Stuff I Watched Today

The Mirror (1975)

I don't know that I can offer much insight into this film. Andrei Tarkovsky, whose films unapologetically move forward without stopping to hold the viewer's hand, has here made what could be called his most impenetrable movie. It is a series of scenes, in black and white, in color, interspersed with stock footage and what may be dream sequences. And yet, it doesn't just feel like an art experiment. The movie was not difficult to sit through. In fact, it reinforces my belief that a movie with a slower pace draws you in, letting you soak in its images and ideas, while a movie that rushes you inexorably from plot point to plot point can leave you wondering why you cared about what happened at all.

Paul (2011)

I enjoyed this movie a lot. It's nice to see Simon Pegg and Nick Frost (honestly, a truly classic comedy duo that I hope gets to be in a dozen more movies) together, and although this movie lacks some of the subtlety and intricate construction of their movies with Edgar Wright, it is a lot fun to watch.

They have surrounded themselves with a great cast (Seth Rogen, Kristen Wiig, Jason Bateman, Bill Hader, Joe LaTruglio, Jane Lynch, Dave Koechner and more!), and while the movie settles into some standard action scenes toward the end, this is a movie where it's just fun to watch these actors bounce off of each other.

It did make me think about the use of movie references as jokes, though. One of the film's weakness is that, particularly toward the end, there are references meant to be funny that just fall flat. One in particular (Jason Bateman shooting his radio, and then saying "Boring conversation anyway"), fall flat in the theater I was in, and I think it's because it violates the rule of a good movie reference- Don't let the reference itself be the joke. In the example above, the only joke is that that is also a line from Star Wars. In the context of the scene, the movie just stops to let Jason Bateman say a line that you might recognize, and then proceeds. In a post-"Family Guy" era, this just isn't enough to qualify as good comedy.

An excellent example of a good film reference from Shaun of the Dead is the scene where the guys are talking to Shaun's mom on the phone and decide to come rescue her. She protests a bit, and then Ed shouts "We're coming to get you, Barbara". For fans of zombie movie, they'll spot the reference, but for those who don't, the scene proceeds without them thinking they've missed anything. The reference is organic and moves the story forward, rather than winking at us with it's clever inclusion.

Top Hat (1935)

I'll be honest here: I didn't really pay a lot of attention to this one except for the dancing sequences. Astaire and Rogers are brilliant when they're dancing together, but the plots surrounding them are wafer-thin "idiot plots" where someone is always missing one tiny bit of information that somehow keeps the happy couple apart. Their movies are almost like the inverse of Marx Brothers movies, which keep stopping for random musical numbers that you just want to end so that the comedy hijinks can continue (Harpo and Chico's numbers are excepted from this. Zeppo's singing is not.) With Astaire and Rogers, you just want them to get to the dancing already.