Please to call it 'research'
Movies from seen in late 2003
Originally written: December 2003
Kill Bill: Vol 1
Calendar Girls
Intolerable Cruelty
Mystic River
School of Rock
Runaway Jury
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
Today's lesson takes us deeply into the post-modernism and its acceptance of re-use of earlier works through pastiche or homage. I'm a little shaky on the theory here, because I did my tertiary studies in literature at a time when you regarded a work as the output of an auteur in the context of its time, its place and its authorship. We even made value judgments about pieces of writing (or pieces of film), to the extent that some were good and some were not. Nowadays such niceties are not regarded as important and all pieces of creativity are 'texts' which are subject to the interpretation of the observer. In po-mo theory it's pretty much 'bugger the author, what's she know: power to the receiver'. Such theories result in all 'texts' being regarded as equally valid expressions. And reinvention of earlier work by a later auteur is not necessarily what we would have called plagiarism but what the po-mos call homage. Or the hip-hopsters call 'sampling'. The past master at po-mo homage is, of course, Quentin Tarantino and it is the consideration of his latest piece of cinema that has led to this discussion. I'm very unlikely to be happy with a theory that puts down value judgments. I like to assess the worthiness of ideas and the presentation of ideas and have this weird (pre-modernist?) idea that some concepts are valid and some are not. I respect your right to have a different (if necessarily wrong) opinion but that's about as far as I'll go.
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Bloody chop-socky exploitation homage
The first thing I dislike about Kill Bill: Vol 1 is the colon and the words after it. This is a studio ploy to try and make money back on a project they had large doubts about. Instead of one two-hour movie, they'll have two 90-minute movies. Twice the box office receipts, they hope, but half the discipline that would have been required to cut the movie to length. Actually there wasn't much else about the movie I truly disliked. I just couldn't work up the enthusiasm to feel strongly about any aspect of it. Quentin Tarantino is an unoriginal artist: even more than Lucas and Spielberg he has relied on imitation and re-invention of earlier, better film-makers. His one masterpiece, Pulp Fiction, was a lucky confluence of a number of pot-boiler plot elements in an essentially non-linear narrative, augmented by some snappy dialog. Of Kill Bill you can say, "Ditto", except that it's eastern action films that have informed the narrative, rather than the crime/mystery elements from PF, and there is no snappy dialog. In essence, KB:V1 is an extended revenge fantasy. Uma Thurman's character, yclept 'The Bride' because of the circumstances of her wedding day, was formerly a member of a sect of, largely female, assassins overseen by the eponymous Bill. On the aforementioned wedding day, the entire wedding party was slaughtered by Bill and his associates, except that they left Uma sufficiently alive that, after three or so years in a coma, she recovers and embarks on an elimination of her enemies, apparently each with their own weapon of choice. A black knife-wielder is dispatched by the knife; a Japanese-American sword-user is taken out in an extended katana duel. Basically that's all that happens in the film. There are bits of back story (I actually liked the story of the birth and rise of O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), the sword-using assassin, told in anime form - although this is again another piece of Tarantino homage - and the cameo by Sonny Chiba as the sword-maker Uma consults) and an incredibly long sequence in a Japanese restaurant as Uma needs to work her way through O-Ren's gang before she can fight her nemesis. And it's in this sequence that (the last shreds of) credibility and taste are discarded. There are so many hacked limbs and so many spurting blood vessels that the film becomes ridiculous. I'm not sure whether, by this time, Tarantino is trying to shock, amuse or disgust but, for me, he achieved none of these things. The film's lack of narrative flow, its paucity of dialog, the unreality of its characters, and the lack of any involvement with them had already turned me off. I was indifferent by the time of the fights in Japan - a uninterested observer marginally impressed by the grossness of the scene, as more death, dismemberment and agony was added successively, but unaffected by it. Even now I find it hard to raise sufficient enthusiasm to condemn the movie completely. Tarantino may be a talent or he may have had one good film in him. There is little evidence in Kill Bill: Vol 1 for either argument.
Not quite Monty's double
I can imagine the high-concept summary of Calendar Girls that sold the film to the money people: "The Full Monty with middle-aged women". But about the only thing this slice of life comedy/drama has in common with the earlier film is some nudity and the north country setting. For one thing, it is a much better film, with a more endearing cast, and it actually says something about people, rather than just pretending to. Based on a true story, the film relates the circumstances that lead to a group of women in a Yorkshire branch of the Women's Institute (the UK equivalent of the Country Women's Association by the looks of it) to create a nudie calendar. The story centres around Chris Harper (Helen Mirren) and Annie Clark (Julie Walters), whose husband dies of cancer. They hit on the idea of the calendar as a way of raising some funds for the local hospital. Their antics lead to a series of complications, including confrontations with husbands and boyfriends, alienation from embarrassed teenaged children, opposition within the WI (headed by Geraldine James playing well against type), and coverage from the jackals of the media. The bunch of women who play the eponymous characters are uniformly good. There is no Hollywood-type glamorising of the women; rather we get a bunch of forty and fifty-something actors playing women of the same age. The film is dominated by the two central characters and Mirren's character and her family provide the main thrust of the drama. This is a charming, feel-good movie, with just enough leavening of seriousness to provide some meat for the viewer. Well-scripted and well-directed, it provides the audience with real and sympathetic characters, in a way that the confected dramas of the Sfx mob never do. Recommended.
Coens' model modern screwball
The Coen Brothers have been an eclectic combination. Their early output was wildly inconsistent, but marked by a quirky humor and an independence of spirit. When they hit the mark, as in Fargo and O Brother Where Art Thou, it can be very good indeed. They get pretty close to a hit of that magnitude in Intolerable Cruelty. Admittedly the film is a little more mainstream than they have previously essayed, squarely within the parameters of classic romantic comedy, but a slightly outre interpretation of the classic mode, as you would expect for the Coens. A few months ago, we were playing the casting game: which pair of leads, currently unused, would you cast in your perfect romantic comedy? George Clooney for her and Catherine Zeta-Jones for me was very close to the optimum choice. And the leads do not disappoint, either as eye-candy or as actors. He's a barracuda divorce lawyer; she's a marital shark. And they end up playing in the same tank after he is the cause of her losing out in her divorce from Edward Herrmann. The script is delicious, providing the antagonists with plenty of opportunity for spicy dialog and sharp repartee - there is genuine wit in the script. This is balanced somewhat by a couple of strange choices: the over-the-top senior partner and the fairly weak off-siders given to both the leads - no decent Tony Randall or Eve Arden part here. If O Brother saw Clooney in full Clark Gable, here he shows that he is close to the contemporary Cary Grant and Zeta-Jones demonstrates that there are modern equivalents of the Golden Age actresses, in this case Rosalind Russell. There are also some good parts in the support roles including Geoffrey Rush and Billy Bob Thorton, who gets a Ralph Bellamy-type cameo. But all the fun here is in the recreation of the screwball comedies of the forties, in part I must confess homage but more than that because, unlike Down with Love, for example, it is an updating to contemporary circumstances of the tropes of an older comedic formula. Handled well by two actors at the top of their game and two film-makers who are finding their metier.
Great acting no mystery
Clint Eastwood is one actor-turned-director who can be classed as something more than a vanity director. His output over the years has been of a high standard and recently he has concentrated more on his directing than his acting, to the point that, in Mystic River, he does not cast himself at all. Based on one of Dennis Lehane's Boston-centred police procedurals, the movie deals with the interaction of three men who were, twenty years earlier, boyhood pals. Jimmy (Sean Penn) has served time but is now a successful store owner with three kids. Sean (Kevin Bacon) has got out of the neighborhood and is now a state trooper in homicide. Dave (Tim Robbins) who suffered childhood trauma at the hands of pedophiles has subsequently married and has a young son. When Jimmy's daughter is murdered, Sean investigates (with his partner Whitey, played by Laurence Fishburne) and Dave becomes a suspect. The latter's wife, Celeste (Marcia Gay Harden), is the one who first comes to doubt him, while Jimmy's wife (Laura Linney) is her polar opposite in most ways. It is the interaction of these six characters in Brian Hegleland's script that allows Eastwood to develop a taut and gripping urban drama. Hegleland, who previous adapted LA Confidential, is in his element in Lehane's equally dark look at working-class Boston and his script is literate and consistent. I'd read other Lehane novels (based on a recommendation from Brisbane's mystery bookstore king, Pulp Fiction's Ron Serdiuk) but not this one. Nonetheless I picked both the solution to the mystery and the penultimate plot twist quite early in the film. But this is not one of those mysteries that is meant to taunt the viewer and keep him guessing, it is a slice-of-life examination of people under stress. All six leads are good, each in their own way. I still find Penn's histrionic style more than a little off-putting but he's good here. Robbins is even better: as the put-upon and scarred Dave, his haunting and haunted visage is well-captured by Eastwood's camera in a series of brilliant close-ups. Harden, who won an Oscar a few years back, is on top form as well and her performance is almost a match for Robbins. The only bum note (if I may be forgiven the pun) is the director's choice of a vanity score-writer: Clint Eastwood. Some reviewers have noted that he's the first major director since Chaplin to write the music for his own film. In my view, it's an overdone score and Eastwood loses points. At least, however, this is a film that will be remembered for being something more than a step in the chain of the next time you play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Good day Black rocks
Twenty years ago, John Belushi was the inexplicable star of Hollywood movies. While he was occasionally brilliant in his series of wild-child roles, he was as frequently undisciplined. His physical appearance was not that of a lead actor, more throwback to the character actors of the 30s and 40s, like Mischa Auer. In spite of his occasional lapse, Belushi (John) was never uninteresting. His modern analog is Jack Black, who has been hanging around the periphery of stardom for several years, particularly after his eye-catching supporting role in High Fidelity. A first attempt to find him a starring vehicle foundered in a weak romantic comedy with Gwyneth Paltrow (Shallow Hal). He has complemented his movie activities with performance in a two-man band, Tenacious D, which has produced some interesting (and sometimes humorous) rock music. A script by his long-time mate, Mike White, has given Jack Black a starring role that combines his wild-child persona with his love of rock music. Even given its status as a Jack Black vehicle, The School of Rock is a sweet and traditional movie about how the outsider provides light and spirit to a group of children desperately in need of such. Dewey Finn (Black), a failed rock musician who is more enthusiastic than talented, impersonates his roommate and takes a gig as a substitute teacher at a Preparatory School - taking charge of a group of ten-year-olds who, in a few years time, would form the lower school of a Dead Poets Society or The Scent of a Woman. Rather than teach them anything, Dewey decides to form them into a rock band, employing the 'talents' he observed as they play the Concierto de Aranjuez in music class. Naturally they respond to his ministrations, as does the frosty school-marm Principal (Joan Cusack). Just as inevitably they have a transformative effect on Dewey. And it all culminates in a huge rock contest. The film scoots along most of the way, without necessitating the engagement of intellect and Black is a strong and effective central character. The kids, who actually play the instruments provided, are also good even if there are a few that are types rather than characters. And Joan Cusack again demonstrates the talent in her family. Enjoyable.
Cusack delivers the jury
Her brother is John Cusack and he is the teamster on the Runaway Jury. John Grisham has not been particularly well-served by movies adapted from his work (although not as poorly served as Stephen King). Runaway Jury is one of his better potboilers because, while dealing, as most do, with the law, the lawyers are not central to the narrative; and becomes one of the better Grisham movies, matched only by The Firm. In the novel a jury is dealing with a wrongful death suit against a tobacco company; in the film it becomes a gun company but the essence of the plot remains the same. Cusack and his partner, Rachel Weisz, are offering to deliver the jury to whatever side is prepared to pay - either Gene Hackman's cynical jury consultant or Dustin Hoffman's idealistic plaintiff's lawyer. All four principals are very good. Hoffman, for once, delivers a controlled performance with nuance. Hackman appears no longer capable of such performances but his usual is so good that it's unnecessary. The major change is to take the spotlight off Nick Easter's manipulation of the judge and the jury and place it more squarely on the lawyers and the case itself. This unbalances the film a little because we don't really get to know the jury or see what buttons Nick is pushing. This particularly affects the denouement which seems more rushed and forced than the book's ending. But Cusack is a very direct actor who exudes credibility. This makes the jury's reaction more believable. In the end it is the performances that stand out.
Praised with faint damns
Given its status as a colon movie, and a damnably long one, and given the relatively crappy original, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life should have been a complete disaster. That it isn't, and that it is indeed a rather fun piece of fluff is down to Angelina Jolie, Jan de Bont, and the rest refusing to take the movie seriously at all. The McGuffin in this case is Pandora's Box, hidden somewhere in Africa. But before we can get there, there's an earthquake near Santorini, a pursuit in outback China and a chase through Hong Kong. Ms Jolie's special effects are better handled this time, and not as obvious, and there are a couple of very good stunts. We saw it on one of those nights when any film would have been better than none. It is one of those films for a video night of silly films.
[Note: Information about the movies mentioned, including cast and crew lists and all sorts of trivia, is available at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).]