Films Seen - October 2000

[Pre-'96 films not included.]

BAISE-MOI (48) (dir., Virginie Despentes / Coralie Trinh Ti) Raffaela Anderson, Karen Bach [Karen Lancaume], Marc Rioufol [THELMA AND LOUISE-ish, but what are these heroines rebelling against exactly? Not male oppression per se, since they kill both men and women. Maybe a more post-feminist approach, defining respect more broadly, refusing also to be victimised or patronised - hence the smarmy victim who claims he can "read them like a book" (till they make him plead for mercy), or the nerdy guy who gets it for trying to wear a condom during sex ("for your own protection," he protests). Maybe it's about getting back at a society that's disenfranchised them ("there's no work in France," says someone, the early scenes echoing the dead-end banlieue of LA HAINE). Maybe it's about using and being used - significantly, using men for casual sex allows our heroines to spare them (they don't have to kill once they get what they want). Maybe it is actually about empowerment, rescuing women from traditional roles of 'good' passivity and strength-through-resilience. Maybe it doesn't matter, the film's pocket nihilism rejecting pattern or consistency - the girls' murder spree is seen as a kind of mischief more than a Statement, ditto the ultra-explicit sex scenes and the clip from SEUL CONTRE TOUS (you want extreme? we'll show you extreme!). There's something capriciously adolescent about it, like a teenage girl who pouts at everything around her as a matter of course (except, in this case, every time she pouts someone ends up dead) : it doesn't seem to know where it's going, and makes no bones about it. More enjoyable than the clinical ROMANCE, but also much flimsier, without that sense of really having seen something weird and original (even if exasperating). "Men are afraid of women with a strong personality," it claims - but, a few days later, I've forgotten all about them.]

THE PERFECT STORM (57) (dir., Wolfgang Petersen) George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, John C. Reilly, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio [Not a lot of point, thematically speaking - "bad storm kills people" pretty much covers it - but a certain superficiality is endemic to the true-life genre, especially films about well-documented disasters (most of the energy goes into verisimilitude, plus characterisation seems a bit too close to passing judgment). Not significantly more pointless than TITANIC or APOLLO 13, and just as spectacular - though possibly a bit more craven, since it suggests a likely dramatic arc then ignores it : Clooney's obvious pissiness at being bested at fishing by a female colleague implies rampant machismo as the cause of the tragedy, but when push comes to shove his actions are in fact quite sensible (one suspects the real Captain Tyne was a lot more arrogant, and that legal reasons contributed to the whitewash - though his family did in fact sue for defamation, proving you just can't please some people). Starts off strong, bolstered by a terrific cast, dips in the middle then rallies to a magnificent extended climax (I'm not FX-mad, but sometimes you just have to give credit) ; first section especially effective, evoking a particular fishing-village culture - wives and girlfriends waiting on the pier, working-class bars with Springsteen on the soundtrack and an upstairs room for returning sailors (the awkward mating dance between desperate Bugsy and the tough broad at the bar is both fun and touching), plus of course the tang of the sea and sailing underlying it all. "I don't see the romance in it," says Mastrantonio, but the film certainly does ; as, unfortuntely, does James Horner's battering-ram of a score.]

A MAP OF THE WORLD (28) (dir., Scott Elliott) Sigourney Weaver, David Strathairn, Julianne Moore, Chloe Sevigny [Just infuriating : such a great concept, and the film can't seem to see it. High-strung, frustrated woman feels guilty over the accidental death of a child, plunges happily into self-abasement even though it wasn't her fault - yet the emphasis is wrong, visiting disasters on her and her family (she's falsely accused of child abuse, put in jail, her husband scrambles desperately to raise her bail, the town turns against them) when it should be a wholly private descent into hell : "no-one blames you," says her husband after the kid's death, and that should've been the key to the whole thing. At the very least, the film should be using the conventions of made-for-TV melodrama rather than wallowing in them - as it is, it's just another manipulative tale where a good woman fights to clear her name, full of half-baked digressions both thematic (the clumsy link to daytime talk-shows, reflecting the heroine's burning need to bare her soul and receive punishment / redemption) and narrative (the sub-plot where she slaps the kid's face, carefully set up but leading to nothing) ; the everyday-life early scenes are by far the best of it. Weaver starts off hysterical but grows into the role, mostly by clenching her teeth in the well-known Ripley expression ; everyone else is wasted, Sevigny most outrageously.]

WAKING THE DEAD (46) (dir., Keith Gordon) Billy Crudup, Jennifer Connelly, Molly Parker, Janet McTeer [Ambitious, ambiguous drama : unusual, serious-minded - and crashingly dull. What it seems to be trying for is a variation on Antonioni circa THE PASSENGER, a film where what looks like a thriller plot is in fact an internal struggle, an extension of the hero's fears and frustrations ; intriguing, and the stars are assets - Crudup has one of those effortlessly intelligent faces while Connelly radiates a strange quality, sensual yet veiled and aloof (something to do with prominent eyebrows, unexpectedly mannish in her delicate face). But the pace is sluggish, and Gordon (though he gets some decent atmospherics) doesn't always trust his audience : this kind of thing really needs masterful film-making or it just feels hokey, especially with the Connelly character written as a selfless, super-compassionate Conscience figure, idealism personified. She'd often see some junkie on the street, recalls our hero, and chide the others for ignoring him : "How do you know that's not Jesus?" she'd importune. Lady, please...]

HOLLOW MAN (60) (dir., Paul Verhoeven) Elisabeth Shue, Kevin Bacon, Josh Brolin [Calling this gleefully nasty isn't enough, though it flaunts its feelbad approach from the very first scene and delights in thinking the worst of people (what are the first things a man would do if he could walk around unseen? prevent crimes? redistribute wealth? no - stealthily unbutton sleeping women's blouses, scare little kids by flashing his empty eye-sockets, and of course indulge those peeping-tom fantasies (maybe even, it's implied, in a ladies' toilet, though that's just a little too kinky for Hollywood)). Calling it nasty isn't enough, though, or it would just be a variation on KLUMPS-style grossness : it's decadently nasty, underlining the mayhem with a languid, luxurious rhythm. Verhoeven actually has a lot in common with Brian De Palma, similarly fond of graceful one-shots over a battery of cuts : a crisis at the operating-table gets a slow glide back and along the patient's supine body, craning up to an amused overhead shot of the doctors trying frantically to resuscitate him - the film has the elegant sadism of a rakish sophisticate leaning back in his chair, laughing at the scurrying humanity around him (easy to see how Verhoeven would identify with his anti-hero, who craves "grandeur and spectacle" and has little time for "details" like ethics or compassion). It's obviously the STARSHIP TROOPERS sensibility, though this is a much thinner piece, socio-politically empty - just an action flick really. Nice shivery Jerry Goldsmith score, though, possibly inadvertent hilarity from Brolin as the square-jawed scientist hero ("Goddammit! I lost cohesion!"), and a general impression of clever people having fun ; if nothing else, possibly the only Hollywood film in memory where they actually kill the dog.]

TITUS (62) (dir., Julie Taymor) Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Lange, Alan Cumming, Colm Feore, Harry Lennix [Keep thinking I've over-rated this, but it is very enjoyable while it's unspooling : goes to the same well as GLADIATOR, basically - questions of honour and revenge in a militarist / autocratic context - but there's also a hefty dollop of ROMEO + JULIET (Shakespeare loosened up through Demetrius playing a videogame, or a microphone emblazoned with "SPQR News"), a helping of Broadway musical in the first scenes, a smidgen of BUFFALO 66 at the climax, and a delight in gratuitous naughtiness rarely seen since the days of Visconti's THE DAMNED (another tale of authoritarianism twinned with sexual perversity). Taymor opens it with a little boy playing soldiers, and her style is similarly expansive, fond of God's-eye shots and intricate stagings with different people scattered through the frame (the sets are also prone to gigantism) ; stagy but dynamic, and done with a certain flair. What lets it down is the plot, unfolding like the Troma version of "King Lear" (stubborn old man sees the error of his ways after assorted rapes, mutilations and limb-hackings) ; but we all know whose fault that is...]

GOSSIP (38) (dir., Davis Guggenheim) James Marsden, Lena Headey, Norman Reedus, Kate Hudson, Eric Bogosian [Who thinks up these moralistic teen movies? Do execs honestly think they're passing wholesome messages to the world's youth? Do they go home in the evenings and tell their wives, "You know hon, I think I really did some good today"? Following on the punishment of the schemers in CRUEL INTENTIONS, the be-yourself message of SHE'S ALL THAT and the sensible work-ethic in COYOTE UGLY comes this injunction against telling tales and spreading false rumours, over-directed to the max - tilted camera, light-show visuals, plus the kind of production design that puts a bank of TV screens showing static in a corner of the hero's bedroom, just for atmosphere - and cheesy-hysterical fun for a while, till it gives up on its characters and starts piling on the meaningless twists. Worth catching just for the absurd classroom scenes, with 'confrontational' professor Bogosian hectoring his students through 30-second debates on the nature of Truth, inadequacy of gender stereotypes and other heavy issues (now back to our regularly scheduled sex'n sleaze). I know Ms. Hudson is supposed to be quite the knockout, but she really reminds me of "Roseanne"'s Sara Gilbert ; something about the cut of the mouth, I think...]

SHANGHAI NOON (64) (dir., Tom Dey) Jackie Chan, Owen Wilson, Lucy Liu, Xander Berkeley [Things I like about Jackie Chan : first, the imaginative ways he has of getting out of tight spots during the fight scenes - never just karates his way out, uses props creatively (a pigtail, a horseshoe, a pair of moose antlers ; my favourite's when he's caught in a headlock inside a church bell and buys time by ringing the bell, temporarily causing both self and opponent to vibrate cartoonishly) ; second, the non-aggression in his persona, his first impulse being always to make friends with people - he's a natural defender, not attacker (evading tomahawks, he seems lithe and graceful ; when he tries to throw them back at the marauders, he instantly looks foolish). All of which is why his partnership with Wilson works a lot better than his chalk-and-cheese teaming with Chris Tucker in RUSH HOUR, it being the essence of a 'buddy' movie - as in BUTCH CASSIDY, the obvious reference-point here - that the duo should be opposite personalities yet somehow cut from the same cloth : Wilson, in his very different way, is equally laid-back and ingratiating, and equally imaginative (and of course just as much of an outsider, deliberately playing his cowboy role like a city slicker on a Wild West weekend). He's also very funny, juicing the film up when it threatens to sag - which anyway isn't very often, what with smart-ass Indians, a Chinese drinking-song (sung by our heroes in adjoining bathtubs) and such incidental gags as a dour hangman who drawls "Nothin' personal, boys" as he adjusts the noose around their necks, or the inevitable sheriff who stops a bar-room brawl by firing his gun in the air, only for plaster to descend on his deputy's head. An 'umbrella movie' (not unlike these writers' LETHAL WEAPON 4), accommodating different types of humour - which makes sense, given its subtext of America-as-melting-pot, a new land unenslaved by traditions, where a commoner may look at a princess and different cultures co-exist more or less amicably ; the settlers who mistake Orientals for Jews (and shalom them politely), or Berkeley's crack about a Mexican stand-off without any Mexicans - both widely ridiculed as "lame" in the reviews - are in fact all too appropriate.]

NUTTY PROFESSOR II: THE KLUMPS (27) (dir., Peter Segal) Eddie Murphy, Janet Jackson, Larry Miller [What can I say? I haven't laughed at farts in 25 years, nor do I find it hilarious when old and / or ugly people talk about getting it on (call me naive, but I've always assumed old and ugly people have sex lives too) - which leaves hardly anything to talk about in this raucous comedy. Sherman's still a loveable character (his rueful nod to the days before love came into his life - "I just got used to being alone" - is surprisingly touching), and it's kind of interesting that he should be surrounded by libido, whether his randy relatives or Buddy Love persona (who first appears as a giant erection!), seeks to expunge it / distance himself from it, yet finds it's a necessary part of him : it's like the film is pre-empting those who'd call it over-sexed, warning us not to try and push sex under the carpet. Not bad for what it is, despite laziness (Sherman losing his intelligence seems an arbitrary twist) and clumsiness (wasn't there some more graceful way of cueing a CAPE FEAR reference?), but I struggled through it with gritted teeth. Kind of like being pummelled for an hour and a half by a pair of 300-lb. masseuses with BO and hairy armpits : they know what they're doing, but it isn't pretty, and it certainly isn't pleasant.]

X-MEN (46) (dir., Bryan Singer) Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Hugh Jackman, Anna Paquin, James Marsden [Never read the comic-book, but I can see the attraction - feeding the adolescent urge to belong without losing your identity, with the various X-Persons tending to embody teenage fears and anxieties (Wolverine - alienation, Rogue - sexual insecurity ; not sure what controlling the weather has to do with anything, though). More stuff to think about in the echoes of McCarthyism (Senator Kelly's mutant witch-hunt) and black separatism (Magneto's dream of a "superior" minority living apart, refusing to assimilate), not that the film cares particularly ; it's okay but unexciting, looking more like a commercial than a comic-book, briefly raised by cool gadgets (a self-forming bridge that appears as you walk across), let down by stilted dialogue, bad jokes and a crushingly corporate sensibility. It's the kind of film where no-one gets killed off, since they might prove useful in future instalments, and the last scene basically says "We're making a sequel here, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it". Fans won't be outraged, but they'll surely be annoyed : maybe not a travesty, but there's got to be more to it than this.]

SUPERNOVA (47) (dir., Thomas Lee [Walter Hill]) [DVD version] James Spader, Angela Bassett, Robert Forster, Peter Facinelli, Lou Diamond Phillips [Last half-hour really sucks. If the version released to cinemas was anything like this (and by all accounts it was worse), you can see why Hill removed his name from the credits : much of the build-up is impressively tight, but the interesting characters get systematically eliminated (third-billed Forster's philosophical Captain, writing a treatise on Tom and Jerry, gets about five minutes' screen time) to make way for over-edited action scenes and generic psycho-on-the-loose babble. Before that, a couple of sly mythological references (though I admit I missed the Trojan Horse / "healthy as a horse" connection) and an intriguing subtext, sensualising the meeting of Man and Other via a computer named Sweetie and a stream of innuendo (invaded by the ninth-dimensional device, Phillips admits he's been "playing around with this thing"). Even at worst, a lively canter through familiar territory, guiding its moody-loner hero and hard-bitten heroine ("Mind if I sit down?" "What if I do?") through assorted genre conventions : ALIEN-style crew in peril, check ; 2001-style machine with feelings, check ; gratuitous tit-shot, check...]

COYOTE UGLY (44) (dir., David McNally) Piper Perabo, Maria Bello, Adam Garcia, John Goodman [When fuddy-duddy Officer Jim opined in MAGNOLIA that "you need to rock out sometimes", this was probably what he had in mind : a place flowing with beer and Van Halen, where everyone's in a party mood ("Hell-no, H2O!" they chant if some unfortunate orders water) and guys whoop while gals talk tough behind the bar and strut their stuff on it - but no nudity (except in silhouette), positively no sex (except with the nice Mark Wahlberg clone), and it'd certainly be a foolish gal who'd let having a good time distract her from her responsibilities, not to mention a fulfilling and creative career in the music business. Staggeringly lame and hilariously tame, like a birthday treat for flirty-but-responsible 12-year-old girls from their mildly progressive parents - the premise targets horny saddoes yet everything's geared to the Spice Girls audience, from the puppyish love-interest to such details as our heroine feeling bad 'cause she's only got one message on her answering-machine (nobody loves her). Not quite consistent enough to be a Guilty Pleasure yet I still chuckle when I think about it, especially the ending when LeAnn Rimes (LeAnn Rimes!!!) comes to the club to sing the heroine's godawful songs, and they dance on the bar and high-five. The star's frightened-little-bird face is kind of sweet, and her screechy voice a source of much amusement, especially when she has to sing. Why do I keep calling her Piper Placebo, though?]

HIGH FIDELITY (54) (dir., Stephen Frears) John Cusack, Iben Hjejle, Jack Black, Todd Louiso [Thought I'd love this, but it never really got off the ground for me (probably not irrelevant to mention that the many songs on the soundtrack don't include any of my all-time favourites). Cusack plays a very Cusack-y character, which is part of the problem - imagining this mopey neurotic as a hitman was funny (and strangely plausible) in GROSSE POINTE BLANK, but watching him pick his romantic sores ad infinitum is much like any other self-absorbed wallowing, without even the sense of one-man-against-the-world energy that gives Woody Allen his dramatic backbone. Rob has no larger feelings against the world, doesn't even care about the world, keeps it at arm's-length - that's the point, and the film's intermittently sharp on this kind of emotional autism, resisting any kind of change ("you have to allow for things to happen to people," chides his girlfriend), using music as a shell and a shield, reducing Death to songs about death ; yet it also protects its hero very carefully, never allowing him to become unsympathetic - even when he does something thoughtless, like ignoring an ex-girlfriend's tearful reminder that he broke up with her rather than vice versa (he ignores her pain, thinks only of his own feelings), it's arranged so we already know the truth about the break-up, so we're not going to be shocked or think "Poor girl" (we're not thinking of the girl at all, just his reaction). Amusing, but neither compelling nor very honest ; saved by Black and Louiso, plus the occasional memorable observation. Liked the one about how, with some people, just the way they taste and smell "feels like home" ; so true.]

KIKUJIRO (55) (dir., Takeshi Kitano) Takeshi Kitano, Yusuke Sekiguchi, Kayoko Kishimoto [My reading : a child's-eye view, with a childhood rhythm - limpid and unhurried, silently absorbing harsh moments and vivid dreams - hence a film about childhood ; more so, a film about Kitano's own childhood (Kikujiro's based on his ne'er-do-well father), hence a meditation on the role parents play in a child's development - are they even important / necessary? Kikujiro's never a parent-figure, very much a child himself - utterly selfish, lacking tact or decorum, and we often catch him watching others doing things (tap-dancing, orange-juggling) then trying them himself, like a kid finding out about the world ; yet Masao's quest for his real parent becomes increasingly irrelevant, and fades away entirely when Kikujiro becomes not a surrogate father but a playmate, re-inventing the world through games and skits in the film's extended final section : is this what Kitano's own irresponsible Kikujiro did for him as well - taught him, albeit indirectly, to seek refuge in his own imagination? (Is childhood in fact shaped by play - as gangster relationships were in SONATINE - adults being far less important than adults like to think?) Some will find a highly personal piece, flavoured with deadpan slapstick (invariably in extreme long-shot), some will find BIG DADDY slowed down and stretched out to a way-overlong two-hours-plus ; one thing, however, is for sure - the film's well aware of its genre's sentimental pitfalls, and tweaks them accordingly. Opens with sickly music over lovely pinks and flowers, then sweet little Masao cycling down the street in lyrical slo-mo - and, as he cycles past the camera, we see he's got little plastic angel-wings fastened to his back! Isn't he a little angel...]

ME MYSELF I (42) (dir., Pip Karmel) Rachel Griffiths, David Roberts, Sandy Winton [Starts with teenage girls telling what they want to be when they grow up ("a fashion designer - or maybe a philosopher") : we have so many options when we're young, gradually truncate them as we grow older. Moves on to "the modern woman" and "the catch-phrase of the 90s : 'I want it all' ", which also seems to be the film's own catch-phrase : unable or unwilling to favour one option over another - career-womanhood or marriage and family? - it ends up, far as I could tell, with the implicit (but pointless) message that it's nice to have a little bit of both : exasperatingly, our heroine doesn't use her single-person skills to make the best of her new environment (beyond joyfully jumping the bones of her new husband), yet she doesn't really change as a person either - you'd expect, e.g., that she either revitalise her kids' lives by shaking out the harried-mother cobwebs (unorthodox parenting a la BIG DADDY, say), or get super-maternal in compensation for all her childless years, but in fact she does neither, just looks vaguely bewildered throughout. Some effective bits in BACK TO THE FUTURE style (getting thrown into a new persona without any knowledge of its history), and Griffiths has been styled to suggest Irene Jacob in DOUBLE LIFE OF VERONIQUE - but it's a long way from Kieslowski to the fart jokes, bawdy putting-on-a-diaphragm slapstick and vacuously jolly bits of soundtrack one associates with that terrifying phrase "Australian comedy". Ooh, scary...]

CHICKEN RUN (63) (dir., Peter Lord / Nick Park) With the voices of Mel Gibson, Julia Sawalha, Jane Horrocks, Phil Daniels [Never thought I'd say this, but a bunch of chickens doing aerobics aren't actually very funny in themselves. Jokes could've been sharper in this affable piece, which seems to value solid narrative over incidental dazzle ; Aardman fans will say it's Hollywood clamping down on their quirky sense of humour, pointing wryly to the film's own preoccupation with Anglo-American conflict in the shape of a fast-talking Yankee rooster who takes over the hen-house - but, in the end, offers little of substance (all the intelligent ideas come from the hens themselves). The film explicitly contrasts English and American worldviews - "always tell the truth" vs. "tell them what they want to hear" - and looks like it's veering to the latter in the faux-inspirational Message that's become such a tedious part of the modern kidpic (the hens must follow their dream, be independent, reach their own self-actualisation : "Who'll feed us?" asks the timorous Edwina ; "Nobody!" comes the triumphant reply) ; yet the Message isn't allowed to overwhelm, the proceedings remain grounded in diffident Englishness, and what could be closer to "telling the truth" than the sly undermining of cartoon anthropomorphism when old Fowler, finally getting to talk about his "RAF days", explains that well, of course he wasn't actually flying any planes - after all, he points out, "I'm just a chicken". Toddles along pleasantly enough for an hour or so, then moves up a gear to a rousing climax capped by a delicious final gag ; animation's not too shabby, either...]

ANY GIVEN SUNDAY (48) (dir., Oliver Stone) Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx, Dennis Quaid, James Woods [Sport as War : sounds good, and it might work better if I actually knew the first thing about football (not "American football", in deference to US readers). Clearly more to it than that, however, given that Stone's sensory-overload style is briefly exhilarating even if you don't really know what's going on - the opening game, shuttling between field and dugout, cheerleaders and commentators, Fatboy Slim and assorted bodily fluids, goes on his showreel of bravura set-pieces. It's his view of the game itself that gets tedious - emphasising the raw aggression again and again, players as warriors and gladiators ("We hit, we win!" booms the coach ; "No intensity, no victory!"), then moaning flatulently about how it's "got to be about more than winning", and the beauty of a team looking out for each other, and the tragedy of a "pure" game ruined by TV and the greedy rich dilettantes sitting in the Directors' box, not even looking at the game as they wheel and deal. You might say it confirms Stone as a missing link between John Ford and Michael Bay, hymning testosterone both as bar-room philosopher and rapid-fire flash-merchant, with a bare-knuckle belligerence that goes beyond either ; the film revels in brutality, which would've been fine had it built up the characters in between (like all good war movies, including Stone's own), but it inflates them into Statements, picking up angles along the way - the class-war angle, the racial angle (illustrated with a BEN HUR clip of galley slaves), the socio-political, USA-is-all-about-winning angle (there's also a homoerotic angle in there somewhere, but it steers well clear of that) : it's bloated and reductive at the same time, making football stand for all kinds of things even as it's being stripped down to its essence. Hollow, exhausting and gratuitously coarse (vignette at cocktail party : "Are you married?" ; "Well, I'm between marriages" ; "Between marriages, eh? What do you do for dick?") ; wants to make you hoot and cheer then weep into your beer, and it probably does for some people.]

GONE IN SIXTY SECONDS (37) (dir., Dominic Sena) Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, Giovanni Ribisi, Robert Duvall [They lie! Sixty seconds are up and it's still there, bashing away at my poor defenceless memory. Not terrible - esp. the second half, which is wall-to-wall action - just uninspired, managing to neuter such flamboyant players as Cage and Jolie, not to mention professional smart-ass Scott Rosenberg (though a robber does refer to his vertically-challenged black colleague as "a little ghetto smurf"). Slim pickings, and the premise actually works against it : 50 cars in a night is just too much - the robberies get devalued and increasingly perfunctory, especially since most of them consist only of hot-wiring a car and driving off with it. Nothing really sticks in the memory (even the unusually soft look - for a Bruckheimer - feels listless rather than intriguing) ; well, maybe one thing does. Did I imagine it, or does the family-photos montage in the opening credits feature the clumsiest, most slapdash composite work this side of Ed Wood? The people aren't even looking in the same direction, for crying out loud...]