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Good movies, Trust me.

Fri, 05/16/2008 - 4:57pm — J.M.

Lately I've been stacking up the rental list, soaking my eyes in cinema with the wife, or with friends, or solo. And occasionally I'll come across some movies that I think got a bad rap. Of course most people will probably think I'm crazy, cuz the critics got they're fangs in them and they never had a real shot. But remember, 2001:A Space Odyssey was a critical disaster. So for fun I'm putting out my top 5 flix I've seen in the last couple years that we're condemned by the movie rags and critics. They're ranked by most personal surprising. Keep an open mind and give em a shot.

1. Revolver- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365686/

This movie got thrown in the fiery pits of critic hellfire. When I first heard about it, there wasn't a single good word I could find about it. It seemed Guy Ritchie nailed his coffin as a 90's has been and would be the guy who married Madonna. BUT I went ahead and gave it a chance. I just remember seeing the trailer and thinking something is going on here. I had to find out. Turns out the movie is as good as Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and personally, I think it's better, but definitely different. Just imagine a Gangster movie put into a blender that mixes Surrealism, Lynch, Jodorowsky (El Topo and Holy Mountain), and Existentialism. Sound crazy? Completely. But it's worth at least one trip around. I still cant figure out how Ritchie created some of the visuals. And the editing blows me away.

2. Kurt Cobain About a Son- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0790769/

I'm not sure if this was panned across the board by critics. I think there were a few floating praises, but I really didn't see much support for this documentary that really gives the viewer a fresh experience to pop music. It's a music doc. about Kurt Cobain without music from Nirvana. Huh? I've always been into Nirvana's music, but believe me, it's so much better without it. Just an amazing archive of audio interviews with Kurt Cobain and gorgeous cinematography of all the scenery and places where grew up in Washington. Borrrrrimg, you say? I couldn't stop my eyes from watching. It's a great technique and could give you doc. makers out there ideas on creating creative oral histories.

3. Tideland- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0410764/

Terry Gilliam comes in at the beginning and actually says you won't like this movie. I'm not sure if that's a warning to soften the blow, or if he's just trying to really piss off the audience even more, but he definitely knew this movie wasn't going to get much love. He was right. It got thrown out into the abyss of in-n-out theater runs and straight to the back of the aisle in the DVD sections at the video store. It's amazing it actually saw the light of day on any screen because it's like nothing Terry Gilliam has done before and this is the guy that made Brazil. But Tideland takes the art of cinema to a place I can't even compare. It's beyond the imagination at times, and that's something both scary and exciting to watch. If you decide to take the plunge, heed the T.G. Warning, he ain't kidding.

4. The Fountain- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0414993/

I like Darren Aronofsky flix, so I admit, going into this movie I already was rooting for it. And beside all the hatred I read about it at Cannes, I was into it. There are visual moments in there that probably won't come close to getting re-created for some time. The story does get silly with the whole Spanish conquest thing, but it comes across as pure fantasy, which makes it seem more tolerable for some strange reason. And Hugh Jackman does an amazing performance.

5. BABEL- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449467/

Being this movie was nominated for an Academy Award (blah, blah) and generally marketed as a critical success, you might wonder, why is it on the list? Lately, I have read and heard people think it's horrible and completely overrated. So I just want to put it out there that Babel is a masterpiece! Alejandro González Iñárritu is the man and I still can't believe he got Hollywood on board to make that movie. American Cinema is completely void of that kind of work. We need more movies like BABEL that try to broaden the American moviegoer.

Okay enough playing movie geek for today.

Comments

Mon, 05/19/2008 - 10:47am — steev

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hmm, the only 2 on your list that i've seen, Tideland and The Fountain, I also saw very recently, like in the last couple months.

I was disappointed with both of them. I've been a huge fan of Gilliam's work since the mid-80s, seeing his cartoons on Monty Python and then Brazil, which is definitely in my top 5 films of all time. The Fisher King is also a tour de force. I've never been disappointed in any of his work till Tideland. It amazed me that he could disappoint me, but he did. I think the effects and production design and cinematography were beautiful and very well-executed, but the story was just really sub-par. There were no characters worth identifying with, even the girl, who seemed like a clueless victim tossed on the winds of fate who never underwent any character development or transformative progress. Most of the film just made me feel creeped out and wondering why i should care enough to feel anything for these characters other than to call Child Protective Services.

The Fountain I had high hopes for too. And again, the visual splendor of the film was just wonderful. But, again, no amount of flash and glitter will make up for a hollow and unsatisfying story. It was kind of a cool premise, but at the end it just sort of turned into mushy new-age weirdness with no real resolution.

It's interesting that in our talks about Lynch's Inland Empire it basically came down to the same thing as with these 2 films, Jason - we agreed it was visually awesome, but I found the narrative lacking enough to mar the whole experience. It may be that is just a fundamental difference between us in what we want out of films. For me, films, at least films deserving the description of "good" or "great", must do more than appeal to the senses, they must also satisfy our innate need to be told a good story. Of course there are many ways to tell a story, and films like El Topo, Solaris, Memento, Mystery Train, Amoros Perros or Adaptation are just some examples of non-standard narratives that work really well in various ways. But Tideland and The Fountain are 2 counterexamples, in my opinion.