Last Minority Retort
Movies from seen in mid/late 2002
Originally written: October 2002
Insomnia
Austin Powers in Goldmember
The Bourne Identity
Heaven
About a Boy
Training Day
Sight and Sound's top ten
2002 continues to be a generally dire year for movies at the cineplex. Our solution to this has been to avoid going to the movies as much as we have in the last few years. While there has been the occasional gem that glittered, there has been a slew of crappy sequels and silly ideas that have just not appealed at all. Yet another Tom Clancy/Jack Ryan thriller but with the character losing thirty years and his family; films to feature TV stars (Frankie Muniz and Steve Irwin, for example) with little or no charisma; Adam Sandler remaking a Capra great or, indeed, any Adam Sandler movie; a movie that treats crop circles seriously (I made the mistake of seeing Spielberg's panegyric to UFOs, CE3K, and won't that repeat that error for a lesser film-maker like M Night Shyamalan); post-modern Bond-like movies taken seriously and starring people with names like Vin Diesel; more stupid sixties TV shows made in films or cartoons into live action (like Scooby Doo); movies with names like Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood: even if it didn't feature Sandra Bullock, how could you pay to see it? But we did find a few films worth seeing. Of the movies I wanted to see we had time for those below and hope still to see Y Tu Mama Tambien and The Cat's Meow.
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Insomnia ranks up there with Minority Report as the best film of 2002 so far. And it is for very different reasons. MR is a film of ideas and incidents, an SF movie in the mode of film noir, even if it was a movie of light. Insomnia takes the light even further. Set in Alaska, the six days of the film's story are in mid-summer and there is no break to the light. Yet it is still film noir at its essence. And it is, to an extent, the perpetual light which drives the story forward, particularly for the point of view character, Will Dormer, an aged LA cop played by Al Pacino. Happy to be out of the big city while his division is being investigated by Internal Affairs, he and his partner are invited to assist the locals with a savage murder of a teenage girl. Pacino has rarely been better. No verbal and theatrical pyrotechnics from him this time. Just a great piece of character development. His eyes are the soul of this performance. Haunted to begin with, they (and his face) become more haggard and drawn as the plot develops. And Pacino is matched by his two co-stars, Robin Williams, also underplaying, as Walter Finch, the crime writer who has discovered control and its benefits and is beginning to like it, and Hilary Swank, as Ellie Burr, the local sheriff's deputy, who is learning that her hero has feet of clay. It is the acting by these three leads, and the direction, that makes the movie as good as it is. The plot suffers from predictability, especially given the conceit that the murder and aftermath are constructs of the mind of the crime fiction writer. The scenes between Pacino and Williams have much the same frisson as those between de Niro and Pacino in Heat, an indication of the growth of Robin Williams as an actor since his days of playing cracked characters in comedies. (It is the sort of growth the Jim Carrey is possibly capable of, if he is given the right scripts, and which Adam Sandler will never achieve and which Steve Martin has lost his last chance at.) The supporting characters are quite strong here, particularly Paul Dooley's police chief and Maura Tierney's concierge, and many of the other bit part cops. Insomnia is directed by Christopher Nolan, whose earlier film was an even better character-driven thriller, Memento. These two films indicate a talent that is likely to be around for a long time and give us a large number of interesting films. His camera here plays with the overly-lighted landscape in a way that is reminiscent of the best of Australian cinema, making the scenery as much a character as some of the people. Highly recommended.
All that glisters ...
It does very little good to analyse why the Austin Powers movies work. In Austin Powers in Goldmember the humor is at time sophomoric and at other time scatological but the zingers keep coming. Some work, some don't. Ish-kabibble. My reaction to the first movie was that it was funny but nothing to write home about (although a recent re-viewing of it has convinced me that it is indeed better than I thought). In December 1999, I 'reviewed' the sequel in these terms: "The second Austin Powers had more Dr Evil and less Austin and far too much Fat Bastard but it was a hoot". The third movie is undoubtedly the best of trilogy. There's possibly a touch too much Dr Evil and the Goldmember character does not work all that well but the Fat Bastard is screamingly funny this time, Michael Caine adds a touch of class and allows for a number of other movie references from Alfie to The Italian Job to The Ipcress File. One of the best things about this movie is that the satire expands from the Bond movies to encompass a number of other movie (and pop culture) tropes. Like the female lead, played by Beyonce Knowles, who sends up, and pays homage to, the 1970s' blaxploitation action heroines, such as Cleopatra Jones. As the series develops, Myers gives more time to his co-stars, particularly to Robert Wagner, Mindy Sterling and Seth Green who provide the rich textured background of Dr Evil's lair. Ms Sterling's Frau Farbissina gets better and better. This time the McGuffin is a quote Tractor Beam unquote, yclept 'Preparation H', a joke which went over the heads (if that's the right part of the anatomy) of most of the (youngish) audience we saw the movie with. Like each of the earlier entries there's a shadow-play sequence, a strangely designed satellite, a bizarre secret lair for the Evils and a musical sequence or two. All top their predecessors. Additionally there is an opening sequence that almost manages to outBond Bond and have its own in-joke or two. And Scott Evil comes into his own! I think that t might be the last Austin Powers movie and, as such, it is a fitting climax. Go and have a good laugh.
Thrills and spills
Hitchcock used to specialise in the chase thriller. He'd usually have as the chasee an innocent man inadvertently drawn into the centre of a web of intrigue. The Thirty-Nine Steps (based on John Buchan's classic adventure novel) was the archetype; and North by Northwest the apotheosis. Essential elements of the story include: the hero is never quite sure what is going on; and he is accompanied on the run by a woman, there either wittingly or unwittingly. Three Days of the Condor grafted the chase film onto the spy thriller, and Redford and Dunaway added genuine spark to the male/female relationship. Robert Ludlum revived this trope in his early 1980s' novel, The Bourne Identity, which added another element: the hero is an agent, Jason Bourne, with amnesia, capable of lethal force but unable to recall who he was or why he'd ended up half-dead floating in the Mediterranean. Doug Liman, director of Go, takes the elements of the Hitchcockian chase and meshes them well with the spy thriller background. He deviates from the traditional unified narrative (as he did in Go) by switching between Bourne's travails and the actions of his pursuers. Where Hitchcock gave us only Hannay's perspective or left us largely in the dark as to the forces arrayed against R O Townsend, Liman is as interested in the way in which the secretive CIA cell organises its forces in tracking down the fleeing, but forgetful, agent. Accompanying Bourne is a female who is neither kidnapped nor acting for the other side. Franka Potente takes on this role and this likeable German actress fills out the role admirably, an innocent dragged into matters that she just cannot understand but prepared to stand by her man nonetheless, a good foil for Matt Damon's very intense (but surprisingly effective) Jason Bourne. He handles the set pieces very well. Although some lapse into the ultra-violent, Liman keeps finding new ways of handling the confrontations between Bourne and his brother assassins. On the other hand, Chris Cooper as his nemesis was not as effective. With his hooded snake-eyes, and almost narcoleptic delivery, Cooper seems too internalised to efficiently portray the menace that the master plotter should provide in this sort of larger than life spy thriller. Despite that one drawback, the film plays the game remarkably well and is a worthy successor to the Hitchcock/Condor traditions.
Cate's great, again
Two things emerged from Heaven. Cath and I very infrequently disagree about films to the extent that we did about this one and I am afeared that I may be passing over to the darkside of the movie-going public: I am finding things that are commendable in deliberately-paced European-style movies. Mind you, this doesn't as yet extend to Swedish or French movies. Heaven is a product of a script written by the Polish poseurs, Krysztof Kieslowski and Krysztof Pieisewicz, and directed by a German who is the darling of the movie's literati set, Tom Tykwer, and filmed largely in Italy. It starts with a terrorist act, but one supposedly motivated by "proper" or pure motives. Cate Blanchett is an Englishwoman, teaching in Italy, who seeks revenge on the drug baron who responsible for her husband's early death. A drug baron who is a respected and well-connected citizen and against whom the police will not act. So she plants a bomb in his office and, to her horror, kills some innocents and not him. The police interrogation leads to a liaison between her and the young officer translating for her, Giovanni Ribisi. The bulk of the story concerns her escape and their fleeing from the law, as they fall in love, each in their own way. Blanchett is rivetting and Ribisi acceptable, even though he is not a charismatic actor. The story ranges from the weird to the unbelievable and many of the supporting characters remain ciphers whose motivations are more than obscure; they are contradictory and unknowable at the same time. In many ways I can understand Cath's dislike of the movie: it's attempt to be 'poetic' is analogous to the modern literary trope, where the style and word-use becomes more important than such elements as narrative and character. And this poetism slows the pace alarmingly. There are large tracts of film where nothing happens. And it happens quite slowly. It is interesting to compare the pace of Heaven with the more frenetic The Bourne Identity. And Tykwer's film is augmented by some of the most annoying single-finger piano soundtrack music in the world. But, for me, there was enough in the central love-story and in Blanchett's compelling performance to overcome the wankiness of much of the material. This will find its audience mainly in Europe and in US and Australian art-houses; it is not the stuff of the mainstream cineplex. But it is worth the effort for some great acting.
Huge grows up
I'm not sure who the 'boy' is in About a Boy. Hugh Grant plays Will, a Peter Pan character - a ne'er-do-well womaniser living off his inheritance who continues to exploit a series of girlfriends but has not the maturity to understand the basis of a mature relationship. Then there's Nicholas Hoult, playing Marcus, the barely pubescent son of Toni Colette's massively depressed single mother, Fiona; he sort of adopts Hugh's character as a surrogate father. And then there's Nick Hornby, the author of the source material, and of High Fidelity and other novels which feature thirty-something protagonists who remain immature. But whoever is the boy, it's another very good movie from a Hornby novel. It gives a real part of Grant, for once. There is actually a character he can wrestle with, something more than his usual stammering twit or the occasional one-dimensional bastard such as he played in Briget Jones' Diary. Will discovers a new source material for potential bed-mates, single mothers, and, inventing his own four-year-old and failed marriage, is off to mine this new seam. His first conquest is Fiona's best mate, which is how he gets to meet Marcus and his mum and become involved in their lives. The kid is very good as well but Toni Colette steals the show as his hippy-dippy mum with huge adjustment problems. The kid has his own problems at school and, having a father/mate, who is at about the same level of maturity but with some more world experience, helps him to fit in. There are some remarkably funny scenes along the way and sufficient growth in the characters to make the thing worthwhile. Well worth a look.
Learner's permit
Denzel Washington won an Oscar for the lead in Training Day, which I saw on video recently. It's a two-hander with Ethan Hawke as the young cop being initiated into the ways of the drug squad by Washington's Alonzo Harris. The action takes place within a one-day period as we get to learn more of the character of Alonzo. The part is written so that he starts at a high speed and then goes hyper. Scott Glenn plays an ex-cop who is central to the story. But essentially this is a monster movie with Denzel as the monster. He runs the streets as his private domain, administering street justice as he sees fit, setting up different people in order to find a way out of his own difficulties, problems we discover gradually during the day. But it is all too violent, too over-the-top, and too predictable for there to be anything really insightful to emerge. While Alonzo starts as an interesting, if flawed character, during the day he becomes more and more extreme and less and less believable. And Hawke's Hoyt does not seem in any way to be a match for him. While the script is well-constructed and the internal logic holds together almost to the end, it doesn't provide a sufficient basis for a credible denouement. Denzel Washington has done much better work than this and much better work has been overlooked for the Oscar.
Film talk
The Sight and Sound Top Ten Films has been voted on for the sixth decade. Starting in 1952, the magazine has polled critics worldwide as to their all-time favorite films. In 1952 it was de Sica's Bicycle Thieves ahead of City Lights, The Gold Rush, Battleship Potemkin and Intolerance. By 1962 Citizen Kane was number one, followed by L'avventura, Le Regle du Jeu and Greed. 1972 and Kane was still on top, with Le Regle du Jeu, Battleship Potemkin, and 8 1/2. 1982: Kane, Le Regle du Jeu, Seven Samurai, Singin' in the Rain and 8 1/2. 1992: Kane, Le Regle du Jeu, Tokyo Story, Vertigo, The Searchers. In 1992, they added a poll of leading film directors whose top few then were: Citizen Kane, 8 1/2, Raging Bull, La Strada and L'Atalante. Obviously the spirits of William Randolph Hearst and Louella Parsons have not been able posthumously to influence the view of Citizen Kane as they did on its release.
In 2002, the top tens were:
Critics:
- Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
- Vertigo (Hitchcock)
- Le Regle du Jeu (Renoir)
- The Godfather and Godfather II (FF Coppola)
- Tokyo Story (Ozu)
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
- Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein)
- Sunrise (Murnau)
- 8 1/2 (Fellini)
- Singin' in the Rain (Kelly and Donen)
Directors:
- Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
- The Godfather and Godfather II (FF Coppola)
- 8 1/2 (Fellini)
- Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean)
- Dr Strangelove (Kubrick)
- Bicycle Thieves (de Sica)
- Raging Bull (Scorsese)
- Vertigo (Hitchcock)
- Rashomon (Kurosawa)
Le Regle du Jeu (Renoir)
Seven Samurai (Kurosawa)
Interesting to note the rise and rise of Vertigo, one of Hitchcock's most overlooked thrillers, not my favourite but close to it; the decline in esteem for Chaplin films over the fifty years of the poll; the continued regard for 8 1/2, one of my least favorite movies; and the different Kubrick films selected by the critics and the directors - I side with the directors. Like the Academy, the critics and directors now largely ignore comedies, musicals and westerns, although the inclusion of The Godfather films, The Seven Samurai, Vertigo, Dr Strangelove and Lawrence of Arabia in the directors' list gives some hope that story-telling is not as yet dead.
[Note: Information about the movies mentioned, including cast and crew lists and all sorts of trivia, is available at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).]