23 September 2004
MOVIE: SILVER CITY (2004).
A detective uncovers the political back deals behind a mysterious murder. Now, when I saw the preview for this film, I thought: Wow. Big names. A fun, thinly-veiled parody of the current Bush administration. A subversive joyride.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The film is actually a limp, unremarkable detective story involving politics, industrial coverups, and murder. It was so bad that me & Nik considered walking out after the first 30 minutes. But we hung in there, with the hope of alleviating our pain by catching a few more precious minutes of Chris Cooper's admirable Bush impersonation. But ala, that vein dries up quickly. Instead, the movie focuses almost entirely on an awkward but earnest gumshoe detective. But I don't mean awkward in the likable sense. I mean awkward in the turn around, and walk away sense.
I won't waste time on details. In short, Silver City feels like a slapdash, student-quality film prototype of director John Sayles's later masterpiece, Lone Star: a central mystery, lots of witness accounts, lots of talking. Except all crushingly expository, bloodless and without wit, and (worst of all) obvious. Without even a substantial satirical edge to rest my ass on, I soon finished my popcorn and resorted to making funny faces at Nicki in the dark theater. Now that was fun.
Somebody's fuckin' with me!
PHOTO DIARY.
I learned a new word today: CASABO. It shall replace mahalo in my daily conversation.
PHOTO DIARY.
Yesterday I upgraded my old Sidekick...
...to the new one! Yay.
20 September 2004
MOVIE: THE COOLER (2003).
The unluckiest man in the world finally gets a break. I really like the conceit of this movie: we have this fellow, the world's mostest unluckiest guy, working in an old-Vegas casino as a "cooler," meaning someone who cools down hot tables through distraction or by simply spreading bad luck around. The tough-talking, stylized world of The Cooler takes its superstitions very seriously, and luck rules over all. It's a dingy, witty little portrait in miniature, with a crime noir saxophone providing the soundtrack.
Something tells me, however, that the writers didn't know where to go next with their great idea. The film keeps a good, snappy pace by dutifully supplying the requisite plot twists and developments (none earth-shattering) before reaching its perfectly adequate ending. Along the way, we're treated to some great, wisecracking dialogue. Performances, too, were fine, just fine. Alec Baldwin plays the part of aging wiseguy well. William Macy uses his Droopy face to an effective degree. The oddball relationship between him and Maria Bello's character just barely squeaks by credibility (sure, what the hell), and even lands a foot or two into the romantic territory originally staked out by True Romance.
Nothing great, but nothing to gripe about. Kinda like a cheese bagel.
Better luck next time.
19 September 2004
PHOTO DIARY.
This is what's known as a tangelo. Cat's paws are there for scale.
PHOTO DIARY.
We went to fellow designer Debbie & Tom's wedding last night in Hollywood.
The whole Entertainment gang was there: Christina's husband Mike, Christina, Tad, and Robert.
Jongo (background) and Chris (growing out from between me & Nik's heads) were there, too.
The post-wedding reception was held at the historic Roosevelt Hotel across the street from the Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Blvd.
Hubert, Tom's best man, gave a snappy & entertaining little speech.
The post-reception party was held at The Highlands, across the street. We drank and drank and drank.
Debbie's best friend Hedy, the newlyweds, and Tom's brother Sam talked on into the night.
PHOTO DIARY.
I got into a scooter accident on Thursday. Some jackass made a sudden U-turn, from the right lane on a slow street, forcing me to brake, swerve, and slide twenty feet on my left side. I have a nice bruise now. Owie-owie.
MOVIE: GARDEN STATE (2004).
An over-medicated, out of work actor returns to New Jersey to attend his estranged mother's funeral. A genre is emerging, I think, about people in their late-20's journeying thorugh the mysteries of the post-suburban age. The soundtrack is largely indie retro-acoustic emo or folk. Heros of the genre are often the ones staring off into space at parties. They have odd hobbies, or drive old and unique vehicles.
Garden State, however flawed and artificially quirky it may be, is still notable in that it attempts to inject real heart into a potentially sterile formula that normally calls for witty posturing and not much else. It is, in essence, a talker flick in disguise, and has more in common with Beautiful Girls (or Before Sunrise, even) than Rushmore. The main character's backstory, in which he's been prescribed far too many happy-pills thanks to his psychiatrist father's obsession with keeping his family intact, is actually played out very seriously by John Ritter lookalike Zach Braff--any other indie-flick would have treated such a situation with endless winking. And the love interest, played by Natalie Portman, is almost a charming reprise of her original breakthrough performance in Beautiful Girls. The two manage to take the flat dialogue they'd been given (or in this case, the dialogue they themselves had written) and turn their relationship into something almost magical.
A fair amount of winking does happen in the movie. Braff's character wakes up from a night of partying to see a knight in armor eating a bowl of cereal, for example. The characters pay a visit to an ancient underground canyon guarded by a happy young family living in a converted tugboat on stilts. Some of these sightgags are funny, if a bit unncessary and distracting. At the film's core rests an unfortunate schizophrenia: is it a hipster farce? or a heartfelt, romantic re-awakening? A couple of script re-writes, I think, could have clarified the story's focus.
Nicki says that Braff, the writer, could eventually become really, really good as his storytelling skills mature, and that she's rooting for him. I'll agree with that.
I fired my old psychiatrist. I'm gonna have to get a new one.
MOVIE: UZUMAKI (SPIRAL) (2000).
Mysterious spiral forms drive a small village to madness and self-destruction. So I'm kind of on a J-horror kick these days, and after having flicks like The Ring and The Grudge scare the piss out of me I figured I'd give Uzumaki a try. But this movie definitely falls outside of the expectations set up by those first two. First, it's not at all the low-gore psychological creepout we've come to know and love. It has blood to spare, including such gut-churning sights as the struck pedestrian's body, wound tight into a car's wheel well, or a corpse coiled up inside a washing machine. Second, it discards realism for an eerie, comic-book feel, which is no surprise since the film is based on a popular manga series. Every frame is beautifully shot using a desaturated, apocalyptic palette of color.
That said, the movie sucked. Hard. The cringingly bad acting falls short of even the lowest-tier soap operas. No effort is made to explain what is happening to the village, or why. Spirals appear (in soup, fish cakes, clouds, snail shells) and people go crazy before killing themselves and others. When they do die their odd, spiral-themed deaths, the special effects are done so badly that the result is often laughter rather than horror. Honestly, now. My Powerbook can do better.
The story rambles along, touching lightly upon an essentially unrelated mix of throwaway character lines before reaching its unsatisfying conclusion: everyone dies. Juvenile stuff. Cheap thrills for high-school audiences.
He kept going on about the uzumaki.
MOVIE: LAWS OF ATTRACTION (2004).
Two competing high-profile New York lawyers unwittingly fall in love. This amateurish rom-com has it all: fabulous Manhattan apartments; a rakish, male diamond in the rough; an emotional, neurotic everygirl frantically overworking herself in pursuit of female independence; her sassy, socialite mother. That's seriously as memorable as the characters get. Throw in a chronic over-reliance on standard crutches, including frequent and interminable musical montages, media scandal (everyone in the movie is conveniently famous, their gossip therefore worthy to be revealed on national television), the overeating of junk pastries, and the predictable final chase scene.
But all that doesn't mean the film isn't weird. Every phone in the movie is a Handspring Treo, every television a Philips. There's a strange, overly long sequence that takes place in Ireland, which supposedly helps half-hearted yuppies fall in love through drink. And the weirdest of all: watching a serious, accomplished actor like Julianne Moore flap about like a live-action version of a Cathy comic strip.
Just--bizarre.
Why would someone as beautiful and accomplished as you be so insecure?
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