This week saw my second pre-Annie Hall Woody Allen movie in two weeks, a 1990 movie that feels very much like a Woody Allen movie, a very stylish French noir, a violent Korean movie, and newly released 2011 film. I've also been watching the HBO miniseries "Band of Brothers," when I finish that I'll review that in one of these as well (probably in a week or two).
I will try harder to be more consistent pertaining to the publication date of these posts.
Bananas (Woody Allen, 1971): Pre-Annie Hall Woody Allen movies share one thing in common: they have great lines and individual scenes but the movies themselves aren't as great. In those movies he's really only going for laughs though, and from that perspective he succeeds mightily, but compared to his later work these movies are fun to watch but if you really want to get into Woody Allen you would concentrate on the stuff after Annie Hall (1976). This movie is frequently hilarious and always entertaining. There are hints and signs of thoughtful dialogue and ideas that kind of foreshadow where Allen is going to go in ten years and it's interesting to catch that stuff. I really don't recommend anyone start watching Allen's films by any of the early ones like this one, but for those who have seen a good amount of Allen's work already and like it, this film, as well as the others in the era, are definitely worth watching. I've seen most, but not all, of Allen's pre-Annie Hall films, and I have to say this one, with the exception of "Love and Death" which was his last film before "Annie," may be the best of the bunch. Especially the early scenes in New York where he's in the relationship with this girl that instigates his whole travel to Latin America, those scenes are great and very reminiscent of what his later films are like. Definitely later on when he's in Latin America, there are scenes that are fairly silly and any cultural or political statements he wants to make get boggled down in the silliness of it all, but even with that, there's enough good stuff in this film to make it very entertaining.
Grade: B-
Metropolitan (Whit Stillman, 1990): This film focuses on a certain subculture that really is just as anti-mainstream as punk culture, but in a very different way. The people in this film are part of this high class intellectual culture in Manhattan that go around to the debutantes, some sort of ball, of the time period. The film is a superb look at a certain culture, and is almost anthropological in how it depicts these people. Much of the first half of the movie is just conversation, and the audience is just watching these people talk about things. Through these conversations we learn a lot about who these people are, what they're doing, and why they act the way they do. Whit Stillman's screenplay is marvelous in how it tells us about the culture these people are a part of, and about the people themselves at the same time. When you first listen in on the pretentious conversations they're having, it felt like a spoof of the culture just by observing them. But in the second half, these people felt real, and while it still felt like a satire of sorts, it wasn't demonizing the people themselves, just the culture. It's an amazing accomplishment to make people like this feel real and human. One character was especially fascinating because he is so self-aware of the culture he is part of and how he has to act, and that self-awareness makes him very bearable and refreshing. When it comes to movies about a culture, many times the movie ignores the individual people within that culture and only examines the group as a whole, but Metropolitan does a great job at distinguishing the people from the group, and that makes the movie a very affecting and thought-provoking film.
Grade: A
Le Doulos (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1962): Movies like "A Fistful of Dollars" was the Italian attempt at creating an American western for themselves, this movie is the French attempt to create an American noir for themselves. Melville takes everything that makes a noir a noir and highlights all those aspects. Everyone wears trench coats and fedoras, smoke and haze float through the atmosphere, characters go in and out of shadows, etc. Not only is it a French noir, but it's a pretty good noir in general, even compared to American noirs. The film focuses on two friends and their loyalty to each other while they commit crimes. The film does not pick just one of them to be the main character, it switches back and forth between which one we want to focus on. It works very good because it keeps you on your toes when it comes to figuring out the plot. By the end the plot is still a bit confusing, but more importantly the themes stand out. The scenes are greatly staged, and the themes stand out perfectly, but the plot is still a bit confusing at times. The film isn't perfect, but it's a stylish film with a good story, that's not something that comes around every day. If you're going to make a noir, you better go full-on noir, and this is what this movie does very well.
Grade: B+
Source Code (Duncan Jones, 2011): This is a film that really does everything it set out to do, which frankly was just to entertain and captivate. There's some smart concepts involved for sure and it takes advantage of those, but the movie is not about the concepts, it's about the thrill. The movie is exceptionally well crafted as a thriller, the pacing and story structure are all great. The acting, music, visuals are all well done and the movie captivates the whole time. This is all exciting mostly because the film was directed by "Moon" director Duncan Jones, who had previously proven himself to be an extraordinary visual director with "Moon" and has now proven he can do a heck of a job with film mechanics. After watching this movie I feel like many more studio executives will be more comfortable putting him in the directors chair of a big budget movie of his choosing. Back to "Source Code," the concept of the movie is its main fault and main attraction. The concept of putting yourself in someone else's shoes in an event that has already happened is very interesting, and the way it plays out in the film is also interesting, but it's also fairly preposterous. Also, some of the dialogue towards the end of the film is especially hokey and really brings it down a bit. But otherwise, when it comes to entertaining sci-fi thrillers, this is one that will be remembered.
Grade: B
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (Chan-Wook Park, 2002): This is the first film of Chan-Wook's "revenge trilogy," this being followed by the cult classic "Oldboy." For me, this film displays revenge better than "Oldboy" but "Oldboy" was a better and more coherent movie. This film shows why people feel justified taking revenge and why so many crimes happen. It doesn't justify the actions of the individuals in the movie, but it makes them understandable. It helps understand crime by showing the chain reaction of revenge that leads to so much crime. Revenge is one of the primary motivations of criminals and this movie shows that in a very explicit way. It's very valuable when it does that, but too often it takes too long to get there or focuses too much on the revenge acts themselves. The film would have been a masterpiece if it was tighter and spent more time with the decisions made by the character rather than the actions. But that's the only fault, for the most part the film has an idea and takes it on. The directing is masterful, filled with beautifully well-placed shots. There's a lot of violence in the latter half of the film, but for the most part it's not really worse than anything you see in Hollywood these days. Chan-Wook Park is an incredibly talented director and I'm betting he's got more great movies in him to come.
Grade: B+
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