Pathfinder (Marcus Nispel, 2007) - F
Hey, remember when I put the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake on my top ten list? That was awesome.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters (Dave Willis & Matt Maiellaro, 2007) - B-
The only movie I have ever seen where a line like "Daddy, you've grown up to be a beautiful woman!" can sort of just vanish into the ether rather than stopping the show. I had never seen an entire episode of the series, but warnings prepared me for the weirdness, and I must admit I kind of dug it: it's utterly, unapologetically inexplicable, which is kind of refreshing, although its best moments aren't really the aggressively weird ones. I loved the title cards, which declare that we're in Egypt, a long time ago, before announcing that we're in 2004 and in New York, and of course the heavy metal take on movie theaters' idiotic pre-feature jingle reels is some sort of brilliant. Nearly ninety minutes of this is more than I bargained for, but I definitely appreciate that this movie exists, if you get me.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Monday, April 30, 2007
Vacancy; Perfect Stranger
Vacancy (Nimrod Antal, 2007) - B+
Rating is almost even higher, actually; frightening and niftily self-reflexive, this is my favorite horror film since The Descent. It's not an entry in what I have resigned to calling the "torture porn" genre,* but it coopts certain elements of the fad and turns the camera on them, so to speak: funny how the snuff videos we glimpse through the panicked eyes of Wilson and Beckinsale, recorded on video using a few stationary cameras and haphazardly edited together, make us shrink away in horror and disgust, while much the same dynamic filled out with Hollywood pyrotechnics evokes merely conventional, conditioned "suspense." It's a neat trick, and all the more potent since the movie works like gangbusters, imagining a genuinely scary scenario and making it even scarier over 80 taut, frantic, logistics-obsessed minutes. The character dynamic at the center -- the protagonists are a wounded couple careening toward an ugly divorce, and on their way from an unpleasant family visit -- provides some emotional context without wasting a minute of screentime, and man does it ever help to have two real actors, rather than bland and anonymous teenyboppers, guiding this sort of movie. One possibility is that Vacancy is too breathlessly entertaining to be a serious examination of our own reactions to it, but I think the fact that it doesn't condemn its own audience is to its credit, and besides, just because the film is interested in what makes horror conventions tick doesn't mean it's not allowed to indulge in some of them as well.
*I'm actually in the process of penning an elaborate defense of "torture porn"; stay tuned.
Perfect Stranger (James Foley, 2007) - C-
For a while, the precise equivalent of an "airport novel" -- pulpy, dumb, and sort of indifferently engaging, it chugs along for a while generating neither disgust nor interest. Then it takes a turn toward lunacy, with a third act that turns it into some sort of treatise on the impossibility of anonymity in these, the Internet Years. (The last shot, of course, is neither here nor there: couldn't people peek out of windows before the world wide web?) Foley tries for a sort of steely, measured elegance -- lots of slow pans and tracking shots; bright, cold colors; glass galore -- but the thing winds up looking like a tv movie (the hysterical flashbacks to the protagonist's abusive childhood don't help any). The plot twists are so arbitrary as to cause physical pain, but aside from that, it's hardly a bore, just a time waster, pure and simple. Bruce Willis fans might tune in on DVD for his enjoyably slimy performance as a shameless, filthy rich womanizer.
Rating is almost even higher, actually; frightening and niftily self-reflexive, this is my favorite horror film since The Descent. It's not an entry in what I have resigned to calling the "torture porn" genre,* but it coopts certain elements of the fad and turns the camera on them, so to speak: funny how the snuff videos we glimpse through the panicked eyes of Wilson and Beckinsale, recorded on video using a few stationary cameras and haphazardly edited together, make us shrink away in horror and disgust, while much the same dynamic filled out with Hollywood pyrotechnics evokes merely conventional, conditioned "suspense." It's a neat trick, and all the more potent since the movie works like gangbusters, imagining a genuinely scary scenario and making it even scarier over 80 taut, frantic, logistics-obsessed minutes. The character dynamic at the center -- the protagonists are a wounded couple careening toward an ugly divorce, and on their way from an unpleasant family visit -- provides some emotional context without wasting a minute of screentime, and man does it ever help to have two real actors, rather than bland and anonymous teenyboppers, guiding this sort of movie. One possibility is that Vacancy is too breathlessly entertaining to be a serious examination of our own reactions to it, but I think the fact that it doesn't condemn its own audience is to its credit, and besides, just because the film is interested in what makes horror conventions tick doesn't mean it's not allowed to indulge in some of them as well.
*I'm actually in the process of penning an elaborate defense of "torture porn"; stay tuned.
Perfect Stranger (James Foley, 2007) - C-
For a while, the precise equivalent of an "airport novel" -- pulpy, dumb, and sort of indifferently engaging, it chugs along for a while generating neither disgust nor interest. Then it takes a turn toward lunacy, with a third act that turns it into some sort of treatise on the impossibility of anonymity in these, the Internet Years. (The last shot, of course, is neither here nor there: couldn't people peek out of windows before the world wide web?) Foley tries for a sort of steely, measured elegance -- lots of slow pans and tracking shots; bright, cold colors; glass galore -- but the thing winds up looking like a tv movie (the hysterical flashbacks to the protagonist's abusive childhood don't help any). The plot twists are so arbitrary as to cause physical pain, but aside from that, it's hardly a bore, just a time waster, pure and simple. Bruce Willis fans might tune in on DVD for his enjoyably slimy performance as a shameless, filthy rich womanizer.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Disturbia
Disturbia (D.J. Caruso, 2007) - B
At about the two-thirds mark, I was incredulous at the lukewarm reviews -- surely, I thought, this must be one of the great unappreciated genre films: smart, observant, witty, prizing attention to detail and character over cheap shocks and plot machinations. Then I watched the stupid, violent assault of an ending, and I understood. But though the movie deserves better than its third act, which feels like it snuck in from a different screenplay, the lengthy, patient set-up is worth the price of admission all on its own. Rather than merely using its sub-Rear Window scenario -- a teenager under house arrest begins to suspect that his neighbor is a serial killer -- to launch a conventional teenybopper horror throwaway, the movie actually cares, providing the teenager with a personality, actual relationships, and honest dialogue. Even the banter is lively and realistic; what's even more remarkable is that the movie makes time for banter, for moments that exist for their own sake, for seemingly inconsequential character tidbits that prove rewarding despite not being integral to the story. (Watch the scene when Kale's frustrated mom unplugs his cable, and tell me his reaction isn't a pitch-perfect depiction of teenage indignation, the sort of thing a basically good kid would say in a fit of pique and passive rebellion against a parent; listen, too, to Kale's moving late-film characterization of what his mom is doing over at the psycho's house.) The conclusion is an outrage, incoherent as well as inappropriate, but everything else pretty much rocks, including Shia LaBeouf's effortlessly naturalistic performance; I suggest ignoring the haters and hitting a matinee.
At about the two-thirds mark, I was incredulous at the lukewarm reviews -- surely, I thought, this must be one of the great unappreciated genre films: smart, observant, witty, prizing attention to detail and character over cheap shocks and plot machinations. Then I watched the stupid, violent assault of an ending, and I understood. But though the movie deserves better than its third act, which feels like it snuck in from a different screenplay, the lengthy, patient set-up is worth the price of admission all on its own. Rather than merely using its sub-Rear Window scenario -- a teenager under house arrest begins to suspect that his neighbor is a serial killer -- to launch a conventional teenybopper horror throwaway, the movie actually cares, providing the teenager with a personality, actual relationships, and honest dialogue. Even the banter is lively and realistic; what's even more remarkable is that the movie makes time for banter, for moments that exist for their own sake, for seemingly inconsequential character tidbits that prove rewarding despite not being integral to the story. (Watch the scene when Kale's frustrated mom unplugs his cable, and tell me his reaction isn't a pitch-perfect depiction of teenage indignation, the sort of thing a basically good kid would say in a fit of pique and passive rebellion against a parent; listen, too, to Kale's moving late-film characterization of what his mom is doing over at the psycho's house.) The conclusion is an outrage, incoherent as well as inappropriate, but everything else pretty much rocks, including Shia LaBeouf's effortlessly naturalistic performance; I suggest ignoring the haters and hitting a matinee.
Friday, April 13, 2007
Time
Time (Kim Ki-Duk, 2007) - C+
But... but... She's totally nuts! Everyone's creaming over Kim's metaphorical exploration of romantic relationships and human identity, but he lost me from the first scene, where his protagonist throws a neurotic hissy fit in a coffee shop after a waitress is insufficiently polite, and her boyfriend dares to speak with a woman who nicked his car. Some suspension of disbelief is required given the film's premise -- frightened that she has become tiresome to her boyfriend, a woman decides to undergo a face transplant -- but the characters here (the woman in particular, but really the man too) are so batshit crazy in such an unpleasant way that, though I like a good metaphor as much as the next guy, I checked out. The movie's actually formally fascinating -- Kim's rhythms are utterly gonzo, and he perverts the three-act structure in some seriously fucked up ways -- but I wound up noticing these things dispassionately, as I became farther and farther removed from the actual, y'know, story Kim's presumably telling. I had a similar problem with 3-Iron to be honest -- it was audacious and beautiful to watch, but so single-mindedly focused on its concept that the things actually happening on screen became less and less relevant. People really love this one, though, so don't mind me...
But... but... She's totally nuts! Everyone's creaming over Kim's metaphorical exploration of romantic relationships and human identity, but he lost me from the first scene, where his protagonist throws a neurotic hissy fit in a coffee shop after a waitress is insufficiently polite, and her boyfriend dares to speak with a woman who nicked his car. Some suspension of disbelief is required given the film's premise -- frightened that she has become tiresome to her boyfriend, a woman decides to undergo a face transplant -- but the characters here (the woman in particular, but really the man too) are so batshit crazy in such an unpleasant way that, though I like a good metaphor as much as the next guy, I checked out. The movie's actually formally fascinating -- Kim's rhythms are utterly gonzo, and he perverts the three-act structure in some seriously fucked up ways -- but I wound up noticing these things dispassionately, as I became farther and farther removed from the actual, y'know, story Kim's presumably telling. I had a similar problem with 3-Iron to be honest -- it was audacious and beautiful to watch, but so single-mindedly focused on its concept that the things actually happening on screen became less and less relevant. People really love this one, though, so don't mind me...
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Blades of Glory
Blades of Glory (Josh Gordon & Will Speck, 2007) - C-
I hate this fucking movie, but I cannot lie: the North Korean rendition of the Iron Lotus, the "ice-devouring sex tornado," and Arnett and Poehler's urban- and JFK-themed skating routines made me laugh. I kind of resented it, since this continuation of Ferrell's widlly popular Anchorman and Talladega Nights formula/saga is shoddy, moronic, and barely even a movie; it is now clear that Ferrell is making a career out of gags that get laughs precisely because they're so stupid. You get to a point, I think, where the audience starts to laugh at the movie, and Blades of Glory crosses that threshold several times. Talladega Nights, at least, had moments of wit that transcended these films' general m.o. (see, e.g., the dinner table grace scene); this one has a few random laughs, but is mostly just phoning it in. Even Ferrell's usually admirable anything-for-a-laugh energy has turned grating and stale, and the less said about Jon Heder, the better.
I hate this fucking movie, but I cannot lie: the North Korean rendition of the Iron Lotus, the "ice-devouring sex tornado," and Arnett and Poehler's urban- and JFK-themed skating routines made me laugh. I kind of resented it, since this continuation of Ferrell's widlly popular Anchorman and Talladega Nights formula/saga is shoddy, moronic, and barely even a movie; it is now clear that Ferrell is making a career out of gags that get laughs precisely because they're so stupid. You get to a point, I think, where the audience starts to laugh at the movie, and Blades of Glory crosses that threshold several times. Talladega Nights, at least, had moments of wit that transcended these films' general m.o. (see, e.g., the dinner table grace scene); this one has a few random laughs, but is mostly just phoning it in. Even Ferrell's usually admirable anything-for-a-laugh energy has turned grating and stale, and the less said about Jon Heder, the better.
Dead Silence
Dead Silence (James Wan, 2007) - B
I think that people kind of missed the boat on this one -- it's an old-school, lovingly crafted little horror film that, though it sometimes seems pretty toothless, in fact contains the same gleefully nasty spirit that writer Leigh Whanell and director James Wan display in the Saw franchise. I still can't quite make heads-or-tails of the ending -- none of the several possibilities that present themselves seems adequate to explain one particular narrative leap -- but I like the way it takes the entire film to a higher plane of evil; at the very least, it's demonstrably not just your run-of-the-mill possessed-ventriloquist-dummy movie. The screenplay and direction are admirably controlled, maintaining genuine horror atmosphere with a streak of knowing goofiness ("In my hometown, a ventriloquist dummy is a sign of ill omen.") that lurks just under the surface. Ryan Kwanten is kind of a black hole, and I do wish the story made more sense, but it's gorgeously shot and never less than fun. It's certainly not the cheapo throwaway that many of the critics seem to have seen.
I think that people kind of missed the boat on this one -- it's an old-school, lovingly crafted little horror film that, though it sometimes seems pretty toothless, in fact contains the same gleefully nasty spirit that writer Leigh Whanell and director James Wan display in the Saw franchise. I still can't quite make heads-or-tails of the ending -- none of the several possibilities that present themselves seems adequate to explain one particular narrative leap -- but I like the way it takes the entire film to a higher plane of evil; at the very least, it's demonstrably not just your run-of-the-mill possessed-ventriloquist-dummy movie. The screenplay and direction are admirably controlled, maintaining genuine horror atmosphere with a streak of knowing goofiness ("In my hometown, a ventriloquist dummy is a sign of ill omen.") that lurks just under the surface. Ryan Kwanten is kind of a black hole, and I do wish the story made more sense, but it's gorgeously shot and never less than fun. It's certainly not the cheapo throwaway that many of the critics seem to have seen.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Shooter
Shooter (Antoine Fuqua, 2007) - B-
Holy crap! Mostly, I wish this worked better as a straight-ahead genre film, but I'm willing to forgive a movie a lot for being so angry, and political, and -- yes -- brave. No, I don't actually believe, as this film blatantly suggests, that Donald Rumsfeld ought to be shot in the head, but the fact that a big-budget shoot-'em-up has the balls to come out and say it is significant. This is an incendiary blend of '80s-style one-man-against-the-world action (think Commando) and modern political paranoia, existing in a world where every facet, nook and cranny of the state is corrupt to the core and merits absolute distrust. There's a scene late in the film where our falsely-accused protagonist enters a DOJ boardroom to plead his case, and five years ago that would have been that -- he would have presented his evidence, justice would have prevailed, and Danny Glover's sneering villain would have gotten his richly deserved comeuppance. But here the DOJ honchos can only throw up their hands, leaving Mark Wahlberg to, predictably enough, take matters into his own. The film is, sadly, kind of incompetent -- the second act sags; there are some bizarro edits and time-jumps I'm still trying to figure out; Fuqua never really seems comfortable with the action set-pieces -- but that may have worked in its favor, since were it actually good, it may have bought Fuqua and Co. more controversy than they bargained for. The last lines of Shooter are simply stunning, and the last shot suggests that the only viable option is for sensible people to leave civilization and retreat to the mountains, preferably after we hire Mark Wahlberg -- excuse me, "Bob Lee Swagger" -- to take most of the inside-the-Beltway population the fuck out.
Holy crap! Mostly, I wish this worked better as a straight-ahead genre film, but I'm willing to forgive a movie a lot for being so angry, and political, and -- yes -- brave. No, I don't actually believe, as this film blatantly suggests, that Donald Rumsfeld ought to be shot in the head, but the fact that a big-budget shoot-'em-up has the balls to come out and say it is significant. This is an incendiary blend of '80s-style one-man-against-the-world action (think Commando) and modern political paranoia, existing in a world where every facet, nook and cranny of the state is corrupt to the core and merits absolute distrust. There's a scene late in the film where our falsely-accused protagonist enters a DOJ boardroom to plead his case, and five years ago that would have been that -- he would have presented his evidence, justice would have prevailed, and Danny Glover's sneering villain would have gotten his richly deserved comeuppance. But here the DOJ honchos can only throw up their hands, leaving Mark Wahlberg to, predictably enough, take matters into his own. The film is, sadly, kind of incompetent -- the second act sags; there are some bizarro edits and time-jumps I'm still trying to figure out; Fuqua never really seems comfortable with the action set-pieces -- but that may have worked in its favor, since were it actually good, it may have bought Fuqua and Co. more controversy than they bargained for. The last lines of Shooter are simply stunning, and the last shot suggests that the only viable option is for sensible people to leave civilization and retreat to the mountains, preferably after we hire Mark Wahlberg -- excuse me, "Bob Lee Swagger" -- to take most of the inside-the-Beltway population the fuck out.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
The Host
The Host (Joon-Ho Bong, 2007) - B+
The first real appearance of the Creature -- not the brief glimpse of it hanging under the bridge, but immediately after that -- has to be the best genre film moment since... when? I don't know. Maybe ever. The way Bong lets us glimpse it -- following an ominous shot of the horrified protagonist, we see it galloping almost merrily toward him along the bank of a river, bowling over the hapless humans who don't catch on and run for their lives fast enough -- makes for a moment that's so big and so subtle at the same time that it took my breath away. Bong gets a lot of mileage of how matter-of-factly he shoots the creature -- no hide-the-ball set-up, no portentous reveals; the camera seems placed almost casually, affording unassuming, sometimes straight-up, sometimes partially-obstructed views. It's a monster movie liberated of the genre's stylistic trappings, and it's wonderful to see. As much as I hate to denigrate ambition, I do think that the film gets carried away with the political allegory that comes to dominate the second and third acts, if only because it winds up stretched a bit too thin; still, this is surely the year's best genre film to date.
The first real appearance of the Creature -- not the brief glimpse of it hanging under the bridge, but immediately after that -- has to be the best genre film moment since... when? I don't know. Maybe ever. The way Bong lets us glimpse it -- following an ominous shot of the horrified protagonist, we see it galloping almost merrily toward him along the bank of a river, bowling over the hapless humans who don't catch on and run for their lives fast enough -- makes for a moment that's so big and so subtle at the same time that it took my breath away. Bong gets a lot of mileage of how matter-of-factly he shoots the creature -- no hide-the-ball set-up, no portentous reveals; the camera seems placed almost casually, affording unassuming, sometimes straight-up, sometimes partially-obstructed views. It's a monster movie liberated of the genre's stylistic trappings, and it's wonderful to see. As much as I hate to denigrate ambition, I do think that the film gets carried away with the political allegory that comes to dominate the second and third acts, if only because it winds up stretched a bit too thin; still, this is surely the year's best genre film to date.
Friday, March 23, 2007
I Think I Love My Wife
I Think I Love My Wife (Chris Rock, 2007) - C+
Nope, still don't like Chris Rock -- that ever-present smirk makes me want to deck him, and I wish he would stop yelling every line; he's like the live equivalent of someone who TYPES IN ALL CAPS. As a writer and director he shows more promise: his humor is unsophisticated, relying a lot on tonal contrast, repetition, and tried-and-true gags, but he can be genuinely clever, and for all his goofiness, he takes his stories seriously. My Wife is interesting for a while, mostly because of Rock's sneaky recognition of the way people perceive any interaction between a married man and an attractive woman; it's too bad that he moves away from this notion in the third act, preferring to veer toward more traditional themes of temptation and redemption. Ultimately, there's a little too much in the way of Viagra jokes and Chris Rock smugness for this to really work (the gimmicky ending, while it sounds good on paper, bombs simply because Rock is so freakin' annoying), but there are also enough laughs and surprising nuance to keep the proceedings respectable. In particular, Kerry Washington is great in a role she could have played as mindless seductress.
Nope, still don't like Chris Rock -- that ever-present smirk makes me want to deck him, and I wish he would stop yelling every line; he's like the live equivalent of someone who TYPES IN ALL CAPS. As a writer and director he shows more promise: his humor is unsophisticated, relying a lot on tonal contrast, repetition, and tried-and-true gags, but he can be genuinely clever, and for all his goofiness, he takes his stories seriously. My Wife is interesting for a while, mostly because of Rock's sneaky recognition of the way people perceive any interaction between a married man and an attractive woman; it's too bad that he moves away from this notion in the third act, preferring to veer toward more traditional themes of temptation and redemption. Ultimately, there's a little too much in the way of Viagra jokes and Chris Rock smugness for this to really work (the gimmicky ending, while it sounds good on paper, bombs simply because Rock is so freakin' annoying), but there are also enough laughs and surprising nuance to keep the proceedings respectable. In particular, Kerry Washington is great in a role she could have played as mindless seductress.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Zodiac, Black Snake Moan
Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007) - B+
Different interpretations abound; I think it's about the way we try to process evil, subject it to rules and regulations, then prefer to forget about it, push it aside, with the inevitable result that our hands close on air. People have complained about the last scene providing an unsolicited solution to the whodunit, but all I could think was, why couldn't they bust out that photo line-up years earlier? Answer, I take it: because of petty jurisdictional bullshit, cops fighting over territory and struggling to consolidate information, hampered at every step by egos, red tape, and the Fourth Amendment. The implication is that we set up this framework to avoid dealing with evil face-to-face, something Gyllenhaal's Robert Graysmith finally does in the film's most powerful scene; everyone else who gets uncomfortably close bails out for the sake of their lives and families. Fincher loads the 2:40 film with detail -- it's the most intricate police procedural in years -- but our knowledge that the Zodiac was never caught makes everything seem sadly quixotic. Meanwhile, what lurks behind curiously ungrammatical letters and cryptic ciphers -- the killer we never meet (or do we?) -- is genuinely scary.
Black Snake Moan (Craig Brewer, 2007) - B+
I'm tempted to accuse Brewer of being too willing to ditch his daring conceit for more conventional redemption story elements, but the whole thing winds up working so well that it's hard to complain: the final scene, in particular, is a rare movie moment, striking such a powerful chord of hope and sadness, regret and determination... it's just perfect. Amazingly, the story functions on its own terms, lest you think that a black man chaining a white woman to a radiator in Tennessee is only good for metaphor or commentary; the film gets a surprising amount of mileage out of its characters' sparse backstories, even while Samuel L. Jackson is literally dragging Christina Ricci back into his house, hand over hand. Noodles around too much in the second act, but rallies big time in the third; Jackson and Ricci are extraordinary.
Different interpretations abound; I think it's about the way we try to process evil, subject it to rules and regulations, then prefer to forget about it, push it aside, with the inevitable result that our hands close on air. People have complained about the last scene providing an unsolicited solution to the whodunit, but all I could think was, why couldn't they bust out that photo line-up years earlier? Answer, I take it: because of petty jurisdictional bullshit, cops fighting over territory and struggling to consolidate information, hampered at every step by egos, red tape, and the Fourth Amendment. The implication is that we set up this framework to avoid dealing with evil face-to-face, something Gyllenhaal's Robert Graysmith finally does in the film's most powerful scene; everyone else who gets uncomfortably close bails out for the sake of their lives and families. Fincher loads the 2:40 film with detail -- it's the most intricate police procedural in years -- but our knowledge that the Zodiac was never caught makes everything seem sadly quixotic. Meanwhile, what lurks behind curiously ungrammatical letters and cryptic ciphers -- the killer we never meet (or do we?) -- is genuinely scary.
Black Snake Moan (Craig Brewer, 2007) - B+
I'm tempted to accuse Brewer of being too willing to ditch his daring conceit for more conventional redemption story elements, but the whole thing winds up working so well that it's hard to complain: the final scene, in particular, is a rare movie moment, striking such a powerful chord of hope and sadness, regret and determination... it's just perfect. Amazingly, the story functions on its own terms, lest you think that a black man chaining a white woman to a radiator in Tennessee is only good for metaphor or commentary; the film gets a surprising amount of mileage out of its characters' sparse backstories, even while Samuel L. Jackson is literally dragging Christina Ricci back into his house, hand over hand. Noodles around too much in the second act, but rallies big time in the third; Jackson and Ricci are extraordinary.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
Raising Arizona
Raising Arizona (Joel Coen, 1987) - A-
The Coens do wonders with the English language ("We got a name for people like you. That name's called 'recidivism.'") and with comedy -- they revel in contradictions, making their characters quintessential white trash bumpkins who exhibit unexpected but consistent bursts of erudition and eloquence, alternating obstinate applications of logic to the absurd (questioning the coherence of "Freeze! Get down on the ground!"; H.I. trying to reassure Ed by telling her that she resigned as a police officer before setting off to steal the baby, and thus need not worry about breaking her oath to uphold the Constitution) with non sequiturs ("They say he's a decent man, so maybe his advisors are confused."). They are masters of tone -- it is so easy for this sort of idiosyncracy to become irritating -- and even wrap up all the silliness with an epilogue that's genuinely lovely, giving substance to what had seemed like perfectly selfish characters living in a perfectly amoral universe. It's not amoral, we realize, just unfair: the Arizonas have "more than they can handle," after all, while everyone else in the film has nothing. But that's beyond the call of duty: if you haven't seen this, rent it for the Coens' effortless command of everything they do.
The Coens do wonders with the English language ("We got a name for people like you. That name's called 'recidivism.'") and with comedy -- they revel in contradictions, making their characters quintessential white trash bumpkins who exhibit unexpected but consistent bursts of erudition and eloquence, alternating obstinate applications of logic to the absurd (questioning the coherence of "Freeze! Get down on the ground!"; H.I. trying to reassure Ed by telling her that she resigned as a police officer before setting off to steal the baby, and thus need not worry about breaking her oath to uphold the Constitution) with non sequiturs ("They say he's a decent man, so maybe his advisors are confused."). They are masters of tone -- it is so easy for this sort of idiosyncracy to become irritating -- and even wrap up all the silliness with an epilogue that's genuinely lovely, giving substance to what had seemed like perfectly selfish characters living in a perfectly amoral universe. It's not amoral, we realize, just unfair: the Arizonas have "more than they can handle," after all, while everyone else in the film has nothing. But that's beyond the call of duty: if you haven't seen this, rent it for the Coens' effortless command of everything they do.
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Breach
Breach (Billy Ray, 2007) - A
Details, details, details -- Ray gives away the plot with the very first shot (real news footage of AG Ashcroft announcing Hanssen's arrest for selling secrets to the Russians), and what's left is the interactions, the psychological pas de deux, the cat-and-mouse games. Stunning how thrilling all of this is despite taking place in an office and consisting largely of people walking around in suits; it's because it's so carefully observed, full of wonderfully unnecessary little bits, like the way Chris Cooper's Hanssen walks down the hallway, constantly ramming the bewildered Ryan Philippe into walls without noticing, or the downright predatory way Hanssen tells the latter to "pray more." Loved the obsessing over minutia (did he put the PDA back in the right briefcase pocket?), and the notion of a global conflict playing out on an administrative scale -- surely it actually happens this way. September 11th subtext is potent, too: the film posits Hanssen's ego as the source of all the trouble, and the notion of men's egoes fucking up international affairs seems vaguely familiar for some reason.
Details, details, details -- Ray gives away the plot with the very first shot (real news footage of AG Ashcroft announcing Hanssen's arrest for selling secrets to the Russians), and what's left is the interactions, the psychological pas de deux, the cat-and-mouse games. Stunning how thrilling all of this is despite taking place in an office and consisting largely of people walking around in suits; it's because it's so carefully observed, full of wonderfully unnecessary little bits, like the way Chris Cooper's Hanssen walks down the hallway, constantly ramming the bewildered Ryan Philippe into walls without noticing, or the downright predatory way Hanssen tells the latter to "pray more." Loved the obsessing over minutia (did he put the PDA back in the right briefcase pocket?), and the notion of a global conflict playing out on an administrative scale -- surely it actually happens this way. September 11th subtext is potent, too: the film posits Hanssen's ego as the source of all the trouble, and the notion of men's egoes fucking up international affairs seems vaguely familiar for some reason.
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Ghost Rider; Norbit
Ghost Rider (Mark Steven Johnson, 2007) - C
Johnson runs into the same problems he did in Daredevil -- all the nifty comic book conceits don't coalesce into a compelling (or coherent) mythology, so there's no sense of stakes, importance, or scale. Starts out strongly, with the sort of grand, broad-brush storytelling I was hoping for: the devil appears in the form of a black-clad Peter Fonda and immediately demands Johnny Blaze's soul (no, seriously: "Name your price," says Johnny when the devil offers to cure his father's cancer; "your soul," replies the devil); the film moves furiously for a while, and doesn't blink until Nicolas Cage shows up as Adult Johnny. Then the tone goes to hell (ha... ha...) -- Cage hams it up; the screenplay starts winking furiously and attempting broad comedy -- and the storyline sprawls in a half dozen different directions, trying to cram in as much of the comic as possible: Blaze seems to be both the devil's bounty hunter and an all-purpose avenger (he goes around smiting the wicked, kind of like Daredevil); Fonda's Mephistopheles is inexplicably dumped in favor of a generic and boring sub-villain played by Wes Bentley; Johnson lingers on Blaze's tiresome psychological crises and the obligatory journalist love interest. None of it matters, the film drains of momentum, and by the end what could have been a kick-ass geek-out becomes as ridiculous as everyone feared. A movie about a bike-riding superhero with a burning skull for a head walks a thin line, and Ghost Rider isn't calibrated right. Rent The Punisher instead.
Norbit (Brian Robbins, 2007) - D
It's not the fat suit or the mean jokes; it's not even Eddie Murphy as a small Asian man, or the unspeakably obnoxious attempts at a catchphrase ("How YOU doin'" as an expression of contempt). It's the stupidity of it that's offensive: the moron characters, the hacked-together, barely-there story, the one-note emasculated caricature that is Norbit himself. Murphy remains a talented performer, and Norbit is sometimes kind of funny (the absurdity of the monstrous Rasputia made me laugh despite myself), but it adopts a demeanor that is so aggressively formulaic and cloying that the idiocy seems almost purposeful. It made me want to shower.
Johnson runs into the same problems he did in Daredevil -- all the nifty comic book conceits don't coalesce into a compelling (or coherent) mythology, so there's no sense of stakes, importance, or scale. Starts out strongly, with the sort of grand, broad-brush storytelling I was hoping for: the devil appears in the form of a black-clad Peter Fonda and immediately demands Johnny Blaze's soul (no, seriously: "Name your price," says Johnny when the devil offers to cure his father's cancer; "your soul," replies the devil); the film moves furiously for a while, and doesn't blink until Nicolas Cage shows up as Adult Johnny. Then the tone goes to hell (ha... ha...) -- Cage hams it up; the screenplay starts winking furiously and attempting broad comedy -- and the storyline sprawls in a half dozen different directions, trying to cram in as much of the comic as possible: Blaze seems to be both the devil's bounty hunter and an all-purpose avenger (he goes around smiting the wicked, kind of like Daredevil); Fonda's Mephistopheles is inexplicably dumped in favor of a generic and boring sub-villain played by Wes Bentley; Johnson lingers on Blaze's tiresome psychological crises and the obligatory journalist love interest. None of it matters, the film drains of momentum, and by the end what could have been a kick-ass geek-out becomes as ridiculous as everyone feared. A movie about a bike-riding superhero with a burning skull for a head walks a thin line, and Ghost Rider isn't calibrated right. Rent The Punisher instead.
Norbit (Brian Robbins, 2007) - D
It's not the fat suit or the mean jokes; it's not even Eddie Murphy as a small Asian man, or the unspeakably obnoxious attempts at a catchphrase ("How YOU doin'" as an expression of contempt). It's the stupidity of it that's offensive: the moron characters, the hacked-together, barely-there story, the one-note emasculated caricature that is Norbit himself. Murphy remains a talented performer, and Norbit is sometimes kind of funny (the absurdity of the monstrous Rasputia made me laugh despite myself), but it adopts a demeanor that is so aggressively formulaic and cloying that the idiocy seems almost purposeful. It made me want to shower.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Breaking and Entering
Breaking and Entering (Anthony Minghella, 2006) - B+
Seems, at first glance, to have been built top-down, entirely out of themes, messages, and metaphors -- there's a lot about distances: physical, emotional, socioeconomic; the film tackles gentrification, urban renewal, class divides, autism -- but the characters come alive almost despite the screenplay, and ultimately wind up driving the plot. The ending, specifically, which has been decried elsewhere as pedantic and ridiculous, struck me as precisely right, both thematically -- a selfless act closing all distances -- and narratively. Meanwhile, Minghella demonstrates why he was recruited into the big time: this is a strikingly beautiful film, and Minghella's use of the entire frame is so effective and pervasive that I pity the poor saps who watch it in pan-and-scan. Ambitious as hell, sometimes overreaching -- the Russian prostitute, though gamely played by Vera Farmiga, was probably a mistake -- but also moving and downright impressive. Ignore the bad reviews.
Seems, at first glance, to have been built top-down, entirely out of themes, messages, and metaphors -- there's a lot about distances: physical, emotional, socioeconomic; the film tackles gentrification, urban renewal, class divides, autism -- but the characters come alive almost despite the screenplay, and ultimately wind up driving the plot. The ending, specifically, which has been decried elsewhere as pedantic and ridiculous, struck me as precisely right, both thematically -- a selfless act closing all distances -- and narratively. Meanwhile, Minghella demonstrates why he was recruited into the big time: this is a strikingly beautiful film, and Minghella's use of the entire frame is so effective and pervasive that I pity the poor saps who watch it in pan-and-scan. Ambitious as hell, sometimes overreaching -- the Russian prostitute, though gamely played by Vera Farmiga, was probably a mistake -- but also moving and downright impressive. Ignore the bad reviews.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Because I Said So
Because I Said So (Michael Lehmann, 2007 ) - D+
My least favorite kind of romantic comedy: the kind where everyone is completely insane. Diane Keaton's character, who obsesses over her daughter's love life to the point of placing personal ads for her and screening potential suitors, and then showing up at her house before her dates, simply needs to be institutionalized; the daughter, played by the (still gorgeous and radiant) Mandy Moore, seems to have zero qualms about dating two people at once while trying to decide which she wants to ditch. The most interesting thing is the way antiquated notions of relationships sort of track each other: the man Mandy Moore's mother finds for her happens to be a vaguely chauvinist asshole, insisting on ordering for her from restaurant menus, and essentially telling her not to think so much. But that little thematic nugget is buried under 100 minutes of unfunny hysteria; there's also the small matter that both Tom Everett Scott and Gabriel Macht are like twice as old as Mandy Moore (her mom's okay with this?), and the question of what Piper Perabo is doing in a role with about a dozen lines, most of them about sex.
My least favorite kind of romantic comedy: the kind where everyone is completely insane. Diane Keaton's character, who obsesses over her daughter's love life to the point of placing personal ads for her and screening potential suitors, and then showing up at her house before her dates, simply needs to be institutionalized; the daughter, played by the (still gorgeous and radiant) Mandy Moore, seems to have zero qualms about dating two people at once while trying to decide which she wants to ditch. The most interesting thing is the way antiquated notions of relationships sort of track each other: the man Mandy Moore's mother finds for her happens to be a vaguely chauvinist asshole, insisting on ordering for her from restaurant menus, and essentially telling her not to think so much. But that little thematic nugget is buried under 100 minutes of unfunny hysteria; there's also the small matter that both Tom Everett Scott and Gabriel Macht are like twice as old as Mandy Moore (her mom's okay with this?), and the question of what Piper Perabo is doing in a role with about a dozen lines, most of them about sex.
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