The Science of Sleep (Gondry, 2006)
I wanted to love this movie. It stars my favorite young actor in Bernal, and Eternal Sunshine was a near masterpiece. So why didn't this click for me? I think it lies in the dreams. In dreams the film become to precocious, not merely about a precocious man. They so bored me after the first couple that I just couldn't take them. When in the "real world" the film is beautiful and sad, but the contrivences of the dream world just lost me.
Current 2006 Top Ten:
1. The Departed
2. Miami Vice
3. United 93
4. A Prairie Home Companion
5. The Descent
6. The Science of Sleep
7. An Inconvenient Truth
8. Dave Chapelle's Block Party
9. Inside Man
10. The Black Dahlia
I wanted to love this movie. It stars my favorite young actor in Bernal, and Eternal Sunshine was a near masterpiece. So why didn't this click for me? I think it lies in the dreams. In dreams the film become to precocious, not merely about a precocious man. They so bored me after the first couple that I just couldn't take them. When in the "real world" the film is beautiful and sad, but the contrivences of the dream world just lost me.
Current 2006 Top Ten:
1. The Departed
2. Miami Vice
3. United 93
4. A Prairie Home Companion
5. The Descent
6. The Science of Sleep
7. An Inconvenient Truth
8. Dave Chapelle's Block Party
9. Inside Man
10. The Black Dahlia
The Departed (Scorcese, 2006)
The film is all about mirrors. Damon-DiCaprio, Nicholson-Sheen, bags of food at beginning and end. It asks why in this society we put the just through the stations of the cross and the wicked live in townhouses. The the glowing white father can die without a note, and the searing red father can die grandly. It wants to know if it is all a game.
From the first moments, Scorcese announces his world. The opening sequence, working similarly to the beginning of Goodfellas pulls you in and sets the story going at a furious pace. Scorcese uses the tight script to ruminate on his pet themes, while getting killer performances from his large ensemble. He also creates some of his most indelible images, like the final shot or Nicholson's coke fueled date. Yes, DiCaprio is no Tony Leung, but judged independently everything in this film works. This is the sort of movie America has always owned, the kind that made Godard love Ray. It truly is one of Scorcese's best.
Current 2006 Top Ten:
1. The Departed
2. Miami Vice
3. United 93
4. A Prairie Home Companion
5. The Descent
6. An Inconvenient Truth
7. Dave Chapelle's Block Party
8. Inside Man
9. The Black Dahlia
10. Nacho Libre
The film is all about mirrors. Damon-DiCaprio, Nicholson-Sheen, bags of food at beginning and end. It asks why in this society we put the just through the stations of the cross and the wicked live in townhouses. The the glowing white father can die without a note, and the searing red father can die grandly. It wants to know if it is all a game.
From the first moments, Scorcese announces his world. The opening sequence, working similarly to the beginning of Goodfellas pulls you in and sets the story going at a furious pace. Scorcese uses the tight script to ruminate on his pet themes, while getting killer performances from his large ensemble. He also creates some of his most indelible images, like the final shot or Nicholson's coke fueled date. Yes, DiCaprio is no Tony Leung, but judged independently everything in this film works. This is the sort of movie America has always owned, the kind that made Godard love Ray. It truly is one of Scorcese's best.
Current 2006 Top Ten:
1. The Departed
2. Miami Vice
3. United 93
4. A Prairie Home Companion
5. The Descent
6. An Inconvenient Truth
7. Dave Chapelle's Block Party
8. Inside Man
9. The Black Dahlia
10. Nacho Libre
Five Easy Pieces (Rafelson, 1971)
With this tragic and immensely downbeat road picture, Nicholson established himself as the existential non-hero of the 1970s. I knew of this film for ever as one of my father's favorite movies, and I can see why. Nicholson is at the top of his form here, effortlessly showing us a man caught between two putrid worlds. Rafelson's script and direction are also sure handed, walking a line of classic structure and New Hollywood revisionism. Jack before he was "Jack", when he put his character into quotes, not himself. The monologues in the dinner and with his non-responsive father are famous for a reason, they are heights of the 1970s golden age.
With this tragic and immensely downbeat road picture, Nicholson established himself as the existential non-hero of the 1970s. I knew of this film for ever as one of my father's favorite movies, and I can see why. Nicholson is at the top of his form here, effortlessly showing us a man caught between two putrid worlds. Rafelson's script and direction are also sure handed, walking a line of classic structure and New Hollywood revisionism. Jack before he was "Jack", when he put his character into quotes, not himself. The monologues in the dinner and with his non-responsive father are famous for a reason, they are heights of the 1970s golden age.
