One of the great parts of this past year was seeing all these amazing classic movies, and understanding why they remain so great today. This post is not about those films, no. These are the films that make you pick up your phone halfway through, eyerolling at what people are trying to pass off to you as fantastic cinema, waiting for the good parts to return. Like a kid answering a question on a test technically correct but not the answer you were looking for.
Below are 6 examples of these flawed stories. I’ll outline the exhilarating and the boring for you, so you can decide if you want to see it for yourself.
Jonathan Demme filmed the Talking Heads live in concert shot at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre in 1983.
The Exhilarating Parts…
If you’re a huge concert goer, Demme somehow manages to transfer the excitement of that experience into your home, using amazing camerawork to enhance the spectacle of a Talking Heads concert. The movie is also an ode to the Heads themselves, who put on a magical show, starting small and slowly adding in band members to build an amazing musical journey for their fans.
The Boring Parts…
The journey here is musical, which can be exhilarating if the song is popping, but pretty boring if it is not, so you’ll zone out a few times on some of the lesser known Heads tunes. And the successes are mostly technical, with Demme’s camerawork brilliant, but camerawork isn’t why most people watch movies.
A Jean Luc Godard meta story about a writer brought in to help a studio fix a legendary director’s movie, while the writer is having marital problems.
The Exhilarating Parts…
The minute you see Brigitte Bardot, you know why movie directors love her. Godard here shows that she’s much more than a gorgeous body: she’s got the acting chops too, conveying a wealth of emotion as the world she once loved crumbles around her. Plus, the movie is filmed on luscious sets that will make your eyes pop.
The Boring Parts…
I understand the concept of “write what you know,” but Godard’s movies, like this one, end up extensions of the directors own life, which he thinks is more fascinating than it really is. And while it is noble he wants to capture the beats of everyday martial strife, the movie repeats itself a lot, with Bardot holding the movie afloat for long stretches.
A writer moves to Brooklyn to begin his first novel. First thinking about writing about his life, his friendship with his upstairs neighbor Sophie begets much more drama as he learns about her life, past and present.
The Exhilarating Parts…
When maybe the greatest actress of all time gives her best performance, of course the movie is worth watching. Meryl Streep’s Sophie is one of those larger than life performances that a great actor at the peak of their powers turns into something legendary, like Denzel’s Malcolm X.
The Boring Parts…
Alan Pakula picked the wrong lead for his movie. Amazingly, the movie CALLED Sophie’s Choice revolves around Peter MacNichol’s life as an aspiring writer. Perhaps Pakula thought he needed an audience surrogate, but every minute spent with MacNichol learning to grow up makes us wish those minutes were spent learning how Sophie’s life is/was going. Plus, this movie uses Kevin Kline to amp up the melodrama and distract from Streep’s amazing work.
5 young educated men stake their claim on the real world, some more successfully than others.
The Exhilarating Parts…
Jean Luc Godard and Frederico Fellini are director twins, both fascinated with their own lives and putting it on film. Fellini’s is a tad more universal, as young people facing the real world is ubiquitous. His message is also delivered smartly too, as these privileged boys don’t respect all the chances they have been given in their youth, and that what’s funny to twentysomethings isn’t as funny as responsibility becomes more important.
The Boring Parts…
Fellini’s film is as self-indulgent as Godard’s focusing on the artistic boys ambition. His Italian upbringing is tough to watch through today’s eyes, as the women are relegated to motherly roles, or creatures of desire, and the customs are pretty dated. Plus, humor across cultures doesn’t translate that well, and much of the humor here might be hard to connect with.
Jacques Tati’s take on the day to day dealings when it comes to vehicle issues in France.
The Exhilarating Parts…
When Tati films are cooking, they are these delightful vignettes amusingly looking at everyday life through the eyes of his Chaplin-esque Mr. Hulot. Parts of Trafic get to that level, like the absurd car designs and uses for parts of a car, or how the minute you switch lanes that lane of traffic stops moving.
The Boring Parts…
Normally I love what Tati does, but I struggled with this one. Perhaps in part because of how dated some of the material is. Also because we don’t become attached to any of the other characters like we do in Tati’s better films. When the vignettes are more miss than hit, your eyes start to wander more, and you miss Tati’s subtleties because you’re not as engaged.
An alcoholic self destructive writer is cared for by a prostitute he once paid for.
The Exhilarating Parts…
Well get to the material below, but the only reason this movie is watchable is because of Elizabeth Shue and Nicholas Cage, who both turn in great performances.
The Boring Parts…
Boring isn’t the right word. Repuslive is better. Shue’s character is male writer porn: a sexual creature nursing a broken man to health, caring for him when no one else will. In addition, things happen to Shue to “punish” her for her actions when she hasn’t really done anything wrong. It’s cheap and cruel, and adds nothing to the story which is much shallower than the movie thinks it is. You’ll feel icky after watching this one.
