Woo, Christmas shopping is done! Only problem is my dad's gift might arrive after Christmas, but it's such a kickass gift (a complete history of the Los Angeles Lakers on DVD!) that he won't mind at all.
Anyway, it is Saturday, and that means movies. Shall we?
Mean Streets (1973): This is the movie that put Martin Scorsese on the map as a director. In a lot of ways, it is a rawer version of the kinds of movies he'd make later in his career -- it's about wannabe gangsters consumed with guilt, appearances and ambition. Mean Streets also launched the careers of Harvey Keitel (who is excellent as Charlie, a devout Catholic who tries to move up in the mafia while repaying his sins by helping others) and Robert De Niro (who plays Charlie's destructive friend, Johnny Boy). What's interesting about this is the state of the characters seems to reflect the state of Scorsese at the time. Just as Scorsese was still finding his way as a director, Charlie is desperately trying to find his way in life and ground himself before he is consumed like so many others he knew. Pretty damn good movie, and I could definitely see why people went wild for it when it was first released.
Venus Beauty Institute (1999): Finally decided to make my way through the rest of Audrey Tautou's resume. This movie gave her career a kickstart, although she just has a supporting role in it (but she does display a lot of the qualities that have made her so charming in everything else she's been in). Instead, the movie belongs to Nathalie Baye, who plays a 40-ish beautician who lost of the feeling of love long ago. She's a strong enough lead, especially for this movie, which goes for a slightly more realistic tone than most romantic comedies (there are plenty of odd things, though). There is plenty to like in this; it's funny and bold a lot of the time. However, one big problem I have is that the man who falls in love with Baye's character just is not very likable -- I spent most of the movie either being creeped out by him or actively loathing him. The guy who plays him, Samuel Le Bihan, isn't bad at all; I just could not stand the character.
Dirty Pretty Things (2002): Audrey Tautou's first English-speaking role, in which she plays a Turkish woman who immigrated to England to escape an arranged marriage, and who desperately wishes to join her sister in New York. The movie is a thriller about how she and her Nigerian friend, Okwe (Chiwetel Ejiofor), escape the daily struggles of their lives in England so that they can get where they need to be. Audrey is really good, of course -- she exudes the strength and intelligence her character possesses and needs to free herself from her predicament. Ejiofor is damn good himself, too. His calmness adds a lot to the inherent morality of his character.
A Very Long Engagement (2004): Jean-Pierre Jeunet's reunion with Audrey Tautou after first directing her in Amélie. Despite the somber plot (it's about a woman who embarks on a desperate search for her husband, whom she believes did not die on the front during World War I), the movie contains a lot of stylistic similarities to Amélie -- there are quick flashbacks telling brief life stories of characters, random asides about strange things and an overall sense of love and life that flows through every frame. Audrey just about matches her role as Amélie here. Her character, Mathilde, is a stubborn, tenacious person who doggedly travels all around France in search of clues to the whereabouts of her missing love. Without her fiance, Mathilde struggles to feel the same emotions she did when he was around her, and Audrey subtly makes that clear through every movement and facial expression. After watching this, it's absolutely clear Audrey Tautou is the perfect person for movies about love -- after taking one look at her, wouldn't you want any character of hers to find the love of her life? Exactly.
On the queue this week: Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), Westworld (1973), The Ladykillers (1955), Little Children (2006) and Sense and Sensibility (1995)
Movie Count: 129 (Live Free or Die Hard, Time Bandits, The Hustler, Black Dragon (Miracles), Hollywoodland, Blood Diamond, Animal Crackers, Marie Antoinette, Inside Man, The Fountain, Tombstone, Jurassic Park (Rifftrax), No Country for Old Men, Juno, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (Rifftrax), There Will Be Blood, Rize, Born Into Brothels, Eastern Promises, Gone Baby Gone, Hard Candy, The Matrix Reloaded (Rifftrax), Hot Fuzz, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs, Phone Booth, The Dark Knight, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, Predator, Ratatouille, Renaissance, Pretty in Pink, Scanners, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, Stop Making Sense, The Killing, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rifftrax), Voices of a Distant Star, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Amadeus, Touch of Evil, Paths of Glory, Gangs of New York, Five Easy Pieces, Perfect Blue, Novocaine, A Fish Called Wanda, A Hard Day's Night, Arsenic and Old Lace, Out of the Past, The Lady from Shanghai, The Wild Bunch, The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Bringing Up Baby, Pleasantville, Citizen Kane, They Live, The Terminator, The Adolescence of Utena, The Castle of Cagliostro, The Professional, High Plains Drifter, In the Heat of the Night, Michael Clayton, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, Munich, Traffic, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Bug, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, The Maltese Falcon, Rashomon, Big Trouble in Little China, Sleeper, Badlands, Johnny Guitar, Mildred Pierce, Shadow of a Doubt, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, Hard Boiled, Targets, Away from Her, Hud, The Hidden Fortress, Seven Samurai, He Was a Quiet Man, Gilda, Borat, Ikiru, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, The Boxer, Some Like it Hot, The Apartment, The 39 Steps, The Philadelphia Story, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Adam's Rib, Throne of Blood, Ran, Peeping Tom, Clueless, Shadow Magic, 5 Centimeters Per Second, Children of Men, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Volver, Atonement, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Iron Man, Dial M for Murder, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Emperor and the Assassin, WALL-E, Casino Royale, I'm Not There, Zodiac, 2 Days in Paris, His Girl Friday, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Blow-Up, La Vie en Rose, It Happened One Night, Mean Streets, Venus Beauty Institute, Dirty Pretty Things, A Very Long Engagement)
