November 27, 2009

• Movie Review Update 11/27/09

  previous reviews here.

  Anvil: The Story of Anvil (2008) – documentary following the flash-in-the-pan and thoroughly forgotten 1980s heavy metal band Anvil.  they used to tour with huge names like Bon Jovi and the Scorpions, but they are old now and still desperately clinging to a possible return to 1980s form.  the film is a fantastic look at these broken rockers and how they keep scratching to achieve the success of their younger years, a success they are convinced is their due.  it’s a sad, depressing look at holding on too tight, but it’s also, at the same time, hopeful and optimistic.  3.5 stars. 
  
  Observe and Report (2009) – seth rogen’s a mall cop trying to protect his love from a perverted flasher.  i can’t tell if it’s seth rogen or the writer/director Jody Hill, but someone deserves a big FAIL for this heap of schizophrenic garbage.  one thing is for sure, Rogen can’t carry a movie by himself without the usual Apatow magic.  this film, which is supposed to be a dark comedy, tries to toe that very fine line that successful dark comedies balance on, but instead zig zags all across it like some drunk starlet.  the extremely unhappy and bizarre turns it takes leaves it completely at odds with itself, and left me wondering wtf they were thinking when they green lit this terrible terrible movie.  1 star. 

  Food, Inc. (2008) – documentary about the fucked up food industry and how we’re all just a bunch of sheep consumers getting taken for a ride.  if the movie looks and sounds like Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, it’s because the movie is basically a super-condensed (short on the details) video primer of those two books.  no surprise, Fast Food author Eric Schlosser is listed as a producer and Omnivore author Michal Pollan is listed as a special consultant or something or other.  both are also heavily featured in the movie.  either way, obviously, the film is not news to anyone who’s read those books, but would probably be interesting to anyone unfamiliar with our society’s addiction to industrial food products and our enslavement to corporate interests.  (so dramatic!)  3.5 stars. 

  Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) – sergio leone’s Peter Fonda western.  a wild west entrepreneur and his children are gunned down, so charles bronson and jason robards are on the case!  made just two years after the spectacular The Good The Bad and The Ugly, this departs from the “traditional” western and ventures into the more artsy western film.  the first half is littered with long, extended scenes with no dialogue and very little actual movement, and when the second half gets rolling, it turns out that what it’s rolling to isn’t really all that special to begin with.  2.5 stars. 

  The Limits of Control (2008) – indie darling jim jarmusch’s latest film.  a hitman travels through Spain, collecting a series of mysterious clues that eventually lead to the ultimate job.  as far as i can tell, it’s not really a story about a hitman, nor his job.  he’s just an observer, our eyes and ears, in this film that i think just wants to produce a series of dreamlike images and situations.  quite frankly, i’m grasping at straws with that explanation provided by one of the film’s characters because i’m still not 100% sure what the fuck the film was about.  it’s this quiet dude who meets people and collects little blurbs about life from them, each meeting transmitting a solid sense of place and moment, if not purpose.  i could stand 30 minutes of that film, certainly not two hours.  1.5 stars. 

  Where the Wild Things Are (2009) – my thoughts on this movie here.  one of the best films i’ve seen in years.  the range and potency of the emotions i felt watching this film might be a first for me.   4.5 stars. 

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