Turner Classic Movies Kicks Some Ass.
Last night TCM premiered the wonderful documentary Martin Scorsese Presents, Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows, followed by a Lewton marathon that was on too late for my having to work the next morning self. Tonight, TCM is playing Hal Ashby’s first film The Landlord, unseen by me, and many of my generation, because it has not been issued on DVD and is relatively hard to get a hold of on VHS.
To commemorate Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, TCM is having a Charles Burnett marathon on Monday, January 21, kicking off with the just released supposed (I would know for myself if the damn thing would ever move beyond “Very Long Wait” on my queue) 1977 masterpiece Killer of Sheep at 8 pm.
I’ll be there. Will you?
Unoriginality.
Nothing is more dispiriting than a major critical consensus, especially when it’s Top Ten of the Year time. Right now, my two favorite films of the year are There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men.
Yeah, like everyone else on the planet.
It reminds me a bit of 2004. My favorite film that year was Sideways.
Again, like everyone else on the planet.
2007 though is different, because it’s not just the top couple of movies that seem to be the same across the critical landscape, it’s large stretches of lists, everyone seems to love I’m Not There. Everyone seems to love Juno. Everyone loves Zodiac. Etc. Etc. The bitch of it is that all of these (excluding Juno which I haven’t seen) are very, very justified. The movies really were THAT damn good.
Some have sensed this and populated their lists with a few less likely titles. But now even these are the same. Black Snake Moan was disregarded in release, but I’m seeing it pop up in more than one End of the Year list. That is, of course, a good thing. Black Snake Moan is a strong movie that turns post modern idolization on its head in a surprising way, and deserves to be seen.
What to do? Grin and bear it. I’d rather have good movies than a good top ten list any day. Even if it slightly tarnishes my sense of individuality.
That said, my Number 3 choice, The Astronaut Farmer, should surprise some people. As should my plea for There Will Be Blood as Paul Thomas Anderson’s ultimate symbolic exploration of the 1950s Soviet/American space race.
BC’s Best Picture of 2007….
…has been chosen. I’m not posting the Top Ten of the Year until I see a few other things (expect it in about a week) but I’m pretty confident that the number one spot is no longer up for grabs. Like many Best movies of the year, this film simply grabs you and says “There are plenty of great movies but I am, most certainly, the ONE.”
Of course, I spilled the beans over at Craig Kennedy’s wonderful site, Living in Cinema, a few days ago, so why am I still being so coy? Probably because my ego needs that much more massage, therapy is in fact one of my New Year’s resolutions.
Next week Bowen’s Cinematic will be doing a mini theme, an appreciation of the director of the 2007’s best film’s prior work. Hint: there are four prior films. Hint, Hint: This director is one of the guys to come of age in the 1990s.
Oh, fuck it. The best film of the year is There Will Be Blood. Tune in for a Paul Thomas Anderson fest next week.
Happy New Years
Happy New Years folks, hope you ushered the year in last night in just the right way, whatever that may be. Updates should be regular this week, hopefully with looks at
Juno,
Black Book, and a little Pot Luck medley of 2007 pictures that didn’t, for me at least, require a full review’s worth of opinion.
Merry Christmas
Technical glitches and scheduling have resulted in less posts the last few days, including a drop off in the just launched Classics Column. My apologies. I will be back Thursday with a look at Todd Haynes’
I’m Not There and from there we should be rocking and rolling as usual again.
Happy Holidays guys, hope they find you well.
Next Week
I didn’t do my homework last night. The idea was to watch A Mighty Heart and comment on it today for your morning diversion. Didn’t happen. Could’ve happened. I was in front of the TV, the DVD right there, but I reached for something to read instead. This movie doesn’t cry out to me, for the same reason that you haven’t seen reviews of In the Valley of Elah, or Lions for Lambs or any other number of war is bad but we’re still rich and pretty films. It’s not that I feel that it’s too soon for films to examine the various current issues that plague our country, because I don’t. It has more to do with the fact that all of these films happen to look like they suck, self-fellatio as substitute for any particular drama. A prestige film for various celebrities to knock out in between their romantic comedies and action movies. If I’m to write a Best Of 2007 soon, and I intend to, I should’ve seen these movies and others, but there was always something else. I could pretend to regret my decision, but that would be an insult to both of us.
All that said, expect A Mighty Heart, and possibly the first Chucking of a classic, for tomorrow. The classic thing on Friday will be a regular feature. These Classic columns are not my own nominations for immortality, but instead my reactions to films that have already, for a while now, been granted the gold stamp of classic by the various invisible people that do such things.
As for next week, things are still a bit in flux but this is the perfect world line up:
Interview (Steve Buscemi); Killer of Sheep; I’m Not There; The Girl Next Door.
Again, this list could go in another direction entirely, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for new release I Am Legend. I, Robot, Smith’s last strip mining of famous sci-fi, got a free pass because I wasn’t familiar with the source material. I’ve read the Richard Matheson novel that inspires this new one though (and you should too) and I’m too invested in the film’s brilliant, sure to be discarded here ending to sit through two hours of Smith’s please, please, please love me mugging. Smith can be very charming, but he needs to drop the action thing. Romantic comedy suits him better. Oh, and I hated Legend director Francis Lawrence’s last movie, Constantine, too.
Didn’t mean to get off on a drunken uncle sour grapes tangent there. Let’s brighten things up with a wish to Santa: that the There Will Be Blood release date of Dec. 26 applies to D.C. as well as the usual major citites. Me thinks I can’t wait much longer than that.
See you guys tomorrow,
Chuck
Next Week
First, let’s get this week’s leftovers out of the way. I wrote in last week’s Next Week that I would supply responses to Election and the original Diabolique. Election is very obviously designed as a two parter, and being that the second part, Triad Election, is sitting on my desk, I figured we’ll just slide that one into next week and look at both of them at the same time.
Diabolique, unless you count the Sharon Stone remake that I haven’t seen, doesn’t have a second part that I know of, unless you also want to try and count a really lame bit of direct to cable Dennis Hopper wannabe erotica that borrows the film’s famous (and chilling) central image of someone who should be dead in a bathtub turning out not to be so dead. Something tells me you don’t want to count either of these, and so I owe you a review. In case I don’t show up to pay, let’s just say that I really enjoyed Henri-Georges Clouzot’s film, particularly the terrifying final forty-five minutes. The picture has a famous twist but, like Psycho, which Diabolique at least partially inspired, the twist has been dulled a bit through numerous ripping off. See it though, Diabolique has a cold, clammy, sexually repressed stuck in the attic vibe that works on you.
Speaking of copping out on the Diabolique review, I am going to start writing full reviews of classic, revered films, hopefully on a once a week basis. Being that I try to pass myself off as someone who knows a little something here, I try to make it a priority to catch up with one classic I haven’t seen a week. I haven’t been writing about these on the site, primarily because I’m a bit of a scaredy cat, and don’t like competing with years of established theory. Time to suck it up and venture out a little bit.
So next week will be:Election/Triad Election, Lust, Caution (for real this time), The Golden Compass (maybe), The Girl Next Door (if I can get it), mystery classic (though I have a pretty good idea of what it will be).
This week is a little more up in the air than usual, but don’t worry, we”ll kill those work hours somehow. Happy Hunting,
Chuck
Next Week
You may remember that I mentioned Lucky You and The Hoax in my Things to Do post last week. You may also recall that neither of those films were discussed this week. No need really. With Lucky You I was hoping to spotlight to a little seen movie by a director I respect. Then I actually watched it. I can understand why certain bad movies, like, I don’t know Transformers, were made. It’s unfortunate but things like Transformers are always going to be profitable, no matter how souless or boring they are, and I imagine Michael Bay increased his bank account by several zeroes to participate. Lucky You isn’t as bad as Transformers, and it means well, but meaning well is usually the most boring kind of bad movie. This is the kind of movie that is so boring you wonder how the director could muster the enthusiasm required to spend several months shooting it.
Essentially Lucky You is a warmer, fuzzier The Color of Money in the poker world. The Color of Money didn’t need to be warmer or fuzzier, and it didn’t need Eric Bana at his blandest (saying something) or Drew Barrymore at her most obnoxious (REALLY saying something.) Robert Duvall does as much as he can. Curtis Hanson’s magic touch with material that should suck (In Her Shoes) fails him here. Hanson’s L.A. Confidential, Wonder Boys one two punch will ensure his work a look see from now on, but this one’s a bummer.
The Hoax isn’t being deprived of a full review because I didn’t like it, in fact, the new Richard Gere movie is almost exactly what I hoped it would be: light on its feet, not too pompous and charming, the majority of that charm deriving from Gere’s work and his chemistry with a characteristically appealing Alfred Molina. This is the best that director Lasse Hallstrom has been in years, primarily because he doesn’t seem to be humping Oscar’s leg this time out. Hallstrom’s telling a story again, and slight as it may feel, he tells it well. The Hoax isn’t getting the full post treatment because I just said everything I really needed to say about it. Anything else would be me writing to read myself write, and I’m doing plenty of that anyway.
So what about next week?
On the DVD front: Waitress, Tom Petty: Runnin’ Down a Dream, Shooter, Johnny To’s Election, maybe the original Diabolique.
The theatre front: Not sure, pickings are slim in my neighborhood this week. I’m checking out No Country for Old Men again, may see Lars and the Real Girl or The Darjeeling Limited, but those are a drive away and still in the maybe stage (I’m iffy on both of them anyway). The good news is that my area has finally announced Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution for the following week and I’ve been looking forward to that one.
Anyone here catch Southland Tales? Is it as bad as it sounds?
Your Humble Writer Wishes You Well Wishes…
I’m afraid Thanksgiving will be taking a bit of a toll on my contributions to Bowen’s Cinematic for the remainder of the week. Consider this your permission to live a balanced and fulfilling life, at least for a few days. Happy Thanksgiving fellow movie obsessives (or people bored at work). Hope you return next week, where I will guarantee (maybe, perhaps) posts of:
No Country for Old Men, The Mist, Talk to Me, The Hoax, and maybe Lucky You.
My family will be over so I’m sure that there will be plenty of re-watching of random things as well. My little brother, for one, needs to see Zodiac. I schooled him on Ratatouille last night, or, more accurately, he schooled himself, I feel asleep at the dangerous hour of 9:30.
Plans and a Policy Change at Bowen’s Cinematic.
A reader suggested a week ago that I “star” things. I initially resisted this impulse, but I, after seeking consultation from a few other readers, have decided to give it a try. Four stars will be the best, one the worst, which is the most traditional use of the little asterisks. To give a rough basis for comparison, I have starred everything that appears on the immediate page, all archive stuff will remain unstarred. You’ll note that almost all of the front page films have a generous amount of stars. What can I say? It’s been a wonderful week or two at the movies. I flirted with giving two other movies four stars, but decided against it. I want the four star rating to really mean something, and that means the occasional tough choice.
I will probably do a Best of 2007, and the star thing may not, in the end, be a totally accurate indicator of how that list will wind up. Time changes most all things, including opinions, and I have to go with what I think at the time. Hope you enjoy the ratings, and tell your friends. At the very least it will afford me another illusion of power.
Now, on to the fun stuff, next week’s agenda. I feel safe promising you looks at American Gangster, Bee Movie, Jindabyne, and Crazy Love. I’m thinking that a wild card may pop up somewhere in there too, maybe The Darjeeling Limited, maybe Lust, Caution. We’ll see. Meanwhile, hope you guys have a wonderful week.
P.S. I may have something tomorrow too. You never know with me. I can be a rascal.
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