seenery

Movies/TV I saw last month...

About Schmidt (2002)—How did this one get away from me? Nicholson fatigue, I guess—I was dreading it from the DVD package. Much, much better than I expected.
The Bad Seed (1956)—The strain shows sometimes but mostly this is a great big kick, especially the ending so secret that the disclaimer is still appended not to say anything about it to anyone who hasn't seen it. So mum is the fucking word, believe you me. Recommended for October horror fests.


Day of Wrath (1943)—Very nice. Kind of a horror movie in its way. First time seeing this Dreyer.
Dirty Harry (1971)—I liked the raw look and feel of the '70s film stock but frankly the story bored me (except insofar as it shed incidental light on Zodiac, which was not that much). Our hero the main character of the title interested me even less (except insofar as I generally tolerate Eastwood better than most action stars).
Don't Look Now (1973)—Excellent classic horror, and a fine October choice.
Early Spring (1956)—Another nice Ozu with complicated family, friend, and coworker relations. Really nails a huge majority of the lives we know.
The Enforcer (1976)—Chief charm of this third installment in the Dirty Harry franchise is that it's short. It's typical both with all the stock bits of business—San Francisco color, lunatic psychos, Eastwood verbal tics (here, "Marvelous")—and of the strange complexities they bring to the continuing story of a rogue cop rooting out police corruption, in and around killing things dead with his big gun. Tyne Daly is a nice presence too.
Femme Fatale (2002)—Totally, flamboyantly ridiculous, which one could argue is nothing less than what we expect from De Palma, right? But I think I like it. This was my second time through.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)—Not very funny but interesting tones, feels almost stream of consciousness in a way.
Flatliners (1990)—Meh. I'd seen it before and wasn't impressed then either.
Floating Weeds (1959)—Very nice Ozu. Shot in color and looks good, with a nicely complicated story of family relations.
Hostel: Part II (2007)—My designated Halloween movie this year. Creepy and unpleasant, therefore right for the occasion.
I Love You, Man (2009)
Lost (s6, 2010)—I cannot believe this. I think they are still introducing new characters. Something tells me this will not end well. Oh, wait, that was all the reviews.
Magnum Force (1973)—Written by Michael Cimino and wouldn't you know it, there's a strained allusion to Russian roulette. Also, more homoerotic than I expected.
Man on Fire (2004)—This seemed a little sentimental for Tony Scott.
The Man Who Skied Down Everest (1975)—Documentary about Japanese skier Yuichiro Miura's attempt to scale and then ski down Mt. Everest. It was much lighter on the ski porn I was expecting and for which I had a real taste at the time this was made. When the actual skiing starts it's not exactly what anyone might have expected. It's quite amazing and riveting actually.
Miami Vice (2006)—I needed to set aside the associations with the TV show, which I never much cared for and here are ridiculous anyway, and instead just view it as surface and narrative, where I thought it was even more impressive a second time through.
Mulholland Dr. (2001)—Masterpiece.
Night Gallery (s2, 1971-1972)—The sketch I was looking for came up, called "Big Surprise," with John Carradine as a kooky old guy in the neighborhood who scares the kids. It could not possibly be as effective as it was 40 years ago, but I enjoyed seeing it again. I remembered it as one of their blackout throwaways, but it's actually a bit longer than that, and still pretty good, though with dead spaces, and I don't mean that in a good way. These Night Gallery ... sketches, I might as well call them ... range a lot in quality but can be very good as well as rather poor.
One Wonderful Sunday (1947)—Nice romantic tale by Kurosawa of love among the 20somethings of postwar Japan. I saw it first in the early '80s and still like it.
Only Angels Have Wings (1939)—Weirdly great. So studio-bound so much of the time and then literally soars on the few minutes of airplane footage. An interesting mess of a narrative too. Plus Cary Grant, pro.
Pontypool (2008)—Very nice confined-set horror piece about a radio crew in small-town Ontario caught in their tiny studio while some kind of zombie attack goes on in the local region around them. Terrific first hour and then wanders off into set pieces and attempts to explain a strained concept, but everything pretty much worth seeing I think, all the way through the credits. Happiest surprise for me all month.
Rhapsody in August (1991)—An odd meditation on the Nagasaki bombing of World War II, told many years later and with the tone of a family picture. I thought it worked surprisingly well.
Sergeant York (1941)—Why did I think this was about Canadian Mounties? A bit long but I liked it. Not sure Gary Cooper is up to the Li'l Abner role.
The Shining (1980)—Saw both the standard release and "European version," which is shorter. Longer is better this time. I'm more inclined to like it than I have been. The sense of place is pungent, the isolation affecting. The hallucinations and whatnot are well realized. The mood is nicely downbeat. It's more methodical than abrupt about its scares, and there's nothing wrong with that, except more often than not they just don't work for me. Example: Cranberry juice sluicing across the closed door of an elevator. YMMV.
Short Cuts (1993)
Solaris (1972)—Didn't like much. I never connected with Stanislaw Lem either for science fiction, which is where this is most disappointing for me—as science fiction. It's too often a talky chamber piece, with silence swapping in for talky. Maybe I will like it more another time now that my expectations have been adjusted, but not hurrying into that.
Stop Making Sense (1984)—Talking Heads: How do they make running in place so exciting?
Swing Shift (1984)—Did not seem memorable.
Sudden Impact (1983)—The '80s version of Dirty Harry, about what you'd expect. Lalo Schifrin's soundtrack makes the transition particularly well. Sondra Locke plays it very oddly but it's a tough role.
3:10 to Yuma (2007)
Unforgiven (1992)
Unstoppable (2010)—Very nice runaway train movie by Tony Scott.
Virtuosity (1995)—A patently ridiculous premise—villain from a virtual-reality game makes it into the real world and wreaks havoc—but more interesting than I expected because of the effects.