Comments on: The month in movies (special 2-month edition)

By: you know who

you know who — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 20:52:07 +0000

Snakes on a Plane?

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 01:02:18 +0000

I would say that it’s easy to forget, when so many movies are made purely as an attempt to entertain by appealing to the senses (XXX, those kind of movies…), that one of the main points of making a movie is to entertain. So I would say that a movie like Dead Man is significant because it is an entertaining story/journey for the lead character, and a tthe same time, it is different. I can’t speak for all of Jarmusch’s movies, but, speaking solely in terms of Dead Man, he’s unique as an independent filmmaker because he’s still just trying to tell a good old-fashioned story, but he doesn’t tell it with any glitz and he doesn’t make the plot points and character shifts overtly obvious. So what I mean by that last sentence is, he’s doing the Hollywood thing, but he’s asking more from his audience. That said, Ghost Dog sucks ass.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 15:04:04 +0000

Good question. Well, not having read the Actual Movie criteria, the one thing you need to know is that it’s highly subjective and arbitrary. And I just don’t seem to “get” Jim Jarmusch movies, for the most part. Dead Man was certainly different, but I’m not sure I see why the film was significant. Your thoughts?

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 00:03:16 +0000

Just curious what about Dead Man makes it a ‘tweener. This query coming from someone without the patience to sort through the intricacies of the definition of an Actual Movie. And yes, I am asking because I think Dead Man is “totally rad.”

By: pat

pat — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 17:16:19 +0000

Yep, at some point, some of the continued liberal obsession with race does start to feel racist. Crash introduced most of the themes at about a 10th grade level. I think most annoying was that it wanted to cover just about *every* race-relation theme… its just too much. It reminded me, in a strange way, of Good Will Hunting’s presentation of class. Its another liberal dream: tough, troubled kid from the wrong side of the tracks who can beat the priviliged rich kids at their own game, while still rejecting the game… writen by rich kids so they can live out their fantasy of being tough southies, cause they are tough and cool… I mean, just listen to how well we can do the accent, we must be tough! Don’t get me wrong, they are all identifiable themes that strike a chord, but also all fairly obvious and well-worn.

I think the director’s cut of DD will help clear some things up, but its stll a head-scratcher. I haven’t seen Brown Bunny, but heard some interesting things about it.

I think you may hate Serenity.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 04:26:56 +0000

I’ve spent considerable time knocking Crash (the 2005 Crash, not the 1996 Crash), and I’m glad you see it for what it is. Watching it, I thought, wow, this would have been a great movie in 1991. It would’ve been one of those race-conscious movies which seemed liberal and aware at the time, and then in retrospect, 10 or so years later, it would just seems racist by virtue of its oh-so-trying efforts to not be racist. Maybe that doesn’t make sense. Basically: oh, this movie is supposed to be good because the Latino guy is actually good, and Ludacris actually passes up some petty cash for a dozen human lives? Way to go! Didn’t see that coming! Paul Haggis (writer/director) is apparently penning the new Bond script, so that will be interesting–with him writing, I guess I’m actually NOT hoping to see Black Bond this time around.

Donnie Darko is definitely an Actual Movie, although making something cryptic does not necessarily make it significant. Still, I’ll have to see it again–the director’s cut, this time, I guess–to try to figure it out a bit more. As it is I’d have to guess that it had a kind of ghost-of-Christmas future thing going on with the bunny. But really, I have no clue.

Yes, I need to clarify my Actual Movie evaluation–essentially the rating is based more on a film’s significance, staying power, effort at expanding the art form, and pursuit of genuine emotion–in lieu of whether it was actually enjoyable. So yes, you’re onto something–certainly a Not-Actual-Movie could be a lot more fun than an Actual Movie. This month, the best example of this is probably Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny, which is shockingly boring for the most part, but in the end does carry some weight, by virtue of tenacity, which is why it achieves Pseudo status. Wedding Crashers and The 40 Year Old Virgin, while very enjoyable and funny, do not qualify; thus is my ratings system. I’ll have to update it.