Matt’s Week in Dork! (7/6/14-7/12/14)

    Not a lot of movies this week.  But I got some in, and some reading.  I also did a lot of prep work for some stories.  I just haven’t been writing the nitty-gritty of anything (outside of this blog) for some time.  It’s something I feel the desire to get my head back into, but I’ve been out of practice for so long.  It’s tough.

    On Sunday, I read Storm Dogs and Pretty Deadly.  One was good, the other kind of sucked.  Because of another book I’ve been reading, and not enjoying, I think I’ve been finding other things to read.  Probably the reason behind my recent spate of comic trades.

The Last Performance:  There are a few interesting bits in this film, but the story is kinda meh.  The main attraction is Conrad Veidt, and for fans, it’s nice to see him working his mojo.  The man can stare, with the best of ‘em.  Other than Veidt fans, though, this film holds little to recommend it.

The Ballad of Narayama:  Gorgeously produced, this film has the artificiality of a stage play, but the magical wonder of film.  The story looks at the simple life of country villagers who try to scrape out a living from the unforgiving mountains.  And one lone old lady, ready to take a spiritual (and suicidal) pilgrimage to a nearby holy mountain.  It’s also nice to see a film that feels like it’s set during that near-myth era of samurai, that has nothing to do with samurai at all.  Not a sword drawn in the whole film.  Quite good.

Pickup on South Street:  Though the ending is a bit wonky, this movie about a two-bit pick-pocket getting more than he bargained for is some classic Noir fodder.  A dizzy dame, some fist-happy cops, double dealing commies, and a heap of trouble.  Plus, Widmark is on fire as a relentless prick.  It’s wonderful.

Persona:  More the sort of thing I always thought of when I heard the name Ingmar Bergman, this meditation on the masks we present, the versions of ourselves we use when we’re around other people is challenging.  But it’s also captivating.  Typically gorgeous; the location work, the lighting, the whole thing looks amazing.  It’s charged with eroticism, but also with gut level discomfort.  I’ll certainly be revisiting this film, but it’s not one to just pop in on a whim.

The Robe:  The film assumes you already know the story of Jesus.  Probably not a bad assumption, but I always have a bit of a problem with a movie that makes assumptions like that.  It’s interesting, and there are some good performances.  But for a film that is so much about converting to being a follower of Jesus, there is precious little in the way of explanation as to why someone would.  Spiritual quest wise, this film lacked some important content.

Glengarry Glenn Ross:  Another of my cinematic resolutions for 2014 down.  The sad, stressful life of salesmen is presented Mamet style in this punchy little film.  Looking at it, you’d think it was made for TV.  But what it lacks in visual flourish or polish, it makes up for in performance and script.  Alan Arkin and Jack Lemmon are both very good.  But Jonathan Pryce and Al Pacino really had me.  Pacino is such a huckster, and Pryce such a sad-sack mark.

    Friday night, we headed out to The Alamo to check out the new Apes film.  Before the theater, though, we ate at Nando’s Peri Peri.  I’m definitely going to have to go back when there’s more time.  Because that shopping area is starting to open up, there are a lot of people, and the restaurant was pretty full.  I enjoyed the food, but didn’t feel like I had time to really enjoy the place or think about what I wanted to eat, or any of that.  Next time.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes:  Humans have mostly died in plagues and wars.  The apes, after having escaped into the woods at the end of the previous film, have set themselves up a new society and are doing pretty well.  Things can’t last, as the human survivors need resources that lay in Ape territory.  Here’s the thing.  This movie is pretty good.  And all the stuff around the apes is quite good.  The problem is that the human characters are kind of ridiculously stock, and at no point did I care about them or their plight.  The apes were interesting, and I’d have liked the film to focus much more on them.  In fact, completely on them.  I could have used way, way less human parts.  Visually impressive and well made, it’s a good film.  Maybe even a really good film.  But it misses the mark on being a great film.

The Last Wave:  I wasn’t in the right headspace to watch this film.  So, while I recognize that there were some interesting aspects, and I liked the performances, I just couldn’t get into it.  I think I’m going to have to revisit it while I’m more focused.  There are some powerful images, for sure.  And I like the Michael Mann movie type soundtrack.  I have a feeling this is a movie I'll really enjoy on second viewing, when my head is on straight.

True Detective: Season 1:  “You are like the Michael Jordan of being a son of a bitch.”  This is a beautifully made program, with lots of excellent elements.  The last episode spoils the milk a bit, but the overall show is quite good.  I love the references to Robert W. Chambers and his King in Yellow.  I wish it had gone a bit further.  I wanted to see the mythology of the murders explored.

    Saturday night, I forced myself to push through Aya: Life in Yop City, a book I’d been laboring through.  I had to skim much of the latter half of the book, as nothing seemed to happen, and that was becoming a bit much.  Sad, because the art was interesting and vibrant, and I thought the subject matter and setting could be really interesting.  I still do; but this isn’t.  I was fully planning on writing a review of this book.  But the more I look at it sitting there, the less of a crap I give, and the less I feel the need to revisit it.  We'll be discussing it this coming Friday night, and other than some variation of 'YAWN!' I've got no idea what to say.

-Matthew J. Constantine

Matt’s Week in Dork! (12/8/13-12/15/13)

    We Dorks are hardcore.  Mother Nature don’t scare us.  On Sunday night we headed to the Alamo, ‘cause no snow/ice storm is gonna stop us.  That began a rather beastly week for me, though.  Not a lot of sleep was had.  But I had some fun, and that’s what counts in this life.

Shadow of a Doubt:  Though by no means one of the greats in Hitchcock’s filmography, this tale of corruption sneaking into the innocence of small town America is quite charming.  Joseph Cotton is excellent as the charming, but twisted relative who comes to town, full of secrets and bile.  Childhood illusions are shattered and family is tested.  Again, it’s not amazing.  But it’s plenty good.

Design for Living:  This movie struck my fancy so much a few weeks back that I forced co-Dork Brad and his wife to watch it.  I can’t say enough good about its delightfully cheeky and dirty, pre-Code humor.  The actors are all fun to watch and the ending isn’t something that would have possible a few years later.

    Eat it, Nature.  Sweet Smell of Success wasn’t going to be missed because of a little ice.  Lisa, Brad, and I headed out to the Alamo to see this classic.  Sadly, others weren’t so brave.  Great movie that should be seen.

Sweet Smell of Success:  Mean dialog gets tossed around as a bunch of human sharks churn the water in a blood-frenzy of yellow journalism.  The exploits of a vicious little shit as he tries to stay alive in the skuzzy world of New York’s social/political scene.  Nobody is safe from the acid tongue of Burt Lancaster’s Walter Winchell inspired media monster.  Least of all his lapdog, Tony Curtis.

    On Tuesday night, Brad, Lisa, and myself were at the Alamo again.  This time for an advanced screening of American Hustle.  Another good time out at the movies with good company.

I was ready for some 70s fun.

American Hustle:  The 70s come alive in this tonally confusing con-artist flick.  From laugh-out-loud scenes, the film frequently descends into violence haunted threat.  There were moments where a facial expression would make me guffaw, only to expect that the next door to open might have bullets behind it.  The movie constantly feels like it’s going darker than it ever does, but that might even make the laughs that much stronger, that much more nervous.  The actors do a fine job, with Christian Bale and Amy Adams particularly impressing me.  And this is easily the best Jeremy Renner has ever been.  The music was excellent, and like the production design, not as gimmicky as the trailers led me to believe.

Fast Five: What’s big, sweaty, homoerotic, stupid, and wicked awesome?  Fast Five!  For me this is still the first film in the franchise, and I have no particular desire to explore the earlier films.  This heist epic features some of the most excellent stupid dialog, ultra-sincere family talk, and baby oil covered Rock ever committed to film.  I still can not express the surprise I have in myself for loving this movie as much as I do.  It’s one of the most stupidly fun things I’ve watched in a long time, and I have a smile on my face for most of its 2+ hour runtime.

    Wednesday night brought the monthly graphic novel club meeting, and the slings and arrows I’d been anticipating.  I had a sneaking suspicion I was going to be the only person who didn’t like Saga, and I was right.  The other opinions ranged from OK to great, but only I stood as a voice of hate.  And I do hate it so very much.  To me, it’s like country music or The Big Bang Theory.  I know that people like it, but I can’t figure out why.

    Thursday night, and another advanced screening.  This time, Brad and I headed into DC, to E-Street for the newest Coen Brothers movie.  I like trips into the city, especially via Metro train.  People watching is fun.  A good time all round.

Inside Llewyn Davis:  The Coen Brothers sure can spin entertaining and painful yarns about losers.  In the early 1960s, a folk singer and professional loafer is running out of couches to sleep on, out of money, and out of options.  But fate seems determined to teach him a lesson about responsibility.  There are scenes of powerful emotion, be it sadness or mirth.  And there’s a lot of that certain something that brings bent people like me back to the Coen Brothers again and again.

    After all of that, I needed to sleep.  Friday night, I was planning to come home and watch a movie (as always).  Instead, I stared at the wall for a few hours and passed out.  Probably for the best.  And with no plans Saturday, I was able to catch up on my viewing, anyway.

Passion:  Fresh from Cinemax circa 1992 comes this bland, awkwardly forced, sexually semi-charged thriller wannabe about corporate climbers who (we’re told) are really good at their job, but must backstab, betray, and murder their way to success.  They wear business suits and have meetings.  They have video chats and worry over getting that position in New York, so they must be upwardly mobile young women.  And there’s sexual tension.  I know there’s sexual tension, because the movie won’t stop saying it’s there (thankfully, because it would have gone unnoticed otherwise).  None of the characters are well thought out, and why they’re doing what they’re doing is vague at best.  And it all leads to a silly, bordering on offensively dumb ending.  Like Sam Raimi, I feel like De Palma is stuck in his ‘glory days,’ unable to grow as a director, unable to look beyond his once fresh sense of style.  That might be OK if the scripts were better.  But this would be Hitchcock script wouldn’t make the grade in a 70s porno without adding several more visits from the pizza delivery guy.  De Palma, come on.  Some part of me still enjoys the throw-back gimmicks, but you’ve got to do better.  A lot better.  The lady ballet dancer is quite cute, so the movie isn’t a total loss.

Jayne Mansfield’s Car:  A bunch of broken, sad people try to deal with their life and their sorrow.  The whole picture is shadowed by the wars of the 20th century and how each generation dealt with and thought of war.  It’s a great ensemble cast with especially strong performances from Billy Bob Thornton (who also directed and co-wrote), Kevin Bacon, and Robert Patrick as three WWII vets, each with his own war related demon.  It’s a family drama, with lots of awkward humor and fun little twists on expectation.  At the end of the day, I don’t think I connected with the movie as much as I’d have liked.  I think perhaps seeing it in a theater might have helped me be more captured by the glaring Southern Sun and the Vietnam era production design.  But a solid film, if not one I was especially enamored with.

The Living Skeleton:  Uh…OK.  So this movie is steeped in the gimmicky silliness of William Castle, and the moody noirishness of Val Lewton, but with the script of an American International Vincent Price vehicle.  And while that all sounds great, it doesn’t turn out as amazing as it should.  I liked the film, and there are some cool, creepy bits.  But by the end, I was having a devil of a time trying to figure out who anyone was, what they were doing, why they were doing it, and generally what the hell was going on.  It was kitchen sink storytelling, and when the mad scientist appeared…with no foreshadowing, I might add…I spent the rest of the film scratching my head.  Still, the lead actress, Kikko Matsuoka was quite pleasing to the eyes in a sort of Connery-era Bond Girl way (edit: she actually did appear in You Only Live Twice, apparently).

Winter’s Bone:  “Is this gonna be our time?”  Hillbillies got no money, mo problems.  The uglier side of mountain man poverty, drug abuse, crime and such.  Dumb people living small little lives of petty villainy and tainted hope.  The movie is well made, but these people are so pathetic and awful I have a hard time getting in their corner.  I’ve never much enjoyed the company of the terminally ignorant.  The actors do a good job, especially John Hawkes.  But I still found it all unpleasant to sit with for a couple hours.

Movie 43:  It definitely isn’t as consistently good as The Kentucky Fried Movie, or even Amazon Women on the Moon, but this sketch comedy movie does have its moments.  I think the trouble is that the humor is a bit too one-note.  Every sketch is pretty much just a variation on a gross-out bit.  Some of them are really good (neck-balls), others not so much (first period).  A weird number and variety of actors show up in small rolls.  Some are the sorts who will do anything that comes along, but others are A-listers with agents who normally keep them out of stuff like this, and that gives the movie a bit of extra awkward charm.

Genocide:  Atomic bombs and killer insects.  Trouble all around.  Like the other Shochiku horror films, this movie is all over the map, pretty wacky, and ultimately, not all that good.  The insect world is apparently annoyed with our constant fighting, and while it wouldn’t mind us killing ourselves off, it’s afraid we might take it with us.  So, all the world’s bugs are gonna take us out before we can do it to them.  I guess.  While some of the wacky ideas and scenes might be worth lifting for a better film, the overall piece never goes as crazy as it could or as interesting as it should.

    So, that was about it.  Along the way, I started putting some thought and effort into my plans for January, where I’m going to try to finally get an RPG up and running.  I’m still hungry for some Ars Magica, but I’ve got plenty of other games that could and should be a great deal of fun.  I’ll be very curious to see what everyone else will be into.

-Matt

Matt’s Week in Dork! (12/1/13-12/7/13)

    My Criterion insanity started to wrap up this week.  Not that I’m done.  But I’m done with focusing on them as much.  And I saw two more movies that are making this year’s Dorkies look less depressing.  I might be able to craft a top ten that I feel good about now.  And a month ago, that wasn’t the case.  Also this week, I finally took the plunge and put out an official inquiry to some folks about starting up a regular roleplaying game.  Come the new year, I’m going to stop just talking about it, and try to do something about it.

Bottle Rocket:  You can see a lot of hints of the weird artificiality Wes Anderson would become known for in his later films.  I think budget probably had a lot to do with it not being more odd.  It’s the tale of a bunch of idiots who want to be big time robbers.  There’s a cute romance, lots of awkward, and interesting music choices.  Again, you can see the Wes Anderson we all know forming in this early effort.  I’d been led to believe that this one wasn’t very good, but I found it charming and fun.

Little Miss Sunshine:  “You don’t speak because of Friedrich Nietzsche?…Far out.”  Extremely unhappy people come together in the ways that families do.  Then they all pile into a VW van for a road trip…’cause that’s a good idea.  The movie is full of awkwardly funny moments, but there are just too many, relentlessly bad things that happen to these people.  By about two thirds in, credulity had been expended.  It kind of has a turnaround near the end with a big F-You people with sticks in their ass.

The X From Outer Space:  With the success of Toho’s Godzilla and similar giant monster sci-fi films, several other studios attempted to get in on the racket.  Though the fun science fiction vibe of movies like Atragon and Battle in Outer Space is still there, the quality of monster effects is nowhere near as good as Toho films.  It’s weird watching a kaiju movie where it probably would have been better without the kaiju.  The story of the space explorers was more interesting than the rampaging bast.

Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell:  Were the Japanese pioneers of modern horror?  Was it in 1960s Japan that the idea of making a cast of awful people do the stupidest things possible in order to force the plot along was birthed?  This movie is evidence.  There’s some cool stuff, but everyone is so danged dumb that it’s hard to feel for anyone.  I kind of want them to get bone-snatched.  I like the end, and some of the nasty effects.  However, at the end of the day, the whole thing is kind of meh.  One particular complaint I have though, is the use of war photos.  I find the use of any stock footage or photos depicting real tragedy/death to be in poor taste, and this movie does do it.

The Scarlet Empress:  A crazy fantasy version of the rise of Catherine the Great, this movie is kind of dull when it comes to plot, but fascinating when it comes to performance and production design.  To say the sets and props are over the top would be a disservice to Sylvester Stallone.  They’re straight-up nutty.  I knew I was watching something different when it cut to the queen sitting on her throne, and it looked like something Ming the Merciless would have found a bit much.

Heaven Can Wait:  A funny, witty comedy that starts with a life-long lady’s man walking through the gates of Hell, to get his just deserts from probably the sweetest Satan in cinema history.  Satan is charmed by the old scamp, and decides to hear his life’s story.  From growing up a spoiled young man with an eye for pretty faces, our hero becomes something of a lothario.  He does try very hard to settle down with the amazingly beautiful Gene Tierney.  There’s plenty of fun, witty, wacky adventures at hand, and the film manages to talk about a lot of stuff, without talking about it.  The Hayes Codes were fully in effect by this point, after all.  It’s all quite charming.  The only nitpick I have is with the costume design on aged Tierney.  They put her in what may be the single ugliest wig/hairstyle I’ve ever seen.  It was distractingly stupid looking.  It looked like something a pseudo-Goth neo-pin-up wannabe would think twice about.

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones:  Brooding runway models battle crappy CG in this teen-fic crap fest.  No cliché is left un-mined.  Typical 16 year old girl pseudo-Goth hooker crap.  I work with books for a living, and the last 15 years or so have seen a huge increase in so called ‘teen’ fiction, which for the most part seems to actually be traditional romance novels, mixed with supernatural elements, and written by the equivalent of fan-fic writers you might stumble across in a Star Trek slash fiction fan page.  Rarely having the decency to put a new spin on an old story, they simply regurgitate the same boring plots with the same boring characters.  Change the term ‘shadow hunter’ to vampire or worse, highlander, and you’ve got any of a number of other insipid teen tales.  To top it off, CGI has somehow allowed terrible looking effects to get a free pass now.  Everything in this film looks like crap, but the werewolves are just pathetic.  We’re talking An American Werewolf in Paris awful.  The film is also over two hours long and the second half feels much, much longer.

Ew, ew, ew!!!

    On Thursday morning, I finished the second volume of Saga.  I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.  Everyone seems to love this comic.  I don’t get it.  It feels like it was written by a 16 year old girl who can’t stop watching Joss Whedon shows.  I’ll have to see what the group thinks of it at the next meeting of the graphic novel club.  Am I going to be the only negative voice?

    Before heading in to DC on Thursday night, Brad had me try an Irish scotch called Laphroaig.  It tasted like licking a hospital, and I wouldn’t recommend it.  If you soaked an ace bandage in anti-bacterial, then siphoned some rubbing alcohol through it, you might approach the taste.

The Great Beauty:  I am not a Federico Fellini fan.  Not at all.  But there are things in his work that I like.  With The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino has made a clearly Fellini inspired movie that captures those things I like, without getting too much of what I don’t.  It’s funny; it’s charming; it’s sad.  And surreal, quirky, ugly, and uncomfortable moments abound.  But it’s also nostalgic and beautiful.  Lead actor Toni Servillo is devilishly charming.  And the orgies of decaying flesh he surrounds himself with are lavishly unsettling.

Shogun:  This mini-series made quite a splash when it hit the airwaves back in 1980.  I was too young to be watching something like that, but I still managed to see a bit of it, and the bit I saw always stuck with me.  Seeing it in full all these years later, I can see why people were so into it.  But at the same time, it is way too long.  Richard Chamberlain is super-dashing as the sailor who gets stranded in Japan, and must learn the ways of this strange land in order to survive.  An amazingly Japanese cast (yes, even in 1980, it was unusual to get Japanese actors in Japanese roles…Oh, wait, it still is) does a fine job.  It looks good for a TV production.  There’s simply not ten hours of interesting material.  There’s a reason things are ‘lost’ when books are adapted.  A movie should take the essence of a book and tell a story; this film felt like they tried to get all of the plot-points in, while missing the essence.

Thor: The Dark World:  On a second viewing, this movie is still quite fun, but not nearly as tight as the first outing for the Norse god of thunder.  It’s still amusing, but lacks the light comic touch of the first.  The action is pretty good, the story is OK, but it doesn’t seem to build the universe a great deal.  Still, I’d come back every couple of years to watch another Thor adventure.  It’s still the best of the Avengers solo films.

A Field in England:  To use a cliché, this film is not for everyone.  The plot is rather simple.  Some men, deserting the battle field, find themselves in a field, meeting up with a ogre of an Irishman.  Mayhem ensues.  But the devil is in the details.  There’s lots of ugly, gritty, wallowing in the mud humor, along with some grim violence.  There are kaleidoscopic sequences of drug fueled madness, and moments of serine beauty.  If you like films like Valhalla Rising, Beyond the Black Rainbow, or Marketa Lazarova, you may find something in this.  If you like your movies straight forward and easy to watch, move along.

    I guess that’s it.  This next week looks like more madness.  As we’re getting closer to the end of the year, there are finally some good movies coming out.  My next couple of weeks are going to be madness.  Plus, there’s the meeting of the graphic novel club.  Yikes.

-Matt