The Beaches of Agnes

Beaches of Anges really gives you a feel for who Agnes Varda is. I loved listening to the way she narrates this documentary about her life, and seeing all the fanciful, whimsical images she comes up with.

Beaches of Agnes is basically about Agnes Varda remembering some stuff that happened to her around beaches. I just like Agnes Varda. It's interesting to see the things that she comes up with. They're so fanciful and whimsical. The mirrors at the beach at the beginning are so cool.

Faces Places

Faces Places is an enchanting French documentary about the beauty of life and everyday people. It's not exactly thrilling, but it's worth seeing.

I've seen 13 documentaries, and Faces Places is only the third that's gotten at least 3/5. So you could practically call it a 5, relatively speaking. I like the idea of it. Agnes and JR are such an unlikely couple. I like the way the narrative is laid out, starting with how they met each other first through their art. I liked the narration of them reminiscing about their travels.

It was cool getting to see different people and places in France. The pictures looked neat on the buildings and things, too. Kind of reminded me of Banksy's work. The score was great. It turns out Agnes was very involved in making it. She also did the editing. So in a lot of ways, it was really her movie. 

Dancer

Dancer (aptly titled since that’s all the subject is, having no room in his life for anything additional) is pretty sad, but I guess it’s kind of interesting, and at least it ends on a hopeful note.

I read a review for Dancer and checked out Sergei’s “Take Me to Church” performance, which is pretty amazing, and decided the movie might be interesting to watch. It was kind of interesting. And also kind of boring. And also sad.

Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang

Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang is kind of frustrating in how it just skims the surface of Cai and his art, but it's still interesting to watch.

I read a review of Sky Ladder on Ebert's website, and it sounded interesting. Unfortunately, the review pretty much laid out the entire movie. The movie seemed to just kind of skim over the surface of things. It didn't go in-depth on much. I guess it really was mostly about the Sky Ladder project, which is a pretty weird project.

Cave of Forgotten Dreams

Cave of Forgotten Dreams is Werner Herzog's look at the oldest known cave paintings. It's intriguing just from the perspective of the fact that basically no one ever gets to see them in person. He explores some other facets of life back then, like the landscape and other forms of art, so it's not only about the paintings. It's interesting to think about.

I wasn't interested in Cave of Forgotten Dreams when it came out, but someone (hi, ZT) said it "literally (literally)" blew their mind, so I figured I'd check it out. I watched the same way I always watch documentaries – in 10-minute intervals over the course of a day. It's a little slow sometimes. And it bugged me when they were first exploring and getting lots of shots of them shining lights on the drawings that were so bright that you couldn't actually see the drawings. But they eventually stopped doing that.

Synecdoche, New York

Synecdoche, New York follows the proud tradition of Charlie Kaufman movies that I don't enjoy. His characters are always unlikeable, and I can't get invested in them. There are a lot of things about it that could be funny if it weren't so depressing as a whole. I can appreciate it, but it's resoundingly not my thing.

2008 seems like a long time ago. It was only seven years. Maybe anything before 2010 registers as "a long time ago" for me. Charlie Kaufman is not my favorite writer. I could appreciate Being John Malkovich, but I didn't like it. I found the characters to be really unlikeable, which was the same problem I had with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I generally hate surrealism, and that movie is pretty out there. Plus if you don't like the characters, it's just really hard to be invested in what's going on.

The Art of the Steal

The Art of the Steal has quite a few funny moments, but it comes off as staged and gimmicky, and I felt more cheated by the ending than impressed. 

Online reviews were mixed for The Art of the Steal, but I like Jay Baruchel, I don't mind Kurt Russell, and it looked like it might be funny. The style was too "gimmicky." I didn't like all the "x-ray" shots of things inside of things, or all the times the names of people's roles popped up.  It felt really light. It didn't go in-depth into anything. It was like an unsatisfying episode of White Collar.

Animatrix

Not really vital or even helpful in understanding the movies, but rather something to be appreciated simply as art.