Reviews
Love Actually (2003)
Sex please, we're British
If we deserve a 'feel-good' movie for the holidays, then this one is a needs some trimming before we can say it's ready. First, the matter of suspending your disbelief. A British Prime Minister who goes as he pleases, a boy who just lost his mother but is grieving because he is in love, same boy running around Heathrow Airport like there is no such thing as security, and an ambiguous love triangle between an African man, his white best friend, and his newly wedded white bride. Then there is that remark by the Prime Minister that he would eliminate the ex-boyfriend of his love interest (a la Tony Blair and his WMD top scientist?). Finally too much of a good thing is not necessarily good. Exploiting the old Pop star, Billy, for all its worth; the Colin character who goes to Wisconsin to find love; and the couple who find love doing simulated sex. Amidst all this, the sleeper was Claudia Schiffen showing up as someone called Carol. I think most everyone missed that one.
25th Hour (2002)
Spike Lee mainstream
Spike Lee's "The 25th Hour" is respectful, melancholic, sardonic, whimsical, but above all else, unequivocal. In a movie that uses the backdrop of the Twin Tower tragedy to illustrate the tenacity of the human spirit to go on, Spike Lee doesn't hold back on crime and punishment. Unlike the rather ambiguous ending of "Do the Right Thing", in this film, we have the replay of the temptation scene in "The Last Temptation of Christ" to powerfully connect all the dots in the lives of five very tormented people. Regrets are many from the father (Brian Cox) who drank too much to support his kid to the drug dealer, Monty (exceptionally played by Edward Norton) who couldn't leave the table while he was ahead, to his girlfriend Naturelle (Corina Dawson) who benefited from all the riches without trying to stop the live of crime to the best friend, Frankie (Barry Pepper), who knew early on that things would end up badly. Philip Seymour Hoffman as Jacob, gives a sterling performance as a school teacher secretly lusting his 'lolita' student (Anna Paquin). Spike Lee doesn't hold anything back from the opinionated viewpoints of foreigners in New York City to the super-stud values of a single white male. But everything revolves around Monty and the future that awaits him in prison the very next day. The film powerfully teaches us that once the deed is done, consequences have to be paid, be it a city that has to rebuild or a man who has to go on with his honor.
The Hours (2002)
Mrs Dalloway goes out to buy flowers
"The Hours" is about time - time we have left to make our lives enjoyable or to spend it in misery. It features the lives of three women, which might explain why half the film-goers (the males) might not want to see it and why it was left out of Ebert and Roeper's Top 10 films. If that perception is true, that would be a shame. "The Hours" is a wonderfully crafted film about universal themes of life and death, suppression and freedom, and unresolved love. That it is told from the viewpoint of three women should not diminish any of its appeal. Virginia Woolf must combat her life long mental affliction even as husband Leonard tries to manage her condition. Using the novel, 'Mrs Dalloway', the film conveys the heartache of isolation and forlorn lives in two other women who are directly connected to the book. In 1951, we meet Laura and Dan who, with their young son, would seem an ideal family. But Laura yearns for freedom, much as Mrs. Dalloway, and she must choose between giving up her family or dying. Move to 2001, and there is yet another Mrs. Dalloway in Claire and her dogged responsibility toward her former lover, Richard, now dying of AIDS. The themes of liberation, lesbianism, and dying enthrall all three women, and one does die in order that those around her might value even more the living. You cannot find three better actresses to portray these very complex individuals, in Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep, and Nicole Kidman, any or all should be nominated for Oscars. An equally fine supporting cast of Ed Harris, John Reilly, Stephen Dillane, Claire Danes, and Allison Janey make "The Hours" one of the most interesting and intelligent melodramas to come along in a while.
Catch Me If You Can (2002)
Of Mice and Yankees
"Catch Me if You Can" is an acceptable, feel-good movie involving characters we want to succeed, Leonardo DiCaprio as Frank Abragnale Jr, and Tom Hanks as FBI agent, Carl Handratty. Guns are drawn but never fired and a disillusioned son never gets to express his outrage at his opportunistic mother. Steven Spielberg injects the 1960s look of a Robert Wagner 'It Takes a Thief' TV series or a Peter Sellers 'Pink Panther', even bringing back Kitty Carlisle for the 'To Tell The Truth' show. But he doesn't give us the inventive nor provocative spirit of his trademark films. De Caprio excels in his very believable conversion, from a bystander witnessing his father dangling lockets or overly praising strange women to do his biding or his mother's philandering, to an active participant in fraud. Tom Hanks has to suffer the role of the fall guy, failing at least four times to catch his man. The interesting women in De Caprio's life, especially the hotel hooker (Jennifer Garner) who fails to appreciate a con and the sheepish young nurse (Amy Adams) whose genuineness is as clear as the braces on her teeth make for interesting distractions but their roles are too transitory.
This is an OK film but, by Spielberg standards, below what was expected.
About Schmidt (2002)
In praise of civility
One scene in "About Schmidt" epitomizes this wonderfully sly satire of Americana. Warren, the recent widower and frustrated soon to be father-of-the-bride, sits and observes the groom's family chomping at food as if they were grazing at the trough. His predicament is that his daughter (Hope Davis) is eating just like them. Jack Nicholson, as Warren, is in practically every scene and his dramatic and comedic talent have never been better showcased (the tearful widower in a wonderful monologue atop his travel van, the struggling water bed sleeper who soon shows the effects of too much Percodan, and the seemingly vindictive father who turns 180 degrees in his wedding speech) . He doesn't work with glamorous women like in "The Witches of Eastwick" and he has a future son-in-law (Dermot Mulroney) that he graciously calls a nincompoop. No, there is his very old looking wife of 42 years, Helen, who makes him use the toilet seat to urine and a domineering soon to be mother-in-law, Roberta (Kathy Bates), who doesn't mind talking about her breast feeding, her orgasms, nor does she mind indulging in a nice hot tub session with Warren. The film deliberately keeps the straight-laced, broad shouldered Warren as a one dimensional, penny-pincher (the pine box was too cheap for his wife but not the upgrade) who is unable to deal with his retirement, his estranged daughter's wedding, nor self-doubts about what he has really accomplished. Much like the Coen brothers' film, "Fargo", this film makes us look at ourselves from the microscopic detail of sagging skin to the macroscopic view of a man's small place in his universe. It goes further by showing the terrible irony of a lonely, frustrated man whose only joy in life is confiding in a six year old boy he has never seen, in a faraway country where for the cost of $22 a month, he can finally say he has redemption.
Equilibrium (2002)
Sterile, very sterile
After the first half hour of "Equilibrium", you sense that there is nothing much to more to see - an acrobatic 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' type of combat in which the hero (Christian Bale) rushes into a dark room full of flying bullets and escapes unscathed, the ominous father figure that has given society freedom from war, and the compelling guise of people who no longer can feel. Throw in a small role for the damsel in distress (Emily Watson), an unconvincing antagonist (Taye Diggs), and a few reminders of the Western civilization and what is the sum of this film is hardly worth any of its parts. The irony of a film about people who are unable to feel is that it makes you hardly feel for any of it.
Far from Heaven (2002)
Convention, convention, convention
`Far From Heaven' has been compared to the Jane Wyman tear jerker, `All That Heaven Allows' but a closer comparison would be `Pleasantville'. The operating word here is 'convention'. `Pleasantville' saw through it, rejected it, and was highly praised. `Far From Heaven' resists the revisionist plan and, consequently, will not be as popular a movie. This is a time capsule of the way America acted in the post-cold war 1950s, a time when integration was new and threatening and homosexuality was a disease to fight and be cured of. The conventional family unit consisted of a hard-working successful businessman-father (Dennis Quaid), his socially known and glamorous homemaking-wife (Julianne Moore), her steadfast neighbor and best friend (Patricia Clarkson) and two dutifully children, one male and one female, of liked age to perfectly balance the situation. There was the typical American town, Hartford, where, again by convention, the whites and the blacks knew their place and where integration was an abstract thought. Finally, there was homosexuality, which by convention, was more a rare disease among artists than it was commonly seen in everyday life. Todd Haynes projects this movie as it would have been made in the 1950s, from the tidy, pretentious dialogue down to the gasps of indignation at a black man talking much less riding in a car with a white woman, to the fake scenes of the automobile rear view mirror. Yet it is the issue of homosexuality and a black man having anything to do with a white woman that Haynes would have us ponder over. It certainly would not have passed the movie censors then but, today, would seem to be an unnecessary reminder of how times have changed. It seems that Haynes can't have it both ways.
The Man from Elysian Fields (2001)
How to safe one's life
This is a unique morality story taken from the point of view of several different characters, making it both entertaining and intriguing. Luther Fox (Mick Jagger) entices a desperate unemployed writer, Byron (Andy Garcia) to be part of his gigolos. The entreprenauer clearly sees danger as well as opportunity in his new find. Byron doesn't want to cheat on his devoted wife Dena (Julianna Marguiles) but finds he has little choice in order to maintain the lie about his successful novel. Andrea (Vanessa Williams) finds Byron the perfect medicine for her dying husband Alcott (James Coburn) who must finish one last good book. And then there is Luther again with a genuine desire to live and love like a normal man like Byron, who he has now corrupted. All the characters are believable with an especially jolting performance from Angelica Huston. While not one of the best films of the year by Roger Ebert in the film billing, it is still a strong film about choices we make and those which can and cannot be reversed.
Secretary (2002)
His sign, her assets
Jack meets Jill in a perverse love story, "The Secretary" where the true meaning of love is in pain and submission. This movie pushes the limits of sensibility like "The Last Tango in Paris", especially in two scenes involving a bend-over submissive relishing the abuse. However at two hours, the sefl-centered, enticing monologue wears thin. If we could understand the troubling tendencies of one E. Edward Gray (James Spader) or the self-mutilating behavior of one Lee Holloway (Maggie Gyllenhaal), we could appreciate the film more. There are sparks of inventiveness. Where else does one see a 'secretary wanted' sign lit like a motel vacancy? Or the red pen circled mistakes that surely warrant a spanking. Or the smartly dressed neophyte coming to a job interview like little Red (Blue) Riding Hood about to meet the wolf. What "The Secretary" lacks in substance, it surely makes up in style.
Thirteen Conversations About One Thing (2001)
An Intelligent American film!!!
The film title suggest it is about sexual relations. But "13 Conversations about one thing" hits a home run about an even more fundamental concern - what makes us happy. Through a very involved cast of four main characters smartly intersecting each others' paths, from an early bar scene that it returns to at the end, this film remains a genuine search for that elusive something in our lives. The film is also a mosaic about the human condition, from cynical (the math professor, John Turturo, asking his troubling student why he wants to become a doctor in order to prolong our miserable lives) and egotistical (the prosecutor, Matthew McConaughey, proclaims that luck is merely a poor man's excuse for hard work and faith is the antithesis of proof) and cruel (the young woman, Clea Duvall, with so much hope crippled by an accident that left her saying she had been changed only to the extent that now she was like everyone else) to the transcendental (the double curse by the cynical insurance man, Alan Arkin) and whimsical at the end (the surprise glance between two desperate characters, Arkin and Amy Irving, leaving the subway). Of the four characters, Clea Duvall gets our sympathies and admiration. In her segment, 'Ignorance is Bliss', she symbolizes a certain freshness the world hasn't had a chance to turn stale. Her salvation by the ever smiling Drummond is a profound reversal of the otherwise pointless characters in this film. "13 Conversations" doesn't try to tell us what is happiness as much as it directs us toward trying to find it.
Minority Report (2002)
Unfinished symphony, unfinished film
"Minority Report" is a mess from the obvious holes in the story (a premeditated murder that isn't, a drug seeking father who mourns his dead son by mysteriously divorcing himself from his loving wife) to the poor plot and character development (3 bodies plopped on a watery bed who we have to accept as being able to decipher the future, a Holy-Grail type search for a 'minority report' embedded inside one of the female subjects). It has a storyline that, like Shubert's Unfinished Symphony, seems unfinished even as the film mercilessly hurries to a contrived ending. It is sad that with such talent, Steven Spielberg, John Williams, Philip K. Dick, Tom Cruise, Samantha Morton, Max Von Sydow, and Colin Farrell, the film would come to this. The film should have been told without the convoluted and unbelievable twists and turns ( the arrested Agatha coming back to life to selectively remember what will happen, the contrived bad boss portrayed as milquetoast , the cunning federal agent who magically puts all the pieces together before his fatal end). Toned down and told from a more philosophical viewpoint (yes, we can believe in soothsayers) with better character development (particularly between Atherton and his wife and also the three future telling misfits), this would have been a more sensible and intelligent film rather than the mess that we have.
Ôdishon (1999)
What's in the bag
A meek love story turns repulsive in the Japanese film, "Audition". For most of the film, the gentle characters remind you of high manners. But there is that bag that keeps moving in the apartment and the charming young woman who vegetates by sitting on the floor when she is not making a move on Mr. Right. And Mr. Right seems to have found his perfect mate after the untimely death of his wife. But the clues are there that the ending will be more chilling than warming. The film seeks to tell us more about female repression and retribution than you would find if the story was told more overtly. The final scene when the young woman stretches out her hand to the man she has been brutalizing is resounding in its feelings of love, longing, and frustration.
Pollock (2000)
When to stop making love
"Pollock" is both an absorbing yet disturbing portrait of an artistic genius told in an all consuming manner by director and star Ed Harris. Its strength is also its weakness. The character Jackson Pollack monopolizes almost all the screen time of this film, imbuing us with a tormented and tragic figure, insecure in his craft and in his own being, even as he achieves acclaim as America's greatest living artist. He is an alcoholic apt to pout and to withdraw when he cannot have his way. He shows insensitivity to the love around him and cannot control the inner rage that ironically propels his greatest works. Yet there is the other tragic figure, Lee Krasner, (in a well played role by Marcia Gay Hardin) who we know little about except as the support that hold Pollock up every time he falls. It is this imbalance which detracts from an otherwise earnest and powerful story. In commanding so much screen presence, Ed Harris as Pollock, repulses more than enlightens us on this unique, pacesetting artist
Fa yeung nin wah (2000)
We won't be like them
You won't find the title song "In the Mood for Love" in the film of the same name. Likewise, the English subtitles running in this Chinese film flash a bit faster than you can read it. The manners and mannerisms of this set piece in the 1960s also stretch your patience. That being said, "In the Mood for Love" is a worthwhile venture into a realm of suppressed lovemaking few of us are prepared for. "Remains of the Day", about an English butler and his maidservant, ironically written by a Japanese writer, comes closes but that film elicited a much sterner civility. True, "In the Mood for Love" is about disappointments and betrayals and about integrity in spite of human longings. But it is also about how the aggrieved couple, Mrs. Chun and Mr. Chau (well performed by Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung), try to maintain a normalcy that makes it the most interesting part of this film. They do so under the watchful eye of two old-fashion Chinese couples who are their landlords and fellow boarders. The repeated trips down a dank passage to the noodle shops merely reinforces a mundane life that must be lived whereas the meetings in the alleyway are done surreptitiously to avoid the appearance of improper behavior. In one of the funniest scenes, the couple must wait it out in Mr. Chau's room until a prolonged Mahjong game is completed in the next room so that Mrs. Chun can be whisked out unnoticed. The couple also tried mightily to abide by their agreement that "they will not be like them". This is taken to a drastic level when Mr. Chau decides to rent out a motel room (interestingly with a dark red background) where they can write martial arts cartoon features they hope to sell. Even alone in their private room, they sublimate their own desires by running through a make believe exercise in which Mrs. Chun confronts her husband with his infidelity. But what the film hints in its visuals are human longings - the curvaceous hips of Mrs. Chun, the rising cigarette smoke against the fluorescent lights as Mr. Chau writes his cartoons, the clock in the newsroom that signals appointments kept or not, and the unseen faces of their respective spouses who have betrayed them. The film also has reminders of morality - the crescendo staccato sounds when the couple is about to do something morally right and the basa nova like melody when they are tempted. The final scenes are rushed and don't do justice to the preceding slow-paced encounters but they do highlight the only form of lovemaking Mrs. Chun and Mr. Chau can embark upon - envisioning a love with so many opportunities, yet never to be consummated.
Hannibal (2001)
It is important to try something new
As a rule, sequels to successful films should be avoided. "Gone With The Wind", "2001", "Airplane", and "Poseidon Adventure" deserved to be left alone. Those that follow them were not as well made and were clearly profiting by the original. Which leaves us in limbo about "Hannibal". It has many negatives. The sexual tension and cat and mouse games between Lecter and Clarice from "Silence of the Lambs" are not there. It is almost two and a half hours long and there are diversions which mute the story. The first scene involving the apprehension of a dangerous black woman could have been shortened or left out. Even in spite of the theater warning about graphic violence, it doesn't even live up to its own notice. After seeing your typical knifings, frontal lobotomies, wild boars ravaging, and disembowelments, the scene involving the handcuffed wrist isn't even shown. There is a technical error involving a leg x-ray that is later referred to as a wrist that should have been easily caught. So why see it? In the hands of director Ridley Scott and screenplay by David Mamet, the film generally doesn't cheapen itself with bad dialogue nor half-hearted action. Three particularly good scenes involve the pocket thief desperately chasing Lecter to get his fingerprint on a bracelet, the romp through a Washington D.C. shopping mall, and the encounter in the Florence opera house discussing Dante's Inferno. Anthony Hopkins doesn't let us down with his reprise of Lecter and Julianne Moore as Clarice is just as you would have imagined Jody Foster ten years later - their suppressed sexuality, their vulnerability as well as their toughness in keeping with character. The surprise is Giancarlo Giannini as Pazzi, who does such a good job as the hunter being hunted. But "Hannibal" is a sequel that tries to diversify and there is where the problem lies. Staying away from its strength, the mind games between Clarice and Lecter, it introduces us to two other characters that want to play with Lecter. There is Mason Verger, the rich psychiatrist, with the de-boned face and the constant wheelchair up to diabolical tricks to flesh out Lecter. There is Pazzi, the Florence detective with a dark family history of betrayal, who wants Lecter for the reward money. "Hannibal" is most interesting in the first half of the film when Lecter is playing mind games with Pazzi. Then it gets downright mundane until the final climax when Clarice and Lecter reunite with one scene in which the monstrous Lecter is carrying the unconscious Clarice like King Kong with Fay Wray or the huge robot with Anne Francis from 'Forbidden Planet". "Hannibal" deserves all the negative criticism it has received but it also deserves a viewing for the talented work put forth.
Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
Dracula Lite
"Shadow of a Vampire" can't make its mind up about being an art film or a run-of-the-mill horror shtick. There is little horror after the novelty of the Dr. Orlock character wears off and, unfortunately, the intended caricature of the filming of "Nosferatu" is presented much too seriously to be considered campy or laughable. So "Shadow of a Vampire", while conceptually interesting, is the worst kind of a put-on, one where everyone already knows everything. How could it have been improved? For one, make Dr. Orlock more than a stick figure who comes out only at night to frighten his fellow cast members. If all we know of the Willem Dafoe character is that he has a reprehensible snicker, very long fingernails, and a compulsion to drink the blood of his leading lady, then we really don't care what happens to him. For another, develop the characters beyond just what happens when they are being filmed. The lead actor, Gustav, mysteriously vanishes after his sequences with Dr. Orlock, the leading lady, Greta, shows up only in the beginning and at the end, and there are glimpses of drug-seeking behavior in director F.W. Murna and in the star actress, for which the film never explores. Finally, don't depend merely on the black and white images to create a dramatic effect when a lame script and soundtrack can't help you. John Malkovich as Murna tries mightily to lift this film beyond its ill-conceived storyline but even he cannot rescue what looks and talks like a turkey.
The Gift (2000)
Cate saves the film
Overdrawn, predictable, sensational, miscast are the most obvious comments about "The Gift", and yet, in the character of Annie Wilson, Cate Blanchette has single-handedly saved this film. This is a complex woman, gifted with clairvoyance yet guarded in how she reveals it, generous with her love yet mindful of love's limits, and vulnerable to what unfolds before her yet strong enough to take life's punches. "The Gift" does have suspenseful moments - a local harlot killed, it would seem, by an obvious suspect yet three other people have motives for the crime and the film does a good job of bringing them out. The film, however, telegraphs the villain to us long before the climax and has the audacity to make believe we would not know. It also undercuts itself by unfolding a very slow story. The supporting cast is adequate but one must wonder about the Greg Kinnear character - at once suave and professional looking and yet trying to be hick like everyone around him. That disconnect never resolves itself. But what does work is Cate Blanchette, which "The Gift" fittingly revolves around and which, by her strong faithful character, makes this film worth watching.
Left Behind (2000)
Narrow minded
Mainstream Christian films risk losing their audience if they proselytize too much or focus on narrow themes. "God's Army" managed to be informative and entertaining because it avoided those traps. "Left Behind", based upon the book, unfortunately invests so much time on the Biblical foretelling of the end of the world and the return of the Anti-Christ that only ardent believers would understand the significance of what transpires in the film. As such, the average moviegoer is about one step behind the confusing events that are only explained later. Take the State of Israel about to be annihilated by circling warplanes only to be magically saved. Or people who vanish with only their clothes as reminders, or the restoration of the Temple of Israel, or the Eden project, or a worldwide conspiracy to control food, or the selected biblical references that trace mankind's demise. The concurrent theme of wayward people who find Christ in the midst of their dilemmas isn't enough to offset an assumption of biblical knowledge the filmmakers expect. There is also this dangerous implication that since only the devout have left, those remaining must redeem themselves in some way to be saved. Does that mean that the outstanding Jewish leader in the story and all others like him aren't going to be saved? Or are they really part of the conspiracy? Perhaps it was asking too much for the filmmakers to frame "Left Behind" in any other way than what is presented. After seeing the in your face approach of "Dogma" and the blatantly irreligious "The Rapture", and the slyly romanticized Ellen Burstyn film, "Resurrection", moviegoers clearly needed a more balance presentation of Christ. "Left Behind" however made more sense to a limited audience than it did to a wider one that either didn't know about the literal Apocalypse or weren't going to buy into it anyway.
The Pledge (2001)
My soul to salvation
"The Pledge" is one-character portrayal of a retiring detective who can't get his last case out of his mind. That it involves the brutal rape and murder of a young blond girl by a supposed serial killer would be interesting in itself but director Sean Penn is after more. Casting Jack Nicholson(as Jerry Black) allows Penn to give us a smart compilation of character flaws of Nicholson's previous films. Jerry Black comes across as a troubled man who enjoys trout fishing and his police work but precious little else. Indeed, Nicholson initially appears to be holding back a mysterious if not evil nature likened to his 'here's Johnny' role in "The Shining". In a revealing encounter with a psychiatrist (wonderfully acted by Helen Mirren) ostensibly to try to decipher a criminal profile from a child's drawing, Jerry Black instead has the tables turned when he exhibits traits of someone with post-traumatic stress. Penn then shows another Nicholson role, that of the authoritative figure who is really warm at heart, as in "The Border" and "The Last Detail". His bedtime reading of 'Thumbelina' to the little girl and his reticent advances toward her mother (in a dreary role by Robin Wright Penn) are uncharacteristic. But that is not the final take because Penn isn't interested in the run-of-the-mill hero. Instead, the final Nicholson we see is a tragic, singular minded figure of "A Few Good Men" and "Five Easy Pieces". Penn deliberately plays on our sympathies for Nicholson through use of periodic slow motion to detail the escalating torment of a man who cannot prove his suspicions. As well, we can feel for this ex-cop who never lets down his guard in protecting a little girl and her mother from a killer he has deliberately flushed out of hiding. Penn also has a gift for illustrating local figures from the sheriff pumping iron while his female officer is manicuring her toes, to the shop clerk trying to give directions, to the Harry Dean Stanton character who refuses to sell his store one minute and is out the next, to even Nicholson's love interest who can't afford to have her chipped front tooth fixed. Two scenes crystallize this all-consuming, Quixotic figure in "The Pledge". Even as his fellow officers tell him to 'get a life', Jerry rebukes them by saying he has made a promise, something that isn't kept much in this day and age. Secondly we see the macabre yet powerful glimpse of his kitchen where he has his fresh filleted trout next to the colored photograph of the bloodied corpse. In "The Pledge", Penn has neatly given us a summation of Jack Nicholson's many human qualities in a poignant film about how we can by misdirected by our best intentions
State and Main (2000)
Awful Mamet
David Mamet's gift for dialogue and high-minded drama takes a backseat in the unsuccessful screwball comedy, "State and Main". You've seen flashes of this film in Francois Truffaut's "Day for Night" and Robert Altman's "The Player" but Mamet's latest effort is no more than an exercise in tedium. He neither has the storyline nor the players (Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Rebecca Pidgeon wouldn't make you think of Jimmy Stewart and Katherine Hepburn) to pull off this ungracious effort. Ostensibly about the invasion of bad-mannered Hollywood into a proper New England town, the film manages to throw so many subplots at you that even an earnest viewer would lose out. That we are suppose to excuse the commission of sex with a minor or the past arson hijinks of one of the main characters and yet be so concerned about telling the truth seems incredulous. If Mamet had stayed focused on the hard-boiled director (Walt Price, adequately played by William Macy) trying to keep his production on schedule and within budget, there might have been a chance. But he veers off with the prolonged romance between Joe and Ann (Hoffman and Pidgeon), or the asinine fight over the starlet who won't go topless, or the pompous efforts of the mayor's wife to host an ill-fated dinner, or the preoccupation of star Bob Barrenger (Alec Baldwin) with an underage girl. The appearance of producer Marty (David Paymer) seemed to bring back the original focus but even he got lost in the final quarter of the film when the desperate Mamet had to try to tie all the loose ends. There are glimpses of praise, as when the innocent Joe White has to fest up to Ann upon seeing him with the naked Claire (played over the top by Sarah Jane Parker) and the repeated gag lines about the associate producer title, the two old codgers leafing through Variety, the pothole on Main Street that never gets fixed, and matzo mistakenly called crackers. The performances are run of the mill although David Paymer deserves recognition. From the high-minded David Mamet, "State and Main" is a major disappointment, where characterizations enamored him so much he lost sight of what he was trying to say.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
Big Rock Candy Mountain
"Oh Brother Where Art Thou", unlike the Coen brothers' "Fargo" which was a mean-spirited parody on dumb talking Minnesotans, is rather a celebration of Southern culture, especially the twangy folk music. Instead of picking on the people of Mississippi, the film glorifies a slower way of life, during the Depression, when the unhappiness and sorrow of poverty and inequality blended as naturally in song as the promise of a resurrection. Taken loosely from Homer's "Odyssey", the film follows three quirky convicts who escape from a chain-gang detail. Delmar (wonderfully played by Tim Blake Nelson) is the blank face, impressionable simpleton who could run to a uninvited baptism as easily as he could believe his friend had turned into a frog. Pete (equally well acted by John Turturro) is the moral compass, a man who sternly believes in right and wrong even if it means changing reality to fit his principles. Everett (George Clooney) is the articulate, agnostic universal man, a champion of expediency. Together they immerse themselves into a real world they are ill-prepared to face. The use of white is significant in three places, from the mesmerized people marching to the waters, to the muses by the river banks, to the KKK meeting and anticipated lynching. Similarly the blind man is used initially as a prophet riding singularly on the rail, warning not the seek worldly treasures and then later on as a radio station owner who just happens to discover the 'soggy bottom boys'. There are subplots too, involving the escapades of George 'Baby Face' Nelson, the governor's race between an inept incumbent and his sly challenger, and a fight by Everett to win back his wife and five girls. George Cooney's versatility really shines here. The man who could take on the Iraqi army and a full Northeaster is just as comfortable comically acting out as one of the 'good ole boys'. The Coen brothers finally got it right in fashioning good taste around satire. In "Oh Brother Where Art Thou", life is really a series of serendipity events, in which being slow-witted becomes a virtue rather than a curse.
Traffic (2000)
Mandatory Viewing
"Traffic" is a well made journey into the heart of America's drug trade and an important film with enough intense storytelling to hold you for two and a half hours. We know America is not winning the war on drugs primarily because of both high demand and high profiteering. Even as pervasive as this problem is to every community, we tend to be complacent because it isn't as visible as, say, racism or homelessness. "Traffic" brings it home and more. It reminds you a lot of "The Deer Hunter" in projecting an important issue on a personal level. Even though there are no chase scenes, you also feel the realism of "The French Connection" in tracking down drug dealers. In that respect, director Steven Soderbergh has deliberately given us two cultures trying to deal with drug trafficking in their own ways, perhaps no more evident than the technique of switching over to a orange-tinted, raw looking celluloid every time the action takes place in Mexico. America pours money and pretends the 'drug czar' will have enough political clot to carry the day. Mexico makes no pretense of even trying to curtail the flow, instead giving in to drug lords trying to monopolize the trade for themselves, through whatever means. In "Traffic", characters criss-crossing each other in a well orchestrated manner. We meet Javier (Oscar caliber performance by Benicio Del Toro) the Mexican policeman who has a streak of decency and honor even as corruption envelops him. There is General Salazar (Tomas Milian) who could be ruthless and charming at the same time. The American drug agents, Montel and Ray (Don Cheadle and Luis Guzman) are believably human even as they have to carry on with their mundane interrogations and surveillance. Eduardo (Miguel Ferrer) and the teenage couple, Seth (Topher Grace) and Caroline (Erika Christensen), serves as the preachy mouthpieces of the film, as they expound on why the police are mere pawns to the drug dealers they are trying to catch, what is wrong with NAFTA, and why over 100,000 white kids search every day in black neighborhoods for a fix. And then there is Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, already six months pregnant with his child even though they don't have one scene together. Douglas as Judge Wakefield is the perfect foil, a man of seeming strength and character who falls victim to a horrible family life. Zeta-Jones, on the other hand, starts out as an innocent victim but quickly learns to be cunningly savage to preserve her pleasurable way of life. "Traffic" doesn't try to give answers as much as it demands we try to find those answers ourselves - like why we should try to 'think out of the box' more or try to reach out to the very family members addicted to drugs who should be getting, not less, but more of our attention.
Chocolat (2000)
Sweet Nothings
Films with a food theme have generally transform the delights of cooking and eating to take us to another level, one beyond the visual to the heart and soul. "Chocolat" can best be appreciated through its child narrator as a fairy tale, albeit for adults. It is darker than "Babette's Feast", less sensual than "Like Water for Chocolate" (largely wasting the Johnny Depp character), less personal than "A Big Night", but thankfully less contrived than "What's Cooking". There are elements of mystery and of improbability that could only be understood in the context of make belief. How else could one understand the 'old tranquility' of a rather pleasant French town that is dominated by one man? How else could one rationalize a wandering woman and child who seek to liberate the suppressed human emotions of straight-laced people all over through the use of Mayan chocolate? Interestingly, the Catholic Church gets pushed around as a mere puppet, a symbol of intolerance and indoctrination for those in power. Those religious virtues of obedience, penitence, and self-denial get no respect either. Story aside, there are some good performances starting with Juliette Binoche who could elevate any film by her mere presence and Lena Olin as the abused fighting back. Judi Dench steals the screen everything she appears while Alfred Molina does a good, 'Father Knows Best' routine. Even Carrie-Ann Moss proves she can do more than just kickbox and the little 'Ponette' (Victoire Thivisol) continues to excel as a child actress. It's too bad the film never develops the love relationship between the older man and woman, (using Leslie Caron in a surprisingly limited and non-speaking role) she grieving for over 40 yrs over the wartime death of her husband. "Chocolat", accepted for being a fable, a French version of "Pleasantville", is a good Saturday afternoon divertissement, similar to going out to taste sweet nothings.
All the Pretty Horses (2000)
Setting Things Right
"All the Pretty Horses" has the gentleness and manners of a Horton Foote story and the violent tinge of a Sam Peckinpaugh film that gives it a realistic portrayal of a heroic Western figure. Set in 1949, this movie version of Cormac McCarthy's novel treats us to a time when a person's word and honor meant everything. The nostalgia is also there with the untamed, barren landscapes, the sleepy Mexican villages, the folksy Texans, and a Rio Grande River without barriers nor armed guards. The main story aside, it is the characters that make this film rewarding. A couple of 'good old boys' (John 'Bud' Cole and Lacey Rawlins) decide to pull up their Texas roots for an adventure in Mexico. You could not have found two better actors, Matt Damon and Henry Thomas, to project both the innocence and the boldness of what they are about to do. As they stargaze at the night skies, they decide that if there is a heaven, there must also be a hell - a telling prophecy about what they will experience. The strange boy that follows them, Jimmy Blevins (Lucas Black III) is the most arresting of all the characters - a figure with a childish mindset (his fear of lightning surpasses any common sense) a childish temperament (he will not give up his horse and his revolver), and yet the cunning and tenacity of any adult. Penelope Cruz is the fitting damsel in distress, Mexican-style, who maintains the wild spirit of untamed horses with the guarded dignity of a woman in her class and culture. With excellent direction from Billy Bob Thornton, "All the Pretty Horses" is a film to savor for that Southwestern blend of gentlemanly behavior, cowboy work ethic, and courage to set things right.
A Hard Day's Night (1964)
Try to remember
When you see Paul, Ringo, John, and George in "Hard Days Night", you really see yourself thirty-five years ago - brash, egotistical, flighty, and rebellious. In seeing their rise to stardom amidst the adulation and fanfare, you see also your own rise to being whomever you are now. This is a joyous return to pure showmanship that didn't need a corporate sponsor and to a dream-like state where wishes do come true. Sadly, there are truths which reverberate with the familiar tunes they play so well. When they are not performing, you see the images of lonely young men running away from commitment, from the mundane and stilted lives around them, and running to their elusive girls and their elusive freedom. On the train, they can't help poking fun at a middle age man who insists on doing everything his way. On an open field, they frolic as children in a playground that the owner regards as closed. In a police station, they see conformity and they are chased not merely by cops but by their very authority. Yet when they are performing, you see the bright laughter in their faces and the enjoyment of what they do best. There are no second takes from outsiders because they follow only their own intimate direction. "Hard Days Night" is not merely a running monologue about young men trying to stay sane even as their admirers surround them with their insanity. It is a true-to-life look at possibilities, some real and some not real. When Paul's fictitious grandfather asked Ringo to put down his book and to start 'marching', the film is telegraphing that same message to us - to put down the conventional and look at the unconventional. The only thing that could have made this film better is if they had sung "Imagine", the most admired tune of the last half century. "Hard Days Night" takes us back thirty five years and it too ask us to imagine what life could have been like.