The Filmcake

June 22nd – June 28th

Hard Candy – See previous post.

Milan, Aquarium, D.I.Y., My Grandmother Ironed the King’s Shirts – From the IFC Short Film Showcase for June. I need to try and catch these more often. Short films are wonderful. These four certainly were. You can get so much creativity in a small package. And if it just doesn’t work or it’s just flat-out bad, you don’t have to wait too long for it to be over.

The Day After – A disaster movie classic. There should be more disaster movies like this one. Less emphasis on spectacular effects and more on tone.

Repo!: The Genetic Opera – Not as good as I hoped it would be. Frankly, I didn’t think the songs were good enough. The story was fine. And, the graphic novel-styled interludes only made me wish I were experiencing it in that form.

Brick – After hearing the Filmspottingguys gush over Brick and its director Rian Johnson, I finally got around to seeing it. I don’t love it like Adam and Matty do. The film noir genre just isn’t one of my favorites. I think you can lose too much when stylized language trumps comprehension. Or maybe you can’t really appreciate a movie like this unless you watch it multiple times (just typing that makes me want to revisit it). That being said, it was an inventive take on the genre. Certainly Johnson has a tremendous amount of talent. And based on the strength of this film, I’ll surely check out The Brothers Bloom and whatever comes next.

Tornado! – A truly bad disaster movie obviously made to capitalize on the buzz of Twister. A jumbled story with lots of contradictions and potholes to point and laugh at. And, dammit, we’ve got to do something about global warming or we’ll all have to live with the horrific consequences (like this movie).

Deep Impact – Another disaster movie to round out the day. I have a fondness for this one. Sure, it has plenty of cheesy stuff. But it’s sure a lot of fun.

Hard Candy – The only thing for which I am certain about this film is that I am not certain about anything. It can be easy to make judgments about the two lead characters in the film (magnificently played by Patrick Wilson and Ellen Page), but the assumptions underlying those judgments are almost entirely speculative. Arguments, I feel, could be made in any and all directions. Insinuations abound, but real evidence is lacking. Perhaps Hard Candy is just a cinematic Rorschach test. It also invokes the role and effectiveness of torture. You may only get the answers you want, not necessarily any truth. At any rate, its ambiguity is a real strength for which writer Brian Nelson and director David Slade deserve full credit. Additionally, the lighting and coloring effects were a nice touch. I think I’d have to watch through the movie a few more time before I could ascertain whether or not those effects revealed any “truth” or simply belied it.