SCREENING LOG - 7/24/2006-7/30/2006

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Slave of Love (1976, Nikita Mikhalkov)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075119/
TSPDT #879
An interesting story about a bourgeois film production company in crisis during the Russian Revolution, its lead actress becoming infatuated with Communism even while enjoying celebrity excess. Somehow I just don't think the movie dug deep enough into these problems -- it worked more as a period piece, capturing a lovely sense of genteel decadence reminiscent of Chekov's stories. There's a great scene with the starlet and her lover walking through a windy woods that is very Chekovian, delicate yet sharply rendered, and the way the figures are framed is straight out of Yevgeni Bauer's films from the period being depicted. Other scenes that seem to go for broad, fresco-like views of people and settings feel like second-rate Altman, sloppy and aimless.
mixed

Them! (1954, Gordon Douglas)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047573/
yes - awful lot of talk-heavy detective procedural for a sci-fi horror flick, but there's enough proto-James Cameron-esque pleasure in the exciting bits to merit a positive response overall. I love how the military actually asks the scientist to give the greenlight before they obliterate the enemy.

The 40 Year-old Virgin (2005, Judd Apatow)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405422/
Tuned in about 40 minutes into it, but it left a strong enough impression on me to make me want to comment. It seemed very loose in structure -- the plot is actually pretty minimal with numerous riffs on Steve Carrell's sexual inhibition and how co-workers and girlfriend relate to it. A lot of the scenes felt like the actors were improvising off a basic scenario ("Okay, so you're Steve's horny middle-aged boss wanting to break him in - see what lines you can come up with"). This looseness may normally spell trouble for a movie, but for the most part this one pulls it off due to the talents of its ensemble and some directorial fun with staging and compositions. The actors are all likeable and winning in their performances (even though there's some troublesome handling of black and Middle Eastern stereotypes), and there's unexpected mileage gotten from sharp observations of suburban life and pop culture. On the issue of sex I found the film remarkably refreshing. Even though Carrell's character is introduced as the timid prude afraid of entering the world of sexual grown-ups, the film left me with a pervasive feeling of discomfort at a society preoccupied with sexual gratification as a prerequisite for happiness or self-worth. By the end of the film everyone except Steve Carrell seemed mentally unhealthy or immature. The middle section is definitely stronger than the last act, where the scenes tended to lose focus, but on the whole it was very funny and suprisingly thought-provoking.
yes

Egyptian Story (1982, Youssef Chahine)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084042/
I wanted to like this one as I am a big fan of the two other Chahine films I've seen, DESTINY and SILENCE...WE'RE ROLLING. But I guess I was a bit dubious about more than some of this. I know that Chahine has self-referentialism in his blood, that he just loves to comment on the cinema itself and various aspects of artistic production, as the films I've seen of his attest. Often times his enthusiasm can be infectious. But here I felt he owed too much to 8 1/2 and ALL THAT JAZZ and it didn't feel unique enough on its own. Maybe because it felt so indulgently autobiographical without offering enough to merit that level of narcissism. The story felt clunky and episodic -- characters come and go -- first we see an issue with his sister marrying the wrong guy, next thing we know we're at Cannes with his fiancee. The historical/political content seems treated more incidentally that it deserves. One thing I enjoyed was the wild and at times fascinating fantasy sequences, putting his inner child on trial. The thing with Chahine is that he can be breezy and perhaps its best not to take his films too seriously. Even while trying to tackle heavy personal issues, they try to appeal to a general audience. Maybe I just found this attempt those two halves offputting in this instance.
mixed

Jackass: The Movie (2002, Jeff Tremaine)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0322802/
If Pier Paolo Pasolini grew up in contemporary Southern California among aimless suburbanites seeking freakishly extreme pleasures, this is the movie he'd probably make. Like Pasolini's literary trilogy, it manages to be brazenly populist, disgustingly explicit, and unexpectedly life-affirming. After a while, I had to stand back and admire some of the creativity behind some of these gags -- my favorite was probably the one where the guy sticks a toy car up his butt and goes to the doctor feigning an illness. Worth it just for the look on the doctor's face as he inspects the x-ray.
yes

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