Century 2004: Triple Agent

Triple Agent. Éric Rohmer. 2004.

Oops! I had gotten to 2002 last month, and then I went back to 2001 in the previous post. So now we’re at 2004, because I have nothing from 2003, so that all worked out perfectly!

Right?

And… it’s an Éric Rohmer film! Yay!

And it’s a period drama. I’m only seen him do contemporary films before. This is only my like fifth Rohmer film, and I still his films ineffably fascinating. They’re obviously nouvelle vague films, but in a way less showy way than, say, Robert Bresson or Jean-Luc Godard. There’s something intimate about them…

Rohmer is just so… is there a double-plus-good word for “pedestrian”? He just plonks down the camera in an undistinguished environment, with always-smiling actors that are in-between amateur and professional (I think?), with lines that aren’t really that real… and still it’s absolutely riveting.

This blog post is part of the Century series.

Century 2001: The Man Who Wasn’t There

The Man Who Wasn’t There. Joel Coen. 2001.

Hey, it’s been a while since I saw a movie. Busy busy. But finally! A weekend that’s all open.

Now, I was a bit distracted while watching parts of this film, It certainly has an original cast of characters and some great actors in Frances MacDormand and Billy Bob Thornton, but I remained mostly indifferent while watching it.

But it’s a good film, of course. I’m note quite sure what’s my problem with it… Some of the other actors made me roll my eyes a bit (Gandolfini and the other barber), but… I don’t know?

How erudite!

I think this is the Coen brothers’ weakest period. Their earliest films are great, and more recent films of theirs are also great, but I just don’t like this period… which is probably their most commercially successful period? I bailed on O Brother Where Art Thou when I saw it at the time.

Oh, and the few CGI effects really suck. Destroys all suspension of disbelief.

This blog post is part of the Century series.

Pox

Flearman’s comments on the post about footnotes* reminded me that I was going to read all the issues of Pox, the Swedish punk indie comix magazine. So I got buyin’:

These are all from Dolores in Göteborg.

That’s like…. thousands of pages of late-80s anthologies that I’ll… get around to reading any day now.

But just like Flearman said, the early 90s issues of Pox seem to be really rare, so I’ve got something to do the next few years. Yay.

Century 2002: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. George Clooney. 2002.

I didn’t have tripe sec, so I used a orange liqueur instead. Offal, oranges; it’s all the same.

But this is the first film George Clooney directed, and it’s such a typical first movie. Clooney’s going USE ALL THE TRICKS FROM ALL THE MOVIES in this film. It’s fun. Every single scene is a new thing. So many fun shots.

But does it add up to anything more than a medley of really cool camera techniques?

I’m guessing that everybody ever loves Clooney, because basically everybody ever appears in this film. Mostly as minute cameos.

Hm… Oh, this was written by Charlie Kaufman! Well, then it all makes sense. But while this is fun to watch… it feels kinda… unnecessary. On all levels.

The ending is a huge let-down. After all the weirdness it has a predictable tragic breakdown thing happening that we’ve seen in so many films before.

In a slightly kookier form.

This blog post is part of the Century series.