30 September 2005

Proof

Is there a market for movies about a mathematics professor’s daughter burdened with the responsibility for his care, beset with doubt about her scholastic future, and distrustful of her sister? Perhaps one that is smaller than the producers thought, given the 2004 copyright. With Gwyneth Paltrow as the daughter Catherine, Anthony Hopkins as the father Robert, Jake Gyllenhaal as Hal, a former student of Robert’s now working his way through the notebooks the professor left behind, and Hope Davis as Claire, Catherine’s older sister back in town to sort things out, the screenplay (adapted from some play) crackles with wit and emotion. Catherine’s anguish over the mental deterioration in her father and what that might mean for her own stability is palpable. Claire is over the top with her lists and her (belated) desire to help yet ruthless desire to pack things up and leave. Gyllenhaal is not nearly so miscast as elsewhere.

100 minutes.

24 September 2005

The Constant Garderner

An intriguing choice as a double bill—this movie’s villains (big pharmaceutical companies conducting clinical trials of new drugs on impoverished Kenyan slum-dwellers) are literally equated with gunrunners by one character. With the downbeat ending well established at the beginning, as British diplomat Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes) learns of the death of his wife Tessa (Rachel Weisz), the story flits between the story of how they met and came to Kenya and what she discovered there and the story of how Justin reacts and what he finds out. So jumpily shot that only the largest Land Rovers are seen clearly, but with enough secret letters, hired killers, and amoral corruption at the very top to keep going until the grim conclusion.

130 minutes.

Lord of War

A Ukrainian immigrant to Brooklyn decides that his destiny lies not in his parents’ restaurant but in trading weaponry. Yuri Orlov (Nicolas Cage) starts small, with one Uzi, but as the years go by, he develops his trade, the Cold War ends, west Africa gets more chaotic, and success becomes him as an Interpol agent (Ethan Hawke) chases him ineffectually. Saddled with a lead actor I normally find annoying, doubly so as the film is loaded with his narration, nevertheless an engrossing account of how easily the tools of war are distributed.

125 minutes.

23 September 2005

Just Like Heaven

Elizabeth Masterson (Reese Witherspoon) takes her career as an emergency room doctor so seriously, she never takes time for herself. But one night after a 23-hour shift and promotion to attending physician, a truck’s brakes are inadequate in the face of San Francisco’s hills… David Abbott (Mark Ruffalo) is a landscape architect harboring a secret who’s just looking for a nice couch and an apartment around it. Why, as it happens, there is a apartment newly available with most of the previous tenant’s furnishings remaining. The spirit of Elizabeth has some unfinished business, though, and her frustration with David’s slovenly ways in what she is sure is still her apartment brings them together in a way that David’s psychologist Jack (Donal Logue) and the randy neighbor downstairs (Ivana Milicevic) can’t dispel. A little moody because of David’s secret, somewhat silly in providing foley for Elizabeth’s footsteps (she has no problem with not falling through truck seats, either), but pleasant enough. At least Rosalind Chao gets to play an adult this time.

95 minutes.

Flightplan

Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster) is flying from Berlin home to New York in a double-decker, four-engined aircraft also bearing the coffin of her recently deceased husband. Her 6 year-old daughter Julia has been having trouble sleeping, so they take advantage of some empty rows after take-off to stretch out. But when Kyle wakes up… Julia has disappeared. So, what was left out of the trailer, eh? Not much but even so a competently executed ride.

98 minutes.

10 September 2005

2046

For those who wanted more of In the Mood for Love… more Mister Chow (Tony Leung), more women (Gong Li, Faye Wong, Ziyi Zhang, and Maggie Cheung again), more tiny dwellings with flimsy construction, more running time… But the heart isn’t there.

128 minutes.