Films Seen - September 2004

[Pre-'96 films not included.]

I, ROBOT (53) (dir., Alex Proyas) Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan, Bruce Greenwood, Chi McBride [What exactly is it that makes us human? Maybe it's trust, the secret alliances we seal with a wink. Maybe it's doing irrational things sometimes, choosing the less sensible option for purely emotive reasons. We know it's not the taste of a sweet-potato pie, easily robot-tooled to taste like Grandma used to make. Sci-fi actioner scatters all these intriguing snippets - and others too, like a hero accused of "prejudice" played (with just enough edge to underline the irony) by a black actor - but it gets less interesting as it goes along, toning down the philosophy for a lame climax and plot that doesn't really make sense (hard to see how the clues he gets should've led him to find the truth; or is it that he never does in fact "ask the right questions"?). Notable mainly for charismatic Smith as prickly, snarky hero ("Oh I'm sorry, I'm allergic to bullshit"), excellent design that emphasises space - as opposed to BLADE RUNNER claustrophobia - for once, and the year's most outrageous product-placement (you go, Converse); kept waiting for the tea-in-the-sugar shtick to turn into a payoff, but I guess I must've missed that one. Dumb Movie Conventions #1592: When a suspect is about to spill the beans but the interrogation is suddenly interrupted a cop hero shall not pursue the matter once interrogation resumes, nor shall he ask for 10 seconds so the suspect can finish what he was saying.] 

THE TERMINAL (33) (dir., Steven Spielberg) Tom Hanks, Catherine Zeta Jones, Stanley Tucci, Diego Luna [Maybe it's the (somewhat similar) CAST AWAY making it look bad, or just Spielberg's congenital inability to tell a simple story without pumping it full of showbiz gigantism, but nothing works at all in this feeble piece of schmaltz: not John Williams' grating score, now and then leaning into Eastern European jiggery, not Kaminski's shabby-looking images (needlessly shot through with trademark bright white light at intervals, which just looks overheated in this modest setting), not Hanks' grotesque performance, waddling and smiling ingratiatingly then leaping around like an old maid surprised by a mouse when his pager goes off - single-handedly making a nonsense of claims that the film paints a "sympathetic Other" in the wake of 9/11 - not the big confrontation scenes which just fail to convince (is it that difficult to find someone who speaks Russian in a big international airport?). Spielberg goes for quirky fairytale, but it's so haphazardly plotted - letting sub-plots languish for half the movie - the fairytale never takes off, and when the airport staff come out to cheer hero on at the climax we don't even know these people; also you do not cast Catherine Zeta Jones - hard and hollow as a new Joan Collins - if you're making a fairytale (her attempts to convey tender emotion by gazing at Hanks and blinking really fast are kind of awesomely awful). Most desperate joke: hero runs into the wrong toilet, cue offscreen female squeal, promptly runs out again. Dumbest detail: putting the name of his country on the big Departures board when every other name on the board is (of course) a city. All these foreign place-names sound the same, eh?...] 

Toronto International Film Festival (Sept. 9-18) (39 films)

BEFORE SUNSET (75) (dir., Richard Linklater) Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy [SUNRISE has the edge over this sequel, partly I think in providing more context - not least via encounters with other people - for this often smug couple: one feels the need to point out that they're fatuous, pretentious, self-absorbed - albeit also funny, articulate, smart - with their "Life is hard"s and "I love these old staircases", and visits to Trappist monasteries in pursuit of fulfilment, and bien-pensant clichés (Americans are gun-obsessed, Parisians grumpy) dressed up as insight, but the film doesn't offer that option (also of course they were youngsters in SUNRISE, implicitly not-quite-joined to the world around them; their breathless philosophising carried its own sell-by date). Also perhaps too much drama - strange though it sounds for an 80-minute film that's all talk - in making That Night so important, and making these lives so screwed-up (and using music to beef up the last 15 minutes): the ending is certainly open, and there's every indication the two couldn't manage a long-term relationship - she's a pessimist and eco-warrior (and true romantic), he's a horndog and merry prankster - but the resolution still feels too emphatic for what should be a wistful, glancing movie (cf. Rohmer). With those caveats, a hopeful and magical film about "enjoying the process", Life as a series of moments ("inside every moment is another moment"), and growing old(er), and finding yourself but losing your enthusiasm, and growing numb and detached (not unlike a war photographer) - and of course a subtle mating dance, where the boy is apparently courting and the girl in control (he's the one who keeps bringing up sex; she's the one who initially denies it ever happened), but in fact he holds all the cards - both the flight he has to catch (he can stop the film at any time) and the fact he went back to Vienna all those years ago - and it's up to her to prove her love: only after she shows that she too idealised That Night - that it meant as much to her as it did to him - can she truly accept his advances without being humiliated. Hugely enjoyable and (I suspect) endlessly rewatchable; shame about the bland ballad over the opening credits, though.]

NAPOLEON DYNAMITE (67) (dir., Jared Hess) Jon Heder, Jon Gries, Efren Ramirez [Easily - and not inaccurately - described as half-formed infantile characters in the style of Jerry Lewis or Pee-Wee Herman (when we first see teen Napoleon he's on a bus surrounded by little kids), only shot in the portentous, ritualistic, all-due-respect style of David Gordon Green: everyone's bent on self-improvement, from gloomy Pedro to Rex of "Rex Kwon Do" fame to Napoleon himself (who greets defeat with an exasperated sigh, as if to make clear he's surrounded by incompetence), everything is solemn tableaux, and the "Happy Hands Club" go through their motions with a gravitas that gives them a peculiar beauty. Underlying (yes) integrity belies the charge that it's condescending to its characters - how do you condescend to cartoon characters anyway? - and rescues the constant quirkiness, about two-thirds of which is actually even kind of pretty funny (kind of). Already a major cult movie, and for once that's a good thing.]  

MARIA FULL OF GRACE (62) (dir., Joshua Marston) Catalina Sandino Moreno, Guilied Lopez, Yenny Paola Vega [Kind of falls apart if you take it apart, but redeems itself by focusing closely on mechanics, esp. the mechanics of being a 'mule' - learning to swallow the grape-sized pellets, eating nothing for 24 hours before the trip, putting toothpaste on them (to hide the smell) after excretion. At its most effective on slick suspense techniques (esp. the sequence on the plane), which kind of obscures the attempt at grittiness; whole thing feels a little panicked, actually, like they felt the need to add incident to avoid things getting possibly uncomfortable - heroine's assertiveness, carefully established early on, could (and maybe should) have led to her moral corruption in the world of drugs, but in fact gets forgotten as circumstances - and melodrama - push her along, ever the nice girl; Catholic-guilt subtext is negligible, despite the title (and such carefully loaded scenes as Maria forced into a barefaced lie with the Customs people). Note, among other things, she doesn't come full circle in NYC, trading one menial job for another - or at least we don't see that. We leave her clear-eyed and self-possessed, in validating close-up, already thinking of pre-natal care for her unborn child, ready to hitch her wagon to the American Dream. Inspiring, yes?...]

LOVE ME IF YOU DARE (47) (dir., Yann Samuell) Guillaume Canet, Marion Cotillard, Gerard Watkins [Seems to be a French cultural thing that outrageously piggish bad behaviour is acceptable, without disapproval or judgment, in a hero or heroine, as presumably the manifestation of some inner sadness or dysfunction - see Cyril Collard, Xavier Beauvois (also, Rimbaud). Very hard to warm to this, mostly because the lead characters are so unpleasant and insensitive ("like playing Beethoven's Fifth with your fingernails down a blackboard," says someone aptly) - though also because it tries to be too many things, blending AMELIE-style narration, cartoonish camera moves and kitschy design (that green wallpaper!) with a tale of amour fou and fiery pathos - but it won me over, probably around the time the plot skipped through its umpteenth twist and our hero got knocked into a puddle which turned into a lake which he swam through ethereally. Something bracingly bold - youthful, you might say, bearing in mind the original title is JEUX D'ENFANTS, "Children's Games" - about the selfish characters, Samuell's amped-up over-enthusiasm (all those jump-cuts!) and such scenes as the banter in the bar - and if it turns out to have a cruel edge, the banter turning out to be a hurtful joke, well, that's youthful too. On the other hand I very much hoped our hero was dead when his car exploded in a fireball with half an hour to go, and that surely can't be a good sign.]

THE STEPFORD WIVES (27) (dir., Frank Oz) Nicole Kidman, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler, Christopher Walken, Glenn Close [No idea why people are finding this offensive: the point is pretty clearly that you can't turn back the clock (however great the temptation in an age of Xanax, nervous breakdowns and ball-busting career bitches) to docile wives and 50s values - the climactic 'twist' speech is obviously coming from a crazy person - with a touch of political resonance for those who care to pick it up. Indeed, that's the problem: it's all entirely trite and unsurprising, giving no special twist to its 50s-style idyll which is a complete non-starter in any case: might've been a much better joke - and much more pointed dig at today's gender wars - if the women were all spiky and smart and PC, yet also robots (the commodified career girl is today's housewife, doing the world's donkey-work while the men play with their cellphones; who wants a simpering blonde goody-goody, anyway?). Instead we get pastel pinks and bouncy la-la-la music, a good cast given nothing to do and Paul Rudnick's fluffy-campy, look-at-me zingers. Boring!]

FAHRENHEIT 9/11 (47) (dir., Michael Moore) [Here's the "Cyprus Mail" review - geared to a Cyprus audience, obviously, but saying most of what I have to say, I guess...]

THE LOST SKELETON OF CADAVRA (53) (dir., Larry Blamire) Larry Blamire, Fay Masterson, Susan McConnell, Andrew Parks [Obviously the Funniest Thing Ever; not all that funny, though. Arch spoofery with little attempt at real pastiche - i.e. it could never be a real 50s sci-fi cheapie, even with Blamire himself as the square-jawed scientist doing scientific work so that "mankind can benefit in many ways, many of them good"; visuals are a bit more accurate, but very Ed Wood when they should be doing Roger Corman. Still intermittently hilarious, and I already feel I'm underrating it, but it's more fun to think about than actually watch (might've made an awesome 10-minute TV sketch, though); Masterson is wa-a-ay too smug as the twinkly wifey - but all hail Susan McConnell, the best John Waters heroine never to have actually appeared in a John Waters movie.]