MJs Sing-Along Blog: Seahawks won the Super Bowl, Woo Hoo!

[Mighty Jack]

I liked "12 Monkeys", it's a good movie. I don't know that I'm over the moon for it though.

I did revisit it and consider it, but after it was finished I thought, "Not bad - not great - not going to win", then moved on and forgot about it. My bad -- but there's so much that can be addressed that this sometimes happens. I also didn't write about Leaving Las Vegas, Babe, Seven or Dead Man Walking.

And what really leaves egg on my face was forgetting to mention the sublime "Brady Bunch Movie".

[Mighty Jack]

1999
American Beauty (Director: Sam Mendes)
Nominees: Iron Giant, Perfect Blue, The Limey, Toy Story 2, All About My Mother, Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai, Magnolia, The Straight Story, The Sixth Sense, Sweet and Lowdown

Oscars pick: American Beauty
Nominees: The Cider House Rules, The Green Mile, The Insider, The Sixth Sense

Jumpin Jehoshaphat! I'm siding with the Academy again. In a year loaded with terrific releases from terrific directors like Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia), Steven Soderberg (The Limey), Jim Jarmusch (Ghost Dog) and Almodovar (the Oscar winning All About My Mother) -- I'm in accord with Oscar that American Beauty was the toppermost. I've already written a lengthy piece on this, so I'm going to be lazy and cut and paste...

It's interesting how viewers compartmentalize this film. This one doesn't like it because of the kids- that one gets hung up by the homosexuality. I do it as well (but on the positive); I focus on Lester (Kevin Spacey) and his midlife explosion. When I first saw it, parts of his dialog echoed my own sentiments (feeling you've lost something - his anger when his wife shows more concerned about the material things (a couch), than their relationship). That was the compartment I was drawn too.

Watching it again, with eyes wide open, I was even more impressed with it on the whole. Just like Lester eventually does, I saw the big picture. Annette Benning's character for example, was more understandable and I became a bit more sympathetic towards her

Alan Ball's script tears the facade off this suburban neighborhood and reveals its true face. Sam Mendes direction is concise, there's not an ounce of fat on this movie (unlike many directors, Mendes will cut and cut and cut, until he captures a stories truest essence. This caused concern among writers, producers and the studio heads at DreamWorks, who were worried he was editing out too much). It's astute and has a cutting sardonic wit. There are elements of farce (which works for some, fails for others). It can be visually arresting (the scene where the roses spring from the cheerleaders chest), Conrad Hall's cinematography is all about the details - the lighting, reflection and painterly red. The distinct score from Thomas Newman eschews traditional conceits and adds much to the personality of the film.

As for the paper bag that trips up some viewers? I was an art student; I once starred at a rusted old pipe where a glint of sunlight caught a bubble of dew. I thought it was beautiful. Filming a bag floating around and seeing something profound in it is something I can relate to. (an old GF called this trait my "Quirky ways", lol. So I can understand why some might find it weird)

The ending is poignant – at the point of seduction Lester's dream girl says something that opens his eyes. He sees her for what she is – not a Goddess, not an object to possess - but an insecure, uncertain kid. Throughout the movie he has been about feeding his specific wants and desires. Until finally, he sees the bigger landscape - and what emerges from that is one of the most perceptive and beautiful a moments I've ever experienced in a motion picture.

I had an overload of nominees and decided I needed to keep things manageable so I removed a few favored movies. Much loved but just missing my final cut were The Insider, Galaxy Quest, The Green Mile. I also didn't include Being John Malcovich, which I liked, but wasn't as batpoopie over it as many are.



Note 1: Though 1999 was all about Beauty for me, this was also a year of animation domination! From Toy Story 2 to the Iron Giant to Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue and to a lesser extent, Disney's Tarzan (a movie which pisses me off because I hate that damn Phil Collin’s song, which cost Aimee Mann’s ‘Save Me’ the Oscar. Magnolia was inspired by Aimee’s music and her numbers added much to the production. (No, I’m not a Phil hater, just a Tarzan song hater – I think this Oscar angers me as much as Gump's win angers Mr. Atari)

Note 2: Eyes Wide Shut, Kubrick's final film? In a word, "uneven". At times I think it's brilliant and quite fascinating, at others it just seems overdone and damned goofy (Nicole Kidman's given some of the most inane dialog, and her performance is often embarrassing to watch). Film Threat summed it up as "Kubrick nearly making a David Lynch movie", and that fits. As much as I can like Lynch and I'm into spooky weirdness, I’m not too much into the silly aspects of his work (I don’t mean silly like the absurd irreverent hilarity of Buñuel, but silly – stupid). It has always been a block between Lynch, and I, and it’s a block that prevents me from being completely won over by Eyes Wide Shut.

Note 3: I was unable to track down a copy of After Life for this posting. That bums me out because I've liked all 3 of the Koreeda films I've seen. I'd like to see more.

[Torgo]

I'm so happy to have internet back, I'll save you an anti-Dark City rant. So I'll just say phooey on Alex Proyas for both it and Knowing (which was somehow even worse).

[Mighty Jack]

Last one before the weekend.



2000
Yi Yi (Director: Edward Yang)
Nominees: Traffic, Almost Famous, O Brother, Where Art Thou? Memento, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Barking Dogs Never Bite

Oscars pick: Gladiator
Nominees: Chocolat, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Erin Brockovich, Traffic

2000 got off to a rocky start. There wasn't a lot of great movies and Oscar picked a pretty sorrowful one in the paper thin Gladiator. My brother loves this film -- I say it's no Spartacus and didn't even deserve a nomination, let alone the award. Of the Academy's choices they should have gone with Traffic. They gave Soderberg the directorial award but screwed him on the Best Picture. I didn't care too much for Soderbergs Erin Brockovich, I found it hackneyed -- and if Brockovich really is like that, then she's an abrasive cliché.

If not Traffic, then the Academy should have selected Ang Lee’s wuxia film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which they gave the foreign award to). Aside from that, they left off too many goodies, such as Cameron Crowe's love letter to the music biz, Almost Famous or the Coen Brother's hilarious odyssey, O Brother Where Art Thou?, which featured a winning soundtrack collection of folk, county, bluegrass and gospel tunes - and had folks digging on the classic, "I Am A Man of Constant Sorrow".

Out of them all there was one surprising find that bubbled to the top of the pops, Edward Yang’s Yi Yi.

The title means "Individual" in Chinese and is the first word in their dictionary. The movie runs nearly 3 hours and at a deliberate pace, but if you're patient the story offers rich rewards. It's a contemplative piece about average every day people who wrestle with the meaning of life. Beautifully acted and directed, with a script that’s inspired. Yi Yi is about as deeply moving and insightful a film as I've ever seen.

Blogger Simon Ferrari considers it the 'film of the decade' and noted how the movie addresses, ”…the clash in East Asia between tradition and westernization, morality and technology, youth and age. About the disintegration and reconciliation of a sprawling family", he continues by adding, "Its cinematography is finely-tuned, with entire conversations caught in reflections on glass surfaces, long takes, and incredible depth of field. It is funny, heartbreaking, perfect."

Nick Rogers said that it... "scratches the identifiable itch to reach out for what we've loved, set free and had come back, perhaps still not meant to be: jobs, lovers, freedoms, opportunities."

Yi Yi is one of those movies that sticks with you. Days, even weeks later it would return to my mind. Characters like the little boy pictured above, who takes photographs of people backs because he wants to show them what they cannot see. A thought that reflects the philosophy of the entire film – there is another side to every story, there are things in life that we do not see clearly.

Movies I didn't nominate but like a lot, include: Girlfight, Best in Show, Ginger Snaps, Unbreakable, X-Men, Quills, You Can Count on Me, State and Main, Two Family House and The Big Kahuna. To name more than a few

[Mighty Jack]

2001
The Royal Tenenbaums (Director: Wes Anderson)
Nominees: Spirited Away, The Others, The Devil's Backbone, Ghost World, Amélie, Read My Lips, Moulin Rogue!

Oscars pick: A Beautiful Mind
Nominees: Gosford Park, In the Bedroom, LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring, Moulin Rouge!

In the late 90s a group of American filmmakers with a distinct, idiosyncratic voice burst on the scene -- among them, Paul Thomas Anderson, Alexander Payne, writer Charlie Kaufman and Wes Anderson. In 2001 Wes directed what I consider his perfect movie. Tenenbaums is about a family of child protégés who are unable to translate these talents into successes as adults, but who find a measure of grace after reuniting during their fathers (believed) terminal illness. The film is one that improves with each viewing, probably because it is so detailed and richly textured: Every piece collaborates to create the films tenor, nothing is out of tune with the other: The colorful ensemble cast, the distinct music, the smart dialog and ironic humor, the camerawork that emphasizes a singular style -- all of these elements coalesce in scenes that burn into my consciousness (Richie's suicide attempt, his and Margot's declaration of love in a tent, Henry and Etheline's kiss coming after a pratfall and confession, the look on Margot's face as she gets off a bus).

What sets this film apart from the whimsical Amelie (which I liked an nominated) and other quirky movies, is that I never feel like Wes is being cute to show off, or because he's trying to prove he's a hip, eccentric guy. He created this world and it's an odd place, but it's honest, it's true to itself – it doesn't mock its characters (ala Napoleon Dynamite) -- at its core it has depth and purity. And as an examination of the family dynamic, it’s every bit as perceptive as Welles's Ambersons.

This was a close race and I could have easily chosen Spirited Away, which tells of a 10-year old girl, caught in a magical world where she needs to find a way to help her parents who were turned into pigs. Hayao Miyazaki's imaginative animated classic draws from Japanese folklore, which is enchanting, scary and unpredictable. It won the Oscar for best animated feature and is considered by many to be the director/writer's crowning achievement (though I lean a little more towards Princess Monokokee -- they are pretty near equals. What La Dolce Vita and 8 ½ are to Fellini, Spirited & Mononokee are to Miyazaki)

Oscar-wise: While not a bad movie, I never connected with A Beautiful Mind, its characters and story didn't spark much interest or empathy in me. LOTR I find ponderous, loaded with pomposity (and I really wanted to slap whiny emo Frodo). Saying that, there was Cate Blanchett. I did I watch the extended versions so I could get more Cate. The Academy's other nominees are solid, Moulin Rogue is a gorgeous splash of color with inventive choreography (though some of the over the top humor irritated, ala the wince inducing "Like a Virgin") and Altman's Gosford Park is a well told and acted tale.

David Lynch's Mulholland Drive? Brilliant at the start, fell into ruin for me at the end. Though there is still enough good material to get it on my top 20.

Other movies I enjoyed this year include: Donnie Darko, My First Mister, Charlotte Gray, Monsters Inc, Baran, Center of the World, Take Care of my Cat, Monsoon Wedding, Lovely and Amazing and The Man Who Wasn’t There, to name a few

[mummifiedstalin]

Love Tenenbaums, too.

And I get why you didn't like Fellowship. It's my least favorite of the three. Frodo was ultimately miscast. He needs to be a slightly confused Englishman, not a wide-eyed "innocent" teenager. And the pomposity criticism is fair...although it's not a flaw. It means it did what it was supposed to do. ;D

[Mr. Atari]

Tenebaums is far and away my favorite Wes Anderson film, and another pick I agree with wholeheartedly.

Thank you also for mentioning Donnie Darko and The Man Who Wasn't There. They would go with Tenenbaums and LOTR as my best picture list.

Of course, I completely disagree with you about LOTR, even going so far as to say that Cate Blanchett was the worst part about the trilogy. She didn't act, she just stood there and looked bored. Her monotone delivery and facial expressions just confused me. She was the Kristen Stewart of the LOTR. That said, I think Fellowship is the most cohesive of the three films, and probably my favorite. Especially Sean Bean. He was awesome.

[Torgo]

Honestly "standing around and looking bored" is the amount of acting you got from anyone in LOTR. It was also my reaction to the films themselves.

[mummifiedstalin]

You know, Torgo has three letters in common with "troll." heh...

[Torgo]

Torgo is an anagram for "Go Rot."

Wait, what were we playing again?

[Mighty Jack]

Though in this case I agree with Torgo.

And I don't think this was Cate's best work by any means, and her too mannered performance is indicative of what I dislike about the series in total - never the less I did like the extended scenes, I think they added to the story and the character. Which I always find a strange contradiction. They made the movie more bloated and pompous (which I hate)... and yet I thought it made it a better film.

[Mr. Atari]

I don't want to interrupt your awesome thread, but I'm legitimately curious. What exactly do you mean by "pompous"? Is it the story? The dialogue/accents? The acting? The themes? The fact that the different races have their own languages & cultures?

I wondered at first if you disliked the Britishness of it all; that maybe the source material itself is what you find distasteful. But you've expressed an enjoyment of all sorts of foreign storytelling in this blog, so I doubt it's that.

It's an epic, so there's going to be some "bigness" and self-importance to everything, but that's the genre. And I don't think there's any more of that than in your run-of-the-mill superhero movie, and I know you love those. For me, I find the cinematography incredible, the action sequences thrilling, and the fictional world believable.

[Torgo]

If I may interject here, my problem with LOTR has little to do with a pompous presentation, which som aspects of that at the very least make the films merely watchable instead of torturous. I do however, think the entire affair is bloated beyond measure and just a chore to get through even one of the movies in one sitting. I'm not pretty sure that's less of a problem with a source material and more of a problem with Peter Jackson, who is hands down one of the most overrated directors currently working, because I had the exact same problem with his remake of King Kong. It was obvious that it took itself very seriously, but was so overboard that I found it impossible for me to take seriously.

The best example I can think of, as I haven't bothered to watch the films since Rifftrax, is Sean Bean's death scene in Fellowship. I recall laughing at the rediculously melodramatic presentation in the theater and having many fanboys staring daggers at me. And the hamfisted overdone dialogue such as "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" which sucked all the intended impact out of Gandolf's supposed death scene for me.

In retrospect, I think my most favorable of the three films was the Two Towers, because it contained far fewer of these scenes than the other two (at least nothing springs to mind). Return of the King wasn't bad, but I do recall a flaming king running down a corridor on fire and jumping of the ledge, which was hands down the most fall down hilarious scene of the series.

LOTR has virtues, but I don't dig it and probably never will. Of course it can probably be attributed to how I'm hardwired. I loved Amazing Spider-Man a lot, but I like all of Raimi's movies even more. Why was that? I think it's because I prefer my movies in general to be lighter in tone and more fun. Probably the same reason I've always considered Spider-Man 2 to be far superior to the Dark Knight. The only thing I can say about Lord of the Rings is I watched nine and a half hours of it and have no desire to watch it again (i might have been interested in the Hobbit if Del Toro were still directing, but now that Jackson's back in the picture, I really don't care), but now if I have the urge to watch a fantasy trilogy, I'll stick with my Back to the Future Blu-Rays.

[Mighty Jack]

^This (in regards to direction) - Jackson is the primary problem. If del Toro had directed it, I think it would be a different thing.

There's a bit in the Rifftrax release that makes fun of the self important way every line is spoken, even the most mundane -it's like that Jon Lovet's character who delivers a line and then pauses and adds, with a self important flourish "ACTING!".

The slow motion and heavy, overwrought dialog... it's so full of itself.

I've also developed a deep seeded resentment that goes beyond the film. If people just liked the movie and allowed others not to like the movie, I'd be fine with it. But it's like that link Torgo posted in the superhero movie thread about the nasty comments at RT directed at critics who gave the new Batman film a bad review. That's how it was to dislike LOTR, I wasn't allowed to not love this freaking franchise. How dare I not worship Jackson as a God, drop to my knees and dry hump his exalted and most perfect leg. I got so tired having to explain myself, defend myself.

Damn you Peter Jackson and your grubby little bastard Hobbits!


Edit: I'm not accusing you of doing this Mr. A - your asking a question in context to a discussion. I'm just recalling bad memories of other sites and conversations where it went out of wack. I didn't like the movie enough as it is, they went and added a Pavlovian response/reaction to it as well.

[mummifiedstalin]

Poor MJ. The fanboys have overtaken his thread.

I think there is something to the idea that the LOTR movies aren't really regular "movies." It's kinda like Wagner's Ring cycle. They're operas, but you can't see them like you'd see a regular opera. You have to be ready for a huge experience that goes beyond the single opera that you can actually take in at one time.

And, further, if you aren't already tuned into the idea of Wagner/LOTR, it may not be your cup of tea.

The pacing of each individual LOTR movie is...off. But that's because it needs to be one movie. But it can't be one movie. It has to be three. It isn't really a trilogy so much as one long story, but the story really is too long for a movie.

And Torgo's reaction that things are ridiculous (like Denethor going over the rails) is true...unless you're prepared to see stylized tragedy. It's a situation where you're either in or out of the game. Atari and I are definitely in it. Torgo's out of it. It's the same with superhero stuff: I have a hard time watching superhero movies for the same sense of ridiculousness that Torgo had with LOTR. I can't buy into the terms of the world very easily. (I can do it in animation, but not with live actors.)

But that's a question of genre. I think the bigger question is whether these are discrete movies that can be watched as such or whether they're visual productions that don't follow the regular rules of storytelling for 2-3 hour movie. As individual movies, they each kinda suck. As a 10+ hour experience (especially when you watch the extended versions), they're the most amazing 10+ hour motion picture production the world has ever seen. ;D

And now I return MJ's thread to him and apologize for furthering the derailing.