[10 for 10... that's 10 movies which we give ourselves 10 minutes apiece to write about. Part of our problem is we don't often have the spare hour or two to give to writing a big long review for every movie or TV show we watch. How about a 10-minute non-review full of half-remembered scattershot thoughts? Surely that's doable?]
When I last posted a 10 for 10 I said that would be the last one. The format had not lived up to its purpose, which was supposed to be some form of clearinghouse for my backlog of reviews to write. The problem was that each "review" was supposed to be done in 10 minutes based solely off what I could rcall, but my stupid brain couldn't just leave it at that...I had to go and do some wikipedia-ing or IMDB-ing or some Letterbox-ing to try and recall both the movie and my thoughts, which would eat up time, lots and lots of time. Doing ten movies in a row is exhausting when otherwise I would only get one or two reviews written in a sitting. But now, I have almost 30 movies and 20 TV shows in the backlog so I need to temporarily resurrect the 10 for 10 in order to slim that list down by a fifth.
Let's do it.
- Gambit - 1966, d. Ronald Neame -
- The French Connection - 1971, d. William Friedkin- Disney+
- Le Samourai - 1967, d. Jean-Pierre Mellville - Criterion
- I Want You Back - 2022, d. Jason Orley - AmazonPrime
- Zola - 2020, d. Janicza Bravo - Netflix
- Persona - 1966, d. Igmar Bergman - Criterion
- Death on the Nile - 2022, d. Kenneth Branagh - In theatre
- The Castle of Cagliostro - 1979, d. Hayao Miyazaki - Netflix
- The Green Knight - 2021, d. David Lowery - Crave
- Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers - 2022, Akiva Schaffer - Disney+
ready, timer set, go:
---
1. Gambit
No, not some script reading of the unmade Channing Tatum movie based on the X-Men character, as one might expect given my predelection for entertainment but rather the Shirley Maclean/Michael Caine crime/comedy/caper that I'd never heard of and only watched with the expectation of turning it off 10 minutes in.
Well, I didn't turn it off ten minutes in, but I also didn't actually finish it, but not because I didn't want to. I paused it about an hour in to make popcorn and do some errands, when I came back the film had turned off and was suddenly no longer available on demand from my cable company. Wha' happened?
The opening 20 minutes is so bizarrely captivating that it's thrilling and yet puzzling and disturbing. When the other shoe drops in near-Shyamalan fahion it should be infuriating, but it's actually a relief and MacLaine is utterly delightful. What seemed to be a swindle tuns out to be more of a romcom... And I was there for it...
And yet ... sullying the whole ordeal is some brownface (Europeans playing Arabian), yellowface (MacLaine needlessly plays someone who's supposed to be 1/4 Chinese) and cultural appropriation. It's not the most egregious (it's kind of Raiders of the Lost Ark-level) but it's also not a good look for anyone.
There's a remake scripted by the Coen Brothers readily available on Amazon Prime...but it's apparently pretty awful...plus I would prefer to finish watching this one..
[7:34 - much of this was pre-written on Letterboxed]
---
2. The French Connection
Clearly, the template upon which The Wire was built.
This is a legendary movie, for action, intensity and just changing what adult-oriented cinema could be. It's been on my list for a very, very long time as a must watch. Finally getting to it last October (yeah, 9 months ago), I was, not bored, but also not happy.
I'm not the biggest Gene Hackman fan. Something about him has always been very off-putting to me, from those early days of watching him play a Lex Luthor that didn't at all resemble the character from my mid-80's comics to so many viewings of fucking Hoosiers in various classrooms that I seemed to have repressed any memory of those films. There are films that I really like that feature Hackman (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Quick and the Dead) but even then, there's always something the makes you distrust or dislike the guy. Popeye Doyle is one of his most famous characters, and it's so quintessentially the Hackman type. Doyle isn't complicated... he's quite clearly a disgusting, racist, lech of a man, and clearly no stranger to abusing his authority. I don't even think he's a good narcotics cop (and clearly others don't either), nor is he a charming or likeable person.
Yeah, that's Hackman's total wheelhouse, and he plays him well, but also he's not why we're watching. Friedkin's breathless chases, long sequences where we can't hear the dialogue, the gritty procedural sensibility long before procedurals were a thing, it's clear why this film was so celebrated, and it still feels like a prototype for modern storytelling. The ending is brilliantly terse, which obviously left some people dissatisfied, and prompted a sequel. I haven't seen it but it sounds wholly unnecessary and, frankly, I really don't want more time with this character of Popeye Doyle.
[10:50]
---
3. Le Samourai
I'm just starting to piece together the whole French New Wave cinema thing (this is foray #2)... and it's been, well, slow going. So, if I'm to understand the FNW from just Breathless and Le Samourai it's just American genre films done in a slowcore fashion, right? WIth scripts are just, like, 20 pages long. Lingering shots, no dialogue.... I'm being reductive.
I enjoyed Le Samourai somewhat. This must be a bit of what Jim Jarmoush was doing with Ghost Dog and Limits of Control, but I dont know that I found it satisfying. I certainly found myself calling bullshit on the visual deceptions the director pulls on us (oy, where Jef pull that gun from?), but everything else is so damned purposeful I couldn't not be impressed.
The juxtaposition between Jef Costello and Le Commissaire (no talk vs all talk) was pretty grand, and dammit if Alain Delon just ain't so damn handsome. He's really appealing to look at and I want to watch him some more.
Whereas with Breathless I was never bored but also not very invested, with Le Samourai I was invested but kind of bored a bit. I'm still getting used to this whole French movement in film, but I'm more intrigued now. This whole pastiche of "cool" in the wave though I don't buy into at.all.
[6:31]
---
4. I Want You Back
I like Jenny Slate. She's done many, many things I have enjoyed her in. I like Charlie Day, he's a very likeable guy (he's the most sympathetic of the Always Sunny crew). The idea of pairing them into a RomCom seemed, well, kind of ideal. It should work...and it does...but it's not nearly the comedy I was expecting with these two as the leads.
The premise finds both of them having recently been dumped and encountering each other by happenstance, finding a sympathetic ear. Unable to move on from their exes, they concoct a plan to each befriend the other's ex and try and intervene in their new relationships or perhaps nudge them back. Of course along the way they start to maybe realize that they are perhaps better suited for each other than their exes, but the timing of those realizations comes at differing times, leading to much frustration.
What could have been a really toxic comedy about awful people instead leans much more into their sympathies and makes them largely non-threatening. Of course, in befriending each other's exes, they also wind up actually becoming friends with them, which leaves the deceit weighing heavily over everything. There are the requisite farces and beyond-logic elements which most rom coms fall into in order to move the chess pieces to where they want for the romance or comedy, and they're mostly forgivable here (Slate volunteering, randomly, to help put on a middle-school play seems the most egregious of these, but without it you don't get her charming interactions with young Luke David Blumm, which is borderline inappropriate but something both characters need). Great supporting cast with Scott Eastwood, Gina Rodriguez, Clark Backo, and Manny Jacinto.
[11:56]
---
5) Zola
Perhaps the first full length feature to be adapted from a series of tweets? It seems like an absurd thing from the outside of Twitter (I gave up on the platform half a decade ago) and even considering threaded tweets that can run dozens of messages in length, that's still hardly even a framework... and yet, here's Zola, an absolutely amazing, harrowing and hilarious movie about sex work industry, trust, and just what a strange world it is out there.
The story starts with stripper Zola (Taylour Page) befriending Stefani (Riley Keough) in Detroit and then being asked if she wants to come do some work with her in Tampa. Needing the money and, perhaps, a break from her life, she takes the offer and heads out with Stef, her needy boyfriend Derrek (Nicholas Braun), and her "friend" "X" (Colman Domingo). Of course, things go off the rails rather quickly, but Zola is smart and streetwise, and knows how to handle both herself and other people.
The film is super stylish and gorgeously shot. It's sound design is out of control, with the ambiant noises seeded in as part of the soundtrack, and, if you're keen, layered in twitter tweets to identify when the film transitions into Zola's next tweet. It's also super sex worker positive, by its very existence it's advocating for safer work environments and better protections against predatory people.
All the actors are great, Page proving she can hold the film down on her own if she had to, but everyone else rises to the challenge. Domingo was the breakout surprise, and really should have been up for a best supporting Oscar (among others this film should have been nominated for but was fully overlooked).
[14:39]
---
6) Persona
Some deem this to be the apex of French New Wave cinema, a haunting, meditative exercise in questioning one's own identity (and given the mid-sixties time period, I'm not sure if it's just solely a psychological questioning or also a sexual questioning).
Persona dabbles heavily in the surreal, with Bergman employing a style of editing and filming and storytelling deliberately obfuscate anything approaching traditional narrative. It begins with an "ageing" actress (likely late 30's in the old cinematic reductiveness) suffering from a seeming illness or psychological disorder and needing regular care, receiving a star-struck nurse.
For much of the film, the actress is struck mute, and it's largely the nurse talking to her, relating to her, but as the film progresses, and the nurse reveals more and more of herself, it's like the lines between them, become erased. Which one is the nurse, and which is the patient? Which is which?
I liked this film's foray into looking at mental health, but it was still such an uncommon topic and still very primal in its form that the film's ideas of it are a bit of a curiosity. I'd be interested in a professional's breakdown of this.
I liked this film's foray into looking at mental health, but it was still such an uncommon topic and still very primal in its form that the film's ideas of it are a bit of a curiosity. I'd be interested in a professional's breakdown of this.
Outside of that, I found it frustratingly clever, and tediously engaging. It's been dubbed a masterpiece for a very long time, and it is a stark void to stare into. Interpretation is an easy exercise, but almost impossible to come to conclusion upon. In an era with so much entertainments, it's hard to really give a film like Persona its due. It's meant to be something to ruminate on and roll around in your brain occupying space and time. I want to malign it because I didn't tremendously enjoy it, but at the same time I see what people find so fascinating about it.
[12:33]
---
7) Death on the Nile
Everything in me wants to just say "go read the Toastypost on Death on the Nile", I don't have much more to contribute. But I've got up to 10 minutes to fill here so let's start by saying it was fine.
I watched DotN in late February, the utter peak of winter misery in Toronto, and I found DotN's lavishly glass riverboat journey to be an utter salve for the winter blues. The scenery was absolutely beautiful (and I suspect largely computer manufactured but nevertheless beautiful) and it made me want to take a hoity toity fancypants 1920s colonialist riverboat adventure... I must absolutely stress I'm not advocating for nor declaring any wistfulness towards colonial times and the absurdly detrimental impact that the various European expanses into foreign lands (of which, genealogically, I am a product) usually with malicious force. But let's just say we could get to a time where people of all races and nationalities could have their individual freedoms and travel the world together, and everyone had shared means to do so... well, an isolated trip down the Nile circa 1920 seems absolutely lovely...even if it's a boat full of murder!
Take one look at the cast list, which includes French and Saunders, Gal Gadot, Annette Benning, Russel Brand, Letitia Wright, Armie Hammer, Tom Bateman, and more...well, you're going to already have a guess as to who the bad person might be. But, it's not always the whodunnit, in one of these movies, but the howdunnit, and it proves entertaining enough.
It really is just fine. Save it for winter and enjoy.
[11:30]
---
8. Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro
I was worried in the opening beats of The Castle of Cagliostro that I was in for a painful experience, as the film features a very TV-esque opening credits and a rather frenetic, overly cartoony sequence that blindsides the audience if you're not already familiar with Lupin and his cast of characters. It then drops you into a very tedious lull of exposition around counterfeit money and the manufactured history of a fake foreign land as set up for the main adventure.
However despite its slow and awkward start, the film is like a boulder rolling downhill, just picking up speed and energy as it goes. What seems simple at the start begins to add layer upon layer without really adding much additional complexity making it easier to follow as it goes on, rather than harder. It seems like it's borrowing structure from James Bond, but it's own influence on later pop culture seems even stronger. Like did this inspire some of Super Mario Brothers? And certainly half the superhero movies of the 80's and 90's owe it a debt. And in retrospect it seems like every movie that's tried a clocktower sequence has been trying to replicate this and failed. Did Jackie Chan ever try to buy the rights to Lupin III, because he seems to be completely in his wheelhouse.
While it's not really the best story and there's certainly some problematic gender relations going on and the music sounds cheap .... the animation is just...wow. Liked so hard.
[10:00]
---
9. The Green Knight
Beautiful. Entrancing. The imagery is just stunning. Sets. Wardrobe. Hair. Make up. Digital effects. Panoramas. Locations. Lighting. Score. It all comes together into gorgeous composition after gorgeous composition. I don't think I understood much of it, but I definitely want to watch it again to see if I'm supposed to.
Because it's been a few months since I watched it, much of the film is not fresh in my mind, but at the same time the name just evokes very specific images and scenes quite vividly in my mind. It's pretty potent. The story itself, based off the epic medieval poem by an anonymous writer, is full of fable and fancy, but seems mostly allegorical, though the true nature of what it's saying eludes me. Perhaps I was too distracted by its beauty to see it fully for what it was.
Just like I like my slow sci-fi, I think maybe I'm into slow fantasy too.
[5:56]
---
10. Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers
I was well into my teen years when Rescue Rangers appeared as a TV show, and by that point I was quite past any real affinity for Disney's cartoon family. In the DC vs. Marvel of it all, was a Bugs over Mickey, Looney Tunes over Disney kind of guy. Before that my experience with the chipmunk pairing was as ancillary characters in other Mickey Mouse productions. In other words, I don't have a strong affinity nor nostalgia for these characters.
What I do like is comedy, and I've been a fan of The Lonely Island for over two decades (going back to The 'Bu on Channel 101), so with Akiva Schaffer helming the picture and Andy Samberg co-starring (2/3 of the Island crew) with John Mulaney (one of my favourite stand-up comedians) it was a must watch, because there's no way this was going to be some lame Smurfs, Alvin and the Chipmunks or Garfield type effort, it was bound to get off kilter.
Of course, it is still a Disney production so it's not going to get too ribald, but what I think Schaffer, the writers and the crew on this managed to do was put so much into the film that it can't help but be entertaining.
Not since Who Framed Roger Rabbit (okay, forgot about the Lego Movie) has there been this many different IPs owned by different companies (Warner has tried it with their own various IPs in Space Jam and Ready Player One, Disney with Wreck It-Ralph and others) in one film, and it, quite literally makes all the difference. When Warner or Disney makes a film with all their own properties, it just seems kind of an unabashed exercise in cross-branding within the company. When something like this happens, where different properties from across companies comingle, well, that takes a whole shit ton of effort, and it's worth it, if only for the recurring "Ugly Sonic" gag.
The plot, like Roger Rabbit is a mystery, one which the estranged Chip 'n Dale, former co-stars of the 80's cartoon Rescue Rangers both have a personal interest in solving. The film gets into the dissolution of their partnership and their post-Rescue Rangers careers -- one went into accounting, the other into the void of lessening celebrity vehicles, like reality TV and convention appearances. The convention floor is one of the great set-pieces of the film, but just one among many.
The reunion and reconciliation of the duo is really the thrust of the film and that sort of storyline is kind of a paint-by-numbers affair at this point, but it's all the madness happening around them, and the specifics of the story, and the creative use of animation and animation styles that really send the whole thing sailing over the wall from an also ran into a maybe recurring revisit.
It's a fun picture with a good heart and plenty of laughs. Hard to go wrong with that. Maybe just missing a couple Lonely Island bangers.
[14:52]
No comments:
Post a Comment