Friday, December 29, 2006

Extras Review - Twin Peaks: The First Season

Twin Peaks: The First Season
produced by Artisan Home Video
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from EO

"People love extra stuff. And this is a heartache to me. Because the film is the thing! But the film isn't the thing. I mean, it is the thing, but people want Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Do you know what I mean?"

Without Lynch's direct involvement in the now out-of-print first season set, I get a post-synch video interview between two fanzine founders and the second name under "Created by," a 17-minute featurette on the Mar-T diner's original proprietor, and probably the best syndication-run introductions in history. No Lynch, no problem - zip! - and when I miss him, I can always just watch the show.

TV Review - The Sopranos

The Sopranos: Season Three (2001)
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from EO

My only concession to Steve is the tacky resuscitation of Nancy Marchand's dead bones. But I agree with EO in disagreeing that the scene itself is superfluous: Tony didn't soften up on mom at all. The season's most violent crime is committed by a total stranger; instead of feinting an ugly diversion for the sake of - what, Steve? the show's ratings? its inadvertent/unavoidable mythologizing? - Chase & Co. force themselves to write up towards the magnitude of the repercussions brought on the characters we care about most by thoughtless, instantaneous acts of plain bad luck.

Monday, December 25, 2006

Movie Review - It's A Wonderful Life

It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
directed by Frank Capra
rating: 5 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from the vaults

I like to think that George Bailey could have been a great man in Pottersville just as easily as Bedford Falls - that it isn't the gambling joints and the neon signs so much as his abject loneliness that makes the new world such a nightmare. Even the angels get to be sad in Capra's films, grounded just enough in life to help.

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Movie Review - A Wedding

A Wedding (1978)
directed by Robert Altman
rating: 1 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

It's hard to imagine a bigger sourpuss than this slice of movie magic, kids. I sat through two hours of "A Wedding" thinking the sarcasm might accumulate towards some revelation or at least a retroactive feeling of enjoyment, only to realize - two hours later - how much I hated the whole thing. Let me add to the year-end Altman send-offs that Woody Allen was never so big a prick in the name of a laugh.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Movie Review - The Double Life of Veronique

La Double vie de Véronique (1991)
directed by Krzysztof Kieslowski
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

I'm not ashamed to admit that the enigmas at the heart of Kieslowski's movies have always left me cold. Which in one way is odd, since his characters are usually so warm (and, of course, his actresses so beautiful). Or maybe it's because of everyone's inherent sincerity that nothing really feels at stake or even very interesting. The pretty shots and oblique narrative set-ups make K a kind of poor man's Sofia Coppola, and at least Sofia's good enough to act like the princess she is.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Movie Review - Black Christmas

Black Christmas (1974)
directed by Bob Clark
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

Who even cares what the killer's motivation is when you'd just assume murder the characters yourself?

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Movie Review - Heaven Can Wait

Heaven Can Wait (1943)
directed by Ernst Lubitsch
rating: 5 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

Of course sometimes I wish the whole history of movies could fit on the head of a pin as elegant, slight, and American as "Heaven Can Wait." Anyone who says it's all in the screenplay doesn't remember the crane shot when Martha and Henry dance.

Monday, December 11, 2006

Movie Review - Rocco and His Brothers

Rocco e i suoi fratelli (1960)
directed by Luchino Visconti
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

One thing I'll say for Luchino is how beautiful his formal compositions are. In street scenes in rain, Milan looks like a woodblock from Japan. And I prefer a young Alain Delon playing the innocent to the haggard and sinister aspect his face acquired with time. But I guess in the end you toe the line you always do: either Visconti directs epic masterpieces or he strands a lot of whales on the shore. "Rocco" isn't, by the way, a tragedy - it can't be true if someone gets out okay.

Movie Review - Apocalypto

Apocalypto (2006)
directed by Mel Gibson
rating: no cravats
seen on the screen at THE AMP

I really can't believe I got duped into seeing The Passion of the Christ after all. I swore - swore - I would never ever watch it. And guess what; Mel Gibson convinced me that if he could make me laugh - however unintentionally - I would win.

I did not laugh even one goddamn time.

Movie Review - Open City

Roma, città aperta (1945)
directed by Roberto Rossellini
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

Well, for one, I'm surprised that this was made in 1945. Because in that same year the US produced such pithy patriotic junk gems as Objective, Buhrma! and The Story of G.I. Joe. Well, and Fallen Angel, which isn't about the war at all but still a movie I love very much. But Italy had just been invaded by the Allies a year or so before, and "Open City" is so generous, and its hurt so personal. How could Ingrid Bergman resist?

"You can't really make an anti-war movie. You can only show people being monstrous to one another. What you do with that - how you reconcile cheapness and cruelty with the fact that you probably know some men and women you'd give up everything for - is how you celebrate the travails of getting by."

A Christmas message from Nate-flix to you

Because, you know, what else can I say?

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Movie Review - I Fidanzati

I Fidanzati (1963)
directed by Ermanno Olmi
rating: 5 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from the vaults

I live in a world where Bicycle Thieves is the movie people talk about when they want to show how humanistic film can be. But I believe in the maxim that the movies aren't inherently tragic - that pleasure and awe are too ingrained in the process - and I'm left cold by anyone who could ascribe the penultimate virtues of my favorite artistic medium to anything not concerned with love. A great story needs a girl.

It follows that Olmi is the most underrated romantic director in the world, insofar as I can browse a thousand lists with The Rules of the Game near the top of the heap and not one with Il Posto or "I Fidanzati."

Friday, December 01, 2006

Movie Review - The Fountain

The Fountain (2006)
directed by Darren Aronofsky
rating: no cravats
seen on the screen at The Amp! Wow!

The longest hour and a half all year.

God I love Anna Karina.