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| The two titular lovers in Wong Kar Wai's cigarette commercial...sorry, his film "In the Mood for Love". |
Friday, May 31, 2013
#250 - In the Mood for Love
#248 - The Help
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| Emma Stone shares an empathetic moment with the maid Aibileen (a brilliant Viola Davis). |
#233 - Beauty and the Beast
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| The Beast finds that the the beautiful Belle is starting to soften to his charms, in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast". |
MY RATING:
67/100
WOULD IT BE IN MY TOP 250?
No.
WHY IS IT IN THE IMDB'S TOP 250?
The film was certainly an important milestone in American action cinema. It continued the Raiders of the Lost Ark tradition of an indestructible male action hero, and refined the use of irony and jokiness to alleviate the violence portrayed in the film. As far as the Schwarzenegger-Stallone-Willis action extravaganzas go, it's probably one of the better-executed, and Alan Rickman certainly made for a memorable villain. Willis also brought an Everyman quality to the role of McClane.
As for why people seem to view the movie as an action classic while it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, I guess most viewers just aren't as bothered by the movie's callous dismissal of secondary characters, pandering audience-pleasing moments and underlying reactionary conservatism as I am.
#232 - Rain Man
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| Charlie Babbitt and his autistic brother Raymond prepare to conquer Vegas, in "Rain Man". |
Dustin Hoffman took Robert Downey Jr.'s advice from Tropic Thunder and didn't go "full retard" for this film, which ensured that he'd cynically nab a Best Actor Oscar. Forgive me for being flip with Rain Man, but every time I watch it I'm reminded of how much of a product of the 1980s it is, and suffice it to say, that's enough to turn me off. Tom Cruise is actually very good in this film...he's the actor who actually has to react to something, and it is through his character that we take the journey of the film. But what is that journey? Cruise begins the movie as a materialistic jerk with no time or patience for his long lost autistic brother, and while he ends up warming to Hoffman's tics and limitations, the movie has to succumb to the mantra of 80s success by having Hoffman and Cruise kick ass in Vegas by counting cards. The message is simple: be nice to your disabled brother, for you never know when he can bring you millions through his unexpected mathematical gifts. If only real disabilities were so pat. By the end of this two-hour journey I always feel nearly as frustrated as Cruise's character...not because I'm insensitive to autism, but because I'm insensitive to a Method actor's award-baiting interpretation of autism.
MY RATING:
47/100
WOULD IT BE IN MY TOP 250?
Only if the list in question was "most annoying performances to ever win an Academy Award".
WHY IS IT IN THE IMDB'S TOP 250?
I risk sounding like a snob in saying this, but Rain Man really did check all the manipulative boxes on its way to becoming the highest grossing film of 1988 and an unexpectedly beloved film. Through Hoffman's character, the audience was allowed to go along for a crowd-pleasing trek through the world of autism, complete with hilarious misunderstandings (Raymond mimicking the sounds of Charlie and his girlfriend's lovemaking), cool tricks (counting the toothpicks) and every so often just to avoid being accused of being a complete whitewash, a glimpse of the unreachable nature of someone with such a mental disease (like Raymond's pounding of his ear and screeching). Through Cruise, the audience could feel ever-so-slightly superior to Charlie's impatience with his brother, while still seeing a likeable actor rewarded for his evolution by having his brother bail him out of financial difficulties. I can understand why Rain Man might have been a hit at the height of Reaganism, but its enduring popularity baffles me.
#230 - Shutter Island
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| The detectives look out over the edge of Shutter Island in Scorsese's B-moviest film, "Shutter Island". |
I dismissed this is as yet another disappointment from late-career Scorsese when I first saw it, and a repeated viewing has confirmed that impression for me, but I'm holding out hope that the movie might grow on me. It feels a little like Casino to me in Scorsese's canon: I'm probably always going to dislike it, but if it's on at 1 o'clock in the morning, I'm watching it. Scorsese is clearly trying to knock off a Val Lewton-style B-movie with this Dennis Lehane adaptation, and while I would love to see more A-list directors cranking out entertaining yarns, Scorsese can't help but get caught striving for more. There's a flippancy in this film, a dependence on "atmosphere" over the sake of narrative coherence, that I found off-putting and occasionally offensive (as in the glib tracking shot that pans along as dozens of Nazis are killed by American soldiers). The story becomes all the more ludicrous when the film is seen for a second time and the twist is known...it's an insult to the victims of mental disorders to attempt to pigeonhole "insanity" into such a neat cause-and-effect scheme, and it's an insult to the audience's intelligence to try to pass off the twist of the film as plausible. Leonardo DiCaprio, who usually annoys me with his straining, once again relies on the same tics he has when he goes into Serious mode: an unnecessary accent, lots of scowling, and in the later scenes, a series of blinks and twitches meant to signify that he's "cracking". I found it all pretty overbaked, but there are still a few things to admire: Patricia Clarkson's memorable one-off scene, the haunted-house style atmosphere of the island, and the film's final scene, which would have been a brilliant capper if what had preceded it was worthy. Oh well, here's to 2 a.m. rainy-night movie reruns, where Shutter Island reigns supreme.
MY RATING:
54/100
WOULD IT BE IN MY TOP 250?
Noooo. It probably wouldn't even be in my top 15 Scorsese films.
WHY IS IT IN THE IMDB TOP 250?
As I mentioned, Shutter Island does have an enduring appeal as a tough-to-turn-off insanity funhouse. Maybe a lot of people were intrigued by its plot twists and turns...I was annoyed by their schematic nature. And clearly a lot of people still felt that this was Scorsese in his old masterful form, while I couldn't help but see the uncertainty of someone who was torn between his usual exuberance and his desire to craft a creepy and moody thriller.
#217 - The Truman Show
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| Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) begins to question the reality he's taken for granted, in "The Truman Show". |
#180 - Twelve Monkeys
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| For some reason, Bruce Willis thinks Brad Pitt might be a bit imbalanced in this scene from "Twelve Monkeys". |
Thursday, May 30, 2013
#149 - The Wizard of Oz
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| The four iconic characters are foiled by a stubborn guard in "The Wizard of Oz". |
Monday, May 27, 2013
#123 - Blade Runner
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| A disturbingly prescient vision of the future: advertising clogging up our space, in Ridley Scott's "Blade Runner". |
#121 - Heat
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| The coffee-shop scene from "Heat": even in the same space, De Niro and Pacino can't both be in frame at the same time. |
#120 - The General
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| Buster Keaton inspects a faulty cannon in an unsafe way, in his great action comedy "The General". |
#119 - The Seventh Seal
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| Death is still kicking himself for not playing bishop to E4...the iconic image from Bergman's "The Seventh Seal". |
#118 - The Elephant Man
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| John Merrick (John Hurt) attempting to blend in with high society despite his deformity, in "The Elephant Man". |
#117 - On the Waterfront
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| Rod Steiger and Marlon Brando as brothers at a tragic impasse, in the famous cab scene from "On the Waterfront". |
#116 - Toy Story
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| An exasperated Woody explains things to the delusion Buzz Lightyear in Pixar's debut feature "Toy Story". |
#114 - Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
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| Back when a filibuster actually meant something: Jimmy Stewart as Jefferson Smith in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington". |
#113 - Pan's Labyrinth
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| This guy must have really painful high-fives: one of the creatures in Del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth". |
#112 - Downfall
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| Hitler finds out that Lindsay Lohan has been arrested...wait, sorry, that his army is crumbling...in "Downfall". |
#111 - The Great Escape
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| This may or may not be an actual frame from "The Great Escape", but regardless, Steve McQueen is just ultra-cool. |
#110 - For a Few Dollars More
 |
| Clint Eastwood demonstrating his acting versatility, in Leone's "For a Few Dollars More". |
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
#109 - Snatch
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| Jason Statham as Turkish, worried that Brad Pitt's Mickey won't take the dive like he's supposed to, in "Snatch". |
#108 - Inglourious Basterds
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| Melanie Laurent as Shosanna, looking out over hundreds of assembled high-ranking Nazis, in "Inglourious Basterds". |
#106 - A Separation
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| Spouses Nader and Simin face a difficult choice in the Iranian film "A Separation". |
I have not yet seen this film.
MY RATING:
N/A
WOULD IT BE IN MY TOP 250?
N/A
WHY IS IT IN THE IMDB'S TOP 250?
N/A
#105 - Batman Begins
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| The newly imagined (or "rebooted") Batman terrorizes the Scarecrow in "Batman Begins". |
#104 - Die Hard
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| Bruce Willis as John McClane, finding himself in a typically tight situation in "Die Hard". |
There is a scene near the end of Die Hard that sums up all that is wrong with the movie. Having just escaped from a building being held hostage by international thieves, police officer John McClane (Bruce Willis) is finally reunited with his wife (Bonnie Bedelia). A news reporter who has been established to be a swine throughout the course of the film asks McClane how he is feeling, and McClane's wife punches him. I have no doubt that this scene elicits cheers from audiences, but to me it represents the type of "cheap shot" filmmaking that Die Hard employs so often.
"Cheap shot" filmmaking is my term for a strategy often used by writers or directors who are starved for imagination: they make one (or more) characters so unreasonably loathsome, stupid or treacherous that when those characters get their comeuppance we are supposed to feel empowered and cheer. Some people get off on this type of storytelling, but it always leaves a sour taste in my mouth. That is why Die Hard is such a revolting film: it makes secondary characters so idiotic that it expects the audience to cheer for its hero by default. To list some of the examples: one of the hostages captured by the terrorists is shown to be a coke-sniffing yuppie, and since he eventually betrays our hero John McClane, his eventual death is supposed to have minimal (or worse, perhaps even comic) impact on the audience. A deputy chief of police who attempts to handle the hostage situation from outside the high-rise building makes one improbably stupid decision after another...his character basically serves no purpose other than to make the audience feel smart. And a couple of FBI agents who approach the building in a helicopter are shown to be callously accepting the possibility that some of the hostages will be killed...their indifference to innocent life is supposed to make it acceptable when they are eventually blown up in a fiery ball.
It is this general disregard for the value of life that haunts Die Hard, and became a staple of the right-wing action films that were prevalent in the 80s and early 90s. Some may argue that Die Hard is just a dumb action movie that is meant to entertain us, and I'm judging the film too harshly. But all films shape our view of the world through their images and content, and action films are no exceptions. Many people enjoy the wisecracking action hero, and there is no doubt that Bruce Willis set the template for this type of role with his performance in Die Hard. Yet I find it hard to chuckle as Willis paws through the bloody corpse of a terrorist he has just killed and then makes a crack about "cigarettes being bad for you" to the dead man. By constantly trying to get a macabre laugh or lessen the weight of the many murders in this film, Die Hard makes us wonder why we should care about any of the explosions or mayhem. If it's all a joke, where is the suspense? Even though Die Hard attempts to assure us that it's just an action film that shouldn't be examined closely, there is no doubt that the film is at its core a disturbingly right-wing diatribe. The instigating action in the story is that McClane comes to Los Angeles to visit his wife and convince her to give up a good, well-paying job that she has just received. McClane is also horrified to discover that his wife is working under her maiden name. These threats to the conservative patriarchy are unacceptable, and so they must be rectified by McClane proving his worth (in the carnage that follows). At the end of the film, McClane's wife Holly makes a point of emphasizing that she will now be known by her husband's last name instead of her maiden name...why precisely are we supposed to cheer for this?
Die Hard also reveals its right-wing roots in some awful stereotypes (such as a black limo driver), and in the resolution of a subplot involving a black police officer (the best-developed and most grounded character in the film) who aids McClane from outside the building. The officer, named Al, at one point confesses that he has been afraid to use his gun ever since accidentally shooting a 13 year-old kid, but at the end of the film Al rises to action to shoot down a terrorist who (somehow) has survived multiple explosions. The way this sequence is framed suggests that we are supposed to celebrate the empowerment that Al has rediscovered in using a gun. This macho, destructive attitude permeates throughout Die Hard, and I am perhaps in the minority in not finding it particularly attractive. Yet even if one puts aside the film's nasty tone, Die Hard isn't even very successful as an action movie (and certainly not "ingenious", as many have described it). There are no brilliantly-conceived action setpieces (the closest is an extended bit involving Willis in an elevator shaft), and the plot develops with monotonous rhythm since we just wait for yet another villain to be knocked off by McClane. Die Hard is so consistently chaotic and full of action that it is never boring, and if it is on television late at night I will usually watch it. But its innate ugliness, shameless conservatism and callous disregard for the value of human life should not be forgotten when we refer to it as "just an action movie".
MY RATING:
44/100
WOULD IT BE IN MY TOP 250?
No...not even close.
WHY IS IT IN THE IMDB'S TOP 250?
The film was certainly an important milestone in American action cinema. It continued the Raiders of the Lost Ark tradition of an indestructible male action hero, and refined the use of irony and jokiness to alleviate the violence portrayed in the film. As far as the Schwarzenegger-Stallone-Willis action extravaganzas go, it's probably one of the better-executed, and Alan Rickman certainly made for a memorable villain. Willis also brought an Everyman quality to the role of McClane.
As for why people seem to view the movie as an action classic while it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, I guess most viewers just aren't as bothered by the movie's callous dismissal of secondary characters, pandering audience-pleasing moments and underlying reactionary conservatism as I am.
#103 - Grave of the Fireflies
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| Siblings Seito and Setsuko, enjoying a rare moment of happiness in their struggle to survive, in "Grave of the Fireflies". |
#102 - Witness for the Prosecution
 | |||
| Charles Laughton as Sir Wilfrid Robarts in "Witness for the Prosecution". |
I have not yet seen this film.
MY RATING:
N/A
WOULD IT BE IN MY TOP 250?
N/A
WHY IS IT IN THE IMDB'S TOP 250?
N/A
#101 - The Bridge on the River Kwai
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| Alec Guinness as Col. Nicholson, wondering "What have I done?" at the climax of "The Bridge on the River Kwai". |
Friday, May 17, 2013
#99 - The Apartment
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| C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) swooning over Fran (Shirley MacLaine) in "The Apartment". |
#98 - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
 |
| Father and son find themselves in a sticky situation in "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade". |
#97 - Unforgiven
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| Clint Eastwood inhabiting his own widescreen frame, as William Munny in "Unforgiven". |
#96 - The Sting
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| Paul Newman as Henry Gondorff, pretending to be drunk to annoy Robert Shaw in "The Sting". |
#95 - All About Eve
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| The Snippiness Factor reaches epic proportions in this party scene from "All About Eve". |
#94 - 2001: A Space Odyssey
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| The astronaut Dave (Keir Dullea) in Kubrickian space in "2001: A Space Odyssey". |
#92 - Rashomon
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| The men struggle through various interpretations and recollections of the truth in Kurosawa's "Rashomon". |
#89 - Bicycle Thieves
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| Antonio and his son enduring the rain, their poverty, and their missing bicycle in "Bicycle Thieves". |
#88 - Some Like it Hot
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| Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in some pretty unconvincing drag in "Some Like it Hot". |
#87 - Monty Python and the Holy Grail
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| It's merely a flesh wound...the resilient Black Knight in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". |
#86 - Singin' in the Rain
 |
| Gene Kelly singing in...well, you know...in this most famous scene from "Singin' in the Rain". |
#84 - Chinatown
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| Jack Nicholson as Jake Gittes, upset with Faye Dunaway's Mrs. Mulwray that he's had his nose cut up, in "Chinatown". |
Thursday, May 16, 2013
#83 - Braveheart
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| Mel Gibson as William Wallace, with his face painted, ready for battle, in "Braveheart". |
#82 - L.A. Confidential
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| DeVito's Sid Hudgens offending Jack Vincennes' (Kevin Spacey's) date in the beginning of "L.A. Confidential". |
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