Sideways

This comedy tells the story of two middle-aged friends, Miles and Jack, a failed writer and a minor actor respectively, and their adventures in Uncle Jim’s backyard (i.e. California’s wine country) the week before Jack is to be married.   They’ve been friends since college despite, or maybe because of, being opposites (Miles is intellectual; Jack’s a bonehead).   Both now face mid-life crises:   Jack’s looking to sow wild oats before tying the knot whilst Miles has wallowed in a deep funk since his divorce.   The film takes the risk of making its two leads deeply flawed.   In fact, they’re downright heels, though not malicious.   Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh play wine-loving girlfriends who become entwined with our heroes.   For Miles (Paul Giametti in another of his pitch-perfect performances), wine is one of the things that makes life worth living.   In fact, the same qualities of careful craftsmanship that Miles discerns in a great bottle of wine apply to this movie: it's subtle, layered, detailed, occasionally bold.   Recommended to wine enthusiasts like dad, although not all will share Miles’ violent opposition to Merlot).   Directed by Alexander Payne.

- Dec 5, 2004  

Birth

This is the one you might have heard about for the scene in which Nicole Kidman shares a bathtub with the young boy who insists that he is the reincarnation of her ten-years-dead husband.   There was plenty of tittering from the audience at this and other scenes (of which maybe one or two were actually meant to be funny) as the little boy convinces Kidman that he’s the real deal.   Without giving too much away, there’s a revelation late in the film that seems to explain everything and which comes as a bit of a letdown if you assume that all is revealed (as I confess I did).   I came out of the film rather underwhelmed, except by the top-notch acting, until my friend voiced a different interpretation that blindsided me.   Turns out that what had seemed an open-and-shut case had depths I’d not pondered.   I’d recommend this one with the caveat that it enhances the experience to pay close attention or at least to have an observant friend tag along.

Lauren Bacall plays Kidman’s mother, having last been seen opposite Kidman in Von Trier’s “Dogville”.   The director is Jonathan Glazer who gave us the memorable “Sexy Beast”.   His work here is art-film paced, with long, long takes that please me but which might be a bit much for today’s ADD-afflicted audiences.

- Nov 19, 2004  

The Incredibles

This latest massive-budget computer-animated flick from Pixar Studios is a lot of fun, although “Triplets of Belleville” is still more my cup o’ tea.   The story: superheroes have been driven by the government into a sort of witness relocation program whereby they assume the identities of everyday suburbanites.   This is thanks to lawsuits resulting in massive awards to plaintiffs that have sued the “supers” for the twisted necks, etc. that are the inadvertent fallout of their efforts to save society.   The Incredibles are a super-family forced to live lives of quiet desperation.   When the kids complain that they’re not allowed to let their superpowers shine, the reply is that everyone is super.   This brings us to one of the film’s central and reiterated themes: if everyone is special, then no one is.   The politics of this theme are worth contemplating. Circumstances bring the Incredibles to an island inhabited by an evil genius who’s developing a doomsday robot.   Once the film gets to the island it turns into pretty much an eye-popping thrill ride, and the visuals are indeed stunning.   Pixar’s movies are solid entertainment with more heart and respect for the audience than some of their rivals.   The director is Brad Bird, who gives voice to perhaps the funniest character, Edna, a dwarfishly petite secret-weapons designer based on “Q” from the James Bond movies.   - Nov 12, 2004

The Grudge

I had hoped that this horror film would be a bit of good Halloween fun, but alas it’s just so-so.   It’s a remake by director Takashi Shimizu of his own “Ju-On” series of Japanese horror pictures.   I haven’t seen any of those but I’ve been given to understand that something has been lost in the translation.   Sarah Michelle Gellar plays an American student in Japan whose classroom-assigned community service gets ugly when she’s sent to care for an invalid in a house haunted by vengeful spirits that curse anyone who enters.   One wishes for Gellar to channel the ghoul-butt kicking chops she honed as Buffy.   “The Grudge” trots out the most shopworn of horror genre elements, down to menacing phone calls and even the hoariest one in the book: tension builds up as a character explores the shadows and then HISS!! –  a cat leaps at the camera.  

Actually, what happened last Tuesday, Nov. 2 was more horrifying than this film could ever be and will result in carnage that the horror movie industry might envy, although the blood won’t be of the stage variety.   And speaking of malevolent curses, if only we could put a doozy on 51.01% of Ohio voters!      

I include a link to the “Immigrating to Canada” website below.    

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/index.html

- Nov 5, 2004

I [Heart] Huckabees

As “Stop W. Day” approaches, one looks to comedy to dispel the malaise brought on by the grim realization that among one’s countrymen and women there are those who can gaze upon the folly of W. and say, “Thanks, I’ll have four more of this disastrous, repulsive regime”.   Comedies like this one, for example.   (Actually, this film has nothing to do with the election.   I just couldn’t resist a gratuitous swipe at W.).  

“I [Heart] Huckabees” is the latest from writer/director David O. Russell, whose remarkable “Three Kings” so nicely eviscerated the folly of Bush I’s Gulf War.   Russell reminds me of a quote I recently read from Nicole Kidman (not that she’s in this movie) in which she said that if you look at the directors she tends to work with, “they are philosophers. They are not about sheer entertainment but, I suppose, addressing some of the bigger questions in life. They don't necessarily give you the answer.”   Russell is that kind of director, and “Huckabees” is that kind of movie.

Jason Schwartzman plays a young environmental campaigner who employs a pair of “existential detectives” (Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin) to discover if there’s any meaning to a series of coincidental encounters he’s had with a tall African doorman.   Hoffman and Tomlin’s contention is that there’s a connection between all of us, citing the fact that all living things--and the earth itself--are made up of matter from the Big Bang.   Isabelle Huppert plays the pair’s ideological rival, a dark French existentialist who sees in the universe only a great void: there’s no interconnectedness and no meaning.   Huckabees is the Wal-Mart-like corporation which seeks to co-opt Schwartzman’s environmental coalition for P.R. purposes.   Rounding out a fine cast are Jude Law, Naomi Watts, and Mark Wahlberg in a very funny turn as a fireman who in the wake of September 11, 2001 has become obsessed with the way the world turns on the political economy of oil.

This is a comedy of “the wacky human condition”, as Tomlin has put it, and I thought it was hilarious although I can’t say it’s for a general audience.   Like all philosophy, it’s an investigation into “man and his place in the universe”, and as with philosophy, you may occasionally be left scratching your head or wondering what’s the point, but it’s worth it for the odd insight, the delightful mental stimulation, and to enjoy the very human endeavor of the pursuit of truth and understanding.

- Oct 29, 2004