Pride & Glory

Soft spot for Ed Norton (and yes, I admit it, for Farrell as well :S) + Soft spot for stories about brothers + Soft spot for stories about corruption = Decent entertainment. Gotta be in the mood though.

~5.0.

Doubt Boxing Actors

Very well-tailored melodrama. Very masterly relying on its great actors. Mister Philip Seymour Hoffman and Miss Meryl Streep in the leads do promise and deliver acting prowess, in something of a boxing match opposing two wonderful geniuses. But then, right in between the blows, you realize the thing that holds it all together for the jaded bastard you are (:P) is an Amy Adams perhaps underrated, very nuanced in her sensibility, and the perfect closing shot with that ever so touching swap between mentor and mentee.

Not much else to say though; must be 'cause I am a jaded bastard... I used to get shivers and goosebumps and all while watching such flicks. Now, I just go "oh, that's harsh". And then I wonder: "is it me, or is it the picture that's just not that touching?!?". Oh well...

~4.1.

Changeling - Eastwood's Feel-Good Movie?!?

A powerful story. Very powerful. With that affective 'true story' mention in the opening credits that always makes it all more human. Too human, perhaps, for the audience not to care, not to get trapped in the identification process. And yet it still feels just a tad like the cinematic, artistic exercise that it it. A bit cold. A little like Button for that matter. But Clint's a master now, and it works: a well-told story about a simple woman taking on the corrupt LAPD of the late '20s, despite and because of all its implied horrors endured and conquered by that woman, is definitely something to feel good about; maybe the coldness is just mine, me being a jaded bastard and all ;-).

~4.0.

Milk... An Actors Flick...

Sean Penn Sean Penn Sean Penn Sean Penn Sean Penn Sean Penn Sean Penn Sean Fscking Penn! Nuff said.

I was utterly convinced Mickey had it locked for Best Actor, but now I must say I'll wait 'til I've seen every flick, cause Mister Sean Penn is, once again, awesome playing Harvey Milk. And of course great actors tend to lift everyone else's performance. But, James Franco, little whiny Harry Osbourne :P, deserves a special mention, bringing a silent, dignified emotional depth to the whole Harvey Milk Project. And all that great acting is brilliantly filmed, Van Sant's style not imposing itself upon his movie, receding rather in a subtle canvas masterfully carved, amazingly shot and cunningly edited. Very good flick: entertaining, educating, touching, inhabiting...

Note: ~3.3.

Benjamin Button...

Benjamin Button (le film, pas le mec :P) habite l'esprit... That one last shot of Button, very very weird with all its twisted semiotics, feels still burned onto my retinae... But I must admit I still have a hard time figuring how much I liked the flick. For numerous reasons, the least of which is I expected to love it, mainly because I have a huge soft spot for David Fincher AND Brad, and their common endeavours (ok ok, I'm talking Fight Club here, obviously)... There's also the mere fact that I have watched a couple of great movies lately, and find myself unable, almost, to determine which one's the best at the moment; guess my cinematic criticism skills are a tad rusty ;-).

I have a feeling I could write an entire piece on that one last shot of Button, though...

Note: I will catch it again pretty soon I guess, and will then be able to give my note, but it's probably going to end up in the vicinity of a 3.

Edit:
Okay, I just love Salon.com's reviews, even though I do not always agree with them; part of the fun ;-). Concerning Button, I think Zacharek stroke right where it counts with her piece. Anyway, it epitomizes my gut feeling while watching it, as well as when pondering about it afterwards...

Owning Mahowny - How many?

Another case of getting "plot committed", even though I have been wanting to see that flick ever since I started playing poker :P. Been told a couple times that it was a must see "if I like movies and poker"... and cannot for the life of me help myself saying "People insist on calling it luck", lol.

The flick has nothing, NOTHING to do with poker... It's all about this compulsive pathological fish of a gambler, who uses his position as an account manager in a Canadian bank to pull a 10-million dollar fraud, pissing it all away in Atlantic City. Pretty decent drama flirting just enough with the expected cliches, held up by a Philip Seymour Hoffman who simply cannot seem to misinterpret any role he takes on. Oh, and John Hurt, in a Machiavellian casino manager... Priceless.

Note: ~4.2.

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Ok Ok, I was all emotional and all sold to the flick... And then I read this piece and, while I do agree it is mostly a nail-scratching melodrama of a flick, milking stereotypes and the o so ever pure childhood naivite, along with the blackest of black historical events of Humankind in a somewhat unscrupulous mannner, I disagree that it is vulgar and narrowminded... To me, it just... works... Might be because yours truly does have a weak spot for holocaust and WWII stories, and their emphasis on the importance of memory and remembrance, never forgetting those horrors (goosebumps just writing that, actually :P)... And for that matter, the last shot of BitSP is AWESOME. Just A-W-E-S-O-M-E. The lockerroom where Jews stripped down just before getting in the showers, with all those "striped pajamas" hanging all around the empty room, the camera ever so slowly zooming out from the door, almost still echoing with the shouts and the cries of the doomed men, women and children, and finally stopping with the door right in the middle of the frame, to proceed with the proverbial fade to black, but ever so slowly, making sure to leave that indelible mark both in our consciousness AND our collective psyche...

Sure, the flick does require a suspension of disbelief based on cinematic conventions, mostly because it IS a british studio film, and its Oscar contender most assuredly. Thus, everyone does speak with that brit actors accent bordering on pedantry... Sure, a couple of those money shots are cliches (the black smoke rising from the ovens... If I haven't seen this image a zillion times, I have NEVER seen it), but it still does work, especially because of that children's point of view... And the pacing of the whole thing is near pitch perfect, gambling on coming in hard and leaving us high'n dry very very quickly. All in all, I am not even sure the flick would not fall into a pathetic boredom fest of pathos were it not for that editing feat, actually...

It is still a very nice movie to catch...
Note (à la mediafilm 1 to 7, 1 being masterpiece, 7 being a bomb): ~4.3

The Wrestler & La décadence du rêve américain

Avec le nouvelle année revient la résolution, annuelle depuis maintenant bientôt 10 ans, de tenir le journal des films que je vois durant l'année... Ma meilleure performance remonte bien sûr à ma 1ère année en Etudes cinématographiques, mais bon, depuis j'ai découvert les outils de blogging :P... So here's another shot...

First flick of '09 was Aronofksy's The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei. Wow. Seriously. I tend to have very high expectations for such films, especially when everyone's raving about it, critics and fans alike... And, I mean, an Aronofsky flick about a washed out professional wrestler, really?!?!?

Well turns out it is fscking GREAT! The guy knows how to write stories man, and how to trigger emotional affects... His stuff's always a tad cliche but also soooo powerful, with the way he directs his actors, among all the film techniques he does master, that we have to forgive him his tendency towards archetypes :).

All in all, another great flick by the dude who gave us Pi and Requiem for a Dream. And he's supposed to direct the next remake of... Robocop... This got me curious, I must admit.

Note (à la mediafilm 1 to 7, 1 being masterpiece, 7 being a bomb): ~3.4.