Arven (Inheritance)

The back of the DVD case describes this as “a taut cinematic portrait of a man who stands by as he watches his own soul destroyed”.  That’s a pretty good description.  Christoffer’s soul is not so much destroyed as it is chiseled away, as he trades bits of his goodness for corporate success and maternal approval.  It’s an excruciatingly depressing story, but one that’s entirely genuine.  It seems trite (and perhaps unfair) to compare other Scandinavian directors to Bergman, but it definitely has a Bergman-esque feel to it.  However, I wouldn’t say Fly is emulating Bergman, not at all.  Just a similar sense of frustration with humanity.  Fly’s cinematic style is more documentarian and reserved.  The actors are all superb as well.  Rating: 8 

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Where the Sidewalk Ends

A terrific noir, loaded with tension.  Watching Dana Andrews dig himself into a deeper and deeper hole is a torturous but thrilling experience.  A darker ending would have been more interesting, but everything besides that was excellent.  Good stuff.  Rating: 8

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Mr. and Mrs. Smith

I started watching this several years ago during a Hitchcock marathon, but shut it off after a few minutes.  I’m glad I gave it a second chance.  You really have to forget that Hitchcock had anything to do with it, there’s nothing in it to satisfy the average Hitch fan.  It’s a perfectly passable little comedy, if not exactly a classic of  the screwball genre.  Lombard and Montgomery are terrific, but occasionally the editing choices mess up the timing.  Rating: 7

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Oliver Twist

I thought this was even better than Lean’s take on Great Expectations.  Maybe that’s just because I haven’t read Oliver Twist and don’t know if anything was severely butchered or not.  It’s an extremely bleak story, most of it taking place in dingy and unpleasant locations that (with the help of Guy Green’s brilliant cinematography) impart an unceasing atmosphere of despair.  I thought it was interesting how little Oliver controlled his own fate.  He makes only one crucial decision in the film — running away from the coffin-maker — and it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that he would have done that eventually.  Everything else is thrust upon him… as it would be for any helpless child.  The acting was uniformly excellent.  The weakest point was the score, which really gets shoved down your throat.  Rating: 9

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X-Men: The Last Stand

Not nearly as horrible as I anticipated.  You could say Brett Ratner is perfect for comic book material, as he seems trapped in permanent adolescence.  Godawful one-liners, well-worn clichés, stomach-churning speeches, an embarrassment of ridiculous superpowers… this is the bread and butter of superhero comics.  And yet in the second film, Bryan Singer managed to bring a level of sophistication that this film fails to rise to.  Still, for every cringe-worthy scene that made me ashamed to be watching it, there were one or two scenes that were genuinely exciting.  One of the most prominent complaints I’ve heard is “too many mutants”.  And while the variety of powers starts to get silly (Duplication Man or whatever his name is was pretty hard to swallow) the main characters get enough face time that it’s not a distraction.  The biggest waste occurs near the end: Ratner sets up a complicated moral dilemma, and for a moment you become really involved in how it’s going to be resolved.  But then it just gets shrugged off.  Overall, I thought it was better than the first movie at least, which is kind of boring.

Unfortunately I forgot to stick around for the credits, so I missed whatever the ending bit was.  Also, I’ve got to say that this experience has made me want to stop going to the theater altogether.  Throughout the movie was the CONSTANT background noise of snacks being unwrapped and people loudly smacking and chomping on them… as if they might die if they stopped stuffing their fat faces for 2 hours.  Rating: 7

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Le Samouraï (rewatch)

Last time I saw this, I said it was “Good, but not especially remarkable”.  A few years can make a difference.  And so does a nice DVD transfer.  Sharp picture and the original aspect ratio really help bring Melville’s sense of style to life.  I actually remembered the film as black & white, which could either be my lousy memory or the crummy VHS tape I watched it on.  The color scheme is quite muted (but lovely) though, so maybe that’s it.

I’m a bit on the fence about the movie.  In a lot of ways it’s incredibly compelling… the crooked tactics of the police, the poetic atmosphere and almost leisurely attitude, and of course Delon’s icy portrayal.  Still, I don’t think it’s as great as it’s often hyped up to be.  Of course, I’m not as easily impressed by cool, stylish gangsters as John Woo or Quentin Tarantino (or most of the internet).  Rating: 8 

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What’s New Pussycat?

Starring Peter O’Toole, Peter Sellers, and a very boyish Woody Allen (who also wrote the screenplay).  How can you lose?  Unfortunately, it doesn’t really gel.  O’Toole is great, I loved the Bacharach music and the opening titles, and there were 2 or 3 laugh-out-loud jokes.  But a lot of the humor falls flat or feels poorly delivered.  Like a lot of comedies of its era, it descends into madcap chaos at the end… hammering you with a rapid series of gags in the hopes that you won’t have time to notice they aren’t that funny.  And it’s too much of a product of its time.  The whole swinging 60′s thing is kind of fun, but it’s also kind of embarrassing.  Somewhat entertaining, but given its pedigree it could have been much better.  Rating: 6

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Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror

Been playing a lot of XBox lately (“Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones”, if you must know) but it’s time to catch up with movies again.  This is my 11th Rathbone/Bruce Sherlock film, and the worst one yet.  Watson is played as an idiot, but that’s nothing new.  There’s a heavy injection of jingoistic propaganda, but again that can be forgiven somewhat for a British wartime film.  What’s really objectionable is that it doesn’t satisfy as a mystery.  Holmes’s deductions come out of nowhere (even more than usual), which are often explained with reference to a clue that the audience was not privy to.  That’s just unfair.  The few twists are clearly broadcast and there’s almost no tension.  And the attempt to modernize the Holmes universe is, as always, disappointing.  I also got the feeling that the real reason Kitty got killed at the end (sorry, spoiler, but really… who else is going to watch this?) was because of the implication that she slept with the enemy, even though it was in the service in her country.  On the bright side, Rathbone’s performance was especially good in this installment.  Rating: 5

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Days of Heaven

Absolutely beautiful and impressionistic.  I read one criticism that said the film feels like one long trailer for itself, which I think is a somewhat fair assessment.  The story is complete but feels threadbare, characterization is rather minimal (names are hardly ever spoken, and in fact I’d forgotten them until the credits rolled).  But the movie is a tour de force of mood and atmosphere and lyricism, with its own unique sense of time.  It’s visual poetry.  It had a similar effect on me as the films of Anh Hung Tran, though perhaps slightly less intense.  Linda Manz, who I didn’t care for at all in Out of the Blue, was very good, and even Richard Gere wasn’t that bad (although he looks more like an underwear model than a steelworker or a farmhand).  Adams’s perpetual frown got annoying after a while, but maybe that’s just how her mouth is shaped.  Rating: 9

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Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Capped Star)

I’ve been hoping to find another Indian director in the vein of Satyajit Ray.  I think I may have found him in Ritwik Ghatak.  Like many of Ray’s films, Meghe Dhaka Tara is a simple domestic melodrama: Nita is a young woman who sacrifices and suffers as her family continues to exploit her… and they often hold her in contempt for allowing them to do it to her.  Although the film lacks much of the splendor that makes Ray’s work so magnificent, there are some elegant touches.  The opening shot, of Nita approaching against a background of sweeping, majestic trees, is one of the most glorious sights I’ve ever seen.  The acting is somewhat mixed: Nita and her siblings are all pretty good, but the parents are too cartoonish.  I’m looking forward to more by Ghatak, but I’m doubtful I’ll be able to find any.  Rating: 9

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