Sometimes we watch stuff that we want to talk just a little bit about, not a full review worth. These are those films. Also check out our From Our Netflix Queue series, highlighting worthwhile films and TV series that are available on Netflix Instant Watch.

Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair

(4.5/5)

2003/2004/2011 USA. Director: Quentin Tarantino. Starring: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah.

Fans of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films have been waiting for a long time for the oft-promised Whole Bloody Affair cut that would combine the two films together, and this year, we finally get it – after a fashion. The new cut premiered at the Tarantino-owned New Beverly, one of LA’s oldest rep cinemas, to a sold-out week-long run. Presumably it will hit other specialty cinemas like the Alamo Drafthouse soon. But it may not be exactly what you were expecting. The cut I saw was basically a double feature of the two films, excising the very end of Part One (it ends with Sofie telling Bill about the Bride’s actions, but leaves off Bill’s revelation that the Bride’s daughter is still alive) and some of the beginning of Part II (the scene with the Bride in the car recapping the first film). They did use the international cuts, with the House of Blue Leaves fight in color and a little bloodier. So if you were hoping for a more extreme edit, intercutting footage from the two films together, you may be disappointed. However, it is kind of amazing how much difference it makes to the pacing of the two parts together just having those judicious edits. Jumping straight from a brief intermission into Part II with the scene at the El Paso church gave Part II a push of energy that it usually doesn’t have for me, and even though it is still (intentionally) slower that Part I, it worked a lot better for me this way. It still feels a bit too long and self-indulgent for me at the end, once Beatrix reaches Bill’s house, but for the most part, though the re-editing is minimal, The Whole Bloody Affair is now the best way to experience the Kill Bill films.
-JANDY

Win Win

(3.5/5)

2011 USA. Director: Thomas McCarthy. Starring: Paul Giamatti, Amy Ryan, Jeffrey Tambor, Bobby Cannavale, Alex Shaffer.

Tom McCarthy has a tendency to take stories that shouldn’t really work, that are too heart warming and far too sweet, and deliver a film that isn’t only entertaining but pulls at a little corner of your heart. In this case it’s the story of a Mike (Giamatti) as a lawyer with an ailing practice who also volunteers as coach of the local wrestling team. When a court appointed case brings the opportunity to make a little extra money (even if it’s a little shady), Mike takes advantage of the situation. Like life, McCarthy’s stories are never quite that simple and things are turned upside down with the arrival of a boy who makes his way into Mike’s family and changes their lives. Like his previous films, I really enjoyed McCarthy’s tale of self discovery and redemption and how, though it delivers a happy ending, it’s a very real one where things aren’t all tied up with a nice bow and perfect. It’s not exactly new material for the writer/director but it’s nice to be able to count on McCarthy for a feel good film that doesn’t pander to the audience.
-MARINA

The Godless Girl

(4/5)

1929 USA. Director: Cecil B. DeMille. Starring: Lina Basquette, Marie Prevost, Tom Keene, Eddie Quillan, Noah Beery.

When this little-known silent film hit the Cinefamily rep cinema schedule, they touted it as “doing for atheism what Reefer Madness does for marijuana.” With that thought in my head, I was expecting an over-the-top C-level exploitation movie using shock tactics to try to discount atheism while actually making it look pretty cool, but even though I probably would’ve enjoyed that film on a schlock level, it actually does The Godless Girl a disservice. It does start off with an exploitationy feel, as a high school athiest club gets in a pissing contest with the staunch Christians on campus, soon leading to a riot that ends in a death. Three instigators of the riot (the female leader of the Godless Club, the male leader of the Christian group, and the hapless kid caught in between who inadvertently caused the death) get sent to reform school, where mistreatment leads to rebellion, new alliances, escape attempts, exciting chases, a fire, and…yeah, it’s directed by Cecil B. DeMille. You get the idea. Anyway, the two-hour running time flies by as DeMille ups the ante with every scene, and the set-pieces are truly amazing – so wonderful to see practical effects done well. It has its trite and predictable moments, but a healthy dose of humor in with the social commentary and a surprising evenhandedness in dealing with the religious aspects makes this a well-rounded and really enjoyable late silent. I especially liked second lead Marie Prevost, playing one of the more established inmates – looks like she didn’t do much past the mid-1930s, but I’ll definitely be on the lookout for her surviving work.
-JANDY

Just A Beginning

(4/5)

2010 France. Director: Pierre Barougier & Jean-Pierre Pozzi.

Screened at the 2011 Alliance Francaise French Film Festival in Melbourne, Just A Beginning is a documentary that, despite an initially questionable premise, wins over its audience with its considerable charm and unexpected depth. The intellectual version of 2010s crowd-pleasing Babies, the film, directed by Pierre Barougier & Jean-Pierre Pozzi, documents the introduction of a philosophy program into a Parisian kindergarten. Naturally, the movie is adorable; simply by filming a kindergarten class you have a good chance of a final product that is sweet and generally amusing. But although these children are still struggling with the finer points of spoken language, the insight they have to offer on issues ranging from love, death, marriage, racism and sexuality is often insightful and genuinely affecting. One criticism I do have is that the film does not have much drive, and perhaps would have worked better as a television series of half hour episodes. One also suspects, given how perfect the coverage is, that some of the scenarios may have been somewhat staged. Never the less, Just A Beginning is a surprising and thoroughly entertaining film that deserves more extensive attention.
-TOM

All the President’s Men

(4.5/5)

1976 United States. Director: Alan J Pakula. Starring: Robert Redford, Dustin Hoffman, Jason Robards.

Strike another classic off of my glaring omissions list. I knew the seventies was a fertile time for cinema but even with that awareness I am still surprised how uncompromising All The President’s Men is. Following the David vs Goliath story of Washington Post underdogs, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, as they follow the money and expose Nixon’s Watergate scandal, All The President’s Men is a love letter to the kind of real journalism that the newspaper industry used to embody. While there are a few scenes of intrigue and dramatic effect (often dealing with the legendary source Deepthroat) the bulk of this film has to do with the parsing of information and the mundane grunt work required to get a story published. For all the praise laid upon David Fincher’s Zodiac for its unwavering devotion to procedural drama, it is clearly playing off of the standard established by this even more devout film to process. The film appears to be as close to a historical document as you can get to the proceedings, diffusing the dramatic and compensating with a fascination in people doing their jobs exceeding well. Also the perspective of the film is always from what Woodward and Bernstein know in any given moment, with no cutaways to other people, so each phone call they make, each door they arrive at unannounced provides the information in real-time, allowing the audience to play along in the detective work. The third act suffers somewhat from information overload, enough names being dropping to make one slightly dizzy, but it is all forgiven for the sake of the thrill given by the whole effect. There is hope that with enough work and resolute idealism, corruption can be exposed; whether that is fantasy or not, it makes for a satisfying cinematic experience.
-MIKE