Movie-Viewing Experiences 29/1/18 - 11/2/18
A+ = Adored Masterwork A = Excellent A- = Very Good B+ = Good B = Nice Try B- = Tolerable
C = Significantly Flawed D = Pretty Bad E = Truly Dreadful: Looking Into the Void F = Vile & Repugnant: The Void
SAY ANYTHING (1989)
A- MOVIE JUKEBOX
d: Cameron Crowe
CAST: John Cusack; Ione Skye; John Mahoney; Lili Taylor; Joan Cusack
> utterly charming and sweet young love movie with a surprisingly toughish core; the final year of High School is over and at-a-bit-of-a-loss nice guy John C gets up the nerve to ask out brainy-with-a-big-future nice girl Ione...romance blossoms; sure, it's really just another boy meets girl / boy loses girl / boy gets girl story, but John C is every truehearted girl's idea of the perfect First Love and the gravel road that true love travels on is one you've never been down before (John M is a great dad but he has some secrets); what I love (that word again) most about this movie is that everyone is decent without being sappy; PS RIP John Mahoney and thanks
Award-Worthy Performance
John Cusack
OLD JOY (2006)
B+ FIRST VIEWING
d: Kelly Reichardt
CAST: Daniel London; Will Oldham
> I love a road trip, stooging through little communities and pulling over whenever there is something glorious in view...the Victorian High Country or the Border Ranges are rejuvenating favourites; rather than telling a story, this film makes you a passenger on such a trip, taken by two mates-when-they-were-in-their-20's but now...Daniel is the married / soon to be a Dad grown-up while Will is the eternal responsibility-avoidance dropout; they drive up into the mountains to a hot springs hut, drink beer, smoke dope and ramble on, both aware that something is ending; the camera lingers over townscapes and greenery and it's all lovely & gentle...but, I admit it...I wanted something more to happen...to the point that I anticipated an abrupt dark twist: an assault or suicide maybe...but no (and rightly so)
OLD JOY (2006)
A- SECOND VIEWING (TWO DAYS LATER)
d: Kelly Reichardt
CAST: Daniel London; Will Oldham
> this film haunted me like very few have to the point where I had to watch it again pretty much straightaway; the question that kept itself front & centre was "Is it just me, or did the filmmaker deliberately setup & insert those three sinister scenes?"...one involves a blurted-out admission, one involves a massage and one is at the end; I expected #1 to turn into a physical assault + I expected #2 to become a sexual assault + #3 was surely going to climax with the suicide of the loser; all unintended, so therefore my own problem?...upon second viewing, after looking at how the scenes were cut and framed, I just don't think so...the threat of violence is definitely present, and adds menace and depth to an otherwise emotionally-pastoral vignette; can anybody else see it or do I need to go back onto my medication?
SWEET COUNTRY (2017)
A- FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Warren Thornton
CAST: Hamilton Morris; Bryan Brown; Sam Neill; Thomas M. Wright; Gibson John
> referred to as an Australian Western, I'd prefer the label Outbacker; set in post-WWI, a blackfella kills a whitefella and is hunted by the local police and brought to trial, but not to justice; rich characterisation (woven into the parts and fleshed out by the actors) mixes in with the stunning-but-brutal landscape cinematography; two criticisms: was "fuck" really used as frequently as that back then (I thought the great Aussie adjective was "bloody") and the use of flash-forwards means that all hope is lost, along with suspense; the outdoor trial is one of the great sequences in Australian film, and the boy will stay with you after the end-credits
Award-Worthy Performance
Hamilton Morris
I, TONYA (2017)
A- FIRST VIEWING IN-CINEMA
d: Craig Gillespie
CAST: Margot Robbie; Sebastian Stan; Allison Janney; Paul Walter Hauser
> a fascinating story about horrible people, their horror emerging from the usual two sources: violence and stupidity; promoted as a comedy, I couldn't detect that many laughs in it (okay...a couple of chuckles come from the sheer audacity of the characters), mainly due to the awfulness of the domestic assaults: Mom vs Daughter + Husband vs Wife + Wife vs Husband...curiously, the only character brave enough to pick on Mom is the bird; the skating scenes are excitingly staged and the mockumentary structure is the ideal way to tell the true tale in all its believe-it-or-not detail; stick around for the credits to see the real Jeff, LaVona and Shawn...OMG
Award-Worthy Performances
Margot Robbie; Allison Janney
THE DISH (2000)
B+ SECOND VIEWING
d: Rob Sitch
CAST: Sam Neill; Kevin Harrington; Tom Long; Patrick Warburton; Rob Billing
> one of my fully entrenched childhood memories is watching the Moon Landing live on TV... Mum kept me home from school and did the ironing behind me while I sat and stared at the fuzzy images; this Aussie film is a light comedy about the radio telescope in Parkes (one of my fave regional towns to wander around...and nextdoor to Forbes, equally nifty) and the part it played in the Apollo 11 broadcast; historical accuracy is secondary to telling a good story (which is always okay by me) and while there are Spielbergian touches (string-led orchestra designed to uplift + nostalgic bookends) which annoy me, the character interaction is based on the Know-It-All Americans vs the She'll-Be-Right-Mate Aussies...which is always fun if you're dinky-di; the backyard cricket pitch painted inside the radar dish sums up the film's joys
ANASTASIA (1956)
B MOVIE JUKEBOX
d: Anatole Litvak
CAST: Ingrid Bergman; Yul Brynner; Helen Hayes; Akim Tamiroff; Martita Hunt
> I have an unlikely affection for this film, despite its significant flaws: Ingrid's performance is overdone and overrated (I thought the same of her madwoman role in Gaslight) + Helen is too mannered + some of the dialogue is too pointedly lush and ornate + the ending is anti-climactic; however, I have always been fascinated by the Romanov saga and the possible survival of Anastasia is one of history's great "what-ifs"; I am convinced that this is Yul's best performance (although it is still fairly limited...it's no fluke that Yul made a good robot in Westworld) and Martita plays a great blousy dingbat; the colour is appropriately rich and there seems to be a constant waft of romantic music lifting the narrative deadspots; I hate the term "guilty pleasure"...I'd prefer to call this a "private joy"...like Roderick Falconer
THE OPPOSITE OF SEX (1998)
B SECOND VIEWING
d: Don Roos
CAST: Christina Ricci; Martin Donovan; Lisa Kudrow; Ivan Sergei; Lyle Lovett
> a sex comedy that really is about sex (it is talked about flippantly and frequently); 16 year old Christina is some piece of work...as she sees it (and tells us via sprightly voiceover), she has been abused by all, so is justified in hurling the abuse back at anyone within range; the plot wanders along shaggy-dog style, bouncing from one unlikely incident to another, the comedy blipping up and down in response; none of the characters are particularly likeable but are made interesting by sheer performance impact...Christina is a force of ghastly teenage nature and Lisa is Phoebe Buffay armed with bitter wisecracks; the dramatic inserts are only partially successful
Award-Worthy Performance
Christina Ricci
A WALK IN THE SUN (1945)
B- SECOND VIEWING
d: Lewis Milestone
CAST: Dana Andrews; Richard Conte; John Ireland; Lloyd Bridges; Norman Lloyd
> this has been called the best WWII film but for the life of me I cannot understand why; gritty & savage, sure...but isn't that pretty much all war movies?; while the climactic attack on the farmhouse is a superb sequence and as suspenseful as all get out, it doesn't make up for: leaden dialogue which sounds like it's being read + gospel-ish songs & brassy anthems which are stale garnishes + a poor Burgess Meredith narrative + the variable quality of the acting + the ceaseless chatter which is supposed to help us get to know and befriend the soldiers but makes them sound like a pack of banal gasbags; and why is there always one guy in a movie platoon who is a nutcase, one who is a bemused dreamer, one who is a cynical intellectual, two guys who are incessant jokers and someone who says "it's quiet...too quiet"?
NIGHT COURT (1932)
B- FIRST VIEWING
d: W.S. Van Dyke
CAST: Walter Huston; Phillips Holmes; Anita Page; Lewis Stone; Mary Carlisle
> geez...some of these Pre-Code Hollywood movies really pushed the boundaries of 1930's taste...check this out: grafty judge sets up nice married woman on a prostitution charge, has her baby taken away, has her husband beaten to a pulp and corrupts the daughter of the man who is trying to have him thrown in jail; Walter plays the judge and creates one of the most repulsive villains in Golden Era moviedom, second only to Clark Gable's child-starving chauffeur in 1931's Night Nurse; Walter also shows up how wooden and laboured the other performances are, and is the only actor who is able to wrestle with the mouldy dialogue and abundant pathos and come out in one piece; the ending unfortunately slips back into humdrum morality by chickening out and not using perjury to dish out some audience-satisfying justice
ANIMAL FACTORY (2000)
C FIRST VIEWING
d: Steve Buscemi
CAST: Willem Dafoe; Edward Furlong; Danny Trejo; Mickey Rourke; Seymour Cassel
> I visited an ex-student in jail once (poor kid...DUI with no licence...all of 19...rained with tears as soon as he saw me...I did the same); this film is about a 20 year old locked up with hardcases...and, inevitably, the threat of rape is everywhere; this is the source of the film's suspense and you just wait for the nice bad guy (Willem) to demand physical payment for taking the kid under his protective wing...but it never happens; in fact, while there are stabbings and slicings and even some shit-eating, the final act of the film goes for a happy ending, emptying out all of the carefully built-up tension; some characters even vanish, as if there was no reason for them to be there in the first place; attend a northern suburbs High School after funding cuts if you want to experience 5 years in institutional Hell
TEN WHO DARED (1960)
D FIRST VIEWING
d: William Beaudine
CAST: John Beal; Brian Keith; James Drury; R.G. Armstrong; Ben Johnson; L.Q. Jones
> my favourite American History story is the Powell Geographic Expedition of 1869...but you wouldn't have any inkling as to why that could be if all you had to go by was this dull telling; Question: how is it even possible to make a whitewater rafting trip boring?...Answer: keep the majority of the scenes on shore rather than in the water + make all of the characters as bland as possible (lightly spiced with the broadest of traits) + use back-projection & buckets of water, thereby keeping stunt costs to a minimum + Disney-up the story by packing a cute little dog and a guitar for campfire singalongs + add an ironic horoscope as a stand-in for Fate; I implore you: read the outstanding 2001 book Down the Great Unknown by Edward Dolnick (currently under $5 at Abebooks) for a stirring saga of how the Grand Canyon was conquered
Got something you want to tell me?
GO RIGHT AHEAD: masted59@gmail.com
SAY ANYTHING (1989)
d: Cameron Crowe
CAST: John Cusack; Ione Skye; John Mahoney; Lili Taylor; Joan Cusack
> utterly charming and sweet young love movie with a surprisingly toughish core; the final year of High School is over and at-a-bit-of-a-loss nice guy John C gets up the nerve to ask out brainy-with-a-big-future nice girl Ione...romance blossoms; sure, it's really just another boy meets girl / boy loses girl / boy gets girl story, but John C is every truehearted girl's idea of the perfect First Love and the gravel road that true love travels on is one you've never been down before (John M is a great dad but he has some secrets); what I love (that word again) most about this movie is that everyone is decent without being sappy; PS RIP John Mahoney and thanks
Award-Worthy Performance
John Cusack
OLD JOY (2006)
d: Kelly Reichardt
CAST: Daniel London; Will Oldham
> I love a road trip, stooging through little communities and pulling over whenever there is something glorious in view...the Victorian High Country or the Border Ranges are rejuvenating favourites; rather than telling a story, this film makes you a passenger on such a trip, taken by two mates-when-they-were-in-their-20's but now...Daniel is the married / soon to be a Dad grown-up while Will is the eternal responsibility-avoidance dropout; they drive up into the mountains to a hot springs hut, drink beer, smoke dope and ramble on, both aware that something is ending; the camera lingers over townscapes and greenery and it's all lovely & gentle...but, I admit it...I wanted something more to happen...to the point that I anticipated an abrupt dark twist: an assault or suicide maybe...but no (and rightly so)
BUT THEN...
OLD JOY (2006)
d: Kelly Reichardt
CAST: Daniel London; Will Oldham
> this film haunted me like very few have to the point where I had to watch it again pretty much straightaway; the question that kept itself front & centre was "Is it just me, or did the filmmaker deliberately setup & insert those three sinister scenes?"...one involves a blurted-out admission, one involves a massage and one is at the end; I expected #1 to turn into a physical assault + I expected #2 to become a sexual assault + #3 was surely going to climax with the suicide of the loser; all unintended, so therefore my own problem?...upon second viewing, after looking at how the scenes were cut and framed, I just don't think so...the threat of violence is definitely present, and adds menace and depth to an otherwise emotionally-pastoral vignette; can anybody else see it or do I need to go back onto my medication?
SWEET COUNTRY (2017)
d: Warren Thornton
CAST: Hamilton Morris; Bryan Brown; Sam Neill; Thomas M. Wright; Gibson John
> referred to as an Australian Western, I'd prefer the label Outbacker; set in post-WWI, a blackfella kills a whitefella and is hunted by the local police and brought to trial, but not to justice; rich characterisation (woven into the parts and fleshed out by the actors) mixes in with the stunning-but-brutal landscape cinematography; two criticisms: was "fuck" really used as frequently as that back then (I thought the great Aussie adjective was "bloody") and the use of flash-forwards means that all hope is lost, along with suspense; the outdoor trial is one of the great sequences in Australian film, and the boy will stay with you after the end-credits
Award-Worthy Performance
Hamilton Morris
I, TONYA (2017)
d: Craig Gillespie
CAST: Margot Robbie; Sebastian Stan; Allison Janney; Paul Walter Hauser
> a fascinating story about horrible people, their horror emerging from the usual two sources: violence and stupidity; promoted as a comedy, I couldn't detect that many laughs in it (okay...a couple of chuckles come from the sheer audacity of the characters), mainly due to the awfulness of the domestic assaults: Mom vs Daughter + Husband vs Wife + Wife vs Husband...curiously, the only character brave enough to pick on Mom is the bird; the skating scenes are excitingly staged and the mockumentary structure is the ideal way to tell the true tale in all its believe-it-or-not detail; stick around for the credits to see the real Jeff, LaVona and Shawn...OMG
Award-Worthy Performances
Margot Robbie; Allison Janney
THE DISH (2000)
d: Rob Sitch
CAST: Sam Neill; Kevin Harrington; Tom Long; Patrick Warburton; Rob Billing
> one of my fully entrenched childhood memories is watching the Moon Landing live on TV... Mum kept me home from school and did the ironing behind me while I sat and stared at the fuzzy images; this Aussie film is a light comedy about the radio telescope in Parkes (one of my fave regional towns to wander around...and nextdoor to Forbes, equally nifty) and the part it played in the Apollo 11 broadcast; historical accuracy is secondary to telling a good story (which is always okay by me) and while there are Spielbergian touches (string-led orchestra designed to uplift + nostalgic bookends) which annoy me, the character interaction is based on the Know-It-All Americans vs the She'll-Be-Right-Mate Aussies...which is always fun if you're dinky-di; the backyard cricket pitch painted inside the radar dish sums up the film's joys
ANASTASIA (1956)
d: Anatole Litvak
CAST: Ingrid Bergman; Yul Brynner; Helen Hayes; Akim Tamiroff; Martita Hunt
> I have an unlikely affection for this film, despite its significant flaws: Ingrid's performance is overdone and overrated (I thought the same of her madwoman role in Gaslight) + Helen is too mannered + some of the dialogue is too pointedly lush and ornate + the ending is anti-climactic; however, I have always been fascinated by the Romanov saga and the possible survival of Anastasia is one of history's great "what-ifs"; I am convinced that this is Yul's best performance (although it is still fairly limited...it's no fluke that Yul made a good robot in Westworld) and Martita plays a great blousy dingbat; the colour is appropriately rich and there seems to be a constant waft of romantic music lifting the narrative deadspots; I hate the term "guilty pleasure"...I'd prefer to call this a "private joy"...like Roderick Falconer
THE OPPOSITE OF SEX (1998)
d: Don Roos
CAST: Christina Ricci; Martin Donovan; Lisa Kudrow; Ivan Sergei; Lyle Lovett
> a sex comedy that really is about sex (it is talked about flippantly and frequently); 16 year old Christina is some piece of work...as she sees it (and tells us via sprightly voiceover), she has been abused by all, so is justified in hurling the abuse back at anyone within range; the plot wanders along shaggy-dog style, bouncing from one unlikely incident to another, the comedy blipping up and down in response; none of the characters are particularly likeable but are made interesting by sheer performance impact...Christina is a force of ghastly teenage nature and Lisa is Phoebe Buffay armed with bitter wisecracks; the dramatic inserts are only partially successful
Award-Worthy Performance
Christina Ricci
A WALK IN THE SUN (1945)
d: Lewis Milestone
CAST: Dana Andrews; Richard Conte; John Ireland; Lloyd Bridges; Norman Lloyd
> this has been called the best WWII film but for the life of me I cannot understand why; gritty & savage, sure...but isn't that pretty much all war movies?; while the climactic attack on the farmhouse is a superb sequence and as suspenseful as all get out, it doesn't make up for: leaden dialogue which sounds like it's being read + gospel-ish songs & brassy anthems which are stale garnishes + a poor Burgess Meredith narrative + the variable quality of the acting + the ceaseless chatter which is supposed to help us get to know and befriend the soldiers but makes them sound like a pack of banal gasbags; and why is there always one guy in a movie platoon who is a nutcase, one who is a bemused dreamer, one who is a cynical intellectual, two guys who are incessant jokers and someone who says "it's quiet...too quiet"?
NIGHT COURT (1932)
d: W.S. Van Dyke
CAST: Walter Huston; Phillips Holmes; Anita Page; Lewis Stone; Mary Carlisle
> geez...some of these Pre-Code Hollywood movies really pushed the boundaries of 1930's taste...check this out: grafty judge sets up nice married woman on a prostitution charge, has her baby taken away, has her husband beaten to a pulp and corrupts the daughter of the man who is trying to have him thrown in jail; Walter plays the judge and creates one of the most repulsive villains in Golden Era moviedom, second only to Clark Gable's child-starving chauffeur in 1931's Night Nurse; Walter also shows up how wooden and laboured the other performances are, and is the only actor who is able to wrestle with the mouldy dialogue and abundant pathos and come out in one piece; the ending unfortunately slips back into humdrum morality by chickening out and not using perjury to dish out some audience-satisfying justice
ANIMAL FACTORY (2000)
d: Steve Buscemi
CAST: Willem Dafoe; Edward Furlong; Danny Trejo; Mickey Rourke; Seymour Cassel
> I visited an ex-student in jail once (poor kid...DUI with no licence...all of 19...rained with tears as soon as he saw me...I did the same); this film is about a 20 year old locked up with hardcases...and, inevitably, the threat of rape is everywhere; this is the source of the film's suspense and you just wait for the nice bad guy (Willem) to demand physical payment for taking the kid under his protective wing...but it never happens; in fact, while there are stabbings and slicings and even some shit-eating, the final act of the film goes for a happy ending, emptying out all of the carefully built-up tension; some characters even vanish, as if there was no reason for them to be there in the first place; attend a northern suburbs High School after funding cuts if you want to experience 5 years in institutional Hell
TEN WHO DARED (1960)
d: William Beaudine
CAST: John Beal; Brian Keith; James Drury; R.G. Armstrong; Ben Johnson; L.Q. Jones
> my favourite American History story is the Powell Geographic Expedition of 1869...but you wouldn't have any inkling as to why that could be if all you had to go by was this dull telling; Question: how is it even possible to make a whitewater rafting trip boring?...Answer: keep the majority of the scenes on shore rather than in the water + make all of the characters as bland as possible (lightly spiced with the broadest of traits) + use back-projection & buckets of water, thereby keeping stunt costs to a minimum + Disney-up the story by packing a cute little dog and a guitar for campfire singalongs + add an ironic horoscope as a stand-in for Fate; I implore you: read the outstanding 2001 book Down the Great Unknown by Edward Dolnick (currently under $5 at Abebooks) for a stirring saga of how the Grand Canyon was conquered
Got something you want to tell me?
GO RIGHT AHEAD: masted59@gmail.com
