Terse Comments On Circa-2003 Films of the Cinema.
HULK
(Ang Lee) 55
Reviewed: June 20th, 2003
Grappled with this one for a few hours since a part of me wanted to give extra
credit to Lee et al. for trying to push the tentpole envelope, but ultimately
there's no way around the fact that Angie and his writers have made a muddled,
if intriguing, failure. Biggest problem is that it's impossible to give a shit
about Bana, who makes about as much impact on screen (emotionally) as the key
grip. Next biggest problem is that the movie is pretty incoherent, with frequent
and obnoxious gaps in logic (anyone know why Josh Lucas thought a small tank of
water could hold the Hulk? anyone know why Nolte was allowed to see Bana at the
end? anyone know why Nolte was revealing his Grand Plans in front of the entire
US army? anyone know what the fuck Nolte was even talking about?). Next biggest
problem is that Lee's idea of Big Drama = slowly doling out expository flashbacks
in tiny, soft-focus, slow-mo, pseudo-arty doses while Buddhist monks chant on
the soundtrack, as if this is some sort of Alain Resnais murder mystery or somethin'.
(Remember in Batman where you see Bruce Wayne's parents killed in one
unbroken scene? That was awesome.) Compensation: the action sequences (particularly
of the desert/San Francisco variety) are electrifying (even if ILM seems to chicken
out a bit by making the Hulk so tiny in a lot of shots, their CGI work is largely
impressive) and most importantly there is Jennifer Connelly's emphatically evocative
presence. She's a remarkable actress capable of doing so much with so little;
shots in which cinematographer Frederick Elmes (Blue Velvet, Wild
At Heart) simply lingers his camera on her face are flawless mini-movies
all by their lonesome.
28
DAYS LATER (Danny Boyle) 54
Reviewed: June 27th, 2003
Falls apart in the third act, never certain what the hell it wants to be, ultimately
failing to truly deliver on any front. A fun, scary, cheap thrills entertainment?
Nope, not really, 'cause all the action scenes are cut together in extreme close-ups,
which -- let's get this straight -- just ain't that scary. A haunting
mediation on the apocalypse? Well, almost, but again no cigar, cause ultimately
it's a shallow film, unable to invest serious questions (like procreation or what's
the use of survival if there's nothing to look forward to) with insight, just
pointless bickering (e.g. don't the women have an opinion on furthering
the human race?). It's a film where our protagonists are inexplicably content
living for its own sake, unconcerned about their bleak futures (which might be
fine if the movie's ambitions were as modest as cheap thrills, but again, this
is decidedly not the case), a film which has the audacity to insult the formulaic
conventions of its genre ('whadaya wanna do, fall in love and fuck?' asks someone
mockingly) only to have its characters stupidly adhere to those tired happenings
after all. The anticlimactic ending is positively idiotic, reducing the movie
to uselessness (hey, let's have the few humans turn against each other, run away
from all the zombies and then be saved). A shame too, because a lot of 28
Days Later is viscerally effective, be it because of Boyle's no-nonsense
visual rhythms, the simple horror of the premise, the fitting gloom of DV mixed
with an isolated England, the sudden bursts of calamity, or the aggressive sound
design. Oh, and Brendan Gleeson continues to be the fucking man.
TERMINATOR
3: RISE OF THE MACHINES (Jonathan Mostow) 63
Reviewed: July 3rd, 2003
"Rise of the Machines" is a blatant misnomer; a more accurate title
would have been Terminator 2.5: Well Eventually The Machines Might Rise, But
First Here Is This Slightly Tweaked Version of Terminator 2.0, since far
as I can decipher the plotting, it's basically a 'once again Arnold will come
back and try to help John Connor not be killed in an effort to stop Judgment Day.'
The small adjustments mainly involve subtracting ass-kicker Hamilton and adding
pussy Claire Danes as the love interest (who valiantly and often unsuccessfully
tries to handle her bad dialogue while hoping she doesn't die); a hot chick not
as threatening as Robert Patrick (then again, who is?) starring as Robert Patrick;
Nick Stahl as Edward Furlong, a most pleasant change since Stahl's wonderful here,
projecting just the right mixture of assured insouciance and quiet intelligence,
all the awhile satisfying the primary movie star requirement of selling the hell
outta his lame dialogue; the addition of some humor to brighten shit up (and now
the franchise is so self-aware it specifically comments on this insertion): one
of the secrets of the Terminator films has always been its understanding of exactly
how Arnold must be used, and in Terminator 3 more than the other two,
the movie laughs aloud at Schwarzenegger for his atrocious, if ultimately useful,
acting. Credit must go to Mostow (whose Breakdown I'm a big fan of),
for keeping the pacing tight (a blockbuster that clocks in at under 105 minutes??!!
who woulda thunk it??!!) and the endless action scenes appropriately large and
-- most importantly -- lucid (it's nice to see lots of on-set demolition
work, a true rarity in this CGI-infested summer). Meanwhile Terminator 3's
screenwriters (I would list 'em, but we'd probably be here all week) wisely learned
the crucial lesson of the first Terminator flick, which is that the best way to
handle exposition is to shovel it down the audience's throats while the characters
are on the move (though they could take some cues from Mostow in the lucidity
department; I'll just trust all the plotting works out since I sure as fuck stopped
paying attention to the details after awhile). Really this film is just a largely
unnecessary segue into Terminator 4: Okay, The Machines Are Gonna Rise For
Real This Time that lacks the gravity of its predecessors, but hey, it's
fun and fast and there are some shots of nuclear war that took my breath away.
DIRTY
PRETTY THINGS (Stephen Frears) 44
Reviewed: July 29th, 2003
Effective performances from Chiwetel Ejiofor (try saying that three times fast)
and Audrey Tautou (despite her annoying faux accent; yes, I'm as surprised as
you are) team with Frears's careful direction to battle superficial didacticism.
In this sledgehammer treatise on the perils of immigration, the screenwriter regrettably
wins.
LARA
CROFT TOMB RAIDER: THE CRADLE OF LIFE (Jan De Bont) 40
Reviewed: August 7th, 2003
Angie, Angie, when will those clouds all disappear?
Angie, Angie, where will it lead us from here?
With no loving in our souls and no money in our coats
You can't say we're satisfied
But Angie, Angie, you can't say we never tried
Angie, you're beautiful, but ain't it time we said good-bye?
Angie, I still love you, remember all those nights we cried?
All the dreams we held so close seemed to all go up in smoke
Let me whisper in your ear:
Angie, Angie, where will it lead us from here?
Oh, Angie, don't you weep, all your kisses still taste sweet
I hate that sadness in your eyes
But Angie, Angie, ain't it time we said good-bye?
With no loving in our souls and no money in our coats
You can't say we're satisfied
But Angie, I still love you, baby
Everywhere I look I see your eyes
There ain't a woman that comes close to you
Come on Baby, dry your eyes
But Angie, Angie, ain't it good to be alive?
Angie, Angie, they can't say we never tried
MATCHSTICK
MEN (Ridley Scott) 75
Reviewed: September 13th, 2003
Scott's best film, the one his career's always been leading towards. This is a
thrilling paean to the fantastical, featuring three of the year's best performances
(Cage is officially back, Rockwell's still a God, marry me Alison), paradoxically
grounded in a working-class Los Angeles that wouldn't be out of place in a PTA
film. Perhaps that's where the give-and-take between dream and reality is strongest:
the banal supermarkets, laundromats, one level houses, airports and offices all
made absurdly beautiful by John Mathieson's exceptional photography, then sliced
and diced (lots of jump cuts) and fogged over (lots of dissolves) by Dody Dorn's
(Memento) judicious editing. No plot holes and yet it's all pretty impossible
to believe, a twisted fairytale that encapsulates the nature of cinema itself
(aren't moviemakers just another kind of con artist, always trying to get our
money and make us believe in the fantasy?). Remember it how you want to...
IN
THE CUT (Jane Campion) 8
Reviewed: October 23rd, 2003
In the Cut, where all men are brutish, cruel, dumb ("You're smarter
than I am," Ruffalo tells Ryan. "I have to struggle just to keep up
with you."), macho, misogynist, homophobic, rude and crazy thugs. In
the Cut, where all women are whiny, tender, smart, sensitive and oppressed
wisps ("Get these off me, I feel like a chick," Ruffalo tells Ryan after
she handcuffs him), ready to be massacred by the dozen. In the Cut, where
there's a ridiculous disconnect between Campion's highly annoying, pretentious,
pseudo-sensual aesthetic (hint: lots of shots of Ryan prancing through NYC rose
gardens with her de facto blank expression, scored to piano twinkles) and the
painfully (painfully!) contrived, pulpy genre material Campion's working
with. Those defending In the Cut point to its vision of sex as an enticingly
dangerous game, its idea that what attracts us often simultaneously repels us.
Why then is Ryan numb in every frame, crying in every other? Why then is the sex
so clinical? This is not a specific story about a few people, this is a reductive,
rancid feminist worldview (equally insulting to xx and xy segments) where a woman
allegedly can't even walk down the street without being catcalled a "fucking
bitch." I'm not a big fan of Susanna Moore's novel, but at least it's honest:
Ryan's character Frannie is tough, the erotica is actually erotic, and the suggestion
that Frannie's seeking her own death is startling. Of course Campion has changed
Moore's unforgiving ending. Instead of Frannie getting brutally slaughtered in
the final scene, now she is empowered, able to enact revenge upon an entire race
whose most sympathetic attribute is the mere fact they're not all serial
killers. Why is anyone taking this offensive tripe seriously?
BIG
FISH (Tim Burton) 29
Reviewed: December 20th, 2003
A dull, noxious embarrassment; I can only assume Burton's permanently lost touch
with his outsider because this makes three completely useless films in a row.
Depressing to think that Burton -- who used to be able to find melancholy tenderness
in losers, loners, and freaks -- now prettifies the group, parading them around
in saccharine fairytales, coddling us with distasteful Oscar bait. The fantasy
portions are so horribly mannered (so vapidly cheerful) and Ewan's facile
performance is so intensely annoying (his perpetual peppiness totally at odds
with Finney's gruffness) as to be virtually unwatchable. As a story of recreation
(about a yearning to transcend the mundane), the whole movie is nonsensical since
the fraudulent yarns Finney weaves are just as uninteresting as his real life
(and Finney's work is far more intriguing than Ewan's caricature). Only the remarkable
Billy Crudup -- managing against all odds to slice through the pandering artifice
with some genuine emotion -- kept me in my seat.
MONSTER
(Patty Jenkins) 56
Reviewed: December 24th, 2003
Wish I could work up more enthusiasm, since it's clearly so proficient.
Jenkins is wise enough not to let Aileen off the hook (here she acts in both
self-defense and cold blood; in reality, the question will always remain), while
acknowledging that horrific childhoods and poisoned circumstances can break most
anyone... while also noting that plenty of people *aren't* broken by
horrific childhoods and poisoned circumstances. See, that's just it: Jenkins is
too balanced, every story beat is hit like she's schematically crossing
through a list. Scenes have veracity to them, the sense of love as rock 'n roll
escapism is decently conveyed, violent grime replaces Hollywood gloss, one carton
of eggs, one gallon of milk, cereal, three loaves of bread, two legs of lamb,
etc. Jenkins makes sure she has all her bases covered, right down to Theron's
immaculate Aileen facsimile. It's highly impressive Acting, ragged and full of
rage, but I can't shake the feeling that impersonations are better left to Saturday
Night Live sketches. I've been a Charlize defender ever since her commanding
Devil's Advocate turn. The woman has loads of talent and I just hope
Monster proves to be the warm-up exercise it feels like. This film isn't
completely unnecessary (at least it hones in on the not yet explored Aileen-as-lover
angle), though Monster can't hold a candle to Nick Broomfield's devastating
documentary Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer (to be released
in 2004). In short: lacks inspiration.
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