Venus in Furs

A dreamy, atmospheric, arty, pretentious, boring depiction of the sadistic underbelly of the '70s jazzy Eurotrash jet-set crew. Mildly amusing in a how-did-a-movie-like-this-get-made kind of way, but not worth it. To its credit, the second half seems to go by a lot faster than the first, but that's probably because I was fast-forwarding in order to get through it.

The Matrix, Death Warrant

Back to back. Morpheus is Laurence Fishburne's character in "The Matrix," and also the password to the files in "Death Warrant." So there's a link. Other than that, they're opposites. One is great, one is not.

Persepolis

The history of modern Iran as seen through the eyes of an animated French-speaking girl. A bit inside, I know. Reader(s) of this blog should have picked up on the fact that I'm not a fan of animated films. I don't think there's much to them. This one's actually good. And it looks unique, stretching the medium to use creative ways to convey feeling and theme. If there's another thing like it, I haven't seen it.

In Bruges

Before I settled in to spend a harrowing two hours in a theater watching the overrated catastrophe "Juno," I saw a preview for "In Bruges." A friend next to me leaned over and said she hoped the film we were about to see would be better. At the end of "Juno," she was relieved it had been better. But for me, the preview of "In Bruges" was the best part of watching "Juno." It's funny and sweet and odd, and even though the ending doesn't quite do it for me, I would still recommend it. "In Bruges" also shows that Colin Farrell has found his niche, giving his own spin to every line he delivers, like, "If I'd grown up on a farm and was retarded, Bruges might impress me. But I didn't, so it doesn't." He's great.

Inside

French home-invasion horror. A psychotic woman wants to perform an unauthorized C-section on a very pregnant woman, set against the backdrop of the recent riots. Profoundly bloody, numerous stabbings. But for being tightly focused and trying to follow Aristotle's notion of the unity of time for drama, it has an episodic feel, with David Lynch-like droning accompanying the screen fading in and out between brutal death scenes. And it highlights an admirable trend in cinema, confined mainly to horror films (see also "High Tension"), with the stars being women, and the men being the throwaway side characters who never seem to last. Keep it up, French horror directors!

P.S. The ending goes into territory where only foreign films can tread. It's not pretty, and if it doesn't make you say WTF, I don't know what will.

Cyborg

I think movies are too long, so it's admirable when a film is less than 90 minutes. But still, whenever one is, you have to wonder, is it because the movie is completely terrible? In the case of last year's "Vacancy," the answer is no. In the case of "Cyborg," the answer is a firm yes. The title card says this sci-fi film takes place in New York City "in the future." And this is after the narrator has already told you the film takes place in the future. Something that stupid tells you you're entering "Battlefield Earth" territory. The most interesting part of the film was this same opening narration, which inspired some lines from Method Man's "Tical 2000: Judgement Day."

I don't believe everything I read on Wikipedia, but some things I'd like to believe are true. For instance, according to Wikipedia (as of 7:17 a.m. June 23, 2008), the studio had costumes and props left over from the sequel to "Masters of the Universe," which fell through, and they needed to use them to make some money, so someone wrote this movie. I think they also had a leftover synthesizer soundtrack. If you watch this movie -- and there's no reason you should -- you'll believe this Wikipedia story too.

Double Impact

Van Damme is long lost brothers, Chad and Alex, separated at birth, who both grow up to be karate masters. One of them looks like Jimmy Fallon as the undercover Cuban in "Taxi." But of course, if you cast the Muscles from Brussels as both brothers, of course they have to be karate masters. And we know they're identical because they both have the same odd bump on the forehead that he had in "Lionheart," and they both have an inexplicable accent.

The ending takes place in a location that reminds me of the unjustifiably unknown Eddie Griffin action film, "Blast," which has the best pre-fight one-liner in recent memory: "It's George Bush time." To which (to make it the best pre-fight two-liner in recent memory) his Noah Wyle look-alike sidekick (the stoner from "Clueless") says something like, "You mean it's just us?" The ending also has a flexarific fight between Van Damme and the pectoral madness that is Bolo Yueng.

The most notable part of the film is a dark-blue-hued fight scene between Van Damme and a guy with spurs. The fighters dance in and out of the shadows, and it looks like a surreal Grace Jones video. It borders on the artistic. But you know what's not artistic? Ending an early '90s film with the camera freezing on the hero giving the ok sign with his fingers.

Othello

Laurence Olivier takes his turn as the eponymous Moor, although delivering a conflicted performance, at times Shakespearean and proper, and at others Al Jolson-like in his blackface smiling and "Tropic Thunder" makeup. I now know why Iago's wife should be hot (which I didn't get when I saw Orson Welles's version): in the first act Iago mentions how others talk about Othello sleeping with his wife. If Othello is to be any kind of credible wooer, he should not settle for second best.

Semi-Pro

Not even semi-funny. The jokes are tired and stale. Side note: rappers should stop acting. I've been tired of Mos Def appearing in films, and now I'm tired of Andre 3000 trying to act. If I could paraphrase how I remember Philip Seymour Hoffman's line in "M:I III" to Tom Cruise during the interrogation: "Just stop, okay. Don't." So, to all the rappers who want to act who are reading this blog, just stop, okay? Don't.

The Other Boleyn Girl

The story of how one family tried to sleep their way to the top. Might have been good in a "Poison Ivy" kind of a way, but for some reason, the cinematographer had the cameras out of focus during the good stuff. The movie suffers from a huge plot problem, akin to that of the recent seasons of "Lost." I'm thinking of the curious power of Ben to give people a reason to kill him and not be killed, and the ability to have people do what he says when there's no reason for them to do so. Here, the uncle tells everyone in his sister's family -- the Boleyns -- what to do, and they don't want to do it, and yet they do it. Um, may I ask why?

And if I could get on my democracy soapbox for a minute, I think it's odd so many people are concerned about the legitimacy of the heir to the king. It's as if they legitimately worry, if we don't have some random-ass heir (whoever comes out of the queen), then we'll end up with some other random-ass heir, and that would be bad. As if monarchies aren't inherently ridiculous. End of lecture, England's ridiculous, I'm done.

Lionheart

Van Damme plays Lyon, who has a lion's heart. See, it's a play on words. And this is back in the day when he was cu-ute (pronounced with two syllables). He escapes from Djibouti to New York, and has to get to Cali to save his brother who looks like the burnt Hungarian who fingered Keyser Soze. But he has no money, no job, no green card. What's he to do? Street fight.

Near the beginning, it tries to be a message movie, Van Damme's "Driving Miss Daisy," by showing the disparity of rich and poor, but that's quickly sidelined once the sporadic fight sequences begin. Bottom line: a'ight.

And, for those who care, the ending credits reveal the fight choreography was by Van Damme and Frank Dux, whose real-life story was "Bloodsport."

The Conformist

Some Italian film. Not great.

I'm Not There

I have seen pretension, and its name is "I'm Not There," the onanistic, impressionistic, POS biopic of Bob Dylan. The shtick is that Dylan is played by six different actors meant to embody different personas he's adopted over the years -- Richard Gere as Cowboy Dylan, Cate Blanchett as Fellini Dylan, Heath Ledger as Heath Ledger Dylan, and Christian Bale as Born-Again Dylan (who, perhaps deliberately, does a bad GW impression). But the most inspired casting choice is David Cross as Allen Ginsberg. Cross of course brings his baggage as Tobias Funke from "Arrested Development," and we can't take him seriously as an overrated goofball poet who wrote one good thing (Yes, I'm thinking of "Howl."). So when Cross reads a poem as Ginsberg, you imagine Tobias auditioning for "The Prosecution," probably a CBS procedural, reading something he knows, which is of course an Eve Ensler-penned monologue. Other than this unintentionally funny five-second snippet, I can't think of anything nice to say about this movie.

The Trial

Orson Welles takes on Franz Kafka. Welles's directing can be seen more from the creative camera angles than the sometimes stilted acting. It would be fair to say I stopped caring about this film about 20 minutes into it, and I finished it merely to be able to get a new Netflix and write another post. And maybe the movie deserves better treatment than I gave it, but that was my experience of watching this movie, which is what the blog is all about.