The Enforcer

Random Bogart flick from my Netflix queue.  It’s a not-very-original crime drama noir, with Bogie as a detective trying to bring down a ring of hit men.  Besides the flashbacks-within-flashbacks, the most interesting thing about it that it was apparently made at a time before “contract” and “hit” became part of the common lexicon, since the baddies use these terms to confound the cops.  Either that or the writer just underestimated his audience.  They treat the very idea of a hit man as a stunning new concept, so I dunno.  Overall, the film is entertaining with a few excellent shots, if not terribly fresh.  There’s a minor plot hole at the end that bugs me, but I don’t want to spoil anything.  Rating: 7

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Sympathy for the Underdog

I’m in that mode where I’ve got so many movies to watch that I don’t want to watch any of them.  Instead I’ve been wasting my time doing a lot of useless crap (like playing Bejeweled, of all things, for hours on end).  But I finally set aside some time for a DVD.  It’s another Fukasaku yakuza flick, with editing and movement as brassy and bold as its jazzy soundtrack (which is excellent, almost Morricone-like).  It’s an exciting, dynamic picture.  The thing is that I really don’t get off on yakuza movies.  The plots and characters are all very same-y to me, and I never care about the characters.  Yes, there’s “sympathy for the underdog”, but only because he’s the center of the movie and the odds are against him.  I didn’t much give a shit about him as a person, nor any of the other guys.  But for a yakuza movie, it’s definitely one of the better ones I’ve seen.  Rating: 8

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Landscape After Battle

Wajda certainly knows what to do with a camera, and this film contains cinematography almost as fine as Kanal.  But the main character is a smug twit, the acting is rather dreadful and the script is overwritten.  I also gotta say these are the healthiest looking holocaust survivors I’ve ever seen.  The extended opening scene of their chaotic liberation is spellbinding, but they do look like they’ve just been liberated from after-school detention rather than a concentration camp.  There could be a great movie here, as some interesting post-war themes are explored, but the overblown speeches and poor performances pretty much ruin it.  Rating: 5

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Burn After Reading

Chuckle-worthy comedy, nothing great but not offensively horrible either.  The gags rely far too much on wacky character quirks and the whole scenario is based on no one being competent at anything.  If I thought about it more I’d probably be more annoyed with it, but it was a decent way to forget my godawful back pain for 90 minutes.  Rating: 6

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Anupama

Sharmila Tagore’s first two roles (and several subsequent parts) were in Satyajit Ray films, so I thought I’d check out some of her other work.  This is a fairly entertaining Bollywood melodrama, with some decent songs and a compelling (though quite predictable) romantic plot.  Tagore, playing a very shy girl who rarely speaks, doesn’t have all that much to do, but she does it well.  Nice cinematography.  The main problem is that most of the principal characters are exaggerated to some degree.  This is most painfully felt in “Annie” (no doubt a nod to Annette Funicello) who is obnoxiously bubbly and ditzy.  But even she settles into a more well-rounded character by the end.  The film is rather long (often the case with Bollywood movies), it seems like an 85-minute film somehow stretched out to 140.  Rating: 7

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Cassandra’s Dream

Woody Allen retreading the same Dostoyevskian ground he’s already covered in Crimes & Misdemeanors and Match Point.  It’s definitely familiar territory, and with a script that feels far too functional and contrived.  But Allen takes it in a different direction at the end, so I give an extra point for that.  Ever since The New World, I’ve gotten over my Colin Farrell hate, and here he does okay (except for occasionally acting too much with his eyebrows) as does Ewan MacGregor.  Far from Allen’s worst, but even farther from his best.  Rating: 7

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Khadak

Visually impressive and generally engaging, but somewhat confused.  The (European) directors seem to have taken a surface understanding of Mongolian culture and attempted to infuse it with a smattering of Tarkovsky and Paradjanov.  It’s a jumble of faux spirituality and mild symbolism, with long takes that serve little purpose.  Still, there are some very memorable images (thanks largely to that apparent Paradjanov influence) and the characters are relatable.  The highlight is a concert of modernist music using folk instruments.  Rating: 6

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Waltz With Bashir

At first I doubted the need to do this film in rotoscope-style animation — it allows for a few poetic touches, but it didn’t seem necessary and I thought it might be more effective without it.  But the stunning ending removed all doubt.  It was a bold and fascinating choice.  I am left with the sense that the ending is something like a “money shot”, however, and that leaves a somewhat bad taste in my mouth.  What I really liked about this film were the comments on memory, and I wanted a little more of that… not that the events themselves aren’t interesting, but I was far more intrigued by Folman’s struggles to recall his role in them.  So far in the Oscar foreign category, I’d give Revanche a slight edge, but this one was certainly quite good as well.  Rating: 8

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Man on Wire

I could’ve sworn that I remembered Philippe Petit’s World Trade Center wirewalk when it happened, but since I was three at the time, that seems unlikely.  I must have heard about it elsewhere.  Regardless, it’s a gripping story, and Petit’s passion is infectious.  Director James Marsh uses a non-linear timeframe that keeps things lively, and almost makes the viewer wonder if Petit will survive.  Like Capturing the Friedmans, this movie is blessed to have copious amounts of footage from home movies made by the subjects.  The reenactments were a little cheesy, but generally effective and the film as a whole works well.  I also think it’s commendable that in a movie that features the WTC so prominently, “9/11″ isn’t uttered once.  One thing bugged the hell out of me, though.  Almost all of the music is cribbed from Michael Nyman’s incredible scores for Peter Greenaway films.  It was jarring to have The Draughtman’s Contract or Drowning By Numbers constantly popping up in my head during this tightrope documentary.  It was so bizarre and annoying that I had to research it; apparently Marsh wanted to hire Nyman to compose a new score but couldn’t afford him.  I suppose I can’t complain too much, since I enjoyed Wes Anderson’s use of Satyajit Ray scores in Darjeeling Limited.  But in that case, it felt more like homage, evoking the emotions that Ray’s films evoke.  This just felt like blatant thievery, like Marsh was hoping no one would notice.  He does slightly redeem himself by using Satie’s “Gymnopedie #1″ during the moment of truth.  It’s a piece that never fails to hook me in (I ought to have a marathon one day of all the movies that use it).  Rating: 8

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Revanche

So I’m trying to see as many of the films nominated in the major Oscar categories as I can. I really want to avoid exoticising the foreign movies, but I can’t shake the feeling that none of the Best Picture nominees will live up to this one. It’s not even that great of a film, it’s just that none of the BP noms look very promising. It is a very good film, though, one that brought to mind Haneke, Inarritu, and mostly Kieslowski. It’s got that combo of interconnectedness and honest exploration of pure humanity that he often dealt with. I didn’t find it as moving or artistic as most Kieslowski films, but it did tell an interesting story that for the most part rings true. That rotating saw is a brilliant device for building tension.  The performances all seemed good too, although sometimes that’s hard to judge with another language.  Rating: 8

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