notes on several films.

star trek – delivers in a way few hollywood trifles come near matching.  sci-fi geek out complete with obligatory chase scene featuring obscene and large space creature on deserted planet.  what was with the stunt casting?  excellent use of sound, lots of great set pieces.  i want a spin-off buddy comedy of simon pegg’s scotty and that strange looking alien.

world on a wire – fassbinder straddles the apparently uber-thin line between high art and kitsch.  a two-part tv movie based on the same source material for the thirteenth floor, which i haven’t seen but i’m going to assume is horrible.  among fassbinder’s more atmospheric works.  impressive in its economical means of achieving science fiction; in that sense, undoubtedly inspired by alphaville.  in short, cool shit.

julia – tilda swinton gets ugly for this one, a drunken homage to cassavetes.  human desperation is painted in broad strokes here, and  it features some of the craziest plotting i’ve seen in movies, past or recent.  write-ups all tout swinton as the major performance here but i loved saul rubinek’s understated turn as julia’s enabler and only friend.  director erick zonca seems to have asked his actors to leave it all on the line to a fault, brilliant at times and at others too thickly laid.  an exhausting and very good film.

up – pixar’s rebuttal to the adage “they just don’t make ‘em like they used to,” an old school action-adventure “picture” with a heart of gold.  this is the near-perfect studio at top form.  in its cheekiness and earnestness, the witty interpretation of the disney talking animal is indicative of the ingenuity and heart fueling the movie, at once wildly entertaining and deeply resonant, perhaps the most thematically complete and substantial offering from pixar to date.  with  up, pixar transcends their tendency to be content with visual showmanship and candy-covered cuteness, providing a movie-going experience full of pathos and joy.

the girlfriend experience – at best a superficial time capsule, as it does accurately depict the kind of vapidness that’s rampant in these times but does little to avoid being guilty of the same flippantness.  the incessant references to the economy and attempts at timeliness are embarrassingly bad, and the fractured structure adds nothing.  soderbergh will go down as the most prolific creator of mediocrity among his generation of filmmakers.  i once loved traffic but i wonder what a revisit will reveal.

ariel – aki kaurismaki tips his hat to vigo’s l’atalante by naming his film after a boat that starts with an ‘a’.  typically droll but surprisingly warm.  to say that it’s the least of the other two films in the proletariat trilogy is a testament to how good the other two are.  this is a lovely film and a great place to start with kaurismaki.