Network

Nominated by The Enlightened Bracketologist as one of the great classic comedies.

Fascinating and glittering with intense performances and a sense of hyper-focus, and amazingly and trenchantly prophetic of one of the most disturbing and laughable things about the culture I live in—its interest in exploiting anything that will turn a profit—this is a strong movie, not really like any I have ever seen. Yet I also found it mostly unpleasant. Maybe I find all true satire unpleasant, and unsatisfying as to structure. (I read long ago, and agreed concerning my experience, that no book-long or play-long satire has a satisfying ending.)

Adam Bede

Same as Silas Marner and Our Mutual Friend, below.

The Lives of Others

Highly praised in reviews.

A fine movie, no doubt, but as often I see that my expectations play a rose in my response. The hero, Dreyman, struck me as too good to be true and simplistic. Likewise, though not to the same extent, the sympathetic Stasi man who sees the light, Weisler. The plot, though it generates plenty of suspense, struck me as being a little too mechanical, a little too much like a complicated mousetrap. I think part of the thrill of the movie is extra-aesthetic: when had the East German police-state been so directly confronted in a movie, at least a well-known one?

To Be Or Not To Be

A book I love, The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything, declared this movie to be the greatest classic comedy of all time. I had to see it. I had seen a movie (unless I’m mistaken) by Lubitsch during college, and seeing it on a large screen, surrounded by other moviegoers, hungry for new experiences, I found it delightful and satisfying—but which Lubitsch movie was it?

This one I found less so, though I assume it’s because I didn’t appreciate it, wasn’t able to accommodate myself to its rhythms. True, there was no character to love, but more objectively, I found the jokes unfunny: when an actor recites “Hath not a Jew eyes,” in order to protest anti-Semitism in a comic vein, there seems something significantly off-key, and the anti-Nazi sentiments, expressed jokingly, have a bada-bing feeling that seems strained. A Wikipedia article I just consulted quotes Lubitsch as saying that he is satirizing actors for remaining actors no matter what is going on around them, and that idea explains a lot, but such an intention seems an odd response to the Nazi takeover of Poland, and I don't blame myself for not taking this view. I’m sure I’m just not getting it, and should see it again, with this interpretation in mind. Still, there's that problem of how to make the nursemaid in Romeo and Juliet boring without being boring; how does one make actors shallow and a little stupid without seeming shallow and a little stupid? Does Lubitsch solve the puzzle or not?

Annie Get Your Gun

My daughter was in this musical and as she and the others rehearsed I was curious, so ordered it.

My interest in the movie was not that of the objective movie-goer. My daughter was playing the role of Annie, so I had an interest in finding this movie interesting. The thick layer of racism where the Native Americans were concerned made me wonder how anyone could even perform the play in the contemporary era. That aside, and aided by my extra interest, I found the musical entertaining, especially because of the consistently lively music that conveys so well Annie’s dilemma and its resolution.

Our Mutual Friend

I loved this novel when I read it during grad school a long time ago.

It turned out I couldn’t bear the thought of my experience of the novel’s being mangled and mashed, and stopped watching after a bit.

The Last King of Scotland

Strong reviews, including around the lunch table at work.

It sat and sat without my watching it. I think my fear of the intense proved too strong for me. I sent it back unwatched.

Gosford Park

I liked some Altman movies in my youth and this movie got positive reviews.

This movie was being satisfyingly Altman-esque, working away in a pointillist manner that reflects reality in satisfying way that differs from conventional, linear narration, but then, somewhat near the end, it morphed into a mystery-suspense movie and not a very satisfying mystery-suspense movie. I was sad.

Dr. Strangelove

A classic I hadn’t seen.

I found Peter Sellers performance magnificent and funny (magnificently funny, funnily magnificent). The way things switch back and forth between the two locales, each the site of tremendous tension and humor, is wonderful. The precision of the visuals and of every part of the movie, as if everything is lit from within, no matter how wonderfully gray things are—I’m not getting it right, but this knife-like crispness is something I associate with Kubrick. So much comedy and suspense at once is unusual in my experience.

Being There

Same as Harold and Maude, below.

Again I couldn’t get with the pacing. It seemed to slow to me. Nor could I suspend my disbelief.

Harold and Maude

It was referenced enough over the years to make me want to see it, and I had enjoyed, when young, Shampoo, with whom he was either the director, or, apparently, not really.

I couldn’t get beyond the character of Maude, who seemed too winsome and cute and mystical by half too me. The pacing I found wildly wrong, way too slow, though perhaps that was my inability to give myself over to the pacing. In any case, the horror/mock-horror made me recoil. I only watched twenty minutes or so.

Taxi Driver

A classic I hadn't seen, because I shy away from the thought of too much intensity of a violent kind. (The scene from Disney's Aladdin in which Robin Williams's Genie imitates the "Are you talkin' to me" scene made me think, that does it, I have to watch that movie, but it still took me years and the development of a company like Netflix.)

The movie seemed somewhat more like a detailed character study than a movie. It does explore the dark side of reality in a forceful way. De Niro is always great to watch—the combination of beyond-handsomeness, incipient humor, passion, and incipient violence (not much humor in this movie though) I always find potent. The ending, while artful, supports the sense that sometimes directors want to direct and film violence because it is always works—but if there’s no other thematic ingredient? There are other themes a-plenty here, but they seem to disappear at the climactic violent moment. This movie—this was true of Scorsese’s Goodfellas too—is always smart and riveting—but I wonder how much wisdom there is in the implied world-view, and how much that matters. Maybe the world view is that things are bleak all right, and my own inability to face the bleakness is my issue.

The 40-Year-Old Virgin

Positive reviews and the fact that Steve Carell seemed to be developing into a phenomenon.

The sweetness of Carell’s character wins him my sympathy, and the extremity of his situation—how deeply nerdy he is, how terrible his particular plights are (getting vomited on, having his chest-wax removed, for just two examples—does likewise. While it gets close to the line in its purveying of gross out jokes, it never quite seems to lose its respect for the audience’s intelligence, it never quite seems in it just to make money.

Belle de Jour

I’ve loved the Bunuel movies I’ve seen, and I hadn’t seen this one, and I read that it was sexy. Even more so perhaps than Bunuel’s usual.

It felt a little more labored to me than the others of his I’ve seen—later ones—less free-wheeling, and even less sexy; the relative coldness of the heroine and the lack of a compelling male protagonist seemed limitations. Part of Bunuel’s way is to play mind-games, and the mind-game playing element is if anything stronger here than in his other movies (maybe a little too-schematic, a little too schematic and therefore “solvable"?) Part of Bunuel’s way is to shock and I found this quite shocking. It’s less genial and sweet-tempered than his later movies, at least in my experience, and as a result seemed perhaps more truly edgy.

The Triplets of Belleville

It kept getting mentioned and it was animated. That was enough for me.

It was watchable, and its visual vocabulary was unusual in its nostalgic, vintage-y way. Yet I found it to be a little fatty. I wanted more protein. I felt the lack of a character to love. I should come up with an abbreviation for this, my limitation that seems to keep coming up.

Shall We Dance (1937)

I had never watched a complete Fred Astaire movie. I was in a dance-attire store with my daughter and they were playing a video of an Astaire movie that I watched as she shopped. The excerpt I saw was heavenly. I didn’t learn the movie's name. Looking up Astaire movies, this seemed like a good one to watch.

I wanted both Astaire and Rogers to have more sexual allure. I wanted the plot to matter more. I wanted the dancing to be wilder and crazier. I wanted this movie to be the one I had seen part of at the store. Maybe I was experiencing that syndrome pointed out by Emerson: when we encounter something beautiful unexpectedly, in a by-the-way way, its beauty strikes us forcefully; when we look to something to be beautifully, we’re disappointed. (He was referring to the moon.)

Upstairs, Downstairs

When this show was on when I was young, it always sounded delightful to me—like a contemporary (at the time) version of a nineteenth century English novel, but more comprehensive as it focused on more than one class.

Sadly, it seemed dated. The pacing seemed wrong. The character most interesting to me, the feisty, proto-feminist upper-class daughter Elizabeth, was on screen too little of the time for me. The servant most interesting to me, Clemence, seemed to be headed out of the story. I did watch several episodes. Something I read on-line said that in the first few episodes the series was just finding its feet.

Letters from Iwo Jima

Good reviews.

I found this engrossing, and it gave me a fairly constant thrill because I felt as if I were seeing the world through another person’s eyes, because the Japanese perspective combined with Clint Eastwood’s was so unusual in my experience. It was constantly visually interesting, in part because the inside the cave settings and night-time savings gave it the sense of being in black and white without it’s actually being so. I felt as if I was in the company of a movie like La Grande Illusion, in part because of the subject, in part because of that black and white quality, and in part because of the wise, complex humanity of the director/auteur.

This is Spinal Tap

An old friend loved this movie and always urged it on people, including me. I greatly enjoyed Best In Show and since have tried other movies by the same team of people, but without success. Their comic rhythmic seems too different from mine. The entire movie goes too slowly for me (did Best In Show go so slowly?). I stopped watching after a few minutes. Maybe if I had stayed with it I would have caught on.

Pan's Labyrinth

Positive reviews, and the unusual combination of elements mentioned.

Emotionally manipulative, as well as creepy and not just in the way it means to be, but the combination of elements—childhood fantasy, wild, animation-like visuals, reality in its more brutal aspects, war, and politics is brave and unusual.

The Queen

A review, plus positive mentions around the lunch table at work.

Convincing, without any slackness in the narrative, not dumbed down, and engrossing. It elicits sympathy for the main character, Mirren’s performance being utterly compelling, and Sheen’s Blair is fascinating. In retrospect a little airless, a little work-a-day as to sets, but I might be misremembering, and in any case, a very satisfying experience. 

Babe

I had read this children’s book, with delight, with my children when they were young. And my brother kept telling me, in his persistent, enthusiastic, eccentric way, that I had to see it with my children even though they were older now.

Satisfying and sweet, with an understated approach, an effectively spare sense of cinematography, and a firm hand on the narrative tiller. It was a faithful cinematic re-telling of a book, and so, as I believe is common, not as rich an artistic concoction as the book.

All the King's Men

A classic I hadn’t seen.

When, say, in a hotel bedroom with a TV I find an old black and white movie it doesn’t take much to make me happy, and if I encountered this movie, it would be a feast. However, rented from Netflix as a classic I hadn’t seen (nor had I read the classic novel, another fact causing me guilt), I find it a little labored and, workman-like. Like Marty (a more recently watched movie), it felt a little dumbed-down. I think probably there are good things going on with cinematography that I’m not noticing, because I'm too busy with the story. The old problem of no one to really sympathize with, a limitation of mine I grant.

Flannel Pajamas

A review made this movie sound intriguing and erotic.

I should take responsibility for my own interest in the erotic, but still, I want it to be an ingredient, balanced with other ingredients. It can be like a too-sweet or too-salty dish, where the maker has calculated that the intrinsic, addictive appeal of the sugar or salt will win out. Beyond that the movie has a bitter flavor, again, a bitterness not blended in enough with other flavors. On the other hand, it is a respectable attempt to tell a story, and it did keep me interested. The grittiness of its realism was unusual.

Volver

Glowing, excited references in the New York Times.

Too much I think for me to take in at once. If the plot is meant to be followed on first viewing, I couldn't. I didn't realize, for example, that Irene turned out not to be a ghost at all. It is certainly never boring, but that might be just a function for how full of vitality the actors are, not to mention how beautiful and sexy they are. How much of the appeal is that of very soft yet potent pornography? Certainly it's good-humored throughout, potently sympathetic to each of its characters except the evil rapists. I need to see it again.

The Wings of the Dove

I decided to see the movie to help me get a hold of the novel, because I love Henry James but sometimes he’s too hard and/or obscure for me.

The movie served the purpose well. The level of melodrama is thick, as it is in James, but the intense sense of heartbreak comes through, and intense eroticism seems true to James, though in James it’s unstated. The love-making scene at the end was unexpected, shocking, and fun.

On the Waterfront

A classic I hadn’t seen.

Again, everyone seems to be faking it a bit, pretending great seriousness, seeming like stereotypes (though maybe the images here are the creation of what became stereotypes?) Brando seems to be imitating himself, without achieving the startling sense of real rawness and danger he has in A Streetcar Named Desire. Maybe it was my old problem of needing someone to care about, if not be in love with.

Proof

Enough references to it, along with my interest in Gwyneth Paltrow.

I’m afraid everyone seems to be overacting and pouring on the angst, as if everyone concerned is afraid that we won’t get it. I’m afraid that when Paltrow plays a comic or off-beat role I find her irresistible and when she plays a serious role I don’t buy it. It might be my own lack of sensitivity.

Stranger Than Fiction

More than one person had recommended this movie because of my liking Being Jon Malkovich if I remember correctly.
This movie is about art-making, fiction-writing in particular; is efficiently told; and has a warm attitude toward its characters. It feels slighter than Being Jon Malkovich, not as hell-bent to wrestle with the darker questions of existence, the way some comedies do; it’s ingredients are simpler, the characters more cartoon-like, and it’s not as funny. But I still liked it.

Remains of the Day

I had read and liked the book and thought I would try it.

Satisfying, moment by moment. More of a minor-key feel than the book, because the book’s prose generates a continuous hum of excitement (of an understated kind); in the movie, its all characterization, acting, and setting, and things have a dying fall, unmediated by the artful paring of words.

Bleak House

A BBC version. I couldn’t get far with the novel so here was my chance to get the general idea.

The characterization of Esther Summerson, the heroine, seemed to me as impossible as it had been in the book, although my good friend, more knowledgeable than I, is of the pro-Esther party. But for me, who is there to love, and to carry me through the melodrama (and I don’t mean melodrama in the descriptive, non-judgmental, neutral sense). Probably it’s a matter of my limitations. T.S. Eliot and many others have thought it a great work. This video version seems a reasonable adaptation.

An Inconvenient Truth

Highly recommended by acquaintances, seen by friends, important for social and political reasons.

I fell asleep twenty minutes in. Probably my lack of patience was the problem, though Gore’s pomposity I found hard to take. Certainly I honor him for his intention to help solve a major political issue.

All About My Mother

Movie reviews that made it seem important to see something by the director, Almovodar.

Compelling performances (what is it about Penelope Cruz?) and it has a fun, three-ring circus feel to it. The narrative pulse isn’t very steady or urgent. And where does exploration of controversial, body-oriented material end and sensationalistic exploitation of such material begin? It’s hard to tell in this movie and maybe that’s part of it’s achievement? Note: maybe the material was too complex for me to take in at first viewing.