Recommended With Reservations
The Constant Gardner
This film was directed by Fernando Meirelles who also directed City of God. It has a similar feel at times, especially during the scenes in the Kenyan slums. This film has a lot on its mind and wants to make its points, damnit! Would make a good double feature with 2003’s Dirty Pretty Things as both attempt to blend a thriller with social commentary. However, that movie was a lot better.
Mad Hot Ballroom
I enjoyed this documentary about NYC public school kids competing in dance competions. However, there was something off about this movie that was holding it back from being truly great. The subject matter was so incredibly rich that the filmmakers could just sit back and film. Maybe the fault lies in the editing process but I wanted to see more of certain kids’ stories. Maybe this movie was too ambitious and should have just focused on a few of the kids. Regardless, there are some adorable parts to this movie that even a cynic like me can’t fully disregard.
March of the Penguins
Penguins are cute but this would have been much better if Burgress Meredith, rather than Morgan Freeman, was the narrator.
The Devil and Daniel Johnston
I learned a lot about Daniel J from this documentary. I had always heard about his mental problems but I had no idea. Very informative and entertaining and it was a treat to see a documentary that didn’t look like shit, but if I have to listen to one more person compare him to Bob Dylan, I was going to fight someone.
Brothers
Interesting film about a soldier who is forced to kill a fellow soldier with a shovel by his Afghan captors. He is rescured shortly thereafter and the film deals with his troubled reunion with his family as he grapples with his secret.
Hustle and Flow
I loved the Memphis feel to this film. It evokes the dirty dirty South so well. It has a lovable underdog feel and some of the scenes as the music is created is exhilirating. Terrence Howard is incredible. And its got DJ Qualls! I love that freaky dude. Still, the film drags a little and there really isn’t all that much to it.
Ushpizin
A rabbi, his wife, and two escaped convicts walks into a succah. Hijinks enuse.
Good Night and Good Luck
Enjoyed the Citizen Kane look of this film. The acting was solid, the message was equal parts inspiring and equal parts preachy. Quiz Show was a much more entertaining, more effective look into 50’s television, politics, and corporate life.
The Holy Girl
This Argentinian film got so much good press. I was expecting a transcendent movie experience. Instead I got a film that was good, but not great. A teenage girl decides her mission in life is to save the soul of a priest with wandering hands or to be specific, he likes to brush up against young women in crowds. However, he’s not interested in her help. A lot of ambiguities ensue.
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6 comments:
3 posts within 5 hours? School must be back in.
Constant Gardener: I read many of the same criticisms of Le Carre's book that you make about the film. Good points; how do you tell a story that is essentially a roman a clef about the role of big companies in the third world who are aided by both official connivance and public apathy (cf. Ape's post on jewelry) without becoming so earnest that people switch off? Message films, tough. At least not as manipulative as John Q (still loved it, though, big sap that I am).
Aside from that, I thought it was a great stab at a thriller for grown ups and I'm glad that they didn't frig with the book's ending. When you consider that others in this subgenre include Without Borders and Tears of the Sun I thought the filmmakers did a bang up job. And Meirelles has to have one of the most exciting visual styles of any director. I'm not bothered that it looked liked City of God, any more than I was bothered that ET had the look of Close Encounters. Among films of recent years, I'd rank it's overall visual impact as being as cool as The Saddest Music in the World, Road to Perdition, and Three Kings.
Man, I wish I could find something to really argue with you about in these lists so far...
i wrote that previpous comment but i was signed in as listmaker. anyway, i looooved mad hot ballroom and the penguins so take that!
weasel,
without the visual style of the constant gardner, i would have had a very hard time liking it at all. it looked amazing.
Maybe Constant Gardener was too English in tone, which indicates a failing on the filmmaker's part as it didn't translate for a lot of people over here apparently. One of my colleagues dismissed it by saying "oh that film? Didn't like it, I've seen sooo many films about bad corporations in Africa" (a very silly response to anything given her diamond earrings and her cell phone, but oh well).
This theory of mine has arisen because you rate War of the Worlds higher than Gardener (despite being terrible and despite it featuring Tom Cruise) and you liked the 40,000th version of Pride and Predjudice to hit the screen. It seems that you only like English literary adaptations if they are translated into American or they feature Natalie Portman doppelganger Keira Knightley in a corset.....
yeah, i don't know. sometimes i don't mind ralph fiennes but he annoyed me in this movie.
war of the worlds had some great moments to it.
i'd never read pride and prejudice or seen any of the movies so it was new to me.
next you're going to tell me that the american remake of the italian job was inferior to the original! when will it ever end?
"next you're going to tell me that the american remake of the italian job was inferior to the original!"
Don't you ever, ever swear like that at me again. I think Michael Caine has a case for defamation of character (played) against the producers of both the remade Italian Job and Get Carter.
I bet you believed Jon Bon Jovi really did capture U-571 rather than the Royal Navy too, eh? And when did all the bad guys in movies stop talking with German accents and get British ones instead?
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