Saw Far From Heaven a few days ago. Good movie. I’ve only seen one other movie by the director, Todd Haynes. That was Velvet Goldmine, which, in most respects, is completely different, but both have a lush, colorful, and contrived visual style, both are recent-vintage period pieces, and both deal, in some way, with sexual ambiguity.

The story in Far From Heaven has nice symmetries and contrasts, appropriate considering the themes of closeted homosexuality and unpleasant racial attitudes under a veneer of perfect Eisenhower-era America.

I’ve noticed a rash of websites lately that cater to the harried film buff (who may not have time for the kind of review Pauline Kael cranked out–the kind that takes longer to read than the movie takes to watch…or perhaps film) by turning film reviewing into a lapidary art: Four word film reviews, Haiku movie reviews, and Movie-a-minute. The review for Dr Strangelove perfectly summarizes both the movie and this approach to criticism: “Oops.”

Saw Auto Focus last night. A good movie, but very emphatically not a bring-the-whole-family movie: I mentioned to Gwen midway through “we’ll need to bathe as soon as this is over.

The bizarre story it tells, of Hogan’s Heroes star Bob Crane’s descent into an obsession with random sex and (ahem) home movies, and a relationship with a friend, John Carpenter, that can only be described in the psychobabble of today as “co-dependent,” is disturbing and absorbing. The complete disconnect between Crane’s self-image and his behavior is fascinating.

It’s a Paul Schrader movie, unmistakably so. He’s one of those directors you can just recognize by the look and the subject matter. In his case, dark, stylized lighting and strong colors. And dark, often sexualized stories.

Saw the Mr Sinus treatment of Crossroads last night. No, not the one with Ralph Macchio, the one with Britney Spears.

As usual, they did a fine job. Of course, with this material, their job was like shooting fish in a barrel, but nevertheless, I was in tears from laughing so hard.

Saw Michael Moore’s new movie, Bowling for Columbine yesterday. This is a documentary about gun violence in the USA. It asks a lot more questions than it answers, the central question being “why is there so much gun violence in America?” Moore trots out the counter-example of Canada, which has widespread gun ownership, a similar culture, and very few gun-related deaths. He doesn’t have an answer to this question, but gives a lot of food for thought. Is America’s bellicose foreign policy somehow related to street violence? He suggests that it is, but doesn’t say how (if at all), and it doesn’t quite ring true for me.

One review I read before seeing the movie criticized Moore for his argumentative interview with Charlton Heston at the end of the movie. I had a different reaction: If Heston didn’t already know that Moore is a rabble-rouser, he had time (and a publicist on-hand) to find out between the time he made the appointment for the interview and the time of the interview itself. But more to the point, Heston clearly did not have the moxie to defend his position. If someone is a prominent representative of a controversial viewpoint, as Heston is, that person should have the intellectual courage to defend it. Heston didn’t–he allowed himself to be backed into a corner very easily. If I had any respect for him before, I lost it there.

Saw Punch-Drunk Love last night. Excellent movie. Very weird, jarring audio throughout. Very studied use of symmetric framing, apparently to reinforce the sense of soul-crushing artificiality. This is perhaps only the second good movie that Adam Sandler has been in (Shakes the Clown would be the first), and he really goes beyond himself in this role, as Jim Carrey did in the Truman Show. But I’ll see just about anything from P.T. Anderson on spec.

Gwen and I saw Standing in the Shadows of Motown last night, a documentary about 14 session musicians in Detroit known as the Funk Brothers. The story goes that these 14 guys, in some combination or another, were the sound behind every hit vocalist that came out of Motown for about 12 years.

The movie was interesting if for no other reason than that it exposed me to that fact. It had a lot of good music (seemingly shot at concerts staged for the movie), and a lot of bullshitting and storytelling by the men in question. Although it keeps things in a rough chronological order, there’s not much organization to it. That’s OK up to a point, but running about two hours long, it starts getting a little old–it could either use tighter editing or more structure.

Saw the Mister Sinus treatment of Dirty Dancing last night with Gwen. As always, they were hilarious. I think they just keep getting better. Their commentary was all over the map last night.

Saw the movie Late Marriage with Gwen yesterday. Interesting movie. Not particularly well acted, staged, filmed, or whatever, it was interesting for the story, of Georgian Jews in Israel, and specifically, a family’s efforts to marry their aging (31) son off to a suitable girl. Note that I’m not being gratuitously un-PC here–they were lining up 18-year olds for his consideration. Definitely an insight into a community that just plain operates according to a different set of rules than anything I’ve ever been around.

Saw Lovely & Amazing with Gwen yesterday. Good movie. Very good acting. The little non-verbal ways in which the characters conveyed their feelings towards each other impressed both of us, and the interactions were very true to life.

It was also refreshing that, although serious things happened to the characters in the movie, we weren’t hit over the head to convey “hey, this is serious!”–the filmmakers trusted us enough to figure that out for ourselves. Also refreshing is the fact that not everything was wrapped up with a bow by the end.

Catherine Keener may have already typecast herself with bitchy roles, though. While her character in this movie was somewhat bitchy, my initial reaction to her was that she was especially so (I don’t imagine she’s like that in real life, of course). It took a while to see past that in this movie.