Movies in May, 2015

  1. Portrait of Jennie at the Dryden, May 2: Jenn and I went to see this as part of the Eastman House's Nitrate Picture Show. It's an well-written tale of star-crossed lovers—or perhaps just an artist's delusion.
  2. Salad Days: A Decade of Punk in Washington, DC (1980-90) at the Cinema, May 4: I got to see this very good documentary about—well, just look at the title. I found it quite inspiring because it defies the American experience that making art/things/a difference is only for exceptional people—punk lets people know that creativity is natural and available to anyone. Plus, it reminded me of my days seeing bands at the Bug Jar.
  3. The Clouds of Sils Maria at the Little, May 6: Jenn and I weren't sure about this one based on what we saw about the reviews. Fortunately, we both found it to be an engaging and interesting movie. realistic characters, good depth. It follows an actress, Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) and her young assistant Valentine (Kristen Stewart) as they travel to an awards ceremony, and then how Maria gets involved with a remake of a film that launched her career except she would now be playing the older woman who's driven to suicide by he younger peer. The methodical pacing and fair treatment of all characters was well executed and worthwhile. And I'm sufficiently out of touch to have not noticed numerous pop-culture references and jokes that seem to have annoyed other reviewers.
  4. Wall Street at the Dryden, May 7: Apparently, when the film opened in 1987, audiences were drawn to the charismatic Gordon Gekko played by Michael Douglas even though it was clear we were supposed to sympathize with Martin Sheen's level-headed salt-of-the-earth Carl Fox (father of Charlie Sheen and character Bud Fox, respectively.) Today's sociopolitical climate is a bit different, though, and Gekko seemed more like the arrogant sociopath hedonist he was intended to be. In all it was an interesting movie of the 1980s that encapsulates the mood of the era quite well.
  5. Avengers: The Age of Ultron at Regal Cinema Culver Ridge, May 9: Jenn wanted to go see this and I figured I'd give it a shot. It was my first modern 3D movie and the effect was as good as I think is possible, but I still didn't feel like if I had seen the movie in 2D that I would have regretted it. Probably because I'm not a Marvel aficionado, I found a lot of the film to be quite boring. I felt like I was being lackadaisically and mechanically dragged through a story solely to get to the next dazzling special effects showcase. The effects were kind of cool, I guess, but they're still there as demonstration rather than by necessity.
  6. An Honest Liar at the Little, May 12: James "The Amazing" Randi is a magician and an evangelist against charlatanism. His fundamental belief is that magic and trickery are wonderful for entertainment, but vile when used to trick people into falsehoods. The documentary, interestingly, revealed more about Randi's life than I knew before, but then again, all I knew him as was a master debunker. During the videoconference question-and-answer, I asked Randi if there was danger in relying too much on science, intending to key in on the notion of "true believers" who reflexively shut out all opposing viewpoints. He certainly missed that point and unfortunately responded as a true-believer in science. Then again, he's well into his 80s and it was rather late, so I can imagine he might not have been at his sharpest.
  7. The Trespasser at the Dryden, May 15: Jenn and I got a chance to see this very early "talkie". I found the camera work—particularly its sweeping camera moves—to be excellent and with a modern feel. The characters were deep and their relationships were very natural and honest-seeming. An early scene had two waking lovers lounging together in the most natural way—and a way that would soon be banned by the Hays censorship codes just a year later.
  8. Félix and Meira at the Little, May 16: Jenn and I saw the preview for this and thought it looked pretty good. I appreciated the gentle, metered pacing more than Jenn although both of us liked the movie overall. Félix is a man adrift at life, dealing with the impending death of his father; Meira is a married woman in a devout Jewish household who longs to express herself. They meet serendipitously and are immediately intrigued by one another. I think the thing I appreciated most was, as the story unfolds, each of the main characters is revealed to be not as simple as they first appear. And I was able to let the overarching story rise above my disdain for the religious misogyny—I'm sure if it concerned me I could equally forgive Félix's slacker lifestyle, or Meira's childlike naïveté.
  9. Rocks in my Pockets at the Cinema, May 19: I got a chance to see this animated feature from the charming Latvian/American filmmaker Signe Baumane. It is nearly a documentary about Baumane's family's history of mental illness—particularly suicidal depression, but told in a remarkably frank and surprisingly humorous way. Her accounts of her own depression and the personal, details of the experiences of her family are very honest and interesting. The remainder of the film, though, is somewhat uneven, spending a lot of time on seemingly inconsequential family history and on her eldest kin's stonewalling that haunts more recent generations. Nonetheless, in totality, it paints a remarkable picture. Plus, Baumane herself was vivacious and engaged the audience with a few of her paper mâche rocks and a movie-quiz contest for several of the 30,000 hand-drawn frames.
  10. Night Nurse at the Dryden, May 22: Jenn and I got to see this early Barbara Stanwyck film made before the Hays censorship codes were enforced. Karen Noske introduced the film and mentioned how shocking some of the the scenes were (even to modern audiences), and how many double entendres they used. Unfortunately, I missed all the double entendres and didn't really find it "shocking". Nonetheless, it's kind of an odd movie and worth checking out. Stanwyck plays a newly hired night-nurse at a hospital where she sees disturbing injuries and is under constant scrutiny by the head nurse. She gets an assignment taking care of a couple sick children but discovers something amiss. I say the film is kind of odd because the whole central plot about the children felt like it was added on in the middle; as if the writers suddenly learned that a story works better if there's some kind of conflict. In any case, there's a scene where Stanwyck shows her power, ferociously standing up to a man (an early role by Clark Gable of all people). The thing that I thought special was she never flinched and it seemed like Gable was genuinely afraid, having a hard time not backing down—most actors I've seen tend to flinch in deference, if only for a split second.
  11. Iris at the Little, May 27: Jenn mentioned this film and wanted to see it so I went along with virtually no information beforehand. It's an expertly shot documentary by Albert Maysles about octogenarian fashion designer Iris Apfel—the "rare bird of fashion" and self-described "geriatric starlet." As would be obvious to anyone who's seen me, fashion is not something I aspire towards, so it takes a lot for me to notice. While I found Apfel's designs interesting, I'm not grabbed by them; her personal style, though, would certainly draw my attention and earns my respect. Overall it's nice to find someone whose vibrancy and grace is a model for drinking deeply from life.
  12. Occupy the Farm at the Little, May 28: I wanted to see this documentary about people in a fairly poor neighborhood in San Francisco who attempt to claim designated agricultural land before it was ruined and turned into commercial development. I think I was the only one in the audience who was not inspired. Rather than see hope in the "regular people valiantly take on the aristocracy" story, I could see clearly the fact that three old, rich white guys were equal to a community of 10,000 people, and that industry, police, the government, places of higher learning—every pillar of hierarchical authority—have been gleefully conquered by the ideology of greed. So aside from that kind of cynical diatribe, I prefer to wallow in my pit of gloom and quietly offer whatever support I can from the sidelines, hoping to not derail the optimism and strength that is the only possibility for a better world.
  13. Furious Seven at the Cinema, May 30: I was looking for something to do and thought I'd be as amused by this car-chase installment as I was the last one. I was a bit bored at times between car chases, but overall entertained—I will freely admit my standards are extremely low for this kind of film, so I forgive a whole lot of inanity. When I wasn't watching the ridiculously contrived scenes of automotive trickery, I amused myself trying to imagine how this could be written as satire. Unable to improve upon the mind-numbing dialog, I wondered if the Furious films are actually self-contained satire: I laughed out loud at least twice at the absurd events that transpired in the form of a "plot", and at one point out-loud asked for more car chases when I was bored with the dragging interpersonal developments. And aside from the comically sexist presentation of women (although admittedly some of the men are exceptional physical specimens), this film would pass the Bechdel/Wallace Test.
  14. Insurgent at the Cinema, May 30: I knew nothing of this film until I started watching and swear I saw a parody trailer or scathing review but just can't find it. It didn't bother me that this is the sequel to Divergent since the simple storyline was pretty easy to pick up. What did bother me was the "young adult" writing style which is basically "this makes no sense but instead of fixing it we'll call it 'young adult'". I gather in the film you get a personality test that fits you into one of five kinds of people unless, you know, you're human and actually are not a perfect fit into any one group—but that makes you "divergent" which means that you are special and a hunted underdog. Oooh! Just like, you know, everybody watching the film. Seriously: young adult does not need to mean "garbage"—please! After I ran out of popcorn, I decided that anything else was better to do so I left. Not even Shailene Woodley's short haircut I adore so much could keep me in that theater.

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