8.5/10
Penultimate entry in my Nikkatsu Noir set and the best one yet. The plot centres around four disparate criminals who have been brought together to hold up and rob an armored car and the plot follows all the ensuing shootouts, double/triple-crossings, escapes, and what not. Stars the chipmunk-faced Joe Shishido, the film is a taut 82 minutes and is always entertaining. Highly recommended. Next up to close out the Nikkatsu set is the brilliantly titled A Colt is My Passport.
7.5/10
I don't really have much to say about this one, other than I liked it more and more as it went on and it's just a nice, simple little movie like a much more scaled down Solaris or 2001. Sam Rockwell does a great job essentially carrying the movie and really makes, er, the character of Sam come alive. The "twist" isn't really so much a twist as it is a mere plot point so I could understand why people may be left expecting more, and maybe I was too, but once I accepted what it was I was able to enjoy it much more.
6.5/10
Werner Herzog's strangest film...and coming from the guy that did Even Dwarves Started Small and Heart of Glass that's saying something. I'm not really sure what the point is here - there are some incredibly funny moments but they're too few and far in between. It's mostly a lampooning of the "bad cop" movie genre but it just doesn't seem like a lot of effort with it and Herzog flips between playing it straight and going overboard. There are some incredible scenes though but I'm not sure most people will get the overt references to his other movies (namely Stroszek and Aguirre). I can see anyone who doesn't know Werner Herzog or his sense of humor hating this; I'm a huge Herzog fan and I still don't really know what to think. Nicolas Cage was very good though, and really seemed to be having a lot of fun with the role. I'll have to think about this some more...
9/10
I'm a sap for a good coming-of-age tale an An Education, while imperfect, is up there with the best of them. Carey Mulligan is wonderful in the lead role of Jenny and the actor playing her father, Alfred Molina, is tremendous. Peter Sarsgaard is also great in the role of Jenny's much older love interest and never once crosses over into creepiness, although his character does leave you on edge and guessing at his motives for most of the film. The movie is very well-told and interesting throughout and has a couple of completely arresting and shattering scenes I won't mention because you should see them yourself.
As far as its imperfections, read kihei's review on page 1 for a good summary of where the film falters (a friend and I raised the question "what would the lesson have been if things hadn't worked out the way they did for Jenny?" and were similarly left without an answer), and I also found the end of the film terribly rushed. It literally felt while watching it that I was seeing a hack editing job to get the movie down to an "acceptable" length and that there's a director's cut or extended edition just waiting for a DVD release. But that said, if this isn't nominated for Best Picture (and Carey Mulligan should get a nod for Best Actress too) I'll eat my hat.
6.5/10
Sergio Corbucci's first Spaghetti Western still has one foot planted firmly in the "older" Western traditions (and bears almost none of Corbucci's signature violence and grit) but despite a brutal start, the movie picks up steam as it goes, and it culminates in a pretty good shootout between the titular hero and his nemesis Fox (who looks like an 'if they mated' between Lee Van Cleef and Revolver Ocelot). Alex Cox gave this a pretty merciless review in his book 10,000 Ways to Die and it deserves it sometimes but overall the movie turned out better than I expected.
7/10
Fritz Lang's noir from 1931 ('33? I don't remember). It's safe to say the story hasn't aged terribly well (the notion of a child murderer luring school children into dark alleys with candy and balloons was surely terrifying to see on the big screen back in the 30's but now...well we're jaded), but Peter Lorre's acting and Lang's direction are still impeccable. The shrieking speech Lorre's character gives at the end of the movie is harrowing and disturbing. J. Hoberman's reviews says it conjures up feelings of both horror and pity, which is entirely true and somewhat horrific in itself.
2/10
I'll give it two points for Penelope Cruz who alone manages to not make the entire film a waste of 2 hours. This is the kind of movie where the longer it goes and as more is revealed, the less interested and more frustrated you become with where things are going. For director Cameron Crowe, this is the kind of career misfire on par with Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain - the difference is Aronofsky seems to have recovered with The Wrestler while Crowe (according to dismal reviews for Elizabethtown) has not and even though this is a remake, he deserves his share of blame. Every single "twist" is telegraphed well before it happens, and the amount of pop culture references combined with the over-bearing, all-too-hip soundtrack is sickening. The scene with Tom Cruise shouting "TECH SUPPOOOOORRRT!!!" while "Good Vibrations" blares in the background was probably seen by somebody involved as some sort of ironic zenith of surrealism - it is embarassing and hilarious in equal turns. And lines like "but I'm blowing your mind, aren't I" and "your panel of observers is waiting for you to choose" smack of pure pretention. What a waste.
4/10
Title aside, this Spaghetti Western borrows liberally from Leone (a chiming pocketwatch, a green poncho) but does feature a couple of neat if ultimately useless subversions (the good guy, the Nevada Kid, wears all black; the bad guy wears the Eastwood-esque poncho). Jeff Cameron is bland and uninteresting as the Nevada Kid and Klaus Kinski is great but criminally underused as the bad guy Hagen (most of the film is spent chasing Hagen's number two, Tamayo). There are a couple of good shoot-outs but the problem is that it's all too easy for the heroes. In the final battle, after all of Hagen's henchmen have been mowed down, Hagen fires a multitude of shots at the Nevada Kid, which all miss. Hagen steps out from his cover for a second and he's instantly shot dead. We all know the good guys are going to win but come on, at least make it interesting.
8/10
The third movie of my Nikkatsu Noir set from Criterion, and this is more what I had in mind when I bought the set - guns, sex, action, intrigue, double-crosses, the whole nine yards (I Am Waiting and Rusty Knife were both considerably tamer and focused more on the whodunnit/investigative aspect). There's a lot of fun to be had here even though the plot is unnecessarily convoluted...and ever since I read about Nikkatsu films subverting the family values of Ozu films prior, well it hasn't been real hard to figure out who in fact did it in the last two movies. That hasn't decreased the enjoyment of watching em however.
6/10
An enjoyable enough documentary/concert film from 1985 focusing on mostly the New York avant-garde jazz scene. Charles Gayle and Peter Kowald are the central figures but Kowald's interviews are too brief and Gayle is never reeled in - he's sometimes interesting, mostly rambling. I also felt a bit cheated that the movie was more focused on talking and long handheld cam shots of urban New York (which are admittedly well-done and visually appealing) than on performance footage but there's some worthwhile stuff from Peter Brotzmann, John Zorn, Wayne Horvitz, Don Cherry, Charles Tyler and others. If some of those names are of interest to you you'd probably enjoy the movie but I wouldn't fret if you can't track it down either.
7/10
Some pretty funny moments and Jason Segel and Paul Rudd have good chemistry but the story was really weak and never once felt believable. I thought it'd be a bit funnier overall but Segel's Andre the Giant impression almost made me piss my pants.
5.5/10
2nd of the 5 movies in my Nikkatsu Noir set, this one starts pretty slow but eventually picks up steam culminating in a great truck vs. truck chase scene. Overall it's not terribly interesting but there is a pretty neat twist towards the end.
8.5/10
This movie was everything I hoped it would be and more. I'm a sucker for a good road movie, especially ones with vague existential flirtations (Two-Lane Blacktop, Easy Rider) and this one had that plus lots of action, a great soundtrack, and a totally nihilist ending. Really underrated movie and I think Tarantino did a great job evoking its spirit with Death Proof (also terribly underrated..but like I said, I'm a sucker)
