Notes on a Scandal (the first half hour) (2006)

R: Kate and I have noticed that there exists an entire genre of films, "bad movies for people who aren't supposed to like bad movies." We've also noticed that such movies tend to get an artificial "art house" bump in their rotten tomatoes ratings. "Notes on a Scandal" is 87%"fresh." You can guess what we think of it.

Yes, Judy Dench is a good actress. Yes, Cate Blanchett is hot. Yes, they both have British accents. This does not a movie make! The characters are flat, the story is uncompelling, and Philip Glass's score is ridiculous. You object: "But Ross, it was nominated for four Oscars? These include best screenplay and best score?" Honestly, I don't know. What I do know is that the clever narrative device in this film is... Judy Dench reads a voiceover taken from... her diary! I know that during the opening credits the staccato cello music starts -- and doesn't stop. I present this as incontrovertible evidence that I am right, and the Academy is wrong.

I'm posting a link here to a spoiler for the movie -- a complete synopsis that will confirm for you that, despite claims to the contrary, there are no plot twists. I hope that, after reading it, any lingering curiosity you might have had about the movie will be satisfied.


K: I agree. I thought that Judy Dench was pretty good, but this movie gives new meaning to the term "plot driven". Except that the plot isn't that interesting.

AWOL: Yeah, we know

R: It's true that we were "too busy" for much of the last six months to write anything. This does not mean that we were to busy to watch anything, so we thought we'd assemble here a list of movies we liked, or found noteworthy.

We grouped the new(ish) movies we've seen by prominence, rather than try to order them by quality. So, we have:

Less Prominent:

Crossing the Bridge

K: This is a documentary about music in Istanbul, hosted by the drummer from Einstuerzende Neubauten. The offerings range from traditional string music and folksongs to modern rock, punk, and rap. This film was great (well worth watching, if you can find it). I can honestly say (without sarcasm) that my eyes have been opened to the wonders of Turkish rap.

R: Yes, this is ridiculously good. There are a few too many shots of the world-weary german musician, in hoodie and dark glasses, staring out of the back of a cab, but the music more than makes up for it. The Turkish rapper is "Ceza," I think.

Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles

K: This is the second movie we saw in the "Chinese films that with sympathetic Japanese characters series" (Fearless was the first, though not at the Michigan). What I remember about it was that it managed to be sweet without being smarmy and philosophical without being hackneyed.

R: I... I really liked this. The principle acting challenge in this is that the father has to somehow close this distance between himself and his son -- even though the son is off camera and out of contact for the whole film. Oh, and the father doesn't really like to talk. He pulls it off, though. I also think the film exquisitely captures both the allure of a foreign country, the disillusionment that usually comes with being there, and the final appreciation of it on its own terms.

Old Joy

K: Great movie. I think about it when I need to remember to live in the moment. It made me cry. A major blow was struck to my view of humanity when I heard multiple people grumbling about it as we left. Rent it. See it!

R: I'm inclined to say that it was the best movie we saw this year. I'm biased, of course -- it's set in Oregon (though not my part of Oregon), they go camping, etc. But, again, it's well acted, and it rings true. I can't say much else about it. As for our fellow theater-goers, who didn't care for it, I might point out that they were all, well, old. I think that this might be one of those "generation" movies. It's hard to pin down why -- I'm tempted to say that our generation makes and breaks the ties of friendship more often than most, just because we move around so much, but Kate pointed out that "growing apart" is as universal a theme as you could find.

More Prominent:

Little Miss Sunshine

R: Boo-yah!

K: Yay! I love this movie and it's hilarious. If you are one of the 15 people who hasn't seen it yet, see it now!

An Inconvenient Truth

R: Yes, it stars Al Gore, and co-stars his laptop. Yes, it's a movie version of... his slide-show. On the other hand, it's a clear and correct presentation of current climate science, and a sober discussion of its implications for, you know, people. I was lukewarm about this when I saw it, but I find myself recommending it to more and more people, not because it's great cinema, but because it's the fastest way to start learning about (IMHO) the most important issue of the day.

Science of Sleep

K: I liked this movie a lot (much more than Ross did, I think). It is visually very interesting (as you probably could guess from the trailers). The story gets a little sicky-sweet in places, but I'm pretty forgiving. The animation is pretty cool.

R: Hey, I liked it. Good, certainly, but my expectations were very high.

For Your Consideration

K: I'm not fond of Christopher Guess's movies, and I wasn't particularly fond of this one. What can I say? Not my brand of vodka.

R: Oh, come on! "Chillaxin'?" I did feel at a couple of points like I was drowning -- when the stream of LA talk went on for too long, I felt like screaming "AUGH! Somebody make sense! Please!" This was probably the point, but I wasn't looking for social commentary because, frankly, I don't care about LA. Make with the funny!

The Queen

K: This was great. I was surprised I liked it, since I'm not really a fan of movies about royals (Looking for Richard excepted). Helen Mirren deserves all of the accolades she's gotten for this film. Although Princess Diana is nominally the driving force behind the plot, the more important bits are about personal and cultural change. Remarkably good.

R: This was really good. Great? I dunno. I'm surprised by all of the attention it's received, which I think speaks more to the generally poor crop of Oscar candidates this year than the exceptional quality of this film. Oh well.

In addition to new(ish) movies, there were several series of films

Summer Classics:

Definitely not as good as they were in 2005, but there were still basically two highlights:
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Lawrence of Arabia

R: Lawrence of Arabia? On freaking 70mm film? Yeah, you want some. Treasure of the Sierra Madre was also pretty great.

K: I saw neither of these (I was in Santa Fe) but I am definitely pro-LofA. (I thought that we watched more of the summer series, but I suppose part of the series is in the last monster post)

25 Films from Sundance:
R: I attended most of the films at the beginning of the series, and concluded that "Sundance" was actually a word form some ancient dialect that meant "hot man-on-man action." There were, however, several exceptional films that I hadn't seen before. Note that even of the good ones, 3/5 fall into the HMoMA category:

Dog Day Afternoon

K: I didn't see this at the Michigan, but I do own it on dvd. I remember it as being good, though I haven't watched it in years.

Gods and Monsters

R: I was just stunned by this. In a good way.

Blood Simple

K: The Coen Brothers' first film (I think). Creepy in an old psychological thriller kind of way. Creepy like Psycho is creepy. Creepy in a way that makes you shudder at random moments for a week afterward. Really good creepy.

R: At the end, I was ashamed that I had not seen it earlier.

Chinatown

K: I loved this movie--classic film noir with Jack Nicholson. One thing to notice about this movie--film noir scripts usually take place at night, but the only part of Chinatown that doesn't take place in broad daylight is the climax of the movie. It's pretty amazing.

Paris is Burning

K: I had never heard of this movie, but it was really really worthwhile.

R: If you're like me, you instantly write off documentaries that promise to help you "feel the pain" of the Socially Outcast Group of the Week. I mean, hopefully you're not like me, but I wouldn't blame you if you were. Anyway, I still liked this, liked it alot, even.

Masters of Comedy Series:

R: This was part of a class at UM, and we watched their screenings at The Michigan pretty religiously. There was a lot of Woody Allen, most of which I didn't like. However, Annie Hall and Manhattan, I liked. Also fascinating was Being There, which I'd be tempted to call "obscure," even though it won some large number of Oscars. It shouldn't be. See it.

K: I am a Woody Allen nut, but in a 12 film "Masters of Comedy Series," there should not be 5 Woody Allen films. I can think of about 10 films that were not included in this series that should have been (I think I see a post on that topic coming). Anyway, I also love Annie Hall and Manhattan. Leaving aside whether they should dominate the Masters of Comedy series, if you haven't seen these two films, you have to see them. Right now. In widescreen, please.

The series also included Sleeper--an early WA film that I am really really fond of (though not everybody is). It features a ragtime soundtrack with Woody Allen himself on the clarinet. This film borrows heavily from silent comedy, and although it slows down quite a bit later on, the beginning is pure gold.

The other WA films in the series were someplace in the forgettable to terrible part of the spectrum, so I'll skip over those.

There were also 3 Mel Brooks films in the series (meaning that over half were from two directors!) I'm not a Mel Brooks fan, but I love love love Blazing Saddles and was happy to see it on the big screen. It is a surprising film all around. I actually think that some of the humor is too edgy to be included in a modern comedy ("where the white women at?")--something that I find quite sad. I can take or leave the rest of Mel Brooks' filmography, so I'll leave it at that.

I had never heard of Being There before it showed up in this series--I have no idea why, since Peter Sellers won an academy award for his performance in it. It easily made my top ten all-time list the first time I watched it. Peter Sellers is incredible, the storyline builds slowly and is almost unbearably dark. The whole thing could have fallen flat at any time, but it continues to build through to the end, which caps off the movie better than I could have imagined. A clear favorite so far this year. See it.

The Painted Veil (2006)

R: Those of you who know me, know that The Onion is one of the few film review sites that I trust. I agree with much of what they say about this film -- it is gorgeous, well-acted... and a little bit off. I have three things to add/emphasize:

1. The thing that is "off" about the film is the sense of time. At one point, the lady lead says "we've been here for a month," when I would have guessed that they been in Plaguesville for a couple of days. Another cue (this time "two months") caught Kate thinking that they'd been in the town longer. I don't think this was intentional, since it's not used to particularly good effect. I'd go further and say that scuplting time is what [live-action] filmmakers do, and that this director didn't seem particularly good at it.

2. Toby Jones is awesome.

3. Ed Norton was pretty good too. This is too bad for the leading lady, Miss Whatserface, who wasn't bad, but wasn't fantastic either -- definitely less interesting than the other two principals. Since the film is done mostly from her point of view, this is problematic.

All in all, I'd say rent it. Unless, of course, you're a sucker for the Misty Mountains of China (TM), in which case you've already seen it.






K: I also thought that this movie was pretty great. The two main characters were very subtle and changed over the course of the film in a very intuitive and lovely way. Toby Jones steals the show very easily, despite being the only character who doesn't experience a change in his view of the world. I would agree that although China is breathtakingly beautiful and all, you can probably watch this on DVD--just make sure you watch it widescreen.