The stalwart leader. The tough talker. The man of God.
The wise-cracker. The fresh-faced innocent. These are the broad types you can
find in just about every American war movie. There are others, but these are
the five found in Fury, the latest
WWII flick and probably the most memorable since Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. Though it bears
some resemblance to that tale of a squad of American soldiers behind enemy
lines after D-Day, it falls somewhat short of both the storytelling and
technical heights achieve by it. Fury
also suffers the unfortunate fate of having to be compared to Band
of Brothers, which set the bar so high for WWII movies, I’m not sure I
can ever really enjoy another one.
A blog mostly dedicated to cinema (including both new and old film reviews; commentary; and as the URL suggests - movie lists, although it has been lacking in this area to be honest), but on occasion touching on other areas of personal interest to me.
Friday, November 28, 2014
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Whiplash Movie Review
I had the great privilege for a short time in my life to
be part of a musical ensemble that was led by a director who refused to settle
for mediocrity. I don’t have any memories of him praising our work or telling
us we performed well. Maybe he did sometimes, but that’s not what stands out.
What remains in my mind about those four years was his sense of striving, his
brow-beating us to work harder and achieve more, his sarcasm when we
underperformed out of laziness or weariness. Some might think of him as
somewhat abusive. There was no shortage of tears during the year and he was at
times prone to inappropriately berating his students. And we were just kids,
after all. But what we achieved musically, spiritually, and socially is
something that has gone unmatched in my adult life. A lot of students came out
of that experience encouraged to go on to music school. Some of them are
professional musicians. They all have him to thank in at least some small part
for it.
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
From My Collection: A Simple Plan Movie Review
My history with A
Simple Plan is very special. In 1998 I had seen lots of excellent movies
that I really admired, but had yet to find a perfect 10. On New Year’s Eve I
saw three movies. One of them was Sam Raimi’s A Simple Plan, a movie I didn’t have any significant expectations
for outside of being interested in Billy Bob Thornton and the premise of the
film: three ordinary men find a bag full of money. What should they do with it?
It was probably about halfway to two thirds of the way through when I had a
realization that the film was on its way to my standard of perfection if only
it could avoid any third act missteps. And then it made it. It arrived to the
end and Scott B. Smith, who adapted the screenplay from his own novel, had made
all the right choices and I stood in awe of this minor little film that was
simply astounding.
Modern Classic Movie Review: Aladdin
It had been a very long time since I’d last seen Disney’s
Aladdin. I was inspired to take
another look at it because of the tragically too soon death of Robin Williams a
few months ago. I’m not sure there’s any other Disney animated film that leans
so heavily on the voice talent of one particular actor the way Aladdin does. That’s not to say it has
nothing else going for it, but Williams’ voice work as the genie is so
memorable, it’s hard not to think of the film as a Robin Williams vehicle
rather than one in long and proud
tradition of animated feature films.
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
Nightcrawler Movie Review
I always admired Jake Gyllenhaal’s talent as an actor.
His performance in Prisoners
demonstrated a real step up in his game, after which I realized he had even
more to offer. But now he stars as Lou Bloom in Nightcrawler, which features a Gyllenhaal performance that blew me
away like I didn’t think possible. That’s pretty impressive considering his
body of work.
We first see Bloom at night, concealed in darkness. He’s
clipping the metal chain link of a fence. A security guard stops him. He
maintains a friendly, though slightly awkward interaction with the guard. We
think he might be able to talk his way out of the situation when suddenly he
attacks. Next he’s driving along, the back of his truck loaded with scrap
metal, including the chain link, and his wrist bearing the watch that he spied
on the guard. The minor violence of the scene leaves such an impression because
this young man comes across as so unassuming and physically harmless.
Friday, November 14, 2014
Primary Colors Movie Review
As an obvious companion piece to Wag
the Dog, which I revisited recently, I decided to take another look at Primary Colors, the 1998 film based on a
novel that was an embellished and somewhat fictionalized version of Bill
Clinton’s first primary campaign for the presidency. Wag
the Dog was a year earlier, but both strike at the heart of late 90s
political climate, albeit in very different ways. The first film has, in man
way, improved with age, while Primary
Colors has become a bit more dated. Wag
the Dog remains more relevant today than does Primary Colors. That’s not the fault of director Mike Nichols or
Elaine May, who adapted the screenplay (and scored an Oscar nomination, I
should point out), but it is a fact that can’t be avoided in any updated
conversation about the movie.
Sunday, November 9, 2014
Summer of Sam Movie Review
I can’t say with any certainty what it was like to live
through the summer of 1977 in New York City because I wasn’t born yet, but
Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam tries to
capture it, or at least some stylized and possibly fantasy version of it. It
was one of the hottest summers ever in the city with temperatures soaring above
100 degrees, leading to brown-outs and an eventual blackout. There was a serial
killer on the prowl, gunning people down as they sat in their cars at night.
Lee’s movie makes it seem like all the killings happened during those few months,
but in reality they started a year earlier and were well spread out
chronologically with only a couple of the shootings occurring that summer,
although Lee includes recreations of nearly all of them scattered throughout
the film.
Saturday, November 8, 2014
From My Collection: Miller's Crossing
The extent to which I thoroughly enjoy and absolutely
love Miller’s Crossing can hardly be
put into words. It is by far my favorite Coen brothers film even if I don’t
think it their greatest achievement. But I get a thrill every time I watch it,
and that’s about ten or a dozen times over a period of nearly twenty years. I
think Miller’s Crossing arrived on my
radar at a particularly impressionable time in my development as a cinephile.
It was pre-Fargo and so prior to the
Coens being almost household names. I was also just very recently enamored with
Quentin Tarantino, although had yet to discover Sam Raimi. I don’t even think I
knew about the Coens as filmmakers yet. Raising
Arizona had played on TV and I’d seen it, but I had no idea who was
responsible. There was no IMDb in my world yet.
Thursday, November 6, 2014
The World According to Garp Movie Review
I have so many memories from my childhood of my mother
watching The World According to Garp
that I think there must have been a stretch of time when it was on TV nearly
every day. I thought it a bizarre movie then and I find it a bizarre movie now.
George Roy Hill directed this adaptation of John Irving’s novel, which I’ve
never read. But I won’t let that prevent me from speculating on something I’d
be willing to bet the book does that the movie fails to.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
How'd I Do? 93rd Academy Awards Nominations Edition
I got 36 out of 43 in the top eight categories. That's 83.7%. Getting 19/20 in the acting categories made up for the fact that I went on...
-
This film will open commercially in the United States on 22 April 2011. Immediately after being born, an infant child is tattooed ...
-
As I rewatched Ridley Scott’s Black Hawk Down for the first time I more than a decade, two other war Berchtesgaden more than a year late...
-
There are those moments when going to see a new movie in the cinema can allow you to be a witness to a sea change in filmmaking. When The...