With that, I crossed nearly three weeks off the calendar, not leaving much time for the movies. I would say, "How sad!" But the Olympics were some of the funnest in recent memory (note: It'll be tough for anything to beat my favorite Olympic memory, the 1992 American women's gymnastic team, headed then by Kim Zmeskal and her three whip-backs floor routine (the tumbling pass at counter 0:40) in Barcelona. Yes, her overall performance was anticlimactic after the World Championships, but she had an unreported stress fracture on her ankle at the time. She is still golden in my book), and even more than the competitive spirit of sports, Ms. Kerpius longs for the quadrennial battle between our beloved/begrudged two parties in politics, and had an exhilarating jolt of energy brought forth by Barack during the DNC. Who could have imagined the extent of the spectacle--and it was not an empty one either. I can't remember a time when a convention (for either party) carried so much momentum, and I think we can strike that up to the candidate himself. So you can see why the movies got pushed back in my queue of viewing priorities. The six movies I snuck in, I am pleased to report, were all fantastic, all movies worth watching again. The month ended rather well, then, didn't it?
Ten - (2002) - DVD
Seen: Saturday, August 2, 2008
Well, I've got a favorite Kiarostami film. Ten, released in 2002, follows a divorced Iranian woman driving through the city with the companionship of several characters, not all of whom are the finest company. Her son, probably the most compelling of the bunch, is erratic and angry, sympathetic to his father's side of his parents' divorce, leaving his mother with few ways to quell his frustrations. The camera is obtrusively placed at the front of the car's dashboard--it's impossible to get away from it; but at the same time the woman's gestures and words never seem rehearsed either, leading us to believe that that obtrusive camera eventually dissolves from her consciousness. In the course of her conversations with her sister, an old woman, a prostitute, and her son again towards the end of the film, we get a sense of women's rights in Iran, and how these politics influence everyday life. Ten is astonishingly easy to watch. It's the kind of movie that despite its spare minimalism reveals a vast amount of humanity.The Blacklist: Volume I - (2008) - digital projection
Seen: Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Listen to me, do not fuck with the woman pictured at left. If you don't know her, her name is Susan Rice. You might be saying to yourself, "What's this lady with the hot pink lipstick got on me?" Everything and your mother. She is the senior advisor on foreign policy for the Obama campaign with nerves of steel and a wit to match. Every profile in The Blacklist: Volume I is valuable its own right--and it includes an array of world-class personalities ranging from Toni Morrison and Colin Powell to Chris Rock and Zane--but in Ms. Rice's interview, she is a hardcore force. Elvis Mitchell arrived at the Gene Siskel Film Center for a special screening of this HBO presentation during the Chicago Black Harvest Film Festival, introduced the movie and stuck around for a Q&A. The Q&A was the best I've had and nowhere was the typical film buff in site. The audience was almost solidly black, and maybe that point shouldn't matter, but it does. In fact, I think because the audience was predominantly black, it spoke to the unrestrained energy with which we greeted the film. And the Q&A was not focused on formal filming techniques and production-related questions, but about the black experience in general. This was the sharpest most dense course in black history I think you can get. I left with a great sense of optimism. Strike that up to the most down to earth, yet solidly brilliant critic, Elvis Mitchell, too. He made our night, he talked with us, not at us. This was truly a communal experience. It's what life and the movies are all about!
Step Brothers - (2008) - Film
Seen: Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Hands-down, the funniest movie of the year. Indeed, in the great words of Montell Jordan, this is how we do it! It's the comedy that keeps giving back. After the show I caught a rerun of Letterman who had Ferrell on the program, the short clip alone of Step Brothers put me in stitches--these jack-assey scenes just get funnier the more you watch them. And for more thoughtful praise of the movie, I liked what Sweeney said about it here.Boy-A - (2008) - Film
Seen: Thursday, August 14, 2008
As my very serious critic friend pushed the door open to depart the theater after our screening of Boy-A, he noted after mild deliberation that it was "solid." Agreed! Though personally I have more affection for it. It's a fiction film that feel a lot like a documentary at times, particularly when Jack (Andrew Garfield), the reformed adult newly released from juvenile hall, converses with his counselor about life outside prison. Mostly, though, the story is heartbreaking. For a kid who was falsely accused of murder, locked away from the rest of his adolescence, and finally released into a world that won't cater to his still child-like needs, it's a tough road. The film stock relays a very warm, gritty texture. There's a unpleasantness to the boy's story that makes you heartsick that it happened at all.Mr. and Mrs. Smith - (1941) - DVD
Seen: Sunday, August 24, 2008
Because I liked the remake of Mr. and Mrs. Smith by Doug Liman in 2005, I figured I ought to see its source material from the venerable director Alfred Hitchcock. Off the bat the cast of the '41 version beats the latter day remake: Carole Lombard, perhaps the greatest comic actress in film, and the adorable, chummy Robert Montgomery. Together on screen Jolie and Pitt were a fun, energetic duo, but when you're borrowing that dynamism from the best there's no competition.Tropic Thunder - (2008) - Film
Seen: Saturday, August 30, 2008
It was a good summer for jack-ass comedy, yeah? Here's a happy chat with Ben Stiller and critic Elvis Mitchell on The Treatment.
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