(2003) dir. Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowski
viewed: 11/23/03 at Loews Theatre at the Metreon, SF, CA
These Matrix films are so condescendingly pompous in their arch-coolness, so much so that it really belies this facade of humanism and love that is so roundly posed as the soul of the films. The multiracial cast is utterly lacking [...]
Archive of entries posted on November 2003
The Matrix Revolutions
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
(2003) dir. Jonathan Mostow
viewed: 11/19/03
Lowered expectations can sometimes really benefit the viewing of a mediocre film.
I can’t say that I expected much from this third installment of the Terminator films. Most notably, James Cameron bowed out as director/producer, and while I have mixed-to-bad feelings for Cameron, he was a big part of what made [...]
The Changeling
(1980) dir. Peter Medak
viewed: 10/31/03
I had seen this film as a kid on some late night horror show and recognized it as a more classic ghost story. I have read since then that it is one of those films that has been considered to stand the test of time fairly well. A traditional [...]
Finding Nemo
(2003) dir. Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich
viewed: 11/09/03
We watched Finding Nemo with our 2 year old son. This is the first feature film that we had ever attempted to watch with him, though I had showed a fair amount of Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro (1988) to him once.
Watching a film like this with a child [...]
The Crazies
(1973) dir. George A. Romero
viewed: 11/12/03
For Halloween, I always like to watch at least one horror film. It’s hardly a rigorous ritual, but I tried to stock myself up with a couple alternatives. I ended up watching The Changeling on Halloween and so I had George A. Romero’s The Crazies to watch a [...]
Early Spring
(1956) dir. Yasujiro Ozu
viewed: 11/18/03 at Castro Theater, SF, CA
When I saw that the Castro Theater was running a week’s worth of Yasujiro Ozu double features, I felt compelled to go see as many as I could. In the end, all I could muster from my time was one evening, and then in the [...]
City of God
(2002) dir. Kátia Lund, Fernando Meirelles
viewed: 11/04/03 at Embarcadero Center Cinema, SF, CA
A ambitious, sprawling epic of a film about the unbelievably tough lives of the youth in the slums of Rio. Violent and harsh, but speckled with aspects of melodrama, City of God certainly had its moments. At its best points, it [...]
The Backyard
(2002) dir. Paul Hough
viewed: 11/10/03 at The Red Vic Movie House, SF, CA
Ah, the Monday Night Movie Club, always pursuing the highest qualities of the cinema. This week a highbrow documentary about people who more or less bleed for a living.
This was a rather bloody affair,…which is not surprising. I can honestly say that all [...]
The Eye
(2002) dir. Oxide Pang Chun, Danny Pang
viewed: 10/24/03
Gotta love a guy named “Oxide Pang,” as the one of the co-directors of this film has himself known. As for this film, which seems to largely be in Cantonese with some Thai, The Eye has a good deal of The Sixth Sense (1999) about it, minus [...]
Intolerable Cruelty
(2003) dir. Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
viewed: 10/27/03 at Loews Theatre at the Metreon, SF, CA
Intolerable Cruelty doesn’t look or feel like a Coen brothers’ film at first blush. The only point in the trailer in which you realize that it is their work is when their names appear on the screen as directors and [...]
