The Sixties Quartet (Jonas Mekas, 1990-1999)

7/10
More from the Mekas retrospective, this was a compilation of 4 half-hour-ish short films from Mekas shot in the 1960's and released in the 90's. The first was "Scenes from the Life of Andy Warhol: Friendships and Intersections". The first half or so was dubbed over with live audio of a static-filled, droning VU performance of "I'll Be Your Mirror" that I enjoyed quite a bit. Much of the footage was Warhol at home, on vacation, and occasionally at work.
The second film was "Zefiro Torna or Scenes from the Life of George Maciunas" and was probably the one I was least interested in, not knowing much of George Maciunas. There was some cool footage from early Fluxus happenings though and seeing the likes of George Brecht, Nam June Paik, Yoshi Wada and even John and Yoko was fun.
The latter were the stars of the next one, "Happy Birthday to John, with John Lennon and Yoko Ono" and the title is very self-descriptive, featuring footage shot of a birthday party thrown for Lennon. It was cool to see some rare, casual footage of monstrously famous people, and wondering at the discourse taking place between John and Miles Davis in the garden at John's birthday party was a treat.
"This Side of Paradise with Jackie, Caroline and John Kennedy Jr." (aka "Scenes from an Unfinished Biography") was the last film, featuring footage shot from a vacation Jackie Onassis took shortly after John Kennedy's death as something of memoriam for Jackie and John's children. The idyllic vacation footage from a beautiful place featuring more hugely famous people being themselves was exhilarating, even if much of the footage here was repeated from the Warhol film. Glad I got to see these, they were a treat.

Reminisces of a Journey to Lithuania (Jonas Mekas, 1972)

6.5/10
A quasi-documentary directed by Jonas Mekas as part of a retrospective of his work, the film features footage from the 50's, 60's and 70's as shot by Mekas and detailing his life in the turmoil of Lithuania, his exile to America, and the return to his home country. It has more of a "home movie" feel than a documentary feel and, coupled with Mekas' slow, halting English voiceover, it can be a struggle to keep your attention held, but it had its interesting moments. Jonas attended the screening and gave a cool Q&A afterward, which was very impressive considering he's 90 years old!

Miss Violence (Alexandros Avranas, 2013)

7/10
This is a Greek film that was met with some controversy when it screened at Venice, and not without merit. It's a dark and pretty disturbing film. The plot is reminiscent of a Greek sensation from a couple of years ago, Dogtooth; a film I enjoyed very much. Miss Violence also centers around a father with an extremely unconventional way of raising his children and grandchildren. Where Dogtooth was a bit more surrealist and darkly comic, Miss Violence aims for the unsettling and harrowing. That doesn't make it a better movie, in my opinion, but it's not too bad in its own right as a harsh criticism of Greece as embodied in a patriarchal figure eating its own.

To the Wonder (Terrence Malick, 2012)

4/10
As much as I like Terrence Malick, most of his movies make me cringe at some point. That's the risk you take in being a poet, or being a romantic, as Malick likely considers himself (and he has a good claim to both titles). But To the Wonder is like Malick without a filter - a 2 hour stream of the worst bits to ever worm their way into his movies. The constant voiceovers are an unending source of embarrassment, coming off completely mawkish and juvenile. They would appear clunky in anyone's debut feature, but for a vet like Malick, they're unforgiveable. The characters flit and romp and carouse in every scene to the point of obnoxiousness, and god help me if Ben Affleck picked up a cheque for his "performance" in the movie.
Every now and then you get a glimpse of the good Malick can do - I really liked the sterile suburban housing setting, some images are indelible (a girl playing hopscotch in the sunlight pouring through a window) and Malick is still a fantastic documentor/recreator of something classically American in cinema. You can usually count on his pretty images to pick up the slack when Malick's storytelling falters, but they can't bear the entire weight, and even they start to appear cheap and repetitive as the backdrop for a wholly uninteresting, uninvolving and emotionally inert movie.

Gravity (Alfonso Cuaron, 2013)

9.5/10
Werner Herzog once said of movies, "we are surrounded by worn out images, and we deserve new ones". As far as new images go, Gravity fits the bill better than anything I've seen in recent memory - it's hard to even believe that this was a movie, made in a studio somewhere. It feels, more than anything, like a genuine documented excursion into space with the viewer being taken along for the ride. I guess the only thing to remind you that it isn't real is the presence of Clooney and Bullock. I don't have a problem with either of them, and they're both very good in the movie, but it is the one thing on screen to constantly remind you you're watching a movie. Maybe casting two unknowns would have been the better choice? Although, then, no studio would have bankrolled the effort. So I get the conundrum. All things considered it's an excellent movie, a breathtaking (almost overwhelming) experience, and something that will undoubtedly be seen as a cinematic landmark for years to come. I wouldn't have a problem with this winning Best Picture at all.

Rush (Ron Howard, 2013)

8/10
It occurred to me when typing the above that this is a movie that deserves a better (or at least a more original) title than....Rush. At the very least it's an accurate description of the feeling watching the racing sequences - those are tremendously well done and really give you the exhilaration of being there.
Rush is going to draw inevitable comparisons to Senna, and for the first hour or so it doesn't do a whole lot to distinguish itself (again, in-car sequences aside). The period setting (recreated here, historical in Senna), the two conflicting drivers with charisma, their off-track pursuits...it's all well done, but familiar.
Where I felt the movie really set out on its own and succeeded was in the last hour or so - basically everything from August 1 1976's "decisive race" onward. The August 1 race is tension-filled, especially if you don't know the story as I didn't, and the aftermath brings a lot of welcome gravitas to Hunt and Lauda that was missing in the broad strokes that defined them in the first half. Maybe the ending was a little more protracted than it needed to be, but not by much. After recently seeing a couple of movies with final-act let-downs, it was nice to see one that took it up a notch instead.

World War Z (Marc Forster, 2013)

6.5/10
I haven't read the book, so I'll steer clear of that discussion entirely, although from what I understand they pretty much only share a name in common.
This is a strange movie, because despite its checkered production, it does a lot of things right. Better than probably any zombie movie I've ever seen, it did a great job showing a zombie epidemic on a truly massive scale. Not just in the globe-trotting scenes but in the sheer amount of zombies and how quickly entire major cities are overrun. I liked how the movie hit the ground running and the pace made for an exciting middle section that pulled me along nicely as Pitt's character zipped around looking for a cure. The final act really let the movie down, and felt like it was stitched in from a previous, lesser version of the same movie I was just watching. The "stealth mission" in the hospital to get the MacGuffin was weak, the ending was telegraphed from a mile away, and it includes one of the most weirdly jarring instances of product placements I've ever seen. I won't spoil the ending but it's the one you knew you'd get 5 minutes into the movie anyway.
The movie relies on way too many tropes for its own good - Pitt as the retiree called to do One Last Job, his daughter with the useless ailment that vanishes from the storyline a half hour in, the gruff army badass...it's hard not to feel like these are pieces cobbled together from the many revisions the script endured...and even harder to not roll your eyes when they show up.
Interestingly the zombies are treated pretty anonymously - no gruesome set pieces, no crazy kills, almost no gore and a minimal amount of blood. I'm sure it was done to lock down a PG-13 rating but I think it served the film well too - too often zombie movies can feel "too cinematic", self-consciously one-upping prior zombie movies in makeup or in CGI or distracting set pieces. Here it felt like a bit more of an authentic treatment of zombies as an epidemic and not just a way to shock or scare the audience.
Considering how disastrous the movie was expected to be and how much it apparently strays from its source material, it's pretty passable entertainment. It could have been a lot more, but I guess it could have been a lot worse too.