The Hangover

THE HANGOVER is thin, but I laughed all the way through it. It isn't the best comedy I've seen so far this year, but it meets its goals.

Here's the setup: it's the day of the wedding. The best man; rumpled, bleeding, and standing in the middle of the desert; calls the bride and tells her, "We screwed up. We can't find Doug. I don't think the wedding's going to happen." We rewind to the beginning of the road trip, with four guys in a car on their way to Vegas for Doug's bachelor party, and away we go.

It's a fine setup for a movie, but so much depends on how far the filmmakers are willing to go to get the laugh. Fortunately, they're willing to go as far as necessary, piling the ridiculous on to the disgusting on to the witty on to the sweet. Here's a movie with legitimate comic surprises, well-delivered dialogue, and sight gags that work in themselves and as part of the larger narrative.

So I laughed, laughed, and laughed some more. But I already feel the movie slipping away. Unlike ROLE MODELS, the funniest thing I've seen in recent memory, it didn't have anything in it to hook me, to hang on to my imagination as I left the theater. The film is the cinematic equivalent of ice cream: fun while it lasts, but quickly forgotten.

Still, I can live with that. As long as you're in the theater, THE HANGOVER is a good time. That's good enough for me.

JCVD

JCVD is one weird picture. I like it.

In JCVD, Jean-Claude Van Damme plays himself, or a dramatically enhanced version of himself. His career is going nowhere: he just lost a part he didn’t want to Steven Seagal. His personal life is a shambles: he just lost a custody battle. His finances are ruined: he just bounced a check and he can’t get his plastic to work. So he does what anyone might do. He goes home to Brussels and goes to a bank to withdraw some of the money he knows is there. Problem is, he walks into a bank robbery.

There’s a passage in I Am Jackie Chan in which Jackie talks about a time when the studio at which he was filming got shaken down by the local mob. He was walking to work and was just outside the studio’s gate when three thugs approached with menace in their eyes. Jackie ran. Why? Because there’s a difference between stuntmen and thugs. Thugs can actually hurt you.

The guys robbing this bank are (in the context of the film, of course) real thugs with real guns that can actually kill people. Van Damme is quickly subdued and put with the other unfortunate hostages who happened to be around that day. Then the robbers realize they have a quite a bargaining chip, even a potential fall guy, and resolve to exploit him as best they can.

And there’s your movie. Van Damme is stripped of his bravado, his freedom, his remaining dignity. The film is a merciless flagellation of its star’s screen persona, offscreen missteps, and even purpose in life. It’s the most courageous thing Van Damme has ever done, requiring a level of dedication and honesty to which he may never before have subjected himself. And even if it isn’t entirely honest, even if it does wear a veil of fiction, what self-appraisal doesn’t?

JCVD didn’t turn me into a Van Damme fan: the guy makes DTV action pictures that don’t capture my imagination any more. But it did alert me to the possibility that there’s more to this guy than I thought. I look forward to his next serious picture. I hope he gets the chance to make one.

Breathless

Ok, I get it. I'm a terrible, bad person. I have no taste. I'm a vulgarian: the guy who shot off the Sphinx's nose.

BREATHLESS bored the hell out of me.

There were all these things about it that I know I was supposed to appreciate: the innovative use of jump cuts, the romantic amorality of its leads, its impact on cinema history. But the movie lost me the moment Jean-Paul Belmondo shot the cop, and that was only something like five minutes in. From there, I felt trapped as the spectator who watches a man fritter away his remaining moments of freedom. Not only did I want him to get caught because I wanted the son of a bitch to get what was coming to him, I wanted him to get caught because I knew that was the only way the film could (mercifully) end.

But this is an important film. It's the kind of film people study in school. It's one of those movies that taught the Boomers how to be cool. I understand that it's important, but I'm not in school, I'm not a Boomer, and I'm already cool.

Having said that, I'm open to the possibility that there's more there, that this is a film that can improve with study. Perhaps they'll offer a class in it when I wind up at Leisure World a few decades hence. Until then, this film represents only another Classic checked off the list.

Drag Me to Hell

DRAG ME TO HELL is everything I look for in a movie entitled DRAG ME TO HELL. It's scary. It's funny. It even has someone (perhaps more than one) being dragged to Hell.

I started out liking this movie: it had a likeable protagonist, a hammy medium, the borderline ubiquitous Justin Long, a gypsy curse, and even a slimy coworker whom we'd really like to see get dragged to Hell in place of the aforementioned protagonist. There was some great gross out stuff, good music, and general sense of a film that knew how to be scary without taking itself too seriously.

Let me tell you when I crossed over to loving this movie: the séance scene. [Oh, come on. That's not a spoiler. How could a Gypsy Curse movie called DRAG ME TO HELL not have a séance scene?] The medium did her thing. Puffs of air made the draperies in the ridiculously over the top chamber billow. Heavy objects moved around. Even ghosts appeared. And then the possession began. I swear to God, I half expected a spectral kitchen sink to show up! This is when I knew (not that I ever doubted) that Raimi was entirely prepared to go over the top, stick the landing, then come around and go over the top again.

So yeah, this is a genre film called DRAG ME TO HELL. But it's as good as genre films get, made by a guy who knows how to create a good time at the movies. It wouldn't take much to drag me back for another screening.

Frost/Nixon

FROST/NIXON captured my imagination from beginning to end. It took interesting people through definitive moments in their lives and the life of the nation, immersed us in their stories, and executed the impossible task of generating tension in a scenario whose conclusion we already know. And it does it while avoiding the talkfest trap so common to adaptations of successful plays.

Look, Nixon's interesting and we all know Frank Langella can act. So the movie's two strikes up in the count coming right out of the pen. But David Frost, the vapid talk show host who gets lucky with a big fish? And Michael Sheen to play him? Well, Sheen's a revelation. In THE QUEEN, he *was* Tony Blair, with all that entails. In FROST/NIXON, he does a David Frost whose shallowness hides depths of ambition and desperation that may be hidden even to himself. This guy's got range, and he also just got on to my "actors to watch" list. He makes David Frost, cheeseball tv performer, a hero the audience can get behind, and we relish the comparisons and contrasts with Langella's controlled, savvy, but lost Nixon.

Director Ron Howard handles those comparisons and contrasts, the heart of the movie, simply enough for a mainstream audience yet maturely enough for smart people like us. His direction, never flashy, borders on documentarian; and it gives the picture the realism it needs while remaining cinematic.

This is a quality film.

Gran Torino

Nick Schenk, the writer of GRAN TORINO, once told an interviewer how pleased he was that Clint Eastwood didn’t change a word of his script. More’s the shame, as it could have used a polish.

For example, there’s a scene in which Eastwood’s bigoted character is a guest in the home of his neighbors, Hmong immigrants. After some trepidation, he has discovered that he likes these people, feels more at ease with them than he does his own children and grandchildren. Ok, we’re fine so far. But then he goes into a bathroom, looks into a mirror, and says, “I have more in common with these people than I do my own family.” What was that, for the people who went out for popcorn? We’re watching the movie. You’re a good enough actor to portray the paradigm shift. You don’t have to tell us what we just saw.

The whole movie’s like that: solid material undercut by unnecessary dialogue. Just when we’re lost in the drama, something comes along that yanks us right out, something that could’ve been smoothed out with just one more pass through the word processor. As it is, GRAN TORINO is merely a good movie, with Eastwood playing on his persona to tell a story about a man who has carried his burdens so long and so passionately, it seems they’re carrying him. I bought his character’s arc even as I groaned at the script’s shortcomings, and I enjoyed the film even as I noticed its flaws.

GRAN TORINO isn’t going to change your life. It’s a little shaggy. But I’d watch Eastwood fold laundry. I liked this movie despite its flaws.

Timecrimes

TIMECRIMES is like a puzzle, a carefully constructed device that can baffle or amuse and makes perfect sense when you put it all together. It's funny, thrilling, genuinely interesting, and an all-around good time at the movies.

Here's the deal: Héctor's a regular guy. He just got a vacation home, so he's doing pretty well, but he's kinda schlubby and doesn't seem all that bright. His idea of a good time is sitting on the lawn and enjoying the view through his binoculars. Héctor doesn't know that there's a research facility nearby. He doesn't know that they're working on a time travel device. He doesn't know that everything's about to change.
And away we go on a tightly plotted time-travel thriller that accomplishes everything it sets out to do. I believed in the characters, I believed in the situation, and I enjoyed and appreciate the smart, tight writing that made this exercise in paradox an hour and a half well spent.

Up

To say that Pixar is on a roll does not approach the reality of what’s going on over there. I’m on a roll when I hit the Pass Line a few times in row. Pixar is in the midst of a monumental achievement, a Golden Age of Disney achievement, in which it’s creating films that audiences will enjoy for decades to come.

UP is a proud addition to this emerging tradition. Its opening sequence, alone worth the price of admission, would be the finest short film I’ve ever seen if it were exhibited as such. The film goes from there to tell a story that, if you’re an adult, will absolutely break your heart. I don’t mean Iron Eyes Cody single teardrop break your heart. I mean cry like a little girl break your heart. It’ll make you laugh with gags and lines that you’ll quote to your friends and family, that’ll become part of the ties that bind you. And it’ll tell a story that will captivate your kids, enthrall you, and make you thankful that you get to be present when a giant like Pixar is in full flower.

I saw this movie in 3D, making it the first 3D film I’ve seen since ROPE. Unlike ROPE, however, UP doesn’t use 3D as a cheap gimmick. It uses it to provide greater depth of field, but it isn’t important. This was my third grader’s second viewing, and he put it best: “UP wasn’t good because it was in 3D. It was a good movie because it tells a good story.” I love that kid. I’m glad I taught him how to set up a tent.

Topkapi

I’m blocked.

I’ve been sitting on a review of TOPKAPI for a week now, looking for a way into this messy, flawed heist picture cum travelogue. How do you confront a movie whose rakish hero is prettier than its femme fatale, whose forced bonhomie lands with such a thud, whose Oscar – winning supporting performance showcases all the subtlety of a drive thru menu?

TOPKAPI is a ‘60s-cool / Euro-cool double-whammy of a heist picture. This Jules Dassin -directed movie is an OCEAN’S 11 kind of film, the kind that lines up a bunch of super-cool characters, puts them in an exotic location, and wants us to roll along with the good time.

But something about it doesn’t quite work. The movie stars Melina Mercuri as a woman so convinced of her sexiness that we’re almost willing to overcome the certain knowledge that she smells like ashtray, along with Maximilian Schell as a master thief whose greatest talent is smiling winningly while resembling a better looking Ben Affleck. But Mercuri looks like she’s been riding the life train too hard for too long, and she’s got that “smoker’s face” and brittle, gin-soaked thing going on. Schell is supposed to be a brilliant master thief, but he just seems shallow, more Jude Law than Carey Grant. As for the rest of the gang, well, they hit their marks and say their lines, but I just don’t understand Peter Ustinov’s Best Supporting Actor award here. Sure, he’s the Once and Future Poirot, and he’s great fun in THE MOUSE THAT ROARED. But he’s flat here, playing the rube as nothing but a rube, and there’s no joy in him.

But hey, the movie looks fine, even if it could use a remaster. And much of it was filmed on location in Istanbul and in the Topkapi palace itself (At least, it looked authentic to me, and I was there when I added it to my Netflix queue.). So there’s that. And it has an early acid-era opening sequence which is sure to earn your bemused attention. It’s just not as fun as it thinks it is.

Tell No One

TELL NO ONE is a tightly plotted thriller with enough red herrings and sudden turns to keep you guessing nearly to the end. But it lacked that certain something that takes a movie from "pretty good" to "great."

Upon reading other reviews of the movie, I think I've figured it out. It's an adaptation of a Harlan Coben novel. I dislike Harlan Coben novels because I feel that they're too tightly plotted, to crisp in their execution. When reading a Coben novel, I don't feel like I'm embarking on a dangerous and gripping adventure. Rather, I feel like I'm inspecting the work of a watchmaker, a fine craftsman who knows how to make all the gears match up just so. But I don't look for soul in a watch, and I can't find a soul in Coben's work.

Anyway, here's the deal: Alex is a French pediatrician who's a heavy smoker because hey, he's French. Years earlier, his wife was murdered under circumstances that made him a suspect. Now, two things have happened: new evidenced has turned up that has the gendarmes sniffing around again, and he gets an e-mail message with a current image of a woman who looks just like his wife and an admonition -wait for it- to tell no one. As are all the men in movies of this stripe, Alex is also a crack detective when his back is against the wall and, in an interesting twist, can outrun a man roughly one decade his junior even though the younger man, Frenchman or no, doesn't appear to suck the sticks of death.
So the twists twist and the turns turn and the obviously bad guy turns out to be bad and the obviously good guy turns out to be good, and sure, there are plenty of surprises along the way. But never once did I feel caught up in the action. Never once did I wonder how things would turn out. Never once did I scratch my head, because I could see the gears turning, new the oil had been applied, and had no doubt that this movie would bring it all in on time.

C'est la vie.

Bolt

My third grader has discovered my blog and, after struggling through my first paragraph about KUNG FU PANDA, he has asked me to write a review that he could understand. So, here's my first attempt at film discussion for the younger set.

BOLT is a story about a dog who is the hero of a tv show. BOLT doesn't know that he's only in a tv show, though. He thinks everything is real. He thinks his bark is so awesome that it can flip over cars. He thinks he can run through walls. And he thinks he can shoot laser beams out of his eyes. When he escapes from his trailer to save his human, he has to learn how to live in the real world and survive long enough to reunite with the young actress who loves him.

BOLT looks great, and its simple and clear style of animation reflects its simple and clear story. There are no singing animals in this one, no one-liners for mom and dad. It's just a story of a dog who wants to reunite with his human. And it works - it does everything it sets out to do, and does it brightly and loudly enough to hold the attention of kids from ages of two through, at least, nine. It's not the kind of movie that I'll remember for years, but it's not a movie for me - it's a movie for them, and it delivers.

The Secret Life of Bees

THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES is one of those movies that doesn't feel like a movie. It feels like an adaptation of a play or a book or a limerick, not something that stands on its own with its own, vibrant life.

Don't get me wrong: this movie has a lot going for it. Though it stars Dakota Fanning, the only human resident of the Uncanny Valley, it also features fine turns from the wonderful Queen Latifah, the brilliant Sophie Okonedo, the remarkably talented Jennifer Hudson, and "Wire" vet Tristan Wilds. The normally likeable Paul Bettany clearly enjoys himself as the violent, trashy peach farmer who can barely take care of himself, much less raise a daughter, and the whole film drips with the kind of love and compassion that one normally finds only in young adult fiction.

But it creaks. We hear the gears grind and clash. We can't lose ourselves in the moment because we never sense that the moment is cinematically authentic. Rather, it feels like a retelling of a telling, one given with love but without spark. I wanted to care about Girlbot, but I never believed she was real. I wanted to find comfort in a home clearly designed for it, but I couldn't lose myself. I wanted to root for the bright young people who'd have to work hard to overcome a world that could be capricious and cruel, but I never once doubted that they would succeed.
I'm sure there are people who love THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES. It was, after all, made for loving. I'd like to be one them, but I can't fall in love with a xerox.

The Haunted Mansion

So I'm working on my sci fi spec script, the one I can't get anybody interested in, and I think I've figured out why. My script, a searing greed allegory about a transvestite interstellar conqueror who preys upon civilizations that don't have flags, is missing the critical element that says "Green Light!" If only I can figure out how to turn my transvestite interstellar conqueror into a transvestite workaholic dad who needs to learn to spend more time with his family, I'm sure I'll have a winner.

How do I know this will work? Why, it's the only reason I can imagine why horrible, horrible scripts such as the one for THE HAUNTED MANSION get made. See, the workaholic dad is the screenwriter's target audience. In the brutally Darwinian world of film production, there's only one way to get oneself into the position to greenlight a movie: one must be a workaholic. Since we're talking about an industry dominated by men, it follows that many of these workaholics are, in fact, workaholic dads. So when one of these workaholic dads reads THE HAUNTED MANSION or JACK FROST or any of a hundred films of their ilk, he thinks, "Hey, there's something about this script that's real. It speaks to me."

In THE HAUNTED MANSION, Eddie Murphy plays a workaholic dad who happens to be a realtor. Since he knows that realty is a boom or bust business, he's making money while there's money to be made. Meanwhile, the guy's getting zero support at home. His wife's all, "I don't want a nice home in a nice neighborhood. Take some time off and let's go live in a van down by the river." His kids are all, "We don't like having our own rooms and health care. Let's go live in a van down by the river." So, fine. He packs the family into the 700-series BMW so he can drive them to the cabin by the lake that he earned through all his hard work, but he's gotta make a detour, do a little business, because you never know when it's gonna be 2008 and you're gonna be Lehman Brothers.

The work involves meeting a potential client in a huge, creepy Louisiana mansion. Even though the mansion has, supposedly, been in the client's family for centuries, everyone there has an English (vice Cajun, or even upper class Cajun) accent. Creepy. And there's this whole backstory about forbidden love between the poncy master of the house and his Creole paramour, who happens to be the spitting image of the unsupportive wife. Naturally, poncy rich guy is planning to seduce unsupportive wife so he can finally be reunited with his lost love because, hey, everyone knows that reincarnation works by making you look exactly like whomever you were in your most pertinent past life (Hey, come to think of it, maybe it's not so bad that I'm aging into Edward Everett Horton!). I say, count your blessings, poncy English-Cajun ghostly rich guy: this chick has no idea how hard a man's gotta work to keep up a creepy mansion like yours. You're gonna be all, "Sweetheart, I must go over the numbers. Something's not right on the plantation," and she'll be all, "Screw that. Let's go live in a van down by the the river," and you'll be all, "What's a van?"
So before you know it, there are zombies and ghosts and a green gypsy woman in a crystal ball and Eddie's mugging like there's no tomorrow and his cowardly kid overcomes his fears and the poncy ghost sees the error of his ways and the good ghosts go to heaven and the bad ghost goes to hell. And, More Importantly, Eddie Murphy Learns an Important Lesson about the Evils of Workaholism and the Importance of Spending More Time with his Family.

I watched this one with my 9-yr-old after we'd put the younger kids to bed. He loved it. It was just scary enough, just funny enough, to press all his buttons. The zombies looked enough like the zombies from the Thriller video to remove any peril they may have represented, and the bad guy had such silly hair that he was clearly not a serious threat to anyone. There were jokes and sight gags and I think he found the damsel attractive in a "Jimmy Neutron's mom" kind of way. But in my inner monologue, I was hanging in Gracie Mansion's belltower, thinking that if Wallace Shawn and Terence Stamp can't save a movie, noone can save a movie.

But hey, at least I've worked out the problems with my script. Now, it's going to be a movie about an executive transvestite workaholic dad. Beware the competing firm that does not have a flag.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

How do you write up a movie that's so remarkably meh?

ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO isn't funny, but it isn't bad enough to engender outright hatred. It just sits there, like a joke no one laughs at, but without a follow-up joke to sweep it off the stage.

Kevin Smith's jokes don't sing. His tempo is repetitive. He goes for shocking humor, but his shock humor isn't shocking. As a director, he makes Elizabeth Banks overemote so dramatically that I thought she was going to burst out of her skin nearly every time the camera focussed on her.

But the film isn't hateful. It isn't mean spirited. It's downright sweet, so I can't hate it. It's just there, an amusing premise gone wrong. I wanted to like ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO. I really did. But the film is just plain too much a failure to let me.

Star Trek

STAR TREK does all the things a good summer action movie should do. It has pathos. It has jokes. It has sex. It blows lots of stuff up real good. It's also a surprisingly good picture, one made to entertain the general public while throwing plenty of bones to the trekkies in the audience.

Here's the deal: the charismatic and dangerous Eric Bana (Really, you should see CHOPPER) plays an angry guy out for revenge through multi-planetary genocide. BOTTLE SHOCK's terrific Chris Pine is li'l Captain James T. Kirk, the only cat in the Federation bad enough to take him on. Joining li'l Kirk is li'l Spock, li'l McCoy, and the rest of the gang. They crack jokes. They have conflict. They blow stuff up. Li'l Spock gives li'l Kirk one of those manly nods of the head saying, "I guess you're ok, after all." Most importantly, Leonard Nimoy shows up as Big Spock, and there is no such thing as a film that is worse off for the presence of one Leonard Nimoy.

The thing about "Star Trek" that the post - original series showrunners never got was that nobody cares about make believe diplomacy among imaginary alien races. Nobody cares about heavy handed, though well meaning, depictions of of the Marxist utopia of the future. People care about the friendship of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. That's the dynamic that has always made Star Trek worth watching, and J.J. Abrams gets it. STAR TREK may spend lots of time on space battles and angry villains, but it's really about that friendship, about sharing in the feeling that there are people around you who've got your back. It's a good feeling, and it's a good way to spend a couple of hours at the movies.

114 Ghastly Films

I haven't had the chance to see anything for a few days, so I present you with a list of 114 ghastly films. These aren't the worst movies ever. They're just the worst movies I've seen.

Armageddon (1998)
At First Sight (1999)
Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)
Austin Powers 2 (1999)
Babel (2006)
Bad Santa (2003)
Basic Instinct (1992)
Batman & Robin (1997)
The Beastmaster (1982)
Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story (2006)
Blood Work (2002)
Brewster's Millions (1985)
The Cable Guy (1996)
Caligula (1979)
Canadian Bacon (1995)
The Cannonball Run (1981)
Comic Book: The Movie (2004)
Con Air (1997)
The Corporation (2004)
Crocodile Dundee 2 (1988)
Cutthroat Island (1995)
Days of Thunder (1990)
Death Becomes Her (1992)
The Debut (2000)
Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)
Dick Tracy (1990)
Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)
Dungeons & Dragons (2000)
Election (1999)
Evita (1996)
Exit to Eden (1994)
Fair Game (1995)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)
Fifteen Minutes (2001)
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
The Foot Fist Way (2006)
Funny Farm (1988)
Get Carter (2000)
Gods and Generals (2003)
Great Expectations (1998)
The Great Outdoors (1988)
Guarding Tess (1994)
Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991)
Hercules in New York (1970)
Hideaway (1995)
Highlander 2: Renegade Version (1990)
Hollow Man (2000)
Hot Rod (2007)
House II: The Second Story (1987)
How to Make an American Quilt (1995)
Impromptu (1991)
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
Iron Eagle (1986)
Jaws 3 (1983)
L'Eclisse (1962)
Life Stinks (1991)
Little Children (2006)
Loser (2000)
Lost & Found (1999)
Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991)
Mamma Mia! (2008)
Men in Black II (2002)
Mercy (1999)
Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)
Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)
My Father the Hero (1994)
Naked Weapon (2002)
Napoleon Dynamite (2004)
Notorious C.H.O. (2002)
The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000)
The Pagemaster (1994)
Pearl Harbor (2001)
Plan 9 from Outer Space (1958)
Pretty Woman (1990)
The Quest (1996)
Rat Race (2001)
The Ref (1994)
The Replacement Killers (1998)
Respiro (2002)
Riding in Cars with Boys (2001)
Rising Sun (1993)
Rush Hour 3 (2007)
Serial Mom (1995)
She Devil (1989)
Showgirls (1995)
Sneakers (1992)
Son of Godzilla (1967)
Species (1995)
Spies Like Us (1985)
Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002)
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)
Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)
Stargate (1994)
Starship Troopers (1997)
Stealth (2005)
Strange Days (1995)
Sudden Death (1995)
Summer Rental (1985)
Superman III (1983)
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
Talladega Nights (2006)
Thomas and the Magic Railroad (2000)
Three Times (2005)
The Toy (1982)
Under Siege 2: Dark Territory (1995)
Wagons East (1994)
Waterworld (1995)
Weekend at Bernie's (1989)
What About Bob? (1991)
Wild Wild West (1999)
Wing Commander (1999)
XXX: Special Edition (2002)
Zoom: Academy for Superheroes (2006)

Man on Wire

I don't get MAN ON WIRE. This film, which has garnered near-universal praise, is about a bunch of people who passionately devote themselves to a deadly project that is a complete waste of time.

I mean, ok, I can get a documentary about people and their obsessions. But I can't get a documentary about a guy whose obsession is tempting death. And for what does he do it? Does anyone benefit in any way? Sure, a very limited number of people get an awesome spectacle of excellence, but at the risk of many more people seeing, right up close, a man fall to his death and, essentially, liquify before their eyes.

The film, the story of Philippe Petit's tightrope dance between the two towers of the World Trade Center, takes it as a given that it's fun to waste enormous amounts of energy, money, and time on his frivolity. Further, it takes as a given that it's fun to outfox $3.75/hr security guards and get through the WTC's security to pull it off. All I could think was, "How many security guards lost their livelihoods over this stunt?"

It must be me. Maybe it's my approach to risk. I understand that there are dangers in the world, and that one must make risk/benefit calculations when coming to prudent decisions. But the risk here is so great and the reward so ephemeral that I couldn't get behind the project, couldn't root for the people, couldn't exult in their triumph.

That's not to say that you won't enjoy MAN ON WIRE. I may be the odd man out on this one. But I'm way out. I'll never see this movie again, and that's ok with me.

Role Models

ROLE MODELS is your standard comedy about man-children who learn an important Life Lesson and find their way to actual adulthood. You’ve seen its every beat before and it has nothing new to offer in the way of conception, scoring, technical wizardry, or artistry.

It’s also funny. Very funny. Laugh – out – loud funny. Paul “why is this guy not a huge star” Rudd and Seann William Scott are a great comic duo, playing off one another with the perfect combination of affection and exasperation. Elizabeth Banks turns a thankless “love interest” part into gold, and Jane Lynch is just one or two more parts this great away from joining Cloris Leachman in the Hall of Great Comic Actresses (I don’t know why Jane Lynch reminds me of Cloris Leachman. She just does. It’s a compliment.). This is a movie that goes from broad, physical bits to Marvin Hamlisch jokes and back again with flawless delivery and perfect timing.

Yes, it should be crap. You know it. I know it. The guys who wrote it know it. But they took a crap outline, fleshed it out with great jokes, put it in the hands of first-rate comic actors, and turned it into a freakin’ masterpiece.

Who’d’a thunk it.

PS I used to run down the ravine behind the University of San Diego. At the bottom of the ravine, there’s a park. On Saturdays, that park would be filled with people dressed like hot dog vendors at the Renaissance Fair, merrily whacking one another with foam rubber swords. Just so you know, there are folks out there who really do see that as a fun way to spend their Saturday.

Jumanji

In my review of SITA SINGS THE BLUES, I noted that most of the films we see are achingly average. For Exhibit A, I present to you JUMANJI, a feature-length adaptation of a picture book by Chris van Allsburg. The picture book, a trifling story that gives van Allsburg an excuse to draw things like monkeys making a mess of a kitchen and rhinos charging down Main Street, gets the full Hollywood treatment. It’s shoehorned into a three act structure about a kid who learns to deal with fear, it gets Robin Williams as a star, and it’s a full-throated combination of CGI and practical effects that veers between fun and terrifying, depending on the viewer’s combination of wildlife and insect – related phobias. (Yeah, yeah. I know. Arachnids aren’t insects. Everyone loves a pedant.)

While some of the effects are quite good (I particularly loved the giant plastic spiders – fishing line and all.), JUMANJI doesn’t plant the combination of danger and adventure. Its world is so dangerous that it’s hard to have much fun in it. That leaves the kids out, and it makes the parents so conscious of the effect it may be having on their kids that it leaves them out, as well.

Still, stars Williams, Kirsten Dunst, Bradley Pierce, and Bonnie Hunt do professional work, and I’m a sucker for father-son relationship stuff, so I’m not willing to call JUMANJI a right-out failure. It’s just achingly average, like so much else we see.

Sita Sings the Blues

SITA SINGS THE BLUES opens with the best credits sequence I’ve ever seen. It begins gently enough, but it soon explodes into a vibrant and exciting combination of music and animation. If the film could have found a way to maintain that level of energy throughout its run time, it could well have become one of the best films I’ve ever seen.

While SITA SINGS THE BLUES unspools to become, over the next hour and a half, a fine, imaginative, wonderful movie, it doesn’t stay on track to earn “best ever” status. But hey, whom are we kidding? Most of the movies we sit through are achingly average, so why pick nits over whether a refreshingly innovative, original, and beautiful film ascends to the pantheon of “best ever”? It’s enough that this film takes material with which most of us are unfamiliar, adapts it in a way both entertaining and illuminating, and even manages to reacquaint our culture with the artistry of a performer long-passed.

SITA SINGS THE BLUES retells The Ramayana, a Hindu myth in which the noble Rama and his beloved Sita deal with exile, war, jealousy, and the vicious power of rumor. It tells it in wonderful 2-D animation, with different styles reflecting different storytellers, stories, or stories-within-stories. And it does it to the music of one Annette Hanshaw, a popular jazz singer of the ‘20s and ‘30s, in an innovative twist on the time honored practice of making that which was old new again.

Unfortunately, filmmaker Nina Paley failed to clear the rights to Ms. Hanshaw’s music prior to putting four years into creating this wonder on her home computer. Consequently, you can’t find SITA SINGS THE BLUES on Netflix or at your local art house movie theater. You can, however, find it for free download or stream at http://www.sitasingstheblues.com/, a site created by Paley to distribute her film via a creative commons license. I’m no lawyer, but I’m going to assume it’s legal. So I encourage you to check this movie out. If you like it, flip Ms. Paley a couple of bucks through the link on her site. I, for one, would love to see what she comes up with next.