HairyLime Blog

Caught this one on our 'On Demand' cable service last night. I'm a big fan of 'submarine movies' with all their cliches and standardized plotlines (the 'silent running sequence', the 'depth charges sequence', the 'battle weary captain' the 'going too deep and the pressure is going to crush us sequence'). I wasn't expecting much at first, the acting by the bit players was wooden and the dialog a little corny, but once the two main characters were introduced and the chase begun, this turned out to be a pretty decent little war film. Mitchum and Jurgens were both great, and it was interesting to see a war film that actually avoids taking sides, and treats the enemy with a bit more respect and intelligence.

 

Some other favorites: Run Silent Run Deep, Tokyo Bay, U-571, Das Boot, Crimson Tide, The Hunt for Red October

I was frequently reminded of my favorite 'Sports Movies' while watching this Canadian Film, and how the best of them can move or excite or thrill despite the viewer's complete ignorance of the particular sport. I'm thinking of 'Breaking Away' (bicycle racing), or 'Hoosiers' (basketball), or 'Eight Men Out', 'The Rookie', 'The Natural' (baseball), 'Slap Shot' (hockey), 'Remember the Titans' (football), 'Rocky', 'Cinderella Man' or 'Body and Soul' (boxing) or even the recent 'Dodgeball'. All manage to engage the viewer in the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat regardless of whether you are a sports fan or not. There are times in this film that the filmmakers got close to the net, and a couple moments where they scored a goal, but they couldn't quite put together a hat trick with this one. The hockey action scenes were well filmed and edited, and gave a sense of excitement. I particularly enjoyed the scene where the notoriously violent New York player tries to 'get' our hero, but gets a surprising comeuppance. But the scenes never quite seemed to flow together enough to get the audience in a 'cheering' mood, but were just pockets of excitement here and there. I frequently found myself confused about what was going on. Perhaps this is one of those movies where you need to be familiar with the sport/sporting legend to fully appreciate it. The lead actor did a fine job, portraying the simple french canadian machinist/hockey star with a calm dignity and stubborn drive, and the 'fight for french canadian dignity' was effective and interesting. Roy Dupuis reminds me of a young Rock Hudson, or possibly Sam Raimi favorite Bruce Campbell. The whole 'family drama' angle kind of left me cold. I really wasn't overly interested in the 'brother in law who can't good tickets to the games' subplot, or the 'poor people fence' or the 'father in law who doesn't approve of the son-in-law' subplot (seems like they tried to squeeze too many subplots into the mix, and couldn't quite decide which one to emphasize or expand on, so all are given short shrift)..and the wife seemed almost an afterthought to the story (There is a scene where our hero goes all gushy over his newborn baby, but then we never see the kid again after that).. The actor who played the Montreal Canadiens coach was particularly good (and looks real familiar to  me, I'll have to IMDB him to see where else I've seen him). Some of the camera work seemed a bit unnecessary, especially the sudden switches to washed out black and white for certain scenes (with no particular rhyme or reason that I could decipher). Could've been a condender, but left me a bit cold. A cut above most of the other 'Spout Mavens' discs I've received.

Hmm. Saw this last night with the family unit at our local 'cheapie movie' theater, which plays a mixture of 2nd run blockbusters on their last legs mixed with a sprinkling of independant features (I think this one is already on DVD if I'm not mistaken). Not really what I was expecting, but that isn't always a bad thing. I admire all the actors, who all did a spectacular job, but the story was a bit uncomfortable to sit through. It is always a bit nerve wracking to watch a movie in which the main character gradually becomes unhinged, because you have a tendency to see things through their eyes, and on the one hand, you can see why their actions make sense based on their own inner logic, but on the other hand, you can't divorce your own personal feelings from that of the character you are watching, and you find yourself fighting the urge to scream at the screen "STOP IT - what the heck are you thinking?" I was reminded of such films as Scorcese's Taxi Driver, or King of Comedy, or Nick Nolte in Affliction, or Gene Hackman in The Conversation. I suppose we can be grateful that this movie didn't choose the conventional route of the the main character finding 'mr. right' and settling down to a happy ever after life. While the ending seemed a bit unrealistic (she's going to get her job back and be forgiven of attacking her neighbor with a hunting knife and embezzling funds with a few phone calls?), I did however like the final 'summing up' where she compares her 'love of animals' with all the other various forms of love and affection and obsession that others cling to, and really, is it any less meaningful - but I suppose what it comes down to, is where YOUR obsessions and interests cross the line and impact others (and THEIR loves, interests and obsessions). I guess I admire this movie, but I can't honestly say I enjoyed it.

Rented this one on the basis of a few interesting trailers and a couple conflicting reviews. The movie started out pretty good, and had some interesting camera work and special effects throughout, but it was too long, and meanders around aimlessly in the middle and then by the time the movie picks up steam at the end, it feels less like a satisfactory conclusion, and more like a video game hero who just beat the 'big boss' at the end of the level. Rather disappointing overall.

Starting to notice a trend in the four movies I've received as part of the 'Spout Maven's' group. Each of the movies has involved a young boy, set adrift, abandoned, neglected by adult foibles and shortcomings beyond his power to either influence or comprehend. In "Clean" it was drugs and show business, in "The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things" it was a whole myriad of child neglect nightmare scenarios, in "Mother Mine" it was WWII and the foster parent program, and, now in "Roads to Koktebel" we have alcoholism and abject poverty. This movie is what you would call 'deliberately paced', which is an art film term for slow moving. This film was so slow in fact, that I was convinced at one point that it was moving backwards. We are introduced to a father and son travelling with little or no means of support from the big city of Moscow to a new life at a sister's house by the Black Sea. The father and son seem rather distant from each other, the father speaks in curt sarcastic tones to the boys' occasional questions, and the boy has a stern far off look of sad determination much of the time. We gradually understand by the father's refusal of vodka, that he had a drinking problem at some point, which may have added to their bad fortune, and that the boy's mother died at some point in the past and may have led to the drinking, but it is never spelled out in so many words. At one point he falls off the wagon with a persuasive host, and shows signs of alcoholic desperation for a single scene, but seems to get over it rather quickly (a shotgun to the shoulder will do that I suppose), and when they are taken in by a somewhat attractive woman doctor, the father falls under her charms and abruptly changes their plans and decides to stay there with the woman. The son gets fed up with the father and takes off to complete the journey alone. There are frequent allusions to flying and albatroses throughout, and when the boy reaches the 'sea' we are treated to a few confusing scenes that I suppose have something to do with the 'flying' metaphor, but they were lost on me, I'm afraid. The film is beautifully shot, the bleak Russian landscapes and life of poverty were filmed with a real love of composition and color. I was reminded of the Cormac McCarthy book "The Road" (except without the cannibals), in which the boy eventually leaves the father to find his own path - and I was also reminded of the wonderful film "Sullivan's Travels" about the filmmaker who wants desperately to make a 'serious film' about 'real people', 'real poverty and real desperate lives', and discovers that real people go to the movies to escape their 'real poverty and real desperate lives' (and to make this point the movie is wonderful in the way it uses every cheap escapism trick in the book, slapstick car chases, caricatured stereotypes, pratfalls, and Veronica Lake does a number of titilating shower scenes).

Another example of how a decent director can manage to get a good performance out of usually 'over the top' comedians by simply reigning them in. (Jack Black in Nacho Libre, Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine, Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love come to mind immediately). Not quite as good as most of the recent crop of esoteric independent films that have been crawling out of the woodwork in recent years (Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine, I Heart Huckabees, etc etc) with oddball plotlines and a leap of faith and imagination by the audience required, - but overall, I think it works and is an enjoyable film on many levels. Maggie Gyllenhaal is appealing as the romantic lead, Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman give workable but unmemorable performances, and Will Ferrell does a fine job as the bland everyman lead - the one character which seemed totally unnecessary (except as someone for Emma Thompson to converse with) was Queen Latifah who seemed totally out of her element here.

Been a problematic viewing history for me on this movie. Saw the last third of this a couple months ago on cable, and noticed over the past week that it has appeared in our 'on demand' menu from our local cable company, but have been having trouble with the feature, it keeps giving me error messages when I try to call it up, and then last night we finally got it going, but then in conked out on us about halfway through the picture. But I think at this point, I've seen most of it. I really like the musical version from the late 60s, but it was interesting seeing a bit more faithful adaptation of the story. Beautifully cast, gritty and squalid, with some fine performances by Ben Kingsley as a bit more sinister Fagin than Ron Moody's sly tongue in cheek performance. Barney Clark gives Oliver a bit more moxie than Mark Lester's fey pantywaist interpretation, and makes the story a bit more believable as a result.

Saw this last weekend, and I had pretty high expectations for it, based on the word of mouth and reviews that I'd seen. I think it is a welcome relief in the heat of summer from the usual hollywood crap to see a small, cinema verite bittersweet romance make it to the multiplexes, which could account for its popularity with the starved moviegoing public. I was a bit underwhelmed. The music was ok, the male lead "guy" (Glen Hansard) who I had seen before as the guitar player in "the Commitments" was great, his singing was impassioned, his awkward mooning over the girl was believable, and his quiet relationship with his vacuum cleaner repairman father was cute. The "girl" on the other hand, I just didn't see what he saw in her, her vocals and piano playing were a bit dull and wooden, her personality wasn't really fleshed out very much - perhaps it was enough for her to just "like his music" (where did the money come from to rent to recording studio? I'm a bit unclear on that?). As for the film overall, a bit heavy on the MTV sequences (but probably more enjoyable to watch than more painfully awkward conversations). The 'Dublin Street Musician' culture that we got a glimpse of in the beginning was kind of quirky and interesting, and on the plus side, the movie really knew how not to overstay its welcome, clocking in under 90 minutes (ending just about at the point where I was checking my wife's luminous watch to see how much more of the movie we had coming).