Almost Traffic
The movies seen in early 2001
Originally written: April 2001
2001 Oscars
Almost Famous
Traffic
Chocolat
Miss Congeniality
Bedazzled
Men of Honour
Cast Away
The Oscars were all over the place. Of the movies nominated, Gladiator was about the best, just ahead of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, although I would have gone for Almost Famous as the best of the year. Benecio del Toro who won best supporting actor should have been nominated as a lead role but politics dictated that Michael Douglas be put on that category. In del Toro's absence, Russell Crowe was a deserving winner. Tom Hanks did not deserve it for Cast Away. I'm unsure about Julia Roberts because I saw no other deserving winner although I am looking forward to seeing Joan Allen (and Jeff Bridges, but not Gary Oldman) in The Contender. Shame that Michelle Yeow was not nominated for Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
Battlefield Earth swept the Golden Raspberry Awards in every category in which it was nominated, including worst movie, worst actor (John Travolta), worst screenplay etc. It sounds like a deserving winner.
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Rock Odyssey
Cameron Crowe is an interesting writer/director. In his new film Almost Famous, he calls on his own experiences as a teenage rock critic for Rolling Stone. He is following a tour by a fictional band, Stillwater, which incorporates many of the facets of new bands, the frailties and jealousies as they try to make the step from obscurity to stardom. The 16 year old lead, escaping from his domineering mother, is assisted on his journey by a group of young female Band Aids, especially the lovely Penny Lane, played by Kate Hudson. This is a great coming-of-age film. Billy's adventures on the road, his insights into his own maturity and the band's problems, the constant harping of his mother, and his interaction with all the other characters make compelling and entertaining viewing. The script is brilliant and deservedly took the Oscar as the best original screenplay of the year. Crowe's direction is assured and he gets great performances from Patrick Fugit as Billy, Billy Crudup as the talented band member, Hudson and Anna Paquin as Band Aids, Noah Taylor as the feckless manager and Frances McDormand as the mother. This is a must see and the best film made in 2001 that I've seen.
Car crash
The trouble with Traffic is that, while it is composed of several interesting elements, the overall effect is spoiled by over-use of jerky cameras and the weaknesses in parts of the scenario. The central plot device, centred on a couple of Mexican policemen, is fine and Benicio del Toro is great. The LA section, based around two DEA agents using a drug middleman to get a kingpin, is good in parts, especially Don Cheadle as one of the agents, but is weakened the activities of the kingpin's offsiders which, in the end, make little sense. The worst aspect of this movie, which follows several intersecting plotlines, is that built around Michael Douglas' drug czar and his family. His daughter is experimenting with drugs and being a white upper middle-class high school girl she is freebasing Coke and going to the ghetto to buy more shit. That's believable but Douglas finds out and doesn't have her properly looked after. And then walks away from his new job stating that the solution to the drug problem is to be found in the family. The drug problem as the film sees it does not involve nicotine or alcohol and does not admit of a solution, even when all the experts are around and asked to brainstorm. Like no-one can suggest better treatment programs or injecting rooms or government control and distribution of drugs or declaration of the drug trade as 'a clear and present danger', invoking the need for military intervention. And those were the ideas that occurred to me in the time that this movie was suggesting no alternate solution to the current government policy which is failing.
This is another of those well-meaning, serious to the point of sententious, American movies that evoke, and appeal to, middle-class morality. Far too many have won the Oscar. I'm glad this one did not. It seems a pallid imitation of the Channel 4 series Traffik on which it is based.
Confectionery
Juliette Boniche is charming; Johnny Depp is, as usual, believable and appealing; Judi Dench is crochety; and Alfred Molina is a fine, highly strung villain. Chocolat is a reasonable film with some excellent acting from a fine cast. Not just the leads but the complete ensemble. Unfortunately the script is as light and fluffy as the sweets which are the film's McGuffin. The result is something that can be enjoyed while it is going but leaves very little after-taste and no lasting impression.
Miss Congeniality is one of those by-the-numbers Hollywood production comedies. This one uses the ugly duckling trope. Sandra Bullock is the FBI agent who needs to discover her feminine side in order to enter a beauty contest threatened by a mad bomber. The mystery is no mystery, unfortunately, but the ensemble of pageant girls is appealing and is assisted/handicapped by an array of semi-stars in support roles: Michael Caine (good as the gay pageant expert), Candice Bergen (eating scenery), Ben Bratt (showing why he'll always be known as the second Mr Julia Roberts) and William Shatner (not quite as embarrassing as usual, damn praise indeed). It has its moments and succeeds within its own limited horizons.
The Dud and Pete Bedazzled was a truly inspired movie of the 1960s. A qualified failure but one which dared. The problem was largely with Dud who was a dud as the mooning Stanley Moon. The remake, with Brendan Fraser as Dud, Elizabeth Hurley as Pete, and Frances O'Connor as Eleanor Bron, is much funnier than I expected but still not a great movie. Fraser is too nerdy as the geek but comes into his own as the movie progresses. Some of the bits, as his wishes play out are good - I liked the Colombian drug lord story - and Hurley is surprisingly good. Worth seeing on video.
Under water
Robert de Niro can be among the best actors in film. Put him in a comedy like Midnight Run or a well-written drama like Raging Bull and he is great. But he can tend towards the hammy when a part is inadeqaute and that is what he does in Men of Honour, a biopic based on the first black to qualify as a diver in the US Navy and the first diver to be reinstated after an amputation. Cuba Gooding is OK in the lead but de Niro, as his instructor, is a mess of tics and facial movements masquerading as a performance. Like The Hurricane this is about institutionalised racism in the US in recent times. Unlike that movie, Men of Honour does not allow that racism to be personified in one character but shows it as a major force in the services in the 1950s and 1960s. Too bad that the story is supplemented by exaggerations and invented incidents when the history is strong enough.
The problem with Cast Away is that it presupposes that the central character, marooned on a Pacific island, has no understanding or knowledge of the vast literature on the fate of such people. Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson, or even Six Nights, Seven Days have not impinged on his consciousness. And the movie assumes its audience is equally ignorant of this trope of literature and film. So Tom Hanks' castaway has to reinvent the wheel - or in this case fire. He is so stupid that he decides to spear for fish and crustaceans rather than use the netting he finds as a far easier method. Any movie in which the best performance is given by a bloodied volleyball is a bit of a worry. Still the plane crash sequence was pretty good.
[Note: Information about the movies mentioned, including cast and crew lists and all sorts of trivia, is available at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).]