30 August 2002

Men In Black II

I vaguely remember not liking Men In Black when I first saw it. The aliens were too silly, the mechanics of the double-duty Ford LTD too improbable. Still, it was set in New York City mostly, and when the opportunity to buy the laserdisc happened, that, and a rumor that the title would be recalled because the power-that-be at Amblin Entertainment was upset that it wasn’t available only in DTS or some such, induced me to buy it. The commentary from the director Barry Sonnenfeld was unusual, to say the least, for discussing his depressed state of mind upon embarking on the picture. Which is a roundabout way of excusing my nearly 2 month avoidance of this trifle of a sequel. Agent J (Will Smith) is having difficulty keeping a partner after K retired and finds himself neuralyzing one after the other. When the fetching assistant at a pizza joint (Rosario Dawson) reports that her boss was killed in an unusual fashion, J hesitates to neuralyze her. The head of the MIB (Rip Torn) realizes that the current unwelcome visitor to Earth (Lara Flynn Boyle, in a getup pointedly imitating a Victoria’s Secret advertisement) requires that they reactivate K (Tommy Lee Jones). Well, Kevin the Massachusetts postmaster is suspicious, but a little explanation here, a little flush from the headquarters there, some eBay searching here, and homebrew de-neuralyzation there, and Agent K is ready to take the driver’s seat again. Agent J is loath to give up his Mercedes-Benz but goes along if it allows them to save the world. Wouldn’t you know it, they do. Ups: the video store clerk. Downs: for a movie explicitly set after September 11th, to have the MIB bring new arrivals directly into their Manhattan headquarters seems misguided; mostly set at night, the few New York City locations are used repetitively.

87 minutes.

Read My Lips [Sur Mes Lèvres]

Carla (Emmanuelle Devos) has her problems. She used to be sufficiently deaf to have learned sign (I don’t suppose they call it American Sign Language in France), and now gets by with lip-reading and a pair of behind-the-ear hearing aids. She’s a secretary at a construction company who gets no respect. Her life is lonely enough to be a convenient resource for when her much, much prettier friend (Olivia Bonamy) needs a babysitter or an apartment while carrying on an affair. One day, Carla is so irritable that her boss suggests she hire an assistant. The Employment Office is willing to help to the extent the law permits and soon delivers Paul (Vincent Cassel) who, it turns out, has no qualifications because he’s been in jail for 2 years for various crimes of property and violence. Still, Carla sees some possibility in Paul, tells him to get a tie and just do what she says. As the days go by, Carla finds some utility in knowing a thug or two and her value to the company increases. (The ease with which she does so is fairly amusing.) But of course Paul has plans as well. He owes a night club owner money, and figures with Carla’s ability to lip-read, there might be some way to reverse the cash flow situation. Of course Carla is disappointed that Paul’s interest in her is more mercenary than romantic but she can understand his stunted humanity and excuse that away, too. Ups: Carla’s pretty friend (time to dig out Jefferson in Paris!) Downs: a bit too much thuggery by the end, with shootings and blood and everything. Doesn’t it occur to anyone to tell Paul to get his hair cut?

119 minutes.

25 August 2002

My Wife Is an Actress [Ma Femme est une Actrice]

If you’re going to make a movie about someone very much like yourself, then cast yourself in the role of that someone very much like yourself, it wouldn’t do to idealize that character too much. On the other hand, writing, producing, and directing yourself (Yvan Attal) in the role of the jealous- to- the- point- of- physical- violence jerk Yvan, a sports writer married to the most popular actress in France Charlotte (Charlotte Gainsbourg), should tax the patience of even the most lenient audience. Dump him already! (Whether Attal and Gainsbourg are really married to each other is not entirely clear to me.) Yvan has never quite gotten accustomed to having a celebrity spouse, as restaurant reservations magically become available, grinning policeman let them off with a warning, and autograph hounds constantly interrupt their dinners and walks. When Charlotte must travel to London to shoot a film (in English) with a rugged leading man (Terence Stamp), Yvan wigs out. Suspicious that she asks him to visit on a specific day (well, I needed to read the explanation in a review, shows you how much I know), he can’t wait and arrives early. Of course, that’s the day of her nude scene, and because of an argument Charlotte had with the director, everyone on the stage is nude as well. Taking his wife’s advice, Yvan, upon returning to Paris convinced of the complete depravity of the profession (yeah, he’s got actress and whore all confused), goes to acting lessons where some of the younger blondes respond to his unkempt hair, perpetually unshaven face, and uncultured demeanor. Meanwhile, in a long-running subplot, Yvan’s sister is arguing with her husband (who is not a Jew) about whether their child will have the ritual circumcision. Ups: a working high-speed train system allows our leads to travel between London and Paris on a routine basis; Gainsbourg is adorable under the circumstances but the proposition that she’s really, really big in France seems a bit of a stretch. Downs: not much past Attal’s histrionics, but the use of the Clash’s London Calling twice is too close to the timing of the Jaguar commercial.

95 minutes.

23 August 2002

Simone on screen as S1M0NE

Victor Taransky (Al Pacino) is in a bit of a fix. No amount of removing the cherry candies from the bowl of his temperamental lead actress Nicola (Winona Ryder) has prevented her from noticing that her Airstream trailer sits a few inches lower than that of her co-star (Jay Mohr) and stomping out (er, taking the Mercedes-Benz 600) and leaving the set and the production. His ex-wife Elaine (Catherine Keener), who runs Almagamated Studios, is going to release him from the contract which had him making impenetrably symbolic art films in a Hollywood studio of all places because the film can’t be released once Nicola sues. Just as he is stealing the cans of negatives of his opus and placing them in the boot of his Bentley, though, a complete lunatic named Hank (unbilled Elias Koteas) runs up to him babbling about solving his problems with vactors (meaning virtual actors). When Hank dies the next week, of an eye tumor caused by sitting too close to the computer monitor, Victor gets a package which contains a hard drive. No problem! Victor has one of those tray-loading hard drive slots! Hank has bequeathed Victor a completely convincing computer simulation of a gorgeous actress based on the greats of the past and recent present (Claire Forlani? I kid you not, she is listed among the inspirations) and a fruitfully convenient 9 months later, Sunrise, Sunset is released to tremendous acclaim and preternatural interest in its sensational new discovery of Simone (derived from Hank’s Simulation One). The interval allows the filmmakers to sidestep such questions as how she got a SAG card anyway and who Taransky got to distribute this defiantly non-mainstream indulgence that it would reach so many people so quickly. The humor, such as it is, involves Victor trying to keep up the appearance of humanity for Simone while the world and two tabloid investigators (Pruitt Taylor Vince and Jason Schwartzman) try to track her down as she gets more and more popular, to the extent of selling out a football stadium for a live concert where she sings Natural Woman. Uh-huh. This film does not so much inspire ups and downs (for it is incontravertibly funny and the performances largely credible) but rather a list of howlers. Besides the tray-loading hard drive slot, Victor’s computer also has a 5¼ inch diskette drive which is shown with a hand double turning down the drive door latch, yet it reacts to the press of a keyboard button labeled eject. Sure. Hank’s program is so advanced, it lacks any on-screen user interface beyond a rudimentary menu upon starting. (Extremely dubious in view of the controls which would be necessary for movement, muscle controls, expressions, lighting, makeup, clothing, hairstyle…) Where did the keyboard with the labeled key tops come from? And if Victor uses himself as a seed for animating the movements and speech of Simone in her television appearances, how come not even his ex-wife or his daughter recognizes anything of Victor in Simone? Should I be worried that Ryder’s character has a name which feminizes that of the producer/writer/director? Or that Victor had lying around a diskette (for that big 5¼ inch drive) professionally labeled for the virus it contains? The production’s attempt to maintain the illusion that Simone is a computer simulation extends to the omission of any credits for hairstylists or personal assistants or wardrobe selection. A nice touch. Reminds me of Max Headroom. That was 15 years ago. A movie’s not over until it’s over.

117 minutes.

18 August 2002

Blue Crush

Fine. Let’s get this question out of the way first. Would I have seen this if it was about a trio of young men just getting by in jobs as hotel housekeeping employees trying to look out after the younger brother of one of them because Mom had left for Las Vegas, leaving them in Hawaii where the surf is always a distraction? I went to see The Fast and the Furious, didn’t I? Racing tuned cars and surfboarding are both sports, right? Hmm. Michelle Rodriguez was in that one, too. Anyway, Anne Marie (Kate Bosworth) is the head of this ersatz family with the little sister (Mika Boorem) and roommates Eden (Rodriguez) and Lena (Sanoe Lake). Some Pipe Masters competition is about a week away, and while Anne Marie and the others sure could use the income from a promotional contract if she does well in this surfing contest, there’s a block. See, Anne Marie took a wrong turn 3 years ago and smacked her head on the coral (long enough ago for the scars to heal, eh) and has been a little afraid of the waves since then. When she’s fired for lecturing a guest, but attracts the attention of one of the NFL players staying in the hotel, and sets him and his vomiting, condom-spilling pals up for some surfing lessons at $150 a day, will she keep her focus on the pipes—or take the golddigger route out and try to latch onto Matt (Matthew Davis) for good? Ups: just the idea that people, even pretty girls in Hawaii who surf most of the day and for whom education past high school isn’t even on their radar screens, have to work for a living; the cinematography over, on, and under the water as it swells, curls, crashes. Downs: the credit that it’s based on an article ( Surf Girls of Maui although the movie is, importantly or otherwise, set on Oahu) led to the thought of what’s next? based on a title? a comic strip panel? A black dress that would have looked fetching on the slightly fleshier Cindy Crawford (I think it might have graced her form on the cover of Cosmopolitan many years ago) looks a little creepy with Bosworth’s sternum in plain view. Bodily emissions or no (and a hotel room can harbor quite a few) it’s all mostly played with a light tone, Eden’s haranguing comes from the heart, and maybe a few members of the cast have some Hawaiian ethnicity. Clichéd but fun.

104 minutes.

The Good Girl

Justine (Jennifer Aniston) lets us know early, in voiceover, about the prison of her life. She works the cosmetics counter at the Retail Rodeo in some neglected strip in a Texas town, her husband Phil (John C. Reilly) is a house painter with grandiose ideas (paint that changes molecular structure) which mostly arise from the pot he shares with buddy Bubba (Tim Blake Nelson), and the prospects for someone who (we later learn) has not been to college are slim. There’s a new employee, though, a young man (Jake Gyllenhaal, last seen by me as the photo shop guy in Lovely & Amazing) whose name badge says Holden reading Catcher in the Rye (Justine has to have the connection explained to her), who returns her interest. Justine may complain that she is in prison, but who’s to say it’s not the result of bad choices—for she keeps making them, even as her voiceover admits she’s an adulterer and a liar. Getting involved with this man with the weird parents is only the start of her problems. Indeed, she’s the good girl of the title only for tattling on a co-worker after a big theft from the store safe. I don’t watch Friends so I can’t compare the performances, but the character (whose first impulse is to live a sham and then find herself unable to extricate herself from it even as everything turns to dust around her) reminds me very much of who Aniston played in Picture Perfect (only there, she had more means, but my mother assures me the hair was colored). That sort of moral incapacity is wearying, and here the character lacks the gloss and bubble that carried her other role. Ups: it wasn’t my high point, but when the dog grabbed the blanket and revealed Bubba in all his glory, it left my audience in stitches; Jack Field (John Carroll Lynch), your Retail Rodeo manager, was the one character who seemed comfortable with where he was. Downs: isn’t Justine the least bit suspicious that Holden doesn’t even bother to introduce her to his parents as he takes her to his room? shouldn’t that have been her first clue that Tom (the character’s real name) wasn’t all there? Aniston, I must say, has come some way since her days on The Edge and in Leprechaun, so I don’t begrudge her portrayal of someone ordinary. But it’s not enough. There’s hardly a bodily emission left unmentioned or undepicted.

93 minutes.

17 August 2002

Sex and Lucía [Lucía y el Sexo]

Lucía (Paz Vega), a waitress in Madrid, takes a phone call at work. Her lover, Lorenzo (Tristán Ulloa), has had it with their relationship and is abandoning her. Devastated, Lucía rushes home to the deserted apartment and receives a phone call from the local police. See, there was this car, and… Life’s a bummer, Lucía, what are you going to do? Maybe that island Lorenzo was always talking about? Maybe there are some answers there? More than any one character can get a handle on, actually. See, the sex of the title, in particular, happened 6 years earlier, between Lorenzo and a blonde stranger in the sea under a moonlit night. The stranger, Elena (Najwa Nimri), had a daughter, who was sent to a nanny, Belén (Elena Anaya). While Elena searches for Lorenzo, Lorenzo finds Belén and the daughter, and the film also tracks Lucía on the island, falling into holes without physical harm and ending up with Elena, the chef and hostel owner, who’s instant messaging with some novelist who—by now, this little sliver is known—was Lorenzo. Will anyone figure anything out? Or will the screenplay turn self-conscious, and allow a happier ending for some of the characters? Ups: Vega looks so much like Winona Ryder at her cutest (say, in Celebrity) it’s astonishing, and Anaya, short hairdo or not, is no slouch in the hotness department, either; the utter fantasy element that Lucía would fall in love with the novelist Lorenzo from his writing and stalk him and throw herself upon him is one of those THIS NEVER HAPPENS moments but amusingly played nonetheless; the score sounds like it should be playing in a science fiction thriller. Downs: critics are mesmerized by the sexual activities (featuring male as well as female nudity) that they neglect to mention the violence—there’s a reason Elena is sad about the photograph of her daughter on the wall of her room, and it involves a dog; there’s a geologically implausible explanation for the island (more symbolism). Pushes the congeniality envelope in the smirking parallels of the novelist’s efforts with the screenplay (Lorenzo switches from WordPerfect for DOS to Microsoft Word for Windows at some unremarked point in the narrative) and the bleached and drained look of the island exteriors. Ultimately, Paz proposing a strip tease is more endearing than the performance thereof.

128 minutes.

06 August 2002

Lovely & Amazing

It has finally hit home for Michelle (Catherine Keener)—she’s 36, a junior high school classmate is a pediatrician, and she’s… trying to sell little chairs made of twigs to craft shops (and failing at it). She takes more interest in the videotapes of cartoons than her children do, and her husband is pretty distant (at least he’s having an affair with Michelle’s well-off pal, Donna). When her mother (Brenda Blethyn) decides to take a little off the hips and stomach, surgically, Michelle must share the duty of looking after her 8-year old adopted sister Annie (Raven Goodwin) with her hopelessly insecure other sister, the actress Elizabeth (Emily Mortimer). Complications from the liposuction extend mother’s stay in the hospital, Michelle impulsively takes a job at the one hour photo shop, Elizabeth’s one movie is about to have its premiere and she must audition for another role, and Annie’s difficulties express themselves in overeating and resisting authority. Ups: Mortimer’s nude scene; local performer Goodwin. Downs: a geographical indistinctness which leaves me unable to confirm a Los Angeles setting; a somewhat melodramatic climax. Amusing but a touch too acid for believability.

90 minutes.

02 August 2002

Full Frontal

Part of the effect of this movie is to deny certain knowledge of what is transpiring. It features Julia Roberts and Blair Underwood in at least two roles each. They are so recognizable, and the screenplay even winks at her actual identity (by using Denzel Washington and pelican in the same sentence), yet the alternative to the magazine writer profiling the new star (he’ll accept being billed as the sidekick ) of the two of them being actors is hardly more credible. David Hyde Pierce and Catherine Keener as a couple on the verge of separating, and Mary McCormack as the masseuse and David Duchovny as the recipient (it’s his fortieth birthday most of the characters are converging on), experience enough crises in the one day (a Friday ) to themselves strain credulity. Nicky Katt is cast as the actor playing a twentieth-century megalomaniac in a manner so over the top it brings to mind a Christopher Guest movie like Best in Show. Ups: the geography recognition quiz? Downs: the production’s attempt to sell a two-aisle, six-seat-across first-class airplane section interior with a 707’s exterior. Thumbs down.

100 minutes.