Home > Blogs > Sir Critic on Cinema > Archives > 2009 > August > 11
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
I Love What Are You Watching, Man - and DVDs too!
This week’s DVDs bring us an acclaimed foreign film, an acclaimed bromance, and a movie that got a lot of squealing acclaim from Zac Efron fans
The Class: Many people, myself included, expected this French film about a teacher dealing with tough students to win the Foreign Language Film Oscar. Instead, Japan’s Departures won. I will watch this soon to see how just that decision was.
I Love You, Man: One of the better so-called “bromances” gets most of its laughs from great chemistry by Paul Rudd and Jason Segel. Rudd is about to get married and realizes he has no close male friend to be his best man, so he recruits Segel to do so. The movie doesn’t OD on crude gags, focusing instead on the friendship and its pitfalls. Although Rudd and Segel are both veterans of Judd Apatow movies, Apatow had nothing to do with this film - the co-writer/director is John Hamburg, rebounding nicely from the lame Along Came Polly. GRADE: B+
17 Again: I didn’t expect much from this latest entry in the worn-out magical body switching genre, but it was better than I expected thanks to winning turns from Zac Efron, playing the teen version of a man who wished a little too hard to relive his high school years. Leslie Mann, as ever, is engaging as the spurned wife. However, those good performances aren’t quite enough to redeem the predictable screenplay. Full review. GRADE: C+
What Are You Watching
Here’s what I’ve seen outside of the megaplexes lately.
Grey Gardens (1975/2000): The well-regarded documentary by the Maysles brothers about Jackie Kennedy’s relatives living in squalor was fascinating precisely because it didn’t spell out exactly how the women got that way - one could infer how from watching “Little Evie” interact with her mother, Big Evie. This year’s HBO dramatization of the same story is surprisingly effective, thanks to strong performances from Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore, but it’s less compelling than the documentary because it “literalizes” the story. The documentary: A-/The TV movie: B+
I Know Where I’m Going!: This wartime romance by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, about a woman who falls for another man while a storm delays her journey to her wedding, isn’t among my favorite films of the duo - as wartime romances go, I prefer their A Matter of Life and Death. However, like all their movies, this is a unique, intriguing experience that rather reminded me of John Sayles’ film The Secret of Roan Inish. GRADE: A-
Jezebel/Dark Victory: I watched these Better Davis pictures back-to-back this past weekend, and was a bit surprised by both. Jezebel, which has been called Davis’ Gone With the Wind, has the better reputation and indeed boasts some very powerful moments, but it struck me as more than a little dated. I was more touched by the “woman’s weepie” Dark Victory, in which Davis struggles with a terminal illness. Then there are the side benefits of watching Humphrey Bogart attempt an Irish brogue, and of watching Davis and Ronald Reagan play a drunk scene together. Jezebel: B+/Dark Victory: A-
To Kill a Mockingbird: Twelve Angry Men may be the best film about the court system, but, having seen Mockingbird this past weekend at the Victoria Cool FIlms Series, I was reminded that this is the best film about dealing with injustice. And really, is there a cooler authority/father figure than Atticus Finch? GRADE: A+
Now it’s your turn to tell me what you’ve watched of late.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Post your comment | Categories: On Video/DVD, What Are You Watching?
