Review: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring (2003)

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Director: Kim Ki-duk
Starring: Oh Yeong-su, Seo Jae-kyeong, Kim Young-min, Kim Jong-ho, Kim Ki-duk

Kim Ki-duk's Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring is a film that grabs you immediately with the exquisite beauty of an image and then doesn't let you go. It is a wholly engrossing film which, despite its gentle and contemplative approach to its story, unfolds so quickly that you feel sad that it's ending so soon. Exploring the life of a Buddist monk by dropping in on him at key moments in each phase of his life (the seasons in the title refer to his childhood, late adolescence, adulthood, and maturity), the film is quiet and unassuming but deeply moving and evocative. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring has been on my list of movies to watch for quite some time and I wish I'd gotten to it sooner as it is such a unique and wonderful piece of work.

Review: Julia (1977)

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Director: Fred Zinnemann
Starring: Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Robbards

I'm not sure what people saw in Julia in 1977. Enough, apparently, to give it 3 Oscars and 8 more nominations and the distinction of tying The Turning Point for the most nominated film of its year. I confess that I don't get it. Perhaps, when a film features so many names from Oscar glories past (director Fred Zinnemann already had 4 Oscars, while Jane Fonda, Jason Robbards, and Maximilian Schell each had 1, and Vanessa Redgrave had already been nominated 3 times), it just seems like it must be good. I don't know, but I know that Julia is not a particularly good movie. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call it a "bad" movie, but it's definitely a muddle in which the good elements are lost in a story which doesn't seem to know its own purpose.

Friday's Top 5... Features That Started as Short Films

#5: Boogie Nights
10 years before Paul Thomas Anderson broke through with Boogie Nights he made a short film called The Dirk Diggler Story, a mockumentary inspired by This Is Spinal Tap. What's most impressive is that Anderson made the short when he was 17 and put it together and VCR to VCR editing system.

Series Review: Terminator

Directors: James Cameron, Jonathan Mostow, McG
Starring: Arnold Schwartzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Christian Bale, Edward Furlong, Nick Stahl, Sam Worthington

At the moment, the Terminator series is one that is evenly divided. Two of the films are really good, and two of them are really... not good. In July 2015 a fifth film will join the series and, at the risk of pre-judging a movie by its title, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Terminator: Genisys will tip the series into being predominantly made up of films that are terrible. I get why the studio wants to keep returning to this particular well. It's a premise and a mythology that should work across multiple films, but having recently marathoned all four movies, I've come to the following conclusions: Terminator doesn't work like it should without James Cameron, without Linda Hamilton, without younger Arnold Schwartzeneger, and the more it focuses on John Connor. John Connor is an effective mythology figure, but as a character he suuuuuuucks. In every incarnation. Good luck, Jason Clarke.

Review: The Theory of Everything (2014)

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Director: James Marsh
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Felicity Jones

Looks can be deceiving. Going by advertising, James Marsh's The Theory of Everything would appear to be a film about Stephen Hawking's groundbreaking work as a theoretical physicist and cosmologist, accomplished even as a motor neuron disease began to ravage his body; a story, in other words, of a "great man" overcoming adversity. In actuality, Hawking's work is there to provide some context and color, but it's not really the story. This isn't a film about the science, or really the scientist. It's a film about a marriage, told with no small degree of conventionality, but also told with sensitivity and grace. While most films about important men in history relegate their female leads to the thankless position of "woman behind the man," Theory is as much (if not actually more) about Jane Wilde Hawking as it is about Stephen Hawking, and does more than just give glancing attention to the struggles, sacrifices, and private agonies of being the supportive spouse. It's sad that in 2014 that should seem so refreshing, but that should take nothing away from the film which, while flawed, is nevertheless a moving portrait of a man, a woman, and their union.