Just watch it.

(Thanks to Dr Wank)

This year’s Oscar nominees have been announced, and it is easily the year in which I’ve seen the least of them, so I’ll hold off on my usual rant.

Nothing completely preposterous or thrilling in the nominations, which seems to suggest that this year’s festivities may be even duller than last year’s. All the better, I’m not even planning on being in town. Just a few things I’m smiling about: Clive Owen’s nomination for Supporting Actor in Closer, and the Original Screenplay nomination for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Oh, and of course, Johnny Depp. For anything.

Well, if you’re looking for me, I guess I’ll be at the movies…

Here are a few disorganized notes about films I’ve recently viewed. As Martine so elegantly put it, I’d rather leave the care of writing actual reviews to those who do it well. But here are my thoughts nonetheless, in particular disorder.

I loved La mala educacion, but it’s probably my least favorite of Almodovar’s movies. It’s hard to say why, because I can never really put my finger on why I’ve always liked his movies so much. There’s something about the way he can usually make me deeply relate to characters and situations that are completely alien and surreal to me. After watching one of his movies, I usually feel like I’ve grown a tiny bit, the same feeling I get when returning from travel, albeit on a smaller scale. I know that’s a tall order, and I’m not sure if it’s the delay in seeing this one that over-whetted my appetite for it, but it just didn’t engage me. It was just plain entertainment.

Elektra, sadly, was every bit the piece of putrid crap I expected it to be. It wasn’t even good for mindless action scenes, of which there were about two, so badly shot you couldn’t see anything. It wasn’t even good for nice hottie shots of Garner in her red suit, which she only dons twice. Huge plot holes, a terrible, terrible, watered-down, dumbed-down treatment of Elektra’s turn from “Evil” to “Good”, and mostly unimpressive villains (which is the true test of a good superhero movie, IMO). I should have left after the first 20 minutes, which were ok.

What to say about Closer? One of my favorite types of films, an all-dialog movie, brilliantly pulled off by a great cast, Clive Owen being particularly stellar. The only reason why I’m reluctant to recommend it high and loud is that I’m not sure these dialog movies are everyone’s cup of tea. But most of you like Woody Allen, right? A worthy renter, unless, like me, you like to have seen most of the movies nominated for Oscars each year.

Looking forward to seeing Hotel Rwanda, Sin City, In Good Company, House of Flying Daggers, Oceans Twelve, and What the Bleep do we Know?

This started as a comment on Bill’s post in which she says she will not see the third Toy Story movie, because it is not by Pixar. Then it turned into a rant so I thought it best to rant on my own page.

The fact of the matter is that with the notable exception of the Toy Story movies, Pixar is fantastic at one thing and one thing only: pushing the technical envelope in animation. Whenever I see Luxo the lamp in their logo sequence, I’m amazed by how they manage to have an object like a lamp convey so many emotions, by simply moving it (watch the short here, it’s worth it). And they’ve moved ahead by lightyears since then.

But their scripts often leave much to be desired (especially in the laughs department). And personally, I go to animated movies to see some great visuals, yes, but mostly to laugh and be entertained by the story.

Script-wise, A Bug’s Life (Pixar) was okay, but Antz (non-Pixar) was better. Monsters Inc and Nemo (Pixar Pixar), same thing: animation that makes my jaw drop (and there isn’t much tech these days that does that for me), but gave me at most a chuckle. Shrek (non-Pixar), on the other hand, had me in tears of laughter. Ice Age (non-Pixar) was pretty funny too.

Don’t get me wrong; I really want to like Pixar wholeheartedly. I so want to like The Incredibles, I so want it to make me laugh, that I have deliberately not watched any previews, to give it the best chance of surprising and entertaining me.

But I’m a little annoyed that Pixar are so popular that they constantly get away with scripts that are just “somewhat funny”, especially since I know they can do better (eg. Toy Story). Mike’s New Car (their short based on Monsters Inc) was the epitome of this. It got the automatic Pixar Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short, though it was quite craptacular, even according to my Pixar-ho friends. When you’re aware of the sweat and love that goes into indie animated shorts (like The Cathedral of the same year), and you see Pixar’s little brainfart garner the Oscar, it’s frustrating.

Anyway, as far as Toy Story 3 is concerned, it will probably suck as sequels of anim features usually do. But in my opinion, it’s wrong to suggest that anything is automatically crap when it is not Pixar, or automatically great when it is.

Excerpt from a recent IM conversation:

chickatlitespeed: speaking of which, Star Wars DVD is out. I’m so conflicted.
patrick: me too. i already have 2 copies and haven’t watched it in a long while
chickatlitespeed: chickatlitespeed: I want to see it in high quality, but hayden christiensen’s face?
patrick: it’s 4,5,6 anyway! no christensen!
chickatlitespeed: that’s what you think my misled friend
chickatlitespeed: lucas has done it again
patrick: what????????
chickatlitespeed: digitally replaced dv’s face with christensen’s face
patrick: yeah. right.!
chickatlitespeed: that’s what I said
chickatlitespeed: I’m serious dude. Sooner you face it, the better. I know it’s hard.
patrick: no way i’m buying it if he played with the originals
chickatlitespeed: Now you understand me.
patrick: i’ll have to look into that
chickatlitespeed: greedo still shoots first
patrick: is the christensen face in an alternate version or something?
chickatlitespeed: no
chickatlitespeed: it’s in the main one
patrick: arrarghghgghghhg

Well, T bought it, I watched Episode IV, and I have to say it looks absolutely beautiful. The colors are truer, the effects still retain their silly seventiesness, it’s more amazing than ever.

But I have yet to watch the aforementioned abomination.

I couldn’t skip this month’s monkey: pitch your life as a movie.

However, while thinking about this post, I couldn’t help but think of the movie characters I have wanted my life to be like, at various times. So here it is: here is my life as a movie character, as I would have had it pitched to myself.

Childhood
Spent most of that time with a massive crush on an animated character, Peter Pan. I think that explains my preference for the lanky, pointy-nosed type (no, really). So I spent the first ten years playing Wendy.

Teenage years
That’s the easiest one: my best friend and I lived the movie Some Kind of Wonderful, reciting lines over our lunchtime patate sauce. I modeled myself after the drummer girl, even wearing dog tags and boxers.

I also had another character as a role model during those years: Ripley, in Aliens. That I had those two as style gurus, totally explains my soaring (not) popularity at the time.

Then, completely breaking with the butch look I had cultivated so well, and pulled off so badly, I went to my prom wearing the dress from Pretty in Pink. I was a little confused.

Twenties
Hm, the toughest one. Ten years filled with arduous studying and lots of travels. I don’t know, did I want to be Indiana Jones perhaps? Well, if we’re going with that, better make it Lara Croft (hey, my pitch, my fantasy!).

Thirties
Hm, in the mood I’m in, I’d say the chick from Chasing Amy, without so much of the whininess (oh uh, and not gay). A girl with geeky interests and exotic friends, who’s made mistakes in the past, looking forward to a clean start and to doing better the next time around.

Robert Sawyer once quipped that he never understood why it’s the good movies that get remade. That it is films like Dune, or The Phantom Menace that should be remade.

Well, today after the preview of The Manchurian Candidate, I saw one for the remake of Taxi, the Luc Besson movie. The new (American) version takes place in New York, and the driver is a trash-talking, uh-uh-honeying, finger-snapping Queen Latifah (as if there’s ever any other QL). And she’s helping the cop catch a gang of scantily clad supermodel bank robbers.

It was so base and trashy, I honestly thought they were joking. What were they thinking? Well, probably something along the lines of “Duuuuuuude… Yaaaaaa…”

I find it interesting that the last five movies I saw (see left for list) were four self-proclaimed documentaries and one true story adapted for the big screen (Shattered Glass). It’s clear that after the mainstream success of hits like Spellbound, The Fog of War and of course, Bowling for Columbine, more and more filmmakers are following the money.

And, like any good thing that becomes a bandwagon, the documentary genre is being done justice in some ways and perverted in others. To explain, here are some of my (spoiler-free) thoughts about these films.

Capturing the Friedmans
Caught this one for a whopping 15$ in London. It tells the story of a suburban family that seems extremely normal, except that Dad has been accused of a very deranged crime. But did he do it? Did the cops fabricate the story? The wonderful thing about this film is that the family’s three highly intelligent sons were in the habit of filming absolutely everything (including family disputes) when this happened, and so there is some very candid footage of the family’s reactions to the accusations.

Super Size Me
Morgan Spurlock decides to see what will happen if he eats only McDonald’s food for a month. I thought this might be quite dull, as I couldn’t see myself learning anything new. What’s so revolutionary about the fact that junk food is bad? Yet, Spurlock demonstrates this is a very funny and entertaining manner.

The Corporation
Same setup for this movie: it too is making a point that we’re already aware of, that is that corporations are evil. However, it doesn’t work. It calls itself a documentary in the opening credits, yet at the very beginning the narrator’s cold, scientific (”yes we’re objective because we speak this way”) voice says something like “we will demonstrate how evil companies really are”. The tone is very condescending and the film ends up being way too long. Sad, because it makes an important point and includes interviews with some great thinkers like Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein.

Shattered Glass
Entertaining dramatization of the case of the New Republic reporter who made up many of the stories he published in the influential magazine. Sounds dull, but it was very enjoyable and thought provoking, and it includes some interesting information about how the “facts” we read in the media are checked for accuracy. My only complaint (but I guess it’s a doozie): the main character is played by Hayden Christensen, whom I discovered is a horrible actor even without the help of George Lucas.

Fahrenheit 9/11
You know what this is about. You’ve probably seen it. For all its partisanship, 9/11 didn’t bother me as much as The Corporation, probably because it doesn’t even try to come off sounding objective. Like Martine said, its message is so important that it warrants forgiving its minor flaws.

So taking stock, I suppose the genre isn’t doing too badly, seeing as I can easily recommend three of the four documentaries above, as well as the dramatization. Let’s hope the trend continues.

Is it me, or is the word “REMAX” written in the eyes of Shrek 2’s Puss? (Just left of the blue dot)

“…on change de théâtre.”

- Ma tante Carmen

This month, Blork and Martine are asking us to confess to crying at the movies. Strange, for I recently cried all the way through one, and couldn’t decide whether to blog about it. I guess this request is a sign that I must.

Warning: blubbery girlie icky-girly personal yuckiness follows.

First, a bit of personal ancient history. Many years ago, I had a boyfriend and we were very happy. One day, he got accepted into a distant college to study in a demanding program for four years. We knew we were both the “out of sight, out of mind” type, and that this separation would eventually end our relationship. We knew we’d gradually forget each other, quite painlessly, over the next few years, and although we officially stayed together, we did indeed grow apart quite painlessly. The only great sadness we felt was when we knew we would forget, but not when we were busy forgetting.

Fast forward to now. For a while now, T has been talking about going to the West Coast to work for a year or so. And somewhere in the back of my mind, unspoken, I’ve had the same concern as I did all those years ago, the same lucidity about what happens over long distances.

So recently, we saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And although I was enjoying the movie a lot, I bawled almost from the beginning, and at first I couldn’t figure out why.

But truth be told, as strange and uncommon as the main character’s situation was, I could actually relate to his circumstances. I knew how absolutely devastating it is to realize you will soon forget someone, and that someday, sooner than it should, love will be over and you won’t even mind.

On a lighter note, I should also confess I cried during Return of the King when Pippin is on Gandalf’s horse, being taken away from Merry, and I cry every single time they get the letters from home on Survivor.

But I definitely did NOT cry during Titanic! Come on!