Saturday, February 23, 2008

It's the season for critically acclaimed and thus mostly depressing movie watching.

Atonement (2007)
We saw this in the theaters a few weeks ago. I hadn't read the novel, M. had and I think liked the adaptation. It was well done and affecting.

In the past couple weeks we've seen a bunch of things on demand, due to limited mobility.

Notes on A Scandal (2006)
I thought this was well done, and interesting in the negativity towards British public schools that is usually reserved for American public schools.

Little Children (2006)
I didn't read the Tom Perotta novel of this movie, but when I read the Abstinence Teacher I thought, "I bet the rights for the indie movie of this novel have been sold by now." I don't know when/if The Abstinence Teacher: The Movie is happening, but Little Children did happen and is quite similar in themes and feel. It was nice to have a somewhat feel-good ending tacked onto this, especially compared to the other movies cited in this post. I don't remember hearing much about this when it came out, but I thought it was good. Although M. objects to its classification under HBO's "romance movies".

Interview (2007)
I like and appreciate Steve Buscemi as much or more than most people, I expect but this short ish movie (80 mins) felt long, since it basically goes nowhere in terms of scenery. Also, a lot of Sienna Miller face time.

In the Valley of Elah (2007)
Flying the flag upside down is the international symbol for disaster and that's this film's statement on U.S. military culture in Iraq and at home. It's a troubling feeling, effectively done.

Michael Clayton (2007)
I don't really feel like this is in class with other award contenders. It was fine, but I wouldn't put it in the same class as most of the above movies (Interview has a very limited audience, I suspect).

2 comments:

5 Red Pandas said...

They categorized Little Children as Romance?!? I think the thing that sent me over the edge toward hating the movie was the goofy voice over narration that obviously came directly from the book. The narration told you some pretty obvious things. How did the director allow that in the movie?

I've discussed this movie with a few people and they've told me they like it and it's always made me wonder why I hate it so much.

blucarbnpinwheel said...

The narration is an odd choice. M. came home while I was watching it and wondered what on earth I was watching when the first narration came on while she there. Still, I didn't really mind it too much--I guess it was funny to me and sort of reminded of the Hudsucker Proxy, or something.

The LOC subjects were:
Parent and child--Fiction.
Child molesters--Fiction.
Married people--Fiction.
Suburban life--Fiction.
Adultery--Fiction.

with genre as:
Psychological fiction.
Domestic fiction.

That's for the book.

The film:
Subjects:
Stay-at-home mothers--Drama.
Suburban life--Drama.
Child molesters--Drama.
Man-woman relationships--Drama.

And Genres:
Romance--Feature.
Adaptation--Feature.

So I guess the LOC and HBO agree on the genre, although there is something that seems not quite right about romance.