upquist Reviews

Rear Window (1954)

Disenchanted with Hitchcock

[5/10 · 21 December 2014]

I watched "Rear Window" again last night. Seeing it again only serves to confirm this growing sense I've had for quite a while. It's the feeling that, actually, for all his innovation, Hitchcock, by today's standards was a sloppy, inattentive, rigid and formulaic director. His movies cause me more annoyance than anything else.

The egregious and prolific cinematic "goofs" in this movie are beautifully itemized elsewhere on this site. It was the same sort of embarrassing inattentiveness in "North by Northwest", "The Birds" and many other Hitchcock movies. He would miss little details from scene to scene which are much less frequent in movies directed by today's top-tier counterparts.

Hitchcock's well-known abhorrence for outdoor shots resulted in the creation of painfully artificial indoor sets - to the point of looking rank amateur.

I'm sure he thought his camera angles at critical moments of his movies contributed to the dramatic intensity of the scene: the camera looking down into the shower in "Psycho", the camera looking down again at Stewart as he is approached by Raymond Burr - it gets repeated in several movies. By today's standards, frankly, the shots are rigid, routine, predictable and boring.

Hitchcock's principal actors are interesting which, I suppose, is why he used them again and again. But many of the other relatively minor characters in his movies are wooden, silent, under-developed and under-utilized to the point of being quite dispensable. They are nothing more than interchangeable props: the two thugs in "North by Northwest" for example or the honeymooners in "Rear Window" illustrate my point.

Nope, I've made-up my mind on this: compared to a Spielberg or Ron Howard, Hitchcock, for all of the praise he has received comes across to me as a so-so director who really didn't have the eye for detail and precision required of directors today and expected by their more technically sophisticated audiences.

American Hustle (2013)

I Need to Buy Shampoo

[1/10 · 18 January 2014]

I fell for the hype surrounding this movie and decided to see it with two friends. Other than serving to remind me that I should get a haircut next week and that maybe it's time to switch to a different shampoo, this movie failed on all levels. Not even the music was original. In fact, when you have to import James Bond themes to support the plot, you know you are in the midst of a train-wreck.

This two hour plus embarrassment was interminably boring, the plot was too complicated, the characters - every one of them - were disgusting, amoral creatures, the dialogue and the directing were uneven - the whole of it was just awful. And the hair! The men's styles made my skin crawl.

Because I was with other people, I couldn't just get-up and leave; had I been alone, I doubt I could have lasted more than about 30 minutes into the film - it was that bad.

Don't believe the critical accolades; this film is a dud, a loser, a piece of junk and an utter waste of 135 minutes of your life.

August: Osage County (2013)

Great Ensemble Piece - Odious Characters

[8/10 · 12 January 2014]

I've seen "Her" and this movie - one after the other - and I draw parallels between them. In both we observe what Leon Festinger called "cognitive dissonance" among fundamentally selfish people who seem to know only how to take love from those around them. Tragically, they appear to lack the ability to give love back in any recognizable way.

It leads to Joaquin Phoenix' character in "Her" wringing love out of a computer operating system just as, in this film, Violet finally resorts to pitiful succor from a housekeeper for whom she previously harboured little human compassion.

Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Chris Cooper - everyone really - contributes brilliantly to a superb ensemble piece set against the stark, almost primordial background of Osage County. Here there are few distractions permitting one to escape from coming to grips with the equally primordial reality of the human condition. Everything is stripped away to its essence. We see a dysfunctional family for what it is played out for us as if it were a Greek tragedy. Indeed, just as the Greeks wanted us to do, we see just a bit of ourselves in this film. Does anyone not admit to seeing that small part of us which has never grown up beyond the needs of suckling baby - painstakingly etched against this austere setting by the portrayals of each character in the movie?

Films like "Fargo" or "Brokeback Mountain" and, of course, this one, all having similar backdrops, all do well at focusing our attention on the human drama. The veneer of civilization barely conceals the psychically lurking undercurrent of deep and disturbing desires, needs, wants, passions and agonies with which we must all contend, measured against greater or lesser sanguinity.

At the very end of the song "John Wayne Gacy Jr.", composer Sufjan Stevens writes:

And in my best behavior

I am really just like him

Look beneath the floorboards

For the secrets I have hid

I thought of those words as I watched this movie and I wondered how many of us have the courage to say to ourselves, "These characters may be odious but what they are portraying is real and there is a small part of each them in every one of us".

Her (2013)

Reboot

[5/10 · 29 December 2013]

Let me begin by saying that I liked the acting - especially the subtle performance given by Joaquin Phoenix. The ennui, the angst, the soulful stares into blue-tinted cityscapes and, of course, the film's core premise indeed very much do point to the 'not-too-distant- future. It is a future wherein post-modern existentialism catches-up with itself and apparently (an inference drawn from their odd absence in the film) people can't even form emotional relationships with dogs and cats - let alone live people.

What I couldn't quite grapple with are the characters. It bothered me that there is a total lack of any indication from any of the main characters they themselves are responsible for the insular condition in which they find themselves: phone sex with a computer OS and dog-humping a refrigerator. As Hamlet would (and, in fact did) say, "That it has come to this.".

When becomes so self-engaged and self-absorbed that he / she is unaware of his / her own, solipsisms - eyes that say the only pain is my pain - and then do something about perhaps changing that comprehension of reality, when a person cannot conceive of a love with another human that is, in part compromise through the good time and the bad times and acceptance of the full dimension of the other, then I guess it comes down to what we see in the movie: fornication with a computer program because human relationships simply demand more than any of the significant characters in the film are willing to offer. In fact, they even stoop to jealousy and anger when the OS doesn't constantly stroke their fragile egos.

Ayn Rand famously said, "Morality is a code of black and white. When and if men attempt a compromise, it is obvious which side will necessarily lose and which will necessarily profit." This, she said, points to the virtue of selfishness. I guess even this virtue has a dark side and we see it in this film.

Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) is a selfish, pathetic (and I might add, sartorially handicapped) creature who, because of his own self- sustaining introversion and unwillingness to engage with the world on a 'give-and-take' basis, deserved precisely what he got.

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

All The Right Elements Plus a Few Too Many

[26 December 2013]

DiCaprio has proved himself to be one of the most versatile and engaging actors performing today. This movie is no exception.

However, I have to agree with many of the reviewers who've made negative comments about the length of the film. It is, quite simply, much, much too long.

I find myself wondering how this could have gone unnoticed by such a competent director. I couldn't wait to get out of the theater and I would have done so without waiting for the end had I not been sitting in the middle seat of a crowded auditorium. Sitting there to the end was actually painful.

Moreover, during that last hour I found the scenes to be repetitive: the cocaine-snorting, the manic behavior , the parties, the shouting - all of it tiresome, tedious and incredibly boring and dull.

This movie, while it has some great acting and truly funny scenes, will test your patience. I could never bear watching it again.

Amour (2012)

A film which deserves due credit for its stark portrayal of the realities of aging

[8/10 · 3 February 2013]

Without interfering with the essence of the movie, it could have well been edited down to a more conventional length, and in that way, made palatable to more moviegoers. Indeed, not everything portrayed required the patience, skill and subtlety that is apparent when, early-on in the movie, the writer and director set out the basis, even the rationale, for the astonishing events that unfold. That more time should have been taken to establish the connection between the husband and wife is unwarranted. No one can or should doubt that this couple was spiritually and intimately connected even before their vows. Near the end, their wills clash, but only temporarily. And so, this is a hard, harsh, uncompromising presentation of the realities of an aging couple, one spouse with progressing debilitation, brought to the screen and mind, without the customary movie drama and softeners. In short, a slice of life, at the end of life, starkly presented without apology. If one expects more, s/he may be disappointed. But if one is willing to nakedly peer into the care-at-home reality of a couple who enjoyed a lifetime of "Amour", now 80-something, it is absolutely powerful, if not numbing.

The Paper Chase (1973)

It captures the essence of the law school experience

[8/10 · 29 December 2012]

It's been almost 40 years since I entered law school during which this movie was released and viewed with great interest by just about everyone in my class. For some, it was a fairly accurate depiction of the emotional drain first year law school can bring about. We didn't see these folks again after the Christmas break.

For most, however, it was a bit 'over-the-top' fun - strategically useful to impress family and friends who always seemed to be oddly curious about the academic rigors involved in becoming a lawyer.

Our law school sponsored a frosh-night just before the first week of classes and, after the movie was released it was played as the highlight of the evening. For those of us in second and third-years who were also invited, it was great fun to observe the incoming, first-year students squirm and grimace as if it were they who were called-upon to recite the facts and finding in Carlill & Carbolic Smoke Ball.

Housman's performance, while undoubtedly brilliant and, indeed, a major dramatic focal-point of the film, would have been rather softened in reality. The students in my class (and no doubt the ones both before and after) were superbly aware of their own social rights and responsibilities and they certainly were no wall-flowers by any stretch. They would have very quickly and resoundingly stood-up to that sort of intimidation and it wouldn't have happened again.

And yet, now, some 40 years later, having just seen the movie again, I must say, upon reflection, it really does capture the essence of the law school experience. It is a jealous mistress; romantic relationships, sports, hobbies, casual fun - all of it becomes secondary to the almost overwhelming curricular demands. As is suggested in the film, it is not just a question of learning material, memorizing statutes and jurisprudence; it is more than that. It is a matter of changing the way one sees reality. To this day, even though I am a retired lawyer, I look at a vehicular accident and I think 'tortious liability'. I hear an ambulance and I think 'wills and estates'. I watch Dads alone and fumbling uncomfortably with their kids in MacDonald's on Saturday morning and I remember the 'custody and access' battles in which my clients were engaged.

To me, the movie is as fresh and evocative today as when I first saw it.

Samsara (I) (2011)

The "point"? Life may not be futile but its purpose remains elusive.

[9/10 · 9 December 2012]

Much has been said about the breathtaking photography, spiritual overtones and mind-opening vistas offered by this truly majestic presentation. As other commentators have mentioned, to do it justice, Samsara really must be seen in an appropriate theater with high- definition projection and suitable sound equipment.

I've just come back from the Bell TIFF complex (which provides all of the foregoing amenities and superbly comfortable seats as a bonus) where, with two friends, I saw the film immediately after which, while walking home together, we all speculated as to its 'point'. Many here have expressed their views some of which are interesting, insightful and even captivating. What follows is my take on Samsara:

William Craig wrote a book some time ago about the absurdity of life in the absence of the existence of God. If everything leads to death with nothing beyond in a spiritually bereft universe, then what is the point of trudging along from day to day? But we humans are desperately indefatigable in our belief that, in one form or another, we are transcendent and at one with a Divine purpose.

And so, as the movie so gorgeously demonstrates, we build ancient temples, adorn magnificent churches, wail at the wall, suffer the indignities of abject poverty in the midst of over-population and perhaps eke out a living plucking chickens and gathering salable waste from others' garbage - all because next to nothing will permit us to accept the notion that the breadth and depth of our experience begins and ends with our own lives and that there is absolutely no point nor purpose to our infinitesimally insignificant lives beyond what we choose to make if it whilst alive.

For me, the movie's point was to remind me that while not all my life's efforts are futile – beauty, peace and love can be ends in themselves – life's purpose remains as elusive as is our comprehension of our oneness with the cosmos.