Several Brief Movie Reviews

Paris Blues - Paris Blues stars Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier as a pair of jazz musicians living in Paris, who fall for a couple of tourists, played by Joanne Woodward and Diahann Carroll. It's a fascinating look at Paris' jazz scene (or Hollywood's version of it) at the time; It's well-acted, but the romances are half-baked. At least a quarter of the film consists of montages, with the couples walking around Paris and laughing. The film also features a civil rights subplot between Poitier and Carroll that's well-meaning but written like an afterschool special. If you have time to spare, the film's worth checking out for the performances and the score by Duke Ellington. as well as for the one great sequence of the film, featuring Louis Armstrong:

Leaves of Grass - Roger Ebert has been a champion of Leaves of Grass for the past couple of years, so when it arrived to Netflix Instant, I sought it out. I'm glad I did. Edward Norton's always interesting when he gives a crap, and here he plays twins, one a brilliant professor living in New York, the other a brilliant weed dealer living with his mom in Oklahoma. All kinds of hijinx ensue, and the film's mixture of comedy and dark violence keeps the viewer guessing. Some of the CGI twin effects suffer from the low budget, and I didn't really give a crap about Keri Russell's love interest character, with the final ending shot twee to the point of nausea. Quibbles aside, this is a unique, interesting movie, and in a world that gave us The Zookeeper, sometimes that's enough.

The King's Speech - This was my second time watching The King's Speech, and while the film is extremely well-acted (the cast deserved their fancy awards), there were problems with the film that I couldn't put my finger on. However, a second viewing makes me realize the two key issues I had with the flick:


The Weirdest Framing In The Universe. The most glaring thing I noticed upon rewatch was the strange framing of nearly every shot. Stuff is weirdly off-center, there are Steadycam shots that swirl everywhere just because they can, and I didn't get what Tom Hooper (who won Best Director!) was going for. If I weren't lazy, I'd get all Bordwell up in this mofo and post screen caps of an early conversation in the film between Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth in Rush's office, where everything is so off and askew that it distracted me and think to myself, "Why did they shoot it like this?" I assume they were going for something, but I didn't get it.


A Total Disregard For History. It's funny how the screenwriters gloss over the fact that after the King's amazing, inspiring, country-saving speech, Neville Chamberlain pretty much handed over half of Europe to Hitler. But hey, at least England's pointless figurehead can talk! Great.

Rush and Firth are pros, and it's nice to see Helena Bonham Carter take a break from being a goth nutball, and the film's basic message is nice and comforting and happy, and that's pretty muchit. The King's Speech may be the best Hallmark television movie of all time.

The Sweet Smell of Success - FINALLY! Why did it take me so long to see this? Tony Curtis stars as Sidney Falco, a huckster press agent trying to con his way to the top by serving at the whims of J.J. Hunsecker, played with pure menace by Burt Lancaster. Filled with great dialogue, The Sweet Smell of Success is one of those films filled with so much cynicism and insight into the human condition that it hardly feels dated, even though it came out 50 years ago. It just came out on Criterion Blu-Ray; I may have to buy it.

Barry Lyndon on Blu-Ray - WOW. This film is like a moving painting, and I get sucked into it every time. I think it's one of Kubrick's best, but if you think 2001 is slow, this film might make you run into traffic. Kubrick actually employed super-secret spy satellite lenses to achieve some of the zooms in the film. I mean, check out the opening shot in this sequence. Notice how he uses the placement of actors to guide your eye, rather than panning over to them.

Barry Lyndon is also subtly satirical, although the humor is so dry you might not even laugh. Check out this well-written essay by Jim Emerson about the film, if you care. If you don't care, then subscribe to my podcast at ComedyPodcast.com. Or neither!