14 October 2005

Domino

No video, audio, or typographic trick goes unused in presenting an extended riff on the life of Domino Harvey. Loud, frenetic, nonsensical, incoherent, repetitive, staccato… it will frustrate anyone in need of plot or character. It’s Keira Knightley as the daughter of an actor who grows up direction-less (mother played by Jacqueline Bisset) until she sees an advertisement in a drifting free weekly tabloid offering a seminar on bounty hunting. From there it’s but a short step to holding powerful shotguns in the face of criminals. Flanked by Mickey Rourke and Edgar Ramirez as her mentor and associate, Domino moves through a contrived plot (narrated in flashback to a Lucy Liu so dimly lit half her face is unreadable) that brings us Christopher Walken as a reality television producer, Stanley Kamel and Dabney Coleman as rival businessmen with weak consciences, and Delroy Lindo as the bail bondsman who moves into the armored car business (yeah, like that’s so easy to do these days). Mena Suvari looks much better than she did in Beauty Shop. As an expression of the direction-less energy that production at peak offers, I would have enjoyed this even if I had paid money for my ticket.

128 minutes.

Good Night, and Good Luck.

Chain-smoking Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) decides to take the opportunity that his half-hour show See It Now provides to first take up the story of an Air Force Reservist in Michigan and later the junior senator from Wisconsin. His producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney), CBS head William Paley (Frank Langella), and others in the high-pressure environment all see trouble ahead. Presented in black and white from distributor’s logo to MPAA rating, with a stagy feel (setting the action almost entirely within the CBS offices gives the production a bunker-like atmosphere) and self-consciously allusive dialog.

93 minutes.

07 October 2005

Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Wallace (Peter Sallis), genial inventor and cheese enthusiast, has managed to earn an income by employing his talents in the building of technological impediments to the local rabbit imperative to eat the results of neighbors’ efforts in their vegetable gardens. Tensions are particularly high just now because of the upcoming competition at the manor of Lady Campanula Tottington (Helena Bonham Carter) for the largest vegetable. Tottington much prefers the humane approach taken by Wallace and his Austin-driving dog Gromit and Wallace has hopes something more might happen between them, but Victor Quartermaine (Ralph Fiennes) thinks a rifle and his own manly self is preferable. When an ill-judged and weakly researched combination of the Bunny-Vac 6000 and a lunar-powered brain manipulation device results in a menace terrorizing the entire community’s gardens, it’s a brutal rivalry to figure it out and save the competition. The Wrong Trousers hasn’t been topped, but for a feature-length exposition of the loyalty and intelligence Gromit brings to the partnership, it does just fine.

84 minutes.

The Madagascar Penguins in A Christmas Caper

The penguins last seen on an African shore are back in their Central Park enclosure preparing to celebrate Christmas. When the most sensitive among them notices that the polar bear is alone, he heads out to fetch a gift but winds up in a dire predicament. The others have followed, however, and employ their talents to effect a rescue. Starts very limply but once upon the streets of Manhattan something about it builds well. Yes, ka-boom.

11 minutes.

06 October 2005

Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride

On the day before the wedding of Victor (Johnny Depp) and Victoria (Emily Watson) the rehearsal does not go well and the prospective groom takes a walk through the woods. While practicing his wedding vows, Victor places the ring upon a twig… which turns out to be the skeletal arm of a different bride-to-be: Emily (Helena Bonham Carter). She’s quite delighted to be married but Victor is less thrilled, despite Emily’s voluptuous lips and ample undecomposed bosom. A slight tale of crossed lovelines, vain parents, and a transparently suspect recent arrival, bouyed somewhat by its sympathetic pairing of Depp’s voice and the puppet portraying Victor. Perhaps too much film history with the maggot who lives in Emily’s eye socket and the song-and-dance numbers by the skeletal denizens of the underworld.

About 80 minutes.