Bobby Fischer Against the World (Liz Garbus, 2011)

8/10
I've always had a mild interest in (maybe 'respect for' would be a better term) chess, and I've always been aware of Bobby Fischer's unique story. So I saw this on Netflix the other night and decided to watch it - it's quite good. Probably best to go in with as little knowledge as possible, as the movie doesn't make any grand discoveries, but it's still a fascinating story. As a bonus, it got me interested in chess again, and I'm currently reading a book on how to improve my game. Good stuff.

From Dusk Till Dawn (Robert Rodriguez, 1996)

6/10
I was in the mood for something light and I'd never seen this one all the way through, so I put it on. It has a really great first half, and Clooney and Tarantino (despite the latter receiving a Razzie nom for worst actor) have surprisingly good chemistry. I'm also a fan of both Harvey Keitel and Juliette Lewis so their presence was welcome. When the movie breaks off into its second half (the siege on the vampires at the bar), it becomes significantly less interesting and doesn't appear to know what to do with itself. Tarantino may have written the screenplay (so of course he ends up with Salma Hayek's foot in his mouth) but the jarring discrepancy between a great first half and a spoiled second half was a criticism I had of Rodriguez's Planet Terror. Maybe these two are best kept apart, in the end.

Forest (Benedek Fliegauf, 2003)

5/10
A few years ago Hungarian director Gyorgy Palfi put out a movie called I Am Not Your Friend. Shot ultrarealistically, it compiled scenes featuring non-actors given a loose scenario and then improvising from it. It was okay. I suppose its spiritual predecessor was this Hungarian film from 2003 by Benedek Fliegauf. Following an opening where a bunch of people are milling around what seems to be a closed space in a shopping mall, we "meet" the same people involved in intense discussions or arguments. The unbroken shots each last for about 10 minutes each and feature unusually extreme closeups - the most we ever get to see are the participants faces. The topics of conversation range from a man pawning a dog off on a young man ("the dog has chosen you") to a father's bizarre way of coming to grips with his daughter's pubescence to a strange story told in a canoe of a fish so large the townspeople have been feasting on it for decades. It doesn't amount to much more than a mild curiosity and with two Hungarian movies so similar in subject and approach with five years of each other, I kind of wonder what the attraction is.

10 Things I Hate About You (Gil Junger, 1999)

5/10
Even for fluff fare, I was still let-down. Expected more from JGL and Heath Ledger, but Julia Stiles (who I'm no fan of) was good. The pace was kind of choppy and I didn't think it juggled humor and "drama" very well. Pretty meh.

Mean Girls (Mark Waters, 2004)

7/10
It was pretty funny, most of which I chalk up to Tina Fey (the writer and the actor). On one hand it's sad to see how far Lindsay Lohan has fallen, but it's not like she was a particularly good actor either.

Chelsea Girls (Andy Warhol, 1966)

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The Music Room (Satyajit Ray, 1958)

8/10
I'd never seen a Satyajit Ray movie. I don't know if this was the best place to start but I still enjoyed it immensely. I liked the setting and the palace, but what I loved most was the music. Holy smokes! My knowledge of classical Indian music is limited to those who creep in to the fringes of the avantgarde music scene - Pandit Pran Nath, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Ali Akbar Khan and Abdul Karim Khan. But now I feel a compulsion to track down something from every musician featured in this movie, especially the mind-blowing performance at the end. I always like it when a movie gives me other things to seek out and opens my mind to other arts. This one definitely did that, and told an interesting story as well (even if I think it lagged a teensy bit in the second half).

Paths of Glory (Stanley Kubrick, 1957)

8/10
Liked this one a lot. Two obvious things stood out - Kubrick's incredible eye for detail even in black and white, and Kirk Douglas' acting which was pitch-perfect. He had that right amount of seething, repressed anger that made you feel everything he was going through. Shouting "go to hell!" happens a zillion times in a zillion movies but when Douglas shouted it as part of his outburst towards the end of the film, it was damn near cathartic. The end of the movie, with the soldiers in the tavern, was unexpectedly poignant, a strange mix of something horrifying and tragic all at once.

Uncle Silas (Charles Frank, 1947)

6/10
This was another featured torrent I downloaded years ago but never watched. It's a British film from 1947. Set a hundred years prior, the story concerns a teenaged girl, Caroline, who inherits a massive fortune upon her father's death. Before he died, her father reconciled with his estranged brother Silas. Silas had been living in exile due to a murder accusation and despite warnings from others, both Caroline and her father accept him as virtuous and are thrilled to have him in their lives. Just before he dies, her father finds out that Silas and Caroline's bizarre governness are in league and possibly after his fortune. His will states that Caroline is to live with Silas after he passes away and upon making this discovery he gets out the will, gets set to change it - and croaks.
If the film is notable for anything, it's for the insane overacting courtesy Silas and the governness. Caroline, by contrast, is superbly restrained, although it's hard to take pity on her character for being dumb as a post when it's made clear from the get-go that there's something shady about Silas. It's only a little over 100 minutes long but it feels like much more of a drag, possibly due to contorting itself to tell what turns out to be pretty standard fare. A weird one, but not really worth the time.

The Thin Red Line (Terrence Malick, 1998)

8.5/10
I've only got one Terrence Malick movie left to see (The New World) but it seems apparent that if you don't like one, you're not liable to like any of the others. Similar themes and similar filmmaking approaches (namely striking photography, unhurried running times, loose plots, voiceovers, and pretentious chin-stroking) run through all his films. Fortunately for me, I guess, I've liked em all, and I'm trying to decide if The Thin Red Line is my favorite. I would say the last half-hour feels a bit disjointed compared to the rest of the film, especially after the breath-taking sequence where the soldiers storm the hill. I'm not really sure what to make of a major Hollywood star turning up in virtually every role - some say that Malick was making a dig at the Hollywood star system by casting mega-stars like George Clooney and John Travolta in bit parts (and completely excising roles played by Viggo Mortensen, Martin Sheen, and Gary Oldman) but I found it somewhat distracting. I do, however, drool at the prospect of one day seeing the initial 6 hour cut of the movie.

Katalin Varga (Peter Strickland, 2009)

7/10
I've been wanting to see this movie since its release in 2009, but only got to it now. It's British director Peter Strickland's debut, though the film is set in the Hungarian-speaking part of Romania, Transilvania to be exact. Katalin Varga is a woman who has been raped, and thus is thrown out of her village by her husband. With nowhere else to go she takes her 11-year old son with her as she tries to track down her attacker. I wanted to like this movie more than I did - it felt a little clunky at times, especially with certain plot points I won't reveal for fear of spoilers. It also had a really great piece of music (piece of sound, to be more accurate) by Nurse with Wound, but overused it. There were positives though - the woman playing Katalin Varga was excellent and the rural photography and slow pace were both excellent. Strickland has a new movie coming out called Berberian Sound Studio and I'm definitely curious to see that one, even moreso now.