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Monthly Archives September 2008

Fernando Solanas, "Latent Argentina" (2007).

The first movie I saw at the San Francisco International Film Festival was Fernando Solanas’ latest documentary, Latent Argentina (Argentina Latente), which I think is closer to “Dormant Argentina” — about the privatization of companies, concessions to multinational firms, and the vast economic inequalities within the country — had promised to be less dry than [...]

Posted 09 September 2008 † Benito Vergara § notes ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood" (2007).

It’s something of a paradox to state that Daniel Day-Lewis’ towering, fiery oil derrick of a performance in Paul Thomas Anderson’s undeniably brilliant There Will Be Blood is both the best and worst thing about this film. His acting, as oilman Daniel Plainview, is amazing, both subtly nuanced and overpowering — so much of the [...]

Posted 08 September 2008 † Benito Vergara § review ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , ,

Ivan Reitman, "Juno" (2007).

In the last week alone [this entry was originally posted in April 2008, but there's a topical reference below which shouldn't be too difficult to spot], at least four people who don’t know each other have been sending me links to the Stuff White People Like blog. (Did it suddenly get Dugg last week or [...]

Posted 07 September 2008 † Benito Vergara § review ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , , , ,

Hong Sang-Soo, “Woman on the Beach” (2006).

Hong Sang-Soo’s Woman on the Beach (Haebyonui yoin) is a beautifully crafted, minutely observed gem of a film, and I’m at a loss for words, even after a second viewing, to tell you what it’s about. I can tell you that it’s refreshing to see a film about relationships that isn’t an unreal romantic comedy [...]

Posted 06 September 2008 † Benito Vergara § review ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Carl-Theodor Dreyer, “Ordet” (1955).

I thought it might be fruitless to write about a film that thousands of other people have written about in the past five decades, particularly one which for some reason left me cold the first time. But it was only last year when, after repeated viewings — to use a quote from Carl-Theodor Dreyer’s Ordet [...]

Posted 05 September 2008 † Benito Vergara § review ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Philip Gröning, “Into Great Silence” (2005).

There’s little I can add to the rapturous reviews of Philip Gröning’s Into Great Silence (Die Große Stille) — an almost three-hour documentary on a Carthusian monastery in France and its monks who have taken a vow to live their lives as silently as possible. It’s not nearly as forbidding as it sounds, even if there [...]

Posted 04 September 2008 † Benito Vergara § review ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Bong Joon-Ho, “The Host” (2006).

Nancy Abelmann and John Lie, in their book Blue Dreams: Korean Americans and the Los Angeles Riots, write that South Korea’s relationship with the United States, much like that of the U.S. and the Philippines, vacillates on the love-hate continuum. “Through military and civilian contacts,” they write, “the United States became at once an object [...]

Posted 03 September 2008 † Benito Vergara § review ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: , ,

Richard Wong, “Colma: The Musical” (2006).

Richard Wong’s exhilarating movie Colma: The Musical (2006) is set in a town south of San Francisco most famous for its cemeteries and the fact that it has more dead residents than there are alive. Colma‘s writer and actor, the ridiculously talented H.P. Mendoza, who plays Rodel, gets a lot of mileage from this central [...]

Posted 02 September 2008 † Benito Vergara § review ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , , ,

George Lucas, "Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith" (2005).

It took me all of three evenings to try to finish Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith, one of the more unwatchable movies I’ve seen in a while. More like “Revenge of the Shit”, actually. It’s a shame because this is the one episode of the series that had the most potential in terms [...]

Posted 01 September 2008 † Benito Vergara § review ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged: , , ,

Akira Kurosawa, "Drunken Angel" (1948).

So Barb emails me and asks me for my review of Drunken Angel (Yoidore tenshi). There’s little I can add to what Barb has already said so well, except to note that the real highlight of the evening was culinary rather than cinematic. (Barb, let me tell you that that was the best arroz caldo [...]

Posted 01 September 2008 † Benito Vergara § review ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , ,

Robert Zemeckis, “Beowulf” (2007).

Eloise: I never thought I’d have Angelina Jolie’s butt that close to my face. Me: I never thought I’d have Anthony Hopkins‘ butt that close to my face. Which just about sums up Beowulf, really: a relentlessly puerile cartoon aimed directly at 12-year old boys and savvily hitting the ceiling of a PG-13. (I can’t [...]

Posted 01 September 2008 † Benito Vergara § notes ‡ Comments (1) ° Tagged: , , ,