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Spurning a “Blue Valentine” – A Movie Review

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On February 22, 2011

In Movies

Country Valentine

Image by .bobby via Flickr

Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine (2011) deals with the deeply troubled marriage of Dean and Cindy (Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams).

Have you ever seen the Swedish film, The Passion of Anna, by Ingmar Bergman? It, too, has a lot to do with relationships between men and women.  I don’t consider it a success because, for one thing, it’s too talky, but it makes Blue Valentine look utterly lousy by comparison.  At least Bergman (in Passion) cared about character development; Cinafrance doesn’t.  We learn very little about Dean and even less about Cindy.  (Why, really, is their marriage such a failure?  The movie more than hints that it’s all Dean’s fault, but that explains nothing.)

At least Bergman fashioned quite a few powerful scenes; too many of Valentine‘s scenes get boring.  Ross Douthat of National Review finds the couple’s courtship “very charming.”  I don’t.  Usually, when people in movies are shown falling in love, it’s sleep-inducing.

There is a certain degree of artistic strength in Cianfrance’s film, but mainly it’s a draggy work of pseudo-art.

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Give “Please Give” a Chance – Movie Review

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On February 8, 2011

In General, Movies

Please Give

Image by HowardLake via Flickr

Written and directed by Nicole Holofcener, the comedy-drama Please Give (2010) has to do with moral responsibility when it is unmet (except in the case of Rebecca [Rebecca Hall]) and with feeling guilty.  Kate (Catherine Keener) hands out money to the homeless and contemplates doing volunteer work only in order to assuage her guilt over exploiting the deaths of elderly people who own valuable furniture.  Only near the film’s conclusion does she conduct a form of giving which is not just a means of reducing guilt, as when she agrees to buy her teenaged daughter a pair of costly jeans.  Her culpability is nothing, however, compared with that of some other characters, who are nevertheless guilt-free.  Whence comes this reality?

Holofcener (Friends With Money) is a true artist–and an intelligent one.  This despite the fact that Please Give provides an unearned happy or optimistic ending.  It resolves itself with scenes of family affection, which is inadequate.

Even so, the film is absorbing and the acting is utterly winning.

Juno – Movie Review. It’s Smart.

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On January 7, 2011

In Movies

Weekend Movie ReviewIn Jason Reitman‘s smart, racy and delightful film, penned by Diablo Cody, Juno (Ellen Page) is a scrappy but sensitive teen girl who initiates sex with her male chum Paulie (Michael Cera) and afterwards gets big with child. She can’t bring herself to have an abortion but is too young to parent, so adoption is the only alternative.

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Changeling Movie Review

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On October 8, 2010

In Movies

Dean's Movie Review

I got tired long ago of movies that focus on immoral, abusive police officers. There are too many of them. Clint Eastwood‘s “Changeling” does that, too, but I can take a small amount of comfort in the fact that ITS police officers exist numerous decades ago in the late 1920s.

Cover of "Changeling"

Cover of Changeling

And in the fact that there’s a brutal, psychopathic killer in the film whom the police don’t try to protect.

Ah, but what about all the snake-pit balderdash at the mental hospital to which poor Angelina Jolie is consigned?

“Changeling” is more intriguing than successful. Joe Morgenstern of the “Wall Street Journal” correctly points out that

a) folks in the Twenties didn’t jabber about self-esteem and

b) the woman played by Jolie and the preacher played by John Malkovich are together a lot “but don’t really interact.”

They should, but they don’t.

Eastwood’s film handles some grisly subject matter with an ineptitude so many of his other movies have been marked with as well.

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The Dark Knight – Batman DVD Review

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On October 1, 2010

In Movies

Dean's Movie Review

Christopher Nolan’s Batman movie is certainly not a comedy. It has the elements of tragedy, but whereas something like “Macbeth” offers plot simplicity, “Knight” is a complex mediocrity which I found hard to follow.

What I was able to follow–time and again–made no sense.

Health Ledger The Joker

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The film’s gravity packs a punch, but with action sequences which fail to satisfy. Christian Bale is no big deal as Batman/Bruce Wayne, while Maggie Gyllenhaal, nifty as usual, has an easy part to play. Aaron Eckhart is sophisticatedly true as a district attorney,

Heath Ledger terrifying and magisterial as the Joker–one of the best acting jobs of the year.

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