Tag Archives: drama

#165- Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Quick recap: The aliens have made contact and they don’t want to murder us after all! (that we know of………yet)

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Fun (?) fact: The cast and crew of Close Encounters of the Third Kind were all lame. The little kid in the movie, Cary Guffey, was really good at nailing his scene so Spielberg had shirts printed that said ‘One-Take Cary’. In another highly hilarious t-shirt creating story, actor François Truffaut said his line ‘they belong here more than we’, but the crew heard it as ‘Zey belong here, Mozambique’ so of course they had to commemorate it somehow. I just imagine a whole bunch of lame dads running around the set yelling, ‘that’s hilarious! Put it on a t-shirt!’ and then laughing uproariously.

This, I would buy.

This, I would buy.

My thoughts: A bonus fun fact to make up for the lame one earlier: I’m terrified of aliens. Now, to be fair, I’m terrified of almost everything from spiders to wind turbines to  glow in the dark books. Aliens have a been a weird constant, however, and it feels nice to finally get that off my chest. I don’t even know where the fear began, except it might have something to do with the tv show Sightings that used to come on late at night and the fact that I lived in a small town. It’s always the small towns that are affected, for some reason. Anyway, although I have seen Close Encounters of the Third Kind before and I know how the movie ends, I still expected an ending where the mother(?) alien comes out of the ship and obliterates everyone. Actually, I would’ve preferred that over the sickingly sweet aliens Spielberg dreamed up.

I should also mention that I’m not one of those people who hate Spielberg. He’s iconic, one of the best directors of the last half century. But in being so prolific, he has also amassed quite a few tropes that are hard to ignore the more I watch his films. One of them is the Happy Ending, in which everything works out for good ole’ Roy. He’s the main character, a normal guy who has a CLOSE ENCOUNTER OF THE THIRD KIND and becomes drawn to the Devil’s Tower for some reason. Along the way, his story is actually pretty dark with his family basically abandoning him because he can’t perform basic tasks like eating mashed potatoes and not filling the entire home with shrubbery and dirt. But in the end, it’s all ok because the creepy alien children choose him to live on their spaceship and form a circle around him, as if he is now their god.

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All that out of the way, I actually really enjoyed the film. I have no idea how realistic it all is, but the scenes in the beginning with the power going out, the mysterious wind and the magnetic forces all seemed plausible. The scene where the kid Barry is abducted also seemed realistic and terrifying and maybe gave me nightmares later on. Finally, my cold heart that wanted to scoff throughout this whole movie and join the ranks of Spielberg haters was ultimately warmed by the musical conversation that occurred between the scientists and the mother ship, which also included a nice Jaws reference. Prolific can be a detriment at times because it can cause excellent directors to fall back on tropes, but it also means that you end up with a director who knows how to create a story and capture the audience. Good going, Spielberg.

Final review: 4/5. Not perfect, but enjoyable and utterly terrifying.

Up next: Downfall

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#164- Tokyo Story

Quick recap: An older couple visit their adult children in Tokyo, only to find out they have raised selfish jerks who only care about themselves.

Fun (?) fact: Director Yasujirô Ozu never married and lived with his mother his whole life which comes as no surprise, given the context of the movie. 

My thoughts: I was NOT prepared for this movie. Like, at all, in any way prepared. I didn’t think I would need to, because it seemed like a run of the mill boring film and I already imagined the snarky responses I would write after it was all over. Two hours later, as the final scene fades and the credits come on, I’m a sobbing mess trying desperately to lure the cats over to comfort me in my time of need. They weren’t having it, by the way. My sudden sadness and crying startled them out of their sleep only moments earlier and I imagine this is a grudge they will be carrying for awhile.  

The film’s surface level blandness is what drew me in initially. There is never anything explosive that happens in the film or anything remotely scandalous. When I first read the synopsis for the movie I imagined it was the sort of thing mothers took their children to, in order to guilt them for not visiting more. It’s this blandness that makes the film so moving, though. I knew from the very beginning that the mother was going to die and yet it was still a shock when it happened and something I took as a personal loss because I had just seen her life for two hours. She was not a perfect person and not even spectacular, but an ordinary woman, just trying to visit her family one last time. Her absence at the end of the film is a void that I have never experienced in any other movie up until this point.

The never ending sweetness of the couple was a little much at times, but I don’t know if that was the director’s intent or if it was a mirror of the culture. The adult children did seem especially selfish, but not in a sinister way. At one point, they decide to send their parents to a resort bath because they can’t be bothered taking them around them city. It was a jerk move, but in their defense they had very busy jobs that would have been difficult to get away from. There are hints that the family has had its own share of trouble- one son was killed in the war and seemed like an ass before he died. His widow is the one that shows the most kindness, offering to take the couple around and letting the mother sleep in her house when they had nowhere else to stay. The father was also apparently a heavy drinker when he was younger which might explain some of the coldness his children feel towards him but still doesn’t really excuse their actions.

I could go on and on about this movie and what I learned, but it’s really something somebody has to experience for themselves. I wouldn’t even say that the biggest commentary is about parent relationships but instead about death itself and its finality.

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Final review: 5/5

Up next: Close Encounters of the Third Kind

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#163- Kandahar

Quick recap: A woman,originally from Afghanistan, travels back to her home country to save her sister before she commits suicide. It’s an understatement to say that this movie is a downer.

photo from National Geographic http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/12/afghan-women/rubin-text

Fun (?) fact: Hassan Tantai, who played Tabib Sahid in the film, is under indictment in the US for the murder of an Iranian Diplomat. That was decidedly not a fun fact. Sorry.

A better fun fact- the Pallas's cat lives in Afghanistan. This is the most awesome cat EVER.

A better fun fact- the Pallas’s cat lives in Afghanistan. This is the most awesome cat EVER.

My thoughts: Kandahar is one of those films where I thought I knew the topic but then while watching, realized that I actually had no idea about anything and should really be ashamed of myself. Being an American I can tell you anything you want to know about the events of 9/11 and yet I still don’t really understand why it happened and who attacked us. Kandahar has its flaws, like almost everything else (except perhaps tres leches cake) but if nothing else, it opened my eyes a bit to what had been building in Afghanistan before it spilled over into the rest of the world.

Concerning the plot, Kandahar is a simple story about two sisters, one who is risking her life to save the other one. The threat of suicide is mentioned at the very beginning of the film and it is shocking to hear, but became less so as the film went on. I understand the purpose of adding that element, so that Nafas has a goal and a timeline, but with each new character introduced I found myself wanting to know more about their background and less about the sister. I think this speaks volumes about director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, an Iranian who manages to humanize a region that most of the world ignored before 2001.

The scenery in Afghanistan made for a visually striking film as well, although many parts were shot in other countries. Director Makhmalbaf also spliced in documentary footage with the fictional narrative, which I’m conflicted about. It was easy to tell what was real and what wasn’t, but it only made me long for more truth. I would’ve been just as content to watch a documentary about Afghan women, but that probably wouldn’t have stood out in the film world like Kandahar ultimately did. I think what makes this movie so meaningful is that we know what is going to happen next, and there is nothing to stop it.

Final review: 5/5. Very difficult to get through, but mostly because I wish I could do more.

Up next: A Tokyo Story

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#161- Top Gun

Quick recap: Maverick may be one of the best Naval pilots, but he still has a lot to learn when it comes to teamwork, love, and riding into the Danger Zone.

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Fun (?) fact: Lots to choose from, but my favorite is that Val Kilmer didn’t want to make this movie at all but was bound by contractual obligations. Val Kilmer just seems like the kind of person that talks about himself in the third person which makes this tidbit much funnier than it probably is.

'Val Kilmer will only do this project if he can play a game of volleyball with his shirt off.' 'ok, Mr. Kilmer but I don't know what that has to do with Top Gun' 'Val Kilmer doesn't care. Bring Val Kilmer a sandwich.'

‘Val Kilmer will only do this project if he can play a game of volleyball with his shirt off.’
‘ok, Mr. Kilmer but I don’t know what that has to do with Top Gun’
‘Val Kilmer doesn’t care. Bring Val Kilmer a sandwich.’

My thoughts: No, I have never seen Top Gun until I watched it a few nights ago. There are many reasons for this, the main one being that anything mechanical (trains, planes, automobiles) or technical bores me. So it was quite unexpected that I found myself really enjoying the film and imagining that if I were made to watch it again someday, I wouldn’t mind. I don’t think you could get a better endorsement from me, honestly.

What’s interesting about this is how much I enjoyed the movie when there were so many things wrong with it. The acting is one of its biggest flaws. So help me, if I see Tom Cruise flexing his jaw muscles ONE MORE TIME I might just lose it. His performance was 15% boasting, 2% honest feelings and 83% jaw flexing. And of course Val Kilmer’s character Iceman didn’t fare any better. I never really understood why he chose to engage Maverick (Tom Cruise) so much when he was clearly a superior pilot. Maybe it was to show that there was some depth to the character but it just made him come off as a jerk, even in the sincere scenes.

And yet, I'm still drawn to him.

And yet, I’m still drawn to him.

And then we come to the love story, which, even though it was a big part of the movie, never seemed to really belong there. First of all, there was no chemistry between Charlie and Maverick and second, the timeline of him coming over to her house and the next day falling in love was ridiculous. Also, Maverick was a jerk the entire time. Charlie was an astrophysicist and was treated like she didn’t know the first thing about planes. At no point did he apologize and in fact, she saw it as charming. Gross.

The plot itself was flimsy at best, but I still got into it. I think what draws me to Top Gun is how unabashedly American it is. It’s no wonder recruitment into the Navy skyrocketed after this film was sent to theaters. The ending where Maverick regains his confidence and saves the world wasn’t a surprise by any stretch of the imagination, and I loved how comforting it all felt, like a big warm hug from the 1980s.

Final review: Screw it, let’s go for a 4/5. Also, this is one of the ultimate ‘bromance’ movies. It’s like Terms of Endearment for guys.

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Up next: Princess Mononoke

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