Prelude: Dog Star Man (1961)
Dog Star Man: Part I (1962)
Dog Star Man: Part II (1963)
Dog Star Man: Part III (1964)
Dog Star Man: Part IV (1964)
Stan Brakhage is one of America’s foremost experimental twentieth century filmmakers, but when I read reviews discussing his capitalistic critique or Jungian analysis, I feel like I’m missing something. I don’t know how to respond or make sense of the images Brakhage bombards us with.
I think movies like this are interesting and occasionally moving, but that’s as in-depth an analysis as I can offer. I don’t think I’m alone.
Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)
This series of vignettes about folk-singer Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is too loosely connected and leaves too many questions unanswered.
The movie peaks with the first song sung by Davis, the haunting, “Hang Me, Oh Hang Me.”
I love the Coen brothers and I love the idea of this film: a semi-musical about folk music in the early 1960s. I was hopeful it would turn out like a Coen version of A Mighty Wind (2003), but I was disappointed.
When there was music, I loved this film. When the music stopped, even John Goodman’s fantastic performance as jazz musician Roland Turner couldn’t save it. I spent most of my time hoping they’d get back to another musical number.
Justin Timberlake is entertaining as Jim Berkey, Llewyn’s cuckolded, hapless friend and his novelty song “Please Mr. Kennedy,” which he records with Davis and Al Cody (played by Adam Driver) is delightful.
Adam Driver is talented, but his onscreen persona is too mannered and idiosyncratic to be believable.
Since F. Murray Abraham won an Oscar for playing Salieri, his career has morphed into Harry Dean Stanton 2.0, a respected and solid background player.
This film will be unfavorably compared to the Coens earlier musical film, Oh, Brother Where Art Thou? (2000). The first film was a fun, roller coaster, while this is a slow, plodding, introspective film, closer in tone to A Serious Man (2009), their film about a Jewish man whose life falls apart.
When this works, it’s great, but there’s too much wasted energy and too much left underdeveloped. When Davis has a chance encounter with a young Bob Dylan, it feels like a desperate attempt to connect the closed world of this film to reality, to give us some sort of reason to be emotionally invested in the film. Sadly, this movie about the struggles of an unfulfilled artist became a piece of art left unfulfilled.
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
This is how you breathe life into rebooted material and handle an insanely large cast. There’s a lot of fan service, but director Bryan Singer never panders. It feels organic, even though we know it took a lot of effort to shoehorn in the little scenes the rabid comic book community has been clamoring for on the Internet for over a decade.
In retrospect, Singer was always better suited for X-Men than Superman, which is to say, Singer is better suited for Marvel than DC.
The split between the two giants of comic books is, at its core, a question about entertainment versus art. DC wants to transcend the limitations of genre and become truly artistic endeavors. Meanwhile, Marvel has never aspired to anything but entertainment. Art is not the goal, but a possible byproduct. Marvel comic books tend to be more colorful, more creative, and funnier. DC comics may stretch your understanding of the world, but Marvel helps you enjoy it.
Few actors are more closely associated with a particular comic book character than Hugh Jackman with Wolverine. Fortunately, he’s excellent in the role and his central performance keep this film grounded.
Jennifer Lawrence is great as Mystique and makes the character come alive in a way Rebecca Romijn never could in the original series.
As Bolivar Trask, Peter Dinklage shows us he can be an evil master manipulator, as well as a sympathetic, tragic figure, or lonely and confused, middle-aged man. His onscreen presence transcends his physical limitations which is a testament to his astounding charisma.
This is not the best comic book movie, but it understands why people like comic books. Small cameos are as important as star roles because just seeing our favorite characters onscreen is enough. To audiences well versed in the arcane knowledge of the material, the small, seemingly inconsequential stuff can be central to an enjoyment of the film.