Over the last few days, I’ve been getting out to the theater to catch up on some 09 releases I missed. Rather than writing full reviews, I figured I’d give you a few capsulized thoughts:
A Single Man
Directed by fashion designer Tom Ford, A Single Man looks and feels a lot like a fashion spread, filled to the brim with gorgeous, luscious period style (it looks like Mad Men with a larger budget, which is unsurprising since I believe it had the same design team as Mad Men). Colin Firth also absolutely tears it up in his role as a gay professor still in mourning over the death of his partner. You’re probably used to seeing him as Colin Firth in any number of romantic comedy, but he’s pretty devastating in this. But there are a couple problems here. The first is that Tom Ford, as Tom Ford is wont to do, goes WAY over the top. Every other shot is in slow-motion, or is an extreme close-up of some item. Some of these shots are absolutely stunning but for every moment that works, there’s at least three that felt tedious and overblown. But, on a larger scale, there’s just no reason for it. The movie oscillates wildly between being an intimate portrait of grief and loss and a bombasically epic take on the American condition (complete with a massive collection of literary references ranging from Huxley to Fitzgerald and a storyline that intersects a person’s inner turmoil with the Cuban Missile Crisis) (and, on that latter point, as if the last 40 years haven’t driven that story point home, Mad Men did that a little more than a year ago, to much more chilling effect). Its tempting to watch this whole film and keep yelling “Mad Men did it” like General Disarray (the Don Draper cameo doesn’t help), but on a larger level, I just left the film not entirely sure why that story needed to be told. There’s a lot here that’s tragic and a lot here that’s beautiful, but Ford never merges it all into a whole.
Score: 55
Grade: C
My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done
Werner Herzog is a crazy motherfucker. David Lynch doubly so. In theory, a Lynch-produced, Herzog-directed film should simply cause the world to explode, but My Son has been generally greeted with shrugs. It’s easy to see why, since the film wants to drive at so many points that it kind of loses itself along the way. Why did Michael Shannon lose it and kill his mother with a sword? It could be because God told him to, or he witnessed all his friends die in a rafting accident, or any number of the other things hinted at in the numerous flashbacks that form the spine of the film. My Son has an oddly theatrical structure, almost like Citizen Kane where characters sit around and talk about Michael Shannon in flashbacks, which foreshadowed the appearance of a play. The movie is certainly unsettling – no more so than in the scenes where Shannon oscillates between eerily calm mumbling and sudden violent explosions, which Herzog (perhaps feeling the Lynch assist) sets against a backdrop of sunny, prefab suburban sprawl – but also feels a little tired. Herzog doesn’t even pretend he’s interesting in answering the question Willem Dafoe is ostensibly investigating – how can someone do something so terrible – which, of course, can’t be answered, but this is not an entirely new notion. My Son feels like minor Herzog, lacking in either the clairity and vision of his finest works or the satisfyingly gonzo immediacy of TUIW favorite Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, but it also feels like a film that could be potentially rewarding on a rewatch.
Score: 59
Grade: C+
A Town Called Panic
Gleefully mixing the droll anthropomorphisizing of Wallace and Gromit with the manic energy of Action League Now!, A Town Called Panic is more about the experience than the movie, but what an experience it is. The film has a charming lack of cynicism and winning freneticism that makes it fly across the screen at an almost uncontrollable pace. The plot is more a series of amusing twists, each ratcheting up the insanity to break-neck speed so that, suddenly you find yourself inside a giant, robotic penguin who builds and tosses giant snowballs. The deadpan absurdity and enjoyably shoddy action figure-like stop motion figures add up to a film that doesn’t just feel like you are watching someone have a great time playing with his toys, but is visceral enough to almost be like you are playing with them. Its understandable to be fatigued after a little while, but if you just go with it, A Town Called Panic will take you to some wonderful places.
Score: 79
Grade: B+
Michael
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