Archive for August, 2007
345 – The Number 23
The Number 23 is a stylish thriller about a man who reads a screwy book and becomes obsessed with the titular number. Sounds intriguing, but there’s simply not enough substance behind the style (perpetrated by director Joel Schumacher and cinematographer Matthew Libatique) to justify the ominousness. The movie feels like a conspiracy theory spouted off by a aged wino, although Jim Carrey, as the suddenly changed protagonist, is appropriately grim and unhinged throughout.
Carrey is Walter Sparrow, a pet-control officer (i.e., dog catcher) who begins reading a self-published, self-printed book called “The Number 23″ by a pseudonymous author, Topsy Kretz, that seems to eerily mirror Walter’s own life and that points to 23 as a number steeped in meaning. As Walter reads, he becomes more and more attuned to the number’s presence, even creating grand stretches of truth to make it fit (such as sometimes adding the digits of numbers to get 23, and other times adding the combined numbers, anything to reach the goal). In between reading the book – which most of us would probably finish in an evening but that Walter takes many days to complete – Walter has vivid nightmares that end with his killing his wife Agatha (Virginia Madsen).
The question isn’t really whether Walter’s insane, because clearly he’s a bit not sane. The question is, as posited by the movie, whether the number 23 has any kind of particular hold over certain people. The movie doesn’t address why some people who read the book don’t get all bent out of shape over it, or why this particular number is more powerful than any other number. It simply tells us that the number 23 Means Something, and that Something is never a good thing.
Walter’s desperate attempts at retaining his sanity and solving the mystery of the unknown author draw both Agatha and their thirteen-year-old (what, not 23?) son into the situation, which is good, because it gives Carrey something to react to other than mood lighting and creepy basements. Carrey leaves most of the shameless, doofus mugging aside for a more “serious” – scare quotes totally necessary – acting here, opting instead for a mostly constant eye-lolling hysteria and paranoia.
If the movie had wound up being a stark psychological thriller with no easy ending, it might have been servicable, but instead it’s wrapped up way too neatly for such a plot based in mysticism and conspiracies. At the end, you kind of expect someone to remove a rubber mask and say they would have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for that meddling thirteen-year-old kid, his bookstore-owning milf-like mom, and his wacko dad. In short, the ending is trite and utterly predictable, a little too realistic and believable in a movie that could have used a shot of imagination adrenaline.
**
344 – 300
Remember those commercials for the US Marines, wherein some ripped young recruit is climbing a mountain, and then he almost falls as he reaches the summit, so he reaches out with a muscular arm and, gritting his teeth and emitting some sort of war cry, he reaches for the mountain and hoists himself up? That’s sort of how the entire two hours of 300: men screaming as they stab, fillet, garrote, gut, and impale their enemies on pointy things. It takes two hours because there are so many enemies, and because they’re using spears and swords instead of guns.
300 is loosely based on a real-life event, the 480 BC defense by a small band of Spartan soldiers of their homeland from a marauding Persian army, led by Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro). The movie is more directly based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel about the battle itself, so some liberties are taken, but more importantly the use of the comic as the basis allows the blood and gore to be shown in an almost-surrealistic format, thus enabling the normal (read: not bloodthirsty) viewer to enjoy the film without feeling guilt at seeing so much mayhem.
King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) has a tough decision to make. An emissary from Xerxes meets him and tells him that Sparta must bend its knee to its new ruler. Leonidas will have none of this, and soon the messenger and his companions are thrown down a deep pit. Okay, that was an easy decision. Now Leonidas must decide whether to wait for Xerxes’ army or to take the fight to the edge of the sea, meeting the enemy there. The trouble is, Sparta is a society with touches of democracy: in order to go to war, Leonidas must get approval from the Council, which isn’t inclined to give it. This does not stop our hero-king.
The last time I saw an adaptation of a Frank Miller graphic novel, I was extremely unimpressed – Sin City, I thought, was terrible both technically and creatively. But 300 is different; the blood, which is omnipresent, is stylized, wonderfully imagined, and incredibly detailed, even on a ten-year-old, 27-inch TV set. You can literally see individual drops of blood as they fall from each wound! Some of you are already shaking your heads – “Um, that’s not a good thing, seeing that!” – but you’re wrong! Or, you’re not wrong, just not the intended audience for 300. The movie, particularly the battle scenes, can be best compared to the fight scene in Kill Bill Vol. 1 in which Uma Thurman takes on the Crazy 88. In that scene, Thurman’s Beatrice slices and dices through minions after minions, lopping off limbs with aplomb; it’s much the same here in 300, and in each scene the violence is raised (or lowered) to an appropriate cartoonish level.
Butler gives a truly commanding performance – perhaps on par with Russell Crowe’s turn as Maximus in Gladiator or Mel Gibson’s in Braveheart, a true, fearless leader who is well prepared to die to save his country and his land. Leonidas is terrifyingly strong and courageous, an imposing figure even in the eyes of Xerxes, who fancies himself a king-god (at the time, the Persian army was the largest in the world). Leonidas must inspire his countrymen not only to fight for their families and homes but also to follow him to their certain deaths. I mean, come on – 300 soldiers against tens of thousands? It’s not an obvious victory. Butler is truly up to the test as the tenacious warrior king, a man who would rather die than be subjugated – a fact that eludes Xerxes until the battles are nearly over.
On one level, too, this is a chick flick. I mean, every male actor is bare chested, and he’s totally cut. (The actors had to work out using some pretty intense, tortuous methods to get those six-pack abs.) So if you’re of the female persuasion and like well-built men, this is a movie for you. Sure, they stab each other a lot, so that might put you off, but look! Half-naked men! You gotta love that, right? And for the men, there’s sweet, sweet death of numerous characters, some named, mostly not. In fact, according to IMDb, 585 deaths occur in the movie! Sweet indeed.
While Leonidas and his 300 battle to the death, a battle of words takes place back at home. Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) tries valiantly to persuade the Council to send the full Spartan army – Leonidas wasn’t permitted to take them, obviously, since the Council hadn’t granted permission for war – to help back up their king. To do this, she must work her way around the conniving Theron (Dominic West, who looks a lot like Harry Hamlin and acts like Han Solo gone way bad). And that’s fun and all, and Headey is wonderful – and gorgeous and wise – but thankfully these scenes are short and small in number. The battle scenes are the real draw! HA-OH!
Although the violence may turn some people off, those who like that sort of thing will be enthralled at its exquisite detail and poetic beauty. Butler is so superb, you want to leap into your TV and follow him to the ends of the Earth.
***
343 – Superbad
Superbad manages to be both enjoyable and touching, and not in the creepy-uncle sort of way, either. If you can stomach the 186 instances of the f-word – and I’m sure most of you can – you’ll never stop laughing. It’s hysterical. I’m not going to put it on the level of classics such as Airplane! or Young Frankenstein, but coming from a thirtysomething who’s not the intended audience, it’s badass in its funniosity. It’s a movie in which high school seniors talk like high school seniors and act like high school seniors, not a movie like Porky’s, in which guys with receding hairlines pretended they hadn’t yet grown pubic hair.
First things first – I’m changing my name to McLovin, because it’s THAT hardcore. When chicks hear my name, they may give me an askance look, but they’re really thinking, “Hm, that is so hawt.” I know this because Fogel (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) wound up scoring, sort of, on the basis of his new name. That’s right, pushed-up glasses, dorky haircut, stammering, it all means diddly if you have one and only one name. Why else did Madonna get so much action back in the day? Or Jackee’? Or Cher. Or Fabio. Yes, I’ll be the thirtysomething, Dilbert-like Fabio. Chicks dig that.
Fantasy aside, here’s the basic plot. Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) are longtime buds who are nearing the end of their high school existence. They expected to go to college together as well, but it turned out that Evan was hella smarter than Seth, so although the former got into Dartmouth, the latter could do no better than a state college. Moreover, it’s the standard end-of-school party time! Seth wants desperately to hook up with Jules, who’s hosting the party. To get into her good graces, he tells her that he and Evan will supply the shindig with booze. (Everyone’s underage, in case that wasn’t clear.) Meanwhile, Evan has the hots for Becca, whom he respects – Evan’s one of those quiet, sensitive types, always tripping over himself not to be impolite while being awkward. The boys now have a quest – use Fogel’s newfound fake ID – he’s suddenly a 25-year-old Hawaiian named McLovin! – to buy a metric crapload of liquor for the party.
As with Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, everything goes wrong. Fogel’s separated from Evan and Seth when the liquor store is robbed, and the other two wind up at a soiree where, among other things, Seth winds up with a nasty liquid on his pants. Plus there are two ribald, hell-raising cops who smoke, drink, shoot their guns in the air – on duty. Aw, yeah. “Can I shoot one?” asks Fogel. “I don’t know,” replies Officer Michaels, “can you?”
On one level, this is pure raunch, with sex and cursing (and even some mild drug use). Lots of sex references that might squick you out if you’re of a certain age and can’t handle teens even thinking about fornication. (You probably haven’t read this far, then, bailing when the “f-word” term was used earlier.) But even so, the profanity seems somehow natural, almost organic – this is how kids talk. Not all, surely, but some portion. It’s not as if they’re all being presented as child prodigies who harbor mean streaks, they’re merely acting as typical teens might.
On another level, though, there is deep meaning in the relationship between Evan and Seth, two friends who have grown to be completely dependent on each other over the years, so much so that they’re in denial about their future – Evan will be rooming with Fogel at Dartmouth, a fact he’s kept from Seth. Seth is arrogant, loud, obnoxious, and not particularly bright or gallant, and Evan is his polar opposite in nearly everything. Neither one exudes machismo or toughness, although Seth puts up a good front. Their sweet, platonic relationship comes off as sincere to its very core. This is not a cheap dichotomy thrown together for laughs; you get the feeling Seth and Evan really care for each other and that each feels he’d be hopelessly lost without the other. It’s a bittersweet feeling.
But that’s all below the surface. Revel instead on the entertaining performances by the bombastic Hill and the reserved Cera – these guys act as if they’ve known each other all their lives, the chemistry’s so good. Also no slouch is the inimitable Mintz-Plasse, who’s a bit like DJ Qualls’ character in Road Trip: geeky and yet appealing as all get out. Superbad is charming, nasty fun.
***
Netflix of the tongue
I have no content to justify that title, but it sounded punny enough to be a groaner, so there you go.
As most readers (all 15 of you) might know, I have a Netflix account. My queue is pretty large (over 250 movies), and at this rate I’ll get to all 250, without adding any more, in about five years. Approximately.
Here’s a fun exercise, if only because I’m curious:
List the Netflix films you have at home, then list the first five films in your queue.
For me:
At home
1. Pretty Poison (1968) (being sent, actually)
3. 300
In queue
1. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie (very long wait)
2. Morocco (very long wait, because it’s no longer available)
Some of those guys have been in various gotta-see queues for many, many years.
How about you guys?
Worst movies by Great (or at least Good) directors: Part II
Here we are with Part 2 of our scintillating series on Bad movies by at least somewhat-excellent directors.
In our first installment, we covered some real humdingers: Match Point, Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, Vanilla Sky, and Internal Affairs, among others. We continue our look here, as I move down the list of directors alphabetically.
Closer, Mike Nichols. Take four pretty people who are otherwise annoying as hell, and make them fall for each other in various combinations. Hell, make one of them turn into a stripper. THAT would be pure movie magic. Such it was for Natalie Portman, Jude Law, Clive Owen, and Julia Roberts. Owen went on to better things, for sure, but here he – as well as the other four – comes off looking metaphorically awful. And Nichols is no slouch in the movie biz, having directed The Graduate, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and The Birdcage, among others. There’s no wit, there’s no charm, although there’s plenty of beauty, it’s barely skin deep.
Death Becomes Her, Robert Zemeckis. This “comedy” about a plastic surgeon (Bruce Willis) whose handiwork (Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep) comes back to haunt him is unfunny on any level, and it’s painful to watch considering the people involved. After Back to the Future, but before Forrest Gump, Zemeckis decided to see what would happen if he threw a lof of maybe funnies against a wall. Nothing sticks; everything stinks.
Driven, Renny Harlin. C’mon, Renny. Die Hard 2? Awesome. Cliffhanger, The Last Kiss Goodnight, Cutthroat Island? Less awesome, but still a lot of fun. No, really. And then this vomit, starring a weathered Sly Stallone as a veteran racecar driver who’s supposed to mentor a hotshot who doesn’t wanna play by the rules, man. Don’t keep him back! Let him fly! And then there are women involved, and jealousy, and crap it’s a bad movie. Do not watch it.
My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Ivan Reitman. Stripes! Ghostbusters! This junk! Where did it all go wrong for Mr. Reitman? This movie had a preposterous premise to begin with. Sure, I can see ex-girlfriends being pissy and not wanting “their” man to be with anyone else, ever, but when you make a movie about that, you either have to make the ex be the bad guy or you make her be the good buy but not have her, you know, go freaking nuts. Uma Thurman’s G-Girl goes nuts AND is the bad guy, and yet somehow we’re supposed to sympathize with her? The hell? Makes no sense. I felt bad for Luke Wilson for being in the movie.
Poison, Todd Haynes. Haynes had a pretty good idea with his later Safe, starring Julianne Moore. But rather than play it, ahem, safe, he got all experimentally and gave us a nonsense movie. It’s short, and it’s divided into three minimovies, so you get three short movies for the price of one, and none of the characters are compelling or even vaguely interesting. What else is there to say? It’s boring. Trust me. I don’t know what could have improved this movie.
Primary Colors, Mike Nichols. A lot of people liked this filming of Joe Klein’s account of Bill Clinton’s first White House campaign, circa 1992, but I wasn’t suitably impressed. Someone with Nichols’ track record might have given me a better reason to like John Travolta (!) as the Clinton-like candidate (the movie’s barely fictionalized, for some reason). Come on, we all knew it was supposed to be Clinton, so why use Travolta? Although he’s porky, he’s still not presidental timber. His godawful Southern good ol’ boy accent grated rather than ingratiated. Good supporting cast, but a real doozy of a dozer.
The Road to Wellville, Alan Parker. Parker gave us Fame and Mississippi Burning, so he knows his way around a set. So why did he feel compelled to make a movie about people getting colonics and enemas at a health spa at the turn of the century (last century) run by the brother of the guy who invented Frosted Flakes? If there’s one thing I can never get enough of in movies, it’s people pooping their brains out. They should have marketed this with the tagline “Crap Happens. Eventually.” There, you see? Comedy gold! Or silver.
Signs, M. Night Shyamalan. M. Night suckered me into watching this crop-circles flotsam when it came out. Hey, the man did The Sixth Sense, which was fantastic, and Unbreakable, which was moderately awesome, but this one fell completely flat. Stupid kids, pious-to-a-fault dad, dopey brother – who’s really making those circles in the field, anyway? Lowlight? The rubber-suit alien who looks RIGHT out of 1954′s Creature from the Black Lagoon. Poorly written, badly acted, and a completely nonexistent special effects budget. Characters change from wacky to serious and back at the blink of an eye, thereupon jettisoning all you knew about them – or cared to, thankfully.
The Village, M. Night Shyamalan. Although Signs suckered me, I decided to give The Village a shot. Seemed like a good premise – a village in the middle of nowhere tends to its own, follows its own rules, has no contact with the outside world, and stays away from the scary monsters beyond its borders. And then they need medical help, and so.. It made sense to a fault, but there’s a huge red herring about three-quarters through the movie that, instead of heightening the mystery and suspense, merely makes you slap your forehead and say, “Ah, fer crying out loud! WHY THAT?” After this, I vowed never to watch Shyamalan’s faux twisties again, and I have held to that.
The Weather Man, Gore Verbinski. In between romps with the Pirates of the Caribbean, Verbinski did this “small” film about a beat-down TV weather dude (Nicholas Cage!) who a wife who hates him, a son who’s in rehab, and a daughter who smokes. Oh yeah, they’re youngsters, too, not twentysomething debutantes. The whole thing is mopey, dopey, and completely lacking in vigor. Take some sleeping pills instead to save you the concurrent heartache.
(Edited to remove obvious inaccuracy. Mixed up Paul Haggis and Mike Figgis. Could happen to anyone, right?)
342 – Zodiac
The true-crime thriller is one of the toughest kind of movies to make, because so many of the viewing audience will already be familiar with the storyline and can more easily anticipate what happens next. And the toughest true-crime thriller to make is probably one in which the culprit, in real life, was never caught. Then what do you do, hotshot? What do you do?
If you’re director David Fincher, you focus the plot not on the killings or on the resolution of the case but rather on the massive manhunt and intrepid detective work turned in by Inspectors David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) as well as the unofficial sleuthing by newspapermen Paul Avery (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal). Thus humanizing the forces attempting to bring the Zodiac to justice, Fincher is able to not only tell the tale straightforwardly but also scare the bejezus out of his audience, as is his wont. By identifying with the four leads, the audience has no choice but to hope against hope – knowing what it knows of the real story – that somehow good will perserere.
Of the four leads, the weak spot might be assumed to be the callow Gyllenhaal, but as it turns out he’s easily the strongest link in a tough chain of thespians. Graysmith, on whose book the movie is based, doggedly pursued the case as the paper’s cartoonist, much to the chagrin of those around him – his employers, his colleagues, and his wife (Chloe Sevigny) and kids. Graysmith MUST KNOW what happened. He wants to look Zodiac in the eye and somehow determine his culpability. Gyllenhaal – who should change his name to an easier to spell surname – is absolutely aces, which is a phrase I never thought I’d type regarding Jake Gyllenhaal. He’s never impressed me, looking to have exactly one emotion – moroseness – and I’ve always thought he was far too highly rated, But here, young Jake has won me over, just as Josh Hartnett did with Lucky Number Slevin and Kate Winslet did with any number of films after the awful Titanic. Gyllenhaal is superb, believable, and sincere in a commanding performance.
The others aren’t slouches, of course. Downey, Jr., aping Al Pacino from Serpico – except not playing a burned-out cop, just a burned-out reporter – is appreciatively scuzzy as Avery, a man never too far from a dangling cigarette or a murky drop of alcohol. Ruffalo and Edwards (where’s he been?) are a perfect match as two cops as desperate as Graysmith to find out the killer’s identity, all the while trying to coordinate with other jurisdictions, the press, and the public. Ruffalo in particular is a treat to watch, and I’m not going on a limb when I say that someday that young man will have an Oscar nom to his credit.
Fincher creates a edgy atmosphere throughout – you honestly believe Zodiac will leap out from any corner’s shadows to knife or gun you down. He also achieves the tough task of showing the passage of time efficiently – by showing the construction of a San Francisco skyscraper in stop-motion. Nice touches like that can make a film. And of course, Fincher is no stranger to descending to the depths of ourselves, what with movies like Seven, Panic Room, and Fight Club to his credit. With Zodiac, he’s managed to take a riveting story and make it even more compelling – even without a compelling ending in real life.
***1/2
Worst movies by Great (or at least Good) directors: Part I
Everyone has their missteps. Heck, even The Beatles had “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?”, which was by all standards absolutely awful. And so it is with movie directors who ordinarily turn in pretty good, nay, great work. Let’s look at some of them, shall we?
The Beach, Danny Boyle. After Trainspotting, but before 28 Days (and Weeks) Later, Boyle got this gig, Leonardo DiCaprio’s first film after Titanic. Much pressure was on Boyle and company, and this adaptaton of an Alex Garland movie was doomed from the git-go, what with problems with weather while filming on location. The movie couldn’t possibly have lived up to the hype it generated, but it was simply a bad idea. The only saving grace is the awesome scenery.
Black Sunday, John Frankenheimer. This 1977 “thriller” is about a terrorist plot to kill a bunch of people during the Super Bowl, but it’s largely suspenseless and dull. This from the man who directed The Manchurian Candidate and Birdman of Alcatraz. What was he thinking? No, don’t answer that; it’s rhetorical, that means you don’t have to answer. Frankenheimer probably needed the cash. But at least you get to see Bruce Dern unhinged, and you know that never happens in movies.
Bonfire of the Vanities, Brian DePalma. DePalma might be a copycat of Hitchcock, but his movies are generally pretty good entertainment. Blow Out was good, dammit, and so were The Untouchables and Dressed to Kill. But this bloated sea of entropy was downright awful, with uninspired casting, dreadful directing, and laughable dialog – from a Tom Wolfe novel, no less. And to make it all clear how bad this is, some awesome actors were involved – Tom Freakin Hanks! Bruce Willis! Morgan Freeman! The hell? These guys are great, and yet..
Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, Joe Berlinger. Back in 1993, Berlinger made a great documentary called Brother’s Keeper about four siblings who lived in the same tiny shack in upstate New York, until one of them killed another of them. It’s a tremendous, honest look at not only the crime but also the lives of the reclusive brothers. Seven years after making this documentary, Berlinger was handed the reins of the Blair Witch sequel; people either loved or hated the original, and many revered its anarchic, low-budget approach. Since the original made so much money, there was a sizable budget allowed for the sequel. Instead of making a plausible follow-up, Berlinger instead had a bunch of crappy wannabe journalists and “fans” show up in the same woods to have the same crap happen again. The acting was completely nonexistent, and any relation to the first movie was coincidental. It’s an embarrassment. Berlinger should have instead made it as a documentary about the first one!
The Brothers Grimm, Terry Gilliam. Gilliam has a wonderful imagination and odd sense of humor (coming from the Monty Python troupe, of course), so why did he dredge up this dreck? The leads (H. Ledger and M. Damon) aren’t appealing, although the visuals are good. Trivia: Gilliam refused to allow Damon to wear a prosthetic nose in the movie, leading the latter to do so in his Ocean’s Thirteen. But Grimm is confused about what it wants to be, and therefore it’s master of nothing.
Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, Bob Clark. Yes, the man who brought you A Christmas Story and Porky’s started out with this awful junk. The “children” are the minions of a film director who wants to make a scary movie. I think I’m selectively blocking out what the dead things are, but the movie’s terrible from start to finish, with crappy production and a disinterested cast. Boring. But then again, it IS Canadian.
Cool World, Ralph Bakshi. The man brought us Fritz the Cat and Heavy Traffic! He was a great animation artist! And then, in 1992, he unleashed this crap on us. Kim Basinger plays a cartoon who yearns for the real world, and she gets her wish when Gabriel Bryne brings her here. Only it turns out that’s bad, for reasons that escape me now. But here’s the thing – Basinger’s SO unsexy, her ‘toon form is a sex goddess by comparison. Sure, that’s Basinger’s fault, but trust me, it’s a muddled, dark, listless pile o’ dung.
Gosford Park, Robert Altman. Altman was a genius, yes, although for most people he was just as bad as he was good. He was innovative, people! Actors mouthing dialog over each other, heck, that was a new thing in 1970. Used to be, you’d have to wait for Hepburn to quit jabbering before you could get your lines in, but I digress. Altman was behind Gosford Park, which somehow I forgot to review. Oh well, let me put it here – it was convoluted and confusing, and with so many British accents floating about, I had trouble figuring out what the heck was even being said, let along following a coherent plot. It was all pointless.
Internal Affairs, Mike Figgis. Figgis would go on to direct Leaving Las Vegas, which won scores of awards.This one’s about a bad cop (Richard Gere) and the cat-and-mouse game he plays with the division of the title, represented by Andy Garcia. Both actors are pretty troubling, but Gere’s performance is constipated, even for him.
Jade, William Friedkin. What do you do when your romantic leads don’t have any chemistry? Well, apparently you make the movie anyway. Starring Linda Fiorentino (who knows from neo-noir), Chazz Palminteri (who does, too), and David Caruso (wha?). Makes you long for The Exorcist to possess all three of them. What should have been titillating was merely dull.
Life Stinks, Mel Brooks. If Brooks weren’t in this dud, you’d never have ascertained he was behind the camera, too. A rich man is bet he can’t survive 30 days on the street, and thereupon he finds the True Meaning of Life. Not Laughs. Mining the homeless for jibes seems like shooting fish in a barrel, but first you have to get the fish into the barrel, then select the right gun, and … eh, let’s face it, Brooks shot his comedy wad a long while ago. This one was deadingly flat.
Man on the Moon, Milos Forman. Forman, the auteur who gave us One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, stumbled with this biopic of comic Andy Kaufman, who died young after living oddly. The trouble is that no one understand Kaufman any more after watching the movie than they did before it, and this was a man who’s life was screaming to be understood. He seemed strongly unlikable, which made him an odd selection of a biography in the first place. It’s a worthless mess.
Match Point, Woody Allen. Yes, many people despise him for shacking up with his stepdaughter, or adopted daughter, or whoever she is. Fine, whaddever. But beyond that, Allen’s made some truly wonderful films, such as Manhattan, Annie Hall, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Bullets over Broadway, and Hannah and Her Sisters and is regarded as an auteur. But for his misstep, I give you Match Point, the worst of the bunch. Yes, he’s done some unsatisfying movies over the years, particularly in his sixties and seventies, but this one’s the worst because everyone ELSE seemed to think it was perfect. Boggles the mind. It was SO bad. The lead actor couldn’t act, and the movie takes a wild left-hand turn about three-fourths through it that makes no sense – and then is intractably predictable the rest of the way. Implausible and unlikable.
Panic Room, David Fincher. The man gave us Fight Club, Seven, and even The Game, and we get this, too? Anytime you keep the action in a movie confined to one room, you’re in trouble. Even Jodie Foster can’t save this junk – the added touch of the ugly daughter being sick was just treacly enough to induce vomiting. The only standout is Forest Whitaker as one of the three bad guys. Otherwise, it’s useless.
Red Eye, Wes Craven. There’s little suspense, since most of the action takes place on a plane that’s NOT being hijacked, and even when we get off the damn plane, the movie turns into the most predictable pile of glop ever. Rachel McAdams is agreeably perky, and Cillian Murphy makes a good bad guy, but the whole thing’s flat – and why the hell is Craven involved, anyway?
The Royal Tenenbaums, Wes Anderson. A pastiche of rich, unlikable bastards, and it’s supposed to be funny AND heartwarming! I liked Bill Murray, but Paltrow, the Wilson boys, Hackman, and Huston seemed useless. This is the kind of movie that makes you wanna fall into a distant state of ennui. Drugs might help. There’s not one character, aside from Murray’s, maybe, who you don’t want to club sideways with a two-by-four.
Scream and Scream 2, Wes Craven (again). Craven makes the list three times! Why yes, I’d love to see a scary movie, but instead I’m watching this junk. Love the fact that it snarks on previous horror movies, but it does so with such an aren’t-we-so-freakin-clever attitude that you want to slap the smugness off its face. Yeah, we get it, LIFE IS LIKE A HORROR MOVIE. Amazingly, when the horror geek lists all the things dumbass heroines do in horror movies, everyone goes out and does them. The parodies – the Scary Movies – were much better, for the most part.
Vanilla Sky, Cameron Crowe. Ooh, look! Tom Cruise, Movie Guy, playing a guy who’s disfigured! I’m sure his master thespian skills will shine! And he’s up against fellow legend of the acting profession Cameron Diaz! How could there be a better movie out there, with these two throwin’ down histrionics? Man, when Jason Lee gives the best performance in your movie, dude, you so suck. Irony alert: Look at the poster. He’s not disfigured, is he? And yet he IS disfigured, shortly after the movie begins. I wonder why? Could it be because the movie STINKS?
Part II when I get to it.
341 – The Invasion
Posted by frothy in Invasion, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) on August 18, 2007
Unexpectedly, The Invasion is a jarring, terrifying remake of the 1956 and 1978 versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, managing to update the widespread panic of the 1950s – owing to the Cold War and the looming, constant threat of a sneak attack by those nasty Reds – to a new kind of fear, stylized and customized to fit the crazed paranoia of the 2000s. Nicole Kidman gives a pitch-perfect performance as a mother who must stay away for the sake of her uniquely immune child, added a jolt of adrenalin to an already frantic, uncomposed, and passionate treatise on how people react when things go wrong.
It all starts with the US Space Shuttle exploding over the country during its return trip, scattering debris in a wide swatch from Dallas to Washington about 200 miles wide. People are warned not to touch the wreckage pieces, but do they listen? Not only don’t they listen, but some of the stuff turns up on eBay – the second time this year the online auction service plays a role in a motion picture. But it seems that the debris isn’t entirely benign, anymore, as it the astronauts had unwittingly been carrying an alien parasite on the outside of their craft.
Soon, those who have touched the debris are contaminated. But they’re not killed, no, they’re merely turned into shells of themselves, sort of how a viewer feels after watching too much Fox News. (Hey, I kid because I love freedom fries.) I mean, everyone who’s infected is at the same level of emotion, which is to say, none at all; no one even raises an eyebrow. Meanwhile, the grand ol’ guvmint decides to get ahead of the curve by inoculating the bejeezus out of everyone – for free! Awfully nice of then, really, although perhaps the fact that they had all that serum should have been a warning sign of sorts.
Carol Bennell (Kidman) is a trained psychologist who has a darling little son on whom she dotes; the father (Jeremy Northam) left them years ago but has suddenly shown up to reenter the boy’s life. Coincidentally, he’s also the head of the CDC, which is at the epicenter of this flu pandemic (I wanted so bad to say “epicenter of epidemic” there), so naturally he’s got some of the bad alien crap on him – handed to him, somewhat ham-handedly, by someone who found it at a crash site. Soon there’s a race against, well, not time, but something, as dear ol’ dad and his zombie-like cohorts try their damndest to get to carol and Oliver.
Joining the intrepid shrink is her best bud/wannabe lover Ben (Daniel Craig), who’s a doctor or something and who has a serious case of the yabba-yabba-do-mes for Carol, but the feeling’s not entirely reciprocated, on account of Carol doesn’t want to lose the wonderful friendship they’ve built up (they live next door to each other, the carpool). Groan. Points for plausibility, but negative points for obviousness and needlessness. On top of that, there’s an issue with the romantic chemistry between the slight Brit and the willowy Aussie; they actually SEEM more like they should be best buds and nothing more. When they kiss, the Earth doesn’t tremble, it yawns and asks for another beer.
But forget the romantic angle, and let’s focus on the escaping-from-bad-people-who-look-like-our-friends angle. As with the first two filmings of the Jack Finney novel, people fall victim to the virus when they fall into sleep, as their cells are attacked during the body’s REM cycle. So now you know the plan: Stay Awake. The very first scene in the movie slams this point home, as a raccoon-eyed Kidman scurries around a devastated drugstore, looking to score uppers and caffeine, anything to keep Morpheus or the Sandman from getting her. And she’s damn convincing at it, too, which says a lot about Kidman’s abilities; she’s a tremendous actress who can play a variety of roles, which is in itself tough to believe of someone who’s so elegant and luxuriant in appearance. Kidman’s so good that her acting – I know, go figure – completely distracts you from the fact that she’s gorgeous. Even when she’s dressing down, or when she looks like a crack whore desperate for another fix – she radiates sincerity.
Here’s a question – how come, when people are infected by this alien virus, they gain the speed of, well, zombies? Shouldn’t they be as fast as they were in the Before Time? The people here are one step away from full-on shambling, which makes you think it’d be fairly easy to get away from them – except that there are a LOT of them. In one scene, a good thirty of the mindless bastards jump on Carol’s car to prevent her escape, and off she barely drives, losing more as she veers. Brought to mind the whole clowns-in-a-Volkswagen trick.
The Invasion is spectacular, a realistic-seeming, fervent example of what might happen were the Earth to suffer a colossal pandemic. Remember, they’ve been talking about a flu pandemic for many years! Nicole Kidman is, as usual, awesome; you’re as scared for her and her progeny as Carol is.
***1/2
Glen or Glenda?
Posted by frothy in Glen or Glenda? (1953) on August 16, 2007
Is there anyone out there who remembers when this came out in 1953? (I sure don’t.) Anyway, it’s from the infamous – that’s more than famous! – Edward D. Wood, Jr., who stars in as well as directs and writes this turkey about a man who loves to wear women’s clothing and longs to wear the angora sweater of his betrothed (Dolores Fuller).
The movie’s stories are told in documentary fashion, but don’t kid yourself while watching it – this is not a mock documentary at all. It’s all perfectly straight-faced and legit. Straight-up legit, yo! Transvestites, represent! A crusty police inspector (Lyle Talbot) comes to a reknowned doctor to find out more about transvestites, since one’s just wound up a suicide. The doctor then regales the cop with tales of patients who’ve had surgery to go from man to woman and patients who just wear the clothes of their opposite gender. Meanwhile, we get flashbacks to the various stories, told from the patients’ points of view, plus lots of stock footage. Oh, and to cap it all off, a completely out-of-place Bela Lugosi narrating events from a mysterious, rain-soaked manse. “BEVARE!” he chants, apropos of nuttin’. Bevare of a crappy, crappy movie.
But it’s so bad it’s good, sort of, in that you can laugh at the unlaughable and sneer at the 1950s attitudes. Although I will give the film this much – never are transvestites presented to us as absolute freaks, irredeemable in the eyes of the Lawd; they’re shown as real people with real problems. So it’s kind of refreshing to see they’re not demonized.
Still, the movie sucks. Might be better if you take a big bong hit first, though. Your brain cells won’t know the difference.
*
340 – Hot Fuzz
Some might say that if you liked Shaun of the Dead, you’ll like Hot Fuzz, since they have the same director, writer, and stars (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost). But while Shaun was a more-or-less tongue-in-cheeky-cheek look at zombie movies, Fuzz is a little more straightforward, going for an action-comedy vibe rather than a horror-comedy vibe. This isn’t to say Hot Fuzz fails to meet expectations, it’s just that you sort of have to make sure your expectations are calibrated efficiently.
Nicholas Angel (Pegg) is a straight-arrow London bobby who is extremely good at his job. Crime declines considerably when he’s on the beat, much to the dismay of his superiors, who feel he’s making the rest of them look bad. As a punishment for his good deeds, Angel is transferred to the hinterlands of England, specifically a small village called Sandford, where he proceeds to lock up half the town in his first night on such reckless crimes as underage drinking and urinating in public. Oops, turns out the criminal of the second crime is his new partner – cue wacky soundtrack – who’s also the son (Frost) of the police chief (Jim Broadbent). Off to a bad start already, Angel is chagrined to learn that the police force in the sleepy town doesn’t really care a lot about crimestopping, instead electing to eat, drink, loaf, that sort of thing. Then people start to die in mysterious and gruesome ways, and only Angel believes they’re all connected. The deaths, not the people themselves, although that’s also possible. He smells a conspiracy, is what I’m trying to say here. But no one believes him – cue wacky soundtrack again.
Now, this might have come off as a one-note, dumb action movie if it weren’t for the grim determination of Pegg to essay a character of some depth. He’s not simply a righteous cop out to save the world, he’s a nice guy who has ultimate respect for the law and is devastated when others don’t. Pegg’s performance is perfectly sincere, and although he seems unassuming and even vague – witness his Shaun of the Dead – he is commanding, taciturn, and an utter delight as the seemingly humorless, single-minded cop. He’s fantastic, and because his character is so emotionless, the other actors by contrast seem even funnier, particularly Frost as a doofus who’d love to be more than what he is, if only there weren’t so much work involved. Broadbent, Stuart Wilson, Paddy Considine, and a wolfish Timothy Dalton round out a pitch-perfect cast.
Hot Fuzz is splendid, a genial change from Shaun of the Dead, as it maintains all the soul and equilibrium of that minor classic without feeling stodgy, stilted, or dull. Pegg in particular – good thing, since he’s the lead – manages to elevate the proceedings magnificently. Oh, and watch for Peter Jackson and Cate Blanchett in cameos (hint: it’ll be tough to spot Blanchett).
***
Don’t step in pig slop, and don’t snort my cocaine. Not yours
Posted by frothy in Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), Babe: Pig in the City (1998) on August 9, 2007
Every now and then, I take a break from New movies and delve into my ever-expanding Netflix queue to check out an older film. Sometimes it’s a certifiable classic that I’ve managed to miss; other times, it’s a fairly new movie that seems appealing; other, other times it’s a hidden gem that I’ve heard much ado about.
The other day, a couple movies showed up in my mailbox – Babe: Pig in the City and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The former is a sequel to the 1995 surprise hit, and the latter was the second pairing of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as the London sleuth and his portly, comic-relief friend.
Babe isn’t a bad movie, but it has very little of the charm that the first one had. Which is odd, because the director (George Miller) was the producer the first time around, so it’s not like he was bringing a wholly new approach to the story. Oh, and the story? Well, Farmer Hogget (James Cromwell) is seriously injured on the farm (with the help of Babe, yay Babe), and the nefarious, well-dressed men from the bank are going to foreclose on the farm, so it’s up to Mrs. Hogget to travel to the Big City with Babe to capitalize on their sheep-pig’s newfound fame. Only stuff happens, as any traveler can confirm – to start things off, Babe’s impounded by the luggage guys when a dog, showing off his olfactory moxie, barks his fool head off. Then officials force Mrs. Hogget to be strip searched, and then they’ve missed their shuttle, and finally they wind up at a hotel for people with pets. At the hotel, Babe meets orangutans and chimps from a travelling show (run by Mickey Rooney, who barely speaks in the movie), plus dogs and cats and those ubiquitous singing mice from the original movie. The calamaties never stop, of course, leading to one contrived happenstance after another, culminating in a frenetic, acrobatic pig chase at a haughty charity ball.
I suppose that if you decided that none of the story had to make any sense at all, if you viewed it as purely absurdist theater, you might be somewhat satisfied with the results. But although I thought Babe was cute and endearing in the first movie, here the character is a little less charming and seems no different than any other underdog character in the history of movies.
I will say this, though – the set designs were pretty nifty; it reminded me of the 1990 Dick Tracy film. Nothing’s too dirty or unusual. There’s a hint of a criminal element, but even that comes off as surreal. When Mrs. Hogget and Babe arrive in the city, we get a panoramic view of its skyline, which includes the Hollywood sign, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Sydney Opera House, the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the Rio de Janeiro statue of Christ, the World Trade Center, and the Empire State Buiding, among others. So The City is basically an amalgam of many big cities, which makes some sense, since Babe and Mrs. Hogget probably have never been to one, and this makes it easier to show the vast chasm of difference between city life and farm life.
Other than that, though, the movie just wasn’t much fun. Cromwell shows up for a few minutes at the beginning and at the end, which is a shame, because he’s an excellent actor. I guess the writers felt some contrivance was needed to get a Hogget to the Big City, and who would care if Mrs. Hogget was the one who couldn’t make it?
Of course, if you’re watching this hoping for a strong, unpredictable ending, you have to know you’ll be disappointed. I mean, really, do you think Babe won’t save the farm? Bah ram ewe, indeed.
**
And then we have Sherlock Holmes. Rathbone and Bruce teamed up for the second time, following Hound of the Baskervilles, released the same year. This time, Holmes is asked by a young woman (the wonderful Ida Lupino) to watch over her, because she fears the imminent demise of her brother after receiving a malicious note. Meanwhile, Holmes has also agreed to help guarantee the safe passage of a precious stone arriving from India, to be stored with the crown jewels. And behind every move, it seems, is the diabolical Professor Moriarty (George Zucco), who’s out to break Holmes and then retire from a life of crime.
Somehow, all of these storylines are related, although it takes Holmes quite a while to deduce this. Could there be misdirection involved? Oh, perhaps. And just maybe Holmes will figure it all out but not tell anyone how he’s come to those conclusions until after the bad guys have been rounded up, like glibly mention it to Watson while puffing his crack pipe and plinking his violin. I think that if Holmes were played here by a lesser actor than Rathbone, one might not be able to stifle the urge to slap the smugness right off his face. I also found it interesting that the only way to come up with a good villain was to make the villain even more pompous and irritating. By contrast to Moriarty, Holmes is Pollyanna.
It’s an entertaining movie, still, mostly because of the great chemistry between Rathbone and Bruce; Lupino proves she’s more than a gun-moll kinda actress; Bruce himself is perfectly cast as the comic relief, which is sorely necessary in this film. Not quite a classic most remember, but a lot of fun anyway.
***
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