Some Recent Movies

I've been meaning to post reviews or comments on movies as I see them for a while now, and it has been slipping. So here are notes on a number of films that I have seen in the last couple of months.


The Girl Who Played With Fire

I like the character of Lisbeth Salander quite a lot, even though there are aspects I do not like. I like her intelligence and quiet determination, and endurance in the face of horrible trials. Not so much a fan of the goth look, but it doesn't override the rest. The guarded attitude she has towards others is not entirely foreign to me, but she takes it to a much deeper extent. I suspect if I had suffered through the same things I would probably react in a similar manner, although probably not with the same fashion.

The second movie is different from the first a bit, and has less of a slowly thawing mystery and more of a wrongly accused thriller feel. It is somewhat Hitchcockian in that way, but certainly not in the look of the movie or the characters, and he probably would not have been the best choice of director for it. I am enjoying the character and overall story enough to really want to see the last of the trilogy and read the books, and it will be interesting to see the English remake. I don't know Rooney Mara's work, so she will hopefully do the role justice. If she doesn't, I will probably not forgive Fincher for not casting Ellen Page, who would likely have knocked it out of the park.


Salt

Salt was a very well done thriller and spy chase movie that left me wanting to see a sequel. I liked the human touches that made Evelyn Salt more interesting, such as making sure her cat was taken care of in the middle of being hunted and chased. Angelina Jolie was great in the role, and made the most of those little moments to make the character more than just a plot participant and stunt achiever. It was also nice to see intelligence being displayed on several sides of the story, with less of the wooden cut outs for characters that come up so often in the genre.


Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

I have mixed feelings on this one. Someone really needs to give Michael Cera a new role. The young slacker bit worked well in Juno and also in Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist, but it is getting old, especially since I understand the same character has been played by him in other movies I have not seen. This movie is a decent ensemble piece with a heavy dose of video game sprinkled over it. It's probably pretty decent for the teen geek viewer, and it was visually interesting at that level. My older self was slightly amused by the references to older things they might not catch, and the overall romance was an interesting idea. It's definitely a niche movie though, and it will probably take an opportunistic second viewing before it makes it onto my movie shelves as anything other than a curiosity.


The American

Another "spy" thriller, but in a much more low-key European sense. It leaves out the chases for the most part in favor of a long slow simmer of character action. I liked the sense that we were watching a story about real people living their lives and happening to meet and interact and affect each other. George Clooney was very low-key in the movie, which makes the impact of his pounding the wheel much more significant. I liked the skilled craftsman he played, and the way he played it made it clear that he was not just an emotionless machine, but someone who was real and human underneath the mask he wore for his work, and wanted to remain so. I'll revisit this one again on video.


Inception

A brilliant film that was very carefully made. I loved the scene where Ariadne and Cobb were going over what being a dream architect involved, and watching the city fold back on itself. The movie sets up its own rules, and then follows them to weave a complex and intelligent puzzle. The movie is not perfect, it is almost too slick in a way, but it is very good. The most human and spontaneous moment comes in the middle when a kiss is stolen. I saw it a second time with friends about two months after the first viewing, and it remained impressive. There have been a number of clues to the central mystery posted online by people involved in the movie, and I have been content to avoid them and leave it a mystery.


The Town

I have to admire Ben Affleck, even if he has not always made the best choices of projects. I feel he's underrated as an actor, he is a good writer, and with my first observation of him as a director I have to consider him good at that as well. All three skills are on display here, and the movie benefits from it. It is a good crime caper movie, with a swirl of weird romance. Affleck and Rebecca Hall play the romance and the characters well enough that it would be interesting to have seen them meet under less unusual circumstances. I love the arc of both characters, and it makes the movie much more enjoyable than a simple crime caper, however well done. I would enjoy seeing a sequel with those characters, which would necessarily be a quite different movie.


Never Let Me Go

I intended to read the book by Kazuo Ishiguro first, but I barely got into it before it overwhelmed me with sadness because I could see where it was likely going and I just wasn't in the mood for it. I saw the movie when it finally made it to Portland and it did not disappoint. It is very well done, very thought-provoking, and very sad and very human, and it does not pull any punches. Having said that, it does not use overwhelming visuals to deliver them, and covers certain scenes in a very subdued manner that still delivers emotionally. The story is interesting, and I will have to go back and finish the book to see how that expands on certain details. The movie will make it onto my shelves at some point.


Let Me In

I have not seen the Swedish original yet (Let the Right One In), although the friends I saw this with had. For those who have, the word was that the American version had considerably more violence in it, which probably surprises no one. (They literally leaned over as the credits started and reassured me on that point, and repeated their recommendation for the Swedish movie.) It was a scary vampire movie, and yet it was also more thoughtful about the subject than something like the Twilight series. One could make the argument that it is one of the most "realistic" vampire movies. Not just in how it portrayed the violence, but more so in the characters and what they do and why they do it. I'm not a big fan of scary movies, but it was worth dealing with it for the rest of the movie. Like Never Let Me Go, it takes a situation that is upsetting and sad and looks at how real people would deal with it.