I suppose this will teach me to be careful what I wish for. Reading the book, I got incredibly frustrated by the tangential subplots to which large chunks of text were devoted (e.g., repressed homoerotic longing between Michael and Albert, the tragic death in a fire of some character’s brother, the goes-nowhere courtship of Michael and Irma) and wished the author would just sort of stick to the central storyline (particularly as the author’s difficulties with characterization made things hard to follow and/or care about). The Weir adaptation does exactly that, but is perhaps a little too harsh. There’s a pretty significant chunk of the book that shows (perhaps not overly well) the increased tension at the school following the disappearance. By condensing the recovery of Irma from a couple months to about five minutes (thankfully getting rid of the courtship subplot), the scene in the Temple of Calisthenics seems weird and out of place, sort of as though the entire second act got cut.

I should also mention the soundtrack, which is excellent. The Zamfir bits didn’t do much for me (too many memories of his TV commercials as a kid), but the bassy, bubbling synth noises were just fantastic.

Maybe I’m a little thick, but I’m not sure I really get the point of having two actresses playing the same role. From the supplemental materials, it doesn’t sound like it was a particularly well thought out decision, but it’s still a very odd thing to do if there’s not really a point. I guess the obvious interpretation is that it’s impossible to know a woman (or, if you’re willing to give Buñuel the benefit of the doubt, any other person), but that sort of undercuts the film’s overarching hostility to its own narrator by lending credence to his wronged “she was a crazy bitch who had what was coming to her” story.

So, this is the 36th funniest film of all time. It’s enjoyable enough, but #36? Maybe I was just tired, but it really did very little for me (very much like the last universally-well-regarded Mackendrick film I watched).

We saw this in the theater when it came out and was fairly impressed, but, after talking to many, many people who outright hated the film, we thought we should re-watch so as to be able to defend it a little better. Second time through, I can get some idea of what people found off-putting. It’s certainly odd, tonally. The film is unrelentingly sad, which is somewhat at odds with the 11 1/2-year-old boy’s adventure feel of the story – though I’d say that’s kind of the point of the film. Given Anderson’s (and, based on Chuck Dugan is AWOL, perhaps more Eric Anderson than Wes) fondness for the 11 1/2-year-old outlook on life, the film seems to be a pretty self-critical look at trying to extend that sort of outlook well beyond its sell-by date.

The film also subverts some of the expectations of his own work. The jarring use of “Search and Destroy” when Steve attacks the pirates is such a departure from the usually seamless integration of music in his films (as is the fairly explicit violence in that scene) I have to assume it’s a deliberate choice (though I haven’t quite figured out the purpose). There’s another scene, with Steve and Jane in the balloon (with that so-good-I-feel-a-need-to-revisit-my-opinion-of-her Joan Baez song playing), where Steve enacts a pose from his classic poster, then says “I never really felt like that person” (or something to that effect). Typical Anderson would probably have had a bit of silence after that, but Murray rushes the line and moves in to try to kiss Jane, which undercuts the expected sense of melancholy with a sense of revulsion and shame.

There’s also some language choice that just seems off. Steve’s fixation on people’s sexuality is weird, particularly his use of the phrase “bull-dyke.” It’s certainly an effective way to distance from the main character, and it just seemed out of place until I started to think of it in terms of Baumbach’s films, where it made perfect sense. Eleanor pointed out that “bull-dyke” is exactly the sort of phrase Bernard from The Squid and the Whale would use as casually as Steve does. And the repeated speculation about Hennessey’s sexuality, with the “I’m part gay” payoff, could easily be a bit from Kicking and Screaming or Mr. Jealousy.

All that said, I think even the parts that are probably putting off the usual Anderson fanbase (most people I know who hate the film consider Rushmore one of the best films ever) don’t really detract from the overall value of the film. As I said, it conveys sadness and melancholy better than anything else I’ve seen from the last decade or so.

I think I’ve pinned down a couple solid reasons why this movie did nothing for me. First of all, Julie Christie’s performance was stunningly flat, which can be all right – her emotional reservedness works well in The Go-Between or McCabe and Mrs. Miller – but doesn’t work at all in a fairly broad film like this. The end-of-second-act bit where George tells Jackie he can’t imagine being with anyone but her just seems so out of left-field given the overall lack of personality we’ve seen in Jackie to date.

Random side note: Christie’s filmography is much shorter than I would have expected. She only made six films in the 70’s? Of which I’ve seen five?

Beyond Christie’s performance, the entire second act was just handled so strangely. The script seemed to have been written as a standard-issue sex farce. Character A is sleeping with characters B, C, D, and E. Character F is sleeping with B and C. B knows F is sleeping with C, but not vice versa. Et cetera, et cetera. This sort of set up usually leads to second act zaniness as the characters scurry about trying to hide things from each other, but everyone (Ashby included) seems so uninterested in the secrets/cover-up the zaniness just seems forced.

All that said, the final three scenes (particular the Beatty/Hawn and Beatty/Warden ones) were an impressively nihilistic way to end the film.

This is one of the longest 107 minute films I’ve ever seen. The English-language musical numbers are perhaps the worst I’ve seen in any movie ever (Xanadu and The Apple included). “No Wife, No Life” (or whatever the hell it’s called) deserves special mention for the utter inanity of lyrics. The movie becomes a little less painful in the second half, when the constant barrage of horrific musical numbers abates somewhat, but, even still, that only brings it up to “bad.” Perhaps I should stop taking movie recommendations from my dad.

The first hour was pretty great. The central concept (guy gets kidnapped, held in a room for fifteen years) was disturbing and a great way to get the audience all gung-ho for a revenge flick. While I admire the mid-film turnaround (that the person getting vengeance is more the torturer, not the victim), I’m not sure it was entirely convincing (writers/directors always seem to think incest is more shocking and disturbing than I do – not that I’m pro-incest, I just don’t buy incest (or coverup of incest) as motivator for any and all heinous actions from a character). I suppose perhaps the point was to show that vengeance is perhaps not such a good idea, but I think most of us understand that and look to hyper-violent revenge films as our outlet for such desires.

Vast improvement from Night Watch. Certainly a little goofier than the first, which is definitely better than the overwhelming ponderousness. Some bizarre music choices (almost Silvestri-ish score in parts) make me wonder how much tinkering Fox Searchlight did to the film. Got a little slow towards the end, but overall pretty enjoyably ludicrous. And it pulled off the same ending as the recent season of Doctor Who with much greater success, so it’s got that going for it.

This may be the movie that finally convinced me that I really don’t need to see a new-ish release just because critics fawned over it. It might have made a half-decent film if it had started an hour into the plot, but, as it was, the “explain what the dead wife was up to for an hour, then have the self-absorbed, annoying husband learn what the audience already knows” structure did very little for me.

Perhaps the best action film of all time. I think this is the 4th time I’ve seen it. This time around, I really appreciated how great the score (by the Mael brothers) is, as well as how abstract and impossible to follow that final firefight sequence is. Also, I’m not sure how I never registered that the script is by DeSouza. I have a theory that he’s testing out how absurd an action script he can write before people stop buying them. Judging by the slowdown of his career following Knock Off, the rickshaw races and exploding jeans may have pushed things over the top.