The Week In Movies 15/8/11 - 21/8/11

I feel like I've outdone myself this week. A fair few movies seen. Perhaps I should've used the time to write my novel or my script? Oh well. It'll happen when it happens.


The second noir night means we saw Peter Lorre in Fritz Lang's brilliant M, review to be posted Tuesday as always. And my favourite movie of the week was Quiet City, which was reviewed here on Friday in case you missed it.


A bizarre combination of movies you may think but these things are always going to occur when you watch so many films and then pick based on what mood you're in.

Continuing my love affair with Adrienne Shelly I went back to her directorial debut and final film before her murder, Waitress. Strangely after seeing her earlier work I didn't enjoy this one quite so much but for Leah it had the opposite effect and she liked it a lot more, even singing the pie making song performed by Keri Russell in the movie, all day. It's a sweet tale of love and hope and pie with some enjoyable performances from Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion amongst others.

The newest Studio Ghibli animated movie is known either as The Borrower Arrietty or simply Arrietty and was based on the Mary Norton novel The Borrowers. It's another piece of beautiful animation as you would expect from the studio and the story is sweet and faithful despite it's slight update and switch of locales. I highly recommend it as I would any of their movies but for me there will only ever be one adaptation of this novel and that was the BBC TV version starring Ian Holm or Bilbo as he will almost certainly be known as forever. For indepth analysis go see thecynicalgamer at Film Ha Ha for his great review which gave me the push I needed to actually get around to seeing this one.

Another recommendation from Bonjour Tristesse this week, the Rupert Everett starring zombie movie Cemetery Man. With a tagline of "Zombies, Guns and Sex. Oh My!" you'd be a fool to miss this one. It was low budget and strange but very good. At times I had no idea what I was watching, it felt like both an existential dramedy and a surreal zombie flick with moments and connections reminding me of Angel Heart and Shaun of the Dead amongst others. It was based on a novel by the same guy who wrote the Dylan Dog graphic novels which raised my interest and there's some similarities between the main characters and the worlds both stories use but aside from that they are very different beasts indeed. This is not horror and is worth seeing for people interested in strange and little known movies.


I actually went to a cinema twice this week, a rarity indeed. I took myself off to see Senna by myself because I could find nobody even slightly interested in seeing a documentary about a formula 1 driver and loved it so much that I had to write a review straight away.

We got free passes from the very excellent Pigeonhole hipster boutique in Perth to see the Mike Mills movie Beginners. To be disappointed would have required expecting something from the film but when the movie ended the mood in the full auditorium was something approaching apathy, I've been to the cinema when the crowd have been unimpressed and when they've enjoyed themselves but never experienced apathy before. I got the distinct impression that they were happy it had finished but weren't unimpressed by what they had witnessed. I thought it was OK, solid film making with a generic indie hipster girl opposite Ewan McGregor and his once more ridiculous American accent. They were both good and they had good chemistry but I didn't really care because their story was interspersed with the uplifting sad story of his recently out-of-the-closet dad living life to the full before dying of cancer. I could have watched either story on their own and enjoyed them but together they cancel each other out and I ended up not too fussed about either of them.

And then came the evening of watching movies we love, love, love.

Two of my favourite movies of 2009 and two of the most underrated movies of recent years in my opinion. You could class me as a film snob, in fact I regularly use the term in self defence but I have no problem in defending Jennifer's Body. Diablo Cody's follow up to Juno is a pitch perfect teen comedy that plays with the conventions of teen horror movies. Yes it probably helps to get a lot of the references and find them funny and enjoy the emo soundtrack but how can you not love Adam Brody in this movie? He is perfect as the lame indie singer who desperately wants to be like that guy from Maroon 5.

The same goes for Gamer, Gerard Butler is awesome in this movie but that is not reason enough for me to love it (otherwise I'd love Law Abiding Citizen too) Neveldine and Taylor have created some superb near future sci-fi with this film. So rarely does it happen that people can take current technology and societal behaviour and make assumptions about what might come next to create a wonderfully funny and realistic science fiction idea. I loved the concept of Society as the next step for Second Life and Slayers as the next step for all this reality TV we're inundated with. Michael C. Hall owns his role and the musical/dance number comes out of the blue and is brilliant. Great performance from Logan Lerman as well, he was totally wasted in that Percy Jackson movie. How people can't enjoy this movie for the good time it is, is beyond me. I happily place it alongside such classic films of the genre as Running Man and Total Recall.

Last but not least, today is the wonderfully talented young blogger Stevee's 16th birthday, go over to her great blog Cinematic Paradox and wish her a happy birthday. If I had her taste in films when I was 16 and was writing half as well as she does I probably wouldn't be here blogging about film.

A heavy week, please discuss in the blahs, I do love it when you leave me blahs. Any suggestion on what I should watch this week? I have two days off work and I might hide from the rain.

Movie Review: Quiet City (2007)

Quiet City, the follow up film from Aaron Katz after his previous mumblecore effort, Dance Party, USA. As mentioned in my review of a few weeks ago, I was enamoured of the mumblecore scene and this seemed like a good place to continue my experience of it.

Quiet City follows 24 hours in the life of Jamie and Charlie, two strangers who meet at a New York subway station. She is supposed to meet a friend, who doesn't show. He is a directionless slacker who's been hibernating since his last girlfriend moved states. With nothing but time and nothing to do the pair bond through a series of events culminating in an art gallery after party.

Unlike Dance Party, USA you are not treated to any attempts at emotional growth from these floundering post-teens, Quiet City is more subtle than that. It is however another movie about finding connections with other human beings. Across the awkward 24 hours these two go from being total strangers to perhaps realising that they have found a kindred spirit.

This is nothing new but Katz and his two main actors (both given writing credits presumably for the amount of improvised dialogue contributed) provide no declarations of love, affection, lust or grand set pieces to hang the story arc from, instead we are treated to minute upon minute of "like" and "um" shoved in to every inelegant sentence developing in to much more coherent speech patterns later on as their comfort with each other and themselves increases. The people they meet throughout the day only serve to highlight how important finding the right human connection is and how suited these two actually are for each other.

Alan and his Great Movie Project pointed out in the Dance Party, USA review if you have any mid-range hearing issues this type of movie is not for you unless you want to switch on subtitles, as quite regularly the actors cover their mouths with hands whilst they're talking and conversations are nearly drowned out by passing cars etc. I have no doubt that this is an acquired taste in movie aesthetics but in my mind it is a better way to add some realism to a movie than shaky cameras. It gives you that fun eavesdropping feeling you get when you're listening to other customers in shops or "private" conversations on public transport.

Once more the visual aspect of a Katz movie is strong, he used a different director of photography this time but still captured some wonderful shots throughout. A lot of almost still images of natural and man made beauty litter the movie, highlighting the everyday nature/beauty of what we were witnessing between Jamie and Charlie.

There's a moment of such complete truthfulness at the party, as an old friend of Jamie's has (what feels like) a long monologue about her inability to connect with guys in which she says the word "like" as almost every other word and a few times I swear she says "it was like like I like um." It's a painful to watch moment that caused us to laugh at her throughout but it is a perfect portrayal of the inadequacies felt by this generation as they try to create meaning in/of their lives.

Initially I wasn't as impressed as I was with Dance Party but it's stuck in my mind for days now, I keep thinking about it and wanting to watch it again, which can only be a good thing. Again it's not a film that can appeal to a wide audience but I still think you should see it. It's only 70 minutes afterall. And if that's not enough Nicholas at Cinema Romantico recently touched on how Aaron Katz makes poetic cinema with his review of Quiet City that compared him to none other than cinematic recluse Terrence Malick.

Has anyone seen this one? Have I managed to talk any of you in to exploring mumblecore? Next up is Cold Weather which should tie in nicely with our noir-a-thon too. Leave some blah below.