Nothing For Now (Movies Archives)

Home, where my mind's escaping...

I'm baaaack! *watches as America cringes in horror* After thinking I'd missed my plane, being delayed for 2 hours due to "mechanical problems" (that wasn't scary...), completing about 30 Sudoku puzzles, watching the heartwarming endings of A Beautiful Mind, Seabiscuit, and Cinderella Man all in a row, and being extorted for a $3 luggage cart (shame on you, JFK), I managed to drag my exhausted butt past Customs and get home. Woohoo!

I've received a few Chanukah presents already, including way too much chocolate, which I'm trying not to munch all at once. I also went to my precious library and took out Watchmen for a school essay, a book on identity and the Internet for another paper, the first book of Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle because what I need is another 900-page techno-historical fiction head trip, The Red and the Black because it's referenced in A Little Night Music and I'm pathetic enough to think of that as a Sondheim product endorsement, and Preludes and Nocturnes because I've delayed my reading of Sandman for far too long. *pant* *pant*

You know what else I want? SHOWS. Namely, Sweeney Todd. Like, now. *twitch* Also, I have many movies to see. Brokeback Mountain, The Producers, Memoirs of a Geisha, Munich, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Syriana, Transamerica, Capote, The Dying Gaul, Match Point, Paradise Now, stuff I missed like Jarhead and Shopgirl if I can...uh, yeah. I'm not sure I even have that much money. BUT I WILL FIND A WAY. Because I'm back, baby!

Like Squeezing a Sponge

I'm trying to wring 200 more words out of my brain. Seriously, guys. You try writing 3,000 words of serious analysis on a given topic as it relates to the 1941 screwball comedy Ball of Fire. I mean, it's a cute movie with a well-written screenplay, but geez.

That's Over With

My film final consisted of a 1-hour writing session about one 5-minute clip of any of the movies we studied during the course. It went something like this. (All of my dialogue is internal.)

Me: Please not The Third Man. Anything but The Third Man.

...

Me: Okay, not Citizen Kane, either. Please?

Professor: Okay, the clip starts with the red light, so if we lined it up wrong, just ignore everything up until there.

Me: *thinks* Taxi Driver! Great!

*clip starts*

Me: Taxi montage! *furiously writes down shots*

*clip continues* *Travis enters a diner*

Me: Menacing black people! Woohoo! *scribblescribble*

*clip continues*

Me: C'mon, c'mon....SELTZER SHOT! YES!

And then I wrote a lovely essay and finished 15 minutes early. :)

My Totally Awesome Day

Okay, so the day didn't start off very promisingly.

The Constant Gardener

It's hard to begin to say what stood out about this movie, because every single element was about as good as it could be. This is the best film I've seen all year, easily. The acting was fantastic, from Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz as Justin Quayle and his wife Tessa, down to Danny Huston and Bill Nighy as sleazy diplomats and Hubert Koundé as a doctor and Tessa's fellow-activist.

Fernando Meirelles' direction was wonderful: taut, suspenseful, and beautiful, weaving together an ever-narrowing web of conspiracy while looking wide-eyed at Africa's beautiful landscapes. England, by contrast, is mostly shot in dank blue-green grays, to great effect. The shaky-cam was used well instead of over-used, as it so often tends to be. It was used in moments of confusion and jolting movement that contrasted well with steadier shots of conversation and landscapes. The film moved quickly when it needed to, with conversations beginning before the camera gets to them and rapid monatages of passing landmarks, but it also settled a bit when it was called for. And the writing almost completely managed to prevent itself from hitting the audience with Anvils of the Obvious, which I appreciated a great deal.

To go back to the acting, Ralph Fiennes really did a fine job as a middling diplomatic employee suddenly given a sense of mission by the death of his wife. And Weisz completely justified the transformation; she was beautiful, rude, set in her convictions, and hugely driven, a ball of fire even pregnancy couldn't slow down.

Plot, you say? Well, it's all about Justin Quayles' investigation after his wife Tessa's suspicious death. It turns out that her investigations into Big Pharma's ethical lapses when conducting medical trials in Africa were more productive than some higher-ups would have liked. As Quayle slowly untangles who she told about what she was doing and who betrayed her, you're repeatedly hit with the theme of responsibility: Who takes responsibility for their actions, who tries to wiggle out of it, and who feels a sense of responsibility for others? The answers are often surprising, and saddening.

Serenity

I was disappointed. Spoilers ahead, folks.

Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit

Today, I strolled down the street to watch Wallace and Gromit's first feature length film, The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, and I'm glad to say it was brilliant from beginning to end. Gromit has the most expressive eyebrows in film, Wallace, as always, has a lot more mechanical sense than common sense, and the rabbits alone provide enough entertainment to be worth the price of admission.

When we begin, our heroes' little town is being menaced by an infestation of rabbits, all threatening to nibble away the prized pumpkins, marrows, and carrots being grown for the annual Giant Vegetable Competition. Luckily, man and dog are partners in a pest-control business whose ingenious methods of dealing with the fluffy destroyers have to be seen to be believed. Things turn complicated when the enormous and elusive Were-Rabbit appears on the scene. Will the competition be ruined, or can our duo save the day? In an old-school Wallace and Gromit short, that would have been more than enough plot, but here a bit of a love story is introduced to fill things out. This B-plot is more familiar than kooky, but it's well-executed nevertheless, and the movie caroms from one delightful set piece to the next without ever bogging itself down in love-triangle cliche. This is a kids' movie, after all.

It's once again hard to believe that Aardman accomplished what it did using almost nothing but clay. The chases (and there are quite a few of them) are imaginative, kinetic, and sometimes unbelievably elaborate. The animation style of painstakingly moving plasticine figures fractions of an inch for every frame may seem old-fashioned and clunky next to Pixar's work, but like one of Wallace's inventions, it has its own peculiar Rube Goldberg charm.

This movie is great- it has a simple story and enough clatter and color to occupy the kids, plus a few sly jokes for the adults, without the smartassery that's typical of some Shrek pop culture references. If you're looking, it has a message about animal rights, but if you're not, it won't hit you over the head with it. The only downside, as far as I can see, to Aardman pictures is how long it takes to produce them. So when's the next one coming?

Wolf Creek, Pride and Prejudice, and A History of Violence

The only thing that's actually been cheaper for me in London is movie tickets, which cost about $7 if you go on Wednesdays and not much more if you use a student discount on other days. With a nice independent multiplex just down the street, it's been easy to just go there casually instead of carefully picking and choosing and trying to get a ride like I do at home.

The first movie I saw here was Wolf Creek, an uninspired horror movie that claims to be based on true events. The afterword, which elaborates on the fates of the real people involved, absolutely infuriated me and negated what little appeal the movie had in the first place. Despite having a lot of the horror movie staples- pretty young people going camping in isolated spots, menacing truckers, stories of aliens told around a campfire, and of course, lots of poor lighting, the movie was less scary than it was sadistic and nasty. A clue to wannabe horror directors- blood and guts aren't scary. They're gross. There's a difference.

The three actors playing the protagonists were appealing and did their best with what they had, but the characters were so underwritten I couldn't even remember their names at the end of the movie. You'd think a movie that starts with a slow-paced road trip with just the three of them would give us a chance to get to distinguish their characters, but only Nathan Phillips managed to squeeze some personality out of what he got. Anyway, the only distinguishing features of Wolf Creek ended up being some beautiful landscape shots of western Australia, one plot twist in the middle, and the horrible text prologue and epilogue.

***

I mostly saw Wolf Creek because my friends were going, but Pride and Prejudice was a movie I'd been looking forward to for a while. The book is by far my favorite in the Austen canon- witty, dramatic without melodrama, and containing some truly memorable and well-constructed characters. But I'm afraid the film doesn't really live up to its source.

Keira Knightley did an unexpectedly solid job as Elizabeth Bennet. It's true she was too pretty to be constantly overlooked in favor of her sister Jane (played by the also-lovely Rosamund Pike), but considering I never liked Knightly's acting before, the fact that I think she didn't completely ruin her great character says a lot. Matthew MacFadyen was a fine Mr. Darcy, stiff and awkward but as certain in his convictions as Elizabeth. The rest of the characters were played the way they were supposed to be- Mr. Bennet as nice but overly retiring, Mrs. Bennet as a clucking, marriage-obsessed annoyance, and the two youngest Bennet sisters as unbearable, giggling, boy-crazy fools. Simon Woods was an amiable Bingley, Claudie Blakely a fine Charlotte Lucas, and Rupert Friend a charming Wickham. And the power of Austen's words hasn't diminished- many of the exchanges still crackled with insight and intelligence.

The real problem, I think, was with Joe Wright's direction. You know something's wrong when I can think of specific objections even as I'm watching, but I found that happening several times here. For example, when Elizabeth tromps all the way to Mr. Bingley's house to care for the bedridden Jane, a lot is made of how strange she looks, walking into a gentleman's house liberally splattered with mud. Why, then, does the camera stay above her knees? We don't see what causes Bingley's sister to turn up her nose. A simple shot of Lizzy tracking dirt on the floor would have said plenty.

Another scene was a bit higher on the scale of aggravation- the first time Darcy proposes and Elizabeth furiously refuses, under no circumstances should they be leaning forward as if they're about to kiss. Elizabeth absolutely hated Darcy at that point, and he was quite shocked and hurt by how she turned him down. I realize they had chemistry, but that was ridiculous.

There were some problems with the adaptation, too. I realize that things had to be cut in order to stuff everything into a feature-length film, but sometimes what was happening got a bit unclear. There were also, without going into detail, some poor choices made in the scenes of Elizabeth's trip to Darcy's manor with her aunt and uncle. But in the end...it was Pride and Prejudice. I love the story so much that seeing it relatively intact onscreen, even imperfectly adapted, was a joy.

***

Finally, tonight I watched A History of Violence. This movie has been puzzling me for the past couple of hours- after all those excited anticipatory headlines on Ain't It Cool and the critical raves, I was really expecting something great. What I got was something wonderfully crafted, but I'm not sure what it all adds up to.

The story centers on Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen), a Midwestern diner owner, and how his defense of his business from robbers brings violence flooding into his life and that of his family. Even as the film plays out typical celluloid fantasies of violent self-defense and revenge, it doesn't really let them be fantasies. Somehow it manages to capture both the appeal of violence and its price.

David Cronenberg's direction was just slow-paced enough to provoke uncomfortable squirms, and he thankfully showed the fight scenes with an unmercifully clear eye. The violence was a bit stylized but never pretty- no glamorous arterial spray here. From the beginning, when we cut from the nasty aftereffects of a shooting to a beautiful day in the life of the Stall family, the movie maintains double vision- glamourizing the macho man and casting a queasy eye on his work.

Mortensen does a fine job as Stall- the blankness he always seems to have below his surface was appropriate for his ambiguous character. Maria Bello is gorgeous and especially great as his wife, and Ed Harris and William Holmes do well in their smaller mobster roles. Another standout was Ashton Holmes as Stall's slightly geeky son Jack, who probably has the most interesting reaction of all to his father's heriosm in foiling the initial robbery.

This is definitely the most interesting movie I've seen all year. But I need to see things like The Constant Gardener and Good Night and Good Luck before I even think about calling it the best.

Impressive Stuff

Someone please explain to me how penis enlargement and online poker ads manage to spam blog entries I haven't even published yet. Come on, people! At least leave my drafts alone!

***

Anyway, I think I did something quite stupid today. I've been reading whatever small spoilers I can find about The Fountain, but the movie was still, thanks to the measures taken by Warner Brothers, shrouded in secrecy. Today, though, I think I found a big spoiler on IMDB, and if it's true I really wish I could forget it so I'd be surprised by the twist. Ah, well. There's no one to blame but myself.

***

In other news, everyone and their mother needs to read Bill Willingham's Fables right now. Collected so far into five trade paperbacks, it follows the stories of various fairy tale characters expelled from their magical worlds into New York. Willingham takes a lot more cues from the brothers Grimm than from Disney, and his ways of combining and explaining the various stories are deviously clever.

In the exiled Fable community, Prince Charming is a cad who falls for princess after princess but isn't very good at the "happily ever after," his ex-wife Snow White is the hard-nosed Deputy Mayor, and the Big Bad Wolf has reformed enough to become head of security. If that isn't enough, I guarantee that you'll never think of Goldilocks and the three bears the same way again after reading Animal Farm. The dialogue and characterizations are sharp, and Willingham has a great sense of pace, revealing and hiding just enough to keep the reader wanting more. Which is, of course, how you get me, waiting pathetically for the next collection to be released some time in the winter. *whimper*

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

If you're going to adapt the quirky-creepy world of a Roald Dahl book into a live action film, who better to guide that adaptation than Tim Burton? This new version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory seemed promising from the time it was announced, and I'm happy to say the actual product didn't disappoint. (The trailer is thankfully deceptive.)

This is a fairly close adaptation of the book- amazingly, the biggest change to the story's actual events was altering the ending so it was less conducive to a sequel. Whodathunkit? The script also gives Willy Wonka an ironic backstory- the great chocolateer was the son of an overly zealous dentist. But though Christopher Lee does a great job as the elder Wonka, the backstory is awkwardly integrated as flashbacks, complete with cheesy swirling scene transitions. The other minor changes are actually quite imaginative and appropriate- Mike Teavee (Jordan Fry) is transformed from mere couch potato to a violent video game addict, and bubble gum enthusiast Violet Beauregarde (Annasophia Robb) becomes an ultra-competitive martial arts as well as gum-chewing champion.

The film shows great visual sense- it's an appropriately candy-colored feast, both beautiful and bizarre in turn, with plenty of memorable images. Sweet Charlie Bucket (the earnest but almost inflectionless Freddie Highmore) lives in a tilted, broken-down shack. Hundreds of women in a factory go through a perfectly choreographed routine to find a Golden Ticket for the spoiled Veruca Salt (Julia Winter). Even the face of Charlie's Grandpa Joe (David Kelly) seems like a visual effect, it's so massively wrinkled and expressive.

But really, that face is nothing compared to the bizarre visage of Johnny Depp's Wonka. Sporting a wig-like haircut, skin so pale it would make Michael Jackson scream in envy, and perfectly straight and porclain-like teeth, the chocolate-maker is, on first sight, more alarming than anything else. Between his appearance and his offbeat line deliveries, it took me a while to warm to this Wonka, but in the end the interpretation mostly won me over. That backstory probably helped- it definitely helped explain the teeth.

Outside of Burton, I think the best thing about this movie isn't Depp but Danny Elfman, who set all of Dahl's Oompa-Loompa songs to music and sang them (with the help of vocal distortion) himself. Deep Roy is exquisitely deadpan as all of Wonka's tiny factory workers, and the dance numbers are a hoot. With a few "I want" numbers, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory could have been a great movie musical.

Young Adam

I watched Young Adam in hopes that I might discern just what it is that makes women my age go ga-ga about Ewan McGregor.

I still don't get it.

That said, I'm not really blaming Mr. McGregor, because the movie was pretty awful. Young Adam can pretty much be summed up as: People look glum. Eqan McGregor has sex. Rinse and repeat. Almost the entire movie was flat and affectless, a total waste of the talents of Tilda Swinton and Emily Mortimer. My favorite of the four leads was actually Peter Mullan, the only one I'd never seen before. He was the one who managed to summon up the most moments of warmth in the glum fog of this film.

So unless Ewan McGregor (or Tilda Swinton, or Emily Mortimer) naked is reason enough to get you to watch, just skip Young Adam. It's a waste of time.

Is A Puzzlement

Just got back from a midnight showing of Batman Begins.

Question: Is it possible to be a comics geek without actually reading a comic?

Ray

I saw Ray last night. Somebody please explain to me how that plodding mediocrity got nominated for Best Picture.

...

No? Nothing? Well, I don't get it either. Unless it's some kind of horribly misguided tribute to Ray Charles or something. I mean, really. Come on, Oscar voters. You have quirky, emotionally satisfying, and intelligent movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind waiting to be nominated and you choose this? What are you smoking?

Shattered Glass and The Aviator

Between this and Garden State, Peter Sarsgaard is officially on my list of Very Good Actors. Not in the same way as, say, Ian McKellen or Judi Dench or Cate Blanchett, who all have such abundant presence that film practically vibrates when they're in it- Sarsgaard is a master of understatement, completely compelling while seemingly doing almost nothing at all. And dammit, why can't we get Kinsey by where I live?

Speaking of Blanchett, she was absolutely the best thing about The Aviator. Her Katherine Hepburn was so alive and real most of the other characters seemed a bit faded in comparison. I didn't even think Leonardo DiCaprio's performance as Howard Hughes really came into its own until she'd been gone for a while.

I'm rather ambivalent about the movie as a whole. It had great production values, some wonderful writing, and most of the acting was at least servicable, though the point of having Gwen Stefani play Jean Harlow is a bit beyond me. But it felt too long, like it was lacking structure. There were interesting stories within the film as a whole- the neverending filming of Hell's Angels, the relationship between Hepburn and Hughes, the battle between Hughes' TWA and Pan Am- but there was no overall arc. Or maybe I just didn't see it; I can be oblivious like that. Anyway, my Best Picture vote stays with my beloved Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

The Station Agent

I watched The Station Agent with my parents yesterday, and it really helped me get out of my Christmas-induced grumpiness. I'd been grocery shopping with my mom for about 2 hours before then, and the store felt it necessary to wish us all "a happy holidays" and tell us their Christmas (non)hours every 5 minutes. Just in case we didn't hear it the 37th time around.

Anyway, back to the movie. It stars Peter Dinklage as Fin, a dwarf and railroad enthusiast who moves into an abandoned train depot in the middle of nowhere, New Jersey. The movie has a few moments of people's dumber reactions to Fin's appearance- gawking, laughing, even taking pictures as if he's a zoo animal. But instead of making the movie into preachy tripe about how we're all human on the inside, the filmmakers made a wonderful story of friendship instead.

Fin, for obvious reasons, is pretty anti-social when he first moves in. And when Patricia Clarkson's Olivia almost runs him over twice in one day, it really doesn't look like the beginning of a good relationship. It takes the catalyst of Bobby Canavale's sunny, desperately lonely Joe to get Fin and Olivia (who has her own set of troubles) to come out of their respective shells. The three of them begin to bond over Fin's passion for trains, and small-scale human drama ensues.

The Station Agent is great because it takes these 3 isolated, dysfunctional people, who all have difficulties to spare, and doesn't judge them or make fun of them or reduce them to cliche. And it would be so easy to do so- Fin's a dwarf, Olivia pops pills to forget about her dead son, and Joe is taking care of his unwell father. It's the stuff of soap opera, but the movie never even begins to get mawkish. It keeps its touch light, and ends up being a masterpiece of "show, don't tell." In a time when some movies seem to be written by fourth-graders, that's a beautiful thing to see.

What I'm reading today: A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. LeGuin

Shakespeare in Love

I finally watched Shakespeare in Love for the first time, and I have to say it's horribly overrated. Is it good? Yes. It's sweet, moves well, and is pretty well-acted overall. But it's no masterpiece. All the Shakespeare in-jokes were cute, but they don't seem to make it Best Picture material.

Eh, whatever. The good things? Joseph Fiennes' enormous eyes make him great at playing a man desperately in love. Ben Affleck, when given the right role and not stretched too much, actually shows real charisma and acting ability. And Judi Dench is simply brilliant in a way that none of the other actors in the picture could hope to match. She commands the screen without effort, and not just because she's playing a queen.

The okay? Colin Firth does fine as the villain of this enterprise, but the role is barely two-dimensional. Gwyneth Paltrow is the picture of an Elizabethan beauty, but her chemistry with Fiennes was only okay. (I'm giving Fiennes more credit because of his pitiful puppy eyes.) Geoffrey Rush and Tom Wilkinson were wasted. And I guess this isn't really anyone's fault, but the original parts of the screenplay couldn't live up to the parts that used Shakespeare's words. The movie's best expressions of love were, of course, Shakespeare's, and somehow I don't think Will and Viola's quite love story lived up to them.

The slightly annoying? The Shakespeare in-jokes, which I guess were meant to make audiences with an undergrad degree feel smart because they could recall bits and pieces from their literature classes so long ago, but only served to show how the screenplay couldn't really soar without stealing from the master. And this might be because I'm feeling sour today, but the Puritan cheering the play at the end made me roll my eyes rather than cheer along. Please.

Anyway, I did like the movie in the end. It was very prettily shot, had some good humorous moments, and was filled from beginning to end with passionately delivered Shakespeare. As long as you don't think about it too hard, it's nice. But only Judi Dench was really magnificent.

Double Feature

I just got back from watching My Neighbor Totoro and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I was just bursting with good movie happiness until I got back to my hall, which has somehow managed to become even smellier this weekend. Someone who came to visit described the odor as a mixture of cigarettes, body odor, and urine. Which makes sense, since someone's been going around peeing on the doors here.

No, I'm not joking.

Anyway, the movies were wonderful. Did I mention I'm having mood swings? My Neighbor Totoro is what every children's movie should aspire to be- funny, strange, and sweet without being saccharine or insisting on teaching a Very Important Lesson at the end. And the title character has to be seen to be believed. :) If I'd started out watching this kind of anime instead of the crap they show on Cartoon Network, I night actually like the genre. No robots, no spaceships, no 5-minute speeches about how you're going to beat someone up. What a wonderful concept. Hayao Miyazaki rocks.

The second movie I watched was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind for the second time, something I've been longing to do since...well, the first time. The movie's twisted timeline makes a second viewing practically required. It's amazing the little details in acting, direction, and even scenery that become important when you watch the movie twice. And as in the first viewing, the central relationship between Joel and Clementine was as genuinely romantic as anything I've seen in movies. Sometimes you become so used to romantic "chemistry" being generated by certain hackneyed script points and acting techniques that seeing the real thing is a shock. Especially when it's between Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, of all people. I guess that in the insane world of Charlie Kaufman, truly anything is possible. He rocks, too.

Waaah!

Why isn't Garden State playing by me? I don't exactly live in Podunksville. Come on, movie distributor people! I've been looking forward to this movie ever since I saw J.D.- er, Zach Braff- in the trailer.

Oh, well. If it doesn't come by this weekend I guess I'll have to watch Tom Cruise with gray hair killing people.

By the way, for anyone who's interested (and I guess that's just Kate), The Manchurian Candidate is pretty good, but not in the same league as the original. For someone with the maternal warmth to play Mrs. Potts, Angela Lansbury does an awfully good job of acting like the mother from hell in the latter picture.

And there's no way I'm watching Little Black Book without significant financial compensation. A woman decides to look through her boyfriend's PDA and check out all his ex-girlfriends? What a cute romantic comedy notion- if you happen to be psychotic.

What I'm listening to today: A Little Night Music (OBC), by Stephen Sondheim

Mission...Okay, Possible

Okay, the situation: It was 4:48. I had to return 3 videos to the library by 5:00 to avoid late fees. Could I do it?

As it turned out, I could, and did, because I drove there faster than I'd ever driven before. Which is to say, faster than a grandmother on Valium. Hooray for small steps in driving competence.

Yes, I've had a license for 2 years. Yes, I'm a sad, sad, little creature. I'll go sit in the corner now in utter humiliation.

Oh, and the movie I was watching until 4:48? North by Northwest. I'm still getting slightly freaked by the sound of passing airplanes.

What I'm listening to today: Tragic Kingdom, by No Doubt

Spider-Man

I'm finally back from Israel, and being a good (sorta) American girl, after I slept 13 hours to ward off jet lag I celebrated the 4th of July by watching Spider-Man 2 with my sister and two cousins who are visiting from- you got it- Israel. Funny how these things work.

First of all, if you haven't seen the movie you might want to skip this review. I won't give away any huge plot points, but there will be some minor spoilers. It can't be helped.

Anyway, Spider-Man 2 seemed to be a definite improvement on its predecessor. I say seemed because I really liked the first Spider-Man when I saw it in theaters, but it seemed to lose more of its luster with every DVD viewing. To me, great movies are the ones that get better, or at least stay good, with multiple viewings. Spider-Man failed that test. I can't say that the sequel will do any better, but for now it's my favorite of the two.

The good? Alfred Molina was a delight as Doctor Octopus, though I wish his human character (before the tentacles took over his mind) had been developed a bit more.

The fight scenes were just great. You gotta love the Spider-Man and X-Men movies for turning at least partly away from the trend of making every fight scene an over-edited quasi-Hong Kong Matrix rip-off. The battles between Spider-Man and Dr. Octopus are fast, colorful and brutal. They're comic-bookish in a good way. And you can actually see what's going on! No close-up shots of Spider-Man's frantically moving elbows or ankles here. It probably helps that the battles were mostly computer-animated. I'm fine with that. The two super-characters don't quite move like human beings, but I don't expect them to.

James Franco and his cheekbones did a fine job as the increasingly unbalanced Harry Osborn, but I wish that his big decision towards the end of the movie had been shown. There wasn't much suspense as to what he would choose, so why not let the audience see Franco show off his acting chops a little more?

The scene of Dr. Octavius' awakening had a great horror-movie atmosphere. You know the surgeon's going to turn on that chainsaw, and you know exactly what's going to happen to him, but you keep half-hoping that maybe he'll show some common sense instead. Basically like the blonde bimbo who goes into the dark garage with no flashlight. And the shots of the doctors' wide-eyed screams as they get dragged away by mechanical tentacles was perfectly schlocky. Didn't Raimi direct zombie movies once? It shows.

Tobey Maguire was quite good playing our hero once again, but I still feel he's missing a certain something. He's a fine actor, but he just doesn't seem to have the force of personality or charisma to carry a film on his own. Something about his performance left me vaguely unsatisfied. But everyone else seems to like him, so maybe it's just me.

Or maybe it's just the writing. Spider-Man 2 is all about Peter Parker's struggle to balance his lives with and without that spandex. When the movie begins, neither side of him is having a very good time. His loved ones feel wronged by him, his grades are slipping, and his financial prospects stink because he feels obligated to slip into costume and play superhero every time he hears sirens. The scene in which all his clothes get stained pink by his Spider-Man costume is deliciously symbolic.

Meanwhile, his primary-colored alter ego has it almost as bad. He's still being persecuted by J. Jonah Jameson (add the hilarious J.K. Simmons to the good list) and he can't always seem to spurt webbing anymore (teehee), leading to a few nasty falls. Disaster after disaster befalls our hero until he finally decides to throw out his costume and just go back to being the geek he was at the start.

Of course, you know this can't last forever, especially with a super-villain on the loose. But what I really hated about the screenplay was Peter's behavior once he abandoned the superhero business and his powers. It's one thing to him to stop chasing sirens, but at one point he ignores a guy who actually pleads for help while being beaten up by a couple of thugs. Sure, Peter's spider-powers were gone, but couldn't he have at least called for help? Later, he tries to redeem himself by rushing into a burning building to save a baby in a scene so reminiscent of the first movie I kept expecting Doc Ock to be there, wrapped in a blanket and pretending to be an old woman.

But anyway, I think those two situations should have been switched. The movie's anthem is once again stated by Uncle Ben: With great power comes great responsibility. When Peter gives up his enhanced powers, he gives up the enhanced responsibilities that go with them. But being just Peter doesn't take away his responsibilites altogether. If he's a fundamentally decent guy, he shouldn't go back to the behavior that motivated him to be Spider-Man in the first place, letting criminals go. He should do what he can do as just Peter. So if he'd failed to save anyone from the burning building, but helped the guy with the thugs, it would have made more sense and kept Peter more sympathetic. Having to watch people die in that building could have even given him motivation to be Spider-Man again rather than using the kidnap-MJ cliche.

And that brings me to the theme of most of my complaints. What is with the women in Spider-Man's world? I realize that their collective inadequacy is the reason Peter keeps looking for father figures (Osborn last time, Octavius this time), but still...

What was with using 2-time Tony winner Donna Murphy to play a poorly-written 3-minute cameo as Octavius' wife, and then making her spend 1 of those minutes screaming as she gets killed by broken glass? Pathetic.

What was with saddling the wonderful Rosemary Harris with an over-long speech about how cute little boys need heroes in their lives? Pa-the-tic.

What was with having MJ go through men like tissues and still come out of it as the perfect shining object of Peter's affections? It's one thing for her to get a boyfriend after Peter rejects her, but she abandoned the guy at the altar. Once again, pathetic.

And Peter's cute but aborted flirtations with Jameson's secretary and his landlord's daughter? Useless and patheticpatheticpathetic, though he had more chemistry with them than the sleepy-eyed MJ. In fact, everything having to do with Peter's love life? Pathetic. He and MJ are supposed to be maturing in this movie, but they certainly aren't showing it relationship-wise.

Eh. Enough ranting. I did like the movie, after all. Jet lag does strange things to my head. But this much I'm certain of- if we're choosing superhero franchises, I'll pick X-Men every time. Because either Hugh Jackman or Ian McKellen can easily out-charisma Tobey Maguire while acting just as well, and because Mystique alone has more coolness than all the female characters in Spider-Man combined. And she has about two lines of dialogue per film.

Nowadays

I watched The Stepford Wives last night with Arum and Kate. It was an okay movie- it had a few laughs and good performances out of Roger Bart and Nicole Kidman, who had to bear the burden of the movie's multiple personality disorder. The film couldn't seem to make up its mind- was it a suspense thriller? A satire? A black comedy? A touching romance? It looked like in the end the director and editors just threw up their hands in despair and stuck in everything together, hoping the blend would turn into something good. As it was, it turned into something weird. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I like weird. :)

But the really interesting part came after the movie, when Arum correctly pointed out that chauvinist pigs today don't want their women to dress like 50's housewives and go square dancing with them. No, what chauvinist pigs want today is a Playboy bunny. Preferably a hot lesbian Playboy bunny. Maybe in 1975, when the original Stepford Wives was released, men secretly wanted their women to cook and clean. But today? I think the preferred method of demeaning women is sex.

What I'm reading today: Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, by Mil Millington.

Growing Up

I was absolutely thrilled when I found out that Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban would be directed by the very cool Alfonso Cuaron rather than the competent-but-boring Christopher Columbus. So how did Cuaron do? According to Slate, pretty darn well:

Uh, here's the Dallas Observer:

*snorfle* I have to see this movie. Now.

Good Times

I just saw Chicago for the third time. "Cell Block Tango" still rocks my socks. Catherine Zeta-Jones is still insanely beautiful. And Richard Gere...still can't sing. Oy. For heaven's sake, couldn't they find anyone else? His voice makes me want to claw out my eardrums.

***

In not entirely unrelated news, my parents took the car to a friend's house before I went to rent the movie. So I decided to walk to the video store. In flip-flops. Proving conclusively that I am a moron, because not only did that kill my ankles, the walk to the video store involves crossing one of the busiest streets in town. And there's no traffic light. So there I was, running across the street in my flip-flops, hoping against all hope that I wouldn't trip, or lose a shoe, or get hit by a car. And then I had to do it again on the way back.

I am such an idiot. Good night, everybody.

Putting It Together

My summer is starting to take shape. I started working today, and finally found out from my college that I can go ahead and take a summer class at Columbia, but they won't necessarily give me credit for it. (Bums.) My dad booked our flight to Israel next month, and I even got part of the way through the massive backlog of old shows in the Tivo that I missed while I was in school.

Now I have only a few things left to do, like getting a copy of Chicago the movie because I have determined that I can't live without its rendition of "Cell Block Tango", waiting for my obscure Sondheim recordings to come in to my local library (Saturday Night, anyone?), and determining just which Broadway shows are going to get all my summer job money. Avenue Q. No, Wonderful Town. Or Assassins. Maybe Caroline, or Change? I Am My Own Wife? How about A Raisin in the Sun? But as Jew, I have a moral obligation to see Fiddler on the Roof, even if it does star Alfred Molina...hmm. Decisions, decisions.

***

I saw Mean Girls with Kate, which was tons of fun. It was so good it almost made me like Lindsey Lohan. Almost. Edit: Thanks Kate!

***

Oh, and one last thing. I cut my hair. Until yesterday I had waist-length locks, but I had them chopped off to my shoulders and donated to Locks of Love. It feels weird, but very easy to brush in the morning.

***

And that's what I've done since I've come home from college. Sleep? Ha! Who needs it?

What I'm listening to today: "Cell Block Tango" in my head

Good Night

I had a good night. My head is going to explode, but it was worth it. For the third week in a row(!) I saw a musical, in this case my school's production of You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown.

I've had the cast recording of Charlie Brown for a while, so I knew better than to expect anything resembling a plot. The musical is basically a string of episodic sketches- like short comic strips, now that I think about it. There are only six characters with a small orchestra, and no pyrotechnics, so everything depends on the actors' performances. Luckily, they did a great job.

All six of the actors were wonderful, with great comic timing. Every joke was nailed perfectly. Their singing was quite good, and the dancing, while nothing fancy, worked. The guy who played Charlie Brown was really good, but his part is quieter than those of Lucy, Snoopy, and Sally, even if it's "his" musical. The standouts were Snoopy and especially Lucy, but everyone was energetic and funny, which helped in the ensemble numbers.

The best song of the night was The Book Report, which basically documents four of the kids' ways of dealing with a homework assignment. In an audience made almost entirely of college students, Charlie Brown's rationale for procrastination got a big laugh:

Anyway, the whole cast knocked this number out of the ballpark. It was great.

***

Right after the show, I followed my hallmates to the movie screening room next door, where we watched Spellbound, a documentary about the National Spelling Bee. The whole thing brought back some not-entirely-pleasant memories of my spelling bee run in 8th grade. I actually made it to regionals (the level below nationals) before losing, but I didn't study. At the time, I regretted not working on it, but the movie reminded me that it was probably for the best.

The eight kids in the documentary ranged from the serious, driven Nupur to the downright weird Harry, who asked the documentary crew if their microphone was edible. (He was joking. I think.) The common angle that the filmmakers were pushing was that competing in the National Spelling Bee was a bit of the American dream for the these diverse children and their parents, teachers, and communities.

What I really liked about the movie was how generous it was to all its subjects- yes, we laughed at some of them, but no one was really being held up as an object of ridicule. It would have been so easy to make a movie about strange, geeky, maladjusted little freaky spellers and their horrible parents, but the filmmakers show the other side to each of their stories.

For example, the closest we come to a miserable kid with stage parents is the Indian-American Neal, whose father drives him relentlessly. The father spends most of Neal's segment talking about the incredibly elaborate study system he's set up for his son. Neal comes off as the incredible Robo-Speller- he meditates, studies all day, and seems to have almost no personality at all. Just when you want to smack Neal's father, he shows you the house he and his brother built by hand and exults in how America will reward anyone who works hard. You can't hate him.

In a film full of self-made immigrants, the rich, WASP-y Emily doesn't exactly elicit sympathy when she talks about her au pair and horse riding lessons, but for all her privilege she seems sweet and well-spoken. Even the silliest people, like April's mother, seem human. All of this makes the spelling bee scenes agonizing to watch. Who do you cheer for? Angela, the always-hopeful self-described "prayer warrior" from Washington, D.C.? How about Ted, the excruciatingly lonely kid from a small school in the Midwest? Or Angela, who makes up her own study methods since her parents don't speak English? I couldn't help but want them all to win. And I'm hoping I wasn't quite that dorky when I was in eighth grade. :)

What I'm listening to today: You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown (1999 Revival)

Religious Pain

The Passion of the Christ has finally been released, and the verdict is in: It's...average. Unless you ask Roger Ebert, but he's severely outnumbered on this. The movie isn't as virulently anti-Semitic as some people claimed it would be, but it's just not that great.

So far the movie's Metascore is 50 out of 100. That's lower than such masterpieces as Calendar Girls and Barbershop 2: Back in Business, and barely higher than 50 First Dates. To put it in perspective, The Passion of the Christ got the same amount of critical acclaim as The Matrix Revolutions.

And you know what? It isn't a Jewish media conspiracy, Mel. No one's after you. It's just that some people, for whatever reason, don't see the cinematic value of (as Slate's critic puts it) "a two-hour-and-six-minute snuff movie -- The Jesus Chainsaw Massacre -- that thinks it's an act of faith."

Maybe for some Christians, this movie will bring to life the central event of their religion. But just from looking at some of the stills and reading the reviews, it seems Gibson got a little too mired in the flayings and arterial spray. Even Ebert called it the most violent movie he'd ever seen. For some people, that much violence can be cathartic- a visceral reminder that Christ died for their sins. But I suspect that many others will be more repulsed than inspired.

In the end, the reception of the movie isn't really surprising. This isn't a commercial film; it's in Latin and Aramaic and wasn't originally supposed to have subtitles. I believe that Mel Gibson made The Passion of Christ as an act of faith. Am I the only one who finds it a bit sad that two hours of graphic torture are his idea of a profound religious experience?