Late March Round-Up

The Ringer
I was excited enough about The Ringer I made half-assed plans to see it in the theatre. It got away from me and I forgot about it. Here, more than a year later I stumbled across it on HBO and found it was a little like reading an old journal and wondering “who was I when I thought Joey Lauren Adams was hot?”

The Baxter
Written and directed by Michael Showalter, featuring The State’s alumni and friends, and Elizabeth Banks (damn you Journal, she’ll always be hot), I was pulling for another Wet Hot American Summer. A “Baxter” here is the faceless Joe who’s left at the altar when, say, Julia Roberts runs off with Richard Gere instead. The idea is great, the execution is sweet and occasionally funny, but it just doesn’t sustain. There’s a funny bit at the end with Showalter running off a few last minute interlopers, but it’s too little too late. There's only enough here for a good SNL sketch.

Nacho Libre
Another comedy I was really looking forward to, but it’s just no good. (Great alternate poster, though, right?) The winning quirkiness of Napoleon Dynamite is formulaic here and Jack Black’s over the top buffoon needs to take a couple pictures off. Maybe a Holiday or two.

Babel
Beautiful and heartbreaking, but it doesn’t live up to the promise of the title. I follow the bouncing ball and understand how Japanese big game hunter’s gift leads to Mexican nanny’s deportation, but how does God’s punishment of Man inform this chain of events? And while the story of hunter’s emotionally stunted daughter is moving and sad, it’s a narrative cul-de-sac. And confusing, is it just me or is there incest in the air at the end?

The Queen
An Oscar-winning impersonation in a dull movie about a fusty woman at an inconsequential moment in history. See Mrs. Brown instead.

Jesus Camp
The culture wars continue. I was surprised to find the filmmakers didn’t explore the obvious connection between 9/11 and (what they depict as) the ensuing surge in Evangelical fundamentalism.

Everything Is Illuminated
I was going to title a post about this movie “Little Miss Sunflower,” but got hung up on my own cleverness and couldn’t write my way off the hook. Similarities: 1) road trip 2) with crazy Grandpa 3) who dies. Differences: the other 99 minutes. I enjoyed it, particularly Eugene Hutz’ Alex. (Just bear in mind that Hutz is actually Ukrainian and Borat’s up to something completely different.) I’m looking forward to more movies from Liev Schreiber, who makes his directorial debut here. But I wasn’t as moved as I would be if I hadn’t been desensitized recently by Richard Rhodes’ brutal book Masters of Death.

The Holiday
I liked it. A lot. Snicker to yourselves. Jack Black: phew, thanks for taking your boot off my neck buddy. Kate Winslet: like Emma Thompson, I’ve missed you. Jude Law: winning, and very cute with his very cute daughters. Cameron Diaz: as in In Her Shoes (which I also loved, shut it), she can’t quite keep up with the big kids, but she’s a gamer. Eli Wallach: to paraphrase my friend Chris, why wasn’t I told he had such a big role Mr. Trailer-maker, which by the way, is what Cameron Diaz's character does for a living? The Ugly’s in my Saturday evening rom-com? Bring it.

Stranger Than Fiction
Shamefully underrated when it was released. Probably ignored because it's not a bowling movie entitled "Lanes of Thunder, The Jimmyjohnjoe Story," and possibly because there's a whiff of Woody Allen here. I guess we're all still getting over Melinda and Melinda.

Catch it on DVD, though. My favorite movie of the month. Hooray for the return of Tom Hulce. And make sure to watch the featurette about developing the GUI that follows Will Ferrell’s character around.

Finally, an open question for Will, (not Ferrell, or Meekin), or anyone interested: what do you make of my interpretation that the Harold Crick (Ferrell) and Ana Pascal (Gyllenhaal) world of the movie isn’t real, but is the dramatization of a literary correspondence between the blocked Karen Eiffel (Thompson) and the Eiffel-scholar, Professor Hilbert (Hoffman)?

doug benson's i love movies!

Doug Benson, known associate of Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, posts these spit take-worthy anti-reviews on bobanddavid.com. He only writes a few times a year, but he's filling in the gaps these days with weekly podcasts too. If you haven't joined the podcast generation, like me, no problem. His bobanddavid archive dates back to 2001, so you've got a couple text-based hours of loafing ahead of you.

Irony

Confession: I can't get through a Kurosawa movie. Samurai movies just don't move me, unless they're updated in priapic, toe-worshipping, 70's chroma-chromic Tarantino-vision. Or, lose the kimonos, drop the Hanzo sword, slap on some chaps and six shooters, (keep the questionable facial hair) and "YEE-HA! we got ourselves a picture boys!"

Give those seven samurai Colt Model 1861 Navy revolvers and pit them against The Ugly in some nameless border town, or slot a post-coldwar double-talking ronin in a Frankenheimer-helmed (Mamet-doctored) joint and you can count me in. I know this disinterest weakens my movie-lover cred. But while my favorite story device is a Rashomon, actually watching Rashomon is more effective than Tylenol PM.

So it's with shame and downcast eyes that I find myself ready to return The (unwatched, 3.5 hour-long) Seven Samurai today, but I don't have an envelope. Netflix's advice: "...you may send your DVDs to P.O. Box 49021 SAN JOSE, California 95161."

oink...?

Great Expectations

This idea has been rattling around in my head for a couple of weeks without my finding an elegant way to put it, but I'm not getting any younger, so here goes: how much you enjoy a movie is heavily influenced by your expectations going in. You can ruin your experience of a great movie by expecting too much, and you can find yourself cherishing a middling movie, if you didn't expect anything. Here are some examples from my own experience. Judge for yourself.

I went in way too high:
A Scanner Darkly: I don't know, I guess I figured Philip K. Dick, scramble suits, count me in. But the whammer surprise was more like a whimper. And now that I think about it Big Brother pharmaceutical mind control is a plot device on par with Scorpio and his weather machine. "Mwoo-ha-ha!" Eh.
Brick: Enough with your Bogie impression, see!
Pan's Labyrinth: I still don't get it. Much ado about nothing as far as I'm concerned. But I'll give it another try.
The Constant Gardener: This one might just be weak, high expectations or not. Again with the pharmaceutical conspiracy theories. Sheesh.
The Departed: You may be puzzled to find this movie here, given my comments in Pulp Fact. But I walked out disappointed. Here's a perfect example of expecting more than a movie has to offer. But now that I'm on the other side I can see it's a great movie. I'll see it again, reconcile my expectations, and all will be right with the world.

I went in low, or not knowing too much, and wow!:
Bubba Ho-Tep: This movie defies rational consideration. Set in a retirement home, an aging Elvis impersonator, or is he really Elvis?, and his black sidekick, who claims to be JFK, battle an ancient Egyptian mummy. This has no business being as funny as it is.
Life: I'm a sucker for buddy movies, see Bottle Rocket, Swingers, Big Night. But consider, this is an Eddie Murphy joint released between Holy Man and Nutty Professor II. I was ready for garbage.
Nine Queens: Ended up in my queue because a review of the American remake, Criminal, claimed this was the better of the two. Score one for the Argentines.
Shaun of the Dead: A great example of the virtues of ignorance. I'd heard just enough about it (a rom-zom-com?, please), to expect to hate it.

Sometimes, though, a movie is just too good to be diminished by your preconceptions. I went into these movies expecting a lot, and they delivered:
Children of Men: Gripping. Read my comments in Late February Round-Up.
Inside Man: The answer to "how'd he do it?" doesn't insult your intelligence.
Little Miss Sunshine: What struck me when I watched it the second time is how economical the script is. There isn't one wasted moment.
Shopgirl: Steve Martin's best movie since (wait for it) Parenthood. (Go ahead, unleash your scorn.)
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada: I like cowboy pictures.

So how to make use of this late-life wisdom, that you can influence your movie-going experience? Going forward I will try (largely without success, I'm sure) to manage my expectations with muttered self-administered brainwashing.

First, there's "I expect little."
300
28 Weeks Later: I know I'm going to be disappointed, but the hair on the back of my neck stands up every time the guitars come in during this clip: http://www.foxatomic.com/#movie:TitleId=7
Black Snake Moan
Flags of Our Fathers & Letters From Iwo Jima
Harsh Times: I want Training Day 2, but I don't think I'm going to get it.
Hot Fuzz: From the same crew that brought you Shaun of the Dead!
The Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward Robert Ford: Great Casey Affleck buzz.
The Host: This promises an American Werewolf-like mix of the funny and the scary.
The Lives of Others: Because this story is a low-key surveillance deal, it's a prime candidate for expecting the fireworks but being let down by the slow burn.
Zodiac: Reviewers are calling this Fincher's masterpiece, better than Fight Club?! "I expect little, I expect little."

And then there's "I expect nothing," in the hope of squeezing some enjoyment out of the genre junk food at the center of my movie diet:
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Pathfinder
Shooter
Smokin' Aces
The Number 23

What movies are you waiting for?

The Illusionist vs. The Prestige

Liked one, loved the other. I'll try to tell you why without giving too much away.

I've already written about The Illusionist in a couple of comments. I'll paraphrase here. I enjoyed the movie, but it has three big problems. First, there's a casting problem. Second, the trick is never explained. Third, the twist is too easily guessed. What's interesting to me, is that The Prestige is guilty on the same three counts, but it's a far superior movie.


1. The problem of casting. To put it bluntly Paul Giamatti, as Inspector Uhl, and Hugh Jackman, as Robert Angier, are just too damn likable. Both characters are supposed to undergo transformations, one of redemption and one of corruption. Giamatti, who I like a lot in his crusty misfit mode in American Splendor and Sideways, never projects the menace or moral ambiguity that I thought the role required. You really needed to fear that the inspector wouldn't do the right thing, that he might act merely out of self interest. You didn't feel like he was the kind of man who'd made the selfish, questionable choices throughout his career, the kind that would have pushed him up through the ranks. He is just too nice. And matinee-idol Jackman, who we know is capable of straddling the line from his work as Wolverine, never convinces as the obsessed, jealous Angier. You see him lose the things that are precious to him, but you don't see the change in his eyes, the hatred awakening, the vengeance growing. Edge: Even (but Christopher Nolan's insistence on David Bowie as Nikola Tesla tilts it in The Prestige's favor).


2. The Illusionist's big trick, the one that has the whole town talking, is never satisfactorily explained. We're just supposed to accept that somewhere in his travels, Eisenheim (Norton) picked up some netherworld flim-flammery, poof, voila! Sorry, not buying it. The Prestige's big trick, on the other hand, while never completely disassembled and explained is at least shown to have originated somewhere, in this case, in Tesla's lab. Now this isn't an argument in favor of science over mysticism, just a request that at a minimum a filmmaker show me where Jack got his magic beans. And besides, the grisly price of The Transported Man sufficiently compensates our voluntary misdirection. Edge: The Prestige.

3. Now, I'm not the guy who sat down to watch The Sixth Sense and said "he's dead," before the title credits were over. I'm usually fashionably late to the big reveal. So the fact that I guessed the surprise twists of both of these movies says something about how straightforward they are. In the case of The Prestige, the twist is just been there-done that. We've all seen Sleeping Beauty, right? In the Illusionist it's given away by lots of false beards and double-edged dialogue that doesn't quite cut cleanly on the first stroke. But you've got to work for it. Edge: The Prestige.

The Amazing Screw-On Head

I added this title to my queue on a recommendation from Harry Knowles' "DVD Picks and Peeks" column on Ain't It Cool News.

It's a 20 minute-long animated TV pilot created by Mike Mignola, the guy who came up with the Hellboy comics. It features the same wacky history-meets-the-occult mashups of Hellboy, introducing the characters of Screw-On Head, secret agent in service of Abraham Lincoln, his love interest Patience the Vampire, his manservant Mr. Groin, (get it, Head, Groin?), and their nemesis Mr. Zombie.

Voiced respectively by Paul Giamatti, Molly Shannon, Patton Oswalt and David Hyde Pierce, the characters are as wack-a-doodle as their names sound. The writing is clever and light. And the artwork, settings and bizarro world spyware are all really creative.

The pilot introduces a dozen characters, all of whom you want to know more about, but don't hold your breath. Mignola explains in the making-of featurette that he came up with the screw-on head idea as a lark to sell toys, and by the time he finished the pilot he'd told most of the jokes as well as he figured he could and had kind of gotten the whole thing out of his system. Too bad. 4 stars.