rating: *****
the story: Roman and Jewish adoptive brothers clash.
what it's all about: Exactly a year to the day of my last review (read it here), I feel compelled to write about Ben-Hur (2016) again, with very much revised thoughts.
Previously I was very much caught up in the film's history, and even clear associations with Star Wars, and yet the film itself, as I admitted in my closing thoughts, would maybe require more time to process. I can see now where I wasn't even particularly fair in what I did say about it, and so the time has come to try this again. Part of the problem, I think, was at the time I really hadn't attempted too many movie reviews, the way I'd already been writing book reviews over at Goodreads. I hadn't yet allowed myself to process the whole thing. With books, it's almost as important to write about why a book is important as it is to write about the book itself. There are fewer chances of other readers coming across the same books, these days, than there are viewers of the same movies, and it's easier to suggest a movie than it is a book, because it takes less time to consume. A book is a massive commitment. There are some fast readers, and some voracious readers, but there are also a great many more books out there than movies, across a huge range of topics. If it's not a bestseller or a classic, the odds are very small most readers will ever come across the same books even close associates have experienced, and even then the way the brain processes books is different than the way it processes a movie.
All of that is to say, although movies are common currency, they have also, in the accumulated history of them to this point, become easier to dismiss. They're cheaper now than ever, so it's very important to be precise about how you talk about them. The more someone hears about one, or the less, or what they hear regardless, it defines whether or not they will bother to spend even a little time on it, much less give it a fair shake, because the common currency is fast becoming the same as books, the more popular the better, or the more dedicated the following, no matter how small, equally the better. And this has become a rapidly codified rule in the current blockbuster age. The last thing anyone cares about is pedigree, much less quality. Value is in the eye of the restless beholder.
Ben-Hur evokes as much its namesake predecessor now as it does Gladiator, the 2000 epic that won Best Picture at the Oscars. Although there are a lot of reactionaries who've begun to dismiss it as so much hollow entertainment (surely an irony for such a film), it has long maintained a place among my personal favorites. At its heart, it tells much the same story as Ben-Hur of any iteration: two men compete out of pride for the glory of Rome. In Gladiator it's an emperor and a general, in Ben-Hur a Jewish prince and his adoptive Roman brother. The general and prince are both cast aside and must claw their way back, their rivals risen in their stead. But where Gladiator rests on masterful performances from Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix, Ben-Hur relies on far less tested shoulders in Jack Huston and Toby Kebbell.
My previous review, I didn't even mention Kebbell's name. I retroactively included it in the labels, as I became more aware of his presence in films that interest me. In a review I did a little later, for A Monster Calls, just two months later, I realized the mistake I'd made. He was also a standout element of Fantastic Four (2015), and if I went back and analyzed his appearances in other movies I've seen, I'm sure my appreciation would only grow. He may not be a known commodity outside of Hollywood itself, but Kebbell has more than proven his worth on the screen. He certainly pulls his weight as Messala, the wayward brother. Huston does in the title role as well. They are reasons all by themselves to watch. Morgan Freeman as Ben-Hur's benefactor, Rodrigo Santoro as Jesus, and even the usual depiction of Pontius Pilate by Danish actor Pilou Asbaek (you can find him in Game of Thrones, too, and that seems just about right).
I wrongly suggested, previously, that Santoro's Jesus feels out of place. This is a crucial element of the movie, and even the movie's ending, as Ben-Hur and Messala finally put their bloody differences aside. What's so clever about this story is that it plays right into the Hollywood wheelhouse, or as Gladiator so boldly stated, "Are you not entertained?" If there weren't such a gulf between mainstream and Christian audiences today, Ben-Hur would once again have been a rousing success. I have no doubt about that. It's the first historical epic since Gladiator to realize what made Gladiator such a big hit, something A Knight's Tale tried to duplicate soon after but failed because it tried too hard ("He will rock you," its tagline, is all you need to know about that), that in order to make history truly relevant, you have to connect it to the present. If anything, entertainment has become even more of a monolith in Western culture, since Gladiator. There was easier, widespread consensus in the 20th century, at least in television, but once Hollywood cracked the Star Wars blockbuster model, beginning at the turn of the century, not only with new Star Wars but Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, massive success, ridiculous success, became so crucial to moviemaking that it's all but flattened the rest of the film industry around it.
And yet, Ben-Hur suggests that entertainment is a mere distraction, a false victory. That's its whole point. The famous chariot race that's been the traditional hallmark and showcase element of the story, that's what it's all about. Freeman's character tells Ben-Hur that if he wants revenge, he has to do it in a way Romans will understand. And once he has defeated Messala, there's a moment where Pilate sort of freaks out, but by the time Freeman converses with him, he correctly identifies Ben-Hur's win as a Pyrrhic victory: all he's done is help everyone lose, because now even the Jews are cheering the games, and no one understands what's really happened except Pilate.
So what about the redemption? Santoro's Jesus is interesting. The first time we see him he's a mere carpenter offering a few observations to Ben-Hur about hate being used as a weapon of oppression. This idea is what really turned me around about this element, and helped deepen my appreciation of the movie itself. In 2016 we hadn't yet developed a culture where hate truly drove the whole agenda. I'm not talking about who was elected US president, but the political reaction, and how it grew and grew, and combined with other movements and started new ones and...it was all about putting up new little barriers of hate. The only thing Jesus ever really cared about, and you're dead wrong if you thought it was setting up some new religion, was tearing down barriers. It's a hard thing to accept. His later scenes are more reflective of Gospel material, and as such they're not as important, except to emphasize who exactly that carpenter was, and why his message grows in resonance for Ben-Hur, and why it leads him to an entirely different conclusion than the one he wins in the chariot race.
I'd never quite been impressed with the steep rocky features of Jerusalem in other depictions of Jesus, and yet in Ben-Hur they're unmistakable. There're the flat surfaces of chariot races and the water sequences of the slave galley, and yet when you see what's just on the other side of the street vendors, and the long look down from Golgatha, you realize the extreme vantage points of the landscape. They're hard distances to reconcile. Ben-Hur never sympathizes with the zealots who were the terrorists of their day, and yet when he finds himself branded a criminal, he suddenly understands what it means to hate Romans. Messala feels like an outsider in a Jewish household no matter how warmly he's embraced within it. These are dynamics very much akin to the increasingly frayed social bonds of our present. Once a bond is broken it seems irretrievably lost; trust itself is anathema. All men become cynics. And yet, Jesus sees what true cynicism really looks like, and that is Pontius Pilate, celebrating even in defeat. He suggests that if hate is a blunt weapon, then love is the only real redemption. His sacrifice is the ultimate example. Maybe you need faith to accept that, but then again, Ben-Hur itself is an example of what it looks like without it. It is one big elaborate metaphor, and it always was, and Jesus is included at all because he literally embodied the concept, and died for it, to begin with. That's what it's all about.
It's a big profound story, and this movie version of it is a sensational depiction of it, and I think it will withstand the test of time, no nostalgia needed to prop it up. Even without massive initial success and acceptance, I think it will stand as an enduring testament. In Gladiator there was never any doubt who the hero was, and it's easy to cheer when Russell Crowe wins, even if it ends up becoming a moral victory. You would never for a moment believe that he could reconcile with Joaquin Phoenix. Maybe it takes actors with smaller stature to tell a different ending, to be truly lost in the moment when they finally embrace as brothers again.
Friday, March 30, 2018
Saturday, March 24, 2018
A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)
rating: *****
the story: A U.S. ambassador inadvertently ends up in a stowaway's bid for asylum.
what it's all about: I'm a big Marlon Brando fan. I think you can't possibly appreciate movies as a creative medium without being a big Marlon Brando fan. Not just for a few signature performances (A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, The Godfather), but for the breadth of his career and what he represented and even what he tried to do with the roles he selected. This was a man of great talent who regularly chose projects that challenged the status quo. Late in life he gave up the fight; I think he got tired of fighting somewhere in the '70s, probably when he realized Vito Corleone had actually wiped out everything he'd sought to accomplish, rather than made it, and him, relevant again. So he just started punishing everyone, including himself. And yet his projects, even at that point, remain fascinating, not as spectacles but because he continued his efforts. You can't watch something like The Formula and tell me that isn't true. You can't tell me Apocalypse Now isn't a stinging indictment. You can't tell me The Island of Doctor Moreau isn't one, either. That was the whole point. Sometimes, and really way too often, we let things that are entirely beside the point get in the way of the work itself. It's no one's business how ornery he became onset, later.
And even though I only became aware of A Countess from Hong Kong's poor reputation after watching it for the first time, it's no one's business, today, what people have said about it, negatively. The movie speaks for itself. It's hilarious. It's a goddam classic.
It's also the last movie Charlie Chaplin ever directed. It's a farce, a delicious piece of nonsense. Maybe I found it so easy to love because of Brando, and maybe it's because the theater experience I have is full of farces. And I'd consider A Countess from Hong Kong a natural piece of stage theater. I have no idea if anyone has ever done a stage production of it, but that really, really needs to happen. If you've never seen Noises Off, a 1992 ensemble comedy featuring John Ritter, Carol Burnett, Christopher Reeve, Michael Caine, and others, you really should. I caught up with it because I'd seen a college production, and loved that. In high school I became acquainted with the work of playwright Charlie Schulman (The Ground Zero Club and The Birthday Present, the latter of which I got to act in). The local theater seemed, at least at the time I was attending regularly thanks to school (and later; I saw a production of The Sunshine Boys by Neil Simon, most famous for The Odd Couple, so they certainly kept it up), to specialize in this kind of play. The blockbuster stage version of The Producers proved it still had mass appeal, too, even if the second film version didn't seem to back that up. This kind of material is the basis for all sitcoms, too. I'd suggest part of why we take ourselves too seriously today is because comedy has largely taken a backseat to spectacle, and what comedy there is usually spends all its time being political. And yet there's nary a Good Morning, Vietnam that's come out of this period.
Anyway, and it's not really bombshell Sophia Loren in her prime, either. I caught up with her much later in her career, Grumpier Old Men. She's one of those exotic beauty prototypes most recently embodied by Sofia Vergara, who inexplicably (and also tellingly) has never been able to capitalize on her Modern Family breakthrough role with success in the movies. One of her early performances was in the severely underappreciated Big Trouble. I've also seen Loren in Man of La Mancha (1972), which was another movie easily dismissed because its leads (including Peter O'Toole) weren't particularly known for singing. It's certainly fun seeing Loren in her prime.
Considering the massive heat the idea of immigration has received in recent years, something like Countess ought to be reexamined on that basis alone, since that's the heart of the story. Loren's character has ended up marooned in Hong Kong, having ended up exiled during the Russian Revolution. We tend to think of refugees as the classic "huddled masses yearning to be free," and yet the bulk of them have no class status, they're merely displaced peoples seeking safe harbor. Countess is certainly a glamorized version, but sometimes (okay, always?) that's exactly what's needed in order for people to understand what's happening. You can see the success of Black Panther as a cathartic acknowledgment that black peoples have often lacked adequate representation; it's a lightning rod of viewers clumsily acknowledging their own shortcomings if not outright racism, an outlet that makes Africa suddenly relevant to them, even if the movie itself is likely pabulum.
What helps Countess escape such crude analysis? The fact that it really is classic screwball, a last love letter from Chaplin, and another unexpected left turn from Brando (similar to Guys and Dolls). And yet as inexplicable as it seems, every single time someone comes to Brando's cabin door and it sends either him or Loren or both of them scrambling for cover, it's gut-busting. That's classic screwball right there, that's the essence of the art, and the basis for every other element working as well as it does, Brando's exasperation (he does it so subtly you're almost convinced he really is annoyed, which is a fine line few actors can pull off) and of course Loren's increasingly heartbreaking predicament. Brando had done comedy before (The Teahouse of the August Moon, which seems dreadfully unPC by today's standards; Brando plays Japanese), but he's playing at the behest of a master, and he's fully up to the task.
Chaplin himself merely cameos; his son Sydney has a much bigger role, and although he's already older than his father was at the peak of his fame, and he doesn't sport the classic Tramp mustache, you can easily spot the resemblance, and that's a treat, too.
In short, this is another easily recommended movie.
the story: A U.S. ambassador inadvertently ends up in a stowaway's bid for asylum.
what it's all about: I'm a big Marlon Brando fan. I think you can't possibly appreciate movies as a creative medium without being a big Marlon Brando fan. Not just for a few signature performances (A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, The Godfather), but for the breadth of his career and what he represented and even what he tried to do with the roles he selected. This was a man of great talent who regularly chose projects that challenged the status quo. Late in life he gave up the fight; I think he got tired of fighting somewhere in the '70s, probably when he realized Vito Corleone had actually wiped out everything he'd sought to accomplish, rather than made it, and him, relevant again. So he just started punishing everyone, including himself. And yet his projects, even at that point, remain fascinating, not as spectacles but because he continued his efforts. You can't watch something like The Formula and tell me that isn't true. You can't tell me Apocalypse Now isn't a stinging indictment. You can't tell me The Island of Doctor Moreau isn't one, either. That was the whole point. Sometimes, and really way too often, we let things that are entirely beside the point get in the way of the work itself. It's no one's business how ornery he became onset, later.
And even though I only became aware of A Countess from Hong Kong's poor reputation after watching it for the first time, it's no one's business, today, what people have said about it, negatively. The movie speaks for itself. It's hilarious. It's a goddam classic.
It's also the last movie Charlie Chaplin ever directed. It's a farce, a delicious piece of nonsense. Maybe I found it so easy to love because of Brando, and maybe it's because the theater experience I have is full of farces. And I'd consider A Countess from Hong Kong a natural piece of stage theater. I have no idea if anyone has ever done a stage production of it, but that really, really needs to happen. If you've never seen Noises Off, a 1992 ensemble comedy featuring John Ritter, Carol Burnett, Christopher Reeve, Michael Caine, and others, you really should. I caught up with it because I'd seen a college production, and loved that. In high school I became acquainted with the work of playwright Charlie Schulman (The Ground Zero Club and The Birthday Present, the latter of which I got to act in). The local theater seemed, at least at the time I was attending regularly thanks to school (and later; I saw a production of The Sunshine Boys by Neil Simon, most famous for The Odd Couple, so they certainly kept it up), to specialize in this kind of play. The blockbuster stage version of The Producers proved it still had mass appeal, too, even if the second film version didn't seem to back that up. This kind of material is the basis for all sitcoms, too. I'd suggest part of why we take ourselves too seriously today is because comedy has largely taken a backseat to spectacle, and what comedy there is usually spends all its time being political. And yet there's nary a Good Morning, Vietnam that's come out of this period.
Anyway, and it's not really bombshell Sophia Loren in her prime, either. I caught up with her much later in her career, Grumpier Old Men. She's one of those exotic beauty prototypes most recently embodied by Sofia Vergara, who inexplicably (and also tellingly) has never been able to capitalize on her Modern Family breakthrough role with success in the movies. One of her early performances was in the severely underappreciated Big Trouble. I've also seen Loren in Man of La Mancha (1972), which was another movie easily dismissed because its leads (including Peter O'Toole) weren't particularly known for singing. It's certainly fun seeing Loren in her prime.
Considering the massive heat the idea of immigration has received in recent years, something like Countess ought to be reexamined on that basis alone, since that's the heart of the story. Loren's character has ended up marooned in Hong Kong, having ended up exiled during the Russian Revolution. We tend to think of refugees as the classic "huddled masses yearning to be free," and yet the bulk of them have no class status, they're merely displaced peoples seeking safe harbor. Countess is certainly a glamorized version, but sometimes (okay, always?) that's exactly what's needed in order for people to understand what's happening. You can see the success of Black Panther as a cathartic acknowledgment that black peoples have often lacked adequate representation; it's a lightning rod of viewers clumsily acknowledging their own shortcomings if not outright racism, an outlet that makes Africa suddenly relevant to them, even if the movie itself is likely pabulum.
What helps Countess escape such crude analysis? The fact that it really is classic screwball, a last love letter from Chaplin, and another unexpected left turn from Brando (similar to Guys and Dolls). And yet as inexplicable as it seems, every single time someone comes to Brando's cabin door and it sends either him or Loren or both of them scrambling for cover, it's gut-busting. That's classic screwball right there, that's the essence of the art, and the basis for every other element working as well as it does, Brando's exasperation (he does it so subtly you're almost convinced he really is annoyed, which is a fine line few actors can pull off) and of course Loren's increasingly heartbreaking predicament. Brando had done comedy before (The Teahouse of the August Moon, which seems dreadfully unPC by today's standards; Brando plays Japanese), but he's playing at the behest of a master, and he's fully up to the task.
Chaplin himself merely cameos; his son Sydney has a much bigger role, and although he's already older than his father was at the peak of his fame, and he doesn't sport the classic Tramp mustache, you can easily spot the resemblance, and that's a treat, too.
In short, this is another easily recommended movie.
Friday, March 23, 2018
2017
Viewed/Ranked
- Logan
- Dunkirk
- Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
- A Ghost Story
- Justice League
- The Killing of a Sacred Deer
- Star Wars - Episode VII: The Last Jedi
- Wonder Woman
- King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
- Good Time
- The Beguiled
- It Comes At Night
- Blade Runner 2049
- Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
- Roman J. Israel, Esq.
- The Dark Tower
- Atomic Blonde
- Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
- Baywatch
- Split
- The Bad Batch
- My Little Pony: The Movie
- Spider-Man: Homecoming
- Thor: Ragnarok
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
- A Cure for Wellness
- Alien: Covenant
- American Made
- Baby Driver
- Beauty and the Beast
- Daddy's Home 2
- Darkest Hour
- The Fate of the Furious
- Get Out
- Gifted
- Goodbye Christopher Robin
- The Greatest Showman
- The Hitman's Bodyguard
- Hostiles
- I, Tonya
- It
- Jigsaw
- John Wick: Chapter Two
- Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
- Kingsman: The Golden Circle
- Lady Bird
- Logan Lucky
- The Lost City of Z
- Molly's Game
- mother!
- The Mummy
- Murder on the Orient Express
- The Only Living Boy in New York
- Professor Marston & the Wonder Women
- The Shape of Water
- T2: Trainspotting
- The Wall
- Wind River
- Wonder
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
Collateral Beauty (2016)
rating: ****
the story: A man struggling with the death of his child comes across unlikely support.
what it's all about: In recent years it's become fashionable to put the cart before the horse, when talking about movies. It seems to matter less what a movie actually accomplishes and more a very thin impression of maybe one element (if you're lucky) that becomes distorted in order to form a basis of rejection. Collateral Beauty became an egregious example of this.
For the first decade of the 21st century, Will Smith was virtually untouchable. He made smash hit after smash hit, and critics felt comfortable elevating him from movie star to respected actor. Awards chatter followed him when he chose a role that fit the criteria (Ali, The Pursuit of Happyness). Eventually, though, the streak ended, more or less when he released Seven Pounds in 2008. In a lot of ways, Collateral Beauty is a sequel to Seven Pounds. They both feature Smith as a troubled individual struggling to reconcile himself to a horrible new truth in his life. Actually, even a lot of his blockbuster movies feature him in this mode, notably I, Robot. What Seven Pounds did was scrub away entirely his crowd-pleasing image, so that only the actor remained, and the role and the story around him becomes an outright tragedy. Known for a fairly comedic approach otherwise, this might be considered Smith doing what most comedy actors do, seek out dramatic work now and then, which Robin Williams in particular accomplished to great success. But where Williams waited years to go dark, and met with similar results, Smith attempted it at the height of his success, and plunged right into it. So to see him return to that mode, after a near decade of struggles, is to see that it truly is his choice and not a creative gamble.
After an opening scene that casts Smith in a similar vein to George Clooney in Up in the Air, he virtually retreats into the background, so that for most of the movie, it's not really Smith's movie at all, but the wonderful supporting ensemble's around him. But watching him interact with them, and seeing his relationship with Naomie Harris in particular develop, is to see how all the pieces fit together. The scenes and the arc with Harris in particular evoke Seven Pounds, a movie that builds in its impact until it hits an emotional crescendo, in a way that few movies I've seen have been capable of delivering (Warrior is another, and a true master class in that art).
Now, that supporting cast is involved in an elaborate plot of several layers. Detractors mostly fixated on two of its three essential layers, the ones present in the trailers that became soundly misunderstood. What detractors above all these days love to do is declare something creepy. They did it with that year's Passengers, too, complaining about a plot point that was in fact the entire plot of the movie, that the plot meant to resolve. Smith's business partners, portrayed by Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, and Michael Pena conspire to demonstrate that he's been permanently compromised by the death of his daughter. They hire an investigator to find dirt on him, and discover that he writes letters to Love, Death, and Time. In the original trailer, it seems actual personifications of these concepts visit him of their own accord. Then it was discovered that Norton, Winslet, and Pena hire actors to play them. It seemed like gaslighting. Like Passengers, this is directly addressed in the movie. But the real twist, which is presented so that the characters Smith, Norton, Winslet, and Pena play never find out, is that the actors really are Love, Death, and Time. This essentially makes a complete mockery of that criticism, and exposes it for never having bothered to see the movie.
And it's to the loss of those detractors, because the result are extremely edifying. Few movies, few observers in general, are interested in looking at humanity as a whole these days. They pick elements here and there and offer defensive looks. A movie like Collateral Beauty is designed to shatter these defenses. That may be its greatest accomplishment, or would be if more people were aware of what it actually accomplishes.
Anyway, the storytelling is one thing, but the incredible assemblage of actors is another. Norton's career stalled when his reputation as being troublesome on set overshadowed his talent. In recent years he's had supporting roles that have allowed him to once again assert that talent. In Collateral Beauty he seems to get a chance to be the troublemaker he's perceived to be, and to have a redemptive arc, too. Out of Smith's three business partners he has the biggest role. Winslet and Pena's arcs are more subtle, but equally essential. The three actors, meanwhile, are arguably the best reason to watch the movie. Keira Knightley is another actor who's struggled in recent years to sustain a once-popular career, and seems to have found a role that commentates on perception. Jacob Latimore is the only unknown actor in the ensemble, but is a true revelation. But the real discovery here is Helen Mirren, who finally has a role that pierces her armor, even in a career that has taken every opportunity, likely and otherwise. Which is to say, she finally lets loose and just has fun.
This is a must-see movie for a lot of reasons. Hopefully I've helped clarify that.
the story: A man struggling with the death of his child comes across unlikely support.
what it's all about: In recent years it's become fashionable to put the cart before the horse, when talking about movies. It seems to matter less what a movie actually accomplishes and more a very thin impression of maybe one element (if you're lucky) that becomes distorted in order to form a basis of rejection. Collateral Beauty became an egregious example of this.
For the first decade of the 21st century, Will Smith was virtually untouchable. He made smash hit after smash hit, and critics felt comfortable elevating him from movie star to respected actor. Awards chatter followed him when he chose a role that fit the criteria (Ali, The Pursuit of Happyness). Eventually, though, the streak ended, more or less when he released Seven Pounds in 2008. In a lot of ways, Collateral Beauty is a sequel to Seven Pounds. They both feature Smith as a troubled individual struggling to reconcile himself to a horrible new truth in his life. Actually, even a lot of his blockbuster movies feature him in this mode, notably I, Robot. What Seven Pounds did was scrub away entirely his crowd-pleasing image, so that only the actor remained, and the role and the story around him becomes an outright tragedy. Known for a fairly comedic approach otherwise, this might be considered Smith doing what most comedy actors do, seek out dramatic work now and then, which Robin Williams in particular accomplished to great success. But where Williams waited years to go dark, and met with similar results, Smith attempted it at the height of his success, and plunged right into it. So to see him return to that mode, after a near decade of struggles, is to see that it truly is his choice and not a creative gamble.
After an opening scene that casts Smith in a similar vein to George Clooney in Up in the Air, he virtually retreats into the background, so that for most of the movie, it's not really Smith's movie at all, but the wonderful supporting ensemble's around him. But watching him interact with them, and seeing his relationship with Naomie Harris in particular develop, is to see how all the pieces fit together. The scenes and the arc with Harris in particular evoke Seven Pounds, a movie that builds in its impact until it hits an emotional crescendo, in a way that few movies I've seen have been capable of delivering (Warrior is another, and a true master class in that art).
Now, that supporting cast is involved in an elaborate plot of several layers. Detractors mostly fixated on two of its three essential layers, the ones present in the trailers that became soundly misunderstood. What detractors above all these days love to do is declare something creepy. They did it with that year's Passengers, too, complaining about a plot point that was in fact the entire plot of the movie, that the plot meant to resolve. Smith's business partners, portrayed by Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, and Michael Pena conspire to demonstrate that he's been permanently compromised by the death of his daughter. They hire an investigator to find dirt on him, and discover that he writes letters to Love, Death, and Time. In the original trailer, it seems actual personifications of these concepts visit him of their own accord. Then it was discovered that Norton, Winslet, and Pena hire actors to play them. It seemed like gaslighting. Like Passengers, this is directly addressed in the movie. But the real twist, which is presented so that the characters Smith, Norton, Winslet, and Pena play never find out, is that the actors really are Love, Death, and Time. This essentially makes a complete mockery of that criticism, and exposes it for never having bothered to see the movie.
And it's to the loss of those detractors, because the result are extremely edifying. Few movies, few observers in general, are interested in looking at humanity as a whole these days. They pick elements here and there and offer defensive looks. A movie like Collateral Beauty is designed to shatter these defenses. That may be its greatest accomplishment, or would be if more people were aware of what it actually accomplishes.
Anyway, the storytelling is one thing, but the incredible assemblage of actors is another. Norton's career stalled when his reputation as being troublesome on set overshadowed his talent. In recent years he's had supporting roles that have allowed him to once again assert that talent. In Collateral Beauty he seems to get a chance to be the troublemaker he's perceived to be, and to have a redemptive arc, too. Out of Smith's three business partners he has the biggest role. Winslet and Pena's arcs are more subtle, but equally essential. The three actors, meanwhile, are arguably the best reason to watch the movie. Keira Knightley is another actor who's struggled in recent years to sustain a once-popular career, and seems to have found a role that commentates on perception. Jacob Latimore is the only unknown actor in the ensemble, but is a true revelation. But the real discovery here is Helen Mirren, who finally has a role that pierces her armor, even in a career that has taken every opportunity, likely and otherwise. Which is to say, she finally lets loose and just has fun.
This is a must-see movie for a lot of reasons. Hopefully I've helped clarify that.
Friday, February 2, 2018
2006 Capsule Reviews
The Departed
rating: *****
review: A lot of people consider this inferior to Martin Scorsese's late '70s/early '80s prime (and/or Goodfellas), but for my money, the cast he puts together and the discipline Leonardo DiCaprio shows as the lead, in what I consider his best performance, more than justifies the Best Picture from the Oscars.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
rating: *****
review: In the whole series to date, even more than Curse of the Black Pearl, I think this one best exemplifies what these films have attempted to do, which is to produce a pure adventure. In a lot of ways, Disney has attempted to duplicate this with its Avengers movies, and never quite succeeded.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
rating: *****
review: Will Ferrell's best solo film works as well as it does thanks not only to John C. Reilly but Sacha Baron Cohen. Oh, and Amy Adams! It's all the additional layers that aren't usually there in his movies that make it so memorable.
Hollywoodland
rating: *****
review: Here's Ben Affleck in one of his comeback roles, increasingly ironic in hindsight, playing Adventures of Superman actor George Reeves struggling with his career, years before Affleck himself jeopardizes that comeback by agreeing to become Batman. Also a perfect noir role for technical lead Adrien Brody.
Superman Returns
rating: *****
review: This one doesn't, ah, fly with fans who want a straightforward, fun Superman adventure in the post-Donner/Reeve era, but it's ridiculously poetic, and probably the only time that's ever gonna happen.
World Trade Center
rating: *****
review: Oliver Stone in his most unexpected movie ever, in which he unabashedly embraces patriotic rah-rah, and just lets a couple of firefighters survive a hellacious experience. An emblem of that fleeting period where the culture hadn't totally disintegrated from the post-9/11 effect.
The Da Vinci Code
rating: *****
review: Most people only mocked Tom Hanks' hairdo as the film version of Dan Brown's hero from the wildly popular book, but...yeah. The movie is pretty great. It's a continuation of Ron Howard's filmmaking from A Beautiful Mind, and features a killer turn from Ian McKellen, which in hindsight was basically the last time he got to have one in the post-Lord of the Rings glow.
Children of Men
rating: *****
review: To my mind, this was a truly great year in film, and you can tell by how adventurous filmmakers got to be. Earlier I described Superman Returns as poetic. There's little other way to describe this one, too.
The Pink Panther
rating: ****
review: My dad is a devoted fan of the Peter Sellers films. I think this Steve Martin update is a lovely ode and version of them.
We Are Marshall
rating: ****
review: Sports movies play by a familiar playbook. This one stands out for me thanks to performances from Matthew McConaughey, Matthew Fox, and Anthony Mackie.
The Break-Up
rating: ****
review: I think the reception of this one comes down to expectations that it should have been a comedy, when it really just wanted to meditate on the painful realities some relationships take. I think it's damn near a classic, and applaud Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn as deserving far better for having appeared in it.
Lady in the Water
rating: ****
review: Here's another one that's been traditionally buried, as part of M. Night Shyamalan's perceived creative decline, his greatest overreach to that point. I think it's lovely, and it's Paul Giamatti's last great cinematic showcase.
The Proposition
rating: ****
review: This one's been routinely celebrated as a tragedy of an Australian western, and it deserves it.
The Illusionist
rating: ****
review: Out of this and The Prestige, I've always found it more magical.
16 Blocks
rating: ****
review: Is this another pattern from 2006? That it was a last chance to shine? This might have been Bruce Willis's last great performance, at least to date.
Miami Vice
rating: ****
review: This one's been winning greater respect in recent years. I think the reason it was received poorly originally was that it was seen as a Colin Farrell movie, which for a lot of people means something different than it does for me. Farrell's performance in it is one of his most understated, and it perfectly works with the tone of the movie around it.
Stranger Than Fiction
rating: ****
review: It's not hard to see this as Will Ferrell expecting to find his Truman Show, and maybe for other viewers it is, but already having long ago decided Truman Show is one of my all-time favorites, it's hard to compete.
The Prestige
rating: ****
review: It's not that it's hard to appreciate, it's that having Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman compete with each other obscures Christopher Nolan's instincts, so that the ambiguity that usually works so well almost becomes a stumbling block. It's hard to root for one without feeling you ought to root against the other. It's just odd.
Brick
rating: ****
review: Rian Johnson's breakthrough was also Joseph Gordon-Levitt's a updated noir that's enjoyable for its novelty alone.
Ask the Dust
rating: ****
review: Colin Farrell again, in his most buoyant performance.
Stick It
rating: ****
review: The range of movies I've seen from 2006 means I probably found material that I would otherwise not have seen or been able to appreciate. I think this one is wonderful as a message about empowerment.
Candy
rating: ****
review: Heath Ledger in a harrowing study about addiction.
Marie Antoinette
rating: ****
review: Sofia Coppola does a wonderful job of making a period drama look modern without being false about it, with an increasingly appealing Kirsten Dunst in perhaps her ideal showcase.
Casino Royale
rating: ****
review: The story here is Daniel Craig's sensational debut as James Bond.
Letters from Iwo Jima
rating: ****
review: Clint Eastwood's unexpected companion to Flags of Our Fathers instantly eclipsed it.
X-Men: The Last Stand
rating: ****
review: My favorite single X-Men film, which like a lot of the opinions you'll find here goes against the grain.
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
rating: ****
review: A lot of people have a lot more experience with Steve Coogan. If this remains a fairly isolated one for me, it feels like a pretty ideal one. And, I've read the book. This feels like a better way to preserve its story.
Mission: Impossible III
rating: ****
review: After the artistic flourishes of its predecessor, this was really the birth of the rest of the franchise. Seems about right, given JJ Abrams had perfected spycraft with Alias on TV.
Accepted
rating: ****
review: I never really got into '80s youth comedies, but I imagine that this is probably as close as any update could get.
United 93
rating: ****
review: It can't be considered entertaining. But it surely must be considered cathartic, in ways World Trade Center couldn't be, as a cinematic vision of 9/11.
A Good Year
rating: ****
review: Russell Crowe in a fairly low-stakes drama, testing the waters for a more human persona.
Idiocracy
rating: ****
review: As Mike Judge's bid to follow up Office Space, which became a cult favorite, it's slowly reaching that status itself. We'll see how close it gets.
The Fountain
rating: ****
review: Hugely artistic, hugely ambitious. I personally think Aronofsky achieves this vision better in Noah, having perhaps realized his overreach.
Babel
rating: ****
review: A fascinating tapestry of a world filled with great complication.
The Pursuit of Happyness
rating: Will Smith in one of his most pure spotlights.
review:
Apocalypto
rating: ****
review: Mel Gibson dips back into the past, with another vivid experience.
Over the Hedge
rating: ****
review: Like sports movies, animated flicks can all seem alike. There's just stuff that speaks to me in this one, including Bruce Willis in one of his many voiceover roles.
The Good German
rating: ****
review: Many observers claim this is a Casablanca wannabe. It's really not. Casablanca isn't noir. Good German is more like Bogart's other signature flick, The Maltese Falcon, as if its stakes were Casablanca's.
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
rating: ***
review: This third entry in the series, which at the time seemed like a last gasp, is best viewed as Han's spotlight and debut, because that's what it became.
Pan's Labyrinth
rating: ***
review: I have no problem with the expansive artistry Guillermo del Toro brought to this, but it just seems as if it's wasted on a dour narrative. Limits its appeal.
Nacho Libre
rating: ***
review: Jack Black doing his best to emulate the Will Ferrell playbook.
V for Vendetta
rating: ***
review: If there was much more appeal to this than the pleasure of Hugo Weaving's voice, it's be much easier to appreciate.
Snakes on a Plane
rating: ***
review: Instantly a cult sensation thanks to the wise call to amplify the Samuel L. Jackson-ness of its appeal.
Beerfest
rating: ***
review: Loses the goofy appeal of the previous two Broken Lizard films by trying too hard to be liked.
The Devil Wears Prada
rating: ***
review: This is right about the time Meryl Streep, and critics, started loving Meryl Streep too much, for material that really just called for her to be unlikable.
The Good Shepherd
rating: ***
review: As a metaphorical study of Robert De Niro's relationship with his father, this makes a ton of sense. As a standalone product, it tries too hard.
Tideland
rating: ***
review: Easily the weirdest Terry Gilliam has ever been. Surely that tells you enough?
Down in the Valley
rating: ***
review: Edward Norton in a low-key attempt to reprise his most familiar act.
Factory Girl
rating: ***
review: Sienna Miller in a fine spotlight and look at the world of Andy Warhol.
Don't Come Knocking
rating: ***
review: Sam Shepard in a looks behind the scenes of a fading western star's career.
Saw III
rating: ***
review: As a culmination point in this series, and probably the point where it was clear the series had a story to its monster, it's rewarding, for a rare horror series I've followed to any extent.
Happy Feet
rating: ***
review: It would probably have been more fun in Robin Williams had voiced the lead character, too.
Little Miss Sunshine
rating: ***
review: As subversive a feel-good movie is ever likely to be.
Blood Diamond
rating: ***
review: DiCaprio's Oscar chances in 2006 were dulled by the belief his performance here seriously competed with what he did in The Departed.
Ultraviolet
rating: **
review: This attempt at another franchise for Milla Jovovich thought it was a comic book movie. In another two years, this would have been impossible.
Unaccompanied Minors
rating: **
review: This was all but a Tyler James Williams showcase, back when he still had a name for himself as star of Everybody Hates Chris. In hindsight, if it had been his showcase, it could've helped out both the movie and the sitcom.
A Scanner Darkly
rating: **
review: Fascinating artistic experiment, at least in theory. In hindsight seems like another of the soft attempts at a Robert Downey, Jr. reboot pre-Iron Man.
The Shaggy Dog
rating: **
review: Tim Allen (and hey! Robert Downey, Jr.!) in an excellent excuse for another voiceover performance.
The Guardian
rating: **
review: Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner in a fairly standard drama.
Beowulf and Grendel
rating: **
review: Gerard Butler's calling card for 300.
Poseidon
rating: **
review: Standard catastrophe.
Zoom
rating: **
review: Tim Allen struggling to find a vehicle.
Cars
rating: **
review: There's two audiences for this Pixar flick. One's the kid set, who'll embrace all the shiny cars. The other's the adult set who doesn't care how saccharine this particular variation on the Pixar formula is.
Just My Luck
rating: **
review: Early Chris Pine, in the kind of role that made it so hard to discover him, a romantic second lead with no real nuance.
Haven
rating: **
review: Orlando Bloom in the kind of movie that sort of justified his fall from relevance.
American Dreamz
rating: **
review: An attempt to translate American Idol into a standard Hollywood product.
When A Stranger Calls
rating: **
review: A nice little light horror.
John Tucker Must Die
rating: **
review: A nice little young adult comedy.
One Night with the King
rating: *
review: Sort of proof of why religious movies generally aren't taken seriously dramatically.
rating: *****
review: A lot of people consider this inferior to Martin Scorsese's late '70s/early '80s prime (and/or Goodfellas), but for my money, the cast he puts together and the discipline Leonardo DiCaprio shows as the lead, in what I consider his best performance, more than justifies the Best Picture from the Oscars.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
rating: *****
review: In the whole series to date, even more than Curse of the Black Pearl, I think this one best exemplifies what these films have attempted to do, which is to produce a pure adventure. In a lot of ways, Disney has attempted to duplicate this with its Avengers movies, and never quite succeeded.
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
rating: *****
review: Will Ferrell's best solo film works as well as it does thanks not only to John C. Reilly but Sacha Baron Cohen. Oh, and Amy Adams! It's all the additional layers that aren't usually there in his movies that make it so memorable.
Hollywoodland
rating: *****
review: Here's Ben Affleck in one of his comeback roles, increasingly ironic in hindsight, playing Adventures of Superman actor George Reeves struggling with his career, years before Affleck himself jeopardizes that comeback by agreeing to become Batman. Also a perfect noir role for technical lead Adrien Brody.
Superman Returns
rating: *****
review: This one doesn't, ah, fly with fans who want a straightforward, fun Superman adventure in the post-Donner/Reeve era, but it's ridiculously poetic, and probably the only time that's ever gonna happen.
World Trade Center
rating: *****
review: Oliver Stone in his most unexpected movie ever, in which he unabashedly embraces patriotic rah-rah, and just lets a couple of firefighters survive a hellacious experience. An emblem of that fleeting period where the culture hadn't totally disintegrated from the post-9/11 effect.
The Da Vinci Code
rating: *****
review: Most people only mocked Tom Hanks' hairdo as the film version of Dan Brown's hero from the wildly popular book, but...yeah. The movie is pretty great. It's a continuation of Ron Howard's filmmaking from A Beautiful Mind, and features a killer turn from Ian McKellen, which in hindsight was basically the last time he got to have one in the post-Lord of the Rings glow.
Children of Men
rating: *****
review: To my mind, this was a truly great year in film, and you can tell by how adventurous filmmakers got to be. Earlier I described Superman Returns as poetic. There's little other way to describe this one, too.
The Pink Panther
rating: ****
review: My dad is a devoted fan of the Peter Sellers films. I think this Steve Martin update is a lovely ode and version of them.
We Are Marshall
rating: ****
review: Sports movies play by a familiar playbook. This one stands out for me thanks to performances from Matthew McConaughey, Matthew Fox, and Anthony Mackie.
The Break-Up
rating: ****
review: I think the reception of this one comes down to expectations that it should have been a comedy, when it really just wanted to meditate on the painful realities some relationships take. I think it's damn near a classic, and applaud Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn as deserving far better for having appeared in it.
Lady in the Water
rating: ****
review: Here's another one that's been traditionally buried, as part of M. Night Shyamalan's perceived creative decline, his greatest overreach to that point. I think it's lovely, and it's Paul Giamatti's last great cinematic showcase.
The Proposition
rating: ****
review: This one's been routinely celebrated as a tragedy of an Australian western, and it deserves it.
The Illusionist
rating: ****
review: Out of this and The Prestige, I've always found it more magical.
16 Blocks
rating: ****
review: Is this another pattern from 2006? That it was a last chance to shine? This might have been Bruce Willis's last great performance, at least to date.
Miami Vice
rating: ****
review: This one's been winning greater respect in recent years. I think the reason it was received poorly originally was that it was seen as a Colin Farrell movie, which for a lot of people means something different than it does for me. Farrell's performance in it is one of his most understated, and it perfectly works with the tone of the movie around it.
Stranger Than Fiction
rating: ****
review: It's not hard to see this as Will Ferrell expecting to find his Truman Show, and maybe for other viewers it is, but already having long ago decided Truman Show is one of my all-time favorites, it's hard to compete.
The Prestige
rating: ****
review: It's not that it's hard to appreciate, it's that having Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman compete with each other obscures Christopher Nolan's instincts, so that the ambiguity that usually works so well almost becomes a stumbling block. It's hard to root for one without feeling you ought to root against the other. It's just odd.
Brick
rating: ****
review: Rian Johnson's breakthrough was also Joseph Gordon-Levitt's a updated noir that's enjoyable for its novelty alone.
Ask the Dust
rating: ****
review: Colin Farrell again, in his most buoyant performance.
Stick It
rating: ****
review: The range of movies I've seen from 2006 means I probably found material that I would otherwise not have seen or been able to appreciate. I think this one is wonderful as a message about empowerment.
Candy
rating: ****
review: Heath Ledger in a harrowing study about addiction.
Marie Antoinette
rating: ****
review: Sofia Coppola does a wonderful job of making a period drama look modern without being false about it, with an increasingly appealing Kirsten Dunst in perhaps her ideal showcase.
Casino Royale
rating: ****
review: The story here is Daniel Craig's sensational debut as James Bond.
Letters from Iwo Jima
rating: ****
review: Clint Eastwood's unexpected companion to Flags of Our Fathers instantly eclipsed it.
X-Men: The Last Stand
rating: ****
review: My favorite single X-Men film, which like a lot of the opinions you'll find here goes against the grain.
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story
rating: ****
review: A lot of people have a lot more experience with Steve Coogan. If this remains a fairly isolated one for me, it feels like a pretty ideal one. And, I've read the book. This feels like a better way to preserve its story.
Mission: Impossible III
rating: ****
review: After the artistic flourishes of its predecessor, this was really the birth of the rest of the franchise. Seems about right, given JJ Abrams had perfected spycraft with Alias on TV.
Accepted
rating: ****
review: I never really got into '80s youth comedies, but I imagine that this is probably as close as any update could get.
United 93
rating: ****
review: It can't be considered entertaining. But it surely must be considered cathartic, in ways World Trade Center couldn't be, as a cinematic vision of 9/11.
A Good Year
rating: ****
review: Russell Crowe in a fairly low-stakes drama, testing the waters for a more human persona.
Idiocracy
rating: ****
review: As Mike Judge's bid to follow up Office Space, which became a cult favorite, it's slowly reaching that status itself. We'll see how close it gets.
The Fountain
rating: ****
review: Hugely artistic, hugely ambitious. I personally think Aronofsky achieves this vision better in Noah, having perhaps realized his overreach.
Babel
rating: ****
review: A fascinating tapestry of a world filled with great complication.
The Pursuit of Happyness
rating: Will Smith in one of his most pure spotlights.
review:
Apocalypto
rating: ****
review: Mel Gibson dips back into the past, with another vivid experience.
Over the Hedge
rating: ****
review: Like sports movies, animated flicks can all seem alike. There's just stuff that speaks to me in this one, including Bruce Willis in one of his many voiceover roles.
The Good German
rating: ****
review: Many observers claim this is a Casablanca wannabe. It's really not. Casablanca isn't noir. Good German is more like Bogart's other signature flick, The Maltese Falcon, as if its stakes were Casablanca's.
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
rating: ***
review: This third entry in the series, which at the time seemed like a last gasp, is best viewed as Han's spotlight and debut, because that's what it became.
Pan's Labyrinth
rating: ***
review: I have no problem with the expansive artistry Guillermo del Toro brought to this, but it just seems as if it's wasted on a dour narrative. Limits its appeal.
Nacho Libre
rating: ***
review: Jack Black doing his best to emulate the Will Ferrell playbook.
V for Vendetta
rating: ***
review: If there was much more appeal to this than the pleasure of Hugo Weaving's voice, it's be much easier to appreciate.
Snakes on a Plane
rating: ***
review: Instantly a cult sensation thanks to the wise call to amplify the Samuel L. Jackson-ness of its appeal.
Beerfest
rating: ***
review: Loses the goofy appeal of the previous two Broken Lizard films by trying too hard to be liked.
The Devil Wears Prada
rating: ***
review: This is right about the time Meryl Streep, and critics, started loving Meryl Streep too much, for material that really just called for her to be unlikable.
The Good Shepherd
rating: ***
review: As a metaphorical study of Robert De Niro's relationship with his father, this makes a ton of sense. As a standalone product, it tries too hard.
Tideland
rating: ***
review: Easily the weirdest Terry Gilliam has ever been. Surely that tells you enough?
Down in the Valley
rating: ***
review: Edward Norton in a low-key attempt to reprise his most familiar act.
Factory Girl
rating: ***
review: Sienna Miller in a fine spotlight and look at the world of Andy Warhol.
Don't Come Knocking
rating: ***
review: Sam Shepard in a looks behind the scenes of a fading western star's career.
Saw III
rating: ***
review: As a culmination point in this series, and probably the point where it was clear the series had a story to its monster, it's rewarding, for a rare horror series I've followed to any extent.
Happy Feet
rating: ***
review: It would probably have been more fun in Robin Williams had voiced the lead character, too.
Little Miss Sunshine
rating: ***
review: As subversive a feel-good movie is ever likely to be.
Blood Diamond
rating: ***
review: DiCaprio's Oscar chances in 2006 were dulled by the belief his performance here seriously competed with what he did in The Departed.
Ultraviolet
rating: **
review: This attempt at another franchise for Milla Jovovich thought it was a comic book movie. In another two years, this would have been impossible.
Unaccompanied Minors
rating: **
review: This was all but a Tyler James Williams showcase, back when he still had a name for himself as star of Everybody Hates Chris. In hindsight, if it had been his showcase, it could've helped out both the movie and the sitcom.
A Scanner Darkly
rating: **
review: Fascinating artistic experiment, at least in theory. In hindsight seems like another of the soft attempts at a Robert Downey, Jr. reboot pre-Iron Man.
The Shaggy Dog
rating: **
review: Tim Allen (and hey! Robert Downey, Jr.!) in an excellent excuse for another voiceover performance.
The Guardian
rating: **
review: Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner in a fairly standard drama.
Beowulf and Grendel
rating: **
review: Gerard Butler's calling card for 300.
Poseidon
rating: **
review: Standard catastrophe.
Zoom
rating: **
review: Tim Allen struggling to find a vehicle.
Cars
rating: **
review: There's two audiences for this Pixar flick. One's the kid set, who'll embrace all the shiny cars. The other's the adult set who doesn't care how saccharine this particular variation on the Pixar formula is.
Just My Luck
rating: **
review: Early Chris Pine, in the kind of role that made it so hard to discover him, a romantic second lead with no real nuance.
Haven
rating: **
review: Orlando Bloom in the kind of movie that sort of justified his fall from relevance.
American Dreamz
rating: **
review: An attempt to translate American Idol into a standard Hollywood product.
When A Stranger Calls
rating: **
review: A nice little light horror.
John Tucker Must Die
rating: **
review: A nice little young adult comedy.
One Night with the King
rating: *
review: Sort of proof of why religious movies generally aren't taken seriously dramatically.
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
2005 Capsule Reviews
Munich
rating: *****
review: This is the quintessential post-9/11 movie. Based on events that occurred after the 1972 Summer Olympics in which Israeli athletes were murdered by agents of the PLO, it is a clear cautionary tale that reflected the response to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. It's also a thriller, and can be enjoyed on that level, too. It's also Eric Bana's best movie. It's also Daniel Craig's most significant pre-007 appearance. And, I would argue, Stephen Spielberg's best. Either as a summer escape expert or a harrowing chronicler of history, Spielberg had mastered movies that operated on basically one level at a time, and yet, Munich manages to capture two. Unlike a lot of movies that commented on the wars, however, it doesn't take an overt stance on them. It's a commentary, most of all, about what happens when a particular response is taken, and what it takes to make that response, and what happens to one participant, Bana's character. All this is greatly enhanced by being accompanied by perhaps John Williams' last great score.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
rating: *****
review: To say that the Star Wars prequels enjoy a poor reputation is to put it mildly. To say that a lot of fans would love to pretend they never existed is probably the best that can be said about them. But I've liked them all along. And I think Revenge of the Sith is the best of them, and maybe even the best Star Wars film, period. It reaches truly operatic depths, not once but twice. Once is literally during an opera. What the prequels managed to do that the original trilogy couldn't was allow the concept of the saga to be examined, and the opera scene between Palpatine and Anakin is the only time in the saga in which a simple conversation, not just a scene but an actual conversation, is allowed to play out. It works on a number of levels. It explains backstory. It gives Anakin the impetus to fall utterly under Palpatine's spell. And it allows Palpatine to express things he doesn't even need to state explicitly, that reveal everything there is to know about him, too. And it is successfully presented as an ominous, momentous, truly dramatic moment. The second such moment is the end of the duel with Anakin and Obi-Wan, who expresses his grief over what has just happened, and illustrates the tragedy of the whole prequel trilogy, what had to happen in order to create Darth Vader, what takes it from mere incident (Anakin turns to the dark side, battles Obi-Wan) and humanizes it. Obi-Wan is the means by which we realize that the inevitable, as fans saw it, didn't seem that way to people who actually knew Anakin. The rest of the movie is exactly as the rest of the prequels are, as the rest of the saga has always been, grand sci-fi adventure, filled with wild imagination, heroes and villains, the fate of the universe ever in the balance, or maybe just the relationships caught in the struggle.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
rating: *****
review: Out of the eight movies that resulted from the seven book series, Goblet of Fire, it struck me immediately, most has the ability to convey the true spirit of Harry Potter's story in film. Which is to say, if you were to watch only one of the movies, this would be it. From Harry and his friends having fun with magic, or enduring heartache, or experiencing larger pieces of the magical worlds than were typically explored, to merely feeling like a fantasy movie where dragons can be dragons (because there's a sequence for that, too), it's all there. And the absolute killer aspect of the movie is the absolutely killer last act, in which Ralph Fiennes debuts as Voldemort in the best sequence of the movie series.
Batman Begins
rating: *****
review: This is not the best Batman movie (that's the sequel), but it's the best Batman origin story to likely ever be committed to film, and that's pure Christopher Nolan, who brings his usual piercing insight to the least likely vehicle possible, allowing Batman to be the boogeyman Tim Burton envisioned while keeping Bruce Wayne the most important element, and reconciling the difference. How do you adequately explain how Batman is created? By making Batman himself a tragedy, and a response to a mentor who promises him the world, but only if he agrees to destroy it first. Liam Neeson had by this point settled in as essential supporting player material, before his career relaunched as an action star. His arc is actually the one that Nolan draws on to continue the brand of filmmaking he'd been working on at the time, the classic game of misdirection, so there's three levels to the movie.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
rating: *****
review: At the time, I thought that if this one proved to be a massive success, it would've been because fans of the Men in Black movies had found in it a kindred spirit. And yet even fans of the books/radio programs/Douglas Adams seemed to reject it, thinking that it was a massive sellout basically because it had been made in Hollywood. I can't work with that kind of logic. The cast is phenomenal, hugely rewarding in its own right. And I think it does reflect the source material brilliantly. And is hugely entertaining as a movie.
The New World
rating: *****
review: Although I have a wider experience of the films of Terrence Malick now, I still consider this one to be his best, and his best shot at a truly enduring legacy. The classic story of Pocahontas is another of the narratives modern historians are eager to debunk, but at its heart it remains a good one, if nothing else, and this elegiac version is as good a version of it as there is ever likely to be.
Sin City
rating: ****
review: I'll never understand the impulse critics seem to have of rejecting movies that embrace the art of filmmaking. To them it's a static experience that is hardly different from the theater. To directors like Robert Rodriguez, it's bursting with artful potential. This adaptation of Frank Miller comics transcribes their style while filling the screen with performances from a rich ensemble. Both the visual flare and the actors make this, to my mind, incredibly difficult to dismiss, unless you're really committed to doing so. To what point I can't easily imagine.
Rent
rating: ****
review: This adaptation of the stage musical handily recreates its appeal, this time with added Rosario Dawson.
Kingdom of Heaven
rating: ****
review: Along with Gladiator and Exodus: Gods and Kings, this is part of what to this point is Ridley Scott's historian trilogy of epics, all of which follow the same line of exploring what makes a good leader. This one's the most ambiguous, which is not surprising, as like Munich it basks in its 9/11 parallels as it attempts to make sense of the Middle East.
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
rating: ****
review: Ridiculously charming Claymation, with ridiculously adorable rabbits. Er, were-rabbits.
Fun with Dick and Jane
rating: ****
review: In some ways the climax of Jim Carrey's popular career. Having transitioned away from playing cartoonish characters, here he's merely in a cartoonish situation, lampooning the financial shenanigans that would a few years later lead to a full-blown Great Recession.
Walk the Line
rating: ****
review: As an admitted fan of Johnny Cash, I was probably predisposed to like this one.
The Constant Gardener
rating: ****
review: An early favorite of mine that year, while I might have found stuff I liked better, I still appreciate this harrowing look at the soul-crushing complexity of how the world works.
The Producers
rating: ****
review: In which Mel Brooks perhaps realizes, as far as wide audiences go, this one probably had longer legs in post-/11 New York City than it did elsewhere. But it's still hilarious, and this is probably the best way the story, which had already been a film forty years earlier, is going to endure. Will Ferrell has another of his pre-breakout standout supporting roles, reason enough to give it another chance.
Elizabethtown
rating: ****
review: Like Kingdom of Heaven, this was a chance for Orlando Bloom to see how far his career could go in the wake of appearing in three blockbuster Lord of the Rings and one Pirates of the Caribbean, to that point. This one's a completely different kind of movie, however, a Cameron Crowe kind of movie, because it is in fact directed by Cameron Crowe, with Kirsten Dunst lending a tremendously appealing turn opposite Bloom. I'm not an aficionado of Crowe movies, particularly, but I this one works well as an atypically low-key affair.
The Legend of Zorro
rating: ****
review: Missing the magic of its predecessor, The Mask of Zorro, but maintains the heroic flair, that's missing from more contemporary superhero storytelling these days.
Brokeback Mountain
rating: ****
review: Recognized instantly as an iconic, transcendent look at gay romance, and for me personally, a standout movie for Heath Ledger.
Fever Pitch
rating: ***
review: Fairly standard romantic comedy that for me is elevated by being a fan of the Boston Red Sox, whose historic 2004 World Series victory was unexpectedly reflected in it.
The Brothers Grimm
rating: ***
review: As conventional as Terry Gilliam is ever likely to get, but still enjoyable.
Syriana
rating: ***
review: A look at the post-9/11 world at a contemporary level, lacking a true killer center.
Be Cool
rating: ***
review: I've yet to see Get Shorty, but this follow-up is easily comprehensible without it, even if the best bits end up falling to supporting players like Vince Vaughn and Dwayne Johnson.
Lords of Dogtown
rating: ***
review: This kind of follow-up to the youth-in-revolt cinema of the '50s is most notable for Heath Ledger's supporting turn, where he channels Val Kilmer.
Crash
rating: ***
review: The prestige ensemble, ironically downplayed by critics following its initial success with them in favor of Brokeback Mountain, would probably play better today, or at least as well. Still seems to be missing a true sense of outrage to sell its impact. Again, an irony. Outrage is all we see in the world today, when it plays best in movies, when placed in proper context.
Hitch
rating: ***
review: Amazing that Will Smith has so rarely turned his charm to the romantic. More amazing that Kevin James, thanks to an unremarkable turn here, launched a fairly successful film career.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
rating: ***
review: Critics, and audiences, were initially wowed by this latest adaptation of the classic book, but subsequent installments sort of revealed what had been overlooked in the first place, that the magic wasn't quite there. In hindsight, a truly new vision of the story might have found something everyone could've enjoyed for longer.
Son of the Mask
rating: ***
review: Any casting limitations are mitigated by this belated follow-up unexpectedly drawing inspiration from the second most notable aspect of the original, the ability of CGI to bring cartoons to life. And that's really what this one is.
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
rating: ***
review: Artful, but not as inspired as The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Casanova
rating: ***
review: One of Heath Ledger's surprisingly infrequent romantic adventures.
The Dukes of Hazzard
rating: ***
review: This is exactly what an updated version of the TV series ought to look like.
Serenity
rating: ***
review: This cinematic follow-up to the short-lived TV series Firefly exposes its shortcomings, and also celebrates its strengths.
Into the Blue
rating: ***
review: If ogling Paul Walker and Jessica Alba isn't up your alley, than check out Josh Brolin in a supporting role, a little before he finally emerged as a notable cinematic presence.
The Island
rating: ***
review: Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson star in this lush-looking minor entry in the sci-fi canon.
Fantastic Four
rating: ***
review: By all accounts this is an iteration of the Marvel comic that looks at the very least too small in comparison to the X-Men, Spider-Man, and Avengers franchises around it. But it still has its charms, notably among them Chris Evans, before Captain America, as an incredibly charming Johnny Storm, the Human Torch.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
rating: ***
review: The whole point of this is to marvel at the combustible chemistry between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Ah, in real life it turned out "combustible" was the operative word.
Cinderella Man
rating: ***
review: Russell Crowe in a relative misfire as he attempted to stretch out his early millennium success in a way that proved too calculated.
Chicken Little
rating: **
review: The sky is falling for predictable animated flicks.
A History of Violence
rating: **
review: A grossly overrated movie, except the supporting turn by William Hurt.
Saw II
rating: **
review: Donnie Wahlberg doesn't quite get to relive his Boomtown glory.
Bewitched
rating: **
review: Nothing particularly wrong with it, except Will Ferrell is sort of in Elf mode without an Elf level story around it.
Elektra
rating: **
review: Nothing particularly wrong with this one, either, except that if Jennifer Garner is going to be in action mode, it has to be as interesting as Alias, or have more compelling characters around her.
Red Eye
rating: **
review: The chilling nature of the drama in the air is sort of sabotaged by Jayma Mays inadvertently stealing the movie at the airport.
Derailed
rating: **
review: Fairly nondescript. Hard to remember.
Hostage
rating: **
review: Fairly standard Bruce Willis.
Doom
rating: *
review: Dwayne Johnson had yet to figure out how to pick his projects.
rating: *****
review: This is the quintessential post-9/11 movie. Based on events that occurred after the 1972 Summer Olympics in which Israeli athletes were murdered by agents of the PLO, it is a clear cautionary tale that reflected the response to the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. It's also a thriller, and can be enjoyed on that level, too. It's also Eric Bana's best movie. It's also Daniel Craig's most significant pre-007 appearance. And, I would argue, Stephen Spielberg's best. Either as a summer escape expert or a harrowing chronicler of history, Spielberg had mastered movies that operated on basically one level at a time, and yet, Munich manages to capture two. Unlike a lot of movies that commented on the wars, however, it doesn't take an overt stance on them. It's a commentary, most of all, about what happens when a particular response is taken, and what it takes to make that response, and what happens to one participant, Bana's character. All this is greatly enhanced by being accompanied by perhaps John Williams' last great score.
Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith
rating: *****
review: To say that the Star Wars prequels enjoy a poor reputation is to put it mildly. To say that a lot of fans would love to pretend they never existed is probably the best that can be said about them. But I've liked them all along. And I think Revenge of the Sith is the best of them, and maybe even the best Star Wars film, period. It reaches truly operatic depths, not once but twice. Once is literally during an opera. What the prequels managed to do that the original trilogy couldn't was allow the concept of the saga to be examined, and the opera scene between Palpatine and Anakin is the only time in the saga in which a simple conversation, not just a scene but an actual conversation, is allowed to play out. It works on a number of levels. It explains backstory. It gives Anakin the impetus to fall utterly under Palpatine's spell. And it allows Palpatine to express things he doesn't even need to state explicitly, that reveal everything there is to know about him, too. And it is successfully presented as an ominous, momentous, truly dramatic moment. The second such moment is the end of the duel with Anakin and Obi-Wan, who expresses his grief over what has just happened, and illustrates the tragedy of the whole prequel trilogy, what had to happen in order to create Darth Vader, what takes it from mere incident (Anakin turns to the dark side, battles Obi-Wan) and humanizes it. Obi-Wan is the means by which we realize that the inevitable, as fans saw it, didn't seem that way to people who actually knew Anakin. The rest of the movie is exactly as the rest of the prequels are, as the rest of the saga has always been, grand sci-fi adventure, filled with wild imagination, heroes and villains, the fate of the universe ever in the balance, or maybe just the relationships caught in the struggle.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
rating: *****
review: Out of the eight movies that resulted from the seven book series, Goblet of Fire, it struck me immediately, most has the ability to convey the true spirit of Harry Potter's story in film. Which is to say, if you were to watch only one of the movies, this would be it. From Harry and his friends having fun with magic, or enduring heartache, or experiencing larger pieces of the magical worlds than were typically explored, to merely feeling like a fantasy movie where dragons can be dragons (because there's a sequence for that, too), it's all there. And the absolute killer aspect of the movie is the absolutely killer last act, in which Ralph Fiennes debuts as Voldemort in the best sequence of the movie series.
Batman Begins
rating: *****
review: This is not the best Batman movie (that's the sequel), but it's the best Batman origin story to likely ever be committed to film, and that's pure Christopher Nolan, who brings his usual piercing insight to the least likely vehicle possible, allowing Batman to be the boogeyman Tim Burton envisioned while keeping Bruce Wayne the most important element, and reconciling the difference. How do you adequately explain how Batman is created? By making Batman himself a tragedy, and a response to a mentor who promises him the world, but only if he agrees to destroy it first. Liam Neeson had by this point settled in as essential supporting player material, before his career relaunched as an action star. His arc is actually the one that Nolan draws on to continue the brand of filmmaking he'd been working on at the time, the classic game of misdirection, so there's three levels to the movie.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
rating: *****
review: At the time, I thought that if this one proved to be a massive success, it would've been because fans of the Men in Black movies had found in it a kindred spirit. And yet even fans of the books/radio programs/Douglas Adams seemed to reject it, thinking that it was a massive sellout basically because it had been made in Hollywood. I can't work with that kind of logic. The cast is phenomenal, hugely rewarding in its own right. And I think it does reflect the source material brilliantly. And is hugely entertaining as a movie.
The New World
rating: *****
review: Although I have a wider experience of the films of Terrence Malick now, I still consider this one to be his best, and his best shot at a truly enduring legacy. The classic story of Pocahontas is another of the narratives modern historians are eager to debunk, but at its heart it remains a good one, if nothing else, and this elegiac version is as good a version of it as there is ever likely to be.
Sin City
rating: ****
review: I'll never understand the impulse critics seem to have of rejecting movies that embrace the art of filmmaking. To them it's a static experience that is hardly different from the theater. To directors like Robert Rodriguez, it's bursting with artful potential. This adaptation of Frank Miller comics transcribes their style while filling the screen with performances from a rich ensemble. Both the visual flare and the actors make this, to my mind, incredibly difficult to dismiss, unless you're really committed to doing so. To what point I can't easily imagine.
Rent
rating: ****
review: This adaptation of the stage musical handily recreates its appeal, this time with added Rosario Dawson.
Kingdom of Heaven
rating: ****
review: Along with Gladiator and Exodus: Gods and Kings, this is part of what to this point is Ridley Scott's historian trilogy of epics, all of which follow the same line of exploring what makes a good leader. This one's the most ambiguous, which is not surprising, as like Munich it basks in its 9/11 parallels as it attempts to make sense of the Middle East.
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
rating: ****
review: Ridiculously charming Claymation, with ridiculously adorable rabbits. Er, were-rabbits.
Fun with Dick and Jane
rating: ****
review: In some ways the climax of Jim Carrey's popular career. Having transitioned away from playing cartoonish characters, here he's merely in a cartoonish situation, lampooning the financial shenanigans that would a few years later lead to a full-blown Great Recession.
Walk the Line
rating: ****
review: As an admitted fan of Johnny Cash, I was probably predisposed to like this one.
The Constant Gardener
rating: ****
review: An early favorite of mine that year, while I might have found stuff I liked better, I still appreciate this harrowing look at the soul-crushing complexity of how the world works.
The Producers
rating: ****
review: In which Mel Brooks perhaps realizes, as far as wide audiences go, this one probably had longer legs in post-/11 New York City than it did elsewhere. But it's still hilarious, and this is probably the best way the story, which had already been a film forty years earlier, is going to endure. Will Ferrell has another of his pre-breakout standout supporting roles, reason enough to give it another chance.
Elizabethtown
rating: ****
review: Like Kingdom of Heaven, this was a chance for Orlando Bloom to see how far his career could go in the wake of appearing in three blockbuster Lord of the Rings and one Pirates of the Caribbean, to that point. This one's a completely different kind of movie, however, a Cameron Crowe kind of movie, because it is in fact directed by Cameron Crowe, with Kirsten Dunst lending a tremendously appealing turn opposite Bloom. I'm not an aficionado of Crowe movies, particularly, but I this one works well as an atypically low-key affair.
The Legend of Zorro
rating: ****
review: Missing the magic of its predecessor, The Mask of Zorro, but maintains the heroic flair, that's missing from more contemporary superhero storytelling these days.
Brokeback Mountain
rating: ****
review: Recognized instantly as an iconic, transcendent look at gay romance, and for me personally, a standout movie for Heath Ledger.
Fever Pitch
rating: ***
review: Fairly standard romantic comedy that for me is elevated by being a fan of the Boston Red Sox, whose historic 2004 World Series victory was unexpectedly reflected in it.
The Brothers Grimm
rating: ***
review: As conventional as Terry Gilliam is ever likely to get, but still enjoyable.
Syriana
rating: ***
review: A look at the post-9/11 world at a contemporary level, lacking a true killer center.
Be Cool
rating: ***
review: I've yet to see Get Shorty, but this follow-up is easily comprehensible without it, even if the best bits end up falling to supporting players like Vince Vaughn and Dwayne Johnson.
Lords of Dogtown
rating: ***
review: This kind of follow-up to the youth-in-revolt cinema of the '50s is most notable for Heath Ledger's supporting turn, where he channels Val Kilmer.
Crash
rating: ***
review: The prestige ensemble, ironically downplayed by critics following its initial success with them in favor of Brokeback Mountain, would probably play better today, or at least as well. Still seems to be missing a true sense of outrage to sell its impact. Again, an irony. Outrage is all we see in the world today, when it plays best in movies, when placed in proper context.
Hitch
rating: ***
review: Amazing that Will Smith has so rarely turned his charm to the romantic. More amazing that Kevin James, thanks to an unremarkable turn here, launched a fairly successful film career.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
rating: ***
review: Critics, and audiences, were initially wowed by this latest adaptation of the classic book, but subsequent installments sort of revealed what had been overlooked in the first place, that the magic wasn't quite there. In hindsight, a truly new vision of the story might have found something everyone could've enjoyed for longer.
Son of the Mask
rating: ***
review: Any casting limitations are mitigated by this belated follow-up unexpectedly drawing inspiration from the second most notable aspect of the original, the ability of CGI to bring cartoons to life. And that's really what this one is.
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride
rating: ***
review: Artful, but not as inspired as The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Casanova
rating: ***
review: One of Heath Ledger's surprisingly infrequent romantic adventures.
The Dukes of Hazzard
rating: ***
review: This is exactly what an updated version of the TV series ought to look like.
Serenity
rating: ***
review: This cinematic follow-up to the short-lived TV series Firefly exposes its shortcomings, and also celebrates its strengths.
Into the Blue
rating: ***
review: If ogling Paul Walker and Jessica Alba isn't up your alley, than check out Josh Brolin in a supporting role, a little before he finally emerged as a notable cinematic presence.
The Island
rating: ***
review: Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson star in this lush-looking minor entry in the sci-fi canon.
Fantastic Four
rating: ***
review: By all accounts this is an iteration of the Marvel comic that looks at the very least too small in comparison to the X-Men, Spider-Man, and Avengers franchises around it. But it still has its charms, notably among them Chris Evans, before Captain America, as an incredibly charming Johnny Storm, the Human Torch.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
rating: ***
review: The whole point of this is to marvel at the combustible chemistry between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Ah, in real life it turned out "combustible" was the operative word.
Cinderella Man
rating: ***
review: Russell Crowe in a relative misfire as he attempted to stretch out his early millennium success in a way that proved too calculated.
Chicken Little
rating: **
review: The sky is falling for predictable animated flicks.
A History of Violence
rating: **
review: A grossly overrated movie, except the supporting turn by William Hurt.
Saw II
rating: **
review: Donnie Wahlberg doesn't quite get to relive his Boomtown glory.
Bewitched
rating: **
review: Nothing particularly wrong with it, except Will Ferrell is sort of in Elf mode without an Elf level story around it.
Elektra
rating: **
review: Nothing particularly wrong with this one, either, except that if Jennifer Garner is going to be in action mode, it has to be as interesting as Alias, or have more compelling characters around her.
Red Eye
rating: **
review: The chilling nature of the drama in the air is sort of sabotaged by Jayma Mays inadvertently stealing the movie at the airport.
Derailed
rating: **
review: Fairly nondescript. Hard to remember.
Hostage
rating: **
review: Fairly standard Bruce Willis.
Doom
rating: *
review: Dwayne Johnson had yet to figure out how to pick his projects.
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
Timeline (2003)
rating: ****
the story: Modern archaeologists time travel to the 14th century.
what it's all about: This is the kind of movie that ages well. I remember watching Timeline on home video soon after its release, and not thinking too much of it. Like a lot of people I mostly thought of it as a Paul Walker movie, which in 2003 didn't mean as much as it does in 2018. Not so much because Walker went on to have a brilliant career, but because the Fast & Furious franchise exploded, and that alone increased his significance over time. 2003 also saw his turn as the lead in the second Fast & Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious, but that was hardly an indication of where Walker, much less the series, was going to go.
Oh, and by the way, watching Timeline again, Walker isn't really the star of the movie anyway. That's the biggest irony, right?
Instead, hindsight really helps make obvious that Timeline is a Gerard Butler movie. What a fascinating career Butler has had. He made his name in 2006's 300, and his subsequent career has been a tug-of-war with whether or not audiences actually can think of him for anything other than 300. Which means in a lot of ways, his career hasn't actually changed all that much. But what always fascinates me about movies is the constant discovery of it. Movies are a curious medium. You can follow them any number of ways, and certainly actors are one of them. To the general public, it's always about the present, or if the past is revisited at all it's mostly to do with movies that are already well-known or random ones that have developed cult followings. It's rarely about revisiting movies for the sake of revisiting them. And yet, Butler is as ripe for that as anyone. Was 300 truly a fluke, or did he have anything that might have helped indicate such a development?
You can guess my answer already. Timeline would certainly been a strong indication. The whole point of his character can be summed up by attempting to answer whether or not Butler's type of hypermasculinity can best be acclimated in the past. Every character in the story struggles with fitting in. It would've been cheap storytelling to have Butler just slip into it, and maybe because he was still a relatively unknown element, his arc develops the way it does, but precisely because it works out that way, it works extremely well both for the story and to illustrate both where Butler was at this point in his career and where he was headed.
Bottom line, if I had been paying attention, I would've recognized back then that I had just seen a star be born.
There's a ton of great talent worth relishing around him, beyond Walker. Billy Connolly, obviously, and also Michael Sheen, another actor years ahead of be "discovered" as a star. David Thewlis, meanwhile, puts on an American accent, and I assume in 2003 I had no idea who he was, much less that he would become a favorite. My big draw, back then, was actually Neal McDonough, who never quite found his sweet spot, following the early demise of Boomtown. Matt Craven is always worth noting. Anna Friel, meanwhile, plays French and quite convincingly, even though she's clearly British in real life, so when I saw her again (and in 2003 I had no idea I was supposed to care about her, either), I initially wasn't even sure she was someone I knew, just that she looked familiar.
This is also the penultimate film directed by Richard Donner, which in 2018 sounds ridiculous, especially when his last movie was 2006's 16 Blocks. Not that 16 Blocks was a bad way to go. It was an excellent way to go. It's just sad to see a talent retire, especially when he was still firing on all cylinders.
The story was based on a book by Michael Crichton, whose professional height was in the '90s, when he was riding on the success of the Jurassic Park film and ER, plus his continuing string of blockbuster thrillers. I've read him off and on for years, and every time I remember all over again how much I appreciate what he brought to the culture. In a lot of ways, Jurassic Park distorted his appeal to a fairly cartoonish degree. And in a lot of ways, Timeline is Jurassic Park minus the cartoonish distortion, an attempt to revisit the past in a way that spectacularly backfires. Crichton more often tried to resolve real world misconceptions than went for sensationalism, which Jurassic Park the movie was at least wildly accepted to be. I mean, it single-handedly revived popular obsession with dinosaurs. But it was also about hubris run amok, as Crichton often explored, totally misjudging when a gamble has been miscalculated. That's Timeline, the role Thewlis plays. It's a shame Crichton died just at the start of an age when hubris has exploded, when a little perspective is most desperately needed.
But to watch something like Timeline, and to see how effortlessly, finally, it straddles escapist storytelling and the classic cautionary tale, is to see Crichton's genius all over again, and how Donner brought together a rich host of actors to tell it.
the story: Modern archaeologists time travel to the 14th century.
what it's all about: This is the kind of movie that ages well. I remember watching Timeline on home video soon after its release, and not thinking too much of it. Like a lot of people I mostly thought of it as a Paul Walker movie, which in 2003 didn't mean as much as it does in 2018. Not so much because Walker went on to have a brilliant career, but because the Fast & Furious franchise exploded, and that alone increased his significance over time. 2003 also saw his turn as the lead in the second Fast & Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious, but that was hardly an indication of where Walker, much less the series, was going to go.
Oh, and by the way, watching Timeline again, Walker isn't really the star of the movie anyway. That's the biggest irony, right?
Instead, hindsight really helps make obvious that Timeline is a Gerard Butler movie. What a fascinating career Butler has had. He made his name in 2006's 300, and his subsequent career has been a tug-of-war with whether or not audiences actually can think of him for anything other than 300. Which means in a lot of ways, his career hasn't actually changed all that much. But what always fascinates me about movies is the constant discovery of it. Movies are a curious medium. You can follow them any number of ways, and certainly actors are one of them. To the general public, it's always about the present, or if the past is revisited at all it's mostly to do with movies that are already well-known or random ones that have developed cult followings. It's rarely about revisiting movies for the sake of revisiting them. And yet, Butler is as ripe for that as anyone. Was 300 truly a fluke, or did he have anything that might have helped indicate such a development?
You can guess my answer already. Timeline would certainly been a strong indication. The whole point of his character can be summed up by attempting to answer whether or not Butler's type of hypermasculinity can best be acclimated in the past. Every character in the story struggles with fitting in. It would've been cheap storytelling to have Butler just slip into it, and maybe because he was still a relatively unknown element, his arc develops the way it does, but precisely because it works out that way, it works extremely well both for the story and to illustrate both where Butler was at this point in his career and where he was headed.
Bottom line, if I had been paying attention, I would've recognized back then that I had just seen a star be born.
There's a ton of great talent worth relishing around him, beyond Walker. Billy Connolly, obviously, and also Michael Sheen, another actor years ahead of be "discovered" as a star. David Thewlis, meanwhile, puts on an American accent, and I assume in 2003 I had no idea who he was, much less that he would become a favorite. My big draw, back then, was actually Neal McDonough, who never quite found his sweet spot, following the early demise of Boomtown. Matt Craven is always worth noting. Anna Friel, meanwhile, plays French and quite convincingly, even though she's clearly British in real life, so when I saw her again (and in 2003 I had no idea I was supposed to care about her, either), I initially wasn't even sure she was someone I knew, just that she looked familiar.
This is also the penultimate film directed by Richard Donner, which in 2018 sounds ridiculous, especially when his last movie was 2006's 16 Blocks. Not that 16 Blocks was a bad way to go. It was an excellent way to go. It's just sad to see a talent retire, especially when he was still firing on all cylinders.
The story was based on a book by Michael Crichton, whose professional height was in the '90s, when he was riding on the success of the Jurassic Park film and ER, plus his continuing string of blockbuster thrillers. I've read him off and on for years, and every time I remember all over again how much I appreciate what he brought to the culture. In a lot of ways, Jurassic Park distorted his appeal to a fairly cartoonish degree. And in a lot of ways, Timeline is Jurassic Park minus the cartoonish distortion, an attempt to revisit the past in a way that spectacularly backfires. Crichton more often tried to resolve real world misconceptions than went for sensationalism, which Jurassic Park the movie was at least wildly accepted to be. I mean, it single-handedly revived popular obsession with dinosaurs. But it was also about hubris run amok, as Crichton often explored, totally misjudging when a gamble has been miscalculated. That's Timeline, the role Thewlis plays. It's a shame Crichton died just at the start of an age when hubris has exploded, when a little perspective is most desperately needed.
But to watch something like Timeline, and to see how effortlessly, finally, it straddles escapist storytelling and the classic cautionary tale, is to see Crichton's genius all over again, and how Donner brought together a rich host of actors to tell it.
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