Dogs Bark

The N-Word In The Woodpile - - Django Unchained (2012) - - 30 December 2012

Strongly recommended. First, if you are concerned about Spike Lee's problems with Django Unchained, I can tell you that, despite my respect for him, Lee’s boycott is wrong. Although director Quentin Tarantino' s body of work may present a peculiar - -  at times even offensive - - take on African-Americans, women, Jews, and even Madonna, I believe that his intent is honest and true . . . certainly never slack. One can recoil from the horror of slavery and holocausts or one can create a weapon to attack them and, in his own way, Tarantino has chosen the latter, perilous pathway. In Django Unchained, Tarnetino has done it again, assisted by more thespian brilliance from Samuel L. Jackson and Christoph Waltz; Jackson creates his most insidious and Oscar-worthy villain to date. All of the casting and acting is wonderful. Django Unchained is a completely entertaining bedlam of horror, violence, ridiculous humor and movie brilliance. Don’t boycott Django!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/30012522#50308564

Upon A Star - - A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) - - 29 December 2012

Recommended. I find it interesting that one of the most beloved sci-fy movies, Blade Runner, is itself about love, real or manufactured, of the real or manufactured. And even odder is that another futurist, Stanley Kubrick felt a synchronous urge to also make a movie about robot love, A.I. Artificial Intelligence. The result - - after handing it off to director-buddy Steven Spielburg, and then dying - - is what one would expect . . . brilliant and abstruse by turns. Despite this, A.I. Artificial Intelligence has recently been reanimated in critical opinion over its disappointing release. I concur with this. The story has the mother of all third-act problems, as Kubrick admitted, and this is its major flaw. For the record, the “aliens” at the end are actually evolved Mecha and much of the sentimentality of the plot was, apparently, Kubrick’s intention. Regardless, A.I. Artificial Intelligence remains a never-dull take on a wise old tale.  

A Rose in Misery - - Les Misérables (2012) - - Christmas Day, 2012

Strongly recommended.  Les Misérables is one of my favorite musicals. And as such, it is extremely difficult for me to be objective about the movie musical, Les Misérables, as directed by Tom Hooper (The King's Speech) and produced by impresario Cameron Macintosh. What I can do is evaluate whether it captures the spirit of the musical (very much so) and the reinterpretation of the characters, which goes from good (Russell Crowe), to great (Sasha Baron Cohen), to fantastic (Hugh Jackman), to off the charts (Anne Hathaway).  Be aware that there was NO lip syncing in this film. All of the performances were on camera. This wasn’t a stretch for Samantha Barks, who played Eponine in the West End for a year, or Helena Bonham Carter (Madame Thénardier); both are accomplished musical performers. But regardless, Les Misérables is a wonderful adaptation of the stage musical and a worthy Oscar contender.

Anything But Love, Baby - - The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (1976) - - 15 December 2012

Strongly recommended. The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie was one of the handful of highly influential movies written and directed by the late John Cassavetes and was made two years after his essential, Woman Under The Influence. I was particularly reminded of Coppola’s The Conversation. Both movies are about guys on the fringe, amoral and struggling to survive in a heartless world. This is strip club owner Cosmo Vitelli’s story (Ben Gazzara, Anatomy Of A Murder) who names his joint the Crazy Horse West after the famous Paris club and tries to infuse it with a clumsy panache; the Mob just wants another profit center. The Chinese bookie is irrelevant, like the Thin Man, and only a device to bust Cosmo’s balls. And Mr. Sophistication (Meade Roberts), the club emcee, he symbolizes Cosmo’s tattered ambition. The supporting cast is wonderful, including cult bad guy Timothy Carey (The Killing, One-Eyed Jacks).

Severe Reservations - - The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011) - - 9 December 2012

Not recommended. Unlike the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the same source of enlightenment that called Pia Zadora, Best Newcomer of 1981, I will not be staying at The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in January. I am afraid the Brits have proven that, other than Danny Boyle, they need to stay away from India. The idea - - outsourcing geriatrics to other cultures that actually respect wisdom - - is interesting; however, India already has plenty of best exotic wise guys and, most importantly, scriptwriters. Certainly, the country's suffered enough stereotyping as overbearing mothers, obsequious hotel clerks, quotable untouchables and other creaky tropes. Compunding that are Western clichés such as horny old Englishmen and wog-hating, grandes dames, each of whom experiences a life-changing epiphany by the final reel. Really! The camera work is pretty and Judi Dench, Tom Wilkerson, Dev Patel and poor old Maggie Smith all struggle bravely but, by the end, I had checked out.

Ladies And Gentleman, Habeas Corpus - - Hitchcock (2012) - - 8 December 2012

Not recommended. Good evening. I would first off like to thank this Duke fellow for allowing me to comment on the new film Hitchcock, which is currently in theaters. I would also like to thank my dear friend, Mrs. Bates, who instructed me in the art of communicating my wishes, post mortem. But I digress. Sadly, I cannot recommend Hitchcock since I am unaware of any similarities between the titular character, a nasty old pervert, and myself. I am heartened by the fact that my wife and dear companion, Alma, gets most of the sympathy and several of the movie’s best lines. She deserves as much. I also found salacious joy (Quiet, Mrs. Bates!) in the performance of Miss Scarlett Johansson as Miss Janet Leigh. But now I must return to my own private Purgatory where Mr. Truffaut has more of his tiresome questions and the commercials run without cessation. Thank you.

Accept The Good - - Things We Lost In The Fire (2007) – 7 December 2012

Recommended. There’s something very still and sublime about Halle Berry’s (Monster's Ball) beauty that Danish director Susanne Bier (In a Better World) uses well in Things We Lost In The Fire. Berry plays a widow who shares her grief with her husband’s childhood friend, a recovering heroin addict played by Benicio Del Toro (Traffic, The Usual Suspects). These two Oscar winners are the deserved main attraction. The movie overall suffers from Allan Loeb’s (Just Go With It) undernourished script, including a distracting sequence as Del Toro relapses and re-kicks his habit. It’s distracting because the main gift of the movie is watching the major characters show us how to process loss, including Fargo’s John Carroll Lynch and Alison Lohman (Matchstick Men). A nice score by Johan Söderqvist (Let The Right One In) also pleases, as does Tom Stern’s (Mystic River, Invictus) camera work. When’s Stern going to win an Oscar?

The Pursuit Of Unhappiness - - Anna Karenina (2012) - - 1 December 2012

Not recommended. For many of us, Anna Karenina was our entre to Leo Tolstoy’s amazing mind. No movie has ever quite captured the interbraided tragic and comic threads of the story, preferring to focus on the salacious over the sublime. To its credit, Joe Wright’s (Pride And Prejudice, Atonement) Anna Karenina does give the country mouse and Tolstoy stand-in, Konstantin Levin (Domhnall Gleeson, True Grit) his moment of enlightened joy. This is actually the best part of the movie. Wright and scenarist Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love) and production designer Sarah Greenwood (Sherlock Holmes) stage a stylized, deliberately unreal movie for reasons completely unclear to me; I found it hugely distracting. Casting a callow youth ( Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Kick-Ass) as Vronsky adds some unintended(?) unreality to Keira Knightley’s rather shallow performance. Other actors, Jude Law, Matthew Macfadyen and Gleeson, are pretty decent but overall, this movie is a disaster.