Haiku Reviews: Storybook Edition

Dir: Jennifer Kent (2014)

Aussie mom sleeps no
More. Pop-up book monster as
Dysfunctional grief.

Dir: Rob Marshall (2014)

Fairy tales mash-up,

Lost some wit in translation,

Well acted and sung.

"Agony" shines, for wit it retains:

Spring on Broadway

From the Great White Way, 2014-2015 Season

Coming of age gay,
Closeted dad. Memory
Musical that soars.

("I could relate. A
Burt Reynolds poster for me,
Not a ring of keys.")

Old fashioned Bernstein:
"Lonely Town" slayed. Zany tone
Glued with solid score.

Henry, Anne, Cromwell
Plot to live in Tudor times.
Swift, broad sweep of book.

Lieber and Stoller

Lieber and Stoller,
Soundtrack to recent week's news
And television.

Singer/Actress B.J. Crosby Dies at 63 - Playbill.com

From the "Mad Men" premiere.

Part of the final Letterman season. By far, the best rendition of "Stand By Me."

Haiku Reviews: B Movie Edition

Dir: Robert Montgomery (1947)

Sterling B movie.

Exotic noir, post war angst.

Credit Metty's lens.

The single take above serves as Russell Metty's warm up for "Touch of Evil."

Dir: Chad Stahelski (2014)

Grieving hit man on

Revenge spree, lives by code like

Melville's cons. Poor dog.

NY High City

Witnessed from last week,
Three different occasions,
The following scenes:

Amusing commute:
High school girls high on "gummies."
Loud curses and smacks.

Sidewalk. Homeless man,
Flying high, unbelts, looks for
Bedbugs in his crotch.

Bridge and tunnel teens
Out to score Oxycontins.
Pre-party ritual.

Haiku Reviews: "The Boxtrolls" and "Pompeii"

Still catching up on last year's Contenders:

Dir: Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi (2014)

Underground critters

Are not monsters. Light Laika.

The lesson: embrace change.

Dir: Paul W.S. Anderson (2014)

Sword and sandal weds
Disaster flick. Stiff acting

Best buried in ash.

Gaze

Dir: Bennett Miller (2014)

Trophy collecting,

American male study.

Shift in movie gaze.

The gaze alluded to above is Laura Mulvey's "the male gaze." Channing Tatum carries the flag for this current wave. In Magic Mike, Steven Soderbergh (of sex, lies and videotape no less) knowingly objectifies the male body ... I mean, bodies. And there's Magic Mike XXL, for a more protracted gaze. Can't vouch for Fifty Shades of Grey because it's not on cable yet, but it's made half a billion dollars and whose active gaze is responsible for that?

Dir: Jean-Luc Godard (1980)

"Godard" hates women,

More essay than feature film,

Control by slow mo.

Found it hard to like this Godard, mainly because it's like reading a "composed" thesis. I don't see a Godard to get "lost" in it. It's a discussion and he does not make one forget that one's watching a movie. Took me a while to figure out why he employs slow motion in certain frames and not others. Is this what a lingering gaze is to him? Used Amy Taubin as Cliff's Notes to get to an answer that it's how he demonstrates man's control over woman. It's telling that the film has three different titles when it was released. The object's meaning is subject to the gazer.

Dir: Dan Gilroy (2014)

Dark media satire
That would make Chayefsky proud.

Jake's hungry eyes haunt.










In a different kind of gazing, the viewer becomes complicit to Lou Bloom's crimes in Nightcrawler. I rooted for him to shoot the footage he wants because I am the type of viewer who wants to see those types of images. The viewer sees through different lenses: the camera view, then Bloom's view, and then the footage. By the time the viewer sees the last, s/he ought to question the voyeur in him/her.

Dir: John Maloof and Charlie Siskel (2014)

Pack rat nanny shoots

Photos found posthumously.

Life lived on one's terms.











All the photographs and negatives Vivian Maier mostly shot in her Rolleiflex cannot solve the mystery of who she was. She was by all accounts a loner and eccentric. Do the works inform us about the artist or the person?  A few times the movie felt like an infomercial in its attempt to lobby for her place as a major artist. The movie lacks dissent, which would have made it stronger. This I know: from the headlines she hoarded, she's the type of viewer Lou Bloom from Nightcrawler aims to please.