Movies

Life of one sort imitates life of another. And while it’s busy being all imitate-y, art sneaks up behind it and makes fun of it. Good art does, anyway. Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) and his team of oceanic documentarians, resplendent in their matching red stocking caps and sea-blue jump-suits, reflect what they see as they observe the life swimming around them. They dance, easily as colorful as the fantastic, imaginary, sea creatures that dot this movie with a casual disregard for taxonomy, in rituals as confounding as they are informed by their own curious drives and desires. The humans in this movie have been cast adrift and cope by following patterns unique to their genus or phylum. When they bump into other groups, the result – as in the “wild kingdom” – is usually violence. Or sex. Really, they are doing the best that they can.

Bill Murray is perfect. It seems to be becoming a habit with him. The Wilson brother (I mix up the first names) is exactly right. Angelica Huston, Willem Dafoe (comic scene-stealer? What the fuck?!), Kate Blanchett, et al, revolve with balletic ease throughout Alpa-Steve’s pack of fish-people with exactly the sort of understated expertise that you would have bet your bottom dollar on. The casting odds (casting odds) were definitely in director Wes Anderson’s favor, and he didn’t fuck with a sure thing.

Most importantly, this movie completely J’s parents. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. I had to chuckle a few nights later when they rented “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” looking for something “funnier.”

I had read some pretty dismissive reviews about this movie, so was not really expecting a whole lot. Well, actually, I was expecting – in spite of what I’d been told – to have a good time watching Jason Bourne trot around all kinds of exciting and exotic places doing all kinds of exciting and exotic things. And I was right. And so were the other reviewers.

Yes, the movie does go by as a sort of a travellogue. I’m still not sure how that is a bad thing. The locations are great (India, Berlin, Moscow, the U.S.). Each one is there for a reason. I never felt like the filmmakers were just zipping off to another country for no reason. It’s the plot, stupid.

Matt Damon is believable as Jason Bourne: MacGuyver for the new millenium. He’s all pent up and moral…just right.

The camera work is top-notch. They really do a great job of putting you right in the car during the chases (the Moscow chase is really amazing), and there is a documentary-style that they went for and accomplished. As is mentioned by Damon in one of the DVD-extras (of which there are many) there is much that happens at the edges of the frame. It really feels like the characters are doing what they do and we’re just barely seeing it; Like being let in on a secret. It’s a refinement on the style pioneered first on television (as far as I know) by the “NYPD Blue” folks (who sucked at it), except the camera doesn’t swoop and jerk around just for the sake of swooping and jerking which always makes me feel kind of sick. For a great example of how to use this style to nauseating excess, see Steven Soderberg’s cinematic aerobics in “Oceans 12.” Just be sure to take some Dramamine, or bring a barf-bag.

Who can resist a flick about five kids in a cabin in the woods, surrounded by suspicious townsfolk, and the creeping death of a skin virus? Ok, so a lot of people resisted it. Maybe “resist” is a strong word. A lot of people just simply didn’t go see it. That’s a shame too…the movie is really pretty fun. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, is occasionally scary, sexy, funny, creepy, and thrilling. It also isn’t a whole lot of any of those things.

How scary is it? I watched this one alone after everyone else was asleep and didn’t even have to run up the stairs after turning off the basement light (where I watch my flicks). That means that it wasn’t very scary. Not like the first ten minutes of “Jeepers Creepers,” which was among the scariest ten minutes I’ve seen on screen (but which is unfortunately followed by some of the most pedestrian horror crap around); Not like the time in 1980 – when I was in sixth grade and had my first projection-screen television experience while babysitting for the new neighbors – and was all like, “hey, I wonder what this movie ‘Alien’ is all about? I like space! Neat!” and just went right on ahead and put that baby in the machine. Julie and the kids can thank that two hours of my life for much of my personality. Honest, it’s not my fault. I’ve been damaged.

So there you are. “Cabin Fever” is worth watching. Just don’t run any traffic lights getting to the rental store, and if you’re looking for scary, grab something else too.

“Van Helsing” was enjoyable enough and the effects are mostly really neat-o. The story is…well…it’s hard to say. It’s not like the story sucked or anything, it was just kind of sort of there to show monsters. So, as far as showing monsters goes the story accomplished just what it was supposed to. Beyond that it was pretty snoozy.

Hugh Jackman was good. Kate Bekinsale was good. Everyone was good. Except the guy playing Dracula. He was a bit dissappointing. I guess when so many people have taken a stab at the character there’s just so much to hope for. Kind of like Henry VII, or Hamlet. The character is such an archetype. Dracula is such a familiar presence in the world that he seems to have substance beyond any time he’s been performed, and always seems lacking when an actor offers their interpretation. For my money, Gary Oldman is an exception (Brahm Stoker’s Dracula, 1992), and really did some cool shit in the part. Too bad the rest of the cast made the movie feel like the “Beverly Hills 90210 Senior Play.”

The DVD extras were pretty cool. Some mildly funny bloopers, behind the scenes looks at the creature creation, and an interesting experiment in something that they call “You’re in the Movie.” They strap little cam all over the set and on cameras and then show you different “behind the scenes” views of scenes as they unfold. It could have been better and seemed like someone had the great idea an nobody followed through in post-production.

Pet peeve #678: Referring to Frankenstein’s monster as “Frankenstein,” especially after acknowledging the difference earlier in the movie.

I’ve decided to try and watch a movie every day (or night, as time premits). Being the sharing sort, I’ve decided to let you all know what I think of them.

Night before last I watched “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.” The night before, Julie and I tried to watch “Envy,” but turned it off half way through. More on that later. Last night I read my book instead of watching a movie. So there: I’ve already failed you, gentle reader. No more sad anticipation of inevitable dissappointment necessary. First, let’s talk about “Master and Commander.”

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Movies: “Envy” and “Master and Commander”Read More »

In an absolutely shocking development, Michael Moore’s latest documentarian assault on corporate and governmental greed and dishonesty saw it’s opening weekend attendance boosted by the tight-lipped crusade against it’s release. Oddly, the attack by a transparently dogmatic and partisan group, against a transparently dogmatic and partisan filmmaker, backfired and resulted in record attendance for a documentary and the highest showing for any movie this weekend. Surprising, after it worked so well with Mel Gibson’s movie!

The success of “Farenheit 9/11” certainly came as a huge shock to the makers and distributors of it’s competition – “White Chicks” and “Garfield” – who were expecting a larger turnout following the intense pre-release excitement surrounding their movies. “I don’t understand it. Garfield is so popular. I remember when I was in Junior High in 1980…I just couldn’t get enough of Garfield,” Pete Hewitt, director of “Garfield,” definitely did not say. “And we got Jennifer Love Hewitt,” the director continued to whine, “Everybody loves J-Lo. Don’t they? Don’t they?”

John Blofeld, a guy walking down the street in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio, said of “White Girls”: “I just don’t get it. How could that offensive, ill-informed piece of political trash beat out a comedy about two black guys dressing up like white girls? The world just doesn’t make sense any more.”

After a whithering piece by Christopher Hitchens (Slate), and the public relations onslaught put on by freakishly tight-assed christian groups across the country, how anybody saw their way clear to dropping the 8 bones to watch this movie is also beyond the imagining of school marm Francis Fornofsky of Homer, Michigan. “It’s a mystery to me. I mean, who in their right mind would want to see something so controversial? Not me, I assure you,” scolded Fornofsky through (of course) pursed lips.

When Hitchens (Formerly of “The Nation,” nice liberal turned pro-war hawk) reduces Moore’s film to a quivering mass that by all rights owes us all very sincere apology, we all must look deep within to try and discover what it is that drives us to subject ourselves to such self-flaggelating (so-called) entertainment.

“To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of “dissenting” bravery.”

Well, it’s a good thing that he didn’t call is “dishonest and demogogic,” or “a piece of crap.” I mean, really…after reading that, who would want to see the film? You? I think not.