Category: Movies

I’m thinking Pixar and HBO won’t let this stand long.

Omigoodness. Tonight’s film was as good or better than last night’s (Sin Nombre), which was better than the night before’s (Paris, je t’aime), which was better than the night before that (The Band’s Visit) — and that first one was terrific.

Via DVD from Netflix tonight I watched Captain Abu Raed, a 2007 film made in Jordan, in Arabic with English subtitles. Abu Raed is an elderly widower who works as a janitor at the Amman airport. Neighborhood children mistake him for a pilot — a captain — when he retrieves a captain’s hat from the airport trash. A self-educated man, Abu Raed tells the children stories of places in the world; places he’s never been and the children themselves are unlikely to ever see. From there, the movie focuses on Abu Raed’s growing friendship with a female airline pilot and two of the children.

Superbly told, superbly acted, with a few surprises along the way. The movie is amusing, but dramatic, even heart-wrenching as it develops.

Beautifully filmed with wonderful views of Amman.

All four of the films this week were excellent and each highly recommended.

Via Netflix streaming I watched the 2009 film Sin Nombre (Without Name) tonight. It’s a U.S.-Mexican production filmed in Spanish. (The version I saw had English subtitles.) The movie won the dramatic directing award for Cary Joji Fukunaga and a cinematography award at the Sundance Film Festival last year.

A remarkable and well done film that portrays a part of the immigration story from the other end. Sayra, her father and uncle are attempting to migrate to the U.S. from Honduras to join the father’s new family in New Jersey. Willy, aka El Casper, is a violent gang member in Tapachula, Chiapas, Mexico. His loyalties are divided between the gang and his girlfriend, however, so that neither trusts him. This leads to trouble which ultimately puts him on the same train northward through Mexico as Sayra.

The acting is excellent throughout, the pace brisk but never hectic, the violence appropriate to the circumstances.

I gave this five out of five on Netflix. I thought it was that good.

According to background I read about this movie, many of the extras portraying immigrants in the movie were in fact immigrants. As director Fukunaga reportedly said, he didn’t have to tell them what to do.

Tonight via Netflix streaming I watched Paris, je t’aime (Paris, I Love You), a 2006 montage about love in Paris consisting of 20 independent five-minute stories, one after the other, created by 20 filmmakers with an international cast, among them Juliette Binoche, Steve Buscemi, Willem Dafoe, Ben Gazzara, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Bob Hoskins, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Nick Nolte, Natalie Portman, Gena Rowlands and Elijah Wood.

Not surprisingly, the 20 episodes varied considerably — some appealing more than others; some where five minutes was too long, some where it was too short, and some where it was just perfect. Several were touching; a few haunting.

In French with subtitles; some English.

Very, very enjoyable and different. Love comes in many forms.

Nice views and scenes from Paris, too.

I watched an amusing little film this evening, The Band’s Visit, a 2007 Israeli movie on DVD from Netflix.

Eight members of the Alexandria [Egypt] Ceremonial Police Orchestra are stranded in a small Israeli town, misdirected from their scheduled appearance at an Arab cultural center. Mostly in English, with some subtitles for the Arabic and Hebrew, an exchange takes place among some members of the band, especially its leader, and a few of the isolated, bored and lonely people of the community. It’s amusing and touching and a study in human nature without being predictable.

The Band’s Visit is slow paced, more short story than major motion picture. Nothing really happens.

But it’s altogether delightful.

A year ago after seeing a local stage production of “12 Angry Men,” I wondered why someone didn’t rewrite the play as “Twelve Angry Women.” It seems to me the dynamic, even if the same biases were represented among the jurors, would be quite different with an all-female jury. Well-done it could be a striking antithesis with the classic movie.

I’m still wondering, but I know I’m not skilled enough to do it.

We saw the 2009 film version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo yesterday at Guild Cinema. The film is in Swedish with English subtitles; the title in Swedish (as with the book) is Män som hatar kvinnor or Men Who Hate Women.

It’s a fast-paced but not frenetic 2-1/2 hour adaption, faithful to the book in the essentials. There’s something to be said for seeing the movie first (surprise element) and something to be said for reading the book first, as I did (having a clue what is going on).

All of the acting is remarkable; Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander is simply all you could ask. It’s hard to imagine another actress in the part after this; how’s her English?

A Bourne-type film without being manic. We liked it a lot.

Charles Pierce isn’t a fan of Field of Dreams. An excerpt:

This is supposed to be a film about fathers and son, and the connective generational tissue that is baseball. As such, it can’t even get Shoeless Joe Jackson hitting from the correct side of the plate? Nobody thought to check? And, even if you buy the conversion of the novel’s J.D. Salinger character into the reclusive black-activist played by James Earl Jones, having done so, do you think that character wouldn’t have noticed that there didn’t seem to be any room for Josh Gibson, or Cool Papa Bell, or Buck Leonard out there beyond the cornfield? Heaven, apparently, is as segregated as the 1939 St. Louis Browns.

Elsewhere, Dave Kindred discusses his top three sports movies. They are:

3. Raging Bull
2. Bull Durham
1. The Hustler

Each of the above links deserves a click to read the whole essay.

Thanks to Avelino for the tip.

As many as six trailers play before features at major chains, like AMC and Regal. The studio releasing a given film typically has automatic rights to two of these slots, and theater executives (in consultation with higher-ups from various studios) select the remaining four. Though theoretically studios and theaters could attach any trailer to any movie, they usually decide which releases to promote by using the “quadrant” system, which divides potential audiences into four different categories: men under 25, women under 25, men over 25, and women over 25.

There’s more info at Slate Magazine.

I’ve watched two French films recently thanks to Netflix, one on DVD and one via streaming.

I like the way many European filmmakers spend more time with their story then our often special effects besotted American directors. I cannot say that the films are better written — my language skills are too limited — but surely characters are better defined. Good European movies are often like fine wine to be savored, not beer to be gulped.

The first was the romantic comedy The Valet [La doublure] (2006), featuring Gad Elmaleh as the loser parking valet François. His lifelong love refuses his proposal, but right after he finds himself pretending to be in a relationship with a famous supermodel — played by the stunningly beautiful Alice Taglioni. It really doesn’t matter what happens — it’s a romantic comedy for pity sakes — but it’s amusing, and all the right things happen to all the right people. Elmaleh played a similar character opposite Audrey Tautou in Priceless [Hors de prix] (2006), also an amusing film I liked. He seems to have a lock on the lovable French loser role.

The second film was Séraphine (2008), based on the life of the French primitive artist Séraphine Louis also known as Séraphine de Senlis. Yolande Moreau plays the title role and she is simply magnificent. Séraphine Louis was a rough middle aged cleaning woman when her work was discovered by art critic and collector Wilhelm Uhde just before World War I. The film takes time — truthfully a bit more time than absolutely necessary, but we are savoring — to show us Séraphine’s daily struggle with life, including gathering the natural materials she used in her art. It’s simply a lovely film that I intend to watch again. Ms. Moreau won the best actress award at Cannes in 2008 and the film won several 2009 César awards (the main national film awards in France), including best actress, writing, music, cinematography, costume, and best film. Indeed.

Image is painting by Séraphine de Senlis.

Sheriff Greg Solano visits the set of True Grit to see Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon. Worth a click if you like Jeff Bridges or Matt Damon or the Sheriff (and who doesn’t?).

The DVD of Precious came out Tuesday and I received it from Netflix yesterday. We watched it this evening and I have just one question?

Why did they even bother to nominate those other four actresses for best supporting actress?

Mo’Nique was extraordinary in a difficult role. I’m shaking my head as I type just thinking about it.

Gabourey Sidibe gave a stunning performance as well in the title role. I have seen three of the five best actress performances now. I thought Meryl Streep was wonderful, but would have voted for Sanda Bullock before tonight. Now I’m not so sure.

If you haven’t already seen Precious, find the time.

Randy Newman has 18 Oscar nominations.

And just one win (for “If I Didn’t Have You”).

(Streep is two for 16.)

Yesterday I saw my sixth of the ten films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar — District 9. Seeing it didn’t change any of my predictions. I’m off to see Avatar later this morning — in 3D of course. I’ve already predicted it will win.

Yesterday, in addition to District 9, I also watched The Hangover, Raising Arizona and The Milagro Beanfield War.

I’m not entirely certain that getting an HDTV with a wireless internet connection (Netflix!) was a good thing.

Watch his facial expressions.

In anticipation of Sunday’s Oscar presentations, Jill has now seen all ten films nominated for Best Picture.

I’m a slacker, only five, though I expect to see at least two more before Sunday night. I have seen a couple of the other films with nominations — Crazy Heart, Julie & Julia and Star Trek.

The 10 Best Picture nominees:

Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air

Donna and I saw Crazy Heart last evening. Jeff Bridges will certainly clutch the best actor Oscar two weeks from tonight. He was excellent as the down-and-out country singer “Bad” Blake. (And does his own singing.) Maggie Gyllenhaal was quite good too, as the reporter who falls for him. She’s been nominated for the supporting actress Oscar.

The acting carries the movie, which itself is a fairly trite redemption story. Perhaps I’m especially jaded because I saw The Wrestler a few nights ago, and Tender Mercies again just last month, but the outline of Crazy Heart is predictable. I never can see what these lovely 30-something women see in the ugly, 50-something drunks. At least Mac Sledge has stayed sober — Robert Duvall (who won an Oscar for that performance) appears in this movie to help Bad change his ways. Colin Farrell is the rising country music star.

But it’s all about Bridges and that alone makes it worth seeing. Well, that and the music which made even this clutz want to get up and try a two-step.

And the New Mexico scenery. The film was shot around Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Even a supposed casino in Phoenix is really the Journal Pavilion in Albuquerque. The road from Phoenix to Santa Fe crisscrosses Albuquerque’s West Mesa forever. And the mall bar in Houston — it’s really a restaurant in downtown Albuquerque. It was like watching people we knew.

Update: The New York Times Magazine has an interesting slide show of Bridges.

“Synecdoche, New York” is the best film of the decade. It intends no less than to evoke the strategies we use to live our lives. After beginning my first viewing in confusion, I began to glimpse its purpose and by the end was eager to see it again, then once again, and I am not finished. Charlie Kaufman understands how I live my life, and I suppose his own, and I suspect most of us. Faced with the bewildering demands of time, space, emotion, morality, lust, greed, hope, dreams, dreads and faiths, we build compartments in our minds. It is a way of seeming sane.

The mind is a concern in all his screenplays, but in “Synecdoche” (2008), his first film as a director, he makes it his subject, and what huge ambition that demonstrates. He’s like a

novelist who wants to get it all into the first book in case he never publishes another. Those who felt the film was disorganized or incoherent might benefit from seeing it again. It isn’t about a narrative, although it pretends to be. It’s about a method, the method by which we organize our lives and define our realities.

Roger Ebert’s Journal (December 30, 2009)

The original aspect ratio utilized by the motion picture industry was 4:3 and according to historical accounts, was decided in the late 19th century by Thomas Edison while he was working with one of his chief assistants, William L.K. Dickson. As the story goes, Dickson was working with a new 70MM celluloid-based film stock supplied by photographic entrepreneur George Eastman. Because the 70MM format was considered unnecessarily wasteful by Edison, he asked Dickson to cut it down into smaller strips. When Dickson asked Edison what shape he wanted imaged on these strips, Edison replied, “about like this” and held his fingers apart in the shape of a rectangle with approximately a 4:3 aspect ratio. Over the years there has been quite a bit of conjecture about what Edison had in mind when he dictated this shape. Theories vary from from Euclid’s famous Greek “Golden Section”, a shape of approximately 1.6 to 1, to a shape that simply saved money by cutting the existing 70MM Eastman film stock in half. Whatever the true story may be, Edison’s 4:3 aspect ratio was officially adopted in 1917 by the Society Of Motion Picture Engineers as their first engineering standard, and the film industry used it almost exclusively for the next 35 years.

From CinemaSource, “Understanding Aspect Ratios”

4:3, which the motion picture industry called 1.33:1, was adopted by television beginning in the 1930s.

To compete with TV, movies began experimenting with widescreen aspects in the 1950s — 1.67, 1.85, 2.20, 2.39 (1.85 and 2.39 are the ratios currently used in theaters).

Today’s TVs and computer monitors however, are none of these. HDTV and newer monitors are 1.77 (16:9). A rectangle with that aspect ratio nicely accommodates any of the various motion picture formats (old and new), subject to some letter boxing.