RobT-2 Reviews

Futurama: The Prisoner of Benda (2010) Season 7, Episode 10

A work of demented genius

[10/10 · 6 January 2011]

As someone who has watched all of the original "Futurama" episodes several times each, I've mostly enjoyed the new episodes while making some allowances for a creative team getting its act together. Some of the episodes were very good, some just OK, none quite up to the level of the best original Fox episodes. As it happens, "The Prisoner of Benda" was the last of the new episodes I had a chance to watch, and it knocked me for a loop!

"Prisoner" makes use of the old science-fictional device of mind-swapping along with the associated themes of making use of the potential for freedom in being someone other than one's self, the discovery of unexpected limitations in one's "new self", and the renewed appreciation of one's previously taken-for-granted advantages. One new wrinkle is the condition that two given minds, once switched, can't be switched back (an inconvenience initially known only to the first two mind-switchers, and discovered by them the hard way). Add to this various personal hangups on the part of the Planet Express crew (does Fry only love Leela for her body? might Zoidberg be less repulsive if he was a human?) and Bender's limitless capacity for troublemaking, and things spin out of control very quickly.

This is perhaps the least predictable "Futurama" episode ever; it keeps adding new surprises and plot twists right up to the end. Among other treats, it includes some sexy "fan-service" bits as well as one scene that can only be described as the very opposite of "fan-service", both to hilarious effect. The episode's tone can turn on a dime, though; some scenes possess unusual emotional depth, including one bizarre, funny and touching scene featuring Scruffy the janitor, usually the series' most enigmatic figure. Remarkably, "Prisoner" stays true throughout to "Futurama"'s well-established characters, maintaining their believability even while putting them through one weird change after another.

I found "Prisoner" the most uproariously funny "Futurama" episode since "Roswell That Ends Well". Both episodes take outrageous delight in stretching the show's continuity fabric beyond previously imaginable limits, and the sustained possibility of breaking the show beyond repair powers the episodes' humor. One reason I've been on the fence with the new episodes of "Futurama" is because episodes like "Roswell" set such a high standard, but now I'm ready to stay with them until they come up with another one. (I just hope we don't have to wait another nine years for one this funny!)

X2 (2003)

Very, very good

[7/10 · 20 May 2003]

There's not a lot I can add to what's been said about "X2", but I did want to kick in my short personal take on the movie. Even though I'm not an effects maven, the variety and sheer visual wonder of the effects in "X2" bowled me over. They wouldn't have been as worth watching, however, if Bryan Singer & co. hadn't balanced them off with effective character sequences as well. Though these aren't necessarily up to the level of those in a good movie for grown-ups, they make the film come closer to capturing the "soap-opera" appeal of the X-Men comic than the first movie did. Superhero movies seem to be steadily improving, so to call this one "the best in the genre" isn't exactly an original tactic. Except maybe for last year's "Spider-Man", though, "X2" is as close to a classic film as the superhero genre has produced.

Holes (2003)

Best of the year? How about one of the best of the decade!

[10/10 · 19 April 2003]

I've not read Louis Sachar's original book HOLES, but his movie adaptation not only works splendidly as a film, it contains so much story material--with several interlocking mysteries variously turning upon class conflict, prejudice, thwarted desire, and the consequences of personal transgressions being passed down through the generations--that I'm prepared to say it's as faithful a translation of the book as one might care for (though I'll seek out the book to make sure, of course). Few filmmakers could have handled the various backstories' complexities, but HOLES delivers its flashbacks matter-of-factly and with faith in the audience's ability to follow along and put the pieces together. (And while it IS a kids' film, it offers a lot to adult viewers; anyone who enjoyed John Sayles's LONE STAR, for instance, should see HOLES.) No Hollywood formula could possibly contain the plot, and a lot of tension results because it's nearly impossible to predict what's going to happen from moment to moment. While the ending was a little too perfect, Sachar so ingeniously worked even apparent throwaway bits into the narrative logic, not to mention coming up with a perfect resolving symbol for one of the generational stories, that I'll not quibble.

Andrew Davis's direction was so eye-catching-yet-efficient that on the basis of this film and THE FUGITIVE I'm ready to venerate him as the reincarnation of Michael Curtiz. The cast was good-to-excellent; while Jon Voight, Tim Blake Nelson and Sigourney Weaver gave their own spins to the present-day villains, the juvenile actors largely carry the movie. Shia LaBeouf and Khleo Thomas's lead performances deserve to be singled out, but even the boys with little screen time make the most of it.

As a highly original story executed with spirit and commitment to doing it right, HOLES is one of my favorite movies of the last few years, likely to top my "year's best" list.

Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers (1993)

The "Citizen Kane" of animated shorts?

[10/10 · 8 April 2002]

I'm not the only one who thinks "Citizen Kane" is a great film because Orson Welles and his collaborators thoroughly exploited the potential of the sound film in telling their story, combining fine acting, intricate plotting and editing, and well-composed visuals and sounds in ways that just NAIL the viewer. Very few films have ever juggled so many filmmaking resources so well, but one of the few to do so, in my opinion, is the English clay-animated short "The Wrong Trousers".

As in "Kane", Nick Park and his crew of animators expertly combine a variety of methods in telling their story. The "acting," or rather the character animation, is wonderful, more so for the dog Gromit than for the goofy-looking human Wallace; Gromit's subtle expressions conveying everything we need to know about what he's thinking. Even more subtle is the penguin lodger, with a deliberately bland face but expressive gestures and body language. The plot is ingenious, with hardly an ounce of fat, and perfectly paced, starting slowly and gaining momentum almost imperceptibly until the climax.

The visual storytelling is excellent, especially since so much has to be conveyed without dialogue, and the clarity of the climactic sequence at the end marks a high point for film editing. The staging includes dramatic lighting and other bits of visual texture with which few animators bother. Finally, the music is one of "Trousers"'s most overlooked features--the sequence in which Gromit leaves in the rain while the penguin watches from the window offers a neat demonstration of music's effectiveness as a storytelling tool.

I don't really think "The Wrong Trousers" is really BETTER than "Citizen Kane", in an artistic sense. Of course, Orson Welles didn't try to make "Kane" as a 30-minute animated film with only three characters (two of whom are silent), either. As with "Kane", however, I get more out of "The Wrong Trousers" every time I watch it.

Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

We work hard, we play hard--we're the Soviet Union, and we're on the move

[10/10 · 13 March 2002]

Forget all the rhetoric about montage theory and constructivism--"The Man with the Movie Camera" is just an amazing film to watch. Hardly any other movies convey the vitality of a society so comprehensively and so thrillingly.

I know very well that this impression is produced by clever cinematography and editing, and I know that director Dziga Vertov wants me to know this--indeed, that's part of what the film's about. I also know that this society's excited delight with modernity was tinged by fear, which grew ever more dominant in Soviet society as the Stalin era advanced, ironically making it impossible to create such a daring, forward-looking piece of art as "The Man with the Movie Camera". I even understand the irony of this film's innovations being utilized in later documentaries which depict the darker side of modernity, from "The Plow That Broke the Plains" to "Koyaanisqatsi".

Even knowing all this, watching "The Man with the Movie Camera" (which I just did, in an auditorium with a DVD projector and a terrific sound system--the new score, based on Vertov's notes for the film but with definite affinities to Philip Glass's "Koyaanisqatsi" score, is terrific) still makes me was to learn Russian and take a time machine back to the U.S.S.R. in 1929, preferably with a camera of my own.

Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius (2001)

Not as bad as detractors say, not as good as defenders wish

[2/10 · 23 January 2002]

If I have to chose between seeing a film because of its critical reputation or seeing it because it looks like fun, most of the time I'll take the fun one. (Not having to chose at all would be the ideal option, but this isn't an ideal world.) Since I'm an animation buff, I already had the "Jimmy Neutron" movie on my "must-see" list, and this week seemed like a good time to see it. Yeah, it was fun. The question is, was it ENOUGH fun?

As befits a movie about a boy genius, JN:BG shows off a lot of intelligence. There's a lot of wit, both visual (most of Jimmy's homemade gadgetry) and verbal (well, I liked the "Blair Witch" reference, anyway). The characters and objects are animated like puppets, but it's senseless to complain about it since this was so obviously an artistic choice. On the other hand, the outer-space sequences were genuinely wondrous. (More about this later.)

As for the characters and the plot, that's where things get sticky. The story idea (aliens kidnap all the adults in Retroville, and while the kids have fun for a while they realize it's up to them to rescue their parents) is intriguing, but its execution feels like a genre exercise, giving the characters plot coupons rather than choices. The characters themselves come off as either comic relief (Jimmy's friends Carl and Sheen) or plot functionaries (the villains, Jimmy's parents, and his nemesis-turned-ally Cindy Vortex), with only Jimmy himself showing much individuality. (This is not intended as a criticism of the voice cast, by the way; everyone from Debi Derryberry on down does a fine job.) Most of the character detailing occurs early on (Jimmy's preparations for school, Cindy's tai-chi-and-soda-pop exercises), but there's not enough of it.

About those space visuals: I noticed that two Hugo-winning artists, Bob Eggleton and Don Maitz, were credited as "conceptual designers." This indicates to me that more thought went into JN:BG's visuals than its plot. (By the way, I don't mean to slight the other artists who worked on JN:BG by singling out the two Hugo-winners, these are just names I know and I'm familiar with their work. I suppose it's too late to hope for an "Art of JN:BG" book by now, alas.) The writers-director John A. Davis, plus Steve Oedekerk, David N. Weiss, and J. David Stern-have a substantial list of credits between them, but none of them appear to have much experience with either space movies or adventure movies. Not that their conception of the movie was bad, but they let the plot swallow up the characters without giving much back in return.

Still, even if JN:BG is no "Monsters Inc." or "Shrek," it does compare favorably to "Osmosis Jones" and "Atlantis." However, if I haven't scared you off and you still want to see it, you might wait for its run in your local dollar theater.

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion (2001)

Likeable, lightweight pastiche

[4/10 · 6 September 2001]

If such gifted younger directors as Quentin Tarantino, Tim Burton, and especially the Coen Brothers can attract hosannas for pastiches of/homages to classic films, then there's certainly no harm in letting a gifted older director/writer/performer try his hand at the same thing.

That said, I didn't find the overtones of screwball comedy some other viewers claim to see. The influences I detected included films of Billy Wilder--"Double Indemnity", since it dealt with insurance investigation, and "The Apartment", reflected in a romance between two characters at the insurance office. Charlize Theron's character could have stepped straight out of "The Big Sleep"; indeed, she's the only one who acts she's in a 1940's film.

The most notable influence, in my opinion, was Bob Hope. Woody Allen has always claimed Hope as an influence on his comic persona, but since Hope has a reputation as a straightforward comedian while Allen's comedy is so twistedly ironic, few people have taken Allen at his word. However, Hope in many ways can be considered the first comedian with a "neurotic" persona, and so many people followed in his footsteps that it's hard to appreciate his innovations today. It's not too hard to imagine "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" as a Bob Hope film; one might even imagine it as something written for Hope back in 1940, then shelved and lost until today.

Besides detecting influences, the chief pleasure in the film comes from watching the actors at work, especially Allen and leading lady Helen Hunt. The plot is interesting but not especially compelling, the visuals mostly functional, and while the dialogue is OK it's not up with the best of Allen's work. The actual delivery of the dialogue, however...that's different.

Allen, as a veteran insurance investigator who gets by on gut instinct, and Hunt, a newly hired efficiency expert whose operations threaten Allen's job (and whose intelligence and assertiveness threaten Allen personally), squabble throughout most of the film, and the only "screwball" aspect of it is that we know they're fated to be together by the end. Allen's role is a variation on his usual film persona, but within that persona he manages to convince us that he is a competent, though sometimes sleazy, investigator, and none of his actions and little of his dialogue are out of place for 1940. Hunt, on the other hand, seems more of a creature of the last twenty years or so; if time travel existed, one might think she'd emigrated from the present day to 1940. Since few movies set in the past fail to say something about the present in which they are made, this is excusable; indeed, some of Hunt's actions as an efficiency expert (such as organizing the files and pondering the wisdom of maintaining an in-house investigative department; both of these horrify Allen, naturally) could be considered the wave of the future, just as (in hindsight) this bright, unashamedly assertive female executive herself is.

It would be nice to think that there are purposeful deeper meanings in "Curse of the Jade Scorpion", since Allen's best earlier films worked equally well as comedy and introspection. While I could speculate on what its plot implies about Allen's psyche, I'd rather take this film as it was obviously intended, as unabashed light entertainment. It may be that Allen doesn't care anymore to reach deep within himself for material to move audiences, and to the extent that we remember the impact of such films as "Annie Hall", "Manhattan", "Hannah and Her Sisters", and "Crimes and Misdemeanors", "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" is unavoidably disappointing. This has not been a great year for films, however, so it still stands head and shoulders over most of the rest of what's out there now.

The Big Snit (1985)

How this missed winning an Oscar,...

[10/10 · 29 August 2001]

...the world may never know. (The film that did take the "best animated short" Oscar that year, "Anna and Bella", is very good, but it's no "Big Snit". Both are available on Expanded Entertainment's "World's Greatest Animation" compilation, in case you'd like to compare.)

"Snit" and its director, Richard Condie, have attracted so much attention that there's little for me to add. I'd like to note, however, that the film contains one of my very favorite single "shots" in an animated short, the one where the man opens the door to let the cat out. I don't want to give away the actual events depicted here, but the first time I saw the shot I was whipsawed from one mood to another, then seconds later to still another. That shot has never failed to affect me that way since. For this shot, and for the way Condie builds up to that set of moments, "The Big Snit" deserves the tag of "masterpiece".

The Substitute (1961)

Classic animated short, far too little known

[10/10 · 29 August 2001]

"Surogat" (mostly known in English-speaking countries as "Ersatz") was the first film produced outside the USA to win an Oscar for "best cartoon". While there were many great "foreign" cartoons in previous years, "Surogat"'s Oscar was auspicious in that it marked the point at which the mainstream of American animation took notice of such work. In view of the course American animation eventually took, it's easy to see why.

"Surogat" itself shows evidence of American influence, specifically from the UPA studios. UPA's animators developed a style (really a range of styles) taking cues from modern art and graphic design. Figures were rendered iconically; what they stood for was more important than their exact resemblance to what they depicted. UPA used this style to tell fables for a presumed adult audience, and avoided cuteness and slapstick.

"Surogat" is an adult fable as well, but obviously director Dusan Vukotic and writer Rudolf Sremec didn't feel bound by UPA's anti-slapstick rule. Otherwise, their film could easily pass as UPA product, though it outdoes all but UPA's very best work. The figures consist of simple geometric shapes, and most of their movements are either parallel to one of their edges or else curvilinear in the manner of "rubber-hose" animation; in other cases, they simply "pop" from one pose to another. (An acquaintance of mine called it "a bunch of triangles and shapes hopping around." "The Simpsons" effectively parodied the style by taking advantage of attitudes like that.) Despite this minimalism, the characters are identifiable as characters, and within the boundaries of fable the story works just fine.

UPA's main influence on American animation lay not in its "artistry" so much as the way its style was easy to copy, and to transfer over to "limited" animation for television, a growth industry at the time. TV animators also watched cartoons like "Surogat" for potential shortcuts they could use in their work. (I believe one immediately influential aspect of "Surogat" was its music, a sort of advanced semi-jazzy big-band/orchestral piece that wouldn't be out of place in, say, a "Jetsons" episode.)

However, when a new-generation of animators went to work for Hanna-Barbera and attempted to take their work "back to basics", they took artistic cues from UPA and other "artistic"/"iconic" work of the 1950's which influenced H-B. Hence, the influence of "Surogat" shows up in such recent work as "Two Stupid Dogs", "Dexter's Laboratory", "The Powerpuff Girls", and (the most self-consciously "artistic" of this group) "Samurai Jack".

Unfortunately, "Surogat"/"Ersatz" is very hard (at least for Americans) to find on video. Janus put it on a collection of short films, but this would appear to be out of print; however, it may be found in some libraries, especially those with older or larger video collections.

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

Not half bad, but...

[3/10 · 16 June 2001]

...it could have been better. Give the Disney people credit not only for attempting an original story rather than yet another adaptation, not only for chosing a story that demanded a more mature manner than most of their stuff, but for rendering that story with enough artistry to make compelling viewing for the duration of a feature. Nevertheless, there were enough flaws to partially mitigate "Atlantis's" considerable virtues, and the nature of the flaws suggests that the filmmakers didn't know their own film's strongest points.

The first major flaw is common among original fantasy movies--the filmmakers tried to cram too much story into too short a film. (Other victims of the syndrome include films as diverse as "A Close Shave" and "The Phantom Menace".) At the very least, they should have allowed the visuals some time to sink in, the better to awe the viewer. As it is, they barely have time enough to move the story along. Then too, all that neat Atlantean stuff to look at makes one wonder about the people who created and live among it, yet we never really learn much about the Atlanteans themselves, not even the king and the princess (the two major Atlantean characters). As few as ten more minutes could have done "Atlantis" a world of good.

The second major flaw grows directly out of the first--the characters are too shallow, and most of their distinctiveness comes out of their comic aspects. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with an abundance of funny characters--indeed, most people ARE funny at least some of the time--but given the short time we get to know these people, we never get to see other sides to them, and the few bits of their backgrounds are told rather than shown (with a few minor exceptions for the main character). Thus, when they finally stand up to the bad guy, it's not because of any strength of character hinted at earlier, but because the story demands it.

(To be fair, most of the comedy is carried out well enough. Special thanks here to Don Novello, whose deadpan portrayal of the explosives expert [matched by an animation team led by Russ Edmonds] stands as the perfect riposte to the manic comic sidekicks which have plagued so many recent cartoon films.)

A few minor flaws involve matters of taste, so you're free to ignore them if you like. First, this is yet another film revealing the heavy hand of "Star Wars" among its obvious influences. At least the dogfights here take place in an atmosphere, so they're not as obviously impossible as the space-based dogfights in "Star Wars", but it's hard to believe the technology of 1914 could accomplish some of the things depicted here. (Maybe the story should have been set immediately after the World War rather than before it, even if it meant throwing out that one line about the Kaiser.)

James Newton Howard's music also showed a heavy "Star Wars" influence, which is too bad because he's capable of better. For one thing, John Williams's original "Star Wars" music itself derives heavily from early 20th century sources (notably Holst's "The Planets"), and it wouldn't have been out of line for Howard to draw upon some of them as well, considering the time of the story. Secondly, the intimations of gamelan in part of the closing credits music suggest a sense of wonder that would have greatly added to the visuals had similar music been used during the film proper.

Finally, I'm not sure I like the emphasis (also present in Disney's "Tarzan") on colonialist exploitation as a source of evil. For one thing, it was perhaps less appropriate in this movie than in "Tarzan", which had some ecological hooks on which to hang the message. Also, I consider it retrograde to suggest that the wielding of oppressive, exploitative power is a special sin of gun-wielding white males, rather than a potential temptation for any human being in the right place at the right time. (The backstory of Atlantis itself, once the most powerful society on Earth [in this movie anyway], suggests a way the latter option could have been rendered. Unfortunately, this is yet another thing we are told rather than given a chance to see and feel for ourselves.)

Nonetheless, the best parts of "Atlantis" are still wonderful to look at, and to wonder about. Too bad that in the quest to make a more "mature" film the Disney people chose to model "Atlantis" after "Star Wars" rather than "Snow White", because they had all the story material and artistry necessary for an American answer to "Princess Mononoke".

The Man Who Came to Dinner (2000 TV Movie)

Best of the best

[9/10 · 12 June 2001]

As someone who goes out of his way to see performances of "The Man Who Came to Dinner"--one of the greatest comic concoctions of the 20th century--I thought this was the best media presentation of the play to date, much better than the 1940 film version. My only quibble concerns the decision to pattern Lewis Stadlen's Banjo after Jimmy Durante's version in the film, rather than Harpo Marx (upon whom the character was originally modelled), but that's a matter of personal taste. (And to be fair, Stadlen does just fine, perhaps even out-Duranting Durante.) Conversely, I can't imagine anyone better in the title role than Nathan Lane, and he lives up to my hopes splendidly. (I hope PBS broadcasts him in "The Producers" one of these days!)

The Soldier's Tale (1984)

An animated TV special like no other

[10/10 · 1 March 2001]

"A Soldier's Tale" is based upon the theater piece by the composer Igor Stravinsky and the playwright C. F. Ramuz, concerning a soldier who, returning home from war, chances upon a stranger who offers to buy his violin. This stranger turns out to be the Devil, and the violin an avatar of the soldier's soul, and most of the rest of the story concerns the soldier's attempts to regain his violin/soul.

As animated by a team headed by the cartoonist R. O. Blechman, the story has been tinkered with somewhat--introducing some elements not in Ramuz's text--while retaining its essential spirit. I don't think Stravinsky, who conceived the work to begin with, would have disapproved. As he himself wrote, "My original idea was to transpose the period and style of our play to any time and 1918 (the year of the work's composition), and to many nationalities and none, though without destroying the religio-cultural status of the Devil....in fact, I still encourage producers to localize the play and, if they wish, to dress the soldier in a uniform temporally remote from, but sympathetic to, the audience."

Blechman's style of line-drawing transfers surprisingly well to animation; the coloring has the pale look of watercolors, and the characters are wonderfully expressive (with the music heightening emotions at critical points), minimally drawn though they are. The use of perspective is spectacular enough to make me wonder what "A Solder's Tale" would look like on the big screen. Some of Blechman's designs recall Terry Gilliam's use of stylishly retro technological imagery, adding to the sense of wonder generated by the original story.

I first encountered Blechman's "A Soldier's Tale" by way of the ending, which was excerpted and used in the documentary series "Masters of Animation". Even out of context the excerpt just blew me away, and it retained every bit of its impact when I finally saw the complete work a few years later. While not for everybody, this version of "A Soldier's Tale" should be far better known than it is. Long out-of-print on VHS, Blechman's "A Soldier's Tale" is finally available on DVD, and well worth the time for serious animation fans to seek it out.

Jazz (2001)

A flawed program, but a great event

[10/10 · 26 February 2001]

As a jazz fan for over 20 years now, ever since I first encountered the 6-LP "Smithsonian Collection of Classic Jazz" in the library of the college where my father taught, I could go on and on about all the stuff Ken Burns and company left out. However, part of me keeps imagining some kid latching onto this program the way I did with the Smithsonian LP's, then searching out jazz recordings, books on the subject, and recent copies of "Down Beat" magazine. Multiply this scenario by an unknown number (hundreds? thousands, perhaps?), not just with literal kids but all kinds of people open to discovery in the same way, and you get some idea of how I feel about the program.

Speaking again as a longtime jazz fan, even though I was a bit disappointed that more "modern" and avant-garde jazz wasn't included, the portions of "Jazz" covering swing were a revelation--I've never had such a direct visceral connection to that music before, though I've enjoyed it from time to time. This illustrates the major merit of "Jazz", the way it puts the viewer inside the world in which the music happened. One reason the swing segments are the best in that regard is that not only do we get to see what else was going on in the world at that time, we get to see the audience's interaction with the music--specifically, the dancing. This may be why "modern" jazz isn't emphasized as much; the audience's reaction couldn't be captured on camera in the same way.

The one theme I would have liked "Jazz" to cover in greater depth was its decline in popularity after swing had run its course and most young musicians were either getting into bebop or dixieland (the postwar revival of the latter being one of the program's more mysterious omissions). I think part of the problem lies in the definitional boundaries some of jazz's defenders have drawn around it. It seems to me that jazz was at its healthiest when its practitioners drew upon other musical traditions for ideas; this could mean classical music, showbiz pop, or most often other traditions of black music, notably the blues.

Once jazz had been firmly defined as an improvised music emphasizing certain kinds of instruments and instrumental combinations, there developed a tendency among jazz musicians to draw almost exclusively from earlier jazz styles, often the "purer" styles of recent vintage. After a certain point, any attempts at a new style were open to criticism over whether they were "really" jazz. (It's interesting, in this regard, that most of jazz's innovators have resisted purists' expectations of "jazz" musicians; just try to think of any musicians who added to the jazz vocabulary without doing something along the way that upset some group of purists or another.) Some new styles were accepted as the real stuff, others were not, which is a pity since some of them, especially rhythm & blues, might have lead to the reinvigoration of jazz as a popular art.

Louis Jordan is singled out in "Jazz" as someone who led black audiences awa y from jazz, yet his music developed directly from the swing music of the 30's and early 40's. How differently would jazz history be written if Jordan's kinds of innovations, which kept the music true to the experience of urban blacks without alienating potentially curious whites, were accepted as "real" jazz? After all, it's only a short step from Jordan to early rock &' roll.

It strikes me that, if jazz is really central to American music, an honest portrayal of jazz would include a full accounting of its influence on other American musical styles. Louis Jordan is one such example; the hard bop influence on the great 60's soul bands (notably Booker T. & the MG's, James Brown's bands, and the guys at Motown) is another; the use of jazz-schooled musicians by such disparate yet seminal bandleaders as Bob Wills and Spike Jones is yet another. Finally, jazz purism has robbed the music of some potentially valuable innovators, the best example being Jimi Hendrix, exactly the kind of instrumental prodigy who would have been a natural for jazz in an earlier time, but who went from r&b bands to rock & roll instead (contrast Ornette Coleman, who went from r&b bands to the jazz avant-garde).

And yet the faults of "Jazz" don't cancel out its many fine points, though they do throw them into sharper relief. I can't imagine any jazz fan failing to enjoy the music, and only a few who fail to learn something new about it. The fallout from "Jazz" as an event--the numerous arguments over the program's merits as history (many of these arguments concerning, at bottom, the definition of jazz) and the recent spur of jazz record (CD, tape, whatever) sales--is icing on the cake. On my own personal rating system, "Jazz" ranks just shy of an A+ (a "perfect" film) because I can imagine it being done better. Nevertheless, I'm giving it an IMDB rating of "10" for its entertainment value, its educational value, its status as a ublic event, and on general principles.

Delicatessen (1991)

Beyond Bizarre, Wickedly Entertaining Tidbit of a Movie

[10/10 · 20 October 2000]

I'd put off seeing "Delicatessen" for a long time after hearing about it. I'd heard it was a cinematically stylish dark comedy, and assumed it would be weighted down with "significance". After having finally seen it, I kind of wish I'd come to it totally cold, since apart from the somewhat bleak setting and its wild, overwhelming climax there is nothing heavy about this movie.

More stylish than profound, "Delicatessen" is not necessarily the movie its acclaim would lead some to believe. (If it's the "2nd greatest movie of all time", "Duck Soup" must be the greatest.) Though it takes place in a post-apocalyptic near-future, this setting only intrudes upon the film enough to give rationales to the characters' actions. It's not so much a (post-) disaster movie as a comic romance, a twist on the "traveling salesman meets farmer's daughter" genre, populated by a more-than-usually-eccentric cast of supporting characters. (The romantic leads are fairly quirky in their own right as well.) The influence of Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" is readily apparent, from the absurdly retro props and sets to the (literally, in this case) underground rebels. At times, however, I was reminded even more of the Coen brothers' works; the ways the writing-directing team of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet combine in-your-face cinematic style with an intricate, surprising plot, unusual characters, and a certain air of cheerful amorality should more than satisfy Coen addicts. (There's even a dream sequence, a regular feature of Coen films.) Since I'm totally unfamiliar with everyone in the cast, I won't presume to judge their performances except to hope that their post-"Delicatessen" careers are doing well.

Once again, despite its reputation this is a terrifically enjoyable (though unusual) light romantic comedy. If you think you can stomach a certain amount of grotesquerie, "Delicatessen" should prove to be a satisfying cinematic tidbit. (Apologies to those of you wondering why I've tiptoed around a particularly obvious plot point in this review. Suffice to say that, in case someone reading this has through some mischance heard nothing of this movie, then I certainly don't want to be the one to give away its secret ingredient.)

The Tender Game (1958)

This is my favorite independent animated short...

[10/10 · 16 October 2000]

...and yet it is one of the most overlooked films of its kind. Partly this is because most of John and Faith Hubley's early self-produced films are overshadowed by "Moonbird" (which won an Oscar for "best cartoon", the first "indie" film to do so) and by their later didactic films.

Instead of purveying a message, "The Tender Game" reflects the couple's interest in exploring new kinds of animation, while perhaps reflecting their own bonds in a story of new love set to the tune of the ballad "Tenderly". Rather than paralleling the action, the music (played by the Oscar Peterson Trio, with Ella Fitzgerald singing during the film's first minute or so) sets the mood, wistful during that first minute, somewhat more upbeat afterward, punctuated by moments of humor and drama.

The characters themselves are fascinating creations, abstracted constructions of colored lines and shapes that have just enough individuality to fix them as characters. They wouldn't have the same impact as still drawings, however; their style of motion completes the viewer's impression of them as human beings. Note that even though their movements--the woman's even, step-over-step walk early on, the man's jaunty wielding of his rake--don't literally resemble those of human beings, they do reveal things about the characters than more "realistic" movements wouldn't. In the same way, the filmmakers put their own spin on the old cartoon device of using "impossible" bodily distortions to reveal a character's state of mind. (Animators Robert Cannon and Emery Hawkins, both Warner Bros. veterans, would have known this device well.)

Other unusual techniques put to work here include optical printing to give the impression of three dimensions, splattered lines of white paint contained (more or less) within a single area to suggest a body of water, and "soft cuts"--a series of quick dissolves--at emotional high points. (This last device has become more common in American animation lately, thanks to its use in Japanese anime to suggest slow motion.)

Though I've stuck to describing the technical underpinnings of the movie, "The Tender Game" wouldn't be so affecting--wouldn't be one of my favorite cartoons--if it were only a study in technique. I recommend it to animation fans, jazz fans, and anyone who never gets tired of love stories.

The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

Not the greatest, but too good to miss

[9/10 · 15 October 2000]

To partially repeat myself, "The Shawshank Redemption" is not the greatest film of all time. On the other hand, it isn't standard-brand Hollywood product either. Instead, like "Casablanca", "Shawshank" is Hollywood product raised to extraordinary levels through the mutual effort of craftspeople operating at peak levels. The acting, direction, camera work, editing, set design, and music all contribute, but none of these carry the film alone. The script, however, is the one indispensable element that the others rest upon, and it is the script upon which I want to concentrate. Not the plot, mind you--if you don't know already, it's a prison drama in which many terrible and wonderful things happen. Such stories can be told in many ways, but I especially admired the ways director/scripter Frank Darabont chose to convey Stephen King's original story.

Examples include patterns set up early in the film, such as the pro forma speech "Red" (Morgan Freeman) gives each time he faces the parole board, or apparent throwaway details that come to unexpected life as the plot thickens. The pacing is excellent, keeping viewers interested over the film's length (well over 23 hours) by punctuating the story's progress not only with the incidents of brutal violence one expects from a prison film, but also moments of unexpected grace.

Finally, it's interesting to note that in the year "Pulp Fiction" received so much hoo-rah over the ways writer/director Quentin Tarantino played with the movie's internal time, Darabont got little credit for doing some of the same things in "Shawshank", such as depicting the same sequence of events from different viewpoints when approaching the film's climax. (Not that "Pulp Fiction" is less than brilliant, but "Shawshank"'s approach to its own internal time was equally artful, if less flashy.)

The only things I could fault this film for are being manipulative, as well as more than a little predictable in the last 15 minutes or so. However, the previous 2 hours are so compelling, and set up so much emotional momentum, that it would take a titanic (if not "Titanic") sized object to drag the film down.

There's a great deal more to be said about the ways everyone involved--actors, set designers, musicians, etc.--does their part to bring "Shawshank" to life, but someone else will have to say it. Discover this treasure for yourself.

The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Original and fascinating

[6/10 · 21 September 2000]

"Night of the Hunter" is like no other film of its time. The visual style, which includes great use of shadows, unusual camera angles (including aerial shots, not nearly as common then as today), stunning shot compositions, and more visual symbolism than you can shake a stick at, shows the influence of German "expressionist" directors such as Murnau and Lang. The script handles some fairly daring themes for 1950's Hollywood, including repressed sexuality finding expression in murderous impulses; the misuse of religion; and, most especially, the danger of failing to look past what a person stands for and at what that person really is. Finally, some of the acting and characterizations are brilliant. Robert Mitchum's psychopathic phony preacher is a movie villain for the ages, and Lillian Gish's character provides the perfect counterbalance; unpretentious and nurturing vs. affected and using.

There are a few flaws in the film, some of which might be attributed to director Charles Laughton's lack of experience (this would be the only film he directed), some of which probably come from his difficulty directing the principle child actors (whom he allegedly detested), some of which might have been due to budget problems. The film's structure is oddly asymmetrical; while the first part acquaints us with all the characters (some of them rather two-dimensional, but at least we get to know them fairly well), in the second part we learn very little about any of the characters except for Lillian Gish's. (Could this part of the film have been foreshortened because it would have meant doing more scenes with the children?)

Not all the acting is as good as it could be; Shelly Winters's abilities are clearly taxed, and Laughton's inability to direct the kids hampers their performances. While Billy Chapin has some brilliant moments, he comes across as self-conscious a lot of the time (some of that, however, might be due to the character's need to put on a front), and about the only times I feel sympathy for Sally Jane Bruce are when her character is in immediate danger. It's hard to think of any Hollywood directors in the 1950's who could have done that much better with them, however; about the only ones who come to my mind are foreigners such as Satyajit Ray and François Truffaut, both great directors of children and original visual stylists.

Speaking of which, the best visuals in this movie make its lapses all the more blatant. It's just too obvious, for example, that some of the "outdoor" sequences were actually shot in a studio, especially after all the gorgeous aerial photography at the beginning. Laughton also handles some sequences rather perfunctorily, as if to get them out of the way because they're required by the plot; the best example here being (mild spoiler warning) the one where the kids get away from Mitchum in the skiff. At times it looks like Mitchum is close enough to at least reach the boat, at others it either appears that he's not really trying or that two different sequences have been edited together; either way it's not very convincing.

Despite its flaws, "The Night of the Hunter" is well worth seeing. Personally, I'd rather watch a flawed-but-original work than a well-crafted non-entity any day. If I've spent more time discussing "Hunter"'s flaws than its brilliances, it's only because the latter have been written about countless times, while the flaws have rarely been analyzed seriously at all. Again, the brilliances far outweigh the flaws here; if you have any doubts, go see it.

Bossa Nova (2000)

Better-than-average romantic comedy

[9/10 · 16 July 2000]

Three things save this movie from being, at bottom, an ordinary comedy of romance and misunderstanding. Two of them are the music and the scenery, which have already received extensive comment from others. The third is the intricate network of character relationships--romantic, professional, and familial--and for me the greatest pleasure in "Bossa Nova" lay in figuring out this network. It's not as seemingly naturalistic as the comparable web of relationships in "Magnolia", but no less satisfying a puzzle. Overall, a pleasant experience and an excellent date movie, with just enough potential heartache to accentuate the sweetness of the romance.

Chicken Run (2000)

One radical cartoon

[7/10 · 10 July 2000]

The great animation director Chuck Jones has often stated that his cartoons "weren't made for children. Neither were they made for adults. They were made for me." Jones's seven-minute shorts were made on a far lower budget than the animated features of today. With features, much more money is at stake, as well as the livelihoods of more people. Because of the pressure to make back the investment, animated features can give an impression of being created by committee, as though tailored to fit some committee's idea of a prefabricated audience segment. It's remarkable, then, that Aardman Animation's "Chicken Run" shows off so much personality, the mark of a film made not for an imagined mass audience, but because it satisfied some need for the filmmakers-besides the need to put food on the table, that is.

The story revolves around an English egg farm designed a lot like a WWII-era prison camp, with overtones of the Nazi concentration camps as well, in that chickens that don't produce end up as dinner. While most of the chickens are resigned to their fate, one plucky hen named Ginger keeps leading escape attempts and keeps getting locked in "solitary" for her pains. Her task takes on new urgency when the Tweedys (the couple who run the farm) prepare to convert their operation into a chicken-pie factory. Hope arrives in the form of an American known (amusingly, in view of the recent "Rocky & Bullwinkle" film) as "Rocky the Flying Rooster", whom Ginger thinks can teach the chickens how to fly. Naturally, Rocky isn't really what he seems to be, and the revelation of his secret threatens to dash all hope of escape, because everyone knows chickens can't fly-or can they?

Unlike most cartoon films, "Chicken Run" is animated using clay figures in stop-motion. While this process involves much more labor than drawn animation, it also makes easier the use of many of the tools of live-action filmmaking, such as dramatic lighting and moving camera work. Directors Peter Lord and Nick Park both have considerable experience in this field, Park with "Creature Comforts" and the "Wallace & Gromit" series (perhaps the most popular animated shorts of the 1990's) and Lord as a co-founder (with David Sproxton) of Aardman and director of such shorts as "Adam", "Wat's Pig", and "Early Bird".

The look of "Chicken Run" displays a harmonious blending of Park's and Lord's strengths; the character designs have the cartoony look of Park's work, while the more realistic settings and backdrops (which appear subject to grime and weathering) are typical of those in Lord's films. All the major characters are distinctive and believable on their own terms; even the numerous chickens have their own distinct looks and voices. The only times the illusion of believability fails are when a clay chicken collides with a metal fence; I half expect to see the clay figure sliced up on the way through. (This may be a personal reaction, conditioned by years of exposure to "Tom & Jerry" and "Roadrunner/Coyote" cartoons.) The story moves efficiently and contains much humor and detail that reward close attention, as well as bravura set-pieces such as Rocky and Ginger's dramatic encounter with the Tweedys' pie machine.

While it has justifiably been compared with military prison-camp escape movies such as "Stalag 17" and "The Great Escape", as well as with the revisionist farm-animal melodrama "Babe", the movie "Chicken Run" resembles most is Pixar's computer-animated "A Bug's Life". The resemblence lies partly in certain details of plot (such as the hero[es] who isn't/aren't what he/they seem to be) but mostly in the nature of the story itself. While human prisoners have a life before prison upon which to look back upon, the chickens in this movie have never known such freedom. Thus, when Ginger talks of escape, she not only urges them to change their location but their entire way of thinking. In chicken terms, this is a radical message, the same one put forth by all the great human radical organizers: that those who are exploited have a right to expect a better life. Though the species and the methods of exploitation are different, "A Bug's Life" shares this revolutionary message (with Flik playing the radical visionary part). Both movies also stress the importance of banding together against oppressors whose power turns out to be more apparent than real.

While one could quibble about such commonalities, I'm impressed that two such films exist at all, that they were funded by major Hollywood studios (Disney for "A Bug's Life", Dreamworks for "Chicken Run"), and that kids love them and parents don't mind watching them more than once. One wonders if the parents know exactly what it is they're watching, and letting their kids watch. Then again, maybe they, too, believe they and their children deserve better lives, and enjoy seeing fellow victims of exploitation get such a life in the end.

I Married a Strange Person! (1997)

Well, love IS strange...

[7/10 · 22 June 2000]

I've been a fan of Bill Plympton's ever since first seeing his Oscar-nominated short "Your Face" about 12 years ago as part of the traveling International Tournee of Animation. Plympton started out as a magazine cartoonist (an early version of "How to Kiss" was published in "Rolling Stone" in the early 80's), and his early short films were based around single gags or concepts. On the basis of these shorts I knew Plympton's animation was kind of primitive, that he had excellent timing, and that he had a flair for metamorphosis and the grotesque that recalled such distinguished predecessors as Otto Messmer and Tex Avery. Unfortunately, I found Plympton's first feature, "The Tune", rather disappointing. The story was weak, and the best parts were the shorts that were incorporated into the feature ("Wiseman", "Push Comes to Shove").

With this in mind, I approached "I Married a Strange Person" with some trepidation. I'd heard some good things about it, and it was such a shock to find it for rent here in Tulsa that I snatched it up right away. It turned out to be a pleasant surprise, so much so that I had a hard time figuring out just what I liked about the movie. All the usual virtues of Plympton's animation are there, and the story starts out nicely enough-a new bridegroom gets zapped in an accident involving a satellite dish and a pair of over-amorous birds, giving him strange and wondrous powers.

What made the story work at first were the appealing characters set within it, the new husband Grant and wife Kerry. Most of the time their actions and reactions were very believable, whether the situation was realistic (the sexual tension between the newlyweds at the beginning-she's in the mood for love, he feels he's got to work overtime to support them) or fantastic (Kerry's alarm, and later anger, when Grant's stray imaginings begin coming to spectacular life). The quality of the animation and design helped, giving depth and texture to Plympton's characteristic style without making it unnecessarily slick. Tom Larson and Charis Michelsen, who voiced Grant and Kerry respectively, deserve considerable credit as well. Maureen McElheron's songs don't hurt either; where much of "The Tune" seemed to be an excuse for the songs, here the songs served the story by setting the mood. I especially liked "Honey How'd You Get So Cute", which (along with Plympton's animation) effectively captured some of the playfully absurd aspects of eroticism.

Unfortunately, the quirky romantic fantasy at the beginning gets shunted aside when an unscrupulous media mogul learns about Grant's new powers and sends a paramilitary squad to capture him. This plot device reminds me of Disney's old comic fantasies-not the animated ones, the live-action ones, the ones with Fred MacMurray or Dean Jones or Kurt Russell as the hero and usually Keenan Wynn as the villain and they also had sentient-or-flying cars or teenaged computers-or-sheepdogs or stuff that bounced higher than the height from which it was dropped. Actually, I dug those films when I was a kid, and I bet Bill Plympton liked them too, but he does little to vary their formula when he applies it here, apart from dollops of sex and violence and a bit of satire.

The plot also threatens to derail the characterizations that were established so well in the first part. Simply, all scenes where the characters' actions follow from their previous behavior work; when a scene doesn't work, it's usually because a character's integrity has been violated for the sake of a gag or the convenience of the plot. I don't know if this means Plympton and/or his collaborator P. C. Vey are still learning how to maintain a story at feature-length, or if they just couldn't resist their impulses to go for quick and dirty laughs, or both.

Nonetheless, despite its flawed or hackneyed aspects, "I Married a Strange Person" is very watchable as a whole film. It is also evidence that Plympton and company have a really great film in them somewhere. Let's hope they put it all together next time.

Christmas in July (1940)

Well, I wouldn't say it was THAT great...

[2/10 · 25 April 2000]

...but it's certainly not without merit. Already writer-director Preston Sturges is experimenting with unusual cinematic effects in telling his stories, creating broadly drawn yet distinctive characters and situations, and writing clever and sometimes unexpectedly wise and compassionate dialogue. (No wonder the Coen brothers' next movie is going to be an homage to Sturges.)

The major problem is that the plot's not all the way there yet; it lacks surprise, the unexpected plot twists and sudden changes of fortune that keep viewers guessing. The coffee slogan is a lousy thing to hang the plot upon, and the ending is thoroughly predictable. Frank Capra does this sort of thing much better.

If you're new to Preston Sturges, check out "The Lady Eve" or "Sullivan's Travels" or "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" first. If you've seen these already, then go ahead and watch this one.

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Not perfect, but very, very close

[6/10 · 31 March 2000]

First of all, the so-so parts: While Christina Ricci's cool portrayal of Katrina gives the character an appropriately otherworldly aura, she really could have used more fire at emotional moments. Some scenes are unduly rushed, including a few with crucial exposition, making the plot hard to follow at some points. Finally, Danny Elfman's music is too intrusive at times, distancing viewers when they should be drawn in.

That's ALL that's wrong with this picture; everything else is perfect or nearly so. Tim Burton's films are always visually rewarding, and this one has terrifically moody atmosphere. Having lived in hilly, wooded areas close to rivers and creeks, I can testify that there are indeed places that look and feel a lot like the Sleepy Hollow of this movie. Many scenes have so little color that they might almost as well be in black-and-white; this makes the few splashes of color (flames, witchcraft symbols, and of course blood) much more striking. One understands how the movie got an Oscar for art direction.

The plot, which as you probably know varies drastically from Washington Irving's original story, is diabolically complex and closer to a mystery/thriller than horror as such. It reminded me of the fiction of Avram Davidson, a noted fantasist with a penchant for complex mystery plots.

Anyway, back to the movie. Except for the rushed scenes alluded to above, Burton handles the plot (perhaps the most complex in any of his movies) with exceptional grace, dropping in telling visual details along the way that come back in unexpected places later on. I especially liked the underlying theme about science vs. superstition, and note that while many details of this particular case lie beyond the realm of science, it is still science and reason that crack the case open in the end. The bits of ca. 1800 cutting-edge (so to speak) technology were fascinating as well; my favorites were the magic lantern that threw lighted shapes on the walls, and the thaumatrope toy which combined pictures of a bird and a cage. (It's probably not a coincidence that both of these are ancestors to the motion picture.)

Finally, I loved Johnny Depp's performance as Ichabod Crane. Even though the character's situation and background were quite different from Irving's version, Depp, Burton, and scriptwriters Kevin Yagher and Andrew Kevin Walker remain true to the spirit of the original Ichabod Crane. He could almost be a Buster Keaton-type character, an awkward wimp who accomplishes great feats of derring-do by the end of the movie, and for me Depp's portrayal recalls "Sherlock, Jr.", in which Keaton dreams that he is the world's greatest detective. Even though Irving wrote no sequels to "Sleepy Hollow", I'd love to see more of this film version of Ichabod Crane; while the movie looks great and has a terrific script, it's Depp and Crane who put it over the top.

Roman Holiday (1953)

Is enjoyment ever innocent?

[5/10 · 5 March 2000]

There's not a whole lot I can add to everyone's comments on this picture so far. Audrey Hepburn is a marvel--I could watch her in just about anything. Having recently seen "Twelve O'Clock High", I'm also growing fond of Gregory Peck; the worst you can say about him in this movie is that he's no Clark Gable or Cary Grant, but then who is? It's also a treat to see Eddie Albert in the pre-"Green Acres" days. The Roman scenery is absolutely lovely, and it's interesting to compare this film with the Italian "neo-realist" films which were all the rage in the previous few years; one wonders if William Wyler saw, say, "Open City", and wondered what a Hollywood film crew could do with scenery like that?

As for the plot, well...to be charitable, there's not a whole lot to it. On the other hand, with Audrey Hepburn up there on the screen, who needs a plot? With her, incident would seem to be sufficient. Even though I personally prefer the more intricately worked storyline of "Sabrina", I understand why "Roman Holiday" could be considered the definitive Audrey Hepburn movie, why she won her only Oscar for it, and why it was the first of her films named to the National Film Registry.

(SPOILER WARNING) Nevertheless, there is one feature of interest in the story itself, especially considering that it was written by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, who'd been jailed as one of the "Hollywood Ten" who refused to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee. As Joe Bradley gets to know Princess Anne, she becomes more important to him as a person than as a story. Just before letting her go back, he almost tells her who he really is, but she doesn't want to know. (Does she already suspect that Joe might be too good to be true, and fears knowing for sure?) In that moment, Joe seems to realize that the best thing he can do for Anne is to keep silent about their "holiday", and this is confirmed by his subsequent actions. In those days of "naming names", was Trumbo trying to send a message about the importance of keeping confidences? (Compare the previous year's "High Noon", written by the soon-to-be-blacklisted Carl Foreman, on the importance of hanging together in the face of impending threat; contrast the following year's "On the Waterfront", written by Budd Schulberg and directed by Elia Kazan [both friendly witnesses before HUAC], a justification of squealing.)

Perhaps I've read too much into a film that has been a source of innocent enjoyment for several generations of filmgoers, and I hope I haven't spoiled that aspect of "Roman Holiday" for anyone. Even so, I suspect the message about confidences may strike home below the conscious level for many viewers, which might explain why this film is an all-time favorite for so many. (Besides Audrey Hepburn and its other naturally appealing elements, of course.) It doesn't even have to have political significance, but only to reflect a wish for a world long gone. Alas, in these days of information explosion, media time to be filled, and far too many people willing to sink to the lowest level to fill it, it is impossible to believe that such a "holiday" as Anne and Joe's would remain secret for long.

Three Kings (1999)

Overrated, but still worth watching...

[3/10 · 5 February 2000]

...because the good parts of "Three Kings" are so good they keep you sitting through the, well, not the bad parts because there are no really bad parts, but the not-so-good parts. The best part is that from time to time we get to see the impact of the Gulf War on the people of Iraq, both the soldiers who were in it for revenge or just for the extra money (as is the case with so many American soldiers) and the people who were sadly led to believe that the US would support them if they rose up against Saddam. We also get a different, more intense (gut-level, if you will) feeling for the effects of gunshot wounds than we usually do in war movies. There are some bravura camera effects, and some wonderful absurd moments (mild spoiler ahead), topped by the scene where one American soldier captured by Saddam's troops is locked in a storeroom with a box of working cell phones, and starts using one to call his wife back in the USA. (Well, I laughed at that one, anyway.)

Unfortunately, though the premise is fascinating, it's not worked out in an especially interesting way, apart from the touches mentioned above. The principal characters are hardly developed at all, and their dialogue is mainly functional. It's a credit to the professionalism and screen presence of George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Ice Cube, and Nora Dunn, plus the comic timing (but not the Gomer Pyle accent) of Spike Jonze, that they're as watchable and appealing as they are.

Similarly, the action sequences seemed pro forma to me, functioning primarily as raw material to excerpt for the previews. Not having seen his previous movies, I don't know how much experience director-writer David O. Russell has with action sequences, but I don't think his heart (or his gut, whatever) was in them as much as the graphically goopy bit illustrating the internal effects of a bullet wound.

The really interesting characters are the Iraqis on both sides, especially their connections to the USA (one went to school in Bowling Green, another was trained by American officers during the Iran-Iraq war). I can imagine a much better movie centering on the Iraqi characters, cutting from time to time to the Americans with their plans for heisting Saddam's gold, and having these plot strands come together about midway through the picture. Such a movie might have topped most of the year-end critics' lists, instead of just placing in their top 10's.

Of course, it might have also made less money than "Eyes Wide Shut", "Being John Malkovich", or even "Magnolia". As it is, few movies at this level of commerciality possess any convincing viewpoints outside of mainstream Middle American, and fewer dare to get under the skin of American viewers by criticizing American government policy. So give it its due: "Three Kings" isn't a great movie, but it is worth watching. If you don't care for any of the features I've outlined as positive, you probably won't enjoy it. If those features intrigue you, give "Three Kings" a shot. Who knows, you might actually like it better than I do.

Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943)

How did I like it? It depends on the context

[9/10 · 5 January 2000]

I saw "Coal Black" at two different animation festivals in Seattle in a single year. The first festival was "Compared to Disney", a selection of other studio's versions of the stories made famous in various Disney features. While "Coal Black" was certainly a standout entry, the audience was more stunned than amused.

The second time was as part of a selection of racially stereotyped cartoons, hosted by none other than animation scholar Jerry Beck. This time, when the audience had a chance to compare "Coal Black" with other cartoons using similar stereotypes, some of which were racist in a genuinely hurtful way, it didn't seem so bad after all, and was much better appreciated for the hilarious piece of work it is. (Probably the most racist thing in the cartoon is one WWII-era anti-Japanese throwaway gag.)

It was clear that Bob Clampett and his artists had gone to some trouble to draw inspiration from African-American culture of the 1940's, and just as clear that except in the design of So White, they failed to meet the challenge of caricaturing blacks in a non-stereotyped fashion. To be sure, it would be asking a lot to expect those artists to even be aware that such a challenge even existed; surely they didn't think they were doing anything wrong. Indeed, Clampett deserves some credit for using black voices and black musicians in the cartoon; that was truly ahead of its time, and suggests that he wanted to pay homage to their culture rather than stereotype it.

Every fan of Clampett's work should seek out this cartoon; while he directed other terrific cartoons, his body of work is so inconsistent that he needs all the masterpieces his canon can get. "Coal Black" is one of them, with the provision that its bad parts are inextricable from its ingenious parts. Just keep the context of its times in mind while watching it.