Million Dollar Baby: 2004, dir. Clint Eastwood. Seen at Galaxy Highland (Jan. 30).
It is difficult for me to talk about Million Dollar Baby without giving away some major plot elements. I saw the movie without knowing much of anything about it except that it had a lot of boxing scenes in it, and I think that was the ideal way to enjoy the film. It’s very good, very smartly written and directed, and the performances are excellent.
So. If you haven’t seen the movie, stop reading now. Go see the movie. Forget all the deprecating comments you have heard about how this is “just another formulaic Hollywood movie.” Don’t listen to the whispers about controversial this-and-that. Go now, go see Million Dollar Baby, and you can thank or strangle me later.
If you’ve seen the movie, keep reading if you want to know what I think about it beyond “This was a very good movie.”
Category: films seen in 2005
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou: 2004, dir. Wes Anderson. Seen at Alamo Village (Jan. 21).
The credits rolled at the end of The Life Aquatic and the theater lights came on and my boyfriend turned to me and said, “See, it is possible to make a movie with quirky characters that aren’t mean-spirited stereotypes.”
Many fans of Wes Anderson appear to be somewhat disappointed by The Life Aquatic. It does not contain as many of the arresting images that are so memorable in The Royal Tenenbaums and Rushmore, for example. On the other hand, unlike The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic has a stronger storyline. You can call it a narrative sellout if you want, but it was a more entertaining movie overall.
Elf (2003)
Elf: 2003, dir. Jon Favreau. Seen on DVD (Jan. 6).
Oh, this movie is goooood. Real good.
And I mean that in the sense that after being on the receiving end of some spectacular display of bullshit, you look up at the person responsible and say, “Oh, you’re good.” Maybe you fell for it, whatever it was, but you are still aware enough of the mechanics behind it to be able to see through it and know, yeah, that’s pretty damn slick.
That’s Elf for you.
Now don’t get me wrong. I liked watching Elf. I laughed a whole lot. It will probably join my list of movies to watch while wrapping Christmas presents. I have no objection to watching it again if someone puts it on TV while I’m around.
But I am cynical enough to see that Elf is a triumph of marketing-based commercial filmmaking, that it pulls every string perfectly, that the filmmakers were absolutely aware of what an audience wants out of a film and delivered just that.
The Ultimate Garlic Experience
Garlic is Better than Ten Mothers: 1980, dir. Les Blank.
and
Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe: 1980, dir. Les Blank.
Both seen at Alamo Downtown (Jan. 5) as part of Alamo’s “Ultimate Garlic Experience.”
The Alamo Drafthouse chain of theaters in Austin always seems to be offering the Ultimate Experience of something or other. They have a portable movie screen and have shown movies in bowling alleys, lakes, the middle of the woods, and other wonderfully bizarre locations. When they do have Ultimate Experiences in a theater, the evenings include themed meals, silly contests, appearances from the director or a star in the film … you get the idea. Sometimes I wonder if Tim League, founder of the Alamo franchise, is related to William Castle, and I mean that as a compliment.
Last night I went to the Ultimate Garlic Experience at Alamo Downtown. Two short documentaries from Les Blank were shown, Garlic is Better than Ten Mothers and Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe. Since Les Blank’s movies are not available on DVD, and are difficult to find on VHS, that alone seemed like a good reason to attend.
Atlantic City (1980)
Atlantic City: 1980, dir. Louis Malle. Seen on DVD (Jan 2).
For some bizarre reason, I had Atlantic City mixed up with Nashville in my head, and it took me a minute during the credits sequence to realize that this was a Louis Malle movie, not Robert Altman. I know, sometimes I feel like I’m not worthy to be a film geek.
Atlantic City is an odd and interesting little movie, which almost got lost between the other movies I saw last weekend, which were bigger and flashier and sillier and funnier.
For example, it is odd to see Susan Sarandon so young, and Burt Lancaster so old (although I’d recognized him in Local Hero when I saw it last year, so it wasn’t as surprising to me as it was to my boyfriend).
House of Flying Daggers (2004)
House of Flying Daggers: 2004, dir. Yimou Zhang. Seen at Dobie (Jan. 4).
I am a terrible, cynical person. Some of the first words out of my mouth when this movie ended were, “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Later on, I was heard to say, “Mongo only pawn in game of life.”
You have to take your cynical hat off if you are going to see House of Flying Daggers, which is a terribly sentimental and melodramatic love story disguised as a martial arts movie. I think this movie works only if you view everything in it as an allegory for love.
The Stepford Wives (2004)
The Stepford Wives: 2004, dir. Frank Oz. Seen on DVD (Jan. 3).
Last year, I bought an old library copy of the novel The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin. I wanted to read the source.
Wait, we need to go back even further. When I was junior-high age, I saw the 1980 made-for-TV movie Revenge of the Stepford Wives one night on TV. I don’t remember much about it except for Julie Kavner (remember when we used to see her as well as hear her? hee) … and the fact that the Stepford women were drugged, not robots. They all had to take little pills. At the end of the movie, the women all go crazy and stomp on the nasty man who’s been behind the whole scheme.
Ocean’s Twelve (2004)
Ocean’s Twelve: 2004, dir. Steven Soderbergh. Seen at Galaxy Highland (Jan. 1).
If I hadn’t seen the SpongeBob movie recently, I might well say that Ocean’s Twelve is the silliest movie I’ve seen in a very long time. So that’s my verdict: this movie is not as silly as an animated singing sponge. But it’s pretty close.
I liked Ocean’s Eleven (the 2001 one, not the 1960 one) quite a lot. I thought it was a very smart movie with a good cast. I was particularly fond of George Clooney, although I liked just about everyone except Julia Roberts, and at least she didn’t annoy me. I own the DVD of Ocean’s Eleven, because I like watching a clever caper movie, and you know it just about broke my heart when I found out that the Bellagio doesn’t really look anything like it did in the movie.
Ocean’s Twelve is fun, and it’s entertaining, and we had a good time watching it. But it is more like the original Rat Pack Ocean’s 11 than it is like the remake. It’s a bunch of guys (and a couple of chicks) all having a whole lot of fun making a movie together, without much worry about details like the storyline. The dialogue is often quite good, the acting is fine, the direction is stylish and fun. But the story is a mess.