Shitty By the Sea

2004-02-28 - 23:11:00
Current music: "Star Maps" Soundtrack

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CITY BY THE SEA (2002) - d. Michael Caton-Jones
Not good. Not good at all.

Here's the truth: Robert DeNiro is boring. He didn't used to be, but, aside from a funny-as-hell turn in 'Meet the Parents', I haven't really been interested in anything he's done since 'Wag the Dog' (where he's really underrated). Here, he's a shambles. The story's crap in the first place - 90% of this film's problems seem to come from the overstuffed script - but his performance, an attempt at something smaller, maybe less 'intense,' is so lacking in detail and any genuine sense of a person behind the mask that I felt ashamed to keep watching him. He hasn't mailed it in like this since 'Frankenstein.' One thing that's different about him in this movie, is the weight he's wearing. He's not the same kind of fatty that he was in 'Raging Bull,' it's much more a natural, middle-age kind of extra pounds, and it's interesting to see him looking like that.

If William Forsythe runs around with a long blonde mullet and a shotgun and I'm bored to tears, there's something wrong, probably at a spiritual level. This film suffers from poor moral character.

Frances McDormand isn't even good in it. Eliza Dushku isn't any good, either. It was already pretty clear that it wasn't going to get any better for her than 'Bring It On'. Anyway, she's terrible. I wouldn't cast her in a school play.

All it has going for it is James Franco, who's an interesting actor and is probably due. After seeing his ultra-wooden performance in 'Spider-Man' I'd kind of thought that the James Franco in 'Freaks and Geeks' was a total fluke, but here he takes a classic 50s-style James Dean role and runs with it.

The worst part of the movie isn't the directing, the acting or the script, though. The score, by John Murphy, makes it clear, right from the opening scenes, that it's going to be a long and painful ride. The music is terminally all-over the map and seems to be confused about whether 'City' is a classic Kazan throw-back or a late-80s Yakuza movie starring Michael Douglass. It's a crass score and distracting. Weirdly, Murphy also wrote the score for '28 Days Later,' which has some beautiful music (and a great music supervisor).

There should be some kind of 'Viewer Beware' in front of anything that Franchise Pictures puts out. For real. Keep in mind, they're also the folks behind 'Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000'.


MIRACLE (2004) - d. Gavin O'Connor
Okay, I'm cheating here; I saw this a couple of weeks ago. Not great, not bad. The two movies you'd immediately compare it to are 'The Rookie' and 'Remember the Titans,' which are the two movies that Disney wants you to compare it to. It starts off strong, it does a good job of getting the era right, it does a good job of getting the kids right, and most of them are less annoying than you're used to in a movie like this - the guy who plays Eruzione is esp. good.

Bottom line, though, they miss out just when you think they're going to close the deal. The film builds and builds really well, the hockey's well shot, not-too-detailed, but nothing like the disastrous basketball scenes in 'Blue Chips,' either, and the imminent threat of the Soviet team is really believable. It does an admirable job of linking the malaise of our era with that of late-70s/early-80s, as the gas crisis and the hostage situation in Iran are front-and-center. There are even some great pseudo-lefty politics in the film with Jimmy Carter's infamous 1980 'state of the union' address playing over a game of pick-up football on Christmas Day. The team bonds and bad things happen, all within a realistic and compelling framework. A few quick sequences are all O'Connor needs to make the Olympics, Lake Placid circa-1980, and the US' early-round matches feel authentic.

Then you get to the semi-final - the USA-USSR match - and O'Connor loses his nerve. Totally loses his nerve. The lack of tension within the final game is a huge letdown, especially when you think about how much screen time is devoted to it. They blow a gimme chance to get the action up and running red. The crowd is never close to as raucous as you'd have to imagine them being, there aren't nearly enough shots of said crowd, and when you do get a look, it's mostly at the goalie's father, who had a brief, but too-brief, introduction earlier in the film. If they were going to use 'Dad' as some kind of dramatic payoff, the audience would've had to gotten to know him beforehand. We don't, and that sucks. The whole stadium should be absolutely unloading, it should sound like a Dinosaur Jr. playing a concert in your bathroom, but it doesn't, and, unfortunately, there's more focus on the first period (where all the scoring happened) than the other two periods combined. Finally, the outdoors stuff, post-game, in the middle of downtown Lake Placid, was way too sedate. People went nuts when that shit happened, and they don't give you that sense in the film.

Ultimately, though, this is a good family movie. It loses its emotional power towards the end, never nearing the kind of closure you felt at the end of 'The Rookie,' but it gets a lot more right than it gets wrong. More importantly, it's a great performance by Kurt Russell, who basically loses himself in the character of the coach, Herb Brooks. Russell's the only reason I agreed to see this movie, and he didn't disappoint.



FOUR FEATHERS (2002) - d. Shekhar Kapur
Eventually, I might get around to writing about some movies I actually like. But for now, it's the bad ones I'm remembering.

This one just sucks. I really liked 'Elizabeth' and 'Bandit Queen' - or at least respected and believed them - and it sucks to see that this is what Shekhar Kapur's been up to. I don't know if the majority of the problem stems from the casting of the film, but boy, each of the three principals suck and it seems like one big trifecta of a mistake. Heath Ledger's bad, yes, and way too young and not nearly skilled enough to navigate the highs and lows of an epic. But he's not nearly as bad as a totally crap Kate Hudson and a totally crap Wes Bentley, who compete for the mantle of 'Worst English Accent In Years,' which Bentley wins by a nose. Doesn't help anyone that he ends up being a blind guy for the final third of the film. You'll have to just see that part yourself. I'm getting cold chills just thinking about it. The English actors who hang with Heath and Wes are actually pretty good, Kris Marshall and Rupert Penry-Jones, particularly. I have a feeling that Marshall's career is just beginning.

Ultimately, what makes the film truly shit is the fact that it's about rich people in the first place. There's way to much build-up to the adventure in Sudan, and that build-up is all about rich turn-of-the-century English people who you're sure to loathe. At least, I did.


BIG TROUBLE (2002) - d. Barry Sonnenfeld
Tim Allen sucks. Barry Sonnenfeld didn't use to suck, but now most definitely sucks. I've never been a huge Rene Russo fan, even though I totally had a thing for her in 'Major League'. Stanley Tucci just embarrasses himself here. Who makes a movie where I start to envision a day when I no longer have a thing for Zooey Deschanel? And what was Jason Lee thinking? It's just so fucking bad.


THE ORDER (2003) - d. Brian Helgeland
Where to start? I quickly figured out where to stop.

17 minutes in, I decided that it didn't matter if I watched another minute of this piece. It got held back from release, and held back, and held back, and, boy, is it clear why.

Heath Ledger, Leading Man, is becoming a less and less likely proposition every day. The dude's losing it, fast, and if he doesn't come out of 'Ned Kelly' smelling roses, then I think it's time we all give up. He's one of the least believable priests you'll ever see. Richard Lewis might make a less believable priest, but I'm going to give Heath the edge there until someone proves otherwise.

The movie's stupid. Appallingly stupid. Shoot-yourself-Brian-Helgeland stupid. Too-bad-Shannyn-Sossamon-can't-act stupid.


 Bri, buddy, stick with the gun-for-hire screenwriting assignments. You're 0 for 3, bro.

Did I mention I lasted a full 50 minutes before I came to my senses and did what I should've done at the 17 minute mark? Ugh.


BAD BOYS II (2003) - d. Michael Bay
I saw the trailer for this way back when, the one where they have that awesome shot which pans in a circle, where Will and Martin are ready to pounce on some bad mothers, and - for one pure, perfect second - I really wanted to see it. I actually liked the first one, thought it was perfectly good, so I was ready to go with this one.

Let's just say I didn't make it to the car chase, which I'd still like to see. Mostly, I couldn't bear to watch Jordi Mollá, an actor who I like, piss all over one of his first big shots in an American movie. Michael Bay needs to be stopped.


OUT OF TIME (2003) - d. Carl Franklin
Not bad. I'm constantly rooting for Carl Franklin. There were times when the movie really lost me and I'd think 'ok, this is it, I'm done,' but Franklin seems to realize that that's the kind of story he's working with, always managing to pull you back in at the last possible second. Denzel mails it, but Denzel mailing it in a movie like this is still better than 99% of the other big stars giving it their all.

Sanaa Lathan. Why isn't this woman working constantly? Her next movie's going to be 'Alien Vs. Predator'? A small part of me just withered and died. Why can't black actresses get decent parts?


S.W.A.T. (2003) - d. Clark Johnson
Not great. Not terrible. Another pretty big release by a black director. I love Clark Johnson from his days as a re-enactor on 'True Stories of the Highway Patrol.' He was also pretty great on 'Homicide.' He's a guy I'll always root for.

The film's brainless and a little dull, but the camera moves well enough, and the cast and the character detail are well above average. When Johnson gets the hang of it, it's going to be his skill with actors that puts him over the top. Sam Jackson is up for it, as always, Colin Farrell is fun, and Michelle Rodriguez is great. This isn't a big stretch for her, but you get a bit more of a sense of an interior life for her character than anything she's been in since 'Girlfight.'

I was interested to see Jeremy Renner in a substantial mainstream role. I think the jury's still out on him. He's clearly a good actor, but right now there's a softness he needs to lose, especially in a part like he has here.

The best thing about the movie though, is watching Josh Charles (a.k.a. the poor man's John Cusack) as a bad guy. It's fun to watch him on the wrong side for once.


UNDERWORLD (2003) - d. Len Wiseman
Kate Beckinsale is so pretty, sometimes it's hard to get too down on her, but I'm going to take my chances. This isn't the worst movie ever, and it seems to get some stuff right, but, deep down, I have to admit that it's pretty lame.

The premise behind 'Underworld' kicks ass - vampires and werewolves have an old-school clan rivalry and are constantly doing everything in their power to finish each other off. There's some good visuals, some good effects, but there's also some bad visuals and some bad effects. Beckinsale and Bill Nighy are the only actors who hold any kind of dramatic weight, and the rest of the cast - as uninspired a collection of long-haired Eurotrash as the filmmakers could hope to find on such short notice - really really suck. Wait, no, that's not true, Sophia Myles and Michael Sheen are good, too. You can see why people are betting on them.

Anyhow, it's a stupid film, but like 'League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' before it, I'm not sorry I saw it, I found it entertaining, and no matter how bad the sequel is, you can pretty much guarantee that I'm going to watch it. That Beckinsale ended up married to the guy who made this speaks volumes. Volumes about what, I have no idea.

2004-02-28 - 17:48:00
Current music: The Drifters - "Saturday Night at the Movies"

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DAREDEVIL (2003) - d. Mark Steven Johnson
Oh, god. I expected it to be bad. Really bad. But it was surreal bad.

I'm really bummed about the mess they made of this film. I used to buy a lot of super-hero comics, and while I wasn't a huge Daredevil reader - the art and often the writing never really hooked me - I was a big fan of the character. Yeah, there's a lot of similarities with Batman, but Daredevil was his own thing, a super-hero with a huge physical handicap, all kinds of strange Catholic guilt, and a real-world neighborhood - Hell's Kitchen - which he'd been sworn to protect. And the other characters in his story - Kingpin, Elektra, Bullseye, Foggy - were somehow a lot more interesting and 'real' than those in the average comic. If I was a famous A-list director and you'd asked me which super-hero movie I'd want to do, the answer would be easy: Daredevil should make a great movie.

I think the big problem with this movie starts with Mark Steven Johnson. I don't know what the fuck anyone was thinking handing this guy the directing job here. He wrote 'Big Bully' and 'Grumpy Old Men'. He directed 'Simon Birch'. Fuck that. Make a heartwarming John Irving adaptation about the handicapped starring Oliver Platt, Ashley Judd and an eleven-year old midget, and you're going to see me introducing razor to wrists. So I guess I was predisposed to hate this movie.


 The Assmaster Himself

So yeah, 'Daredevil'. Ben Affleck as Matt Murdock. Great call. I was bummed when I'd originally heard that Matt Damon was going to be in it, but watching the movie, you've got to think Damon would've been a much better choice. Affleck's career has achieved a level of crassness - in terms of paycheck roles and mailed-in performances - that's hard to rival. But the worst casting isn't Affleck or even Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin (another brutal call), the worst part of this movie is Jennifer Garner as Elektra. She may be on her way to becoming a big star, but she's just so fricking WASPy. If there'd ever been a late-80s/early-90s girl's boarding school trend to go along with the 'Dead Poet's'/'School Ties'/'Scent of a Woman'-era, she would've been a shoe-in to star in most of them. I don't really know much about the character in the comic, but I do know that she was sexy and exotic. Garner looks great in tights, but she sure as hell doesn't look Greek or dark or mysterious. As it stands, she and Ben may look like they belong to the same country club, but neither of them belong on-screen in this movie.

Sure, Colin Farrell rips/hams it up as Bullseye, but one relatively decent performance isn't going to make up for this trash. This thing is just a total mess. I could tear at it for hours, weeks. But it's not going to change anything. And if I'm already bored writing about it, what must it be like to read about?


 'Don't forget, I suck!'


156 RIVINGTON (2003) - d. Andrea Meller
'156 Rivington' is a documentary, only an hour long, and it's about this squat/artist's collective in downtown NYC called ABC No Rio. 156 Rivington is No Rio's street address. I used to go to hardcore shows there when I was a lot younger. I'm not going to write that much on the film since it's pretty self-explanatory; nothing brilliant, but good at what it is.

From the sound of things, that early 90s era was really as good as it ever got at No Rio. The film explores some of the interesting concepts behind the space, especially how the gentrification of downtown has impacted not only the building's administration, but also the nature of the services the facility provides. I haven't been to too many places like ABCNR in other parts of the country, but I liked people pointing out that there's more attitude at this address than you'll find at similar facilities in cities like Berkeley or Portland. IheartNY.

It could've pushed more buttons, it doesn't dig deep enough into the difficulties of collectivism, and it doesn't explain clearly enough how much peril the building faces in its dealings with the city (though it tries), but all in all, it's an interesting film. And it's ultimately a necessary document of an institution that - for a small but vital group - is more than just a footnote in the history of downtown New York.


DON'T YOU WORRY, IT'LL PROBABLY PASS (2003) - d. Cecilia Neant-Falk
I forgot about this yesterday. It was on Sundance at 4:00am on Thursday night/Friday morning when I got back to the house from New York.

 

This is a film about three young Swedish girls who are lesbians and how they individually start to come to terms with their identities as teenagers and homosexuals. Each of the subjects, Natalie, My, and Joppe, has been given a camera to create video diaries and do their own interviews with friends and families.

Clearly, if you're dealing with teenage girls, especially gay teenage girls in an exceptionally homogeneous society, you're going to get some potent material. A teenager's identity is confusing enough without adding alternative sexuality to the mix. Neant-Falk picked three incredible kids to profile in the film, and while there are common threads between the stories, each stands out for its own reasons, and you can't help hoping for happiness for all of them.

The director does a nice job of mixing up the three threads into a consistent narrative, and that grasp on her story is evident right from the introduction stage. There's a real sense of space in the film as each story has plenty of room for the telling, but you never feel that she's lingering on one subject for too long. There's some really nice montage work, and you get the sense that Neant-Falk is ready to move on to bigger stories. And most importantly, by the end of the film, you really feel like you've seen some sort of satisfying resolution in each of the three stories.

I could barely keep it together for either the sequence where My's mother explains how she felt about finding out that My was gay - parental love is never so eloquently expressed - or for the sequence where Natalie's band debuts at a Lesbian festival. Even the story of Joppe - who throughout seems like the one who's teetering closest to the edge - ends with a sense of real hope. By the end of the movie, I was totally ready to go marching with GLAD, such was the fury of my girl-power.

An Epic Entertainment Spectacular

Two movies so far today. If I'm going to live through that kind of abuse, I may as well be chronicling it.

My brain isn't firing right. I can get about 3 pistons going at a time, but it's not like they're in sync. I'm glad I drove back from the big city late last night, but getting in at four and the late night-caffeine hangover is brutal.


CLASH OF THE TITANS (1981) - d. Desmond Davis
First thing I watched this afternoon was 'Clash of the Titans'. I've seen it so many times that I don't really watch it when I watch it anymore, so I've got very little new to say. It's too bad that it would be impossible to get a movie like this made now. Studios and cash cows have totally lost their sense of humor.

Harry Hamlin: An ass-clown. He went to Cal-Berkeley and was on the swim team. He was on 'LA Law' and married that skinny blond with the nose from 'Falcon Crest.' They were a perfect couple. He doesn't know how to act. His hair in this movie is awesome; he looks a little bit like Tony Alva might if he ever discovered a comb. Or not...

The big reason everyone loves this movie so much - and rightly so - is because the Harryhausen stop-motion monster animations are amazing. They f'in rock. And then there's Bubbo. The world needs more mechanical owls.


STIR CRAZY (1980) - d. Sidney Poitier
It was a good afternoon on cable today. I've never seen this all the way through. I've caught the start a bunch of times and chunks of the middle, but I was lucky to be bored enough to stick it out. I really know nothing about Sidney Poitier, man, myth or legend, but I'm still surprised that he directed it. It's a good movie, really funny, but it's totally in that 'any R-rated comedy needs plenty of titties' mode that was so popular in the early 80s.

This is the second of the three Pryor/Wilder buddy comedies. I'm not all that big a fan of the original, 'Silver Streak,' and the less said about 'See No Evil, Hear No Evil' the better, but the chemistry between the two is great, and it's nice to see this, which represents the two of them at their collective peak. Wilder's film career outside of these buddy vehicles was really successful, but it's sad that Richard Pryor never really set the big screen on fire.

     

The way I look at it, he really got screwed by being the first black comedian who worked 'blue' to great popular effect. Without him, Eddie Murphy wouldn't have been allowed to cuss his way through '48 hrs.' and 'Beverly Hills Cop'. There also wouldn't really be a precedent for black comedians as film stars (the one arena that Cosby never conquered). I'll go to my grave believing that, pound-for-pound, Pryor was the greatest comedic talent of those three. It's too bad that while Eddie got all the shine in the 80s, we saw the real Richard Pryor in so few features. There was crap like 'The Toy,' 'Brewster's Millions,' and 'Critical Condition,' but no quality. And, no, the fact that I loved those movies as a kid doesn't justify their existence. Short of his stint in 'Superman III,' there wasn't much more Richard Pryor to enjoy on the big screen after 'Stir Crazy.' Sad.


Last night, I saw...
BIG ANIMAL (2000) - d. Jerzy Stuhr
This one I actually saw in a theater. It was the last movie I'm going to watch in New York for a long time. I wanted to see something at Film Forum, which would've felt like greater closure, but the list of stuff on display was uninspiring, except for 'Battle of Algiers' which I'd already seen. 'Blind Shaft' came and went too fast. I have a feeling I'm never going to see it. Oh well.

I'd never been to Anthology Film Archives before (for reasons which shall remain my own), so at least I went out with a unique experience. I'd compare seeing a movie there to watching a film at the YMCA. I half expected the smell of chlorine when I walked through the door. On the upside, seeing movies in crappy theaters feels like a throwback to the old-days of watching foreign films in porn houses (an experience I'm thankfully too young to have shared) and, more importantly, my ticket was $8 instead of the traditional $10. I still can't believe that Loews is charging $10.25 now.

The movie itself was fun; nothing special, but it's just the type of awkward creature I respond to. The screenplay was written by Krzysztof Kieslowski back in the mid-70s, and his favorite actor, Jerzy Stuhr, finally took it out of mothballs about four years ago and turned it into a little black and white film which has the look and charm of a different era. The story's a bit like a fable: a camel - part of a traveling circus - is left behind in a small town in the Polish countryside and wanders into the yard of a middle-aged couple, bringing the pair tremendous joy, at least until the townsfolk weigh in with their opinions. It doesn't surprise me that Stuhr can direct a film, he's such a great actor. What did surprise me was the style of the filmmaking, which was very, very stripped-down retro. It looked - barring some clearly modern signifiers - like it could've come straight from the 1950s or 60s. It's not just the black and white. Everything from the set design to the camerawork (a lot of it beautiful, gliding camerawork) has a considered, classic edge which really brings out the best in the performers and the story.

The film ultimately feels like a dialogue between Stuhr and Kieslowski. The way the characters struggle to maintain themselves in light of the sometimes petty, often troubling meddlings of the communist bureaucracy is a hallmark of Kieslowski's early narrative work. On the flipside, you don't see one of his movies and expect a barrel of laughs, and this film is constantly amusing. Stuhr is a terrific comic actor, and here he directs a film filled with clever and consistent laughs. It may be a minor footnote in Kieslowski's legend, but signifies that Stuhr the filmmaker is someone to keep an eye on. Good stuff.