Here we are again. Another fifty movies, another torrent of uninformed opinion. Which puts me among the vast majority of moviegoers who've never taken a film class in their lives. It's all hooey anyway. What what you like, maybe try new things to see if you like 'em.
I'm here to help.
Once again, the best and the worst, based on purely objective subjectivity.
THE CREAM
Amores Perros
Two years of Spanish classes, and I couldn't hope to remember the name Alejandro González Iñárritu. Now it's branded into my brain. Because this movie jolted me out of a stupor.
Back when I considered abandoning this project (not for the first time), this movie slugged me in the jaw. Its manic pace, shocking violence, deep-cutting drama, and overlapping non-linear stories, showed me what movies could be, and should be. Hence, I'm still watching, and you're still reading.
Fargo
Joel and Ethan Coen. There's another pair of names that pops up a lot. For good reason. Their patented mixture of quirky humor, brutal violence, and genuine humanity in dark worlds somehow amazes me every time they pull it off. Once I get past the bizarre personal touches. Like the weird meandering conversations in regional dialogue, every verbal tic and obscenity and filler word carefully calculated for maximum effect.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
Speaking of weird meandering conversations: Quentin Tarantino. Maybe you've heard of the guy. Kind of a big deal in film circles, apparently. How would I know. Something about the way he makes movies that reference other movies, and his own work, and entirety of popular culture. But I submit that he is not an auteur, for three reasons which I just made up.
* They're absurd, they're convoluted, but his movies make sense.
* There's no deep meaning behind the stylish violence, far as I can tell.
* This one's just fun to watch and watch again.
Life of Brian
Fun to watch and watch again? Did somebody say Monty Python? I did.
This tragically overlooked spoof (in America) depicts human absurdity better than anything else they've ever done. Like discovering razors in your toffee, there's a sharp message amid the silliness: you're going to die, so might as well enjoy your life. Even you accidentally become the epicenter of a fanatical religious cult. Cheerio, we're British.
Mary and Max
I defer to the reigning champion of black comedy. This peculiar claymation contains more harsh life lessons per minute (learned the hard way), more tragicomedy, more sympathetic portrayals of human weakness, more gross-out moments, than my entire elementary school career. (You should've been there.) If I could recommend one movie out of one hundred, this is it.
THE DREGS
Annie Hall
I want to like Woody Allen. He's intelligent, innovative, sincere about his insecurities, and ferociously eloquent. But why does it have to be Freudian musings on the sex lives of nebbish Jewish comedians. While I admit sympathy for this doomed fictional romance, I also file a fictional restraining order, to prevent them from ever engaging my idle imagination (in public) ever again.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
A classic turn-of-the-twentieth-century Western? Sure, if you're a sucker for lovely scenery. As a story, I found it dull and bloated, though intermittently amusing. Like an overweight redneck-in-denial who prattles endlessly about lofty vehicle overhauls he'll never follow through with. By the time our titular heroic outlaws get around to shooting and getting shot at, it's too late. Like the Old West, my attention has moved on.
Cool Hand Luke
Imagine the tough, taciturn, individualistic hero of a Western, only plopped into a twentieth-century chain gang. Now imagine the trouble he'd instigate when he runs out of fucks to give. That's this guy. Some folks might enjoy his petty hijinks; I wasn't feeling it. It hurt to watch the guy beat his head against the system, then get beat down for it. Over, over, and over.
If you're looking for a positive opinion or a meaningful interpretation or a hackneyed Christ figure parallel, look elsewhere. Maybe a marginally qualified reviewer. There's hundreds. Search engine's just a click away. Browse, until you find someone who agrees with you.
Persona
We meet again, Ingmar Bergman.
This glacier-paced surrealist piece delves into the psyches and psychoses of two irrevocably flawed someone. They talk. And it was an agonizing experience I am not keen to repeat. For the curious: you have been warned. For the furious: you're allowed to like it and not be threatened by my dissenting opinion.
The 400 Blows
Swedish, Italian, Yugoslavian, French? Maybe I do harbor a subconscious vendetta against Europe. But you've heard my objections to this one in other contexts. The characters are indiscriminately despicable. The plot progresses at the speed of I don't give a fuck. And the seemingly triumphant resolution left me befuddled.
What moral is the director attempting to subversively communicate? If you're smart, you can be a brat and get away with it? Don't do all these cool things I did as a kid? Questions pile up like a dung heap in a Parisian alley. And I'm none too keen to reach in and feel around for answers.
Showing posts with label announcement. Show all posts
Showing posts with label announcement. Show all posts
Monday, July 27, 2015
Retrospect: IMDb #250 - 200
What a long, strange trip it's been.
When I figured I'd watch a metric shitload of movies and upload my uninformed opinions to the Internet, I didn't know what I was getting into. Just that it would take a lot of time, and certain parts might be less enjoyable than others. I was right. I'm not used to being right this much. All of that happened, and more.
Fifty movies later, I've scraped the team off the top, and the weird scum off the bottom, for your convenient ocular ingestion. You're welcome.
THE CREAM
Before Sunrise
Love at first sight. Does it actually happen? Who knows. But it'd have to start with a conversation. Here's the most organic, naturally quick-developing romance I've ever seen. Well, watched on a screen. And the sequels are just as good. For me, this was love at first sight.
Castle in the Sky
The quintessential fantastical adventure comes courtesy of Studio Ghibli. It features puppy love and luxuriously animated destruction. I submit to you, the finest of early Miyazaki.
Donnie Darko
No, I don't completely understand it. But where's the fun in that. The weirdness, offbeat humor, honest relationships, and sincere existential questions still resonate. Not to mention there's a freaky guy in a bunny suit.
Ip Man
Want a genuine Hong Kong kung-fu movie? Here's your kung-fu movie. Mix together: fantastic fight sequences, desperate circumstances, and dubious historical accuracy. Stir it up, bake on HIGH for 108 minutes, and serve one (1) masterpiece.
Prisoners
Intense. Just...intense. A father going too far to save his little girl, knowing he's going too far. But what else can he do. Just watch. Once per millennium is enough.
THE DREGS
8 1/2
I don't get the hype. Am I dumb? Or just honest? I can figure out some of what Fellini is shooting for, but I end up more repelled than impressed. Sure, it's probably ingenious, but I'm not at the point to appreciate it yet. I leave it for the elderly sophisticates whose dopamine receptors quit functioning decades ago.
Fanny and Alexander
Long, oblique, and relentlessly depressing. I swear don't have a vendetta against European auteurs. They're brilliant, in their own way, I'm sure. But my mushy mind can't wrap around why anyone would willingly sit through this picture. Masochism, or boredom snowbound in a Swedish blizzard with nothing better to do than play this cinematic soporific on loop.
La Dolce Vita
More Fellini. Feign surprise, everyone. I resubmit the same tired complaints: difficult to follow, overflowing with frankly despicable characters, and punishingly long. If this is "the sweet life," I'm going vegan.
The Graduate
Inter-generational American adultery? It might even be interesting, if the adulterers in question even remotely cared about each other. Instead their relationship collapses into a black hole of mindless unfulfilled hedonism, from which not one molecule of joy or love can escape. At least the guy learned what he's going to do with his life: perpetuate that black hole on girls his own age.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Painfully dysfunctional relationships. I'm detecting a pattern.
What set new standards for Hollywood swearing also blazed new trails in how much I can despise every minute of a movie. I'm not afraid of Virginia Woolf -- nice lady, a tad strange, but has some interesting things to say -- but I'm afraid if I have to suffer through this film again, I'm marching off into a lake with rocks in my pockets.
When I figured I'd watch a metric shitload of movies and upload my uninformed opinions to the Internet, I didn't know what I was getting into. Just that it would take a lot of time, and certain parts might be less enjoyable than others. I was right. I'm not used to being right this much. All of that happened, and more.
Fifty movies later, I've scraped the team off the top, and the weird scum off the bottom, for your convenient ocular ingestion. You're welcome.
THE CREAM
Love at first sight. Does it actually happen? Who knows. But it'd have to start with a conversation. Here's the most organic, naturally quick-developing romance I've ever seen. Well, watched on a screen. And the sequels are just as good. For me, this was love at first sight.
Castle in the Sky
The quintessential fantastical adventure comes courtesy of Studio Ghibli. It features puppy love and luxuriously animated destruction. I submit to you, the finest of early Miyazaki.
Donnie Darko
Ip Man
Want a genuine Hong Kong kung-fu movie? Here's your kung-fu movie. Mix together: fantastic fight sequences, desperate circumstances, and dubious historical accuracy. Stir it up, bake on HIGH for 108 minutes, and serve one (1) masterpiece.
Prisoners
Intense. Just...intense. A father going too far to save his little girl, knowing he's going too far. But what else can he do. Just watch. Once per millennium is enough.
THE DREGS
I don't get the hype. Am I dumb? Or just honest? I can figure out some of what Fellini is shooting for, but I end up more repelled than impressed. Sure, it's probably ingenious, but I'm not at the point to appreciate it yet. I leave it for the elderly sophisticates whose dopamine receptors quit functioning decades ago.
Fanny and Alexander
Long, oblique, and relentlessly depressing. I swear don't have a vendetta against European auteurs. They're brilliant, in their own way, I'm sure. But my mushy mind can't wrap around why anyone would willingly sit through this picture. Masochism, or boredom snowbound in a Swedish blizzard with nothing better to do than play this cinematic soporific on loop.
More Fellini. Feign surprise, everyone. I resubmit the same tired complaints: difficult to follow, overflowing with frankly despicable characters, and punishingly long. If this is "the sweet life," I'm going vegan.
The Graduate
Inter-generational American adultery? It might even be interesting, if the adulterers in question even remotely cared about each other. Instead their relationship collapses into a black hole of mindless unfulfilled hedonism, from which not one molecule of joy or love can escape. At least the guy learned what he's going to do with his life: perpetuate that black hole on girls his own age.
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Painfully dysfunctional relationships. I'm detecting a pattern.
What set new standards for Hollywood swearing also blazed new trails in how much I can despise every minute of a movie. I'm not afraid of Virginia Woolf -- nice lady, a tad strange, but has some interesting things to say -- but I'm afraid if I have to suffer through this film again, I'm marching off into a lake with rocks in my pockets.
Monday, April 20, 2015
Where's Kingsman (#245)?
Not out in theaters, not yet on DVD/BR.
So, evading a morass of morally complex acquisition methods (i.e., shitty cam-rips), I've put off viewing and reviewing "Kingsman: The Secret Service" until it's legally available to the general public.
To compensate, I'll post reviews an older, shakier rendition of this list. IMDb was different then. We all were. Four months is an eternity in Internet years.
As for sifting through the dregs of the Top 250, "eternity" is an understatement.
So, evading a morass of morally complex acquisition methods (i.e., shitty cam-rips), I've put off viewing and reviewing "Kingsman: The Secret Service" until it's legally available to the general public.
To compensate, I'll post reviews an older, shakier rendition of this list. IMDb was different then. We all were. Four months is an eternity in Internet years.
As for sifting through the dregs of the Top 250, "eternity" is an understatement.
Monday, April 13, 2015
Hello, world!
Hi, Internet! Welcome to my infinitesimal slice of cyberspace.
Story time: I escaped college with a Creative Writing degree worth less than the paper it’s printed on. (Note the fancy paper, gilded lettering, and tens of thousands of dollars in direct subsidized loans.) Armed with a command of the participial phrase, I’m out to spread culture to people who, like me, read crap on the Internet instead of doing anything productive. Because contributing to society is for doctors, engineers, and municipal solid waste workers.
School taught me one thing: I don't know jack. Finally, I can learn...
Here, I’ll do things I’ve never done before, fail, and maybe learn something. You get to laugh at my suffering.
First target: movies. I’ve slurped on television’s glass teat since I could blink (and nod off). Twenty two years, and I’ve barely sucked the scum off the world’s most influential creative medium. Because there are way too many “best” movie lists: the Criterion Collection, the AFI Top 100, Roger Ebert’s. One problem—they’re chosen by experts, who know too much to know anything. Instead, I chose another list. YOURS, Internet denizens. The IMDb Top 250.
Over the next year, I’ll be reviewing one film per day, counting from 250 to 1, until 2016 rolls around or my eyeballs melt. The good, the great, the weird as shit, the boring as hell, all wrapped up in one biased package.
See you in the New Year.
Story time: I escaped college with a Creative Writing degree worth less than the paper it’s printed on. (Note the fancy paper, gilded lettering, and tens of thousands of dollars in direct subsidized loans.) Armed with a command of the participial phrase, I’m out to spread culture to people who, like me, read crap on the Internet instead of doing anything productive. Because contributing to society is for doctors, engineers, and municipal solid waste workers.
School taught me one thing: I don't know jack. Finally, I can learn...
- How to train for a marathon
- How to make a retro video game
- How to balance a budget
- How to watch hundreds of hours of movies and blog about it FOR FREE
Here, I’ll do things I’ve never done before, fail, and maybe learn something. You get to laugh at my suffering.
First target: movies. I’ve slurped on television’s glass teat since I could blink (and nod off). Twenty two years, and I’ve barely sucked the scum off the world’s most influential creative medium. Because there are way too many “best” movie lists: the Criterion Collection, the AFI Top 100, Roger Ebert’s. One problem—they’re chosen by experts, who know too much to know anything. Instead, I chose another list. YOURS, Internet denizens. The IMDb Top 250.
Over the next year, I’ll be reviewing one film per day, counting from 250 to 1, until 2016 rolls around or my eyeballs melt. The good, the great, the weird as shit, the boring as hell, all wrapped up in one biased package.
See you in the New Year.
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