The Kid Undefeated (Weekly Links)

Thomas Douret, Cecile de France, with bikes

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

The Kid with a Bike. “Actual empathy, the ability to imagine what it must be like to be in someone else’s shoes.”

Undefeated. “These are make-or-break moments.”

Kati with an I. “An unusual degree of un-selfconsciousness.”

On KUOW’s “Weekday,” I talk with Steve Scher and Marcie Sillman about Cary Grant, subject of an upcoming series at the Grand Illusion theater. The talk is archived here; amidst the pledge drive talk, the movie bit kicks in at the 20-minute mark.

At What a Feeling!, another week of 1980s films ends with a review of Ross McElwee’s classic documentary, Sherman’s March.

Upcoming: On April 10, I preside over a workshop in 826 Seattle’s series “How To Write Like I Do,” an adult writing series that benefits the mission of 826 Seattle. Mine is called “How To Make Articulate Noise,” and details can be found here.

This weekend, visit the Rotten table at Emerald City ComicCon, held at the Convention Center in Seattle. If you can’t make it, you can buy your Rotten books, including the new  Lost Diary of John J. Flynn, U.S. Agent, from the publisher. In fact you should probably do that now.

Movie Diary 3/29/2012

Whirlpool (Otto Preminger, 1949). At the middle of this movie is an interesting noir idea about wife Gene Tierney living falsely in a marriage to psychoanalyst Richard Conte because she has to maintain the perfect reputation; thanks to a pre-existing neurosis and the pressure, she cracks. But whew, what a crackpot story (José Ferrer as an astrologer-hypnotist) surrounding it.

At What a Feeling!, an equally crackpot project with an intriguing pedigree (director Nicolas Roeg and screenwriter Dennis Potter): Track 29, reviewed in 1988.

Movie Diary 3/28/2012

Mirror Mirror (Tarsem Singh, 2012). I can say that this movie is in line with the previous work of the director, and I did not care for the previous work of the director.

Goon (Michael Dowse, 2011). Some things Seann William Scott is just ideally suited for, and the role of a dimwit hockey enforcer is one of those things. Movie’s still a mess, but kudos to Liev Schreiber for applying the Fu Manchu mustache and Canadian accent. (full review 4/13)

At What a Feeling!, the black comedy of Danny DeVito’s Throw Momma from the Train is examined in a 1987 review.

Movie Diary 3/27/2012

Laura (Otto Preminger, 1944). Nothing against early noir contenders such as I Wake Up Screaming and Stranger on the Third Floor, but I propose you can see the moment the detective movie turns into film noir about halfway through Laura: just when Dana Andrews is mooning about Laura’s apartment in the night, wandering from room to room without an investigative reason, drinking her booze, falling asleep in her chair beneath the portrait. Now we’ve tipped over into the world of noir, and there’s no going back.

The Kid with a Bike (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, 2011). It’s amazing that the Dardennes have their kitchen-sink, handheld style, yet leave behind a real sense of mystery. This movie’s got that too, and is beautifully observed, even with the vague sense that maybe the filmmakers have been here before. (full review 3/30)

At What a Feeling!, we continue browsing 1980s reviews with the anti-Red Dawn, Rick Rosenthal’s Russkies, featuring then-Leaf, now-Joaquin, Phoenix.

Movie Diary 3/26/2012

The Cabin in the Woods (Drew Goddard, 2012). Well this, at least, is something, even if you don’t think the something entirely works. What a daft idea. (full review 4/13)

The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941). I think this was the first time I watched the Warners slimcase DVD of this cherished classic, and thus I find out just how GRAY the entire movie is. This is not the way the film is supposed to look, you know?

Fallen Angel (Otto Preminger, 1945). One thing that strikes you while you watch this movie is How did anybody think this was going to be a follow-up to Laura? But it certainly is weird and interesting on its own terms, and Linda Darnell and Alice Faye definitively chart the difference between the dark and the light.

At What a Feeling!, we follow last week’s closer, Akira Kurosawa’s Ran, with Rad, the 1986 film about BMX biking. I mean come on, people. Is anybody paying attention out there?

Hunger Games, Boy (Weekly Links)

Gaming Hunger: Banks and Lawrence

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

Hunger Games. “A very grim affair for a would-be blockbuster.”

Boy. “A delicate line between seriousness and goofiness – in other words, a familiar vibe for New Zealand movies.”

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. (Dead link; review below)

By Robert Horton

Allegedly “Salmon Fishing in the Yemen” is based on a satirical novel that was recently popular in Britain. If so, the satire has been watered down in the movie version by a severe case of the cutes.

The premise insists that a Middle East sheikh (Amr Waked) spends a fortune creating a dam on a local river in order to create a salmon run. Oh yes, the venture might also help the peasants with irrigation and crops and all that, but the sheikh is really a great fly-fishing enthusiast. He needs salmon, which, as you may have heard, are scarce in the desert. Two British government employees, played by Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt, are hired to speed that process along.

Although there’s a bit of sardonic joshing about how a British bureaucrat (Kristin Scott Thomas, in mischievous form) tries to manipulate this situation to make her Prime Minister look good, most of the movie plays out as a warm ‘n fuzzy experience. All men are brothers, and so are all fish, presumably. Even though the characters played by McGregor and Blunt are married to other people at the beginning of the movie, we can be forgiven for having the sneaking suspicion that they might feel some attraction toward each other, by benefit of being the two best-looking people in the film.

Mind you, having handsome and charming people at the center of the picture is not a demerit for a movie like this. When “Salmon Fishing” works, which it occasionally does, it’s because bona fide movie stars are in the house.

McGregor, in particular, understands how to get laughs out of his fussy, skeptical fishing expert, a tweedy chap who must be convinced that this Arab ruler isn’t just wasting his time (and wasting a few thousand salmon, which must be air-lifted in from cooler waters).

Director Lasse Hallstrom is a talented filmmaker who really has a hit-and-miss record with his projects, and ultimately this one counts as a miss. The more it aims to tie everything together, the more bogus it gets. The book was adapted by screenwriter Simon Beaufoy, who won an Oscar for “Slumdog Millionaire” and who jump-started the modern phase of feel-good British comedy with “The Full Monty.” He has a lot to answer for, starting with this project, which might have begun life as a sharp-toothed satire but ended up being neither fish nor fowl.

Gerhard Richter Painting. (Dead link; review below)

By Robert Horton

What does a painter actually do in his studio? How does that paint get on the canvas, why does he begin with yellow or blue, how does he know when the painting is finished?

A movie that allows you to sit and observe the process has automatic appeal for art mavens who wonder these sorts of things. So a documentary like “Gerhard Richter Painting” captures a process in a way that will fascinate anybody with an interest in the subject.

But there’s a problem. How does the observation affect the painter? After Richter paints for a while in his large studio in Cologne, he stops and talks to the filmmaker, Corinna Belz. He’s not sure he can go on like this, he admits. He can’t forget the camera’s presence, and it’s affecting his work. It’s even affecting the way he walks around the studio, so self-conscious is he about being watched.

This admission only deepens the film’s exploration into the mystery of art. And, eventually, Richter does relax enough to resume his process before the camera, but now we’re inside his head a little bit more. Belz fills in a few biographical details around the edges, and she employs footage of a younger Richter taken from previous documentaries. He came of age in East Germany, but left for the West in 1961; he never saw his parents again. We also see him alternately basking and shrinking from the demands of being an internationally famous artist, as photographers descend on him at a gallery opening.

By its design, this is not a portrait of the artist. This is fly-on-the-wall stuff. And what we see is Richter covering a blank canvas with great swaths of color, only to then muddy up his colorful abstracts by rubbing dark paint on the surface. In his career he has made art in many different styles, but here we watch him use a squeegee to alter the surface of his paintings. (Great detail: the sound of the squeegee as it scraaaaapes across the canvas.) The physical process is interesting to witness, but it’s also intriguing to guess at the psychological game going on: why is Richter going back for another round of squeegeeing? The painting looks pretty cool as is—what internal barometer is telling him it isn’t finished yet?

In interview asides, Richter addresses some of this stuff. But he doesn’t really know the answers, either. Which may have a lot to do with why his work—and this movie—remains so tantalizing.

When people say a movie is boring they say it’s like watching paint dry. This film challenges that assumption by coming pretty close to literally making you watch paint dry. And it turns out to be more suspenseful than you might have guessed.

On KUOW’s “Weekday,” I talk with Steve Scher about The Hunger Games and the problem with movies satirizing mass entertainment that must themselves be mass entertainment; it’s archived here, and the movie section begins around the 17-minute mark.

At What a Feeling!, the 1980s roll on with vintage reviews of Bob Clark’s (and, bien sur, Sylvester Stallone’s) Rhinestone, and Akira Kurosawa’s Ran.

Saturday night at 9:30 I will introduce (I think “make a case for” would be too strong) a screening of Israel’s first slasher movie, Rabies, at the Seattle Jewish Film Festival. That’s at the Uptown theater.

Reminder: on April 10, I will preside over “How to Make Articulate Noise,” an adult writing workshop in the “How to Write Like I Do” series at 826 Seattle. Please forward to writing-minded folk in Seattle, if you think that would be a good idea.

Movie Diary 3/21/2012

Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman, 2012). Stillman’s first film since 1998’s Last Days of Disco is even more in a world of its own, a blissful movie-real place that sounds and looks not quite like the one we live in. Which is just fine. (full review 4/?)

The Killers (Robert Siodmak, 1946). With Edmond O’Brien as the talky investigator and a green silk handerchief as its Rosebud, this movie has too many scenes of piecing together the story. But what you remember is all the stuff from the past, and the great opening ten minutes, which is enough.

Now that video has won the day at the movie theater, we might pause to redner tribute to the once-ballyhooed, now-forgotten feature that marked the first full-leangth title shot on video for theatrical release. So at What a Feeling!, a 1988 review of Peter Del Monte’s Julia and Julia.

Movie Diary 3/21/2012

Boy (Taika Waititi, 2011). Goofy-sweet Kiwi offering, about an 11-year-old so hungry for fatherly presence that he leaps at the sight of his irresponsible dad (played by the director) returning to his rundown Maori community. Waititi, director of Eagle vs. Shark and a participant in the Flight of the Conchords project, makes for a highly amusing ne’er-do-well. (full review 3/23)

Undefeated (Daniel Lindsay, T.J. Martin, 2011). Well, if only I’d seen this before I did my Oscar predictions. Of course this slaughters Pina in a ballot of documentary voters; Wim Wenders never stood a chance. And it’s very effective, voter sentiment aside. (full review 3/30)

At What a Feeling!, we’ve got a review of Hugh Wilson’s Rustlers’ Rhapsody, a Western spoof that covered familiar ground but corralled some laughs anyway.

Movie Diary 3/19/2012

The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, 2012). I think this is embargoed from critics’ comments, but $(!@^+)# (*&(*@# &)@  *(#. (full review 3/23)

Somewhere in the Night (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1946). John Hodiak wandering around with amnesia, as Richard Conte flits in and out, probably wondering why he wasn’t cast in the lead instead of Hodiak (with good reason). There’s a little too much plot happening here – that is, too much attention paid to it. Is there any other movie in which a character’s name is mentioned as frequently as “Larry Cravat” is mentioned in this film?

Criss Cross (Robert Siodmak, 1949). Along with its other strengths (including the unusually vivid sketches of completely peripheral types), I like the way the Burt Lancaster and Yvonne De Carlo characters truly seem to have known each other in the past (in fact, they were married); there’s a snippiness to their conversation that conveys some co-dependency avant la lettre.

Force of Evil (Abraham Polonsky, 1948). Something I’d forgotten about this movie is that it really hurtles along with a berserk, hopped-up momentum. John Garfield glides through it with great aplomb; in fact he resembles Gene Kelly in more ways than one (visually and vocally).

At What a Feeling!, Richard Donner’s Lethal Weapon 2 is reviewed, a movie that added Joe Pesci riffs and a bomb under a toilet to its usual routine.

Jeff de la Casa (Weekly Links)

Quien es mas macho?

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

Casa de mi Padre. “Muy bizarro, you might say.”

Jeff, Who Lives at Home. “The title could describe dozens of efforts in recent years, albeit with characters not named Jeff.”

The Forgiveness of Blood. “Each scene tends to be about one single meaning.”

The FP. “Training montage.”

On KUOW’s “Weekday,” we use Casa de mi Padre as a way of talking about movies that might have worked better as five-minute sketches. Archived here; the movie segment commences at the 18:50 point.

At What a Feeling!, a week of 1980s films set in exotic locations concludes with the notorious Shanghai Surprise, the film made by honeymooners Sean Penn and Madonna.

On Sunday, a DVD screening in the Frye Art Museum’s Magic Lantern series: Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Three Times; 2 p.m., free. Details here.

And, a book out this week: The Lost Diary of John J. Flynn, U.S. Agent is published by Moonstone; it purports to be a diary kept by one of the characters from Rotten, and I think it’s really not a bad little piece of genre prose styling. Sets the stage for Rotten #1 and what came next. Order it – and I mean now – from the publisher, or ask at a bookstore.