Reviews
Howl (2010)
Howl is a classic, not a Hallmark Card
Franco was magnificent. Everybody was good. I was in my teens when all that happened, and the production was wonderfully REAL. I loved hearing the poem read and pieces of it being re-read, etc. BUT major complaint. The animation. The outsourced animation could have been moving or touching or enlightening or anything, but it looked like hallmark cards! CHEEEEESY. Terminally unimaginative. Haven't these filmmakers ever seen any REAL animation? By artists? Take a look at Ryan by Chris Landreth. Take a look at anything done by Ryan himself. Look at Mirrormask!!
Another reviewer who attended a Q&A says that the artist is one who worked with Ginsberg on an illumated Howl. Ginsberg, aside from his involvement in "Pull My Daisy" was not a filmmaker. These folks were either too reverent or lacked creativity. Or both.
Or maybe they just couldn't afford it? There are brilliant out-of-work animators who would work cheap, who've got some serious intelligence, but this stuff brings down the tone of the whole film. Howl is a classic. Not a Hallmark Card.
Unfolding Florence: The Many Lives of Florence Broadhurst (2006)
Wonderful Work, Fascinating Woman
At first I was put off by the seen-too-much-of-it cutesy animation, but it WAS suited to the subject, and before I could chill utterly, I fell in love with Florence Broadhurst. The story was nicely set-up, It had a nice structure, and it had some drama which helped it work, but it was the people interviewed that captivated along with the few actual shots of Broadhurst and the charismatic sound of her rather amazing VOICE, the quotes from letters: all those things were laid out with tremendous charm. I loved The Ladies of the Black & White ball with their clothes and furniture and hairdos and grudging admiration, AND the employees of the company with their affection and humor, and then all the work she FINALLY did, the artistry and craftsmanship she had in her all along. Tremendously satisfying film.
Follow Me (1972)
Well, I did watch it all the way thru
but fast-forwarded quite a lot. Somewhere there's a Roger Ebert review that is right on the money and hilarious. It was called "The Public Eye" when I saw it on Sundance channel. It was endlessly talky, and I think it might have been a stage play. It was a kind of paint by numbers fey love story. Mia Farrow who's often beautiful and wistful was skeletal and actually scarier than she was in Rosmary's baby. Especially when she danced! These were the deadliest of stock characters, the stuffed shirt husband, the waifish sincere sensitive free spirit, and Topol as the earthy Real Person who helps everybody find him and herself. Ebert described him as Zorba in a lab coat. Dumb dumb dumb. Why did I watch all the way thru? "Cause I'm old and got to look again at the tail end of the 60's?
Domino (2005)
No Spoiler is Possible...
...Because this movie is completely incoherent. And utterly crazed and delightful. And Keira Knightly! Quelle insouciance (pardon my lousy French)! This is just great great entertainment. Uh, it is kinda violent. I never saw the beginning, but that doesn't matter, because it really makes no sense at all. But I just LOVED it. I don't know if it was Keira Knightly's hair or what, but it just kept escalating its insanity and the laughs.... Okay, okay: There's some scene where Tom Waits is playing some kind of desert holyman who explains some karmic debt our protagonists are going to have to pay, and Knightly nods seriously at all the deep talk (there's already been a lot of death and tragedy (and money and mafia and rednecks and sick children) and then she asks, just as seriously, "Can you take us to Vegas?" And so they go. To the Stratosphere Hotel. You will, too. Rent it.
Eyewitness (1981)
character and dialogue
Somebody recently asked me to come up with an example of a stolen scene.
I immediately thought of this movie, the scene where Kenneth McMillan (Hurt's father) has moved out on his wife. Sitting in his wheelchair, he tells Hurt, "She used to adore me. I need to be adored." That's the kind of scene they usually cut as "not contributing to advancing the plot" or some such drivel. It's such a stunning scene that it makes you see 1. What dreck the rest of the movie is. 2. Why the movie is worth watching.
Also, William Hurt was still sexy then, not the mass of twitches he later became.
La mala educación (2004)
More than Erotic
Less witty than most Almodovar movies, possibly because more deeply felt. But, really, be warned. This movie contains scenes of male intercourse. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But I'm hetero and don't even like to watch the opposite sexes screwing. All of the critics have been a little overly politically correct in calling this "erotic." It's raunchy. All the same, it is Almodover and he's a brilliant filmmaker, and obviously he thought these scenes essential. I preferred Talk to Her, All About My Mother, Tie Me Up Tie Me Down, and, of course, Women on the Verge. Talk to Her is my fave, possibly because of the devastatingly beautiful song, splat in the middle of the movie. I forget what it was, but it's a Mexican song, and sung better and more soulfully than I've ever heard before. Almodover is a genius with his use of music. Well, a genius, all the way.