American History X stars Edward Norton and Edward Furlong, along with Robert Patrick (Terminator 2) in the story of a neo-Nazi who goes to jail and learns a great deal about race relations. After Norton's character is released, he tries to steer his brother away from his hateful friends. Despite the beginning, which seems to be a recruitment campaign for skinheads, this film shows how racist attitudes are formed and what it takes to think for yourself, apart from your crowd. The first great film I saw this year.
The Thin Red Line is one of this year's two war films. I'm not a Tom Hanks fan (he can't act), so it will be some time before I watch Saving Private Ryan. And that film will have to be absolutely magnificent to unseat The Thin Red Line as the best war movie I've seen since Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket.
Nick Nolte stands out, and Sean Penn redeems himself for taking a role in Hurly-Burly, but it's really the director and the director of photography who take this script and make it work. Evidence of the director's touch is the gradual change in tone, from the seemingly irrelevant vacation of a soldier stranded on an island, to the full-out shelling and arguments within the ranks which decide how many lives will be lost in that day's fighting. The island with its palm trees, the claustrophobic warship, the green grass fields like any other fields, which make thoughts of soldiers and war out of place: that all of this is captured on film is a tribute to the director of photography. A very very good film.
Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels was almost as good as I had hoped. That it was not a disappointment is praise enough, for I was hoping that it was a British Pulp Fiction. The plot is worthwhile; just pay attention. While you may not understand everything that's said, you can follow enough to play along.
There is a lot of style in this film, and I remember liking the soundtrack even more than the film, but the twists and turns, the characters, and especially the film's ending, make this an enjoyable waste of two hours. Very good film, and stands out above 99% of action / heist films.
How about Ravenous? Guy Pearce from L.A. Confidential (the strait-laced officer in wire-rimmed glasses) is unrecognizable here with beard and period-piece clothing from the Mexican-American war. After being rewarded for heroism on the battlefield, his commander dispenses him to a speck of a fort in the Sierra Nevadas; this is meant as a punishment, but Pearce's character uses it as an opportunity to recover from the bloodshed he's seen (and the hypocrisy of being rewarded for his so-called heroism).
After a stranger is found outside the fort nearly frozen to death, he is treated and guides the soldiers to a cave where his fellow travelers spent weeks trapped inside due to the snow. They had begun to eat each other for lack of food (after the animals, and their shoes), and only two were alive when the stranger left for help.
By the film's end, you'll be glad you stuck with this surprising film. Look for the perfect little touches added by those only thanked in the film's end credits: things like the cut of the steaks from that time period, the artifacts lying around in the rooms of the characters, the clothing with its buttons (I thought they were for show, but the buttons were functional---who knew?).
8mm has been the only disappointment I've seen in theatres this year. The director of Batman couldn't handle the material in a worthwhile manner. Cage's performance is the usual mix of silence, sleepy eyes, and screaming. I really wanted to like this film, but in the months since I've seen it, there is not one memorable scene or performance to recall.
Star Wars is not what I wanted to see, but The General's Daughter was having sound problems at the theatre. While the pod-racing scene was a marvel of technology, it was the 1-2-3 endings that surprised me. (Who knew (George Lucas) could write) parenthetical plots)?
I have since heard that martial arts people performed the fighting stunts, with the actors' faces digitally glued to the fighters' heads. And that the spacecraft bay was a mix of full-size, scale model, and a digital virtual creation. So kudos for an f/x movie that has captured the imagination of a new generation of kids and teens. Now will you please take all the marketing and shove it up Jar-Jar's...ears?
The funniest film since Monty Python's Holy Grail is South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut.
While I can't tell you any of its vulgar little lines, I can say that it's a musical, it's vulgar, and it will have any open-minded person not afraid of words laughing non-stop for almost an hour and a half. I thank Trey Parker and Matt Stone from the bottom of my heart.
Eyes Wide Shut is the only Stanley Kubrick film I've ever seen in its initial theatrical release. It took me three days to realize why I was miffed after leaving the theatre; because Tom Cruise's character never experiences an emotional release, neither does the audience. For this reason I could not explain Eyes Wide Shut to others. Had Cruise's doctor simply yelled out, or kicked something, or done anything at all in a rage, the audience could have had emotional closure in place of confusion.
Since the plot does not allow him— the protagonist— to express his outrage at his wife's imagined affair, we are left wondering how we the audience are supposed to feel.
Due to this flaw in the plot, audiences and critics alike will remember Kubrick's final film as a contradiction. It is astounding in its grandeur: the lighting, the camerawork, the settings. Nicole Kidman is award-winning and Cruise steps it up a notch as well.
The other flaw in Kubrick's film results from Warner Brothers allowing the ratings board to censor scenes.
Only in America was Eyes Wide Shut altered; we are the teenagers in the world of cinema who apparently need our eyes shielded from sex (but not bullets, a la Schwarzenegger and Bruce Willis). By digitally obscuring the sex scenes, we can not see what the protagonist sees; therefore we do not know how he feels, and how we are supposed to feel. Excising the emotional core of the film loses the audience; without his leading the audience through an epiphany the resolution comes off as hollow— it doesn't ring true.
This compounds the fact that the plot was written for an audience which sees and feels what Cruise's doctor sees; his emotional restraint most likely is intended to add to the tension between doctor and wife. The plot was never written to explain itself in redundant fashion; it was neutered by the MPAA and never allowed to pass cinematic "puberty."
One simple plot point and the father knows best attitude of movie censors combined have fractured what could have been the most beautiful film of Kubrick's career.
Very much worth seeing for Nicole Kidman's acting, especially the dance scene, which epitomizes everything Kubrick was capable of at his peak, and the technical aspects only Kubrick could exploit so completely.
The Blair Witch Project is the biggest con of the year. And I laugh every time I think of the audience's reaction at a completely packed afternoon showing. The ending was perfect: no loose ends neatly tied up, no down time for movie-goers to recover their senses. Last scene-darkness-credits. Just like that.
No special f/x, no big names, no glitzy settings. In the video store, they are advertising the video, in time for Halloween, with extra scenes cut from the theatrical version. What extra scenes? More walking, more cursing, more video of trees? Anyone expecting a Hollywood film should sit this one out; anyone who likes Clerks more than Forrest Gump is the audience most likely to appreciate the Blair Witch Project.
The Sixth Sense should have been the opportunity for another unknown to gain recognition, not for Bruce Willis to pay his rent for the month. A very well-done shocker, although with the budget most people expect to see for every Hollywood film, especially one with Willis in it. Again, there are no duds in the acting line-up; and thinking back through the film reveals no slip-ups or contradictions in the plot. But in the end, both of these films---Sixth Sense, BWP --- are most effective the first time around, and neither one requires the big screen for its impact. A dark room late at night with no distractions will do just fine.
Very good films, each in their own odd ways.
American Beauty --- October 99
Annette Bening finally has a role worth remembering, her first since Mars Attacks, which lacked the finesse of her role in The Grifters. As mother and wife in the ‘burbs, she's one-third of a pathetic family which enjoys blaming the other two-thirds.
The plot is about as dark as can be while still holding you to your seat; this film gives form to the nightmare I used to think the suburbs actually were. While each actor turns in A performances, it's the superb acting of Kevin Spacey that keeps your interest from beginning to end. When one of his questions is answered, the smile that forms on his face is one of the two best examples of acting I've seen all year. He should win Best Actor, and Nicole Best Actress.
Look for the husband and wife next door who look like the 90s version of the painting American Gothic.
A must-see if you can pass the movie-going test.
The Movie-Going Test
Movies can be magical. The best films are works of art, brought to life by the execution of a well-written plot by actors, directors and stage crews. And the best place to experience movie magic is in the theatre...but this is becoming less and less common. While watching American Beauty, I realized the four people directly behind me were stupid.
They were stupid for the following reasons:
(1) They were in a theatre on dates. Movies aren't for dates. People should be talking on a date, not sitting in the dark next to each directing their attention towards a large screen.
(2) They did not direct their attention towards the large screen; they directed it at trips to the counter for food and drinks, and towards each other. They said out loud whatever knee- jerk response popped into their little heads. They did their best to ruin the film for me and whoever was near them.
(3) The characters in American Beauty are normal people. They are your neighbors; they are you and me. These "movie-goers" in Illinois kept referring to them as "weird," saying, and this is a quote, verbatim: "Aren't there any normal people in this film?"
Lady, the people in "this film" are as normal as it gets. You must be socially and intellectually challenged if this film is not within the scope of your comprehension.
There are other reasons films in theatres are less likely to be magical. In Missouri, the theatre shows local ads on their movie screen for nearly ten minutes before launching into film trailers and the movie itself. Nothing makes the movies seem more like television than advertising, whether it's on videotape, in the theatre, or in the movie itself.
Playing music before the film is also a detraction. It divides the audience before the film ever starts; there is always someone who does not like the genre or the particular songs, and they are the ones most likely to grouch through the film, as they were placed in a bad mood prior. Give me a dark theatre, let the people come in, and start the trailers on time.
Shorten the film previews. Either make them one minute long, or show no more than three. Get rid of the Kerasotes home-made movie, showing a theatre 10 times larger than the one we're in, with kids snapping to attention while holding brooms and dustpans.
And throw out those talking during the film. Until these things happen, going to the movies is less and experience than sitting in room with a bunch of strangers with half of them wishing they could change the channel, and more than willing to express that desire.
I'm planning to buy a home theatre, not because I want to spend the money, but because I can re-create the magic of the movies better at home than the theatre can.
So here's the movie test: if you aren't there to watch the film, get out of your seat and leave. You're better off at home flipping through the channels until you find what you like.
|