Zack and Miri Make a Porno *
Kevin Smith, 2008
US
@ Pacific Place

Delightful as expected. Similarities to Be Kind Rewind, though on a smaller, much smuttier scale. It felt disjointed, but not in an unpleasant way.

Incidentally, the guy who wanders in drunk during one of the shoots, Tyler Labine, is part of the cast of A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, along with David Koechner, Martin Starr, Will Forte, Jason Sudeikis, and Don Johnson. I'm trying to envision it, but the mind boggles.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic | Publicity

The Changeling **
Clint Eastwood, 2008
US
@ Majestic Bay

I'd never been to the Majestic Bay before, and the screen was impressively large and close to the stadium seating.

I was reminded of how sad it is that Amy Ryan's stint on The Office looks to not be very long. I'm all for comedy writers doing comedy acting, but she was just so obviously better than everyone else that it was kind of ridiculous. I'd say Ed Helms is back to being my favorite, though I suppose that's just because Steve Carell is too obvious to really think about much.

How awesome is Geoffrey Pierson in this movie. So awesome, in fact, that during the trial(s) section, I started imagining this scenario as an allegory of some future reckoning for the current members of the executive branch of federal gov't rather than the LAPD in the 20's. You know, Christine Collins as the US population, her son Walter as "the American dream," "freedom," whatever you might want to call what is generally believed to be good and/or exemplary about the nation, and the protesters milling about the concerned citizens of the world. I don't even know how I really feel about the movie or these scenes in particular because what it spawned in my head was so powerful that I couldn't really pay attention to the action onscreen.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic | A.O. Scott review

Rachel Getting Married **
Jonathan Demme, 2008
US
@ Egyptian Theater

Margot at the Wedding felt to me like great black comedy, whereas this was just black for long stretches, although perfectly leavened by key scenes. The dishwasher bit was my favorite, better even than anything at the wedding. I've read complaints about the handheld camera work, and I don't always appreciate that style, but here it works very well to bring us closer to the characters and, I think, maintain an element of surprise. The characters are so bitter and the tone so wrenching that the reconciliation didn't feel rote here like it usually does.

See also: IMDb

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist *
Peter Sollett, 2008
US
@ Regal Meridian

Much gayer and more Jewish than I expected. Michael Cera's blank acting works really well particularly during the scene in which he finally dumps his ex. The sound was not loud enough, so the music lost some impact. Interesting to see Bujalski's friends Bishop Allen in a bigger production. More interesting to see a guy I worked with for a while in Manhattan playing the Asian guy at the deli. I knew he did that type of work, but he hadn't been in a movie this big for about twelve years now, according to iMDB. The physical, gross-out humor contrasts nicely with the mild-mannered leads. Maybe not great, but certainly interesting here and there.

See also: IMDb

The Exiles *
Kent Mackenzie, 1961
US
@ Northwest Film Forum

The film itself I enjoyed less than, say, Lionel Rogosin's On the Bowery, but Sherman Alexie really helped put it in subcultural context in his Q&A afterward.

See also: IMDb

The Godfather ***
Francis Ford Coppola, 1972
US
@ Cinerama

The pacing and lighting are masterful. An absolute success at what it sets out to do, but just what is that exactly? It seems to me the violence has a fatalistic edge to it, as if there is no other way possible. There are a lot of different ways to portray violence on-screen, and I'm okay with many of them. Pulp Fiction uses it as one of the profound elements of cinematic art. Shotgun Stories suggested that violence was closer, more likely than we might think. A History of Violence suggests that violence lives under the skin, never quite going away no matter how hard we try. Clint Eastwood seems to suggest that violence will bring us down in the end, "live by the sword, die by the sword" kind of thing. No Country for Old Men: violence is performed by the deranged, but it may not in the end be a deranged act. A Thin Red Line takes a calm, dualistic view. The Godfather is sort of like a tragedy, but there are so many things I can't figure out exactly about free will, is this positive/negative/inevitable. It's tough to process because almost no one alien to this world of violence ever appears in the film. It's hard to get enough distance from the characters to discover any perspective in the writing or directing. In that way it's an incredibly dark and kind of dispiriting movie.

See also: IMDb

Othello *
Orson Welles, 1952
US/Italy
@ SIFF Cinema

Lots of quick cuts; couldn't tell what might have been due to the age of the film. Very cinematic retelling of a play. Some parts were almost too fast for someone unfamiliar with the material.

See also: IMDb

Pulp Fiction ***
Quentin Tarantinto, 1994
US
@ Egyptian Theater

Thrilling. I never got the physical impact of this movie on video, but it's frequently up there with Kill Bill, something I would not have expected. I also don't believe I've ever started watching it before midnight, of the four(?) times I've seen all or part of it.

See also: IMDb

My Own Private Idaho **
Gus Van Sant, 1991
US
@ SIFF Cinema

Very good. Gus Van Sant is probably right up there with Richard Linklater for me in terms of working American directors. Doesn't hurt that he works so frequently in the Northwest. Milk will be a bit of a departure in that it's not about a young man who is either a danger to himself or those around him, as has been the case with ten of Van Sant's twelve features. The two exceptions are Even Cowgirls Get the Blues and To Die For, neither of which I have yet seen.
See also: IMDb

Burn After Reading *
Joel & Ethan Coen, 2008
US
@ Regal Meridian

The best parallel I can find from their work is actually O Brother, Where Art Thou?, especially given George Clooney's character. It's less fanciful on all levels, but the characters are about as unintelligent and confounded.

Brad Pitt alone is worth the price of admission.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic

Cthulhu *
Dan Gildark, 2007
US
@ Landmark Metro

Mostly I had to see this movie because for a long while the production operated out of a building a few blocks away from the MVS house back in 2006. And I kind of liked it. Prepared for the worst, the horror reminded me pleasantly of stuff like Doctor Who, wherein the atmosphere and the attempt are more important than actually overwhelming the viewer with realistic effects. And, yes, the visuals are good, except for the bizarre color which could have had to do with the projection. The reds were turned up way too high, resulting in a purple face for the protagonist and some weird looking orange soil.

See also: IMDb | David Schmader on Slog | Personal essay from writer Grant Cogswell

Hamlet 2 **
Andrew Fleming, 2008
US
@ Pacific Place

This film presents, I think, a perfect approach to working with a moribund genre. As opposed to the series of spoofs ending in ... Movie, you know, scary, superhero, etc. Most brilliantly, Steve Coogan's idiot drama teacher lists off inspirational teacher stories constantly, making clear that he wastes no critical thinking on his appreciation of anything that comes from Hollywood, cleverly taking the place of actual references included over the course of the plot, which in this post-Simpsons & Family Guy world I'd be happy to never witness again.

Initially I agreed with Kenneth Turan: "It's uneven, but the hits are so dead-on that the misses don't seem to matter." But then I noticed that the characters are all remarkably consistent. That is, we may need to take a little while to adjust to these characters before we can laugh at them well. Steve Coogan plays a character who is simultaneously (as above) idiotic, unaware, super-sensitive, kind, delusional, self-loathing and self-deprecating but perhaps not quite enough, and even remarkably unruffled and steady. It's a lot to wrap your head around after, say, too many Will Ferrell comedies.

In terms of spectacle, the last 20 minutes or so are the most absorbing of any I've seen in a long time. In terms of voices, Steve Coogan's impossibly rich, heavily British (think Patrick Stewart or Ian McKellen) narration at the beginning is in hilarious contrast to his wheedling American (Canadian?) accent. Critics have complimented it, but there is something about his R's that just doesn't feel quite right to me, like he modeled his dialogue on old Hollywood movies or something, I don't know. In terms of genre, it meshes the aforementioned inspirational teacher drama with the 40-is-the-new-toddler immature male comedy. It plays with convention, but in a richer fashion than the last Harold & Kumar movie. A Sundance movie that puts its quirkiness to fantastic, demented use instead of blowing it on a cheap, run-of-the-mill indie dramedy.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic | Kenneth Turan review

Tropic Thunder *
Ben Stiller, 2008
US
@ Regal Meridian

See also: IMDb

The Rocker *
Peter Cattaneo, 2008
US
@ Regal Meridian

Charming and well-executed. What's really surprising is how infrequently anything gets overplayed. The three kids, for example, are all soft-spoken, and Jeff Garlin's father figure spends most of his screen time silently admiring his "rock star" brother-in-law. The confrontations are all basically polite, and the love interests tame. This is really admirable given that teenage fans of High School Musical and Hannah Montana (featuring some of the most outrageous overacting on televison) are probably at least one target demographic here.

I've been waiting for Jason Sudeikis to do something great onscreen for a little while now, particularly after his terrific stint on 30 Rock, and he doesn't disappoint. To be honest, Rainn Wilson might be the weakest link here. I think the supporting cast is all ready to play off of him, but he just doesn't provide enough charisma, particularly noticeable early on. Jack Black would be the obvious surrogate, given School of Rock, but there are probably others as well.

Two Ohio-specific notes: Wilson's character manages to mispronounce "Akron" fairly early in the movie, and he also waxes nostalgic about seeing metal bands at the Q back in his heyday (the mid-80's), but that arena didn't begin construction (as Gund Arena) until the early 1990's. Then again, the film was shot in Toronto, so regional specificity is something of a moot point anyway.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic

Vicky Cristina Barcelona *
Woody Allen, 2008
Spain/US
@ Guild 45th

Beautiful use of natural light. Everyone looks uncannily beautiful all the time. I find something ghostly about Allen's shooting style, at least in the recent films I've seen. Every time I try to articulate it more fully, though, I can't quite. Something about the way he follows the actors with his camera, kind of like how Altman's floating zoom makes the viewer feel like a spirit haunting the world of the movie. It has to do with the way he handles extras as well, though, because somehow the main action of the movie always feels detached from the surroundings, as if the city he's shooting in doesn't really exist.

The interweaving, dysfunctional relationships are trademark stuff, but somehow they don't feel consequential like they did for me in Hannah and Her Sisters or Crimes and Misdemeanors. And because of the rapid pace due to the copious voiceover narration, or really voiceover exposition, the movie feels long even under 100 minutes. Maybe it's just that this comes up against the existential dread and relatively tight plotting of Match Point and Cassandra's Dream. (I missed Scoop.)

See also: IMDb | Metacritic

Medium Cool **
Haskell Wexler, 1969
US
@ Northwest Film Forum

Radical. Mentions Contempt directly and mimics Godard a bit here and there. Compare/contrast the images of the dirty kids swarming the news vehicle and the hippie/cop battle.

See also: IMDb | Roger Ebert review

Being There ***
Hal Ashby, 1979
US
@ Northwest Film Forum

Nice to come back at the end to the only Hal Ashby film I'd seen previously. Certainly the social critique is constant throughout his seventies work, as well as a kind of indirect critique of the rich. Other than The Landlord, he rarely lampoons them directly, but rather suggest subtly ways in which those with money tend either not to deserve or not to understand exactly what their wealth means, most perfectly typified by the scene in Bound for Glory when Woody leaves the rich woman's house after letting her know how he feels about her contribution to society. He also loves an empty-headed protagonist.

From IMDb: "Shirley MacLaine's masturbation scene was shot seventeen times."

The misguided attempt at interpreting the final scene by geeks on the internet (see Wikipedia, for example) reminds me of reactions after watching Mulholland Drive in college. I fail to understand what real reward there is in trying to piece together a puzzling plot that may have had holes at the time of shooting or never even existed in a coherent form, or trying to read further and further into the actions of the characters in order to understand... what exactly? The secret of life is not to be found in such a place, and insisting on closure from a film seems not only unfair, but foolish when there's so much beauty and humor to be appreciated outside of that insane detective work and so little to gain from it.

Note: I later found this quote from Manny Farber in a blog post by Girish.

I don't see how or why anyone should be expected to get the meaning of an event in a movie or a painting. That's a place where criticism goes wrong: it keeps trying for a complete solution. I think the point of criticism is to build up the mystery. And the point is to find movies which have a lot of puzzle in them.

See also: IMDb | Girish's 10 Reasons Why He Likes Manny Farber

Pineapple Express ***
David Gordon Green, 2008
US
@ Pacific Place

Fantastic. Basically everything I'd hoped for, and a lot more as well. I think this is kind of how I wanted the violence in Reservoir Dogs to feel, whereas I was just repulsed by the ear mutilation in that movie. I guess this kind of fits with some of the cop bits in Superbad, and the action feels like a natural extension of the cinematic world we're in from the beginning. This also does exactly what I'd hoped Hot Fuzz would do, but that movie was satisfied with being clever rather than terrific. Pretty sure you could lop off the opening segment with absolutely no ill effects.

It seems certain that there are a whole lot more tossed off references to action films and others than IMDb's "Movie Connections" page currently lists, particularly with the Asian gang members near the end.

And there's the romp in the woods, which is notable both for the beautiful location and the goofy counterpoint to all the gunshots, bodyblows, and explosions to come after.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic | Ed Howard review

Hot Rod
Akiva Schaffer, 2007
US
@ home on DVD

I got to thinking about a movie starring Bill Hader in a semi-serious role, probably a pretty low-budget Sundance-type thing. He seems to always play the voice of reason (here, Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall) whilst also generating some laughs, but frequently a little too good for his role. Then again, pretty much everyone is too good for their roles here. This kind of felt like the SNL crowd does Napoleon Dynamite which in some cases kind of worked, but there were too few wildly original bits.

See also: IMDb | Metacritic

Bound for Glory **
Hal Ashby, 1976
US
@ Northwest Film Forum

This was almost certainly the worst projection I've ever witnessed at NW Film Forum. The fact that this seems outrageous merely goes to show that generally the projection is very good, especially for a non-profit cinematheque.

I made a few possibly useful connections during the film. Last December I was appalled by Ann Powers' suggestion that there is a connection between a supposed decrease in political activism and the omnipresent iPod. Then tonight as I was stirred by Hal Ashby and David Carradine's depiction of Woody Guthrie's powerful humanitarian urges in the face of oppression both soft and very hard, I recalled a poster in the MVS house featuring Woody Guthrie's statement on songwriting. (It starts "I hate a song that makes...") and my initial reaction to it, which was that it sounds kind of manipulative and pandering. Against the backdrop of this film, though, it sounds fiercely determined and utterly admirable.

Of course I was reminded of David Foster Wallace's essay, "E Unibus Pluram," which you can probably find somewhere online but I can't right now. Generally it's about how television and the pop culture associated with it has made us all into irony-loving cynics who refuse to appear to be surprised at anything. Mostly he's trying to figure out a way to move forward in a culture that won't accept anything new, because that would require genuine intention and effort, which doesn't sound appropriate any longer. Parts of it are outdated, and it's true in some senses, not in others, but on the whole I think it shows precisely why I can't understand what Woody Guthrie is saying on that poster, that he's speaking in a mode that now sounds outlandish for a popular musician. The question is whether forthright exploration of important social issues is simply impossible via that route, or if perhaps there are other, more subtle but semantically accurate ways of broaching the same topics.

So, if you or someone you know figures out a way to couch advocacy of communitarian/socialist/humanist values in generationally and culturally appropriate terminology, let me know. I'm guessing that might be more useful than telling people not to listen to their iPods.

See also: IMDb