A Very Long Engagement (2004)

5/5

Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement is a brilliantly-conceived and impeccably-created tapestry of emotion and perception that transcends its individual setting and story. The movie takes place around World War I and it concerns the young Mathilde (Tautou) and her lover Manech (Ulliel). In 1917, Manech had been traumatized by the vulgar and violent sights and actions of trench warfare. He got himself shot in the hand by the Germans in the hopes of being sent home injured. But instead he was court-martialed for self-mutilation and sentenced to No Man's Land at Bingo Crepuscule with four other unlucky souls. Three years later in 1920, Mathilde believes against all odds that Manech is still breathing and keeps her hope alive with simple superstitious gambles. She hires detective Germain Pire (which ironically translates to "Germain the Worst") to find out where he is. While following the winding trail, she soon discovers that Tina Lombardi (Cotillard), another soldier's lover, is also tracking the five men from Bingo Crespuscule. But instead of reuniting with her man, she ends up killing the soldiers involved in his unjust sentence.

This movie, like all of Jeunet's movies (and Tim Burton's), contains within it a fully-realized alternate world filled to the brim with small oddities and assumed rules. After watching for just a few minutes, you get an intimate sense of the beauty and hope of the people inhabiting this macabre and sinister environment. Both Tautou and Cotillard pull this off masterfully, putting the utmost heart and honesty into their decidedly disparate but equally compelling roles. They show the vast variability love can take on, from revenge to forgiveness. Their sadness--and their happiness--is seemingly palpable and absolutely heart-wrenching.

Technically, the film is incredible. It is so well-constructed that many of the shots and scenes seem airy and natural, despite their being planned down to the degree of the camera angle. The lights, the special effects, the cinematography, the sets, the costumes, the makeup; everything is pitch perfect and as beautiful as it could possibly be expected to be. The editing is precise down to the individual frame. The only complaint that could be lodged against the cinematics of the movie lie in its complicated storyline. It is easy to get lost in its labyrinthine plot. For me, however, that just made me want to watch the movie again and again so I could gather all the subtle details and clues and piece them together.

There are two things I absolutely love about this movie. The first is the concept of point of view and the unreliable narrator. It takes Rashomon on in a different and new light. It examines illusion in the absence of deception and hope in the absence of reason. With different points of view come different stories and different conclusions, but you soon realize that you can't always trust what you see... or what you think you see. The second is the relationship between Mathilde and Manech. Something about it--in its entire breadth and depth--is so pure and so innocent that you simply cannot believe for a second that war or even death can destroy it. It is somehow unbreakable, and the ending to the film incorporates that concept so fully and so brilliantly that I cannot speak about it highly enough. It is the perfect ending to a perfect movie. Watch this movie. And then watch it again. I hope you fall in love with it as much as I did.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0344510/

Capitalism: A Love Story (2009)

1/5

Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story is a shocking movie for many reasons. First is the intimate albeit brief look we get into the innumerable families who lost their homes to foreclosure and the depression and anger they experience. Second is the revelation of the revolting practice of employers taking out life insurance policies on their employees (and in so doing making money off of their deaths). Third, and the most shocking to me, is how poor Moore's filmmaking abilities have become. The editing--perhaps the most crucial element in a documentary--is absolutely awful. It was made with simple cuts in what looked like a matter of hours by someone who first discovered Final Cut Pro. It was amateur hour in every sense of the word, and it felt like someone was peeing into my eyes with contempt, disregard, and laziness.

The story shows almost no coherence or progression. Not only does that make the movie confusing, it also makes it long (because we cannot predict when an end is approaching). I know from the title and trailers that its intent is anti-capitalist, but the movie itself fails to get that message across. Instead, Moore seems to have confused greed and cruelty with capitalism. Most people can agree that greedy, cruel men can destroy people's lives by putting them out on the street with little care for their survival, but greed and cruelty can exist in any economic policy. So where does capitalism come in?

Moore has lost his technique, and in so doing has also lost his subtlety and his subversion. We see the sad stories of people who lost their homes, we share in their pain and their occasional triumph, but we do not connect the dots. We are not compelled to get up out of our seats and change the world for the better (even though he verbally asks us to at its conclusion). Why? Because we feel tricked into thinking what Moore wants us to think. While essentially every single filmmaker's goal is to manipulate the audience, they are to do it without being discovered. Here Moore has made it so obvious that he is attempting to tell us how to feel and who to blame that it is hard to believe that he is doing it for our own benefit instead of his.

I normally enjoy Moore's movies and stand behind his provocative points of view, but here I think he has pushed this movie out too quickly with too little research and too little production. This is a film of little entertainment value and little social value. There is very little substance--just a lot of personal hatred and righteous indignation from a man who makes a lot of money through capitalism. The worst part about it is the inclusion of a few silly distractions and gimmicks that might make you laugh until you realize that their futility and worthlessness actually mock and belittle the people whose lives are actually affected by the situation. I'm not gonna stop you from watching this movie if you want to, but I will warn you that it's nowhere near as good as Sicko, Fahrenheit 911, or Bowling for Columbine. Also, I think he got the title wrong. He mentions love nowhere in this story. And it's not about capitalism.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1232207/

Singin' in the Rain (1952)

4.9/5

Singin' in the Rain is an amazingly fun movie. The plot follows silent film stars Don Lockwood (Kelly) and Lina Lamont (Hagen) as Hollywood begins shifting to talking pictures after the success of The Jazz Singer. Lina has a scratchy voice and the mental capacity of a five year old. She takes the tabloid stories as fact and believes that she has an intimate real-life relationship with her on-screen partner Don. But Don hates her guts; he's closer to his best friend Cosmo Brown (O'Connor). At a party, he meets the young Kathy Selden (Reynolds) and falls in love with her. Unlike the rest of his teeny bopper fans, she doesn't even recognize him. And once she finds out his occupation, she thinks even more lowly of him. He sets out to win her over. I'll leave the rest of the story for you to discover yourself.

The movie is not without a few problems. There are some random, unnecessary scenes (like that last Broadway dance number) and the story is fairly simplistic and predictable. But those problems are masked by the fact that this movie is such a joy to watch. The characters are fairly bland, but they are portrayed with heart and emotion by each actor. You want to grab them off the screen, hug them, and tell them it's going to be all right. There are some clever twists to keep you intrigued and a wealth of absolutely delightful jokes to keep you laughing. You smile the entire time. The dances are phenomenal in every sense of the word. They are a breath of fresh air in the modern world of close-ups, quick cuts, and CGI effects. You feel the energy and vivacity at every moment. You are happy to watch this movie. And despite any nit-picky faults in cinematography or editing, that is what makes this movie great. And that is what keeps me coming back and watching this movie again and again.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045152/

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

3/5

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland is as weird and darkly comic as all his other movies. The plot follows the young Alice (Wasikowska) after being proposed to in front of a huge party by a wealthy lord named Hamish. She is a young independent soul who doesn't like corsets or stockings and certainly doesn't want to wed someone just because he is rich and she is getting older. But that is the option she is presented with, and the hundreds of guests in attendance seem to be pushing her towards the safe choice. She asks for some time to think it over. And with that time, she manages to fall down a rabbit hole and into "Underland," which she mistakenly calls Wonderland.

The movie is blandly quirky and innocently morbid, but somehow also reassuring and uplifting by the end. There were some funny moments (almost entirely involving Helena Bonham Carter) and some boring moments (almost entirely involved Johnny Depp). The oddness of the story didn't work for me. I found it neither charming nor endearing; it was just a charade to distract the audience from the simpleness of the story. And the visuals, while Burton-esque to a T, were filmed and/or animated poorly. Quite frankly, nobody understands 3D as well as James Cameron does right now. (That scene where Alice is falling down the rabbit hole made me almost vomit from nausea.) At first I thought Tim Burton just made bizarre movies for the sake of being bizarre, but now I'm starting to think that he doesn't really know how to make a movie that isn't bizarre. That, or he doesn't see the point in it. Still, this is a pretty entertaining movie. Watch it if you're a Burton or Depp fanboy, but don't expect anything grand.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1014759/

My Fair Lady (1964)

4/5

My Fair Lady is a delightful movie in every sense of the word. Based on the stage play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, the plot follows a poor Cockney flower girl named Eliza Doolittle (Hepburn) and an arrogant phonetics professor named Henry Higgins (Harrison) who decides to take her in and train her to speak "proper English" on a bet from his friend Colonel Pickering (Hyde-White). He believes in his own abilities so much that he is convinced he can turn her into an elegant duchess in just 6 months. Despite their class distinctions, it is immediately apparent that he is a jerk and she is a lady. After they make some progress, he takes her to a horse race to test her out on some upper-crust aristocrats. There she meets the young, handsome Freddy (Brett).

The filmmaking is terrific. The cinematography, costuming, and set design are all beautiful. I loved the theatricality of the extras pausing in place in order to set up several scenes, adding layers of complexity and mood that would otherwise be missing. The acting is a wonder to behold as well. Harrison makes an ass somehow likable and Hepburn proves to be as sweet, charming, and lovely as ever. The songs are surprisingly catchy (I still have I Could Have Danced All Night stuck in my head) and memorable. However, there were some parts I disliked about the movie as well. I hated every single scene and song with Eliza's father (Holloway). He added nothing to the piece and his character should have been removed from the film entirely. His absence would have made the 3 hour film 20 minutes shorter and 0.9 stars better. A shame, because I really really liked this film. If you like musicals and classic romances, I think you'll love this movie.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058385/

Our Family Wedding (2010)

3/5

Our Family Wedding is a thoroughly unsurprising romantic comedy about an interracial couple and dysfunctional family dynamics. It is predictable from beginning to end, but that never stopped it from being funny and tender. In fact, I actually laughed a lot more than I thought I would. And I was surprised to find that I liked Forest Whitaker a lot more than I thought I would. The plot follows the young couple Lucia (Ferrera) and Marcus (Gross) as they announce to their families that they will be getting married in two weeks before going to Laos for volunteer work. Both fathers (Whitaker, Mencia) are appalled and disgusted by the other family, but they decide to put up with each other and help plan the wedding for the sake of their kids.

The technical aspects of the film are nothing to write home about. They varied between acceptable and subpar most of the time. The written characters were archetypes instead of individuals, but the acting made them stand out and round out. The story copied a lot of elements from Guess Who (and had the expected sight gags and cheap jokes that audiences have come to expect in movies where "traditional" parents find out their children are in "nontraditional" interracial relationships), but it also brought some new points of view to the table. All in all, the movie is about what you'd expect given the trailer. So if you're looking for that kind of movie, I'm sure you'll get what you were looking for.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1305583/

Shutter Island (2010)

5/5

Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island is everything I didn't know I wanted. It is beautiful, uplifting, disturbing, sad, and compelling. It may not be what you expect the movie to be, but it is everything that a movie should be. The plot follows US Marshalls Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Ruffalo) on Shutter Island, home to a prison for the criminally insane. A patient has gone missing, having apparently evaporated through the walls of her cell, and they are tasked with finding her. They are welcomed by unhelpful security guards and menacing psychiatrists (Kingsley, von Sydow). They dig deeper and deeper into the mysteries of the island--the fortified Ward C for the most dangerous patients, the solitary lighthouse surrounded by an electric fence--but the truth just barely eludes them at every turn.

The movie is not typical in any sense of the word. It bears some resemblance to noir in thematics and cinematics, but it uses blinding whites instead of pitch blacks. It shows us his traumatic past in fragmented visuals instead of linear storytelling. Its labyrinthine mysteries take on new dimensions in the physical, mental, and spiritual realms. The visuals are reminiscent of Kubrick's The Shining, but the traditional Hollywood horror aspect is muted to allow the unnerving psychological dysfunction to haunt us. It tugs us between pity and awe, hatred and sympathy, for the ill patients and their past acts. It asks us how we would treat them. And then it flips everything on its head and asks us all those same questions again.

This is a movie where the acting complicates the written characters in the best possible way. This is not a simple movie, and none of the personas within it are simple either. They are alive and breathing. And they hide secrets from the camera that we are never meant to know. The editing is equally complex: it takes flashbacks to a new level and it does so with simplicity and expert craft instead of gimmicks and CGI. This film shows a director, an actor, and an editor all at the top of their form. And I hope they just keep getting better and better.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130884/

The Ghost Writer (2010)

3/5

Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer is an exceedingly well-made thriller of the caliber that I have come to expect from Polanski, despite the flops he's made both recently and in the past. The plot follows a new ghost writer (McGregor) who was hired to help the former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Brosnan) write his memoirs. The movie sets the stage quickly and gets more mysterious even quicker. The previous ghost writer died under curious circumstances, the new ghost writer was hired as fast as possible for a huge profit, and Lang just got accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity for aiding the CIA in torturing terrorist suspects.

In terms of directing, this movie is superb. It is Polanski at his best. The camerawork, the editing, and the acting are all phenomenal. They work in synchrony to build tension out of nothing. I just wish Polanski had better source material to work with. It's unfortunate that there is such a disjoint between the quality of Polanski's work and the quality of the plot itself. I didn't appreciate the story that much; it seemed a bit simplistic and unimaginative. The pieces just don't fit together particularly well, despite everything tying up in a neat little package in the end. I don't know what quality it is about the piece, but I left the theater feeling a little dissatisfied. Still, I would advise you watch it if you found the trailer interesting. You may not have the same qualms I do about the film. If that's the case, you will love this movie.

Note: it seemed as if the movie was edited for language (dubbed over, specifically) so that it could be released as a PG-13 movie. I suppose they did it to try to make more money, but the movie wasn't publicized well enough and it didn't play in enough theaters to make it a smart decision. And it just wasn't done in a particularly professional manner. Bad move, distributors, bad move.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1139328/