Summer of Film #9 of 100
The advent of sex, lies and videotape in 1989 caused three things major events to occur:

1. It brought the attention of the world upon the great Steven Sorderbergh who not only lived up to his indy protégé status but soon surpassed it with his back-to-back Oscar favorites Erin Brokovich and the brilliant Traffic and his bringing together one of the great ensemble casts in modern motion picture history for Ocean’s Eleven.


2. It lended it’s title to countless unimaginative gossip rags, entertainment mags and scandalous newspaper stories. You could almost hear the editor say, a few minutes before going to press: ‘What are we going to call this article? If you can’t think of anything, I’m going with sex, lies and …’ you know what. And very rarely do those articles have anything to do with sex, lies and videotape; but who cares? It sells.


3. Finally, and probably most significantly, sex, lies and videotape brought on the independent film revolution that arguably hasn’t ended yet. And for that, if for nothing else, this movie is a classic. It made the ‘90s a great time to start my film life.

Having said all of that- the movie failed to impress. It is intriguing, challenging and has one of the most eerily endearing performances on film (James Spader) but for me, there was no connective tissue. Read More »

Summer of Film #8 of 100
There must have been a time when the Coen brothers’ films were described as noir, as dark comedies and people must have tried to come up with better and more accurate descriptions as every new movie threw their old adjectives out the window. Thankfully, we can now just call it a Coen brothers’ movie and hope you’ll understand what you are in for.

Of course, I’m assuming you’ve seen one before (one that was not Intolerable Cruelty, that is). If you haven’t, well you should- and Fargo or The Man Who Wasn’t There are good places to start. Blood Simple, however, is where the Coens got their start; and what a start it is. Read More »

Summer of Film #7 of 100
There is no way to speak of this film without dealing in superlatives- Howl’s Moving Castle, from Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke) is the most imaginative animated fantasy I have ever seen, the best animated film I have seen since Finding Nemo and probably the best film I have seen so far this year.

Most promos and reviews describe the plot as the story of a girl who is the victim of curse that turns her in to a an old lady, but this is not the plot. It is only the event that sets her out on a journey that is part Wizard of Oz, part Sound of Music and part.. well, part its own fantastic world where each seen is populated with fascinating characters and objects, each character has a range of strange quirks and each plot point has the potential to spawn days of idle childhood daydreams. This is the movie that will make a child of you if you are not one; and if you are, then this is the movie you will carry with you your entire life. You will grow up with dreams of the flying wizards, the fire demon and the magic portal door of the most magnificent house/castle ever put on film- i.e. Howl’s Moving Castle. And what a castle it is (Click on the thumbnail for a better view). This humongous, creaking, crawling contraption with gears, levers and pulleys out of every corner is the star of the film.

Summer of Film #6 of 100
Metropolis or Metoroporisu is a Japanese animated visual fantasy by Rintaro that shares imagery with the 1926 Fritz Lang classic silent by the same name. The story is set in a futuristic city where there is unrest between the robots and the humans. A Japanese private detective and his nephew come to the sprawling futuristic city of Metropolis to investigate a mad scientist accused, among other things, of human rights violations. What they discover is political machinations and intrigue between the many layers of the city; from the tall Ziggurat built in the city to the underground levels infested with defunct robots and thugs. The man behind the political unrest, Duke Red, has employed the scientist to build him a super-robot; a girl, Teema, to rule the Metropolis and replace his dead daughter. The movie’s strength lies in its visuals and in the inner struggle of Teema and the city in general about what it means to be human. The visuals are more intriguing than the plot- though I have to admit I saw an English-dubbed version and could have been the victim of the lost-in-translation syndrome.

Summer of Film #5 of 100
I sincerely hope there was a good reason for making this film in the first place, but let me put my critique of it this way: if the best thing in a movie starring Robert De Niro, Bill Murray and Uma Thurman is the great performance of David Caruso, then the movie has serious problems. Read More »

Summer of Film #4 of 100
If I tell you that Layer Cake is a British film directed by the producer of Lock, Stock and Smoking Barell and Snatch (Matthew Vaughn) you are going to think you probably know what kind of film it is. If I tell you it’s about a drug dealer who tries to get out of the business when a series of strange characters and events pull him back in; you’re going to be really sure you know what kind of a film this is.

Well, you are wrong. Read More »

Summer of Film #3 of 100
This movie has a lot going for it; unfortunately it is not enough. With tremendous visuals and solid action sequences director William Friedkin creates a rare police procedural that should have impressed me a lot more than it did. Unfortunately, the movie has very little else to rest on- and since it sells does not sell itself as a spectacle it has to sell itself on drama and that is where it fails. There is no tension (except for two scenes) and the drug plot that drives policeman Popeye (Gene Hackman) is akin to something out of a TV movie.

The two scenes that do succeed are a virtuoso chase scene where Hackman chases a man on a train across town; and a the beginning of the climax. I say ‘beginning’ because there is no end. The movie ends in an abrupt scene that explains little and is a poor pay-off for a well set up climax. Read More »

Summer of Film #2 of 100
When I read this from Roger Ebert last week I thought my expectations were off the mark for Cinderella Man. I had figured it would be a manipulative drama that used boxing only to hide what it really was; a Ron Howard family drama. Ebert wrote:

I think of Crowe as a tough customer, known to get in the occasional brawl. Yes, he plays men who are inward and complex, as in “The Insider” and “A Beautiful Mind,” or men who are tempered and wise, as in “Master and Commander.” But neither he nor anyone else in a long time has played such a nice man as the boxer Jim Braddock. You’d have to go back to actors like James Stewart and Spencer Tracy to find such goodness and gentleness. Tom Hanks could handle the assignment, but do you see any one of them as a prizefighter? Tracy, maybe.

Summer of Film #1 of 100
Not exactly the best film to open my ‘summer of film’ with, but it was a Friday, it was fresh and it was playing at the local Landmark theatre- which as a combination makes it inevitable.

There are two films within Mr. and Mrs. Smith- one I shall refer to as ‘Mr.’ and the other as ‘.Mrs.’ Read More »

Starting this weekend, I am entering my “Summer of Film”. My objective is to watch 100 films by Labor Day (The first weekend of September). The only criteria is that they should be films I have not seen before. It is an ambitious project (especially considering the fact that I work full time), but one that I have succeeded at once before (granted, back then I was unemployed). Let the games begin!
UPDATE: Day 10 progress report: At the 10th day of my 82 day endeavor I have seen 9 films; must give up half an hour of work and half an hour of sleep a day :)