Once again, Richard T. Jameson and Kathleen Murphy transform the year’s movies into poetry — and poetic criticism — at MSN Movies: Moments Out of Time 2009. A few excerpted stanzas:
• Middle Atlantic States summer heat and humidity visible in the air, the color, the softness — “Taking Woodstock“…
• “Public Enemies“: the thrill of seeing a piece of “Manhattan Melodrama” big as a movie-palace wall, with the luster of the brand-new. Worth dying for…
• “The Hurt Locker“: rust and scale popping off a derelict car when an IED explodes nearby…
• What spaces and places look like after people leave them: a man hikes up a snow-covered hill, then simply disappears from sight — and the movie that is “Liverpool”…
• In “Limits of Control,” Tilda Swinton’s platinum-blonde-wigged femme fatale reminding us that “The Lady from Shanghai” made no sense either…
• “35 Shots of Rum“: kids with Japanese lanterns among the dune grass at sunset…
• “A Serious Man“: the traffic accident that doesn’t happen. But does….
• The terrible uncertainty of what lies on the road behind her, as “The Headless Woman” drives on after having hit something…
• Old people disappearing up flights of stone steps in “Summer Hours” and “Still Walking“…
