Christmas Vacation (Chechik, 1989)

Christmas Vacation (Jeremiah S. Chechik, 1989)

Call me Scrooge if you want, but this was not funny. The best laughs are the first ones where Clark Griswold lets his road rage get the best of him on the trip to find the Griswold family Christmas tree. Past that, outside of a few nice cousin Eddie moments, I didn’t find this humor to be entertaining at all. The whole ‘everything goes wrong’ plotline gave me more anxiety than laughs. Clark Griswold’s characterization is also bad. For the first half of the film, he is more of an idiot than is even humanly possible for a man in his position. Then, during the second half those traits disappear and he’s just an average guy having a bad week. Honestly, the kids are probably the best characters in the movie. They are a nice blend of embarrassed teenager and well-raised. They don’t shun their family at every waking possibility, but they still exhibit normal irritable tendencies at times. Just a small nugget of good in an otherwise disappointing movie.  4/10

Moana (Flaherty, 1926)

Moana (Robert J. Flaherty, 1926)

To understand my biggest gripe with Moana, you have to be somewhat familiar with Flaherty’s other films. Two of his most famous (and best), Nanook of the North and Man of Aran, are documentary-esque fiction movies where Flaherty goes to remote locations around the world and observes people who are culturally different from him (and likely you and me). Moana is the same idea. The problem with this film, however, is lack of quality cinematography and editing. Visually, the film is dull, which really hurts this hour-long silent film. Without a great visual presentation, it’s hard for a movie with no sound to be interesting. The people of the film carry this to an extent, and enough to make it an alright one-time watch, but I can only watch static shots of people hunting and dancing for so long before my mind wanders.  6.25/10

The Sweet Hereafter (Egoyan, 1997)

The Sweet Hereafter (Atom Egoyan, 1997)

Despite much high praise for this film, it took me forever to see it. The film is set in a small town where a school bus accident has just killed and injured several local children. As you might know by now, I love a small town setting in a film, so this was a big positive. The fact that so many people were effected by the accident, but only a few are focused on throughout the film is a big plus for Egoyan as well. This could easily have been a film with a lot of characters, but none fully fleshed out. Watching the residents’ grief unfold in several different ways was heartbreaking. Bruce Greenwood is especially fantastic as the only parent not interested in finding someone to blame for the accident.

The film’s plot itself is about a lawyer who comes into town to research possible lawsuit potentials. The film flashes between his time with local residents, and his time with his drug-addict daughter. The film says a lot about what it means to be dead (both physically and spiritually), and about relationships between parent and offspring. This film was heart-wrenching, and I don’t even have kids. The only thing about this film I didn’t care for were some of the monologues which become a little too heavy-handed. Otherwise, though, this is an excellent film. 9/10

Che (Soderbergh, 2008)

Recently, I made a night (or two or three) out of watching Soderbergh’s Che movies. At first I figured the film was divided into two parts to keep the length manageable and more marketable. While this still might be part of the case, there was also a distinct difference in tone which really offered Soderbergh no choice but to divide them.

Che: Part One (Steven Soderbergh, 2008)

Part One is quite a bit more historical and political, and parts of it really bored me. Luckily, there were quite a few scenes of Che and his men wandering through the jungle while a Che interview voiced over the images. Those were the best parts of this film, and a good chunk was beautifully shot. I don’t know much about Che, but I think the Cuban Revolution is what he is best known for, which is probably why this part is so focused on the timeline, the plot, etc. Not bad, but not exactly my thing.  7/10

Che: Part Two (Steven Soderbergh, 2008)

Part Two was more up my alley. The first 20 minutes are poetic perfection. We see Che (in disguise) kiss his family goodbye and head to a remote jungle in Bolivia to set up a training camp. Few words are spoken and the images and music take over. The tone and cinematography are completely relaxing, which was a nice change of pace from Part One’s long battle scenes. Then we see the guerrilla recruits sitting around talking and telling jokes. The middle portion of the film teeters on the edge of what I found uninteresting about Part One, but throughout it all, it does a much better job of taking its time and feeling less ‘important’. The end of the film echoes the poetry of the beginning, and solidified this as a much better effort.  8/10

Trouble Every Day (Denis, 2001)

Trouble Every Day (Claire Denis, 2001)

Odd, though interesting. Denis does her usual poetic atmosphere with awesome cinematography and great music, but she just happens to throw a cannibalistic, scientific-experiment-gone-wrong plot in the mix (yep, a horror movie). Almost all of the experiment storyline is in the background though, mostly just as a way to set the movie up. The film more closely focuses on the relationships at hand and, more specifically, our ability and inability to love those closest to us. There’s a lot of metaphor going on in this film, though none of it is complicated and I doubt Denis wanted it to be. And there are also a lot of internal psychological battles here, especially through Vincent Gallo’s brilliantly acted character. Unfortunately, a lot of this is too graphic for my personal tastes, which keeps this from being one of my favorite Denis movies. But when it’s not graphic it does have everything I adore about her other stuff.  7.5/10