Tokyo!

IMDB

(Michel Gondry, Leos Carax, Joon-ho Bong, 2008)

Do ANY of these projects featuring multiple directors’ take on a single subject, especially a location, hang together as a full film?

The collaboration seems mushy and not much about its subject. That is, unless you consider that life in Tokyo includes the impossibility of finding an apartment, deranged lunatics and loneliness. But isn’t that prevalent in many modern cities?

Best of the bunch is “Shaking Tokyo”, directed by Bong, featuring a reclusive man who is pulled out of his self-imposed prison by deux ex machina/love. It’s not great, but it’s at least more even and intriguing than the rest.

2.0/5.0

#strangelove Live Tweet – Tonight

1. Tune in to TCM tonight at 10:30 ET for Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

2. Follow/join in/ridicule the live-tweeting of Dr. Strangelove at #strangelove.

3. ????

4. Profit!

Red River

IMDB

(Howard Hawks, 1948)

Comments to come.

4.5/5.0

The President’s Analyst

IMDB

(Theodore J. Flicker, 1967)

Blackly comic Coburn taking potshots of a changing 1960s America. Clever concept delivered with varying results, which got more and more dated as they were presented.

3.0/5.0

Earth

IMDB

(Alastair Fothergill, Mark Linfield, 2007)

Yep, it’s a retread of the BBC’s Planet Earth. But it’s the first movie my son watched with me all the way through in a movie theater, so I’ll give it bonus points.

3.5/5.0

Chan Is Missing

IMDB

(Wayne Wang, 1982)

4.0/5.0

Not on your life (Apr 09 edition)

Ummmm, no.

• Dragonball Evolution – The very definition of a niche film that completely doesn’t register on my radar.
• Fast & Furious – Didja hear? They got Vin Diesel! Cause that’s good!?
• Gigantic – I’ve never wanted to punch an indie movie in this face quite this much.
• Hannah Montana: The Movie – To tweens and their parents: I’m sure it’s harmless fun. But look how Britney Spears turned out.
• Obsessed – Like Glenn Close, Beyonce isn’t going to be IGNORED! Well, actually….

CD 09: Of Cats and Clouds – Tracklist

Thanks again to Stennie for inviting me to indulge in MP3-nery for her latest CD Mix Challenge, which apparently is the penultimate mix. So, those that are waiting to join, don’t wait too much longer.

Full tracklist, random video links and other ramblings after the jump.

I Walked With a Zombie

IMDB

(Jacques Tourneur, 1943)

One of the seminal zombie-related films, this one travels to the West Indies to discover its voodoo origins.

I found the whole thing pretty sluggish, and not nearly as engaging as Cat People, the first Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur horror film. There are some spooky sequences but nothing here that grips you and messes with your head like people transforming into murderous cats. Me-ow.

Modern viewers may also find it distracting the way the love story seems to trump the zombie thread for much of the picture. Apparently it also borrows heavily from Jane Eyre. Color me clueless as I’m not a Brontë connoisseur, but it at least explains why so much time is made of the burgeoning romance between the hired nurse (Frances Dee) and her employer (Tom Conway), whose wife has fallen into a state of perpetual sleepwalking. Not unlike a zombie. Ahem.

That said, there’s a definite growing creepiness about the whole picture, enhanced by the Carribean setting, and builds to a satisfying ending.

And not to pile on, but there’s not a single “Braaaaaains!” uttered throughout. How disappointing.

3.0/5.0

Adventureland

IMDB

(Greg Mottola, 2009)

As I Twertered previously, it’s hard to be neutral, since I’m completely in the tank for this teen romantic comedy.

1. Grew up in suburban Pittsburgh, and had a yearly school picnic at Kennywood, the amusement park this movie was filmed at.  My nostalgia runneth over – ah, the classic wooden Thunderbolt…the heartattack-on-a-dish Potato Patch fries….the double dip on the Jack Rabbit where you felt like you were flying to your death….my sister getting her arm stuck in the ride on the water flume. Okay, so not all are GOOD memories.
2. My final trip to the park was 1986, a year before this film is set. I recognized some of those awful fashions a mile off. Skintight acid wash rolled jeans. Ultra-white hightop tennies. Non-ironic ringer tees and mullets. Pathetically recognizable.
3. A predilection towards alternative/college rock or whatever it was called at the time. The mid-80’s was a time when bands started getting signed to major labels in droves, only to be dumped by same companies in the mid-90’s. Kicking off the movie with “Bastards of Young”? Come on! A cute teenage girl wearing Lou Reed and Husker Du gear? What am I, made of wood?

This is a film steeped in just such reminiscences, and happily, it’s mild on quirk and raunch, staples of director Greg Mottola’s previous work, 1996’s The Daytrippers and 2007’s Superbad.

Adventureland mines the territory of such films as The Graduate as it explores college-age kids figuring out their own screwed-up lives as well as how to win the heart of another. The leads (Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart) are sweetly convincing. There are also great supporting performances throughout, namely, Martin Starr as a sullen, smartass geek with a penchant for Russian literature.

But it stumbles badly down the stretch, as if it had been written into a corner. You just know James (Eisenberg) and Em (Stewart) are slated for — SPOILER!!– a final encounter in NYC, but it’s not as deftly handled as the majority of their relationship. It feels too neat and tacked on, and I wished for a do-over.

Mostly, though, Adventureland delivers, not unlike those Potato Patch fries. They’re positively Homer-ific.

3.5/5.0