by Dean | Mar 20, 2012 | General
He may be a Christian, but Bono is a pretentious performer, and the filmed concert in U2 3D (2007) is often propagandistic. Admittedly, however, the 3D in this IMAX presentation makes the event–a U2 Latin American tour–even more exciting than it already is, and the crowd footage fascinates. The musicianship pleases, in my estimation–that of guitarist The Edge, bass player Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen Jr. As for the songs . . . well, “Vertigo” is a stirring number on disc, but in concert it sounded wretched. “With or Without You” is hardly good even on disc, but “New Year’s Day,” a stand-out, is indestructible. “Pride (In the Name of Love)” is catchy; it too sounded good.
Not so “Sunday Bloody Sunday,” worthless lyrics and all, around which Bono crafted a political didacticism about co-existence among Christians, Jews and Muslims–a message your average dedicated Islamist will fiercely reject. And there’s anti-war propaganda as well, which is fine, but U2’s obtuse, political Christian witness is not my kind of witness.
The music here usually sounds tuneless, but even on CD it’s not all that memorable. To be sure, there are some likable things about U2 3D. A lot of rock music fans will eat it up, notwithstanding, to me, it has little to recommend it.
U2 3D (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)
by Dean | Mar 14, 2012 | General
Why another movie about Moses, even from a Bible-series production company–Promenade Pictures? I don’t know, except that this Ten Commandments, from 2007, covers material well beyond the liberation of the children of Israel from Egypt. Not only are the plagues there, so is the constant carping of the Israelites in the desert, the heavenly provision of water and manna, the worship of the golden calf, and much praying by a harried Moses. In point of fact, it is a movie somewhat more about God than about the great Hebrew leader who follows Him, and this too makes it distinctive.
The dialogue is certainly less imaginative than that in Cecil B. DeMille’s film, but the Promenade Pictures TTC offers captivating, CGI-heavy animation. I like it despite the characters’ being quite robotic. God, by the way, is voiced by Elliott Gould! But it works.
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by Dean | Mar 8, 2012 | General
The Iranian film, A Separation (2011), is as splendid as all the critics have said it is. It is skillfully directed and shrewdly, fascinatingly written by one man: Asghar Farhadi. The drama–all about a shattering conflict involving two families–is full-steam-ahead and tragic, but not despairing.
One of the movie’s themes is the human inclination to use lies for protection, for a refuge. By no means does Farhadi condone lying, but he shows us circumstances in which people either lie or they are doomed. Another theme is that which the title points to: separation between family members, between husbands and wives, and what is wrought by this.
Not surprisingly, the Oscar for Best Foreign Film of 2011 went to A Separation. How come American filmmakers failed to produce anything even approximating this work?
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(In Persian with English subtitles)
by Dean | Mar 4, 2012 | General
The Washington politicians in Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 (2011) want a basically socialistic system for the U.S.–and they want greater power than they already have. They lead the nation in adopting the following view: altruism good, big-business bad; but this does nothing to restore a blighted America. The widespread use of passenger trains which I believe to exist in Ayn Rand’s novel exists in this film too, but here, in 2016, the trains are used because no one can afford air travel. The pols are letting the country slip into economic hell, with the worst possible legislation gradually forthcoming. For example, an “equalization” law prohibits people like steelmaker Hank Reardon from owning more than one business.
I’ve seen Atlas once in the theatre and once–and half of it twice–on DVD, and I’m ready to make my pronouncement: it’s a good film. Yes, it’s full of two-dimensional characters and it shovels out more information than your average person can absorb (which is why it should be seen more than once), but it’s also fresh and properly paced and near-cerebral. It’s talky, but not without overt drama. The allegation that the movie is ineptly made is largely false. Even most of the acting is more successful than I originally thought.
Here’s one more thing: Yep, leave it to Congress to come up with a name as banal (and stupid) as “anti-dog-eat-dog law” for a piece of legislation. Hopeless.
Directed by Paul Johansson.
(Photo: Taylor Schilling as Dagney Taggart)
- Image via Wikipedia
by Dean | Feb 26, 2012 | General
I am inspired by the success of The Artist to write about an even better silent film–1927’s It.
The title refers not to a sci-fi creature but to that dazzling human quality which entices members of the opposite sex, and herein Clara Bow enacts (outstandingly) a comely character with It. She’s a frisky salesgirl who falls for her handsome boss, and vice versa. Because of a misunderstanding, the boss thinks the salesgirl has been non-virginal enough to have given birth to a child and so he spurns her. The Bow character is taken aback by the boss’s failure to give her the benefit of the doubt . . .
Directed by Clarence Badger and an uncredited Josef von Sternberg (why did it need two directors?), it’s a well-made, charming, amusing rom-com and a perfect vehicle for Bow with her wholesome face and killer eyes. It’s very much a girl-in-love role.
Available on DVD.
Clara Bow (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)
by Dean | Feb 19, 2012 | General
A mostly silent film made in black and white, The Artist (2011) is a novelty piece which ought to have had a better plot. Its value lies in its details and its cast (Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo are as self-assured and winning as it is possible to be). There is another asset too: The Artist is moving.
No, I don’t believe it’s a masterpiece, but I’m glad I saw it.
Written and directed by Michel Hazanavicius.
by Dean | Feb 8, 2012 | General
Since I am displeased with the review I wrote for the 2008 French film, The Class (or Entre les Murs), I wish to supplant it with the following:
During the Aughts, Laurence Cantet adapted a French novel titled Entre les Murs for the screen. Called in the United States The Class, it’s a gem of a picture, set in a Paris inner-city school, which has no faith whatsoever in multiculturalism and very little in urban public education. The novel was written by the schoolteacher, Francois Begaudeau, who plays the lead role–that of schoolteacher Francois Marin–in this film. Though dedicated, Marin is not nearly as effectual as a pedagogue should be: the school is a multiracial semi-horror. There is constant disrespect and constant egalitarian sensibility. Absurdity involving meetings and student representatives paves the way for Marin’s losing his temper and telling two misbehaving girls, the student reps, that they behave like “skanks.” He never apologizes.
The movie invites us to wonder just what kind of country France will be in the future. The liberalism underlying multiculturalism seems unsustainable. Yes, you can get a student expelled from Marin’s school, but can you get a satisfactory education re-admitted?
Cover of The Class (Entre Les Murs)
by Dean | Feb 5, 2012 | General
Obviously there are severe limitations in the Paranormal Activity-videocam mode of moviemaking, and I wish never to see a picture made in this mode again. In Chronicle (2012), however, for all the severe limitations, it’s fairly free of hokiness.
Written by Max Landis, the son of John, and directed by Josh Trank, the film centers on three teens who unexpectedly receive a talent for moving things with their minds–telekinesis–and proceed to have a lot of fun with it. The top dog with this power is Andrew (Dane DeHaan), a friendless boy with a horrid home life, who nevertheless decides to stick a camcorder in other people’s faces (whether he knows them or not) and who finds it offensive that his nice cousin used to consider Andrew hard to talk to. Presented without pathos, the lad becomes desperate and hostile. Telekinesis gets very dangerous; it’s now a weapon.
The film avoids all blandness and predictability, and is somewhat more than a middlebrow indie curio. Like so many other entertainment movies these days, it finally exhibits way too much destruction and mayhem, but it’s not without smarts and thrills. It’s recommendable–more so, I think, than Paranormal Activity.
Now, no more camcorders.
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by Dean | Jan 22, 2012 | General
I decided to watch I Know Who Killed Me (2007) on DVD because a critic, Jim Ridley, at the Village Voice liked it and opined that moviegoers shouldn’t have overlooked it.
He’s nearly right. For over an hour this horror film by Scott Sivertson, starring Lindsay Lohan, is an intriguing bundle of nasty realism, and it does have the damaged Lohan’s magnetism. It’s unfortunate, then, that this flick which Ridley says was “sold as torture porn” ends up as weak as contemporary torture porn. The last one-third is rushed and ludicrous, with Sivertson’s flashy, gimmicky style always present. It could have achieved a gory marriage of Hitchcock and David Lynch, but no. I know what killed it.
I Know Who Killed Me (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)
by Dean | Jan 17, 2012 | General
The heroes of Western novels sure have a lot of problems. Martin Kelso, for example, is buried in difficulties and turmoil in Lewis B. Patten’s The Tarnished Star (1963), another sapid oater by the author of A Killing in Kiowa.
But . . . no problems, no drama. Once again, a conflict between homesteaders and cattlemen proceeds apace, but Patten usually avoids predictable action and even boring, tiresome characterization. E.g., Kelso’s father is a sheriff and a legendary man, but Kelso has to painstakingly push him to enforce the law against the hostile cattlemen.
Star is short and not actually conclusive, but it’s likable. Just as fun as Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.
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