Kate
And Leopold Kate
And Leopold Ah...the first movie of the year. In 1999 it was
Payback,
one of Mel Gibson's better, if not most well remembered works. In 2000
it was the magnificent Magnolia, whose trailer still ranks among
my all time favorites. Last year it was Finding Forrester, not the
greatest film, but certainly nothing that anybody involved had anything
to be ashamed about. The three year streak of pretty decent first films
ends with a shuddering thud in 2002 with Kate And Leopold.
Kate's (Meg Ryan) ex-boyfriend Stuart (Liev Schreiber)
lives upstairs from her in one of those apartment buildings where apparently
nobody else lives. One or the other will wake up to some great thundering
cacophony (an insane dog, a loud stereo, a smoke alarm) and no one but
the other notices. It's a way to skimp on the extra budget. Stuart has
discovered a time portal back to the late nineteenth century and has accidentally
bought Leopold (Hugh Jackman) back with him from one of his trips.
What follows is your standard romantic comedy, as
Kate and Leopold discover they are meant to be together, through all of
the fish-out-of-water moments, the false happy ending where it looks like
things will work out, the argument that blows in from nowhere, the incoherent
speech in front of the roomful of people where Kate finally figures things
out, and the true ending where they live happily ever after.
The thing that sets Kate And Leopold apart
from most films in the genre is its absolute lack of anything interesting.
There is very little humor. I may want to count my blessings on this account,
though. The fish-out-of-water scenes were mercifully short. Leopold's a
bright guy, he's going to figure things out pretty quickly. We don't need
to see him confusing the toilet for a sink.
Ryan and Jackman act like two people picking up a paycheck. Jackman,
in particular, comes across as one of the most boring romantic leads in
recent memory, trying to coast by on his good looks. Manners and civility
must equal dullness in Leopold's world. Sadly, the only thing left that
provides any sort of life is the overactive score.
This film runs a whopping two hours and eleven minutes,
a length not nearly justified by its subject. The old saying goes that
a film would be better with a little trimming in the editing room. A machete
would have been the appropriate choice in this case.
Grade: D+
Gosford
Park You know, it's really a shame that I have to whip
out the cynicism this early in the year, but I can't avoid it. Gosford
Park is, if you listen to the critics, Robert Altman's masterpiece.
He is winning Best Director awards left and right, and seems a shoe in
for at least an Oscar nomination. It is getting glowing reviews, being
called by many his best film in years. I hate to say this, but one wonders
how much of this praise has to do with the fact that Altman is less than
a month from his 77th birthday. He's getting to the point where any film
may be his last. You sure as hell don't want to be the guy who dumps on
a legend's last film, so maybe you give it a little more credit than it
deserves. Maybe the awards aren't specifically for this film, but sort
of a lifetime achievement award (think John Wayne winning the Best Actor
Oscar for True Grit).
That's not to say this isn't a good film. That is
hardly the case.
Altman does write and direct a pretty good piece
here. It is a story set in an English manor house in the time between the
wars when the privileged would gather for weekend hunting parties with
others of the privileged class. All the while, they would be waited on
hand and foot by a cadre of servants.
The story follows that trademark Altman formula,
a huge cast gets together and interacts while the audience desperately
tries to keep the players straight. Both the rich upstairs and the servants
downstairs dance around one another, playing out their own little dramas.
The action upstairs centers around money and position, some have it, some
used to have it, some may soon lose it. Downstairs, the servants give their
lot an added dignity by mirroring their master's positions. The servants
are known not by their own names, but their masters, and are ranked socially
by the rank of their master. A murder brings the two groups together.
This is a fine ensemble cast, reading like a who's
who of the English acting community (Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith,
Jeremy Northam, Alan Bates, Helen Mirren, Derek Jacobi, Emily Watson, Clive
Owen, Stephen Fry, I could keep going). Altman does his usual best at keeping
the confusion to a minimum while still keeping the story moving, usually
through some adept sound design where we hear important snippets of conversation
as the camera pans by. But things do slow down noticeably a few times,
especially after the murder. This is a very solid effort, but I will resist
in giving it the extra age-of-the-director points.
Grade: B+
Code
Unknown Code Unknown is the latest "idea movie", a
movie with some interesting little angle that either hasn't been done before,
or was done somewhere very low profile (think Timcode, The Blair
Witch Project, or Memento). The idea in play here is to introduce
some characters in an opening scene and then poke into their lives at random
throughout the course of the film (the complete French title translates
to Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales Of Several Journeys). Each scene
consists of a single shot, of varying length. Some will start and/or end
in the middle of a conversation or sentence. Very few have anything to
do with a plot, of which this movie has little. It's hard to develop an
attachment to anybody in this film. The story jumps forward, sometimes
weeks at a time between scenes, yet all we are given of some characters
development in this time is a thirty second scene of them eating dinner.
The most interesting part of my movie viewing experience
was gauging my own reaction to the piece. It started with "OK, this is
an interesting idea". Next came "I get it already". Followed by "This movie
is really starting to outstay its welcome". Finally, I left the theater
muttering "What a pretentious piece of crap" under my breath. The truth
lies somewhere around the third stage.
Grade: C-
Impostor John Olham (Gary Sinise) is a Top Government Scientist
who develops weapons in our war against invaders from a planet in the Alpha
Centauri system. Major Hathaway (Vincent D'Onofrio) of Earth Security has
intercepted some information that the real Olham has been replaced by an
organic robot wired with a bomb that will go off when it is within range
of its intended target. The robot is so perfect that it not only doesn't
know it's not the real deal, the only way to figure it out is to strap
it to a real cool looking device that removes the heart. Olham escapes
his interrogators and goes on the run to try to prove his innocence. I
wonder what the twist ending is going to be.
What holds the movie back is a lack of imagination
in the art direction. Here we are seventy years in the future. Everything,
and I mean everything, above ground is different. Ultra-futuristic designs
jut out with very little apparent thought given to functionality. Underneath
all of this design masturbation lies yet another world teeming with leaky
tunnels, dark warehouses, and circular metal sewer pipes. Outside the protective
domes lie the exact same bombed out cities, teeming with the dirty refuse
of society that have populated every mediocre science fiction movie since
the beginning of time.
Grade: C
Orange
County I really don't like being confused when I watch a
movie. I don't mean confused by some labyrinth, David Lynch-ian plot, I
mean confused because it takes most of the damn movie to figure out exactly
what kind of movie they were trying to make.
Colin Hanks is Shaun Brumder, a surfer dude turned
serious student after reading a book written by Marcus Skinner (Kevin Kline).
Shaun's only goal is to go to Stanford to study writing under Skinner,
a professor there. His plans are derailed when an idiot guidance counselor
(Lily Tomlin) sends in the wrong transcripts. Shaun travels to Stanford
to try to do anything he can to get in. Most of the movie plays pretty
seriously (not a heavy drama, but more lighthearted). Shaun deals with
his desire to get out of Orange County, which is almost mainly due to his
parents, a whiny, boozy mother (Catherine O'Hara) who can't stand to let
him go, and a driven, Type A father (John Lithgow). An added air of respectability
is added with cameos from some pretty big names (Chevy Chase, Harold Ramis,
Garry Marshall, Ben Stiller, Kline, Lithgow).
But then along comes Jack Black as Shaun's burn
out, idiot brother Lance. Just when things look like they're heading down
a more grown up, thoughtful road, along comes Lance in some idiot scene
about needing a urine sample for his probation officer, or an idiot scene
where he burns down Stanford's admission office. The two approaches, right
next to one another made for a very conflicted movie.
Grade: C-
Burnt
Money Burnt Money is based on a true story of a
1965 robbery in Argentina. The film starts off in a very promising manner.
We meet our protagonists, Angel (Eduardo Noriega) and Nene (Leonardo Sbaraglia)
who are known as the twins, as they always work together and are very similar
in looks and mannerisms. They're not related, they're lovers. After their
introduction, the robbery starts to get planned, and it looks like we're
in for a bare bones, anatomy of a crime movie, as the facts are presented,
the mechanics discussed, and the potential pitfalls accounted for. But
all of a sudden it's only about a third of the way in to the movie and
the job is over, with one of the pitfalls occuring, necessitating a bolt
to Montevideo while the heat cleas and fake passports are obtained.
The rest of the movie becomes a claustrophobic affair
as Angel drifts away from Nene and he doesn't know what to do about it.
Cuervo (Pablo Echarri), a third member of the team is also holed up with
them, and forms a friendship with the two while at the same time antagonising
them. Out of boredom, Nene and Cuervo eventually start stupidly going outside.
The prospect of getting recognized is no worse than the prospect of spending
yet another day inside.
This last two thirds of the movie, at times, didn't
keep my attention. Most of the time, to these untrained American eyes,
the actors and their voices were indistinguishable. Nene starts up a relationship
with a local woman (Leticia Bredice) to seek solace, but other than that,
the three ae basically marking time until either their fake papers come
through or they are caught. A wonderfuly ultra-violent scene comes a little
bit too late to save things.
Grade: C+
Dinner
Rush Here's your latest entry in the food fetish genre
where a plot is played out between long scenes of food being prepared or
eaten.
The plot concerns a successful Italian restaurant
owned by bookmaker (a taker of illegal bets for those of you who have never
actually seen a movie) Louis Cropa (Danny Aiello). Set mostly during one
long night at the restaurant, various plots play out both among the patrons
and in the kitchen. Cropa wants out of the bookmaking business, but the
two hoods from Queens that he is selling out to want a piece of the restaurant
too. Louis' son and star chef Udo (Edoardo Ballerini) is at odds with his
father because of his nouveau Italian dishes and the opinion that he should
be the one owning the restaurant. Udo also fights with Duncan (Kirk Acevedo),
the chef Louis keeps on only because he makes the kind of food he wants
to eat. A large table of hip artists and hangers on is headed by Fitzgerald
(Mark Margolis) who lords over his followers and delights in insulting
the waitress (Summer Phoenix). Throw a food critic (Sandra Bernhardt),
some romances, and the bartender holding court into the mix, and it makes
for a busy night.
Dinner Rush conveys the absolute blind rush
that goes on in the kitchen and in the interactions at the tables, but
never feels rushed. It's like that day at your retail job where you look
at the clock which says 8 AM, you look at the line which stretches out
the door, you resign yourself to a day from hell, but when you next look
at the clock, it says you're five minutes from closing time. As would be
required in a food fetish movie, the food preparation is magnificently
shot. The stories going on upstairs would have made for quite a good movie
on their own.
Grade: B+
Black
Hawk Down Black Hawk Down tells the story of an ill
advised 1993 mission in the African country of Somalia. Not that any of
this matters in the context of this film, which is a flag waving, gung-ho,
"leave no man behind" exercise in numbing violence. In the film's nearly
two-and-one-half hour running time, all pretense of personality or motivation
has been driven out by the sound of gunfire.
The facts are a matter for the history books. A
mission was planned, the mission went terribly wrong, and many American
soldiers were left with only their training, their wits, and their fellow
soldiers to get them out safely. Taking an opposite tack than the nearly
inexcusable Pearl Harbor which took a horrible, bloody incident
and used soft focus and unbloodied extras to make the attack seem like
a PG-13 affair, this is a bloody and violent film. The point trying to
be made is obvious right away, most everybody watching the movie wasn't
there and has no idea what it was really like. This is a valid point, but
we are pounded over the head with it. The Somalian militia was much more
well armed and prepared than they were given credit for. This leaves us
with a story where men try to get from point A to point B, and once at
point B, to remain in one piece there. The well armed and trained Americans
then sit back while the enemy pops up like ducks at a carnival shooting
gallery to be picked off one by one. Meanwhile, back at the base, the obsessively
gum chewing general sits around in close up with a worried look on his
face as bad news comes in from the action.
And why are the Somalian people so willing to die?
The movie sure never gives us any hint. After the obligatory history exposition
in the beginning and before the obligatory history exposition at the end,
the fighters are just a nameless faceless bunch of extras, cast because
they looked the part and could die convincingly on film. One short scene
near the end is the only hint of motivation and development given.
The well rounded cast helps to salvage the film,
even though they are utterly interchangeable and rely once to often on
cliché archetypes. Josh Hartnett, Tom Sizemore, William Fichtner,
and Ewan McGregor lead a great cast that realizes that this isn't a star
vehicle, rather a team effort.
But even with all of this shallow and mindless carnage,
the day is saved by the artistic team behind the film. Ridley Scott does
a fantastic job of direction, even if long stretches of the film feel like
they were done by a man showing off the location he had the opportunity
to work in, or the number of helicopters and humvees he had at his disposal.
He is backed up by a team in cinematographer Slavomir Idziak and production
designer Arthur Max who give a gritty, grimy feel where menace lurks behind
every overturned garbage can. This is a fabulous example of the craft behind
making an action film.
Grade: B-
Brotherhood
Of The Wolf It seems that the French people don't like French
movies. The movies that choke the theaters and make the most money are
big, dumb American action films that we look down our noses at. This, unfortunately,
has led to a movement among the French to make more American-like films
(rent The Crimson Rivers on DVD and watch the interview with director
Mathieu Kassovitz where he talks about this). The makers of Brotherhood
Of The Wolf have seen far too many American movies and have been far
too influenced by them.
It tells the story of a beast which terrorized a
small French town in the mid eighteenth century. It has been killing local
women and children, easily fending off the impotent efforts of the locals
to stop it. The king sends Fronsac (Samuel Le Bihan) to deal with the matter.
An explorer and naturalist fresh from the New World (Hey! That's us!),
he brings along his Iroquois sidekick Mani (Mark Dacascos), quiet, mysterious,
at one with nature, and pretty handy in a fight. Fronsac falls for local
beauty Marianne (Emilie Dequenne), drawing the ire of her one-armed, wannabe
incestuous brother Jean-Francois (Vincent Cassel).
It felt like it the middle of August and I was watching
the latest summer blockbuster at times. The plot was kind of predictable.
It was nothing where you sat there and knew what was coming at every turn,
it was more of a feeling of "I should have seen that coming" when things
were revealed. Fronsac figures out pretty early on that the beast is being
controlled, fortunately the list of suspects is rather short. Once we finally
see the beast, it looks impressive. It doesn't look realistic, or for that
matter possible. It is like it is just to look good.
Perhaps the weakest parts of the movie were the
fight sequences, which would spring up repeatedly out of nowhere. These
fine, upstanding, eighteenth century Frenchmen are all proficient in martial
arts. Extended, bloody fights erupt at the drop of a hat. The crushing
impacts are shown in sudden slow motion.
But underneath all of this silliness, and miasma
of genres, lies a pretty fun time. Chris Vognar in The Dallas Morning News
comes up with the line that perfectly sums up this movie: "If you see one
French costume drama martial arts werewolf secret society romance this
year, make sure this is it." Apart from the excessive use of slow motion,
the direction by Christophe Gans is lively, keeping the action moving and
the suspense building. This movie was also art directed to death. Lavish
sets are used for short scenes and flash by, the costumes are intricate,
and some of the outdoor locations couldn't possibly exist naturally. Sure,
this is a big, dumb, American film, but the French, no matter what they
may choose to do, still know how to craft a film. If Brotherhood Of
The Wolf had been made by an American, we'd all be impressed.
Grade: B-
Kung
Pow: Enter The Fist If you have some insane desire to see a single joke
taken way too far, this is the movie for you. Steve Oedekerk (writer of
Patch
Adams and both the Ace Ventura and Nutty Professor sequels)
writes, directs, and stars in this film which takes footage from the 1977
Hong Kong film Savage Killers and dubs new dialogue in an effort
to make a kung fu parody.
The effort fails. None of the visual humor works
at all. Scenes such as the Matrix rip off where Oedekerk, as The
Chosen One, fights a cow make you long for the fall when studios release
their good movies. Another point I guess that was supposed to be funny
was Oedekerk supplying all of the dubbed voices, none of which sound like
they come from a kung fu movie (wacky). The entire premise fails, the only
laughs come from the rare funny one liner (speaking of an awkward fighter:
"We've purposely trained him wrong as a joke").
Grade: F
Lantana Lantana is one of those "grown up" dramas.
It meditates on the subjects of loss, faithfulness, honesty, and betrayal
in relationships. The difference comes as these issues come up in the context
of a crime drama. The film opens with a shot that tracks through a dense
undergrowth of bushes until the camera happens upon a dead body. There
are really no distinguishing characteristics, so it's easy not to remember
too much that would give you any hint as to who it is.
We meet four couples. Leon (Anthony LaPaglia) and
Sonja (Kerry Amstrong) are coasting by mostly on habit and for the sake
of their two sons. Leon is having an affair with Jane (Rachel Blake) recently
separated from Pete (Glenn Robbins). Their neighbors are Nik (Vince Colosimo)
and Paula (Daniella Farinacci). We also meet psychiatrist Dr. Valerie Somers
(Barbara Hershey) and her husband John Knox (Geoffrey Rush) whose daughter
was murdered two years prior.
The story relies almost exclusively on coincidences,
this is, at the same time its strength and its weakness. It's as if the
universe is only populated by these eight people. See, the body turns out
to be one of the eight characters. Nik becomes a suspect after Jane sees
him disposing of a shoe. Leon, a police detective, investigates, the day
after randomly meeting Pete at a a bar. It even turns out that Sonja has
been seeing Valerie professionally. Another of her clients has her convinced
that he is having an affair with her husband. And on and on. The final
scenes of the movie are spent setting up even more throwaway coincidences,
pushing it past any sort of point of rationality.
But for some odd reason the mess works. The characters
seem to recognize the oddness of what's going on and, themselves, are a
little freaked out about it ("How do we play this?" Leon asks Jane as he
shows up to question her). The audience is dared to play along, guessing
as to which coincidences are going to play out and how. The solution to
the murder, and even which couples stay together turns out to be anticlimactic,
even though these questions have dominated much of the movie.
Grade: B
Metropolis Metropolis didn't need to have a story. Sitting
and watching the camera dance and swirl around the massive Ziggurat, the
building that occupies the center of this anime movie, and the giant gears
that form its inner mechanical workings for ninety minutes would have been
enough. The world of this story is a beautifully rendered, living, breathing
place. The story is based on a 1949 comic book, whose writer, Osamu Tezuka
obviously saw and drew from the 1926 Fritz Lang film Metropolis.
The Ziggurat is a massive building, towering above
all else in the city (one character draws the comparison to the Tower of
Babel). It has been built by Duke Red who, in his past, founded an anti-robot
political group which he still secretly funds. The anti-robot sentiment
runs high. Nobody seems to mind too much that they take care of the sewage
treatment on the city's lower levels, but feel threatened by their proliferation
in jobs above ground.
A detective and his nephew Kenichi come to the city
looking for Dr. Lawton, a wanted man for his activities in selling human
organs on the black market. Duke Red has hired Lawton to create a super-being,
part human, part robot, to sit atop the Ziggurat and control the world
(you didn't really think the Ziggurat was just a haven for commerce and
wasn't built for some other nefarious purpose, did you?). This upsets Red's
security chief Rock, who is under the mistaken impression that he is Red's
son. He feels the Duke himself should sit in the throne.
Rock destroys Lawton's workshop, setting Kenichi
and the robot, Tima, on the run. All the while, the political situation
is deteriorating, setting the government, the below ground inhabitants,
the surface inhabitants, and Duke Red against one another.
The uncle teams up with a police robot he names Pero (a dog's name,
robots aren't allowed human names) and search for Tima and Kenichi.
The movie is full of wonderful details. Check out
the Hotel Coconut. Instead of just a simple building, the hotel is actually
an old railway terminal where guests stay in antique train cars. Or how
about the insane, yet completely correct logic in Pero's final scene. The
movie also uses Western music extensively. The scenes in Zone 1 (the first
below ground level where the lower middle class and below live) ae accompanied
by old jazz music. A final scene echoes Dr. Strangelove by playing
Ray Charles' "I Can't Stop Loving You" over scenes of massive destruction.
This is a wonderfully visual film with a solid story
to back it up. See it on the big screen if you get the chance.
Grade: A-
Pinero What I learned about Miguel Pinero from seeing this
movie: he was a poet, he won a Tony award for a play he wrote about his
experiences in prison, he wrote for TV shows like "Miami Vice", he did
a lot of drugs, and sometimes took advantage of his friendships.
Pinero jumps back and forth through his life,
juxtaposing scenes where he's got money and a nice apartment with scenes
where he's living out of the back of a van. It seems to be the business
of recent biopics to romanticize the person's memory and gloss over the
bad stuff. Pinero is no different, although a lot of what had to
pass for good points seemed pretty dismal, making you wonder what he was
like at his worst. The story seemed hollow, it felt like there was a reluctance
to dig deeper.
But on top of this was an electric performance by
Benjamin Bratt in the title role. He was able to inhabit this character
and sell it absolutely, whether it was at an up or a down period in his
life. The film is worth seeing for the acting alone.
Grade: B
The Mothman Prophecies The Mothman is one of those legends that people swear
up and down is true. There have been dozens of sitings in Point Pleasant,
West Virginia. But to say that this film is based on true events (which
it does) is misleading. The legend and one factual event are taken and
a Big Dumb Hollywood Plot is erected around it.
John Kline (Richard Gere) and his wife have just
bought a house. On the way home, their car is run off the road when it
is hit by something vaguely moth shaped. After much consternation and drawing
of moth shaped figures, his wife dies. Two years later, John is on his
way to Virginia when he suddenly comes to behind the wheel on a rural road
in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. To get there, he had to drive 400 miles
in an hour and a half. This starts a string of mysterious incidents, all
involving the mothman in some way. He meets the local sheriff Connie Parker
(Laura Linney) and the two start investigating.
This has to be one of the most non thrilling thrillers
ever. Incidents happen, but few are ever truly scary. An example is when
John gets a call from one of the locals (Will Patton) saying he's with
the mothman. He asks to talk to him and the mothman is able to tell him
things he'd have to be in the room to know ("What's in my hand?" "Chapstick").
Nothing about this scene is scary, rather, the most extreme reaction would
be to say "That is so freakin' weird". Hell, we never even get to see the
mothman!
Director Mark Pellington tries to make up for this
lack of excitement with all manner of camera wizardry and trickery. Shots
are out of focus or interestingly framed, harmless objects are shot to
be almost moth shaped, there are lots of crane shots and fast motion shots
where a figure is zoomed in on from far away, an object in close up will
dissolve into a different object in close up as a way to transition to
another scene. He is skilled enough that his direction was able to hold
my interest for awhile, and make the experience of seeing the film somewhat
worthwhile.
But then the Big Dumb Plot catches up with him.
The movie is about the mothman; what he is, what he wants, what his presence
means. Kline spends almost the entire movie researching and tracking him
down, even flying off to Chicago to consult an expert (Alan Bates). Then,
twenty minutes from the end, a different movie breaks out. The mothman's
oblique clues lead to a warning about an event. The climax of the movie
is that event, with no mention of the mothman, or any explanations. It
amounted to a bait and switch, so much time and effort was spent pursuing
one thread of this story, to end it on another weakened an already mediocre
movie.
Grade: C-
The
Count Of Monte Cristo Embarrassing omission time: I've never read the book.
Embarrassing omission time #2: I've never seen any
of the other dozens of film versions.
Sorry.
What I can say is that this version worked pretty
well as a big, swashbuckling adventure. It plays on the emotions as we
get a hero, wrongly accused who goes from having nothing to having everything.
I say it worked "pretty" well because it felt watered down and rushed at
times, not surprising as it comes from the same studio that butchered another
great story with last year's The Musketeer. There were parts where
it was pretty obvious, even to someone unfamiliar with the details of the
story, that big chunks had been glossed over for the sake of cutting twenty
minutes off of the movie. But it ultimately serves as a crowd pleaser that
doesn't seem too dumbed down.
Grade: B-