(Be Advised - SPOILERS)
I seem to have seen a slew of movies recently, more than usual. I just got back from "The Bank Job," which was curiously bloodless. Maybe because it was British, and they can't help it. It felt like an exercise in genre, well done, nice people, derived from a real event. But at the end, I kind of shrug. The denouement was rather anticlimactic, bland. So, that's that.
We also watched "Across the Universe" on dvd, which was a colorful, fun trip through the late '60's in America done through the music of the Beatles. But at the end of the day with this one, not much substance, and kind of a string of stereotypes and stereotyped situations. Like they looked through the papers of the time, and stripped the major headlines and cultural figures: there's Janis Joplin, and Tim Leary, Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, the radicals turned bombers, the student movement, the soldiers. And that's pretty much it. It was nice though, to see Joe Cocker playing a singing hobo.
Ok, and then there's "South Park the Movie," from years ago, which we never saw. Actually, the TV show is, in general, much funnier than this movie, I think because on basic cable you have to censor yourself. Where here, the boys are swearing up a storm, which kind of takes the edge off. It was funny seeing what you'd always thought, that Saddam Hussaine is Satan's lover...and batshit crazy.
Also, "Eastern Promises," David Croneberg's second film with Viggo Mortensen, a story of the Russian mob in London. It was a more straightforward story than "History of Violence," that horrible mess of a film. This one has the nice, order-affirming twist at the end, and the baby is saved. Yeah! Well executed, but pretty forgettable.
Anything else? Oh, I saw "Domino" on the on-demand cable, and was really impressed. Which was curious, because it got TOTALLY panned in the press when released. I just checked Rottentomatoes and of the credible critics, 9% liked it. But Roger Ebert liked it, which makes sense (here). I almost always agree with Ebert; I wonder if we're the same Ennegram number? I love the way he can love the scraggly dogs that no one else wants to let in the house, or can see the beauty of.
I told Heather that "Domino" is like a Joss Whedon production on methamphetamine, a story of a totally dysfunctional, but loving family of thrown-togethers. If it were shot in a linear, cinemagraphically conventional way, it would be banal. But Tony Scott's crazed Vegas color scheme and ADD editing style gives the film a vibrancy and surreal sweetness. Some films look at their characters as if they were either planets floating in space, or a bunch of billiard balls knocking into each other (The Bank Job was a bit like this). Others, like "Domino," somehow see their characters as both people, representatives, and locations of spirit. Which is weird to say of a film so violent, so on edge, and so darkly comic. But these people really seem, in their brokenness and unpolished and unaware selves, reflect that Leonard Cohen line, "There's a crack in everything/And that's how the light gets in." There's a lot of light here because there are really tremendous cracking in this world. And Tom Waits as the desert prophet in a Cadillac is wonderful.
Plus, the totally audacious scene of a man having his arm shot off at the shoulder by a double barrel shotgun, in front of the ex-stars of Beverly Hills 90210 is, well, jaw droopingly ballsy. Christopher Walken's character, a sleazy reality show producer, just looks and says, "Wow."
So, that's my movie roundup.
No comments:
Post a Comment