September 26, 2007 at 12:41 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Laying two projects to rest long after they’ve been dead:
The Car Chase Marathon has ended.
Every movie I’ve watched in the marathon so far has been terrible. The upcoming prospects look a bit better, and I’ll be leaving them on my Netflix queue, but I’m not willing maintain a marathon of movies that I’m not particularly interested in when there’s so much greatness that I’ve yet to see.
The 365 Project was just found alone in its apartment, its face eaten by its many cats.
No rationalizing why this one failed: I’m lazy and can’t be bothered to hold a camera in front of me once every 24 hours. I’m chronicling the failure (it only lasted 32 posts, a whopping 8.7% of the year) by changing the tag associated with those long forgotten posts.
September 15, 2007 at 7:58 pm · Filed under Movies
Rating: 4/10
I’m not sure what to make of my reaction to this movie. It flies in the face of pretty much everyone else’s opinion, at least anything I can find: It was nominated for 7 Oscars and won 4, AFI’s 73rd, IMDB Top 250: #153.
I didn’t just dislike it, though, I hated it. I considered turning it off at numerous points during the movie and I was ready to fast forward just so I could see the iconic ending. I understand some of the love: Redford and Newman give thoroughly charming performances and spout some memorable dialogue…to what end, though? The entire point of the damn movie is that these two are moving headlong into oblivion: their days are numbered, but even in their moments of desperation they’re winking and smirking like it’s a buddy cop flick. The final shot, the one that everyone raves about, going out in a blaze of glory, is completely undermined by the fact that there’s no quiet desperation to their plight, it’s just one moment of comedy after another: trapped in a canyon? Well, we gotta jump, but one of us can’t swim! Trying to go straight, but you’ve got to standoff with Bolivian bandits? Well, one of us can’t shoot!
I enjoyed the sense of encroaching doom set up at the start of the movie by the unseen persuers. Their identities are slowly revealed as Butch and Sundance’s situation grows more and more dire. This, of course, is resolved by the former comic scenario, and then is pretty much abandoned, save for a single shot to drive the plot along as the movie meanders through Bolivia.
Speaking of Bolivia, how did we get there? Ah, yes, an entirely-too-long sepia-tone photo montage of our intrepid trio (Butch, Sundance and their barely-touched-upon love interest) having a grand ol’ time in New York. Seriously? In order FOR OUR WESTERN to get to Bolivia, we have to watch a montage of our cowboys riding motorcoaches and having fun at Coney Island?! This wasn’t the first, nor would it be the last interminable montage in the film: I had already sat through a playful bicycle riding sequence set to Burt Bacarach’s “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head” and neither of these were the worst choices in the movie. Most of their time in Bolivia, where they would eventually meet their death, was glossed over in a montage (set to even more godawful music) whose point could be boiled down to: Look at these Yankees run rampant on these Wacky Hispanics! Of course, this only serves to undermine the threat these very same Bolivians pose for the aforementioned final sequence…
Is this movie held in such high regard based solely on how much fun Redford and Newman are having onscreen? If so, then why isn’t Cannonball Run considered one of the greatest movies of all time?
