I see a lot of movies every year. A
ton. But this year I’ve decided I don’t see enough movies, so one of my
New Year Resolutions was to simply see more. And to write about them.
See, that’s the other half of the equation: I see a ton of movies, but
I write about comparatively few of them. There are a lot of reasons,
but they mainly boil down to the fact that I feel the need to do long
form reviews, and sometimes – like in the midst of Sundance – I just
don’t have the time.
And
so was born this new blog! I aim to make an entry for every single
movie I see in 2010. Some entries may be very short, some may be
lengthy. Entries may take a couple of days to be posted. Let’s see how
long this lasts.
One
last thing: one of my main objectives this year is to rewatch more
movies. I know this sounds like a strange goal, but there are films I
haven’t seen since high school, which means it’s been almost a lifetime
since I saw them. Recently I rewatched Black Christmas for the first
time since the 1980s, and I might as well have been seeing the movie
for the first time. I’m interested in getting a look at some movies I
loved or hated twenty or even ten years ago and seeing how I feel about
them now.
Let’s begin…
#17 The Brothers Bloom (Commentary)
2009
d. Rian Johnson
This movie got kind of boned. I boned it, a little – I saw the film in 2008 but didn’t put it on that year’s Best Of list for a couple of reasons, and then it didn’t make the 2009 list, mostly due to my own oversight (‘interesting’ trivia – a desire to better track what I saw in a given year (ie this blog) grew from forgetting Bloom for the 2009 list). But it also got boned at the cinema in general, because this is a lovely film that should have found an audience. Believe me, that audience is out there, and they’re finding it at home.
Today was my fourth time through The Brothers Bloom, a real rarity for me. This time it was the commentary track, and while I recently bemoaned the death of good commentaries, dirctor Rian Johnson (with an able assist from producer Ram Bergman) proves me quite wrong.
Rian’s commentary is both informative and funny; as a film geek himself he knows what we hate about commentaries (and when he lapses into it, he makes note of it), and tries his best to deliver something that will inform and entertain in equal measure. Lest you think the utterance of my name during the closing credits influenced my opinion on this at all, I was Tweeting how much I liked the commentary long before having my ego stroked.
I watched the Blu-Ray, and listening to the commentary really afforded me the opportunity to enjoy the sheer beauty of the film; I get why people say ‘Wes Anderson’ when they look at this movie, but this just simply isn’t Andersonian. On the commentary Rian namechecks Bertolucci, but I don’t think the visuals are riffs on anyone else. The Blu, by the way, is a gorgeous transfer.