Relevant History

World's End

Last night I watched Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. The kids saw it at Safeway the other day, and having just been allowed to watch the first movie, wanted to make sure we had the complete set.

I really liked the first movie, and thought the second was perfectly entertaining, but this one suffered from the same problem that plagued Spider-Man 3 and Matrix Revolutions: namely, the writers seemed to hope that putting in five plots, gigantic special effects, and endless action would hide the absence of a single good idea and clear story. And the final disposition of the main characters, especially Will Turner, is a total let-down.

You know it's a bad sign when you're watching a movie that features a guy with an octopus face, for goodness sake, and you react to some new plot twist with the thought, "Now that's implausible."

[To the tune of Bombay Dub Orchestra, "The Berber of Seville (The Berber of Suburbia Mix)," from the album "Bombay Dub Orchestra".]

Strange caveat

From the New York Times review of "Starting Out in the Evening:"

“Starting Out in the Evening” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It has some profanity, sexual situations and references to the work of D. H. Lawrence.

[To the tune of Pete Townshend, "Give Blood," from the album "Gold".]

Best. Movie. Criticism. Ever.

From Dana Steven's review of Shoot 'Em Up:

Michael Davis... seems to have scribbled the dialogue with one hand while operating a gaming joystick with the other.

Davis has cited John Woo's cult classic Hardboiled (in which Chow Yun-Fat rescues a baby in the midst of a gunfight) as an influence, proving once again that watching cool movies is a less-than-sufficient apprenticeship for making cool movies.

Actually, come to think of it, one day that's probably how we'll write.

[To the tune of Pink Floyd, "Not Now John," from the album "The Final Cut".]

Technorati Tags: movies

Sunshine and sacrifice

For some curious reason, within the last few week I've seen "Sunshine," the Danny Boyle movie about a mission to the Sun, and Steven Soderbergh's remake of "Solaris."

Solaris has its moments, and is a great example of the science fiction film as exercise in close-observation psychology. However, it lacks Tarkovsky's crazy inventiveness, and the movie's end is strangely limp and ambiguous, particularly in contrast to the original's wild ending.

Sunshine has gotten some pretty negative reviews, but I thought it was brilliant and haunting: hardly perfect, but admirable for its audacity. Visually it's very striking, great at contrasting the claustrophobic and slightly crazy life within the ship with the terrifying energy outside it, and struck through with all kinds of fascinating visual touches-- virtual reality rooms, holographic displays, things you've seen in lots of science fiction movies before, but done really well. There aren't many movies this bright, where the light is allowed to be so strong and overwhelming. (It's as if the film were made by a people with a hundred different words for sunlight.) At its best, the music is wonderful, as are the sound effects generally. And I don't buy the idea that the ghost ship detour, or the twist in the last half hour, is a bad move: I thought it worked, especially given who the "ghost" turns out to be.

(Spoiler after the jump. Carpe diem.)

Technorati Tags: movies, science_fiction

Ratatouille

After dropping off my daughter so she could go to a birthday party, my son and I went to see Ratatouille. It was brilliant. It's your basic Brad Bird "unlikely buddies triumph despite many adversities, several crazy chases, and a big misunderstanding that must be overcome" movie.

The critics are right: Bird has become quite brilliant, the animation world's answer to Spielberg or Kubrick. One of the long tracking scenes, which follows the main character (a rat named Remy) through the walls of an apartment building and up to the roof, is as imaginative as the spider scene in Minority Report; the animation is fabulous; and the action scenes... they're terrific, but I can't help but think, "Boy, this would make a great ride. I wonder how much that concern shaped the scene." Then I wonder, so long as the scene is good, does that matter?

And my son loved it, too. No doubt he'll love the ride as well.

Technorati Tags: children, movies

Johnny Depp attacked by precocious Japanese pirate-pianist children

This (via Defamer) is very peculiar. It peaks in about the second minute, when two 4 year-olds play Rimsky Korsakoff... but it's quite strange throughout.

Technorati Tags: Japan, movies

Even more Departed

The L.A. Times reports that there are ideas for a sequel to The Departed:

The elegiac title and murderous conclusion of "The Departed" may have signaled a brutal, blood-red finality, but in Hollywood any potential franchise can be revived by a strong-enough dose of green.

"The Departed" is by far director Martin Scorsese's biggest hit, with a gross of more than $260 million worldwide — a number bound to escalate if the intricate thriller wins an Oscar next month for best picture (one of its five Academy Award nominations). And so sources close to the film say that screenwriter William Monahan, who also received a nod for his "Departed" screenplay last week, has begun working out a potential take that would extend a connected story line and involve some of the same characters.

Given that everyone but Mark Wahlberg dies at the end, I don't see how they can possibly do a sequel.

Technorati Tags: IM, movies

Heat again

My wife went to bed early tonight, so after the kids were asleep, I did what I often do when I'm alone at night: get out edits to an article, and put on Michael Mann's great movie Heat. Having recently watched Miami Vice (which I thought was totally brilliant), and having spent a long week banging out several proposals for new projects, I was in the mood for something stylish and diverting.

I always like Heat, but I noticed two things about it-- and more generally, about Mann's work-- this time around.

First, Mann has a terrific ear. Yes, he made Jan Hammer a household name in the 1980s, but despite that, his choice of music for his movies is inspired. I was impressed with the soundtrack to Miami Vice, and the choice of Moby's "God Moving Over the Face of the Waters" at the end of Heat turns an already-strong ending into one of the most amazing movie finales ever.

Second, while Heat, Collateral, and Miami Vice are very much guy movies, what with all the guns and cars and attention to the fine technical details of criminal and police procedure, Mann places tremendous weight on his female characters-- and they come through. None of the women in Heat have happy lives, but when you're working with Diane Venora, Amy Brenneman, and Natalie Portman, they're never merely Symbols of The Evil That Men Do: they're too good to let their characters collapse into single dimensions. Their work is all the more impressive given how little screen time they actually have, and how economically they have to communicate everything that's going on with them: Portman's three brief, wrenching scenes have more emotional complexity than Star Wars I-III, and in her last scene, Brenneman manages to communicate an immense amount of confusion and turmoil just standing still. Really amazing.

Back to editing. Maybe I'll cue up Infernal Affairs next.

Technorati Tags: movies

The power of Cars

Across the street from my in-laws there's someone who owns an ancient VW bus. It looks like it's one step from the junkyard, but like many VWs, it seems destined forever to defy the odds and keep running.

This evening, as we were leaving their grandparents, my daughter pointed to the bus and said, "Look! That's the kind of car that sells the organic oil!"*

[To the tune of Steven Tyler, "I Love Trash," from the album "Songs From The Street: 35 Years Of Music".]

Technorati Tags: children, movies

The Prestige

Today-- yesterday, by now-- my wife and I went to see The Prestige. She thought it was terrible (though her reaction immediately after the movie was, "I wasn't crazy about it" and ratcheted up with each person she told). In contrast, I thought it was absolutely brilliant: the story, the acting, the crazy Victorian machine-work magic-- it all worked fabulously. (The obligatory Ricky Jay appearance did not disappoint.)

About the title: as Michael Caine (who is reunited with two other Batman Begins alumni, actor Christian Bale and director Christopher Nolan) explains in the opening, every good magic trick starts with "the pledge," which sets up the illusion; "the take turn," in which the object disappears; and "the prestige," in which it reappears.

To say that the movie has twists and turns is a vast understatement. I thought I had it figured out, but was blown away by the end.

My wife had one objection that I agree with: you don't really like either of the main characters, and don't feel like rooting for them. It's more like watching two scorpions: you're interested in the outcome, but not invested in either side.

Though I'm going to be a sucker for any movie featuring Victorian London, Nikola Tesla (played by a very good but unrecognizable David Bowie), and professional obsession.