April 9, 2011The news is making its way around social networking sites that powerhouse director Sidney Lumet has passed away at the age of 86.Born in Philadelphia, Lumet was the son of an actor and a dancer who got his start on the stage at the age of 4. He spent his teens and his twenties as a stage actor, though in the early 1950s, he found his true calling as a director, starting with television shows and then moving to the stage before solidifying himself as a film director destined to be considered alongside the all-time greats.The first film he directed was 12 Angry Men in 1957, often hailed as one of the best films of all time and arguably the crowning achievement of Lumet's career. That being said, he certainly had! other massive critical successes which have become lauded classics including A View from the Bridge (1962), Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962), The Pawnbroker (1964), Serpico (1973), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Prince of the City (1981), The Verdict (1982), Q & A (1990) and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007). Those who don't think 12 Angry Men was Lumet's most important film would probably argue that 1976's Network might take the title.I sadly haven't seen enough of his movies, and I plan to remedy that soon. Like his admittedly uneven career, my collective opinion of his films I've seen is that they are quite inconsistent. I really like 12 Angry Men, but I don't think it's as good as its reputation. I found The Verdict to be pedestrian and predictable. The Wiz, Lumet's disasterous adaptation of The Wizard of Oz starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, is truly one of the worst films I've ever seen.That being said, I really l! ove Network, and think that it's as much a condemnation of our! present entertainment culture as it was of the culture that existed upon its release. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, which Lumet made when he was 82 years old, is an underrated thriller. What's amazing is that Lumet wanted to do such a ruthlessly violent film about such unpleasant people at such a late stage in his career. He was always up to the task of imbuing his material with as much grit as necessary...at least that's what I hear about some of his films that I'm embarrassed to say that I haven't yet seen like Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon.Lumet's book "Making Movies" is said to be a must-read for anyone serious about studying film. I just happened to buy it at a used book shop a few months ago. I look forward to delving into it and into more classic films by one of the most respected directors in Hollywood history. Rest in peace.
All the movie reviews. The best films
You Wish by Mandy Hubbard (TBR August 5th, 2010 from Razorbill Publishing) (finished already)The Secrets of April, May and June by Robin Benway (TBR August 3rd, 2010 from Razorbill Publishing)Thanks so much to Razorbill Publishing for giving me complementary copies of these two great books for review!Library:
From 2 different libraries... I know it seems like a lot, but I returned all the other books I had out, soooo.... it evens out, right? *cough*Kitchen Princess Vol. 1 (Manga)The Heart is Not A Size by Beth KephartMe, the Missing and the Dead by Jenny Valentine (one of my favorite authors)Margherita Dolce Vita by Stefano Benni (I'm in love with this imprint, Europa Editions!)Solanin by Asano Inio (Manga I've been trying to get FOREVER)The Nature of Jade by Deb Caletti (I really haven't liked Caletti's work at all, but I'm giving her another chance)The Moving Toyshop by Edmund CrispinA Good Day for Love Letters- George Asakura (not sure how I feel about the art)Gentleman Prefer Blondes- Anita LoosCooking With Fernet Branca- James Patterson-HamiltonGourmet Rhapsody- Muriel BarberyThe Queen of the Tambourine- Jane GardamKimmie66- Aaron Alexovich (I wish this imprint hadn't closed, Minx w! as so great!)Emily the Strange: The Lost Days-Rob Reger (I hav! e no ide a what this is, it just looked cool. Is it a series?)The Ghosts of Ashbury High- Jaclyn Moriarty (YAY! I love this series!)The Evolution Man, or How I Ate My Father- Roy Lewis (Weird, I know :P)Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close- Jonathan Foer The Line- Teri Hall (I never got to finish it)Sorry- Gail JonesGimme A Call- Sarah MylnowskiWonderland- Tommy Kovac and Sonny Leiw (Pretty.... *gape*)JPod- Douglas Coupland (love it even more than I thought I would, considering I'm not a fan of the pessimistic, vaguely pretentious Generation X stuff)*deep breath* Even more than I thought I'd checked out.Bought:
All but 2 of these (the one on top and the one on the bottom) are from a used book store.! I got them for only 50 cents each down in Mississippi! *dance* Oh, and I got the Great Gatsby too, but I forgot to dig it out from under my bed (books are everywhere under there in my room, as I just got a new bookshelf and have yet to stock it). It's scary under there.Dr. Slump Vol. 1 by Akira Toriyama (my favorite manga ever! The art is so simple but genius. Toriyama is great.)The Taker- J. M. Steele A Farewell to Arms- Ernest HemingwayGreat Short Works of Mark TwainThe Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings- Oscar WildePygmalion and 3 Other Plays- George Bernard Shaw Pygmalion and My Fair Lady (in too horrible condition to show: my dog got a hold of it! Luckily I had finished it on the trip back from Texas :P)The Great Gatsby- F. Scott Fitzgerald (I like it much more than I expected to.)***********888Finally done with the list! I got a lot of great books this week, and didn't even spend that much money. A lot of these I've been trying to track down, and finally did, ! which is awesome :) Mostly mangas that weren't at B&N or e! ither of my libraries. So, what was in you mailbox this week?
April 5, 2011Made in Dagenham (2010) **1/2Directed by Nigel ColeMy tweet:Made in Dagenham (2010)- Hawkins is solid & tale is inspiring, but it's predictable, on the nose and riddled with cliches. **1/2 out of 5Other thoughts:It's never fun to come down on the other side of a movie about such a monumental moment for women's rights, especially considering that I'm a man, but Made in Dagenham works overtime (no pun intended) to craft itself as completely predictable and unabashedly shallow. Without an excellent lead performance from Sally Hawkins, easily one of my favorite actresses, this paint by numbers workers' rights genre template could have been completely unbearable. Hawkins breaths some life ! into a character written as a caricature alongside countless other caricatures inhabiting the world of 1960s England with its sexist injustices in the way pay was structured in the workplace.Bob Hoskins, though quite good, is wasted as the manager of 187 women in the Ford Factory in Dagenham who immediate believes in the cause of equal pay because, as he puts it, he and his brothers were raised by a woman who worked hard without getting her fair share. Hawkins plays Rita O'Grady, a mild-mannered worker who finds herself up to the task of spearheading the strike. She needs to rise to the challenge due to the difficult home life of the elected shop steward Connie, played by Geraldine James. While Rita must struggle with fighting for her cause while shirking perceived duties as mother of two children and wife of daft but sweet Eddie, played by Daniel Mays, Connie's husband really does need her considering that he's losing his sanity after dealing with debilitating injuries tha! t stem back from his service in the war.Meanwhile, as the ladi! es' caus e gains notoriety and momentum, a Ford executive, played by Richard Schiff, an actor I love, works to undermine the movement first by manipulating the head of the workers' union and later by threatening Secretary of State Barbara Castle, played by Miranda Richardson, that Ford will pull out of England thereby costing the jobs of 40,000 workers. Rita and company must deal with a myriad of men who not only see their grievances as a headache, but also underestimate their sheer will power.As I said before, every character is a caricature. The women are lumped together as sassy spitfires who like to sexually harass men and curse like sailors. Schiff's villain is so evil that you could picture him twirling his mustache, that is if Schiff didn't choose to shave off his usual facial hair. Worst of all, though, is the painfully hammy performance by Miranda Richardson, who obnoxiously mistakes volume for gravitas. Richardson chooses to scream at the top of her lungs repeatedly towards! two young men that help her run her office. While the intended effect is to show a strong, independent woman in a leadership role, what actually happens is that we begin to feel sorry for the men who have to work with such a ridiculously irritating and overcompensating pill of a human being.Everything is played at the most earnest level, and with a script that provides no nuance or realism whatsoever, there needed to be enough characters with whom audiences could connect. Instead, Hawkins, giving the best performance, exists mostly as a saintly anchor for all of the loons that surround her. Though it's fun to watch Hawkins deliver her lines, there's nothing to her character's motivations and struggles burrowing underneath the surface, and literally no one else besides Rita registers in any interesting way whatsoever. Sadly, it's at the surface where Made in Dagenham plays out, all the way to an all-too-familiar, inevitable conclusion. The women of the Dagenham Ford factory! deserve better than this.
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March 26, 2011Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) **1/2Directed by Tod Williams My tweet:Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)- Devoid of any fresh ideas. A whole lot of nothing leads up to an effective conclusion. **1/2 out of 5 Other thoughts: There are ways in which one could say that Paranormal Activity is the most financially successful film of all time. With a budget of only $15,000, the movie unexpectedly went on to gross over 100 million dollars, thereby making more than a staggering 650,000% profit. It all started as an internet phenomenon with petitions to have the film shown in local theaters. With huge sellouts and long lines, th! is low budget horror originally on no one's radar screen started expanding, ultimately becoming a midnight movie triumph.Those first viewers of Paranormal Activity experienced the film as it was meant to be experienced. The whole thing played out like it was found footage of a young couple terrorized by unhappy spirits inhabiting their house. There were no opening or closing credits, giving the film a vicious coldness, as if the viewers of this unknown movie stumbled upon something they shouldn't have. After it became the phenomenon it did, the intended effect wore off. People were going to a cultural event when seeing Paranormal Activity after its success solidified. No longer did it thrive as pseudo-snuff. Therefore, Paranormal Activity 2 was bound to be less unsettling from the outset. Everyone knows it's fake. As such, it needed to have been the responsibility of the filmmakers to work tirelessly to achieve a sense of real life as much as possible. Otherwise, this seque! l runs the risk of complete corniness. Despite a really viciou! s conclu sion which is much more effective than the original, Paranormal Activity 2 is completely unnecessary, and yes, it is often laughably corny. This tale of terror serves as a prequel of sorts to the horrors seen in the original. Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston do return, which is allowed because the movie takes place months before at least one of them dies. Katie's sister Kristi has a new baby named Hunter with Daniel, Kristi's older husband who has a teenage daughter named Ali from a previous marriage. Daniel is played by Brian Boland, and Ali is played by Molly Ephraim. Both are adequate enough, especially when judged next to the performance of Sprague Grayden who plays Kristi. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I've never seen such a bad attempt at delivering lines like a real person than Grayden as Kristi. The footage is shot using a camcorder as well as webcams installed throughout the house after a supposed break-in, so the actors are meant to sound like they're auth! entic human beings and not characters written for a fictional movie. Grayden's line delivery is so distractingly artificial that I couldn't help but want to see her character meet an unpleasant fate. I won't say whether that's what ultimately happens, but let's just say that there were moments while watching that proved quite satisfying for me. I enjoyed the first Paranormal Activity as a fairly mindless yet totally entertaining slice of horror. However, I'm not sure I gave Micah Sloat and Katie Featherston enough credit for their performances. In comparison to the cast of Paranormal Activity 2 in general and Grayden in particular, Sloat and Featherston are quite charming and exponentially more engaging in the original. The first hour and ten minutes is completely devoid of scares. There are a few startling moments involving bangs and noises, but there's no real sense of terror precisely because there's no sense of reality whatsoever. Any feelings of dread are much more man! ipulative considering that this time around we're dealing with! a dog a nd a baby in peril. Ali answers a lot of the questions that stem back to the first film by reading websites about demons who need first born infant males for sacrifice or something like that. Paranormal Activity had the guts to trust its audience to buy into the film even though we never learned why the hauntings were taking place. The sequel spends time spelling everything out, thereby leaving us with nothing whatsoever to figure out for ourselves. Also, when people take websites about demon possession seriously, it's understandable to sort of wish they'd actually be terrorized by demons if for no other reason than we would have less gullible people in the world. Too many scares are recycled verbatim. The film's narrative structure and tone completely mirror the original, once again saying to the audience that the only motivation is to make money off the success of another movie without much effort on the part of the filmmakers. Thankfully, Paranormal Activity 2 does almost! redeem itself with a really unnerving final twenty minutes. There's not a lot of intelligent ideas in the conclusion, but the palpable scares are there. Without giving anything away, the last two minutes reach a level of viciousness that the Paranormal Activity series merits. There's a tameness to the scares within the first Paranormal Activity, presumably due to its limited budget. There's no reason at all to hold back. In fact, I argue that Paranormal Activity 2 could have been even more sadistic. The premise is mean, and only the final few minutes really deliver upon its potential for brutality. Sadly, even during its few effective moments, Paranormal Activity 2 is too mindless and manufactured to merit even existing at all. With some effort, the sequel to such a phenomenon could have been a real achievement in itself. There are so many moments where we're just looking at a room through a camera waiting for something to happen. During each of these sequences, something ! does happen, and yet, I wonder why there couldn't have been mo! re somet hings happening. They could have subtlety textured these creepy scenes, thereby welcoming repeated viewing so the viewer could try and catch details that he or she missed the first time around. Instead, each surveillance sequence ends with only one or two obvious payoffs. Sadly, this is just another example of the cynicism and condescension behind this vapid excuse to cash in on the success of a superior sleeper sensation.
