Films Seen - December 2000

[Pre-'96 films not included.]

SEX: THE ANNABEL CHONG STORY (50) (dir., Gough Lewis) [Did Ms. Chong - who set a new world record by getting through 251 men in 10 hours - shake up female stereotypes, challenging notions of the faithful, sexually responsible woman ("she wants to be like a guy," we're informed : "just fuck and go")? Did she plan her stunt as a liberating protest against the "reverse patriarchy" imposed by feminist theory? Or is she just a bimbo porn-star looking for publicity? This documentary might work better if it weren't so obviously enthralled by its subject - you get the feeling Lewis can't believe he's lucked onto such a surefire hit, desperately trying not to blow it by rocking the boat or asking too many questions. The details of the porn industry are fun - sleazy conventions, silicon breasts, talk of "triple penetration", videos with titles like "I Can't Believe I Did The Whole Team" - but the film never feels like it's not being stage-managed by its subject, even when she's (supposedly) running from the camera in tears or cutting her arms with a knife "to feel the pain". Like the central gang-bang, everything is done for effect by professional performers, from Ms. Chong brushing aside fears of catching AIDS ("I believe sex is good enough to die for") to passing mention of a real-life gang-rape in her past (the film doesn't probe further, which is typical) ; all we're really left with is a girl with Issues, channelled into sex and a hyperactive restlessness - unsure about her identity, using people before they use her, street-smart but insensitive (and a very indifferent pianist) like a million others. Starts with a "Jerry Springer" clip, climaxes with Annabel confessing what she does for a living to her strait-laced mother in Singapore, with the camera lurking just outside the door. Is there a difference?]

DIVORCING JACK (56) (dir., David Caffrey) David Thewlis, Rachel Griffiths, Jason Isaacs, Laura Fraser [Socio-politics in the style of THE COMMITMENTS (Bronagh Gallagher from that film has a cameo as a taxi driver) : very Irish, I suppose is the word - earthy, cynical, boisterous and sardonic, sometimes excessively so (I counted at least one gratuitous vomit close-up and needlessly dead old lady). You can tell it's written by a novelist - carefully set up (with a nod to THE 39 STEPS) and building to a satisfying climax - and you can tell he used to be a journalist, both because of the incidental detail about life in Belfast (Europe's Wild West, where black people are liable to be stared at and country music blares from every station) and because the hero is a journo's fantasy, a reprobate and wild man who's also a terrific writer and local celebrity. Thewlis plays him to the hilt (easily his best role since NAKED), but there's something hard to enjoy about the film, something warped and creepy alongside the farcical goings-on : it's a lot more comfortable with violent death and sadistic torture (Isaacs gearing up for THE PATRIOT) than charm and enthusiasm - being smooth is absolutely the worst thing you can be here, and it's just assumed that anyone with no rough edges and a positive agenda is merely hiding something. Maybe that's also part of being Irish - and part of the explanation for the region's endemic mistrust and long-running violence. All good fun, but you can certainly see it making a good double-bill with something like THE POWDER KEG - those cruel, pitch-black comedies emerging from Europe's Wild East, the former Yugoslavia...]

ALMOST FAMOUS (72) [after second viewing, in 'Bootleg Cut' (a.k.a. UNTITLED) version: Bootleg Cut 71, Theatrical Version 64] (dir., Cameron Crowe) Patrick Fugit, Kate Hudson, Billy Crudup, Jason Lee, Frances McDormand [Could this be any more gemutlich and puppy-dog-cute without actually wagging its tail and fetching your slippers? Also far too tame, charge its critics, leaving out the sex-and-drugs part of the rock'n roll equation, but it is a very specific rock'n roll movie, after all - a particular 15-year-old's (real-life) account, which is unlikely to have included too many orgies ; identification with the hero is complete (Fugit is the show), making it a film about innocence as much as anything. Not-knowing, seeing only part of the truth, is a constant undertone, from the many mentions of secrets (things that can't be divulged in the presence of "the enemy") to the various characters' secret lives - coming out in the memorable aeroplane scene - to the unknown future implicitly stretching out, rock'n roll's impending transformation into corporate product (though we could've done without the cheap "Think Mick Jagger will still be doing this when he's 50?" gag) ; in many ways, what's offscreen - including the sex and drugs - is exactly what makes it work. More problematic are the various contortions needed to keep everyone sweet without selling out - the "principled sell-out", as in JERRY MAGUIRE, where the hero stays true to his beliefs but gets a happy ending anyway : there's perhaps hypocrisy there (or at least soft-centredness), but it's really a question of worldview more than anything. It is indeed about telling the truth, being "honest and unmerciful" to quote Lester Bangs (fabled rock critic, and the movie's conscience), except that for Bangs the truth is a sacrifice, killing a writer's friendship with the band he writes about - whereas for Crowe, the truth is an epiphany : just like music (to quote William's sister early on), "it will set you free". The film is a recollection of a joyous time, which is why it's loveable ; it moves rather randomly, never really gets into focus, but I found myself trembling with emotion half a dozen times at least : it's just so romantic. Though it probably works even better for those who agree rock'n roll had its "death rattle" sometime in the 70s - as opposed to thinking there's still lots of great music around, if you can just stop playing your old LPs and actually look for it.] [August 2004: May seem unfair downgrading the Theatrical Version without really seeing it again, but 'second' viewing (albeit in UNTITLED cut) brought back all the reasons why it's shrunk in my memory, and added one more: may seem unfair holding Kate Hudson's later career against her, but she's wildly unconvincing as an irresistible Force of Nature. Crowe's scenes have a grating slickness, and he likes to undercut with comedy when things start getting 'heavy' - "Wanna see me feed a mouse to my snake?" says the kid in the (cringe-making) party scene after Russell rants about the fans and keeping it "real" - like an indie Richard Curtis. The 'Bootleg Cut' isn't necessarily better, esp. in the first half - the scene where young William finds out he's only 11 seems to have a couple of shots too many now, and William's scene with his sister's boyfriend, or the interlude with the stoned DJ, add little except incidental flavour - but 160 mins. is clearly the natural length for this movie: a pivotal scene like the introduction of the new manager works immeasurably better now (and the next shot of Hudson dancing is correspondingly more poignant), just because it's longer and there's more time to make the argument - the character takes over the scene now, establishes himself as a presence, whereas before he was just a plot point - and the extra length, with more detail of life on the road, reaches the threshold where you start to lose yourself in the wealth of incident, which is when the film starts to work. Guess I can see why Crowe had trouble convincing the studio about his preferred cut - nothing 'essential' is cut in the short version, just a line here and a bit of business there, but the cumulative effect makes all the difference in this kind of ambience-driven movie - though you have to wonder if he actually fought for it, to the point of pissing people off and burning bridges, or just passive-aggressively gave in, waiting for the DVD (why do I suspect it's the latter?). Still got to me, against the odds - but I'm pretty sure the Theatrical Version wouldn't now. The ending still misses a trick in arranging things so Russell's already called the magazine when he comes to William's house, taking away much of the impact from Penny's act of kindness. Fugit has a sweet presence, but has any camera ever lingered so long on an actor's reaction shots? He's like a Martian practising facial expressions.] 

NOWHERE TO HIDE (63) (dir., Lee Myung-Se) Park Joong-Hoon, Ahn Sung-Ki, Jang Dong-Kun [Wonderful things done to space and time here - not just the zooms and flickers and Wong Kar-Wei-style "smearing" effects (best described as slow-motion made of stretched freeze-frames), but the disorienting leaps through time via apparently random title-cards ("Day 5" comes up out of nowhere, Days 1-4 never even getting a mention ; ages pass before we get to "Day 6", yet soon after that we're suddenly in "Day 20"), and such things as a chase on foot where pursuer and pursued - seen in the same shot - seem to be moving at exactly the same speed, so it looks eerily like Time's standing still and they're both running on the spot ; fight scenes are explicitly treated as dance scenes (at one point a waltz starts on the soundtrack as hero and villain grapple), and it's not above treating them as slapstick either, combatants hidden behind a low wall with just their feet kicking up comically as they roll around. Unfortunately the story is actively non-compelling - there's a certain grace to a playful, poignant non-narrative in a style-over-substance film like FALLEN ANGELS, but the hackneyed police-procedural gets in the way here, making the whole thing feel a bit prosaic ; and of course you have to wonder just how different this flash-and-neon style really is to the histrionics of a Simon West or Michael Bay (more intelligent, yes, but different?). Interesting anti-hero, though - hating and loving his job, lashing out at suspects, and constantly defining himself against traditional Oriental notions of politeness (sarcastically telling a bad guy to respect his elders, for example), as if representing an entire country and / or culture in crisis. Flawed but cool, and the THIRD MAN-esque ending is just right.]

PITCH BLACK (58) (dir., David Twohy) Vin Diesel, Radha Mitchell, Cole Hauser, Keith David [Not, as briefly threatened, the best outdoor monster-movie since TREMORS - the climax is weak, the various deaths seem arbitrary, and time is wasted on needless plot twists (like the so-what revelation that 'Jack' is actually a girl in disguise) in a genre where every moment must be made to count. Still pretty good though, stripped-down for action with a minimum of clumsy exposition - we learn about the characters through the ways they handle themselves in time of crisis - and a colour-scheme to match, everything bleached and sere. Can't say I found much in the way of subtext (self-reliance vs. faith in a Higher Being, shown in the Job-like priest?), but maybe I wasn't looking. Wouldn't you love to see a film starring Mitchell and Jennifer Connelly as upper-crust sisters who are different yet alike, with Elizabeth McGovern as their spinster aunt?...]

CHARLIE'S ANGELS (68) (dir., McG) Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu, Bill Murray, Crispin Glover [Mid-air freeze-frames. Action scenes rewound and instant-replayed. Slo-mo speeding up in mid-movement and vice versa. Delicious use of split-screen, Diaz' luscious lips in ECU as she relates what's going on in the other half of the frame. Relentlessly inventive, making even a banal car-chase look good - cars framed identically so the quick cutting looks like a single car with its colours flickering - yet by no means a 'cool' movie, in the sense of arrogant or condescending : the vibe exalts hanging out, goofing off, making an idiot of yourself ; it's as much James Bond as REVENGE OF THE NERDS (nerdy types actually recur in background roles, like the horde of computer engineers or the two boys playing videogames ; 'cool' people are mostly villains). The Angels giggle like 13-year-olds, share terrible jokes (Drew at drive-through window : "I'll have three cheeseburgers, three fries and three cherry pies ... [turns to others in the car] ... What are you guys having?"), get into a food-fight with blueberry muffins, distract the bad guys with a song-and-dance in Tyrolean lederhosen ; the soundtrack brims not with trendy obscurities but comforting pop standards, used to hilariously obvious effect (songs with "Angel" in the title prominently featured). Tone-wise it belongs with Adam Sandler's celebrations of the maladroit, like the table of geeks in THE WEDDING SINGER (also starring Drew), or with teen comedies about hapless heroes like DETROIT ROCK CITY or NEVER BEEN KISSED (also starring Drew) ; yet visually and spatially it moves with the fluidity of a MATRIX or FIGHT CLUB (or music video or computer game). I suspect it's all related, part of the same guiding philosophy - the libertarian, because-we-want-to aesthetic that underlies both digital-age film-making (CGI lets you do whatever you want) and the notion of Girl Power, whether Spice or Powerpuff : you can be gauche and geeky, hard or 'feminine', or you can choose to be a sex object if you like (the Angels wiggle and disrobe with the unselfconscious abandon of a Geri Halliwell). Made with craft and imagination, but above all an inclusive film, which is why it charms : it's slapsticky and vulnerable, tough and adorable (Angels kick bad-guy ass ; Angels poke their heads around a door, looking like a trio of Nancy Drew, Girl Reporters) ; it includes its own post-feminist critique and Charlie-as-father-figure deconstruction, includes way-out gratuitous bits like the sumo-wrestling and soap-gnawed revolver, or the montage of 'scenes from previous episodes' just before the main title ("C'mon you guys, I'm not a yo-yo!") ; and if McG wants to play with the camera a little, like he does on MTV - well, that's okay too. No narrative momentum, which is a problem, but it fizzes along merrily enough ; just a bauble really, but a joyous one, especially compared with most action blockbusters. "Sounds impossible," says the girls' client as they outline their plans ; "Sounds like fun," replies Drew with a giggle. Why couldn't Tom Cruise have said that in M:I 2?...]

U-571 (54) (dir., Jonathan Mostow) Matthew McConaughey, Harvey Keitel, Bill Paxton, Jake Weber [One of those films where everybody frets about X happening (like the sub going too deep, where it might get crushed by water pressure), and X does finally happen, along with Y and Z for good measure, and there's lots of yelling and frantic cutting and a welter of special effects - and then the crisis is over and everyone looks drained-but-happy, nodding with relief and smiling shyly at each other. No real bite, in other words, but lots of entertaining sound and fury, not to mention some very intriguing undercurrents : it's about War as a place where good men have to do bad things, whether the German commander unhappily ordering his men to shoot a boatload of survivors or McConaughey learning to become cold-hearted, ordering sailors to their deaths as every good commander must - no longer a pal, but "a man to be feared and respected". Actually quite a grim, serious-minded war flick - the final dedication to real-life combatants feels genuine - but the execution leaves a lot to be desired, from over-expository dialogue to Keitel's half-attempt at a Celtic accent to a series of nagging plot-holes (why doesn't the ship see the German rescue sub coming? why must U-571 sink the destroyer at all, when sneaking past is both possible and sensible?). Plus of course it's one of those films that wouldn't exist at all if the Nazis could only shoot straight ; but let's not get into that...]

BIG MOMMA'S HOUSE (43) (dir., Raja Gosnell) Martin Lawrence, Nia Long, Paul Giamatti [Worst film I ever quite enjoyed. Plotting's so lazy it's barely worth complaining about - nothing our hero does makes any sense, plausibility-wise - but the Deep South setting seems to have loosened everyone up : it doesn't feel like it's hitting us over the head with gags, and it's certainly a sweet film (albeit an inept one). Also, quite intriguingly, a semi-disguised plug for Christian values, our hero's time in the Bible Belt awakening his "satellite TV and six-pack" existence to the joys of church and family - not to mention that the main point of his visit is to 'save' the heroine by making her 'confess' her sordid past (just as he himself has to 'testify' in the film's final scene). Strange to see religiosity side-by-side with gross-out, or indeed an ideologically-loaded summer movie (esp. swimming against the prevailing Hollywood tide). As a film, however, it's every bit as flabby as the titular old lady's terrifyingly massive bare buttocks (side-view, medium-shot, about 20 minutes in). Brrr...]

HOW THE GRINCH STOLE CHRISTMAS (36) (dir., Ron Howard) Jim Carrey, Jeffrey Tambor, Christine Baranski [Shrill and grating, weighed down with a bumper layer of sickly Christmas sugar : Whoville is just tacky - gingerbread houses, Christmas lights in pretty rows, funny animal-people wearing hats made of cakes and tea-cups - the movie references and attempts at post-modern (the Grinch balking at having to speak in rhyme) pretty lame, the worthy Message (kids! don't make fun of classmates who are green and hairy!) we could've lived without. Jim Carrey in excelsis, though, above all because the Grinch is by definition an outsider, allowing him to play in his own little world without having to interact. His own whirling dervish from THE MASK (where he also had a canine co-star and led a conga line at one point) is somewhere in the mix, and the exasperated cry of "Max!" is surely lifted from Professor Fate in THE GREAT RACE, but the result is closest to a dark cousin of ALADDIN's genie, edging self-absorption with self-loathing : at one point he does the old magician's trick of pulling out a tablecloth without disturbing the plates and bottles on the table - then comes back a moment later and knocks them to the floor, disgusted with himself for doing something right (as in MAN ON THE MOON, you have to wonder where the actor ends and character begins). He's lost in this gaudy misfire, though, his best efforts finally defeated - the flat, charmless second half is well nigh intolerable ; but he gives the thing what little character it has.]

STATE AND MAIN (65) (dir., David Mamet) William H. Macy, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rebecca Pidgeon, David Paymer [Lots to admire : one of the year's best-crafted scripts, even managing to take a lose-lose situation - forcing the hero to baldly choose between profit and idealism (film loses either way, coming off either sappy or cheaply cynical) - and making it both emotionally sound and relevant to its central theme (the possibility of second chances). You sit back happily and wait for it to take off, yet it never does, quite : there's two or three different films here - rollicking farce versus insider-y Hollywood satire versus deliberately stilted Mametian jeu d'ésprit - and the rhythms are all different : in lesser hands it'd be a cacophony - which it certainly isn't, but it still doesn't quite come together. Highly rewatchable nonetheless, the parts being so often so delicious : bullseyes at the film industry (the schmoozing, the desperate enthusiasm, the associate-producer credits), quotable one-liners ("Do you like kids?" "I never saw the point of 'em"), occasional aphorisms cutting surprisingly deep ("You have to make your own fun round here" ; "You always have to make your own fun. If you don't make it yourself, it's not fun, it's entertainment"). A good film but not a great one, to quote from Woody Allen (David Mamet punched me in the mouth). Paymer impresses, adding sleaze to his perpetually harried persona ; Hoffman tries hard in a bland role, can't quite turn it round ; and - much as I hate to spike a good joke with common pedantry - Sardinia and Dalmatia never did share a border, far as I know...]

CROUPIER (63) (dir., Mike Hodges) Clive Owen, Kate Hardie, Alex Kingston [Moodily effective - till it's over, and you wonder what that was all in aid of. The sliver of plot isn't a problem - more might've been too much, dimming the experience of getting lost in groovy casino atmosphere ; but it seems to be setting up its hero for a fall that never comes, i.e. he's as icily in-control in the last scene as he is in the first (not least because they're almost identical). Worse, the ending, with its BODY HEAT-style twist (linked to the recurring theme of betrayal) and final shot disappearing down a hole into blackness, seems to suggest that the fall has in fact arrived - that the croupier's assumed power, coolly watching (and making) gamblers lose, is either a false front or an emotional dead end - yet the film doesn't really undermine his apparent confidence (compare, e.g. the ending of ELECTION for a film that leaves its hero's alleged contentment looking decidedly ambiguous). Maybe it's just too subtle, or maybe the film is itself far too controlled to take a stand : it's certainly very cool, with cadaverously handsome Owen (was he always such a Michael Stipe ringer?) chain-smoking his way through assorted arm's-length relationships backed by a dryly sardonic voice-over (Heroine: "How do I look?" ; V.O.: "Like trouble"). Abstract quality strangely seductive, but it does lack substance ; glossy publisher with a slot-machine in his office very much a caricature, cheeky-chappie Englishness very much an act, aimed at the international market : note discordant references to a "private" (i.e. public) school and "soccer" (i.e. football) novel.]

YOU CAN COUNT ON ME (72) (second viewing: 75) (dir., Kenneth Lonergan) Laura Linney, Mark Ruffalo, Matthew Broderick, Rory Culkin [Free-spirited brother : "Wanna smoke some pot?". Staid sister (instantly): "No! ... (pause) Why? You got some?". Cut to them standing on the back porch, seen from behind - and Sis duly inhaling, for the sake of a cheap laugh. Except she doesn't (though he does), which exemplifies the best thing about this low-key indie, viz. its willingness to let everyone hold on to their principles. It's a truly egalitarian film, extending the same emotional rights to all its characters, however messed-up : Ruffalo has the right to go his own way, but not to hurt his little nephew's feelings or impose his beliefs on his sister - who in turn is allowed to look for happiness any way she can, even if it means turning down a suitor's proposal (though he has a right to his feelings, and a certain dignity) and veering off on a fling with an unhappily-married man (but surely he's entitled to a little love in his life?). Everything's beautifully balanced, much of the dialogue dead-on - a petty-bureaucrat, passive-aggressive boss requesting employees to use "a more quote-unquote normal range of colours" on their computer screens - loaded with casually tender moments, playing variations on the theme of freedom-vs-structure (Linney wishing religion hadn't become so wishy-washy, Culkin complaining about having to write a story with no set subject). It's a fine line between made-for-TV drama and the novels of Anne Tyler or E. Annie Proulx : the film often tends towards the former, but just about manages to belong with the latter. And isn't it great to see Broderick going from unappreciated leading man to terrific, scene-stealing character actor? Though his agent no doubt wishes he were still doing GODZILLAs...] [Second viewing, February 2008: Maybe it's the coarsening of indies in the past 7 years - and admittedly it's almost self-parodic in its insistence on always alluding and never stating, lest it lapse into cliché - but it's great to see a film that cuts away from scenes before their meaning is explicit, allows characters' motivations to be gleaned from their actions, and even at the tearful finale, when Bro tells Sis "Remember what we used to tell each other when we were kids?", doesn't actually reveal that secret connection. Biggest revelation on second viewing was how utterly convincing the stars are as brother and sister (couldn't quite get over their physical dissimilarity on first viewing, but in fact their reactions, their emotional tenor, their whole sensibility is very similar), though it's also even subtler than I remembered: it's downright Rohmer-like when the law of unintended consequences strikes twice in succession, Sammy humiliating Terry because she can't bring herself to confess her own sin, then Terry letting down the kid because he's trying to get back at Sammy (no wonder Lonergan can't seem to find steady work in Hollywood). Very dry yet also very touching, a great film in a minor register. Indies really have grown coarser in 7 years.]     

DINOSAUR (49) (dir., Ralph Zondag / Eric Leighton) With the voices of D.B. Sweeney, Ossie Davis, Alfre Woodard, Joan Plowright [I'm a little dinosaur. I made legions of grown men and women work 80-hour weeks for months on end, and cost more than the GNP of a small Third World country. I frolic amid animated backdrops carefully divested of all imagination to appear as 'real' as possible. I send out wholesome messages about tolerance and gettin' along. I star in a film that's immensely spectacular, sometimes exciting - especially when it cribs from KING KONG - but perfectly, depressingly joyless from beginning to end. Aren't I cute?...]

THE CELL (55) (dir., Tarsem Singh) Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn, Vincent D'Onofrio, Dylan Baker [Kept hoping this would fall apart, so I could really hate it (it certainly deserves to hated), but it's actually rather neatly put together, dovetailing Vaughn's obsessive hunt for the missing girl with Lopez' more general quest for a way of connecting with her patients (her final breakthrough doesn't actually help the killer, much less the case - merely her own work) ; on the other hand, my mild-recommendation rating as the credits rolled faded shortly thereafter, so it clearly didn't come together in any more meaningful way. Big (though of course inevitable) problem is perhaps that the near-abstract visuals, truly suggesting the dreamlike, coded randomness of the subconscious, soon give way to narrative requirements, turning literal-minded and prosaic - it becomes little more than a tale of child abuse played against a florid backdrop (IN DREAMS, a lesser movie, nonetheless remains more suggestive) ; even bigger problem, even beyond the unsavoury central premise, is the film's incidental sadism, making the trapped girl sympathetic so it can wallow in her agony - surely we didn't need the scene where her mother explains what a wonderful person she is? isn't she just a McGuffin, after all? - and giving Vaughn a wholly gratuitous horror story about why he became a cop (the debate it ostensibly sparks off, whether an abused childhood can excuse adult crimes, remains stillborn). Definite stylistic eye at work though, what you might call Oriental-psychedelic - painted potentates in exotic robes, golden curlicues blooming round the edges of the frame, peacocks in rococo gardens - studded with fine-Art references (I only caught the Damien Hirst-style segmented horse, but I know there were others) ; general effect is of self-absorbed art-school types dipping happily (and dazzlingly) into Hollywood budget, more or less ignoring the human element. Medieval torture involving winched-out intestines probably unforgettable ; Vaughn, playing the good guy, looks more like a psycho than he did in PSYCHO.