Steven Rubio's Online Life

what i watched last week

Two Lovers. I watch a lot of movies that are recommended to me by artificial intelligence programs which purport to know my taste in movies. Often, those recommendations puzzle me. For instance, I didn’t understand why I would be expected to like a romance starring Joaquin Phoenix. But Two Lovers is a romantic drama rather than a romantic comedy, with a bipolar gentleman (played by Phoenix) at its core. Yes, that is my kind of movie. It’s very low-key, with strong acting and muted direction and storytelling. I think critics praised it in part because it goes against the grain of mainstream movies today, and I don’t want to get carried away in the same manner. But the film deserves credit for successfully moving outside of our expectations, a melodrama without hysterics. 7/10.

Fires on the Plain. A superb movie, one of my favorites, yet I’ve only seen it twice, because its intensity is hard to take. It’s not the kind of movie you show to your friends. Deals with Japanese soldiers in the Philippines at the end of WWII, as they die from bullets and bombs and starvation. Roy Batty in Blade Runner says he’s seen things you people wouldn't believe … once you’ve seen Fires on the Plain, you’ll be saying the same thing. Nowhere to be found on the They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They list of the top 1000 films of all time, one of the real oversights of that project. 10/10.

Last Year at Marienbad. I hadn’t seen this in almost 40 years … that’s about the right length between viewings, I think. In its impact on cinema, it reminds me of Blade Runner … it’s extremely influential, you can see elements of this movie all over the place, and since it’s close to 50 years old, I suppose there are movies that were influenced by movies that were influenced by Marienbad. Even though as you watch it, you see hints of other movies (I was reminded of the 1962 version of Carnival of Souls), Last Year at Marienbad remains a fairly unique experience: an Oscar-nominated avant-garde feature film that fiddles around with time and meaning to such an extreme extent that no one to this day can tell you what it’s “really” about (the filmmakers claim it’s about whatever you say it’s about). Kael filed it under the genre “Come-Dressed-As-the-Sick-Soul-of-Europe Parties” … I think it might actually be a comedy, albeit one that isn’t particularly funny. The circular structure makes room for the movie to go on forever … it could just as easily be 94 hours long as 94 minutes. Of course, the reverse is also true … it could have been a 9-minute short and gotten its point across, whatever that point might be. Like Blade Runner, it’s gorgeous … I call them coffee-table movies, you could make a book filled with stills from the movie and it would be a pleasure to look at, but it’s not a picture, it’s a moving picture, and I’m not usually in the mood to watch still pictures for 94 minutes. As a once-in-a-lifetime achievement, it deserves at least one viewing. If nothing else, you’ll want to play the matchstick game. #89 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They list of the 1000 greatest movies of all time … for my own opinion on that ranking, see Fires on the Plain above. In my younger days, I probably would have given this 10 out of 10 … I remember being pretty enthralled by it the first time I saw it. Now? 6/10.

what i watched last week

Knocked Up. I’ve liked Judd Apatow’s work in the past. The comedy here is uncomfortable in good ways. Apatow’s stock company does an excellent job. And yet this was my least-favorite Apatow creation to date. He shows the good and bad sides of his beloved slackers, but they are ultimately lovable, while the female characters never quite make it that far. It’s casual pacing is itself slacker-like … Apatow is willing to let scenes play out without forcing them … but the result is a movie that is too long (heck with Booty Call, it’s half-an-hour longer than Juno, to which is was compared, and which I liked a lot better). 6/10.

what i watched on vacation

Lots of soccer, to be honest, but there were two movies.

First Man Into Space. Criterion is an interesting company, putting together arguably the most prestigious collection of recorded film ever (from laser discs to DVDs to Blu-ray), but also tossing in the occasion oddball. First Man Into Space is part of a four-film box set of horror and science fiction, and there isn’t much to any of the movies in the set. This one is laughable, cheap, and fun for anyone who grew up on this crap, but why Criterion released it is beyond me. 5/10.

Gran Torino. This one is a lot more pretentious than First Man Into Space, but not a whole lot better. Clint Eastwood once again directs as he acts … he’s a minimalist, economical, never a wasted move. Fifty years from now, people are going to look at those Best Director Oscars on his resume and wonder what the hell people were thinking. One last time, Clint saves the world from their own inadequacies … girl has pep and smarts, so she gets raped, her brother is also a victim of a local street gang, so Clint rides one last time (not only in the movie … he claims this is his last acting job), saves the day, and even gets killed in the process. He goes out with a bang. Eastwood is at his best when we sense he’s in on the joke, that he knows he is an entertaining hack who, as one of his characters once said, knows his limitations. He has produced a solid body of work and nothing more, and I bet he knows that. 6/10.

what i watched last week

Oldboy. It took me three years, but I finally got to the second film in Park Chan-wook’s “revenge trilogy” (I saw Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance in 2006). I thought the earlier film was the work of a stylish director with little to say. Oldboy is much better. The violence, implied and actual, remains excruciating, but where I said about the first movie that the violence was “cool and pretty,” this time it’s not cool at all … I’d call it gruesome and funny, which I understand is an odd combination. And while Mr. Vengeance had a plot that was at times incoherent and at times shallow, Oldboy’s narrative grabs the viewer from the start and never lets up. And the themes, of love and taboos, and the allusions, to Kafka and Memento, make Oldboy into a full experience. Don’t get me wrong … if screen violence bothers you, stay away from this one. #75 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They list of the top films of the 21st century. 9/10, which appears to be the highest rating I’ve ever given to a movie in Korean (I haven’t seen many).

what i watched last week

A History of Violence. Writing about movies in the abbreviated form of these "what i watched" posts shrinks my ambitions the way Twitter does for communication in general. But it helps me solve one problem with which I've always struggled on this blog: since I tend to watch movies past their sell-by date, I assume everyone has already seen them, forgotten them, formulated their opinions, or whatever. What I'm trying to do with this shorter format is attach some personal reaction ... I don't intend my comments to be definitive, but I like to offer something that might be particular to me. In this case, I come to the movie as someone who isn't a big fan of David Cronenberg. I've liked some of the ones I've seen, and only really disliked one (Videodrome, if you care). But he's not someone I seek out. So when I say I liked this more than any Cronenberg film I've seen, well, one, I haven't seen that many, and two, I appreciate that this is fairly mainstream for Cronenberg, and I don't object to mainstream. I'm also a big fan of Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello (another movie where the acting is top-notch), and they play very well at being married to each other (the first of the two sex scenes is remarkably honest, and funnier than Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie in Don't Look Now, one of the greatest married sex scenes on film). Their casual interaction made me believe in the small-town setting, so I was suckered in by what followed. Cronenberg's attitude towards the "history of violence" was complex enough to make for an excellent movie. #10 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 250 films of the 21st century. 9/10.

Total Recall. Awhile back, I was involved in a discussion about which Arnold movies were the best. I think this is second only to the first Terminator movie, and I'm starting to wonder if it's time to call this one underrated. What are the Arnold movies that people like the best? T2, maybe True Lies, Predator? The voters at the IMDB rank them like this: T2, Terminator, Predator, Total Recall, True Lies. So I guess it's not underrated by fans. Critics aren't as kind. For true Philip K. Dick-iness, this one blows all the other Dick adaptations out of the water except for A Scanner Darkly. (We can argue over the quality of something like Blade Runner, but I don't think it is as Dickian as Total Recall. Until Scanner, there was no scene more like a Dick novel than the one in Total Recall where the doctor tells Arnold, "What's bullshit, Mr. Quaid? That you're having a paranoid episode triggered by acute neuro-chemical trauma? Or that you're really an invincible secret agent from Mars who's the victim of an interplanetary conspiracy to make him think he's a lowly construction worker? Stop punishing yourself, Doug. You're a fine, upstanding man. You have a beautiful wife who loves you. Your whole life is ahead of you. But you've got to want to return to reality.") This is also probably my favorite Paul Verhoeven movie, for what that's worth. 8/10.

another trivial use for a mostly trivial tool

For some reason, I started paying more attention to the Advanced Search function on MovieLens, the movie recommendation site that predicts how much you'll like a film based on the ratings you give for other films. I currently have rated 1,274 movies. Advanced Search lets you find all movies by a certain director, or starring a particular actor, or movies within a genre. OK, nothing special there. But it also lets you filter the search results so that only the movies you have rated show up. Which makes it an easy way for me to see, say, what I think of Marlon Brando movies.

It turns out I've rated 9 Brando movies, with a total rating of 32.5 stars (MovieLens uses a 5-star rating system). So, an average Marlon Brando movie will get a rating of around 3 1/2 stars from me. What is an average Marlon Brando movie, according to me? Apparently, Apocalypse Now and The Wild One, both of which got 3 1/2 stars from me. (Godfather and Streetcar got 5, Island of Dr. Moreau got 1.) Of course, I can filter OUT my ratings, which should give me a Brando movie I would like. I'll try that ...

MovieLens suggests The Young Lions or Julius Caesar. I haven't seen the first ... been awhile since I saw the latter, which is probably why I didn't rate it. I remember liking it in the past. What Brando movie should I avoid? A Countess from Hong Kong and The Formula.

Of course, if I were rating actors, Marlon Brando would get a lot more than 3 1/2 stars. But his movies were rarely up to his abilities. Maybe directors are a more useful thing to insert into the process. By that method, Renoir might be my favorite director ... I've only rated two of his films, giving them both the highest 5-star ranking. Somebody like Hitchcock might be more accurate, since I've ranked 16 of his movies (average rating: 4 stars).

Oh well ... this isn't much of a game. It does make me want to check it whenever I watch a movie. Today I watched A History of Violence. I gave it the highest rating of any Cronenberg film I've seen, and I now give Cronenberg an average of just over 3 stars out of 5. Viggo Mortensen movies get just under 4 stars from me ... apparently I like his movies more than I like Brando's. Maria Bello? 3 1/2. William Hurt, just over 3 ... Ed Harris, the same. Johnny Depp, exactly 3 ... I'm just thinking of names off the top of my head. Helen Mirren, more than 3 1/2. Humphrey Bogart, almost 5 ... I've rated six of his movies, four getting 5 stars, the others getting 4. Maybe he is my favorite actor. Lauren Bacall, on the other hand, is only 3 1/2.

I have to quit this. Who should be my last lookup?

Bruce Campbell, just under 4 stars. Yes, I like his movies more than I like Brando's.

what i watched last week

I've Loved You So Long. This movie reminded me of a couple of others. I'd just watched The Wrestler the week before, which I thought was raised above the mundane by the remarkable lead performance from Mickey Rourke and support from Marisa Tomei. Well, here we go again. Kristin Scott Thomas is fantastic. At first, it looks like she's perfected an extremely narrow range of human existence, but her wary silences gradually grow into something more open, and the process is fascinating to watch. Elsa Zylberstein as her sister is the Marisa Tomei of the film, superb in support, making it possible for Scott Thomas to shine even as she is playing the more recessed character of the film's beginning. I also couldn't help but make a connection with another movie/play I'm involved with right now, although the comparison is only on the surface. We're reading A Streetcar Named Desire in my class right now, and I had a flash of recognition at the beginning of this movie, when the long-lost woman with a mysterious past came to live with sister, to the initial dismay of her brother-in-law. Anyone who loves great acting will like this movie. 8/10.

A Streetcar Named Desire. Still more great acting, although this time, the material matches the quality of the thespians on display. I do not know much about plays ... I'm always ready to watch another production of one of the classic Shakespeare tragedies, but that's about it. Except for A Streetcar Named Desire. It's my favorite American play, but don't take my opinion to heart, because I've barely experienced enough American plays to compare it with. I was first drawn to it because of Marlon Brando, for what it's worth ... my favorite actor in arguably his greatest role. Watching it again for my class, I was struck by how Vivien Leigh holds her own and then some, up against the animal force of Brando, mostly by deflecting Stanley and searching for her frail illusions. I suppose it's proof that I'm an unrepentant solipsist ... confronted with a great play like this, I found myself thinking about how I am, in some ways, a combination of Stanley and Blanche, insisting on the necessary important of the "real" while spending as much time as possible living in my own fantasy world. If you somehow have never seen Streetcar, trust me: there's a lot more to it than supposed insights into the character of Steven Rubio. #356 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the 1000 greatest films of all time, a ranking that would be closer to correct if they removed the "3". 10/10.

what i watched last week

The Wrestler. What we have here is an astonishing performance ... two, actually ... stuck into a fairly run-of-the-mill movie. The performances are so great, the latter barely matters. Mickey Rourke is painfully honest, Marisa Tomei makes something out of a nothing part, and the script by Robert D. Siegel and direction by Darren Aronofsky stays clear of sentimentality. The backstage rassling stuff is pretty interesting, but it's Rourke and Tomei who raise the movie above the mundane. #159 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the most acclaimed films of the 21st century. 8/10.

don't blame teevee

Armond White doesn't like the new Star Trek movie. A couple of things to start off. I am not one of those Armond White bashers. I disagree with him more often than not, but appreciate his approach, and, of course, always like it when he punctures some overrated movie I didn't like. (That he has some similarities to Kael doesn't hurt.) Second, I have little first-hand experience with Star Trek. You can't be an American without knowing the basics, but I never watched any of the series, and the only movie I saw was the one with Ricardo Montalban. Point being, I have no idea if Armond White is correct that the new movie is junk, just as I have no idea if the other movies or TV series were any good. Enough people I trust have taken great pleasure from the TV shows to convince me that there's something to be had from watching them ... they aren't my kind of show, but that's a taste preference, not a value judgement.

So the reason I'm about to rant on White's review of Star Trek has little or nothing to do with the movie, the franchise, or White's body of work. I doubt I'll see the movie, so on some level, it's all irrelevant.

But, here's the thing. I have often said myself that a major problem with American cinema since Jaws/Star Wars is the insistence on teenage boys as the market most worth pursuing, and thus the beginning of White's review resonates with me:

X-Men Origins: Wolverine ... like the new Star Trek movie, is designed for adolescent awe. Problem is: It’s not just niche marketing, it’s become the way of American film culture.These action/comic book/TV/fantasy/CGI flicks are not about plot.Their only purpose: teaching audiences to watch movies crudely, as teenagers, as a boy. At that, Wolverine and Star Trek succeed damnably.

Where I think White goes wrong ... and I think I can say this even though I haven't seen either movie, since it's a general point he's making ... is when he connects what he thinks is missing from these kinds of movies (explicitly in Star Trek) with his notions regarding television, "watchable, yet still terrible." He claims Star Trek "is designed to thrill people who cannot tell the difference between movies and TV," adding that J.J. Abrams "yearns for TV simplicity .. still selling soap," and calling the movie "literally big-screen TV."

If, as White seems to, you think TV is all on the level of According to Jim or the Knight Rider remake, then it is understandable that you'd accuse television of being a small-screen version of equally crappy American movies. Well, give White credit ... he is saying movies have become big-screen versions of crappy American television, which isn't the same thing. But the mistake he makes is the same, that TV is a vast wasteland. Even if we give White the point that the big screen allows for an elegance in cinematography that isn't often found on TV (both for budgetary reasons, and because the product will be seen on something much smaller than a movie screen, no matter how big your TV might be), it is simply nonsense, in the 21th century, to assume that all television amounts to the simplistic selling of soap. It's as if when White hears "Battlestar Galactica," he thinks of Lorne Greene and rolls his eyes.

In a film environment where adolescent awe reigns supreme, television can serve as a useful repository for the kind of work that is pushed aside in that environment. White knows the difference between a Spielberg and a hack (for that matter, in true Paulette mode, he champions DePalma), but, based on what he says in his Star Trek review, he doesn't know the difference between Aaron Spelling and David Simon, or David Milch, or Joss Whedon, or Ron Moore. And he should.

what i watched last week

Bolt. I'm not sure why I keep watching these animated movies. I don't usually hate them, but neither do I care about them one way or another. Finding Nemo is the exception that proves the rule, I guess. 6/10.

Unforgiven. Clint Eastwood's reputation as a director took a giant leap when he won the Oscar for this film ... up to that point, Eastwood, in his 60s, had directed more than a dozen movies while working as an actor for almost 40 years, without ever receiving an Oscar nomination for anything. Like all of his best movies, Eastwood serves the script, lets the actors take care of business, and, in this case, inserts his own iconic presence into the mix. The problem with this kind of directing is that it falters when the script and/or the actors do not take care of business. Eastwood reminds us of the directors of the studio era, doing a workmanlike job and nothing more. Sometimes you get Unforgiven, other times you get Absolute Power. Ultimately, he'll be remembered for the highlights, the low lights will be forgotten, the Oscars for directing will get people's attention, and he'll be just as he is now: a decent director, only as good as his material, who is overrated because sometimes the material is very good. He's Don Siegel with a couple of Oscars. It must be stated, though, that what Eastwood does is harder than he makes it look. As a director, and as an actor, he understands what Harry Callahan says in Magnum Force: a man's got to know his limitations. #209 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the Top 1000 films of all time. 7/10.