Man of Steal, Sightseers East (Weekly Links)

Henry Cavill: Supe in Smallville

Links to reviews I wrote this week for the Herald and Seattle Weekly, and etc.

Man of Steel. “Seriously damaged by the dullness at its center.”

The East. “Marling is serious enough to be unnerving.”

Sightseers. “One of the film’s most amusing strokes is the suggestion that these two lunatics might actually be in love.”

We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks. “Arrives while its story is in midstream.”

On KUOW’s “Weekday,” I talk with Marcie Sillman about Man of Steel, The Kings of Summer, and our expectations for summer movies. The conversation is archived here.

Thursday, June 20, I’ll be in Port Townsend, WA, giving a talk called “Hope in Hard Times,” a look at how a politically radical spirit found its way into Hollywood films in the early 1930s. The event begins at 7 p.m., is sponsored by the Jefferson County Historical Society, and held at the Port Townsend city council chamber. More info here.

Heads up for next Friday: The members of Framing Pictures convene at 5 p.m. at the Northwest Film Forum for another conversation about movies. The event is free; check in with our Facebook page and the NWFF site.

Movie Diary 6/13/2013

The Secret Disco Revolution (Jamie Kastner, 2012). Speaking as someone whose senior class song was “Get Down Tonight,” I had perhaps unfairly high expectations for this quasi-chronicle of disco, which posits an amusing alternate-history account of disco’s purpose. It doesn’t hang together, but good to hear from people like Maxine Nightingale again. (full review 6/28)

The Frankenstein Syndrome (Sean Tretta, 2010).  Oddly sober for a cheap horror movie, but still not very good. Ed Lauter did a few scenes.

Movie Diary 6/10/2013

Man of Steel (Zack Snyder, 2013). Big and loud, with an amusing final scene. But I have a few questions of the “Why did they do that?” variety. (full review 6/14)

Viola (2012), Rosalinda (2011), They All Lie (2009), The Stolen Man (2007); all by Matías Piñeiro. From Argentina, a young filmmaker who makes whimsical, elliptical films wrapped around actresses, Shakespeare, and 19-century political leaders. Working on an article.

Sightseers (Ben Wheatley, 2012). Crack comic timing from stars/screenwriters Alice Lowe and Steve Oram, cannily harvested by Wheatley. Fun in its dark-hearted way, but is it anything new? (full review 6/14)

Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2009). Pretty sure all that convoluted dialogue is connected to what Andrew Sarris said a long time ago in Seattle about how Hitchcock shows you exactly where everything is and how it’s done, so you then stop worrying about the plot and can concentrate on what the movie’s really about.

Kings We Tell (Weekly Links)

Hawke’s nest, The Purge

Links to reviews I wrote this week for the Herald and Seattle Weekly, and etc.

The Kings of Summer. “Fell directly into my sweet spot.”

The Purge. “If you’re going to stage an entire movie inside a house, it would be useful for the audience to know where things are.”

Stories We Tell. “This scrupulous approach is welcome in an era of sometimes navel-gazing ‘personal’ documentaries.”

No KUOW appearance this week; back on schedule next week.

I’ll be part of one of those panels at the Seattle International Film Festival; this one’s Saturday afternoon, June 8, at 1 p.m., and is called “The Media and the Movies: In Cahoots or at War?” Location is SIFF Film Center; more info here.

 

Village Knew (Weekly Links)

Onata Aprile, a modern Maisie

Links to reviews I wrote this week for the Herald, and etc.

What Maisie Knew. “Indistinct exteriors and generic rooms, as though we’re seeing things through Maisie’s unworldly perspective.”

Greenwich Village: Music That Defined a Generation. “Oddballs, eggheads and beatniks were encouraged, not ostracized.”

On KUOW’s “Weekday,” I talk with Marcie Sillman about sequels such as The Hangover III and Fast & Furious 6, and how they hang together; plus a few quick SIFF picks. The talk is archived here.

Here is a piece I wrote on Jules Dassin’s weird, arty 1966 film 10:30 P.M. Summer, published in the current issue of Film Comment – and online at the FC website.

Movie Diary 5/28/2013

The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986). Remains an unusual, haunting, very odd picture. It works as a study of how people change in relationships, and how the outward skin we wear does not always correspond to the inside. A movie that appears to have been directed by a scientist.

Greenwich Village: Music That Defined a Generation (Laura Archibald, 2012). Docu-strum through some of the folkies in the Village, early 60s. Reading Bob Dylan’s lovely Chronicles will furnish a more flavorful portrait, but this does its job. (full review 5/31)

Reap the Wild Wind (Cecil B. DeMille, 1942). It’s almost as though C.B. found a great backdrop for an adventure story (salvage boats in 1840s Caribbean) and resolved to people it with resolutely unlikable characters. A peculiar film, although the giant squid fueled some lurid childhood dreams for me.

Men Must Fight (Edgar Selwyn, 1933). An uncertain blend of pacifist sentiment and man’s warlike nature – with a futuristic bent, ‘cuz the thing is set in 1940. A second world war seemed like a cinch, even in ’33.

Furious Hangover Ha (Weekly Links)

Furious femme fighting: Carano and Rodriguez in an F&F smackdown

Links to reviews I wrote this week for the Herald, and etc.

The Hangover III. “Less aggressively nasty than the last film.”

Fast & Furious 6. “A supercharged appetite for wild action.”

Frances Ha. “Succeeds on its genuinely inventive rat-a-tat rhythm and Gerwig’s unpredictable delivery.”

On KUOW’s “Weekday,” I talk with Marcie Sillman (and callers) about the self-referential Star Trek Into Darkness, and whether it qualifies as a movie. The talk is archived here.

Wednesday, May 29, join me for “A Feast on Film: How Food Becomes Art at the Movies,” at 7 p.m. at the Lake Hills Library in Bellevue, WA, in which we speak of films that capture the transformative glory of cooking and eating. The talk is free.

Last month’s “History Cafe” session at Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry is now online. I talk with longtime Seattle do-everything film critic/editor/teacher/programmer Richard T. Jameson about some of the roots of the city’s movie arthouse scene; check out the conversation here.

And the exhibit I curated for MOHAI, “Celluloid Seattle,” is still up and running. The website is here; you can read an appreciation of the exhibit from City Arts magazine here.

Movie Diary 5/23/2013

Fast & Furious 6 (Justin Lin, 2013). The title onscreen, unless I missed something, is Furious 6. That might sound like the worst perfume name ever, but the movie itself, while ridiculous, executes its stunts and car chases with quite a bit of energy. (full review 5/24)

They Live (John Carpenter, 1988). Classical filmmaking applied to pulp, in a way that looks more brilliant than ever. Also read Jonathan Lethem’s book about the movie, which is pretty good for an amateur; Lethem is right to call the sunglasses-revelation scene “desert island time.”

Movie Diary 5/20/2013

The Hangover III (Todd Phillips, 2013). This is the third one of these. (full review 5/24)

Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982). I am slowly liking the movie a little more each time I see it. Still not at the masterpiece point for me.

A Lady Takes a Chance (William A. Seiter, 1943). For at least its first half, this is a really weird, crazy picture: Jean Arthur takes off on a bus tour of the West, finds rodeo cowpoke John Wayne, rolls around in the hay (literally, not figuratively) with him. The movie is grounded in absolutely nothing, but the performers are fun.

Viola (Matías Piñeiro, 2012). Just an hour long, mostly long takes, no story, and repeated rehearsals for Twelfth Night. I like it.

The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984). Seeing it again after a long, long time, one is reminded of just how much a B-movie this was. And still is.

The East (Zal Batmangij, 2013). An agent (Brit Marling) goes undercover to expose an environmental terrorist group, in a taut little exercise that gets a lot of things right. (Shows in SIFF.)

In the House, Into Darkness (Weekly Links)

Quinto-Cumberbatch-Pine; make of that what you will.

Links to reviews I wrote this week for the Herald, and etc.

Star Trek Into Darkness. “Maybe the next one could forget the catchphrases and the hyperlinks back to Star Trek history.”

In the House. “Ozon’s films tend to balance the sinister and the silly in gratifying measures, and he’s really on his game here.”

The Iceman. “A dreary wallow in the mire.”

Graceland. “Morales spares us nothing in pushing this corkscrewed story through its tight 83 minutes.”

A “What I’m Looking Forward To” piece on the Seattle International Film Festival.

On KUOW’s “Weekday,” I talk with Marcie Sillman about what I’m looking forward to at SIFF. It’s archived here.

Today at 5 p.m. at the Northwest Film Forum, join the critics of Framing Pictures for another conversation about movies. Today’s panel will sort through the Baz Luhrmann update of The Great Gatsby, an exciting new TV series, and some SIFF-talk. Check our Facebook page for more.

Last month’s “History Cafe” session at Seattle’s Museum of History and Industry is now online. I talk with longtime Seattle do-everything film critic/editor/teacher/programmer Richard T. Jameson about some of the roots of the city’s movie arthouse scene; check out the conversation here.

And the exhibit I curated for MOHAI, “Celluloid Seattle,” is still up and running. The website is here; you can read an appreciation of the exhibit from City Arts magazine here.