Category: Twos

Keyser’s Desire Like it or not, watching film is an accretive process: each film provides a context and more for the next. One of those threads of continuity is the unfortunate fact that we see the same faces in many presumably different roles, as if there weren’t as many talented actors as there are roles.… Continue reading Beyond the Sea (2004)

Tricky Folded narrative is all the rage among Hollywood writers now. And the Ephrons are hip, so they go along and here we have a simply folded story. Simple folding, the kind anyone can do, is based on the simple device of a show within the show, and then some simple tricks to blend the… Continue reading Bewitched (2005)

Honest Music, Dishonest Business Social trends are often shaped by strange overlaps in market forces. You have to have a steady stream of “artists” who are compelled to do their thing, driven primarily by an urge to express. We have that in this music, because the barriers to entry are exceedingly low, so any untrained… Continue reading Better Living Through Circuitry (1999)

Slow Meditation on Observation This treacly story hides some masterful filmmaking. Film is all about observation, except the observed usually contrive to make the observer feel unobtrusive. During this period, intelligent filmmakers were playing with the form so that often films were not only engineered observations but the matter of the movie itself was about… Continue reading Best Years of Our Lives (1946)

The Written Mystery The early thirties was a time of great experimentation with the detective narrative, leading eventually to noir. This is one of those experiments, and a rather fine one. It has a framing device where an old cop is telling a young one about the famous case from some time back and how… Continue reading Before Midnight (1933)

Chicken Out Herzog is important to me. He seeks out situations that have recoil, he takes chances and makes honest choices. His being is broken, and that means the choices and the power of the situations affect me. But sometimes he works with a situation that doesn’t have psychic danger. Sometimes he makes bad choices.… Continue reading Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)

Parts TeeVee does this to us all, and I am saddened by it. Drama has a simple legacy: Tragedy where the mechanics of the story are in the world of the story, and Comedy where the mechanics are in the world of the audience. One is used to transport, the other to entertainingly affirm. Shakespeare’s… Continue reading Lovely and Amazing (2001)

The Movie Not Married I think the memory of this is better than the movie itself. I recently saw the sequel. It was one of the most delicate and perfect things I know so far as that shell of romance which is outside of intimacy. That was because — I think — of the actors… Continue reading Before Sunrise (1995)

The Movie Within: Clockwork Peaches Yes, this is porn, with some real negatives. One of these is its perversion, pretty much all the pain, bondage and fetish you can imagine. But it is done as a parody. The watcher is being goofed on, tortured for fun. In fact, this is intelligent writing, and may be… Continue reading The Fashionistas (2002)