Films Seen - May 2000

[Pre-'96 films not included.]

ANGELA'S ASHES (64) (dir., Alan Parker) Emily Watson, Robert Carlyle, Joe Breen, Ciaran Owens, Michael Legge [Faith an' begorrah, what a time it was! Nothin' to eat but gruel and potatoes, and the rain streamin' down like the Lord's own blessed tears, and yer man Death snatchin' the poor wee babes right out of their cradles, yes begob! ... I'm amazed to have enjoyed this one-damn-thing-after-another litany of horrors as much as I did, and can only put it down to Parker's full-blooded way with a story (a companion-piece to his equally unrelenting MIDNIGHT EXPRESS), plus the subjugation of a John Williams score to Michael Seresin's pungent images and Gerry Hambling's expert editing : events are recalled with the unobtrusive crispness of a professional gambler shuffling a deck of cards. Yet it also reeks of fake Oirishness, and it's too episodic to make much impact - we see isolated miseries, a flea-ridden mattress or a strapping at school, but miss the sense of living with these things day in and day out (the exception being the permanently flooded entrance to the family home, which we keep returning to and remember for that very reason). Those who've read the book (unlike myself) complain of a loss of perspective, missing McCourt's urbane wit and detachment, but Parker's more prosaic style seems the more admirable route, focusing our minds on the poverty (nor do I really understand this argument : isn't the deployment of a big budget to create a vivid, memorable image of poverty likelier to help than hinder in the fight against the real thing?). Earthy, direct, bracingly headlong, intermittently perceptive ; fine performances (Watson excepted) plus enough generosity of spirit to put an inspiring speech in the mouth of a sadistic teacher and make the family unsuccessful rather than abusive - and any tale of a boy's gradual awakening to the wonders of the mind is bound to be affecting. Not a lot of point though, a grand old yarn without a punchline ; besides - sweet Jaysus in Heaven! - didn't the eejits realise changin' the ending like that leaves the title meaningless and unexplained, for the love o'Mary? Will you have a bit of sense man...]

AMERICAN MOVIE (72) (dir., Chris Smith) Mark Borchardt, Mike Schank (as themselves) [Does it poke fun at its loser heroes? I vote yes - no opportunity's passed up to showcase Borchardt's garbled diction, and at least one scene's seemingly extended beyond its natural length to catch the moronic Beavis & Butthead chuckling at the end ; on the other hand, it's not quite that simple either. Snide laughter certainly comes into it, but it's an inadequate response to something so rich - such a sad film, with this poor deluded guy living in the armpit of the world, frittering away his life because he dreams of "being somewhere he's not" ; and such a startling film, when we realise that he does have some visual sense, even if he doesn't know what he's talking about (film can bloom in the poorest soils : it really puts the earnest business of script-writing - not to mention movie criticism - in perspective) ; and such a satisfying film as well, when we realise how his life and work are interlinked, the films borne of growing up in this stark, featureless landscape full of zombie-like people, fuelled by sheer explosive, bloodbath-violent rage at the world. Lots to talk about but it's mostly hilarious, even when the laughs feel like cheap shots ("This claustrophobia is too claustrophobic") ; Borchardt comes across as imagination unguided by coherence, liable to turn a pep talk into a mysterious anecdote about calling up Morocco at 2 in the morning ; Mike Schank is a force of Nature, and impervious to mere documentaries.]

CRADLE WILL ROCK (52) (dir., Tim Robbins) Hank Azaria, John Cusack, Joan Cusack, Bill Murray, John Turturro, Cary Elwes, Angus Macfadyen, Ruben Blades, Vanessa Redgrave, Susan Sarandon, Cherry Jones [Think of an all-star AIDS benefit : it's big and brash, regularly stops for skits and songs and in-jokes ("How long before you're doing soap commercials?" someone asks the young Orson Welles), everyone gives it their all, hams it up a bit, gets their moment in the limelight (though a non-star - sparkling Cherry Jones - actually steals the show), and of course the Cause - artistic freedom, in this case - is unimpeachable ; but the Cause takes over everything (everyone's defined in terms of political beliefs), it's all too loud and it goes on too long, and even the good things (like the constant cross-cutting) are overdone - and of course didacticism lurks just below the surface, intermittently breaking through in cringe-inducing dialogue. Raucous, simple-minded fun when not stymied by political correctness : shouldn't it at least have acknowledged the embarrassing irony in a pro-union play being almost derailed by pressure from the unions?]

MUSIC OF THE HEART (48) (dir., Wes Craven) Meryl Streep, Aidan Quinn, Angela Bassett, Gloria Estefan [Complimentary Band-Aid to the Miramax video people, who shoot themselves rather badly in the foot by marketing this DVD as a two-disc set together with SMALL WONDERS, the non-fiction version of the same story - not a great documentary but an uncomfortable reminder that what we're seeing is supposed to be true, prompting troublesome questions : did the heroine really arrive in Harlem looking like a deer caught in headlights (so she could subsequently Grow As A Person)? Did she really bring her kids into school with their peewee-size violins to melt the heart of firm-but-fair principal Angela Bassett? Was the school's slimeball music teacher really in the office at the same time, sneering despicably and making sarcastic comments? Streep makes it work, just by being into it and as bullshit-free as possible - she's one of the few actresses who actually seems to get a kick out of motherhood - and it also helps that the film isn't very ambitious, focusing primarily on the work (there's little attempt at period reconstruction, and hardly any inner-city atmosphere after the first few scenes), making it easier to respond to : the forays into Roberta's private life probably weaken it more than anything (what with this and TUMBLEWEEDS, Jay O. Sanders seems to be making a career out of super-nice guys who badly long to nail the heroine but cheerfully settle for being Real Good Friends instead). Thin and predictable, but a certain good-heartedness shines through ; easy to hate, harder to dislike.]

BROTHER (67) (dir., Alexei Balabanov) Sergei Bodrov Jr., Victor Suhorukov, Svetlana Pismichenko [Slightly surprised by this one. More a genre piece than a portrait of the New Russia, a lively crime movie with such self-consciously 'quirky' touches as a gang boss who speaks in rhyming couplets ("Bite off more than you can chew / And you'll end up in the zoo", claim the subtitles) : it feels like a Tarantino knock-off (or something like PUSHER, knocking off Tarantino with a regional flavour), even as everyone onscreen looks dour and deadpan, like refugees from a Kaurismaki movie. It might actually work better with the gangland stuff de-emphasised slightly - the sense of place is what you remember, grimy St. Petersburg skies, light through a yellow-brown filter and the combination of Soviet-era dinginess with designer stores and American tourists, plus the blissfully inane strains of Russian pop on the soundtrack ; the gangsters are merely one sub-culture, side-by-side with the vodka-sodden, bewildered oldsters still dealing in roubles, their Westernised grandkids doing drugs, techno and McDonald's, the middle-class bohos gathering sociably in cosy little flats, etc etc. More balance needed, plus a clearer line on its hero, who veers between ordinary kid and master criminal, man of honour and dangerous punk - he seems to herald something new, bringing order to chaos, yet the film clearly sees him as part of the problem rather than the solution. Memorable entertainment, richly-detailed with a rousing climax, using the traditions of the old family-centred Russia for suspense - our hero's relationship with his brother remains tense and ambivalent, because it's impossible to say how relevant (if at all) such relationships are in modern-day Russia ; still, as with PRISONER OF THE MOUNTAINS (Bodrov's other major credit), the impression persists of a film-maker trying to ingratiate himself with Western audiences, shying away from real social comment, going for glib and action-oriented over philosophical. Though I suppose Russian audiences are just as fond of action over philosophy - and not really looking for any searing exposé of their sad society - as any others...]

GLADIATOR (73) (dir., Ridley Scott) Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed [Needed a much, much better ending - the mano a mano climax is plain daft, and the coda merely proves how essential Crowe's presence is to the movie. Indeed, much of the second half (after Maximus reveals himself) is rather shopworn, and most of the action scenes are just a blur (the strobe-like effect, looking like speeded-up stop-motion, comes off as a gimmick more than anything) ; all of which is a testament to its non-action virtues, especially the deep well of righteous rage in Crowe's glowering performance (and the piercing moments of tenderness, like his conversation with young Lucius), giving the film conviction and a broody gravitas, rather like a beefier Richard Burton quality (as with Burton, his offscreen reputation as a difficult bastard seems indivisible from his onscreen persona). Rectitude-vs.-decadence gets a proper build-up (even if the dialogue is occasionally of the "Let us talk together" variety), imaginative visuals - from the drifting snowflakes on the field of battle to the vultures circling over the arena - and a rare-in-Hollywood feel for repressed emotion, paying off big in dramatic explosions : the first meeting of Emperor and gladiator ("I will have my vengeance, in this world or the next") literally had me shaking like a leaf (not since Cage-as-Travolta's first reflected glimpse of himself in FACE / OFF have I been so stirred and affected by a summer movie). Rest of it not quite on the same level, though it's all spectacular ; mob-as-audience metaphor (and, indeed, corrupted-Rome-as- corrupted-Hollywood metaphor) crystal-clear, advisability of mixing 60s and 00s action tropes rather less so.]

STIR OF ECHOES (54) (dir., David Koepp) Kevin Bacon, Kathryn Erbe, Ileana Douglas, Kevin Dunn [Very effective scare-machine, a testament to the power of whooshy sound effects, ethereal ghost-voices and dead people constantly threatening to burst into frame ; no larger agenda beyond spooking audiences, which it does well enough - at least till everyone starts behaving unreasonably, the hero's wife acting like he's come home from the office in a grouchy mood even though he's jabbering about dead girls, sleeping 12 hours a day and manically digging up the backyard (never mind that she all but ignores the only character who can shed some light on what's going on, or walks into a house where all hell is clearly breaking loose armed only with a pocket-knife). Everyday tone doesn't fit the in-your-face style, just as psychological subtext - Bacon's breakdown reflecting marital / professional tensions, for example - doesn't fit the scare-show tactics (SIXTH SENSE, being more suggestive, worked better in that respect). Douglas' wisecracks - "Find one of those priests with smouldering good looks to guide you through it" - wear out their welcome ; Bacon's attempt at belligerent blue-collar jock works effortlessly but runs out of script.]

LATE AUGUST, EARLY SEPTEMBER (78) (dir., Olivier Assayas) Mathieu Almaric, Francois Cluzet, Jeanne Balibar, Virginie Ledoyen ["Very French", I suppose, and it's true some of these effects are in danger of becoming clichés (e.g. cutting straight from a rowdy scene to a car coasting down the street, backed by vaguely Middle Eastern guitar music) ; but it's hard to charge a film with falling back on formula when it's so constantly, restlessly self-aware. "Can stories describe the world?" asks Cluzet's prickly intellectual, who (like Assayas) avoids what-comes-next narrative ; "I like its incertitude," says someone of a novel, round about the time when the film too is fragmenting into short, inconclusive scenes. It's not just being cute, for self-awareness is part of what drives (and torments) the characters - introspection, the feeling of "being nowhere" in their lives, constant relationship-analysis, the spectre of their common past and, of course, the emerging spectre of mortality (you might say it's about being at the age when Death first crystallises into something which can happen to people you know). That it manages to be thrilling rather than heavy is down to Assayas' restless camera (reflecting the characters' mood) and his delight in the small social rituals that define our lives - not just social gatherings but, e.g. the process of sorting out the rides afterwards, who's giving whom a lift and how far they're going - and of course down to his actors, who are phenomenal : Balibar fills a slight role with a sense of mischief (while suggesting how this woman's constant quirkiness might become cloying and tedious), Almaric has one of those faces that seem to have shed their defences (he's like an exposed nerve), making every ripple of emotion count, and Cluzet's cold, aloof writer, battling cancer with a taciturn dignity, makes you want to weep and applaud at the same time (year's bleakest moment may be his calm, uncomplaining admission that friends are useless at the end of it all : "You're all alone with what happens inside your body"). As perceptive about mid-thirtysomethings (is that what the title's referring to - end of youth, beginning of autumn?) as COLD WATER was about teens, and a film of immense heart, sensitivity, even profundity ; I'd call it a masterpiece - at least if I hadn't already seen half-a-dozen other French films giving off almost exactly the same vibe.]

MISSION TO MARS (58) (dir., Brian De Palma) Gary Sinise, Don Cheadle, Tim Robbins, Connie Nielsen [Can't wait for the AFI's Tribute to Brian De Palma, featuring only clips of his best scenes without the niggling nuisance of their tedious contexts. Add to the opening shot of SNAKE EYES and the break-in sequence in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE the marvellous damaged-ship-and-space-walk set-piece halfway through this generally unsuccessful sci-fi - a scene that's both a skilfully-staged suspenser and a sly escalation of technological breakdown (the astronauts in an antiseptically hi-tech spaceship let down by their 2001-type computers, having to locate damage to the hull by squirting a bottle of Dr. Pepper, finally forced to walk into space and physically lasso a nearby satellite craft), harking back to a more heroic, more primitive age of science-fiction, when space-operas revolved around courage and self-sacrifice rather than technological know-how. It'd be nice to find a similar spirit of self-deprecation in the rest of De Palma's visuals - images of pristine, technologically-achieved perfection - but they feel more like a refuge from a mawkish script he's clearly out of sympathy with, its Spielbergian inter-planetary touchy-feeliness grossly unsuited to this coldest of directors : the film gives the impression of being untouched by human hands, full of faceless vistas and automaton-like performances. Every time it approaches emotion it becomes embarrassing, and everyone looks embarrassed (childishly crude exposition doesn't help) ; as a chill, clinical thing, however, full of crystalline, near-abstract images - all-white dome with a strip of doorway, Mars as inscrutable red vastness traversed by an insect-tiny space-buggy - it finds a fitting sense of scientific objectivity, as if unconcerned with the merely human. Quite distinctive, though it doesn't really work : they should replace the cast with CGI simulacra, lose all dialogue except the techno-jargon, and re-shoot the whole thing as an IMAX movie.]

PUPS (17) (dir., Ash) Cameron Van Hoy, Mischa Barton, Burt Reynolds, Kurt Loder [Comically inept, probably unwatchable in the cinema ; has its cheesy charms on post-midnight video, at least till you realise just how seriously director Ash is taking it (though the portentous opening caption - "17 days till the year 2000" - should I suppose have been a giveaway). Imagine the bit where a caffeinated Hogarth babbles away in THE IRON GIANT stretched out to 100 minutes, drained of all charm, somehow mutated into DOG DAY AFTERNOON and pumped full of platitudes about alienated / neglected kids getting their reality from movies and MTV : scary. Barton (from LAWN DOGS) has the potential to bloom into a warmer Heather Graham - though she'll probably end up doing guest slots on bad TV shows about crime-fighting foxes.]

DOGMA (62) (55 - second viewing) (dir., Kevin Smith) Linda Fiorentino, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith [Equal parts Beavis & Butthead and Dungeons & Dragons, with a sub-Monty Python strand in Alan Rickman's cockney seraph and a lot of conventional-but-heartfelt, faith-good-religion-bad spiritual talk that it seems presumptuous to just dismiss (this semi-lapsed believer even got a little misty-eyed at the final guilt-free vision of a goofily benign, handstand-loving God). Guess I'm somewhere in the middle on this one - critics placing it among their Films of the Year clearly stopped watching in the final third, when it basically runs out of ideas (unless they thought a comic-book climax automatically waives the need for wit or sophistication) ; on the other hand, despite the tired John Hughes references and lame one-liners juxtaposing sacred and quotidian (on Sodom and Gomorrah : "Mass genocide is the most exhausting activity one can engage in, next to soccer"), it's still a fizzy brew of many and various ingredients, and probably Smith's funniest film since CLERKS. Also of course Jay and Silent Bob's finest hour - Jay's reaction to Chris Rock falling from the sky among the year's major hoots - though Smith's rather coy treatment of his laconic alter ego is annoying, all but turning him into a superhero then downplaying his presence in the final credits. Why not just admit he's loving the attention?...] [Addendum : nowhere near as funny (or, of course, surprising) on second viewing, and the flat pacing really grates. Has its moments, nonetheless.]

THE CIDER HOUSE RULES (54) (dir., Lasse Hallstrom) Tobey Maguire, Charlize Theron, Delroy Lindo, Michael Caine [This was supposed to be my Surprise Favourite of the year, following (apparently) in the footsteps of Pauline Kael and making it clear I don't have a problem with 'heartwarming' per se (I don't, honest!) ; alas, fully two-thirds of it (the entire middle section, basically) goes off the boil, piling up several similarly smooth / bland scenes to no great purpose, and the bits that do pack an emotional wallop (notably Homer's hokey-but- shattering return to the orphanage) have hardly anything to do with the film's ostensible theme. It's supposed to be a tale of a young man finding himself, "choosing his own path" (linking up to various indicators throughout the film, from the tearing-up of the titular Rules to abortion as a symbol of self-determination to David Copperfield becoming "the hero of my own life"), but what it's actually about is in fact the opposite - not coming of age but returning to the womb, or at least the protective bubble of childhood, ruled by a benignly autocratic father-figure. It's a peculiarly parental (in this case paternal) fantasy, no doubt why it plays better with older audiences : the parent's terrified of "the world" (there's "no taking care of anyone" there), tries to hold on to the child, prevent him from leaving home, even from growing up (Maguire's performance is unformed, reactive) - and, miraculously, it works, the kid realising that the parent was right all along and coming home to the father's thrall and a place in the family business (that the triumph happens to be posthumous makes for added pathos). The result is a bit like the over-50s' version of those Disney movies where resourceful little kids bring their divorced parents back together - which is fair enough, but it's not even consistent : first it over-explains, Caine telling the nurse how he tricked the Board after we've just seen him do it, then it goes out on a limb, all but implying that incest is forgivable in a man who "makes his own rules". Bit of a mess ; heartwarming, though...]

ERIN BROCKOVICH (57) (dir., Steven Soderbergh) Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, Aaron Eckhart [Julia Roberts is brassy and dynamic. Wait a sec, she's beaten-down and vulnerable. No, I think she's brassy after all. Tell you what, she's both, typifying the have-your-cake-and-eat-it nature of this deft, ebullient star vehicle. It's not about the money, says Erin of her legal crusade, it's about respect, for herself and her clients ; "It doesn't matter if you win, lose or draw," she tells a client, "these people lied to you, and you need to stand up in court and say that!" ; but the clients never do get their day in court (or at least we never see it), and their grins at the end when the punitive damages roll in are every bit as broad as Erin's when her bonus arrives (money, it seems, buys a lot of respect). One looks for the Soderbergh Touch, and maybe it's there when the truth gradually dawns on Mrs. Jensen, or in the miraculous moment when Roberts gets a haggard family to play along with her friendly ribbing of their sick little girl ; or maybe the Soderbergh Touch is a cool, formal thing, aiming only to provide crisp surfaces for genre pieces (whether crime movies or TV-style legal dramas), not really caring if the content is predictable or the uptight prigs acting as foils for our straight-talking heroine (what you might call the MRS. BROWN Factor) are outrageously caricatured. Clever crowd-pleaser, too unsubtle to be more ; bonus points for excellent use of baby-as-prop (love the bit where she seems to be perusing a legal document), and for one of the more shocking road-accident scenes in recent memory.]