linoevgueni Reviews

The Squid and the Whale (2005)

Hey you

[9/10 · 4 December 2005]

The first scene of this film tells us a lot about the rest of the story. A family is playing tennis. On one side of the court, we have the mother and the younger son. On the other side, the father is telling his older son to send the ball to his mom's weak spot, so they can win.

One day, mom and dad talk to their children and explain that they will divorce: half the time the kids will live with mom and the other half with dad. The twelve-year-old kid would rather stay with his mom every day. The sixteen-year-old idolizes his dad so much that he is willing to follow him everywhere. Furthermore, he blames his mom for everything that went wrong with the marriage.

Both parents have PhDs in literature. The father is a University professor and a somewhat famous writer. However, it is not a coincidence that the marriage breaks up just when his last novel has been rejected and his wife's work is getting published. The father, excellently played by Jeff Daniels, is the kind of person who thinks that you should only listen to people that have PhDs.

I'm making this movie sound too dramatic. However, it is one of those films that finds a balance between comedy and drama (like Sideways, although without the laugh-out-loud moments). It is a semi-autobiographical film from writer/director Noah Baumbach. He has set his story in 1986 (he was 16 that year, just like one of his characters). His father is a writer and his mom a film critic. His characters live in the same neighborhood where he grew up as a kid and, to make things more personal, he made Jeff Daniels wear his dad's old clothes.

This is a very subtle movie. Most people will leave the theater thinking that the ending is not interesting enough. However, I think that Baumbach found a very elegant way to finish his film. Big personal changes happen little by little, especially when you are 16.

The key to this movie is that all the characters are believable. This has to do with two things: the well written screenplay and the great performances (Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline, etc.).

My only complaint has to do with one classic song that is played constantly throughout the film. It is such a famous song (from the 1970's) that I can't believe most people in that film had never heard of it. By the way, I love that song.

Capote (2005)

Good movie

[9/10 · 4 December 2005]

Capote is one of those movies that become more enjoyable if you are already familiar with what is about to happen on the screen. This movie is based on a book, which is based on the life of Truman Capote at the time he was researching and writing a non-fiction novel called In Cold Blood. So, there you go. The more you know about Capote and his books and his friends and his friends' books and some movies based on those books the more interested you might become in watching this film.

The nice thing about this movie is that it does not follow the biopic formula, which is basically this one: we meet a great man at the peek of his career and then flashback to his troubled childhood. We then get to see his teenage years, his first marriage, etc., until the day he dies. Capote only offers a few years in Capote's life, but it is written in a way that allows us to understand a lot about this man's past.

Everyone is saying that Philip Seymour Hoffman must get at least an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Capote. I agree. This actor has always been excellent. You might remember him from some small roles in movies such as Scent of a Woman, Boogie Nights, Happiness, Flawless, Punch Drunk Love, etc. He transforms himself in every one of these films and, even when the movies he is in are not that great (Flawless, for instance) his performance makes them watchable.

When the movie begins, Capote is already a recognized fiction writer. He decides to go to a small town where a family has been murdered. His idea is to write a non-fiction novel on how that small community is dealing with such a horrible crime. However, once he meets the murderers he realizes that they are not very different from him. He spends lots of time talking to one of them. He learns that this guy's horrible childhood is something Capote can easily relate to. And yet, one guy became a murderer and the other one a writer.

Capote has money and some power and he can help these murderers to get better lawyers. However, he also wants to finish his non-fiction novel and, what better way of ending it than with the execution of the assassins? I believe the screenplay is very well written. We get a very good idea of who Capote was: how he adored being adored, how he would even pay people to say nice things about him, how he loved being the center of attention at parties, how he was so selfish that he couldn't even enjoy his best friend's success.

This is one of those "slow" films. No one chases anyone, there is not a lot of suspense and the violence is handled with taste. Also, if English is not your first language, you might have some trouble understanding the dialog from some of the characters (I did).

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004)

We get it, you are smart

[2/10 · 4 December 2005]

If you are the kind of person that believes that dog poop can be seen as art, then by all means you should go ahead and rent this film.

I am not a dumb guy; I have seen lots of movies and read some deep books. I know where the humor of this movie is coming from. At an intellectual level I understand the jokes, but they just don't make me laugh.

Wes Anderson wants to populate his dumb story with lots of low-key humor. But this kind of humor is nothing compared to the elegance of Jacques Tati or the subtleties of the dialog written by Alexander Payne or Jim Taylor (Election, About Schmidt, and Sideways). And I'll give you an example from The Life Aquatic: the red hats. Everyone on the Belafonte ship is wearing one, even when they go to film festivals and wear tuxedos. Anderson thinks that just having everyone wearing a red hat is funny. But I'll paraphrase Chuck Jones, a guy who knew about making people laugh: "the key for comedy is not to open a funny door, but to open a door funny." Don't get me wrong, I love dumb stories when they are fun to watch. But I had no fun watching this one. I can picture the two writers, self-congratulating themselves for how smart they are (and believe me, they are smart, but they wrote crap this time). I appreciate how they destroy movie clichés (the dog, the single mother, the hero) and I understand how original this film is. But so what? By trying to be clever it became boring and unfunny.

Prime (2005)

This could have been a better film

[5/10 · 4 December 2005]

The problem with Prime is that it starts as the story of one of its characters, ends up being the story of another character, but should have been the story of a third one. The premise is simple: Uma Thurman plays Rafi, a 37 year-old divorcée who starts dating a 23 year-old named Dave (Bryan Greenberg). When she talks to her therapist (Meryl Streep) about her new relationship she lies about the guy's age. A little bit later on the film, when Dave visits his family, we learn that he is the son of the Meryl Streep character.

The movie begins as the story of Rafi but half way through the film it is clear that Dave is the main character. However, the heart of this comedy is in the performance by Meryl Streep. Her character is in the worst situation since she's is the one who realizes that Rafi is dating her son. Advised by a colleague, she keeps treating Rafi without telling her anything. Because of this, she gets to listen to many details about his son that she never wanted to learn.

I think there are two movies here: The one about the relationship between a middle-aged woman and a young guy, and the one about a therapist listening to sexual details of her son. I'm not sure I liked the way these stories were mixed.

The movie is too long and there is a very annoying character: Dave's best friend. He gets all the so-called funny lines. What happens to him at the end is very predictable once we have seen his very first scene.

On the positive side, the three main performances are solid and believable. Some of the situations belong to a smarter movie, perhaps one made by Woody Allen. The influence of this filmmaker is so strong on the work of Prime's writer/director Ben Young that his movie closes in pretty much the same way that Annie Hall did.

Herod's Law (1999)

Great Film!

[16 February 2000]

I just saw "La Ley de Herodes" last night. I really enjoyed the film. It is a great black comedy. The script by Leñero and Estrada is carefully written. This is the kind of cinema Mexico needs. One of the most amazing things is that they use real names of political parties and that they got away with it.

Great performances by everyone, I think. Marvelous ending! Congratulations to everyone involved in this project!