Comments on Nick's Flick Picks: The Blog: Backwards and Forwards: 2006

Colossal Youth is unfinishable.

2010-04-12T20:32:56.831-05:00

Colossal Youth is unfinishable.

I forgot to mention that I've only seen around...

2009-12-23T16:38:50.794-06:00

I forgot to mention that I've only seen around five minutes of Candy, but what I saw I found quite engrossing. The Ledger/Cornish/Rush combination is very appealing to me.

@Nick: Thank you for the kind words. And thank you...

2009-12-23T16:35:07.351-06:00

@Nick: Thank you for the kind words. And thank you for keeping your web site alive and kicking after all these years, and spotlighting work like Fur and Sherrybaby. These two films are great examples of interesting, risk-taking work that often falls through the cracks of the industry or gets quickly written-off by the public. Your web site is a great forum for films like these to be seriously discussed, debated, celebrated (or sometimes dismissed). Your blog/reviews/performance critiques are engrossing, informative, insightful and entertaining. And always very inspiring!

@Glenn: If only the Taxidermia poster had a...

2009-12-23T00:10:54.765-06:00

@Glenn: If only the Taxidermia poster had actually said, "A European Pink Flamingos"!

@CCW: I have to say, I appreciate how often you comment on some of the performances or films that I'm least expecting people to respond to. Your viewpoints are always really interesting! I absolutely agree that Gyllenhaal's Globe nod was kind of a great awards-season grace note, and I am with you on all points about Fur. I still think I might have overshot it a little, but you've reminded me that I did enjoy it on its own bizarre terms and might have had a defensible reason for doing so!

Trejo is such a treasure and so underrated. Like B...

2009-12-22T21:02:49.546-06:00

Trejo is such a treasure and so underrated. Like Bruce Davison or Robert Forster, he is an actor who can always be counted on to bring a high level of dignity and "realness" to whatever part he plays, big or small. I remember liking Gyllenhall's work in Sherrybaby quite a lot and was really thrilled she received a Golden Globe nomination. It's kind of a minor miracle she even made the cut, considering the film had little advertising and disappeared in the blink of an eye from the miniscule number of theaters it played in. I think it's one of the rare times in the last few years that the HFPA really "got it right" and honored solid work that didn't have a massive campaign behind it.
Where do I begin with Fur? It is quite a mess overall, but it also has some truly beautiful and striking moments that I really like. I don't think it deserved all the violently negative reactions it received, but since Arbus is such a beloved figure, I guess I can partly understand the hostility. Kidman's frozen forehead did bug me a little at times, but I really do admire her and Shainberg for taking a big risk that, I'm sure it's safe to say, hasn't paid-off for either of them, career-wise.

Of the films you have yet to see I'd like to h...

2009-12-21T03:42:49.459-06:00

Of the films you have yet to see I'd like to hear your reaction to Taxidermia, a movie that reminds me immensely of The Cell. Since we both have such positive reactions to that movie compared to the majority consensus, I'd like to see if your reaction meets my positive one.

A movie filled with such foul and filthy acts, yet isn't foul and filthy itself. It's merely a movie about people who happen to foul and filthy and take part in foul and filthy deeds. If that makes any sense. It reminds me of a European Pink Flamingos, really.

I don't know how "official" or "...

2009-12-19T05:10:12.324-06:00

I don't know how "official" or "expert" one can call my endorsement -- just the other day, a friend told me, in all sincerity, "You sound about as South African as Nicole Kidman in The Interpreter."

Do as I say, not as I do, etc.

A friend had a great solution to the cast's di...

2009-12-19T03:12:10.428-06:00

A friend had a great solution to the cast's dilemma in Adrift: wait three years, coax the baby out of the cabin by shouting, and get him (her?) to press the ladder button...

@Tim: I hoped you'd like that write-up! And I...

2009-12-18T18:59:43.731-06:00

@Tim: I hoped you'd like that write-up! And I didn't even mention the starving baby still on board, alone, whom they can all hear on the baby monitor but no one can get to.

@Brook: Those do seem like the best reasons for enjoying Notes, so I'm hoping I can get past all the scenes I disliked (Barbara dancing was just, the, worst) and the killer! lesbian! stuff and appreciate it in the way you do. I agree Dench is much better than the project is asking her to be. We sound pretty simpatico on Prada, too.

@Guy: I completely agree with that problem about Pan's. I was trying not to be so waspish as to reprise my old beef, "If they tell you not to eat the grapes, don't eat the god damn grapes!" but it's weird that her mistakes are almost as compulsory as her successes. Lovely to hear the affirmation on Good Shepherd, too, and your official endorsement of DiCaprio in BD. I'll admit I was curious as to your thoughts on that one, and on Damon, but I hate to be they guy who's all, "Hey, you're South African, what is your expert opinion?"

@Δημήτρης: You make a good point about The Lives of Others, and I'm happy to agree that it was an average commercial movie: hence my C, which perhaps deserved to be a bit higher. It's the same grade I gave to Pan's Labyrinth, I believe, and I like that the camp of skeptics on that one keeps growing!

See, I guess I don't have many of these proble...

2009-12-18T13:38:18.403-06:00

See, I guess I don't have many of these problems with Pan's Labyrinth because I saw the fantasy elements as all in her head to cope with the horrors of her situation. So, the idea that her tasks would seem too simple makes sense to me, since a little girl is going to dream up seemingly daunting situations that she can overcome relatively easily.

Besides, many of what she sets out to do in the fantasy realm doesn't succeed (Protecting her mother, for example). I don't know, maybe that's a poor defense of the film, I liked it.

What? There are people who didn't love Pan'...

2009-12-18T12:58:25.662-06:00

What? There are people who didn't love Pan's Labyrinth?? Thank God. I thought I was alone. I liked it but couldn't undestand why all that craziness.

But I disagree on Little Children and Notes on a Scandal. Especially the latter. After watching it for the second time, I loved it. And Dench was incredible! She would have probably won had her name not been Barbara but Elizabeth II.

About The Lives Of Others. I agree that it was a bit sentimental and conventional but perhaps it bothers people because a foreign film is expected to be more unconventional. I regard it as a very good mainstream film.

Oh yes, definitely a great write-up on Adrift<...

2009-12-18T07:47:49.335-06:00
Oh yes, definitely a great write-up on Adrift - it sounds exactly like what I like popular movies to do, even when the premise and characters are deceptively simple. On my rental list pronto.

I've also never been quite as sold on "Pa...

2009-12-18T07:09:04.390-06:00
I've also never been quite as sold on "Pan's Labyrinth" as I wanted to be -- though my concern lay less with with its politics (which, you're quite right, are disappointingly flat) than with its narrative mechanics. Ofelia's three tasks are achieved so perfunctorily, and with such minimal obstruction, I kept waiting for a second gear that never came. As a friend so drily put it after our viewing: "Yeah, she dies, but did she EARN it?"

Glad to see some defence for "The Good Shepherd," which I thought I was alone in admiring. I think Damon is really rather remarkable in the face of his miscasting, and I quite like Angelina Jolie in it -- which, from me, for Angie, is high praise indeed.

Speaking of Damon, having recently watched him struggle through "Invictus" (and, boy, was I struggling with him), I have even higher regard for the wit and precision with which Leonardo DiCaprio nails the bolshy-awkward demeanour of the archetypical white South African oke in "Blood Diamond." It's a much smarter performance than the movie surrounding it.

The Devil Wears Prada is a film that I enjoy immen...

2009-12-18T04:46:41.312-06:00
The Devil Wears Prada is a film that I enjoy immensely, but I do confess that I always turn it off after Andy walks away from Miranda in Paris. It just felt like that was the moment where the film should've ended. The remaining fifteen minutes does nothing for the film or for any of the performances. I also have a lot of anger for the whole friend sections of the film and how anti-career it seems to be. But I still enjoy it!

I find myself visiting Notes on a Scandal embarassingly often as well, and finding Judi Dench working against the movie quite actively; she makes Barbara a much darker and complex person than the film wants to allow her to be. You can almost hear her voice working against some of the ridiculous dialogue thrust on her in some voice-overs. I also had fun with Cate Blanchett in the part, it's nice to see her lose it in some scenes, and the director certainly wants to beatify her less than Kapur and Fincher have recently.

And what a great shout-out for Adrift --
2009-12-18T04:28:35.105-06:00
And what a great shout-out for Adrift -- such a good little film, gripping and surprising in all the ways you say. I was genuinely impressed with the cinematography, and how obnoxious it dared make almost all the characters: so it's even stranger when the rain comes pelting down and you start actually caring. Great endorsement, and a movie everyone should be renting when they're in the mood for genre trash that knows what it's doing.

@Colin: Well, I still love the sort of constant so...

2009-12-18T01:16:18.804-06:00
@Colin: Well, I still love the sort of constant sourness and pique of Quantum, especially when it starts seeming as though Judi's getting so peeved that she might have to have James put out of commission, one way or another. I kind of love that he's so bitter and petulant in his grief, despite all the mythic sangfroid, and some of the moments of action choreography are really inspired (though some assuredly are not).

Fair point about Andy & Miranda & Julie & Julia, but I only wish that J&J had had the cojones to bring its two characters together even once, to explore Julia's fascinating disapproval of her would-be acolyte. As for Avatar - I'm doing just that, in eight hours and 46 minutes.

@Daniel: You'll have a heck of a time bringing me around on Flags, but who cares... this rec for A Lion in the House is spectacularly up the alley of what I was hoping to elicit with this series. A fantastically personal endorsement for a fascinating-sounding and, apparently, a little-remarked film. I've already located two copies in the local library and will be sure to investigate, sooner or later. I'll reciprocate that, from the sound of your reasons for loving Lion, I think you would find Jennifer Dworkin's Love and Diane comparably engrossing and important. Hard to track down, but see what you can do.

(Oh, and apropos of nothing, when you get around t...

2009-12-18T00:54:37.118-06:00
(Oh, and apropos of nothing, when you get around to Avatar I really hope you watch it in 3D. Otherwise you might as well start watching colour films in 8-bit colour.)

Someday I'll bring the world around on Flag...

2009-12-18T00:44:39.116-06:00
Someday I'll bring the world around on Flags of Our Fathers, a film that's even more fascinating and probing than its (excellent) companion piece. It's Eastwood's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (Iwo Jima is his They Were Expendable.)

But I really want to suggest A Lion the House for your to-see list. It premiered at Sundance in the Documentary competition, and then played a few individual theatre bookings before playing on PBS. (It won an Emmy.) It's four hours, set in a pediatric cancer ward, following doctors, caregivers, patients and family members as they deal with the disease. Usually, if I have a DVD of a four-hour film, I'll break it up and watch part in the morning and part at night if I have the day free, but this was so gripping that I watched it all with about a half-hour break between the two parts. (Siberiade is the only other film of comparable length that I watched all at once.) Everything's there: The joy and happiness of days where the pain isn't so bad, the pain of parents and doctors and patients having to face tough decisions about their diseases and treatments. It is devastatingly sad at times, and I don't want to give too much away or oversell (it's a very modest film, and that's one of its virtues) it, but it's one of the few (only) films that I can say I'm a better, more empathetic person for having seen. When I put together my top films of the decade, this will most likely sit at the top. It's an absolute must-see.

Speaking of formal nuances in The Devil Wears ...

2009-12-18T00:44:23.262-06:00
Speaking of formal nuances in The Devil Wears Prada (a film that, frankly, could've used more of them): I've always loved how Miranda's "cerulean" speech, ending with "... from a pile of stuff," cuts away instantly to the shot of an egg toast hissing on a pan, as though in commiseration to the offscreen Andy. Ha! Although that scene continues with Andy complaining loud and long, irritating me no end. Honestly, is it not evident that The Devil Wears Prada, despite not occuring in two different timelines, is split almost identically to Julie & Julia? Both Andy and Julie even get that disgusting sequence where their socialite friends gab at a restaurant table over how miserable their pathetic metropolitan lives are.

And I'm one of those people for whom Quantum of Solace really put the deftness of Casino Royale's location shooting, narrative momentum, action sequences, Bond/girl exchanges and (it must be said) Daniel Craig exploitation into sharp relief, by being so completely inferior in all those aspects. (Plus nothing in Quantum had the simple charge of Bond chugging pepper-water and trying to configure a makeshift defilibrator while sweating bullets.) I really hope Bond 23 will be an improvement, and even Daniel Craig agreed; thank goodness the Vesper angst is out of the way.

Comments on Nick's Flick Picks: The Blog: Backwards and Forwards: 2006

Colossal Youth is unfinishable.

I forgot to mention that I've only seen around...

@Nick: Thank you for the kind words. And thank you...

@Glenn: If only the Taxidermia poster had a...

Trejo is such a treasure and so underrated. Like B...

Of the films you have yet to see I'd like to h...

I don't know how "official" or "...

A friend had a great solution to the cast's di...

@Tim: I hoped you'd like that write-up! And I...

See, I guess I don't have many of these proble...

What? There are people who didn't love Pan'...

Oh yes, definitely a great write-up on Adrift<...

I've also never been quite as sold on "Pa...

The Devil Wears Prada is a film that I enjoy immen...

@Colin: Well, I still love the sort of constant so...

(Oh, and apropos of nothing, when you get around t...

Someday I'll bring the world around on Flag...

Speaking of formal nuances in The Devil Wears ...