David Cronenberg lays it on thick in A History of Violence. For most of the movie every move that every character makes, everything that every character says, is dripping with “notice what I’m doing!” I found this distracting, (also distracting: the music over the end scene) but what made this good movie was one moment with Viggo Mortensen.
Verdict: Good
Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home in preparation for Filmspotting’s March Madness 2019
I’m not familiar with the slums of Rio de Janeiro,* and the City of God transported me to that location and aptly illustrated Rocket’s (Alexandre Rodrigues) brutal life. The film left me unsatisfied due to unanswered questions** but quite satisfied with interesting camera stuff. I will say that City of God is worth watching for its opening scene.
Cost: free from the Multnomah County Library
Where watched: at home, in preparation for Filmspotting’s March Madness 2019: Best of the 2000s
*My total experience with Rio is Romeo + Juliet.
**The transition from child to teenager comes with houses increasing from one story to multi-story. Did he move, or did the slums grow up? It was never really clear. Also, once Rocket became a teenager, what happened to his parents?
Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men is a good action movie, of the regular-people type.* For me though, it suffered from me having read the book which goes deeper into the relationships than the movie does.** The movie achieves a tense vibe throughout, but I found I didn’t care about the people because I knew too little about them.***
Cost: Free from the Multnomah County Library
Where watched: at home in preparation for Filmspotting’s 2019 March Madness: Best of the 2000s
*Any of the Bourne films? I couldn’t do all that stuff. I could do the action stuff in this film.
**I read the book over 20 years ago, which is a sign of a book with staying power.
***This also suffers from the White Guys in Suits problem (although in this case it was a Radical Insurgents in Black problem) in that I couldn’t tell some men apart and a key plot point flew by me.
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure statement for more information
Back when I discovered Gillian Jacobs, everyone always referenced her work on Community, which I had never heard of. Having now watched the first season, I can say that not only is her work delightful, so is everyone else’s in this hilarious community-college-set comedy. While I have to sit through the will-they-or-won’t-they between Jacobs and McHale, (which got old waaaay back in the Sam and Diane days) it’s worth it for the antics of Glover and Pudi.
Cost: free from the Multnomah County Library
Where watched: at home
Would you like these reviews delivered straight to your inbox? Subscribe!
I remain firm in my conviction that the movie I watch should tell the whole story while I am watching it; Donnie Darko does not, and so it fails as a movie. Jake Gyllenhaal is very good as Donnie, and the movie achieves a satisfactory creepy and confusing vibe. But when the movie ends and the speech bubble over my head is filled only with “????” this is a movie that has failed.
Cost: free from library
Where watched: at home, as part of preperation for Filmspotting’s Best of the 2000s.
