These are reviews of films I saw during the calendar year of1996. For the record, my top films released during 1996 were Lone Star, Secrets & Lies, and Shine.
MY PLEDGE: NO SPOILERS. Unlike certain newspaper reviewers who shall remain nameless, I believe that one of the prime pleasures of movie-going is allowing oneself to be drawn, unwitting, through the film's emotional and intellectual twists and turns, which the filmmakers have gone through great trouble to put there. With that in mind, I will strive to discuss only broad or quickly-revealed aspects of plot.
Please send any comments to chaskes@loop.com. I appreciate and look forward to your feedback.
Thanks for valuing my opinions. I hope these reviews provide a useful guide to you in your film-going.
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Last updated: January 5, 1997.
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Sense and Sensibility
Mr. Holland's Opus
Babe
Leaving Las Vegas
French Twist
12 Monkeys
Persuasion
Antonia's Line
Shanghai Triad
The Flower of My Secret
The Birdcage
Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie
Muppet Treasure Island
Fargo
The Celluloid Closet
Wallace and Gromit: The Aardman Collection 2
Chung King Express
James and the Giant Peach
The Truth About Cats & Dogs
A Family Thing
The Grass Harp
The Monster
The Rock
Mission: Impossible
Cold Comfort Farm
Palookaville
Twister
Lone Star
Multiplicity
The Visitors
A Very Brady Sequel (guest review by Sarah Lewis Chaskes)
Courage Under Fire
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Independence Day
2 Days in the Valley
Tin Cup
I'm Not Rappaport
Welcome to the Dollhouse
Ed's Next Move
Extreme Measures
Secrets & Lies
Michael Collins
Mad Dog Time
Big Night
Unhook the Stars
Shine
The People vs. Larry Flynt
When I first heard about this project, I was rather leery of the producers' decision to get Ang Lee to direct it. Brilliant, I thought, get a man who has made two great low-budget films about modern-day Taiwanese and have him make a high-budget, period picture based on Jane Austen's British comedy of manners.
It so happens that the error was mine, not the producers'. Mr. Lee has made an extremely well-crafted, hilarious, and moving film, and one that is (from what Austen readers have told me) true to the basic plot and spirit of Ms. Austen's book. Much credit for all this is also due, no doubt, to Emma Thompson, who stars as Elinor but who also wrote the screenplay and co-produced the film.
Since seeing this film, I've gone back to watch MGM's '40s-era production of Pride and Prejudice, another Austen work, and found that while the latter is also vastly entertaining, it disregards an important element which Sense and Sensibility captures beautifully: the irony of Ms. Austen's extremely passionate characters being painfully constrained by the rules of their over-civilized society. Ms. Thompson's performance, with particular adeptness, allows the audience to sense the deep feelings which run, all but hidden, under the veneer of her always-measured statements and actions. Much of the film's tension lies in waiting to find whether the characters' pent-up emotion will ever be allowed out.
Other performances, by co-stars Alan Rickman, Kate Winslet, and Hugh Grant, are equally dead-on, and the supporting cast is fine as well. The film is beautifully shot and well-paced, and Mr. Lee's directorial touch is always just right: never heavy-handed, never too restrained. The entire film works like a well-tuned pianoforte, to pick a metaphor relevant to the characters; not a single note ever jars.
Mr. Holland's Opus, while a well-made and entertaining film, suffers from two major defects. First, unoriginality: it owes an obvious spiritual debt to Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Second, and more damagingly, unreality: its plot occasionally tends toward that certain patness of circumstance which invariably smells of screenwriting, rather than of real life. For instance, in real life, long and uncomfortable relationships cannot instantly be mended by one noble deed after a sudden epiphany, although in films it can be awfully convenient for just that to happen.
Despite these flaws, the film still succeeds on its maudlin terms. As you have probably heard, Richard Dreyfuss turns in a fine performance as Glenn Holland, the reluctant high-school music teacher and would-be great American composer. And when all is said and done, the story (pat or not) and its execution are capable of soaking many a hankerchief. (Personally, I bawled like a baby, as I am wont to do at sentimental tales.)
Jay Thomas is particularly funny as Mr. Meister, Kennedy High's phys ed teacher and football coach, and a friend of Holland's. The rest of the cast does thoroughly competent, if uninspired, work. The film is technically well-done, although I was irked once or twice as usual by one of my pet peeves, the gratuitous use of slow-motion to highlight dramatic moments. (There are many other highly cinematic ways to draw the audience's attention and engage their emotions, and the tendency of so many directors simply to run the camera a little faster strikes me as lazy.)
Kudos in particular to editor Trudy Ship, who made a 140-minute film feel like 90, and who achieved some beautiful and fairly understated effects in gently weaving stock footage throughout the film in a successful effort to connote the atmosphere of the various eras presented (the story's chronology runs from 1964 to the present).
I went into Babe with high hopes, mostly inspired by the high praise of other critics and organizations. As it turns out, Babe is not a great movie, but it is a very good one.
1995 saw not one but two talking pigs saunter into theaters. The other, Gordy (a film upon which your reviewer, in the interests of complete disclosure, must confess that he served as an apprentice editor), was so lacking in appeal to either children or adults that Babe at least stands in dazzling contrast.
At any rate, Babe is undeniably well-done. The dangers of making live-action films in which animals appear to talk are many (Gordy helpfully provides the flip side of the coin), but for Babe, the filmmakers wisely invested in digital and animatronic technology (the latter courtesy of Jim Henson's Creature Shop) to avoid the most common pitfall: the "Mr. Ed" syndrome. Thanks to these efforts, the lips of the talking animals synch perfectly with the dialogue and always appear realistic. Without the distraction of bad dubbing, the audience is left free to engross itself in the story.
The story, which concerns the adventures of the piglet Babe on the farm of the pragmatic, reserved, but warm-hearted Farmer Hoggett, takes a little while to get moving, but when it does, the film quickly becomes absorbing and funny. Babe contains some familiar lessons about finding one's place in the world and the value of persistence, but it is not cloying, nor does it avoid some unpleasant realities of the Hobbesian facts of life.
All told, Babe is a pleasant diversion for adults and, judging by the reaction of the kids in the audience with whom I saw the film, certainly a delight for children.
In Leaving Las Vegas, Ben Sanderson (Nicolas Cage) is an alcoholic at the end of his rope. With his life and career in Los Angeles in ruins, he departs for Las Vegas, determined to drink himself to death. There he meets Sera (Elisabeth Shue), a high-priced but lonely prostitute with an abusive pimp, and Ben and Sera form an odd relationship.
Technically, the film is stunning. Director Mike Figgis (who wrote the screenplay from John O'Brien's book) employs colorful, languid images and stylized, occasionally near-inaudible sound to plunge the viewer into Ben's point of view. The grainy appearance of the 35mm release prints (the film was shot in 16mm) add to the surrealism.
Leaving Las Vegas is an almost unbearably sad film. Without flinching, it focuses on the lives of two people who have taken on a monumental task--trying to soothe each other's demons while still in battle with their own, and not judging each other harshly. For Ben, this means accepting that Sera's profession is being with other men. For Sera--who has it much harder--it means trying to keep Ben out of trouble; tending to him after his drunken encounters with other bar denizens and with inanimate objects; and enduring the public humiliations which Ben's condition inevitably provokes.
It is easy to look on Leaving Las Vegas as an irredeemably cynical and depressing film. On this view, the film simply says that some people are just utter washouts, and that the best thing to do for them is to help them on their way to the grave. But Leaving Las Vegas can be read in another, more uplifting, way. Although Ben and Sera's situations are extreme, it is probably fair to say that all of us can be, on occasion or chronically, difficult or impossible to live with. This being the case, it is nothing short of miraculous to find someone who is willing to accept one on one's own terms, for what one is and not what one could be, without belittling, condemning, or resenting. Seen in that light, Ben and Sera are tremendously lucky to have found each other.
Figgis wrote his own haunting and evocative score, and Sting sings many of the songs on the soundtracks. Look for Steven Weber and Richard Lewis to appear early on; R. Lee Ermey and Julian Lennon can be spotted later in the film.
When Marijo (Josiane Balasko, also writer-director) turns up on the doorstep of Loli (Victoria Abril) with a broken-down minibus, it isn't love at first sight. Marijo is an open lesbian, while Loli is married with two children. But as Loli becomes increasingly annoyed at her husband's constant engagements "with clients" (he is in fact a prodigious adulterer), Marijo begins to fill a void in Loli's life. Loli, who at first was tolerantly amused by Marijo's crush on her, develops romantic feelings of her own for her new friend.
From that point forward, the film is a hilarious and potent exploration of the sexual dynamics between Marijo, Loli, and Loli's homophobic and hypocritical husband Laurent (Alain Chabat). This very funny and very French film has much to say about jealousy, sexual identity, and marriage, and says it with style, charm, and lightness of heart.
In the hands of a lesser director, 12 Monkeys could have been a pedestrian science-fiction film, a warmed-over cross between Outbreak and The Time Machine. Fortunately, 12 Monkeys was instead directed by Terry Gilliam, possibly the most imaginative film director working today. Gilliam has employed his mordant wit and unparalleled visual sense in all his films to date, but here, he has harnessed them to a more satisfying, focused, and ambitious story than ever before, thanks to scenarists David Peoples and Janet Peoples. (Blade Runner, another dystopian sci-fi classic, is also among David Peoples's credits.)
The plot sounds like something you may have heard before: a man appears in the present and claims to be an emissary from the future, who is trying to head off (or, in this case, simply trying to gather information about) an impending disaster--and is doubted and believed insane by authorities. But nothing else about 12 Monkeys could be termed run-of-the-mill. If nothing else, there is the breathtaking performance of Bruce Willis as James Cole, the would-be prophet of doom. Willis, who is quickly proving himself as one of the most underrated actors around (see his supporting roles in Pulp Fiction and Nobody's Fool), never overplays his part, but instead delivers an intense, measured portrayal which provides the crucial emotional center of this film. For the film, ultimately, is not really about whether 5 billion humans will live or die, but about James Cole and the mental tortures he undergoes as his personal reality slips back and forth between the 21st and 20th centuries. Is he insane, or is this really happening to him? Is he really from the 21st century, or does he just think he is? He's not sure, and neither are we.
As always, this is one of Gilliam's prime thematic concerns: the tenuous line between fantasy and reality, sanity and insanity--and what happens when the line blurs beyond distinction. But other familiar Gilliam themes are present as well: particularly that of how the "system" works to constrain its most individualistic members, and how dreams and imagination can become the only weapon against totalitarianism. In many ways, 12 Monkeys is a close thematic relative of Gilliam's brilliant Brazil, but because 12 Monkeys is set in a world much, much closer to our own, it becomes all the more frightening.
12 Monkeys is superb on every technical level, and its score captures the mood of the film in a manner that Bernard Herrmann might have appreciated. Willis's performance is matched in quality by Madeleine Stowe (as sympathetic psychiatrist Kathryn Railly) and Brad Pitt (as asylum inmate Jeffrey Goines). This gripping and frequently terrifying film is a masterwork and should not be missed.
A number of my Austen-loving friends are passionate in claiming that the film Persuasion is a better adaptation of Jane Austen's writing than Ang Lee and Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility. This may very well be true, but speaking strictly cinematically (and what better way is there to speak of a movie, after all?), Persuasion is a sadly lacking affair.
Produced by the BBC and Boston's WGBH-TV, Persuasion stars Amanda Root as Anne Elliot, the prodigal daughter of a modest English family. Anne still bears a torch for the dashing Captain Wentworth, a poor sea captain whose marriage proposal she had earlier rejected--not at the bidding of her heart, but at that of her well-meaning aunt, Lady Russell. Wentworth returns, enriched, from a long sea voyage and rejoins Anne's social circle, but will Anne and Wentworth find their way back to each other?
Unfortunately, the film fails to tell its story in either a comprehensible or emotionally-involving way. The script piles its exposition into the opening scenes, while the viewer is still trying to sort out just who the characters are; as a result, the viewer may not catch or retain information which proves critical to understanding later events. Armed with the brief plot summary of the above paragraph, I was finally able to find my bearings about half an hour into the film. My companion, who went in knowing nothing of the plotline, had an even harder time.
Meanwhile, the unrequited passions of Anne and Wentworth never quite become visible to the unaided eye. The film might have been improved by a prologue of some sort, establishing their strong feelings toward each other; instead, the depth of their emotions and the tragedy of their separation are barely hinted at in the script and are inadequately portrayed by the actors.
The direction is similarly negligent in emphasizing the undercurrents of passion running beneath Anne and Wentworth's interactions. Director Roger Michell inserts an occasional half-hearted close-up of Anne's hand tightening on a chair, or of Wentworth's hand alighting on Anne's back as she embarks onto a carriage, but these shots alone are insufficient to carry the freight with which they're charged.
Overall, the direction is uninspired and sometimes clumsy--some insert shots are downright jarring, thanks to their lack of spatial context (the shot of Anne's hand, for instance, is immediately preceded by a fairly close shot of Wentworth, who is clear across the room, and since Anne until then has been seen only in wide shot, the hand ends up appearing to belong to Wentworth). And, as with so many other run-of-the-mill directors, Michell emphasizes high drama--in this case, of a character's fall from a dangerous height (a character, by the way, who is too relatively minor to be of much interest to the viewer)--by, you guessed it, showing it in slow motion. The film has other distracting flaws as well. While most of the actors are competent, some minor performers overact atrociously, and some of the camerawork is strikingly poor (a few shots are actually out of focus).
In one notable instance, bad direction, camerawork, and editing combine for one great ill-conceived shot: the "Vertigo" effect is applied to a medium close-up of Anne, in an attempt to portray visually her surprise at Wentworth's sudden re-appearance in her life. To achieve the "Vertigo" effect (used most memorably in Hitchcock's film of that name), the camera lens zooms out (or in) while the camera is simultaneously dollied forward (or backward), which, when executed perfectly, gives the illusion that the background is falling away (or rushing toward) the person in the shot (whose image throughout the maneuver should remain exactly the same size in the frame). As this effect has long ago become cliché, it was a directorial mistake to make the shot in the first place; then the camera operator wasn't able to pull off the shot properly (granted, it's very difficult), giving the impression that someone was merely playing with the zoom lens during the shot; and by placing it after an earlier shot of Anne's surprised countenance, the editor drained the shot of any dramatic impact it might have had. A fine team effort all around.
In sum, the film has an apparent appeal for people familiar with Austen's novel, who may be able to supply the motivations and feelings of the characters from their own memory, and the course of the plot from their own knowledge. For the rest of us, who have no way to make up the filmmakers' deficits, it's probably not worth trying.
Antonia's Line, a simple but satisfying film, portrays four generations of strong, independent-minded women living in a rural Dutch village. Written and directed by Marleen Gorris, the film is the Netherlands' successful contestant in the 1995 Best Foreign Language Picture nominations race.
While the film's primary concern is in portraying these four very different women and how they do their best to sculpt their lives as they wish, it also derives much charm and interest from the depiction of the area in which they live. The village is full of offbeat, funny, and well-cast characters: Crooked Finger, the atheist/philosopher; Loony Lips and Deedee, the town simpletons; the Mad Madonna who howls at the moon; and the sociopathic Pitte, representing chaos and evil.
Ultimately, the film is about accepting life on its own terms. There is a little philosophizing about the existence of God and an afterlife, and while the film doesn't deny either one outright, it does suggest (in Antonia's words to her great-granddaughter) that "we only dance this dance once" and that the most should be made of it. Antonia's Line depicts the beauty of the dance wonderfully.
This was the first film of Zhang Yimou's which I have had the pleasure of seeing. Based on Shanghai Triad alone, he is a director of enormous skill and focus.
Shanghai Triad concerns itself with Shuisheng (Wang Xiao Xiao), a fourteen-year-old "country bumpkin" who is summoned to Shanghai, circa the 1930s, by his uncle Liu, a fairly high-placed member of the Tang family, one of the city's great crime organizations. Shuisheng is expected to follow in Liu's footsteps by working his way up, and his first assignment is to be the valet to the Boss's mistress, the nightclub singer the Boss calls Bijou (Gong Li).
Although the film exists exclusively in the gangster milieu, it foregoes violent set pieces in favor of character exploration. The first half of the film is seen primarily through the lonely, confused, and frightened eyes of Shuisheng; then, gradually, we and Shuisheng learn more about the cold, abusive woman he serves. The film's theme does not become completely apparent until late in the film, but when it does, it manifests itself with a crystal and heart-breaking clarity.
Along the way, the film's production values are a a joy: the performances are uniformly superb; the production design and cinematography are striking and beautiful in absolutely every scene; and the sound design is masterful. In the very first shot (a close-up of Shuisheng awaiting his uncle at the dock, people bustling around him), the soundtrack creates an aural picture of passing vehicles, the call of ships' horns, and the noise of the big city which is fully as realized as the ensuing long shot which shows us these things. Throughout the film, the soundtrack is used similarly to great effect.
Like his classic comedy Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Pedro Almodovar's The Flower of My Secret is all about women in crisis--in particular, one woman named Leo (Marisa Paredes), whose professional and romantic lives are in disarray. To say anything more whatsoever about the plot would be unfair. (My wife had no trouble guessing the story's various twists and turns ahead of time, although that's usual for her; I, on the other hand, am fairly prediction-challenged.)
The film never quite builds up the head of farcical steam that Women on the Verge does; on the other hand, it's probably not trying to. I haven't seen quite enough Almodovar to know whether this is his most sedate film so far, but I wouldn't be surprised if it were. (Of course, "sedate" for Almodovar is probably "manic" for most other directors.) However, Flower of My Secret is at least reasonably funny and holds the viewer's attention firmly. While it is not a gem, there are certainly many, many worse ways to spend two hours.
Mike Nichols has a certain flair for making comedies that deal with serious social issues, are true to their characters, and are as funny as hell, all at once. The Birdcage fits into this mold nicely.
Based on the French La Cage Aux Folles, Birdcage has been set in Miami's gay enclave, South Beach. Armand (Robin Williams) owns a popular drag nightclub at which Armand's longtime lover Albert (Nathan Lane) is the biggest star (his stage name is "Starina"). Things get complicated when Armand's son Val (Dan Futterman) gets engaged to Barbara (Calista Flockhart), the daughter of an ultraconservative, family-values-preaching senator and his wife (Gene Hackman and Dianne Wiest). With his prospective in-laws coming for a visit, Val attempts to hide Albert and their home's unconventional interior design, and to pass off Armand (and their Guatemalen houseboy, played by Hank Azaria) as straight.
Naturally, farce-like situations ensue, with the presence of Val's biological mom and the senator's tangential embroilment in a sex scandal thrown in to liven things up further. Birdcage doesn't really move like a farce; the pacing never quite hits that frenetic level in which the excesses are coming almost quicker than the viewer can absorb. But it works well at its own pace, nonetheless.
The performances are generally excellent all around, although there is something lacking from Robin William's portrayal. In one scene, he tells his son that it has taken him 20 years to become comfortable with his identity as a gay man, and that he is disinclined to pretend to be someone else for the sake of a senator. I didn't sense any of the rage, bitterness, memories of past frustrations, or any other emotions that might be expected to accompany such a statement.
And I must note that, in typical Hollywood style, any meaningful expression of gay love has been carefully smoothed over. Armand and Albert's relationship is portrayed quite asexually; the most we see them do is hold hands (although in that same scene, Armand declares his love for Albert so movingly I almost cried).
But my complaints are minor. Elaine May's screenplay is full of wonderful one-liners, and the production design is a pleasure to look at: wild Technicolor swimsuits abound on the streets of South Beach, and Armand sits with Albert at a bus kiosk which looks straight out of an Almodovar film. The film is absolutely worthwhile just for the scene, set on a cafe patio, in which Armand tries to teach Albert how to walk and talk "straight." And, of course, it's always refreshing to see a film in which gay people are treated as sympathetic human beings, rather than stereotypes or supporting roles.
If you've seen the cable television show "Mystery Science Theater 3000" (also known as "MST3K," to its fans), then you'll know exactly what to expect from the film.
The premise of the TV show is simple: regular guy Mike Nelson has been stranded on a space station (the "Satellite of Love") by mad Dr. Clayton Forrester, who is eager to break Mike's spirit by subjecting him to an endless festival of the worst movies ever made. (Mike Nelson is played by Mike Nelson; earlier in the TV show's run, this character was Joel Hodgson, played by the show's creator, Joel Hodgson.) To amuse himself, Mike has built himself some robots. As the movies run, Mike and two of the robots, Tom Servo and Crow, crack wise about the action onscreen.
The film follows the show's formula exactly: that is, it consists mostly of the bad movie itself, with the silhouettes of Mike, Tom, and Crow matted against the bottom of the frame (along with the row of theater seats in which they sit) as they comment wryly on the execrable writing, sets, and acting. Every twenty minutes or so, the intrepid astronauts take a break from the bad film to suffer further taunting from Dr. Forrester and to wreak various amusing forms of havoc around the satellite.
In this case, the bad movie they are watching is the science-fiction film This Island Earth, and indeed it is a stinker. But, as the TV show proved, the worst films tend to provide the best opportunities for hilarious commentary, and as one might expect from MST's first big-screen outing, the writing here is at the top of its form.
I suppose there's no reason to spend money to see this film when a session with the TV show provides an almost identical experience. (The most noticeable differences were that the movie lacked the show's signature theme song, and that the movie spent a few more bucks--just a few--on production design.) On the other hand, with reliable big-screen laughs hard to come by, MST3K may very well be your most solid bet for good comedy at the multiplex.
Put on my guard by early lukewarm reviews, I went to the theater prepared to be rather disappointed by Muppet Treasure Island. The film was to provide my first extended Muppet experience since Jim Henson's unfortunate passing--apart from a few experiences with the new Muppet television show--and my expectations were low. I came ready and willing to quibble with Steve Longmire's voicing of Kermit, with lackluster writing, and with unmemorable songs, about which most other critics had complained.
Instead, I found nothing but Grade-A Henson. Longtime Muppet devotees are bound to be vaguely disturbed by Longmire's talented but unavoidably not-quite-authentic voicing (replacing Jim Henson is a thankless task), but the sensation passes quickly. Besides, it's easy to get distracted by the writing, which is as sharp, funny, and simultaneously appealing to children and adults as it ever has been; the scene of crew "roll call" aboard the treasure-seeking vessel is as classic a bit as the Muppets have ever been involved with. The musical numbers, which are effective, amusing, and well-shot, also keep one's mind away from grumbles.
The story, of course, is derived (and not without some accuracy) from Stevenson's famous yarn, with almost the entire beloved Muppet cast strategically inserted into key, supporting, or "extra" roles. Much of the fun lies in seeing when, how, and in what role well-known Muppets will turn up. The human actors are outstanding as well: Billy Connelly shines as Billy Bones, although Tim Curry's Long John Silver easily steals the show, exuding charisma and menace in equal and enormous portions.
At 99 minutes, the film perhaps overstays its welcome by just a bit, but by and large director Brian Henson keeps things moving along briskly and with flair, humor, and visual style. Muppet Treasure Island can surely be added to the select list of recent children's films that, it is hoped, will be watched by kids and adults for many more years to come.
Fargo is a rather different beast than I had been expecting, given that I had seen it billed as a comedy. True, it does contain much that is funny. But even the funniest films by Joel and Ethan Coen have their dark and brutal sides, and that side runs amok in Fargo (which is based on a true story).
William H. Macy stars as Jerry Lundegaard, a Twin Cities auto salesman in bad financial straits. In desperation, he arranges for petty thieves Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) and Showalter's new partner to kidnap Lundegaard's wife and demand a ransom, which Lundegaard plans to milk out of his wealthy but stingy father-in-law and then split with the kidnappers. Of course the plan goes horribly, horribly wrong, and Marge Gunderson (Frances McDormand), the pregnant police chief of an outlying town in which related mayhem has occurred, gets to work on figuring out what's gone down.
For this film, the Coens have eschewed their usual patented visual pyrotechnics--the swooping cameras following impossible courses, the surreal imagery... although Fargo is visually fascinating in its own way. There is more than one overhead shot of a vast white snowfield with the remains of a petty human drama resting in the middle, small and silent. As with their earlier Miller's Crossing, the wintry landscape almost becomes an additional character.
This is not to say that Fargo is without pyrotechnics--but they are provided by the actors rather than the cinematographer. Macy and McDormand--to use a hackneyed but convenient phrase--inhabit their roles completely and masterfully. Buscemi's performance is almost a repeat of his Mr. Pink of Reservoir Dogs, but that is not to diminish it: to sustain convincingly that level of talkative malice is difficult.
Fargo does share with other Coen films one essential trait: a dichotomy between sympathy for the characters as complex human beings, and contempt for them as provincial morons. For instance, much of the humor in Fargo is derived from the terse, accented, and almost unfailingly polite and cheerful dialogue between its Midwestern characters (much as with, say, the verbose, accented, and almost unfailingly distant and morose dialogue between the Western characters in Raising Arizona). Even Chief Gunderson, the film's most sympathetically portrayed character, comes in at the end for some visually-supplied ironic commentary. While I have never objected at all to a Coen display of cynicism, I am always puzzled by their failure to resolve the tension between their cynicism and their softer side.
You've probably sensed that Fargo left me somewhat confused and disturbed, and this is true. It would be well for me to add that I was also awed, as usual, by the Coens' mastery of their craft. Fargo is in all ways an extraordinarily made picture. It is also, again as with most Coen films, a morality play at heart, although the Coens are often subtle enough to leave one wondering just exactly what the morals might be. Fargo certainly has some sly and understated things to say about the world of business and the natures of crime and deceit. To determine what those things are, however, you'd probably best see it for yourself.
Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, who made the excellent documentary The Times of Harvey Milk about the slain, openly gay San Francisco city councilman, have joined forces again for another superb work, based on a book by the late Vito Russo. The Celluloid Closet presents 100 years of the Hollywood cinema's depiction of homosexuality--and it is not, by and large, a pretty picture.
Narrated by Lily Tomlin and featuring interview segments with Armistead Maupin, Susie Bright, Tom Hanks, Paul Rudnick, Harvey Fierstein, Susan Sarandon, and many others, much of the film consists of a wealth of film clips, from early Edison on up to the 1990s. Sadly, of course, most depictions of gays and lesbians on the American screen have not been flattering, and the film traces the evolution of predominant homosexual stereotypes in film--from the asexual "sissy" to the pitiable mental aberrant to the deranged killer. The 1990s are presented as something of a new dawn, however: even with negative portrayals as prevelant as ever, there are also the "Philadelphia"s and "Adventures of Priscilla"s.
Most amusingly, The Celluloid Closet takes great pride in pointing out some of the wonderful occasions in which a homosexual subtext was inserted subtly--or not so subtly--into popular films of years past, often completely under the radar of the Hays Office censors (who, as one interviewee points out, were no rocket scientists). Viewing the clips in this context, the subtext fairly leaps out, as it once did only for closeted homosexual viewers anxious to see something of themselves represented on screen.
Epstein and Friedman have made a sad, funny, depressing and inspiring documentary which should remind viewers (and, with luck, filmmakers) of the movies' incredible power to inform filmgoers' perceptions--a power which, in an ideal world, would be used only to heighten tolerance and not to undermine it.
I do not believe in making harsh judgments against people who don't agree with my personal opinions. Many such people are my friends. Others may be doing me the great favor of reading the drivel which I post up on the Web. Nonetheless, and with no personal animosity toward anyone, I feel compelled to say that if you don't like Nick Park's "Wallace and Gromit" films, there is something seriously wrong with you.
The highlight of The Aardman Collection 2 is, of course, the latest installment in the adventures of W & G, A Close Shave, which won the short animation Oscar for 1995. (If you haven't heard the lore yet, the reason Nick Park looked so blase accepting his Oscar is that--literally--every film he has ever made has won one, with one exception. And that film had been nominated in the same year as another of his films... which did win.) The West Los Angeles audience with whom we saw the show was polite enough regarding the rest of the program, but unabashedly favored Close Shave, cheering its appearance with the aplomb normally reserved for millionaires handing out money.
And Close Shave does not disappoint. Cognizant of the task ahead of him--topping the incredible climactic sequence of Wallace and Gromit's previous outing, The Wrong Trousers--Park has constructed another highly amusing mini-masterpiece, even featuring another bravura chase sequence... which of course I will not describe for you now.
But the program's real surprise is in the breadth and quality of the rest of Aardman's output. Aardman, a British clay animation studio, has been producing film since at least 1983 under the auspices of its two founders, Peter Lord and David Sproxton (if I'm recalling the latter name correctly). Between them, they have produced some astonishing work--including a hilarious Itchy-and-Scratchy-esque piece entitled "Pib and Pog," and a moving and beautifully designed medieval meditation on the nature of cowardice and bravery, entitled "Wat's Pig" (which features the only example of split-screen animation of which I'm aware). Another notable Aardman artist contributed two amusing installments of "Rex the Runt" and a truly bizarre and disturbing abstract film called "Ident," with production design reminiscent of Picasso.
If nothing but Park will do for you, rest assured that the program also features another celebrated, non-Wallace-and-Gromit Park product, Creature Comforts, as well as a number of British PSAs for the electricity industry, which are spun off from that film.
I haven't seen many stranger films this year than Chung King Express, from Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai.
The film tells the stories of two young, good-looking policemen in Hong Kong, who in all likelihood do not know each other. In the first part, we meet He Qiwu, whose long-time girlfriend has recently dumped him and for whom he is anxious to find a replacement; in the second, a man known best by his badge number, #663, whose more casual relationship with a stewardess has just come to an end. Each comes to place his identity and being in the trust of a recently-met woman: Qiwu in that of a drug dealer on the run, #663 in that of a new employee of a shabby snack bar located along his beat.
The two stories are connected by nothing more than the policemen's shared affinity for the snack bar, and by the similar themes running through their stories. Both stories are ultimately about the need to reach beyond the solitude that often prevails among single people, even in the largest cities.
The split narrative may make for an unsatisfying storyline, but the film easily redeems through its superior execution. First, there is the lively sense of humor with which the themes are drawn out--Qiwu's preoccupation with pineapples and #663's anthropomorphization of his apartment are both terribly funny and poignant. Second, there is the arresting visual style: the film is cut much like an action film, although there is very little action; and the blurred step-frame photography which dominates the first half of the film is absolutely hypnotic. Finally, there is the well-applied use of popular music to the soundtrack: "California Dreamin'" appears on the soundtrack (perhaps a few too many times) along with some Chinese pop songs, which all together perform wonders in setting a mood and telling the audience in what spirit to understand the events on the screen.
Chung King Express is mysterious and compelling. Further, in light of the theme of longing for new experiences and new places to see which manifests itself in the second story, the film may even be a sort of farewell to the Hong Kong cinema, an industry for which the looming Chinese takeover will probably spell extinction.
I can't say that I was without bias as I walked into the theater to see James and the Giant Peach. I have been devoted to Roald Dahl's first children's book at least since I was myself James Henry Trotter's age, and ugly rumors that co-producer Tim Burton and director Henry Selick had allowed numerous changes in the story had already reached my ears. While I understand and condone the reality that cinematic license must often be taken in adapting literary work, I strongly believe that the author's essential vision--the spirit of the work, if not the letter--should always be retained as fully as possible. If it isn't, I believe filmmakers should be obliged to change the title of the film and cite the source work only as an "inspiration," to avoid misleading and disappointing filmgoing fans of the original work.
Sadly, my screening of James and the Giant Peach only confirmed all the rumors, and, as could be expected, none of the changes were for the better. Before citing the film's numerous defects in this regard, I will--in the interests of maintaining one last shred of critical integrity--quickly attempt to render judgment on the film as a film and not as a literary adaptation:
It barely holds one's interest, apart from the gimmick of the stop-motion animation used through much of the film. The story as depicted on screen is too slight to hold much interest for adults, or probably for children either. The animation is, of course, state-of-the-art and flawless; but it is used neither to reveal character nor to deepen our understanding of the story. Instead, it's primarily used as a means of flinging the story forward at lightning speed and of producing "humor" by means of the characters' bashing each other about at all opportunities. The film ends up coming off as slick and superficial--in contrast to the work that might have been expected given Dahl's superlative source material and the already-proven sensibilities of the Selick/Burton team (The Nightmare Before Christmas).
What might we have seen instead? Perhaps the highly mannered and ordered, and yet completely magical, world of Roald Dahl. Like all the best fantasies, Dahl's original story worked according to a rigorous internal logic--which the filmmakers cast to the winds. The ordinary, earthbound rhino which gobbles up the young James's parents in the book's first page (and never returns to the story) has now been transformed into James's great bete noir, a mystical beast which inexplicably appears from the clouds to terrify poor James throughout the film. Likewise, in the film, James's evil aunts Sponge and Spiker somehow survive being run over by the multi-ton peach (Dahl quite naturally thought this would do them in, and wrote so) in order to wreak their loathsome havoc up to the bitter end. Both the rhino and the aunts, throughout the course of the film, recur endlessly in James's fevered dreams as well as in dreamlike portions of the story (the line between the two is never clear). In another film, the externalization of poor James's Freudian anxieties might have been artful, but here it does not mesh well with Dahl's simple story.
The most egregious fracture of internal logic centers around the magic crystals which start the peach rolling, as it were, and ultimately take James away from his evil aunts. As in the original story, the film's James accidentally drops the magic crystals which he has been told by a mysterious old man to ingest (the crystals here look like nothing so much as luminous green rotelle); the crystals then work their wonders instead on an ancient peach tree and a host of garden insects. But here the original story and the film diverge. In the story, James--without any further magical assistance--is welcomed into the peach and its insect family simply because of who he is, a sweet little boy who deserves a better lot in life than he is getting. But in the film, James's rescue from his aunts' abuse is credited only to the luck of the draw--one last crystal remains and leaps into his mouth--undermining what is perhaps the central message of Dahl's story: you don't need magic, only loyal friends, to triumph over adversity.
Then--and most inexplicably--the filmmakers' renegade crystal is pressed into further service as the excuse for James's transformation from a live-action boy into an animated figure. After crawling into the peach, a magic halo of some sort surrounds James and works this wonder; upon his arrival into the peach's pit, the insects hold up a mirror to show James how he has changed. But how has he changed, except from a live-action boy into an animated boy--a transformation that makes sense only as a filmic device, not as a component of the story? Instead of simply accepting the necessity of a less-than-seamless transition between live-action and animated techniques, the filmmakers actually wrote their technical device into the story without ever bothering to explain what it meant.
My final complaint: the needless homogenization of the insect characters. In Dahl's story, each bug had a distinct personality--ranging from the nearly comatose to the boastful to the timid to the self-possessed. Trace elements of these characterizations remain in the film, and superficial distinctions between the bugs are made (they all seem to hail from different world locales, which is interesting since they've all been born and raised in England), but for the most part the bugs all act the same throughout--loud, self-promoting, and showing that distinct Disney prediliction for hitting each other. (Ever wanted to see a grasshopper kickbox?)
James and the Giant Peach is a grave disappointment to Dahl fans (or to this one, at least) and only a mediocre children's film at best.
In one episode of PBS's "American Cinema" television series, Julia Roberts says that romantic comedies work to the extent that the audience wants nothing more than to see the leads "get together," that the audience feels it will simply die if they don't. With due respect to Ms. Roberts, I'm not sure that any of her movies actually fit that bill, but Michael Lehmann's The Truth About Cats & Dogs does.
The story is not particularly original; in most part, it's third-hand Cyrano de Bergerac (by way of Steve Martin's wonderful updating, Roxanne). But, as with all silly romantic comedies, its worth lies in its execution, and this one is done exactly right. The script is funny and charming, and the direction is sure-handed and light. Most importantly, the casting is dead-on, with Janeane Garofalo as Dr. Abby Barnes, a pet expert who hosts the film's eponymous radio show, Ben Chaplin as Brian, the intelligent and good-looking caller who asks her for a date, and Uma Thurman as Noelle, Abby's neighbor, a not-entirely-bright professional model who stands in for the nervous Abby on her first date with Brian.
Perhaps my delight was compounded by the film's setting near the beach in Santa Monica, California, with action often occurring a scant block or two from the theater in which I was watching the movie (this happens to us Angelenos quite a bit, actually). But I think the film is highly enjoyable from just about anywhere.
Like all good dramas, A Family Thing tells the truth. What would happen if a Southern bigot finds out that his birth mother was black, and that he has a black half-brother in Chicago? Richard Pearce's film explores this tricky dramatic territory without a misstep, aided by fine acting by Robert Duvall as Earl Pilcher, James Earl Jones as his half-brother Ray Murdock, and Irma T. Hall as Earl and Ray's Aunt T., the elderly, blind sister of the late mother they share.
Beyond its obvious anti-bigotry theme, the film manages subtly to explore two issues in detail. One is the nature of "race" as a fairly arbitrary social construct. As Earl confronts the necessity of changing his own perception of himself, questions are raised which put the lie to the whole concept of "race." Was he white before but black now? Was he always black? Was he never black because he wasn't raised to think of himself as such? Or is he both? Or neither? And who makes the rules about it, anyway?
Ultimately, the only thing that's left certain is that some people's skin is a different color than others'; beyond that, "race" is nothing more than what society makes of it. By simply portraying two brothers who look nothing alike and yet are related both by blood and--to a degree that surprises both men--in temperament, the film makes this point eloquently but subtextually.
The film also explores the idea of "family." Beyond the accident of birth, the film suggests, what makes a family is a shared history. The story of their late mother's death after Earl's birth links Earl and Ray indivisibly. So do the mental and physical wounds which both men inflicted on each other during their early childhood together in Arkansas.
Finally, the film is able to wrap both issues, race and family, up in a single package: Aunt T. Blinded to physical appearances, she can only recognize in Earl and Ray their similarities, can trace their faces with her hand and feel the features of her beloved sister, and she loves them both.
Not only is A Family Thing a marvelous film in cinematic and dramatic terms, it is a sorely needed addition to this nation's discourse on race and deserves to be widely viewed.
Based on Truman Capote's novel, The Grass Harp, directed by Charles Matthau, tells the coming-of-age story of 11-year-old Colin Fenwick (Edward Furlong), orphaned in the pre-WWII South and sent to live with his two aunts, the domineering Verina (Sissy Spacek; character's name may be incorrect) and the somewhat freeminded Dolly (Piper Laurie). The story is set in a small town, peopled by--among others--Charles Durning's garrulous minister, Joe Don Baker's slow-witted sheriff, Nell Carter as Dolly's servant, Sean Patrick Flanery as rakish town boy Riley, and the director's father, Walter Matthau, as retired justice Charlie Cool.
Given such a sterling cast (which also includes Jack Lemmon in a sly turn as a weaselly Yankee doctor), and a screenplay co-authored by the late Stirling Silliphant (his last screen credit), one would expect great things. Unfortunately, however, the movie never escapes a certain book-bound quality. To all appearances, Matthau has forgotten that he is making a movie and relies heavily instead on literary devices, rather than cinematic action, to tell the story.
For instance, the film occasionally leans heavily on first-person narration from the grown Colin to fill in character motivations and plot gaps when a short demonstratory scene would have made the point much better. Matthau also never constructs scenes from a particular character's point of view; for instance, the scene of Colin's arrival at his aunt's house would have worked better as seen through Colin's eyes, rather than from the view of an ominiscient director. As a result, much of the action often feels distant and uninvolving.
There is also a matter of casting. In the pivotal role of Dolly, Piper Laurie does a fine job of slowly breaking free from her sister's iron grasp to assert her own dreams and wishes, but the story suggested to me that Dolly should have represented a more primal life force, almost an embodiment of nature. Despite her excellent performance, Laurie never quite captures the sense of magic which is supposed to magnetically pull Colin--and other key characters--close to her.
There is much to like in The Grass Harp: the large and amiable cast and, at times, a sense of playfulness. Mary Steenburgen provides a particularly delightful interlude as she passes through town with her fifteen children in a rowdy "revival" which is meant more than anything to revive her flagging pocketbook, and Nell Carter's novel approach to jigsaw-puzzling provided a very funny scene. But some cinematic style would have gone a long way in making the film truly come to life. Instead, the film sits there on the screen, trying hard to reach the audience but never quite getting there.
Roberto Benigni is a modern master of the mistaken-identity picture. In Johnny Stecchino, he played the double roles of the ruthless Mafioso of the title and a hapless look-alike. In The Monster, he portrays Loris, a hapless klutz who by misadventure is falsely identified by police as the serial rapist/killer who has been terrorizing the city for years. Jessica, a pretty policewoman, is sent to Loris as bait, to tempt him into providing sufficient cause for his arrest and prosecution.
The funny thing is, of course, that under the surveillance of a police camera, and when tailed covertly by Jessica, Loris does appear to be a sex-crazed whacko. But thanks to Benigni's skillful direction (the star/director also co-produced and co-wrote the picture), the audience is in on the joke the whole time, always understanding the weird but harmless explanations of Loris's behavior.
The plot quickly caroms off into numerous hysterical set pieces, and Benigni is as funny as ever, both as physical comedian and as a director. His light touch with romance is appealing as well. In many ways, Benigni seems reminiscent of Chaplin--the same down-at-the-heels but resourceful screen persona, the same ability to make a movie so concretely his in every way. The Monster is a delight.
The Rock, this past spring's 800-pound gorilla of the action movie world, certainly comes by its reputation honestly. The film--which concerns a paramilitary unit's takeover of Alcatraz (complete with hostage tourists) and the FBI's attempts to neutralize the unit's chemical-weapons threat against San Francisco--snaps, crackles, and pops, and even manages to sidestep some (but not all) of the usual traps such movies often stumble into.
The biggest such trap, of course, is plausibility. Not that one should expect scientific accuracy, probability, or physical law to figure in such a film; not that one should wonder why all female characters happen to look like fashion models. However, when characters contravene human nature or total common sense, one can't help but to clap a hand to the forehead. The Rock's screenwriters have allowed its share of these groaners. For instance: Why does the FBI Director personally oversee a dangerous prisoner's haircut? Why does this same Director allow a main character's un-security-cleared fiancee to hang out in his crisis control room for an extended period? The screenwriters, to their credit, had caulked up many potential plot holes; there's no reason they couldn't have filled in these and a few other remaining cracks. Other examples of authorial laziness can be found as well: there's no excuse for jive-spouting black hostages or a flamingly gay hair-stylist character... except for getting cheap laughs, of course.
Another flaw is the inevitable borrowing from other films and from the genre as a whole. The story sets up a well-known premise and time-worn characters with scenes we've seen before. The bad guys (led by Ed Harris as decorated but mutinous General Francis Hummel) raid military bases to accumulate deadly and (almost) unstoppable new weapons. The good guy, FBI chemistry expert Stanley Goodspeed (Nicolas Cage), is established as having guts but no field experience (via an obligatory "our-hero-in-action" scene which precedes the main events). And finally, there's Sean Connery as John Mason, who is (this is a new one, folks) the jailbird who's the only man alive who can help the good guys.
Director Michael Bay gets into the recycling game as well with some familiar visuals: military helicopters against an orange, blazing setting sun (redolent of Apocalypse Now, or perhaps the album cover of Miss Saigon come to life); a car chase through the hilly streets of San Francisco (Foul Play, but with more explosions); a traveling shot which follows a throwing knife in flight (a la Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves et al); and an escape in a transport rail cart (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, natch).
On the other hand, for each lapse of originality, The Rock has a compensating plus. Apart from the above (and a few other overly stylized cinematographic touches), Bay's visuals are mostly striking and original, and they fly by with lightning speed, having been masterfully assembled by a crack squad of editors (the use of large editing teams is a now-commonplace practice in action films).
And the script, while doing nothing new with the genre, at least features well-drawn characters with engaging dialogue. The main characters--Hummel, Goodspeed, and Mason--are all given full, detailed backstories and personalities, and the actors fill them out completely, with humor and occasionally even, startlingly enough, real human emotion. I was pleasantly surprised to see Goodspeed, faced with the prospect of his first actual field mission, puke out of sheer terror--a scene which is perhaps de rigeur for anti-war films but is uncommon among your more macho Schwarzenegger and Willis-type Action Hero stories.
And Ed Harris's Hummel is a surprisingly sympathetic villain. Again, the well-intentioned but misguided baddie is not a big-screen newcomer, but is often neglected by action films in favor of the homicidally insane, major-grudge maniac, a la Speed's Dennis Hopper or Cliffhanger's John Lithgow. In fact, Hummel's cause--the U.S.'s failure to recognize or pay benefits for its soldiers killed in covert, black-budget military operations--comes off as perfectly legit; it's just his methods that leave something to be desired.
Finally, there's Connery's John Mason--a British national imprisoned for thirty years (under circumstances which, when finally revealed, provide one of the film's campiest lines), and one who makes Houdini look like an amateur. Having been a "guest" at Alcatraz until his self-arranged departure, Mason is freed from confinement under promise of pardon to help Goodspeed and company break into the old prison. Dangerous and mighty angry, Mason is the story's loose cannon--will he help or hinder the mission? But even he is humanized to a greater extent than other action films might have bothered with. Ultimately, the interactions of these three characters generate much more poignancy than one might expect, thanks to the screenwriters' efforts to make them "real people."
Another nice touch is a scene in which a standoff turns into an unintended firefight, finally triggered by nothing more than a loud noise and the participants' jumpy nerves. The ensuing battle, as realized by Bay, is a haze of smoke and falling bodies illuminated, strobe-like, by automatic-weapons fire and punctuated by the screams of the injured and dying. The scene is representative of the whole movie: standard action fare, elevated to the upper end of its genre by (mostly) imaginative direction and writing which (frequently) exceeds the required amounts of characterization. The Rock is not quite the Citizen Kane of action films, but it's pretty darned good.
Brian De Palma is a master of the set piece. He knows Eisenstein, he knows Hitchcock, and he knows exactly how to set up an incredibly tense scene, one from which he can squeeze every last frame of suspense possible. Mission: Impossible has one such set piece, and it's a beaut.
On the other hand, the rest of the film has little of interest to offer except an incomprehensible plot (if anyone wants to explain it to me fully, my e-mail address is at the top of the page); some very impressive digitally composited action and stunts; and the trappings of a popular television show, to the spirit of which the film bears only superficial homage.
The fun of the television show, of course, was watching the highly-trained Impossible Missions Force carefully execute a plan, knowing their objective but not their exact method, and having the utmost confidence that things would go off properly. The movie opts for a different tactic: the IMF's assignment goes horribly wrong, and team member Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is left out in the cold.
The action flies fast and furious, but there is a curious detachment about the whole enterprise. No attempt is made to humanize the characters except in the most perfunctory way, an approach which suited the television show's clinical style but which falls flat in a film which chooses to concern itself with intrigue and betrayal.
Technically, the film is superb. De Palma's keen visual stylings and editor Paul Hirsch's impeccable timing make for action which can't help but get the heart pounding on cue, not to mention the visual effects and the well-wrought digital soundtrack. But given the all-star writing team of Steven Zaillian, David Koepp and Robert Towne, I expected to care a lot more about the characters than I did. Impressive it may be, but Mission: Impossible is nothing but a well-produced amusement park ride.
Special thanks to: