(1960) dir. Mikio Naruse
viewed: 05/30/07
I have a friend who is a passionate afficianado of Mikio Naruse after having seen a series of his films played locally at the Pacific Film Archives and has been particuarly rapturous in her love for his films. Naurse is obscure in the West, particularly in the US, where other Japanese [...]
Archive of entries posted on May 2007
When a Woman Ascends the Stairs
The Piano Teacher
(2001) dir. Michael Haneke
viewed: 05/27/07
I’ve sort of backed into realizing that director Michael Haneke is one of the most interesting directors making films today. I’d read about The Piano Teacher when it came out and have had it in my queue for a couple of years probably. I’d seen The Time of the Wolf (2003) [...]
Le Petit lieutenant
(2005) Xavier Beauvois
viewed: 05/26/07
I don’t know that I have a lot to say about this decent, though not amazing French film about a rookie cop. It got a good buzz in the San Francisco Chronicle (not the best arbiter of quality, but as I have mentioned, it’s the paper I read so it tends to [...]
Who Framed Roger Rabbit
(1988) dir. Robert Zemeckis
viewed: 05/26/07
Friday night is movie night for my kids and most of the time they watch any array of video garbage. I started with them trying to only expose them to the stuff that I considered worthy, and to my credit along these lines, I have a moderate collection of Betty Boop, [...]
28 Weeks Later
(2007) dir. Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
viewed: 05/21/07 at AMC Loews Kips Bay 15, NY, NY
Being the sequel to 28 Days Later… (2002), the movie that reinvented the speed at which zombies can run, and having been directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, whose 2001 film Intacto I found to be quite a good flick, I held some hopes for 28 [...]
Shrek the Third
(2007) dir. Chris Miller, Raman Hui
viewed: 05/19/07 at Century San Francisco Centre, SF, CA
I’ve actually always been a bit disdainful of the whole Shrek film series. The whole thing is a pastiche of a multitude of characteristics, culture, humor, and style with a pop music soundtrack and a deep attempt to hit home with some [...]
Deliver Us From Evil
(2006) dir. Amy Berg
viewed: 05/18/07
This movie should outrage and effect anyone who sees it. It’s the story of a Catholic priest, Oliver O’Grady, who operated as an increasingly brazen child molester, preying on the children that he was regularly given priveleged access to due to his role as priest in these communities in Northern Central [...]
The Fountain
(2006) dir. Darren Aronofsky
viewed: 05/16/07
Fuckin’ new age hippie transcendental pan-religious head-trippin’ science fiction pretension.
High-minded, for sure. Sure. Dude, seeing a bald, floating cross-legged Hugh Jackman glowing white…yiikes. That’s an image that I could have done without. Floating in outer space in a bubble that inhouses the “Tree of Life”. Seeking the “fountain” of youth, the [...]
Little Children
(2006) dir. Todd Fields
viewed: 05/14/07
Having liked Todd Fields’ In the Bedroom (2001), I was actually kind of anticipating Little Children when it came out and wasn’t surprised that it had a good buzz. A good cast including Kate Winslet and Jennifer Connelly head this family melodrama/comedy/what-have-you and some more Oscar nods too.
However, the film didn’t really [...]
The Aura
(2005) dir. Fabián Bielinsky
viewed: 05/10/07
In doing my meager web research that I do to verify any facts that I try to site or background information about the films of which I write, I discovered a sad, poignant fact, that writer/director Fabián Bielinsky died of a heart attack while promoting this film in Brazil and so, [...]
