(2002) dir. Roger Avary
viewed: 02/25/03
Published in 1987, Bret Easton Ellis’ novel The Rules of Attraction addressed itself to its contemporary world, in particular to the luridly hedonistic “reality” that lie behind the facade of the priveleged lives at an ivy league university of the time. In apadting the book, Roger Avary opted to not [...]
Archive of entries posted on February 2003
The Rules of Attraction
Signs
(2002) dir. M. Night Shyamalan
viewed: 02/21/03
When this film was released theatrically, Newsweek magazine ran a cover story touting M. Night Shyamalan as the “new Spielberg” or something. From what I read, this would clearly be his ambition, to make box office-friendly genre films very slickly and imbue them with auteur-like meanings and character. [...]
Quai des Orfèvres
(1947) dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot
viewed: 02/18/03 at Castro Theater, SF, CA
I really don’t take advantage of some of the real perks of living in San Francisco as much as I should. We have such fantastic repertory cinemas that play such cool and interesting movies that I should never have to find myself standing in some megaplex [...]
The Hours
(2002) dir. Stephen Daldry
viewed: 02/22/03 at Park Cinemas, Paso Robles, CA
Chick flick par excellence…or maybe Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood for intellectuals.
I just wanted to make a few stupid jokes before really addressing this film, which is actually quite good. And while the preceding comments have a somewhat derrogatory flavor, they are not [...]
Sunshine State
(2002) dir. John Sayles
viewed: 02/17/03
John Sayles is doubtlessly a significant figure in American independent cinema and one who has some truly excellent work on his resume. Sayles is noted for his integrity and for strong “social consciousness” themes in his work, often leaning sympathetically toward the working class. And, shamefully, like many significant [...]
24 Hour Party People
(2002) dir. Michael Winterbottom
viewed: 02/08/03
24 Hour Party People is an interpretive document of the music scene in Manchester, England, spanning the “birth of punk” to the “death of rave culture.” The film’s approach is largely narrative, with actors embodying the “roles” of most of the key figures, but the film utilizes its primary subject, [...]
40 Days and 40 Nights
(2002) dir. Michael Lehmann
viewed: 02/07/03
In referring to Rob Cohen’s The Fast and the Furious in a very recent diary entry, I noted the film’s potential reading as something of a very contemporary anachronism. Not to repeat myself too widely here in the film diary, but director Michael Lehmann’s 40 Days and 40 Nights is [...]
About Schmidt
(2002) dir. Alexander Payne
viewed: 02/01/03 at Park Cinemas, Paso Robles, CA
Alexander Payne’s depressing critique of American life that plays out in his new film About Schmidt is less purely absurdist and comical than in his 1999 feature, Election. Both films are set in the American “heartland,” Omaha, Nebraska to be exact, and address themselves [...]
