Snacko
Level: Smiter
Rank Points: 448
Registered: 06-08-2006
IP: Logged
|
Re: Movies (+1)
Very recently (500) Days of Summer came out, and was similarly underadvertised. Despite being an incredibly familiar story, it manages to feel completely fresh. The brilliant thing about the movie isn't its plot, or even its characters (although we're getting closer), but its style. It's told from the main character's perspective as opposed to being an objective presentation of the events, and due to this many scenes play out in odd, creative ways, and none of the shifts feel out of place. Take for example a scene that begins as a presentation of Tom's expectations but then adds a second window showing the reality of the anticipated event, or the scene following the already legendary musical number where an elevator door closes on an ecstatic Tom and then opens a year later to show a depressed, disheveled shadow of the image. People have compared it to Annie Hall, of course, but what's most impressive about isn't its style, but its endlessly creative and delightful sense of invention. It is as though, for two hours, the potential of the medium is fully unleashed.
When speaking about modern film, one simply cannot exclude There Will Be Blood, an almost nightmarishly chaotic and genuinely traumatic character study anchored by one of the greatest performances in film by Daniel-Day Louis, who was reportedly in character for years. Daniel Plainview is at once sympathetic and satanic, the physical embodiment of everything that is disturbing about the American dream, and yet an utterly fascinating lead. The definition of a must-see (although many people have an incredibly negative reaction to it).
I almost hesitate to talk about Burn After Reading because it is simply so different from the rest of my list. It doesn't grapple with complex issues, it's structure is fairly typical (if a tad unfocused, a Coen brother's trademark) and it's a part of the film's underlying joke that the plot goes almost nowhere. John Malkovich loses his diary, a couple of idiotic employees at a gym find it, are confused when their blackmailing is not perceived as good Samaritanism, and then George Clooney, Tilda Swinton and George Clooney's fancy dildo get involved and then they call the Russians and, well, it sort of just unfolds from there. It's disarmingly clever, ludicrously funny, and is the purest example of the Coen brother's unique style since O Brother, Where Art Thou? (which also starred George Clooney). The plot for that movie was reportedly created primarily with the use of SparkNotes, a loose, shallow and delightful summary.
I am a huge fan of Cormac McCarthy's work. His ability to use the English language in a narrative context is unmatched in the 20th century save for perhaps Pynchon, Faulkner, Fitzgerald and Hemmingway (though all five are very, very distinct from each other). His prose is as musical as the best of poetry, and his visions are transplanted onto the page with an unmatched level of sharpness and profundity. Though not as impossible as Pynchon or even Faulkner, one would expect that the soul of the work would be lost if any of his novels were adapted to a genre not primarily language-based, but the Coen brothers somehow pull it off with their adaptation of No Country for Old Men, with Tommy Lee-Jones, Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem. It is these three, the tired law man, the man whose fortune leads to his corruption and the aimless force of destruction, leaving only death in its wake that make the soul of the film so enduring, backed every step of the way by the Coen brother's unbelievably tense directorial work. Although the perfect adaptation of a McCarthy novel is probably impossible, No Country for Old Men is one of the closest things to a perfect film I've ever seen.
High Fidelity, however, was an enjoyable, unique and linguistically simple novel, and it makes for a masterful film. John Cusack, as part of his recovery for the latest in a long line of failed relationships, goes over his most painful breakups, ranging from the sexually curious girl on the jungle gym to the stingy college sweetheart. Cusack, who provides a strong center for the film, is as likable as he is human, and the plot feels fresh without ever leaving the realm of possibility. Roger Ebert probably said it best, "I had the feeling I could walk out of the theater and meet the same people on the street--and want to, which is an even higher compliment".
____________________________
Director of the Department of Orderly Disruptions
[Last edited by Snacko at 09-18-2009 05:47 AM]
|
