The Way We Get By - See it - The Way We Get By is a very well done documentary about a group of senior citizens in Bangor, Maine. As the first airport encountered heading towards the United States from Europe and the last heading out, Bangor is a major stopping point for a great majority of US military flights bringing troops home from the war in Iraq or their last stop in the US when they ship out. This group of seniors goes out to meet and greet every flight transporting troops to and from the war. Through their efforts to make these brave men and women feel appreciated and welcomed, they discover a new purpose in the twilight of their own lives. It's an excellent and very touching documentary. 
Bus 174 - Must See - This is an incredible documentary about the hijacking of a bus in Rio by Sandro do Nascimento. Sandro got on the bus with the intention of robbing the passengers but when the police were alerted the robbery escalated to a hostage situation. The filmmakers were able to get tremendous footage of the incident because the Rio police absolutely suck at sealing off a crime scene. The documentary uses the Sandro's hijacking to throw a spotlight on Brazil's social issues with the substantial street kid population. The movie gets inconceivably tense as the hijacker grows more and more volatile. You need to check Bus 174 out. Thanks for the recommendation @lancezierlein.
Salt - Skip it - I believe Angelina Jolie has now played a spy/special agent more times now than Sean Connery and Roger Moore combined. I was pretty intrigued by this spy flick for the first 20 minutes. The movie starts out with a spy exchange between the United States and North Korea involving Angelina Jolie's character Agent Salt. Fast forward an undetermined amount of time and Agent Salt is called in to interrogate a Russian spy. Up to this point the movie seems reasonable and interesting. Then comes one of the more ridiculous high speed chase scenes in cinematic history. Once Agent Salt starts jumping from overpasses and trucks traveling 70mph I realized instead of Spy Game or The Bourne Trilogy, I was in the middle of Wanted 2: The CIA Years.I get the escapism aspect of movies and I understand that the suspension of reality is a huge part of that. However, you have to base your story either in the reality we all live in or a hyper reality where humans are able to perform incredible feats. The issue with Salt is that it tries to live in both worlds and that lack of commitment destroys any notion of believability.
Julien Donkey-Boy - See it - This was a recommendation from @ryanlostintx, another excellent follow on twitter. Actually, I'm not sure he recommended it. He just asked me if I'd ever seen it and any movie featuring Werner Herzog and with Donkey in the title is going to get watched. My opinion on the movie is that it's more interesting than entertaining but that's kind of what you're looking for from Harmony Korine. He's an artist that happens to make films and this is no different. Julien Donkey-Boy is his vision of what life is like for a schizophrenic. He based the title character off his own uncle who suffers from schizophrenia. Everything about the movie is weird and uncomfortable, from the way it's shot on video with a hand held camera to the way these family members coexist. If you decide to watch it I highly recommend the making of special feature on the DVD.
Bus 174 sounds like this week's winner.
ReplyDeleteDid you review Art School Confidential? Can't remember if it was supposed tone good or not.
Haven't seen that one yet.
ReplyDeleteI only recently started reading your blog, so I'm not sure how your taste runs exactly yet, but two films I'd like to recommend (if you haven't already checked them out) are Oldboy and Head-On. I thought both were phenomenal. And for whatever it's worth, I thought Art School Confidential had its moments (and I generally really dig Terry Zwigoff films), but was overall meh.
ReplyDeletethanks. Oldboy is already on my list but I'll have to add Head-On.
ReplyDelete