Miracle at St. Anna (Spike Lee, 2008) - C-
No one runs hot and cold quite like Spike Lee. He can still make a good movie (Inside Man), or even a great one (25th Hour), but the time when he was able to tackle race head-on with a measure of nuance, restraint and moral complexity seems to have passed. This is sledgehammer stuff, preachy and obvious (black soldiers in World War II were mistreated and unappreciated, the end); he did seem to realize that he couldn't fill nearly three hours with outrage about this topic, so there's a whole bunch of general war movie stuff too, which is largely unremarkable. A few recognizable Spike Lee moments (most notably the montage involving the sultry German broadcaster trying to tempt black soldiers to lay down their weapons), and a few tense stretches, but mostly it's really freakin' tedious. Features Michael Ealy in one of the year's most irritating performances; on the other hand, having seen this and the surprisingly strong The Express, I'm very impressed with Omar Benson Miller.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The French Connection
The French Connection (William Friedkin, 1971) - A-
The quibble that knocked the grade down a notch for me: what self-respecting foreign drug dealer thinks that a good way to get the cops off your back is to get on the roof of a building with a rifle and try to snipe one of them down? Obviously a great procedural though, and when was the last time you saw cop characters who genuinely love their work -- live for it -- beating up junkies, tailing perps, chasing elevated trains, the works. Worth watching just for the little dance Doyle and Russo do after their wire comes through. The ending knocks everyone down a peg, of course, including us, but part of the reason it works so well is that the nitty-gritty of the police work is so exhilarating to begin with.
The quibble that knocked the grade down a notch for me: what self-respecting foreign drug dealer thinks that a good way to get the cops off your back is to get on the roof of a building with a rifle and try to snipe one of them down? Obviously a great procedural though, and when was the last time you saw cop characters who genuinely love their work -- live for it -- beating up junkies, tailing perps, chasing elevated trains, the works. Worth watching just for the little dance Doyle and Russo do after their wire comes through. The ending knocks everyone down a peg, of course, including us, but part of the reason it works so well is that the nitty-gritty of the police work is so exhilarating to begin with.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Righteous Kill
Righteous Kill (Jon Avnet, 2008) - D-
UNGGGGH! BLECH! This is the last Jon Avnet film I'll be watching. Such a narrative debacle that I can barely describe it; engages in whopping misdirection that makes everything before the "surprise" ending boring and suspense-free, and everything after it (and by extension before it) nonsensical. Someone please explain to me why the villain sits the hero down and has him make that recording, given what he does moments after? And what exactly was he trying to accomplish by beating up Carla Gugino? Ugly and poorly edited to boot, and Pacino becomes almost a caricature of himself. Astonishing that he and De Niro can't find better work than this, though I watched this right after seeing De Niro in Barry Levinson's relatively pleasurable What Just Happened, so who knows.
UNGGGGH! BLECH! This is the last Jon Avnet film I'll be watching. Such a narrative debacle that I can barely describe it; engages in whopping misdirection that makes everything before the "surprise" ending boring and suspense-free, and everything after it (and by extension before it) nonsensical. Someone please explain to me why the villain sits the hero down and has him make that recording, given what he does moments after? And what exactly was he trying to accomplish by beating up Carla Gugino? Ugly and poorly edited to boot, and Pacino becomes almost a caricature of himself. Astonishing that he and De Niro can't find better work than this, though I watched this right after seeing De Niro in Barry Levinson's relatively pleasurable What Just Happened, so who knows.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Hamlet 2
Hamlet 2 (Andrew Fleming, 2008) - B
Kept me on my toes for 90 minutes with an off-kilter style I could never quite pin down. Obviously intended as a parody of the Inspirational Teacher Movie, about a wacky theater instructor who bands together a bunch of (mostly gangsta) misfits and saves drama by putting on a show. But as parody, it steers a constantly intriguing middle-ground: Coogan's Dana Marschz (the "z" is NOT silent) is manifestly insane, but only some people seem to know that (it's never quite clear if his wife, played by a hilariously out of it Catherine Keener, is one of them); the movie launches a direct attack on some of the genre cliches (e.g. the parents who pull their kid out of drama class because he lives in a rough world where drama is useless) but takes others seriously. Not a model of tonal consistency, to be sure, but a) it's very funny, and b) it's actually kind of challenging if you're engaging with the film. Elizabeth Shue: best self-effacing cameo since John Malkovich.
Kept me on my toes for 90 minutes with an off-kilter style I could never quite pin down. Obviously intended as a parody of the Inspirational Teacher Movie, about a wacky theater instructor who bands together a bunch of (mostly gangsta) misfits and saves drama by putting on a show. But as parody, it steers a constantly intriguing middle-ground: Coogan's Dana Marschz (the "z" is NOT silent) is manifestly insane, but only some people seem to know that (it's never quite clear if his wife, played by a hilariously out of it Catherine Keener, is one of them); the movie launches a direct attack on some of the genre cliches (e.g. the parents who pull their kid out of drama class because he lives in a rough world where drama is useless) but takes others seriously. Not a model of tonal consistency, to be sure, but a) it's very funny, and b) it's actually kind of challenging if you're engaging with the film. Elizabeth Shue: best self-effacing cameo since John Malkovich.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
The House Bunny
The House Bunny (Fred Wolf, 2008) - D+
In theory I could have rolled with the amiably cartoonish tone (a villain named Mrs. Hagstrom; a brothel soup joke; "I've got to meet that fucking bird!"), but the thing is so sloppy that rolling proved hard. Why is it that movies about misfits who try to be popular but learn it's okay to be misfits always make the misfits horrid caricatures instead of the types of people it's actually okay to be? (See also Sydney White.) Here I guess the message is a bit different since the characters learn moderation -- being neither the abominations they were at the beginning of the film nor the bimbos the title Playmate tried to make them (you can be beautiful AND brainy, see?) -- but that doesn't make the movie any less aggressively dumb; what purpose is served by making the "loser sorority" consist of a trailer park stereotype, a girl with a full-body brace, etc.? And come on, guys: if you're going to treat the hundred bullshit conflicts you introduce (Scheming Playboy Bunny! Unmailed envelopes! Realization that the Zetas have become what they hated!) so perfunctorily, why even bother? There are enough laughs to make it bearable (Anna Faris is very funny, and I really liked one joke in the climax), but I got the sense that the film's supposedly endearing gee-whiz stupidity wasn't an affectation. And how absurd to even pretend that the adorable Emma Stone is an unattractive outcast.
In theory I could have rolled with the amiably cartoonish tone (a villain named Mrs. Hagstrom; a brothel soup joke; "I've got to meet that fucking bird!"), but the thing is so sloppy that rolling proved hard. Why is it that movies about misfits who try to be popular but learn it's okay to be misfits always make the misfits horrid caricatures instead of the types of people it's actually okay to be? (See also Sydney White.) Here I guess the message is a bit different since the characters learn moderation -- being neither the abominations they were at the beginning of the film nor the bimbos the title Playmate tried to make them (you can be beautiful AND brainy, see?) -- but that doesn't make the movie any less aggressively dumb; what purpose is served by making the "loser sorority" consist of a trailer park stereotype, a girl with a full-body brace, etc.? And come on, guys: if you're going to treat the hundred bullshit conflicts you introduce (Scheming Playboy Bunny! Unmailed envelopes! Realization that the Zetas have become what they hated!) so perfunctorily, why even bother? There are enough laughs to make it bearable (Anna Faris is very funny, and I really liked one joke in the climax), but I got the sense that the film's supposedly endearing gee-whiz stupidity wasn't an affectation. And how absurd to even pretend that the adorable Emma Stone is an unattractive outcast.
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