Film Reviews

• Shopgirl
• Weather Man
• Crash
• Sideways
• Battle Royale
• The Incredibles
• Zatôichi
• Control Room
• Bad Santa
• Kill Bill, Vol. 1
• Lost in Translation

How much? ~ 5.1/10

Like a cheap beer, this film made the world look beautiful for an hour or two and enabled some sex that normally wouldn't have been possible, But like a cheap beer guzzled in the basement of a Princeton dining club, it is only a pallative measure that temporarily suspends the boredom of the entrenched male elite and afteward leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

For those that haven't seen the movie, Ray Porter is a rich, fifty-something symbolic logician and the antithesis of the poor, innatentive Jeremy, who won't even spring for a movie ticket on the first date. Ray knows his way around the world, knows the right things to say, and seduces Mirabelle with astounding ease.

Ray whisks Mirabelle into his jet-setting lifestyle, buying the nice things that she has been able to afford before. It's legitimized prostitution; Ray is shopping in Saks and sees something he wants, and then slowly figures out the pricetag. Meanwhile, Jeremy apologizes for objectifying Mirabelle, but his only real fault is incorrectly pricing her.

That's because Mirabelle is an object in this film. Before every date, we are treated to a scene of her bathing, runing her hands over her legs, like a meat inspector ensuring that there aren't any brown spots on a hunk of beef. While it's beautiful and not pornographic, the film seems to revel in clever compositions that sometimes border on puerile scopophilia.

Indeed, Mirabelle seems to solicit the attentions of the male gaze. She carefully positions herself next to maniquens, objects designed to attract careful visual examination, devolving from a Shopgirl into merchandise; her artistic tendencies are expressed by taking pictures of herself in the nude (or in otherwise vulnerable positions) and selling them to rich white men; and when she finally allows Ray Porter to buy all of her, she disrobes and presents herself for examination to her fully clothed client.

Of course, anyone can figure out that she won't stay with Ray Porter, so it isn't a spoiler if I reveal that she ends up with the once patheticly hapless Jeremey. But it's not that she's discovered that he's a "fabulous" guy underneath the gruff exterior (i.e., a Darcy who sells guitar amps). Rather, he gets the girl by having enough money to pay for dinner and by learning the Shibboleths that came so easily to Ray's lips when he first wooed Mirabelle. Is this man different now that he drives a better car? Has he learned not to objectify her? Is there sincerity beneath his platitudes?

I think this film would like to suggest that something more is there. But it gives us no indication that Jeremy's intentions are any more chivalrous than Ray's (especially when one considers that Jeremy's actions at the end of the film are nearly identical to Ray's at the start). But perhaps objectification and alienation via the male gaze is a-okay when it's within the same demographic.

I'm fast food ~ 6.9/10

This was a good movie; not in an earth-shattering way, but a competent movie that seemed very true to life. It didn't strive to be poetic, and it also avoided the schmaltzy ending that would have been very easy.

The central character is a guy who can't do anything right and is prone to peltings by fast food. I found it interesting that they explicitly named so many of the things that were thrown (McDonald's Hot Apple Pie, a Frosty from Wendy's, a 7-11 Big Gulp) ... I can imagine the promotional meeting where they cleared it with the parent companies. "Yeah, people are throwing it out of their cars in disgust, but it'll look really tasty."

In a more conventional movie, the ex-wife and his father would be monsters that simple destroy his life. Instead, their reactions are balanced and understandable. Michael Caine (who really has been in just about every movie this year) did a really good job of tacitly underscoring how perpetually disappointed he was in his son while still showing concern. This really resonated with me.

Archery was a prominent theme in this movie, and I'm slightly ambivalent about how it was ultimately used. While I'm glad that they didn't belabor any metaphor too much, I was somehow left with the feeling that it was a good idea that didn't developed as tightly as it could have. On the one hand, it is a phallic symbol that is used to great effect with Russ and Spritz's father at the funeral, but its final role in brokering the Weatherman's final metamorphosis is a little lacking.

I also liked how it showed the use of profanity across the generations. The young daughter using it incorrectly and indiscriminately, still enchanted by its novelty, and at the other end of the spectrum is the dignified patriarch using it judiciously and to great effect while retaining the moral high ground to chastise his son for using it. Somewhere in the middle is the drug counselor who needs to connect with his wards and Spritz himself, who uses it to show his frustration with himself and the world but is unaware he's using it and inured to its meaning.

Daydreams and monologue are also handled nicely; never overbearing or distracting. This is a fine film about how small mistakes, oversights, and easy outs can quickly balloon into major life catastrophes. It's easy to make us care about a perfect protagonist, but far harder to craft such a pitiable yet obviously flawed and sometimes monumentally stupid hero.

The Patron Saint of Travelers ~ 5.5/10

I'm torn about Crash. There are some very clever elements to the film, and its ensemble cast is multi-faceted despite their large numbers (something that Altman tried - and failed - to do in Gosford Park).

The best part of the film is how the characters interweave. It rewards the attentive viewer who can piece together one of the key relationships in the film and who can determine what exactly was purchased at the beginning of the film. I also liked how characters are more than they seem. Even though the loquacious goon is quickly becoming a cliche (most recently in Sin City), these henchmen actually had something to say.

Brendan Frasier really can be an effective actor when he applies himself (which he unfortunately does too rarely), and is probably the most compelling character here. He is the only one who isn't honest about his racism; he pays lip service to all the right ideas but cannot confront the truth that he is manipulating the fears and presuppositions of a divided city for his own advantage. Even a character who has four hoarse, heavily accented lines can demonstrate surprising depth. The two weak points were Matt Dillon's veteran racist LAPD cop and Sandra Bullock's fearful wife locked in a McMansion prison of her own making.

For the former, I thought that his prejudice was unfounded. I think the film could have been made more powerful by showing his father more than as a fixture on the toilet. Although the movie didn't resort to flashbacks (it would have become too confusing to fix the continuity), I think the audience would have benefitted from hearing more from the father. If we had heard, perhaps in an indirect manner, how he had been hurt by affirmative action (and then perhaps later seen it presented in more explicit terms), it might have made the father-son connection and stronger and better explained why Dillon's Ryan takes his frustration out on Thandie Newton's Christine.

Sandra Bullock again shows her lack of depth in this role. Her diatribes simply didn't ring true. Even real racists have better rationales behind their hatred.

With perhaps an over-convenient script, this movie does raise many interesting points, and the depth of the characters is amazing. The occasional hole and abysmal acting, however, do much to hamper the film.

So why you gotta act like you know when you don't know? ~ 7.5/10

Sideways was certainly an important film for the US film market; it was one of the few independent films that garnered broader popularity without the cachet of Oscar nods. It is, however, not a great film, and I've been inclined to think that those who ascribe greatness to it are either highly myopic in their film selection (i.e. this is the only independent film they've seen since The English Patient and thus probably the best film they've seen) or are merely attempting to appear to be cultured.

It's been described as a film about wine, but I think that a more apt description would be that it's a film about lies. Lies that we tell ourselves and lies that shape our existence. The catharsis, however, is supplied by the veritas instigated by the ever present vino; wine merely serves as a plot point and a rich setting for the film and a pliant metaphor for the film.

The film begins with a lie as Paul Giamatti's Miles spins excuses to explain his late start and procrastination-filled morning. Likewise, his mother brings to mind the delusional Mrs. Goldfarb from Requiem for a Dream; she lives vicariously through her television and feeds Jack's delusions of grandeur.

His delusions are more destructive; he still wants to pretend that he commands the animal magnetism of his glory days. He pretends to be conversant on topics out of his league, and his only real skill is in building just-believable-enough facades to cloak his philandering that comes from following his "instincts" even so far as to woo the "greatful" Cammi.

The trip central to the plot is couched in deceit: denying the marriage and fabricating the publication of the book. The honesty in the film comes from Maya and Stephanie; Maya opens our eyes and those of Miles to the central truth of life ... how it's transient and yet still sublime if we can make the decision to seize life and appreciate it rather than let it slip away, even if it's at a greasy burger joint from a styrofoam cup.

There are some great scenes in this film, and Giamatti really does an excellent job of expressing quiet, solitary desperation in his posture, sighs, and subtle expressions. I thought that he (along with Roth) was one of the few strong actors in Burton's beautiful if blasphemous to Boulle's vision of The Planet of the Apes.

The direction also has moments of greatness. The composition was suburb in highlighting the quiet desperation and effectively working in humorous elements like hinting of Miles' latent homosexuality by showing him reading a Cosmo article about a man's pleasure triggers.

However, despite three scenes that made me laugh out loud (involving a jog, a golf cart, and a tree, respectively) and several poignant scenes, I think that the film pulls some punches, and this prevents it from being a great film. I think that Jack, despite his love for Miles, is presented as too shallow, and I think that his catharsis should have been as monumental and moving as that of his former roommate's; as he goes back to his wife-to-be, his parting words to Miles are another lie, "you were wearing your seatbelt."

Nevertheless, this was probably the best film of an otherwise flat year. Unfortunately, because of its high aspirations that just didn't quite hit the mark, it will likely recede into the background of other "nearly great" films. Hopefully, it will be remembered as a launching point for for Giamatti's career. I hope I don't come off as too harsh on the film; I think that it is a very strong film and should be commended for earning the recognition it did and its bravery in resisting urge to have a more pat ending.

Here's your list of friends in the order they died. ~ 6.0/10

Even though it's pretty much a gored-up version of Lord of the Flies with less concern with the dynamics of power, I thought that this film had some interesting touches that made it better than the average almost-everybody-dies gore pic. Despite the multitude of characters, the film managed to quickly introduce (and then usually kill) the characters in a way that both allowed a plethora of gratuitous death scenes and - at the same time - evoked an emotional response in the viewer.

In a technique that, perhaps revealing my dorkiness, reminded me of just-in-time compiling. We are doled out flashbacks piecemeal just before they become relevant on the killing fields. So, because we only need character development right before somebody dies, why show it hours before then? A more conventional film would have moved those touching and intriguing scenes into a lengthy exposition that would have infused the worst qualities of yet another teen movie into what should be an sanguine orgy of violence. While some might argue that this makes the story more simplistic (because you only have to remember a character's backstory for the few seconds it takes for them to die, Battle Royale in a way presents a challenge to the viewer: can you guess how their past has destined their inevitable death?

Another clever device used to gain insight into the inner workings of the characters is the two second soliloquy that harkens back to silent era when all dialog (and internal monologue) had to be displayed on a single screen as text. Now, however, it strikes me as a smart way of using a well-known metaphor and overloading its meaning.

One place I think the film did falter was in its choice of music. While Air on a G String sounds vaguely like Adagio for Strings, it lacks the maudlin film pedigree. Moreover, the Liberty Bell March has been utterly stripped of any martial character by Flying Circus. One interesting musical touch, however, was the (perhaps intentional) similarity between Nanahara's leitmotif and Luke Skywalkers's.

Supermodels. Heh! Nothing super about them... spoiled, stupid little stick figures with poofy lips who think only about themselves. ~ 7.0/10

Pixar has dealt with some fairly complex issues in its movies, but there has been little of the social commentary that we have seen in Dreamworks offerings like Antz. One of the great strengths of computer animation is that is offers verisimilitude without uncanny similarity. Like the Lilliput, it can evoke the familliar without unneeded attention. Yet I wonder if the film makers have a specific agenda in the issues they raise.

The Incredibles, like many of the comic books it has borrowed from for character sketches, presents a commentary on the world we live in by taking quotidian flaws of our society and making them black and white by giving them "incredible" dimensions. Superheros getting sued for doing good deeds? What could be a more effictive rallying for tort reform?

Now, before you claim that I'm making too much of this, remember that the entire plot of the movie hinges on the government fearing the threat of litigation. The premise of this film is contingent on the nature of the legal system in (what is presumably) America.

Moreover, the movie shows education and technology in a rather dim light. Jason Lee's character plans to give everyone the ability to do the things that the "supers" can do. To use his inventions and knowledge to give everyone the advantages the Uebermenschen of the world of The Incredibles were born with. What a bastard!

Isn't this the goal of the educational system? To give everyone a natural playing field and negate the advantages of a privileged birth?

So, we should give George Bush and the power elite free reign and never challenge their authority, and shun the ambulance chasers like John Edwards who had the gall to use the trial system to steal from the nation's old money? We should not question our superiors, nor strive to be like them. They know what's best for us ...

Also, all of the female characters in this movie were sexual, and I don't think they were depicted in natural or healthy ways. Especially for a "kid's" movie. Helen is depicted as a sex starved housewife who goes after her husband on a campaign to ensure her sexual territory, Mirage is a classic fem fatal whose only point in the movie is to get smacked around by the villan and to passive-agressively press a button, and even Violet uses her newfound confidence to exert dominion over her former crush. Only Edna, an asexual crone, escapes the objectification.

This is turning into a rant and losing whatever logical cohesion it had, so let me say that I did like the movie. I just think that people watching this beautiful, intriguing movie with an uncritical eye might miss some critical messages. My long lost point here was to encourage people to not get distracted by the incredible presentation to overlook the messages that come along with the story.

Even with my eyes wide open I can't see a thing. ~ 6.5/10

Zatôichi is a popular character of Japanese books and film; he is not only a bad-ass swordsman but also an old, blind bad-ass swordsman. The 2003 version is my first encounter with him, however, and it was quite a memorable experience. Zatôichi wanders into a village beset by a corrupt gang of crooks squeezing the village dry through extortion and usury. These evil overlords also were involved in the murder and robbery of a family ten years before the movie takes place.

Through some twist of fate, Zatôichi, two children of the slaughtered family who survived by cross-dressing and prostitution, and a compulsive gambler, Shinkichi, all take refuge in Shinkichi's aunt's house. She happens to have a crazy neighbor who spends the entire day wearing a coat of mail (and little else) while running and screaming around the neighborhood.

What I liked best about the film was how the film used sound. The film's score was integrated with the men working the fields; each time the hoe struck the ground, it was matched by a percussive beat. Not only does it connect the pulsating, vibrant source of strength of the village with the driving score, but it also reflects how the quotidian aspects of Zatôichi's surroundings can be transformed into his musical, magical feats of skill while chopping wood or while chopping off limbs. I also like how we would often hear an activity before we saw it, effectively blinding the audience and forcing them to endure the same uncertainty as Zatôichi.

In many ways, the film is fairly conventional in its arc. Of course the bodyguard who has been taken on by Ogi to squash the competition will have to face Zatôichi in the final battle, and the two "sisters" will get revenge on the men who killed their family. But (at the risk of being a spoiler), Zatôichi never leads his ragtag band of whores, addicts, and idiots to the fortress to overcome insurmountable odds in a prelude to a long, protracted battle between Zatôichi and the bodyguard.

I still have a question about the end, however. While I liked the dancing (an interesting conflation of traditional Asian film and tap dance ... it sounds horrible now, but you'll love it in this context), the final statement of the film still perplexes me a little. is it literal or philosophical. Any thoughts?

Between us, if I'm offered a job at Fox News, I'll take it. Instantly. I will send my children to go to America after highschool, I will pay for them to go, to exchange the Arab nightmare for the American dream. ~ 5.5/10

The big "documentary" on everyone's lips is Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, but there's an even better documentary to which the term can even be applied without applying quotation marks; that film is Control Room from newcomer Jehane Noujaim. While I've seen plenty of documentaries, thanks to the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, it seems that film is beginning to once again be a popular (and effective) means of informing the public and shaping popular opinion. While the era of the newsreel is often synonymous with Jingoism (well, not being alive at the time, I'm basing this off of newsreelesque montages in Citizen Kane, It's a Wonderful Life, Der Schwarze Tanner, etc.), I don't think that Fox News is necessarily an improvement. A documentary gives you more than five minutes to think about an issue, and it encourages a more protracted discussion than a sound bite.

I think that the primary reason people should watch this movie is to correct the misconception that many Americans have about the role and mission of Al Jazeera. Before watching this film, I thought that it was simply a mouthpiece for the anti-American rhetoric of extremists like Osama bin Laden. It seems, unlike many American news outlets, to be closer to its principles than to its bottom line. Like HBO, because it is a subscription news channel, it is not beholden to commercial interests (can anyone say Disney?), and because it is a truly international operation, its perspective is far more international than CNN or BBC (where many of the Al Jazeera reporters got their start, apparently).

Even if you disagree, I think that it is worthwhile to see Al Jazeera's perspective of the war. The scene of the reporters cowering in terror before the American missile struck their station was quite moving and was more powerful than the ham-handed pathos of Fahrenheit 9/11. Likewise, the analysis of the men bringing down Sadam's statue (I hadn't noticed the style of the flag or how they entered the square) and the children shouting "God, damn Bush!" was more thought provoking than Moore spouting some conspiracy theory about how the U.S. invaded Afghanistan to install a pipeline. I'm sure Saakashvili is more willing and Georgia is more stable (Ossetia aside) than Afghanistan is.

This is not to say I don't think Bush is incompetent or not beholden to corporate interests; I'm just not bowled over by Fahrenheit 9/11. It isn't a film that will sway anyone who isn't already going to vote against Bush. Control Room, however, paints a clearer picture of how Arabs view the United States because of the Iraq war. Its subjects, such as Tom Miniter, are complex, thinking individuals rather than cardboard cutouts. This film is good for the choir and the loyal opposition.

For relaxing times, make it Suntory time. ~ 7.6/10

Bob Harris, an erstwhile American movie star played by Bill Murray (think Roger Moore after A View to a Kill), travels to Tokyo to shoot a liquor commercial. Beset by insomnia, he vegetates in the motel, sipping booze and exchanges faxes about what carpet he prefers (he chooses Burgundy ... not that he knows what color that actually is). We spend the first third of the film soaking up his ennui, but Bob's boredom is juxtaposed against the flashy, vibrant, intriguing backdrop of Tokyo. We can't understand why he's so morose.

Lost in Translation, like the infamous German joke "a piece of bread comes around the corner" is a confusing film, but at the same time it's amusing in its incomprehensibility. You don't know what's going on half the time, you have a hard time figuring out what the characters are doing, and God help you if you want to figure out any reasonable sets of motives for the vast majority of the characters who are simply "there" to advance the plot or provide amusing vignettes.

This confusion, however, is not the result of a botched script but one of subtle brilliance. The magic of the film is its ability to unfold so naturally in its exotic Japanese milieu. In the hands of a less capable director, we'd demand to know the information that Sofia Copola withholds. The final inaudible words of parting at the end of the film speak volumes about the motives of the movie. A lesser director would let us in on the secret, trying to impart the requisite depth and ponderousness to the romantic farewell to Scarlet Johansen's that could equally serve as a cheesy tag-line: "We'll always have Tokyo" or "This city is better than Whiskey" comes to mind.

The movie challenges the conventional omniscience of film audiences. There are no subtitles to let us in on the "inside jokes" that seem to litter the movie. The Japanese are confused, laughing, or irritated for no discernible reason. Like Carol Reed's The Third Man, the exchange of incomprehensible information stirs sympathy for the confused American in a strange land. It makes us yearn for the familiar and predictable film conventions (spoofed so well in Austin Powers) just as Harris yearns for a simple night's sleep.

When we see the conventional of two white men relaxing in a sauna, Harris looks over with a look that expresses his weariness of incomprehensible call girls and talk show hosts acting out scripts that he has never seen. Unable to deliver a droll line like "Hot enough for ya?", the characters chatter away in German. Just like the juxtaposition of SNL footage and bits in the film within odd contexts gives us a feeling of familiarity just as we're plunged into the unknown. Bob clings to the familiar reflections of normalcy he sees in Tokyo: alcohol, an untalented lounge singer, and above all Charlotte.

Travel is supposed to broaden a tourist's horizons and question his assumptions, and so does this film. It is a triumph for presenting a believable May-December romance that actually utilizes the asymmetries in experience to further the story, preserving the mystery and confusion of a foreign land, and capturing the beauty of a vibrant city. Savor this film, and don't let the confusion turn you off ... it's part of the experience.

When fortune smiles on something as violent and ugly as revenge, it seems proof like no other, that not only God exists, you're doing his will. ~ 6.8/10

"The Bride" has a hit list of people who ruined her wedding and incidentally left her at the brink of death. The biggest name on her death list #5 is O-Ren Ishii, the head of the Tokyo mafia.

Tarantino's choice to cast Lucy Liu in the role of O-Ren Ishii has sparked criticism because she is a Chinese-American born in Queens. While certainly less insulting than Mickey Rooney's Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's or Peter Ustinov's Charlie Chan, Tarantino still does not leave the issue ignored. Instead, Tarantino offers a "do you have a problem with that?" response by having O-Ren swiftly decapitate a Yukaza boss with the gall to broach the taboo question of her Chinese and American impurities.

Beyond being an awesome scene, it exemplifies Tarantino's philosophy in creating this movie. He confesses his sins with a "go ahead, make something of it" mentality. This same grandiose embrace of kitsch and cliche frame the movie. You'll see more blood than in any movie not directed by Sam Raimi, the characters are broadly but expertly drawn, and the plot shamelessly moves from one cataclysmic fight to another, with filler of backstory, training, and comic relief to soften the messy melees.

Just like verbal cliches, they can be entertaining in the right hands. I would much rather hear James Earl Jones say "where's the beef" than Gilfred Godfrey, and this is infinitely better than the dreck like The Medallion, churned out by the major studios. You see Tarantino's masterful artistry in every shot, a beautiful synthesis of pop culture and high art, periphery and mainstream. As John Law, a sheriff cut in the same mold as R. Lee Ermey, walks up to the scene of the crime that started the protagonist's killing spree, he silences the score with a flick of the wrist. We know Tarantino's in control, cliches not withstanding.

The cliches run rampant: politically incorrect villains, sexy assassins, masterminds letting the protagonist survive long enough to secure revenge (You'll find that escape is impossible, Mr. Bond ... ), and henchmen who fall like dominos and despite poison darts and other subterfuge, aren't crass enough to bring a gun to a knife fight. Nevertheless, the cliches are slightly twisted because one of the assassins is a mother (and the protagonist would be) and one of the incompetent henchmen is shown to be a scared young boy.

This same irreverent twist on convention carries through to the beautiful yet sanguine fight scenes. Each one has a unique character and setting, and doesn't become a blur of convenient urban settings sometimes employed by less adroit directors. Each setting makes sense and lends atmosphere to the fight. It isn't haute couture, but it's fun.

The world ain't fair. You've gotta take what you need when you can get it. You've gotta learn to stand up for yourself. You have to stop being a pussy and kick these kids in the balls or something. ~ 5.5/10

Bad Santa is like a Tourette's case thrown on screen. Under the veneer of respectability of trust lurks something surprising, shocking, and dangerous. It in no way challenges us to embark on a quest of introspection, but it might encourage us to think twice before talking to a Santa on lunch break. Billy Bob Thornton plays a vile, bellicose Santa who is also a seasoned safecracker with a smooth-talking black midget, who is not only a perfect elf but the brains behind their yearly crime spree.

The movie opens with their operation working like clockwork within a compromised mall. Santa then resolves to sober up, fly straight, and open up a bar on a beach. The next scenes shows a clean shaven former Santa cutting limes behind a bar on a beach as beautiful women saunter by. We're deprived of our illusions, however, as the true proprietor of the bar chases the roustabout out from behind his bar, but not before Santa can get liquored up.

Santa then has to find a place to crash after somebody raids his hotel room. He takes a lonely kid home to a nice upscale house in the burbs, which despite its well-kept interiors is the home to an embezzler doing time in jail (played by Ethan Phillips, better known as Neelix on Voyager). He is then welcomed by the senile grandmother and the impossibly innocent and miserable youth Herman Merman played by Brett Kelly, but only addressed with an impersonal "kid" by Santa. He uses the fa�ade of Santa to earn the trust of the family and subsequently make himself at home in their safe, hot tub, and refrigerator.

He also uses his Santa costume to get into the pants of a Jewish girl with a Santa fetish; the refrain of "fuck me Santa, fuck me Santa" shrieked over and over again is particularly amusing, especially as Santa's hat bobs up and down. The humor of the movie is very crass, but effective.

There are touching moments, however. Kid cherishes an advent calendar, the only source of regularity and holiday joy in his life. Racked by guilt after consuming the entire contents of the calendar, Santa reassembles the calendar and fills it with whatever he can find. After pulling out a particularly underwhelming present, Santa consoles the boy that not everyone can be a winner. Sage, if depressing advice, that emerges from a disappointment disguised within a traditional Christmas wrapping.

Bad Santa is a tale of a jaded, pragmatic hedonist getting by in a world corrupted by commercialism that makes it vulnerable to the machinations of an equally greedy charlatan. It's not about anybody mending their ways (even if that's a side-effect), but everybody gets what he deserves.