New Releases
44 Inch Chest C+
Hurt & McShane really get their teeth in, Winstone tries. But why so curtailed?
Some gags fly, and go Sandy, but it's too often maddeningly garish and random
Crude B–
Could have been shaped more forcefully, but bitter and cogent all the same
A smirkfest amusing itself rather than us -- doubt I'll race to see Nest of Spies
Ozu-lite? Kind of, but limpid and lovely in its simple way
Up in the Air* B–
Glib and opportunistic, I'll admit, but the Vera/George stuff still delights
Other Adventures
A very uneven rough draft of a movie; does tip daringly into outright man-love
House champagne, with cracking turns from Dressler and the good Barrymore
Fata Morgana (1971) B
Herzog at full noodle; off-puttingly spare and opaque, but oddly resonant
Not enough grit, except from Day-Lewis, to make its conflicts reverberate
No Witchfinder, but the hokey plot is staged with some style and integrity
Bent (1997) D+
An Important Play stultified with makeshift editing and mainly rotten acting
*denotes a repeat viewing
2 comments:
Does this mean we can hold each other to an honor code of short, at least sentence-length write-ups from now on? I can hardly imagine a better prompt.
I'm ashamed to say it, but I kind of love that you hate Bent. I was incredibly generous, I thought, with a B- at the time, even though I remember thinking Clive Owen and especially Mark Webber were just the pits (among other sins). After ten years, and after Owen becoming someone we all know, I thought I'd try the movie again and expected to be pleasantly surprised, and I only made it about 10 minutes in.
Totally! I'm obviously stealing the whole format from your Fall/Winter release list, but this might be the one manageable way for me to post more than just grades up for the stuff I see. So I'm game.
They screened Bent at the bfi, with Martin Sherman in the house. I was dying to ask if he was truly happy with it -- during the Q&A he did admit that it was "unfortunately humourless" because of all the stuff he had to cut out. But what about Mathias's direction?! I will say that Owen didn't bother me so much, but Webber is a shambles, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau manages to be memorably terrible in the blink of an eyelid, and Lothaire Bluteau (who got good reviews) strikes me as quite, quite wrong. I don't know whether to read the play now to try and redeem the experience of seeing it? Life may get in the way.
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