14 January 2008

A batch of ticket stubs without a lame spaghetti-western title

  • Into the Wild (10/6, Orange)--Read something the other day that precisely matched my sense of the protagonist: something about his being the most social antisocial person ever. Loved also the way he was depicted as making those around him better, and making them get along better, too. Kinda like Jesus, I guess. Kinda Jesuslike in his uncompromisingly self-destructive behavior.
  • Deep Water (10/8, Crit)--I confess to having dug around a bit for this ticket stub, rather than taking what came next, because I felt strongly the strangeness of seeing this on the same holiday weekend as the previous: it was the monomaniacal-suicidal-guy season. Of course, this msg is way less appealing and sympathetic than the other--more pathetic than sympathetic, but still, possessed of a determination that can't be shrugged off, for all its craziness.
  • 2 Days in Paris (8/25, Crit)--I confess that my critical sense may be clouded a bit by the Delpy factor (it's so much fun just to say "Julie Delpy"), but I found this to be the best Woody Allen movie I've ever seen written and directed by someone other than Woody Allen. And the Adam Goldberg character is as annoying as any ever played by Woody.
  • Eastern Promises (9/22, Crit)--OK, I think this Cronenberg-Mortensen partnership is working out pretty well; I didn't think they could mess with my head any more than A History of Violence had, but I was wrong. A long shot for a top-ten spot, and maybe an acting nod to Viggo.
  • Talk to Me (8/18, Crit)--Really looked forward to the pairing of Cheadle and Ejiofor, and for a while it works beautifully, but once the news comes that Dr. King has been shot, the film has no more idea what to do than any of us had at the time.
  • Superbad (8/19, Crit)--Sorry, not on the bandwagon here: it's a pleasant enough little entertainment, but there are people calling this one of the best films of the year? Uh, no.
  • Venus (2/2, Crit)--Whoa, we have gotten into the time machine, haven't we? As best I can recall, O'Toole is irresistible (always a good bet), I'd like to hear more from the Rickie Lee Jones-sounding woman in the soundtrack (OK, OK, looked her up: Corinne Bailey Rae), and otherwise, feh.
  • It Happened One Night (1934) (1/7, Crit)--If only for the "Man on the Flying Trapeze" sequence, it was worth seeing this as part of a big crowd, even though the damn theater is incapable of projecting a pre-widescreen film properly. Yes, I've asked them about it: they swear it's a technological issue--they don't show enough such films to justify the expense of the lens-attachment doodad that would make it possible. I don't know from projectors, but isn't there just a knob you can twist to pull the image back to leave blank screen left and right, rather than running the image off the top and bottom. At least there's no dancing in this one, and no Ilsa holding a gun at waist level so that we can't see what Rick's reacting to. I think this was my last 4:3 film here.
  • Notes on a Scandal (1/6, Crit)--Not merely wonderful performances by the two wonderful performers (though that, certainly--but make it three: Nighy's terrific as well), this is a far better film than the reviews suggested.
  • Georgia Rules (5/12, Crit)--And so is this, while we're at it. In fact, this gets the 2007 Oscar for worst-botched advertising campaign, with the trailer that suggests fluff and the poster that depicts the three women as best pals. Hey, you marketing cretins: (1) there's an audience for "dark"; and (2) the audience for fluff is apt to get really pissed off when lured into the theater on false pretenses. Another thing: I hope Ms. Lohan gets her personal shit together sometime soon, because it would be unfair to me to be deprived of her potentially Hepburnesque body of work because of her own pathetic weaknesses of the flesh.
  • Das Leben der Anderen (The lives of others) (3/3, Crit)--When I saw this I was still ticked off that Pan's Labyrinth got nothing on Oscar night, but I have to admit that this was a deserving winner--and not just for the Foreign Language ghetto, either.
  • La Doublure (The valet) (5/12, Crit)--Pleasant enough, though it's hard to accept Daniel Auteuil as an asshole. Best, most surprising thing about the film is that the hot young girlfriend is actually allowed to have a story, and a brain. A doublure, incidentally (yes, of course I had to look it up), is a theater understudy, and The Understudy would have been a much better English title.
  • Breaking and Entering (3/2, Crit)--Had to remind myself what this was; that's how memorable it was. Oh! But I just remembered the best thing about it: Vera Farmiga, not even mentioned in the Netflix blurb, as an eastern European hooker.
  • Factory Girl (2/16, Crit)--I had read most of Edie before the film came to town, so I pretty much knew the cast of characters, but I didn't much care.
OK, that's all the ticket stubs from the table in the entryway, leaving just the ones on the dresser and the ones still in the envelope. Sixty or so down, how many to go? And more to the point, will I get through all of them and be able to make a top ten list by Oscar night?

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