12.30.08
Review: “The Wrestler”
Physically, Randy “The Ram” Robinson is a mass of over-tanned, bruised scar tissue and broken bones, crucified by life and his own decisions. A pro wrestling God in the 80’s, he was worshipped, lauded and lifted into a realm where few bashed-up fakers of physical brutality make it to. Now, some twenty years later, the pulverised shell of a man has traded Madison Square for VFW halls and miniscule arenas in New Jersey, surviving on the gusts of nostalgia that continue to blow his way from fans.
In a true, once in a life time junction between actor and part, Mickey Rourke stars as the has-been, a deity of yesteryear desperately clinging to possible strands of redemption, and his galvanising turn isn’t a comeback, per se, as it is the finest blend of real life pathos and artistic examination – a delicate yet physical performance that doesn’t just deserve to be inscribed into the history books; it’s the reason history books were invented in the first place.
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12.28.08
Review: “Flight of the Red Balloon”
Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-hsien’s lyrical French homage to Albert Lamorisse’s 1965 classic is as attentive and patient as the emblematic red balloon at the heart of its being, symbolic of innocence and an urgent yet resolute reminder of life’s fleeting stability. Without featuring a surfeit of narrative histrionics or theatrical melodrama, what we are shown in “Flight of the Red Balloon” is something far smaller and intimate – and Hou’s films are rarely appreciated for the stories they tell but rather in the elliptical, otherworldly ways in which he is able to evoke deep feelings without having to tell much of a story at all.
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12.26.08
Review: “Slumdog Millionaire”
With a kinetic surge of motion, emotion and a dash of sumptuous colour and kaleidoscopic interludes between past and present, Danny Boyle manipulates his uncanny ability to dance between genres and the highs and lows of life in the gutter with exhilarating, pulse-quickening effect in his latest ode to life, love and the destiny that binds it all, “Slumdog Millionaire.”
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12.25.08
Review: “Revolutionary Road”
Sam Mendes’ “Revolutionary Road,” first and foremost a brilliant adaptation of a landmark portrait of a marriage tearing apart at the seams penned by Richard Yates in the 50’s, is also an ironic conglomeration of definitive talent. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as a young, ambitious married couple whose idealism and desire to steer clear of conformity is slowly but surely breaking them apart, it is obstinately humorous to recall that at the very beginning of their careers the pair embodied everlasting love that just so happened to be torn apart by an unfortunate run in with an iceberg in James Cameron’s “Titanic.” Here, once again, their passionate romance hits icy, rocky waters but this time they have no one to blame but themselves.
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Review: “Encounters at the End of the World”
“Encounters at the End of the World,” a curious documentary by Warner Herzog, poses two congruent meanings. At once it is about a man’s personal journey out of the comfort of well-defied map lines to South Pole and at the same time it intimates the demise of mankind just as any other major species will come to be extinct at one point or another.
There has always been a serenity to Herzog’s well-researched pessimism, mostly because it is pronounced in the company of otherworldly explorations into the vast beauty of nature and glimmers of good in the human condition that celebrate said wonders over exploiting them. It is here, in the void of the Antarctic’s blisteringly white intensity, where past and possible future collide with the majesty of the divine and the philosophical; it’s the world as seen through the accidental but remarkably controlled lens of Herzog.
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12.24.08
Review: “My Winnipeg”
Guy Maddin’s self-proclaimed “docu-fantasia” that is “My Winnipeg” is first and foremost a patchwork of fabrications and absurdist declarations pertaining to his hometown that he was commissioned to make a documentary about; Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. His eccentric tribute to his lifelong dreamland – snowy, sleepwalking – is essentially a tribute to his own psyche, after all it is the place in which he was born, as a baby, as an artist, as an indulgent, critically acclaimed filmmaker.
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12.23.08
Review: “Man on Wire”
For a man like Philippe Petit, a tightrope walker with grandeur dreams and the belief he can infuse them into his magical reality, the world itself isn’t even enough. Dreamers like him dare to go further, higher, until they reach the pinnacle of dizzying manifestation and literally touch the sky and live life on the edge against all logic and lead by their own example.
Gliding fearlessly over thin pieces of wire suspended in his own backyard and across various buildings in his home country of France, the majority of his life was spent in preparation for his ultimate fulfilment; dancing on air between the World Trade Center towers with nothing but a metallic cable and a life’s worth of dreaming preventing him from falling to a fathomable demise. Any sane person, meaning anyone who has never dared to dream, would beg the question “Why?” – And as a flamboyant, mysterious Petit profoundly illuminates; there is no why.
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12.22.08
Review: “Gran Torino”
Profusely growling at the sight of just about anything he can’t stand, which is ostensibly a lot, Walt Kowalski adorns an aura of Clint Eastwood’s most iconic role to date; Dirty Harry. After alluding to the fact that “Gran Torino” may be the legend’s valedictory performance, it makes perfect sense the film bares an eerie state of reflection of Clint’s past as an actor and how his traditional methods stack up today – under his own direction.
In that regard, “Gran Torino” is an effective, straightforward mixture of past and present conundrums saturated with ruminations of the ways and means of yesteryear without becoming maudlin. It is quite possibly the most perfectly modulated film of the year and a testament to Eastwood’s unwavering virility as something of a Hollywood hero who has always been obsessed with heroes of a very different type – the declination of the American man.
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12.21.08
Review: “Wendy and Lucy”
It doesn’t take long for the minimalist beauty of Kelly Reichardt’s stoic yet emotionally gripping “Wendy and Lucy” to register as profound. What does take a little longer to uncover is how Ms. Reichardt is able to convey this amount of contradicting lyricism with a mere murmur – which is almost what her latest film is – and in just over an hour of complete unpretentious, evanescent observation than most films summon in double the running time and double the amount of spoken words.
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12.20.08
Review: “American Teen”
Although it feels like I have been waiting my entire high school career to get the chance to watch Nanette Burstein’s “American Teen,” I guess now would probably have been the best time to watch it, seeing as my final year of high school begins in less than a months time. The majority of critics who have reviewed the Sundance-premiered documentary, more like all of them, took it as a chance to reflect on just how little changes in terms of high school hierarchy over the years have taken place - because it’s just so relatable. So the nostalgic glow and comfort of knowing that the trying times of their youth are well over would have made for a entirely different viewing experience than my own.
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12.19.08
Review: “Gomorrah”
Roberto Saviano’s controversial condemnation of the Camorra crime family and its radiating influence on the city of Naples, which has caused him to go into hiding, is given an ostensibly rough rehash under the cautious control of Matteo Garrone and a multitude of writers including Saviano himself in the Grand Prix-winning “Gomorrah,” which is a rare modern gangster expose in that it never stoops to soften its ferociously dangerous focus nor does it exploit using familiar tactics or glamorisations.
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12.18.08
SAG Nominations Are Doubtful
There are a few awards bodies each year that I take seriously, the guilds being the closest thing to the Oscars in my mind. Of course, they can also be an Oscar prognosticator’s best friend. In turn, the Screen Actor’s guild have taken a serious liking to the acting powerhouse that is “Doubt,” with lead Meryl Streep, as well as Viola Davis, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams all scoring individual nominations alongside a collective nomination for best ensemble. Trailing just behind it were “Milk,” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” scoring three nominations apiece. I am disappointed by the lack of love for “Revolutionary Road.” Leo DiCaprio and Michael Shannon should have been nominated too – in fact, I’d say it deserved Best Ensemble over “Frost/Nixon,” but that’s just me. And with that, I give you the SAG nominees [AwardsDaily]
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Review: “Milk”
“You gotta give em hope”
As a suited Sean Penn casually charms a disheveled James Franco in a subway station to the point where just moments later the two are alone in bed, eating cake and pondering their existences and will for change, it becomes clear as daylight that “Milk,” directed by Gus Van Sant, is not a stiff period biopic as we have come to expect from the genre. Instead, the significant life of the first homosexual elected to major office – Harvey Milk – that ended tragically in 1978 at the hands of Dan White (a carefully composed Josh Brolin) is given a well-deserved live-action affirmation as sensuous and sensitive as they come.
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12.17.08
Review: “Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father”
Saying that “Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father” is one of the most overwhelming true tales of the extraordinarily powerful nature of friendship, love and loss and one of the most genuinely breathtaking films that one could ever hope to have the pleasure of watching is doing the film is great disservice. In fact, reviewing such personal films always seems rather pointless because there are certain occurrences and the emotions that come along with them that, when interwoven as nature intended, can’t possibly be conveyed using words. They have to be seen and felt, and even the feelings that result are hard to express coherently.
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12.16.08
Review: “Australia”
A Baz Lurhmann film is never a film so much as it is an experience of excess and schmaltziness wrapped up in a package meant for a select few, his devout fans. Lurhmann has always had an eye for aesthetic opulence and detailed visual sumptuousness, and a shamelessness that is hard to disregard. His theatrically inclined ‘Red Curtain’ trilogy introduced us to his ability to put on quite the show; his turn as the helmer of an epic tale of romance in the heart of the land down under asserts his interest in modernizing classic fables as a thing of the past. Now, he’d rather amplify them.
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