Random Movie Notes

As summer winds down, it becomes time to shift away from the commercial theater at Gallery Place and start spending more time at the Landmark Theater a few blocks away. First up was Interview based on a Dutch movie by the late Theo Van Gogh and man-oh-man is it bad. The film serves primarily as a reminder of why nobody likes actors, since the whole thing is obviously a couple of actors' notion of what a really good movie would be like -- totally contrived, meandering uninteresting story full of pointless twists and turns in the plot designed to let the performers show off. Nothing anyone does in this film makes any sense, at any point, on any level.

Rocket Science, written and directed by Jeffrey Blitz who made the popular documentary Spellbound, is much better. Still, it's pretty disappointing. There's a lot of good material here, certainly enough that I hope he writes and directs another movie down the road, but the story totally runs out of gas near the end.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, on the other hand, is really great. This is a documentary about Steve Wiebe's efforts to beat the Donkey Kong world record -- a quest wherein his greatest foe turns out to be not an animated gorilla, but the corrupt competitive classic video gaming establishment. You'll laugh, you'll cry, etc., and the film is surprisingly effective at moving beyond just mocking its protagonists. The title, however, is a little unfortunate. Either joke would be pretty fun, but making both simultaneously is tacky. But when a tacky title is the worst thing about your movie, you're in pretty solid shape.

Comments

Did you see 'King of Kong' with Megan McA?

Posted by Woody Bombay | August 27, 2007 6:34 PM

Apparently, the lawyers made them add the subtitle.

Posted by joeo | August 27, 2007 7:03 PM

Make sure to see Death at a Funeral at E Street Cinema as well.

Posted by eriks | August 27, 2007 7:06 PM

The film serves primarily as a reminder of why nobody likes actors . . .

Well, this post of yours serves as a brilliant example of why people dislike pinhead bloggers. As to this comment from further down your main page:

I think it would be smart for Democrats to, insofar as possible, not nominate people who think authorizing the invasion of Iraq was a good idea.

You yourself thought invading Iraq was an excellent idea in early 2003. I know more than a few actors who believed otherwise, perhaps you should stick to reviewing movies and let us pontificate about geopolitical matters. Fewer people will end up dead that way.

Posted by JJB | August 27, 2007 7:24 PM

You yourself thought invading Iraq was an excellent idea in early 2003.

Well it's a good thing Matt's not running for president.

It's always odd to me the number of people who appear to dislike the bloggers they read continuing to read those bloggers' blogs.

Posted by Dave White | August 27, 2007 7:36 PM

I really liked Rocket Science.

Posted by Klein's tiny left nut | August 27, 2007 7:45 PM

nobody likes actors

What a bizarre thing to say.

Posted by blah | August 27, 2007 9:06 PM

nobody likes actors
What a bizarre thing to say

No, Matt's right. I used to act, and I didn't like actors either.

Not having seen the film but having read one or two reviews, I assume I know what Matt's got in mind; there's a kind of very actorly self-indulgence that's different from director/artiste style self-indulgence, and sometimes it's entertaining and often it's not. (What was that movie from a few years ago with Alan Cumming and Jennifer Jason Leigh and like fifty other actors in it? The Anniversary Party. I rather liked it when all's said and done, but it's a good example of what I have in mind; the whole film seemed to me like an excuse for a few scenes where the main actors got to Act.)

You yourself thought invading Iraq was an excellent idea in early 2003. I know more than a few actors who believed otherwise, perhaps you should stick to reviewing movies and let us pontificate about geopolitical matters. Fewer people will end up dead that way.

Actually, I'd rather Matt stuck to thinking about geopolitical matters and eliminated the (not so frequent anyway) arts stuff he does, because I don't think he's that good at it. But it's not my fucking blog now, is it? So I take what I get or I decide I don't like it and move on. Be constructive or go do something else; I'm confident there are better uses of your limited time on this earth than sniping at a 20something blogger.

Seriously, the random asstastic commentary has escalated in the last few weeks, right?

Posted by Quarterican | August 27, 2007 10:51 PM

Glad I'm not the only one who thought Rocket Science was kind of a charming bust of a movie.

I appreciate that not every movie has to have a perfect hollywood ending, but there was no payoff of any kind in this movie. The movie died about halfway through when the relationship between the girl and the boy evaporates.He doesn't get the girl, he never corrects his stutter, he doesn't face Ginny down in a debate and deftly outmanouver her, we don't get to see the old champion redeem himself.

I'm OK if ALL of the loose ends don't get tied up, but NONE of the loose ends got tied up....

Posted by ssdagger | August 27, 2007 11:20 PM

It's always odd to me the number of people who appear to dislike the bloggers they read continuing to read those bloggers' blogs.

Wouldn't it be great if blog comments consisted solely of glowing praise for the Holy Glorious (in this case) Matthew Yglesias of the Almighty Atlantic Monthly. Boy I think that would be peachy.

I think it's odd that so many bloggers keep reading the same newspapers they continue to criticize.

I'm confident there are better uses of your limited time on this earth than sniping at a 20something blogger.

As a 20something me'self, I consider it a public service. Something akin to peer review. You know someday, douchebags like Yglesias will be the only ones we have providing the democratically necessary public service of journa...public commentary.

And as far as the post, re: Kong: The title is rather expressive of the sad absurdity of the movie's story and IMO appropriate. Matt, as a reader and critic, I request that you stick to politics.

Posted by rk | August 27, 2007 11:39 PM

As a 20something me'self, I consider it a public service. Something akin to peer review. You know someday, douchebags like Yglesias will be the only ones we have providing the democratically necessary public service of journa...public commentary.

Well, I wasn't responding to anything you wrote, so I don't have anything to say about what you may or may not have to say critically about Yglesias' writing. The point I was trying to gesture at is that there's a difference than being critical in the best sense of the word, where you engage with the subject of your criticism and, in the case of a reader/writer relationship like this one, perhaps try and persuade/influence the writer to be better ... and calling the writer a pinhead and being the umpteenth person to sneer at the writer for having been admittedly very very wrong about something of incredible import, which the writer has acknowledged and expressed regret about numerous times. I think Matt has honestly learned something from his error and I doubt he'll make similar mistakes in the future. Of course, I could be wrong about that, and of course that doesn't come within light years of addressing or doing anything for or alleviating the tragedy of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of lives lost, but nothing else is going to lighten the weight of their deaths either, and taking a then-minor (and now somewhat less minor) public figure who is repentant to task for it certainly doesn't accomplish anything that I can see other than satisfying some people's need to rip at whatever target they can find.

For quite some time I think it's been a flaw of Matt's as a blogger that he appears to insufficiently engage with the ideas and criticism (and fact checking) presented in his comments; I often get the sense he doesn't read them. (Sometimes he clearly does, and for all I know he reads every comment and meditates on it quite seriously, but I don't get that impression.) But calling him a douchebag or, as I said already, being the umpteenth person to get snide with him about past sins and ideological blemishes, doesn't seem likely to me to accomplish anything resembling public service. This is why I said "sniping" rather than "criticizing". Matt's not going to lose his position or his career because a few people take upon themselves the burden of calling him out for douchebaggery on his own turf, and he's unlikely to willfully engage whatever substantive critiques you might have of his work if they're compressed into packets of "fuck off and stop mentioning Harvard."* If you think Matt can be made a better blogger then try and make him a better blogger; if you have no interest in his being a better blogger or think he's a lost cause then why not find someone else to champion, start your own blog about how Liberal X is so much better than Yglesias and here are the reasons Why, or perhaps try yourself to be the blogger you want to read. No one here is going to be jarred out of False Consciousness or mystified to learn that there are people who really don't like Matt Yglesias' work; the interesting and helpful question is what do you have to say about it?

*rk, I should note that I'm using you as a springboard here and getting sort of unfair in the process; if I've read your comments elsewhere on the site I'm blanking on them, so I don't have a basis for your writings specifically. The "you" in my post is a generalized "you," not you, rk, particularly or generally.

Also, apologies for length well out of proportion to the value of what I'm trying to say, but I'm horrible at being succinct.

Posted by Quarterican | August 28, 2007 12:37 AM

For quite some time I think it's been a flaw of Matt's as a blogger that he appears to insufficiently engage with the ideas and criticism (and fact checking) presented in his comments; I often get the sense he doesn't read them.

I don't think it's such a good idea for a blogger to get overly involved in the comments section, unless there's a real and important factual error or somebody points out a significant and previously overlooked angle on the topic in question, in which case AFAICT Matt generally issues an update or writes a new post. Once a blogger starts responding in the comments section a lot, there's just no end to it, there's the danger of getting involved in ugly verbal fistfights and one starts assuming policing powers. All of that takes a lot of time and generally doesn't improve the conversation, so I'd rather see that time spent on writing new posts.

Posted by novakant | August 28, 2007 4:54 AM

"This is England" is a superior treatment of xenophobia, nationalism, racism, violence.

Posted by bob h | August 28, 2007 7:14 AM

ssdagger,

The whole charm of the movie was in fact that there is no real triumph. As in life, the hero was not magically transformed into a non-stuttering stud (I just had to say that) who (I don't want to spoil the movie -- delete -- delete).

Posted by Klein's Tiny Left Nut | August 28, 2007 10:04 AM

The King of Donkey Kong is controversial, just like the abortion issue.

Posted by Adam | August 28, 2007 12:09 PM

The King of Donkey Kong is controversial, just like the abortion issue.

Posted by Adam | August 28, 2007 12:09 PM

I agree that Rocket Science had all of the necessary ingredients to be this years Napoleon Sunshine but, alas, does tend to somewhat fizzle out at the end. I'm not completely certain how much of this is the director's fault and how much is due to my Gallery Place-style need for some kind of clear resolution to the conflicts introduced in the movie. Maybe in the absence of David Chase's creative cowardice earlier in the year, this might not have been so hard to swallow.

This is England is definitely near the top of the list for the ~7 p.m.-~9:30 p.m. Friday slot.

Posted by VasyaDC | August 28, 2007 1:48 PM

You yourself thought invading Iraq was an excellent idea in early 2003.

Right. I think this would seriously complicate a run for political office in 2008. My current views would be badly at odds with my past actions in a way that opponents could exploit.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | August 28, 2007 3:35 PM

Did you see 'King of Kong' with Megan McA?

Nope.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | August 28, 2007 3:36 PM