Word Play is a movie which I have trouble attaching an easy modifier to. It isn't so much interesting as it is "interesting" if that kind of emphasis can be conveyed through print. I'm almost entirely sure it can not. The documentary follows the lives of people who enjoy Crossword puzzles.
If you are like me, which is almost assuredly not the case you enjoy the crossword puzzle. I have fond memories of working on a crossword puzzle while sitting at the loading dock desk at the Museum of Art that I used to work at, killing the hours. I've even tried my hand killing time between class working on a crossword. So I'd like to think I am a fan of crosswords. Then I saw this film.
The film focuses on Will Shortz, editor of the New York Times Crossword and his yearly competition. Its form is similar to Spellbound that recent documentary about spelling bees. The key difference being that the latter was about kids and the former is about adults. If the characters in Spellbound were obsessive and a bit odd, you could pass it off as a phase or the result of overbearing parents.
But full grown adults obsessed with crosswords? We've crossed over into a bizarre sub culture that in truth I could have happily lived knowing never existed. The saddest thing about the movie is that it tries to make you relate to these bizarro people. I didn't. I laughed. And this was a clear case of me laughing at them not with them. They are so desperately sad. And when the credits role and a new champion is crowned you just kind of shake your head and pray you never become so obsessed with something so trivial.
But I don't think that was the moral the filmmakers were going for.
Monday, July 31, 2006
You, Me, And Dupree
Apparently Owen Wilson feels that after the success of Wedding Crashers that he can make any film he wants. And I'm inclined to agree with him. So what he did was go out and make You, Me, And Dupree. What I take issue with is that Mr. Wilson has the gall to go on tv and in print and say that this film is funny. This film is not funny. This film was agonizing. Its been weeks since I saw it and I'm desperately trying to keep from recalling anything about it. Wilson is unfunny. Kate Hudson is still a bad actress. I'm fairly sure Michael Douglas must have felt that he had to get a paycheck to pay the nanny or something. I'm officially tired of Owen Wilson. Yes, Wedding Crashers was funny but mainly because of Mr. Vaughn not Mr. Wilson. Avoid this movie.
Miami Vice
Michael Mann has a way of taking a genre we are familiar with and making it work in such a way that we don't care that it has been done before. He made a bank robber story into something amazing to watch, if for no other reason than it brought Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino into the same frame of a movie and had them interact. People more fondly remember Jonathon Demme's Silence of the Lambs (1991) but for effect I am quite fond of Manhunter (1981). To this day I feel that Brian Cox is a better Hannibal Lector than Anthony Hopkins.
But I digress. Mann also impressed me with Collateral (2004). Miami Vice works. It isn't anything like the 80s TV show that truly defines what I think of when I think of that decade. But then again, it is. No, Crocket and Tubbs aren't wearing white jackets over pastel shirts. No Don Johnson is nowhere to be found. But the film does exist in its own fantasy world. The dialogue isn't the most effective I have ever heard. Half the theater laughed when one character said 'let's take it to the limit one more time' and in any other movie I probably would have laughed as well.
Except this film exists in its own world. The key is that the world is established and it almost never violates that world. The romance is still the shallow romance you might expect from an action flick. It didn't impress me and it didn't make sense and it set up a silly sideplot but it didn't detract so much that I got annoyed.
The plot revolves around Sonny and Rico as they go deep undercover. They penetrate a drug operation at the behest of a generic and very underused Ciaran Hinds. Hinds was masterful in Munich (2005) and in HBO's "Rome". Here he is nothing but a generic authority figure. As they get deep into the operation they raise the suspicion of one key figure who is apparently prescient with his ability to uncover undercover ops.
He's also borderline crazy which made me wonder why a crime kingpin would keep him around. Crazy people are the cracks in the foundation. Still he works as a more immediate villain. At one point the movie actually forgets its very premise which I thought funny but let pass because in the end it is just so damn entertaining. The film is gritty and dark. The main characters are well developed. Ancillary characters suffer in that attention to detail but I got over it.
Is Michael Mann untouchable? No, but I trust him to get me a good film. He has earned that trust. This film easily holds the top spot for films released for the summer but not the top spot for a film I saw this summer. I only saw Brick (2005) in June and it still stands out as the best film. But Mann has shown again that smart action films are possible.
But I digress. Mann also impressed me with Collateral (2004). Miami Vice works. It isn't anything like the 80s TV show that truly defines what I think of when I think of that decade. But then again, it is. No, Crocket and Tubbs aren't wearing white jackets over pastel shirts. No Don Johnson is nowhere to be found. But the film does exist in its own fantasy world. The dialogue isn't the most effective I have ever heard. Half the theater laughed when one character said 'let's take it to the limit one more time' and in any other movie I probably would have laughed as well.
Except this film exists in its own world. The key is that the world is established and it almost never violates that world. The romance is still the shallow romance you might expect from an action flick. It didn't impress me and it didn't make sense and it set up a silly sideplot but it didn't detract so much that I got annoyed.
The plot revolves around Sonny and Rico as they go deep undercover. They penetrate a drug operation at the behest of a generic and very underused Ciaran Hinds. Hinds was masterful in Munich (2005) and in HBO's "Rome". Here he is nothing but a generic authority figure. As they get deep into the operation they raise the suspicion of one key figure who is apparently prescient with his ability to uncover undercover ops.
He's also borderline crazy which made me wonder why a crime kingpin would keep him around. Crazy people are the cracks in the foundation. Still he works as a more immediate villain. At one point the movie actually forgets its very premise which I thought funny but let pass because in the end it is just so damn entertaining. The film is gritty and dark. The main characters are well developed. Ancillary characters suffer in that attention to detail but I got over it.
Is Michael Mann untouchable? No, but I trust him to get me a good film. He has earned that trust. This film easily holds the top spot for films released for the summer but not the top spot for a film I saw this summer. I only saw Brick (2005) in June and it still stands out as the best film. But Mann has shown again that smart action films are possible.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Half Way There!
On June 30th I saw The Devil Wears Prada and thus hit the half way point for my movie watching goal. I, for those who don't know made a New Year's Resolution to see 100 movies in the theater in the year 2006. Yes I know in terms of a resolution it could have been a lot better. But last year I hit 85 and it irked me that I was so close to 100. So on June 30th I had officially seen 50 movies or half my goal at the half way point. Since then I have seen two more so only 48 to go. Here for no reason other than to procrastinate is every movie I've seen with a one line (or as close to one line as I can manage) review of those movies in chronological order.
01. January 05: The Producers - An uninspiring remake with songs (I hate musicals).
02. January 07: Bloodrayne - Uwe Boll badly adapts yet another video game into a movie.
03. January 08: Rumor Has It - An ultimately disappointing comedy playing off the Graduate plot.
04. January 15: Hostel - Gruesome and mindless slasheresque film that exploits and didn't need to be made.
05. January 20: Underworld:Evolution - A pointless sequel to a pointless original movie, Kate Beckinsale in leather does not a good movie make.
06. January 21: The New World - Terrence Malick takes his love of the noble savage to nauseating new heights in a long but visually wonderful retelling of the Pocahontas tale.
07. January 22: Hoodwinked - A surprisingly clever animated film (and I generally don't like animated films).
08. January 25: Brokeback Mountain - A decent character driven drama that doesn't live up to the hype but still is worth watching.
09. January 27: Match Point - Woody Allen pulls off an amazing thriller with excellent performances.
10. February 02: Looking For Comedy In The Muslim World - Mildly amusing Albert Brooks film, he's done better.
11. February 05: The Matador - Pleasant dark comedy with Pierce Brosnan breaking free from his James Bond image.
12. February 11: Mrs. Henderson Presents - Charming comedy about a nude review in WW2 England with delightful performances by Bob Hoskins and Judi Dench.
13. February 12: Transamerica - Felicity Huffman is amazing as a pre-op transgender person struggling with the fact that she has a son she just found out about.
14. February 13: Final Destination 3 - Even by the Final Destination series standard this isn't a good movie.
15. February 17: Date Movie - Desperately unfunny, would someone let the parody film die.
16. February 23: Capote - Interesting character study of Truman Capote brilliantly played by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
17. February 24: The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada - A well done Western themed tale with cheers for Tommy Lee Jones for directing and acting in it.
18. March 04: Night Watch - disappointing muddled genre movie from Russia.
19. March 04: Ultraviolet - Ridiculously bad futuristic vampire film.
20. March 05: 16 Blocks - Standard buddy flick material but with decent performances from Mos Def and Bruce Willis.
21. March 10: Failure To Launch - Nauseating romantic comedy that wasn't funny or terribly romantic.
22. March 11: The Libertine - Johnny Depp being eccentric in an eccentric film but one that doesn't entertain.
23. March 20: V For Vendetta - Stupid and boring comic book adaptation that attempts to play on the current fears of the public.
24. March 25: Inside Man - A Spike Lee film that falls short by being a bit too predictable and unoriginal.
25. April 01: Slither - A Comedic Horror film that tries very hard but doesn't succeed at either genre.
26. April 05: Stay Alive - A stupid movie.
27. April 07: Lucky Number Slevin - A film that reveals it's hand in the first scene but is still surprisingly enjoyable to watch unfold with great over the top performances by Ben Kingsley and Morgan Freeman.
28. April 09: Thank You For Smoking - A clever satire of Big Tobacco and Washington DC politics held together by the delightful Aaron Eckhart.
29. April 22: American Dreamz - A satire that fails miserably.
30. April 23: Silent Hill - Yet another video game turned movie and this one fails even without Uwe Boll at the helm.
31. April 24: The Sentinel - Fairly predictable but decently put together thriller that entertains enough.
32. April 28: Stick It - God awful gymnastics movie trying to be "Bring It On" and failing.
33. May 05: Mission Impossible III - The summer movie season began with this boring third in the franchise with uninspiring performances by Tom Cruise et al.
34. May 07: Don't Come Knocking - Charming character driven film about a tired old actor trying to figure out his life.
35. May 15: Poseidon - Uninspiring remake with a plot so predictable that I knew who would be dead by movie's end after the characters were introduced.
36. May 21: The Da Vinci Code - A boring thriller that is paced horribly.
37. May 26: X-Men: The Last Stand - A travesty of a film that doesn't even have the guts to follow through with its own sequence of events.
38. May 28: See No Evil - Sometimes nothing else is out and you need a movie to keep you moving towards your goal, this happens more often than I wish it would.
39. June 01: Brick - A movie like this makes suffering through a movie like "See No Evil" worth it.
40. June 02: The Break Up - Not dark enough for the subject matter and certainly not funny.
41. June 07: The Omen - I think this movie was remade solely because its release date (6/6/06) made such good marketing sense and it shows.
42. June 11: A Prairie Home Companion - Typical Altman style with a plot that isn't interesting.
43. June 12: Down In The Valley - I like that indy films tend to go away from the standard Hollywood conventions but that doesn't mean they are automatically good as this film demonstrates.
44. June 15: On A Clear Day - A film that attempt to be the charming tale of a man in mid life crisis, but it just felt uninspiring.
45. June 16: The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift - Fast cars and fancy driving don't rescue the idiotic plot.
46. June 21: Nacho Libre - Sometimes you are so close to your goal and even though you wouldn't normally let yourself be dragged to crap like this you go just to get you closer to your goal.
47. June 24: Click - "It's A Wonderful Life" this is not but it still had its moments.
48. June 25: The Proposition - Falls flat for me but does make me want to see a better Western set in Australia.
49. June 27: Superman Returns - Nice summer popcorn flick and a nice homage to the original Superman films.
50. June 30: The Devil Wears Prada - Okay if a bit after school special-esque comedic drama.
01. January 05: The Producers - An uninspiring remake with songs (I hate musicals).
02. January 07: Bloodrayne - Uwe Boll badly adapts yet another video game into a movie.
03. January 08: Rumor Has It - An ultimately disappointing comedy playing off the Graduate plot.
04. January 15: Hostel - Gruesome and mindless slasheresque film that exploits and didn't need to be made.
05. January 20: Underworld:Evolution - A pointless sequel to a pointless original movie, Kate Beckinsale in leather does not a good movie make.
06. January 21: The New World - Terrence Malick takes his love of the noble savage to nauseating new heights in a long but visually wonderful retelling of the Pocahontas tale.
07. January 22: Hoodwinked - A surprisingly clever animated film (and I generally don't like animated films).
08. January 25: Brokeback Mountain - A decent character driven drama that doesn't live up to the hype but still is worth watching.
09. January 27: Match Point - Woody Allen pulls off an amazing thriller with excellent performances.
10. February 02: Looking For Comedy In The Muslim World - Mildly amusing Albert Brooks film, he's done better.
11. February 05: The Matador - Pleasant dark comedy with Pierce Brosnan breaking free from his James Bond image.
12. February 11: Mrs. Henderson Presents - Charming comedy about a nude review in WW2 England with delightful performances by Bob Hoskins and Judi Dench.
13. February 12: Transamerica - Felicity Huffman is amazing as a pre-op transgender person struggling with the fact that she has a son she just found out about.
14. February 13: Final Destination 3 - Even by the Final Destination series standard this isn't a good movie.
15. February 17: Date Movie - Desperately unfunny, would someone let the parody film die.
16. February 23: Capote - Interesting character study of Truman Capote brilliantly played by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
17. February 24: The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada - A well done Western themed tale with cheers for Tommy Lee Jones for directing and acting in it.
18. March 04: Night Watch - disappointing muddled genre movie from Russia.
19. March 04: Ultraviolet - Ridiculously bad futuristic vampire film.
20. March 05: 16 Blocks - Standard buddy flick material but with decent performances from Mos Def and Bruce Willis.
21. March 10: Failure To Launch - Nauseating romantic comedy that wasn't funny or terribly romantic.
22. March 11: The Libertine - Johnny Depp being eccentric in an eccentric film but one that doesn't entertain.
23. March 20: V For Vendetta - Stupid and boring comic book adaptation that attempts to play on the current fears of the public.
24. March 25: Inside Man - A Spike Lee film that falls short by being a bit too predictable and unoriginal.
25. April 01: Slither - A Comedic Horror film that tries very hard but doesn't succeed at either genre.
26. April 05: Stay Alive - A stupid movie.
27. April 07: Lucky Number Slevin - A film that reveals it's hand in the first scene but is still surprisingly enjoyable to watch unfold with great over the top performances by Ben Kingsley and Morgan Freeman.
28. April 09: Thank You For Smoking - A clever satire of Big Tobacco and Washington DC politics held together by the delightful Aaron Eckhart.
29. April 22: American Dreamz - A satire that fails miserably.
30. April 23: Silent Hill - Yet another video game turned movie and this one fails even without Uwe Boll at the helm.
31. April 24: The Sentinel - Fairly predictable but decently put together thriller that entertains enough.
32. April 28: Stick It - God awful gymnastics movie trying to be "Bring It On" and failing.
33. May 05: Mission Impossible III - The summer movie season began with this boring third in the franchise with uninspiring performances by Tom Cruise et al.
34. May 07: Don't Come Knocking - Charming character driven film about a tired old actor trying to figure out his life.
35. May 15: Poseidon - Uninspiring remake with a plot so predictable that I knew who would be dead by movie's end after the characters were introduced.
36. May 21: The Da Vinci Code - A boring thriller that is paced horribly.
37. May 26: X-Men: The Last Stand - A travesty of a film that doesn't even have the guts to follow through with its own sequence of events.
38. May 28: See No Evil - Sometimes nothing else is out and you need a movie to keep you moving towards your goal, this happens more often than I wish it would.
39. June 01: Brick - A movie like this makes suffering through a movie like "See No Evil" worth it.
40. June 02: The Break Up - Not dark enough for the subject matter and certainly not funny.
41. June 07: The Omen - I think this movie was remade solely because its release date (6/6/06) made such good marketing sense and it shows.
42. June 11: A Prairie Home Companion - Typical Altman style with a plot that isn't interesting.
43. June 12: Down In The Valley - I like that indy films tend to go away from the standard Hollywood conventions but that doesn't mean they are automatically good as this film demonstrates.
44. June 15: On A Clear Day - A film that attempt to be the charming tale of a man in mid life crisis, but it just felt uninspiring.
45. June 16: The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift - Fast cars and fancy driving don't rescue the idiotic plot.
46. June 21: Nacho Libre - Sometimes you are so close to your goal and even though you wouldn't normally let yourself be dragged to crap like this you go just to get you closer to your goal.
47. June 24: Click - "It's A Wonderful Life" this is not but it still had its moments.
48. June 25: The Proposition - Falls flat for me but does make me want to see a better Western set in Australia.
49. June 27: Superman Returns - Nice summer popcorn flick and a nice homage to the original Superman films.
50. June 30: The Devil Wears Prada - Okay if a bit after school special-esque comedic drama.
Superman Redux
For about a week after watching Superman Returns I kept fixating on the movie. I felt what I have said about the film was right but still it kept coming into my head. So I went back and rewatched it. This time I focused on the details. Some of the background decoration or the way Supes' cape always moves. I also looked more closely at the decisions the actors made for each of the scenes. I looked for the criticisms I had read in other reviews as well. I liked the movie a lot more on the second viewing. My expectations that were so high going into the film were no longer slanting my perceptions. I still don't agree with many of the criticisms and I fully acknowledge that it is not the best film or the year or the best superhero film ever. But it is enjoyable and worth seeing.
Pirates 2: Dead Plot
I like many was a fan of the first Pirates of the Caribbean (2003). I had few expectations when I saw it. In that opening scene when Johnny Depp rides the sinking boat into the harbor by standing on the crow's nest and then he steps perfectly on to the dock, I grinned so hard my face hurt and I laughed and smiled through much of the film. So of course I was willing to go to a sequel. How could I not want to have another adventure with Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth Swann and Will Turner.
I'll tell you how, when it turns out to be the movie I had to suffer through. I can think of no better example of Hollywood corruption of a movie than this film. It is as if a movie analyst figured out all the things people liked about the first film, brought them back and multiplied them by ten. There is too much of everything in this movie. Yes even too much of Johnny Depp. There are at least five plot lines in this film which forced the movie into a long and tedious two and a half hours.
The actors can't even hold up here. Depp's Sparrow is getting old fast due to so much screen time. Keira Knightley's Elizabeth has been turned from a spirited woman into a frustrated complaining damsel. Poor Bill Nighy is underused and covered in prosthetics to make him a monstrosity. Even Stellan Skarsgård is woefully underused as Bootstrap Bill, Will Turner's long thought dead father.
The action sequences run long and there is a unconvincing romantic subplot of sorts, as they try to play up the attarction of Elizabeth and Jack. Logic loop holes abound, such as why the undead monkey from the first film is still dead. And the film has the nerve to end in a set up for the third film. No doubt that one will multiply everything by fifty instead of ten and be even more horrible. Even the news that Keith Richards will cameo doesn't raise my spirits.
I'll tell you how, when it turns out to be the movie I had to suffer through. I can think of no better example of Hollywood corruption of a movie than this film. It is as if a movie analyst figured out all the things people liked about the first film, brought them back and multiplied them by ten. There is too much of everything in this movie. Yes even too much of Johnny Depp. There are at least five plot lines in this film which forced the movie into a long and tedious two and a half hours.
The actors can't even hold up here. Depp's Sparrow is getting old fast due to so much screen time. Keira Knightley's Elizabeth has been turned from a spirited woman into a frustrated complaining damsel. Poor Bill Nighy is underused and covered in prosthetics to make him a monstrosity. Even Stellan Skarsgård is woefully underused as Bootstrap Bill, Will Turner's long thought dead father.
The action sequences run long and there is a unconvincing romantic subplot of sorts, as they try to play up the attarction of Elizabeth and Jack. Logic loop holes abound, such as why the undead monkey from the first film is still dead. And the film has the nerve to end in a set up for the third film. No doubt that one will multiply everything by fifty instead of ten and be even more horrible. Even the news that Keith Richards will cameo doesn't raise my spirits.
Devil and Fashion
Despite the title, The Devil Wears Prada isn't actually about the devil. Which is really unfortunate because the end of this movie could have used a gripping scene that decided the fate of a young woman's soul. Actually in a way it kind of did. Roger Ebert described this movie as an after school special. In that analysis he isn't far from the mark but it doesn't mean there aren't moments of amusement in the film.
The film jumps right into the story by showing the lead Andy (Anne Hathaway) arriving at the offices of "Runway", a fashion magazine, to interview for an assistant job. In mid interview in comes the titular devil. She is Miranda (Meryl Streep) the very difficult editor and chief of "Runway". She like the rest of the workers scoff at how drab Andy looks but Miranda sees a certain inner strength in her and hires her.
Andy suffers through a montage of abuse from her boss but perseveres promising herself that if she can survive a year in this place she can work anywhere she wants. She slowly starts to pick up on fashion with the help of one of the clothes designers and soon becomes the star assistant. Meanwhile her relationship with her boyfriend and friends start to deteriorate as she becomes more superficial in her actions.
Andy desperately tries to keep her core values or at least convince herself that she has kept them. By movie's end she realizes that she has indeed forgotten what made her who she was and rejects this new lifestyle. She walks away from the job and she is whole again.
Yes, it is that silly of a plot. I liked the first half just enough to suffer through the second half of the movie. This all despite the fact that Andy's values are clearly supposed to be good wholesome mid-western values corrupted by the Big City. The way it jumped into the world and introduced characters quickly and efficiently was so well done that in the first few minutes I had a smile on my face. The early torment and the first time Andy appears in fashionable outfits are nice touches as you root for her. That it inevitably falls into such a standardized plot is partially saved by decent acting.
The film jumps right into the story by showing the lead Andy (Anne Hathaway) arriving at the offices of "Runway", a fashion magazine, to interview for an assistant job. In mid interview in comes the titular devil. She is Miranda (Meryl Streep) the very difficult editor and chief of "Runway". She like the rest of the workers scoff at how drab Andy looks but Miranda sees a certain inner strength in her and hires her.
Andy suffers through a montage of abuse from her boss but perseveres promising herself that if she can survive a year in this place she can work anywhere she wants. She slowly starts to pick up on fashion with the help of one of the clothes designers and soon becomes the star assistant. Meanwhile her relationship with her boyfriend and friends start to deteriorate as she becomes more superficial in her actions.
Andy desperately tries to keep her core values or at least convince herself that she has kept them. By movie's end she realizes that she has indeed forgotten what made her who she was and rejects this new lifestyle. She walks away from the job and she is whole again.
Yes, it is that silly of a plot. I liked the first half just enough to suffer through the second half of the movie. This all despite the fact that Andy's values are clearly supposed to be good wholesome mid-western values corrupted by the Big City. The way it jumped into the world and introduced characters quickly and efficiently was so well done that in the first few minutes I had a smile on my face. The early torment and the first time Andy appears in fashionable outfits are nice touches as you root for her. That it inevitably falls into such a standardized plot is partially saved by decent acting.
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