Here are the movies I watched this week, lightning round-style:
On the big screen:
Undertow (David Gordon Green) He's 29 years old and he's already made three distinctly original, flawed but wonderful movies. I would be resentful and jealous if I didn't like what he was doing so much.
On video:
Miller's Crossing (Joel Coen) I've seen this a few times, but my wife (that's still weird to say) hadn't seen it yet. I have mixed feelings about the artistic worth of the Coen brothers, but I do love some of their movies and am always entertained. I like this one a lot.
King Lear (Jean-Luc Godard) Confusing as hell, frustrating, sometimes illuminating. As far as I know, this is Godard's only entirely English-speaking film, and the cast is really bizarre: theater director Peter Sellars, film director Leos Carax, Godard himself, Norman Mailer, Molly Ringwald, Burgess Meredith, and Woody Allen.
35 Up (Michael Apted) A film crew interviewed a group of British schoolchildren from different class backgrounds when they were 7, and director Apted has been back every seven years to see what's happened to them. All the films are compelling, but I found this one less interesting than either "28 Up" or "42 Up." Most of the subjects at the age of 35 were settled into a routine, most had small children, and had found a career they wanted to stick with, so it wasn't exactly cinematic dynamite. Still, to be able to see footage of people at ages 7, 14, 21, 28, and 35 is a rare opportunity that made me think about what I'm doing with my own life.
Summer (Eric Rohmer) This seems fluffy and inconsequential, and the heroine seems whiny and melodramatic, but it slowly turns into yet another excellent film from a guy who's made 70 billion of them, mostly with similar themes. How does he do it? Rohmer is in his nineties now and still making good films, the majority about young, attractive women and their ethical and emotional problems. And most of them are distinctly different from each other, funny, and visually exciting.
1 comment:
King Lear was ultra confusing, even for a Goddard movie, and after hearing a bit about its production circumstances, I'm pretty sure it was envisioned as a super "fuck you" to the producers. The most awesome, weird, and frustrating element was that Goddard spoke all his lines out of the side of his mouth, in English, with his gravely voice and French accent. Basically this ended up meaning that you could understand practically nothing he said. The most bizarre part about it was that, for the first half an hour or so, when he spoke he was narrating over other scenes, so you couldn't see his side-mouth technique. Not that it made that much more sense once you saw it, but it did look pretty awesome. Plus he wore this crazy wig made of wires and telephone cables and once answered a question with a fart. Sound like the King Lear you know?
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