Source (purchased/given/borrowed/the wife's): borrowed/purchased/the wife's
Dates Acquired: 2006/2000/2007
Original Review(s): Intolerable Cruelty
( because it amuses me, here is GAK's review of Sexy Beast, sent to me via emai, June 14, 2001)
Re-Review: Sexy Beast d. Jonathan Glazer, w.Lous Mellis & David Scinto
From the Summer of 2000 through the Summer of 2001, my buddy Ryan and I would gather with a big bag of Real Fruit gummies and some soda on Fridays to watch a variety of programming which included South Park and Sex and the City. Between the two, however, would be Muchmusic's The Wedge, an hour long program at the time hosted by Sook-Yin Lee and featured the only dose of indie music videos around. There I discovered Badly Drawn Boy, The Beta Band and others, and in one particularly delightful episode, Jonathan Glazer. Glazer's not a musician, but a video director, having done most notably some of my favourite Massive Attack and Radiohead videos. This particular interview spotlighted his good nature and his new film, Sexy Beast, showing the opening sequence, complete with nigh-impregnable cockney accents, a thudding Stranglers tune and revolving camera giving the POV of a giant rolling boulder. I knew I had to see this film (at the turn of the century, British mobster movies were the it thing). Like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry before him, I knew that there would be something different about this movie, something stylish and avant garde that would separate it from the masses.... it had hipster cache, before hipsters were hip. These days, Sexy Beast is remembered (rightly) for Ben Kingsly's stereotype-busting performance (which unfortunately he's now been coasting off of for about 7 years) as mad-dog Don, a bat-shit crazy mobster who inspires trembling fear in everyone who knows him. While on screen we only get a little taste of what makes him so fearful, it's the trembling of Ray Winstone's Gary "Gal" Dove trying to turn down a job Don's proposing - thus taking him away from his comfortable life in a Spanish villa with his wife - that truly spells intimidation. Though Gal isn't necessarily a tough guy to have Don practically wet him down to a timid, shivering chihuahua is testament to Don's effect on people. Kingsly carries himself in an awkward, unreal manner, stiff in posture, featureless in his face, acting almost entirely with his eyes and body... it's like watching a rubberband stretch and stretch, just waiting to snap, then protecting your eyes when it does. Pulp Fiction ushered in the sountrack as film score and some directors, like Glazer know how to get the maximum effect out of the songs they choose (obscurity only help). It's a methodical, intense drama with incredible moments of suspense. Glazer has only done one film since (the Kubrick-ian Birth), but his talents are without question in this his first endeavour. Although not necessarily a masterpiece, Sexy Beast remains a tight little (89 minutes) film, full of great performances, vivid camera work, and conceptually intriguing elements throughout.
(PS - The AV Club also revisited Sexy Beast recently)
Dates Acquired: 2006/2000/2007
Original Review(s): Intolerable Cruelty
( because it amuses me, here is GAK's review of Sexy Beast, sent to me via emai, June 14, 2001)
SEXY BEAST is well worth a garner when you have an opp. ben kingsley in showy cockney mode in the south of france and boulders and car doors and shotguns that don't fire and steam baths and NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO FUCKING WAY! NO FUCKING WAY! NOFUCKING WAY! NO FUCKINGWAY! and rabbit demons and cracked pool tiles.
Re-Review: Sexy Beast d. Jonathan Glazer, w.Lous Mellis & David Scinto
From the Summer of 2000 through the Summer of 2001, my buddy Ryan and I would gather with a big bag of Real Fruit gummies and some soda on Fridays to watch a variety of programming which included South Park and Sex and the City. Between the two, however, would be Muchmusic's The Wedge, an hour long program at the time hosted by Sook-Yin Lee and featured the only dose of indie music videos around. There I discovered Badly Drawn Boy, The Beta Band and others, and in one particularly delightful episode, Jonathan Glazer. Glazer's not a musician, but a video director, having done most notably some of my favourite Massive Attack and Radiohead videos. This particular interview spotlighted his good nature and his new film, Sexy Beast, showing the opening sequence, complete with nigh-impregnable cockney accents, a thudding Stranglers tune and revolving camera giving the POV of a giant rolling boulder. I knew I had to see this film (at the turn of the century, British mobster movies were the it thing). Like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry before him, I knew that there would be something different about this movie, something stylish and avant garde that would separate it from the masses.... it had hipster cache, before hipsters were hip. These days, Sexy Beast is remembered (rightly) for Ben Kingsly's stereotype-busting performance (which unfortunately he's now been coasting off of for about 7 years) as mad-dog Don, a bat-shit crazy mobster who inspires trembling fear in everyone who knows him. While on screen we only get a little taste of what makes him so fearful, it's the trembling of Ray Winstone's Gary "Gal" Dove trying to turn down a job Don's proposing - thus taking him away from his comfortable life in a Spanish villa with his wife - that truly spells intimidation. Though Gal isn't necessarily a tough guy to have Don practically wet him down to a timid, shivering chihuahua is testament to Don's effect on people. Kingsly carries himself in an awkward, unreal manner, stiff in posture, featureless in his face, acting almost entirely with his eyes and body... it's like watching a rubberband stretch and stretch, just waiting to snap, then protecting your eyes when it does. Pulp Fiction ushered in the sountrack as film score and some directors, like Glazer know how to get the maximum effect out of the songs they choose (obscurity only help). It's a methodical, intense drama with incredible moments of suspense. Glazer has only done one film since (the Kubrick-ian Birth), but his talents are without question in this his first endeavour. Although not necessarily a masterpiece, Sexy Beast remains a tight little (89 minutes) film, full of great performances, vivid camera work, and conceptually intriguing elements throughout.
(PS - The AV Club also revisited Sexy Beast recently)
Re-Review: Office Space - d. & w. Mike Judge
Hard to believe there was a time where Office Space was considered a failure, but it was a huge flop when it was first released in theaters back in 1999. You can bet though, next year, there will be a sweet celebratory edition of the film out on DVD (good because I need to replace my bare bones, 1st edition release), perhaps even a reappearance of the film on the festival circuit. It's a cult film that's grown beyond cult into legendary. True story: I showed this film to an ex, and part way through she had to walk away from it because it hit too close to home. Office Space is a satire of the corporate working world just prior to the .Com boom, portraying the stifling, individuality-free, cubical-laden atmosphere that all too many people know all-too well. Peter is a cog in the machine, and as he states, "ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life." Peter (Ron Livingston) tells this to a career therapist who then tries to hypnotize him into relaxing, but drops dead before he can release him, leaving Peter in a constant state of care-free euphoria. Peter hooks up with his dream girl from the near-work restaurant (a palatable Jennifer Aniston, whose character explores in a subplot the experience of working at a big-box restaurant chain), avoids work, yet prospers for it. But it's still not enough, and he and two of his soon-to-be-fire colleagues hatch a plan to bilk the company out of money, Superman 3-style, which of course goes horribly wrong. At every turn there's another recognizable, funny-cause-it's-true stereotype of the corporate worker. The cake-sequence in Office Space finds itself a sister in this year's opening sequence of Wanted (in fact, James McAvoy's character in the latter film is much an action-movie version of Peter). I can see why the film might not have succeeded at first, filled with television or no-name actors and filling a the theatre with teenaged Beavis and Butthead (also created by Mike Judge) and/or Friends (Aniston, early in her Friends days, was the big draw) all too young to yet understand, but rediscovering the film a few years later to find it acutely representing their depressing life, and then delivering some cathartic wish-fulfillment. Office Space has the facade of reality within a silly script, hitting two levels of comedy... observational and absurd, and mastering them both, remaining as relevant today as it ever was (minus the Y2K references).
Re-Review: Intolerable Cruelty - d. Joel Coen, w. Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone, Joel and Ethan Coen.
Despite my rather favourable first review, my remembrances of this film were that of disappointment, finding the third act divergent and too slapstick (my least favourite comedy type), and overall the film strives for that 1940's romantic comedy pastiche which I have little first-hand experience with so I won't even try to BS you about. Needless to say, with a second watching (4 years later) I've found it more satisfying if still less-than-memorable, and immensely more predictable. But predictability and wallowing in its genre conventions actually seem to work in its favour, and those who are more familiar with the type of movie it's trying to be will likely be more satisfied with it. The banter is silly, over-the-top, just as comedy was back in the 40's, people talking like nobody talks, saying things so rapidly they can barely be interpreted, nevermind soliciting a prompt respond in kind. George Clooney plays the hottest of hot-shot divorce attorneys, and Catherine Zeta-Jones plays the shrewdest of gold diggers. They meet when the former is defending the latter's soon-to-be ex-husband, and Clooney is smitten instantly. The cat and mouse game begins, although who's the cat and who's the mouse changes intermittently. It's an entertaining film with little to say. It makes grand speeches in equal measure about the beauty and ugliness of love, and how money perverts it. Clooney is completely at home playing goofy, a fanatic of the slapstick genre, you can tell he relishes this role. Zeta-Jones is wry and coy throughout, refusing to succumb to the silliness in the same way, which works for her as the straight man of the duo. It's not at the top of my list of favourite Coen brothers films, and sits in the middle of their awkward comedy trilogy that also includes O' Brother, Where Art Thou and The Ladykillers. I don't know if I'll ever love this film, but it certainly passes the time with ease.
Ratings (keep/sell/undecided): Return/Replace (with inevitable anniversary edition)/ not my decision