Among my Screengrab brethren, a bunch of smart operators one pictures spending their time between screenings hanging out on the sidewalk with the brims of their fedoras pulled down, shooting craps while waiting for Nicely Nicely and Harry the Horse to check in, I have often been called on to play the guy with the cardboard suitcase and the straw hat, just in from the turnip truck and eager to buy a bridge. Year after year, I am the sucker who always thinks that there have been a surprising number of good movies popping up while everybody else feels as if they’re choking on exhaust fumes. So I can’t help but feel that it says something that the last six months have seemed to me to be about the sorriest in terms of new releases that I can recall in maybe a dozen years or so. And even the first wave of summer popcorn flicks have just made me sad–one expects a certain amount of crap, but by the July 4 weekend you usually see some crap with a swagger, self-confident world-beating crap, crap that reminds you that the city that Michael Bay made is still an enemy of culture to be reckoned with. Crap like The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 and Land of the Lost and Terminator Salvation practically shows up at the playground with a note pinned to its coat reading, “It’s small and funny-looking but it’s my child and I love it. Please don’t beat it up and take its milk money.” Maybe this will all sort itself as the economy stabilizes and a few studio chiefs creep in from their office ledges. In the meantime, here’s what I’ve seen lately that was worth watching:
UP: There is, I know, a predictability to my vote for the best movie of 2009 so far, but sometimes obvious choices are obvious for a good reason. I know we’re all supposed to be soft on Pixar, but this comic adventures is possessed of the vision of Buster Keaton and the spirit of Carl Barks, and in popular entertainment, the inspiration doesn’t come any better than that.
THE HURT LOCKER: Kathryn Bigelow’s great Iraq War film makes the most of the medium’s ability to put the viewer in the skin of people in a tense situation and puts it at the service of a picture that’s more character study than rollercoaster ride, proving that sensory stimulation doesn’t have to be desensitizing.
EVERLASTING MOMENTS: Jan Troell’s underappreciated period family saga would have marked the comeback of a great director if it weren’t for the fact that too few people now are aware that Troell was ever here in the first place.
GOODBYE, SOLO and TREELESS MOUNTAIN: Neo-realism, shmeo-realism. Just see them already.
DUPLICITY: The conventional wisdom about Tony Gilroy’s up-to-the-minute romantic comedy-thriller about two people who have to make a big leap into the unknown to trust each other–is that the narrative gamesmanship that freshens and oils its gears makes it “too clever” for regular viewers to follow. I know, because I heard this view expressed at a press screening (for a different movie, thank Christ) by a couple of prune-faced hacks who could no more express a wisdom that wasn’t conventional than they could squat over their laptops and shit out the collected works of Andre’ Bazin. More proof, if any were needed, that seeing too many movies for free turns what’s left of your brains to Swiss cheese.
ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL and AFGHAN STAR: Two documentaries that show that the trend towards people having their lives and societies warped into strange and unexpected shapes by popular culture isn’t getting any less universal.
I also very much liked: Adventureland, The Brothers Bloom, Coraline, Drag Me to Hell, Julia, Star Trek, Sugar, Tokyo Sonata, and Two Lovers. Movies that many well-informed individuals liked a hell of a lot more than I did include Il Divo, The Girlfriend Experience, Gomorrah, Hunger, The Limits of Control, Medicine for Melancholy, Moon, Summer Hours, and Tetro. Among movies that I enjoyed more than I should probably admit to if I’m ever applying for a government bailout, top honors go to Year One, a cheap-looking shambles of a comedy revue about shit-tasting, virgin-sacrificing, penis-trimming, and oiling Oliver Platt that made me laugh a lot. Kneel, kneel before Zed!
–Phil Nugent
0 Responses to “Phil Nugent’s Second Quarter Wrap-Up”