For whatever reason, springtime is when I catch up on movies from the past year. The drought is over and we’ve been watching several movies thanks to some local theaters and blockbuster.com
. . .
Marie Antoinette – Let’s dress up kids in fancy Rococo costumes and film them lounging around Versailles to the tune of indie rock music. Look, just because your Dad is a great director doesn’t mean you are. I fell asleep during the first ten minutes. Too bad the project wasn’t guillotined during pre-production.
Volver – My first Almodóvar
film, and an enjoyable one to boot. Me gusta Penélope. I also liked the look of her prosthetically-enhanced rear. According to mi esposa, the English subtitles were a poor effort. Much of the colloquial humor and colorful vocabulary were lost in translation.
Letters from Iwo Jima – Excellent. Shows war for what it really is – insane.
Running with Scissors – Watched this last night. Mi esposa really enjoyed it. I found it utterly pointless. If you want a film about a dysfunctional family that’s actually interesting and funny, go with Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tennenbaums. Scissors left me wanting to stick my head in a microwave.
Stranger than Fiction – Running around naked is not Will Ferrell’s only strength. This Irvine native is in fact a decent actor. I liked the literary focus of the film...except the romance between IRS auditor Ferrel and Maggie Gyllenhaal's anarchist/cookie maker character was completely unbelieveable.
Ocean’s Twelve – The first one was entertaining. But Hollywood producers never know when to leave a good thing alone. They get pleasure from poking dead bodies with sticks, repeatedly. I made it through about forty minutes before the ennui set in strong and I killed it. My only dissapointment in not finishing the film was missing the scene in which Brad Pitt and George Clooney wear Arsenal FC track suits. What's worse than Ocean's Twelve? Ocean’s Thirteen!
A Scanner Darkly – I was excited last year about the promise of this film. My excitement didn't live up to the final product. After an hour the novelty of interpolated rotoscoping (the style of film in which live footage is overlaid with 2D animation similar to Waking Life) wore off. I did enjoy watching the characters drive past my house on the I-5 though - seeing Orange County landmarks through Phillip K. Dick's drug-addled haze was kinda funny.
The Departed – Not sure it deserved the Best Picture Oscar - I would have given that to Babel. But I can thoroughly say I respect Leo DiCaprio as an actor. His performance was bad-ass. He’s come a long way from that little poor boy on the Titanic.
Babel – Loved it - the cinematography, the acting, the style, the three separate stories which intersect at the end...it was beautiful. Crash has nothing on this film.
. . .
So far, my favorite films from 2006 have been
Little Miss Sunshine, Iwo Jima, Babel and
Children of Men.
Borat and
V for Vendetta deserve an honorable mention.
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