GENE KELLY: ANATOMY OF A DANCER is your standard biographical documentary, interweaving clips and talking heads to give us an overview of its subject's life. While the film's structure lacks inspiration, it benefits from the plethora of great clips from which it draws.
GKAD didn't teach me anything, but it did entertain the heck out of me. With the lamentable exception of a clip from XANADU, this documentary has it all. I'd label it a must-see for Kelly fans.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
The Indian in the Cupboard
THE INDIAN IN THE CUPBOARD is condescending and dull. It's the kind of movie in which the juvenile protagonist is given a skateboard, then seems nearly as happy about the helmet and kneepads that come with it. It feels like the kind of movie well-meaning parents would show their kids, when everyone knows the best kids' movies are at least a little subersive: Huck Finn wouldn't have been caught dead wearing a helmet and kneepads.
Here's the story: a boy receives a plastic indian on his birthday (It's given to him by a boy of on subontinental descent - oh, the subtext!). Through the power of magic, the toy turns into a very small, but very real, Iroquois who seems to have been magically imported from his own space and time. Life lessons ensue and, while they bored me, they kept my boy duly interested.
It's just that after the recent delight of the imaginative SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, THE INDIAN IN THE CUPBOARD felt so pedestrian, so uninspired, that I simply couldn't get into it.
Bummer.
Here's the story: a boy receives a plastic indian on his birthday (It's given to him by a boy of on subontinental descent - oh, the subtext!). Through the power of magic, the toy turns into a very small, but very real, Iroquois who seems to have been magically imported from his own space and time. Life lessons ensue and, while they bored me, they kept my boy duly interested.
It's just that after the recent delight of the imaginative SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, THE INDIAN IN THE CUPBOARD felt so pedestrian, so uninspired, that I simply couldn't get into it.
Bummer.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
D.O.A.
What a great hook: a man walks into a homicide detective's office to report his own murder. How'd he get there?
I suspect that the strength of that hook accounts for D.O.A.'s lasting fame, as the film itself plays out as a rather pedestrian detective thriller. Edmond O'Brien, our unfortunate protagonist, lurches from clue to clue, urged on by desperation, but his clues only lead us from one moderately interesting suspect to the next.
Don't get me wrong. I liked D.O.A. just fine. I'm unclear, however, on why it achieved classic status. Beyond its great hook, there isn't much there.
I suspect that the strength of that hook accounts for D.O.A.'s lasting fame, as the film itself plays out as a rather pedestrian detective thriller. Edmond O'Brien, our unfortunate protagonist, lurches from clue to clue, urged on by desperation, but his clues only lead us from one moderately interesting suspect to the next.
Don't get me wrong. I liked D.O.A. just fine. I'm unclear, however, on why it achieved classic status. Beyond its great hook, there isn't much there.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Children of Paradise
You know how some things give people allergic reactions? Some things give me aesthetic reactions - a tightening in the back of my throat and sense of euphoria. I know I’m experiencing world-class art when I have an aesthetic reaction.
I had an aesthetic reaction to CHILDREN OF PARADISE. From the opening scene showing a fantasy Carnaval on the streets of old Paris to the pantomimes that made my breath catch in my throat to the heartbreaking conclusion, CHILDREN OF PARADISE sings “masterpiece” from every frame. It’s a story of love and hope, of inhibition and the lack thereof, of, well, of everything. It’s three hours long, and I confess that I sometimes fast-forward through particularly long subtitled films. I couldn’t fast forward through any of CHILDREN OF PARADISE, because so much happens with its actors’ faces that I couldn’t bear to miss a single delightful beat.
CoP draws its structure from a love pentagon centered on Garance, a beautiful woman who makes her way in the world using all the tools available to her. Many men give her their hearts, but she loves only one. How those loves unfold, and how the lives of those who love develop (or not) over time, provides the grist for enough drama to last far longer than the film’s brisk three-hour running time. The drama doesn’t carry this movie, howver. The performances do. From the sensitive idealist to the self-proclaimed scoundrel to the ambitious actor to the self-important dandy to the protective spouse to Garance herself, these people aren’t characters on a screen but real, living souls who evoke our tenderness, revulsion, and (most importantly) identification.
Cinematographers Roger Hubert and Marc Fossard give CHILDREN OF PARADISE a fantastical, better-than-life look, creating several images so excellent that they inspired me to hit the pause button so I could enjoy them at leisure. This entire movie looks great (and sounds great, too!), a testament to the mens’ excellent craftsmanship as well as the meticulousness of the good folks at Criterion, who released the DVD.
CHILDREN OF PARADISE looks great. It sounds great. Hey, it is Great. I have the aesthetic reaction to prove it.
I had an aesthetic reaction to CHILDREN OF PARADISE. From the opening scene showing a fantasy Carnaval on the streets of old Paris to the pantomimes that made my breath catch in my throat to the heartbreaking conclusion, CHILDREN OF PARADISE sings “masterpiece” from every frame. It’s a story of love and hope, of inhibition and the lack thereof, of, well, of everything. It’s three hours long, and I confess that I sometimes fast-forward through particularly long subtitled films. I couldn’t fast forward through any of CHILDREN OF PARADISE, because so much happens with its actors’ faces that I couldn’t bear to miss a single delightful beat.
CoP draws its structure from a love pentagon centered on Garance, a beautiful woman who makes her way in the world using all the tools available to her. Many men give her their hearts, but she loves only one. How those loves unfold, and how the lives of those who love develop (or not) over time, provides the grist for enough drama to last far longer than the film’s brisk three-hour running time. The drama doesn’t carry this movie, howver. The performances do. From the sensitive idealist to the self-proclaimed scoundrel to the ambitious actor to the self-important dandy to the protective spouse to Garance herself, these people aren’t characters on a screen but real, living souls who evoke our tenderness, revulsion, and (most importantly) identification.
Cinematographers Roger Hubert and Marc Fossard give CHILDREN OF PARADISE a fantastical, better-than-life look, creating several images so excellent that they inspired me to hit the pause button so I could enjoy them at leisure. This entire movie looks great (and sounds great, too!), a testament to the mens’ excellent craftsmanship as well as the meticulousness of the good folks at Criterion, who released the DVD.
CHILDREN OF PARADISE looks great. It sounds great. Hey, it is Great. I have the aesthetic reaction to prove it.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW, as seen through the eyes of a six-year-old boy:
First ten minutes – character and setting introductions: “This movie is boring.”
Second ten minutes – giant robots attack: “Wow! Giant robots! Cool!”
Shortly thereafter – during montage of global newspapers detailing giant robot attack: “Hey, the Japanese newspaper has Godzilla fighting the robots! Rewind it, Dad! Rewind it!”
Somewhere around the halfway mark – Sky Captain lands aboard a flying aircraft carrier: “This movie keeps getting better and better!”
Ten minutes after that – “Look, Dad! Dinosaurs! This movie has everything!”
End credits – “Wow, that was one of the best movies ever!”
YMMV, depending one the audience with whom you see it, but what’s not to like about SKY CAPTAIN? It features a bold and exciting vision of an alternate reality; it’s chock full of cool gadgets, neat characters, and fun situations; and it’s a flat-out great time at the movies.
First ten minutes – character and setting introductions: “This movie is boring.”
Second ten minutes – giant robots attack: “Wow! Giant robots! Cool!”
Shortly thereafter – during montage of global newspapers detailing giant robot attack: “Hey, the Japanese newspaper has Godzilla fighting the robots! Rewind it, Dad! Rewind it!”
Somewhere around the halfway mark – Sky Captain lands aboard a flying aircraft carrier: “This movie keeps getting better and better!”
Ten minutes after that – “Look, Dad! Dinosaurs! This movie has everything!”
End credits – “Wow, that was one of the best movies ever!”
YMMV, depending one the audience with whom you see it, but what’s not to like about SKY CAPTAIN? It features a bold and exciting vision of an alternate reality; it’s chock full of cool gadgets, neat characters, and fun situations; and it’s a flat-out great time at the movies.
Monday, October 02, 2006
The 6th Day
THE 6TH DAY combines bad filmmaking with bad science fiction to make the worst film I’ve seen in months.
In THE 6TH DAY, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a charter jetcopter pilot who gets in the crosshairs of an evil corporate mastermind with a god complex. Thus begins your basic chase-thriller, but with a twist: the picture is set in the near future, and the evil corporate mastermind likes to clone people for fun and profit. Is Schwarzenegger’s clumsily named Adam a clone or an original edition? Will he live long enough to bring down the evil mastermind’s dastardly scheme? Have you ever been to the movies before?
THE 6TH DAY is bad filmmaking on so many levels that I’m having difficulty deciding where to begin. Do I start with the horrifically glaring product placements that make suspending disbelief impossible? How about the mechanical, by-the-numbers script that telegraphs absolutely everything that will occur in acts two and three in the first fifteen minutes? Of course, there’re always the wooden performances, ghastly set design, and glaring continuity errors, but that seems like piling on. Tell you what – let’s handle this by focusing in one bad judgment that’ll give you a sense of the wrong-headedness of the rest of the production. The evil corporate mastermind (Aside: Ever notice how studio films, which are paid for by corporations, love to use corporations as villains? Do you find the hypocrisy as insulting as I do?) needs a brilliant scientist to actually do his work. THE 6TH DAY employs Robert Duvall in the role, and it’s about the worst choice imaginable. Duvall is making an entirely different movie than everyone else involved in this train wreck, and his character’s pathos, humanity, and fundamental decency so overcome the weakness of his arc and dialogue that he single-handedly shows us what might have been. Like the men in the Plato’s Cave Analogy, we’d have been better off ignorant: Duvall’s brilliance makes everything around him look like nothing more than shadows on a wall, and his casting reflects the same kind of poor judgment that permeates every facet of the production.
THE 6TH DAY is bad science fiction because it steals whole concepts and conceits from other works without bothering to credit them or toss them a nod in any way. Additionally, it weasels out of crafting a compelling vision of the future by telling us that it's taking place in "the near future - sooner than you think." Of course, what vision it does muster looks just like everyone else’s vision of the future - silly wigs, but with more product placement. And its technology – well, it’s simply counterintuitive and unbelievable.
What a disappointment.
In THE 6TH DAY, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a charter jetcopter pilot who gets in the crosshairs of an evil corporate mastermind with a god complex. Thus begins your basic chase-thriller, but with a twist: the picture is set in the near future, and the evil corporate mastermind likes to clone people for fun and profit. Is Schwarzenegger’s clumsily named Adam a clone or an original edition? Will he live long enough to bring down the evil mastermind’s dastardly scheme? Have you ever been to the movies before?
THE 6TH DAY is bad filmmaking on so many levels that I’m having difficulty deciding where to begin. Do I start with the horrifically glaring product placements that make suspending disbelief impossible? How about the mechanical, by-the-numbers script that telegraphs absolutely everything that will occur in acts two and three in the first fifteen minutes? Of course, there’re always the wooden performances, ghastly set design, and glaring continuity errors, but that seems like piling on. Tell you what – let’s handle this by focusing in one bad judgment that’ll give you a sense of the wrong-headedness of the rest of the production. The evil corporate mastermind (Aside: Ever notice how studio films, which are paid for by corporations, love to use corporations as villains? Do you find the hypocrisy as insulting as I do?) needs a brilliant scientist to actually do his work. THE 6TH DAY employs Robert Duvall in the role, and it’s about the worst choice imaginable. Duvall is making an entirely different movie than everyone else involved in this train wreck, and his character’s pathos, humanity, and fundamental decency so overcome the weakness of his arc and dialogue that he single-handedly shows us what might have been. Like the men in the Plato’s Cave Analogy, we’d have been better off ignorant: Duvall’s brilliance makes everything around him look like nothing more than shadows on a wall, and his casting reflects the same kind of poor judgment that permeates every facet of the production.
THE 6TH DAY is bad science fiction because it steals whole concepts and conceits from other works without bothering to credit them or toss them a nod in any way. Additionally, it weasels out of crafting a compelling vision of the future by telling us that it's taking place in "the near future - sooner than you think." Of course, what vision it does muster looks just like everyone else’s vision of the future - silly wigs, but with more product placement. And its technology – well, it’s simply counterintuitive and unbelievable.
What a disappointment.
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