Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino)

So there are two aspects to this movie: the Tarantino dialogue about the mundane and the Tarantino crime portrayal, which is nonlinear and senselessly violent among other things. The former in this film kept me engaged, certainly, but I consider its writing lacking in skill. It seemed forced, and cinematic (or maybe literary) rather than naturalistic. This was a little disappointing; I attribute it to a young screenwriter/director who has not yet seen his energetic scripts fleshed out on the big-screen. This showed up almost singularly in the movie's introduction, however. But the whole structure and style of the Tarantino crime film, which carried out the rest of the movie, was fabulous. The conflicts of ethics and conflicts of logic between characters were terrific; the ensemble of acting had some real gems -- I particularly loved Tim Roth and Steve Buscemi (Harvey Keitel was good for the job, but didn't really impress me). Roth is a young Pacino in some flawless ways. All in all, this is simply a great film. I prefer it to Basterds and Django. It's less catchy, less stylistic, but more substantial.

Take This Waltz (Sarah Polley)

I started Take This Waltz again tonight. I watched it a few years ago-- a powerfully painful experience, and also a superbly engaging one. Tonight I started it again, and this is simply my record of the experience.

Things were going like they did last time, so long ago. Interestingly, my subjective sense of purity is as dominating as it was all those lifetimes and religious involvements ago. Similar is the resemblance between my desperate romantic possessivenesses then and now. Take This Waltz would, again, be an absorbing and painful experience.

I may have loved the movie the first time. This time, somehow, I experienced it almost exactly the same. It's humble and naturalistic, focuses on subtler beauties, lesser-known parts of human nature...
I wouldn't love it this time. I no longer respect this film personality, which is no longer very original. This is a good film, I can be fairly certain of. Its style absorbs me, but also definitely repels me. I would get sucked in and would be hurt by this film. So here ends my experience with it, 17 minutes total.

There are two ways of assessing the quality of a film: one is subtractive and the other is additive.

The first assesses how many errors have been eliminated.

The second assesses how much the film really does, i.e. how much vision it loads onto the experience or the artistic statement.

While trying to call Boogie Nights a better film than Inherent Vice I realized that it is sort of an apples-and-oranges comparison, from my point-of-view. Boogie Nights forcefully imprints tons and tons of experience on the viewer. It has massive ambition and imagination. Inherent Vice is the product of a more refined director -- a cleaner-cut vision, restricted but skillfully focused. Boogie Nights inherits a whole world of ideas and perhaps flails a bit on the outer edges but ends up giving an explosive experience and a terrific reward.

Inherent Vice eliminates error on a narrow vision; Boogie Nights strives for everything. The former one could call an undeniably good film, in principle. The latter is a more subjective assessment.

Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)

I cannot believe I'm only one hour into Inherent Vice. One hour has felt like two-and-a-half of this wordy low-rider. However valuable it may be for me to finish my favorite filmmaker's newest work I do not think I can bear it. It's a noir, and I suppose I didn't fully know what that meant until now. There's almost nothing but lingual play happening here. The aesthetic is cool, but it's drowsy when paired with the low-action quality of the film. Everything is informational. The acting is superb, some of the character-shaping is good. I'm sure Paul Thomas Anderson knows exactly what he's doing in his new genre, and I'm sure fans of the genre are ecstatic about the prodigy's visionary take on it. I'd say it's not for me. He's a genius in the film world, he's a technical and conceptual mastermind, but his skills are applied here to a genre that doesn't keep me engaged.

Boogie Nights (Paul Thomas Anderson)

I would just like to proclaim that the first hour of Boogie Nights is fucking fantastic. The thrill, the dance, the sounds, the lights; the idea behind the whole thing, the tracking shots, how Anderson dances us in with the swooping camerawork set to a disco soundtrack, how Anderson playfully juggles absurdity and poignancy, humanity and humor; the energetic brilliance of a young and fresh Mark Wahlberg; gorgeous character-performances by Don Cheadle, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy......    Technique, concept, vision, energy and spirit all fuse together in Anderson's ingenious 60 minutes of first-class filmmaking.


This hour is one of the most extraordinary I have ever seen in contemporary film. It's not perfect, but that doesn't matter, because it's something else: it's fucking fantastic.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour)

12/20/15

This seemed like a good film. A super-clean aesthetic, mixes of modern and classic, some fear and some beauty. In some ways it and Under the Skin make a sweet pair.

However I didn't pull very much away from this experience, nor this film. I had a few moments of tenseness at the horror aspect and a few moments of marvel at the girl's impeccable face and at some of the pristine shots. The imagery in this film was superb. The lead girl was beautiful. Some of it was frightening.

I don't think that the film dealt with anything, nor did I feel any emotional impact that could make it more rewarding. This is a movie, and I can learn from it about movies. Style, technique, narrative...

I may compare it to Only God Forgives, with a little more class.

I'm not sure how much I like the modern-world component of the modern/old-school/transcendental fusion. This same mixture appeared in Under the Skin, and there too I wanted to deny the implants of pop society. Here there was a sort of post-punk side to everything that was happening that repelled me. Where else have I seen this? Am I really thinking of Electrick Children? I may be....

She was like a Mélanie Laurent. I liked her a lot.

The film was attractive in many ways. Ultimately, it didn't suck me in to a point at which I wanted to exist in it. But it was an attractive picture, and one sharply alluring.



Assume this is more valuable than anything in the main stream of cinema. It is evaluated with respect to a higher plane of movies.

Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson)

12/17/15

I consider this a strong film-- valuable to our world, valuable to the art form. I can't see it being as good as Fantastic Mr. Fox, but by its end it had an element that the other film didn't have. It gained some power.

The good majority of the film was underwhelming for me. I've essentially only ever seen one Wes Anderson movie, and I've been wanting to visit this one for years, and I always knew I would like it, but somehow the Anderson originality is already very dry to me. I appreciate the act of looking for the signature aesthetic, but this film didn't have the amazing humor that the other had.

Yet I liked it, and do call it valuable. The young male lead is fantastic in numerous ways; I love the Bruce Willis component; Ed Norton gives probably exactly what he should give-- I'm not sure just how valuable this is to me, but after Birdman I feel I could watch him anywhere-- I liked it. I feel once again that Bill Murray is a tragedy of disappointment, misunderstood to be a real actor.... and it is baffling to me. I have not been impressed in the slightest with the movies for which he is acclaimed as an actor-- Lost in Translation, Moonrise Kingdom, perhaps Groundhog Day or Razor's Edge....    Frances McDormand was irrelevant.

It's valuable because it is the real, the full Wes Anderson. Fox was a playful and probably ingenious experiment; Budapest is probably merely a project, a career-builder. Moonrise Kingdom is full and fleshed. And it is a good movie.

Andrei Rublev

I have a terrific affection for this expansive, subtle, slow, meditative, cerebral, painstaking, gorgeous, emotional historical spiritual philosophical film. It has everything in it..... everything except an attractive premise or setting, or set of characters, or anything that makes movies attractive. This movie is everything except attractive. Nevertheless, multiple choppy critical viewings have developed in me a strong love for Andrei Rublev, probably the ugliest film of Tarkovsky's. It's definitely not something I could naturally connect with, but that was sort of the case with the now-easy and amazing Solaris and Stalker. Tarkovsky has become enjoyable.... but two viewings is absolutely necessary, and maybe months in between.

Rublev is one of my favorite movies. I love the signature shots; the painfully distant dialogue and characters; every baffling decision made by the menacingly-theoretical Tarkovsky.