Best of: Movies

If there is blame to be had by posting a "best of movies '07", in Febuary '08, let that blame fall on Charlottesville, a small hamlet in central Virginia, not known for its vast selection of art-house movies. That, and a real job that pays:


1. There Will Be Blood: I’ve already written about why this is the best movie of the year (here), but I would like to take this moment to mention something I forgot to talk about in my review by stating that it takes nothing from the greatness of Anderson’s film to give credit where credit is due: namely the fact that the first half-hour of Anderson’s masterpiece owes a lot to Mathew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle—specifically Cremaster Cycle 3 and that film’s spotlight on the Masonic quest of The Apprentice. Barney’s obsession with work, material, the earth, the body and physical labor—or his “worship through works and labor” in solitary wish-fulfillment removed from religion (if not its own type) and demagoguery—is all over Anderson’s film. It seems that, for the opening portion of the film, much inspiration has derived from Barney, including Johnny Greenwood’s eerie score. This isn’t meant as a criticism as much as it is meant to acknowledge the relationship between art and craft, because once Day-Lewis sits down with his adopted son, H.W., and begins to sell himself as “an oil-man”, Anderson sends Plainview on his own fiercely independent journey—into the muck of human interaction, rather than the euphoria resulting from transcendent work (the Empire State Building in The Cremaster cycle). Art has always laid the groundwork for culture’s advancement (from the Renaissance, to Modernism, to Post-Modernism), regardless of how some societies (especially American) would claim that it is an interest of the elites and intellectuals—in short, only for those who can afford it. It should be acknowledged that There Will Be Blood is a perfect example of how when art lays the groundwork it can provide a compelling blueprint for master-craftsmen (like Anderson) to share with the common man (your average moviegoer), at affordable prices, those things they might not know about themselves.

2. No Country For Old Men: Feel free to read my review of the book (here), or my thoughts on the narrative discrepancies between this book and McCarthy’s subsequent Pulitzer Prize winner The Road (here). For this post, I would simply like to applaud the Cohen brother’s for making their best film in a decade. Kudos to the brother’s for finding the black humor in McCarthy’s prose that those of us who read the book could not see (for it was too bleak). Bravo, Javier Bardem, for so completely inhabiting Anton Chigurh that I couldn’t help but sit in fear throughout the movie and hope that he, Chigurh, wouldn’t notice me deep in the dark theater spying on him and his work, thus making me a priority. A round of applause for Tommy Lee Jones who, at the end of the film, delivers one of the more emotionally wrenching monologues in recent film. Finally, let us not forget to give major props for Brad from Goonies—I mean Josh Brolin—who has been lights-out this year (stealing the show in Grindhouse, and being one of the only actors in film, specifically American Gangster, to effectively intimidate Russell Crowe), and who nails the resolute but hapless Llewelyn Moss.

3. Zodiac: Am I crazy or has this been a forgotten film during awards season? It may not be David Fincher’s neatest film (that would be Fight Club), but it may be his best. For almost three hours Fincher’s ability to multi-task during a scene is on full display: effectively directing the slightly boring Jake Gyllenhal, standing back and letting Robert Downey Jr. do his thing, and, at the same time, knowing when to center the camera on Mark Ruffalo, a criminally underappreciated actor (one wonders if he sweated more and had bigger chest muscles, would he not be a dead ringer for early Brando?). A film with an ending as ambiguous and as powerful as any of the above mentioned films.

4. Ratatouille: If you feel like it, read my extended review here. Pixar has never made a bad movie, and Ratatouille is one of its best—right up there with The Incredibles, which was, oddly enough, also a Brad Bird film. As anyone who has sat through food-critic Anton (what is it with this name this year?) Ego’s wonderful soliloquy about art and food and criticism can attest, Brad Bird isn’t simply an animating marvel, he is an Oscar worthy screenwriter. You say there are rats in the kitchen? C'est parfait avec moi! (note: I take no responsibility for the accuracy of internet translations.)

5. Juno/Superbad: I wrote about Superbad earlier this summer (here), but haven’t gotten around to saying much about Juno. So, in the “Best of” tradition (of which there is none), let’s simply look at these films as the entertaining bookends on the teen-sex comedy/drama genre they are. Hopefully Hollywood recognizes the cross-marketing potential here and continues to give us well acted films with an emotional core that might attempt to make Juno a little more Seth, and Seth a little more Juno. Michael Cera and Ellen Page are my new Hollywood power couple. Cera will, in no time, be staring in Groundhog Day 2, and Miss Page seems clearly destined for a stardom of almost Roberts-like magnitude as she proceeds to, if not grow (she is 20), put on a few more pounds of age.

There Will Be Blood: Thoughts

If The Godfather made epic the underbelly of the American Dream, and Citizen Kane made dark the ego and entitlement of privilege, There Will Be Blood has, at last, provided an irrefutable account of the scorched earth between, shinning a head-lamp-light on the corruptible relationships at the heart of the rest of us. As far as protagonists go, Michael Corleone, having risen to the top of his game as a criminal, was always near the bottom; while Charles Foster Kane, starting at the top before catastrophically collapsing upon himself, was (as that final scene in the basement incinerator illustrated) never low. As There Will Be Blood opens, Daniel Plainview finds himself pretty low (beneath the surface actually), scratching and digging away at the skin of the earth for whatever meager nugget of silver he can find, and, over the course of two-plus hours, after a successful life as “an oilman” (back when such a thing was the embodiment of “working class”) finds himself sniffing the top. The wonder of Paul Thomas Anderson’s film is that we finally have the Protestant/working-class epic that speaks to the same themes, at the same level, of despair and alienation as those two great films. Plainview is, after all, not a very subtle name, and at the film’s core is that timeless scientific principle: that something cannot be created from nothing and that the energy and costs of attempting to bend the earth (and people) to our will are astronomical and catastrophic.

All of this might seem trite now (seriously…an oilman? after innumerable “message pictures” about the war in Iraq? subtle…) if not for Daniel Day-Lewis, who is a force. Day-Lewis has created a character so forceful that you can practically smell him—all that dirt, sweat, and, oh yes, the oil. That Plainview is ambitious and not above using an orphan to help present a veneer of respectability and honesty is clear (family—that uniquely American prop), yet is the height of disservice to Day Lewis’ performance to ignore the passion and love (?) he shows his son H.W. (the eerie Dillon Freasier). As long a Plainview can keep this boy close, he is able to cling to his own fading illusions of humanity—a species he has no love for but finds himself surrounded and beset by. That we might not want to give Plainview credit for the pain he feels when H.W. loses his hearing during a rigging accident is insensitive; yet it occurs as a result of our own weak and ingrained piety and becomes a tool used against Plainview in the film. As the film progresses and the stakes rise, it becomes clear that, like the best businessmen (Mitt Romney claiming that running America is like running a company—talk about sleight of hand!), Plainview is quite the showman. A fact that results in a confrontation when Plainview encounters the equally preposterous magician, Eli Sunday (played with wonderful exaggeration by Paul Dano), who engages Plainview in an escalating bout of “see-what-I-can-make-you-do”.

Have I said yet that this is a great film? What makes it great is the collaboration between Day-Lewis and Anderson and their critique that has yet to be so pristinely captured on film: the humiliating relationship between (successful) business and religion in this country. It’s transparent how amoral business moguls (oil companies being just one example) have prostrated themselves before religious demagoguery as a way of shoring up political capitol. Look no further than the Republican Party as it is currently constituted and the bitter rumblings emerging from secular conservatives who bemoan the evangelical pandering required maintain their slipping control over the populace. One need only see Bush & Company’s occasional quotes regarding gay marriage and not see a version of the slaps Eli Sunday visits on Plainview in the front of his flock of zombified believers, where, at its conclusion Plainview mutters, “There’s the pipe-line…”—much in the way Rove and Cheney must surely have muttered after one of Bush’s more evangelical turns of phrase, “There’s an election…”. Yet what we have in front of us, both political and artistically, are the facts. And all facts point to Plainview being an atheist, as religion, in all its forms, (ideally) works to condemn everything he’s about (the individual, financial success, winning, being left alone to do as he pleases), yet he must humiliate and degrade himself in front of those other businessmen who hold the keys to our morality. Is it that hard not to imagine Dick Cheney, Rumsfeild, or Rove, given their off-hand but bitter comments about “crazies”, in the same way? Yet it is this relationship that is so corruptible and fundamental to our country (it’s on our money for crying out loud!), that when we watch Plainview beat and run Sunday through the mud from his (at the moment) position of power, is it not hard to substitute Plainview as Cheney, Sunday as Billy Grahm? It is this corrosive, unholy, hypocritical, alliance that Anderson makes so clear is at the root of our nation. Or that in their giant oil-rich mansions Cheney & Rumsfeild would gladly bludgeon the pious who have on the one hand condemned them, while, at the same time, kept their hands in their pocket? Are such men known for generosity or sharing? Not really… And, finally, we have a film that addresses this. Finally…

Superbad: Thoughts

I dedicate this post to The Dropcloth and her dearly departed Augustus:

It is good advice, if one wishes to maintain their credibility, to avoid the dreaded “overstatement”, less one be thought simple, or worse, gullible. It is with such thoughts in mind that I can say, without equivocation, that Michael Cera is…the funniest man alive! Being aware that Cera is only 19 and hardly “manly” material, it is a bold claim, especially while Bill Murray lives. But I’ve come to realize that I prefer Cera’s turtleish concern over Murray’s drunken (and increasingly weird) buffoonery. Basically, there is nothing Michael Cera does that hasn’t make me laugh (here, here, or here). This may be due largely to the fact that I was indoctrinated early on by Cera’s performance as the earnest but clueless George Michael from Fox’s short lived Arrested Development (or the fact that every episode of his web-show, Clark and Michael, has been downloaded onto my X-Box 360).

In Superbad (produced by Judd Apatow), Cera plays Evan, an every-dude who just wants to get to know his childhood crush, Becca. Jonah Hill (no doubt reminding many in the theater of Jonah Hill’s Jonah from Apatow’s other film this summer, Knocked-Up) plays Evan’s best-bud Seth, a guy desperately willing to do whatever it takes to obtain your average blow job (the vagina being “not his thing”—a mysterious region too complicated to master in relation to the simple/expected high school blow job, "expected" because, well…the internet says so). If the internet is to be blamed for the sexual revolution/perversion of teenage youth, the one thing it has undoubtedly failed to do is provide answers regarding adolescent inadequacies and conflicted morality, instead serving up the illusion of false intimacy... and a blow job becomes just a blow job. But porn is very clearly not intimate, and what it offers is far beyond the purview of love, which is, after all, what most teenagers really crave in the companionship that will offset the growing existential angst of adulthood (in this case, Dartmouth). Well, at least Evan does… Towards the end of the film it’s heartening to see Evan, when confronted with his (or Seth’s) “ideal” moment to (as the immature cops played by writers Rogen and Goldberg) “engage”, can’t seem to access those downloaded vulgarities and instead falls back on old faithful…health class: Becca: I’m so wet right now. Evan: Yeah…they said that would happen in health class. Ha! And he means it! Cera is like Murray without the irony or arrogance. Apatow is wise to hitch his wagon to actors like Cera, Rudd, and Rogen, decent mopes who feel the withered pull of chivalry filtered through MTV, the internet, and 80’s comedies.

Of course Apatow and crew understand that such goodness can only stand out when contrasted with the most crass male stereotypes, which is why the addition of Hill as Cera’s partner makes them such a winning duo; both look like turtles (one in face, one in shape—neither in speed: “He’s… he’s, the fastest kid alive…”). Still, Apatow is canny enough to understand that a majority of the male audience coming to Superbad live immersed in the world of porn, completely detached from the real intimacy of oral sex, or the notion that reciprocation is indeed, in fact, simply that, and not intimacy. Those people will probably find Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s (McLovin) misadventures more humorous, and see Becca’s “sex-kitten” behavior as a great missed opportunity and not the confused attempt to connect that it is (as if women don’t watch porn and have to deal with its expectations). If a larger critique of youth sex-culture (a Hollywood film subject since Porky’s) goes unnoticed, what will not is the tired but true struggle of male fidelity, epitomized in Seth’s desperate rescue of BFF Evan from the cops; watching Seth use Evan’s head to clear a table of beer bottles says more about the adolescent effort to maintain our pseudo-sexual male relationships than an hour spent engaging in ethnic chop sokey in a Paris brothel (take that Brett Rattner and Rush Hour 3).

In short, it’s hard to declare Superbad the best film of the summer, but I wouldn’t rule out calling it the most decent. You know, if I were prone to overstatement…

Stardust: Thoughts

Matthew Vaughn’s long gestating fantasy epic, Stardust, would love to be elevated to the venerable heights of that other classic fantasy film full of expertly timed cameos—The Princess Bride (itself recently turned 20, huzzah!); and try as Stardust does to attain such sweet heights, it falls short…but just barely. Sadly, the energy propelling Stardust is far too reliant on the well timed appearance of Hollywood A-listers (Robert DeNiro, Peter O’Toole, Michele Pfeiffer, and, heck, Ricky Gervais), unlike The Princess Bride, which was propelled by the introduction of stable-boy Wesley and the subsequent wonderfully long-winded chase of the Dread Pirate Roberts and his quest to steal Princess Buttercup back from formidable Sicilian intellectual Vizzini (the iconic Wally Shawn), Wesley/Roberts and Buttercup were played by relative unknowns, Cary Elwes and Robin Wright (soon to be, Penn). Whereas The Princess Bride was a rare example of cinematic fusion—sweetness made manifest; Stardust is irony made corporal, a fact due, in large part, to the very existence of The Princess Bride, making it almost disingenuous to talk about Stardust as if it weren’t attempting to cast a direct shadow over the past (much the way Bay’s Transformers attempted to do with Spielberg’s Jurassic Park 2). If Stardust offers up something unique, it’s the film’s adoption of the liberal awakening currently being found in the childhood fantasy epic, something simplistically hinted at in the Harry Potter series, but attacked full-force in Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy. No longer is the literary fantasy epic dominated by the traditional biblical allegory, nor are such films still rooted in the conservative ethos of Regan-era Hollywood (something, regardless of its intent, The Princess Bride was). But all of this is just politics. In the end, Stardust’s attempt to become a pop-cultural, generational, phenomenon will be based solely on its contributions to the genre and what it gives us that we haven’t seen in fantasy.

Those contributions include the sporadic Claire Danes and Charlie Cox, who, before trading in his British bob-cut for a mane of virile locks, looks too much like Sam Rami on the floor of Comic-Con. The plot concerns Cox’s young adventurer, Tristan, and his quest to return a fallen star to his (temporary) “true love” Victoria (Sienna Miller—slumming it here). During his adventure, Tristan and Yvaine (the star: Danes), encounter the evil witch Lamia (Pfeiffer), a prince and the ghosts of his slain brothers (one of the more humorous bits in the film), and, being summer of ’07, instead of ’87—you guessed it… a gay pirate (DeNiro)! Along the way, Tristan (of course) learns what love is really all about (so liberal! so willing to learn!), unlike young Wesley, who from the opening moment of The Princess Bride, never had to learn (so conservative! so resolved!). It’s this paramount cliché that prevents Stardust—unlike the unwavering unapologetic decency of Bride—from elevating itself to the heights of Bride. In the end, despite all the fancy spells (read: CGI), there’s no such thing as magic as leaps of faith are prohibited and treated skeptically. It’s just Hollywood, baby. Hollywood.

The Simpsons Movie: Thoughts

Fans of Fox’s The Simpsons will find much to like in The Simpsons Movie. Everyone—and I do mean everyone—is here, and how good a movie it is will largely depend on your relationship with the source material. I myself greatly enjoyed seeing my favorite animated show make the belated leap to celluloid following numerous other inferior cartoon staples (South Park, Bevis and Butt-Head… Jimmy Neutron). People who’ve never seen an episode (if that is possible) might leave the theater wondering if the show has always been that consistently funny (generally, yes—start at season 2 and go…). Fans of the show will, however, no doubt feel slightly less optimistic, for we understand that the best episodes are often the ones that feature the supporting characters (Pick one: Mr. Burns, Krusty the Clown, Ralph Wiggum, Sideshow Bob, Principal Skinner, Wayland Smithers, Grandpa Simpson, Groundskeeper Willie, Millhouse, Rainier Wolfcastle, Appu Nahasapeemapetilon, etc.). We can at least take solace in the fact that the movie’s delayed arrival allowed the Bart fad to wither (those episodes, while funny, are never classics), liberating us so that we could bask in the presence of the single greatest television character of the last fifteen years: Homer Jay Simpson. Sure, the movie would have been better if it had used the supporting cast better, but who will argue Homer’s moment in the sun as he has been the central character at the core of many of the show’s best moments and lines. With James L. Brooks (a creator) heavily involved, you knew the film would lean more towards a "cohesive" plot, rather than the scatological humor of later seasons. The film's plot follows Homer and the fallout over his role in an ecological disaster involving a new pet pig, thus relegating many of the fine bit characters to proportionately smaller parts (alas, poor Mr. Burns). Eventually the family is forced to flee Springfield, spending a disproportional amount of time in Alaska and leaving the rest of the town to survive the machinations of evil corporate environmentalist Russ Cargill (Albert Brooks: famous among Simpsons fans as the first Hollywood celebrity to actually allow his name to be shown in the credits—a fact that may have been shocking then, whereas now you it would be hard pressed to hurl a sex-tape at a celebrity who hasn’t appeared on the show). Like any random episode, the film is consistently hilarious and uncomfortably emotional. Marge’s video tapped confession to Homer, recorded over their wedding video, is particularly moving as it pulls off the amazing feat of making the audience complicit in her sadness—we, after all, do love Homer’s buffoonery. The film might not be the breakthrough the South Park film was, but it stands as a glorious tribute to a universe we’ll gladly re-visit, like Appu (even gut-shot) politely asks, again and again.

Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix: Thoughts

Here is a list of the Harry Potter films from best to worst:

1. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

3. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

4. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

Reasons why the fifth Harry Potter is better than the first two:

1. Chris Columbus didn’t direct it.

2. Radcliffe and friends are more buff, both physically and as actors. Radcliffe takes what is arguably the most annoying version of Harry and makes him more than a tantrum prone “teenager”.

3. Not so pretty in pink, Imelda Staunton, as Dolores Umbridge, is fantastic, and is the first true villain in a Harry Potter film. Sure Voldemort is the big bad, but often times Harry and his interactions result from their crossing paths during their own individual adventures. Umbridge is front and center and is directly in Potter’s face.

4. The showdown between Voldemort and Dumbledore is even more spectacular than in the book, made more so by the fact that we now know it will be the only time they face off the entire series.

Reasons why the fifth Harry Potter is not as good as 3 and 4.

1. Alfonso Cuaron is one of the top three directors working today. His version of Harry Potter was one of the most beautiful films of 2004, and the first film to tap into the rich textures of Rowling’s universe.

2. As “serious” as 5 was, it lacked the action of 4 and involved one of the least surprising “twists” of the series. Not the movies fault per se, but it’s hard to compete with the twist of 3, or that final image of Voldemort and the dead Cedric Diggory in 4. This, as well as the increasingly limited input from Harry’s mates, is the possible result of filmmaker David Yates’ desire to make the longest book of the series the shortest film.

3. Seriously, not enough Alan Rickman (Professor Snape) or Maggie Smith (Professor McGonagall).

Ratatouille: Thoughts

At some point the etymological root of the word “consume” (to eat/drink) evolved to include the desire accumulate (absorb) items; as if the catalyst to horde relics of our monetary means had somehow become a carnivorous task, an impulse as base and as intrinsic as our desire for sustenance, and a word, sprouting offspring with additional appendages, became “consumerism”. It is within this history that the geniuses of Pixar, and the heartfelt and fertile mind of animator Brad Bird, provide us with a perfect parable of our day.

Remy (Patton Oswalt) is a rat. More importantly, Remy is a rat with a refined pallet and who can hardly, like a good rat should, stomach the indiscriminate consumption of the traditional garbage and refuse, and would rather, using his unique abilities, create elaborate dishes, a problem that naturally results in a unique omnivore’s dilemma. It is a tribute to Brad Bird that Ratatouille is as much about food as it isn’t. The metaphor of the individual artist’s struggle amid the economic entity of his upbringing easily stretches beyond the most populist kitchen in Paris. The rat’s (lead by Remy’s father) goals are, as a plague, to feed and live—the more they eat the better their quality of life. The guilt Remy experiences, as his desire to create consumes him, is felt by any who have wished to express their own artistic impulses in something as simple as a peasant dish, or book, or painting, or song. Remy, as the boss’s son and inheritor of his system, has a responsibility to contribute to his society, like using his talent in less pedantry ways by sniffing out the poisoned bits of garbage. In Remy’s economic social system this is an essential task, one that ensures the safety and livelihood of not only his family (including his lumbering doofus brother) but his community. But it is Remy’s continued desire to engage in the art of gastronomy that makes him a pariah, and, for those of us who have tried to explain to parents and family why we’ve chosen to be nearer to poverty than a 401k in the pointless fantasy pursuit of art, Remy’s discussions with his father are eerily pertinent. I myself have had many discussions with my own father regarding the method in which I approach my desire to discuss film, books, and politics (he thinks I’m a bit long-winded and snotty). Of course, he is right. But, sadly, to do so in a different manner would betray my own refined (or mangled, depending) pallet. A sin if I ever believed in one.

Ratatouille is another triumph for Pixar, the latest link in an amazing chain, and I nervously fret over the day when I will go to the theater and not be moved. In Ratatouille, is was during vampiric-critic Anton Ego’s (the superb Peter O’Toole) review of the (Remy) revived Gusteau’s, and his sublime acceptance of his role as a responsible critic, obligated to truly reexamine, in every event, how one truly evaluates art, for what purpose, and how this purpose must be inextricably tied to the willingness to accept that great art can come from anywhere (for instance, a kiddie film with rats), that I was most shaken. Whether it was simply the old knight O’Toole’s voice—aged and serene like the most eloquent requiem—or Bird’s words concerning said art, I found myself wistful and melancholy at the notion that, assuming one maintains their principles and strives for artistic perfection in all things, even the most stringent classicist or hardened parent can be moved to acknowledge the wonderment of it all. New York Times film critic A.O. Scott claimed that Ratatouille was “…a nearly flawless piece of popular art, as well as one of the most persuasive portraits of an artist ever committed to film.” And, seeing as I cannot find fault with such a claim and would indeed applaud it, I would simply add that Ratatouille is, by far, a truly exquisite and wholly satisfying emotional experience. In short: a work of art of the most excellent flavour.

The Bourne Ultimatum: Thoughts

A bizarrely specific box office “report” recently asserted that—pound for pound—Matt Damon was the most profitable actor in Hollywood, a fact that, until The Bourne Ultimatum, I had refused to accept. Damon and his elfish good looks seemed too ordinary for such a title. Whereas Tom Hanks owns his askance geekness, and Tom Cruise his unbalanced and crooked face, or even the way Brad Pitt manipulates that Californian speech impediment (from Oklahoma!) to blur adonis beauty in a way that makes us question how much grey matter may have been lost in the creation of such a physical specimen, each of them, justly, earns their place as a legitimate Hollywood face. Damon was always too boy scout, a fact that has helped his career (for instance: making him the perfect bone to fetch in Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan). If there was a trademarked flaw in his visage to be found, it was a slight bulbous mass at the end of his otherwise flawless nose, and he was unable to even retain the sliver of a Bostonian accent that Mark Whalberg has spent a career trying to ditch. In short, he was rather bland. Yet he kept making movies, and I kept watching.

As an actor, Damon was solid, whether it was memorably dismembering Harvard and MIT snots, or obsessively lusting after idyllic British “mates” to homicidal affect, he was a rock. And then, one summer: The Bourne Identity. And here was Damon, much like in Good Will Hunting, playing a supernaturally talented special ops agent, disarming Swedish policemen as quick and as rough as he did Ivy League cads. Jason Bourne wasn’t much of a stretch for Damon, a juiced up Will Hunting who, as if one his way to see that girl, decided to stop by the NSA and instead take that job his buddy Ben Affleck pissed away, soon finding himself, after a bit of mental rewiring, diagramming assassinations instead of Math proofs. In fact, the speech Bourne relays to Franka Potente’s Marie in The Bourne Identity is almost verbatim the speech he gives Minnie Driver’s Skylar back at Harvard in Good Will Hunting… only without the sugar. Damon’s performance in the first Bourne film was jittery, amazed, as if, for the entire film, he kept thinking: “Holy cow! I’m Matt Damon: action hero! No way!” Sadly, Matty, this was no joke. The Bourne Identity went on to make $120+-mil and a sequel was made (The Bourne Supremacy), this time with British filmmaker Paul Greengrass at the helm. Greengrass tackled the convoluted plot of secret Black Ops training and Russian oil barons with what seemed like a digital handheld and a can of Jolt. The effect was strange…nauseous, really… and… incredibly, awesome. Damon still seemed startled by the hubbub, and, by the end of the film, we couldn’t help but sense his bewilderment evidenced in many of Bourne’s growing ticks: the shifty eyes and hands, the quick furtive glances over his shoulders. Still, coupled with Damon's performance as eager rookie heistman in the Ocean films, we were mightily entertained, but wondered, like Damon himself, when we’d finally see that there was no way he could be super-agent Jason Bourne, and that to push it with a third film might risk venturing into self-parody: Austin Powers without the laughs. After all, Bourne was no Bond.

But something clicked with Damon the actor during the filming of The Bourne Ultimatum. Here he was, accepting and confident in his role as blockbuster super-spy, and, in re-teaming with Greengrass, successfully blows the lid off of the “Summer of Three’s”. Bourne has lost the ticks. His face is at once serene, while at the same time staunchly virile, soaked in espionage to the point it is hard to determine whether he is being cold, calculating, or both: the ultimate intimidating poker stare. Damon, at last, sits confidently in the role he now appears born (ugh!) to have played. Greengrass senses it too, and, more than ever, steadies the shaky camera on Damon’s suddenly lined visage, and we, knowing completely that this is a killer, more importantly a killer searching to understand his motive, must nervously look away. As for the plot, not much seems to have happened to advance the Bourne Universe. He’s still running. Covert heads of skulduggery (this time David Strathairn) still bark orders to computer techs in dour suits, while the constabulary bounce futilely off Bourne and his various modes of transportation. But who cares with talent like this, committed and confident. Here’s to hoping big brother never gives up the chase.

Sunshine: Thoughts

There was a time when all men knew of God was The Sun. Bathed in God-light, mankind was warmed and invigorated, and, inspired with its restless energy, they traveled across the earth as God watched, sleeping as It slept. Man was a loyal disciple of the Sun until discovering fire, and, with the harnessed the power of light and heat, were free to more without God’s blessing and warm their children when It neglected them. And so the Sun’s dominion over man, although still powerful and always prevalent, dimmed, and man’s existential quest for knowledge and the power prescribed to God (lordship, knowledge) began.

It is the reawakening of this long rationalized awe that director Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) and novelist/screenwriter Alex Garland (The Beach, 28 Days Later) attempt to tap into with their newest collaboration, the sci-fi meditation/thriller Sunshine. The earth is dying. Ra’s strength is feeble and diminishing rapidly, and it is the last ditch effort of a racially diverse group of space cowboys to rekindle his light by flying a giant metal umbrella, (nay!) shield, called Icarus II to his doorstep and leave him a Manhattan sized nuclear payload before ringing the bell and hotfooting it back home as heroes. Piece of cake. And, oddly enough, for the first part of the film, it is. That is of course until the crew picks up a distress beacon from earth’s first attempt to save itself, Icarus I (uh-oh!), and, like in any dutiful sci-fi film, make the decision to “investigate”, at which point things go… wrong. Credit crewman Mace (the increasingly compelling Chris Evans) with the understatement of the year, who, before venturing into the eerily quiet (and dusty…human skin we’re told) bowels of Icarus I, cracks wise to a nervous colleague who is against splitting up, “Why, because we might get picked off by aliens?” Ha! He wishes! What the crew uncovers is too fun and bizarre to spoil, but suffice it to say that the increasingly close proximity to our oldest God unleashes a wicked righteousness and runic spirituality not exclusive to Dr. Searle (Cliff Curtis), who, like any “doctor” in a sci-fi film, is looking a bit singed around edges. It’s no spoiler to say that eventually the cast is elaborately whittled down and we are left with physicist and nuclear engineer Capa’s (Cillian Murphy) marbelous blue eyes and big brain (seriously, the proportion of Cillian Murphy’s head to the rest of his small and frail body hints at some kind of alien relationship) to save the day (with some excellent help from Mace/brawn and Cassie/boobs).

What happens next is what happens in every Danny Boyle film: a calamity of genres energized with the technical skill and psychological brutality of a Jaeger Bomb. As the movie races to the climax, Boyle increasingly cuts and blurs the film, like sunspots, with overexposed frames that give cinematic form to both the bending of time and the warping effect of the gravity created by man’s desire to demand the attention of his all-father, even as he slowly wastes away and dies before him. Sunshine is a memorable film largely due to the talent of the creators and actors involved, but also for being what its peers this summer have not: A thinking man’s blockbuster with a passing awareness of the beauty of human endeavor.

Transformers: Thoughts

Say what you want about Michael Bay, but (by God!) don’t call him cheap. There is no denying that the man knows how to spend $100+ million dollars, and this time (in a film produced by Steven Spielberg) it’s Hasbro’s money that gets tossed into the blockbuster machine. What emerges from this meeting of the focus groups is probably one of the loudest, most colorful and clueless, movies of the aughts. Shia LaBeouf plays Peter Parker—I’m sorry (but...hmm...), I mean, Sam Whitwicky, an outcast dork too cool (it’s Bay!) to not have an innate aptitude for science or computers, and who’s superpower seems to be sarcasm, and even that is absent of irony, something that Michael Bay, with all his commercially honed wizardry, has, yet to understand. For a movie about robots that can change into machines (think, intergalactic shoppers), I found the film so earnest that it was difficult to find places in which I could add the appropriate ironic quotes (except for maybe John Turturro’s performance as agent Simmons, an agent of “S7”, who’s “crazy” eyes and underwear seem to suggest a none too subtle attack on his agent, who no doubt told him this was the kind of movie that would help pay for that vacation house in the Caribbean).

None of this is really a complaint mind you. Transformers has, at its rotten commercial core, the apple pie flavor that resides at the center of many a Spielberg picture. And, let’s be honest, irony is overrated and has ruined many a blockbuster this summer (Hello, Pirates! Good morning, Shrek!). However it is Bay’s own cluelessness as a filmmaker/human being that leads to many of the most stunning faux pas, particularly when he's making simplistic allusions to his idols (Spielberg and… himself): an homage to the most product heavy Spielberg picture (Jurassic Park…2, no less!), followed by the swirling camera shot Bay himself unveiled to much better and aesthetically pleasing effect in Bad Boys 2, an impulse that makes one wonder if Bay is simply parodying himself, or attempting to (pathetically) draw parallels between his elaborate commercials and Spielberg's honed nostalgia. Even more troubling is when this disconnect with reality is felt during a crucial plot point that has the Army, while attempting to hide the largest Rubik Cube in the universe from the Decepticons (bad guys, who've already demonstrated a willingness to engage in the mass slaughter of Army bases and Iraqi villages), decides (I kid you not) to take the cube to the nearest, most populated, area they can find, all of which leads to a scene in which Megatron (bad guy, who can change into a spiky space-jet) flies Optimus Prime (good guy, who can change into a semi-truck) into an office high-rise, bloodlessly killing hundreds of terrified and screaming computer people, a cinematic feat so shocking and blunt, it was only several hours later that my brain awoke to the implications post-Sept. 11^th. Such daring do (or dunderheadedness) can only be the brainstorm of a man completely detached from humanity and human complexity, and who is completely immersed on the commercial viability of even the most heinous images. That Bay never considered, for a moment, the implications of such a scene, illustrates the great tragedy of Michael Bay the filmmaker: a technical wizard who never met a dolly shot he didn’t like (one wonders if the DVD will include outtakes of Tyrese Gibson and Shia dancing—or better, tripping—over the dolly tracks that litter the ground out of frame), and is a filmmaker who, while looking for his favorite open collared shirt, sold his soul to someone much more pathetic than the devil and thus lacks the faculties to ever be considered a true artist. I don’t care what that essay on my Criterion Edition of Armageddon says.

But Transformers is still a movie about robots, and, not surprising, it is the robots who steal the show (melancholy Bumble Bee, Prime, that persnickety CD Player/rat thingy), and it’s when they clash, metal on metal, and—yes—transform, that kids and fans of the toys and the old Marvel comics, young and old (present!), feel a tug inside our gut and find ourselves sucked back to the glory days, memories of Martha Quinn and Gorbechev are unearthed, and real sparks fly

Live Free or Die Hard: Thoughts

To say Bruce Willis is an analog hero in the digital age, is to say we live in an age when terrorists (as well as rouge government agents) are more likely to be foiled by striking at their hard drives as opposed to their faces. If this is indeed the age we live in, then let me be the first to say it... This age blows. It’s been a while, but thankfully John McClane (not to be confused with John McCain…one’s a republican) is back, looking chiseled, bald, and free of the lunacy that was Demi Moore, and is here to save us from…ourselves? Wait, where did the late 80’s/early 90’s go? It appears McClane is, once again, plopped into the center of another elaborately unfolding incident and must extricate himself using the proper amount of sarcasm and blunt force trauma (plowing SUV, anyone?). This time McClane is forced to flex his biceps for scorned government programmer Thomas Gabriel, played with the appropriate amount of irritation and awe by (Deadwood’s own) Timothy Olyphant (more on him on Wed). Events take their usual high-impact turns (a DC tunnel, a plant in West Virginia, a spiraling interstate ramp to nowhere) as McClane throttles his way through a masochistic orgy of personal injury in order to thwart Gabriel's plans to zip away with the wealth of America downloaded to his laptop (if only he had waited for the new iphone!), and America is again saved. From what, though?

A recent subscription to Netflix (definitely more on this at a later date) has aided me during a re-discovery period regarding all things McClane (and Bourne), and what I’ve come to realize is how susceptible Americans are to labels (shocker!) and how the 70’s changed movie villainy. Regarding the later: the 70’s was the decade of hostage taking, as well as the rise of fundamentalism, all egged on by the dynamic Cold War duo that was the United States and the Soviet Union. To Americans, if they weren’t Russian and carried a gun while speaking a funny accent, they were terrorists (thanks for that simplification by the way!). What does this have to do with John McClane? Funny you should ask. As much as the Die Hard films are retro shout-outs of old Hollywood cowboyism during the PC age, the one thing they have not been, despite the consistently lazy assessments of critics and moviegoers (myself included), are films about terrorists (well, except for maybe the second one, but that was directed by hack actionteur Renny Harlin, so let him bear the responsibility for that mess). The McClane films are, at their best, elaborate heist flicks, where the subtly of a well timed switch has been replaced by the cacophony of a well placed pack of C-4. Terrorism has always been the McGuffin of the McClane films, generally used to cause disharmony and panic among the rank and file so that the criminal genius and his mercenaries can scoot off with the loot—well, at least until McClain gets dragged into the plot (Wrong place wrong time? Word!). Think back to the first film’s Hans Gruber (the iconic Alan Rickman) who, when talking to the police and demanding the release of a number of terrorist “brothers”, including members of the “Asian Dawn”, acknowledges the look of bewildered subordinate and, shaking him of with a smirk, says, “I read about them in Time magazine.” Or Die Hard with a Vengeance’s equally gamey Jeremy Irons (Hans Gruber’s brother! What are the odds!), who leads McClane (and Samuel Jackson!) on a wild goose chase around New York in an effort to steal a large stockpile of gold. You can’t get more Western than that. The fourth film’s Olyphant is no different (outside of being American), using images of an exploding capitol to incite panic, all so he can download that awesome MP3 (or, as the film would have you believe: the accumulated wealth of every American individual and business). These men aren’t terrorists, they're Henry Fonda in Once Upon a Time in the West, charismatic Hank’s, only with bigger budgets and—yes—computers. The parallels between today, as well as the completely unintentional commentary on display in the Die Hard films, is uncanny. A big intimidating man shouts “terrorism, terrorism”, all for the pedestrian goal of lining his pockets. I know, hardly sounds like Osama Bin Laden. Hmm, I wonder…

For more click here.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer: Thoughts

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A large, all-powerful, entity decides to destroy the earth but is stopped by its son, who, after walking briefly among the humans on earth, rebels and sacrifices himself so that mankind can live on. If you skipped the post title and guessed this was the plot to Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, you get a gold star (acceptable answers could have included Battlefield Earth and The Bible). Perhaps because the first FF film was so atrocious (the Fantastic Four, in hindsight, have one of the worst origin stories—what worked so well in the sixties seems ridiculous today now that we have astronauts from several countries living it up on space stations), or perhaps because I saw the movie with someone who was under ten, I have to honestly admit that I wasn’t as disappointed in this movie as I have been with other sequels this summer; and that, in fact, I might be willing to admit (under duress in Gitmo) that I was pleasantly surprised. The plot for the film is loosely (stress loosely) based on the classic Stan Lee and Jack Kirby epic that ran between issues 48 and 50 of The Fantastic Four comic book, in which readers were introduced, with great destruction (to New York and hyperbole), to the world devouring Galactus, and his noble herald, the Silver Surfer. The Marvel Universe may have been created during the 60’s, but it was the Silver Surfer who was the ultimate Summer of Love hero: a vagrant so angsty he wandered the universe with his “cosmic powers” (which, loosely defined, meant that he could shoot large doses of LSD out of his hands) and shacked up on various planets to ponder the meaning of existence while continuing to battle the fascist elements of the universe that refused to play it mellow, eventually finding a way to bug out to other worlds when things got to “intense”. Too bad he never made it to San Francisco! In the film, director Tim Story replaces the Surfer’s more existential behaviour with that of a bewildered Morpheus (Lawrence Fishburn, awkwardly, on voice) who acts as if he’s just awoken from The Matrix. Apparently, kids can handle the destruction of the earth, just not their place in the universe. The cast returns for their paycheck, with only Chris Evans (as Johnny Storm) bringing any effort (or body hair!) to his part (side bar: I predict that Chris Evans will either be the next Harrison Ford, or co-star with Matt Leinert in One Night in Paris 2—but at this point it’s a toss up). There has been a lot of complaining about the amount of product placement in the movie (here’s looking at you Dodge), but which was never been beyond the realm of The Four (Reed Richards has always been a benevolent uber-Gates, with no desire to rule the world), and The Four have always been the corporate man’s super team. Still, true honesty must compel us to recall the past and admit to how we saved pennies for that Big Gulp with the Superman IV: A Quest for Peace picture on it, and how we remember desperately trying to hold tightly onto that giant plastic cup as it sweated its way out of out hands as being one of the most awesomest days ever (okay, maybe that was just me). In America, a nation full of broken and denied marriages, the Fantastic Four are somewhat archaic in their existence (remaining a "traditional" family at all cost). Their legacy is that they were the “first family”, the beginnings of a universe that would take us into modernity, the super-hero link between the cookie-cutter 50’s and the turbulent mutant 60’s; facts that, as I watched my girlfriend’s cousin remain, literally, on the edge of his seat throughout the entire film, I realized was a good thing. Perhaps those of us who’ve grown up with comics should spend less time complaining about the films that haven’t grown up with us and assimilated our collective cynicism, and remember that comic books, if they are to survive as an art form, are first, and foremost, a child’s gateway to the unknown.

In praise of things Scarlett! (Sarcastic)

Thank the Gods! Just in case you’ve been missing Scarlett Johansson and wondering what happened to her after Justin Timberlake ran her off the road for cheating on him (did anybody other than me find it peculiar that Justin went from “crying a river” , to driving a cheating girlfriend off the road in a fiery explosion? When, exactly, does that switch happen? How many relationships can your average pop star be in before they go crazy? Discuss). Thankfully, we can all relax now that we know Ms. Johansson is continuing her run of stellar career choices by considering a role in, wait for it… Monopoly: The Movie! See that was not a typo. I can’t say I’m surprised. If a Hollywood exec asked me what recognizable actress would agree to be in a movie based on Monopoly, I wouldn’t hesitate in suggesting Johansson, as she’s demonstrated a relentless ability to say yes to whatever suggestion might be on that paper before her vacant stare (like, for instance, a music video directed by the dude who directed John Q). If you doubt me, need I remind you that, since hitting legal age (thereby eliminating Ghost World from the list), Ms. Johansen has appeared in such crap gems as Scoop, The Black Dahlia, and The Island. It’s about time we all came to terms with the fact that all the good will she had staring opposite Bill Murray in Lost in Translation (because, let’s face it, it was his movie) is officially used up. I can’t think of a single good movie she’s been in. Wait... my imaginary assistant is insisting Johansson was in The Prestige, I'll have to remind him that the only important thing in that movie was whether Christian Bale or Hugh Jackman had the biggest penis—wait, my bad, I meant magic trick…silly me. But, man, I loved that movie! For the tricks, I swear… Moving on... (Ahem) You may think Johansson is a good actress, but that’s because anytime you’ve stopped to seriously consider it, she's deftly sought to pose (artfully!) nude in magazines like Esquire or Vanity Fair (classy—take that Meryl Streep!), while accepting meaningless awards like “sexiest female in the world” (it's good she has a sensible view of herself). Not quite the Oscar is it? But, seriously, where’s the talent? Heck, where’s the movie? Sure, I’m being catty, but, as a film fan, I’m frustrated as hell by the complete lack of female talent, especially seeing as how Hollywood and its publicists insist on force feeding me garbage. You can’t convince me that there aren’t actresses out there better than Johansson. I see better female acting in a single line from any one of the ladies on Deadwood (especially from Robin Weigert’s Calamity Jane, who practically brings me to tears every time she opens her mouth), than in the entirety of The Black Dahlia; and that was based on one of James Ellroy’s best novels, and he’s a guy who can actually write good dialogue. Can we please instead spend our time celebrating the good female actress trying to find work, women like Kate Winslet, Naomi Watts, Rachel Griffiths, Helen Mirren, and Cate Blanchett. Hmm, maybe that’s the problem. Half of the women on that list are from Australia. If you take Meryl Streep off the list (and I didn’t even include her, because, well, come on…), where are the American female actors? On television I guess. There is Rachel McAdams (see above Vanity Fair link for more), who I’d take her over Johansen if I wanted real acting in a heartbeat. Perhaps it’s a good thing Johansen is there to fill these crap roles, I don’t know what I would do if I saw any of the above mentioned actresses in Monopoly: The Movie. In short, I guess I should thank you Scarlett, for maintaining that long standing Hollywood tradition of force feeding the public talentless studio faces; and, as long as your bustline is prominently displayed, all must be right with the world because it sure as hell hasn’t changed much. So, remember the lips--keep them pouty! Here’s to hoping you keep the streak alive by making another non-impression in that famous American literary masterpiece, The Nanny Diaries. Bravo!

Ocean's 13: Toughts

Warning: The following piece contains an unusual amount of bracketed thoughts (but, then again, so does the movie). Huzzah, George Clooney and Brad Pitt are backs as… George Clooney and Brad Pitt (because, seriously, character names? come on) in Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s 13! Thank God. If there is one thing these three have been able to do with mixed results in the Ocean series, it's coaxing the audience down the thin line of Hollywood dreamland cool, while managing our seething jealousy: an unavoidable tendency to covet membership (even if it’s only as Scott Caan), and the desire to strangle them for their beauty, money, and throwaway life-style (oh, $37,000 is a hilariously low number to you, buddy, but is more than I’ve ever made in a year). Ocean’s 12 was such a slack effort, any cool the crew had was lost amid the self-awareness of everyone involved (we should never be expected to think Casey Affleck is cool, never). Thankfully, George and Brad's time spent abroad advancing the causes of suffering nations resulted somber reflections of their homeland (Hollywood) and inspired them to mend some damaged fences—in short, to take another stab at the whole Rat Pack thing. God bless celebrity guilt. It’s refreshing to go into a sequel (particularly the third in a series) where the principles feel like they have to earn their money, something that has been absent this summer. So they’re back, properly humbled, and working hard to steal Al Pacino’s reputation as a dynamite hotel magnate. Oh, and a lot of money. Why? Apparently Al was mean to Elliot Gould, which made him sleepy, which made George, Brad, and the boys very aghast, and which, calmly (no voices raised here, even from Pacino), turns to indignation, a kind of snobbery of thievery, when Pacino refuses to make things right (or as they say in Vegas: a “Billy Martin” (?)—whatever it doesn’t really matter). In fact, much of what happens in the film doesn’t matter, but it sure looks cool and goes down like a sweet sorbet. An Example: A brief scene in which Clooney, Pitt, and Damon (forgot about him, he’s big Mr. Bourne now so he gets the most face time with the big two—consider him 2a) are discussing strategy in an athletic store while they are trying on a bunch of ski jackets (Clooney’s fumbling of the zipper while attempting to dole out strategy is a subtle comedic gem), a small detail whose only purpose is as payoff for a joke several minutes later when the boys navigate the air-conditioning shaft of Pacino’s hotel in an effort to prove to Andy Garcia (the characters just keep coming!), who I’m guessing from the previews is the thirteenth Ocean (or was that _____’s Dad?, but then that would be fourteen? did they just sequel a sequel during a sequel?—head splitting), that Pacino’s valued five-star diamond collection is impossible to steal, a perfect way to induce a chuckle for those who were paying attention but wouldn’t stop the film dead if you missed the set-up, which is not only happening at this moment as you read this sentence, but happened a lot in 12. In short, if you made your way through that half of this piece and it made sense to you, then you probably won’t like the movie. If you just went with it, and can handle man-on-man beauty, then you might be ready for Ocean’s 13.

Knocked Up: Thoughts

Much has been overstated about the hilarity of Judd Apatow’s new comedy Knocked Up, a movie about slacker-Jew Ben Stone’s (Seth Rogen) lucky (and fertile) encounter with a woman, Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl), who is well out of his league. This isn’t to say that there isn’t any funny in this movie, there is (with lines like: “You look like Robin Williams’ knuckles”, and a solid performance by super wingman Paul Rudd, you can make lots of funny), or that it isn’t a good film (probably the best so far this summer), but to anoint Knocked Up as the “comedy of the year” seems premature since Apatow’s (and Rogen’s) other film Superbad has yet to hit theaters (“I am, McLovin.”). My money’s on Arrested Development’s Michael Cera, who I believe has the superbadpower to mint comedy gold. Sure, funny exists in manageable helpings in Knocked up, but so does a fair amount of seat squirming seriousness. Apatow comes out swinging, establishing right off the bat that Ben (Rogan) is living the life: staging American Gladiator-type bouts with his stoner friends and chilling in a marijuana filled gas mask; while Alison (Heigl), recently promoted and working at E!, is feeling the pressure from her boss (Alan Tudyk) and his assistant (the hilarious Kristen Wiig, who perfects a new kind of aggressive-passive-aggressiveness) to remain thin (but busty!). We’re also introduced to Alison’s control-freak sister Debbie (Leslie Mann, Apatow’s wife) and her dislocated husband/dutiful father Pete (Paul Rudd—again, more on him later), who are themselves a couple that married due to an unplanned pregnancy (hey, it’s Hollywood!). In his two comedies, Apatow has chosen to abandon the age old comedic tactic of casting William Atherton as Alison’s narcissistic boss who waits to catch her in full pregnancy (something she tries to hide all film), or Rob Lowe as the “perfect” gentlemanly match (only secretly narcissistic) for Alison to be Ben’s main competition. Instead Apatow relies on life to be the instrument of tension: When will Alison realize she’s better than Ben? Will Ben grow up, and will he ever be good enough for Alison? It may be a bit King of Queens of Apatow to think someone of Alison’s beauty (and who is so integrated into Hollywood) would ever give a second thought to a lifetime of bongs and celebrity nudity (Ben and his buddies métier), but pregnancy and the idea of raising children have long been the foundation for such things (as well as the development of the infamous shotgun, later used to hunt fowl). What Apatow is going for, is a film about the way children (more importantly, the responsibility they bring with them) can prolong our willingness to entertain bad ideas or bad relationships, and how we, as adults, can poison children with our own insecurities: a tension brought to the surface by Debbie and Pete. If indeed there is a “villain” to be found in this movie (the person who threatens the happy ending) it is Debbie, a woman so controlling (get it!) she drives her husband to an underground fantasy baseball league: a sin so mighty in sitcomness that Pete finds himself banned from the house for, of all things, not having an affair, something Debbie feels is less “mean”. Poor Pete. Debbie is a terror of a woman (shades of Tea Leoni in Spanglish, only, thank God, more funny); she berates her husband, calling him names even as he displays obvious affection and responsibility towards their two kids—who, by the way, are incredibly talented actors (Apatow and Mann’s real-life offspring), their tiny characters fascinated with murder and blood (disturbing thoughts for a child to pick up, and our first clue that children are more attuned, if not completly understanding of parental tensions. Debbie even uses her class status (wealthy, bitchy, white-woman) to berate and humiliate a (working class, black) bouncer who has the good sense to not allow her (or her 8 month pregnant sister) into a club, only feeling bad about it when the bouncer appeals to her liberal guilt by explaining he’s only allowed to let 5 percent blacks into the club. Debbie is a train wreck, insecure, malicious, vindictive, judgmental, Alison’s sister/role model--is it any wonder Alison has second thoughts about marrying shlubby Ben? All of this is a good thing however, since it forces Ben out of the celebrity porn business and into the cubicles the rest of adult America live our lives in (which doesn’t really answer Alison’s concerns in any particular way, but gosh it’s cute he tried so hard). See, serious stuff. Thankfully, Ben’s cabal of stoner buddies are always good for a laugh, like when they discuss the origin of pink-eye (your elementary school memories will never be the same). And, thank the God’s for Paul Rudd, the man who has introduced us to Sex Panther cologne, porn stashes, and who, in Knocked Up, makes a room full of chairs hilarious. Watching Rudd’s Pete, in a Vegas motel room with Ben, selling the audience on his claim that his marriage problems are a result of his inability to accept all of his wife’s love (the typical cliché, male emotional immaturity, not that she’s a ball-breaking shrew), while at the same time trying to eat his hand (“It taste like a rainbow!”). I couldn’t help but think of Tom Hanks, trapped in a rug wedged in a hole in The Money Pit, and wonder why this guy hasn’t become a bigger star yet. Perhaps it’s because (as my girlfriend said) he’s too good looking for the comedies he’s in, and lacks that inherent goofiness and oddball air that seems to ooze from the pours of actors like Rogen or Will Ferrell. He’s the good looking dork. In fact, he’s a better looking than Tom Hanks. Somebody get this guy a volleyball and a box of chocolates.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End: Thoughts

Stuff to do today, so I'm neglecting the usual links:

The first Pirates film benefited from low (almost non-existent) expectations. Disney, clearly with one eye on the film and the other on their feud with Michael Eisner, was distracted just enough to allow Jerry Bruckheimer to hire that guy who made The Ring (Gore Verbinski) and allow him to cast Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow (as opposed to, say, Tim Allen). Depp, who had clearly spent too many years in France (how else does one explain Chocolat?), had the good sense to recognize that the idea of making a movie based on one of the most overrated rides in all the lands of Disney had to have been a joke, so why not have a laugh (seriously, shouldn’t Space Mountain have been the first choice, followed quickly by The Hall of Presidents: War on Terror). And us moviegoers were fortunate Disney, once they started paying attention to what Verbinski and Depp were doing, allowed fiscal minds (accountants) to prevail: re-shoots would have been a bitch. Those were good times: Depp had finally created a character as iconic as his pale barber with the hand problems, we believed Orlando Bloom could act, and it was good to see Natalie Portman working again. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, through a freak accident (radiation had to have been present), functioned the way a good Disney ride did: it kept you cool, moved at a brisk and accelerating pace, and made you want to buy a t-shirt after. The film made two things clear: with regard to acting, Depp could be right about his flourishes every now and then, and with directing, Verbinski was the reason The Ring was better than it should have been. I’m not sure what happened in the second movie, but I remember emerging from the theater much the way Neo emerged from that energy pod in the first Matrix film: frightfully exposed, somehow drained of energy with a slight body ache (concentrated in the lower back), and facing a large machine covered in blinking lights (in all likelihood a Rav-4). And once free, like Neo, I reflected on my time in the Matrix (I mean, Prates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest) as being trapped in a highly stylized and artificial world that seemed real, but carried an unexplained hollowness; and that, the more time I spent with the film, the more I began to question its believability and became willing to do anything to escape—damn the nine bucks. Believability shouldn’t be a concern when discussing a summer movie in which the Big Bad wears squid tentacles for eye-liner, but is it completely unreasonable to expect some kind of order in the universe, even if it is just a summer ride?

It isn’t a revelation to say that Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is no better. I’d tell you what the movie was about, but I hardly know. So much talk about deals, followed by talk about breaking deals, that I couldn’t help but feel that familiar ache in my lower back (the film is nearly 3 hours). But I had already left the Matrix/Pirates universe once and, upon reentering, found myself less than sympathetic to the beautiful artifice I had known. Who couldn’t help but look at the smeared tans on the actor’s faces and not be emboldened by the falseness of it all? And so soon after Shrek and Spider-Man? Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us. Fool us thrice, shame on… studios and toy companies and cereals? This shouldn’t happen. With a list that includes Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Chow Yun-Fat, Natalie Portman (nay, Kiera Knightly), and that skinny guy from the British version of The Office—not to mention Verbiski, who despite the creaking plot, can still stage a beautiful shot—it couldn’t be that bad could it? Yes, yes it could. Many people have blamed Bloom for all the dead air (sans Depp), when the real people to be blamed are the teenage girls who spend so much money and fawn over his newest hair-style. He’s such a non-factor in this film that, at the beginning of the film, Verbinski has to be reminded that he's left Bloom submerged in a giant washbin, and it’s no pun to say that it takes a near death experience to make Bloom come alive as an actor. Knightly is fine, even when plagarizing Mel Gibson's freedom speech in Braveheart. And I’ll swear till I’m dead that Geoffery Rush is a pirate who merely plays an actor in his spare time. But it is the plot that is the elephant in the room, and when, towards the end of the movie, the filmmakers decide to shoot their most charismatic character (the monkey) out of a cannon, FOR NO APPARENT REASON, the end is nigh. Is it then hypocritical to think that there may be life after death? If more of these films are made (and, well, come on…), I suggest abandoning the long adopted Star Wars model of “trilogies”, and take a page from Star Trek, or Spider-Man, or, better yet, James Bond: single episodic films that offer a complete adventure, with Depp the unquestioned sole lead of import. At least with this tactic the audience can easily cleanse our pallets after a bad apple and say, “Here’s hoping the next one doesn’t suck.”

Shrek 3: Thoughts

I was never a big fan of the first Shrek film and its tired message of acceptance, which too often felt like an extended Mike Myers sketch culled from the cutting floor of So I Married an Axe Murderer (a great movie) and the Austin Powers flicks, with its un-Pixar-like animation, and woefully out-of date Matrix jokes (once Scary Movie went there was it really necessary to continue?); and if there was anything more tired, it was Myer’s tendency rely on the Scottish accent whenever he was desperate for a laugh. Shrek 2 was better, the animation much improved, but it was the introduction of Antonio Banderas’ Puss in Boots, as well as the enlistment of Shrek’s cronies (Pinocchio and the always dynamic Gingerbread Man) into his quest for (again) acceptance that stole the show, and I couldn’t help thinking that it was a sign of trouble that the films were funnier when the main character was off screen. But, while the first two film’s got their rocks off skewering Katzenberg’s old boss Disney and Michael Eisner, followed by the oh-so-easy (but always enjoyed) send-up of Hollywood, I couldn’t wait to see what Shrek 3 had cooked up. How amazing it was to discover that millions of dollars had given the filmmakers the stones to tackle the most sacred of holy cows … high school. Wait, what? Perhaps it would have been better if Shrek himself had to go to high school, a condition of Princes Fiona’s family maintaining control over the kingdom predicated on some royal loop-hole that required the green ogre, now king to be, to finish his GED: a kind of Billy Madison meets… well, Shrek. They could have hired SNL-alum Adam Sandler to do the shreicking Operaman-type voice of the Principle out to expose Shrek’s unwillingness to commit to academic study. Instead, we get Justin Timberlake (doing his best to bring squeaky back) as Artie, the reluctant loser destined to assume the throne left behind by Fiona’s dead father, The Frog-King—which, by the way, is something Shrek won’t have. Any position that requires him to fit into tight clothes will only chafe his sensitive Ogre disposition, not to mention his struggle to accept (seriously is there no other theme to be had in this universe?) fatherhood and responsibility. Shrek must accomplish all of this while the delightfully smarmy Prince Charming rallies the unfortunate and destitute fairy-tale humps (Captain Hook, Cruel Step-sisters, etc.) into a seething band of Second City travesties, all in an effort to take over the kingdom of Far Far Away and stage the Dinner Theater to end all Dinner Theaters. It was during this dizzying climax that I realized how much the plot was simply a glass slipper to the animation--which in this third installment is spectacular. At this point, I cared little about the fate of Shrek and his Bride, instead leaning over to my girlfriend during this final scene and saying things like: “You can practically seen the fibers in the rope!” and “That actually looks like a painted piece of cardboard, as opposed to a computer animated piece of painted cardboard!” or “Ooh, look at the slits in the stage floor for the waves!” A lot of talk has been made about the Princess Brigade, but I felt the jokes relied too much on the Disney cannon and served to illustrate just how flimsy Shrek’s universe is, and how quickly the jokes start to look tired and mean spirited. Perhaps Dreamworks should rely on their own contributions to fairy tale lore for inspiration and laughs, since it is there where we find true moments to enjoy. Banderas is indispensable as Puss in Boots (much more than Eddie Murphy’s strangely insignificant donkey). And I’m happy to say that, once again, the Gingerbread Man steals the movie with his post traumatic stress disorder induced this-is your-life flashback. Yet, sadly, Shrek 3 continues Spider-Man’s decent into tri-fecta doggery. To think, we only have a few days before Johnny Depp comes to port. Where’s a burnt out ex-New York City cop when you need him? Here’s to hopping 4 is the new 3.