Author: reynolds

Hitchhiker

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that there are at least a few fans of Adams among us, many of whom may be avoiding the potential misfire of this film version. Don’t; it’s well worth seeing, and amazingly good at capturing that precise Adams tone–somehow merging Spike Jones’ ceaseless ADD-led invention, Alec Guinness’ best sad-faced winsomeness, and Doctor Who’s ludicrous sci-fi noodling. (There: I wrote a cap review without mentioning Monty Python.)

I particularly loved the ‘throwaway’ bits–unlike an American counterpart, like “Airplane,” which spitfires punchlines, “Hitchhiker” offers up an endless array of wonderful set-ups. The movie’s best bits are an inventive stream of “guy walks into…” scenarios; who needs to play to the cheap seats with big yuks? From its opening credits, a bad ballad sung by dolphins, with a bad montage of jumping swimming chittering dolphins, you realize that the film is profoundly silly. Just like Adams.

When it gets “funny,” it loses a little luster. Sam Rockwell’s kind of fun, as George Bush. Mos Def is very fine, but subtle to the point of barely relevant for much of the movie. And Zooey Deschanel is about 1/3 as charming as in “All the Real Girls,” but that’s still pretty good. Even Martin Freeman–who’s good–doesn’t blow one away. Which is as it should be; the film (like the novel) is about supporting players, backgrounds, settings–the extras normally not visible in space opera. Bill Nighy walks in, late-movie, and steals the thing.

I got nothing much more to say than: it’s fun.

Dolls/Primer

Two quick takes on two films recently watched (in the midst of tons of work, though, I have seen not much at all):

“Dolls” — didn’t do it for me. I love the look of Takeshi Kitano’s films–the strange tableaux he uses for his composition–and the oblique rhythms they rely upon for character development and editing. But after a wonderful opening, where a troupe performs a traditional ‘puppet’ show about failed love, the film enacts three separate versions of those archetypal plots, none of which escaped a dull portentousness. Or, rather, what I liked in the 5 minutes of the puppet show I disliked in another ‘medium’ over 30-45 minutes; I don’t think the film translated well, and that may be a flaw shifting from the elaborate artifice of the dolls to ‘real’ people, or it might be an American watching a Japanese genre that he didn’t quite get.

(That said, it is intriguing to think about all of Kitano’s films as reworkings or translations of traditional Japanese genres, particularly in light of “Zatoichi,” which I found to be lovely and funny and surprising in its reimagination of hoary old samurai tropes. “Kikujiro,” too, has all these interesting intertitles with paintings and crafts that may be more culturally-resonant than this viewer could make out.)
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O Canada

I watched “Waydowntown” last evening, between bouts of grading, which came upon me like the ague. Luckily, the film was funny, often clever, even well-shot. I write about it mostly to offer up a flick maybe you hadn’t heard of that’s worth a look-see; hell, I don’t even know how I heard about it. And then a word or two about Canadian film.

The plot: Office workers, young, full of either ennui or vinegary idealism or both. The narrator–our hero–often slips into surreal flights of fancy. There’s a few flashy camera tricks. Despite all that, the film is funny, understated. My favorite bits involve one worker’s increasing claustrophobia, and her attempts to find refreshment through magazine cologne ads. (The central conceit, as much of a plot as there is, is a bet between 4 workers about staying inside the connected tunnels of the downtown area for as long as possible.) I’m hesitant to say too much–it’s pleasures are limited but worthy. One of those small independent films that actually seems to be independent of trends, hipster style, flashy attempts to break out of the indie ghetto. Instead, it’s pretty comfortable about being the slight, subtle, focused character study it is.
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Scripts

Under the Scorsese post, I was going to bring up Richard Price (who wrote the “NY Stories” segment directed by Marty, whom I call Marty). Price is a helluva novelist and an equally strong screenwriter, although the stuff he’s done tends toward the better B-movie genres and thus gets too little acclaim. (“Ransom,” for instance, despite workaday direction by little Ronnie Howard, gives Delroy Lindo and Gary Sinise and even Mel Gibson some great gristly chatter.)

There are a couple screenwriters or scripts which get the nod–they get bandied about in the trades, ballyhooed on awards show; it’s conceivable that they, too, are for better or worse celebrities in the star machine. Kaufman, the delightfully execrable Joe Eszterhas, etc.

But who are the unsung heroes of film writing? One of the reasons I love “After Hours” is its astonishingly precise and pitch-perfect script, by Joseph Minion. (I actually do searches trying to see what he’s done since–and it’s pretty hit or miss. Although the most recent flick he wrote, “On the Run,” has two great performances by Michael Imperioli and, especially, John Ventimiglia, who plays Artie Bucco on “The Sopranos.”) UNSUNG, now–don’t say John Sayles or Preston Sturges.

And speaking of unsung, I should add Delroy Lindo to my post on presences, or just give him his own heading. He is particularly astonishing in “Crooklyn,” “Clockers,” and even salvages some of “A Life Less Ordinary.”

Seductive Presences

Since Jeff asked–

Seductive presences on film–people who, when they show up onscreen, you can’t turn your eyes away: Sergi Lopez, Denzel Washington, Isabelle Huppert, Cate Blanchett, River Phoenix, Johnny Depp, Kate Winslet. Ruth Gordon. The entire cast of “Deadwood,” especially McShane and Olyphant. Ben Kingsley in “Sexy Beast” but not in “Gandhi.” Jeff Turner (I’ll send you the footage). Holly Hunter, Sigourney Weaver, Susan Sarandon. Burt fucking Lancaster. Don Cheadle. Mifune. Takeshi Kitano. Tony Leung and Andy Lau. Dennis Haysbert. Graham Greene, even in “Dances with Wolves.” Samuel L. Jackson. Travolta, one out of five times he’s onscreen. Stanley Tucci, Tony Shalhoub, Hope Davis, Campbell Scott, Oliver Platt (and, despite this, “The Impostors” isn’t so great. But still). James Gandolfini and Edie Falco. Edward James Olmos. Once upon a time, Jeff Goldblum and Peter Weller. Jeffrey Wright. Jonathan Rhys-Meyer. Christian Bale, if well-fed. Philip Seymour Hoffman, John Reilly. Harry Dean Stanton. Vince Vaughn. Scarlett Johanneson. Rosario Dawson. Kimberly Elise.

Action and Violence

Maybe these are two genres. Maybe they’re 50. But let’s lump ’em together.

I am curious about two things from Arnab’s recent posts:
–Name 2, 3 good action films that people here won’t know. Then try to say why.
[I was glad to see Michael clarify why “Wolf” wasn’t good, since I’d forgotten. (And I’d note: Arnab, I did see it in the theaters. It was good to watch for about ten minutes, then…. see what Michael said. And THAT said, watch the thing again and come back and tell us why we’re wrong.)]

–I can think of any number of films that, like “Funny Games,” ostensibly show how the audience’s pleasures in violence should be challenged. I can’t think of one that works, that doesn’t arouse the wrong passions, that doesn’t thrill. Are there any successful anti-violence films? (I recall, vaguely, that Truffaut said you can’t make an anti-war film; the medium sensationalizes, is about arousing sensations in the viewer…)

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Cartoons

3 quick points and/or questions:
1. I have the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, which on occasion I pull down and relish. Today I got it out for Max. My god I forgot how blisfully violent they are; we watched “Scaredy Cat,” and there’s a fine little scene where Sylvester, terrified of some angry mice, wants to stay upstairs with Porky, but Porky kicks him out. So Sylvester goes to a drawer and grabs a gun, which he holds up to his head, threatening suicide. Now that is comedy my friends. Max loved it. (Porky then opens the gun and drops the bullets all over the floor.)

2. We also got him “Bambi.” I’m leery of most Disney stuff, but this one sticks in my head from childhood. I recall a drive-in, pajamas, it starting to rain toward the end of the film. (So, as fire erupts in the forest, it’s pouring outside my window…) God the animation is amazing. And every time the stag made his regal entrance, up above the action, it recalled very precisely shots from Miyazaki’s “Princess Mononoke.”

3. Has anyone seen “Steamboy”? I was convinced by a friend here to seeing Miyazaki, and he was right; this friend also bought me “Akira,” which I admire but I don’t love. So… should I bother with “Steamboy?”

Lisboa/Sergi Lopez

I watched a reasonable but not-great Spanish noir called “Lisboa”. Really good cast (Carmen Maura, Federico Luppi from Men with Guns) with the standout star Sergi Lopez. The film itself, again, is mediocre: a traveling porn salesman–and, note to Mark, that may be the color of your parachute, my job-seeking friend–runs into a woman on the run, dreadful husband and family in pursuit. Will the salesman act, will he be moral, will he save her… or… well, it’s a noir film. So you guess.

But Lopez is what I wanted to post about. Damn, the guy can act. In “Dirty Pretty Things” I’m told he spoke his lines (in English) phonetically, yet he oozes a smug confident sleaze. In “With a Friend Like Harry,” he burns a hole in the screen–his eyes are just a little too close together, and they brim with possibilities going on behind whatever dialogue he’s been given. Lopez looks unassuming–he looks short on film, so in person he’s probably 2′3″. And he’s a bit lumpy. And he slouches. And yet I’d say he’s one of the most seductive presences on film today. The guy can act…

Yes Men

God, I wanted to love this film. Two pranksters take on the WTO, getting invited to conferences to present (as reps of world trade) on globalization in some wonderfully twisted provocations. The actual pranks are quite good–a speech lamenting the Civil War in America, for instance, because normal market forces would have eventually and more peacefully evolved from unpaid labor (shipped to a new country) into efficiently-paid labor forces kept in their own cheap homes/countries (while the corporations run the forces from afar).

Three solid speeches/pranks, and lots and lots of filler. The pranksters hang out and talk, inanely, about how they’re prepping the prank. We see them sleep, or shop for the right suit. I was so sad to see such lousy, sloppy filmmaking for a subject–and a mode of satiric intervention–I find so important.

1. Back to documentaries–here’s a good example of a bad one.

2. And they remind you why Michael Moore is actually one hell of a talent. His ability to shape agit-prop narrative, to entertain as he attacks…. I wish I could recommend “The Yes Men,” but you’d be much better revisiting Moore’s tv show “The Awful Truth.”

Speaking of tripe

I gave “The Transporter” a shot, after my brother weighed in on how amazing it was. It wasn’t. I would call it, if you will, the flip-side to “Goodbye Dragon Inn.” A lot happens in this film, but you don’t care, whereas in that film, as I understand it, nothing happens, and you don’t care.

Maybe that reveals something about pure cinema–the purest product provokes the most sincere and deeply existential apathy.