Film Review(s)

So let's see, I've seen a few movies since my last review. For one thing, I saw There Will Be Blood, and I have some definite opinions on it, including some that would be interesting because they aren't fully in line with what you may have heard in most of the mainstream. I must have been busy shortly after seeing it; I don't know why else I wouldn't have written about it. Here is the small list of movies I've seen since November 20th (seems very long ago), with brief thoughts: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (very very good, quite interesting film by Julian Schnabel. I liked this one a lot, largely because I feel that Schnabel's experimental (for a vaguely mainstream film) techniques are fascinating and not in this instance at all intrusive.), Sanjuro (another Kurosawa/Mifune samurai movie, sequel to Yojimbo (one of my favorites of the genre), nice little movie, not much to say about it except for someone like me, who likes Japanese film and particularly this type, it's very pleasant to watch if not classic material.), Before Night Falls (Schnabel/Javier Bardem biopic that was good but not great, somewhat oddly told story that was off-putting to me at times but with many redeeming qualities including my new favorite Mr Bardem), and Chinatown (I'd seen this one before but it was on TV so I went with it again; reminiscent of Casablanca in how outside of its context it can lose a little luster as an all-timer; interestingly not one of Jack Nicholson's best performances but maybe his best movie; I love a well-done noir; finally I'd read that DDay Lewis's character in There Will Be Blood owes lots to John Huston's in this, so I paid close attention to that and it turns out to be true, though probably not to the extent that those would have you believe who might try to discredit DDay's excellent job with his character.).
So those are my recent ones. Perhaps I will try to share some thoughts on There Will Be Blood going into the Oscars. As a teaser I'll tell you now that I don't think it's as good as most people, though the more I think about it the more I might come to the realization that it's just because I'm judging it too harshly in the shadow of No Country For Old Men, a film which I think is spectacular, moreso every day that passes. In fact, these two films have me more excited for this years Oscars than any since I was enamored with Saving Private Ryan as only a historically-inclined high school kid can be. Like anyone, I like watching the awards being given out and like some I do put some small weight behind the results but I think too many times I've been slapped with reality when a clearly inferior product defeats a superb one (obvious current example--Diving Bell wasn't even nominated by its own country for the Best Foreign Film award, even though I think it should be up for the overall Best Picture prize), so it's hard to take the actual results too seriously. In a lot of ways, I find the nominees more interesting than the winners as I ascribe to what must be a widely held notion, that you can't use words like "best" when comparing art, but I do feel that you can reasonably parse out a year's worth of film into smaller groups of excellence. And of course I do feel that when a truly special film comes along, I can have a specific rooting interest regarding it winning or losing.

Anyhow, right now all this has been a long prologue to what will be a short main body of this post: my review of the movie I saw last night with my fawning girlfriend (she's smitten with the movie, not me, not in this instance at least), Across the Universe. It's a somewhat abstract musical released last year set to the songs of the Beatles. Opinion time: it's good, for a musical, which means it's decidely average, for a film. As with any musical, the acting is subpar but that's to be expected because they need to be able to sing. Now, I'm far from a musical expert, but I found that the main character has an amazing voice that's ridiculously suited to singing Paul McCartney songs, so much so that when he tries to sing Lennon or Harrison songs it doesn't sound very good. Most of the other singers are good but no one else as notable as the lead. I don't want to nitpick this film cause it's first priority is not toward simple film-ness but to musical-ness, but the story was weak. Put another way, many scenes seemed very contrived and the propulsion of plot through the too-long 133 minutes was far too often forced, though many of the cuts from scene to scene were very well done, stylistically and thematically. Again, I'd like to profess some ignorance regarding the musical genre but I suspect something they all have in common is difficulty maintaining a smooth plot; they are likely more successful when considered episodically. This film is no different, as--taken separately--almost all the scenes are very well done, always interestingly creative and sometimes visually rather breathtaking experiences. If you approach this film in that way, you will not be let down. And, speaking subjectively, two hours of your life that is spent accompanied by Beatles songs is a pleasant two hours indeed. (It's heavy on the White Album songs too, another plus in this reviewer's opinion.)