(2009) dir. Wes Anderson
viewed: 11/26/09 at CineArts @ Empire Theater, SF, CA
How unusual is it that two of the best new films that have come out in 2009 are stop-motion animated?
Fantastic Mr. Fox is the new film from Wes Anderson, writer/director of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), [...]
Archive of entries posted on November 2009
Fantastic Mr. Fox
Waxworks
(1924) dir. Paul Leni, Leo Birinsky
viewed: 11/22/09
My third Paul Leni silent film (The Cat and the Canary (1927), The Man Who Laughs (1928)) further proves that while not necessarily a master, certainly on one of the higher rungs of Expressionist Silent film. Waxworks earns its Expressionism via odd sets and strange angles, curious and occasionally Surreal moments.
Waxworks is [...]
Mulholland Dr.
(2001) dir. David Lynch
viewed: 11/20/09
As part of my personal retrospective of the films of David Lynch, I watched Mulholland Dr., one of his finest films, one that had everyone talking in 2001 when it came out about what really happened in the movie. It’s kind of funny, really, how confused everyone was by the way [...]
Enchanted
(2007) dir. Kevin Lima
viewed: 11/20/09
It came a Friday, a movie night Friday with the kids, without preparation, without an appropriate film at home from Netflix. The kids requested an animated film, a little tired of live-action, and I went to the local video store in search of the requested fare. However, in searching the shelves, [...]
Bright Star
(2009) dir. Jane Campion
viewed: 11/17/09 at Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, Berkeley, CA
Jane Campion’s new film about the English poet John Keats and his love affair with Fanny Brawne is a lovely sensual yet naturalistic film about love. I have to say, that writing about a film whose topics include poetry and love, heart-rending tragedy, and romantic [...]
The Fly
(1958) dir. Kurt Neumann
viewed: 11/16/09
I hadn’t seen the original The Fly in so many years that I’d forgotten that it was in color. And that’s odd because it has a very nice lustre to the color, and it’s most shocking and effective moments are brightly colorful.
There are the big movie monsters, like Frankenstein (1931), Dracula [...]
House of Frankenstein
(1944) Erle C. Kenton
viewed: 11/15/06
The last of the Frankenstein movies from Universal, a cycle that I’ve been running through since prior to Halloween. Actually, according to my readings House of Dracula (1945) is a sequel to this, so I guess I need to queue that up to have completed the circuit.
Since this film picks up [...]
Orphan
(2009) dir. Jaume Collet-Serra
viewed: 11/12/09
While there’s a good deal of buzz going on about the film Paranormal Activity (2007) that is out in the theaters right now, the low-res version of a horror film, the much pooh-poohed, though actually also not-so-badly-reviewed Orphan (2009) has recently made it to DVD. I had hoped to make it [...]
The Sugarland Express
(1974) dir. Steven Spielberg
viewed: 11/11/09
As my trope of watching first feature films by notable directors from the 1970’s through the 1980’s (and arguably still today), I recently watched Steven Spielberg’s Duel (1971), which was pretty cool. But as it was a made for television film, The Sugarland Express is actually considered his first theatrical feature film. [...]
Astro Boy
(2009) dir. David Bowers
viewed: 11/07/09 at AMC Loews Metreon 16, SF, CA
Several years ago, I bought a DVD set of the 1980’s Astroboy series, ostensibly for the kids, and while it was a tad violent and serious for them when they were little, they came to really like Astroboy, particularly Clara. So, when I saw [...]
