Archive for April, 2004
162 – Timeline
In the pantheon of gosh-awful movies, Timeline isn’t quite as bad as, say, Showgirls, but only because its deficiencies are hilarious when viewed with the correct perspective.
First, one must consider that the movie is based on the Michael Crichton book of the same name. Okay, that’s usually a blessing; I believe people are more likely to go to a movie if Crichton’s name is attached to it. Think Jurassic Park, Disclosure, Coma, and so on.
Then consider that the director is the skilled Richard Donner, the auteur who brought us the Lethal Weapon movies. Since Timeline is supposed to be a sci-fi/action/thriller, he seems like a good choice, right?
But oh, the troubles! How can I count them all in a compact way that won’t bore you? It won’t be easy, but trust me on this: It’ll be easier than your sitting through Timeline.
If you’re expecting this movie to be an adaptation of the novel, you’ll be disappointed. The most basic outline of the plot remains (young excavators travel to 14th century to rescue professor), but so much has been changed. Now, it’s not uncommon for a screenwriter to make changes that he or she feels will make the story more cinematic, and sometimes these changes even make sense within the book’s storyline. Here, for some reason, one of the youngsters attempting to rescue Professor Johnston (Billy Connolly) is his son Chris (Paul Walker). In the book, Chris was an archaeologist who was forever pining after one of the rich local French ladies. Did the screenwriter feel a stronger bond between Chris and the professor was necessary? Weird.
But leaving the plot changes aside, the performances were wildly awful, almost universally. Walker, who’s been decent in such movies as Varsity Blues and The Fast and the Furious, comes off as completely clueless here as Chris, even though the character was pretty bright in the book. Walker delivers each line in a weird, nonchalant surfer drawl, leaving me to finish each of his lines with a “dude.” “Okay, I like, don’t know where we are, but I think we’re like, lost. Dude.” You see what I mean? What was he even doing in this movie? Chris is supposedly Johnston’s son, but his is a distinctly American accent (Connolly, of course, has a very thick Scottish brogue). This may have been explained in an early scene, but I had already settled into full mocking mode by then.
The others are no better. Frances O’Connor plays Kate, a skilled climber. We know she’s a skilled climber because she reminds us in practically every scene she’s in! “Someone has to climb on this roof and drop down to the other side!” “I’ll do it! I am the best climber here!” Yes, you go. Go, Kate, go. She was so busy proving how wonderful she was that she forgot to turn in a nuanced performance. But that’s okay, because her character was as well developed as a Polaroid print two seconds after it’s been taken.
To be fair, nearly every character is nothing more than a cardboard cutout, a caricature of Good or Bad, Strong or Weak. It’s like the screenwriter had just taken his first creative writing class and hadn’t gotten around to learning how to flesh out his characters. But Connolly as the professor? Why? Because he’s Scottish, of course. A Scotsman digging in France with Americans and Englishmen. Maybe the filmmakers felt Connolly was able to evoke a sense of authority; if so, they miscalculated miserably. Connolly was as strong as a wet kite in a ferocious wind.
So, to recap, the writing was awful, the acting was pathetic, and the direction was suspect. Oh, and the casting was subpar.
As I mentioned, I mocked this movie freely. Luckily enough, I was watching it at home, where the only other living creature save the roaches was the dog, and he was mocking right along with me. I was quite happy that I hadn’t spent the money to see this in the theater and was therefore able to make fun of the movie in the comfort of my own home. The screenwriter should be ashamed to have changed so many details from the book, because the changes didn’t help things (and often confused the plot further for those who had read the book) and were wholly unnecessary, to boot. But don’t worry, Michael Crichton fans! The failure of this movie won’t prevent the adaptation of further Crichton books; there’s a Jurassic Park IV on the horizon.
Timeline: *1/2
161 – Lost in Translation
Posted by frothy in Lost in Translation on April 25, 2004
Lost in Translation is a bittersweet story of two disparate Americans temporarily in Tokyo. Bob Harris (Bill Murray) is a has-been actor who’s relegated to pitching alcohol in a TV ad; Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) is the somewhat-neglected wife of a photographer (Giovanni Ribisi) who’s in town to do a shoot.
Charlotte and Bob are staying at the same hotel, and both are living through the same experience of getting through the day as fish out of water. Living the life of a tourist-American isn’t always fun and games, you know. Bob just wants to finish his commercial shoot and then get home, even though the marriage with his stateside wife is devoid of passion, and Scarlett isn’t quite sure what she wants.
It’s not improbable that these two should wind up spending some time together, especially since in Tokyo they stick out like the cliched sore thumbs (especially Murray, who’s much taller than any of the Japanese around him at all times). They decide to hang out together, to make the most of the time they have to spend in a foreign land.
One of the biggest complaints I’ve heard about this movie is that it’s too slow, but I consider that to be its most engaging characteristic. This is not an action movie. This isn’t a smart-alecky comedy with rapid-fire hilarity. In essence, it’s a two-character study.
A good film for comparison is Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995). In that movie, Jesse (an American) and Celine (a Frenchwoman) meet on a train traveling from Budapest to Vienna, and we witness their relationship gradually ascend from that of slight acquaintences to full-blown amour. Bob and Charlotte’s relationship progresses much the same way, but it’s even more subtle (believe it or not). Charlotte, the lonely photographer’s wife, and Bob, the unwilling participant in a disaffected marriage, find in each other a true kindred spirit.
This isn’t something easily expressed on screen, and even on the printed page it’s difficult to pull off. But the masterful Oscar-winning script by Sofia Coppola (who also directed) is so superb in its attention to detail, along with the perfectly nuanced performances of Johansson and Murray (nominated for an Oscar) are the ideal combination. The audience is utterly convinced that these two characters are meant for each other, at least on some level.
Not one note of this movie rang falsely for me, but it is not for everyone. Don’t let the mulitple Oscar nominations sway you – if you do not like quiet, subtle movies, you probably won’t like Lost in Translation. For the rest of you, it’s a true gem.
Lost in Translation: ****
160 – The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Posted by frothy in Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003) on April 22, 2004
Even those who haven’t seen a gajillion movies have a good idea of what to expect from a remake of an old horror movie (or the latest in a long-running horror series, for that matter). Our expectations are lowered at a rate proportional to the number of years since the first movie was produced. Using that logic, this remake of the 1974 ne plus ultra of low-budget gore from Tobe Hooper should be either an absolute laugh riot or a stunningly awful scare flick.
But this 2003 remake isn’t either of those. I was fully prepared to laugh out loud at inappropriate times (it’s okay, it was in the privacy of my own apartment) and basically point and giggle at the bad dialogue and inept acting. But I hardly got the opportunity. Oh, sure, like most horror films this did have the occasional “what the heck are they doing?” moments, the sporadic lapses in logic. But for the most part, this is a well-told story with just the right amount of special effects (including blood and guts, of course). It’s not a movie that throws every effect it can think of, drowning the viewer in coagulation (like the remake of The Haunting, or Freddy versus Jason, or the most recent Halloween movies). This movie relied on two main things: The storyline and the performances of the lead performers. How unhorror-like!
At its heart, the story is pretty simple: A group of five kids, on the way to a Lynryd Skynrd concert, stops to pick up a dazed young girl on the side of the road. She’s not terribly coherent, and just a few minutes after they’ve resumed their journey she puts a gun in her mouth and pulls the trigger, producing a gaping hole in her head and in the rear window of the kids’ van.
So many horror movies begin this way, don’t they? Now the kids have a dead girl in their van, so they bring her to the nearest town. And that’s where the fun begins.
It’s been a long time since I saw the original TCM, but this movie seems to keep pretty close to the general storyline. Kids find creepy house, kids get slaughtered, one person survives… you know how it goes. The movie’s presented as “what really happened” that fateful day in 1973, bookended by “real” film by police of the crime scene. Oh, and in a nifty touch, the narrator of the original has been brought back to narrate this one – the one and only John Larroquette, who was uncredited in the original.
This remake was surprisingly well done, with quick pacing (Michael Bay was one of the producers), excellent atmosphere, some genuine frights and chills, and competent work by a game cast of mostly unknowns (Jessica Biel of TV’s 7th Heaven was the only person I recognized).
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: ***
159 – Kill Bill Vol. 2
Posted by frothy in Kill Bill Vol. 2 on April 20, 2004
My first thought is that this isn’t nearly as good as the first one. But that’s a little unfair, since the first one was (for me) an amazing film.
Making a two-volume movie is a huge gamble. If the first one tanks, then no one’s going to want to see the second one, which has likely already been filmed. If the first one is a rousing success, though, then it becomes the standard by which the second one is judged. For the filmmaker, this can be a losing proposition.
The movie follows the revenge game played by The Bride (Uma Thurman), on her quest to find the man who ordered her wedding party slaughtered. Oh, and the man whose baby she was carrying when he put a bullet in her brain. Only the bullet didn’t kill The Bride – it merely put her in a long coma. And when she woke up – look out!
In the first film, The Bride tracked down two of her former compadres in killing as part of an elite hit squad. Now she has three names left on her list: Budd (Michael Madsen), Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), and her ex-boss and ex-lover, Bill (David Carradine).
Quentin Tarantino takes an approach similar to the one he used to such great success in Pulp Fiction and that he reused in the first Kill Bill movie – scenes (chapters, in this case) that are shown to the audience out of order. Luckily, the scenes aren’t so jumbled that the audience can’t follow what’s going on. In fact, the order rearranging is fairly tame by Tarantino standards.
Tarantino does a great job in incorporating various movie genres into his film; it’s part samurai thriller, part kung fu actioner, part cheesy, kitschy, zap-powie seventies schlock. He’s always been proficient in this area; Pulp Fiction’s characters at times seemed to be stuck in the seventies, but at the same time they didn’t appear to be fish out of water. That’s the genius of Tarantino.
Where this film diverges from the first, however, is in its pacing. Volume 1 was chock full of fast-paced action scenes – The Bride taking on the Crazy 88 springs to mind – but while there are a few interesting, riveting scenes in Vol. 2, there aren’t nearly enough of them. And because there are insufficient action scenes, there are plenty of times when the movie seems to flag a little. A lull in a Tarantino movie can be richly cultivated (remember the “awkward silences” scene with Thurman and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction), but if there’s nothing going on either above or below the surface, then the audience will get a little bored. Especially if they’ve been expecting wall-to-wall gore.
The performances are rather remarkable, however. Thurman continues to amaze as The Bride (a character she and Tarantino came up with together). Quick – how many action movies can you name that had a strong female lead? Ok, now how many of those were any good? Thurman would have to be incredible in order to carry this film, and she doesn’t disappoint in the least. Whereas she was a pleasant surprise in Vol. 1, we now expect her to do the same in Vol. 2, and she’s up to the task.
Equally up to the task is 67-year-old David Carradine. Yep, 67. I didn’t realize he was such an old goat! And one look at him… well, let’s just say Mr. Carradine has lived a hard life. Leathery and craggy, he’s a Mount Rushmore of actors – and I don’t mean in terms of professional stature. Carradine’s quickly approaching his dad’s prolific career (John Carradine appeared in around 500 movies). But he’s found the role of a lifetime as Bill, and he commands every scene he’s in. That velvety-smooth, world-weary voice disguises a malevolent scheming that lets you know he will persevere in the end. But does he? Doesn’t the title belie that answer?
Michael Madsen is just okay in his role as Bill’s brother Budd, but that’s not an insult. He’s just Michael Madsen, turning in a performance one expects from Michael Madsen (who could forget him as Mr. Blonde in Reservoir Dogs?).
Another of Tarantino’s more admirable traits is that he’s able to get compelling performances of a lifetime from his actors. Take Daryl Hannah. Could anyone really have predicted she would even be IN this movie? The mermaid from Splash? But as Elle Driver, Hannah’s cold, sexy…. and blind in one eye. (How she lost that one eye is explained, rather vividly.)
Tarantino also loves to bring back moldy-oldie actors from Back in the Day, partly to revive their careers and partly as an homage to those older films he grew up with. This time around, he has Gordon Liu, who plays the mystical Pai Mei, who trained Bill’s elite squad.
We see some amazing scenes of The Bride being trained hard by Pai Mei, scenes that are of course reminiscent of all of the wise-master-training-young-hotshot kung-fu films (such as Jackie Chan’s Drunken Master). We also see Bo Svenson as the reverend who’s about to marry The Bride, and Michael Parks as old Bill friend Esteban Vihaio. Oh, and Sid Haig, whom I last saw in House of 1,000 Corpses, is barkeep at the nudie bar at which Budd’s a bouncer.
Aside from the sometimes-turgid pacing, another problem is the soundtrack. There were several times throughout the movie when the music was substantially louder than the dialogue on the screen! Now, I ask you – does that make any sense? Tarantino’s always been a stickler for having the right song for the right scene, but come on – if I can’t hear his strong dialogue, what’s the point?
I guess this film, in essence, didn’t grab me as the first one did. I didn’t leave the theater satisfied. I didn’t leave with some of my favorite scenes still being played in my mind, over and over again. For me, the movie was flat and fell below expectations. It’s still a well-done movie, but it’s not up to Vol. 1′s excellence.
Kill Bill Vol. 2: ***
158 – House of Sand and Fog
Posted by frothy in House of Sand and Fog on April 19, 2004
Kathy (Jennifer Connelly) is an alcoholic whose husband has abandoned her. She awakes one morning from a fitful sleep to see local deputies on her front step. She’s being evicted for failure to pay housing taxes. Stunned, Kathy is suddenly homeless.
Kathy finds a lawyer, but she soon discovers that the house has been sold to a former colonel in the Iranian army (Ben Kingsley), who quickly moves in with his wife Nadi (Shohreh Aghdashloo) and son Esmail (Jonathan Ahdout).
Kathy learns, through her lawyer, that her home was wrongfully seized. The county offers to buy the house back from Col. Behrani, but he refuses – unless his asking price of four times the amount he paid is met.
And so the cycle is set into place. In her mind, Kathy cannot live without the house in which she grew up, the house her father left to her and her brother when he passed away. She must have it back, by any means necessary.
But don’t think this is nothing more than a revenge/justice thriller. The heavily nuanced characters compel the viewer to feel no small amount of empathy for them, even when they behave poorly. Kathy takes up with a kind deputy named Lester (Ron Eldard), who offers her a place to live while he tries to get her house back. Lester’s married, of course, although he claims the marriage ran out of passion a long while back. This is a character we’ve all seen time and time again – the guy who says it’s over and it’s just a matter of time before the divorce becomes final – but somehow Eldard slips a few extra layers onto the character, and it’s tough to determine if he’s Good or Bad.
About two-thirds of the way through the movie, the plot settles into a familiar storyline (which I won’t explain here). At that point, I started to think of this as a glorified slasher film. But almost as soon as that through had taken root in my mind, the twists and turns began to shoot at me with intensifying rapidity; it’s not immensely difficult to follow the plot, but there are definitely turns that most viewers won’t see coming.
The most pleasant surprise in this movie is Connelly. No longer is she the preternatural heroine of Labryinth; no longer is she the sex object in Career Opportunities. She’s now done three incredible movies, movies in which her character was both lush in scope and luscious in appearance: Pollock, A Beautiful Mind, and this one. I’m not shocked that she can turn in such a fine performance, but three times in three disparate movies? Tough to do. She deserves all of the praise she gets.
The ending is as compelling as they come, although it’s more than a little sad. But unlike movies that have downer endings, this one really hits you in the heart; because each character is both good and bad, one feels conflict where in other films one might feel simple relief or gratification.
House of Sand and Fog is an absorbing, riveting psychological drama that pushes all of the right buttons with help of a first-rate script (Andre Dubas III’s novel and director Vadim Perelman’s screenplay) and a marvelous cast.
House of Sand and Fog: ***1/2
157 – Ripley's Game
Posted by frothy in Ripley's Game (2002) on April 12, 2004
Ripley’s Game is the third Ripley story (by Patricia Highsmith) to be filmed, following 1960′s Purple Noon (with Alain Delon as Ripley) and 1977′s The American Friend (with Dennis Hopper as Ripley). Purple Noon was later remade as The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), with Matt Damon as Ripley, and here The American Friend is remade, with John Malkovich as Ripley.
In this story, Ripley’s all grown up and has become quite the conniving scoundrel. Phrases like that are best at depicting the completely amoral Ripley, especially when put against a backdrop of Germany and Italy and Old Europe in general. It’s not that Ripley doesn’t care, it’s that… well, okay, it’s that Ripley doesn’t care.
Ripley’s pal Reeves (Ray Winstone) has a job that needs to be done, but when he asks Ripley to handle it, our resident evil-doer demurs – he has a better murderer in mind. Jonathan Trevanny (Dougray Scott) is a framemaker whose son has leukemia. Ah, the perfect man for the job. Ripley offers Trevanny a lot of cash, drawing the innocent into his game.
The main problem with the movie is that there’s no real urgency, no sense of peril. We understand from the get-go that Tom Ripley’s a sociopath, but we’re given no clues as to his intentions or motivations. And adding to the ennui is Malkovich himself. Ordinarily, I can’t think of anyone better at playing a conniving scoundrel (see him in 1988′s Dangerous Liasions), but Malkovich is so understated in this role that often you can hardly hear what he’s saying! For the lead character to be so quiet and unassuming ought to be a federal offense. What was the director thinking?
But even if the performance was stronger, the plot itself is rather pedestrian. Oh, sure, you get pretty scenery (it’s well photographed), but the twists and turns are really a simple matter of connecting the dots. Almost any fool could see how this one ends.
Ripley’s Game: **
156 – Something's Gotta Give
Posted by frothy in Something's Gotta Give on April 7, 2004
Romance among the AARP set in a movie is never an easy proposition, pardon the pun. The participants have to be sexy enough that the younger people in the audience don’t get all grossed out (“Gramma and Granpa are KISSING!!! With tongue!!!!”), but not too sexy. The audience wants to be swept off its feet, but it doesn’t want anything that’s overly salacious.
For the most part, writer-director Nancy Meyers succeeds here. Diane Keaton plays Erica Barry, a neurotic, highly successful playwright. Jack Nicholson plays himself. Okay, technically he plays 63-year-old Harry Sanborn, owner of a hip-hop record label and chronic womanizer.
One of the funniest scenes in the movie comes right near the beginning. Harry’s with his new squeeze Marin (Amanda Peet), at Marin’s mom’s house. There’s Harry, in his boxers and a t-shirt, putting wine in the ‘fridge, when Marin’s mom – you guessed it, Erica – unexpectedly comes home. Naturally, she thinks he’s an intruder and calls 911. I mean, wouldn’t you? It takes some explaining, but soon the misunderstanding is cleared up and our combatants (oops, participants) can get on with the romancin’.
The thrust of the story (oops, another pun) is that while fooling around with Marin upstairs, Harry suffers a heart attack. At the hospital, Dr. Mercer (an interestingly cast Keanu Reeves) admonishes the unrepentant Harry for overexerting himself and tells him not to travel for a little while. Yup, you guessed it, that means he has to bunk with Erica. And our romance is thus set up.
The good news is that pairing Keaton and Nicholson (who appeared together in 1982′s Reds) was a great, great idea. Keaton basically plays a grown-up Annie Hall, and she manages to look sexy and daffy at the same time. Nicholson, for all his bluster and creakiness, still has the panache that has served him so well for the past forty years or so.
The trouble is that after their relationship is consummated, the two leads behave like seventh graders. Now, no offense to you seventh graders out there, but you do have a tendency to get melodramatic. Admit it. In this movie, Erica spends – no exaggeration here – a good ten minutes sobbing. And sobbing. And sobbing. Everywhere and anywhere. Yikes and double yikes. For his part, Harry broods like no one’s ever brooded before, like he’s up for an Olympic medal in the event of Feeling Bummed Out. After a while, you wish these two crazy kids would just get over it. Call her! Call him! Do something!
To make matters worse for the relationship, Erica writes a play based on her experiences with Harry, complete with him dancing drunkenly in a hospital gown. Does this lady play hardball, or what?
Granted, the storyline is predictable, but the two leads are wonderful, and very well cast. Meyers wrote the script with Keaton and Nicholson in mind specifically, the decision was a wise one. Something’s Gotta Give has a funny beginning and a sweet ending, but the middle suffers from an unfortunate lag.
Something’s Gotta Give: **1/2
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