Films Seen - March 2002

[Pre-'96 films not included.]

A BEAUTIFUL MIND (64) (dir., Ron Howard) Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Harris, Paul Bettany [Hip (and pseudo-hip) types have it in for this one, scorning it as triumph-of-the-spirit melodrama - obviously a case of looking at the packaging rather than the product. It's actually (at worst) a triumph-of-the-mind movie, hymning not generic 'bravery' but the much less sloppy process of a scientist treating personal crisis as another problem to be solved - which is why it's appropriate that logic rather than emotion supplies his big breakthrough ("She never gets old!"), and that he finally overcomes his demons not through the help of an inspirational doctor, or even the love of a good woman (Connelly doing all she can with a nothing part), but through self-control and strict application of mental discipline, i.e. purely cerebral traits. As in LORENZO'S OIL, scientific rigour is the best response - and, as in that film, doctors only care about a quick fix, opposing the hero just as all scientists are opposed by all Establishments. Complaints about historical inaccuracy, facts left out, etc. are even more misguided - might be fair comment if the film went through Nash's life highlighting some aspects and omitting others, but in fact the bulk of it is devoted to the single issue of his schizophrenia : it's a 'problem picture' much more than a biographical drama - and complaints about James Horner's score most misguided of all (it operates much like Caleb Sampson's work for Errol Morris, enacting the constant background whirr of mental processes). True that it ends on a lame note, however, and analysis ain't exactly deep (to quote 80s one-hit wonders Furniture : "You must be out of your brilliant mind"), nor is Goldsman's script as much of an advance as many seem to think - the main conceit, making schizophrenia tangible, is exactly what you might expect from such a literal-minded writer ; Crowe, on the other hand, is phenomenal, playing Nash as dreamy moon-face and determined waddle, adding to his gallery of heroes who go on their journeys playing by their rules, blocking out what other people think. Cogent, generally restrained, quietly respectful of eccentricity and non-conformism : as Best Picture winners go, we've certainly had a lot worse.]

SESSION 9 (51) (dir., Brad Anderson) Peter Mullan, David Caruso, Stephen Gevedon, Josh Lucas, Brendan Sexton III [Blue-collar version of SPHERE / EVENT HORIZON-type crew-in-peril movies, the twist being (again) that the demons stem from the victims' own subconscious ; not much else beyond that, though there's an intriguing suggestion (undeveloped) that the heroes are psychically linked, rather like the different personalities of a schizophrenic (one cuts his hand just as another is cutting a box open, the latter action seeming to beget the former). Mullan simmers so prodigiously he ends up drowning the character in hidden violence, while his co-stars do their best with the little they're given ; whole thing's a contrivance, really, audience taking it in with one eye on the clock, counting off the minutes till Evil shows its face (one-week structure doesn't help - you know nothing dramatic is going to happen till we get to Thursday or Friday - nor does the fact that the heroes aren't physically trapped, as they are in THE OTHERS or THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT). Plot seems hollow, exposition sometimes clunky (character's professional disappointment coming out in casual conversation : "That's right - you were supposed to carry the torch, weren't you?"), score tries every possible scare tactic short of pulling on a bedsheet and going booga-booga ; still atmospheric, shot in a deserted real-life mental hospital ("scariest place on Earth," says Caruso in the Special Features), and the abrasive harshness of DV does more good than harm in these situations. Genre fun, marginally memorable.]

DONNIE DARKO (57) (dir., Richard Kelly) Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Mary McDonnell, Patrick Swayze [Gives you hope for the future and whatnot : vastly ambitious film with a low-fi, 'home-made' feel, made by a 26-year-old first-timer who obviously cares about style but never succumbs to the flashy filters and rapid-fire cutting. Only problem is the film itself, which just doesn't sing the way the great films do - it's the difference between confident and visionary, everything laid out including the random bits, nothing too mysterious (nothing in the film gave me the thrill of the single moment in BOOGIE NIGHTS - to cite another young wunderkind's breakout movie - where busboy Eddie goes home to his parents' and practises a kung-fu move in front of the mirror : that's a teen in a world of his own). Awkwardly sensible for a film about madness, though it's actually about more than that - searching for God as a way out of cosmic loneliness ("I don't want to be alone," admits Donnie), hence our hero fulfilling his destiny as a Christ figure by connecting with others through redemptive self-sacrifice (destruction as a form of creation, which is the movie's other theme) ; intriguing stuff, but it's not set up amazingly well (final montage suggests Donnie's sacrifice impacts on all the other lives, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE-style, but in fact his girlfriend is the only one directly affected) (*), and regularly brought down by cringe-worthy detail - sex-lives-of-the-Smurfs pop-culture riff (so mid-90s) or the many smug cartoonish sub-satirical bits involving the nasty teacher (it's one thing not to know who Graham Greene is, but "I think we have all seen 'Bonanza'"?!). Teen romance probably works better than the metaphysics, esp. the year's most affecting movie kiss (it's all in the timing) ; Gyllenhaal is likeable, but I can't shake the feeling the script was originally written for a much younger hero ; songs are great, but none of them says 1988 to this 80s teenager.]

(*) : Got this wrong, because I didn't realise the plane crash was supposed to be fatal (we've all heard of planes landing safely with three engines, no?). If the crash is fatal, then everyone else - esp. his mother and sister - is indeed affected by the sacrifice, so good job Mr. Kelly. Other complaints still valid, obviously...

LOST AND DELIRIOUS (44) (dir., Léa Pool) Piper Perabo, Jessica Paré, Mischa Barton, Jackie Burroughs [Actors Lost in Delirious awfulness of SET ME FREE director's mise-en-scene, more like - yet they somehow survive, mostly because the last half-hour drops everything else to become a tale of obsessive (unrequited) love. Acclaim for Ms. Perabo seems a bit excessive, given it's the kind of role - Rebellious Life-Force, Underlying Sensitivity Dept. - that's meat and drink to any self-respecting actor (this is why actors become actors, basically), but she pulls out all the stops, and it's certainly not her fault if Pool slaps a sappy Lilith Fair-type monstrosity over her big tearful close-up or the sound of a fluttering wing when she turns suddenly : avian symbolism is enough to make your head hurt, esp. when heroine nurses a sick bird back to health (fly, little bird! spread your wings!). Should've been the worst film of the year, actually - it's mind-boggling that no-one at the many production companies putting money into the thing (experienced people like Telefilm Canada) pointed out that calling the mousy heroine Mouse was kind of lame, or using Shakespeare to denote high romanticism was the hoariest of clichés, or that Barton's memories of her dead mother ("Every year in the spring she would whisper in my ear, 'Wake up! The first crocus is here!'") were painful in the wrong way, or that Barton and Perabo weren't given any meaningful narrative relationship (a suggestion that their friendship leads to ostracism goes undeveloped), or just that the whole thing was intolerably precious, self-conscious and phony (phoniest line : "The room smelled like sweet rotten apples"). Actresses save it, basically, though they can't make very much of it ; must admit I'm puzzled by our Piper casting girl-girl feeling as the opposite of femininity, though, tomboyishly longing to destroy her womanhood ("Unsex me here!"), get in touch with her guy side, not just sit and take it "like a girl" - shouldn't it be vice versa, unless there's some serious self-loathing going on? Am I just naive? Is this like a common lesbian thing? Lesbian readers please advise...]

O (64) (dir., Tim Blake Nelson) Mekhi Phifer, Josh Hartnett, Julia Stiles, Elden Henson, Andrew Keegan [Pre-emptive apologies for what follows, especially to the estate of William Shakespeare and my high-school English teacher, should she ever read this. (What can I say? You have to change the format sometimes, or you go nuts...)

DOMESTIC DISTURBANCE (36) (dir., Harold Becker) John Travolta, Vince Vaughn, Teri Polo, Matt O'Leary, Steve Buscemi [Not offensive, just inadequate : THE WINDOW (or EYEWITNESS) with Travolta tacked on as salt-of-the-earth boat-building father-figure (battling Vaughn as stock-market-playing yuppie scum with inevitable shady past). Always a residual entertainment value to this kind of yarn - duped wife, evil stepfather, ex-husband fighting for his rights, kid in jeopardy - at least on video late on a Friday night ; always far-fetched but not actively ludicrous till the final stages, with Vaughn giving himself away by bandaging his burned arm in full view of everyone in the house, with the bathroom door wide open (good advice for one-dimensional villains : always close the door if you don't want people to know you're a duplicitous lying killer). Soaring absurdity plus strangely perfunctory climax suggests everyone involved gave up at some stage, figuring the best they could do was cut their losses ; probably a wise move.]

NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE (45) (dir., Joel Gallen) Chyler Leigh, Chris Evans, Eric Christian Olsen, Cody McMains [Post-SCARY MOVIE, it appears, every self-respecting teen spoof must include a number of spectacular gross-outs - if only as distraction - which explains why this ZAZ-style 'joke movie' intermittently goes nuts in cheap, incongruous set-pieces involving king-size dildos and classrooms being sprayed with excrement, breaking taboos as a marketing tool. All a bit cynical, but then cynicism is what it's all about, cinematic equivalent to the wise-ass teenage viewer who adds "Not!" after high-flown pronouncements and makes fart sounds during the love scenes : it confirms our worst instincts at every turn, setting up possible ideals only to knock them down - fatherly advice is a bust, a high school without cliques an impossibility, true love a farce (if Dad upbraids Junior for calling Sis a lesbo, it can only be so he can top it with something more offensive ; if hero and heroine close their eyes in anticipation of a kiss, you know they're about to bump heads painfully). Flippant, reductive worldview gets old fast but the gags are funny in obvious ways, missing the quirkiness of a WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER but fastening cleverly on the conventions of the genre - the absurd teen lingo ("I need T-to-the-fourth-power-Y" - Time To Talk To You - pouts a blonde princess), the Token Black Guy who at one point gets very indignant to find another black guy at a party ("My bad," says the other black guy, beating a hasty retreat), the sexy exchange student who's so sexy she comes to school stark naked in a nifty 'reductio ad absurdum' (not only does she speak with subtitles, but the subtitles leave strategically-placed gaps for her natural assets when she's facing the camera). Sharp enough to have been seriously funny, had they added a little feeling and lost the puerile attempts to shock ; references range from BRING IT ON (plus McMains repeating his annoying little bro) to "Freaks and Geeks", ALMOST FAMOUS, John Hughes movies and Matthew Wilder's "Break My Stride" - and let's hear it for the screen's first and only Chyler. What kind of sick parents come up with these names, anyway?...]

CURE (56) (dir., Kiyoshi Kurosawa) Koji Yakusho, Tsuyoshi Ujiki, Anna Nagakawa [Guess I might warm up to these alienation-heavy Japanese thrillers eventually but it ain't happening yet, though this is certainly interesting to think about in conjunction with (the later) PULSE : as in that film, with its metaphor of dots on a computer screen irresistibly drawn to each other - only to be annihilated when they get too close - this is a movie where connection, opening up emotionally, is a fatal mistake ("Tell me about yourself," is the killer's come-on line), making for a chilling - or at least chilly - statement of aloneness, not to mention an implied allegory for the spread of sexual (or cyber-) virus. Easy to admire Kurosawa's clinical, detached style (you can count the close-ups on the fingers of two hands) and eerie sound design, steady background noise (howl of wind or industrial hum) over otherwise silent scenes - but the pace is frankly monotonous, and Antonioni was using thriller conventions to explore notions of identity - "Who are you?" - in THE PASSENGER 25 years ago (nor is it made clear, on a basic level, that the random killings - perpetrators ranging from a happily-married teacher to a resentful doctor - have any common impetus). All a bit too nerveless and diffuse for my taste ; maybe next time...]

HAIKU TUNNEL (35) (dir., Jacob and Josh Kornbluth) Josh Kornbluth, Warren Keith, Helen Shumaker, Amy Resnick [False advertising, in my opinion : comes on like OFFICE SPACE, with demonic boss and Everyman hero - Kornbluth, sporting waddle and schlemiel look - but veers off into self-indulgent comic fantasy. Office life is one of those things - like wedding parties and family gatherings - that everyone mocks yet everyone tolerates, feels a certain intimacy with, which is why their satire should be quite specific, prompting semi-affectionate nods of recognition (cf. 'big' subjects like war and religion, which lend themselves well to broad, fantastical strokes) : comic exaggeration - e.g. the boss introduced as a dark shadow falling on Kornbluth's face, horror-movie-style - tends to look like glibness unless anchored in familiar detail, which the film only offers for the first half-hour or so (my favourite : the sign on a corner of the board in a corporate-orientation class reading "Please Do Not Rearrange The Chairs"). Comes increasingly unmoored, esp. because it doesn't deliver on the promised roles - the boss turns out to be avuncular more than anything while the hero is a terrible employee (careless, irresponsible), making him tricky to identify with ; finally comes close to suggesting we should root for him because he's a hip dude who's writing a novel and listening to the Pixies and Television while the boss is just a square in a suit - which, when you consider the star is also co-writer-director, is kind of obnoxious. Has its moments, but I ended up hating it (even more so in retrospect) ; perfunctory subtext about hero being a 'temp' in relationships as well as work is probably best ignored.]

THE CLOSET (48) (dir., Francis Veber) Daniel Auteuil, Gérard Depardieu, Jean Rochefort, Michele Laroque, Michel Aumont [Half-hearted comedy on a rich subject - the point where entrenched homophobia bumps up against the strictures of political correctness, just as the film's rather sour, crabbed tone seems to bump against its unimpeachable pro-tolerance message. Interesting for the mixed signals, liberal yet fogeyish, a film where homophobes (like Depardieu's uncomprehending macho) are clearly slammed yet treated with more affection than the main character, Gay Pride parades are silly, hypocritical things and the hero's embrace of homosexuality is a good thing because it makes him a better heterosexual, helping expose his unworthy ex-wife (somewhere there's a rejected early draft where the ruse stirs up unexpected feelings, making him ambivalent about his sexuality). One gets the feeling Veber liked the premise - lots of nice sad-sack humour in the early scenes - then discovered the subject made him uncomfortable after all ; the film peters out, not even trying to make something of the most obvious set-up-and-payoff device (viz. the lost cat). Auteuil does a wan Michel Blanc imitation, which seems rather a waste of his talents - though he does look sweet in his condom hat...]

DIVIDED WE FALL (43) (dir., Jan Hrebejk) Bolek Polivka, Anna Siskova, Jaroslav Dusek, Csongor Kassai [Shall we call it the PRIVATE RYAN effect? Looks like a Czech director - shall we call him Jan Hrebejk? - caught the Spielberg film and was so impressed by the undercranking trick - the not-quite slo-mo that makes everything seem like it's happening in a dream - he decided to use it in his own WW2 movie, throwing it in whenever things get in any way intense (from a fugitive's escape to a farcical bedroom mix-up). The ham-handed result wrecks a decent enough script, though in truth the narrative veers wildly in tone, tending to play scenes for slapstick then making impossible demands on the viewer : how are we supposed to go from the genuinely sad figure of the Nazi commander (more a victim than anyone else in the movie) to his gratuitously offensive line that a Nazi soldier is worth 20 Slavs and 100 Jews, or try to process the buffoonish traitor with the Hitler moustache and swinish manners (even farts at table) followed by said buffoon's complex motivations and apparent decency (what's the point of having him in love with the wife if he doesn't in fact betray her when she repels his advances?)? It's not that people can't be both good and bad (they can, obviously), but the film's indicators seem to swing between the two, turning our heads first this way then that - look how craven the townspeople are, how terrified of the Nazis! but now they're patriotic, openly contemptuous of collaborators! (after a while, this viewer stopped taking guidance altogether). Must be a Czech thing, veering from comic to tragic, seeing as it's also such a feature of stuff like CLOSELY OBSERVED TRAINS, but at least that's a 'quirky' character drama without larger Issues ; if you're going to bring the Holocaust into it, some coherence is the least you can do - the whole power of LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL lies precisely in how characters remain consistent, even as their circumstances change. Jaunty music (even over ugly scenes), over-convenient lines - "Who would be foolish enough today to act like a hero?" - occasional felicities, and of course it all goes slo-mo every time anything starts to happen. Annoying.]

THE OTHERS (68) (dir., Alejandro Amenabar) Nicole Kidman, Fionulla Flanagan, Alakina Mann, James Bentley [You've got to hand it to Amenabar : OPEN YOUR EYES - a Hollywood film in all but name - made him seem the likeliest of candidates to end up helming MATRIX-style blockbusters at best (Mira Sorvino killer-bug movies at worst), but having got to Hollywood, with a bona fide star as his lead actress, he instead makes what amounts to a studio-financed art film ; maybe he could yet be the face of the video generation, straddling genres and traditions. Hardly matters that the Catholic-guilt angle is jejune and the heroine's behaviour sometimes ludicrous (even allowing that her mind is crumbling) - you know the art of the medium is being flexed to the max when a film makes a whole auditorium jump using one location, no special effects and a perfectly ordinary focus-pull to a little boy crying in a corner ("You? ... Or perhaps you?"). Old-fashioned ghost story, echoing the work of Victorian masters like Saki or M.R. James (opening credits over eerie sketches of olde English children sobbing in terror and cowering in their beds), haunted-house routine working so well both because the actors are superb and because it builds suggestions of perversity, things against Nature (a mute girl, a fog that won't lift, photos of corpses, sunlight that kills), till we start fearing the worst in every darkened room and plaster statue ; shame about the trendily 'outrageous' final twist , shattering the patient intensity of what precedes it, even if the twist is in fact quite compassionate (and even if the film probably wouldn't have made any money with a less showy ending) ; makes you think its models are THE UNINVITED or A PLACE OF ONE'S OWN, then it just turns out to be THE SIXTH SENSE. Can we now declare a moratorium on 'irony'?]

SERIES 7: THE CONTENDERS (52) (dir., Daniel Minahan) Brooke Smith, Marylouise Burke, Glenn Fitzgerald [Clever incidentals, faking all the details of 'event' television - the catchy tag-lines ("The rules are as simple as Life and Death!"), coming-up-next synopses before each segment, sappy music over family reunions - but the basic premise is unconvincing : it's a crucial part of "Survivor"-type shows that the contestants volunteer - giving viewers carte blanche to be voyeurs without feeling guilty because the onscreen people 'knew what they were getting into' - and it just doesn't work the same when they're press-ganged into it (BATTLE ROYALE is aware of the difference, playing up the sadism - Kitano's personal revenge - without trying overmuch to disguise it as a plausible entertainment), nor does it make sense that the winner of each series gets 'invited' as returning champion to the next one (given what we know, that's the opposite of a reward). Bit of a one-joke movie, the joke being how violent death co-exists with everyday things like doing with your job (Dawn's matter-of-fact approach) or looking after your kids ("Got your guns, honey?"), all the various facets of blue-collar life ; gets a little dull by the end, since there's little else beyond the main conceit and it doesn't make much sense anyway. Lots of neat neo-Orwellian touches, but they only go so far.]

JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK (34) (dir., Kevin Smith) Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith, Will Ferrell, Jason Lee, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Chris Rock [Unexpectedly awful. Thought I'd find myself ranged against the Smith-as-Antichrist cinephiles again, whether defending him as not-too-bad (DOGMA) or capable of greatness (CLERKS) - but this time they have a point. Maybe it's simply that in all his previous films the puerile humour functioned as a kind of defence mechanism, whether a character response to being ignored and disenfranchised (the no-hope heroes of CLERKS and MALLRATS) or a shield wielded by the director himself as he sneaked into hazardous territory (metaphysical morality in DOGMA, Rohmeresque sublimated passions in CHASING AMY) ; this, on the other hand, is just a triumphalist wallow, casting its stoner duo as half-formed innocents in a venal world (which is actually an interesting notion) and modern-day suburban Jedi Knights (which isn't), lacking the previous tension between adolescent and 'adult' - it's the World According to Jay and Silent Bob, which is obviously deliberate but still dispiriting. Might've worked had it been genuinely crass and disreputable, a pungent breath of dirty air, but it's clear the Jersey lowlifes have been willingly co-opted into the celebrity machine, making the dick jokes and procession of guest stars falling over themselves to spoof their image about as convincing as Harry Knowles playing the Hollywood outsider while exemplifying Hollywood's Internet-geek demographic ; the hypocrisy is breathtaking when Miramax allows a couple of (perfunctory) gags directed against itself while laughing all the way to the bank ('Here, let's run your script through our in-house Corporate Ribaldry program, showing we can rag on our image and are not just money-grubbing philistines'), or Chris Rock flatters white audiences into being down wid da black man, or Jay punctuates a light-sabre duel with the line "George Lucas is gonna sue somebody" just in case the Legal Department complains that George Lucas is gonna sue somebody. Smith may think he's striking a blow by filling the screen with random stuff he likes - from gay jokes to Scooby Doo and bad 80s tunes - but this undiscriminating hodge-podge is as self-indulgent as a spoiled rock band's list of dressing-room perks, and as weighed down with tired movie spoofs as a Leslie Nielsen lamedy. Unfair? "That's what the Internet is for," explains Lee-as-Banky, "slandering others anonymously". Signed, Mr. X.]