05 August 2009

Shop Movies

Our current home, in the workshop of F's uncle, has a number of advantages. Big-screen TV is not one of them, and yet we are watching films, in the spirit of mtg and tg, on our laptop, seated at the only table in the place. This is largely due to the lovely public library in town--they have a good, surprisingly wide ranging and eclectic contemporary film collection on DVD (including a whole batch of Brazilian indie films I haven't even brought up with F as a possibility, but there you are). We have watched several films, and if you know us, you know that we are trepidatious about watching film because we tend to, well, dislike in the extreme and/or have such scathing critical analyses afterwards that in fact we reduce said film into a puddle of ooze, and said discussion is summarized to others with a grunt and a "meh". So, herewith the 5p film reviews of the works we've seen thus far:

W: OMG boring. maybe this film was made for the generation after us that didn't live through this? was it supposed to be funny? why did I find myself offended at the thin/stupid/silent portrayal of Condi Rice? Yikes.

I've Loved you So Long: see it. amazingly well-acted, written, directed, and not as French as you worry it will be. we found the ending to be a cop-out, but hey, we are constitutionally unable to like any film wholeheartedly. Kristin Scott Thomas is amazing; Elsa Zylberstein is utterly transcendent.

Capote: F didn't like Capote himself--that is, he thought Capote was a bit of a twat. which he was, so the movie did a good job there. the film fell short of offering up an arc of: wow this guy is conceited---look how he has a crisis---look how he's fallen... because frankly, you don't really like him anyway, and he's never not conceited. the acting was good, but in a "I'm supposed to think this acting is good" sort of a way. I wanted it to be about Harper Lee instead, but whatever.

King Corn: very well put together, small documentary about corn. See it if you've driven through Iowa (or similar) and wondered who eats all that corn, anyway, in order to discover the horror that is our food system from a slightly different perspective. props for not going all Michael Moore on us.

1 comment:

Althusser said...

Go Brazilian indie! For post-1979 colour movies also try 'Let the Right one in' - Swedish (subtitles), snow, vampires. Genuine extension of the genre. Must see. May have different title in the US.