Strictly Ballroom

Oh, how I love STRICTLY BALLROOM. 

I don't love this movie for its innovative storyline. I don't love this movie for its powerhouse performances. I don't love this movie for its groundbreaking technical innovations. I love this movie because this movie is so in love with movies that I can't help but fall in love with it. 

STRICTLY BALLROOM loves everything about movies. It loves classic, David v. Goliath setups wrapped around love stories. It loves big, broad, physical perfomances, the kind where the mousy girl from the back row lets her hair down, takes her glasses off, and blows everyone away. It loves those filters that turn every point of light into a star. It loves bright costumes, big dance numbers, and villains getting their comeuppance. 

And that love is infectious. It creates a film so joyful that my wife and I laughed all the way through it, riding a crest of goodwill the film created early and carried through to the closing number. What a great movie. 

Swordsman II

SWORDSMAN II is a milestone in my family. It's the first subtitled film that my 8-yr-old has sat for all the way through. It's also the first film featuring transgendered characters, quasi-lesbian romance, and bondage he's sat through. That wasn't really part of the game plan, but I guess it had to come sooner or later.

An hour after finishing SWORDSMAN II, I'm still not entirely sure what it's about. Jet Li is a Drunken Master -ish leader of a group of wuxia warriors on their way to some holy mountain, where they plan to renounce Kung Fu and live as - I don't know - peaceful mountain people until they run out of food or money or both. One of the warriors, a woman who refers to Li as "brother," is clearly hot for him. I hope he wasn't really her brother, or I'll have even more splainin to do when my wife gets home. Anyway, they're on their way to meet some hot chick whose equally hot henchwoman calls her "chief," and with whom she engages in some amusing tongueplay.

Then ninjas show up. With scorpions. But Hot Chief Chick and her minions unleash their snakes upon them and rocks them like a hurricane.

There's more: soon, a transgendered warlord (warlady?) shows up, back by her band of ronin. That's right: a transgendered warperson with samurai henchmen. "Really," I felt like saying to this movie, "you had me at ninjas and scorpions." But there's a twist (Oh, of course there is!): the warperson is married to a lady who's wondering why her husband hasn't slept with her in six months. And why he's wearing makeup. And taking up embroidery. And having the likes of Jet Li show up at her doorstep, drunk and horny, in the middle of the night.

Wait, what? What's Jet Li doing with this dudelette, when he's got these other two chicks (one with snakes) all over him? Well, it's complicated, but it has to do with the warperson's brother, whom she's been keeping chained in a dungeon for (coincidentally) six months.

Just as SWORDSMAN II really started to creep me out, however, it rolled into a huge wirework battle. While, sadly, the battle lacked scorpions or snakes, it featured plenty of needlepoint, swordplay, and needlepoint swordplay. Not to mention of the winnowing of the love quadrangle (which is always awkward, I don't care who you are) to a more manageable triangle. Bondage guy gets his mitts on warperson, which is satisfying if that's your thing, and Li is left with serious questions about his sexuality, which (it appears) his totally submissive quasi-sister will be more than happy to help him work though.

In other words, SWORDSMAN II makes for lovely family viewing. I'm reasonably confident that my kid didn't catch any of that, but instead saw an entirely different movie, one about a heroic clan fighting an evil warlady and relearning lessons about the futility of the martial life.

Thank God. I don't have time for that much splainin.

What I Thought About What I Saw: 2008

I rarely see films in theaters, so I often miss out on the year-end Prestige Pictures. That said, here are the top and bottom ten from among the films I did see before the year ran through.

THE BEST

1. Forgetting Sarah Marshall

This is the film I keep returning to in my mental "greatest hits" archive. Funny, sweet, and all-around wonderful, FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL is the 2008 film I'll be happy to see again and again.

2. Hellboy 2

Noone does "dazzling flights of the imagination" like Del Toro, and HELLBOY 2's amazing visuals and marvelous leaps of imagination stands as yet another fine addition to the man's catalog. If for no other reason, see this film to see a man whose head is a castle. It's magnificent.

3. Kung Fu Panda

The most beautiful film of the year, KUNG FU PANDA is filled with images so gorgeous they've adorned my desktop for months. I can't wait to see this one again on Blu-Ray.

4. Leatherheads

What a pleasure enjoy two hours of snappy dialogue delivered by sharp, charismatic performers. This movie came out of nowhere to take me by very pleasant surprise.

5. Speed Racer

Come to think of it, I think I did see the Star Child appear during that final race.

6. The Dark Knight

Everything people have been saying about Ledger's performance is true. His Joker is haunting and queasily funny and absolutely unforgettable.

7. In Bruges

A dark, sad comedy about honor and loss and redemption and responsibility. I finally get the hype about Colin Farrell.

8. Cloverfield

Ok, so it made two of the guys I went with throw up. Or maybe that was just the pre-film tequila shots. Whatever the reason, CLOVERFIELD made that which is old new again.  It did so by making it very scary, the way it was when it was old.

9. Iron Man

In the words of Jim Beaver, I'd watch Robert Downey, Jr. sand his baseboards. He's got his charisma dialed up to 11 in this one, and Jeff Bridges and Gwyneth Paltrow dial it right up with him. What a fun time at the movies.

10. You Don't Mess with the Zohan

I laughed all the way through this silly, over the top comedy. I expected it rough and raucous, but was pleasantly surprised by silky smooth.

THE WORST

10. Bangkok Dangerous

Great location work and immersion in one of the world's most inviting cultures can't save a by-the-numbers crime show about a guy with bad hair extensions and the cipher who loves him.

9. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Up yours. My treasure is a golden idol on a pressure sensitive pedestal.

8. Incredible Hulk

This movie felt too knowing, too cynical, too not-fun. Give me Josh Lucas in freeze frame fireball any day of the week.

7. Star Wars: Clone Wars

If I wanted to watch the pilot for some cartoon aimed at my kid, I'd tune into Cartoon Network.

6. Horton Hears a Who

This film adds absolutely nothing to the book, leaving audience members who already know the volume absolutely nowhere to go.

5. The Forbidden Kingdom

A moderately bad wuxia picture killed by its framing story and a black hole of a leading character. At least Yifei Liu is very good at standing around and looking pretty.

4. Death Race

How do you make a movie called DEATH RACE, then fail to show your audience who's racing, who's dying, and why?

3. Space Chimps

I don't know how to work "chimp" into "sucked," so I'll quote my original review: it's chimpdiculous.

2. The Foot Fist Way

It took me two attempts to get through this hateful movie that finds comedy in humiliation. I shouldn't have made the effort.

1. Mamma Mia

MAMMA MIA's a great big party, but I wasn't invited. I made four attempts to get through this one, and couldn't last more than a few minutes each time. It's as if it was made by and for people from another planet.

Transsiberian

You know what makes TRANSSIBERIAN such a good thriller? It's a thriller about decisions.

Emily Mortimer and Woody Harrelson decide to take the Transsiberian rail line across Northern Asia rather than just fly. Kata Mara and Eduardo Noriega decide to take the train for reasons of their own, as does Ben Kingsley. And then paths start crossing and recrossing and people make decisions that seem right at the time and before you know it there's blood and hash and suspicion and paranoia everywhere you look. It's a train wreck.

And it's a train wreck that keeps surprising us, that keeps us guessing, that delights in winding us up as much as we delight in the winding.

This is excellent stuff, and Emily Mortimer deserves much of the credit for its success. Cowriter and director Brad Anderson had intended to cast Samantha Morton in the lead role, but that (fine) actress suffered an accident and had to bug out at the last minute. What luck that Mortimer was available and willing to step in, because
she displays a range so complete that she takes us on a psychology journey that's dazzling in its scope without once letting us see the craft behind the artistry.

Buying this film's protagonist makes the thriller possible, because we root for her every step of the way. When the movie turns up the heat on her, it turns it up on us. And when it finally backs off, well then, whammo. The best is yet to come.