Dog Day Afternoon

Said and done, I watched Dog Day Afternoon yesterday. As in "Before the Devil..." the plot revolves around a failed robbery, but with the difference that this robbery ends up as a prolonged hostage situation. The lead part is played by Al Pacino, who does a great job as the dillusional and desperate bankrobber. In fact most of the movie focuses on this character and investigates his motives for committing the crime. At times the plot seems almost surreal with Pacino negotiating with the police and at the same time being cheered on by the public who have gathered outside the bank. But the movie is actually based on a real bank robbery that took place in Brooklyn in 1972.

I was expecting a really good movie and that could be one reason why I wasn't all that impressed. The heavy focus on one character and the fact that almost the whole movie takes place inside the bank added to my dislike. That said I don't think it's a bad movie it just doesn't have enough material or depth for 2 hours running time.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

I usually don't download pre-releases on bittorrent, but after hearing the review of this movie on the Radio 4 show Front Row I just had to see it as soon as possible. Predicting it to be one of the best movies of 2008 and mentioning "noir" and Memento really excited me, and let me say that I'm not dissapointed. I'm usually not impressed with the standard Hollywood-thrillers, but this one really stands out from the crowd.

The plot is really your standard heist movie with a robbery that just can't go wrong, but of course does so. Instead what makes this movie so good is the acting, the cinematography and the discontinuous chopped up time line. Philip Seymour Hoffman, who's in my opinion currently one of the best actors around, does an excellent part as the older dominant brother and the rest of the cast are almost nearly as good. The acting together with the cinematography creates a claustrophobic feeling that gets more intense the further the movie gets. The downward-spiral created by the failed heist recalls the bleak, deterministic feel of noir-movies and this movies should appeal to anyone who likes the old school stuff.

I was a bit surprised that I didn't recognise the director Sidney Lumet's name. A quick search on imdb made me realise my lack of knowledge as he has directed several well known movies, such as Dog Day Afternoon and Network. Network I vaguely remember as a decent drama, but I haven't seen anything else by him. This movie has sparked my curiousity and Dog Day Afternoon is already in my bittorrent client.

A couple of pictures recently seen

So, I spent my holidays mostly re-seeing a couple of movies as the facilities where I was offered the opportunity. Thus, first on the list was the traditional viewing of the 'Lord of the Rings '-triplet. Now, normally I will only make it through one but this time I decided to see them all over a period of three days. I think these movies are spectacularly good and will become absolute classics. The are only a couple of things that are worthy of critique, or at least mention. Firstly and most importantly, the ending is kind of screwed up. Jackson loses some of the emotional momentum by trying to follow the book too closely (perhaps). If I remember correctly the book has a rather long prologue of which the departure at the Grey Havens is the emotional climax. What happens in the films is that there seems to be several points in close connection to each other where we are supposed to be brought to tears. It only really works once though and thus the ending could have been better. Secondly, and much less importantly, occasional anachronism spoils the illusion (for me) in a series of movies where not spoiling the illusion is of crucial importance. And finally, Jackson continually uses women and children to represent fear and helplessness in a way that I think is uncalled for. That being said, I hold these films in high esteem.

I also managed to see Fritz Lang's seminal piece 'M' again, as well as Scorsese's 'Raging Bull
'. The former is an absolute masterpiece. The story of the deranged child murderer is both important, insightful and possess a weird humor at times. What strikes a viewer is the progressiveness of the first two thirds of the film in terms of photography whilst the last third is more like seeing a play.
'Raging Bull' is one of Scorsese's best pieces of work and it shows a quality about him that can been seen to various extents in a lot of his work. Jake LaMotta is aggressive and pathologically suspicious. His brother and manager tries to be pragmatic about the situation but is also aggressive. We get to follow Jake as he punches his way forward, succumbs to the politics behind the scenes, suspects his wife and finally, loses everything he loves and still, it seems, fail to understand why. In a key scene he's banging his against the brick wall of a dark cell wondering why and saying that he's "not that guy". From first you lay eyes on this man you realize that things are not going to work out well.

I also saw Allen's 'Stardust Memories'. A rather good meta-film that raises some questions about the artists relation to his or her work. I would say this is not Allen at his best but clearly worth a viewing.
Similar in name but as different as can be I also spent time in front of 'Stardust', written by the critically acclaimed Neil Gaiman. I must say I thought this picture was rather good and it had an original feel to it. It is a great pleasure in watching something come out of the genre that it isn't completely dependent upon Jackson's work. Maybe I was intoxicated by the spirit of Christmas but stories about true love never seem to fail to charm me.

What turned out to be a massive let-down was 'Death of a President'. This phony documentary about the assassination of George W. Bush seemed to have no point to it. The form seemed more like an experiment of what one can do with cutting up archive material than anything else and the faked interviews didn't strike me as believable.