cskoog Reviews

Ruby Sparks (2012)

Overrated: pseudo-indie contrivance by an overcontrolling writer

[3/10 · 10 November 2012]

O dear, I have to write ten lines about this pseudo-indie movie instead of just warning you off the overwhelmingly positive reception it has garnered among those apparently besotted by its smugly conceptual cleverness. Yes it has a 'guest' appearance by Annete Bening (though that whole part has no real function in the film), and the principal actors are just fine in their puppet-like roles. But there is a problem that makes it all into some kind of queasy, warped, tract: Once entering the realm of magical realism, it is essential to play by the rules, which this film does not do. The writer, who is supposed to be a very good writer, does not behave towards the character he creates as a good writer would. This figures, really, for it betrays a misunderstanding of literary creation that is reflected in the writing of the movie too. The whole thing is merely a construct, and further cheapened by the hypocritical grinding of too familiar axes, as well as a stupid supposedly sweetly paradoxical ending. Beware Hollywood in indie clothing.

Delicacy (2011)

Tellingly misunderstood and underrated

[9/10 · 10 November 2012]

This is a much better film than has been generally recognized. Props to Tatou for choosing this project. It is not a romantic comedy, though there are many occasions for laughter. It is about love and loss, grief and healing. Maybe even more, it is about our culture, whose pervasive artificiality and interpersonal politics need to make real things seem weird and out of place. There is a Bergmanesque (eg: 'Swedish') subsurface to this light-footed film. As you watch it, consider the fates Tatou's character avoids by rejecting each invitation to 'normalcy'...

The film is beautifully shot, colored, and lit. The script is marvelously economical: every line is necessary. Finally, the music is ideal for allowing the intentions of the filmmaker to sink in.

A Magnificent Haunting (2012)

an absorbing and magical historical rumination

[10/10 · 3 August 2012]

This is the work of a mature storyteller who understands how to use film and music to lead the viewer into unusual and surprising places. There is much to delight an audience here, from subtle crossings and recrossings of genre boundaries, to moments of humor of an almost metaphysical dimension, to serious offerings of perspective on time, mortality, and history. I enjoyed particularly the way the filmmaker genially hoodwinks the viewer step by step into assenting to a story that becomes increasingly less predictable at the same time that its dependence on a sort of half-magical realism becomes more and more firmly established. The film does have an evident homoerotic subtext, and perhaps cultural 'flavor', but in a way that (for a change) does not limit its appeal. Rather, it reaches toward a kind universality that puts it in company with works of art that are for everyone whose heart and mind are in working order.

The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996)

Trivial and clichéd, with slightly cloying rankness, except for Bridges.

[2/10 · 1 May 2011]

We see lots of romantic comedies, and this one has left the most rancid aftertaste since Moonstruck or one of the ones with Hugh Grant. It is artificial and contrived, as well as simultaneously polemical and narcissistic. We stayed with it for one reason only: Jeff Bridges. His performance is in fact whole-hearted and engaging, even though he is given a character upon whose implausibility the entire film depends. Streisand's limitations as an actress are painful to watch, and Bacall somehow seems aware that she is playing her part in a Streisand vanity project. The actress cast as Streisand's sister (the pretty one of the two), is not really beautiful enough to justify Streisand's character's angst, which makes it all even more fishy, as does the paper cut out role given Pierce Brosnan.

Guinevere (1999)

Precisely realized - a movie with heart

[10/10 · 25 March 2000]

David Denby, a New Yorker film critic, maybe the best film critic I know, sent me to this film. It is wonderful in illuminating the strange mixtures we must accept in life in order to learn anything that is worth learning about being human. The film never flinches and is never distracted from this single-minded objective. The director gets performances from her leads that are awesome in their precision for that purpose.

If you liked 'Playing by Heart' or the older Peter Weir film 'Fearless' or Lasse Hallstrom's films or Angelika (sp?) Holland's films or John Sayle's films or 'Eve's Bayou' or even the somewhat more artificial 'American Beauty', there's a good chance you'll like this one. Like these, its art is in the service of showing the kind of learning that happens in those cases when people accept opportunities to realize their humanity.

Mansfield Park (1999)

Just Awful

[1/10 · 26 February 2000]

A misconceived effort to 'update' Austen. Embarrassingly overt sexual and political subtexts leer at you from every place the filmmaker could cram them in against the sense of the book. The acting is quite good, especially O'Conner and Pinter, but much of the production design and soundtrack seems a rip from the excellent 'Remains of the Day'. The worst is that there is nothing literary left - not the first time a director's agenda betrays that they just don't get why literature exists in the first place. Try 'Persuasion' instead, and after that ANY of the other contemporary Austen adaptations.