Due to my erratic (to put it politely) updates, I’ve decided to go with an abridged review capsule format. Also, because I seemed to be handing out 9/10s to films like candy, I’ve changed my rating system to a 100 point scale. This method is a little more discerning, so bear with me if I […]
Author Archive for Eliot
Very realistic — but this has its downsides. Letting the actors improvise is certainly refreshing but it also makes the film’s exposition either clunky or plain slight. Director Peter Sollett did not give is script to the actors, giving them a general idea and letting them run with it. Though this method largely gives the […]
Skip this lame Joy Division biopic and get 24 Hour Party People instead, which covers the same ground in about 40 minutes with considerable more invention and insight. Where Party People is is infectiously exhilarating, Control is plain dreary — and not in a consistently depressing way (Control doesn’t have the balls to go down […]
No way around it, Yamada made the same damn movie twice. The Hidden Blade is basically the exact same film as The Twilight Samurai except for four elements:
1. The Hidden Blade has a much more developed love story, albeit crammed into the first act, giving the The Hidden Blade the faint odor of a TV […]
A comedy by Ingmar Bergman? Well to be fair, while Smiles is funny (the quips haven’t lost a bit of their bite), it also involves suicide, religious uncertainty, quasi-incest, unlikable characters — in sum, its still a thoroughbred Bergman film. He’s still finding his feet as a film director: some of the first act feels […]
This middle entry into Kieslowski’s Three Colors Trilogy never announces itself as a masterpiece but underneath its slight exterior lies a deceptively poignant meditation on the irony of luck. What makes it truly essential viewing is that it displays just how talented Kieslowski was with plot mechanics — twists that would otherwise seem farfetched and […]
I was never one for Almodovar’s loony, OTT melodrams, and even though Live Flesh is still a tad on the schematic side, its nice to revisit where he started the “mature” phase of his career. This phase can usually be marked by the first act involving some kind of freak debilitation or death. After this […]
Self Described as the anti-Tarantino film, Funny Games is perhaps Director Haneke’s most direct assault on American cinema. Taking the initial format of a home invasion thriller, Haneke seemingly never misses a beat when turning the audience’s expectations of top of their heads. An indicative example of this is early in the film is when […]
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (or America, Fuck Yeah!)
Published by September 23rd, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 CommentsFirst of all, I’ve got to tip my hat to American Cinema. I left it for dead, but my god have they bounced back this year. All the tired old Hollywood archetypes have been polished with admirable efficiency and originality: Zodiac (the most awesomely anal retentive and exhausting procedural I’ve perhaps ever seen), The Bourne […]
Fascinating exploration of what it really takes to be an artist — pitching the aggressively intellectual yet artistically hollow Henry against the painfully reserved closet poet Simon. The two draw out the best in each other: Henry bullies Simon into opening up and committing his strong thoughts to paper, while Simon helps Henry focus his […]
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