I've Loved You So Long

This picture got mixed reviews, but I had to see it on the strength of its title. I'VE LOVED YOU SO LONG sounds so plaintive, so fraught with history, that I had to find out what the film was about.

Kristin Scott Thomas has just served fifteen years in prison when her sister picks her up at the airport. Thomas is damaged, reserved, isolated, and nearly incapacitated. Her will is broken, and she's making up for it with anger and bravado and any armor she can muster. But prison was then and this is now.

And so we spend two hours with Thomas, her sister, and the family her sister has built. We get to know them, and we watch as Thomas slowly grows real strength under the shell of that anger and withdrawal. The actress carries this film with her performance, for it's a picture with few distractions. She carries it well, and we believe in her and her journey because she makes us believe.

This is a careful film, an empathetic film, and a worthwhile film. I'm glad I saw it.

Night and the City

Poor Harry Fabian. He's a sap, a sucker, an opportunist and a two-bit hustler. And he's the lead character in a noir picture, so you just know things will not go well for him. He begins the film on the run. Even in the opening moments, you know he's used to it.

As played by Richard Widmark, Fabian is calculating and naive, manipulative and painfully innocent, and nearly always in way over his head. Here's a guy who desperately wants to be somebody, to provide a life of ease and plenty to the one he loves. But he doesn't understand that ease and plenty are words that do not go together.

Fabian lives in London, photographed in beautiful black and white by Max Greene. This is a London of menace and long shadows, of big dreams and big friends and betrayal in, of all things, the sunlight. Under the direction of Jules Dassin, NIGHT AND THE CITY dares Fabian to guess what's around that next corner, what's going on behind peoples' eyes. Poor Harry, poor poor Harry. He isn't any good at it at all.

NIGHT AND THE CITY works because he feel for Harry, scoundrel that he is, and we root for him to find that life of ease and plenty. But this is a noir picture, and we know how things go. So we root anyway, and we try to look around the corners and behind the eyes, and we revel in a job well don.

Easy Virtue

EASY VIRTUE, based on the Noel Coward play, starts funny and gets serious. By the time it does so, we’ve so bonded with its characters that we care why things got serious and find ourselves invested in how things turn out.

Jessica Biel, interesting for the first time in her career, stars as the earnest American bride who accompanies her new husband to his country estate somewhere outside of London. She wants to join the family. The family wants to consume her. Only one side can win. Kristin Scott Thomas is the mother, horrified that her son hasn’t married the aristocrat next door. Colin Firth is the father, back from the war but never really back from the war. And the sisters, well, they’re going to have line up behind somebody now, won’t they?

And there you go. The film rocks along pleasantly for an hour and a half. I laughed a few times, smiled more, and generally enjoyed it. Not bad.

Big Man Japan

So, BIG MAN JAPAN. Hmm. Errg. Umm, well, uhhh.

What the &^(% was that?

I mean, WHAT THE &^(% WAS THAT?

Here’s a mockumentary about a complete loser whose job is to absorb 2.5 gigawatts of electricity and turn into Big Man Japan V, a gigantic loser who fights kaiju monsters in the cities of Japan. The Japanese people hate him for wasting electricity, breaking stuff, and getting chubby. He’ll never be as cool as his grandpa, Big Man Japan IV. I think we’re supposed to laugh at him, but I just felt bad. I think we’re supposed to laugh at the fantastical monsters he battles, but they just creeped me out.

Nevertheless, there is a lot going on here. BIG MAN JAPAN cleverly criticizes Japanese and American cultures and the fusion of the two. It laments the devolution of kaiju from the reflection of a nation’s fears to silly, cheap kids’ entertainment. It probably mocks Japanese figures with its idiosyncratic monster designs, but I’m insufficiently familiar with Japanese culture to get the jokes. But more than anything else, it baffles me.

The next morning, my nine-year-old (who’ll sit through all the subtitles in the world if there are giant monsters battling above them) started querying me about the film pretty much from the moment his head left the pillow. Being the sophisticate he is, he was trying to parse the criticisms of Ultraman from those of Power Rangers. Me, I couldn’t do it. It’s two days later, and the best I can come up with is, “What the &^(% was that?”

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

I once went to Rome. When my wife asked me what I thought of the city, I told her, “It’s as if there’s been a part of me missing all my life, and I never knew it until I came here. It’s the part of my that has been to Rome.”

THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR (MUMMY 3, or M3, hereafter) is like that. There had been a part of me missing all this time, and I never knew until I saw this film. Now, however, I have seen a yeti kick a field goal. I feel complete.

Never before in the history of mankind has there come a time when a man or woman has had to decide whether or not he or she is the kind of person who is willing to plunk down good money to see a yeti kick a field goal. But I have to ask, if you aren’t the kind of person who’s willing to see a yeti kick a field goal, then what kind of person are you? What chill winds blow through the bleak corridors of your soul?

Of course, M3 offers more than a yeti kicking a field goal. It features Michelle “I jumped a motorcycle onto the roof of a moving train” Yeoh swordfighting Jet “I don’t need a moniker because I’m Jet Li” Li. Sure, the scene’s so poorly edited that you’d think you were watching two anonymous stuntpeople instead of master practitioners of their craft, but still. The movie has silly jokes and outrageous action and everyone involved appears to be having a great time. What more do you want in a movie entitled THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR?

I mean, beside a yeti kicking a field goal.