Wild Grass

An aesthetically liberated film, with intimations of more profound liberations (political, personal). The last few minutes amount to a kind of manifesto, calling for more freedom in today's cinema, more earnest enquiry into the nature, capabilities, and limits of the medium, and most of all condemning the conventional ways of viewing forced upon us by mainstream filmmaking (Hollywood). An playful attack on the received wisdom of the movie watching public. Wild Grass celebrates life springing up, spontaneously and uninvited, in the desert of contemporary western civilization. It's a call for greater diversity in today's corporate monoculture. But first and foremost it's a rich and rewarding experience.

Micmacs

The feature film as Rube Goldberg device has always been Jean-Pierre Jeunet's specialty. In Micmacs we have an underground collective using nonviolent, direct action to topple small arms manufacturers with political connections of the highest order. Why are films like this not made in America?

Sex, Okra, and Salted Butter

I liked this movie about a West African paterfamilias in Paris adjusting to some major life changes. It is light, but not frivolous. There’s the sense of a philosophy behind the lightness…a comic, as opposed to a tragic view of life. The comic sense of life doesn’t ignore loss, conflict, and unrequited desire, but neither does it ignore the small things, the everyday graces that make life bearable—not the least of which is a lively sense of humor. While I found a lot to admire in this film, I have the feeling that it won’t stick with me for too long. Maybe that’s a consequence of the comic tone, I don’t know. LC said the acting wasn’t that great and I admit that it wasn’t awe-inspiring. There was no sense of the mysteries of life being opened up to you, which was kind of how I felt about another recent movie based on a similar premise: 35 Shots of Rum. That film’s patriarch had a kind of heroic aura. He was a man’s man and a lady’s man and an everyman all in one. The patriarch of Sex, Okra and Salted Butter was just a man, warts and all, but a well-meaning one at heart.

Splice

L: I really wanted to like this movie, but i didn't. the creature 'dren' definitely looked neat. everything else about this movie was not, which is too bad because this movie really had potential. The premise was interesting, but the movie fell flat. brody and polley, both of whom have definitely exhibited their acting talents in the past were not very engaging in this movie. I just didn't care. I felt that certain scenes were unnecessarily disgusting. This is the kind of movie where you know that something bad will happen in the end, and you are expecting that something horrible to happen to the characters in the movie, but really, the horrible thing is inflicted on you, the audience.
P: Promising, faustian premise spoiled by lame, CGI monster. Shift the focus from the monster to the perverse psychologies of its creators and this could be pretty good.

The Valet

L: Cute and predictable, so much so that I could only pay half attention. I was still right.

Two Days in Paris

P: Surprised to be more charmed than annoyed by this bittersweet comedy about the liminal space between a girl's last breakup and her first marriage.
L: That dude was pretty annoying and it was hard for me to believe that Julie Delpy hadn't dumped his whiny ass already. Lots of talk, lots of Paris. I guess overall I liked it, but he was really annoying (so was she but not nearly as bad).