Office Monkey

The Last Kiss (directed by Tony Goldwyn stars Zach Braff, Rachel Bilson)

So bad. Paul Haggis is out of touch.The film contributes nothing to the discussion of monogamy and commitment and the dated gender tropes and perceptions about relationships make no sense in the mouths of his young, modern day characters. ick. It was exactly what i thought it was going to be. -ML

Battle Royale (directed by Kinji Fukasaku)

I really enjoyed this one too. Based on a novel by Koushun Takami, a class of grade 9 students are chosen each year to battle for survival on an island until only one is left alive. Loved the characters and loved seeing the high school experience- its dramas, friendships and relationships- play out in this setting. Plus the element of the whole survival on an evacuated island- i can never get enough of that fantasy. -ML

loved it. very brecht. i watched it the first time with no subtitles and here’s what i got from it: each group presents a philosophy- might, pacifism, cooperation, hedonism, nihilsm, individualism, technology etc, but basically, might without light is tyranny and light without might is a slaughter. the basic esssence for society’s survival is humanity represented by the girl, but it needs might to support it (her guardian boys). the sequel is a load of crap. never watch it. -TL

Sin City (directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, stars Bruce Willis, Rosario Dawson, Clive Owen, Brittany Murphy, Benicio Del Torre, Mickey Rourke, Elijah Wood, Jessica Alba)

Thought the movie was fun and enjoyable to watch. Violent but totally palatable. Big chivalry theme so when the good guys get hurt, its martyrish and romantic and when the bad guys get hurt, they deserve it. A lot of cheese acting and writing but Brittany Murphy, Benicio Del Torre, and Mickey Rourke (i cant believe that was Mickey Rourke!) were awesome. -ML

Loved Mickey Rourke and Elijah Wood. Cinematically great, and violence not so bad cuz it was stylized but the acting was really cheese. I felt it needed to be a bit more restrained-too dark -TL

Talk to Her (directed by Pedro Almodovar)

Not sure what to think of this movie. It was definitely interesting and held my attention but in the end I’m not sure what I walked away with… maybe I’m too accustomed to simplified storylines that create caricatures instead of characters but I’m not sure what i felt watching this film. Again, I also felt like the film was rooted in romantic yet dated gender perceptions that objectify women. Perhaps what bothers me is that the female characters lacked the complexity that the male characters seemed to possess. I dont know. I watched a trailer of All About My Mother (Almodovar’s previous film) that was featured on the dvd and it only seemed to confirm my suspicions. The introduction of each character was prefaced with the tagline “Part of every woman is a ____ ” with the blank being filled with the word “mother”, “saint” and “whore” - depending on the character being featured. Talk about classic essentialized qualities of the female. Someone’s gotta help me out with this one. -ML

To Sir With Love (directed by James Clavell, stars Sidney Poitier)

I rented two movies months ago and finally sat down and watched them last week. I don’t have much to say about this one. Poitier’s Mark Thackery plays an engineer who gets a teaching job in a remedial school while waiting for a better opportunity to come along and makes an impact on his students where others before him had failed. Honestly I found the movie a little juvenile-it played out like a male fantasy more than anything else. All about being The Man- the prettiest girls fall in love with him and the males all fall in line and acknowledge his dominance (there’s an actual physical confrontation between the student ringleader and Poitier) blah. Also, very dated notions of gender. no good. i think i might actually prefer Dangerous Minds. -ML

An Inconvenient Truth (directed by Davis Guggenheim)

Some hokey directorial choices in terms of shot selection but easily overlooked as Al Gore gives an exceptional presentation on Global Warming and our role in causing/responding to it. Very compelling visual representations of data and articulate and insightful reflections on the obstacles we face within ourselves that prevent us from taking action. Also, despite melissa ethridge’s patronizing and lame theme song,i think the movie has the capacity to motivate, inspire and mobilize. -ML

King Kong (directed by Peter Jackson, stars Adrian Brody, Naomi Watts, Jack Black)

I think Jackson is the new Spielberg (blockbuster action guy). That scene when the kid is shooting the bugs offa Brody is pure Spielberg.

All that being said, I really enjoyed Kong. Lotsa fun. The first act is super slow and long (the movie is 3 hours so i guess it’s par for the course). But once they get to the island, that’s when the fun begins. A rollercoaster ride of thrills. I quite enjoyed the “natives”, the “stampede”, the “dinosaur fight” and the “bugs”. Finally, even though I enjoyed what happened on the island best (2nd act), the movie has a solid 3rd act which is what most movies lack these days. All in all a fun time at the movies. thumbs up. -TL

Walk the Line (directed by James Mangold, stars Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon)

Saw this one with M over the holidays. It was pretty well written, well acted and well directed… but in the end, the movie feels inconsequential. I think this is frequently a problem with biopics- trying to give some sort of significance or social relevance to an individual’s life- why are we telling his life story? The film here however does leave a bit of mark. Focusing on the great love that supposedly existed between Cash and his wife, the conflict between them- specifically Carter’s fear of playing the saviour/guardian angel role in Cash’s life- continues to be an existing issue. Though the movie does end happily with the couple finally being united, it is with more than just a dash of apprehension that Carter accepts Cash’s proposal and so the film avoids a simplistic happily-ever-after resolution that would normalize the very type of relationship Witherspoon’s character wants to avoid.-ML

Sideways (directed by Alexander Payne, stars Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen, Sandra Oh)

Rented Sideways with K last night and was very disappointed. Not sure if the hype surrounding the film or the fact that the dvd froze a couple times throughout the film affected my judgement but I found it pretty trite and negligible. All the funny parts of the film are in the trailer. The movie could have been called Miserable Men and the Women who Love Them, or A Wine Tour of Nappa Valley. Considering the film earned an oscar and 86 other film awards/nominations I wonder what I missed and would invite any insights that might help me see the film’s merit. But it’ll be a hard sell. -ML

Surprised you didn’t like Sideways. i thought it was pretty good. I saw sideways with no expectations or hype so that prob helped. For me, it was pretty slow in the beginning but very real. the slow build and the time they take with the characters and the mundacity of their lives make the later bits on more believable (for one) and more poignant. plus i learned a lot about wine (whine). Like i said, the beginning is so slow but so real. They’re supposed to be on this great vacation but it sucks. They play a little golf (which they seem not to enjoy so much). They sleep in, eat silent meals, and get tanked. Sad little lives of sad little men. Which is the point. we see both men suffering from inertia (an object at rest stays at rest: Giamatti. paralyzed. an object in motion stays in motion: Dole from Wings actually spirals outta control. A visual representation of the consequences of making bad decisions we all think about making, and acting without thinking, being too in the moment).And the events later on, if they had just happened in the beginning, it would’ve been like dumb and dumber. just too out there. But the extreme scenes at the end are the natural result of what came before so it doesn’t seem ridiculous.

For me, it was full of awkward moments and missed opportunities and settling for small happiness which turns out to be precious because it is rare and fragile/fleeting. People, despite being in the age of cynicism are open, vunerable. - TL

Pride and Prejudice (directed by Joe Wright, stars Kiera Knightley, Matthew MacFadyen, Brenda Blethyn)

alright, after a couple attempts to write and rewrite this review after losing a draft on my computer i realized that the film doesn’t merit such investment of time and effort. the movie was crap. -ML

Capote (directed by Bennet Miller, stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Clifton Collins Jr.)

Saw Capote this weekend. Really enjoyed it. Set in the five years Capote spent writing In Cold Blood, unlike many biopics, this film was able to create a very vivid portrait of the subject without having to resort to dramatic contrivance or excessive explanation or exposition, particularly via emotional catharsis (insert dramatic scene of confrontation where crux of the matter is neatly articulated and explained). This is largely due to the clarity with which Hoffman portrays the flamboyant writer. Consequently, one is able to get a very clear and defined portrayal of Capote merely by observing slices of his life. This allows the movie to maintain an understated realism. Very nice, quiet, enjoyable movie. -ML