The Frame » film-2006

Wristcutters: A Love Story

Jandy — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 20:10:23 +0000

While the opening credits run, Patrick Fugit (Almost Famous) slits his wrists. Soon he finds himself in a limbo-esque place, full of other suicides who all go about relatively normal lives – working dead-end (no pun intended) jobs and wandering around aimlessly. It sort of reminded me of C.S. Lewis’s hell in The Great Divorce; just a dismal, grey place characterized more by depression and boredom than pain. Anyway, Shannyn Sossamon shows up one day, claiming that she’s not supposed to be there because she didn’t commit suicide. She snags Fugit and another friend and they start seeking whoever runs the place to fix the apparent administrative mix-up. Oh, and they’re also looking for Fugit’s ex-girlfriend, who committed suicide a few weeks after he did. I could go on with the plot; there’s a commune at one point, and a guy with Jesus delusions (played by the guy who played Gob on Arrested Development; I have such a hard time disassociating him with that role enough to see him in anything else), etc. Even though the story gets fairly unbelievable at times, even for a film that’s about suicide-limbo, it remains quirkily engaging.
Above Average

Running With Scissors

Jandy — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 02:16:00 +0000

I must’ve paused this to go hang out elsewhere at least three times, out of pure exhaustion from sitting through it. I mean, it certainly isn’t the worst movie I’ve seen. But it’s interminable. The kid who plays Augusten Burroughs is actually pretty good, and there are enough wacky things going on that it should have been interesting. But it isn’t. The doctor’s family that Augusten goes to stay with while his mother has a nervous breakdown is supposed to be quirky-crazy but instead is just crazy-annoying; Annette Bening threatens to negate most of the great performances she’s given over the years as Augusten’s insane bitch of a mom; Augusten’s relationship with Joseph Fiennes is just creepy (although it also in a weird way seems like the most healthy thing in the film, which actually makes it MORE creepy); and did I mention interminable? It goes on forever and never gets anywhere. Evan Rachel Wood is a bright spot, but she can’t overcome everything else.
Below Average

Sherrybaby

Jandy — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 02:14:03 +0000

I wanted to love this movie so much. I mean, I already love Maggie Gyllenhaal to death. Really, though, it’s not that great. It’s all right. Sherry is a single mom who just got out of prison (something drug-related) and is trying to reconnect with her young daughter (maybe five or six), a task made very difficult by her brother and sister-in-law, who have been keeping the child and are now a little wary about Sherry’s ability to care for the little girl. It’s difficult to know who to root for most of the time; Sherry desperately wants to do right by her daughter, is terrified of losing her, and certainly tries her best. But, well, her best isn’t all that good much of the time. She backslides and falters, and honestly isn’t that pleasant of a person. At the same time, her sister-in-law is basically poisoning her child’s mind against her, which also isn’t that great. By the end, though there isn’t a really a resolution, at least all parties have shown both good and bad sides–it’s not a film that sugarcoats anything, and I appreciate its honesty on that front, but there’s not a whole lot to actively like about it. Except Gyllenhaal, who is utterly fearless.
Above Average

Paprika

Jandy — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 01:49:57 +0000

In this anime film, scientists working on a device to enter into people’s dreams (for the purpose of psychological healing) have to go on the offensive with the device is stolen by someone who wants to control people’s dreams (for the purpose of, like, world domination). The “Paprika” of the title is the sprightly dream-avatar of the main scientist; she carries on the dream-world activities while the scientist works with a patient of hers, a policeman, on the outside. The world of dreams and reality get more and more muddled as time goes on, but surprisingly, everything stays relatively coherent within the logic of the film. Incredibly inventive visually, though it does at times get a little busy.
Above Average

Hollywoodland

Jandy — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 01:47:10 +0000

Did George Reeves, TV’s original Superman, commit suicide or was he murdered? That’s the question facing detective Adrien Brody in this attempt at neo-noir. In all honesty, this is a better film than the similarly-themed and similarly-timed The Black Dahlia, even though it covers a lot of the same ground, but in all honesty, it’s still not that good. I liked the flashback parts dealing with Reeves’ frustration at being typecast more than the murder investigation parts (which suffered from the same “detective’s personal issues take over from the case” syndrome that plagued Dahlia), and Ben Affleck did a creditable job as the washed-up wanna-be actor; he seems to be better in supporting parts, and now behind the camera, than he ever really was as a leading man. Anyway, if you want a look at the underside of Golden Age Hollywood, stick with L.A. Confidential. Hollywoodland and Dahlia are just mostly failed attempts to do what that film did.
Below Average

The Illusionist

Jandy — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 03:14:51 +0000

When The Illusionist and The Prestige came out nearly at the same time last year, I set my sights on The Prestige as the one that interested me the most. After all, Christopher Nolan is a director I like a lot, Christian Bale is consistently good as well as really hot (count Hugh Jackman in for at least the latter as well), and I like Scarlett Johansson a lot more than Jessica Biel. I ended up not seeing either one in theatres, and being generally impressed though a little offput by The Prestige several months later. When I finally saw The Illusionist this month, I was really impressed. In fact, I think I actually like it better than The Prestige. It’s more conventional in one way, in the sense that it focuses on the people more than the flamboyant magic tricks. But what I really loved was the way it was shot, using a lot of low-contrast lighting, almost sepia tones, and iris filters. The overall effect is to make the film look like the photographs and films of the late 19th century. Yet the effect never feels like it’s being used its own sake, but it complements the setting and the needs of each particular shot. Also, Edward Norton and Paul Giamatti are among the best actors working right now (which I already knew), and Biel was better than I expected her to be. All in all, a nice surprise.
Well Above Average

Notes on a Scandal

Jandy — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 03:09:18 +0000

Any time you have actresses like Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench together in a movie, expect incredible acting and plenty of sparks, if nothing else. Blanchett is a thirty-something art teacher who becomes involved with one of her fifteen-year-old students. When Dench discovers the affair, she uses her knowledge to gain emotional control over Blanchett, trying to filfill her own illicit desire for the younger teacher. In less competent hands the story could have been merely prurient, but it isn’t…it’s an electrifying exploration of obsession. Not to mention a master course in the art of acting, as both actresses manage to make their characters simultaneously sympathetic and offputting. I actually didn’t watch the film for a long time because I didn’t think the story sounded that great, but this is truly a case where the quality of the filmmaking raises the material above itself into something special.
Well Above Average

MirrorMask

Jandy — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 03:02:27 +0000

After this snuck by in theatres with hardly a murmur, I was prepared for it to be really disappointing. Perhaps expectations are everything, because I found it quite a pleasure. I can understand why it wouldn’t have gained mainstream appeal, though…its story about a teenage girl who escapes into a fantasy world to help deal with the illness of her mother caused it to be marketed almost as a kids’ movie, but its flamboyant visual quality (the art is by graphic novelist Neil Gaiman) is aimed much more at adults. In fact, it’s almost as virtuosic in its visual style as Jean-Pierre Jenuet’s City of Lost Children, which is not at all for children. Helena, the main character, doesn’t want to work with her family’s circus troop, preferring to spend her time drawing, but repents when she fears her mother’s physical collapse is her fault. Then fantasy kicks in and she ends up trapped in the world she’s drawn, her own life taken over by a doppelganger from that created world. The story itself is a simple enough fantasy, but the visuals are incredible and make up for whatever triteness the plot allows to seep in.
Above Average

The Black Dahlia

Jandy — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 03:00:27 +0000

One of these days I’m going to a) start trusting Netflix’s estimated star ratings for me (they guessed I’d rate this two stars) and also b) remember that Josh Hartnett usually chooses terrible movies to be in. Again, a movie about a notorious unsolved Hollywood murder sounds intriguing. Even the way the film ends up focusing on the detective and how the investigation affects him could be a good movie–after all, that’s basically what Zodiac did. But The Black Dahlia is, if anything, a third-rate imitation of Zodiac (not really, since it came out earlier), using the brutal murder merely as a jumping-off point to a perverse and stupid and overlong story. I’m starting to expect this sort of thing from Hartnett, but Hilary Swank is usually smarter than this. And director Brian DePalma always tends toward the overly violent, but this beneath him…he’s capable of much better (cf. The Untouchables).
Well Below Average

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Jandy — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 02:46:40 +0000

I call Tommy Lee Jones as the next Clint Eastwood-esque actor-director crossover. Jones directed and starred in this very good little contemporary western, playing a landowner who vows to return the body of one of his Mexican workers to his home after he is killed. The film looks beautiful, nearly as good as anything Eastwood or Peckinpah have done, encompassing Texan and Mexican open spaces as well as the small towns in each. A parallel and intertwining story follows a young border patrol officer and his wife (who is bored to death in the tiny town where he works); at first the film makes him out to be a total jerk and I wondered if it wouldn’t be better to make him sympathetic. However, Jones knew all along what he was doing; the film is as much about the border patrol officer’s redemption arc as it is about Jones’s loyalty to Melquiades Estrada. All in all, not as even a film as I’m Jones will eventually make with more practice, but one well worth watching.
Well Above Average