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My interest in this 2002 movie ( released in the US in April 2004) was piqued by a preview and then an overly - exuberant review in the Boston Globe (here). Set in 1978 London (and supposedly based on director Duncan Roy's real life), Matthew Leitch plays Dean Page, a working-class boy who is sexually abused by his father and eventually kicked out of his house. After a rather unbelievable series of events, Dean finagles his way into high society and gets a job at a hoity-toity art gallery. He then moves to Paris and impersonates Alexander Gryffoyn (the son of his former employer) and moves fluidly through decadent high-society... despite the fact his accent is consistently not posh, he is unfamiliar with everything and everyone, and he is just plain boring. But it is on the strength of his assumed name and his willingness to hang out with admiring gay men that he is accepted. The entire movie is shown in three side-by-side frames that feature near-simultaneous action and sound but at different angles and timings. At first this was extremely annoying, and even after I adjusted, I always got the sense I was missing something, as I could only truly focus on one frame at a time. The year 2000 movie Timecode (here) employed a similar technique (with four frames), but in Timecode, it was essential to carry on the story. In AKA, it seemed unnecessary, like a film student's whim. The end of the movie flounders. It hammers home cliche after cliche about The Rich Idle Class of British society: All it takes is money and a name to be accepted. The subplot involving two employees for a credit card company that Dean is ripping off is confusing. All in all, AKA barely kept me entertained, didn't blow my mind with its "innovative" camera techniques, and was way too bogged down with ponderous messages about everything from Identity to Sexual Abuse to Prostitution to Elitism to Honesty to Maternal Relations to Paternal Relations to Loyalty to Duty ... and ultimately rather hollow and offensive views on Gay Sex. A satellite detects a heat surge in Antarctica that outlines a gigantic underground pyramid. Intriguingly, the pyramid show signs of being Egyptian, Mayan and Cambodian. The satellite's owner assembles a hodgepodge team of experts to investigate, and corrals a reluctant but plucky woman (played admirably by Sanna Lathan) to lead them to the pyramid under a sheet of ice. Honestly, this movie wasn't as bad as I expected it would be, but I had zero expectations. Someone who expects a bit more will be disappointed. This movie was hardly given the resources to do justice to the raw potential of Alien Vs. Predator. One of the main problems is the tedious movie pacing, probably meant to be suspenseful but it wasn't. Too much time is wasted on the bumbling humans. Too much time is wasted on building a mythology, on trying to rationalize why the Aliens and Predators are embroiled in fierce fighting (some passably entertaining battles near the end, by the way). And fans of both the Alien and Predator movies will be enraged by how the movie contradicts what we know about aliens and predators. How much can you expect from director Paul W.S. Anderson, whose filmography consists of entertaining but hardly epic flicks like Resident Evil, Event Horizon, and Mortal Kombat? The special effects were acceptable but hardly ground-breaking, and the pyramid interior could have invoked much more creepy dread then it did. The acting was pure schlock. The action scenes never reached a climax, and the death scenes were too cut and dry. And the ending felt like a sappy scene from Star Trek (not a good thing in my mind). I wish I could give this movie a half-thumb, a theoretical special rating reserved for movies that totally sucked but managed to keep me entertained the whole time. But too bad. No thumbs for you! Being Julia is about a famous stage actress in 1930s London who is in a rut. She's achieved fame, prestige and wealth, but she's tired, she complains to her husband/producer, with whom she has an open marriage of sorts. Julia feels like something needs to happen. Really, she's having a mid-life crisis, and any man could tell her exactly what she needs: A hot young piece of action, which she finds in an ardent American admirer who charms Julia into bed to give her just what she needs to love life again. At this point in the movie, I too was incredibly frustrated: Not another older woman/younger man movie! Just because we've seen thousands of older man-younger woman plots doesn't mean that the reversal is somehow more interesting! Luckily, the storyline picks up the pace towards the end. One can tell that this story is based on a novel because many details that could have enlivened the story feels clipped out of the script (W. Somerset Maugham's Theatre, which I've never read, having found Of Human Bondage to be tedious) . Annette Bening gives an excellent performance. She shines best when contemplating her competition, a blond actress named Avice who claws her way onto the stage with Julia. The ending is spectacular, which is why I left the theatre thinking "Not bad." But truth be told, aside from some sparkling dialogue, fabulous costumes, and Ms. Bening's joyful laugh, Being Julia was content with being nothing special.
I know a few things about big fish. They eat small fish. They are more likely to carry harmful amounts of mercury in their flesh. They are overfished. And they usually STINK. Bad plots ruin movies for me. I don't care how breathtaking the sets, scenery, score and costumes are. I don't care if the actors are convincing, or if I chuckled a few times, or Tim Burton is an excellent director (who is making increasingly poor project choices). If the plot just doesn't move me, that's all I'll remember. Billy Crudup was horrible in Big Fish. So annoying. He plays Will Bloom (oh, the foreshadowing!), a journalist who is estranged from his father because HIS FATHER TELLS TOO MANY STORIES. What? Who does that? Then Daddy's dying, so Will Bloom and his sexy pregnant wife rush to his bedside, and Dad tells the wife random stories about his remarkable life, presented to us in flashbacks. Will Bloom is pathologically fixated on the idea that his father is telling nothing but lies and always has. Then, predictably, Will discovers that there's some truth to the stories! Oh, it's just all so exciting. The highlights of the movie were Steve Buscemi as a poet and Alison Lohman as young Mother Bloom. Both appeared mainly in the flashbacks, the less agonizing scenes. The rest of the movie was practically unwatchable.
I never read Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, the book on which this movie is based. Apparently the movie glosses over much of the disgust that Waugh's prose exhibits for his High Society butterflies who flit from party to party in pre-WWII London. The movie urges the audience to laugh at the decadence of these characters (Oh how marvelous! She's shocking the Prime Minister in his own breakfast room! And she's the bloody spare driver!) and then, strangely, disappointingly, the decadent characters end up "getting what they deserve," so to speak. It definitely showed how the earlier scenes excused the utter immorality of these characters so they could be plucky comic relief (and fortunately for society but unfortunately for the movie, being a flagrant homosexual isn't all that shocking any way). The movie centers around a penniless writer in the upper crust named Adam, whose luck pendulates wildly from minute to minute. Adam comes into and then loses money, much to the hidden exasperation of his fiancee Nina. Through this couple, the morality of a society that allows money to triumph over love is questioned. And indeed, money triumphs over nearly everything in High Society. Luckily, WWII happens and we get an ending sticky with happiness.And the characters who I think acted most horribly make out like bandits. There are tons of nice little distractions from this rather ponderous plot: a wide assortment of characters, gorgeous costumes and scenery, and moments of true hilarity. I can't say Bright Young Things disappointed me; I was engrossed the entire time and it gave me something to think about. Most of the talent is underused. Frankly, I could have done without Dan Ackroyd as the newspaper magnate. Stockard Channing gets one good line, probably the best in the movie ("They call you bright, young people! Well one out of three isn't bad!") Peter O'Toole is cute, I guess. The movie lacked a clear context and felt clipped at moments. And the moral tone that it the ovie eventually adopted bored me. I'm bored, darling. But the movie definitely would make a fine Sunday afternoon rental. Not like I'm so smart, but as I watched Cold Mountain's last scene (a real heart warmer, carefully shot to offset the audience- and Oscar-alienating tragedy that precedes it) I thought "This movie is like a southern-fried English Patient." I had no idea at the time that Anthony Minghella in fact did also direct The English Patient (which never should have won ANYTHING, let alone nine Oscars). Cold Mountain and The English Patient both feature simple storylines padded with all of the necessary criterion for Oscar-worthiness. Here are the notable Oscar elements in Cold Mountain: 1. It takes place
during a historically significant time period (The Civil War in North
Carolina). The symbolism was heavy-handed, everyone was either evil or good (because we the audience can't cope with ambiguity), and Nicole Kidman is as interesting to watch as, well, Kristin Scott Thomas, that piece of wood that clanked her way through the English Patient.
The Cooler stars William H. Macy as a former compulsive gambler who must pay off his debt to casino owner Alec Baldwin. To do this, he works the floor of Baldwin's old-style casino as a cooler, or someone who can instantly "cool" a winner's hot streak. Macy, you see, is unlucky as hell, and Baldwin, you see, is stuck in the past and takes pride in employing the old ways (like beating up cheaters) to run his casino. Ron Livingston is a business guy brought in by the casino investors to help Baldwin modernize the casino. Just as Macy's about to pay off his debt and flee Vegas, he falls in love with a beautiful blond waitress... and it's dizzyingly mutual. Unfortunately... or fortunately... this somehow changes his luck as a cooler into bad luck as a cooler, or good luck to the gamblers, but bad luck to Baldwin and hence bad luck to himself and the girl, and... gosh, I swear it's really not this complicated. This movie had some promise. The depiction of the aging second-rate casino was right on, and the premise is cute. But egads! this movie reeked. First of all, the music was HORRIBLE. It was like this repeating droning one-instrument slow jazz. Second of all, watching the predictable plot unfold wasn't interesting at all because I just didn't care. Alec Baldwin's character was so one-dimensional, and Ron Livingston is totally wasted. The romance aspect of the story was cute for about one minute, then was just cloying. Everyone has such depressingly pitiful lives. Lastly, I do not ever want to see another gratuitous sex scene involving William H. Macy. That, my friends, is the real cooler. A Dirty Shame has the John Waters formula in full effect: His heroine (or sometimes hero) is pitted against a public obsessed with purity, decency, and the status quo. The often paper-thin (in a good way!) plot is padded with unforgettable characters flaunting their grotesqueness, shockingly hilarious visuals, and always appropriate cool soundtrack. Tracey Ullman stars as Sylvia Stickles, a straight-laced "neuter" housewife with head-injury induced transformations into a harlot sex fiend/12th apostle. Ullman is one of the few funny female comedians alive. As anyone who has ever seen her HBO show (or who can remember her Fox show beyond the Simpsons skits) can attest, she is not only versatile but consistently hilarious. Without her, A Dirty Shame would have been a crying shame Though we don't actually see any sex (just between computer-generated squirrels...) this NC-17 movie is ALL about sex. I'm not exaggerating. If you're going on a first date and have a choice between watching A Dirty Shame or going to a strip club, just go to the club, because at least the strip club won't involve adult babies, numerous euphemisms for oral sex or contemplating David Hasselhoff's feces as a plot device. I can't say I liked this movie, but I won't deny that it was entertaining. Which is probably true of all John Waters movies. And he's not dumbly entertaining; indeed, it's not like he's parading sex addicts in front of us just to make us laugh or to shock us. He wants us to think about what these sex addicts, and apply it to our lives... somehow. The movie is just a good time all around. And the ending... well, the ending demonstrated just how original John Waters is as a filmmaker, and I'll give him Two Thumbs for that. Jeff Bridges and Kim Basinger are going through a separation, years after an accident that killed their sons. Bridges is a successful writer and illustrator of children's books, while Basinger hangs around, looking grievous. They summer in the Hamptons, and spend time either psychologically traumatizing or ignoring their cute young daughter who was conceived after the accident. She knows way too much about her dead brothers. Then comes young Jon Foster, a prep-school brat hired as a writer's assistant for Bridges but ends up being a mere chauffeur for Bridges, giving him plenty of time to have sex with Kim Basinger. These darn preppies and their cushy summer jobs! This highly-nuanced movie has moments of profound sadness and genuine hilarity skillfully weaved together. The characters are well-developed though little screen time is devoted to character development. It's a movie for people who like to "make connections" after the movie ends but also like illicit sex and full-frontal female nudity (Mimi Rodgers! You Go! Flaunt your middle-aged self!). Knowing John Irving's work but never having read "A Widow for a Year" (the book this movie is based on), I bet money this movie is better than the book. And the only other movie/book I'd say that about is the Godfather, the book of which was, well, fuggitaboutit. Bridges is awesome. His character is a charming jerk with moments of earnest emotion. He's such a subtle actor, and one of the few actors who I think I wouldn't hate if I knew him personally. Kim Basinger is just sort of there, a passive sexy vessel, haunted by memories and her inability to overcome them. Still, I'm not itching to see it again. Most of the fun was watching the story unfold, and I don't think I'd enjoy it much a second time around.
You know that saying "It's sexier to conceal than reveal?" Actually, that's probably not an actual saying, but you get the concept. Modesty is sexier than nakedness. This sediment is true in some arts. Good poetry, for example, should leave unsaid what is otherwise obvious. Visual arts like painting or sculpting do this as well due to the medium's limitations. This is why it's necessary absorb poetry and art alongside literary criticism or some sort of guide that tells you what you don't see. Movies, however, shouldn't require additional research in order to be understood on a basic level. Yet, in order to understand what the hell Gus Van Sant was trying to do with Elephant, I had to search online for other people's theories... I looked here, and here, and here. And now I think I sort of understand it. Elephant is about students in a high school that is about to be attacked Columbine-style by two young males. It is filmed in a repetitive, time-transcending way. Most of the movie is shot with the camera focused on the back of a high school student's head as they walk around their school. This got old about 30 minutes into the movie. (By the way, is this a high school or a spring break resort? Kids wander freely around the school, don't go to classes, go to the Photography lab whenever they feel like, and get a pass to leave school for 2 hours? ) Did this movie make me feel as if I were back in high school again, wandering the halls, going into the lunch room, struggling through gym class? Not really. Was it supposed to? I don't know. I do know it got four stars in the Boston Globe and is highly acclaimed in Europe, so Van Sant must be saying something profound in the movie that is beyond me. On a side note: Why is it called Elephant? There are no elephants (actual or referenced) in this movie. If anyone knows or has a theory, please send me an email. I liked watching it, though. The music was beautiful. The way the stories overlapped was engaging. The only problem is the "message" is so concealed, it's wearing three layers of long underwear and a coat of knight's armor. And this type of concealing is just not sexy. You don't have to like the Ramones to enjoy this documentary, but it sure helps. Like everything the Ramones did, this history of the bare-bones black-leathered band that popularized the 3-minute fast song, influenced everyone from the Clash to the Dead Kennedys to Rob Zombie, and boosted a lead singer who was so unlikely to be a rock star that "he could only be a rock star" (that would be Joey, the tall waif who looks like Howard Stern)... will delight Ramones fans but leave others wondering cluelessly about the relevancy. The documentary features old and new interviews with all of the Ramones (notably Johnny, a right-wing control freak; Joey, a shy OCD "hippie"; Dee Dee the junkie, who would have rather been in the Heartbreakers; Tommy the first drummer, probably the most normal; Marky the second drummer, kicked out for being an alcoholic then welcomed back; and CJ, the young bassist who replaced Dee Dee.) It was a real thrill to see these interviews. The four original members were all friends in Queens in the 70s, but we really see their distinct and polar-opposite personalities; it's amazing these guys were in one of the tightest rock bands in history for so many years. There's also a fair amount of concert footage, photos, interviews with other famous musicians, amusing reminiscing, and much discussion about the meaning of the band. Why did the Ramones never achieve commercial success in this country when 90% of their songs were clean, almost quaint rock and roll songs? Why did they do a record with Phil Spector? Why are the Sex Pistols remembered as the punk icons when it should rightfully be the Ramones? Why did they never pause in between songs when they played live? Overall, a very complete documentary that even taught a music history buff like myself a few things (like... Johnny is a flagrant Republican. And the years-long rift between Joey and Johnny was caused by a woman named Linda, who Joey was dating but Johnny stole and married, inspiring Joey to write "The KKK Took My Baby Away." And Dee Dee released a rap album under the name Dee Dee King, and it is the WORST rap I've ever heard. White junkies can't rap.)
Eternal
Sunshine of a Spotless Mind (2004) Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind is a fine movie if you're kinda bored on a Tuesday night. I'm inclined to like screenwriter Charlie Kaufman because he writes movies that require proactive thought, not just reactive thought. Indeed, the story kept me engaged (though it did get a little predictable, and the subplot involving Kirsten Dunst didn't gel and felt tacked on). But, that being said, the movie had the following fatal flaws that sends it to One Thumbville: 1- Make me laugh, white boy!
2- Impulsive Brain Damage
3- That's so Trippy
4. I'm Crazy Blue Hair Woman!
Garden State is about a struggling actor in LA who returns to NJ for his mother's funeral. Andrew Largeman (Zach Braff, who also writes and directs) spends a few days post-funeral frolicking in NJ with old friends (especially his pot-smoking gravedigger friend), and a lively, zany epileptic liar named Sam (Natalie Portman). During the trip, Largeman doesn't take any Lithium-type meds, which he has been on since age 10 at the insistence of his father. This movie encapsulated timely life issues of my generation without being heavy-handed: Questioning our parent's eagerness to pump us full of mood-altering medication like Ritalin and Prozac as teenagers (not that I ever touched the stuff, but many of my peers did); the surreal ness of returning to your hometown after living in an entirely different part of the country; how to accommodate the sudden appearance of true love in your go-go life; how to bury a parent who was practically a distant stranger; and how happiness can be found in places you've never known about. Garden State is what movie reviewers term a "generational" movie; many reviews claim it doesn't live up to other generational movies, like Bottle Rocket and Rushmore. To which I say: You're talking 'bout my generation. Most of us weren't outrageous prep school richies. And while this movie ends too weakly to make any sweeping sociological statements, the themes are more relevant to my generation than any movie I can think of. Occasionally, Garden State would veer back into gratuitous sex/drugs mode, as if the audience would be bored without doses of MTV-style eye candy. So we get an orgy, and later a weird Peeping Tom scene, both of which added nothing except an insult to the audience. The acting was admirable, but then again, the only character who really had the opportunity to sparkle was Sam (Natalie Portman's character). 80% of the time I found her character to be likable, but sometimes she needed a smack. And is that former Designing Women star Jean Smart as the white-trash Jersey mom?!? Far out. It's amazing how I'm so much more inclined to like a person if they sport a Jersey accent instead of a Southern one. I knew I was in trouble when the movie opened with the studio version of the Grateful Dead's "Casey Jones" (Driving that train, high on cocaine) and half the heads in the theatre started bobbing to the beat. Ugh. Festival Express is a documentary about the 1970 Festival Express, a train on which scores of big-name musicians (Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin, the Band) lived on while they traveled across Canada to various hippie festival. The whole movie felt very slapped together. The footage on the train is amateurish and is not very impressive, save a few money shots (like Jerry Garcia drunkenly telling Janis Joplin he loved her from the first day he saw her while she cackles and crows). The footage at the actual festival is horrible, with repeated Woodstock-esque footage of people dancing like freaks or sitting on the ground, looking as if their minds have been blown. Janis Joplin, her vocal power gone to drink and drugs, is a cliche of herself; Sha-Na-Na made me embarrassed for them; the Grateful Dead are as boring as ever. The Band was competent if uninspiring. Strangely, it was the Flying Burrito Brothers who woke me up. The scenes from 1970 are spliced together with actual people who were there, man, reminiscing fondly about the time on the train. God, it's boring to listen to old hippies talk without saying anything meaningful. "Man, it was really great to be on a train, jamming and drinking all day and night with each other." YAWN. The movie, both past and present, centered around how the promoters lost money because many people were protesting the festivals with the wacky 60s notion that these festival should be free. I guess this movie is a belatedly attempt to re-coup some proceeds. This is the best German movie I think I've ever seen. Which probably isn't saying much. It's an endearing premise (East German mother who is really into socialism goes into coma, wakes up after the Wall falls, and her son tries to save her the shock by hiding German reunification from her). I mean, it's cute and has inevitably hilarious moments. And it's definitely interesting to see the depiction of life in East Berlin and its subsequent immersion into the West. The ending is very touching, and not in a heavy-handed Hollywood type of way. The main faults of Goodbye Lenin are the timing (off) and the pace (slow). Still, a pleasant cinematic experience from an interesting perspective.
I don't have a lot to say about Hellboy. It was good for what it was... cute, even. Didn't annoy me. I instinctively like Ron Perlman, who pulled off a convincing Hellboy. What I imagine is not an easy task for any actor.
I didn't write a review for Kill Bill Volume 1 after I saw it because I knew it'd have to see Volume 2 before I could pass judgement on Quentin Tarantino's masterpiece. And I don't think "masterpiece" is too grandiose. I've read all sorts of criticisms about this movie: Too violent, demeaning to women, not interesting, not good movie-making, nonsensical at parts, not anything like Pulp Fiction. Well, none of that matters. Taken together, the Kill Bill movies are the most riveting major Hollywood releases since I can remember. And it has nothing to do with the violence. It was a finely crafted movie that was provocative and cool. Tarantino brandished his influences, but it unmistakably bore his innovations. I'm not going to do a plot summation here because it shouldn't be necessary: It's a kick-ass revenge flick that tells a good story and looks cuter than Uma Thurman's feet doing it.
Yeah, I know this
movie came out months ago. We were going to see Master and Commander last
night, but I demurred, citing the frigid weather and a day filled with
havoc and intense brain activity. So we stayed in and watched A Mighty
Wind via HBO On-Demand.
The
Life Aquatic (with Steve Zissou) So you want me to start off with a plot summary? Look elsewhere, because I don't have the energy to explain all the little storylines that Wes Anderson slapped together. Watching the movie distracted me from watching the movie. I'll admit, Wes Anderson has style. His attention to detail is impressive. Just check out this movie's IMDB Trivia page (here) so you too can bask in all of the little In jokes that you would never know otherwise. Anderson is also very good at subtly establishing long-running gags; throughout A Life Aquatic, we see a bunch of unpaid interns being systemically brutalized. However, Anderson's preciseness with the little things may distract him from tying it all together. He's like a poet who writes words that sound pleasing together, but overall suffers from a dearth of depth. The Life Aquatic was all over the place, and after awhile I got tired of it. Too much wackiness. Too little sustenance. If anyone can make a movie good, it's Bill Murray. He lifts mediocre movies to the realm of delightful, like What about Bob? and even The Man who Knew Too Little, which I believe he should have won an Oscar for. Though Murray was a shiny spot in this movie, even he is powerless among a way-too-motley assembly of way-too-wacky characters, plowing through an unfocused, lame script. The soundtrack by Mark Mothersbaugh (who has done the soundtrack of several Wes Anderson movies as well as hundreds others) was excellent. I was genuinely joyous to hear the original Iggy Pop version of "Search and Destroy" instead of some lame cover. The music even worked when it bordered on whimsical, which is more than I can say for Owen Wilson. I can see how many people would like this movie. Perhaps my salivating anticipation of this movie ruined it, but somehow it just didn't gel for me. And Willem with a German accent just ain't Willem, though the tight shorts were appreciated. Yow-za! A priest at a religious school in Spain molests his star singing and writing pupil, an act that inevitably leaves scars and leads to all of the events in this movie: Blackmail, drug abuse, tons of gay sex, and literary inspiration made into cinema. Pedro Almodóvar's movies always delve into gender psychology, but he truly outdoes himself with this one. This movie is gorgeously filmed. Almodóvar dwells on the details worth taking in and rewards our attention by slipping reference to them later. For many, this NC-17 movie's most memorable feature is the gay sex, and while it is occasionally graphic, I never got the sense that it was gratuitous. Indeed, if there's any movie that gay sex belongs in, it's the one about pedophilia and drag queens. It was a well told story. Almodóvar movies feel like novel adaptations; the story lines are heavy with detail, and the dialogue is always carefully perfected. He never shies away from blatant visual metaphors and symbolism. The thing was, the story failed to fully capture my interest. The characters were engaging but kinda jerky, and I never found the subject of pedophilia to make for an enjoyable cinematic experience. Still, I won't forget this film anytime soon: Memorable, sexy, Almodóvar.
I went through a quirky phase when I was a teenager which involved reading books about serial killers. It started when I found Helter Skelter at a garage sale, a book written by the man who prosecuted Charles Manson and family. I could not believe their motive; it fascinated me that this man convinced other people to kill for him in order to start a race war. Then I bought a few more books about other serial killers. These were compilations of profiles of notorious serial killers, sort of "Masters of Serial Killing." The details of the killer's background and childhood compelled me more than the details of their crimes. Most, of course, have horrible childhoods. The more psychologically and/or physically abusive the childhood, the more grotesque and heinous the crime. I noted how few women were included in these anthologies of horrors. Some, like Lizzie Borden, were notorious but not really serial. Others were aided and abetted by men. Women just aren't conditioned to kill as systematically as men seem to be. Though I no longer read crime fiction, I couldn't wait to see Monster, based on the life of Aileen Wuornos, a highway prostitute who was executed for killing seven men in the state of Florida during the 1980s. Charlize Theron easily exceeded my low expectations as Wuornos, or Lee. She suited her character in every way and looked amazingly trashy for a woman who used to play starlet-type roles in the Astronaut's Wife and Cider House Rules. Could Ms. Theron be in search of some credibility? Christina Ricci was also good as her love interest, a shy lesbian living in a restrictive religious environment who she meets in a gay bar. The scene in which they meet is a powerful scene; you can sense her loneliness and understand why she was so attracted to a raggedy drifter. I'm officially motivated to take up a martial art. Lee first kills out of self-defense in a violent scene that disturbed me greatly. My main problem with the movie was the sympathy that I felt for Lee, an emotion I think the filmmaker purposely sought to evoke in audiences.
Napoleon Dynamite is a highly-original comedy about a teenager in small-town Idaho who such a complete nerd that he borders on disgusting. That is, delightfully disgusting. As Napoleon Dynamite, Jon Heder joins the Nerd Character Hall of Fame with the likes of Anthony Michael Hall, Heather Mattarazzo, Rick Moranis, and Gene Wilder. Indeed, Napoleon Dynamite might be perhaps the nerdiest featured character in the history of cinema. Napoleon's not the geeky (smart) kind of nerd; his admitted only skill is doodling strange mythical animals. He lacks social graces, though he exhibits rare moments of sensitivity. He's constantly exasperated by the world ("How was school?" someone asks. "Worst day of my life, what did you think?" he shots back) and he tells blatant lies in a bid to impress people ("Yeah, I was going to fly in my girlfriend from Oklahoma for the dance," he says. Or, "I shot about 50 wolverines in Alaska because they were going after my cousin, what would you do?") Lacking a cohesive and pressing plot, the movie is a series of interconnected skits about Napoleon's life as an outcast, his family (brother Kip, a wimpy, effeminate chat-room addict who courts a woman in Detroit named La Fawnduh, and Uncle Rico, a shyster tupperware salesmen who is obsessed with his football-playing glory days) and his friends (Pedro, an immigrant outcast who runs for class president; and Deb, the fanny-pack wearing, glamour-shot taking love interest who, as Napoleon tactlessly notes, may drink 1% milk because she thinks she's fat, but could drink whole milk). Napoleon's mannerisms are PRICELESS ("sweet") and kept me riveted and entertained the entire movie. Napoleon Dynamite features over-the-top quirky characters, but the situations are believable; they are character-driven snapshots. A major weakness of many high school movies is the unreal amount of drama that inevitably comes to a head right before the ending. I'm not just talking about the pig's blood in Carrie ... I'm talking the Breakfast Club, which was the most action-packed detention day EVER, or Saved!, or Weird Science, or Porky's. This movie ambles poignantly to its happy ending (and can I express my joy at hearing When in Rome for the closing credits?!?)
Saved! is about a collection of students at a Christian High School, and the hell that breaks loose when a good Christian Girl named Mary (played by Jena Malone) decides to be a virgin sacrifice to her gay boyfriend in an attempt to cure him. The whole premise is sort of insulting to Christians, which is why it sort of appealed to me. Not that I was looking for sacrilege... just satire. I was extremely excited to see Heather Matarazzo do a reprisal of her famed Wiener Dog character from Welcome to the Dollhouse (here), playing a dorky girl who tries too hard to gratify the popular Christian girls: "I saw Jesus in my fish tank!" And hey... is that... Macaulay Culkin? Indeed! Even the fact that Macaulay Culkin is godless and in a wheelchair doesn't stop him from smoking cigarettes and banging a Jew. Saved! has moments of great hilarity (The token heathen student had some great lines: Drunkenly shouting "The muffin shop is closed!" while snapping her legs together, or later asking why a good Christian girl would be sneaking around the Planned Parenthood downtown. "To plant a pipe bomb?" Culkin says.) And yes, this is the movie with Mandy Moore, who only sings once the whole movie (Thank God!) but manages to still suck most of the time. While her lines were funny, her delivery was off... and after awhile her character (an over-achieving bitch/Christian) just got old and predictable. Indeed, the funniest parts of Saved! are the too-gentle spoofs on Christian youth culture. For instance, the phenomenon of Christians co-opting elements of Satan's cultural movements (rap, rock, techno) in order to praise God. There's Pastor Skip constantly attempting to talk to kids in their own language ("Who's down with G-O-D?"). And just the general cult-like atmosphere of the high school was amusing. But it always remained respectful, and in the end, well... turns out everyone is down with G-O-D, or at least accepting of those that are. The
only way this movie would be good is if the humor was more Airplane!-esque.
Without it, it was just a resounding cute.
The Station Agent is about a Little Person named Fin, and the people he meets when Fin inherits a train depot in Newfoundland, NJ from a fellow train nut. Having a surface appreciation for trains and the awe trains can inspire, I liked this movie, even though it dragged a bit in the middle. It had moments of hilarity, sadness, comfort, and pain. Even better, I had no idea what was going to happen at the end. The characters' circumstances are a bit extraordinary, but the movie takes time to dwell on the ordinary as well (having a coffee, reading, walking, and sitting on a bench waiting for a train to go by.) Soothing and honest; recommended for people who want a break from blockbusters and other movies that want to shock your senses, and for people who would enjoy seeing a Little Person in a dignified, non-Elf role (link to Little People of America).
I didn't care for some parts of this movie, which occasionally got boring or dwelt too long on un-funny jokes. But I definitely want to see it again and love the fact that this movie exists. When making a comedy that pokes fun at Zombie movies, there are some obvious jokes, such as un-scary slowness of the zombie shuffle and all of the creative ways you can incapacitate/ decapitate a zombie. And this movie brilliantly handles the obvious jokes. But it also finds humor in some weird, interesting places. For example, at the start of the movie, Shaun doesn't realize that the dead are, in fact, coming to life and eating people. He's so wrapped up in his own life that all of the news reports just don't penetrate. The problem has to literally appear in his backyard before he'll pay attention to it. This is all very funny, but it's also profound on the same level as Romero's zombie movies. Unfortunately, Shaun of the Dead is a dumb comedy at heart. We get a love story, moments of awkward poignancy, and an unrealistic amount of character development in the span of 90 minutes. This sappy interference detracted from all the fun we could be having with the zombies. Favorite moment of British humor: Our Hero, trying to keep a low-profile in his group's hiding place, is mortified when Freddie Mercury's voice starts blasting suddenly from the jukebox. "Kill the Queen!" he orders another character, who gives an aghast look of disbelief and says in a British are-you-mad tone "Kill the Queen?!?" "Kill the Queen... the jukebox!" And the ending is pretty cool, too. Sideways is an ode to the middle-aged loser. Miles, a divorced English teacher who aspires to be a writer, and his old college roommate Jack, a fading soap opera, embark on a romp in California wine country to let loose for the week before Jack's wedding. Miles is a snobby oenophile who loves pinot and detests merlot, and wants to use the week to unwind and drown his miseries in good wine, while Jack wants to find women for both of them. Jack hits it off immediately with wild-child Stephanie while Miles hangs out shyly Maya, a fellow wine-lover who, for some reason, perpetually excuses the fact that Miles is kinda a loser. That's the synopsis. I ached to love this movie, and for the most part, I liked it. But the funny parts weren't funny enough. There's a lot of easy laughs in here, mostly about wine snobbery and lechery. And the poignant moments lacked real poignancy. At times, the slow-moving script and plot seemed boilerplate "mid-life crisis meltdown," and definitely not as original as Alexander Payne's previous masterpieces Election and Citizen Ruth. The ending felt bizarre; after two hours of watching the characters essentially do nothing, there was no way to end the movie in an entertaining clever way, so Payne goes for the obvious, boring resolution. The acclaim of Sideways is not entirely undeserved. There's poignancy in here, and if I were ten years older I would have appreciated it. The fact is, it was not a sophisticated or original movie, and it relied on the audience to forge connections with the cast. And given that the character were all Californian self-obsessed hedonists, why would I want to do that?
Morgan Spurlock came up with a great gimmick for a documentary: Watch me consume nothing but McDonalds for 30 days! Watch me gain weight, send my cholesterol numbers to the moon, do severe damage to my liver, suffer from sexual dysfunction, gross out my vegan girlfriend, worry my mother, and become an all-around fatigued slob who only perks up when it's time to eat a Big Mac! Good times. And since we're all obsessed with weight in this country, it's guaranteed people will watch him. But Super Size Me is more educational than entertaining. Watching him eat and get blood tests for half the movie wears thin pretty quickly. He spices things up by going into different McDonalds and demanding to see the nutritional information. Enthralling! And then we find out that teenagers eat nothing but french fries and pizza for lunch. And then we get to hear his sexless vegan girlfriend giggle about the deterioration of their sex life. In the Boston area at least, this movie was only playing in theatres in well-off areas: Harvard Square, Copley, Brookline. The people who need to see Super Size Me won't see it unless they go out of their way. The college-educated people who do see it probably already know much of what he says just from a basic knowledge of nutritional and reading the news. As an educational tool it is excellent, as it sneaks a lot of information about nutrition and food industry politics in between Spurlock's feedings. They should show this movie in health classes around the country (in the schools that haven't cut health and gym out of the curricula, a scary trend discussed in the film.) As a documentary, Super Size Me is extremely sensationalized. Other factors contributing to obesity are mentioned, but the nature of Spurlock's experiment places the blame squarely on McDonalds. The filmmaker says that his experiment is no different than other people's actual eating habits... but when non-documentary filmmakers eat fast food, do they accidentally stuff themselves until they vomit? The causes of obesity as a social phenomenon cannot be attributed to one thing. But the simple concept of "everything in moderation" has sustained most people for many centuries. And it is this tendency for Americans to go to extremes, not just regarding food but also nearly every vice, lifestyle choice and material purchase, that can attribute for a lot of problems in this country... and a lot of the problems with this documentary. Team America is a feisty group of multi-talented soldier types who spend their days hunting down terrorists, demolishing world treasures, and falling in love (ah). South Park creator Trey Parker uses these earnest marionettes to make one of the finest political satires I've seen in a long time. Which is good, but sad. Here are three wonderful things about this movie:
If you liked the South Park movie, you'll like this movie. If South Park got old for you, this movie will lose it charms quickly. Still, people should see this movie for the marionettes, (because it officially makes Team America "high-concept", if you can imagine) and because I guarantee you'll laugh at least twice (only a total puppet wouldn't chuckle at the puke scene). The
Triplets of Belleville (2003) (Les Triplettes de Belleville) What a seriously cute movie. This gorgeously animated French flick's appeal in almost indescribable. What little dialogue there is, is in French. The story is slow-moving, but it's the details (the frogs, the whistle, the fat Americans) that the moviegoer will truly relish. I don't even want to provide a plot synopsis, as half of the fun was having no idea what was going to happen next (though the ending, once it approached, could be decisively predicted.) This movie is perfect when you want to give your brain something savory but want to disguise it as brain candy.
Working against The Village is that I really wanted to love this movie. I like M. Night Shymamalan's body of work. His stories are layered with meaning, symbolism and allegory. I suppose there's a great deal of symbolism in The Village, especially pertaining to a security-obsessed society bombarded with warnings about terror threats. And there's a little mystery, though you'd have to be thick not to figure it out in the first 20 minutes. But the problem is: The Village is horribly acted and scripted. The blind girl Ivy, played by Bryce Dallas Howard (Ron Howard's daughter), needed a much better actress, and I couldn't care enough about Joaquin Phoenix's character. And Sigourney... I don't know how you cultivated this "serious actress" reputation, you only have two expressions: Indignant and menstrual. The final plot twist after two tedious hours of schlock just isn't worth it. About 90% of the movie is the inhabitants of the Village run around, moralizing in old-style English, exchanging dry dialogue about secrets and bad colors and love. Yes, above all else, this movie is framed as a love story, making it messy and unfocused. There's also plot holes the size of Joaquin Phoenix's head (doesn't he have a huge head?) which I cannot point out without spoiling the movie. The pace is slow, but not in that delicious way that made "Unbreakable" and "Signs" so enjoyable. It's more like "Make great haste with the ending." Vera Drake is a saint. Living in war-ravaged London in 1950, Vera cheerfully tends to infirm neighbors and relatives, dutifully cleans houses for rich folk, and lovingly dotes on her close-knit family in their tiny flat. What her family doesn't know is that, for many years, Vera has been administering saline abortions to women who find themselves in trouble. Free of charge (or so she thinks). Vera's secret inevitably comes to light in a way that devastates her and her family. The movie is a powerful pro-choice statement. Along with presenting Vera's side of things, that these young women are in trouble and need her help, a sub-plot involving the daughter of one of her rich employers shows us how better-off women terminated a pregnancy: By subjecting themselves to prying male doctors and paying a heck of a lot of money. Compare this to Vera's quick efficiency and womanly reassurance. In framing the abortion debate in a different time and place, Leigh masterfully shows how we cannot afford a return to back-alley abortions all while showing how back-alley abortions are not nearly as grotesque as we imagined. Now we have clinics and procedures, but women have been doing this for each other for centuries. But to call Vera Drake a movie about abortion would be missing the point. This is a movie about Vera Drake, a woman who is just as cheerful when she puts on a kettle for tea as when she puts on the kettle for her abortion solution. Imelda Staunton give a deservedly lauded performance, and Mike Leigh's script and direction is deliberate and provoking. This movie is the closest thing to a masterpiece that I've seen in a while. Try as I may and I always do, I cannot think of one fault or excess. I can only think of a well-written perfectly-paced script, an excellent cast, and a powerful message (that I happened to agree with) presented with only a touch of heavy-handedness. Willard (2003) is a masterpiece. I’m not exaggerating; it is seriously a great movie that didn’t deserve any of the criticism or box office failure heaped upon it. Crispin Hellion Glover gives the performance of his career as a sociopath Mama’s boy who is a failure at life. He and his ailing mother (a seriously freaky Jackie Burroughs) live in a huge mansion, bought by Willard’s deceased father, who founded the company that Willard works at under the hated co-founder Mr. Martin (played perfectly by R. Lee Ermey, who, hardly surprisingly, is usually cast in movies as a military man). Willard is all alone in the world until he befriends a rat he finds in the basement named Socrates, the leader of a huge pack of rats who are soon under Willard’s command (“Tear. Tear. Tear.”). I won’t give away any of the plot. I read a review that called this movie “slow-moving” and “hardly horror.” First of all, aside from the opening credits, Willard had perfect timing. Every scene contributed to the plot, and Crispin Glover is so awesome in every single one of them, how could anyone be bored? Second of all, if the idea of Crispin Glover having total control over a pack of snarling rats isn’t horror, then what is? While my skin didn’t crawl as much as I thought it would (it is, after all, PG-13), it hardly matters.
Music/Shows Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Ex Models, Young People * Peaches * Von Bondies
The
Von Bondies (with The Count Me Outs, Runner and 2.23.04 We first saw the Von Bondies (here) about a year ago, before I had heard anything by them; the show bored me so much I left after 5 songs. I blamed unfamiliarity with their music for my lack of enthusiasm, because I have since grown quite fond of the Von Bondies studio stuff. So last night, I fully expected to love the show. I even made us stand directly in front of the stage, right underneath Marcie the petite redhead guitar player, so we could absorb their potent rock and roll energy. But no. The Von Bondies are just a very boring act live. First of all, lead singer/guitarist Jason, most famous for being attacked by Jack White (Stripes), is the only talented, semi-dynamic person in the band. Don the drummer is competent, but never has a chance to shine. The girls (bassist Carrie and rhythm guitarist Marcie) basically just look cute and add nothing in terms of musical chutzpah or stage presence. Carrie shyly sang a song that just about put me to sleep. Marcie slowly bobbed around a lot. Since their music and vocal parts are not that complicated, you'd think they'd put a little more energy into their performance. Both the two of them and Jason acted bored and almost desperately ignored the audience; this either caused or contributed to the obvious disconnect between the band and the audience. The only time the band made reference to the fact they were playing in from of an audience is when Carrie remarked several times how quiet it was. And indeed, the stiff crowd's applause was polite and muted compared to the exuberant praise heaped upon the opening bands, especially the musically-tight Runner and the Thermodynamics, whose snappy outfits and electric presence put a spark under the audience that was snuffed the second the Von Bondies strode out on stage to a deafening silence. Jason threw things off a bit when, after 30 seconds on the stage, he stopped the first song to bitch out the sound guy about his microphone, and then spent the rest of the song obviously glaring at him. Hey, at least the sound guy got some eye contact from Mr. Aloof Rock Star. There's no law that a band has to act nuts on stage in order to be a good band. But the Von Bondies music-- rhythmic garage-quality blues-- sort of demands a good stage show. It's not wild music, save a few killer guitar riffs and Jason's fascinating falsetto. I made it through about eight songs this time. The Von Bondies better stop believing their hype.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Ex Models, Young People 5.7.03 Last night at the Paradise Eric and I saw the Yeah Yeah Yeah, Ex Models and a band called Young People. I adore the Paradise because it's a ten minute walk from my apartment and because the balcony is the perfect place to gaze at bands. Young People were ridiculously bad. The female singer, decked out in jeans and a stupidly snazzy baseball cap, had the stage presence of a slug. She kept looking out into the audience as she warbled all these strange notes with this attitude like "Hey! I know I'm blowing your minds!" She models her singing style after Bjork, and I guess she thought that banging on bottles and pans throughout the set qualified as entertaining. Boring music. I thought they were Christian rock until she cursed. Ex models were the exact opposite of Young People. Total spazzes who managed to play loud, tight disturbing music while flailing around the stage and snarling, yelping and bellowing into the microphone. I had heard them on record before but their live show really impressed me. I appreciated them all the more after being subjected to the opening band. The audience seemed slightly stunned, and I couldn't tell in they were into it because Ex-models play short songs with frequent, sudden tempo changes, which is too intimidating to dance to unless you know the songs by heart or if you're like some dance psychic. Cause the songs stops and there you are, in the middle of frantic body bobbing like an idiot. I don't have much to say about the YYYs. It was a sold-out crowd and that's who everyone wanted to see. The singer was cute, yeah, and it was fun to watch her prance and high-step around the stage, yeah, and the guitarist-- painfully thin and young looking and wearing a shirt that said "sex is everything"-- was more than competent, yeah. It just didn't get me going. I only know a few of their songs going in and they didn't play those, so maybe that was the problem. Or maybe it was the 40-ish couple (a man in one of those CBGBs shirts that they practically sell at Brooks Brothers these days, and a woman in a long black skirt and homemade peace buttons and two diamond rings, each the size of an Afghani child's weekly food ration) standing behind us on the balcony who kept trying to squeeze their spreading bodies into the six inches of space between Eric and his neighbor by using their wrinkly elbows. Actually, though these people pissed me off-- taunting me and my aging self with their age and dorky attempts at coolness-- they made me stay longer because I didn't want to surrender our prime balcony spots to hooky ex-hippies. I didn't think the YYYs were anything special, especially since they followed the very excellent Ex-models. The YYYs singer's "I'm a sexy kitten" cavorting really had nothing over the fanatical twitching of the Ex-models. Young People and Old People both managed to snag my ire, proof that 25 really is middle-aged. Top * Guide to Green Thumbs * Movies * Music/Shoes * Other
10.7.2003 While the rest of Boston watched the Red Sox successfully prolong a season that will no doubt be painfully ended by those darn Yankees and then rioted in the streets, me and a couple hundred other people went to the Peaches show at the Middle East and watched an energetic gender-bending phenomenon cavort on stage... on the bar... on top of sound equipment... in the audience... with sex slaves... and with a projected image of Iggy Pop. I first heard Peaches about a year ago, when my boyfriend put a single Peaches song on a mix. I assumed Peaches was a woman. Then, in preparation for the show, I listened to the entire album. The Nico-like tonal quality of her voice was a little off... at times, I wondered... Then, in preparation for the show, I went to the Peaches web site. Upon seeing a picture of the charismatic performer, I realized Peaches was a transvestite. Or was she? My boyfriend disagreed. Indeed, it was questionable. Before the show, I told a friend about our speculation, and he said Peaches was a woman. Then the show started, and within one minute after Peaches strutted out, both my boyfriend and our friend turned to me and said "You're right!" But throughout the show, I myself flipped back and forth on if Peaches is either the most convincing-sounding transvestite I've ever heard, or a very butch woman who is pretending to be a transvestite. All this is secondary. Peaches is an amazing performer and outrageously entertaining, like an X-Rated movie crossed with Hedwig and the Angry Inch. If you feel like experiencing what the show was in the comfort of your own home, and if you're a mature person, go to this site, where there's samples of her new album that you can play around with. (Warning: If you are at work, you may not want to go to that site.) Top * Guide to Green Thumbs * Movies * Music/Shoes * Other
Other HBO Documentary: Born Rich I struggled over whether I liked Born Rich, a documentary by Johnson and Johnson heir Jamie Johnson, who interviewed 10 other mega-rich young adults about being so incredibly rich. I hated everyone in the film... I especially hated Jamie Johnson... and I don't think the movie went as far as it could of. Yet I've been thinking about it all day. And it's good to think. Jamie Johnson is an annoying presence throughout. He needles his rich friends like Luke Weil and Ivanka Trump to talk about how it felt to grow up rich, he talks about himself, or he hounds his painter father to talk about money. I got the feeling Jamie Johnson saw Roger and Me and decided to become a documentary maker. The subject matters are dissimilar, but it was total rip-off Michael Moore. A very amateur effort, improved (I'm sure) in some way by the fact this kid is a mega-millionaire. Yeah, I hated everyone. They all tried to sound like poor little rich kids. Except for one guy, a European who says it's the duty of the rich to be "cultured" and spend their free time endeavoring in the arts. He later said Americans ask "What do you do," but Europeans can tell what you do just by looking at how you talk and act. In other words, he likes that Europeans can sense his incredible wealth, and he doesn't like telling Americans that he does nothing. Some interesting insights:
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