Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!
This week on Thursday Movie Picks, we're looking at movies with non-linear timelines. Time always moves forwards of course, but with film, we have the capability to rewind, fast forward, double back, start over... we can view a series of events in pretty much any way we want. And these movies take advantage of that.
Cloud Atlas (Wachowskis & Tom Tykwer, 2012) This wildly ambitious film, adapted from David Mitchell's Russian nesting doll of a novel, probably never should have been made. The book has such a literary conceit that it's nearly impossible to adapt to cinematic form, but God bless the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer for trying. Whole long sections of this are just thrilling arias of pure cinematic expression, linking stories hundreds of years and thousands of miles apart by the elemental forces of human experiences. The overarching story (such as it is) is about the journey of a soul as it learns over the course of several lifetimes what it means to be good. The ensemble cast is full of some spotty performances (and some even spottier makeup), but Halle Berry, Doona Bae, and a near-unrecognizable Hugh Grant have never been better than they are in sections of this.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004) How this didn't win every single goddamn award walking away in 2004, I'll never know. It's a goddamn masterpiece, with career-best work from Kate Winslet, Jim Carrey, Charlie Kaufman, and Michel Gondry. Nothing I could write about it will ever top this that I wrote four years ago, so I won't even try.
The Rules of Attraction (Roger Avary, 2002) Oh those wild and crazy kids! What ever will they do to fuck themselves up next? This Bret Easton Ellis adaptation throws so much style at the wall to see what sticks, and a surprising amount of it does. Hopping back and forth between different attendees at a fateful college party and what led them to make the decisions they made there, we watch as teen heartthrobs Jessica Biel, James Van Der Beek, Ian Somerhalder, Kate Bosworth, and Kip Pardue do some VERY bad things, to themselves and to each other! The movie as a whole holds together only barely, but the best scenes (including a homoerotic bedroom dance/pillow fight to George Michael's "Faith", a rapid fast-forward through an entire vacation abroad, and one of the best, most effective suicide scenes ever put on film) really linger.
Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them!
I had a hard time coming up with movies for this week's theme, nostalgia. I'm assuming we're talking movies ABOUT nostalgia, not movies that evoke a sense of nostalgia within us. Although even if it were the latter, I still might have trouble. But anyway, here's what I could come up with.
Peggy Sue Got Married (Francis Ford Coppola, 1986) Peggy Sue is pretty unhappy in her marriage, and at her high school reunion, she passes out and wakes up back in her senior year of high school. Is she really there? Is it a dream? Would she do anything differently? The major conflict of the film, beautifully acted by Kathleen Turner in the title role, is whether Peggy Sue's nostalgia will overcome her so much that she will make the same decisions and fall into old patterns, or if she will be bold and blaze a new path for herself. Viewing this movie now, I was somewhat unsatisfied with the ending, but upon reflection it's a bit more complicated than I initially gave it credit for. It probably doesn't help that Peggy Sue's beau is played by Nicolas Cage at his most grating (on purpose, but still). But the cinematography is gorgeous, and the cast is an embarrassment of riches: In addition to Turner, who is brilliant, there's Helen Hunt, Joan Allen, and Jim Carrey! Which brings us to...
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004) Sometimes, you're not nostalgic for a time or place, so much as a person. The problem for Joel Barrish is that he realizes he's nostalgic for his ex-girlfriend Clementine while he's undergoing a procedure to have her erased from his memories. So he decides, along with the version of Clementine in his memories, to hide her. Charlie Kaufman's script is dazzling, and Michel Gondry's direction even more so, but the real draw here is the ensemble cast, especially the performances of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet as Joel and Clementine. Carrey was never used better in a dramatic role, his expressive face getting quite the workout as Joel goes back into memories of being a small child. And Winslet's performance is even more mind-blowing when you realize that for most of the movie, she's not actually playing Clementine, but rather Joel's memory of her. It's an incredible film all around, probably the best film since the new millennium. Truly a work of staggering genius.
Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen, 2011) Owen Wilson is engaged to Rachel McAdams. The two of them are visiting Paris with her parents on a business trip. He's a writer, and is naturally taken with the historical city. But at midnight, when he's wandering about, he ends up in the 1920s, in the salons of some of the greatest artists of the 20th century. Will he try to stay in the earlier time period as he becomes more and more infatuated with it? I won't spoil that, but I absolutely will spoil some of the rogue's gallery of an ensemble, who are the true reason to see this lovely little film: Kathy Bates as Gertrude Stein, Adrien Brody as Salvador Dali, Tom Hiddleston and Allison Pill as the Fitzgeralds F. Scott and Zelda, Corey Stoll as Ernest Hemingway... Allen clearly had a blast writing for these characters, and the actors pay him back with all they've got. Unfortunately, the present day characters are pretty much insufferable. But that's not near enough to take the fizz out of this champagne cocktail of a movie.
