplay for the 1958 German mystery Es geschah am hellichten Tag (recommended!) was written by Swiss author Friedrich Dürrenmatt. However, he thought that the story was too obedient to the conventions of the genre and reworked it into a novella with the telling title Das Versprechen: Requiem auf den Kriminalroman, adequately translated into English as The Pledge: Requiem for the Detective Novel. Which is the source for this film.
It's a bit hard to explain why this film is great. For one, it doesn't have any weaknesses one might point out, which you can't say about most films. It also has the finest Jack Nicholson performance I've ever seen, and I've seen quite a few. But maybe the key lies in the trailer?
Like no other trailer before it, the clip tries to make it look (and sound!) as though the film becomes all fast and shocking and dramatic towards the end. I think even if you haven't seen the film but look at the trailer really closely, you can see it's a pretty desperate effort: He's taking a gun! He's talking to someone! The truth is that the ending of the film isn't like that at all. Slowly and painfully it grinds to an end. In that it is violating the rules of its genre more clearly than Dürrenmatt's novella ever did.
That may still not make it sound like a great movie, but that's the best I can come up with. Alternatively, maybe all the people who thought it was so-so are right. But I doubt it.
14/01/2010
The Greatest Films of the Noughties, #9: Ocean's Eleven
Directed by Steven Soderbergh; written by Ted Griffin, based on a screenplay by Harry Brown and Charles Lederer; cinematography by Steven Soderbergh
116 mins.; 2.35:1; colour; language: English
At Wikipedia, IMDb (7.6), Metacritic (74)
As suggested by the distribution of Metacritic and IMDb scores, there seems to be some general agreement that this is a good-but-not-great movie, nothing but director Steve Soderbergh clearing his throat before producing another one of his Great Masterpieces of American Cinema. Fuck it, I say. Give me this over Solaris or The Good German any day.
The setup is simple enough: Just out of prison, Daniel Ocean (Clooney) seeks out his old chum Rusty Ryan (Pitt) to suggest they rob what is repeatedly described as the world's safest vault, one holding cash for three Las Vegas casinos. As coincidences go, they are owned by the man who is now with Ocean's ex-wife Tess (Roberts), Terry Benedict (Garcia) - the latter exhibiting a hefty dose of arrogance and the mediterranean looks that pale Englishmen, distgust written all over their faces, sometimes describe as "Italian waiter". ("He is good-looking in a gloriously smarmy, Italian-waiter fashion," wrote a Times journalist when trying to explain why he and fellow English football fans dislike Cristiano Ronaldo.)
And so the fun begins. The film goes through all the standard elements of heist movies, driven forward by a tight screenplay and a score that is truly in the service of the picture (David Holmes). It also capitalizes on the screeen presences and comedy talents of the leading men Clooney and Pitt, with the likes of Matt Damon and Don Cheadle serving as glorified extras. At times it comes across as a toned-down screwball comedy: Roger Ebert recalls "the conversation involving Clooney, Roberts and Garcia, when the casino boss finds the ex-husband at Tess' table in the dining room. The two men of course despise one another, but are so smooth and cool we note it only in the precision of their timing and word choices, leading up to a final exchange in which Danny, leaving the table, says 'Terry' in a way that uses the first name with inappropriate familiarity, and Terry responds 'Danny' on precisely the same note." But the film's most prominent feature is certainly its lushness, almost every frame packed with bling, blong and blang. You can see Ocean's Eleven as a kind of anti-Reservoir Dogs, and the two would make a great double feature.
The film really made me appreciate the arts of screenwriting and directing. Director-cinematographer Soderbergh composes every frame meticulously, and the screenplay by Ted Griffin suggests to the first-time viewer she knows exactly what is going on, only to reveal at the end that she's been led astray - and I'm not talking about someone waking up and realizing it was only a dream.
It's easy enough to miss that when you see it for the first time. It's just too much fun.
Trailer:
116 mins.; 2.35:1; colour; language: English
At Wikipedia, IMDb (7.6), Metacritic (74)
As suggested by the distribution of Metacritic and IMDb scores, there seems to be some general agreement that this is a good-but-not-great movie, nothing but director Steve Soderbergh clearing his throat before producing another one of his Great Masterpieces of American Cinema. Fuck it, I say. Give me this over Solaris or The Good German any day.
The setup is simple enough: Just out of prison, Daniel Ocean (Clooney) seeks out his old chum Rusty Ryan (Pitt) to suggest they rob what is repeatedly described as the world's safest vault, one holding cash for three Las Vegas casinos. As coincidences go, they are owned by the man who is now with Ocean's ex-wife Tess (Roberts), Terry Benedict (Garcia) - the latter exhibiting a hefty dose of arrogance and the mediterranean looks that pale Englishmen, distgust written all over their faces, sometimes describe as "Italian waiter". ("He is good-looking in a gloriously smarmy, Italian-waiter fashion," wrote a Times journalist when trying to explain why he and fellow English football fans dislike Cristiano Ronaldo.)
And so the fun begins. The film goes through all the standard elements of heist movies, driven forward by a tight screenplay and a score that is truly in the service of the picture (David Holmes). It also capitalizes on the screeen presences and comedy talents of the leading men Clooney and Pitt, with the likes of Matt Damon and Don Cheadle serving as glorified extras. At times it comes across as a toned-down screwball comedy: Roger Ebert recalls "the conversation involving Clooney, Roberts and Garcia, when the casino boss finds the ex-husband at Tess' table in the dining room. The two men of course despise one another, but are so smooth and cool we note it only in the precision of their timing and word choices, leading up to a final exchange in which Danny, leaving the table, says 'Terry' in a way that uses the first name with inappropriate familiarity, and Terry responds 'Danny' on precisely the same note." But the film's most prominent feature is certainly its lushness, almost every frame packed with bling, blong and blang. You can see Ocean's Eleven as a kind of anti-Reservoir Dogs, and the two would make a great double feature.
The film really made me appreciate the arts of screenwriting and directing. Director-cinematographer Soderbergh composes every frame meticulously, and the screenplay by Ted Griffin suggests to the first-time viewer she knows exactly what is going on, only to reveal at the end that she's been led astray - and I'm not talking about someone waking up and realizing it was only a dream.
It's easy enough to miss that when you see it for the first time. It's just too much fun.
Trailer:
10/01/2010
The Greatest Films of the 2000s, #10: Intimacy (2001)
Directed by Patrice Chéreau; written by Anne-Louise Trividic and Patrice Chéreau, based on stories by Hanif Kureishi; cinematography by Eric Gautier
119 mins.; 2.35:1; colour; language: English
At Wikipedia, IMDb (6.3), Metacritic (69)
Imagine a world in which films didn't show people eating. You could show them talking about eating or trying to get food, you could show them getting ready for eating or munching after they'd bitten off a piece, but never, ever, were you allowed to show food entering the mouth. (If you wanted to show people while in the act of eating, you'd have to show them from behind or only shoot them from the neck down.) Sure, there'd be specialised eating pictures, but not only would those be strictly for adults, but they'd never been shown in regular cinemas. Many would point out that these pictures are only for you if you find watching people eating interesting because in terms of witty dialogue, gripping plot developments or interesting camera work they'd have next to nothing on offer. As far as characterization is concerned, well, everybody in those movies would really be into eating, all of the time.
That, of course, is what we have today with regards to sex. So when director Patrice Chéreau decided to include in Intimacy about four seconds' worth of shots of an erect penis, in one case entering a woman's mouth, it was a talking point at least in this country, giving the film free extra PR (not that that helped an awful lot).
But the way the film shows sexuality does not come across as a PR stunt at all. The sex scenes, which are far from erotic, fit seamlessly into the aesthetics of the film, which just seems to passively observe. It's natural that we'll see an erection here and there as sex is at the centre of the story: Jay and Claire meet each Wednesday in Jay's rundown London apartement - a shithole, really - and fuck. When they're done, she leaves. They keep conversation to a minimum. They don't know each other's names. But Jay gets curious and follows Claire after she leaves. This leads him into the basement of a pub where Claire and her amateur troupe perform The Glass Menagerie. Back upstairs, Jay strikes up a conversation with Andy, a pub regular. If Jay were played by Michael Douglas, you could see where this is going, but he's not.
The seemingly detached was the scenes are filmed goes along with a script that doesn't explain an awful lot. How did Jay and Claire meet? We never learn. We get a few flashbacks into Jay's past, but they're not particularly helpful, only showing us he used to be happier. This is the kind of thing that drives critics into creativity: Roger Ebert develops a theory on why Jay hates women, but, unless I've missed something, it is never established that he does. Edward Guthman informs us: "'Intimacy' tells the story of two people wishing to escape themselves and the burden of their memories through the purge of sex." Maybe.
And that's where the film leaves you: Without any answers, on the most anonymous, loveless London streets I've ever seen depicted in a film. And by that I don't mean it was shot in Tottenham.
The trailer, being a trailer, makes it look a little too dramatic:
#9, due on Wednesday, will be a star-studded, feelgood blockbuster. Promise!
119 mins.; 2.35:1; colour; language: English
At Wikipedia, IMDb (6.3), Metacritic (69)
Imagine a world in which films didn't show people eating. You could show them talking about eating or trying to get food, you could show them getting ready for eating or munching after they'd bitten off a piece, but never, ever, were you allowed to show food entering the mouth. (If you wanted to show people while in the act of eating, you'd have to show them from behind or only shoot them from the neck down.) Sure, there'd be specialised eating pictures, but not only would those be strictly for adults, but they'd never been shown in regular cinemas. Many would point out that these pictures are only for you if you find watching people eating interesting because in terms of witty dialogue, gripping plot developments or interesting camera work they'd have next to nothing on offer. As far as characterization is concerned, well, everybody in those movies would really be into eating, all of the time.
That, of course, is what we have today with regards to sex. So when director Patrice Chéreau decided to include in Intimacy about four seconds' worth of shots of an erect penis, in one case entering a woman's mouth, it was a talking point at least in this country, giving the film free extra PR (not that that helped an awful lot).
But the way the film shows sexuality does not come across as a PR stunt at all. The sex scenes, which are far from erotic, fit seamlessly into the aesthetics of the film, which just seems to passively observe. It's natural that we'll see an erection here and there as sex is at the centre of the story: Jay and Claire meet each Wednesday in Jay's rundown London apartement - a shithole, really - and fuck. When they're done, she leaves. They keep conversation to a minimum. They don't know each other's names. But Jay gets curious and follows Claire after she leaves. This leads him into the basement of a pub where Claire and her amateur troupe perform The Glass Menagerie. Back upstairs, Jay strikes up a conversation with Andy, a pub regular. If Jay were played by Michael Douglas, you could see where this is going, but he's not.
The seemingly detached was the scenes are filmed goes along with a script that doesn't explain an awful lot. How did Jay and Claire meet? We never learn. We get a few flashbacks into Jay's past, but they're not particularly helpful, only showing us he used to be happier. This is the kind of thing that drives critics into creativity: Roger Ebert develops a theory on why Jay hates women, but, unless I've missed something, it is never established that he does. Edward Guthman informs us: "'Intimacy' tells the story of two people wishing to escape themselves and the burden of their memories through the purge of sex." Maybe.
And that's where the film leaves you: Without any answers, on the most anonymous, loveless London streets I've ever seen depicted in a film. And by that I don't mean it was shot in Tottenham.
***
The trailer, being a trailer, makes it look a little too dramatic:
#9, due on Wednesday, will be a star-studded, feelgood blockbuster. Promise!
The Best Films of the Noughties: Intro
Everybody has a "best films of the noughties" list and they all suck.
So here comes mine. Earlier this year, I asked readers of the other blog to provide me with the titles of movies which ought to be considered for a best of the noughties list - thanks for responses! Having excluded films actually from the 90s, those I had already seen, those I knew I did not wat to see and documentaries and after adding the movies from this incarnation of the IMDb 2000-2009 Top 15 and the few 2000s films that made it onto the TSPTD list of the 1000 most acclaimed pictures in history I didn't know, as well as a few other titles I thought might make my top ten, I came up with a list of 29 films to consider. Of those I started 26 and finished 20. None of them actually made the list.
I have already reviewed two of those (Where the Wild Things are and Avatar) and will post reviews of the remaining 22 (preceded by an enumeration of the films I didn't finish) throughout the coming weeks. I'll post reviews of the actual top ten one at a time on Sundays and Wednesdays, starting tonight.
For the purposes of this list, a film is from the 2000s if it was generally released in theatres anywhere in the world for the first time in one of the years in question - festivals don't count (hence #7 counts as a 2000 movie). We're talking about fictional films of at least 45 mins. length. New versions of older films don't qualify - no Apocalypse Now Redux (which otherwise would certainly have made the list).
When I call this a list of the best or the greatest films of the decade it should be understood that we're talking about (a) the best of the subset of films I actually saw (b) according to my own personal taste - it emphatically is not a list of the most important or innovative, let alone the most popular or best-reviewed films.
Follow using the Best of the Noughties and the Best of the Noughties: Lists and Suggestions tags.
So here comes mine. Earlier this year, I asked readers of the other blog to provide me with the titles of movies which ought to be considered for a best of the noughties list - thanks for responses! Having excluded films actually from the 90s, those I had already seen, those I knew I did not wat to see and documentaries and after adding the movies from this incarnation of the IMDb 2000-2009 Top 15 and the few 2000s films that made it onto the TSPTD list of the 1000 most acclaimed pictures in history I didn't know, as well as a few other titles I thought might make my top ten, I came up with a list of 29 films to consider. Of those I started 26 and finished 20. None of them actually made the list.
I have already reviewed two of those (Where the Wild Things are and Avatar) and will post reviews of the remaining 22 (preceded by an enumeration of the films I didn't finish) throughout the coming weeks. I'll post reviews of the actual top ten one at a time on Sundays and Wednesdays, starting tonight.
For the purposes of this list, a film is from the 2000s if it was generally released in theatres anywhere in the world for the first time in one of the years in question - festivals don't count (hence #7 counts as a 2000 movie). We're talking about fictional films of at least 45 mins. length. New versions of older films don't qualify - no Apocalypse Now Redux (which otherwise would certainly have made the list).
When I call this a list of the best or the greatest films of the decade it should be understood that we're talking about (a) the best of the subset of films I actually saw (b) according to my own personal taste - it emphatically is not a list of the most important or innovative, let alone the most popular or best-reviewed films.
Follow using the Best of the Noughties and the Best of the Noughties: Lists and Suggestions tags.
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