30 July 2003

Mortal Transfer [Mortel transfert] (2000)

Parisian psychiatrist Michel Durand (Jean-Hughes Anglade) is already anxious about his new patient, the very blonde and sculptured Olga Kubler (Hélène de Fougerolles), because he has already lied to his buddy in the police to support her alibi when she was caught stealing jewelry. While he tries to develop a relationship with sexually aggressive artist Hélène Maier (Valentina Sauca) despite the disturbed imagery in her paintings, the sessions with Olga involve her lubricious descriptions of sadomasochistic sex with her husband, a powerful man who cannot afford the scandal of a kleptomaniac spouse. In therapy himself, Michel is less than interested in Olga’s problems and one day as she gets particularly detailed in her descriptions, kicking off her shoes and fondling her garter straps, he dozes off. Patients are used to Michel being quiet and Olga continues. When Michel wakes up, though, Olga is dead. What to do? His Cambodian housekeeper Mai Li (Vantha Talisman) will be in his office any moment! That crisis averted as Michel’s vigorous attempt at cardiopulmonary resuscitation is assumed to be climactic sexual passion by the silent housekeeper, the problem becomes one of hiding the body before the next session. Why is that homeless person (Miki Manojlovic) hanging around Olga’s yellow Porsche Boxster, anyway? As his buddy is suspicious that Michel tried to call him the last day Olga was seen alive, as the husband threatens him for the seven million gone missing from his accounts, as the homeless person Erostrate says suggestive things about dead batteries as snow falls on Paris, and day by day goes by, Michel’s desperation to be rid of the body mounts. The seriousness with which this film takes Freudian psychiatry seems out of place at this late date, and the verisimilitude in Michel’s transport of the body of Olga seems a little lacking, too (as Anglade behaves more as if he were hefting a rolled-up carpet of one-third the weight). At least the Eiffel Tower lit up for the Millennium is pretty.

122 minutes.

20 July 2003

Johnny English

The jokes can be spotted from a long, long way off, but sometimes even those pay off. Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) dreams of a life of secret agent adventure but dream it must remain while he is a low-level functionary in MI8. A spot of incompetence on his part, though, and the UK’s top agent is killed at sea, and then the rest of the first-stringers are blown up by an assault on the funeral. English and his assistant Bough (Ben Miller) are pressed into service and their first assignment is protection of the crown jewels, recently restored through the generosity of donor Pascal Sauvage (John Malkovich, with outrageous hair extensions and accent to match). English is immediately suspicious of a French magnate who made his fortune in prisons, but through—you guessed it—incompetence, the security around the crown jewels is compromised and they disappear! There’s a pretty good chase through London with a Mercedes-Benz skip truck with English’s Aston Martin in sling speeding after the hearse with the villains. English eventually catches up with Interpol agent Lorna Campbell (Natalie Imbruglia) and promptly gets caught in the sushi restaurant’s conveyor. A parachute drop to one of two identical buildings yields predictable results. Signet rings loaded with muscle relaxant and truth serum are a promise that delivers. Plus there’s just so many ways a gun can fail to fire in English’s hands. It’s no The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (Atkinson lacks the cadence to pull off the description of the pen switch) but this film based on a series of credit card commercials, no less, had me in tears on a fairly regular basis.

87 minutes.

Swimming Pool

Sarah Morton (Charlotte Rampling) is a successful English author of crime fiction, but she’s uncomfortable with the fame and irritated with her editor’s push for another title in a popular series. Her editor (Charles Dance) otherwise distracted by a younger, more enthusiastic writer and tied down by his daughter’s stay in London, suggests Sarah take some time in his house in France. It’s the off-season, and Sarah will find all the quiet she needs to concentrate on her next project. Indeed, after the housekeeper Marcel shows her around, and finding a place to plug in her Samsung notebook, she is soon enough adding to the refrigerator her basic requirements (Diet Coke and yogurt—or is it cottage cheese?), taking a cup of tea at the café, and tapping away in Microsoft Word. But Sarah’s idyll is complicated by the noisy, smoky arrival late one night of Julie (Ludivine Sagnier), her editor’s daughter by a French mother. With a strong nose and an aversion to underwear, Julie sees nothing wrong with a parade of lovers and doesn’t know the meaning of cleaning up after herself. Hmm, decides Sarah, time for a context click on the desktop and the creation of a New Folder: Julie. I’m guessing Sagnier was the irritating youngest daughter in 8 Women (she was) but for those who like that sort of thing her toplessness is lengthy and satisfying. It wouldn’t be a François Ozon film if there wasn’t a twist in the screenplay that breaks the spell (there is a murder) but the film recovers (not without some more nudity of the Was that really necessary? type) and offers a weak twist ending provoking the was it real? what happened? questions that was some of the mixed appeal of Sex and Lucía. The smirk may be better hidden, though, under Rampling’s composure.

101 minutes.

05 July 2003

Charlie’s Angels Full Throttle

Action without introspection, by the bucketful. Cacaphony without comprehension, relentlessly. I wasn’t too impressed with the original attempt to trade on the name of the television series but with any pretense to reasonability tossed aside long ago, there is some minor pleasure in getting lost in the movement of pretty women (too bad I’ve never seen CSI to fully appreciate their teamwork in tracking down the clues at a murder site) Natalie (Cameron Diaz), Dylan (Drew Barrymore), and Alex (Lucy Liu), the humor of Bernie Mac replacing Bill Murray as Bosley, the scenery-chewing of Demi Moore as former Angel Madison in a bikini as frequently as possible, and the utter bewilderment of John Cleese as Alex’ father. I’ve seen enough Disney promotion for Even Stevens that I should have recognized Shia LaBeouf. Demi’s age aside, no one has grown up since the last movie. And for two rings, the union of which spells doom for all who ever participated in the federal witness protection program, why is there even a box made to fit them both? Let’s face it, there’s no smart one in this trio.

105 minutes.

Whale Rider

The difficult birth of twins leaves only the girl alive, which is very bad news for grandfather Koro (Rawiri Paratene) who needs a male heir to take on the job of chief when the time should come. The hopeless father (Cliff Curtis) tweaks his dad one last time by naming the daughter after the Maori tribe’s sacred ancestor before leaving New Zealand. By the time she is 12, however, Pai (Keisha Castle-Hughes) finds that her grandfather is training local boys in the ways of the chief and refusing to consider the possibility of training a girl, even though Pai has an ear for the chants and the coordination for the fighting. When a group of right whales beach themselves, portending great misfortune which Koro is convinced will be the result of the tribe’s failure to produce the proper successor, it is Pai’s understanding of her responsibilities that turns things around. Definitely a change of pace, not too manipulative at the climax.

101 minutes.

04 July 2003

Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde

The original was a surprise hit 2 years ago given its weak plot and overplayed supporting characters, and the sequel finds Harvard Law School graduate Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) planning her wedding to the eternally understanding Emmett (Luke Wilson) and discovering to her horror that her employing law firm has as a major client a firm engaged in animal testing of cosmetics! When the firm elects to dump her rather than the client, Elle is off to Washington in her lilac Audi TT convertible (bizarrely, the establishing shots are of the approach across the Potomac River rather than any valid approach from the north, I guess DC-295 just isn’t photogenic) to join the staff of her Representative (Sally Field) in pursuit of a bill which would forbid all animal testing. Naturally, she is confronted by indifference and ridicule everywhere she turns but finds an ally in the doorman (Bob Newhart) at her swanky apartment and makes other unusual connections to overcome the obstacles. The presence of the director of Kissing Jessica Stein shows that screenwriting does matter, and the faithful repetition of every trick, every turn of the original hurts. Witherspoon remains cute and Elle’s optimism remains relentless, but with all the plot twists preordained (down to the hair salon connection Elle makes and the unexpected technological expertise Elle demonstrates) the overplayed characters are 2 years older and that much more annoying. Her Think Different tangerine iBook has been replaced by a violet notebook from cow-free Gateway (no doubt with the default Windows XP theme installed) which pretty much sums up the lack of new imagination involved.

95 minutes.