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JimBell

Member since 2/21/2007, last signed in awhile ago.

""For what it's worth""

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Personal statement: Sometimes a movie review can speak for, and to, a general viewer. Then the review should support what it claims. At other times, a review is clearly an idiosyncratic reaction to a film. Then the review should attempt to explain the personal viewer response. And at still other times, a review might examine a movie in the context of larger social issues. Then the reviewer should explain the connection and have something informed to say on the issues.

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Interested in:Comedy, Comedy Drama, Crime, Culture & Society, Drama, Education, Historical Film, History, Language & Literature, Music, Mystery, Nature, Spirituality & Philosophy, Spy Film, Theater, Thriller

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Goodbye Solo review
By JimBell in JimBell Blog
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"Why are neo-realist films (neo-neo-realist?) such as Goodbye Solo (2008) so difficult to understand? Goodbye Solo should be the rather straight-forward story of a buoyant, good-hearted cabbie, Solo (Suleymane Sy Savane), who tries to save a ride, William (Red West), from committing suicide. But trying to figure out what the film is saying is difficult. Why? For one thing, the film makers put a tremendous effort into making things looks real, and maybe they don’t put as much effort into making things meaningful. This suggestion is based on the assumption that you cannot do everything or else you get cognitive overload. In Goodbye Solo, the city of Winston-Salem is so vividly portrayed that it almost becomes a character. Long shots of deserted, down-at-heel streets create a slightly menacing atmosphere, and shots of humdrum motels foster an empty feeling, a sense of separation. The acting is equally realistic, with the actors showing the natural complexity of people. More speci ... " [More]

Outsourced

Outsourced review
By JimBell in JimBell Blog
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"Outsourced (2006) takes the very serious topic of outsourcing, treats it with a light touch, and presents an alternative view of it. Todd (Josh Hamilton) sees his entire phone-order department outsourced to India, and he saves his bacon by reluctantly agreeing to go to India to train his replacement and the Indian workers who are replacing the operators in Seattle. Although things do not go well at first, quiet comedy abounds. Refreshingly, Outsourced does not try for laughs by making the characters quirky. In fact, Todd is relentlessly ordinary. This leads to one of the most deft touches of this intercultural movie: When Todd runs into a culture he doesn’t understand, and when nearly everything is going wrong, he does not become louder and more ridiculous, he becomes quieter. Although this could lead to a long dull stretch in the movie, it allows the Indian culture to come to the fore. The comedy arises not from individual quirkiness but from the environment. When Todd gi ... " [More]

Cheri

Cheri review
By JimBell in JimBell Blog
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"Cheri (2009) is poorly made movie telling in a remote and detached manner the story of the love affair between a middle-aged prostitute and a spoiled young lover. We do not care much about Lea (Michelle Pfeiffer), although she seems a cut above the other courtesans. Cheri (Rupert Friend) is half her age: she is his unofficial godmother. He is a spoiled brat and womanizer, selfish and beautiful and quite immature. Now that we have characters we don’t like or care mush about, we are further distanced from their heartbreak by prominent and superficial music which contradicts the emotions we should be feeling. Having a staccato, bouncing score drown out a lover’s cries of anguish may epitomize the superficiality of the Belle Époque around 1900 in France, but it also distances the viewer. If that was not enough, we have the classic method of keeping viewers at arm’s length, the voice-over narration. The movie even ends with this narration, and I would be greatly ... " [More]

The Brothers Bloom

The Brothers Bloom review
By JimBell in JimBell Blog
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"Whether you like The Brothers Bloom (2008) will largely depend on your sense of humour and your tolerance for being fooled. Film maker Rian Johnson assumes you are “full of beans” like he is, and that you’ll follow the twists and turns of the caper with interest. It worked for me, but a sense of humour and a tolerance for ambiguity are highly individual. I liked the sly sense of humour. For example, when the con artists Bloom (Adrian Brody) and his brother Stephen (Mark Raffelo) select a lonely American heiress as their last target, they get Penelope (Rachael Weicz) who “collects hobbies”—we see a montage of her playing a variety of musical instruments, spinning discs, leaping into the air for karate kicks, and so on, ending with a piece of origami that looks a bit sad. The karate and the fancy paper appear later in the movie, which to my mind makes the montage of hobbies not gratuitous but which to some people seems merely smug. There is an ... " [More]

Easy Virtue

Easy Virture review
By JimBell in JimBell Blog
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"Easy Virtue (2008) got a difficult reception, but the movie almost works. You’d think it would work. It’s a breath of fresh air—a Noel Coward piece of wit and satire is a pleasant change from grunting super creatures. It has a good director—Stephan Elliot’s The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) was a wonderful piece of Australiana. It has excellent actors—Kristin Scott Thomas, Colin Firth, and others. The English country estate is gorgeous and the cinematography does it justice. So why didn’t the movie work? This frothy movie doesn’t get good until it gets serious. The first half of the movie is all giddiness and fluff. Although some viewers might find this tolerable or even amusing, I found it tiresome and then inconsequential, so I was set to not watch the second half. Okay, so the rich English aristocrat brings home a sexy American divorcee and the snotty family doesn’t like her much. But then suddenly the ... " [More]

Duplicity

Duplicity review
By JimBell in JimBell Blog
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"Duplicity (2009) is forgettable. You’d expect it to make an impression because with Tony Gilroy at the helm (Jason Bourne movies; Michael Clayton) and a fleet of top-notch actors . . . But even if we grant that it is a romantic caper film and not supposed to be substantial, it is still not a particularly good romantic caper film. Why? Take the romantic part. Even though Clare (Julia Roberts) and Ray (Clive Owens) have some on-screen chemistry, what is the basis of their attraction? We don’t know. They are both professionals who lie for a living and work in the unsavoury field of corporate espionage. Should we care about them? Take the caper part. We don’t know until well into the movie that there is a caper. At first it seems like industrial espionage; then, through a series of flash backs, we see that Clare and Ray are trying to pull a fast one. When the caper comes to a conclusion, it’s not what you expected. But this surprise ending is a cheat: You w ... " [More]

Easy Virtue review
By JimBell in JimBell Blog
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"Easy Virtue (2008) got a difficult reception, but the movie almost works. You’d think it would work. It’s a breath of fresh air—a Noel Coward piece of wit and satire is a pleasant change from grunting super creatures. It has a good director—Stephan Elliot’s The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) was a wonderful piece of Australiana. It has excellent actors—Kristin Scott Thomas, Colin Firth, and others. The English country estate is gorgeous and the cinematography does it justice. So why didn’t the movie work? This frothy movie doesn’t get good until it gets serious. The first half of the movie is all giddiness and fluff. Although some viewers might find this tolerable or even amusing, I found it tiresome and then inconsequential, so I was set to not watch the second half. Okay, so the rich English aristocrat brings home a sexy American divorcee and the snotty family doesn’t like her much. But then suddenly the ... " [More]

Re:Which of these movies direct ...
By JimBell in Movie Polls
"What an amazing list of movies! Even though I got a huge kick out of Dr. Strangelove, 2001 has stayed with me--a classic. " [More]

Re:Which of these recent Brad P ...
By JimBell in Movie Polls
"[I went with Troy, not because Brad was so good in it but because he made a heroic effort to support a not-very-good movie. " [More]

Amongst White Clouds

Amongst White Clouds review
By JimBell in JimBell Blog
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"Amongst White Clouds (2005; documentary)—I don’t have much to say about this fine documentary except it is for a limited audience and I really liked it. This young guy (Edward Burger) is reading about Buddhism when he realizes that there are people out there living the life now that he is only reading about. So he learns Mandarin (yes), tracks down the hermits living in some mountains in China, and moves in amongst them—for years. I admire the dedication. With camera in hand, he interviews the different Buddhist monks living a mile or so apart in the mountains. I found their different versions of Buddhism intriguing. It is not that they are confused or uncertain or misinformed or eccentric, but, as the Buddha said, you have to find your own path, and they have, each one emphasizing a different aspect of the teachings. I also really liked the seclusion. Actually, not the seclusion but rather the way the monks handled the seclusion. It was an inspiration. " [More]

Re:Which of these from Tim Out' ...
By JimBell in Movie Polls
"[Although I've only seen half the film, I'll go with Mr. Kane. I think the film had so much of the passion and intelligence that Wells brought to film making, usually for the good but not always. JIMBELL " [More]

The French Connection (1971) re ...
By JimBell in JimBell Blog
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"When I saw The French Connection (1971) years ago, I thought it was fantastic. When I rewatched it last night, I thought it was good but not that remarkable. In American film history, it holds a prominent place, partly as sparking gritty urban crime dramas. But how does it view in and of itself? It’s probably worth mentioning, because we’d mention it for any film that never won a bunch of Academy awards, but the opening scene in France is incomprehensible. Some guy goes home and some other guy shoots him. Later we recognize the shooter as the accomplice (Marcel Brozzuffi) of the French drug smuggler, Alain (Frenando Rey). But we have to listen to the director’s commentary on DVD to learn that the victim was a French undercover agent. The plot thereafter is easy to follow because it is largely a series of chase scenes, the most famous being Popeye Doyle’s (Gene Hackman) driving a “borrowed” car under the elevated train tracks as he chases the ... " [More]

Lists

Films I've seen (590)
Films I've seen

Film Noir I"ve Seen (31)

Films I want to see (1)
Films I want to see

Neo-Noir Films I've Seen (15)

Films I want to buy (0)
Films I want to buy

The Best Movies I Saw in 2006 (0)
1. House of Mirth 2. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room 3. The Matador 4. An Inconvenient T ...

The Best Movies I Saw in 2005 (0)
1. The Two Family House 2. The Story of the Weeping Camel 3. Hotel Rwanda 4. The Aviator 5. ...

The Best Movies I Saw in 2004 (0)
1. Lost in Translation 2. Girl with the Pearl Earring 3. Matchstick Men 4. The Station Agent ...

The Best Movies I Saw in 2002 and 2003 (0)
1. Iris 2. The Bourne Identify 3. The Pledge 4. Memento 5. Spy Game 6. Liberty Heights 7. Posses ...

The Best Movies I Saw in 2007 (0)
1. The Painted Veil (2006) 2. Blood Diamond (2006) 3. The White Countess (2005) 4. Who Killed th ...

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