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If you spent April with the movies I spent April with, you had a very fine April indeed.
But I refuse to tell you whether you should like Taxi Driver or A Minecraft Movie more.
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| ELSEWHERE Disney+ |
My third time watching this film, first time with a class. I've been offering it as a dystopian option for a few years now but this is the first time students voted it in. They enjoyed it; I enjoyed it. I still don't think it's top-tier Wes Anderson, but I do like it.
The thing I can't get over is how it's a film designed to be experienced differently by different audiences. The obvious example is Japanese speakers vs English speakers, but that's not it.
As I write this, a day after finishing the film, the students are writing about the film. This is a new writing assignment. Last semester it went gangbusters as I got some of the best writing of the year on Alphaville and Strawberry Mansion (writing was weaker on Minority Report, for some reason, but still well above the pathetic in-class conversation we had on that film).
Wish them luck!
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| ELSEWHERE Disney+ |
High-school students who have fond memories of a film from long ago find a movie so much more rich and moving and generally excellent than they imagined it might be. Plus, the film offers plenty of fodder for conversation. This is the first time I put WALL·E on the list and I'm nervous to leave it on because, like The Matrix I suspect if I do I'll have to watch it every semester. Which is fine except then I'll never get a class to choose Modern Times or Neptune Frost. So we'll see.
But WALL·E absolutely holds up. And it's hard to imagine it won't always hold up.
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| THEATER Cinemark Century Hilltop 16 |
Man, what is WRONG with critics? If you look at Rotten Tomatoes, the only Jared Hess movie marked Fresh is Napoleon Dynamite. And that's not because critics loved it—or even understood it. It's because the movie was beloved by Sundance audiences and they didn't want to seem square and so they contorted themselves to try and figure out why. Then they gave grudgingly positive reviews. But they never really understood it. I mean—look at Gentlemen Broncos's 20%. Critics that were around in 2003 are getting back at Napoloeon Dynamite for confusing themselves and the top tier of movie reviewers are still coming from a place where they can't understand Hess's deliberately uncool sensibilities. Top critics weren't raised in Idaho. And if you find me one who was, I'll wager they have a deep-seated need to prove they've pulled all the Idaho out.
Anyway, this is a great Jared Hess film. Not tippy-top but that's like me saying I don't think Goodfellas is tippy-top Scorsese. Reasonable people may disagree. It's great to see some of his onetimers back (Jack Black! Jennifer Coolidge! Jemaine Clement!) and he makes great use of the new staff. I think we all needed this version of Jason Momoa. Somehow, I feel it might be a bit more honest.
And props for letting Jack Black go fully Jack Black. It's what the kids want and it's totally delightful. Not many people can go that far and still have it work. So let him do his thing.
I'm also really intrigued by Emma Myers. We saw her first in Wednesday, but she's a) great and b) otherworldly sort of like Sophia Lillis and Lia McHugh are. They're beautiful but strange. And honestly that's what I want from my movie stars. Give her more roles.
I also appreciate that Jared gave us lots of flashbacks to his previous films, easter eggs, really. Mostly to Napoleon, but there's more there if you have eyes to see.
Also, great to hear Rachel House who seems to be turning into everyone's favorite Very Serious Woman. She's most tightly associated with Taika Waititi, but I have to believe Taika and Jared appreciate each other's work. They share a sensibility. And they share decent ground with Wes Anderson too, though somehow he's been assigned the High Art label. I think we can see critical opinion correlate pretty tightly among these three with box-office receipts. Taika was the new Wes until he started doing Marvel movies. Jared hasn't really directed a hit in twenty years. Now look at Rotten Tomatoes.
Anyway, even if you don't think you'll like it, take your kids. Read this to see why, then go.
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| HOME library dvd |
Honestly, I don't know.
It does everything I was promised and it did it all well, but.
I'm not sure what to make of it. Which may be part of the point.
I'll spend all day tomorrow watching special features and reading criticism. We'll see where I land.
Ask me next year.
UPDATE FROM THE NEXT MORNING
Spoilers now, we warned.
As far as I can tell from my minimal research, the first person to put in print the idea that the hero stuff and meeting-Betsy-again stuff could be a dream of Bickle's dying mind was Roger Ebert. Maybe it was. Regardless, it's a compelling interpretive option. Sure, everyone involved in making the movie has denied it, but who cares what they think? Movies belong to the viewers. I've also read this: "The epilogue’s revelation that the media and community have praised Travis’ misanthropy and violence as heroic still horrifies (more than the actual massacre – the film’s great achievement, in my view)."
Both of these are valid readings, but I want to propose a third that I haven't found yet in print anywhere. (Although I haven't started that promised reading yet.)
I guess part of my interpretation is that I find a redemptive quality in Scorsese's worldview that not everyone else sees. Although I'm not deep in his fimography, I suspect the flashy violence and other evils hide his world of second chances.
Anyway, that sounds like a full essay for another time after I've checked a half dozen more boxes.
The thing is, I think Travis Bickle is a hero. Iris is back home. Iris is doing well in school. Iris has been traumatized in a thousand different ways but she's now an adult in many ways and she sees the value of second chances. Things could still go to hell for her, but she knows how to hustle. I see her escaping Pittsburgh poverty and going to jail. She's been given the gift of a miraculous redemption and she knows it. She might have survived to twenty. She might have survived to thirty. But not with all her teeth. And every day, heroin or, later, AIDS might have taken her out. She's the found lost sheep and she's fully aware of the fact. She knows.
Whether Bickle will be redeemed by his ner heroism is less certain. He still has all the same mentla issues. He's still socially awkward and hasn't built any deeper relationships. He may well go off the deep end again.
But maybe not. Maybe he'll be a quieter lose now, one without anything to prove. Maybe he'll make a better friend. Maybe rather than guns and assassinations he'll take up reading or knitting or arguing over baseball. Maybe he'll make it through the next testosterone-laden decade and then mind a nice divorced mom who thinks he's cute and whose kid also thinks he's a hero.
Or maybe none of that stuff will happen. Maybe he'll jump off a bridge. But he has a chance. Because now he's a hero.
"Hero" isn't a thing you make yourself. You can do the right thing for the wrong reasons and people applaud you. You can try to do the right thing for the right reasons yet everyone misinterprets and boos. You can't control how the world sees you.
But when a moment of bad timing changes you from famous villain to famous hero, you get to decide what you do with that gift. Maybe you blow it off and just go back to driving taxi. That's okay. It's probably better than trying to get everyone to buy you a drink because it's more honest.
But you get that second chance.
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| HOME library dvd |
Thought-provoking. And lots of cool information on the research, ancillary people, camerawork, and effects.
Mostly watched it sped up and it was totally worth fifty minutes or however long I spent. Recommended.
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| HOME ok.ru |
Lots of laughs in this thing but the conclusion's kinda unsettling. I don't see happy endings for any of these people. The men don't deserve it and the women could do so much better.
Also, I'm a little surprised that breasts were allowed so much freedom under the Hays Code.
Wildly, I think this is the first non–Thin Man film we've seen starring Powell and Loy. I like it better when they're honest with each other.
Anyway, this film goes in the category of fun to watch but upsetting to think about afterwards. Like a nonsweet Sturges film.
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| ELSEWHERE Alexander Street |
Easy to tell this would have been thrilling live. It's cool staging and a skilled cast. But filmed plays cannot rise to the levels of either drama or film. It's a sad hybrid. And it doesn't help that the sound mix is so terrible. Sound effects and music blare while dialogue is much quieter, sometimes effectively illegible even with the volume cranked up.
And at three hours long, debatable whether it's the best choice for a classroom watch.
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| ELSEWHERE YouTube |
Not every moment has aged perfectly (no kid'll get the Hillary joke) but as a whole still utterly brilliant. I need to start showing it again!
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| ELSEWHERE Prime Video |
Not exactly what I expected, but it was much funnier than I'd hoped and more moving than I'd imagined. It was fun to watch with a bunch of 18yrolds, although they did NOT like Chad. I was skeptical of him too, but I think mostly because the actor who plays him, notwithstanding his development as a romantic lead, looks a great deal like one of cinema's recent go-to monsters. Casting directors be trippin.
It was a very interactive viewing. Lost of audience participation. Which was terrific. But I'm the only one who cried.
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| HOME Prime Video |
This is a terrific movie. Great cast, solid story, twists that somehow never got ruined for me (I didn't even know there WERE twists) (sorry for ruining that fact for you). They had a lot of fun planning cool shots, many of which were juuuuust barely in slomo. This is a film that takes itself enormously seriously, but with performances this good, hey, take yourself seriously. Ralph Fiennes is excellent and holds the whole thing together. A character I hadn't even heard of is played by a guy who just got into acting in 2020 and whose first feature is this one. He did a bangup job. (Hey—he was my age in 2020 . . . . )
I am required to take a stand on whether the film is ultimately pro- or anti-faith. I don't think the question is that simple. But if you demand the binary, I would lean pro-. But I can see how a person who feels their life of faith is shaped by already knowing all the right answers, they would find this tale distressing.
I'm also pro-distress. Faith cannot grow without some.
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| ELSEWHERE our dvd |
Lady Steed and I loved loved loved this movie upon first discovering it when it was new. Watching it now is to rediscover lines we had quoted for year, once upon a time. I'm glad they swiped scenes from the four-act version of the play (Wilde's preferred version, though most seem to disagree) which works better in the more-locations vibe Oliver Parker is going for.
The film is chockfilled with excellent performances, but most of the leads are people you expect to be great. This film was my introduction to Tom Wilkinson, for instance. But let me shoutout Anna Massey as Miss Prism who's brilliant in a performance that's easy overlook given the chaos all around her.
There are a couple wonky things I might take issue. This could have been more screwbally just by leaving in more of the jokes, but I think as an adaptation for a 21st-century film audience, the cuts make sense. But the changes to the story that means Jack's proposal to Gwendolyn happens three of four days before she says it was yesterday is weird. Also, am I right that I have never noticed this before?
Anyway, my students liked it more than I thought while we were watching it. Although they didn't love that the film aged the men up a decade, doubling the age differences. Gotta admit. Peculiar choice. Even if you feel obliged to cast Colin Firth and Rupert Everett in the leads.
It's a shame it's never been given a decent poster.
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| THEATER AMC Bay Street 16 |
I was excited when the 20th-anniversary rerelease was announced. I did not see P&P in theaters back in 2005 (it was baby times). But Lady Steed seemed to think it was a silly thing to do . . . until she went with a bunch of friends. Then a bunch of my students said they wanted to go and asked me to join them in an unofficial sort of way and I said yes and I talked my beloved into rescheduling a meeting so she could go again, this time with me. I'm so glad. First, because it was less weird rendezvousing with a bunch of teenager girls and, second, because we had so much to talk about afterwards! The decisions made by the filmmakers in terms of what to keep and what to leave out and how to signify what's going on with efficiency, and the differences between the 1995 BBC and, of course, the original novel. Rich conversation was had all the way home.
Anyway, I love this movie. It is wild how different it is from the book in its details while being so true to the book in overall effect, but I accept that adaptations are new creations.
Love each as itself.
