Brandon, I think Emerson already gave you your whipping. I may eventually see Avatar, but I have low expectations despite your enthusiasms.
http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/2009/12/avatar_plummets_into_the_uncan.html
Unrelated, I just re-watched Pulp Fiction for the first time in at least ten years.
I also watched The Happening. I couldn't help myself. I knew I had to see it eventually. Why not treat myself on Christmas Eve?
And you know what's funny?
Pulp Fiction is generally good.
The Happening is generally bad.
But, they both have something in common. As "pure" auteur pics, they both share the same weakness.
All of the dialogue sounds like it may as well be coming out of the same mouth. There are lots of characters but each one of them speaks strictly on behalf of their creator, not on behalf of themselves.
Tarantino seems to have grown out of this bad habit (though he hasn't shaken it completely). Shyamalan seems to be stuck in a rut. He knows how to frame an effective shot and structure a story appropriately, but his personality gets in the way. If anyone gives him money to make another film (which is doubtful at the moment), I really hope that they require him to shoot someone else's script. He's an extremely competent and talented director with a headful of muddled narratives.
Dialogue and stupid story aside, The Happening is a bold and brilliant failure. It's not a stupid movie in the same class as average stupid movies for the masses. Any film that attempts to make wind and trees and bees disappearing scary and has a lame science teacher hero has already beaten almost all of the fart jokes of the year combined. The Happening is a noble failure.
Christmas day was fun. I had the sniffles through the day, but generally felt fine. The sweetness of the world had arrived. I had only to enjoy it. And I did.
Maybe a bit too much.
The night ended in a haze of Imported Polish potato vodka courtesy of brother Peter.
The next morning, I found that Santa had left me a nasty little day-after-Christmas-cold. I felt crappy, but went to work anyhow. After getting some work done, I spent the last few hours of my shift recuperating on a couch with medicinial TCM before my eyes. While on that blessed couch, I saw my first ever Rathbone/Bruce Sherlock Holmes film. Interestingly enough, my first Holmes film was the last one that this marvelous duo would ever make. Evidently, Rathbone wanted to spend the rest of his career being in awful horror pictures instead.
The film was Dressed to Kill and it was an absolute delight, just the sort of thing that my sick and grumpy soul needed to make me feel better. The mystery involved three music boxes worth killing for and a femme fatale to die for. I especially loved the whole tobacco sub-plot and also Watson quacking like a duck to console a traumatized little girl.
Jason, your boy may be too old or too cool for these Holmes movies, but I say give them a try. I plan on eventually watching them all with my girls. While I'm writing to you, specifically, Jason, how many times do I have to beg you to start your own movie blog? 2010 is a good year to start. One sentence per movie watched. That's all I'm asking. It's cheaper and more satisfying than collecting Star Wars merchandise.
Instead of getting better, by Monday the cold had moved down to my chest and I was starting to cough up foul colored gunk. I spent the day reading Cordwainer Smith's Norstrilia (which would make a great film!)
Tuesday, I called in sick. I caught up on a couple of borrowed films and a third that I regret buying for a few dollars at Hollywood video.
Knife In the Water is good at what it is, but I mostly don't care. I'm a geek and relate to geeks. Whether I like it or not, Synechdoche, New York was made for me. Knife In the Water was not. I can't relate to "manly" men trying to out-man each other. I can't even enjoy watching how stupid this contest is. I have firsthand geek knowledge that this is stupid painful behavior on the part of non-geeks that only ever hurts geeks. I'm rambling and not really discussing the feature. Oh well. There is a knife in the water. At least we get what we're promised.
F For Fake delivers the geek goods. I loved it. Maybe more on it later.
Spielberg's The War of the Worlds is a huge disappointment. It works as a monster/chase movie with little to no science fiction premise to back it up. If that's all I'm getting, I'd rather watch Carpenter's The Thing a few more times. There is some family dynamics here, but it's only the same Spielberg broken family learning to love and live through the cracks. And you know what? It doesn't even work as a monster/chase movie. I think that the only SF element here is that Cruise and Fanning are immortal and invincible, preventing any audience relatability. There are no scares or thrills when you can't suffer even the possibility of a bad end.
That's it. Those are the last six films seen in the calendar year 2009, bringing my watched total to around 200. And I've written about every one of them. It's been fun.
Top ten tomorrow.
See you in 2010.
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