the_cinesexual

It's been over 10 years since Lisa Cholodenko directed Ally Sheedy in her career's best performance; however, Kids proves she's still an estimable director of actors. The achievement is less notable here since I already knew Annette Benning was a goddess; and she's wonderful in the little box Cholodenko has put her in. On the other hand, although I like Julianne Moore, in this movie, I thought she came off a bit shrill. There were also moments of fake emotionality — enthusiastically performed moments of fake emotionality, true.

I watched this movie right after finally catching up with the last season of Six Feet Under, a show I used to look forward to watching, usually with my boyfriend. Years later, after having not been in the United States for 8 years, I found I was much less tolerant of the tropes of the "dysfunctional family" as dramatized on television and in movies. In fact, I found myself not wanting to watch those characters at all and came to really want to yell at Ruth/Mrs Fisher who used to be one of my favorite characters.

I thought: If you hate each other so much then why don't you get away from each other? Nate and Brenda? OMG! And WTF? Same deal with David and Keith. Why exactly were they together and what in hell made them think they could raise kids? What social-service agency gave them the go-ahead? I got no pleasure out of any of them, other than that of seeing "old friends" again. And just like the moment after getting together with "friends" from high school, I remembered why I never needed to again.

Kids reminded me of Six Feet Under: A similar sort of dysfunctional family's bitching and sniping at one another, if at a much lower and tolerable pitch. Barely tolerable. Cholodenko, not surprisingly, directed one episode of Six Feet Under. Are there still shows like Six Feet Under on TV in which unpleasant, if complex and interesting, characters make the lives of their loved ones complete hell? There was definitely an ideological itch being scratched which is either no longer there or no longer noticeable in 2011, at least for me.

So, Kids seems a bit "out of time" to me despite its modern marriage. Maybe that's why I had difficulty believing much about the settings and the background stories of any of the characters. Did you believe, or remember even, for longer than a few seconds, that Annette Benning's character was a doctor? Didn't think so. Did I believe that Julianne Moore's could be a landscape designer? That she's reached her age and doesn't know what she wants to do with her life? That Mark Ruffalo's character owns a restaurant and rides a motorcycle (sort of, more or less)? Or, that the latter two really had an affair? Really? Oscar nominee for Best Supporting Actor? WHAT?! Director, please.

The extent I believed anything in this movie depended on the performances and Cholodenko gets some good ones out of everyone except Ruffalo, whose perpetual bemusement mirrored my own. But, it wasn't enough for me and these gaps made even more obvious Cholodenko's lack of skill in all the other areas of filmmaking, not least of which is the ability to structure a narrative to provide more than just moments of thespian skill, however emotional, and to provide an overall consistent tone and to back it all up with a believable world for the characters to live inside.

So, mad props for direction of actors, and a lot of head-scratching and eye-rolls for everything else.

... but then probably no one here needs me to tell them that. :-) Its grueling purity and ruthless critique reward in ways you won't be able to fully access after one viewing. The final reel shakes everyone with whom I've ever seen it.

Much has been said about its connection to experimental formalism but I think its accessibility is underrated. My friend and I brought his 50ish mother to a screening and though she's no stranger to American "art" films she'd certainly never seen a 3.5 hour movie before nor ever seen anything remotely labeled "experimental." She was riveted and nearly in tears at several points and talked about it literally her entire visit. I just take that as further testament to the film's rigor and continued relevance. And perhaps the art community's underestimation of the "general" audience for art films.

For those who found it boring, that's a valid response but simply finding a handful of ways to say that over and over does not constitute criticism.

Whatever else I think about these self-reflexive mockumentary pranks like Casey Affleck's I'm Still Here and now, inappropriately nominated for an Academy Award for best Documentary Film, Banksy's Exit Through the Gift Shop, I have to admit they reflect their times in ways that real documentaries can't.

How can I not admire filmmakers who create the reality they're documenting? Banksy's film goes steps farther by manufacturing the target demographic, as well. Pretty slick.

Upon hearing initially about the "political" street artist's film, I tweeted something along these lines: If street artist Banksy really walked the walk he'd release his film for free under a Creative Commons license like Sita Sings the Blues.

I said that because I hadn't seen it. Now that I've seen it and get the joke, I'm glad to confront its politics: Few films could be farther from the generosity and artistry of Nina Paley's film.

I've never trusted the sincerity of Banksy's anonymous persona or the literal sincerity of his "politics." I thought his painting of the Gaza wall was glib self-promotion, at best. Now, after having watched this film, I have my doubts that a real, single person called "Banksy" even exists.

Regardless, even if he did, I wouldn't believe a word he said.

Exit Through the Gift Shop will probably win its Award, though, if my judgment of the American cultural milieu holds true.

As an antidote, watch Ceský sen. It's just as mischievous and honestly political. I can't think of another film in which young artists wrestle with their generation's need for irony. You won't find that sort of self-awareness in Banksy's film.

P.S. I've always found smug the art of Shepard Fairey so he certainly belongs in this film.

This Palme d'Or winner is even more lush and magical than Tropical Malady and a lot more coherent than Blissfully Yours — large swaths of which I found unwatchable — and, even though I've never been as big a booster of Apichatpong Weerasethakul as so many cinephiles seem to be, Uncle Boonmee nevertheless displays a confident young director approaching mastery.

Every shot is so carefully composed and matched to the next that watching the film is like turning the pages of a picture-book found in a dream. Sure, it's someone else's dream and some of the pages are missing and it's in a barely familiar if evocative (visual) language, but all that just deepens the engagement with the mystery.

Director Todd Verow's unexpected turn into sentimental coming-out drama yields a predictable result: Nothing new to see here. Attractive but unconvincing leads - these 20-somethings are supposed to be in high school? - dribbling out banalities about confused, adolescent sexuality doesn't strike me as the best way to explore the promise of Anonymous, which was equally self-involved, but also honest, raw and, by comparison, not all that maudlin. I have no idea what to make of this drab and uninspiring movie other than to hope that Verow finds another career. Sure, it's unpretentious, but so's Mike Huckabee.

No single attribute, however, is as awful as Jim Dwyer's chintzy, electronic score, which grates non-stop, wall-to-wall for the full length of this movie. If I'd seen this, and heard this, in a theatre, I would have walked out. Thankfully, on my laptop, I could scrub and hit mute.

Perhaps it's not entirely fair for me to review this movie since I walked out in disgust about halfway through and came back only for the last ten minutes. But I agree with Dennis Cooper: The literal interpretation of his book makes the film an entirely predictable exploitation flick - in terms of narrative and in the amateurish way it's all presented - instead of a compelling and artful auto-interrogation of f*cked-up desire. The most damage done is by director Todd Verow's inability to transpose the colloquial first-person of the book into something that makes sense for a movie. At this point in his career, he doesn't have the skills to pull it off, which results in a decision to make the serial killing explicitly real. I suppose Verow thinks that makes his movie more transgressive than Cooper's book which only tells me he didn't understand the book in the first place. Verow can be a creative and entertaining filmmaker - his Once and Future Queen is a scream; and Anonymous showed promise - but Frisk is dull and obvious, and only a half-star away from being complete garbage.

By far the most enjoyable Robert Rodriguez movie I've ever seen, "Planet Terror" succeeds mostly because the actors and the director have a grand time and because the ironic distance is kept to a minimum. In fact, the affection, respect even, that the filmmakers have for the genre registers in every frame, and that's evident in the fake trailers and the missing reel stunts. They are trying to recreate, not just a type of film, but the whole experience of watching one. For the most part, they succeed. Tarantino's half of this project, Death Proof, on the other hand, is a mixed bag. He's evidently got too big an ego to just get out of the way. As a result, his "auteurist" marks are all over the least successful parts of the film, and the most boring. The best bits are the most generic. (His use of Kurt Russell is brilliant though.) As a whole, Grindhouse is very funny, clever, quite gory and rarely boring. This is what Troma Team has been trying to do, and mostly failing, for the last 20 years.

Although I've watched this movie three times the only thing that's stuck with me is the scene in which the male protagonist masturbates and ejaculates on the face of his former abuser. It's pretty much the only suggestive and psychologically rich moment in the whole film. There's no penis shown and no "money shot" but, besides "pleasuring himself," the handsome and talented lead also delivers, during that onanistic act, a wrenching monologue simultaneously condemning and rewarding his tormentor, as well as a focused and powerful performance. That intensity is never achieved again. I can't help but think that the film exists solely to deliver that scene and that insight. Since I can't think of another film quite that honest in its exploration of abuse maybe watching the rest of the movie, whose eventual plot machinations are strictly rote, may be worth it.

Just not for me.

Despite a decent supporting cast (including Amy Irving, Jacob Vargas and Erika Christensen in a subtle performance as the Drug Czar's heroin addict daughter) I was bored silly most of the time. Too bored even to respond as vehemently as I could have to the film's basic conceptualization of the "drug problem" as being mainly one of race and/or nationality (consider how "Mexico" was represented

in the mise en scene) and where everyone, except the police and the

government of course (Senators Barbara Boxer and Orrin G. Hatch play

themselves), is either severely morally compromised or complete scum. The

ostensible main point of the movie, that the war on drugs has too many

unacceptable casualties, is delivered with smarm (just like Soderbergh's Oscar acceptance speech) rather than compassion and the entire 140+ minutes

gurgles and hand-wrings fitfully over its plot machinations with little drama and even fewer original ideas.

My one-line summary might seem to limit one's approach to Terence Davies' magnificent meditation; however, I stand by my assessment: this is the richest (visually and emotionally) and most rewarding cinematic rumination on awakening self-awareness that English-speakers currently have. Though highly personal, there's more here in a single sequence on the loneliness and isolation of realizing and growing into one's queerness, one's affinity with a particular bent of art and aesthetics than the entire oevre of Peter Greenaway. Like Jarman, but at once both more poetic and passionate, The Long Day Closes is non-linear, meant to be savored one aching moment at a time.

Elaborate production design and costumes obviously cost a lot of money yet lend no weight whatsoever to this bombastic, flatulent piece of designer movie-making. And goddess save us from Avid!

Some really hot men tho and nice tribal tats. And Jessica Lange looked great. Hannibal Lect.... I mean, Anthony Hopkins, looked a bit sheepish throughout.

Want an aggressively relevant adaptation of Shakespeare? Watch Michael Almereyda's Hamlet. There's more art (and heart) in the Guggenheim scene than in all 162 wackily itinerant minutes of this mess.

It's difficult to say exactly what this luminous masterpiece is about. It's a memoir of sorts but a highly stylized one where memories are re-experienced and conveyed through songs, frequently communally sung; painful familial interactions powerfully shot as if the scenes were paintings or sets on a stage. This formal approach resonates simultaneously with richness and alienation, pathos and ecstasy. Difficult to shake.

Not at all what I expected and there's certainly nothing quite like it anywhere in the history of cinema. Powerfully acted and masterfully directed: One of the great works of British movie-making.

I also highly recommend Davies' two other great works: "The Long Day Closes" and the recent, made for Showtime movie starring an amazing Gillian Anderson, "The House of Mirth." I personally didn't care that much for "The Neon Bible."