Short Cuts 4

Here are some more films I'd avoid, all these are recent viewings (2010):

• Law of Desire (Almodovar, 1987) – avoid, surprisingly bad considering the director, but an early one of his. Antonio Banderas is a young gay male, can you buy that?
  
• The Men Who Stare at Goats (Grant Heslov, 2009) – avoid; not funny, not much of anything, but I guess an ok parody of the CIA
  
• The Hangover (Todd Phillips, 2009) – terrible, not funny and absolutely no comedic pacing whatsoever.. its fans are clueless, sophmoric.. (and this film disses women)
  
• The Damned (Luchino Visconti, 1969, Italy) – avoid this boring, depressing film of Nazi industrialists.. Visconti's overrated
  
• 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1967) – another pretentious Godard film, he has a long list of those to avoid, Weekend topping the list..
  

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Short Cuts 3

Lately I've seen more films to avoid than to recommend. Here are the latest ones, all by major directors as well.

Persona (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden) - the kind of Bergman film that Woody Allen and others parodied or copied, consists largely of facial close-ups (beautiful b&w cinematography by Sven Nykvist as usual) of two actresses he was involved with romantically: Bibi Andersson, who plays a nurse to Liv Ullman's actress having a mental breakdown. (Bergman and Ullman became involved after this, her first film with him.) Not much happens except a lot of angst, and a few shots of arc lights or film which critics claim is "Bergman deconstructing cinema as we knew it then" - Whoopee, I always love a good artistic deconstruction. Thankfully a short film at 90 minutes; the best thing here are Liv Ullman's lips. She was 25 at the time and admits, "I didn't understand Bergman, but he was an icon". Example of Bergman's excess: one 5-8 minute scene is shown entirely twice, once showing the speaker, Bibi, once showing the listener, Ullman. Wow, how radical (zzz..) You could do a whole movie that way; and the viewer sits through everything twice, but its 'art'. 5* (of 10)
Note: Bergman's highest ranked film critically, at #40, with Seventh Seal (My pick) just behind at #52 (a knight plays chess with death during the plague in the middle ages; what could be more fun?)

The Star Maker (Guiseppe Tornatore, Italy) - another Tornatore (Cinema Paradiso, Malena) directed film, and like these Malena, was filmed in Sicily. This is about a talent scout for a Rome film studio, who travels about the countryside taking screen tests for locals to submit to agents in Rome. The story starts very well, as we're shown local Sicilians with faces of great character and life, and it feels like Tornatore himself was duplicating the story's narrative. Somewhere midway however, he picks up a teenage virgin who is dying to escape her boring life working in a convent, and the story goes downhill from there. As a film and Tornatore fan, I eventually felt ripped off by the plot development and conclusion. What began as a warm-hearted romantic comedy filled with hope became serious and unrewarding. One expects better from Tornatore relative to the story itself. Beautifully shot scenes of Sicily (a beautiful ancient amphitheater in one scene) and its inhabitants however. 5* (of 10)
Note: the dvd cover is inaccurate; the girl did not resemble Lolita, but was a dark-haired, black-eyed Italian beauty; she never once wore sunglasses either. "Shoot the Poster Maker"

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Short Cuts 2

Here are some more recent films I've seen that I would avoid, and the reasons why:

The Sacrifice (Andrei Tarkovsky, Russia) - Bergmanesque film made in Sweden by Russian director (using Berman's cinematorgrapher) who proves he can be just as boring as the Swede he admires. Painful to watch as we descend into dementia with an aging patriarch. 3* (of 10)

Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, Russia) - this is science fiction based on "Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. It's worse than slow, you have to watch this 150 minutes of men sleeping and water dripping at high speed or else tear your hair out. Terrible science fiction, yet #125 on the critics 1000 (how?). The high contrast film also hurt my eyes. 2*
[Note: the two Tarkovksy films I'd recommend: Andrei Rublev, his masterpiece, and Ivan's Childhood, a beautifully shot, b&w anti-war WW2 film; in 59, one of the first Russian films to see airing in the U.S.]

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008 remake) - Not great in b&w in the 50's, still not great even with special effects. Good idea, just not much of a story to go with it (this kind of story is routine in early SciFi literature, there's much better out there in books). Mankind is so brutal and destructive that an advanced alien race wants to eradicate us to save the earth. This is sad whether true or not, because we are definitely killing the earth for our short-term profit. Canoe, er Keanu Reeves is even blander in this than normal; he needs to study Gary Cooper if he wants to do a lot with little effort. 4*

Sansho the Bailiff (Kenzi Mizoguchi, Japan) - #88 on the critics top 1000, this b&w 'classic' is a boring and painful look at slavery in ancient Japan. Well filmed, this is still a totally miserable exposé to sit through, and we all know slavery is awful for slaves. Made in 1954, the film looks like early 30's western films, it's that primitive. Watch Seven Samurai again instead, same era, two years later but decades ahead in style. I suppose of all these "short cut" films, this one will still probably interest the most cinephiles, as least as students of film history. 5*

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Short Cuts 1

I thought it my duty to warn people of some films to avoid. Here's a recent batch of forgettable wastes of time.

The Ninth Gate (Polanski, 2003?) - Occult garbage about rare books about the devil (who knew he was an artist to boot? I think his pseudonym was "Rockwell"!) with Johnny Depp and Frank Langella both wasted; Rosemary's Baby this isn't, awful it is. 3*

Untraceable (Gregory Hoblit, 08) - Sadistic internet killer plays with the police (Diane Lane, Colin Hanks, Tom's son) and the public; just an excuse for gory murders, not well done at that. 3*

Breach - true story of FBI mole/spy Robert Hansson should have been better with Chris Cooper in the lead; a numbing bore as most spies are boring anyway, which this shows. Watch The Good Shepherd instead (DeNiro directed Matt Damon). 4*

Tipping the Velvet (Geoffrey Sax, 02) - sensational BBC mini-series about male impersonators in London with lots of R rated Lesbian scenes, and even with Diana Rigg's daughter (Rachel Sterling?) in the lead, it's overly sentimental and over the top. Only for the prurient. 4*

Keeping the Faith (Edward Norton, 2000) - comedic fluff with Ed Norton (directing also), Ben Stiller, and Jenna Gelfman torn between a rabbi (Stiller) and a priest (Norton). Yep, it's a stretch, not funny, and you keep waiting for something interesting to happen. 4*

My Super Ex-Girlfriend (Ivan Reitman) - with a big director and Uma Thurman, you'd expect more from this, but it's not funny nor exciting in the least. super ex-bitch is more like it - a yawner. 3*

Le Professional (George Lautner, 81, France) - terribly lit and overexposed movie, you can see double shadows on the walls in every interior scene, distracts from the boring hit man story, which also has some awful music. Belmondo deserves better. 2*

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