Films Seen - June 2004
[Pre-'96 films not included.]
IN THIS WORLD (64) (dir., Michael Winterbottom) Jamal Udin Torabi, Enayatullah [Third World Poverty: the Videogame. Some will say Winterbottom's all-action, fragmentary style is a betrayal, that life in the back of beyond should move at a sedate (e.g. Kiarostami-ish) pace, not reconfigured for impatient Western audiences - he loses the endless waiting around for trains, buses, things to happen (collapsing it in "10 Days Later" captions), which is certainly a big part of life in a developing country. Things keep happening here, often the same things, as if for the sake of something happening: kids playing soccer, people talking on their cell phones or saying "Hurry up" or "What's your name?", rattling around in the backs of lorries, shots of flying dust or car headlights down remote roads, all amped up by the hard video look and Winterbottom's penchant for flash - yellow filters and a saturated look and some of the grainiest, or I guess most pixilated, b&w I've ever seen (the screen looks like a pointillist painting, slowly and mysteriously shifting). The sober narrator and pretensions to political comment - "$7.9 billion was spent on bombing Afghanistan", etc - may seem hollow in all the excitement (as they did in WELCOME TO SARAJEVO) but the film is human as well as thrilling, finding snapshots of life in the chance meetings and cagy negotiations between smugglers and smuggled ("Do you know Farid?" "No ... but sit down"); Winterbottom's instincts are those of a TV documentarian - wailing ethnic music over the big dramatic moments, cut from darkness to blinding daylight for effect, etc - but his camera seems to be everywhere, bringing another angle to a scene - this person to that person - just when it seems to be over, and his sheer energy is invigorating. Wholly appropriate that the double-edged title is descriptive - since our heroes travel halfway around the world in pursuit of a dream - but also, we learn, an Afghan euphemism for being alive, i.e. not dead. Or sedate...]
LA PETITE LILI (52) (dir., Claude Miller) Nicole Garcia, Bernard Giraudeau, Ludivine Sagnier, Robinson Stévenin ["I've been accused of many things, but never of not being original". Miller can't really say the same, but he does try - the "Monkey's Paw" horror-movie detour in the middle of LA CLASSE DE NEIGE and now this one, a Chekhovian country-house drama that goes all post-modern in the final quarter. What seems to be at issue is filmmaking itself, whether films should be "real" or not, the point being apparently that they distort - and sometimes exorcise - reality by definition; given the stolid nature of the country-house set-up, a little self-referential bait-and-switch wasn't a bad idea, but the set-up still feels pretty stolid - cantankerous old man sparring with his doctor; wallflower seething with unrequited love in the background ("The supporting roles are often the most unforgettable"); family dinners turning into quarrels, Lili the fresh-faced innocent bringing tensions to the fore - so the bait-and-switch doesn't have much punch, esp. since relationships don't deepen. Garcia's faded actress fades into nothingness, and way too much respect seems to be accorded the pretentious artist/filmmaker played by Stévenin - with a poster of THE GREEN ROOM on his wall and idealistic thoughts in his eyes - leaving Lili humiliated as she begs him to cast her in his film (i.e. begs for his love), even though he'd previously used her in the name of Art and pushed her away - his only 'punishment' being implicitly that he changes his priorities, using Cinema as an adjunct to Life rather than a substitute. Finally one of those films that doesn't seem to have strong feelings about any of its characters, just basic skill and manufactured high-points - a three-shot of Lili significantly flanked by her suitors, a "disappearance" (scored to Arvo Part) pushing the film into magical realism, etc. Underdeveloped and - for me - enigmatic, though there's all kinds of interesting stuff floating about. Worth seeing for the opening credits alone: shock-cuts, trees and water, Ludo in the nude.]
BROKEN LIZARD'S CLUB DREAD (42) (dir., Jay Chandrasekhar) Bill Paxton, Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme [Balance isn't quite right in this horror comedy: slasher-movie details are too gross, so the comedy struggles to catch up (hate to say it, but if you're going to go big on the horror you need crude cathartic belly-laughs, SCARY MOVIE-style, not the snarky Broken Lizard wit), and then the slasher-movie side peters out as well - the killer's identity is a major letdown - so nothing works at all. Most disappointing is how little they do with the most promising concept, the fascist pleasure-park where everyone must have strictly defined and allocated "fun", or else ("If you choose not to have fun, fun will be provided for you"). Some good moments nonetheless - mostly involving Chandrasekhar as the resident tennis pro, with unfeasibly plummy British accent and one of the great farewell lines: "You've manacled me to my deathbed, you Piccadilly whore!".]
VERONICA GUERIN (41) (dir., Joel Schumacher) Cate Blanchett, Ciaran Hinds, Gerard McSorley, Brenda Fricker
(Somebody's house, 11.22 p.m., 26 May 2004.)
MY FRIEND WHO LOVES 'VERONICA GUERIN': You have to see it.
ME: I will.
MFWLVG: Seriously. You have to see it.
ME: I will see it.
MFWLVG: You won't. You're just saying that.
ME: I totally plan to see it.
MFWLVG: When? You've been saying that for months. It's bullshit.
ME: No -
MFWLVG: You've already pre-judged it.
ME: I haven't. I don't do that. It's just -
MFWLVG: What?
ME: Nothing.
MFWLVG: No, what?
ME: It just - doesn't sound like my kind of thing.
MFWLVG: There! You see. You've pre-judged it.
ME: No. I mean, no, I'm sure it's good. Interesting. Whatever.
MFWLVG: Oh give me a break.
ME: No! I mean it's not just you. [Other friend]'s been bugging me for weeks to go and rent it. And, let's see, baaab liked it -
MFWLVG: What kind of name is baaab?
ME: I don't know. Who cares. It doesn't matter. He liked it. And then when I was in Toronto last year I met this Taiwanese woman in a line who'd seen it, like, four times.
MFWLVG: You see? It's a great movie.
ME: Yeah ... But she seemed a bit deranged though.
MFWLVG: Everyone seems deranged to you.
ME: She said SCHOOL OF ROCK was just a kids' film.
MFWLVG: Well. Different strokes.
ME: Yeah. But that's what I'm saying though. It doesn't sound like my kind of thing.
MFWLVG: Why not?
ME: Well -
MFWLVG: I mean you like Cate Blanchett, right?
ME: Actually not so much. These days.
MFWLVG: Really?
ME: Yeah, I think she's lost something. Some of that fierce ... originality. Maybe she's one of those actors who can't play normal, like Geoffrey Rush or something.
MFWLVG: Geoffrey Rush?
ME: Did you see THE MAN WHO CRIED?
MFWLVG: No I skipped that.
ME: Yeah, well ... I mean obviously it's caricature, but I think it brings out the best in her. That kind of role. I think she's basically an eccentric. Put her in THE GIFT and the air just leaks out of her.
MFWLVG: Right. Geoffrey Rush, huh ... Well you'll love her in this one. She's like Julie Andrews.
ME: That's a good thing?
MFWLVG: Sure. She bounces around and twinkles and stuff. Comes home, rushes out to play soccer with her kid. She's like this overgrown head-prefect girl going after drug dealers.
ME: Well, that could be interesting.
MFWLVG: And you liked PHONE BOOTH, right? Joel Schumacher?
ME: More like Larry Cohen. And Colin Farrell.
MFWLVG: Speaking of which...
ME: What? He's in it?
MFWLVG: I'm telling you man. You have to see this movie.
ME: I will. I plan to.
MFWLVG: But it doesn't "sound like your kind of thing".
ME: No. I mean yes. I mean - look, you know me. I'll watch anything.
MFWLVG: But ...?
ME: Well ... She's a do-gooder. Brave young journalist going after the Truth and so forth.
MFWLVG: So? What's wrong with that?
ME: I just don't like do-gooders.
MFWLVG: What's wrong with doing good?
ME: Not just doing good. I mean activists. Trying to change the world.
MFWLVG: You think it's better to just sit on your fat ass?
ME: Always hectoring. Sticking their noses in other people's business.
MFWLVG: As opposed to sitting on your fat ass.
ME: There's an arrogance. It's like 'I'll go outside the law if I have to'. 'I'm not bound by convention'. It's like their Cause makes them better than other people.
MFWLVG: Or maybe it just makes you feel guilty for sitting on your fat ass.
ME: Yes! Maybe! What, am I supposed to say I like it? I don't care if it's 'good for me'. It's annoying.
MFWLVG: Maybe it's good to be annoyed.
ME: Not if they're glamourising.
MFWLVG: It's role models.
ME: I don't need role models. That whole 'Lives of the Saints' thing is such a crock. I want to make my own fuckin' way in Life.
MFWLVG: I don't get your point.
ME: Look. You know what the only film about do-gooders is that I think is a great film?
MFWLVG: No idea.
ME: ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN.
MFWLVG: Uh-huh.
ME: Yeah. Because there isn't any holier-than-thou. It's two working guys. They do their job, they get a little lucky. End of story.
MFWLVG: Well, this isn't holier-than-thou.
ME: What isn't?
MFWLVG: This film. What makes you think it's holier-than-thou?
ME: I don't know exactly.
MFWLVG: Seeing as you haven't even seen it.
ME: I will see it.
MFWLVG: You've completely pre-judged it.
ME: I haven't! Look, let me ask you this. Cate goes after drug dealers, right?
MFWLVG: Correct.
ME: And we know the ending? We know Guerin got murdered.
MFWLVG: Yeah, we know that from the beginning.
ME: So what do her friends say? Are they, like, stop going after drug dealers?
MFWLVG: Sometimes.
ME: How?
MFWLVG: Well, they say "Write about fashion instead". And she says I can't, I have to do this.
ME: That's not holier-than-thou?
MFWLVG: No, it isn't like that. Look. What it is is an action movie. It's Jerry Bruckheimer does Veronica Guerin. First of all the villain's a total psycho, right? He flies into rages, beats up the minions, whatever. Then there's Veronica, with the cute kid and what have you. The whole thing's a cartoon - it's like Sam Fuller -
ME: Sam Fuller? Please. Do me a favour, leave Sam Fuller out of this. Sam Fuller had 10 years working in the shit. You don't compare Sam Fuller with some Hollywood hairdresser.
MFWLVG: Okay, fine. It's like MISSISSIPPI BURNING. You liked that one.
ME: We-e-ell...
MFWLVG: What?
ME: Nothing. I should see it again probably.
MFWLVG: Anyway, that's what it is. And there's this great scene where the bad guy beats her up, it's really shocking. She goes to ask him questions and he just lays into her, out of nowhere!
ME: Yeah? Then what?
MFWLVG: She drives away in tears, with this shattered look on her face. It's great!
ME: But she knows she's got him, right? I mean, you beat up a journo when she comes to ask you questions, you might as well wear a 'Guilty' sign. Right?
MFWLVG: Yeah. She does get him. She presses charges.
ME: And she's supposed to be this mega-obsessive journalist. So she knows she's got him. So what does she do, just drives away?
MFWLVG: Yeah. Looking really scared.
ME: Like a victim.
MFWLVG: Pretty much.
ME: She doesn't smile, or go 'Yesss!' or anything?
MFWLVG: Why should she? She just got beat up.
ME: To make her interesting. To show that kind of mad obsession.
MFWLVG: No man, why? Why would you do that? She'd look weird.
ME: So let's recap. She's like Julie Andrews. She fights psychotic bad guys. She's really driven, and keeps going even when her friends tell her to stop. But she's also soft and sympathetic, with the whole victim thing going on. Right?
MFWLVG: Yeah. Oh and I forgot. There's a lot of that Irish music too.
ME: Irish music, right ... You know what? I might decide to skip this.
MFWLVG: What? Why?
ME: It just doesn't sound -
MFWLVG: There you go pre-judging it again.
ME: I'm not! It's just -
MFWLVG: What? What's the fuckin' problem?
ME: It just sounds like something I'd be really pissed off about and end up giving a 40 to.
MFWLVG: You're wrong. Seriously. You're wrong. Think of the Taiwanese woman - she saw it four times. What does that tell you? This movie really affects people. It goes straight for the jugular. It's like ... Essence of Do-Gooder!
ME: You think?
MFWLVG: You will not give this film a 40.
ME: You guarantee this.
MFWLVG: I guarantee it. You will not give this film a 40.
ME: I dunno...
MFWLVG: Trust me.
ME: It just sounds -
MFWLVG: Trust me.
THE DREAMERS (51) (dir., Bernardo Bertolucci) Michael Pitt, Eva Green, Louis Garrel (as 'Theo') [Feels like I'm missing a piece. A film about - or featuring - two different kinds of cinephilia: my namesake and his sister wield it like a weapon, giving Name-That-Movie tests with outlandish forfeits for the loser; Pitt's flower-child American is a wistful aesthete who just loses himself in the movies, sitting in the front row with other initiates in the "Freemasonry of Cinephiles". His pure, untroubled aestheticism stands outside Leftist concerns and cinema-as-politics (he likes Keaton over Chaplin); he renounces all violence, in the blithe way of post-ideological moderns, or modernists (he likes Keaton over Chaplin), and pulls back when the Revolution comes calling - unlike the others, who go from militant film-buffery to Molotovs and riots. So why does Bertolucci pointedly play "Je Ne Regrette Rien" over the end credits, as the street-fighting men go about their business? Is he saying 60s cinephilia - the Golden Age, as old farts repeat ad infinitum - was inseparably about this kind of political commitment, however deluded and delusory (i.e. we can laugh at Theo - we who also like Keaton over Chaplin - but that's the way it was), or is it the opposite, that the Revolution was the only way these poseurs could avoid the (literally) suicidal tendencies of their hermetic movie-love? Which of the two kinds of cinephile is the "Je" who regrets nothing, BB himself - or is he (as apparently in PARTNER, which I haven't seen) a fusion of the two, forever toying with politics only to drown it in aesthetics? Hard to make sense of the film, not least because its habit of cutting in movie clips as the characters talk about them is so obnoxious - congratulating those who recognise the clips, implicitly disdaining those who don't, exactly what Theo and Isabelle might do - yet seems to have been meant only as a kind of visual aid, not pejorative at all; the view of cinephilia as arrested childhood is par for the course, though it's interesting that the film is so suffused with borrowings (not just cinematic, e.g. Churchill's "Tomorrow I'll be sober" quote), as if to say it's also a desperate search for originality - like Youth itself, always on the lookout for new gems to filch, like Matthew's touching enthusiasm for the truism he's never heard before (other people's parents always seem nicer than our own, but our grandparents always seem nicer than other people's). Not enough happens to make the confusions worthwhile - maybe it's the lack of guilt that's so often a BB trademark (that man was born decadent), tying in with the line that films are voyeurism and "directors are like criminals"; the incestuous household never seems transgressive enough - though a lot of it is handsome and enjoyable. Is the parents' quiet leave-taking of the naked, huddled-together bodies an indulgent gesture - 'ah, to be 19 again' - or an admission of their own sad irrelevance? Is it Significant that the 'bad' cinephilia nonetheless develops, going from 30s Hollywood to MOUCHETTE as it moves towards its own suicidal dead-end? Um...]
HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (54) (dir., Alfonso Cuaron) Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, David Thewlis, Gary Oldman, Robbie Coltrane [Cuaron does bring something - a harsher look (is the stock more high-contrast or something?), a sometimes looser vibe, e.g. in the scene of Harry and his pals horsing around in the dorm, a more atmospheric location, a more mobile camera, attention paid to the passing seasons, Quidditch in the rain. What he can't do is make the young actors more expressive - Radcliffe especially isn't up to the role's complexities - nor can he solve the basic problem for people who haven't read the books, viz. that STONE and CHAMBER were charming but insubstantial (childish, in a word), but now that the series wants to grow up they're being mined for emotional resonance they don't possess and never did (see e.g. Harry's parents, whose deaths were always soft-pedalled so as not to scare the kiddies but are now suddenly invoked to lend weight to some Shocking Revelations). On the most basic level, the film's full of "Oh look it's so-and-so" moments which just seem baffling a year on (I couldn't even recall the Cloak of Invisibility); more importantly, the Potter mythos still doesn't seem very rich or memorable, with random monsters and a Special Guest Teacher to distract from cheap twists, a faceless super-villain and the fact that nothing seems to happen. You've helped clear an innocent man, Harry is told at the end, when he complains his actions "made no difference" - but all he's really done is help the Prisoner escape (and how does that clear his name?), just as the film's foray into Time-travel talks a good game but lacks any cleverness or rigour (you get the sense of Rowling having tried to do what's fashionable without quite understanding it): all the kids really do is save the gryphon-thing and use it to free Sirius, meaning they could just as easily have gone straight to the tower and decided to wait till he was caught, doing nothing in the interim - yet, the way it's staged, Harry would be dead if the future Hermione hadn't been around to distract the werewolf, even though she had no reason to be (let's not even get into the sci-fi geeks' favourite debate, the Mobius Strip of Future-changing-Past - except to wonder, don't events have to happen once before they can be altered? how can Harry go back in Time if he's supposed to be dead?). Bottom line? Franchise in gentle decline, heading for a rocky adolescence, too late to change the actors. Not looking good to this ignorant Muggle.]
INFERNAL AFFAIRS (56) (dir., Andrew Lau / Alan Mak) Andy Lau, Tony Leung, Anthony Wong ["Do you think I'm a good guy or a bad guy?". Notable mainly for refusing to choose between the two, treating cops and robbers with complete equanimity - they're like two rival firms, each one doing its job - though it seems not that big a deal that the cops do blatantly illegal stuff, like pretending to be a suspect's lawyer so as to get information. Prevailing tone is a sober police-procedural, basically meaning lots of computer screens and walkie-talkies; I missed the flash and dash of FULLTIME KILLER or SO CLOSE - or Miike, who exploded the whole device of a fast, information-packed prologue setting up the story in DEAD OR ALIVE (it's very well done here, but still feels like a convention). Also found it hard to follow, which is partly due (no doubt) to watching a dubbed version but also due to the filmmaking, which sets things up rather sketchily if at all (in the all-important early scene making clear our (anti-)hero is a mole, there's only the briefest of shots to show the gangsters are indeed being fed information; I still haven't figured out when exactly he gives instructions to tail the Superintendent, or why). Fluid but not too stylish - not even in the austere Michael Mann way - and some of it is just bad, like the girlfriend who's writing a book that reflects (and spells out) the movie's themes, Identity and Moral Ambivalence - though they did the same thing in FULLTIME KILLER, so it could be just a Hong Kong thing. It's really not that clever, people.]
OUT OF TIME (66) (dir., Carl Franklin) Denzel Washington, Eva Mendes, Sanaa Lathan, John Billingsley [Two big reasons to watch this (no, not Eva Mendes' spectacular boobs): the tense, inventive middle section, with our hero forced to take part in an investigation he knows will inexorably lead to himself as the culprit, in the style of NO WAY OUT or its 40s antecedents, THE BIG CLOCK and THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW; and - speaking of 40s antecedents - the relationship between hero and cackly sidekick Billingsley, who's obviously a Walter Brennan figure and strikingly close to the relationship between Bogie and Brennan in TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT (i.e., immensely entertaining). The rest is also pretty good, despite some obvious set-ups in the exposition - e.g. the tracking device, which you and I both know will feature in the climax - and an action-packed finale that could've been richer (then again, so could L.A. CONFIDENTIAL's). Languid small-town atmosphere sweetly evoked - opening shot starts on Main Street, craning down lazily amid the bars and shopfronts - Florida Keys vibe recalls the likes of Carl Hiaasen and John D. MacDonald, there's a thrilling chase in a hotel and some nicely barbed banter (Denzel: "Try the crab, it's delicious"; Husband Of The Woman He's Banging: "Thanks, I'm allergic"; Denzel: "I know"), and the whole thing thrums with the kind of care that gives 'old-fashioned' a good name. Why was something so delectable so roundly ignored? Too much like a TV movie? Boring title, probably.]
STARSKY & HUTCH (35) (dir., Todd Phillips) Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Snoop Dogg, Juliette Lewis, Will Ferrell [Don't really think of myself as an auteurist, least of all when it comes to low-rent Hollywood comedies, but based on this and OLD SCHOOL (and to some extent ROAD TRIP) I'd have to say Todd Phillips' sense of humour and mine are wildly out of sync, making for inert, poorly-timed comedies that leave first-rate actors stranded and the laughter dying on my lips. This should've worked, and still has some great moments - the "Big Earl" debate, Stiller doing what's presumably a Dustin Hoffman impression ("Do it!") - but there was more 70s-cop-show ambience in the Beasties' "Sabotage" video and the whole gay-subtext joke is just pounded into the ground, presumably so even the most clueless jock in the audience will eventually scratch his chin and go 'Wait a minute...'. Not a lot to say, but direction must take a lot of the blame for the debacle: there's no real reason for an EASY RIDER spoof reference - it's not even a 70s movie - but if you're going to do one, do it in a single shot and get it over with - not five or more shots of Owen'n Ben astride motorbikes with the joke dying a little each time, I mean jesus. Vince Vaughn is so cool, however.]
50 FIRST DATES (41) (dir., Peter Segal) Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Rob Schneider, Sean Astin [Say what you like about Sandler vehicles - they're badly paced, his persona is weird, they veer between the sappy and the puerile - but someday I suspect people will be seeing them as true originals, the way they do those of Jerry Lewis or W.C. Fields; and I say that as someone who finds them almost completely unendurable. All that's missing here are the eruptions of volcanic rage from MR. DEEDS and HAPPY GILMORE, but the rest is in place: a saccharine streak - little native kids out of an Elvis Presley movie, a cute-funny penguin - side by side with crude humour, an affinity (like Fields) for all things freakish (the androgynous Russian assistant, possibly the most disturbing sidekick since Dian Bachar in BASEKETBALL) and genuine attempts to wrest pathos, showing the pain of hurt feelings head-on and unprettified. It's the most bizarre viewing experience - one minute Sandler's singing a sweet serenade called "Forgetful Lucy" ("Forgetful Lucy / Has got a big caboose-y") with dolphins frolicking in the background, the next Lucy's forgetfulness is being treated as a deeply sad disability threatening to destroy their love, the next we're off on a bad-taste tangent involving walrus-vomit jokes, a blackface Rob Schneider or the wet dreams of Lucy's moron brother (Astin with a lisp, another strange non sequitur); what kind of sick mind wallows in the pain of a person realising her entire life is a sham, then shifts straight to stupid slapstick with a blithe, cut-to-commercial abandon? Also in the mix: Sandler's taste for Mommy / Teacher figures (see esp. BILLY MADISON) and a weird synchronicity with ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND, as Drew says the only path to happiness is to "erase you completely". Not much fun, certainly not well-crafted - the kind of film where a wide-shot with Astin in the background gets followed by a needless CU, even though we already saw his reaction in the wide (coverage is a terrible thing) - but the whole thing is really just ... mind-boggling. Like they said on WAYNE'S WORLD: "You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll hurl".]
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW (57) (dir., Roland Emmerich) Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, Ian Holm, Emmy Rossum, Dash Mihok [Time is short so I'm gonna go with what I wrote for the "Cyprus Mail" again (why is my stuff never on their website?!). Apologies for the slightly stodgy style - I write for a different audience there - but it says most of what I have to say, I guess. Remember in PRIMARY COLORS, when Adrian Lester was being touted as the Next Big Thing? The fickleness of fame, eh...]