One weird movie that either speaks to the universal human condition (in stop-action animation) or is a Rorschach blot to engage in how you will. Then there are those mask-faces with detachable parts. Or the voices that are all the same, except for Michael and Lisa. A movie doesn’t have to make sense to move you, or to qualify as art. Like Waiting for Godot. Charlie Kaufman’s mind just happens to be different.
Here’s an answer to the question, Why don’t they make movies about real people? Because not much happens in their lives and it’s hard to understand them talking. This entire movie hinged on the wife (Charlotte Rampling)’s discovery that her husband (Tom Courtenay) had never gotten over his prior lover. But since we didn’t see their marriage before this discovery, and it wasn’t clear whether the husband had dementia, it was hard to understand what the wife was going through – or why. The movie was remarkable for showcasing an older actress, but it’s unfortunate that she wasn’t more relatable. It also, in the attempt to be real, was very slow.
An absurd story with terrible acting (Domnhall Gleeson especially, but I could name others), with lots of violence and gore and amazing cinematography. You wonder first, how they could have shot this, and then second, why bother? Leonardo DiCaprio’s escapes from death were so unbelievable that they had no emotional impact. As for the dialogue and plot, it was if the director were writing in a foreign language. The conversations in Pawnee were no more convincing. Every scene I look back on, I want to complain about.
This movie was a test of your appetite for Jennifer Lawrence and her hairstyles: I loved her going in but had seen quite enough by the end. My Robert DeNiro fuse was quite a bit shorter and was exhausted almost from the start: his comic persona didn’t fit a character that wasn’t actually funny. Once more I felt struck by the curse of the “true story”: certain things made no dramatic sense, but since they (or something like them) actually occurred, the screenwriter apparently felt no need to justify them – Joy’s showdown with the Texas patent thief being most prominent. In retrospect, it’s hard to think of a single scene that rang true. It’s sad that the team that made Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle came up so empty this time.
A boring portrait of L.A. studio musicians that goes nowhere, despite – or maybe because of – a multitude of musical teases. Sort of how not to make a documentary. (Airplane viewing)
Annette Bening is a wonderful actress. Everything else is by-the-book as Al Pacino plays a Neil Diamond character trying to rescue his lost soul, or is it humanity, unconvincingly prompted by the unlikely (based on a true story) appearance of a letter from John Lennon. Lennon’s songs give the film a bit of undeserved heft. (Airplane viewing)
Gorgeous shot after gorgeous shot, in what feels like a Technicolor remake of Last Year in Marienbad. The dialogue is wading-pool deep, which made me wonder if last year’s The Great Beauty only resonated because it was in Italian. Michael Caine was pleasant, if unconvincing, while Harvey Keitel seemed to have wandered in from a different movie set.
As advertised, total escapist fun. The new droid is adorable, the sets are intriguing, the weird characters, humanoid and not, are engaging, and the story is ageless. The female lead is commendable: she’s strong, smart, has a British accent and is not required to show cleavage. Everyone else is adequate, but the movie comes alive when Harrison Ford shows up. The references to Wizard of Oz that were so prominent in the 1977 original make a welcome return. In substance, the movie was as nutritionally satisfying as a bag of popcorn – but equally enjoyable.
“How bad can a Quentin Tarantino movie be?,” we asked ourselves. The answer, it turns out, is “worst movie of the year, and most pretentious movie of the century.” It starts with a boring “Overture” by Ennio Morricone, just to link Tarantino with the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone. It’s shot in Panavision 70 and shown in “Roadshow” format, for no cinematic purpose but to link the film, we are reminded, with Ben-Hur and Lawrence of Arabia. The shots of the snowy setting aren’t particularly spectacular; they just make us feel cold. Worse, though, is the acting: Tarantino seems to have told his stars to act like they are in High Noon. The result is corn, the pace is like molasses, and the only actor worth watching is Jennifer Jason-Leigh. The plot, as much as we saw of it, was stupid. I should probably title my review, Fearsome Four, as we left, sighing relief, at “Intermission.”
A splendid period piece and a beautiful companion to Brooklyn, as the story of a young woman coming into her identity, here, her forbidden sexuality. Rooney Mara was wide-eyed and as captivating as she was captivated, her resemblance to Audrey Hepburn unmistakable in shot after shot. Cate Blanchett was elegant and austere, and if she seemed “stylized,” it was because we were seeing her through Therese’s awestruck eyes. I thought the ending would go the other way, but the plot was really beside the point. What remained was a portrait – two of them. (Smoking: 7 out of 10; not as constant as Trumbo, but to show us it was the ’50s everyone smoked, even where not allowed.)
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