Movie: Buck

We saw Buck on Monday at the Michigan Theater. It is the story of Buck Brannaman, a cowboy of sorts who travels around giving courses on horse training, which often turn out to indirectly be courses on people training as well. As it happens, horses, like people, respond better to good management than to bad. Who would have thought?

I found the movie quite interesting as this is a world I know very little about. I have a couple of friends who are, or were, in the horse world, and I imagine that this gave me some insight into what attracts them to it. The NYT liked it too, probably a bit more than I did.

I should note that we went to this partly on the theory that our four-year-old would like it. She did not; there was too much talk and not enough plot for her taste.

Recommended.

Movie: Tree of Life

One could say many things about The Tree of Life, such as:

Luscious music throughout

Self-indulgent

Fine performance by Brad Pitt

In dire need of an editor

The "movie within the movie" about a 50s family in Waco is really good

Does God really look like a lava lamp?

Or one could heap praise and free passes on it, like A.O. Scott does at the NYT. Trust, in this case, the things he says about the movie within the movie. We disagree on the pretentious and somewhat incoherent shell of manufactured depth that surrounds it.

Or one could heap derision on it, like this commenter at the NYT:

If you are thinking of seeing this movie, stay home and watch 2-1/2 hours of NatGeo instead. During commercials, flip thru images of your childhood in old photo albums while whispering such deep questions as "Why do we drive?" and "What is a sandwich?" out loud. For variety, browse online images of Sean Penn until you find one of him at his most constipated looking, and stare at it while shoving large splinters under your fingernails. When it's over, take a shower and self-waterboard while banging your head repeatedly against the tiles.

It is all these things really, and to some extent of interest precisely because of that.

Sorta recommended, in part because it is, as A.O. Scott highlights, just different.

Addendum: Turns out that Brad Pitt and Matt Damon are not the same person.

Movie: Midnight in Paris

I have not had this much sheer fun at a Woody Allen movie in a long time.

The very positive NYT review by A.O. Scott is here, but I would go into the movie, as I did, without really knowing what is coming. I think you will have more fun that way. Then read the review when you get home to find out extra bits, like the real-world identity of the tour guide at the Rodin museum.

Some knowledge of the cultural figures who hung out in Paris in the 20s is helpful but not necessary. Seeing the movie in downtown Ann Arbor with a very knowing and appreciative audience enhanced the experience.

Aside: is it me, or is the fiance dressed and made up to look as much like Scarlett Johansson as possible? Presumably Scarlett was not asked to do the part because she is not good at playing a jerk yet her presence seems to be missed. And I am not the only one who noticed!

Highly recommended.

Movie: The Double Hour

The Double Hour is great fun, in a dark, mysterious sort of way, whether or not you follow all the plot twists. I agree wholeheartedly with the NYT review.

Movie: Win, Win

A delightful and quirky dramedy (with most of the weight on the comedy side) that raises questions about the link between being in control and being happy.

To quote A.O. Scott's fine NYT review "a good movie about trying to be good" (in New Jersey). Paul Giamatti's performance is memorable.

Recommended.

Movie: Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen

We learned about Hildegard von Bingen am letzten nacht ... I mean last night.

This sort of historical movie always frustrates me because I want to know how much of the content has some basis in historical evidence, how much has been added or altered for dramatic purposes, and how much has been added or altered to score points in modern political or cultural debates. In the case of this film, I think not much was added for purely dramatic purposes. The movie is low on plot and slow at times - "episodic" to use the word in the otherwise very positive LA Times review. The NY Times review seems a bit phoned in, and overly concerned with reassuring the reader that the reviewer is in no way religious, despite having been to see this movie.

Another review I read, which I could not find again today, noted that the movie does a very good job of illustrating life 1000 years ago. Aside from everyone have clean faces and clean hair, and not ever seeming to do much actual work, I would agree with that. It is also lushly and beautifully photographed, with a fine soundtrack.

Worth seeing, but know what you are getting into.

Addendum: here is the other review I mentioned.

Movie: Tangled

I agree with the NYT on this one: best straight-up (i.e. no Pixar) new Disney movie I've seen in quite a long time.

Recommended as a kid's movie.

Movie: Mademoiselle Chambon

We saw Mademoiselle Chambon last night at the Michigan Theater.

It is quiet, very French in its sensuality, focus on romantic longing and attention to social class, and very moving. The NYT says it well.

Recommended.

Movie: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

I found this preachy and incoherent, both in regard to its explanation for the recession and in various aspects of the story. But Michael Douglas is really good. Is he good enough on his own to make it worth the time and ticket price? Maybe not.

A.O. Scott at the NYT is much kinder but I worry that he may actually be friends with Oliver Stone or, more likely, just giving him bonus points on this one because of his earlier movies.

Movie: Restrepo

I don't have much to add to A.O. Scott on this one. It is both informative and moving, without being either jingoistic or preachy.

Recommended.

Movie: Agora

We say this yesterday at the Main Art theater in Royal Oak. Royal Oak is the hippest of Detroit's many suburbs, a sort of cross between Rush Street in Chicago and Ann Arbor. It is worth an occasional trip outside the Ann Arbor bubble.

This movie raises the question of whether the cause of reason (or science, or feminism, you can have your pick) justifies lying about history. The director (who co-authored the script) wants to tell a moral story about bad fundamentalists and the trouble they cause. In so doing, though, he apparently distorts the history to serve his political goals. Here is a snippet from an excellent blog post on the history:

Over and over again, elements are added to the story that are not in the source material: the destruction of the library, the stoning of the Jews in the theatre, Cyril condemning Hypatia's teaching because she is a woman, the heliocentric "breakthrough" and Hypatia's supposed irreligiousity. And each of these invented elements serves to emphasise the idea that she was a freethinking innovator who was murdered because her learning threatened fundamentalist bigots. The fact that Amenábar [the director] needs to rest this emphasis on things he has made up and mixed into the real story demonstrates how baseless this interpretation is.

I think the answer to the question raised by the movie is "no", so I found it irritating and preachy. A.O. Scott at the NYT, apparently part of the choir being preached to, is much kinder and seems to have appreciated the sermon.

I am no fan of fundamentalisms of any sort, and that includes the fundamentalist versions of atheism and secularism. I am very much a fan of getting the history right as history has much to teach us, most notably that things are rarely as morally obvious as this movie makes them out to be.

Addendum: if anyone can find a discussion of Agora on-line by an actual history professor, I'd love to hear about it in the comments.

Movie: Cyrus

We saw Cyrus last night at the Michigan Theater, where the crowd was surprisingly small given that a storm had driven many of the art fair masses indoors.

I am not sure still quite what to make of it. The NYT review does pretty well at capturing the movie, though I would not describe the ending as conventional. It is a creepy-odd-and-a-bit-funny story of three not that functional people who grow a bit but not a lot and prefer dysfunction together to being alone at the end of the movie, just as at the beginning.

Marginally recommended.

Movie: Solitary Man

We saw Solitary Man last night at the State Theater. I liked it a lot. It is a movie about the pain of being a successful man facing decline and in that it reminded me of Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of Vanities, though here the decline is much slower.

The NYT review is a bit gushier than I would have been but generally on target.

Finally, I was puzzled by the both the "R" rating and the claims in various reviews that this is (in part) a comedy. Other than a bit of swearing, there is nothing here you would not see in a movie of the week; in particular, there is no nudity and only one bit of minor violence. And I do not recall laughing anywhere in the movie. Maybe you have to be a New Yorker to find this funny.

Recommended

Movie: Ghost Writer

We saw Ghost Writer on Thursday night at the State Theater.

The NYT review is a bit more positive than I would be. I found the whole vast-CIA-Blair conspiracy business a bit silly and the link to current politics distracting. A less paranoid political narrative and a more realistically competent CIA would have improved the movie.

Still the acting and cinematography are fantastic and it is almost worth it just to see the amazing house around which much of the action centers.

Recommended.

Movie: In the Loop

In the Loop is a reality-based political spoof about political interactions between the US and the UK in the run-up to the Iraq war. It is also one of the two or three funniest movies I've seen this year. I particularly enjoyed "Chad" (love that name), the truly nasty little 20-something wonk brown-nosing his way to power. DC is full of such people, a subset of whom are selected out by a tough process of winnowing to become members of Congress. The US-UK interactions are perfect as well, perhaps because the film was made by the BBC.

Highly recommended.

Movie: Summer Hours (L'Heure d'ete)

We saw Summer Hours last night at the State Theater in Ann Arbor. It is a fine French meditation on communication via art and on the meaning of objects across generations. The story centers around the passing of a family matriarch, Helene, who had devoted her life to the artistic reputation of her uncle. She leaves a houseful of art (fine and decorative) to her three children, one an economist in Paris, one an artist in New York and the other a businessman in China. Much of the movie centers on their decision about whether to sell or hold and on the working out of their relationships with their departed mother, with their childhood pasts and with the house and the art.

Recommended if you are in the mood for a thoughtful film.

Movie: Star Trek

I do not recall a Hollywood movie ever getting ratings this high on rotten tomatoes.

I liked it a lot too. It does an amazingly good job of capturing the spirit of the original series which to my mind has always been the best (though holding this view requires not putting too much weight on the quality of the acting). The idea of starting the original characters off on a different timeline is also very clever, as it limits the amount of effort at continuity they have to put into future movies. There are plenty of touches to please the hard core - like including Captain Pike (and, apparently, a tribble, though I missed this) - but the movie is also, I would think, accessible to those who only know Star Trek from the bits that have reached popular culture at large.

This will brand me as a nerd forever (too late, I know), but I really enjoyed this movie. Some of that is person-specific as Star Trek has both a nostalgia element for me and reminds me of my father but some of it is because this is just a lot of fun.

Bonus: Greg Mankiw discusses the role of economics in Vulcan education.

Bonus: NYT review. I am starting to like the NYT film reviewer. Oh dear.

Bonus: Star Trek (2009) movie wikipedia page.

Movie: Ghost Town

A fine bit of Hollywood fluff. Ricky Gervais, the brit who plays the lead, is hilarious, though his character transformation is not quite convincing. Tea Leoni is gorgeous. Among the funniest bits are the parodies of the hospital staff, including a doctor obsessed by her fake tan, during Gervais' two visits to the hospital.

Recommended conditional on being a romantic comedy.

Addendum: Among the many movies with "Ghost Town" in their titles is 1983's "Benji in Ghost Town". Sorry I missed that one.

Movie: Transsiberian

Most horror movies make me laugh. This did not. Of course, it is not really a horror movie. There are no hockey masks and no attractive women who happen to take showers just as the evil villian /creature /zombie drops by. Instead, the chills come from a very realistic portrayal of what happens when life goes off the rails (as it were) for a middle class American couple taking an exotic journal on the Transsiberian railway. Ben Kingsley amazes, this time as a corrupt Russian narcotics agent. Emily Mortimer shows a range I did not know she had as the wife who cannot quite let go over her wild past and completely embrace the stable path she has chosen for herself. Plus some amazing scenery from the most brutal and god-forsaken parts of the Russian far east.

Recommended.

Movie: Hors de Prix (Priceless)

We saw Priceless last week at the State Theater here in Ann Arbor.

The movie revolves around a woman who is a sort of soft prostitute - she hangs out in rich resort towns and lets men buy her gifts and meals in exchange for sex and company. She has a long run goal of marrying one of these rich men (preferably an old one who will die soon and leave a large estate).

The plot thickens when she mistakes a hotel employee for a potential target. The hotel employee then falls in love with her and spends the rest of the movie attempting to woo her away from her life as a serially kept woman and into a life of romantic poverty. Did I mention this is a French movie?

The movie is fluff to be sure, but high quality French fluff with the lucious Audrey Tautou and beautiful scenes of the Mediterranean coast and of luxury hotels. There are some very funny moments and the supporting cast of rich men and women trying to recapture their lost youth (and have some fun doing it) are marvelous. I should note that Lisa really didn't like it: the main character was simply far too shallow for her to enjoy.