short film reviews, criticism, and occasional musing.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Southland Tales (2006, USA)

Watching Southland Tales is something like reading a Philip K. Dick story, except without most of the humor and thoughtfulness. Sure, there are plenty of ideas in Richard Kelly's sophomore film - too many of them, in fact - but they're either quite broad or way too obscure. There's nothing really to sink your teeth into, as each idea has its brief moment before the movie skips along to the next one. As for the humor, I think I may have actually smiled once or twice, but most of the jokes fall flat - the overwhelming feeling while watching this movie is something akin to, "what the FUCK?" At one point I thought - "Well, all this movie is really missing is a musical number or two." I found myself eerily rewarded about twenty minutes later.

I think Southland Tales fails as a political satire because it's played too broadly, while simultaneously failing as a science fiction manifesto due to its complete and utter lack of a unifying concept. Kelly messes around with the space-time continuum yet again, as he did in Donnie Darko, while simultaneously playing with America's energy crisis, the war(s) in the Middle East, killer L.A. cops, the cult of celebrity, neoconservatives, and teen horniness. And in the world Kelly has created, few of these ideas know how to get along with one another very well.

Another thing I found completely bewildering was Kelly's intertwining homage to Kiss Me Deadly and Mulholland Drive (the latter of which already makes many references to the former). You can see the two films popping up everywhere, but to what end? It's all surface and little or no substance. (Hey, why not invite Rebekah Del Rio to sing the national anthem FOR NO APPARENT REASON. Why not have a midget carrying a blue sphere THAT'S NEVER EXPLAINED AT ALL.)

Honestly, I really wanted to like this movie. And I will undoubtedly see it again on DVD, especially if Kelly releases a version of the original cut (which runs nearly 3 hours - the theatrical version is closer to 2 1/2). I'm a fan of big, sprawling messes in general - hell, I own Magnolia - and I think I could have been brought around if even one of Kelly's genres had worked out. If it had been funny, or an interesting s.f. concept, or a black satire, I think I might have almost liked it. But again, Kelly mixes too much together without finishing a single thought, and while Southland is certainly audacious and sure to become a cult classic, it's just not anything you could dub a success.

Oh, and if anyone's still on the fence - Bai Ling and Jon Lovitz are both in it.

Friday, November 16, 2007

All the Pretty Horses (2000, USA)

Bad, bad, bad. Lordy, was this bad. I've heard rumor that Thornton has a 3- or 4-hour cut out there somewhere, which I personally hope never sees the light of day. He and his screenwriter took a great Cormac McCarthy book and turned it into a TV movie. While the acting is generally okay, most of the juice is sucked out of the characters due to an overreliance on the romantic plot. Sure, a longer cut might fix that particular problem, but everything else in the film is so incredibly overwrought that I couldn't help but start giggling once or twice - bad writing, bad lighting, and some particularly bad editing were three of the biggest culprits. (And don't gt me started on the egregious use of slo-mo. Three-fourths of this movie is filmed in slo-mo. I hope to never see a slo-mo horse sequence again as long as I live.)

Plusses? The cinematography is generally lovely, save for when the editor is busy chopping it to hell. And it's always great to see Lucas Black. Oh, and the director didn't make a vanity cameo. Really, that's all I've got.

By the way, if anyone can explain to me what the hell was up with that freakishly creepy imaginary tap dance sequence, I'd really appreciate it.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

No Country for Old Men (2007, USA)

I don't know if I'm surprised to find that the majority of the feedback I've heard from people who have seen No Country for Old Men has been negative. I saw the film on opening day at a tiny theater in Tempe, Arizona, and although it was only 2:30 in the afternoon, the room was packed. There was a whole lot of grumbling after the screen finally went black and the credits rolled - the woman next to me complained to her husband, "I didn't think very much of that." In the week since, I think I only know one person besides myself who DID think much of the movie, and like me, he's a Cormac McCarthy junkie.

Sure, I'm biased - the book was one of my favorite reads in the past few years, and I generally love the Coen brothers. Tommy Lee Jones is a natural Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, and Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem were both inspired picks. The cinematography is excellent and the sound is great (the Coens decided to do without backing music for the bulk of the film). The first two-thirds of the movie come nearly verbatim from the book, while the final third collapses events somewhat in order to finish at just a bit over two hours. But the feeling of the book remains at the end as Ed Tom tries to grapple with the new kind of evil that has invaded his territory.

So what exactly is the problem here? Why are audiences turning away - particularly audiences who waited in line to buy tickets for the film while it was still in limited release? I think that No Country is both more brutal and more opaque than anything the Coens have done in a while - the closest spiritual partner I can think of might be Barton Fink. Critics loved that, too (mostly), but you'd be hard pressed to find a lot of die-hard Fink fans out there. It's a grim film, and No Country is equally so, if not more. Frankly, I loved it. I thought it was a great take on a great story. I am happy to see that after a few years in the screwball ghetto, the Coens are back to making films that I actually want to see.

However, if you think No Country is a hard watch, wait just a couple of years - I read the other day that someone is going to make a film version of McCarthy's The Road. The producers are going to have to set up a crisis hotline when that one comes out.