Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe, 2001)

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.

A Barrel Full of Dollars (Demofilo Fidani, 1971)

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.

Take Aim at the Police Van (Seijun Suzuki, 1960)

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.

Rising Tones Cross (Ebba Jahn, 1985)

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.

I Love You, Man (John Hamburg, 2009)

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.

Rusty Knife (Toshio Masuda, 1958)

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.

Vanishing Point (Richard C. Sarafian, 1971)

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)