This Week’s Films
Jun 29th 2007webmasterUncategorized
What have I got for you this week?I started off on Friday with a newsflash of the Elmwood changing hands. Then, on Sunday, I gave you my thoughts on the American Film Institute’s new, updated list of the 100 greatest American films of all time. On Tuesday, I posted microreviews of five films that will screen at the Jewish Film Festival. Finally, I gave you some news about the Brainwash Drive-In/Bike-In/Walk-In Movie Festival and more on the Elmwood.
I also posted a microreview of Spiderman 3.
Hippie Temptation, Red Vic, Friday and Saturday. I saw this already aging CBS news special in a club not too far from the current location of the Red Vic, probably about 1977. At the time, I thought it was hilarious (unintentionally, of course). I have no idea how I would react to it today.
The Big Lebowski, Cerrito, weekdays through Thursday. Critics originally panned
this Coen Brothers gem as a disappointing follow-up to the Coen’s previous endeavor, Fargo. Well, it isn’t as good as Fargo, but it’s still one hell of a funny movie. A Cerrito Flashback.
Hot Fuzz, Elmwood, opening Friday. Director/co-writer Edgar Wright fills every frame of Hot Fuzz with his love for mindless action movies. More precisely, he fills the splices between the frames, cutting even the scenes of quiet village life in the frantic style of Hollywood violence–accompanied by overloud sound effects, of course. (And yes, he’s smart enough not to overdo it.) This technique, along with a funny story, clever dialog, and charming performances, help make this genre parody the funniest film in years, with the longest sustained laugh I’ve experienced since I first discovered Buster Keaton. If Hot Fuzz doesn’t make my Top Ten list as the funniest film of the year, 2007 will be the best year for comedies in a very long time. Also continuing at the Parkway.
Casablanca, Union Square, Saturday, 8:30. What can I say? You’ve either 
already seen it or know you should. Let me just add that no one who worked on Casablanca thought they were making a masterpiece; it was just another movie coming off the Warner assembly line. But somehow, just this once, everything came together perfectly. Presented, like all Film Night in the Park shows, off DVD.
Over the Hedge, Albert Park, San Rafael, Friday, 8:30. Like any good, child-oriented, computer-animated feature, Over the Hedge keeps you laughing at the jokes and dazzled at the visuals. It even makes you care a bit about the characters. But it goes beyond those commercial requirements, saying something real and important about the damage that our consumer-oriented culture does both to us and to the natural world on the outskirts of our civilization. Besides, you’ve got to love a kids’ movie that undercuts the obligatory “families stick together” speech. Yet another Film Night in the Park presentation.
Shrek the Third, Parkway, opening Friday. The second sequel to the original, wonderful computer-animated Shrek isn’t a complete loss. It has enough truly funny jokes to fill a seven-minute Road Runner cartoon. But since the picture runs 92 minutes, there’s a lot of waiting between the laughs. While the first Shrek blew the lid off fairy tale traditions to teach children that conventional good looks were not a requirement for living happily ever after, and the still pretty good Shrek 2 suggested that even fairy godmothers may charge a price that’s too high, what does Shrek the Third have to teach our children? You guessed it: Believe in yourself. Like the theme, the third Shrek outing is guaranteed originality-free.
everyone. Hardly surprising; the departed apparently loved life–and women–a little too much, leaving his survivors bitter, divided, and confused. But according to Jewish law, they must spend a week in each others’ company, where old attractions and animosities must come to the surface. Particularly wonderful is Emilio Savinni as the Chassidic grandson who’s wistfully nostalgic for his wilder days. A touching, truthful, and occasionally funny look at Jewish observance and human behavior.
nsiderably more strained than the Yankee/Mexican one. In the best cinema verite tradition, Ido Haar avoids commentary and simply follows a group of undocumented, Palestinian construction workers. We watch as they sneak across the border, work, camp out in the hills (the title reflects a joking reference to the cardboard boxes they sleep in), avoid police, and talk about the things that young men talk about all over the world. The result is a window into a difficult way of life most of us know little about.
is losing the war, and Hitler’s suffering from depression, So his handlers pull his Jewish former acting coach out of a concentration camp to prepare him for a major speech. The coach (The Lives of Others’ Ulrich Mühe) takes the job and begins to bond with his student while wrestling with his opportunity to change the course of history. My Fuehrer owes an obvious debt to other Holocaust-inspired comedies–notably The Great Dictator and Life is Beautiful--but has a feeling all of its own.
to world peace sounded forced and unreasonably idealistic (to say nothing of repetitive), but the discussions of musical and religious styles coming together and influencing each other proved worth listening to. And best of all, there’s the music–haunting, exciting, and digging into the depth of your soul. The musicians are captured, for the most part, not in concerts or recording studios, but playing together in living rooms, and director Florence Strauss keeps the camera tied on their faces, capturing their infectious exuberance.
ividuals special. It’s not that Rachel Talbot’s Making Trouble isn’t funny–of course, it is–but the clips it presents of Molly Picon, Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, Joan Rivers, Gilda Radner, and Wendy Wasserstein don’t last long enough to give us a real appreciation of their work. Perhaps Talbot should have stuck to three or four subjects instead of six. If you already appreciate these artists’ work, the film entertains and educates by giving you a brief window into their lives, but it feels like a television special–hardly worthy of the big screen.
comedy about the complexities and problems of heterosexual romance. This time around, a rising television personality with career ambitions (the stunningly gorgeous Katherine Heigl) shares a drunken one-night stand with a slacker stoner (the stunningly dumpy Seth Rogen), then eight weeks later discovers she’s pregnant. As the two leads, their friends, and their families react to this life-changing accident, Apatow explores how people fall in and out of love, the way parenthood changes people, and the need for both men and women to get away from each other and bond with those of their own gender–all while providing plenty of laughs. For my full-length review, click 
film, you don’t want to spend your vacation in the bleak Flemish winter. On the other hand, it’s a lot better than a war of attrition in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. Dumont puts us in both environments in this atmospheric study of how war affects those who go and those that stay behind. The film suffers a bit early on from the dull nature of the leading characters (who take part in some of the most depressing sex I’ve ever seen), but stick around; it improves.
Himalayas; a place for refugees from China’s oppressive policies. The plot, concerning a Tibetan-American documentary filmmaker helping an ex-monk return a charm box to its original owner, is little more than an excuse to explore a culture in exile. The Tibetan world explored here is one of contrasts, of soothsayers and hermit monks, torture victims, and rock ‘n’ roll. Warning: This film contains positive references to the CIA.
crew filming people without a script. And indeed, one of American Cannibal’s primary subjects, TV writer Gil Ripley, unintentionally sums up this picture’s modest appeal when he explains reality TV’s popularity: “People want to see really horrible things happen because, unfortunately, you can’t take your eyes off them.” The movie follows Ripley and his partner, Dave Roberts, as they shed their artistic integrity to launch the next big television event, only to have everything come crashing down on them through bad planning and worse luck. The picture doesn’t say much that’s really new, but a few of the interview subjects make interesting points, and the train-wreck feel of Ripley and Roberts’ disaster keeps the second half moderately entertaining.
parable about war and insanity lost some of its magic over the decades, but not all of it. The picture still provides laughs as it illustrates the merits of creating your own reality when the one forced upon us by the world’s leaders is just too horrible. Today that theme seems shallow, immature, and quaint, but it’s still fun to escape into that vision for 102 minutes. Another free (good) but DVD rather than film (bad) 
love. But this time the conflict doesn’t come out of a misunderstanding, or disapproving parents, or some other external plot device. It comes out of the fact that these two people really aren’t made for each other, but have been thrown together by that most left-altering of accidents–an unintentional pregnancy.
Once
with strange, beautiful, and occasionally bewildering imagery. He also fills it with fascinating people and a dry, sardonic humor. Many of his characters–Italian peasants immigrating to America–are superstitious, ignorant, maybe even stupid, but they’re decent people and we care very much for them. We also care for the considerably more worldly Englishwoman who joins them on their journey, but in part because she’s played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. Through these people’s eyes and experiences Crialese shows us the entire process of leaving a community, crossing the ocean in steerage, and navigating the inspections and bureaucracy of Ellis Island, all in more detail than I’ve ever seen it before. A unique, remarkable, and funny motion picture.