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osprey_archerSo many movies to review! So little time! I enjoyed all the movies I’ve listed here, but not so much that I feel a burning need to recommend them to you at length.
Except for 2005 The Producers, but that’s a re-watch and doesn’t count. I almost never re-watch movies – I have the attention span of a frazzled cocker spaniel and find it hard enough to sit through the first viewing – but The Producers, you guys, The Producers is SO MUCH AWESOME. Singing! Dancing! Hilarity!
(I also love the 1968 version, but there is, let’s face it, a critical lack of singing and dancing there.)
I love The Producers so much that I’m actually watching the Bollywood version, Dhoodte Reh Jaoge, but so far it also suffers from a critical lack of singing and dancing, and is also low on tasteless jokes. I may need to adjust my expectations in order to enjoy it properly.
Other movies I’ve been watching:
Miyako, a Japanese housewife, won a contest to have her radio play broadcast live. The rehearsal goes well, but before it can go on air the announcer wants a few minor wording changes – oh, and the lead actress would like her name changed – and now the lead actor wants his name changed, too, and oh yes we’re going to have to change the setting which is going to destroy the plot and we’re halfway through the broadcast and making it up as we go along and HOW DO YOU MAKE THE SOUND EFFECT OF A DAM BREAKING?
This Japanese film is a hoot. It’s a little slow to get moving – and by slow I mean “it spends the first hour and then some revving up” – but when it does, oh God, it’s quite a ride. It’s reminiscent of the movie Noises Off, not in any particulars of plot or character but in structure. Both movies move like train wheels: glacially slow at first, slowly picking up speed until suddenly they’re careening along the track, out of control and awesome.
Dear Lemon Lima is the coming of age story of a quirky girl in an interesting setting. The quirky teenage girl is Vanessa Lemor, a dreamy half-Yupik high school student who writes letters to her imaginary friend, Lemon Lima, and the setting is Alaska.
And I didn’t dislike the movie; the visuals are stunning. But there’s nothing to make it special. The quirky cinematography distances the characters; they are sweet and offbeat, but they remain ciphers.
I spent the last ten minutes of Driving Miss Daisy weeping. It is not, on the face of it, a terribly depressing movie: it chronicles the unlikely friendship between Miss Daisy, a persnickety southern Jewish lady, and the kind black chauffeur she didn’t want in the first place, Hoke.
Despite the gulf of inequality between them, their friendship is both sweet and thorny enough to be believable. It occasionally pulls Miss Daisy up against the fact that she is, despite her protestations to the contrary, quite prejudiced, and unnecessarily difficult to get along with to boot.
But Miss Daisy never gets beyond that initial realization of her flaws. Her age, or her character, or something make it impossible for her to change. When Miss Daisy started suffering from dementia, and I realized that she was going to go to her grave prejudiced, sharp-tongued, furiously stubborn, but nonetheless strangely lovable – that’s when the waterworks started.
It seemed so unfair - not on the part of the filmmakers. Cosmically unfair, that Miss Daisy should have these limitations that she can never transcend.
Except for 2005 The Producers, but that’s a re-watch and doesn’t count. I almost never re-watch movies – I have the attention span of a frazzled cocker spaniel and find it hard enough to sit through the first viewing – but The Producers, you guys, The Producers is SO MUCH AWESOME. Singing! Dancing! Hilarity!
(I also love the 1968 version, but there is, let’s face it, a critical lack of singing and dancing there.)
I love The Producers so much that I’m actually watching the Bollywood version, Dhoodte Reh Jaoge, but so far it also suffers from a critical lack of singing and dancing, and is also low on tasteless jokes. I may need to adjust my expectations in order to enjoy it properly.
Other movies I’ve been watching:
Miyako, a Japanese housewife, won a contest to have her radio play broadcast live. The rehearsal goes well, but before it can go on air the announcer wants a few minor wording changes – oh, and the lead actress would like her name changed – and now the lead actor wants his name changed, too, and oh yes we’re going to have to change the setting which is going to destroy the plot and we’re halfway through the broadcast and making it up as we go along and HOW DO YOU MAKE THE SOUND EFFECT OF A DAM BREAKING?
This Japanese film is a hoot. It’s a little slow to get moving – and by slow I mean “it spends the first hour and then some revving up” – but when it does, oh God, it’s quite a ride. It’s reminiscent of the movie Noises Off, not in any particulars of plot or character but in structure. Both movies move like train wheels: glacially slow at first, slowly picking up speed until suddenly they’re careening along the track, out of control and awesome.
Dear Lemon Lima is the coming of age story of a quirky girl in an interesting setting. The quirky teenage girl is Vanessa Lemor, a dreamy half-Yupik high school student who writes letters to her imaginary friend, Lemon Lima, and the setting is Alaska.
And I didn’t dislike the movie; the visuals are stunning. But there’s nothing to make it special. The quirky cinematography distances the characters; they are sweet and offbeat, but they remain ciphers.
I spent the last ten minutes of Driving Miss Daisy weeping. It is not, on the face of it, a terribly depressing movie: it chronicles the unlikely friendship between Miss Daisy, a persnickety southern Jewish lady, and the kind black chauffeur she didn’t want in the first place, Hoke.
Despite the gulf of inequality between them, their friendship is both sweet and thorny enough to be believable. It occasionally pulls Miss Daisy up against the fact that she is, despite her protestations to the contrary, quite prejudiced, and unnecessarily difficult to get along with to boot.
But Miss Daisy never gets beyond that initial realization of her flaws. Her age, or her character, or something make it impossible for her to change. When Miss Daisy started suffering from dementia, and I realized that she was going to go to her grave prejudiced, sharp-tongued, furiously stubborn, but nonetheless strangely lovable – that’s when the waterworks started.
It seemed so unfair - not on the part of the filmmakers. Cosmically unfair, that Miss Daisy should have these limitations that she can never transcend.
