Movie Musings

I've decided that I will write at least one paragraph about every film I view for this blog.  I'll give a quick little review and whatnot.  It won't be anything super comprehensive unless the particular film warrants a more copious discussion.  I should probably come up with a catchy little name for this segment, but I'll work on that later.  I'm going to start with last Friday and catch up to the present day.

Troll 2 (1990) - directed by Claudio Fragasso.   

Date viewed: 27 February 2009.  My rating: 1/2 star (or 4 1/2 stars for being so awesomely terrible).

According to various sources on the internet, Troll 2 is basically the worst movie ever made, and for that reason, it has become quite famous as one of the best bad movies ever made.  And let me tell you, it is terrible --- and hilarious.  We watched this while camping out Friday night, and it was scary (in how bad it was) and very entertaining, especially if you love movies that are so bad they're good.  First off, there are no trolls in this movie.  That's right, a movie called Troll 2 is actually about goblins that live in a town called Nilbog and try to eat any tourists that pass through.  The writing is atrocious and the acting only accentuates how poorly it is written.  My favorite line of the movie is delivered by evil goblin who disguises himself as a preacher.  When Joshua, the protagonist, is saved by his dad and taken away from the goblins, the preacher, with a scowl on his face and a menacing tone in his voice, says "We need time for some things to happen."  I recommend the film to anyone who wants to have fun with one of the worst films of all time.

The Interpreter (2005) - directed by Sydney Pollack.

Date Viewed:  28 February 2009.  My Rating: 2 1/2 stars.

This movie had been in my Netflix queue since the beginning days of my membership in the fall of 2005.  I decided to finally give it a go Saturday night, and it worked well enough as a mildly entertaining film.  The acting is decent, about what one would expect from a cast including Sean Penn, Catherine Keener, and Nicole Kidman, directed by the veteran Sydney Pollack.  The film was pretty pedestrian, and I didn't really feel much for any of the characters.  Their grief seemed a little too manufactured, probably the script's fault more than anything, but when the film finished, it left me exactly as I'd been before I watched it.  Like I said, it worked well enough for mild entertainment, but that's it.

Synecdoche, New York (2008) - directed by Charlie Kaufman.

Date Viewed:  01 March 2009.  My Rating: at least 4 stars (will likely change with time).

This is a film that very few people heard about and even fewer people saw.  It played in the state of Utah at one theater for about two weeks.  I was upset when it left the theater before I could make a trip to SLC to see it.  Anyway, Synecdoche is the directorial debut of acclaimed screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkevich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind --- one of my favorite films of all-time), and I had been waiting impatiently to see this film.  Critics seemed to have one of two responses to the film:  either they loved it and declared it a masterpiece, or they absolutely disliked or hated it.  Any film that polarizes critics like that is doing something unique and could hardly pass as fodder for the mainstream movie going public.

It won't surprise anyone familiar with Kaufman's work that this narrative is complex, blurring the distinctions between reality and dreams.  I wasn't always sure what was going on in the film, whether it was truly happening or whether we were in the head of the film protagonist, Caden Cotard (played by the ever-impressive Phillip Seymour Hoffman who knocks this role out of the park).  After I finished watching the film, I wasn't sure how to react.  Kaufman definitely has a lot on his plate in this film, and he's tackling some heavy personal issues (life and death, love, the role of art, etc.) and it can be difficult, perhaps impossible, to truly know what he's saying.  But, to some extent, what he's saying through his film may not be as important as what the viewer hears for themselves.

I texted Justin after I watched it and told him that watching Synecdoche is like going to a buffet after fasting for a couple days:  it's going to take some time to digest everything.  It's been one day since I watched it and I'm still not sure that I've been able to process even a tiny portion of what is going on in this film.  It will definitely require another viewing or two.  How then, if there's still so much I need to process, could I rate the movie so high?  Despite the complexity of the narrative, Kaufman is sincere and genuine in his search for meaning, and there are some truly powerful and poignant moments in the film.  Eternal Sunshine left me feeling similarly befuddled after my first viewing, but each subsequent viewing has revealed greater emotional depth and wisdom and I expect Synecdoche to reveal itself to me in the same manner.

I recommend this movie only to those willing to approach the film with an open heart and mind.  This is a very serious film for mature audiences, so watching it with a group of people unaccustomed to serious cinema will prove disastrous.