Category Archives: Movies

The Kill Bill Tour of Japan

Kill Bill“Kill Bill” is like a kind of delicious cinematic dessert commingled with a helping of tongue-piercing thumbtacks; it is at once sweetly delirious and deeply offensive. This mix is about the right combination for Quentin Tarantino, a writer-director who seems to go out of his way to make incredibly disgusting movies, all of which will be remembered as pioneering artistic statements but never without inciting a terrible queasiness in some subsection of his audience.

After having steeled my stomach through the sheer viciousness of “Reservoir Dogs,” the shock-for-shock’s sake of the overrated but still compelling “Pulp Fiction” and the dodgy blaxploitation-philia of “Jackie Brown,” I can say that I had not counted myself among those who took issue with the director’s wanton desire to piss off just as many people as he delights.

So, I figure, it makes sense that I find “Kill Bill” to be just about the worst piece of Orientalism to make it before discerning movie audiences in quite some time. It’s my turn to be indignant.

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In the Mood for Language

Lost in Translation.gifSofia Coppola’s “Lost in Translation” can be said to be a shallow exercise in style. First, it’s clearly a savvy assembly of key touchpoints for a specific niche of the New Thirtysomethings. Its characters, milieu and tone constitute an almost exquisitely calculated dream combination of many hallmarks of hipster elitism: a fascination with the idiosyncrasies of urban Japanese culture, the dissonance of semi-obscure British pop, the watercolor kinetics of Wong Kar Wai’s films, the mannered understatement of naturalistic acting, the ironic wisecracks of Bill Murray, and the irresistibility of adorable young actresses who spend a lot of time appearing in indie films.

All of these things possess an unimpeachable street cred, and yet, their confluence in this film has an overbearing quality. It’s as if Coppola is determined to illustrate her impeccable taste; any movie that gives a prominent role to a My Bloody Valentine song (and even employs Kevin Shields for original music) is making an unmistakable declaration of its own sophisticated, conspicuous eclecticism.

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Troubles, Thieves and Spelling Bees

SpellboundThis was the weekend that my girlfriend and I were supposed to be unpacking boxes in our new apartment, but because of contractor delays, that won’t happen for several days. Instead we whiled away our limbo-induced frustration by watching more movies than we probably should have, but we did so not entirely without reward. We started with “Bloody Sunday,” a remarkably intricate re-creation of the 1972 British-led massacre of the same name in Derry, Ireland; it was expertly made and grim, though more historically faithful than cinematically singular. To lighten the mood, we watched Ernst Lubitsch’s wonderful 1932 “Trouble in Paradise,” a sweet and absurd fable of thieves and millionaires which is perhaps best likened to the most delicate, most memorable dessert ever served in a five-star restaurant. Next up was Mario Monicelli’s 1960 heist comedy “Big Deal on Madonna Street,” an occasionally laborious spoof of “Rififi” that culminates in a single moment of comic perfection. The weekend’s cinematic highlight, though, was not rented but actually viewed in a theater when, on the recommendation of two friends, we went to see the emotionally overwhelming documentary “Spellbound.” You may never have thought that the National Spelling Bee competition of 1999 would make for riveting, hilarious and touching film, but it does, believe me, and what’s more, it’s one of a handful of films that I will probably remember vividly for months and months.

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The Sound of Washington

All the President's MenStill sick, I slept through most of today uncomfortably. By the mid-afternoon, I finally felt well enough to get up and cook myself some soup and park myself in front of the television for a while. As it happened, Encore was running Alan J. Pakula’s 1976 film adaptation of “All the President’s Men.” I’ve watched this film about half a dozen times since I was kid, and each time I come away convinced that it’s one of the greatest movies I’ll ever watch.

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The Math of Charlie’s Angels

Charlie's Angels Full ThrottleThe problem with a movie like “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” is that it will clearly fail the critical metric applied to films like “The Pianist,” or even “The Matrix Reloaded.” This sequel is too loud, ridiculous and calculated, and yet it’s also a hell of a lot of fun. I’ve been thinking about this problem lately, about how film criticism always needs to be parsed, and how the difficulty in parsing a film review can obscure the value that an average moviegoer — someone like, say, me — might get out of watching three beautiful women shake their moneymakers and kick some ass.

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Lee vs. Lee

The HulkUnexpectedly, the battle that’s truly at the heart of “The Hulk” is not the one that the titular green antihero fights with society at large, the massive arsenal of the U.S. Army or even the tortured depths of his own soul. Rather, it’s the battle between the moviemaking prowess of Ang Lee, who has been responsible for some of the most intricate and touching personal epics committed to film, and the cantankerous spirit of Stan Lee, controversially-proclaimed father of the famed stable of Marvel Comics super-heroes. What results is a movie that pits a grotesquely literal interpretation of the graphical storyteling of comic books against a psychologically complex exploration of human horror. It’s not an altogether disastrous experiment in opposing sensibilities, but it is ultimately, hugely, disappointing.

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Hulk Smash! Or Flop?

The HulkI’m feeling kind of time-pressured today, because I’m trying to leave the office early to go see “The Hulk,” which unfortunately got a pretty poor review in The New York Times today. This is a shame, because I had so many high hopes for Ang Lee’s foray into multimillion-dollar box office spectacles as a sign that the characters of popular mythology can actually be treated with truly artful hands. I don’t know why I do this to myself each time I head out to see a comic book made into a movie, because I tend to be let down. It’s just that I think these characters have so much potential for mature, literate dramaturgy that it’s a shame that Hollywood is not aiming to make true classics out of them, rather than just box office smashes.

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Blind Ambition

The Matrix ReloadedMy little getaway last weekend denied me the opportunity to go see “The Matrix Reloaded” on opening night, a consumer ritual of which I’ve become very fond. Last night’s crowd for the 10:20p showing of the movie was tamer than I’d have liked, less prone to hoots, hollers and moments of mob ecstasy. I’m pretty sure I would have enjoyed the movie significantly more with an opening night crowd, but in some ways it was a better context in which to have viewed it; less peer excitement to augment the absurd hype with which the movie has been promoted.

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No Escape from The Matrix

The Matrix ReloadedIn January, Newsweek ran a cover story on the two “Matrix” sequels. Premiere Magazine featured the first of those sequels under four “collectible” covers. Keanu Reeves is on the cover of GQ Magazine. Britian’s Empire Magazine has four holographic covers featuring The Matrix. Reeves, Carrie-Ann Moss, Lawrence Fishburne and producer Joel Silver all appeared on The Charile Rose Show” last night. This week’s issue of The Village Voice includes an article called “Hacking the ‘Matrix’ Master Code.” The New York Times ran a puff piece on Sunday about the movie’s origins and influence on contemporary cinema. Atari’s companion videogame “Enter the Matrix” has sold 4 million copies in its initial order alone. A DVD of animated shorts called “The Animatrix” is being marketed now for an early June release. Officially sanctioned Matrix swag is now available for online purchasing at TheMatrixShop.com.

This list is hardly exhaustive, even. I’m still looking forward to “The Matrix Reloaded,” but all this media saturation is starting to turn me off.

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