Dang! Movies! Whoop!

Here's the movie roundup for the weekend.
I saw The Five Obstructions (Lars von Trier/Jorgen Leth) at the Alamo Drafthouse Village on Sunday. Von Trier is a weird case. I don't know what to make of him. I love his movies. A lot. But most of the critics I like either intensely hate his films or have deep problems with them. Usually several people in the theater walk out. A lot of my friends hate his films. The most common criticism is that he is a sadist who loves to see women being tortured (e.g. "Breaking the Waves," "Dancer in the Dark," "Dogville"). Maybe they have something there, but I'm not sure. I found the three female leads in those films some of the most interesting women characters in recent movie history. And, yes, they went through absolute hell, but show me a film where the main character isn't being tortured in some way, and we'll be watching...what? Anything? Maybe "My Dinner With Andre," but the audience is being tortured in that case. Ba-dum bum ching! But seriously, folks. "Five Obstructions" is more of an academic exercise, an experiment, and the point is not really whether it succeeds or not, but whether it actually is attempted. On this count, I think the film is worthwhile and deserving of a look.
I watched these on video:
Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero) I have to watch this every couple of years. I was 11 years old when I first saw it, behind my mother's back at a friend's house the weekend after she stopped me from renting it because it was rated R. It's one of the best horror movies I've ever seen and, besides that, just a great movie. It's funny, smart, beautifully made, disgusting, scary, and fuckin' awesome.
The Home and the World (Satyajit Ray) This is an intriguing little drama set in 1908 about an Indian woman who has been kept in seclusion by first her parents, then her husband. Her husband, a progressive liberal, decides to let her out of the house for the first time in her life and allows her to meet his friend, a radical political activist and mooch of her husband's fortune. What happens next is overly simplistic and a little predictable, but the movie says a lot with the actors' body language and subtle glances, and it was compelling enough to keep my interest.
Swing Time (George Stevens) This is a great Ginger Rogers/Fred Astaire musical with a ridiculous plot that functions as an excuse for a lot of fantastic dancing and funny jokes. And how in the hell was Fred Astaire so graceful with that weird hydrocephalic light-bulb of a head?
Year of the Dragon (Michael Cimino) This movie is a colossal piece of shit. Cimino as a visual filmmaker is exciting and unique. Cimino as a writer of dialogue and story and director of actors is a bombastic hack. The latter Cimino drags the former Cimino down in this miserably ridiculous crapshack of a film. It's hardly a surprise that Oliver Stone co-wrote the script. It shares Stone's penchant for hamfisted political sermonizing functioning as dialogue, horribly written female roles, and overblown bombast as far as the eye can see. It doesn't even make sense. It's obvious the script was much too long for the movie because the editing makes little sense, important characters are introduced only to disappear from the movie entirely, and scenes are nearly over before the viewer even knows what he's supposed to be seeing. The female lead, Ariane (yes, just Ariane) is one of the worst actors in the history of any kind of moving picture, and, yes, I am including home movies and student films. And why the hell is Mickey Rourke's character "the most decorated cop in the city of New York" when his policing skills consist of screaming at his chief, getting everyone around him killed, and rushing into places without a warrant so he can punch and kick suspects in the head? (As a sidenote, why is the lead male character in every mainstream American film the best blah blah in his field. Ben Affleck is the best lawyer in the world, Greg Kinnear is the best scientist in the history of science, Bruce Willis is the best cat burglar we've ever seen, shit like that. I can't take any movie seriously with a premise like that.) On the plus side, the movie had some "so awful they're gold" one-liners from Mr. Rourke. Here are my favorites:
Bad Guy: You're a dead man.
Rourke: I'll live long enough to piss on your grave.

Rourke, to Ariane: I hate everything you stand for. So, why do I want to fuck you so bad?

Rourke, to his police cadets: I've got scar tissue on my soul.

Rourke, also to his police cadets: Any cop I catch taking bribes, I'm gonna punch you in the mouth.
Female cop: What about the women?
Rourke: You better bend over.
(all the cops cheer)

Rourke, complaining to his fellow detectives about the heat the chiefs put on his renegade ways: The honchos are going apeshit.