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

This weekend Mynagirl and I surveyed the movie scene looking for something we’d like to see. There are a lot of serious and/or meaningful and/or thought-provoking films out that we plan to see someday, but we’ve both been working our donkeys off at work and decided to opt for some escapist fare. Which brought us to Dawn of the Dead, the big-budget, Hollywood remake of the old George Romero zombie classic. We serendipitously hooked up with our friend Bruce, who is a bit of a horror-film-buff, and headed to the local Googolplex.

My expectations were that we would see a splattery, mindless zombie film, and that’s exactly what we got, with a bit more humor and touch more flair than I was expecting (but not much). For those of you who may not already know, the story follows the conventions of virtually every zombie film ever made, which consists of:

1. Extraordinarily normal people go about their daily lives.
2. People start turning into zombies.
3. A cast of survivors quickly coalesce in some last-stand location with zombies right outside.
4. There is friction among the survivors.
5. People you like die.
6. People you don’t like die.
7. Dead people tend to come back to life as zombies, somehow surprising the people who have spent the last 45 minutes of screen time fighting off undead zombies.
8. People wander off by themselves, even though that means death in zombie movies.
9. The movie does not resolve itself until the verrrry end – in this case that means staying and sitting through the credits!

Two of the best things about this film are Sarah Polley as the plucky heroine and Ving Rhames playing the strong, smart, menacing type that he plays so well. The rest of the cast is also strong, surprisingly so for such a throwaway movie. The cynical side of me says that the producers were able to attract such heavy talent by telling potential cast members that this would be 28 Days Later with a bigger budget and a deeper message. So, they all signed up, shot their scenes, then the filmmakers went in the editing room, yoinked out the “message” parts, put in some slow-motion zombie head explosions and called it a “film”.

There are a couple of other ways that this “Dead” is different from previous incarnations. For one thing, the zombies here are quite speedy, as opposed to the stereotypical zombie from the past which attacked with the speed of a fast-growing mushroom. We also learn that zombies ignore dogs (although I shudder to think about the “table scraps”), and that infected women give birth to infected babies (yuck). We also learn that there are a lot of zombies who (to their detriment) look like Jay Leno, Burt Reynolds, and Rosie O’Donnell.

And while the new “Dead” is certainly gloppy, it’s not really scary. There are some tense moments where our survivors try to outrun the Zombie Olympic Track Team, and there are (of course) obligatory “shriek” cuts of zombies popping into frame when the music tells you to pretend that you least suspect it. The movie also manages to work in a nod to the fad-du-jour of Monster Garage-like vehicle transmogrification.

The movie also has a fair bit of humor. For example, there’s another survivor on the roof of a gun shop across the way, but they can only communicate with him via written placards and binoculars. This doesn’t prevent him from becoming a beloved member of the group, and it is subtly hilarious when we see him and Ving Rhames’ character playing chess via written signs, using a chess set themed after “The Alamo”. The soundtrack also has a hilarious rendition of the song “Down with the Sickness” done Sinatra-style with lyrics like “C’mon, c’mon get down with the sickness…open up your hate and let it flow into me…” as we watch scenes of zombie carnage.

So, all in all it was an enjoyable moviegoing experience that exceeded our expectations just a bit. If you really want to see a well-done, scary, thought-provoking zombie film, go watch the vastly superior 28 Days Later. If you want a creepy gorefest, check out the original Night of the Living Dead or Dawn of the Dead. But, if you want a reasonably entertaining film that’s in current release so that you can sit in the dark for a couple of hours and eat popcorn and have a soda and walk out feeling that you haven’t been ripped off, you might want to check out the current version of Dawn of the Dead.

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Mynagirl and I went to see The Hustler last night on the big screen at the Alamo Drafthouse here in Houston. You can read her review of the Alamo Drafthouse (which we both love) right here:

https://www.cleverdonkey.com/ViewArticle.asp?ID=116&Cat=Houston

I have seen The Hustler many times over the years, but never on the big screen, and Mynagirl had never seen the film before in any format. The print was a touch scratchy in places, but overall it was a wonderful experience. The film is very powerful and moody, shot in black-and-white, and almost all of the scenes are set in dank pool halls, dingy apartments, or dark flop houses. I am no fan of film noir, and moody black-and-white is usually an immediate turn-off for me. In my experience, many directors used the moody *look* of film noir to try to *set* the mood, rather than having the mood flow from the combination of plot, characters, sets, and cinematography. In The Hustler the mood is oppressively gray, but not just because it *looks* gray, but because of the grayness of the characters, their lives, their surroundings, and their actions.

Our protagonist is “Fast” Eddie Felson, an extraordinarily skilled pool hustler who has hit the felt ceiling on his way to the top. You see, Fast Eddie has a lot of skill, but at the beginning of the film he has not yet developed the temperament or intelligence necessary to consistently beat equally skilled players. Now, there are only handful of opponents in Fast Eddie’s class, and one of them is Minnesota Fats, the smooth, suave, un-rattle-able, undisputed best there is. Near the beginning of the film, Fast Eddie and Fats engage in a titanic, marathon contest, which ends just as it begins, with Fats as the best there is, and Eddie as a talented loser.

After reading thus far, you may think that this is a movie about shooting pool. It isn’t. Pool is merely the backdrop, the arena in which the male characters contest their manliness in the way that men do. The Hustler is the story of men who think that the arena is all there is to life. The men in this film have no lives outside the arena…no wives, no children, no jobs, no hobbies, no joy. They either compete at the tables, or bet on the outcome of other men’s competitions. The story of this movie is the story of Fast Eddie slowly learning that there’s more to life than shooting pool.

Fast Eddie is played to perfection by a young Paul Newman. Newman plays Fast Eddie as a charming rogue with a razor-sharp pool game. Fast Eddie wants nothing more or less out of life than to beat Minnesota Fats and be acknowledged as the best there is. When his first shot at Fats fails, Eddie starts a downward spiral, abandoning his longtime manager (and friend), and moving in with a woman with her own set of problems.

That woman is Sarah Packard, played by Piper Laurie. Sarah is an attractive, intelligent woman who does not need to work for a living, and so does nothing except attend school sporadically and drink diligently. You can see that with just the slightest of efforts Sarah could drastically improve her lot in life, but she doesn’t seem to care enough to try. She’s content to share her booze, her bed, her roof, and her depression with Eddie, and Eddie is content to take advantage of this damaged soul.

Eddie at least has enough drive to take another run at Fats, and he agrees to be managed by Bert Gordon, a successful, ruthless loan-shark/gambler. Bert Gordon is played by George C. Scott in a performance that could have been the prototype for Bruce the shark in Jaws. Bert is a winner, and he wins at all costs. His philosophy is (and I’m paraphrasing here) that life isn’t like football, where they pay you for yardage. Life is about the final score, and at the end of the day you count up the money, and whoever has the most is the winner. Period.

Bert recognizes the inherent talent in Eddie, and knows that he can exploit it to make a little action and a lot of money. However, as Eddie starts developing character, he also starts realizing that he is falling in love with Sarah. Bert understands that this new love will distract Eddie from his game, and so methodically tries to destroy the already fragile Sarah. He does this right in front of Eddie, but does it subtly, through smiling teeth, with little phrases and smiles and knowing glances. Eddie isn’t even aware of the subtext, but both Bert and Sarah understand that there is a contest going on for poor Eddie’s soul.

The finale of the movie involves another match between Fast Eddie and Minnesota Fats. Fats is played with stunning authority by the late, great Jackie Gleason. Fats is dapper and polite, completely cool at all times, even when utterly destroying his opponents. He is the best there is, and knows it, and knows that everybody else knows it, too. Every day he shows up at the same pool hall at the same time, sits in the same chair, reads his newspaper and waits without passion or fear for the next gunslinger to come along and try to take him. But they always lose, because the fat man has it all…talent, intelligence, character, and experience.

On his way to the final showdown, Fast Eddie loses it all. He splits with Bert Gordon, loses the girl, and is left with nothing but $3,000 and a burning desire to prove himself. He walks into Fats’ lair one last time, and challenges him to shoot pool for $3,000 a game. One loss and he’s out. Suffice it to say that at the end of the film there are no winners, but lessons have been learned.

Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, Piper Laurie, and George C. Scott were all nominated for Oscars for their roles. The film was nominated for several other Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, and ultimately won two golden statues and probably should have won Best Picture (which went to West Side Story). The Hustler is an amazing film, in that you don’t have to understand the game of pool to understand the games that are played, because the ultimate truths are not in the physics of the billiard balls, but in the actions and reactions of the characters. The lessons that Eddie learns are universal – don’t be consumed by material desires. Setbacks in material pursuits may be painful, but the true tragedy is a wasted life or love destroyed.

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The existence of this movie fills me with happiness and awe at the creative audacity of the human race. If you don’t know anything about this movie (although I’m not sure how you would find this review otherwise), and you have an open mind about movies, I urge you to stop reading and go see it before reading any further.

Go on, go.

When I ask if you have an open mind about movies, what I mean is can you set aside preconceptions about what movies should be and just experience what’s on the screen in the spirit in which it is given? Roger Ebert summed it up best in his review of this film, in which he said that to enjoy this film you have to not so much care what it is about, but you must care HOW it is about what it is about. Bubba Ho-tep is an amazing transference of an artistic vision to the screen, without care for the marketability of the story and without compromises to please the multiplex masses. In fact, this film doesn’t even have a proper distributor, so there’s almost zero advertising, it’s only playing in a few theaters, and will certainly not get the recognition (or box office) that it deserves.

So go on, go see it.

I’m warning you, I’m about to talk about the plot, and if you don’t already know the plot you shouldn’t read any further. In any case you should go see it. And if you’ve already seen it, go see it again, just so Hollywood can see that it has horrible taste in picking which movies deserve distribution and promotion (uh, Gigli? Texas Chainsaw Massacre? In the Cut?) and which don’t. Mind you, this isn’t Shakespeare, but it sure isn’t the dreck that Hollywood keeps excreting for the mindless herds, either. So thumb your nose at factory filmmaking, reward those involved with this unique near-classic, and be part of the grass-roots movement to show the so-called entertainment industry that you are not a mindless horde-member, but are instead a discriminating consumer who can appreciate a film like this.

Last chance, the next paragraph talks about the plot. Really, it does. Okay, you’ve been warned.

Bubba Ho-tep starts with an outrageous premise…well, three Outrageous Premises, actually. Outrageous Premise number one is that Elvis Presley is still alive and living in an East Texas nursing home. You see, at the height of his career he got fed up with all the glitz, glamour, fame, money, sex, and drugs and decided to switch places with an Elvis impersonator. Unfortunately for Elvis, the contract he had with the impersonator burned up (in a trailer park fire), Elvis (who was touring as an Elvis impersonator) fell off the stage, broke his hip, and ended up in a temporary coma, and the Elvis impersonator died. So now Elvis (the real Elvis) is living out the rest of his years in ill health, obscurity, loneliness, and regret.

Outrageous Premise number two is that another resident of the nursing home is none other than John F. Kennedy, or at least, he believes he is. You see, according to our elderly, obviously African-American JFK, the assassination attempt in Dallas failed, and Lyndon Johnson (et al) filled the hole in Kennedy’s head with a bag of sand, dyed him black, and put him in a nursing home, knowing that nobody would believe the ravings of an old black man that he was actually JFK.

Outrageous Premise number three is that many years ago a couple of thieves tried to steal the mummified corpse of a lesser Pharaoh (Tut’s brother, maybe) that was touring the US, but the bus they were driving ran off a bridge during a storm, dumping the sarcophagus into the river that just happens to run below the nursing home. Somehow the opening of the sarcophogus freed the mummy from the curse of death, and now he walks around at night looking to consume souls, which he needs as sustenance to remain undead (as opposed to dead). He has found an easy feeding ground at the nursing home, as nobody can put up much of a fight, and nobody is considered to have died an untimely death, since they’re all just there waiting to die in the first place. Elvis and JFK figure out what’s going on, and team up to try to stop the creature, who is dubbed Bubba Ho-tep (Bubba because he’s in the South, Ho-tep because it was an Egyptian royal family name).

At this point you’re either intrigued or you’re about to quit reading. If you’re about to quit reading, let me first say that once you accept the three Outrageous Premises, the movie plays it pretty much straight with the rest of the story. Elvis and JFK are walker and wheelchair-bound (respectively), and don’t suddenly gain heroic powers or manage to overcome the ravages of age. Bubba Ho-tep isn’t the fiercest undead creature ever to walk the earth, either, and he feeds on the elderly because they seem to be the only ones he can catch and overpower, and nobody listens to their outrageous claims.

If you’re still skeptical, I’ll also point out that if you go see this film you’ll see a performance by Bruce Campbell as Elvis that should, if there is any justice in the world, be nominated for an Academy Award. I have never in my life wondered what Elvis would look or sound like if he were still alive, but after seeing this film I’m sure it would very close to Bruce Campbell’s portrayal. There’s even a voice-over by the Elvis character, and while I usually find voice-overs to be annoying and pointless devices used by lazy directors to tell their story, in Bubba Ho-tep I found it to be a funny and poignant stream-of-consciousness from the man who would be King.

Also, this is not a slasher/horror movie, or even a horror/comedy. It sort of defies classification (which is why Hollywood won’t touch it with a ten foot pole…they can’t figure out what division it fits into), but if I were forced to describe this film in one sentence, it would be that it is a heartfelt commentary on the hell that is aging in America, coupled with incisive commentary about the ravages of fame and the human faults and foibles of man-made kings, wrapped up inside a story about two old geezers fighting off an undead mummy (who one of them thinks just might be Lyndon Johnson), and, if you accept the premise, is played straight and not as camp or satire, but is told with humor and intelligence. That’s a long sentence but there’s no shorter way to adequately describe this film.

Add to that the fact that JFK is portrayed (with appropriate gravitas) by the always-reliable Ossie Davis, and you have a movie made up of Grade B (and even C) movie parts, but which is put together with such skill and love that it overcomes its humble origins to become transcendentally great (sorta like Elvis). This film was made on a low budget (it probably could have been financed by sunglasses budget from the Matrix films), but it has enough heart and soul and humor that it ranks as one of the most enjoyable movie-going experiences I have had in years. So, relax, free your mind, shed your inhibitions, and go see this movie. And for being open-minded enough to do so (or to at least have read this entire review), I can only say thank you. Thank you very much.

P.S. I’m not kidding about Bruce Campbell’s performance as Elvis being Oscar-worthy. I’m sort of a fair-weather fan of his, having seen and loved his performances in Evil Dead and Evil Dead II. But I didn’t really care for Army of Darkness, I’ve never sought out any of his TV series, and I didn’t buy his book. I went into this film with expectations that I would see a Bruce Campbell film, and I didn’t. He is virtually unrecognizable, and not just because of the hair, makeup, muttonchops, and groovy shades. He becomes Elvis in this role.

There’s a scene in the film that I think should be shown to all Academy voters. In a flashback, we see Elvis (played by Bruce Campbell) meeting with the Elvis impersonator who will take his place (also played by Bruce Campbell). Even though they are both in costume and both look like Elvis (and like each other, since they’re the same actor), there is NO question as to which one is The King, as the “real” Elvis simply exudes greatness and power, while the impersonator just sort of looks like Elvis, but he sure doesn’t FEEL like Elvis.

I doubt that it will ever happen, but if any Academy voters read this, I urge you to seek out this quirky little gem of a movie and judge Bruce Campbell’s performance for yourself. By nominating him the Academy could instantly regain the credibility and respect that is slowly being frittered away by the ever-more-obvious fact that you seem content to suckle at the mainstream teat of the big studios while turning an ever-more-blind eye towards films without marketing budgets.

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This excellent swashbuckler borders on being an epic, but actually doesn’t try to be. It tells a medium-sized story (not big, not small) about a particular ship of the British Navy (during the Napoleonic Wars) on a particular mission (to sink or capture a bigger, faster French ship). It tells this story very, very well. The British ship, the Surprise, is chasing the French ship, the Acheron, down the Atlantic side of South America, around the Cape, and back up the Pacific side. The Surprise is smaller and slower, with fewer guns, fewer men, and a thinner hull. The Acheron is bigger, faster, has twice as many men and guns, and has a hull that seems impenetrable by British cannon fire.

The captains seem equally matched from a naval tactics perspective. Much like the crew of the Surprise, we don’t get to see or know the French crew except as a cunning and dangerous enemy, a chimera that hunts us and haunts us with equal effectiveness. The captain of the Surprise is Lucky Jack Aubrey, played with complete authority and believability by Russell Crowe. Captain Aubrey is tough but fair, and has (and deserves) the unquestioning respect and loyalty of his crew. Dr. Stephen Maturin, played by Paul Bettany, is the ship’s surgeon. He’s a skillful doctor, but his true calling is that he is a naturalist, and joined the Navy simply because it would take him around the world to see unrecorded new creature and species.

Aubrey and Maturin are long-time friends, and frequently spend evenings together in the captain’s cabin practicing music. This actually works within the story, and does not seem as stilted or affected as it sounds writing it. Their practice seems to flow naturally as part of the British Naval tradition of preserving culture and manners within the ranks of serving officers. We see the officers drinking tea from china cups as they fight raging seas or await the start of a battle, and it does not seem effete or incongruous, and in fact feels the way I presume it was designed to feel, which is that it brings a touch of normality and the familiarity of home to the strange society that is a warship halfway around the world.

The movie itself is nearly flawless. To put this review into perspective, I fully expected to hate this film. I don’t have any special affinity for historical or military stories, I have a love/hate relationship with Russell Crowe (grudgingly love most of his performances, tend to dislike what I can glean about him as a person), and the previews and trailers for this film were nothing but fodder for jokes and derision, as the film, quite frankly, just looked ridiculous to me. Pile on top of that the overlong and overblown title, and I knew this one was a “must miss” for me.

But I kept hearing very good things. And not from paid mouthpieces, but from my usual, trusted sources. So I set aside my skepticism and we went to see it last night, and I’m glad that we did. Russell Crowe does an amazing job as Captain Aubrey – so good, in fact, that within moments of the film starting I forgot that I was watching a “Russell Crowe film” and simply found myself watching the story play out. The acting by the entire cast is nearly perfect, and I qualify that with a “nearly” only because I’m sure somebody somewhere made a mistake or rang false, but I didn’t see it or notice it.

The film takes place entirely in and around the Surprise, so the vast majority of scenes are either on deck or below decks, and these scenes all feel completely authentic. The effects are seamless and unnoticeable, and even though I know they didn’t film scenes with the cast on deck during the vicious storms and high seas depicted in the film, I couldn’t see the effects, only the effect, which is very real. The filmmakers also seemed to pay very close attention to historically accurate details, but in the film they are not highlighted or paraded in front of the audience, but merely serve as backdrop, and their authenticity adds to the reality of the story.

And the story is very complex and real, with two major threads. The first is the pursuit of the Acheron, with the ships changing between hunter and hunted with each new day and shift of wind. Some of the strategy and tactics of naval warfare of the time are shown, but this is not a procedural, and these details are not the gist of the story and are only revealed as necessary to tell the tale. The second major thread is life aboard a British Naval vessel of the period. Aubrey is a good captain, and dines frequently with his officers, even getting tipsy and singing seafaring songs with them and visiting the decks in his inebriated state, which seems to bond him even further with his crew.

But he also doles out lashes where appropriate, even to good seamen who have simply crossed the line. And he is also willing to sacrifice his crew members when necessary in the heat of pursuit or battle, but it is done strategically, without malice and with much later regret, the curse of every good military leader. His officers range from seasoned hands to young boys, all loyal and dedicated officers, but with human faults and foibles that play into the story. The crew are a motley but hard-working bunch, and while mutiny is never a possibility in this story, we see that it is only the crew’s trust and love for their captain coupled with the iron-fisted chain of military command that keeps this from happening.

So, if you are skeptical, like I was, and don’t have any particular affinity for swashbucklers or military stories, or any great affection for period pieces or Russell Crowe, I urge you to put all that aside and go see this film. There are no martial arts, no sunglasses, no serial killers, no sex, no (gratuitous) gore, no quick cuts, no anachronisms, no time travelers, no robots, no teen angst, no May/December romances, and no hip soundtrack. Thank god.

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Oh, man, did this movie suck. Directed and co-written by Jane Campion, it stars Meg Ryan in her birthday suit for the first time on film. We went hoping to see an erotic thriller, and we’re still hoping. Yes, Ms. Ryan does bare it all, but it was completely (to me) un-erotic…in fact, it was de-rotic. And there’s nothing thrilling or mysterious, other than the mystery of how long they can drag out the lame story, or the mystery of how many men that Meg Ryan’s character thinks is a psychotic killer will she be aroused by and sleep with over and over and over and over again. The only “ic” that this movie is is idiotic, and it is that in spades. Here are some examples:

Example #1: At the beginning of the movie Frannie (Meg Ryan’s character), a high school English teacher, meets one of her students at a bar to discuss a paper he’s writing (a bar?). She heads down the dark, dingy back stairs of the seedy bar towards the restroom, and sees a man with a very unique and distinguishing tattoo being…serviced (ahem)…by a young lady with very unique and distinguishing blue fingernails. Later, when the decapitated head of the murder victim, who just happens to be the same young lady with the blue fingernails, is found beneath Frannie’s bedroom window in her garden, the cop who shows up has the same distinguishing tattoo as the guy from the bar. Frannie’s reaction to this? Sleep with him.

Example #2: When Frannie is unsure of her relationship with the cop, she seeks out the advice of her sister. Her sister recommends that she continue sleeping with the cop, which Frannie does. Frannie’s sister’s advice is trustworthy to Frannie, even though in her own personal life the sister is stalking some poor doctor, stealing the doctor’s wife’s clothes from the dry cleaner, and her biggest worry is what to wear to court when they slap her with a restraining order. Oh, and she lives in an apartment directly above a strip club, and appears to be sort of a den-mother to the dancers, running a sort of empowered-naked-women’s day care center, or something like that, where the strippers leave their babies while they go out front and grind for the customers. Heartwarming.

Example #3: The student from the bar, an obviously troubled young man who is writing a paper (in blood) defending notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy as a misunderstood nice guy who loved his victims, also flirts with Frannie in that street-tough fashion of youth. Later in the story, after Frannie has discovered the body of her violently murdered sister and sat on the floor with her sister’s disembodied head in a plastic shopping bag in her lap until the police show up and pry it from her hands, Frannie promptly goes home, finds her young student waiting for her, and takes him upstairs and proceeds to make out with him. That’s a perfectly normal reaction, wouldn’t you say?

Example #4: At the beginning of the film Frannie relates to her sister the story of how their father proposed to her mother (they’re half-sisters – same father), and it’s a beautiful, romantic, sepia-toned flashback to her father and mother silently skating on a glorious winter’s day, and her father getting down on one knee on the frozen lake to propose. As the film progresses we learn more of this story through intermittent flashbacks, and find out that the father actually came to the lake with a different girl, his fiancé, no less, who is taken aback by how much attention he is paying to Frannie’s future mom. So the fiancé takes off the engagement ring and flings it at him, and he proceeds to pick it up, skate over to Frannie’s mom, and propose to her with the same ring. Of course, in that true, hackneyed cinematic tradition, he ends up slicing her legs off with his razor-sharp skates and spreading blood all over the frozen lake. Quite Kapra-esque.

Example #5: Kevin Bacon plays a former romantic interest of Frannie’s, who just happens to be instantly recognizable as a red herring, because he’s just too loony and stalker-like to actually be the killer….or is he?? Who cares.

The list goes on and on (and on and on). When we got home I double-checked the running time, which is just under two hours. It felt like a lot more. The absolute worst part of the film, however, is the grand finale, where the killer is finally revealed.

READ NO FURTHER UNLESS YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO THE KILLER IS!!!!

So, as we begin wrapping up this circus we find that Frannie is almost positive that the detective is the killer, so she invites him up to her apartment, for some inexplicable reason puts on a sexy, red, night-out-on-the-town dress, provocatively handcuffs him to an exposed pipe with his own handcuffs, has her way with him, then stumbles off blindly into the night (in her provocative red dress), where she runs into the detective’s partner, who thus far has been nothing but a bit character. He takes Frannie to a huge red lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge. The red lighthouse both physically and metaphorically resembles a bloody penis, so given Frannie’s romantic choices thus far I just assumed that she’d start humping it. At this point it is clear to everyone, including the audience and Frannie, that the partner is the killer.

So Frannie does the smart thing and follows on foot as he unlocks the gate and lets her in to the lighthouse grounds, where she seems to be inexplicably trapped by a 7 foot high, easily climbable wrought iron fence, even though she knows (because he tells her) that he’s going to kill her. But first he puts on a little easy-listening music, has a drink, and asks Frannie to marry him, at which point she does the first smart thing she’s done during the entire film and shoots him with the other cop’s gun that coincidentally happens to be in the pocket of his jacket, which she coincidentally decided to bring with her on her run out of her apartment, into the partner’s car, on the long drive through the country, and into the red lighthouse/weiner. Even though she shoots him in the leg (they show it), the overhead shot shows him dead laying on top of her bleeding from a chest wound. Call the Warren Commission, we’ve got another magic bullet.

It’s a shame that the wonderful Meg Ryan chose this piece of dreck as the first film where she bares her assets, as this film is not worthy. Ms. Ryan does a good job with what she’s given, and shows acting chops that make me very interested to see her first (good) serious film. This film, however, does not work on any level. I can’t see that it could be empowering for women (but I await correction on that assumption), it’s not a thriller, it’s not a police procedural, it’s not erotic, it’s not dramatic, it’s not funny, it’s not deep, it has no message, it has no layers, it’s not metaphorical of anything interesting/important/serious enough to care about, and it’s not anything but a complete waste of everyone’s time, effort, and money.

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Another star is born. Jack Black has slowly been working his way up the movie role food chain, starting with small roles in movies like Waterworld, Bob Roberts, Demolition Man, The Cable Guy, and Mars Attacks, and then moving up to more visible roles in such films as High Fidelity and Shallow Hal. And now, in School of Rock, he has grabbed the mic in his first big, mainstream, successful starring vehicle.

He is starting to be compared with John Belushi and Chris Farley, and I think those comparisons are close to the mark. Black has a unique style, and while he doesn’t appear to trying to emulate either of them (or anyone else), he does have Belushi’s commanding presence and Farley’s endearing earnestness, as well as the comic abilities shared by both. One hopes that Black will be able control the conflagrations of fame to become an enduring fixture, and not a brightly blazing, but too soon extinguished, shooting star.

The film itself is laugh-out-loud funny and charming, and manages to be family-friendly without slipping over into smarmy sweetness. The story follows Dewey Finn (Black’s character), who is a fringe-dweller in his town’s local music scene, as he gets kicked out of the band he helped found (to be replaced by a guy with less talent but better abs, tats, and hair) and finds himself broke and jobless and facing eviction from his apartment by his roommate’s girlfriend if he can’t cough up the back rent. Dewey’s roommate is a substitute teacher, and one day Dewey fields a call from a school looking for an emergency substitute, and ends up taking the position himself (while masquerading as his roommate).

The school turns out to be the finest private prep school in town, and Dewey’s students are all refined, polite, and highly intelligent. He tells the kids that they’re going to have permanent recess in his class, scams some munchies from one of the kids, and promptly does a whole lot of nothing else as he avoids the pinched headmistress (played with tightly-wound conviction by Joan Cusack) and attempts to keep up the charade long enough to get a paycheck without having to actually do anything.

But when his kids head down the hall for music class, Dewey follows them and finds out that they are talented musicians and singers. By the time the kids come back to his class, Dewey has schlepped in all the band instruments from his van and has decided that he and these kids are going to win the upcoming Battle of the Bands, giving him revenge on his former bandmates. The problem is that the kids are schooled in classical music, not rock and roll, but this only inspires Dewey to become, of all things, an impassioned teacher. And his lessons, ostensibly about the history and art of metal rock, are, in true Hollywood fashion, metaphoric life lessons.

And also in true Hollywood fashion, Dewey learns from the experience, too. He has written his one great song, a Zeppelin-esque rock ballad/anthem, complete with deeply mystical lyrics and overblown orchestrations, and he thinks this is the song that will take his new band to victory at the contest. However, one of the students writes his own song, a simpler but ultimately more powerful song based on his own troubled relationship with his success-focused father. Dewey recognizes the superiority of the song, and learns that being a leader means using the best ideas, even if they’re not yours. And the band goes on to overcome tribulations, compete, and while they don’t win, they do triumph, and learn that it’s more important to be true to yourself and your art than to win.

Jack Black shines here as Dewey, imparting the pure joy of his love of music and convincingly portraying his evolution from slacker-loser to deserving shaper of young minds. The kids are played by actual musical prodigies with little or no formal acting experience. This results in performances that, while rough around the edges, are better than anything that could have come from precocious acting veterans, because these kids play their own instruments and sing their own songs, and that more than makes up for the occasional lack of acting polish.

All-in-all, this film is a trifle, but it is a very enjoyable one. It will be interesting to see how Jack Black handles his new movie-star status, and how he balances his own roots in the mock-rock band Tenacious D with the pull of Hollywood and the lure of superstardom. I’m already reading stories where Jack Black talks about his schedule being so hectic that he’s using pills to control his sleep cycle. I don’t know if these quotes are accurate, but they seem eerily familiar. Let’s hope that his rock opera turns out to be heroic, and not tragic.

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Click here to see the review of Kill Bill: Vol 2.

Kill Bill: Vol. 1 is Quentin Tarantino’s fourth film as a director. Well, third-and-a-half would be more appropriate, since this is really the first half of one film, not the first film in a film/sequel progression. So far he’s batting .500 in my book. I *loved* Reservoir Dogs, and still watch it once every year or two, even though it’s a tough, gritty ordeal. I’ve never been able to watch Pulp Fiction all the way through, finding it to be a moronic, but more slickly Hollywood, pale imitation derived from Dogs. I’ve seen enough movies that I believe I can tell the difference between good films that I just don’t happen to like and bad films. Pulp Fiction may not be a bad film, but it’s sure not good, and certainly not great, and I have always struggled to understand its popularity.

My pet theory is that Pulp Fiction was embraced by those who had heard that Tarantino was a great director, but had never bothered to seek out (or endure sitting through the pain of watching) Reservoir Dogs. I’m pretty neutral about Jackie Brown, in that it was mildly enjoyable when I first saw it, but it was quickly forgotten and I’ve never revisited it.

Which brings us to Kill Bill: Vol. 1, which I enjoyed greatly. There is almost zero prelude or character development in this movie, which jumps immediately into a violent revenge story, and only gives us the slightest of glimpses at the back-story of these characters. And even the back-story is an un-detailed, just-the-facts presentation of events, without any explanation of why. In typical Tarantino fashion, the story is not linear, but is told through flashbacks, memories, and even animated sequences. This is all done masterfully, weaving in the bits and pieces of the story at just the right times, without being dumbed down for (Hollywood’s understanding of) the multiplex audience.

The basic storyline is that The Bride (Uma Thurman) and her entire wedding party, including her unborn child, are slaughtered by her fellow assassins on her wedding day in a small, dusty, clapboard chapel in El Paso. Except that The Bride survives, even though Bill (an unseen David Carradine) administers a point-blank, bullet-to-the-head coup de grace. The Bride ends up in a four year coma, and when she wakes up she realizes she has lost everything except a white-hot need to exact revenge on her former boss and colleagues. The rest of the film follows The Bride as she starts hunting down her former teammates one by one.

In an interesting directorial choice, Uma Thurman’s character is never referred to by a given name in this film, with the exception of one scene where it is uttered twice, but purposely beeped out both times. There doesn’t appear to be any reason to keep her name secret, but it does add to her mystery, and the beeping feels right and actually works within the story rather than being distracting.

The Bride’s quest for revenge involves much hand-to-hand combat, knife fights, and sword fights, but does not involve any Weapons of More-serious Destruction, like guns. This, of course, indicates that the film does not take place in the pseudo-reality of movies set in the real world, but instead is set in a mythical place, where all the assassins use guns when attacking The Bride and her wedding party, but then all of the subsequent revenge fighting is lead-free. This movie could have been over in 10 minutes if even one of the hundreds of world-class bad guys who’s butt’s The Bride kicks would have thought to carry a gun.

Fortunately (from my perspective), the mythical world of Kill Bill is not the digitally rendered, video-game like, heartless, soulless, plastic, lame-ass type of world seen in the Matrix “films”. Instead, it is much like the real world, except for the actions of the characters (and a couple of gravity defying fighting moves), none of whom are digital, and all of whom are sort of honorably stylized and/or stylishly honorable, in that they all seem to live (and die) by some unwritten Assassin’s Code.

For those who don’t already know, Tarantino shot this as one film, but it ended up with a ~4 hour running time, which he was reluctant to cut down. So the studio made the decision to release it as two films, the first out now, the second out early next year. I don’t have a big beef with the split, because I understand that any movie showing in a multiplex with a four hour run time is going to be under-viewed. However, I have a *big* problem with the long delay between the release of the halves. In fact, in my opinion, they should have been released on consecutive weekends, which I think would have set up a kind of harmonic vibration of folks going to see both of them, ending up generating more box office dollars than this artificial delay. You see, since this was conceived as a single film, there is no traditional “end” to Vol. 1, just a stopping point. Nothing is settled or decided, no watersheds are reached, nothing. If you look at the list of film/sequel combinations that are actually watchable, they all have one characteristic in common, which is that each film tells a complete story, and that story is part of a larger continuing story. With Kill Bill: Vol. 1, you get half of a well-told story.

And what a half it is. The sparse dialogue is not trite, not Shakespeare, but a perfect fit for this film. There’s an animated sequence that tells the horrifying story of one of the assassins coming-of-age. The sets, locations, and cinematography are beautiful. The violence and gore start out extreme, soon become over-the-top, evolve to comedically ridiculous, and finally blossom into sublime commentary/homage/satire of the violent film genre. Uma is likeable and lethal in her role, David Carradine does a good job as the unseen but seemingly omnipotent Bill, Daryl Hannah and Vivica A. Fox embody their roles with gusto, and Lucy Liu is suitably Oriental in her role as the…Oriental. I don’t think I will be spoiling anything for anyone by telling you that Uma survives this first half, but only some of the rest do.

I deducted a half-star from this rating as penalty for not being to see the whole $%#@$%$# story and thus not knowing if it will actually be good, once the fullness is grokked. However I get the feeling that The Compleat Kill Bill will end up being a four star masterwork, as long as the second half lives up the first half. And it should, since they were shot together and so shouldn’t suffer from any of the creative/artistic mutations that seem to plague the majority of sequels.

So Quentin Tarantino is now 2-2 in my book. Kill Bill is undeniably the work of a director with both a clear artistic vision and the complete command of the medium necessary to tell his story exactly as he envisions it. I’m quite upset that I have to wait until next year to see the rest of the story, but I also think that the anticipation will make the finale all the sweeter.

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I don’t live in New York, I’m not a member of the literary intelligentsia, I’m not Jewish, I’m not single, and I’m not female. Crossing Delancey tells the story of a single, Jewish woman who lives in New York, and whose work has her rubbing elbows with noted, famous authors. Despite having nothing in common with the main character, Izzy (short for Isabelle), I *love* this movie. I think that it’s because I identify with Sam, the pickle man, who is Izzy’s sporadic suitor.

Izzy is played by Amy Irving, in one of her best, perhaps very best, roles. Izzy is an intelligent, upwardly mobile professional who seems to be making a good life for herself doing something she loves. She has a good, rent-controlled apartment, works at a prestigious old-style bookstore, hobnobs with the upper crust of the New York literary scene, and spends personal time with her life-long girlfriends. Her only remaining connection to her past is her grandmother, Bubbie, who still lives in the old neighborhood in the old way. Izzy is dutiful in visiting her Bubbie and helping her with shopping, etc, but resists her Bubbie’s insistent meddling into her personal life. Bubbie firmly believes that Izzy “…lives alone, like a dog. Only a dog should live alone, not people!” Izzy insists that she has a great life, and doesn’t need a man to feel complete.

Unbeknownst to Izzy, Bubbie retains the services of the local matchmaker to help Izzy find a husband. Izzy doesn’t find out about the setup until the wheels are already in motion, and she is too respectful of her Bubbie to just leave once she finds out. So, she dutifully, but coldly, endures a lunchtime meeting around Bubbie’s kitchen table with the matchmaker and her blind date, Sam. Sam is played by Peter Riegert, in a marvelously understated performance. Sam owns a pickle stand on the lower East side, which he inherited from his father. A pickle man from the old neighborhood is definitely not what Izzy wants in a man, as she tends to get all doe-eyed and mushy over a prattling, Euro-trash author, played with perfect pitch by Jeroen Krabbé.

That’s the basic setup of Crossing Delancey, and the rest of the story follows Izzy as she goes through the process of separating what she thinks she wants from what she actually needs. There’s nothing earth-shattering or original about the plot, but the story is imbued with wit, warmth, and humor, and all of the characters feel real, and it’s easy to care very much what happens to them. Amy Irving does an excellent job of portraying Izzy’s angst as she struggles with the forces pulling her between her old and new worlds.

The movie portrays a literary world populated by semi-talented, blathering, self-congratulatory “noted authors”, who are surrounded by fawning, pseudo-intellectual wannabes. I’m actually distilling down to one sentence what is only eventually implied by the movie, and this characterization of the literati is not heavy-handed or comical. But the movie does seem to be telling us that the only difference between the fawn-ers and the fawn-ees is that one group was lucky enough to have sold a few books, and the other group sees that as the highest achievement of mankind.

Izzy is definitely a fawn-ee, with a genuine love of literature, but with a blind spot that seems to have her equating today’s bestselling “serious” authors-du-jour with the classic masters of writing. Given this predisposition, it is impossible for her to notice, much less appreciate, the subtle charms and non-egotistical confidence of a guy who has to soak his hands in milk and vanilla to get rid of the pickle smell. Sam pitches a little woo her way, and she eventually has to acknowledge that he seems like a good guy, but that he’s just not part of her world. Sam takes this news with equanimity, and does not chase her, but events (and meddling yentas) eventually put them back on each other’s radar.

Sam has a lot of characteristics that I admire, and that I strive to nurture in my self. Sam is very centered and has a strong sense of self, and doesn’t look for external validation of his worth. He runs a pickle stand with his brother, he lives in the old neighborhood, he plays handball, he helps the local bubbies with heavy chores, he’s witty and engaging, and through all of these small things he makes the world a better place. He doesn’t need anyone to praise him for what he does, or to tell him that he’s great, because he already knows who he is, and he knows the right things to do, and he does them. It’s very simple, subtle, and non-flashy. Still waters run very deep, indeed.

Anton the Dutch writer (Jeroen Krabbé’s character), on the other hand, is a charming-yet-angsty manipulative-tortured-genius type. The movie explores one of the standard relationship conundrums, which is why are women sometimes unable to see through brash flashiness and pathetic egotism and recognize jerks? (Nice guys everywhere would love to know, since it would sure save everyone a lot of time.)

But that conundrum is the heart of this film, and it makes for a very interesting, funny, charming, and heart-warming story. Of special note is Reizl Bozyk, who plays Bubbie. This was her first, and only, film appearance, after a career on the Yiddish vaudeville stage, and she gives a wonderful performance as the loving grandmother who seems to be doddering and out of touch, while all the time knowing exactly what she’s doing.

As we go through life our beliefs and philosophies continually change. In the end, I think the message of this film is that going back and re-embracing things that were previously discarded is not tantamount to compromise or settling, but instead is something that we should all be open-minded enough to do.

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So, The Rock has *it*. That may already have been evident to his wrestling fans, and maybe to others after his film debut in The Scorpion King, but I remained undecided. His performance in Scorpion was better than I expected it would be, but it still didn’t convince me that he was destined to blossom into a legitimate movie star.

But The Rundown has made me a believer. The Rock still has a few rough edges, but in Rundown he’s funny, cool, menacing and charismatic. Now, this is an action/buddy/comedy, so he’s not being asked to demonstrate a Method actor’s range, but he does an excellent job with the material at hand.

The film itself is mindlessly/mildly enjoyable, with some good action sequences, beautiful jungle scenery, trite-but-relatively-inoffensive storyline and dialogue, rapacious monkeys, an inexplicable Scotsman, and Christopher Walken doing an excellent impression of Christopher Walken at his most menacingly cruel. It also has Sean William Scott, who may be on his way to replacing Keanu Reeves, in my mind, as the luckiest dope to ever fall ass-backwards into a film career.

The storyline is basically an amalgamation of Romancing the Stone, Midnight Run, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and The Magnificent Seven. The plot is unremarkable, but it also manages not to get in the way of the heart of the film, which is the action, the stunts, and the scenery. Several of the stunts looked real (not CGI) and quite painful, and the fight scenes have some amazing looking moves that, again, do not appear to be computer-generated. There are a couple of places where the trickery is noticeable, but it never devolves into Crouching Angels Reloaded fantasy-fighting. And the mountains of Hawaii are breathtaking as they stand-in for the jungles of Brazil.

So, the best part of this film is The Rock laying the foundation for what appears to be a long and successful career. Pay close attention to the first few minutes of the film to see what appears to be the (deserved) passing of the Action Hero torch from one generation to the next. I hope that The Rock chooses his next few projects wisely, as he is on the verge of superstar status, and many before him have been at this same watershed point, only to take their eye off the ball and end up Van Damm-ed to mediocrity.

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Local Hero is my all-time favorite film. On the surface it’s a quaint  romantic comedy about an American fish-out-of-water in Scotland. But the film  has layers that at first may not be apparent. The first time I watched this  movie I knew absolutely nothing about it, and only watched it because I couldn’t  find the remote, didn’t feel like getting up, and this movie came on. I had been  planning to drift off for a lazy Saturday afternoon nap, and the slow, quiet  pacing of this movie seemed like the perfect background noise to lull me off to  la-la land. But a funny thing happened…I found myself getting caught up in the  story and the characters, in the music and the cinematography, and in the  near-magical mood of the film. The basic story is that an oilman from Houston, Mac MacIntyre (Peter Riegert),  is sent to Scotland to buy up an entire town to become the site of a refinery. 

The town is a tiny, idyllic fishing village, called Furness, populated by a cast  of characters who may at first appear to be stereotypical, but turn out to be  deeply drawn and fully realized, even if some of them only have a few moments of  screen time.  When I watch the film I get the feeling that each character,  no matter how major or minor, represents the tip of the iceberg of a complex and  real person.  And I don’t mean that in the intense, method-acted,  angst-filled, emoting-from-the-diaphragm perspective, I mean it from the  humorous, simple, and natural interaction of actual people perspective.   Mac tries to diplomatically address the disruption of lives and displacement of  the locals, while the locals joyously (and secretly) can’t wait to sell at a  high price.  Mac’s negotiating opponent is the local chartered accountant,  Gordon Urquhart, played with sublime canniness by Denis Lawson.

To tell more of the story would be a shame, as you should experience it for  yourself.  The layers of this film are not hidden or exposed, obscured or  highlighted — they are merely there for you to see and/or feel for yourself.   The topmost layer…which is the basic storyline…is very enjoyable in and of  itself.  The script is witty and poignant, the acting and directing are  flawless, and the scenery is beautiful beyond description.  My suggestion  is that you get a copy of this film on DVD, then wait for a cold, rainy day when  you have nothing much to do other than stay safe and warm at home.  Have  some wine, or a hot toddy, or some single malt scotch, unhook the phone, snuggle  in and watch this movie.  Then wait a few days, or a few weeks, or a few  months, or a few years, and then watch it all over again.  Repeat as  necessary.

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