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Thursday, July 12, 2012
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
my woody allen favorites
Woody Allen's latest, To Rome with Love, is a bit of a misfire.
Like a higher brow Valentine's Day, the movie is clunky and the multi-character rom-com plotlines don't really work cohesively. But looking over Allen's ouvere, it's pretty impressive how many films he's made, and many of them so different from each other, but all with his indelible stamp. Here are my faves:
"Thus begins Sleeper, Woody's 2001 (actually, it's his 2173), which confidently advances the Allen art into slapstick territory that I associate with the best of Laurel and Hardy. It's the kind of film comedy that no one in Hollywood has done with style in many years, certainly not since Jerry Lewis began to take himself seriously. Sleeper is a comic epic that recalls the breathless pace and dizzy logic of the old two-reelers." - Vincent Canby
I guess this is a given. Annie Hall is a classic, enduring comedy, full of memorable scenes and featuring Diane Keaton and her breakthrough fashion. It definitely has a different edge to it seeing it after moving to New York!
"This is a movie that establishes its tone by constantly switching between tones: The switches reflect the restless mind of the filmmaker, turning away from the apparent subject of a scene to find the angle that reveals the joke. Annie Hall is a movie about a man who is always looking for the loopholes in perfection. Who can turn everything into a joke, and wishes he couldn't." - Roger Ebert
Really beautiful chamber drama with an emotionally moving performance by Gena Rowlands as a woman in an unhappy marriage, reconsidering her life. Nice use of Erik Satie music as well. This one doesn't get as much attention as his other films, but I really love this one.
"Rowlands is best-known for her daring performances in the films of her husband John Cassavetes. However her quiet, gracefully subtle work in Allen’s film shouldn’t be overlooked when evaluating the richness of her career. Like her performance, the theme music by Satie is regal, and elegant but also tinged with sweetness and vulnerability. Rowlands gives the camera and the audience 'little gambits to seduce.'" - from my PopMatters article on Rowlands in the film
Charming comedy with stunning black and white photography (by Gordon Willis). Mia Farrow does a pretty good job against-type as an obnoxious moll.
"The black and white NYC cinematography is gorgeous throughout, and there are several stellar scenes that will likely stick in my memory forever. The Thanksgiving dinner at the end of the film is foremost among these, and the atmosphere of the comics discussing old times at Carnegie Deli. Less poignant, but much funnier, is the chase scene through a warehouse filled with parade floats, which halfway through turns from suspense to farce with an entirely unexpected and hilarious twist. Broadway Danny Rose is a masterpiece in Allen's career, and it belongs in the company of his other bittersweet, nostalgic masterworks like Annie Hall and Manhattan." - Ed Howard
So many good moments in this loving screwball comedy and great performances, especially from squeaky-voiced Jennifer Tilly and an Oscar-winning turn from Dianne Wiest.
"Set in New York in the Roaring Twenties, when midtown Manhattan was teeming with show-biz dollies and wise guys in spats, Bullets Over Broadway ... is Woody Allen at his best -- a gem of a Broadway fable with a crafty premise, a raft of brilliant actors at the top of their form and a bouncy, just-for-pleasure attitude." - Edward Guthmann
Lots of arrogance and power playing going on here. Martin Landau and Angelica Huston's performances are haunting.
"Crimes feels like a tug of war between Landau's potent depiction of a blandly evil man, a man trusted with vision, and Allen's eternally comic hand-wringer. This way Allen has his own great clanking Russian tractor of a drama, and pleases his critics too, the ones who want Annie Hall II. Actually, Cliff is Alvy Singer's first cousin, condemning Lester's high-blown non sequiturs, like 'Comedy is tragedy plus time.' Artistic nuspeak, the emperor's new paintbrush." - Rita Kempley
Vivid and rich, wonderfully-acted comedy-drama, with deep adult themes. I think I need to re-watch.
"With this film, it's apparent that Mr. Allen has become the urban poet of our anxious age - skeptical, guiltily bourgeois, longing for answers to impossible questions, but not yet willing to chuck a universe that can produce the Marx Brothers." - Vincent Canby
Could be his best movie? That opening montage of New York backed by Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" is simply breathtaking and his rich characterizations are both hilarious and poignant.
"Woody Allen's Manhattan has materialized out of the void as the one truly great American film of the '70s. It tops Annie Hall in brilliance, wit, feeling, and articulation, though it is less of a throbbing valentine to a lost love, and more of a meditation on an overexamined life." - Andrew Sarris
I think it's his most suspenseful movie and its ruminations on class and desire are pretty dark.
“... arguably may be the best film that I’ve made. This is strictly accidental, it just happened to come out right. You know, I try to make them all good, but some come out and some don’t. With this one everything seemed to come out right. The actors fell in, the photography fell in and the story clicked. I caught a lot of breaks!" - Allen
One great aspect of many of Allen's flicks is the play with time; this one goes back and forth between different eras through a joyously fun, half-baked intellectual's romantic vision of Paris.
"Given that Woody Allen’s imaginative universe has long been a closed ecosystem (no contemporary culture can penetrate a defensive shell hardened by such determined phobias), it’s a miracle he can still turn out a movie as disarming as Midnight in Paris. This supernatural comedy isn’t just Allen’s best film in more than a decade; it’s the only one that manages to rise above its tidy parable structure and be easy, graceful, and glancingly funny, as if buoyed by its befuddled hero’s enchantment." - David Edelstein
A Depression-era abused wife (Mia Farrow) escapes through the movies is one of Allen's more melancholy pics, despite its whimsical blends of fantasy.
"Allen trusts us to find the ironies, relish the contradictions, and figure things out for ourselves. While we do that, he makes us laugh and he makes us think, and when you get right down to it, forget about the fantasies; those are two of the most exciting things that could happen to anybody in a movie. The more you think about The Purple Rose of Cairo, and about the movies, and about why you go to the movies, the deeper the damned thing gets." - Roger Ebert
Silly and so weird, a fun send-up of those apocalyptic futuristic sci-flicks of the early 70s.
Monday, July 9, 2012
blue stranger with mosaic background
Check out my review of Wayne Koestenbaum's collection of poems, Blue Stranger With Mosaic Backround, on Lambda Literary. I felt very invigorated after reading this book.
Friday, July 6, 2012
dan braun's favorite films of 2012... so far
Dark Horse – Todd Solondz’ most heartfelt film since Welcome to the Dollhouse. A thirty-something man (Jordan Gelber), who is still living at home with his parents (Christopher Walken and Mia Farrow) and a portrait of arrested development, attempts to come to grips with the grown-up world around him.
Elena – The latest film by famed Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev (The Return, The Banishment). A powerful look at life in contemporary Moscow, a character study of a mother and wife (Nadezhda Markina), and the omnipotence of familial bonds.
Footnote – Father-and-son academic scholars Eliezer and Uriel Shkolnik (Schlomo Bar-Aba and Lior Ashkenazi), the former headstrong and curmudgeonly and the latter outgoing and populist, find their enigmatic professional and personal relationships complicated even further when Eliezer is mistakenly awarded the Israel Prize intended for his son.
The Grey – Liam Neeson leads a group of men fighting for their survival, post-plane crash within a barren stretch of Alaskan wilderness, while trying to remain a step ahead of a particularly ruthless pack of wolves.
Jiro Dreams of Sushi – A feast for the eyes and the palate, chronicling Jiro Ono, the 85-year-old master and owner of Tokyo-based Sukiyabashi Jiro (widely considered the best sushi restaurant in the world), and his ongoing quest for perfection.
Miss Bala – A woman (Stephanie Sigman) with ambitions of becoming a beauty pageant winner is suddenly and unexpectedly thrust into the world of Mexican organized crime.
Monsieur Lazhar – An Albanian immigrant (Mohamed Fellag) adjusts to a new life and culture as a school teacher in Montréal.
Moonrise Kingdom – Wes Anderson’s elegiac chronicle of a young boy and girl in love, who flee their small New England town and turn a search party (Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Bruce Willis and Edward Norton, among others) hot on their trail.
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia – The director Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Distant, Climates, Three Monkeys) and his latest, a meditative, multi-layered crime story and character study. Defies rote categorization and a uniquely epic experience.
Oslo, August 31st – Reflective of Antonioni in its composition, a wrenching examination of the heartache and vise-like grip drug addiction causes and represents, with a brilliant lead performance by Anders Danielsen Lie.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
favorite films of 2012... so far
So there's still a lot I haven't seen (including a lot of well-recieved Hollywood flicks), but this seems like a pretty decent year for film and it isn't even August yet!
Here are the best films I've seen so far this year, in alphabetical order.
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Striking film about a young girl's resiliency(a beyond excellent Quvenzhané Wallis) after a storm in the bayou.
Bernie
Effective dark comedy about community defiance with a great, honed-in performance from Jack Black (who usually is too-over-the-top for me) as a well-liked small town Texan mortician who ends up accused of murder.
Booker's Place
Moving documentary--which delves into complicated media ethics--recalls a Mississippi waiter of a whites-only restaurant caught up in a maelstrom of controversy, with tragic results,after an NBC news story broadcasts his true feelings.
Cabin in the Woods
Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon's fun little mashup of horror and scifi cliches.
Damsels in Distress
A welcome return of Whit Stillman. This movie, a bit of a satire on the campus flick, has some shining moments (including a luminous Greta Gerwig), even if it falters in parts.
Dark Horse
Wow, I was really surprised by this one. I haven't loved a Todd Solondz film as much since Happiness. A short-tempered thirtysomething guy (Jordan Gelber) living with his parents, struggles desperately with himself, his work and relationships. Great, perfectly-cast supporting actors (Mia Farrow, Christopher Walken, Selma Blair) enhance the film as well.
The Deep Blue Sea
Gorgeously filmed by Terence Davies, this unusual adaptation of a 1952 Terence Rattigan play, follows the passionate relationship between a married woman (a radiant Rachel Weisz) and a fighter pilot in post-WWII London.
Elena
Heavy, deep and complicated portrait of a Russian woman (Nadezhda Markina) with familial bonds to fragile lives of both the have-a lots and the have-nots. Read my review
Headhunters
Thrilling little Norwegian chase film pits a headhunter / art thief (Aksel Hennie) against a former elite soldier (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau).
Jeff, Who Lives At Home
Another slacker manchild, this one ably performed by Jason Segal and directed and scripted by the Duplass brothers , goes on a wild, one-day journey of chance and fate.
Marley
Beautiful documentary of Bob Marley. Nice use of his music and a fascinating portrait.
Miss Bala
Slick, entertaining Mexican film of a wannabe beauty queen (Stephanie Sigman) caught up with a dangerous drug cartel.
Monsieur Lazhar
A Canadian classroom in mourning after the suicide of their teacher, is suddenly led by a new professor (Mohamed Fellag), an Algerian man haunted by his past.
Moonrise Kingdom
For Wes Anderson's vivid, meticulous sense of aestheticism and color, his heartfelt script, and great ensemble cast, this is by far my favorite film of his and of the year so far.
Polisse
This was a rough movie, both subject matter-wise and in its messy unevenness, but full of some powerful moments about a stressed-out Parisian Child Protection Unit.
Take This Waltz
Sarah Polley's languid hipster marital drama isn't without its flaws, and not nearly as potent as her Away From Her, but Michelle Williams is again luminous and its use of music (a tribute to Canadian artists) is particularly inspired.
This Is Not A Film
A tale of an aritst in imprisonment: Irianian director (Jafar Panahi), under house arrest, bravely films his day in the life with dry humor, passion and frustration. Read my review here.
The Woman in Black
A bit stodgy but nicely atmospheric and sometimes creepy ghost story--a remake of a 1989 British film--of a veiled female ghost who drives children to their deaths.
Your Sister's Sister
Lynn Shelton's mostly improvised tragi-comedy is a compelling story of an aimless young man (played beautifully with surprising depth by Mark Duplass) who, after the death of a close friend, finds himself unexpectedly tangled into the lives of two sisters (Emily Blunt and Rosemarie DeWitt).
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
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