Next (2004 - C)
Back to 2004 - A & 2004 Alphabetical Index.
Bad Santa (2003, 93 min, R) ***1/2 – Directed by Terry Zwigoff, starring Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, and John Ritter. Escapades of two thieves who disguise themselves as holiday characters before robbing malls on Christmas Eve. Not just a cheap shot about a drunken mall Claus, but a three-dimensional character that we come to care about, no matter how disgusting he is.
Barry Lyndon (1975, 183 min, PG) **** - Directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Ryan O’Neal and Marisa Berensen. The unscrupulous attempts of a 17th century rogue (O’Neal) to enter high society are used to show how we are dehumanized—that is, deprived of our ability to examine and choose situations for ourselves—not only by industry and technology but by social rituals and rules. Few historical eras involved mankind trying harder to dominate his surroundings than Baroque Europe, including strictly regimented gardens, music, dress, social customs, duels, and even warfare in rigid lines. From rising in the morning to sleep at night, from the womb to the grave, every second uses some pre-ordained ritual to conceal the barbarity lurking beneath each of us. Life becomes a journey from one painting to the next, and filmmaker Kubrick shows us the allure of such a life by making it stunningly beautiful, by turning each shot into a museum-quality image, filled with pre-ordained, choice-less grandeur. Oscars include Adapted Score, Art Direction, Cinematography, Costumes, and Make-Up, with nominations for Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay, and winner of the National Board of Review’s Best Picture and Best Director.
Battleship Potemkin (1925, 75 min, B&W, NR) **** - Directed by Sergei Eisenstein, starring Vladimir Barsky. Watershed silent classic about an uprising of enlisted sailors in the final days of czarist Russia and the bloody response from the czar’s forces. The film is, of course, Soviet propaganda, and the diction and editing of the silent film may be difficult for modern viewers, but “Potemkin” is indispensable for any serious student of the movies. Regular placeholder on “Sight & Sound’s” Top Ten Movies of All-Time.
A Beautiful Mind (2001, 135 min, PG13) *** - Directed by Ron Howard, starring Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, and Jennifer Connelly. Engrossing Oscarbait biography of real-life mathematician and schizophrenic John Forbes Nash, who despite years of hallucinations developed theories that eventually won the Nobel Prize in Economics. A fine film; not as good as many of its advocates would have you believe, but certainly not as bad as its enemies claim. Oscars for Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, and Supporting Actress Connelly.
Before Sunrise (1995, 101 min, R) *** - Directed & co-written by Richard Linklater, starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. A young American (Hawke) invites a French woman (Delpy) he meets on a train to spend his last evening in Europe wandering the streets of Vienna, getting to know each other. They are as young people should be: convinced of nothing, filled with wonder, delighting in questions, and defending no answers. Director Linklater’s film is a sweet examination of young love, unimpeded by silly romantic conventions.
Blade (1998, 120 min, R) and Blade II (2002, 117 min, R) *** - Directed by Stephen Norrington (Blade) and Guillermo Del Toro (Blade II), starring Wesley Snipes and Kris Kristofferson. Absurdly entertaining and gory adventures of a half-vampire’s (Snipes) comic book crusade against the secret vampire society that runs the world. The movies succeed not just because the effects and kung-fu sequences are top-notch, but because Snipes knows to play action heroes as vulnerable and because the filmmakers know to play everything a little tongue-in-cheek.
Body Double (1984, 114 min, R) ***1/2 – Directed & co-written by Brian De Palma, starring Craig Wasson, Gregg Henry, and Melanie Griffith. Yet another darkly comic, visually tricky, and slightly campy re-examination of “Vertigo” from suspense master Brian De Palma, with some splashes of “Rear Window” thrown in. We begin with an actor who’s never quite made it (Wasson, himself an actor who never quite made it), dressed as a vampire and frozen by claustrophobia in a fake tomb; in a way, he spends the whole movie in that grave. Castrated by his phobia, he loses his girlfriend, his home, his job, and he finds himself housesitting and watering plants (woman’s work!). He feeds off the lives of others, not just by living in someone else’s house, but by peeping on another man’s wife and eventually following her when he thinks she needs protection. All this leads to murder and pornography (the actor’s overnight transformation into a sleazy pornographer is hilarious, when you think about it). Wasson plays his actor as well-meaning but weak, probably stemming from a lack of a clear self-identity; as someone without a clear self-identity, I find this a very estimable quality. Like so many of De Palma’s films, everything is patiently sitting out in the open for those quick enough to catch what’s going on.
Boogie Nights (1997, 152 min, R) ***1/2 – Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, starring Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, and Julianne Moore. Seri-comic, almost “Goodfellas”-style epic about two decades in the porn industry that may leave you feeling a little bit dirty. A young, well-endowed, and not very bright young man (Wahlberg) is taken under the wing of a veteran filmmaker (Reynolds), learns the ropes, and eventual rebels, with dismal consequences. The movie does not defend or glorify its characters—it in fact makes a good deal of fun of them—but shows them as flawed human beings, some good and some bad, who happen to not believe in monogamy or privacy. Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor Reynolds, Best Supporting Actress Moore, and Best Original Screenplay.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992, 130 min, R) ***1/2 – Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, and Anthony Hopkins. Raucous and over-the-top vampire story features Oscar-winning art direction of castles, churches, mountainsides, mansions, and London slums, all cast in eerie lights, all in wild colors. The Count crosses centuries and oceans to find the reincarnation of his beloved in London, and it’ll take all the powers of turn-of-the-century science, male repression, and stiff upper-lips to stop him. It’s hard to pick who’s more wild: Oldman’s bizarrely accented Dracula or Hopkins’ insane Dr. Van Helsing.
Braveheart (1995, 177 min, R) ***1/2 – Directed by Mel Gibson, starring Mel Gibson and Patrick McGoohan. Epic biography of William Wallace (Gibson), leader of a blood-soaked medieval rebellion of the Scottish against the English. The movie plays fast-and-loose with history, as all great epics should, and is paced and shot like a throwback to an earlier age. The good guys are conflicted and often morally ambiguous, but the portrayal of the English as being a race comprised entirely of movie villains keeps “Braveheart” from being a true masterpiece.
Breakfast with Hunter (2004, 91 min, R) *** - Directed & written by Wayne Ewing, featuring interviews with Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. Stream-of-consciousness DV documentary about the great American eccentric Hunter Thompson, the substance-abusing “Rolling Stone” journalist who invented gonzo journalism and penned “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”