Today I saw Whip It, the rollerderby movie directed by Drew Barrymore. It felt pretty ordinary to me, and would have been disappointing without the excellent Ellen Page and Marcia Gay Hardin. The critics generally liked (but didn’t love) it.
Confronted with a very rainy afternoon, I lingered for a couple of minutes in the lobby of the cinema. I looked over the eight movie posters in the lobby, and was surprised to see that five of the films they promoted had been directed by women. I snapped some bad photos on my iPhone, and made this unpretty collage:
Of those five films, three are mid-level Hollywood flicks, one is a Canadian indie and one is a feature-length documentary. How surprising is that result? In 2007, of the 13,000 members of the Directors Guild of America, only 7% are women. I don’t claim that my little lobby survey has any sort of authority, but it’s at least a little encouraging. The role of director has always struck as one of the last bastions of near-total male domination.
I’ll admit a little of my own sexism here: I was surprised to learn that best movie I saw all year, The Hurt Locker, was directed by a woman. Kathryn Bigelow has made a minor masterpiece in that movie. I wonder how many other war movies women have directed over the past fifty years?
I thought I’d observed this trend in recent movies. The best way I could figure to illustrate it was with a little video. I think it’s self-explanatory:
What do you think?
As an interesting side note, I first attempted to upload this video to YouTube. I didn’t use any movie or actor-specific terms in the title, description or tags, though I did identify the video category as ‘Movies’. The video was immediately blocked because my video “may include content that is owned or licensed by these content owners: Content owner: FOX Type: Audiovisual content.” Presumably they have some fancy image recognition software running to identify the video’s content.
I’m pretty sure my usage here falls under fair use in the US, but I’m not going to bother disputing YouTube’s automated system.
I was talking last night about how much of our home media consumption is time-shifted. We pretty much only watch shows that I’ve downloaded or recorded on the PVR. I only listen to radio via a few podcasts. I discover music on my own schedule, as opposed to MTV or the radio.
I started thinking, then, about how we could time-shift media we enjoy outside the home. I wondered if the digital distribution of movies to movie theatres meant that they could display the movies when I wanted, instead of according to their schedule?
Couldn’t they open up their schedule to voting? For example, what if I had twenty people from my office who wanted to attend a summer blockbuster at 4:00pm, but the movie is scheduled to run at 3:00pm and 5:30pm. Couldn’t we, hypothetically, visit the cinema’s website and vote to change the movie schedule for that day?
Once digital distribution is commonplace, a cinema should run entirely like any other shop at the mall. It has no requirement for a skilled and scheduled projectionist, so the movie schedule could change daily based on the whims of its patrons.
And seeing as we’re changing movie start times, why can’t we vote on which movies the cinema runs? The real answer is that the producers, distributors and cinemas have this farcically baroque system for scheduling movies and dividing up box office revenue. That could change, though. Just as MP3s, Napster and iTunes has tranformed the music distribution channel, technology shifts could change the way movie sales work.
A vote-for-upcoming-movies model would reduce the amount of guesswork that cinemas have to undertake when scheduling movies. Combined with the crowd’s ability to adjust the schedule, these changes might, in theory, increase the average attendance per showing.
Surely some independent cinemas have tried this model. Have you heard of any?
I have a small bladder, and often get a drink at the movies. So I’m often presented with the thorny problem of when to go to the bathroom during a film. I think I’m pretty good at picking the best moment, when I’m unlikely to miss any major plot points. Of course, the better the movie, the more difficult it is to choose the right time.
Yesterday James sent me a link to RunPee.com (via Gizmodo). The site is down at the moment–too much attention?–but it apparently promises a very special kind of movie review. RunPee will tell you, as you might have guessed, when you should run to the bathroom and pee. Yet another problem solved by the internet.
Taken - 5.5/10 - Liam Neeson stars as a vengeful father whose daughter is abducted in this low-rent Euro-thriller. It’s an entirely forgettable film, with the exception of one terrific, gripping moment during the abduction scene. Neeson is apparently impervious to harm, so there’s rarely any question about the outcome.
He’s Just Not That Into You - 5/10 - A movie packed with star power, but ultimately episodic and soulless. It’s a kinder, gentler Closer or Friends With Money. Jennifer Connelly stands out with the best performance, but the many plot lines make the film feel hurried and hollow (I’d have cut Drew Barrymore and her storyline). Also, the film seems to entirely disprove the premise of the book. I want to write a blog post about movies based on non-fiction essay-style books, such as this one and Fast Food Nation. I think I’ll wait until I see a third one, though.
Frost/Nixon - 8/10 - He’s not subtle, but Ron Howard is a gifted storyteller. Thanks to Howard’s skill and the leads’ outstanding work, I was never bored. It’s also an incredibly watchable historical drama, and a great introduction to the details of the Watergate scandal. Like many filmed plays, it’s a lovely small success.
Three years ago, I kept a list of every movie I saw in the cinema. I rated it out of ten, and wrote up a little capsule review. I figured that I’d give that another try in 2009. I’m also going to be smart and copy these into a Google Docs spreadsheet, so that I can sort them by viewing date or rating at the end of the year.
January
Slumdog Millionaire - 9/10 - January 1 - I’ve already written about this film. To summarize, it’s Danny Boyle’s best film, full of charm and invention and unflinching views of modern India. The only wrong note for me was some really hokey dialogue in the film’s third act.
Låt Den Rätte Komma In (Let the Right One In) - 7/10 - January 2 - A Swedish movie about a boy who falls in love with a vampire girl. It’s all quiet snowy nights, longing looks and gorging on man flesh. It’s certainly the most unusual vampire movie I’ve seen in a while, and its offbeat Swedishness made it quite watchable. On the downside, the plot was utterly predictable, and I’m pretty sure I missed a ton of nuance, thanks to my lack of Swedish.
City of Ember - 5.5/10 - January 3 - I watched this on the plane coming home form New York. It feels like there’s a good kid’s movie hiding somewhere in this movie, but that this one was in such a rush that we miss it. The movie has a decent premise that reminds you a little of The Matrix–a city lives a dark, desperate existence, unaware of the world of truth and possibilities just out of their reach. There are good actors here too–Bill Murray, Tim Robbins and Saoirse Ronan. The latter was simply terrific in Atonement (and, I happen to know from my time in Dublin, her name means ‘freedom’). A lot of potential seemed to be wasted here–the film felt needlessly hurried.
Defiance - 6.5/10 - One of Daniel Craig’s better performances–he’s at his seething, snarling best. This is the second film in which he plays a vengeful Jew (the other, Munich, is superior). Defiance offers everything you’d expect, and there are very few surprises. I was struck by how little of the Jewish religion the film depicted. I’d expected (and hoped, in truth) to see more.
Gran Torino - 6/10 - Clint Eastwood has become a great director in his later years, so this film is very watchable. Eastwood (also seething and snarling) is an effective actor in a familiar role–elder guide and guardian to wayward youths. Without giving too much away, the actor/director indulges in some serious self-deification by the end of the movie. I was left wondering if he was actually having us on a bit. The other glaring issue is that most of the supporting cast has no acting experience, and it shows. They’re inexperience onscreen was, for me, a major distraction.
February
Taken - 5.5/10 - Liam Neeson stars as a vengeful father whose daughter is abducted in this low-rent Euro-thriller. It’s an entirely forgettable film, with the exception of one terrific, gripping moment during the abduction scene. Neeson is apparently impervious to harm, so there’s rarely any question about the outcome.
He’s Just Not That Into You - 5/10 - A movie packed with star power, but ultimately episodic and soulless. It’s a kinder, gentler Closer or Friends With Money. Jennifer Connelly stands out with the best performance, but the many plot lines make the film feel hurried and hollow (I’d have cut Drew Barrymore and her storyline). Also, the film seems to entirely disprove the premise of the book. I want to write a blog post about movies based on non-fiction essay-style books, such as this one and Fast Food Nation. I think I’ll wait until I see a third one, though.
Frost/Nixon - 8/10 - He’s not subtle, but Ron Howard is a gifted storyteller. Thanks to Howard’s skill and the leads’ outstanding work, I was never bored. It’s also an incredibly watchable historical drama, and a great introduction to the details of the Watergate scandal. Like many filmed plays, it’s a lovely small success.
March
Watchmen - 6/10 - I reviewed it elsewhere, but it’s essentially two hours of back story and one hour of a pretty ordinary plot. It’s a movie made (and a story told) 25 years too late.
One Week - 6.5/10 - A love letter to our nation (at least the half between Toronto and Vancouver). It’s as much a travelogue as a film, following a stricken Joshua Jackson as he spontaneously rides his motorcycle out west. The script is wonderful in places, and quite clunky in others. I liked the lead performances (I could watch Liane Balaban read census results all day), and the film has a kick-ass soundtrack. If you’re looking for a little feel-good Canadiana, you could do worse.
I Love You, Man - 6.5/10 - Who doesn’t love a bromantic comedy? An ordinary movie with pretty ordinary themes. The cast is watchable (Jason Segel and J.K. Simmons in particular), and there are plenty of amusing moments. Still, it’s nothing to write home about.
April
Twilight - 5/10 - The broodiest movie in Sombre Town. Man, those teenage vampires are moody bastards. After Kirsten Stewart, the cast is unilaterally wooden. I’d imagine that, much like the Harry Potter series, subsequent films will get better as the cast matures and the burden of exposition lightens. I watched this on the plane, so that may have negatively impacted my impressions (though I doubt it). I’m not a fan of Catherine Hardwicke’s work generally, so that doesn’t help.
Duplicity - 7.5/10 - I really liked Clive Owen and Julia Roberts in Closer, but I found their scenes together in this film rather lifeless. They lacked the sizzle of, say, Clooney and Lopez in Out of Sight or Pitt and Jolie in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Perhaps it’s because they felt repetitive, and rarely advanced the plot. I did really dig the directorial work of Tony Gilroy, it felt stylized without being intrusive. In particular, the film’s opening scene (after the one the studio obviously required he add) is beautifully shot. The film’s plot is ridiculously byzantine, so don’t even try to follow it–just sit back and enjoy the good-if-not-spectacular ride.
State of Play - 8/10 - Another byzantine screenplay by Tony Gilroy, who also wrote Duplicity (and, it turns out, The Devil’s Advocate). Russell Crowe plays yet another shaggy, heroic loner, this time with Rachel McAdams as his wing-man. All poor Helen Mirren does is spout British curses as the weary publisher worried about bankruptcy, but she’s as watchable as the rest of the cast. Journalists have gotten a lot of bad press lately, so I didn’t even mind this overly rosy depiction of their work.
May
X-Men Origins: Wolverine - 3/10 - Hugh Jackman works out! That’s really the best takeaway from this maudlin, plodding movie on Wolverine’s creation myth. Why are so many superhero movies so utterly without fun? I guess a lot of comic books are the same way: way too serious for their own good. From the score to the cinematography, everything in this film trades on a silly, tired stereotype.
Star Trek - 8/10 - I reviewed it here, so I’ll just say that it’s a rip-roaring space opera in the style of Star Wars and Serenity (this video highlights how much the plot owes to George Lucas and Joseph Conrad). It’s the first good, fun blockbuster of the summer, and rarely has a dull moment or an off-key scene.
Angels & Demons - 5/10 - As mediocre and muddy as The Da Vinci Code, with an equally implausible plot. By ‘implausible’ I don’t mean that it couldn’t happen. I mean that there isn’t much rational causality between plot points, and the thing has more holes than the IIS in a meteor storm. The plot, for example, has a ticking time bomb plot. Yet the bomb itself is this obscure, bizarre device which depends on a draining battery for its timer. I felt particularly sorry for Ayelet Zurer. She’s the Euro-arm-candy replacement for Audrey Tatou. She’s lovely, but utterly pointless.
The Hangover - 6/10 - A goofball comedy that’s part “Dude, Where’s Your Car?” and part “Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle”. It’s reasonably funny, and Zach Galifianakis feels kind of original, but that’s all it really is. Don’t miss Galifianakis’s utterly weird web videos Between Two Ferns.
Terminator: Salvation - 6/10 - Worse than the first two movies, but better than the third. It’s essentially a war movie, with Christian Bale playing his usual grim law-bringer role. The special effects are impressive, and there’s always something to look at. However, it lacks a lot of the depth of the first two films. The themes are much simpler, and there’s little of the time travel fun that made the earlier movies so enjoyable. Also, this movie included two female characters, both of whom had thankless roles as plot or expositional devices.
June
Up - 9/10 - Pixar keeps hitting it out of the park. They’re a factory churning out great animated films. I didn’t enjoy “Up” quite as much as “Ratatouille”, which was exquisite, but it’s still a superb film. Among other things, this film takes on a very unlikely topic of “how do we cope with life after the death of a loved one?”.
Away We Go - 6/10 - I wrote a review of this film that sums up my thoughts. Sam Mendes is a terrific director, but I was distracted by my disdain for the protagonists and their utter loser-dom.
Transformers 2 - 2.5/10 - It was everything I expected it to be: 57% killer robots, 32% huge explosions and 11% lingering shots of Megan Fox. This film may feature the most incomprehensible plot (a term I use charitably) I’ve ever seen. The only redeemable feature is Shia LaBeouf, who I believe to be destined for a long, Tom Hanksian career. On top of all the usual complaints, I was struck by how difficult it is to tell the killer robots apart. I was a casual fan of the TV show as a kid, but after Optimus Prime and Bumblebee, they all looked the same.
July
Year One - 4/10 - I expected a little more from Harold Ramis, but this is a banal movie trading on a bunch of Old Testament stories. Jack Black and Michael Cera are watchable, but they essentially shuffle from one unoriginal set piece to another. Watching the movie, I felt like I’d seen all the schtick before.
Easy Virtue - 5.5/10 - A glowing example, I think, of a poorly-directed film. There’s the nut of a lovely period film here, but the script (co-written by director Stephan Elliot) really needed some more help and a different director at the helm. Jessica Biel is incredibly easy on the eyes, but she’s only an average actor, and wasn’t quite right for the lead role. Neither was Ben Barnes who played opposite her. Kristin Scott Thomas and Colin Firth were, of course, superb, but the movie was poorly paced, laughably predictable and ultimately disappointing.
Public Enemies - 7/10 - I was recently listening to a Slate Cultural Gabfest in which they discussed this movie. Slate film critic Dana Stevens pointed out that the various component parts of the film were enjoyable, but it was lacking the ‘mortar of goodness’ that would make it a better film. I’d definitely agree–I found it enjoyable but a little soulless. I really don’t care for Michael Mann’s murky, naturalistic visual and audio aesthetic. I find it distracting, particularly in a period piece.
I’m in Toronto for 24 hours. There was a magazine in my hotel room with an extensive write-up on the Toronto International Film Festival. There are so many great-looking films at the festival, I thought I’d link to a few:
I heard about Blindness about a year ago, and it sounded really promising. It’s adapted by Canadian screenwriting icon Don McKellar, and features a great cast:
Based on recently declassified information and the personal wartime experiences of journalist Mark Boal (who adapted his experiences with a bomb squad into a fact-based, yet fictional story), director Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker presents the ongoing conflict in the Middle East from the perspective of those who see the fighting firsthand — the soldiers. As an elite Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team tactfully navigates the streets of present-day Iraq, they face the constant threat of death from incoming bombs and sharp-shooting snipers.
Oh, and hey, look, it’s Joshua Jackson. He’s kind of the new Jason Priestly, if you get my meaning.
New York Times reviewer A. O. Scott narrates a nice five-minute video exploring the excellence and universal appeal of Pixar’s films. His thesis, in summary, is that they often feature an identity crisis–the hero feels he doesn’t belong. Humans of all stripes respond to such notions. Plus, of course, they’re usually exceptionally executed.
On a related note, I was recently listening in to a conversation among five 30-something, university-educated women. They were talking about movies. Despite being aware of the glowingreviews for Pixar’s Wall-E, they were unanimous in their lack of interest in seeing the movie.
I don’t want to inspire a lot of female commenters to contradict me, but I have a sense that women are generally less interested in animated films than men. This seems entirely understandable, given that most of the animated work they’ve seen has been a) made primarily for boys, featuring male protagonists and b) bad. Still, I think it’s unfortunate, because some of the most remarkable and effective movies of the last decade have been animated. I’m thinking here of Persepolis, Ratatouille and The Incredibles. The former of these movies obviously bucks this trend, but it didn’t necessarily have the broad appeal of the Pixar movies.
A couple of years ago, I posited that some day we’d be able to buy the DVD version of a movie that we’d just seen in the theatre:
I wondered out loud “why don’t they just sell DVDs in the cinemas, so that you can buy them as you leave the theatre?” That idea is probably heretical to the industry, but I wonder if it might not prove more profitable in the end?
Let’s assume there are two kinds of DVD buyers–those who see the movies in the cinema, and those who don’t. The people who don’t watch the movie aren’t going to be affected–they’ll just get their DVD sooner. Those who do see the movie probably wouldn’t be too cannibalized–they’re coming for the experience of attending a cinema. Plus, the industry would enjoy a boon of impulse purchases from people leaving the show.
The twist is that Mr. Snyder, known for turning the Spartan comic book series “300” into a global hit movie, is also directing a separate-but-related picture that Warner plans to distribute exclusively on DVD.
The second film, tentatively called “Tales of the Black Freighter,” follows a side “Watchmen” storyline about a shipwreck and will arrive in stores five days after the main movie rolls out in theaters. The DVD will also include a documentary-style film called “Under the Hood” that will delve into the characters’ backstories.
Of course, I can’t imagine that you’ll be able to buy this movie from the cinema itself. Even though that’s when you’re likeliest to buy, distributors would never let that happen.
I really enjoyed “The Bourne Identity” when I first saw it in the theatre (here’s an early, rambling blog post on the film). I also really wanted Matt Damon’s sweater. He wears this kick-ass black, military-style sweater in the film. Of course, he looks way better than I would in it, but that’s also true of togas, house coats and djellabas.
At the time, I imagined a website which tracked what actors wore in movies, and sold real-world equivalents which you could buy. This was back in 2002, and I remember searching for a website that filled that role. I couldn’t find much. I did a few quick searches today, and still didn’t find anything super promising. SeenOn.com looks like the right fit, but it lists all of three movies thus far.
CoolSpotters has the potential to become such a resource, though it seems more targeted at off-screen It Girl bollocks. I read about it today on TechCrunch:
It’s an eye-candy celebrity-focused site that shows users the products celebrities are wearing in various photos. Users can then talk about and, of course, purchase those items.
Users can track celebrities, products, brands, shows (TV, Movies, etc.), places, events, and more. The idea is to show connections between people and stuff. These connections are called “spots” (as in, “I spotted that”), and show details on the item. If something is incorrect, users can change or remove it, and add new people and things.
They kind of combine the crowd-sourcing of Wikipedia and Facebook tags (or Flickr notes, if you like) with the smarmy photos of gossip blogs. It’s a smart approach.
