Keeping Track (July 26, 2012)
by HELEN GEIB
Last Week at the Movies
At the multiplex, The Dark Knight Rises (of course). Also made it over to the Indy Film Fest to see Side By Side, a comprehensive and informative documentary about the American film industry’s move from photochemical film to digital. It was impressively even-handed, with articulate advocates on both sides; Danny Boyle and Christopher Nolan were particularly good on the artistic merits of digital and film, respectively. The interviews in general provided an interesting inside perspective on a question that’s usually reported only in terms of dollars and pixels.
Last Week at Home
Dr. No- I really do love the Bond theme music
New in Theaters This Weekend
I don’t have much free time right now anyway, so what is it to me that the choice is between half-dressed teenagers in Step Up Revolution and Stiller and Co. goofing around with aliens in The Watch?
What have you been watching? What are you looking forward to?
In Theatres
The Dark Knight Rises- no cheating! review coming soon!
At Home
The Dark Knight- is it really that big of a shock?
Night of the Living Dead (1968)- a true classic through and through
Dawn of the Dead (1978)- there will never be a better zombie film than this, and Night will always have second place
Night of the Generals (1966)- Peter O’Toole, Omar Sharif, and Christopher Plummer as Nazis; need I say more?
NIGHT OF THE GENERALS is very cool. I will only add: Tom Courtenay and Donald Pleasence.
I’ve been trying to reset my brain after some crazy work by catching up on movies.
At the Movies:
Prometheus
Dark Knight Rises
Amazing Spider-Man
At Home:
Take Shelter
Special
Sanshiro Sugata
The Red House
The Vanishing (not the Kiefer Sutherland version, thank God)
Beginners
War of the Arrows
I really like WotA and Take Shelter. Special was really interesting, and not at all what I expected. Hope to be back to Film Club soon!
At the Movies:
Prometheus
Amazing Spider Man
Take this Waltz (fantastic film!)
Lola Versus
At Home:
I bought Rashomon.
@Matt: And what better way to do it? :D
Funny you should mention WAR OF THE ARROWS, just today I learned that Korea is the global superpower in competitive archery. The Olympics team’s extreme training isn’t entirely out of line with what the characters go through:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443477104577549231886907636.html
I really liked the movie by the way, which I just watched a few weeks ago. Reminded me in a good way of CENTURION.
@Aaron: What did you think of SPIDERMAN? I’m on the fence about seeing it. Never really been into the Spiderman character but I’ve seen good notices for the performances.
@Helen, Night of the Generals might actually garner a future review from me because I really enjoyed it (and Peter O’Toole is magnificent in it) but I have a problem with the fact that it combines two completely different stories into one film. Also, I originally saw it as a teen, liked it then, and I still like it now. That shows that it’s a legitimately good film. :O)
@Matt, props for watching Take Shelter, Sanshiro Sugata, and The vanishing (1988). Now, all you need is to watch Insomnia (1997), starring Stellan Skarsgard. :O)
@Helen:
Spiderman was definitely not horrible, but it really didn’t DO anything different. It’s a thrill ride for the last 30 minutes, but it spends so much time in exposition (that we’ve already seen before in Raimi’s films, I might add) that viewers are likely to get bored before the plot even starts.
It’s a solid effort, but it’s not going to be remembered like Spider-Man 2.
Performances, btw, are really good, especially between the main two leads (Parker and Stacey).
I agree with Aaron re: Spider-Man. It was well-made and did a lot of things well, but I often felt like I had seen most of it before. The origin story was unnecessary (again).
I think the thing I’ve realized is that even though Spider-Man has always been my favorite superhero, the villains are just really awful. Watching The Dark Knight Rises, I realized just how different the approaches are. The Batman villains are grounded in real terror, made all the more frightening because of their basis in reality. These are real people doing awful things.
Spider-Man villains are CGI video games, all sound and fury signifying nothing. There’s no real danger, no deeper meaning, not even a real sense of menace. They’re always good scientists trying to improve humanity before they make a mistake that causes them to lose control. An hour of special effects later, and we see they’re back to their kind-hearted selves. Give me the Batman villains any day!