I was very curious to see this film about a twelve-year-old American superstar who goes AWOL on the set of an absurdly over-the-top action flick being shot in Toronto (the boy plays the incorrigible son of the US President who must save America after his father is captured by terrorists), but it’s fairly derivative. I’m thinking Don McKellar hoped to make a satiric, cinematic indictment of a culture obsessed with erotic innocence (think Paddy Chayefsky filtered through James Kincaid), but such plans are tricky. How can you capture such a subject without falling pray to the very impulses you hope to critique? Indeed, though Taylor Brandon Burns is a petulant, spoiled brat—spurned on by a mother always looking for a bigger paycheck—what he really wants to be is a normal boy (what that exactly means is up for grabs). I guess the film never felt dangerous enough. Sure, the kid is an ugly American who—chastely—loses his virginity to a quasi-prostitute (on the set in a replica of the Oval Office), but McKellar and co-writer Michael Goldbach offer up little more than a pastiche of coming-of-age clichés masquerading as a character. And McKellar’s character—a former film studies professor now indie filmmaker who drives the rich and famous to work to put food on the table—is also problematic. Is he the voice of reason/father figure Taylor’s been looking for or is he simply looking for a star to hitch himself to (or does he just want to fuck Taylor’s mom)? Anyway . . . Dave Foley is a lot of fun. Kincaid acolytes will be sad to learn there are no bottoms on display, but there is a running joke concerning a Hollywood rumor involving goldfish and the boy’s ass, so I guess that will suffice.
light, frothy fun
keeping the topic title general so that others can add to it as well, but what i really want to plug is a bollywood blockbuster from this summer: bunty aur babli. a wonderful piece of entertainment about a young man and a young woman from two small towns somewhere in north india who decide that they want the kind of exciting life that they read about happening elsewhere in the country. so they run away, meet each other and begin a life of cons and scams. the plot (or the film’s view of the small town/big city divide) doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny but the film is so giddy it doesn’t matter. the actors–abhishek bachchan and rani mukherjee–are perfect, the writing is good (and the subtitles mostly adequate), and the direction and music are also excellent. the movie does sag for the last 25 minutes (it is about 2 hours 40 long) but moves pretty quickly until then. i think it should be pretty accessible to non-indian audiences, though some of the nuances of accent and demeanour (which are codes for issues of class etc.) will probably get lost. netflix has it, so if you’re interested in mostly mindless fun or in seeing what’s big in india these days, rent it. it also features a blockbuster “item” song (featuring aishwarya rai) that’s been all the rage in the country for some months now.
Off the Map
A small little film, directed by Campbell Scott, that very occasionally slips into a precious recalling-my-young-girlhood-and-becoming-an-adult ramble (mainly through a precariously balanced voiceover, that sometimes prances into convention), but… BUT I really liked this film.
A family lives in rural New Mexico, avoiding jobs and most commodity traffic–and taxes; a tax man (Jim True-Frost, late of The Wire, and almost a revelation in this role) shows up, falls in love, stays on. The father (Sam Elliott) suffers from an undefined, pervasive depression; the mother (an astounding Joan Allen, unlike I’ve ever seen her before) remains almost unflappable yet utterly grounded; the taciturn family friend (J. K. Simmons) seems quiet out of sheer bewilderment at the family he so clearly loves.
It’s funny, occasionally moving, almost always just that perfect small distance from conventional in its approach to dialogue and narrative. It’s full of marvelous images, ‘though sometimes the director seems a bit too intent on wondering at the environment, the camera rushing around to take it all in.
Great acting, but don’t expect a rush of narrative energy or even grandstanding actorly moments–it’s a small film.
I haven’t got much to say beyond see it.
The Constant Gardener
This is a first rate film, directed with assurance and maturity by Fernando Meirelles. Reynolds has mentioned before how I felt great ambivalence about City of God. It was a dazzling piece of filmmaking but it seemed to me that Meirelles foregrounded his skills as a director over the provocative material; the results being a film that makes a commodity spectacle out of poverty and crime. There is some of that in The Constant Gardener, but I still feel as if the filmmakers work very diligently to not get in the way of the story (even if the generic designs of Le Carre’s conspiracy thriller drag things down in its final act). I look forward to our discussion. This is a film worth talking and arguing about.
Kontroll
I can’t recommend this film more highly; even though my expectations had been pumped up by extravagant praise in various reviews, I still found it surprising, visually quite stunning, and a hell of a lot of fun. (And Kris sat down to watch five minutes, figuring it was among the cheesy foreign thrillers I clutter our queue with, but got sucked right in.) It’s not great, but as a first film, working on a minimal budget, it’s among the most stylish and entertaining films I’ve seen all summer.
At Last the 1948 Show
Just a quick take (aren’t all takes quick nowadays?). At Last the 1948 Show is great fun. But don’t buy it. Sadly I must report that the 2-disc set is a total rip off. Why spread 5 episodes over 2 discs? All you need is cash. Netflix it ASAP, for Marty Feldman is sublime. Myself? I’ve rediscovered my fondness for Tim Brooke-Taylor. When will The Goodies make it to DVD?
Four Yorkshiremen, and all that…
More Quick Takes
I watched Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior the other night and enjoyed it. Tony Jaa seems to defy gravity and the big set pieces were well constructed and entertaining, and, I think, there was little use of wires to manufacture the illusion (though I may be proved wrong). One chase scene through the Bangkok streets was excellently orchestrated and a Tuk-Tuk chase scene was a lot of fun. Pure genre flick–nothing necessarily original–and though it lacks the audacious high style of Kung Fu Hustle, I would argue this modest tale of rural values overcoming urban corruption has a lot more heart. Continue reading More Quick Takes
More quick takes
Cypher–industrial spy-slash-scifi-slash-PhilipKDickian thriller with Jeremy Northam, who’s amazingly good, by the guy who directed Cube, Vincenzo Natali. Like that film, Cypher is a lot of fun and stylishly shot on shoestring budget for about half an hour, then once your confusion about the story kind of dissipates (and I got the ‘twist’ about halfway in), it remains stylish but isn’t that terribly engaging. But, still, Northam has some fun.
Continue reading More quick takes
Quick takes
Bad Boy Bubby–I had much trouble getting past the sound issues. (A prefatory note on the dvd indicates that the movie was recorded in binaural sound, replicating the way the protagonist hears. I thought–how interesting–and then struggled and grimaced my way through the movie, unable to pick up all that much of what was going on one moment, then blasted the next.)
Continue reading Quick takes
The Americanization of Emily
Another quick recommendation: this apparently came out as part of a box set of “controversial” films. It’s a doozy–in some ways structured (and scored, and shot) like a romantic comedy set in Britain during WWII, with James Garner as the hero/cad, James Coburn in the Tony Randall sidekick role (but getting a lot more action), and Julie Andrews as the perky, spunky British war widow. But Paddy Chayefsky wrote the script, and there are these dizzying moments of speechifying — Garner ripping apart the European contempt for Americans or savaging the glorification of war; a lovers’ fight between Garner and Andrews that is ruthlessly cutting, not cutesy — and a dark, dark satire on the way wars are run and remembered. I’m not sure what exactly made it controversial–the heroine’s loose (and unconcerned) sexuality, the savage demystification of D-Day and WWII heroics… but it still has a
It’s not Network-good, but it’s pretty damn good.