Movie Diary 5/7/2013

The Great Gatsby (Baz Luhrmann, 2013). I think we can safely say that Baz Luhrmann goes for it. And in some strange, utterly misguided sense, that requires nerve. (full review 5/10)

Solaris (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1972). Also requiring nerve: grappling onscreen with the human soul. Say what you want about Mr. T, but he made movies as though his life depended on it.

Midnight’s Children (Deepa Mehta, 2012). Is there a match between the light-stepping ironies of Salman Rushdie and the well-meaning determination of Deepa Mehta? Not really, even if the movie is crammed with events and a handful of genuinely enchanting sequences. (full review 5/10)

What Maisie Knew (Scott McGehee and David Siegel, 2012). Henry James updated for the 21st century, decorated by an offbeat cast. (Plays in this year’s Seattle International Film Festival)

Iron Eden (Weekly Links)

Ironing out their issues: Paltrow and Downey

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

Iron Man Three. “The ravings of a bearded weirdie.”

Eden. “Rarely sets a foot wrong.”

The Reluctant Fundamentalist. “Ahmed, a quick, compact performer, is the main draw here.”

Renoir. “Difficult to deny the chocolate-box allure.”

On KUOW’s “Weekday,” I talk with Marcie Sillman about movies that take (or attempt) a nonverbal route; the conversation is introduced by Also Sprach Zarathustra, if you get the drift. It’s archived here.

Next Thursday, May 9, join me for “End of the Trail: How the Western Movie Rode Into the Sunset,” a free talk in the Humanities Washington Speakers Bureau program, at the Renton History Museum in Renton, WA. That’s at 5 p.m.; more info on the talk here, and the location here.

Check out two programs of short films at places where I affiliate myself: The Seattle University student film festival happens tonight at 7 at Piggott Auditorium on campus, and the Museum of History and Industry’s “History Is__” competition enjoys its gala awards evening next Saturday, May 11, at MOHAI at 7.

 

Movie Diary 5/1/2013

Fahrenheit 451 (François Truffaut, 1966). There are awkward things about Truffaut’s Ray Bradbury adaptation, but this movie has fascinated me since childhood, and it still has its odd mood.

We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks (Alex Gibney, 2013). New documentary on the many peculiar sides of the Julian Assange story; Gibney cleverly sets up the more stirring aspects of WikiLeaks in the first part of the movie, then muddies the waters with inconvenient realities.

Movie Diary 4/30/2013

The Undercover Man (Joseph H. Lewis, 1949). For the first time in my life, I’m living in a place with Turner Classic Movies. All you need is a wife who will threaten the cable company, and just like that, they can suddenly hook you up with the one channel you actually want, instead of the 500 you don’t care about. This is Glenn Ford as a T-man (he rarely seems all that undercover), directed by Lewis a year before the director’s Gun Crazy. The story isn’t very interesting, but Lewis gets as much dynamic going as he can.

Movie Diary 4/29/2013

Iron Man Three (Shane Black, 2013). Too much hardware (in every sense) to escape the committee-made feel, but it has moments. Better than the second one, anyway (get used to hearing that). (full review 5/3)

The Kings of Summer (Jordan Vogt-Roberts, 2013). My Side of the Mountain, 21st-century style? A delightful movie. (full review 6/?)

Renoir (Gilles Bourdos, 2012). Father and son, as in Pierre-Auguste and Jean, hanging around the estate in 1915. This film is very easy on the eyes and ears (photography and music by Mark Ping Bing Lee and Alexandre Desplat, respectively – hire those guys for your movie and you’re halfway there), which it better be. (full review 5/3)

The Reluctant Fundamentalist (Mira Nair, 2012). Getting hard to remember Nair at her best, and this is definitely not that. The lead is Riz Ahmed, who played the chief jihadist in the savagely funny Four Lions. (full review 5/3)

Frances Ha (Noah Baumbach, 2012). Not too difficult to warm up to what Baumbach and Greta Gerwig are up to here, although one regrets the difficulty of making black-and-white look black and white these digital days. (full review 5/24)

2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968). Pace even more important than image or sound – but maybe it’s just the monolith telling me to say that. The blu-ray looks pretty good.

Pain & Shine (Weekly Links)

Johnson, Shaloub, Wahlberg: big pain, no gain

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

Pain & Gain. “Engineered to drive audiences away.”

Arthur Newman. “Self-satisfied vignettes.”

Sun Don’t Shine. “A persuasive fever-dream.”

Bert Stern: Original Madman. “Childlike manner.”

On KUOW’s “Weekday,” I talk with Steve Scher about road movies, including new offerings Arthur Newman and Sun Don’t Shine. The talk is archived here.

Saturday April 27, I’ll be giving a talk for the King County Library System called “A Feast on Film: How Food Becomes Art in Movies,” at Kirkland Library at 2 p.m. The talk is free.

Movie Diary 4/24/2013

The Time Machine (George Pal, 1960). A very civilized film on H.G. Wells’ novel, with something slightly eerie going on in almost every scene. Maybe the Morlocks haven’t aged all that well, but who has?

Bert Stern: Original Madman (Shannah Laumeister, 2012). Stern’s iconic ’60s photographs are still great – even after you meet the man, who seems infantile and almost helpless in this documentary directed by his current companion. (full review 4/26)