Up In The Air
You know those movies you mean to watch, then end up forgetting to and it's a full decade later? Yeah.
I finally watched this this. Apparently it has a lot of cred and is considered a modern classic. I liked it. It was pretty good. The ending was ambiguous enough to leave to interpretation and I felt it was a massive kick to reality since I fully expected a happy ending. Great subversion of expectations here. The cinematography is top notch. The most famous is probably this high shot that occurs at the end of a montage.
I personally prefer a scene later on when Clooney's character is all alone. Jeez, what a tear jerker. I thought it was pretty good but it didn't really stick with me in any way. In a lot of ways it feels like a modern
Ikiru but with far less positive spin.
3/4 stars over here.
Battleship Potemkin
Continuing the silent film marathon.
One of those movies I've always felt was conflicting.
On one hand, its Odessa Steps sequence is arguably the most famous montage in film history. Probably one of - if not THE - earliest films I can remember being made taking advantage of camera angles and using the visual medium to its fullest advantages. I don't recall any movie before this using telephoto lens to zoom on characters in this manner with close ups, high shots to evoke weakness, low shots to evoke power. Maybe Nosferatu?
On the other hand, it's pretty clearly communist propaganda in a laughable way. The steps scene which it's most famous for is in many ways hilarious now rather than shocking in how it tries to emotionally manipulate the audience. It's hard not to laugh.
For what it is I've never felt it was a good movie, and rewatching it hasn't changed that for me. Metropolis, Modern Times, or Passion of Joan of Arc it is not. D.W. Griffith on steroids with the backing of a fascist state.
Rating 2/4 stars.
