Alice's Restaurant (1969)

It chronicles the lives of a group of friends. Arlo is a musician. Ray and Alice buy an old church and open a restaurant in it. There is another guy who has psychological scars from the time he was in the Vietnam war. And Arlo's father is in New York, with a serious illness. They throw a huge lunch on Thanksgiving day. Arlo is drafted to serve in Vietnam, but will he pass the selection exams?

This is best seen as a chronicle of an era, I think, or the end of an era. The dullness in it is a consequence of its realism. And this realism, up to a point, transforms the dullness into emotional empathy. A mise-en-scene highlight is a wedding ceremony which is marvelously staged, with some awesome scenes of odd-looking characters. Reinforcing what I had said, the main character here is not Arlo, it's the late sixties in the U.S.. But even with great effort I don't see a great movie here.

Rating: 50

Funny Girl (1968)

Musical biography of someone named Fanny Brice. After watching the movie, I know almost as little of that real-life person as I did before watching the movie. Consulting the wikipedia article as I write this, I see that the film has nothing to do with reality, so I feel better.

The first half-hour or so of this is kind of cute, and definitely watchable. After that, the film proceeds to be a mediocre romantic story with very little distinctive features. The central dramatic point seems to be that Fanny feels ugly. A theme such as this is a very tough nut to crack, meaning that it would take a lot of talent and honesty to turn it into a good movie. This is not the case here and the musical numbers are mediocre too, with a few exceptions.

Rating: 31

Invictus (2009)

After the end of apartheid in South Africa, the newly elected president gives a lot of thought to the rugby world cup.

This is just unbelievably bad.

Rating: 1 (just because of the professionalism of the performers, otherwise it would be zero)

The Three Stooges: second batch

.. including the following shorts:

Hula-La-La (1951) [actually a cut version of only 7 minutes of length]
Uncivil Warriors (1935)
Grips, Grunts and Groans (1937)


So far all the shorts I have (re)seen are good.

Mononoke-hime (1997)

English title: Princess Mononoke.

An iron foundry plant situated in a forest area faces the opposition of the forest spirits.

This fantasy animation has a few marginal qualities, of which the most prominent one is the depiction of the characters in the foundry. Also, the design of the forest creatures is imaginative. As for the idea of "nature's revenge", it's a good one in principle. The film, however, becomes progressively dehumanized as it goes along. I found it engaging at first, but was bored at the end.

Rating: 45

Hour of the Gun (1967)

The film begins with the gunfight at the OK corral. Wyatt Earp goes to trial and is acquitted. Then begins a treacherous war that Ike Clanton wages on Earp. Their rivalry is founded on Clanton's opposition (and Earp's support) to a law that gives Easterners 'free range' or something of the sort. Earp's friend 'Doc' Holliday stands by him all the way through.

Austere Western about the difficulties of abiding the law in times of lawlessness. It's also about friendship and the loyalty it entails.

Rating: 53

La vie est un roman (1983)

Three narrative lines are intertwined. In 1917, a man conducts an experiment in a castle with the goal of imbuing his guests with a new mindframe. Sixty five years later an education symposium is held at the same castle, now turned into a school. The third narrative line is a fairy tale which may or may not be the product of some children's imaginations.

A second viewing of this film serves to refresh my memory. The film has beauty and intelligence, but I am not sure it could not profit from a more elaborate musical section. Its points are hammered down onto the viewer, through repetitious lyrics and suchlike devices.

Rating: 66 (unchanged)

The Three Stooges: first batch

Saw the following shorts:

Pals and Gals (1954)
Termites of 1938 (1938)
Three Loan Wolves (1946)
Hokus Pokus (1949)
A Pain in the Pullman (1936)
Gents Without Cents (1944)

When it comes to the Stooges, I can't say what I have or haven't seen when I was a kid. I certainly am seeing them with the original audio for the first time.

Panic Room (2002)

Some robbers break into a house and the house dwellers get into the "panic room" - an inviolable room designed for just such an occasion.

This is, on the whole, not a bad movie. Several people have complained about plot holes, and some of them make valid points. Most of these impossibilities are functional in the proposed diegesis. One of them is certainly not. It was pointed out at a user review on IMDB. Here it goes, word by word:

-beginning of quote-
A major flaw!, 11 March 2003

Author: delm from Vancouver


*** This review may contain spoilers ***


Plse note: spoilers below! I would have considered this movie to be a mediocre to fair thriller if not for one major flaw which ruined the whole movie for me. This flaw was the injection scene. Anyone who knows anything about diabetes knows that when someone is suffering from low blood sugar and verging on going into a coma the last thing you would do is inject them with insulin (which would just cause them to go into a coma that much faster and very likely kill them). Even if the syringe contained a sugar solution the film-makers should have known that to be the least bit effective this would have to have been injected directly into the blood stream not into stomach tissue. Not only is it insulting to diabetics everywhere that the film-makers couldn't even be bothered to get the facts right about this deadly disease, but this depiction could conceivably result in a tragedy. Anyone using this scene as a basic for trying to help someone who is suffering from low blood sugar could end up killing them. Other minor flaws with the movie: how could Forest Whitaker's character have know what Jodie Foster's character was doing when she was trying to ignite the gas, how likely is it that Jodie Foster's character would know how to reconnect the phone, pushing a light sofa in front of the door is not terribly effective in blocking the door which is made clear when Jodie Foster's character had no problem later in the movie in getting the front door open, etc., etc., etc. Very poorly thought out and executed. Shame on you guys.
--end of quote--

This is my second viewing of this movie. My previous rating was 35. I would gladly raise it a bit, but not after reading what this guy wrote (the medical facts of which, believe it or not, I knew, but was deceived by the movie all the same).

Rating: 35 (unchanged)

Umi wa miteita (2002)

English title: The Sea Is Watching.
Correct translation of the Japanese title: The Sea Was Watching.

Life in a brothel in old Japan. One of the prostitutes falls in love repeatedly. Another has an affair with a man who exploits her; she is courted by an older man.

Touching chamber drama about the difficult sentimental lives of prostitutes. The screenplay quite seamlessly joins and adapts two stories by Shugoro Yamamoto, who also provided source material for Red Beard, Dodesukaden, and Sanjuro.

Rating: 61

Paris, je t'aime (2006)

A series of very small films, each set in a different part of Paris.

Most segments were nice. The film fails to embody its title. Paris does not come across as particularly lovable, or, for that matter, even particular. Maybe the idea was "Paris, I love you, despite...", except it doesn't especially succeed at that either.

Rating: 50

The King's Speech (2010)

This is about a man with a stammer problem and all the royal affairs which lead him into kinghood, and then all the problems that his stammering causes him in his kingly duties. And, most of all perhaps, about the therapy he goes through.

I can't give a perfectly sure opinion about the cinematography of this film. What I saw was a horribly darkened, bluish thing, which for all I know may have been caused by a projection problem. My country is not very serious in what concerns the quality of services that the citizen pays for, so this is the sort of thing we are used to expect now and then. Now for the other aspects of the film. I would have watched it anyway, because the theme of stammering is a favorite of mine, and may in a broad sense be said to be the only theme I actually care about, aside from the one of laterality, which is related to it, and is covered in a very fleeting way by the movie. Other than that, it is an obviously silly production, not to be taken seriously either in the historical sense (read the wikipedia article and check out its "minor" historical inaccuracies) or as a dramatization of a medical problem and its therapy, or as anything else one might want to construe it to be. As a side note mostly to myself, I point out that the choice of the Hamlet soliloquy at one of the therapeutic sessions is thematically interesting, since it links stammering to indecision. Some other references (Othello, Richard III) are perhaps farther removed from the theme, but all three Shakespearean characters deal with some sort of personal inadequacy.

Rating: 48

Iron Eagle (1986)

A teenager rescues his father who was taken prisoner in a Middle East country when he flew in a contentious zone.

Ludicrous yet dull. Or vice-versa.

Rating: 35

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009)

A road show takes its customers on a psychedelic ride of sorts. One day they rescue a man from death and he accompanies them. Also, the owner must fill a contractual obligation with the devil.

Not much to say. The plot is weak. The film is all about the eye-candy sequences.

Rating: 20

Mary and Max (2009)

A lonely 8-year-old girl living in Australia picks a random name out of a New York phone book and writes to him. He happens to be a 44-year-old man who lives alone and can't relate to anybody.

A grim yet amusing film, with a remarkable visual design.

Rating: 69

Disgrace (2008)

In South Africa, a professor gets involved with a student. He is forced to resign and goes to live with his daughter in a dangerous country place.

An intelligent movie about a man who has to move from an unreal world (the University) to a real one. The film is mostly well done and it is hard to name one responsible for its merits. Both direction and screenplay seem very competent to me, and I haven't read the Coetzee novel, so I can't really say how good it is. This is probably a happy confluence (hope this word exists) of talents.

Rating: 75 (so far the best 2008 movie I have seen).

Rosemary & Thyme: In a Monastery Garden (2006) (TV)

In this episode, the duo is hired to reform the garden of a monastery for a visit of the queen. The monastery is ridden with corruption and a series of crimes occur.

This is one of the nicest TV series ever.

Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935)

The comic misadventures of an alcoholic man who has a dull job and is henpecked by his wife. He wants to see the wrestling match one afternoon and gets in a lot of trouble on the way.

A masterpiece of humor. This is pure Fields, he rules the entire film.
It is critic Dale Thomajan's 10th favorite movie of 1935.

Rating: 75 (5th entry on my favorites list of 1935)

Ruggles of Red Gap (1935)

An Englishman gambles his own personal valet on a poker game against an American millionaire and loses. The poor chap is made to travel to the U.S. with his new owners, sorry, I mean employers.

I think one can't help to make a distinction between the first half-hour and the remainder of this film. That initial part of it is very remarkable in its comicity; that comicity is not sustained, not in the same intensity anyway, afterwards. We, as viewers, are left in the following situation: if we find the situation of a servant being treated as something he is not - something of a higher value in the social order - comical, we are, in a way, being complicitous in the kind of prejudice and social organization which the film purports to denounce. Therefore, we are forced to take the film seriously, only allowing ourselves to find certain accessory elements comical. (The preceding considerations only give the directions for an analysis which should be developed further.)
This is the 7th entry in critic Dale Thomajan's top ten list for 1935.

Rating: 56