CleverDonkey.com …Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel

This is a deliberate and challenging movie. If you were sending this movie a Christmas card, the mailing address would be 2001 Mulholland Drive, and I mean that in the ‘homage’ sense, not the ‘blatant ripoff’ sense. The movie, although set in space, is character-driven and uses the futuristic setting merely as a backdrop for larger issues regarding humanity, the meaning of life, the definition of death, and the nature of god (almost).

George Clooney continues to stay out of the Hollywood icon rut, and is selecting projects that allow him to flex his not inconsiderable acting muscle. The movie has a high GCBF (Gratuitous Clooney Butt Factor), but that may hold some appeal for a certain market demographic. The rest of the (surprisingly small) cast does excellent work, as well.

If all you know about this movie is that it stars George Clooney and is set in space, I urge you to go see it before you learn any more, but with one caveat: there are no laser battles, distressed princesses, wise-cracking sidekicks, tractor beams, transporters or holodecks in this movie. If you are looking for mindless, escapist, holiday fare, this ain’t it. Not that there’s anything wrong with escapist fare, mind you, but the marketing of this movie has left its nature pretty unclear, and if you wander in expecting Star Trek Meets Star Wars, you may be disappointed (you also might be pleasantly surprised).

But, this movie is deliberately paced, and you’re almost a third of the way through it before the plot even becomes clear. The movie borders on being an art film, and if it didn’t have Clooney as the star and Soderbergh as the director, it’d probably be playing on one screen of your local art house rather than two screens at each of your local multiplexes. I’m very glad that it has a wide release, however, and I hope it does well at the box office, because that is the only way Hollywood will make more films like this (not films with the same plot, but films that push the envelope like this one). I’m also hopeful that this movie will reach people who might not have seen it otherwise, and that they enjoy it, rather than feel misled by the hype.

I’m deliberately not mentioning any more details of the plot, because this movie really should be experienced with few preconceptions, IMHO. I struggled between giving this movie 3 or 3.5 stars, and I settled on 3 only after much deliberation. I may come back later and adjust it upwards, but I need to think about the movie some more. And that, in my opinion, says it all.

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This is a standard-issue Bond film, so you’ll know whether or not you like it going in. I like Bond films, for the most part, but am not a devotee. In my opinion, most Bond films are above-average entertainment, hence the 2.5 star rating.

After the first 30-40 minutes, however, I thought I might be witnessing the rebirth of the Bond franchise as a tougher, more realistic, harder, more exciting franchise. The first third of this films ranks as some of the best, if not *the* best, work I’ve ever seen in a Bond film. However, after that, it falls back into the usual Bond groove. In fact, near the end of the film, there is some awful CGI (computer generated graphics) that would have looked amateurish in an episode of Xena the Warrior Princess.

But, the bad guys are bad, Bond is smooth, Halle Berry is suitably plucky and alluring, and the locations and cinematography are gorgeous (for the most part…a couple of supposedly “outdoor” shots look like they were filmed on a sitcom set, meaning cheesy and obviously indoors).

And, I have to say, I now think of Pierce Brosnan as Bond, not as ‘the new Bond’. I would *love* to see the next Bond film carry the grittiness and reality of this movie’s opening throughout the film. The producers of this series have to begin distancing themselves from the Austin Powers series (which I *love*), or they may end up becoming a parody of a parody of themselves.

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The Ring could have been good, but not great. It has solid bones, but the meat is more like spam than filet mignon. Naomi Watts (who should have won an Oscar for her performance in Mulholland Drive) does a good job, as does the rest of the cast, but the material they are given, and the story/direction are uninspired and uninspriring.

Particularly underwhelming is the director’s use of Watts’ character’s son as a sort of Joely Hale Osment doppelganger. The director’s attempts to use the kid (who seems like a fine actor) to capture the chill of ‘I see dead people’ do not work, and play like parody of the Sixth Sense.

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The story had many, many holes. For instance, answer any of these for me:

What would happen if the person who watched the videotape is not near a TV seven days later?

What would happen if they were not near a phone right after watching the video?

What is the purpose of the first phone call, if it doesn’t matter whether or not the call is answered?

Would a malevolent force know enough (or care enough) to “wait for the beep” to leave a message?

What was the purpose of the scene where Naomi Watts’ character is down the well, other than to set up the false ending?

If four teenagers watched a videotape, got a warning message via phone, then died in simultaneous yet unrelated incidents seven days later, wouldn’t the police become involved?

What art school drop-out directed that lame video?

Those are not burning questions that have occurred to me after deep ruminations on the complex message of the film. Those are forehead-slap-and-snicker-inducing gaffes that occurred to me during the film. I have a fairly balanced view of movies, in that I can usually recognize when a film is good, but just doesn’t appeal to my tastes. This isn’t one of them.

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Chamber of Secrets is good, solid entertainment, and a worthy successor to the first Harry Potter film. The kids are all a year older, but that fits right into the story and seems completely natural. The story is exciting and well told, the acting is solid, and the special effects border on astonishing, even in this day and age. In fact, they are so well done that I didn’t even think to mention them until I stopped to think about the movie, and realized that I hadn’t noticed them (because they were so good).

FYI, I have not read any of the Harry Potter books, so I can’t comment on how the movie compares with the book, but Marie (who has read all the books) said that it was a faithful representation. But, from my perspective of someone not familiar with (or a fan of) the books, I can say that Chamber of Secrets stands on its own as a solid, entertaining film. You *should* see the first film first, though, to understand some of the characters and backstory, but don’t consider that a negative…I liked that this film did not try to “fill in the blanks” for those who hadn’t seen the first film.

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My one complaint/question regarding this film concerns a scene near the end. Hagrid returns to the Hogwarts dining hall, and is given a boisterous standing ovation. But he hasn’t really done anything to deserve one. My guess is that he is being cheered because a side-effect of the movie’s story is that Hagrid is shown to have been innocent of a past transgression, but it was nothing dramatic or Earth-shattering, so I’m not sure that’s what the ovation is for. If you can provide clarification, please feel free to post a response here. Thanks!

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Comedian tells the story of Jerry Seinfeld trying to rebuild his comedy act after retiring his classic material in one last Broadway show (see “I’m Telling You For The Last Time!”). The film is documentary-style, and also includes the parallel story of a young, up-and-coming comedian named Orney Adams.

I found the movie to be a fascinating look at the professional life of stand-up comics. At one point, another comedian asks Seinfeld how long he’s been working on his new material, and Seinfeld says four months. The comedian then asks how many “minutes” he has, and Jerry says 20. Four months work for “20 solid minutes”. All the comics seem to be searching for the holy grail of an hour of solid material, which allows the comedian to be the “showcase”. It’s very revealing to see Seinfeld unsure of himself and his material, struggling to find the right timing and weed out the bad material. Even though it is a flattering look at Seinfeld, it is not a reverential treatment.

If you like Seinfeld, stand-up comedy, or the artistic/creative process, check this movie out to see a realistic look at the life of a performer.

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Well, it turns out the Eminem can act, too. He does a very solid job of playing a character not unlike himself. The movie doesn’t aspire to philosophical deepness, but it’s also not a “Spice Girls: The Movie”-type of glossy brand polishing, either. My perceptions of Eminem were based on the few of his songs that I heard, the few things I read about him in the press, and the few times I saw him on television.

My opinion of him was mixed, in that he has an interesting musical style, and some of his lyrics are creative, funny, biting, and insightful. But, at the same time, in his off-stage life he seems to be the very definition of a punk-ass moron. There are a couple of possible explanations for this dichotomy (including me misinterpreting the whole thing), but my hope is that the truth is that he is what he appears to be…a smart, creative kid from the tough side of town, who developed both a hard manner and an artistic expression that allowed him to survive and thrive, and now that he’s moving in circles that are less dangerous and oppressive, he’ll learn how to dial down the constant bravado and street attitude. My fear is that he is a semi-talented moron who is being spoon-fed by producers and will be cast aside once his 15 minutes are up.

The good news is that, if that is the case, he could certainly fall back onto acting as a career. 8 Mile was very entertaining, telling a Rocky-like Hollywood fable. In an interesting twist, the movie does not follow the expected arc of that type of film, and instead leaves us somewhere in the middle of the typical movie storyline. Eminem’s character has a test of…well, character…and shows his true mettle. The movie stops there, and does not follow his story to vindication, success, and/or world domination.

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To give you an idea of this non-Hollywood ending, the final scene takes place just after Eminem’s character has won a rap battle at a local Detroit club. He is congratulated by his crew, and then walks off into the night to head back to his job at an auto parts manufacturing plant, where he’s asked a fellow employee to cover his shift temporarily so he could compete in the rap showdown. There’s nothing glamorous or triumphant about going back to your metal-stamping shift.

This is the same plant where, during the course of this movie, he has learned to take responsibility for his own work performance, has asked for extra shifts, and has earned the grudging respect of the line boss. I can only imagine the story meetings with studio execs wanting to add a bigger, better ending to this movie. But the Hollywood definition of a bigger, better ending would have also been shallow and false on this movie.

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When this movie ended, I sat and thought about it, and about Eminem’s character. I didn’t get up and head for the exit. I leaned over to tell Marie that I thought it was a really good movie, as she had been worried that she had dragged me to something I didn’t want to see, or that I had not liked. Neither were the case. Eminem had proved to be such a conundrum to me that I was looking forward to seeing this movie and learning more. The movie didn’t make up my mind one way or the other regarding how I feel about Eminem, but it was entertaining, he was good, the story was compelling, and the whole thing ended up being points in his favor, in my estimation.

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What a great movie. We had the chance to see it again this past weekend, on the big screen at the Angelika Theater here in Houston. Yes, there is a bit more style than substance, but it has a whole lot of both. Every major cast member turns in a career-best performance, including the astonishing Chris Penn.

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So, what would happen if director Ted Demme ate some psychedelic mushrooms, then watched ‘Charade’, ‘Mulholland Drive’, and ‘The Bicycle Thief’ (about 10 times each), and then asked a Hollywood studio exec to help him work out the finer points of artistic expression?

What would probably happen is that he’d get ill and excrete something like ‘The Truth About Charlie’.

Wow, what the heck was he thinking? Marie and I went to see this movie knowing nothing about it other than what we gleaned from seeing the trailer a few times. It looked like it could be good fun. It was good fun, but only because of the vast mother lode of mockable plot contrivances and hackneyed cinematic clichés. Marie kept having to shush me so that I wouldn’t disturb the other theatergoers, but my reaction was virtually involuntary.

Markie Mark (Mark Wahlberg): He should do his career a favor and only work in Paul Thomas Anderson’s films. He was amazing to the point of Oscar-worthiness in ‘Boogie Nights’, but in ‘Charlie’ he is a drab, generic schlub, with no facets that make us care (good or bad) what happens to him. And, with his Neanderthal forehead and furrowed brow, he looks remarkably like a constipated gorilla throughout this movie.

Thandie Newton: She makes the best of terrible, trite dialogue and contrived situations. She’s pretty darned cute and probably has good things in store for her career-wise.

Tim Robbins: Looks like he cashed the check before filming began and had nothing to gain/lose from his performance. Not exactly sleepwalking, but certainly expending only the minimum amount of effort necessary to avoid shameful embarrassment.

Rest of Cast: Ehhh.

The good news is that nothing blows up, and there’s not much (for Hollywood) gratuitous violence, and none of the staged Matrix/XXX/etc fantasy-fighting. There is, however, a surplus of faux-romantic Parisian vignettes, but there are no sparks between…anyone in this movie.

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