Movie review time....."I didn't get to the end, but I hope both characters die horribly"

I managed to distract myself at lunchtime by reading some of the movie 
reviews I've put on Lovefilm over the last year or so. I'm quite pleased 
with some of them..... Have a read if you dare xxx 

Necessary, if not comfortable viewing , 29/09/2009

• 
• Things Behind The Sun on DVD (2001) 
  Starring: Rosanna Arquette,  Don Cheadle,  Eric Stoltz
  Director: Allison Anders
  Certificate: 
  First let me state that I love Allison Anders films. Gas Food Lodging
   and Grace of My Heart are two of my favourite movies of all time.
  Things Behind the Sun will never feature in that list, but it was brave
   and compelling viewing. Stylistically the movie seems to owe more to
  the more experimental end of American indie (the wonky shot set ups
   and slightly wooden acting remind me of The Living End) than previous
  and arguably slicker productions by Anders. The theme is one which
  has been left relatively unexplored apart from in made for tv productions,
   which is a travesty, because Things Behind The Sun approaches its
  subject with a brutality and emotional honesty that left me shocked and 
  angry. The acting could have been better, the ending seemed a little
  cobbled together but I fully recommend watching this film.

Stylistically beautiful, well acted, original movie , 11/11/2009

• 
• Morvern Callar on DVD (2002) 
  Starring: Samantha Morton,  Kathleen McDermott,  Linda McGuire
  Director: Lynne Ramsay
  Certificate: 
  Watch now: £2.49
  I'll confess now that I've never seen Ratcatcher - it's on my list but I
  was at university embedded in a cheap bottle of something in that bit
  of the nineties so managed to somehow miss the boat. As a result
  I never realised how stylistically brave and interesting Lynne Ramsey's
  films are. Morvern Callar mostly struck me for its use of sound montage, 
  frequently at odds with the visuals and representing the central
  character's detached mental state. 
  Samantha Morton shines as ever as the title role, eternally broken,
  longing, generous and needy. The rest of the cast are also very accomplished.
  
  

I didn't get to the end, but I hope both characters die horribly , 16/11/2009

• 
• Twentynine Palms on DVD (2005) 
  Starring: Yekaterina Golubeva,  David Wissak
  Director: Bruno Dumont
  Certificate: 
  I seldom stop films half way through and vow not to get to the end and
   believe me I've sat  through some stinkers, but this movie left me leaping
   towards the stop button in near record time. A class clown from the
  Gus Van Sant school of - just follow the characters around slowly whilst
  they mumble in the foreground school of film-making, but with none 
  of the shock, charm or meaning of such gems as Elephant or Last Days. 
  
  
  I only fathomed the plot of this movie by reading it on this website, long
  turbulent sex scenes were reminiscent of the Catherine Bruilat / Bas Moir
   / all sex is rape movies that do for French cinema what Michael Winner
   has done for British. 
  
  
  The scenery is very pretty. 
  
  
  Avoid unless you are an insominac in a turbulent relationship who likes
   deserts.

Reminds me of everything I love about proper indie films , 12/10/2009

• 
• Crazy Streets on DVD (1987) 
  Starring: Hanna Schygulla,  Deborah Harry,  Alec Baldwin
  Director: Amos Kollek
  Certificate: 
  I fell in love with Amos Kollek after Queenie In Love, his films
  remind me of what American Independent cinema was before it
  descended into a genre consisting of romance films made by
  mainstream studios about 'quirky' people. Crazy Streets, with its 
  offbeat characters, porno acting and bizarre narrative twists is a
   welcome break from standard narrative films, the dry, strange
   humour reminds me of Tom Robbins' novels or even the films
  of Aki Kurismaki. The cool of sleazy 80's New York is a perfect
  setting, Hanna Schygulla is magnificent and Debbie Harry doesn't
  try to do too much but look cool. I say it's well worth the experience.
  
  

Watchable suckiness , 23/11/2009

• 
• Wedding Bell Blues on DVD (1996) 
  Starring: Illeana Douglas,  Paulina Porizkova,  Julie Warner
  Director: Dana Lustig
  Certificate: 
  Technically this film sucked. Apart from a few extremely good
   lines of dialogue I found the story shambolic and the characters a
   little bit one dimensional. There were moments of  wooden acting
   that even Illeana Douglas - one of the greatest human beings ever 
  created, could not dig her way out of. 
  
  
  However, and this may be down to my menstrual cycle or a hidden
  charm, I found the movie to be compulsive viewing. Maybe it's the
  novelty of seeing a film about three women who did deviate slightly
  from the desperate for male attention / cutesy / ditsy / clumsy / oooh
  don't you just want to take her home and look after her / writers for
  fluffy womens magazines that contemporary rom coms need to
  convince us all we want to be / love. It also had Debbie Reynolds
  and Richard Edson (admitedly the latter did very little apart from sit
  there, but it's great to see him working) in it - which is a reason unto itself. 
  
  
  Enjoy!
  
  
  

I loved Old Joy and I love Wendy and Lucy , 09/12/2009

• 
• Wendy and Lucy on DVD (2009) 
  Starring: Michelle Williams,  Will Patton,  Will Oldham
  Director: Kelly Reichardt
  Certificate: 
  Watch now: Unavailable
  This is a beautiful movie, this is a glorious movie. This is a movie
  about a woman who doesn't strip, shoot or pine for a husband
  and I wish that there were more of them. 
  
  
  Like Old Joy, Reichard's second film concentrates on the subtleties
   of character and the beauty of surroundings (Oregon shines as ever),
  we see human kindness (embodied in the security guard) contrasted
   with a petty mindedness (the store clerk) side by side and 
  seemingly un-judged by the film maker. 
  
  
  Most importantly we see Wendy - a character who is trying to make
  her way quietly through the world, unknown even to the audience
  who watch her. 
  
  
  Wendy and Lucy drifts along in a quiet, mellow haze telling a
  rootless story and it's well
   worth every second.

Do it! , 19/11/2009

• 
• Timecode on DVD (2000) 
  Starring: Salma Hayek,  Holly Hunter,  Saffron Burrows
  Director: Mike Figgis
  Certificate: 
  The fear is that Timecode will leave you riddled, as the
  movie began (on a Wednesday evening as my eyelids gained
  downward momentum) I feared that it may turn out to be 
  a cinematic brownie pack on tartrazine, with me as Brown
   Owl. Thankfully this was not the case. Although demanding
  on the eyes the story is somewhat unambitious and well 
  played out, leaving the technique to shine. Jeanne Tripplehorn
   and Salma Hayek camp it up fabulously; Stellan Skaarskard
  crumbles before our eyes and Holly Hunter / Stephen
   Weber don't do nearly enough. 
  
  
  I loved the use of sound cues and music to drive the viewer
   between shots and Mike Figgis' ability to mock himself for his
   own pretentiousness via the character of the film-maker, who
   drags her nu metal boyfriend along to pitch the concept for the film
   to the audience. 
  
  
  If you can get through the first five minutes of feeling like a movie
  producer in a room full
   of coked up drama students it's well worth a go.

Massive piece of crap , 20/06/2011

• 
• Waiting on DVD (2005) 
  Starring: Ryan Reynolds,  Anna Faris,  Justin Long
  Director: Rob McKittrick
  Certificate: 
  Please do yourselves a favour and don't bother with this piece
  of crap movie. The writer watched Clerks and then took a giant turd
  and thus this homophobic piece of crap was born. A must for
  anyone who believes that making jokes about gays or people with 
  disabilities is edgy and cool.

Wrong wrong so very very wrong. , 17/12/2009

• 
• The Family Stone on DVD (2005) 
  Starring: Sarah Jessica Parker,  Claire Danes,  Diane Keaton
  Director: Bezucha Thomas
  Certificate: 
  I watched The Family Stone for the second time yesterday.
  There were three reasons for this, firstly, it was Christmas
  and I've managed to lose my copies of it's a wonderful life / 
  Muppets Christmas Carol and One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing;
   secondly - I have a girl crush on Rachel Macadam and thirdly -
  I remembered it being bad but couldn't remember why. I now
  remember why. 
  
  
  The initial premise, as referred to in the trailer, is okay - typical
   Hollywood fare: bloke brings uptight fiancee home for Christmas -
  staging struggle between groovy right on family and slightly odd
  woman. Family decide to hate woman on the advice of a slightly 
  smug sister because fiancee clears her throat a lot. Mother and
   sister launch hate campaign against said fiancee. So this would
  normally conclude with - family and woman clash with hilarious
  consequences but are finally reunited when, I don't know - wise
  and hilarious grandmother ends up in hospital and is rescued by
  uptight fiancee - cue mulled wine and snow. 
  
  
  This doesn't happen in The Family Stone - instead the most
  cobbled together story known to humanity ensues, which succeeds
   in baffling and reeking horrific discomfort to the viewer in equal
   measure. Read instead: family wage seemingly unprevoked hate 
  campaign against uptight woman while son does little to stop this.
   Mother turns out to be dying - justifying hate campaign(?);
  younger sister is only mean because she hasn't
   been getting any; the coupling of the black guy and the deaf
  brother teaches us that it's okay to be black, deaf and gay all in
   one go (without having any other personality traits 
  whatsoever) and the pregnant sister accomplishes nothing apart
  from confusing me about what she'd been in previously (Greys
  Anatomy - duh!). Financee's sister turns up falls in love with her
  sister's man - which is fine because she's hot and they shared a
  whole scene together filled to the brim with dialogue about how
  she travels - and he wants to; other brother (Luke Wilson playing
   David Arquette) falls for fiancee because he finds her attractive
  and apparently her personality changes completely when she's
  drunk- which is okay because his brother is knocking off her sister
   at the same time. 
  
  
  Mother dies - everyone else is fine. The end. 
  Now I'm not a stickler for technique in screenwriting, but surely a
   rom-com; or a rom-dram or a dram-rom-com or whatever the f***
  this film is supposed to be, shouldn't leave the audience feeling
  like they've been groped by an ugly drunk man in a santa suit?
  
  
  I fully recommend watching One of Our Dinosaurs is Missing though.
  Your rating:  59% from 32,826 members

Strange mix but mostly good , 23/10/2009

• 
• Dancing At The Blue Iguana on DVD (2000) 
  Starring: Daryl Hannah,  Sheila Kelley,  Charlotte Ayanna
  Director: Michael Radford
  Certificate: 
  From the first few moments of this movie I feared that I was
  being lead into one of the more  generic of the post Tarantino
  late 90's offerings, luckily this wasn't the case. I had 
  ordered the film because of Jennifer Tilly and Sandra Oh, both
   extremely talented, versatile and charming actors, and was
   not disappointed. 
  
  
  Oh, Tilly and Daryl Hannah all give excellent performances,
  with extra points for having created and researched the characters
   themselves, in a film that shines some light on what is a pretty
  heinous and exploitative industry. 
  
  
  I'm guessing that the movie didn't become a massive success
   and was slated around these parts because, despite the actors
   best efforts there is a discomfort between the dance sequences,
   which I think are supposed to be sexy and the rest of the movie 
  which is a (gasp) film about women's relationships with other
  women. If you're in it for a jostle I think it will leave you feeling
  ripped off, then again, what do I know? loads of people are into
  doe eyed exploited, broken people writhing about slowly, that's
   why the pop industry exists. 
  
  
  Otherwise the only let down seems to be Sheila Kelley's brunette
  bambi impression, coupled with the blank eyed-they won't notice
   because it's art- performance of Elias Koteas (career highlight Teenage
   Mutant Ninja Turtles the Movie) Suffice to say no shock was
  registered a when Kelley's name appeared under the producers list. 
  
  
  I also recommend watching the documentary about the making
  of, where Darryl Hannah shows you the real person who inspired
  her character.