If you’re a happy, well-adjusted person, never go on a date with me. Just don’t.
I don’t mean because I, myself, am such a morose individual — I’m not. But my cinematic picks can be real downers.
I can’t help it! I like heavy-hitting dramas, acting tour-de-forces. I like walking out of a theater feeling devastated. Even on a date? Especially on a date.
If you’re a serious cineaste, it’s trendy to harken back to the greats — the silent era, in particular — as innovative, vital, and untouchable in their greatness. Nostalgia for such films is what helped The Artist win Best Picture this year, and it’s likely the first silent film many people have ever seen (and may remain the only one they ever do).
Inspired in part by the ballyhoo over the BFI Sight & Sound poll, I have decided to revisit the works of some of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived. We’re talking the real heavy-hitters — your Bergmans, your Fellinis, your Renoirs, your Kurosawas. Many of these directors, I met back in film school — or the summer just before, when I took on a list of 100 influential movies (and watched about half of them). I confess, I actively disliked two of the BFI’s Top 10, and slept through the majority of one more. So the BFI’s tastes are, not surprisingly, not perfectly matched up with my own, but the list did remind me of a lot of auteurs I’ve paid too little attention to since leaving USC. Thus, a random sampling of their films (not necessarily all lauded by the BFI) is in order.
Since volumes have been written on these works already, my goal isn’t to say anything particularly profound or noteworthy, or go into a deep analysis. They will only be brief reactions about what it’s like to view these films now, in (post-)modern times. Do they hold up? Are they still relevant? Are they still entertaining?
First up is Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 psychodrama Persona.
There are numerous reasons to lament the way cinema is heading — inflated ticket prices, needless 3D, the death of film projection, all leading to all sorts of problems that affect the quality of Hollywood’s output.
But let’s put that aside for now and focus on the positive changes. One of the great advantages of the advent of streaming video is that it makes small, little-seen movies as readily available as blockbusters. There are many films I would likely never have gotten around to if doing so weren’t so simple as clicking a button — The Arbor and Poetry are prime examples. These are the movies that benefit from being available when you’re “in the mood” for a rambling Korean film about an old woman taking poetry classes, or a pseudo-documentary about a foul-mouthed playwright. (Which, admittedly, is not always.) It’s less of an investment to begin a film with the option of turning it off and selecting another if it doesn’t captivate you. (Though I dislike this practice as a rule; many great films aren’t so obviously great within the first five minutes.)
Ah, 2011. You were a strange bird.
Is it me, or were movies more united by theme this year than is usual? Nostalgia was the big one, with several titles capitalizing not just on our nostalgia of a past era, but of movies from a past era — from silent films to Spielberg blockbusters and everything in between. People have been in an awfully romantic mood of late — perhaps because the recession made the present so unappealing. Cinema has always been about escapism, and this year more than ever, it’s taking us backward rather than forward.
(Films discussed in this post: Trespass, Boy Wonder, A Separation, Passion Play, Tuesday After Christmas, The Trip, The Double, The Beaver.)
This is my 100th post in this blog, and coincidentally, this post also marks 100 reviews of 2011 films. As you’ll see, I’ve saved some of the most obscure for last.
Every year there are hundreds of films that fly off the radar. There are a number of different levels of visibility for a movie; some, you’d have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to miss hearing about, which covers most major studio releases. Then there are the indies that the majority of mainstream viewers won’t have heard about, but most film-savvy people will — we’re talking the Take Shelters, Martha Marcy May Marlenes, and Bellflowers of this world. There are a couple levels even below that, too — the ones only the really film-savvy will have seen or heard of, like The Arbor and Poetry. And then it keeps going, to films that were screened at festivals but not picked up for distribution, or shot and never released, until it’s a film that only you have heard of, because you made it up in your own mind.
Ah, 2011. You were a strange bird.
Is it me, or were movies more united by theme this year than is usual? Nostalgia was the big one, with several titles capitalizing not just on our nostalgia of a past era, but of movies from a past era — from silent films to Spielberg blockbusters and everything in between. People have been in an awfully romantic mood of late — perhaps because the recession made the present so unappealing. Movies have always been about escapism, and this year more than ever, they’re taking us backward rather than forward.
Ah, bad kids. Where would the movies be without them?
From ghostly dead youngsters in The Ring and The Shining to the bloodthirsty (but still breathing) tykes of The Bad Seed and The Good Son, there’s a long-standing storytelling tradition in Hollywood to use sinister children as the Ultimate Evildoers — the juxtaposition between innocent faces and malicious intent gets us cinematically wet, I guess.
Recently (“ripped from the headlines” in Law & Order fashion), the movies have added a subgenre to this category with school shootings, like the current release We Need To Talk About Kevin. That’s not a horror movie, per se, but it does deal with a mother’s horrified reaction to the bad, bad thing her baby did.
(Movies discussed in this post: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Point Blank, The Lincoln Lawyer, The Source Code, Unknown, The Adjustment Bureau, Limitless.)
Admit it: the suspense is killing you. You’re just dying to know what I thought of the year’s thrillers, aren’t you?
Well, wait no longer. The mystery is unearthed below.
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Brad Pitt was named 2011′s Best Actor by the New York Film Critics Circle, which marks a notable shift in the thespian’s career. It’s not that he’s never been given awards love before, because he has. But Brad Pitt used to be a sex symbol — and I guess he still is, in that People magazine sort of way. But not really. That’s because he’s playing dads now.
It’s a big deal when actresses shift from playing the hottie to the mommy. Less so for men, who can still sex it up with pretty young things until they’re literally in the coffin. Still, the Brad Pitt recognized for The Tree Of Life and Moneyball is very different from the Brad Pitt nominated for his (CGI-enhanced) pretty boy leading man status in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button just a few years ago. Pitt has officially moved into George Clooney territory — good-looking, sure. But before you get it on with him, wouldn’t you first inquire whether or not he’s got a son you might hit it off with instead?
