(2000) dir. Jonathan Glazer
viewed: 04/20/02
I don’t know what I could say about Sexy Beast that wouldn’t sound like a kicker off the back of the DVD box.
It’s slick British noir comedy/drama, that compares favorably with the Guy Ritchie films, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Sexy Beast, though, is not nearly as [...]
Archive of entries posted on April 2002
Sexy Beast
Spirited Away
(2001) dir. Hayao Miyazaki
viewed: 04/21/02 at Castro Theater, SF
Hayao Miyazaki’s film, Spirited Away, is both his newest and
very possibly his most-brilliant.
Miyazaki, for those that do not know it, is a Japanese feature film
animator who could finally perhaps be the filmmaker that rescues
feature-length animated films from the gigantic rut that Disney has
dug for them.
Miyazaki creates wonderful [...]
Following
(1998) dir. Christopher Nolan
viewed: 04/08/02
Christopher Nolan (director of the oft-heralded Memento) made his feature debut with this film, a low-budget, B/W neo-noir film shot in London. Like Memento, the film’s narrative is non-linear, playing out in flashbacks that are intentionally disordered. The effect of this disjunctured storytelling evokes an added mystery to what [...]
Belle de jour
(1967) dir. Luis Buñuel
viewed: 04/03/02
I am ashamed to say that this is one of the only Buñuel films that I have seen outside of Un chien Andalou, which, coming from a former film student might sound rather shabby. However, I should point out that of the “classics” of cinema (of which there is an almost [...]
Moulin Rouge!
(2001) dir. Baz Luhrmann
viewed: 03/29/02 / diary entry: 04/02/02
Bombast.
This was the first word that came to mind while watching the first half-hour of Moulin Rouge!.
Loud, blaring, raging, incessant bombast.
A similar quality had grated my nerves endlessly in Baz Luhrmann’s last fantasy epic, William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet (1996). The hyperactive, MTV-paced [...]
The City of Lost Souls
(2000) dir. Takashi Miike
viewed: 04/01/02
Strange gangster film from Japan, centered in multi-cultural Tokyo’s Brazilian/Japanese sub-culture.
Stylishly shot, with a true “pop” sensibility, the film seemed somewhat fresh take on the yakuza film. The film seems to address some aspects of Tokyo’s multiculutalism, partiularly its Brazilian minority. The protagonist of the film, Mario, is played [...]
Bully
(2001) dir. Larry Clark
My morbid curiosity.
That is why I watched this film.
Bully is based on a true story about a epynomous fellow who terrorizes his best friend, beats, rapes, and intimidates others, until in an act of group vengence, they lure him with sex to an isolated spot, where they stab and beat him to [...]
The Gift
(2000) dir. Sam Raimi
Sam Raimi’s The Gift was a decent paranormal thriller. It had moments.
But it had a lot of annoying celebrities in it, too.
My most-hated actor, Giovanni Ribisi, annoys in his own special way. I can’t recall if I actually watched some portion of the terrifying film, The Other Sister, which was [...]
The Anniversary Party
(2001) dir. Jennifer Jason Leigh, Alan Cumming
The Anniversary Party is an “actorly” film. Written and directed by actors Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming, it’s “Dogme 95″ meets L.A.
Handheld cameras, digital video, location shooting, naturalized acting, all calling cards of the Dogme 95 manifesto, are utilized here, brought in by Jennifer Jason Leigh after [...]
