Steven Rubio's Online Life

revisiting the 9s: chop shop (ramin bahrani, 2007)

[This is the twenty-third in a series that will probably be VERY intermittent, if I remember to post at all. I've long known that while I have given my share of 10-out-of-10 ratings for movies over the years, in almost every case, those movies are fairly old. So I got this idea to go back and revisit movies of relatively recent vintage that I gave a rating of 9, to see if time and perspective convinced me to bump that rating up to 10.]

In 2009, I wrote:

Director Ramin Bahrani works with supreme confidence ... any misgivings that might arise as you watch are, well, they don't arise because you're sucked in to the matter-of-fact presentation of a segment of American life invisible to most of us. Perhaps afterwards you wonder about the plot (or lack of same), or how much the realist style matches the reality of what is being shown. But this is a remarkable film that reminds one of any number of genres, none of which seem to be American (Italian neo-realism is one clear influence).

I agree with everything I said at the time. I'm still not convinced this is a "10". Roger Ebert once wrote that with Chop Shop "we have an American film with the raw power of 'City of God'". It's splitting hairs, I suppose, but City of God is the kind of great movie that elicits a "10" from me as soon I see it ... it came out in 2002, and it never made a list of "9s". Maybe it's the lack of sensationalism, but in the end, Chop Shop doesn't jump off the screen the way City of God does. Chop Shop is a wonderful movie, but it's not quite a classic.

geezer cinema: juror #2 (clint eastwood, 2024)

Clint Eastwood. It's like a brand name. You know what you are getting from a film he directed, even when he is 94 years old. Mick LaSalle encapsulated Eastwood's career: "Think about a legendary actor like John Wayne — enormous, iconic, indelible. Think of a director like John Ford — monumental, untouchable, profound. Now imagine if John Wayne and John Ford were the same guy."

Eastwood is/was an iconic actor, which isn't to say he was a great actor, although he certainly let his audience know the kind of character he was playing on a basic level. He was a popular movie star, although for me, the closest he came to a classic was in The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. He has a handful of Oscars, but none of them are for acting (in fairness, he has been nominated twice). Characters like Harry Callahan are easy to describe and easy to remember, and it's harder than it looks to portray the essence of such a shallow character. I'm not here to denigrate Eastwood's acting, nor am I denying his appeal to audiences. You know what you are getting: a minimalist approach that largely avoids overt emotionalism.

Eastwood as director is much like Eastwood the actor, and I fear at this point I'm just repeating myself, for I say this every time I see once of his pictures. He takes a minimalist approach, he stays within his budget, he trusts his actors, and from everything I know his movie sets are good to work on. But the closest he came to a classic was Mystic River, with maybe Letters from Iwo Jima second. He's made enough solid movies to convince a lot of people he is a great director ... and of course, two of his Oscars are for Best Director. But he also made weaker movies ... OK, if you make as many as he has, perhaps a little weakness is inevitable. People remember his work under Sergio Leone, and his Oscar for Unforgiven, and gradually we just assume everything he does is quality. But the Westerns he has directed include such non-classics as Pale Rider and The Outlaw Josey Wales, films with reputations that don't match what's on the screen. And what to make of stuff like Absolute Power and Space Cowboys? (It's worth noting that both of those movies had reasonably-sized budgets and made money worldwide. Clint Eastwood makes money for his studios.)

So what about Juror #2? It's one of Eastwood's better movies ... he lets his actors act, he lets the screenplay do its thing, and all of it is solid. There are hokey plot twists, but Eastwood gets about as much as you can out of a courtroom drama in 2024. He deserves the plaudits, even if he wasn't 94 years old. But is Juror #2 as good as Anora, or Furiosa, or The Wild Robot, or His Three Daughters? No. It's as good as The Beekeeper with Jason Statham, and that is not an insult ... The Beekeeper is a good movie. But it's not great, and neither is Juror #2.

buchanan rides alone (budd boetticher, 1958)

Another in a series of westerns made by director Budd Boetticher and star Randolph Scott. It's the third I've seen (the others being The Tall T and Ride Lonesome). All of them are solid efforts, made inexpensively but artistically. These films aren't just B-Westerns. Scott's presence is commanding, and Boetticher has a sure hand. The cinematographer is Lucien Ballard, who worked on many Peckinpah movies, including The Wild Bunch.

The films are nothing special, but perhaps that's part of their charm. They are concise (Buchanan Rides Alone is 80 minutes), and if you aren't watching an all-time classic, at least you're not sorry you've seen it. If this seems like faint praise, well, sometimes a movie like this is exactly what you need. And there's something to be said for low-budget genre pictures that don't disappoint, given how many of them do.

the seventh seal (ingmar bergman, 1957)

How is it that I have never written about The Seventh Seal? Like many of my generation, Ingmar Bergman was my introduction to international "art" cinema. In my case, once a week I would watch a movie on a local UHF station (ask your grandparents) that showed arthouse movies, dubbed, probably edited to get rid of nudity, with commercials. The one that convinced me that I was onto something more than hoping for a naked person on late-60s broadcast teevee was Bergman's Through a Glass Darkly. I'm not sure what others I saw then, but when I became a film major in 1973 and spent the next year-and-a-half doing nothing but watching movies, I got a substantial dose of what was considered canon at that time, meaning I saw a lot of Bergman. Over the years, The Seventh Seal has been one of my very favorite Bergman movies (second only to Smiles of a Summer Night), and I have seen it many times. Which is why I'm surprised I never got around to writing about it.

The film's imagery is so iconic that it gets parodied to this day, nearly 70 years since it came out. It's the Bergman many people think of ... I suspect they imagine all of his films are like this one. Not everyone is convinced ... David Thomson wrote that it was "the ultimate step in this rather academic way of recording human torment", claiming "It's medievalism and the wholesale allegory now seem frivolous and theatrical diversions from true seriousness." It's not that Thomson is wrong, exactly ... The Seventh Seal does academically record human torment. It's just that it's far from frivolous, which is why it still affects audiences. If you haven't seen it for awhile, you might be surprised at the moments of humor. There's no chance a visionary juggler is going to be as iconic as Death playing chess with Max von Sydow. And despite the humor, Bergman does beat us to a pulp with the awfulness of life during the plague, where half of the people despair because God is punishing them while the other half despair because they don't believe in God.

The cinematography of Gunnar Fischer is exemplary. The Seventh Seal is a film that demands to be seen at least once, even if you decide it's not your cup of tea. #82 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the 1000 greatest films of all time, where it is championed by everyone from Roger Corman to Paul Verhoeven.

https://letterboxd.com/masoo/list/top-ten-ingmar-bergman-movies/

güeros (alonso ruizpalacios, 2014)

This is the sixteenth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2024-25", a "33-week-long community challenge" where "you must watch one previously unseen film that fits the criteria of the theme for the week." This is the 10th annual challenge, and my sixth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", "2022-23", and 2023-24). Week 16 is called "Viva la revolucion! Week":

Order and adherence to social norms is so intrinsic to any society that almost any kind of social change can only occur very gradually. Art and movies can be a part of what brings about this kind of slow change as societies evolve. However, there have been groups throughout history who have felt that the need for a new social order is so necessary that they sought to quick-start the change they wanted through the powerful force of violence and revolution.

Whether it be a depiction of an actual historic event or something like the overthrow of a futuristic dystopia, this week watch a movie about a political revolution where violence is involved. Here is a list from Darren Carver-Balsiger to help you get started.

The politics, the revolution, the violence, they are all here, but none of them drive the story, which is ultimately a road movie that takes place amidst those events. It's 1999 in Mexico City, and a student strike at UNAM essentially has shut down the university. A mother sends her young troublesome son Tomás to stay with his brother "Sombra" in Mexico City. Sombra and his roommate Santos are taking advantage of the strike to ignore school ... they are slackers. Sombra's girlfriend Ana is involved with the strikers, and writer-director Alonso Ruizpalacios gets all four characters to travel around town, crossing with various elements of the strike while looking for an old folk-rocker named Epigmenio Cruz.

This was the first feature for Ruizpalacios, and he has a confident tone, full of influences, notably of French New Wave filmmakers like Godard. Güeros is shot in black & white and has a documentary feel which makes the strike scenes especially believable. No particular political stance is taken in the film ... what matters is the characters and how they relate as they interact with the world around them. Epigmenio disappoints when they finally find him, and Ana deserts Sombra for the strike, at which point everything is pretty much back to where they were when Tomás first arrives in the city.

The cinematography of Damián García is excellent. Overall, Güeros is impressive without ever knocking you over. It makes you want to watch more films by Ruizpalacios.

[This was also part of my occasional ongoing attempt to watch movies in Spanish using subtitles in Spanish. I read a summary of the plot in advance. I felt this was my most successful try yet ... I never felt lost.]

geezer cinema: blitz (steve mcqueen, 2024)

Blitz carries an aura of prestige: Oscar-winner Steve McQueen takes on life in London during the German attacks during World War II. Saoirse Ronan has four Oscar nominations of her own, and although I think she's at her best in her Greta Gerwig movies, she certainly shines here. New discovery Elliott Heffernan as 9-year-old George is a real find who would seem to have a strong career ahead of him.

Blitz's look is eye-catching in an appropriately dreary way (Yorick Le Saux is the cinematographer), and Ronan's blonde hair stands out strikingly (as do the red clothes she often wears). McQueen presents the historical story as a personal one ... Ronan plays a young mother, Rita, who sends her son George off as part of an evacuation of children. George escapes that fate, and works his way back home to London. McQueen effectively moves between the various elements he has concocted, with just enough flashbacks to establish Rita's character. And the cast is filled with fun names: Paul Weller of The Jam plays Rita's aging father, poet Linton Kwesi Johnson turns up, and there's the ever-present Stephen Graham as a frightening stand-in for Fagin. We even get Christopher Chung from Slow Horses as one of Graham's henchmen.

Somehow it doesn't quite add up to a classic. Harris Dickinson is completely wasted. His scenes could have been eliminated without damage to the film. There is an inherent intensity in the situation, the incessant bombing, George's long trip home, but outside of a few strong set pieces, everything feels a bit slack. Blitz is a good movie that will probably earn a couple of Oscar nominations. But it's my fourth McQueen movie, and it falls short of the others (Hunger and 12 Years a Slave for sure, even Widows).

goodbye to language (jean-luc godard, 2014)

Before this, I had seen a dozen Godard movies, and I consider myself a huge fan, with two classics (Breathless and Vivre sa Vie) and many others I rate highly. But ... and it's a big but ... the most recent of those films is Weekend, which came out in 1967. I have seen a dozen, but still have a limited understand of Godard's work overall.

So now I've watched Goodbye to Language, considered one of his late highlights (#117 on the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They list of the top 1000 films of the 21st century). And I fear it doesn't convince me that I need to watch more post-Weekend Godard.

It's pretty much what I expected, given my limited knowledge about Godard's later work. It's highly experimental, purposely inscrutable, very "in your face". Godard challenges the viewer to interpret what he offers, and makes interpretation difficult if not impossible. I have no insights, but it seems to me that he is uninterested in meaning as a theme or subject. Instead, he wants to challenge the standards of cinema, in the process challenging us as an audience. Indeed, Goodbye to Language is challenging. Clearly, some have found the film insightful. But it completely missed the boat for me. Godard made it in 3D, and the print I watched was in 2D ... maybe it mattered, but I doubt it.

dear zachary: a letter to a son about his father (kurt kuenne, 2008)

This is the fifth bonus film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2024-25", a "33-week-long community challenge" where "you must watch one previously unseen film that fits the criteria of the theme for the week." This is the 10th annual challenge, and my sixth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", "2022-23", and 2023-24). Bonus Week 5 is called "Past Hosts Week":

When Benjamin Milot took on hosting duties as the third host in LSC 4 he created a theme to honor past hosts' favorite movies that he kept going up until LSC 7, sometimes combining the theme with his own favorite movies list as the current host.

This bonus challenge is to watch a movie from one of our past three hosts favorite movies lists. Monsieur Flynn's (LSC 1) is here, kurt k's (LSC 2-3) is here, and Benjamin Milot's (LSC 4-8) is here.

I didn't expect to like Dear Zachary. I knew it was highly regarded, and it felt like a regular inhabitant of the myriad Letterboxd lists I have of films to watch. But it looked to be a true crime documentary, and I imagined something like the things that turn up regularly on television programs like Dateline NBC: a voyeuristic account of a real tragedy involving real people. It's true, my sense of those programs is biased in useless ways, since I don't watch them and so don't actually know if my description of them is accurate. I still don't know.

But Kurt Kuenne is up to something different with his film, something more personal, something that rejects voyeurism to focus on the real tragedy and the real people. Most obviously, Kuenne was a childhood friend of the victim, Andrew Bagby. He couldn't treat the story dispassionately, because he was among the mourners. He dealt with it in his own way ... he was a filmmaker.

The story took a turn when the woman accused of Andrew's murder, an ex-girlfriend named Shirley Turner, announced that she was pregnant with her and Andrew's child. That child, when born, was named Zachary, which helped provide a focus for Kuenne. He would make a film about his friend, one that his son could watch in the future to see what kind of a man his father was. It wasn't hard to get people to agree to be interviewed, because Andrew was universally liked.

The story takes further turns that I will avoid here in the name of spoiler prevention. Suffice to say that the case overall resulted in changes to Canadian law.

The point is, the personal experiences of Kuenne and Andrew's family, friends, and colleagues raise the film above something you watch on a Friday night to pass the time. Dear Zachary carries an emotional wallop that I wasn't expecting.

Here is a short film about the aftermath. Do not watch unless you have already seen Dear Zachary.

geezer cinema: the return (uberto pasolini, 2024)

It's easy to see why The Return was made. You've got a classic tale based on Homer's Odyssey. You've got two top actors in Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, appearing together for the first time since The English Patient in 1996. One of the screenwriters was the esteemed Edward Bond, his last film before his death at 89. The director was Oscar-nominated Uberto Pasolini.

Epic story, honored actors and crew, what could go wrong? Honestly, nothing goes wrong. But after watching The Return, I'm not sure why anyone bothered. Oh, Fiennes and Binoche might get Oscar nominations, and cinematographer Marius Panduru will be in the Oscar discussion as well. Perhaps the problem lies in the decision to turn Homer's epic into a brooding character story. That gives the two stars plenty to chew on, and they deliver, but the action is pretty limited until an ending so violent it earns the picture its "R" rating. It takes forever to get things going ... Odysseus washes ashore on Ithaca, naked, unrecognizable, then for what felt like forever we go back and forth between Odysseus keeping his identity a secret and Penelope pining for the man who left her so many years ago. It's not boring, not with two actors as strong as the leads. But it did feel like it took ten years to get Odysseus, naked on that beach, to finally claim his identity. The Return is not a waste of your time or the talent involved, it's just inconsequential.

tiny tim: king for a day (johan von sydow, 2020)

This is the fifteenth film I have watched in "My Letterboxd Season Challenge 2024-25", a "33-week-long community challenge" where "you must watch one previously unseen film that fits the criteria of the theme for the week." This is the 10th annual challenge, and my sixth time participating (previous years can be found at "2019-20", "2020-21", "2021-22", "2022-23", and 2023-24). Week 15 is called "Different Drums Week":

Think outside the box: wear a giant papier-mâché head and front a band. Don't conform: master an other-worldy-sounding instrument. Blaze a new trail: start singing metal in your 90s. Be unexpected: bring pop to the opera and opera to the club. Embrace the unconventional: start a one-man band. Stray from the beaten path: become the greatest, worst singer ever.

This week's challenge is to march to the beat of your own drum by watching a film that marries documentary and decidedly non-mainstream music in a swirl of sound and storytelling that converges outside the popular consciousness. Thankfully, Mike Sean has curated a handy selection of fitting novelties on his delightfully esoteric Different Drums: Documentaries on Musical Curiosities list.

Johan von Sydow takes a stylistic kitchen-sink approach to his documentary on the singer Tiny Tim. He blends old performance footage with animated recreations, interviews with relevant people in Tiny's life and voice-over narration taken from Tiny's diary read by Weird Al Yankovic. There is a lot of love for Tiny Tim in the movie ... the film wants us to embrace the eccentricities in the man's life, wants to show us the art behind the man's presentation. We hear from avant-garde filmmaker Jonas Mekas, and are reminded that Bob Dylan and John Lennon were fans.

There is no attempt to offer a complete version of Tiny's life. The film's short running time (78 minutes) helps ensure this, since von Sydow is covering the entire length of Tiny's life and needs to squeeze in what von Sydow thinks is important. We don't know what von Sydow is leaving out. The movie isn't merely a gloss on Tiny Tim. We see the ups and downs of his private life, including his three marriages (one of the interviewees is his daughter), but I never lost the feeling that something was being left out.

The film ends with a marvelous anecdote that I can't resist spoiling. The legendary Wavy Gravy, who knew everyone in Greenwich Village during Tiny's formative years, tells a story about he and Tiny Tim catching a ride with Neal Cassady. As Wavy tells the story, we see an animated representation.

We were driving up the west side highway in New York ... with Neal Cassady driving the car, and Neal and Tiny singing Bing Crosby duets as we drove along. Every now and then he'd go, "Oh Mr. Cassady, not so fast!" "Oh relax, Tiny, everything's cool! I'm just gonna roll this joint and drive with my knee.

Perhaps it helps if you know me a little bit. The idea of Wavy Gravy, Tiny Tim, and Neal Cassady together in a car makes my day.