BigJeffLebowski

Member since 9/17/2006, last signed in awhile ago.

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Summer Palace

Summer Palace
By BigJeffLebowski in BigJeffLebowski Blog
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"Whenever a film depicts the lives of fictitious individuals against a noteworthy historical backdrop, the question must be raised: do the filmmakers use their characters to humanize an otherwise emotionally unfathomable event, or do they cheaply exploit it to give their film greater social, political, intellectual, or philosophical weight? For the first half of its nearly two and a half hour running time, Lou Ye's Summer Palace manages to deftly filter the unrest of late 1980s China through the microcosm of a teen attending Beijing University. But following a dramatization of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations (and a where-are-they-now montage that swiftly glosses over the next decade), the film struggles for the next hour to rediscover the tone and pace that made its story thusfar so resonant. Yu Hong, a teenager from Tumen, serves as our protagonist and Metaphor with a capital M. Yu Hong is a thoughtful yet uncertain girl, more sure of what she doesn't want to be than what sh ... " [More]

The Dark Knight

This Town Deserves a Better Cla ...
By BigJeffLebowski in BigJeffLebowski Blog
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"The Dark Knight, the most anticipated picture of the year for myself and innumerable others, has finally arrived following a trail of hype that would crush almost any film. But miraculously, just as Moses wielded his stone tablets, Christopher Nolan has handed us a true gift from the cinematic gods. His second Batman is so visceral, so propulsive, so maddeningly perfect in its execution that it should come with a warning; you do not simply watch The Dark Knight, you surrender your pulse to Christopher Nolan. And even if an intended triptych has been tragically cut short (as Mel Brooks might contend those aforementioned commandments were) what remains is wholly qualified to stand on its own not as a great Batman film, not as a great superhero film, and not as a great action film, but as one of the most distiguished pieces of filmmaking of its generation. This decade, more so than any other, has seen comic-to-film adaptations mature from vacuous thrills to serious art. Sam Raimi ... " [More]

Manda Bala

"You either steal with a gun or ...
By BigJeffLebowski in BigJeffLebowski Blog
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. [What do you think?]
"It has always seemed strange to me for documentaries to use the credit "A Film By" for their directors. Something about propriety of the intellectual material, I suppose. One likes to ascribe the documentary filmmaker an objective, anthropological eye. But just because a filmmaker is more subtle than Michael Moore (or, for that matter, more interested in their subject than their own opinions of it) it does not unequivocally follow that their film is any less a manifestation of their own vision. Within this logic, Manda Bala earns its "A Film By Jason Kohn" credit by being a visceral, vital film which cunningly uses populist suspense narrative conventions and visual panache to highlight the Orwellian and Nietzschean undercurrents of current Brazilian society. When the final credits roll, listing the interviewees' names beside their title or occupation, it reads uncannily like the cast list from a fictitious film. It is strangely appropriate, as Kohn has managed to weave a tap ... " [More]

Being John Malkovich

Cannabis, Cupcakes, and Communism
By BigJeffLebowski in BigJeffLebowski Blog
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. [What do you think?]
"If Smiley Face were directed by Spike Jonze, it would have been a masterpiece. Its script, by Dylan Haggerty, is consistently entertaining, frequently hysterical, and occasionally quite inventive in how it depicts a day in the life of its stoner protagonist. Perhaps even more importantly, it understands the episodic, tangential logic of the pothead. The specious associations, the noncommittal detours of thought and action, the staunch belief in the nobility of your quest, the disparity between what you mean to say and what actually comes out of your mouth; all are rendered with a knowing clarity that will be commended by the herbal enthusiast and will, hopefully, prove enlightening to those members of the square community who wouldn't know from personal experience. But just as brilliance borne of bong hits tends to collapse upon itself in sober language, so too does Haggerty's script in the hands of director Gregg Araki. The tones of the script and the direction are str ... " [More]

Africa Unite

"Liberate yourself from mental ...
By BigJeffLebowski in BigJeffLebowski Blog
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful. [What do you think?]
"Africa Unite is a film with noble intentions and a wealth of entertaining and enlightening material. As a documentary, it is a distilation of the annual summit of the same name, during which the musical and political legacy of Bob Marley is celebrated through song and symposium. Every year, ambassadors from across the world gather -- this particular time in Ethiopia, the birthplace of the Rastafari movement -- to engage in academic discourse with the intent of unifying the countries of Africa into one autonomous unit not unlike the United States of America. This goal was the main ideological message of Bob Marley's music, and as such, the summit is held in his honor and features renditions of his songs by a multitude of reggae's current luminaries, including his sons. That Bob Marley's message was inextricable from his music is sometimes lost on generations of casual fans who only know his songs from commercials and the "Legend" compilation. But to be sure, Marley was a tireles ... " [More]

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

"If you haven't seen it, please ...
By BigJeffLebowski in BigJeffLebowski Blog
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""If you haven't seen it, please do."-Richard Dawkins, parenthetically discussing Monty Python's The Meaning of Life in his book The God Delusion. If Monty Python's The Meaning of Life is remembered less fondly than their earlier classics Monty Python and the Holy Grail and The Life of Brian, this is not to say that the film has fewer laughs or that the point of Monty Python's satire has in any way been blunted. Granted, the humor is arguably the Pythons' most vulgar and can at times come across as crude. But watching The Meaning of Life a quarter of a century after its release, what remains shocking is not the wealth of projectile vomit, naked breasts, or children singing about sperm; what continues to alienate and to offend is the film's surprisingly direct attack on what it considers a terribly misguided society. And the worst offender? Christian ideology and rhetoric.The Pythons -- Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry ... " [More]

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

"Poetry don't work on whores."
By BigJeffLebowski in BigJeffLebowski Blog
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"There was a time when stately, elegaic, artfully shot and leisurely paced films not unlike Andrew Dominik's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford were made by major studios, given major awards, and praised by critics and audiences alike. Granted, this time was before I was born, so I'm taking the word of respected elders, the so-called Movie Brats, and the good folks over at the Criterion Collection. Maybe it's true that populist entertainment has always been populist entertainment, and thoughtful works have always had a marginalized audience, but it certainly seems like poetic character studies of this ilk have become fewer, farther between, and certainly less publicized.Casey Affleck stars as Robert Ford, a nineteen year old enamored of the legendary exploits of Jesse James (Brad Pitt), already a mythical anti-hero by thirty-four. As Affleck plays him, Ford is shy, socially awkward, and caught up in the mythology of the James Gang far more than ... " [More]

Clean

Recovery Chic
By BigJeffLebowski in BigJeffLebowski Blog
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"It would seem that society is increasingly embracing the present and the past. For all of the market testing, advance polling, and research analysis which has reduced so many of our figureheads to puppets caught in the winds of popular opinion, there is a growing lack of restraint and forethought in the actions of many of our celebrities. Chalk it up to the information age if you'd like, to the ubiquitous surveilance we are under from the totalitarian slanted government, the predatory press, and every schmuck with a camera phone; perhaps we have no choice but to wash and dry our dirty laundry in the public eye. Still, the sea change in how information is delivered seems to have resulted in decisions made for the short term becoming far more prevelant than they ever were before. We needn't look any farther than Lindsay Lohan's latest attempt at respectability after several stints in rehab: posing as Marilyn Monroe in New York magazine. It's mind-bogglingly embar ... " [More]

A Clockwork Orange

"Hell will hold no surprises fo ...
By BigJeffLebowski in BigJeffLebowski Blog
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"Bold, brutal, blasphemous, and utterly brilliant, Ken Russell's The Devils is easily one of the most unjustly overlooked films of its time, surely due in no small part to its limited availability. Taking place in 1634, the film explores the unconscionable atrocities committed by the Catholic church in the seventeenth century, especially in regard to social and sexual politics.As Urbain Grandier, a French priest whose interpretation of the clergy allows for sexual daliance, Oliver Reed gives one of the most underrated performances of the '70s. He is galvanizing: powerful, charismatic, and sympathetic. Even his questionable actions and beliefs are rendered understandable, if not likable, by his charm and presence in the role. "Saint Paul says that he who marries does a good thing," Grandier is admonished, "but he who remains chaste does something better," to which he simply responds, "Then I am content to do a good thing, and leave the best to tho ... " [More]

Let the Church Say Amen

"The lord used you, brother."
By BigJeffLebowski in BigJeffLebowski Blog
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"There are many people who will find David Petersen's documentary Let the Church Say Amen inspiring. I am not one of them. This is not to say that there are not individuals portrayed in the film whose personal crusades are inspiring, but I am not of the school of thought that the benefits of religion -- specifically organized religion -- outweigh its detriments.The film follows the proprietors and congregants of the World Missions for Christ Church in Washington DC. Battling poverty, hunger, drugs, violence, and mass dismissal by the affluent, these people fight a never ending crusade to help themselves and their brethren rise above their regrettable situation. Many of these individuals have stories which are touching, but their militant theism is alienating. It is not enough for Pastor Bobby Perkins and his brothers and sisters to help the destitute; all the good in the world it seems must be done by and for Jesus Christ.The old saw that "God helps those who help them ... " [More]

Transformers

Delivers On Its Premise and Its ...
By BigJeffLebowski in BigJeffLebowski Blog
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"I have unabashadly been looking forward to Cloverfield since I first saw the teaser at an advance screening of Transformers last summer. Granted, very few hype films live up to their hype, and very few gimmick films work as well in practice as they do in theory. Cloverfield, I am giddily pleased to announce, is an exception. The film lives up to its hype and delivers on its premise; it is tense, emotionaly gripping, and mercifully free of the extraneous explanation of events that so frequently deflates movies of this sort. In short? It could be the perfect monster movie.The film is presented as a piece of declassified evidence from the files for "Cloverfield," the code name for the recent devastating attacks on Manhattan by a creature of unknown origin. This piece of evidence is, more specifically, the contents of a camcorder's SD card recovered from the "former site of Central Park." To the filmmakers' immense credit, there is no frame story. Th ... " [More]

Juno

To The Academy: Educate, Don't ...
By BigJeffLebowski in BigJeffLebowski Blog
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"In the January 14th issue of Time, film critic Richard Corliss eschews reviewing the week's releases (it is January, after all) to instead pontificate on the state of the Oscars ("How to Save the Awards Shows"). As many are wont to do, Corliss offers his suggestion on how to improve the Oscars. He throws out the notions usually bandied about in bids for cheap audience thrills, and suggests something that he considers self-evidently simple: give the awards to popular movies.Now, with all respect to Mr. Corliss, I agree that the Oscars don't have the finest track record for nominations, let alone for awards. But if I may be granted my say, the problem with the list is that it usually slants too commercial. Does anyone really think The Departed was the best picture of 2006? Or Crash the best picture of 2005? Or Million Dollar Baby the best picture of 2004? Or... well, you get the idea.Granted, these are not bad films. (Okay, Crash is a bad film.) But they ar ... " [More]