rlipton Reviews

Let the Right One In (2008)

subtle, cold, complex, very very Scandanavian

[9/10 · 23 November 2008]

the dressed up poodle sitting in front of the aging boyfriend of the vampire as he drains the blood of some poor kid he's strung up is simply too cool. The fact that the aging boyfriend accidentally tips over the bucket of blood and runs away through the pristine winter forest was a great overture. See this movie, lots of issues raised, love, bullying, tragic love, (the aging helper boyfriend). The director captures urban, crappy winter Sweden very well. The cinematography is beautiful and witty. The dissipated lives of the middle class, estate dwelling neighbors and the emotionally deadened parents seem like a worse fate than going steady with a blood sucking adolescent. Another cool thing is that the vampire parts of the movie are mostly just glossed, a quick cut to her climbing up the side of a building, or breaking the neck of one of her victims, she dismembers the bullys, but we just see the aftermath, one kid being dragged across the surface of the pool, (she clearly had to be flying).

The Savages (2007)

a misfire

[2/10 · 15 January 2008]

there was nothing "value added" artistically by the this movie, good acting per the usual, some good writing, particularly towards the beginning, otherwise, it seems like all concerned thought that the fact of an old man dying slowly with Alzheimers was enough, most reviewers here think so too, and to be clear, "Away from her" was a wonderful movie, lots of strange and unexpected things going on. This was predictable, including "feces" ink, and frankly great art isn't, good craft is, paintings that match your sofa, for example, this was simply a bummer, wanted to walk out. The fact that I know way too much about nursing homes doesn't help, but I was willing to set that aside given the acting talent on display, but the talent couldn't save this movie. Again, to be clear, I'm fine with movies about people dealing with getting old, dying etc, "Wit" was magnificent, but this fell short, or to failed to achieve escape velocity.

There Will Be Blood (2007)

amazing performances, emotional impact, subtle, but no political context

[9/10 · 9 January 2008]

All the good things people are saying I agree with, my little problem is that to really have made this an all-encompassing masterpiece, more political context is necessary, its not that I, perfunctorily, need politics, but in this particular instance, understanding this context would have only deepened the personal power of this movie. Certainly Sinclair, the author of oil, understood this. Who is standard oil, union oil, what about the monopolies of the railroads? which were mentioned by Plainview. These were not periphery issues but marbled the whole context in which all oilmen working and which influenced vast portions of the US. More specifically, the violence of Plainview was a microcosm of the large r violence of the oil enterprise generally, and this simply was far too implicit in the movie, it wouldn't have taken much to bring this out. I realize the director loves to focus on the specific and he'll get all sorts of kudos for this movie, as he should, but there is definitely a lack, that for example, "before the devil knows your dead" does not have, or "no country for old men." I did love the ending to the movie, the very weird tableau of the bowling alley, Plainview initially out drunk on the floor, then roused into monstrous form when he almost casually murders Eli with the bowling pin. This actually hearkens to the book, called "bowling alone in America" a study/indictment of US interpersonal relationships.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)

good for kids mostly, otherwise a snore

[4/10 · 13 July 2007]

although the books have also gotten pretty crappy, lots of loose writing and characters that are made to be anything the author might need at the moment, the books are tight and finely wrought compared to the movies, in this installment of the Potter series, we get an older and darker Harry, as distinct from the older and darker Harry of the goblet of fire, we get indistinct adolescent urges, yet again, people doubting Harry's intentions, yet again, and so on, and to top it of, we have no idea why the little glass balls are so important, turns out they really aren't that compelling, weren't in the book either, the motivation for certain character action is suspect, why would Fudge so adamantly not want to deal with the rise of Voldemort, how could such a seemingly powerful wizard as Dumbledore lose control of Hogwarts, and then apparently fight Voldemort at the least, to a draw, and his reasoning for abandoning Harry is simply weak, was in the book too, the death of Sirius Black was confusing and lots of exegesis here that goes nowhere. Essentially, this was a boring movie with lots of empty atmospherics - and sadly, about what I expected, okay for a kids movie and thats not bad, but lets not think that this is somehow better than that

Man on Fire (2004)

almost darn okay

[6/10 · 28 May 2007]

the revenge thing is nice here, the stirrings of parental love, Denzel is just fine, the setting is interesting, but the story is simply cracked, the problem is that too much is going on in a small space, its overdetermined, but the main problem is that even though the money handover was botched, and we assume the child was killed, why didn't they try to confirm this?????? And why was the child kept alive, the "voice" said its business, but what business, he clearly hadn't tried to renegotiate, until it was thrown in at the end, like everything else, way bummer, but the good news is that Denzel dies, given what a slaughter machine he was, this is only responsible artistically, unlike the recently released movie Shooter, where Wahlberg lives, even though he's killed about 65 million people. Anyways, I really wanted to like this movie much better than I actually did. It was fun to see Denzel playing a conflicted, but deadly person, like Training day, which was a lot of fun.

The New World (2005)

a tone poem, quite in consonance with Wagner's romantic music

[10/10 · 18 October 2006]

I had an epiphany watching this movie, I've seen all four of Malick's movies and there is clearly a trend, there is less and less privileging of the human, particularly as being different from or above "the world" I've always been transfixed by his movies, the power of silence and the small gesture, Private Witt attending to the battle shaken GI at the edge of the river, simply pouring water over the crying GI, a small scene so full of grace, as were the beautiful gestures of pocahontas indicating the sky, water, wind, with her body. Then to another scene, the enveloping music, a human figure small against a large landscape, time goes slow then suddenly fast, the transposition of a wild virginia landscape with the "captured" gardens, "naturals" in each, the idea of "the new world" completely subverted, the terrible loss of her people, her belonging, so understated, but so powerful, the carrying on of life, and obviously death, the beginning and end of the movie are actually a circle. You can tell yourself creation stories from Malick's movies, you can cry simply from complete sadness or joy or some admixture. What drives this movie is emotion, it is the one sustained element in all his movies, while other things cinema may lapse such as plot or dialogue or narrative, the emotional tone simply builds on itself. Malick is an impressionist above all else. There are many intellectual threads that underpin this movie, whether from transcendentalism, the bible, lao tzu, etc, no one is ascendant, the point is that the artistic moment is its own entity, obviously with many influences. I would hate to have to write about movies for a living, I am seldom moved to do so, but this is different, I'm a writer who thinks Malick is introducing something completely different into the cinema, we still do not even know what it is completely (like all powerful art) , but we feel it, are affected by it, moved to some kind of response. Plot doesn't matter here, directed dialogue may or may not occur, voice overs are like the continuation of a reverie already going in my own mind, even waiting for his next movie, so long in coming, is part of the power of Malick's art.

Munich (2005)

A misguided mess of a movie

[4/10 · 2 January 2006]

First, I really don't care how the mainstream or reactionary Jewish community reacts to this film, and I'm not interested in accentuating the positive in this movie, I thought the movie showed weak and/or bad faith and I'm still not clear on why this movie was made. Further, I'm indifferent to whether this movie is true to life or simply made up, I'm only interested in what the movie seems to be doing in a relatively unsubtle way. Oh yeah, I'm also a Jewish American

The main message is something we have all heard before, "why do they make us act the way we do" (WDTMUATWWD) everything else flows from this, although there is some small attempts at getting a Palestinian perspective, its mainly add on and clearly is not a part of the main "tone/structure" of the movie. Any details of the lives of the Palestinians, one is a poet/translator, another an upper class/refine man living in a fancy part Paris with his wife and daughter (who plays the piano in front of the bomb maker killer) is inundated by the personal life of the main Jewish assassin/murderer/soldier (take your pick). The audience has no real choice not to sympathize with this person because we learn so much about him and to a lesser extent, the other killers. And all, to a greater or lesser extent, seem like pretty okay people. So, even if you knew nothing about the Israeli Palestinian conflict, Munich, Sabra and Shatilla, etc, it doesn't matter, you would end up rooting for the main killer as a function of how much time we spend with them and how little with their antagonists.

Even if you think the actions necessary, what is the point of making the killers sympathetic? They have a terrible job to do, are probably pretty awful people to be in this business in the first place?. Unless, whether intended or not by the film maker, the terrible damage being done to Eric Banna's psyche falls under the rubric of WDTMUATWWD. This also dovetails with the mytho-poetic Israeli purity of arms, "yes we kill but we kill because we have to and we kill only those we have to", (there are variants on this, see Operation Iraqi freedom). Perhaps this damage was to be a microcosm of what is happening in Israeli society generally as a result of the occupation, this is unclear compared to the larger structures of the movie.

Too, there is a great deal of back and forth, as you might have heard, between the assassins which bolsters this myth of troubled/tragic/noble killers. And this isn't just a problem of the peculiar Israeli WDTMUATWWD syndrome, its a general settler colonial problem whereby the occupiers feelings, motivations and actions are always privileged relative to those occupied. We see this all the time in the NY Times, extensive coverage of a suicide bomb going off in a Jerusalem bus, lots of stories about those on the bus killed, (as it should be), but when it comes to Palestinians, we almost always only get numbers here , or, as in this movie, the most glancing reference to the fact that the Palestinians have lives too.

There is also something else quite troubling that occurs in the movie, the main assassin is always having PTSD flashbacks to the events that took place at the Munich Olympics, which doesn't make any sense at all from the stand point of the character, he wasn't there. A particularly troubling scene at the end of the movie has him "flashing back" in the middle of having sex with his wife. This is a the "imperial we" type of flash back, we are all meant to flash back, the killer doesn't flash back to all those he personally killed, some gruesomely, but to the seeming original sin of Munich so we don't forget the primal cause in all this mess. This is Spielberg at his didactic worst, very ham fisted.

On a lesser level, the idea of the upstanding assassin has him not going to bed with the comely hit woman at the bar, only to pass on this privilege to his comrade. (who she kills) This side story sucks, so I won't go into details, except to note that apparently the main assassin will kill with abandon yet not cheat on his wife, I suppose this is believable at some level, but it certainly feeds into the purity of arms idea of upstanding soldiers, pure in all respects.

And, believe it or not, Ehud Barak is mixed in, his execution of a leading Palestinian terrorist/activist/militant/family man, while dressed in drag is featured. Not clear what this was meant to show, but having an actual personage who was the leader of a country portrayed (accurately) as a close up, hands on assassin puts an extra spin on somewhat current events, particularly given Barak's explicitly racist statements about Palestinians.

The scenes with Golda Mier made my blood boil, a nice little housewife fighting courageously against all those who, for no apparently rational reason want to kill Jews. Again, it's a question of focus, if Palestinian leaders would have been portrayed thoughtfully mulling options then we would have a ball game, of course this doesn't happen. The recent movie Paradise Now was far better at problematizing the violence, it was short and very low budget. James Journey to Jerusalem was also much better in this respect, going to the core of current Israeli society. It's a question of focus, artistic vision and simply put, courage. The film maker somehow lost all of this and I'm really sorry for T. Kushner (who I admire and respect), but he got sucked into a misguided effort.

The Squid and the Whale (2005)

yawn

[4/10 · 6 November 2005]

much ado about nothing, not a lot of change in the characters, a bit in the older son, the parents are mostly charactures, Jeff Daniel's character was actually loathsome, if thats how the character was, a unidimensional narcissis, then fine, but its just boring and unartfully unpleasant to watch, there was some funny moments on the tennis court, the steeling of the lou reed song, bad teenage sex, all okay, but there were some other issues too, the period stuff was actually out of wack, the tennis gear was about 10 years out of date, very strange actually, not sure why this was done, the late model cars in many scenes doesn't really help either. But thats all okay, I really didn't believe the parents as writers, especially the father, he seemed far to superficial to have written anything of substance, his pretensions were out of place for his line of work. In sum, nothing really summed to a convincing whole, sorry, wish it were better.

Nine Lives (2005)

nine......ty plus minutes pretty much wasted

[1/10 · 2 November 2005]

waste of really good acting talent and film stock, a very grim affair, no humor at all, no real perspective, everything in every person's life was always terrible, sex was terrible, relationships were terrible, lighting was terrible, communication was terrible, you get the point. Dark is fine if its done with panache, there is none here, things were obvious and over wrought, just because something is difficult to sit through doesn't make it worth sitting through. I think this movie is actually, in some profound ways, anti-women, most of the characters were incredibly weak and neurotic, and there seemed to be no upside. Many of the actors did a great job putting on a brave face given the dimensions of this disaster. Robin Penn Wright gave a really good reading to really bad material, for example, even though her pregnancy suit was unconvincing. and please, I like really difficult, dark, hard movies, like Howard the Duke, Dukes of Hazard and Chaos, well, I suppose a few more, like Rules of the Game, Naked, Buffalo 66

A History of Violence (2005)

subtle and trope destroying

[9/10 · 3 October 2005]

This is a strange modern day western, like Unforgiven, it looks like one thing and is really another. Its a bit like David Lynch's blue velvet, or the Cohen's Fargo, a normal setting turned into the abnormal in terms of both expectation and action. This movie is actually wickedly, darkly funny in many respects, scenes undercut what people say, what people say undercuts the actions. Tom Stall telling his son that he shouldn't have beaten up the bully and then slapping his son was obvious but fun. Other things were more interesting, there are bookended sex scenes, in the first sex scene it was all "gee whiz, oh my gosh" cute, Maria Bello in a cheer leader costume, the other sex scene was far darker, and dangerous and very ambiguous in terms of what the viewer should take away from this. THere are lots of quiet man/heros with a past that were forced into action/chose action, Shane is an archetype, Unforgiven another example. But this movie brings the question into a new light, Stall seems to have genuinely recreated himself as the laconic and peaceful mid western town dweller, there is a past, he has gone beyond it. He has great kids and a great relationship with his wife. The obvious message of the movie is that its really not that easy, nor should it be, to leave one's past behind. Stall's past saved himself and others in the diner, stall's past almost got his family and himself killed. Who is stall/Cusack, and does it matter that he was one thing once and another now? Was he hiding his "real" identity or actually became a different person than the person he was in a previous life. The ambiguous reaction of his family is also very good, they want to blame him, scream in righteous anger at him, but at the same time, keep him. The scene in which his wife cries in his shoulder in the presence of the sheriff is quite remarkable, she is genuinely crying, in confusion, loss, etc. Interestingly, the family didn't leave, there wasn't even a question of this, except for his son running out and getting nabbed by the "hard men." Another question has to do with Tom protecting himself and his family from his past, he brought this on himself, yet if you believe that he believes he is a different person than this seems a legitimate claim. And its pretty clear that Viggo was not playing this as a cynical way to hide. It seems a story about someone trying to overcome his past with quite uneven results. The only slight problem I had was with Tom Stall's seeming lack of action when Ed Harris came to town, the only explanation for this is that he was truly convinced that he was in fact just tom stall, if it were not the case, Joey would have immediately gotten his family to high ground after Harris came into the diner, armed himself to the teeth and gone hunting for hard men wearing black. So too, when he was sitting in the chair in his brother's office, he had to know that he was at extreme risk, it was only a matter of luck that he survived that encounter and he seemed so ill prepared, this was the one flaw in the movie, even the best assassin type character would not have been so casual in the face of such deadly force. Otherwise, kudos, a thoughtful, decentering, deconstructing movie that sustains reflection

Ma mère (2004)

So What?

[2/10 · 1 August 2005]

I love Isabelle Huppert, she is fearless and great, but my god, what a disaster, not an interesting one, but simply embarrassing. There have been parodies about bad french sex movies for years based on decades of really bad french sex movies. So not sure what the point of this movie is/was, it sure wasn't funny so strike the parody and it wasn't in the least interesting, or even very shocking. The mother's death at the end was a bore, left me cold, and the boy trying to masturbate in front of her mother's corpse was already done very badly by Philipp Roth in Sabbath's Theater. I suppose the deep story here is that if your parents are incredibly warped, indolent and irresponsible, weird things will happen. The US death row is filled with people who were destroyed by their upbringing. These stories have potential, not the vapid musings and bored actions of wealthy euro-trash who do not have enough sense not to s**t where they eat.

Mystic River (2003)

almost great, blows at the end

[6/10 · 18 January 2005]

the movie should have stopped right after Kevin Bacon tells Sean Penn he killed his childhood friend for no good reason. That should have been it, walk away. Another guy in the audience started scream, "no, please god no, don't let this movie go on" The tragedy embedded at the core of the movie would have been complete. What follows is of a completely different, unsupportable and cheesy tone and Laura Linley, a wonderful actress, is forced to embarrasses herself. Tim Robbins was really great here, as was Marcia gay Hardin, the movie actually was good for most of its length. Unfortunately, the lack of a good ending is significant, weird how Eastwood sometimes gets it just right, "a perfect world" or "unforgiven" for example, and then not, I guess art is hard.

Million Dollar Baby (2004)

wanted to like this so much, but...it ended up sucking

[18 January 2005]

please don't read this if you want to see the movie and be surprised. Things were going well with the movie up until the "darth vader/rocky" German fighter stuff, this was unnecessary and ridiculous, fighters get hurt without having to resort to a cheating foe, also sorts of questions and intent were raised with this approach that simply didn't need to be raised, further, there were too many changes in tone throughout the movie, fast pace, then slow, buddy picture, bad family picture, surrogate father/surrogate daughter stuff, overly long and empty sick room scenes. I do have to say Morgan freeman and Hilary Swank were great, the rendering of how to treat a quad was good too, as I have some experience with this, but the movie could have been so much more consistent in tone and shorter if they would have trusted their hunches and not reached for obvious didactic explanation or exaggeration. I'm really not sure what the hell you were suppose to think or feel at the end, I'm not really sure the director did either. Strange, because Eastwood got it about perfect in Unforgiven and A Perfect world, but here he has a tin ear, or should I say a glass chin.