Fun to run a newspaper

Citizen Kane

(1941)

Golly, I find that this is the first time I've screened this since I've been blogging home screenings, so I can say anything I want to about it without repeating myself. Of course, there is the problem of repeating everyone else who has ever written about the film.

My daughter doesn't like this, though I think she has seen it only once and has not cared to give it a second chance now that she's all grown up. But the fact is, I can understand not loving it--not not admiring it, which strikes me as impossible, but not having it find a place close to your heart. I mean, hell, look at me: I do love it, yet there are several movies I'd watched 4 or 5 times since I last screened this. The heart wants what the heart wants, of course, but somehow I need to get her to sit down with it again. Maybe I should ask her in my will to watch it--hell, she'll have the DVD then.

Surface tension

A Slipping Down Life

(1999)

Less than the sum of its parts, though two of the parts are Lili Taylor and Guy Pearce, two of the most unobtrusively great actors of their generation. The problem is the story, based on a novel by Anne Tyler. Let me put it this way: the decision by Evie Decker to carve into her forehead the name of the oddball charismatic rock singer Drumstrings Casey (think lovechild of Springsteen and Zevon), whom she has barely met, is above the median in clear motivation for characters' behavior. Still, the leads--and John Hawkes as Drum's drummer and manager--make it worth a look, even if you decide, as I did, to deaccession it from your DVR's hard drive.

Death takes no holiday

Orfeu negro

(1959)

Funny, everything I planned to say about this, I seem to have said in previous posts (click on the title link), even down to the Keats allusion. But I'll push that one a bit farther: if beauty is indeed truth, then a sadder beautiful truth is that sadness never ends, but happiness does. Take that with you to Carnaval.

Frenemies

Safe House

Crit

Ah, the old throw-in-with-your-enemy-'cause-someone's-out-to-kill-you-both-and-you've-got-to-get-to-the-bottom-of-it-(by-which-time-your-enemy-will-have-pretty-much-become-your-only-friend) story. Denzel's always Denzel, but unfortunately, Ryan Reynolds seems equally incapable of escaping his ryanreynoldsdom. Will someone please explain this dude's appeal to me?

Cool surprise: getting to see the Cape Town football stadium (built for the 2010 World Cup, natch) up close and personal.

Trailers

Golly, what a lot of 'em!

• The Bourne Legacy--Yeah, Jeremy Renner's good, but Bourne without Damon? That's like Bond without . . . never mind.
• Friends with Kids--No guarantee, but this looks like it might not be completely brainless.
• 21 Jump Street--This, on the other hand, . . .
• Seeking a Friend for the End of the World--Promising high-concepter (see title), with Steve Carell and an initially unrecognizable Keira Knightley.
• Undefeated--Nonfiction methadone for us who miss Friday Night Lights.
• Battleship--Speaking of which, here's Taylor Kitsch again, in another dumb looking action pic (he gets a haircut in this one!).

Legs

Men in Black

(1997)

Free sample of Starz made it possible to see Tommy Lee Jones as a cop for the 2nd night in a row. Funny, but not as funny as I remembered; fun, but not as fun as I remembered. One cool unremembered things: Mets center fielder Bernard Gilkey as himself. One cool thing I never would have noticed before: John Cameron, executive producer of Friday Night Lights, the final episode of which I watched the other night, was first assistant director. Oh, and one indication that my ear has become sensitized to certain tropes: I guessed within seconds of the opening that the music was by Danny Elfman.

Indiana Jones and the prosthetic arm

The Fugitive

(1993)

Yes, this was a serious Friday-night deaccession candidate, but no, I think I'll be keeping it. Holds up remarkably well, even when you know the real bad guy from the start--has action, sex, intrigue, and Julianne Moore--what more could you ask? Well, if you were greedy, you might ask for more Julianne Moore. And if you were delusional, you might ask for sex (or at least action or intrigue) . . . but that way madness lies . . .

White lies

(The earrings of) Madame de . . .

(1953)

Delicious web of ironies in a continental context of flirtation to and perhaps beyond the brink of betrayal. It's all fun and games until someone loses . . .