Thursday, May 31, 2007

The Aura (2005)


Art-house noir from Argentina.
An epileptic taxidermist (really) gets a chance to live his fantasy of committing a heist by inserting himself into someone else’s scheme, and of course he doesn’t know the half of what’s really going on.
The proceedings are so hushed that every curse is like a gun going off, and every gunshot like a bomb.
The corners don’t all meet up as they might pretend to in an American product, but this one’ll stay with you. Recommended.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Melinda And Melinda (2004)


Unwatchable.
So bad, you question every happy memory of watching a Woody Allen film.
Did Annie Hall suck this bad too? you find yourself thinking.

Friday, May 25, 2007

Smokin' Aces (2007)


Forty minutes of exposition, twenty minutes of gunplay, another twenty minutes of exposition (feels like) that renders the original forty minutes moot. Run credits.

Monday, May 21, 2007

Pretty Poison (1968)

I waited 28 years to see Pretty Poison, so chances were pretty slim that I wouldn't be disappointed.
Tuesday Weld is great in it, though.

Friday, May 11, 2007

Vacancy (2007)

I haven't seen this (yet), but Christ that's a beautiful poster.

Friday, May 4, 2007

Shopgirl (2006)

Claire Danes is so radiant in this movie that Steve Martin and Jason Schwartzman come off looking not so much callow or stunted as brain-dead. You keep waiting for someone fully alive to show up and take her away to a more interesting story.

Art School Confidential (2006)


The scorn on display in Zwigoff's previous film, Bad Santa, was liberating and had focus - - I'm oversimplifying when I ask, Who doesn't hate Christmas? - - but I have no idea which side he's coming down on, or even what the sides are, in this film. It's all scorn. Skip it.