I really don't seem to have a knack for this "review" thing. I'll watch a movie, love it or not, then check out the "real" reviewers to see if they gleaned any additional insight to the film I just watched. What amazes me is half the time I feel we've watched different movies altogether. Upstairs in the comfort and confines of the Futon Cinema I am not predisposed to take notes, flip through compendiums for facts or histories, check against my spelling or gauge my feelings in depth. I come downstairs to this place because I want to mess about in film land, rack up the titles, share the joy. I still look at movies the way I did as a kid: I watch them and then, after the credits roll and the lights come on in the house, pick up my popcorn bag and my soda cup and go out into the daylight..or nighttime, depending on whether or not I was able to catch a matinee....and groove on the residual feelings of what I just watched.
See, I think of movies as entertainment, or a trip out of my head, a temporary vacation to another time and space for a couple, three hours. I don't go into a moviehouse with the idea that I am going to come out of it with an attitude, or some sort of edgy critique to enlighten the world with. I don't watch movies because I want to write a doctoral thesis about them, or because I want to write some pithy dialogue to make folks think I'm witty or with it or extremely plugged into film.
I am one of those movie watchers that watch movies because I love them, not because I think I can make them better than the hundreds of people involved in the making of one. I suppose that's where those other "film watchers/scribbners" are so much different than me. I feel that they get paid to ride their high horses, to come across as some sort of grand elloquent interpreter of film, as somebody who has all the keen knowledge, background and history of films in their heads, encycleopedic knowledge of cinema, a working vocabulary of the films of the world. They have to have attitudes because their paychecks depend on it. I just like to watch movies, no attitudes or stipends attached.
See, I have this history of watching movies in damn near every format. I have this thing that says to me that movies are to be shared, or watched late at night or found and checked out from a library and viewed when the rain is coming down and you have nothing better to do. Right now movies are my friend. I fill up my nights with film, wide varieties of movies, and then I come down and figure out where to plug them into this blog. I come downstairs with a "wow" on my lips, or my eyes still puffy from tears, or my sides still aching from laughing so hard. I think of this blog and know that I will never knock out "rotten tomato" worthy reviews but then again I couldn't even think to want to sully the experience of my viewing pleasure with numbers or stars or false modesty.
Take, for instance, The Brother's Bloom. That delicious con man movie fell into my hands because I was wandering the aisles of Hollywood Video one afternoon. I wasn't looking for suggestions, I had a list in my hands of titles I wanted to see, trailers I had caught along the way, when this total stranger walks up to me and asks me if needed a movie suggestion. Well, hell, why not? So he hands me this flick and then, walks me across the store and hands me another. My movie angel. I couldn't quite get enough of Taken especially when I found out it was scripted by Luc Besson. I held off on the first title he handed me for awhile, then thought, "man, I paid for that, better watch it before it's due".
See, we fall into movies and either love them and recommend them or watch them and put them away for bored guests to pick out, for another rainy day. I have hundreds of movie titles laying around because I don't want to wait for Netflix to send them to me. I don't want to go down and rent them from Redbox or pick them up at the library just so I have to take them back right away (not that I don't but I'd rather not). No, instead I want the option of being able to pull a title from a stack day or night. Like Brad Anderson's Brick. I found that film trolling the shelves of the local pawn shop. I was mesmerized by it, loved the noirish dialogue, an edgy thriller in a contemporary high school setting.
Well, thanks to that guardian movie angel I stumbled upon Brad Johnson's sophomore effort. The Brothers Bloom has as many twists and turns as a box of Red Vines. It is a movie that demands a second viewing, that commands your attention and requires you to laugh and cry and leave the damn cat alone for a moment. It wants you to root for the "bad" guys, it desires for you to believe in love again, it has no intention of having you do anything other than think and laugh and cry right along with the characters, the quirky, grifting characters that make up this wonderful, small and brilliant piece of art.
I can never really grasp why critics feel they have to watch a movie just to judge it. I suppose that their handlers, the ones that are paying their salaries want them to have strong opinions about the dozens of movies they watch and have to write about. I would rather know that I was slapping a film into my player because it was the lucky title of the moment. I want to think that I putting a film on in the morning or the middle of the night because I wanted to be entertained, distracted, enlightened or kept from going crazy for a couple hours. What I don't want is to go into a movie house and know that I am destined to come out of it with a chip on my shoulder and need to tell the world how good or bad the movie I just watched was. Hell, I know a good movie from a bad one, I just don't need to tell the world. Sometimes I wish that those critics didn't need to do that, either. Let me decide, okay? Keep your opinions to yourself.
As for The Brothers Bloom? A ten out of ten, a million stars, a must see, an Oscar contender, a world class piece of art. Exaggeration? You watch it and tell me where to get off. Or better yet, come on by and we'll watch it together and afterwards, over a cup of coffee or a glass or three of wine, talk about it. Just save your hard core critiques for your boss and your weekly column, okay?
Action!
The Brothers Bloom:
http://www.allmovie.com/work/the-brothers-bloom-376451/review
See, I think of movies as entertainment, or a trip out of my head, a temporary vacation to another time and space for a couple, three hours. I don't go into a moviehouse with the idea that I am going to come out of it with an attitude, or some sort of edgy critique to enlighten the world with. I don't watch movies because I want to write a doctoral thesis about them, or because I want to write some pithy dialogue to make folks think I'm witty or with it or extremely plugged into film.
I am one of those movie watchers that watch movies because I love them, not because I think I can make them better than the hundreds of people involved in the making of one. I suppose that's where those other "film watchers/scribbners" are so much different than me. I feel that they get paid to ride their high horses, to come across as some sort of grand elloquent interpreter of film, as somebody who has all the keen knowledge, background and history of films in their heads, encycleopedic knowledge of cinema, a working vocabulary of the films of the world. They have to have attitudes because their paychecks depend on it. I just like to watch movies, no attitudes or stipends attached.
See, I have this history of watching movies in damn near every format. I have this thing that says to me that movies are to be shared, or watched late at night or found and checked out from a library and viewed when the rain is coming down and you have nothing better to do. Right now movies are my friend. I fill up my nights with film, wide varieties of movies, and then I come down and figure out where to plug them into this blog. I come downstairs with a "wow" on my lips, or my eyes still puffy from tears, or my sides still aching from laughing so hard. I think of this blog and know that I will never knock out "rotten tomato" worthy reviews but then again I couldn't even think to want to sully the experience of my viewing pleasure with numbers or stars or false modesty.
Take, for instance, The Brother's Bloom. That delicious con man movie fell into my hands because I was wandering the aisles of Hollywood Video one afternoon. I wasn't looking for suggestions, I had a list in my hands of titles I wanted to see, trailers I had caught along the way, when this total stranger walks up to me and asks me if needed a movie suggestion. Well, hell, why not? So he hands me this flick and then, walks me across the store and hands me another. My movie angel. I couldn't quite get enough of Taken especially when I found out it was scripted by Luc Besson. I held off on the first title he handed me for awhile, then thought, "man, I paid for that, better watch it before it's due".
See, we fall into movies and either love them and recommend them or watch them and put them away for bored guests to pick out, for another rainy day. I have hundreds of movie titles laying around because I don't want to wait for Netflix to send them to me. I don't want to go down and rent them from Redbox or pick them up at the library just so I have to take them back right away (not that I don't but I'd rather not). No, instead I want the option of being able to pull a title from a stack day or night. Like Brad Anderson's Brick. I found that film trolling the shelves of the local pawn shop. I was mesmerized by it, loved the noirish dialogue, an edgy thriller in a contemporary high school setting.
Well, thanks to that guardian movie angel I stumbled upon Brad Johnson's sophomore effort. The Brothers Bloom has as many twists and turns as a box of Red Vines. It is a movie that demands a second viewing, that commands your attention and requires you to laugh and cry and leave the damn cat alone for a moment. It wants you to root for the "bad" guys, it desires for you to believe in love again, it has no intention of having you do anything other than think and laugh and cry right along with the characters, the quirky, grifting characters that make up this wonderful, small and brilliant piece of art.
I can never really grasp why critics feel they have to watch a movie just to judge it. I suppose that their handlers, the ones that are paying their salaries want them to have strong opinions about the dozens of movies they watch and have to write about. I would rather know that I was slapping a film into my player because it was the lucky title of the moment. I want to think that I putting a film on in the morning or the middle of the night because I wanted to be entertained, distracted, enlightened or kept from going crazy for a couple hours. What I don't want is to go into a movie house and know that I am destined to come out of it with a chip on my shoulder and need to tell the world how good or bad the movie I just watched was. Hell, I know a good movie from a bad one, I just don't need to tell the world. Sometimes I wish that those critics didn't need to do that, either. Let me decide, okay? Keep your opinions to yourself.
As for The Brothers Bloom? A ten out of ten, a million stars, a must see, an Oscar contender, a world class piece of art. Exaggeration? You watch it and tell me where to get off. Or better yet, come on by and we'll watch it together and afterwards, over a cup of coffee or a glass or three of wine, talk about it. Just save your hard core critiques for your boss and your weekly column, okay?
Action!
The Brothers Bloom:
http://www.allmovie.com/work/the-brothers-bloom-376451/review
A few other films about confidence men and their marks:
House of Games:
http://www.allmovie.com/work/house-of-games-23350
The Grifters:
http://www.allmovie.com/work/the-grifters-20935
The Sting:
http://www.allmovie.com/work/the-sting-46920
House of Games:
http://www.allmovie.com/work/house-of-games-23350
The Grifters:
http://www.allmovie.com/work/the-grifters-20935
The Sting:
http://www.allmovie.com/work/the-sting-46920
Criminal:
Paper Moon:
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