27 February 2004

Wait, did the review say gratuitous nudity ? Good enough. Absent the gut-busting humor of the snake biting Tom Green on the nose in Road Trip, this pale echo relies on some European locations (mostly Prague impersonating every city on the itinerary) and European casting (understated as it may be with Rade Serbedzija playing a downtrodden yet nevertheless upbeat Eastern European) to carry the day. Scotty (Scott Mechlowicz) is dumped by his two-timing girlfriend right as he graduates and when his pen pal in Germany e-mails Scotty back about visiting America this summer, Scotty panics and his homophobic response leads Mieke (Jessica Böhrs, apparently a pop star herself) to block his e-mail address. He had developed an intimate bond through their e-mail communication and all he knows is the city of residence? Right. Convinced now that his online pal is a hot blonde panting with desire for him, it’s off to Berlin with slacker Cooper (Jacob Pitts), overlooked Jenny (Michelle Trachtenberg), and camera-toting Jamie (Travis Wester). Perhaps Pitts thinks channeling David Spade is a career move? But when his character visits a sex club in Amsterdam, the use of the phrase safe word by the host (Lucy Lawless) raises no alarm bells for him. Funny! Yes, there is nudity, and a role by Joanna Lumley consigned to the end credits (where it went unseen or unnoticed by at least one local reviewer).

About 90 minutes.

26 February 2004

Spanning decades and continents, this animated film from Sylvain Chomet is a heady brew of curious characters, bizarre events, and the stoic determination of a grandmother tracking down the kidnappers of her bicycling champion grandson. Quite an achievement. Don’t think I didn’t notice that the extended-hood 2CVs that the mobsters drive in Belleville fall apart at the slightest provocation.

About 75 minutes.

22 February 2004

Mary (Lindsay Lohan) is totally bummed out that her mother (Glenne Headly) is moving out of Manhattan and out to the sticks. She should get over herself, the town has a commuter rail station named after it. Anyway, she has dreams of a performing future (and wants to be known as Lola for starters) and muscles into the lead role in the high school’s production of Pygmalion. Leave it to Walt Disney to distribute a film about adapting someone else’s work without any worry about the consequences of copyright, as the drama teacher (Carol Kane) freely adapts the text (creates an unlicensed derivative work) by including songs from the past few decades (audio performances equally burdened by copyright). Megan Fox has a porcelain perfection about which no more should be spoken. A short, largely inoffensive movie about well-off people, the mother’s 1974 Pontiac notwithstanding. They’re supposed to have made up their differences by now, but the print advertising for this movie is startling in its demonstration that, if someone is needed to play Hilary Duff, Lohan’s appearance can be spot on. (Maybe they just forgot to re-shoot all of the publicity photographs.)

89 minutes.

15 February 2004

So who are the dreamers? The naïve American Matthew (Michael Pitt) with the odd bathroom habits studying cinema in Paris in the spring of 1968 and the fetching Isabelle (Eva Green) and her twin brother Theo (Louis Garrel) whom he meets at a student protest? Or the novelist adapting his work for the screen (Gilbert Adair) and the director (Bernardo Bertolucci) moving the characters about in various sexual combinations as Theo invites Matthew to stay with them as the parents conveniently leave for weeks at a time? Oblivious to what looks like a garbageworker’s strike outside, Isabella is fond of old films and of humiliating her brother when he cannot identify quickly enough a scene she has acted out, while Theo is quite taken with Mao when he isn’t sharing a bathtub with his sister. Matthew is willing to go along at first but the constant sex and the fact that Isabella and Theo are never apart start to bother him. Not to mention those Molotov cocktail-throwing mobs on the streets. I must say, the selection of period automobiles on display puts the half-hearted effort of Monster to shame in quality and variety, but the fascination with movies that predate the characters by over 30 years is overdone, the sex is unromantic, and the suicide attempt? Who on Earth dreamed that up?

115 minutes.

13 February 2004

What if you could combine K-2, Cliffhanger, and Vertical Limit , drain them of their stock characters and melodramatic plot, establish in the first half-hour a disastrous situation, then have the reconstruction of the situation and its horrific aftermath narrated by the two still-young, British survivors? You’d be close to the impact of Touching the Void in which the Alpine-style climb of Siula Grande in Peru by Joe Simpson (adapted from his book) and Simon Yates went well until, descending from the summit, Joe slipped and broke his leg. Simon is apparently well-known for cutting the rope that tied him to Joe, but that’s not nearly the most cringe-inducing moment. And it’s not nearly the point at which Joe blew his top and cursed for he was worth. Or even halfway through the film. Ow! Ow! Ow! Visceral, in a good way.

108 minutes.

02 February 2004

I had supposed that Ben Stiller had exhausted whatever reserve of goodwill I still possessed after Meet the Parents, but with Jennifer Aniston in the cast—look, it’s set in Manhattan—I gave it a try. Reuben Feffer (Stiller) is a risk assessor at a boutique insurance agency (with heavily accented Alec Baldwin the boss who touches at the wrong times) who has, with painstaking attention to the odds, devoted his own life to reducing the risk therein. Unfortunately, his marriage to the perfect wife Lisa (Debra Messing) goes bad very quickly before their honeymoon has really even begun (St. Barts is played by Hawaii) when she finds the scuba instructor (heavily accented Hank Azaria as the clothing-optional beach denizen) a congenial sex partner, flippers and all. Struggling with the hurt in the company of his pal (Philip Seymour Hoffman as a washed-up former child actor with no heavy accent) at a gallery, Reuben is spotted by attendant Polly (Aniston) as she pours red wine into glasses of white. They haven’t seen each other since the seventh grade, but something about her free-wheeling life (ethnic restaurants, salsa dancing, and a messy apartment) attracts Reuben and Polly, unaware of Reuben’s seriousness, is willing to have a good time. Bryan Brown adds some crucial laughs as the sailing, base jumping, and racquetballing very definition of risk and I can grant that Aniston has improved since her days on The Edge. Good times.

90 minutes.

01 February 2004

I needed a pick-me-up and the prospect of Kate Bosworth all agleam looked like it would fit the bill. Are there Piggly Wiggly supermarkets in West Virginia? I don’t know, I’m more familiar with them further west, but in some locale in that state (established by a flyover that, frankly, looks more like Pennsylvania) where the award-garnering head manager Pete at the Piggly Wiggly in question (Topher Grace) is young enough to be enrolling at Virginia State in Richmond, Bosworth plays the checkout lane cashier Rosalee. Spurred on by her fellow swooner-in-arms Cathy (Ginnifer Goodwin) Rosalee acts on her crush on heartthrob Tad Hamilton (Josh Duhamel) to enter a contest for an evening with the star. Seems his speeding, drinking, smoking, groping, and other assorted sins (doesn’t Rosalee look at the tabloids in her lane?) have put a crimp in Tad’s employability and a wholesome relationship, however brief, cooked up by his agent and manager (Sean Hayes and Nathan Lane, barely trying) might set things right. Ah, but Pete the store manager has been pining (completely silently) for 22 years or so. Not quite as short as Star Dates on E! Bosworth’s performance gives Hilary Duff something to aim for, while Grace adds much needed cynicism at the beginning. (The answer is: no, there are no Piggly Wiggly locations in West Virginia.)

96 minutes

Well, points off for not including some variation on the classic prostitute’s question you a cop? but kudos to Charlize Theron for submerging herself in the role (of executed murderer Aileen Wuornos) to the point where I never recognized her (while I picked up on Bruce Dern right away, must have been the voice). Can you tell I have watched years of Cops? Some episodes probably even from that very section of Florida where Lee winds up and is befriended by unresourceful lesbian Selby (Christina Ricci) and tries briefly and unrealistically to put her past behind her but finds the career choice of serial murderer more suited to her temper. The time setting of the late 80’s is only half-heartedly attempted—the victim’s cars match the decade but the police cruisers do not.

109 minutes