for November 2006
Intermission (2003) - The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes - Reality Bites - S.W.A.T. (2003) - The Stranger (1946) - Zoolander
Intermission (2003, 105 min, R) *** - Directed by John Crowley, starring Colin Farrell, Shirley Henderson, Kelly Macdonald, Colm Meaney, Cillian Murphy, and Brian F. O’Byrne. Has it been long enough since “Pulp Fiction” that every dark comedy about interlocking stories, one involving crime, no longer has to be compared to it? In the pantheon of “Pulp”-esque movies, I would rate the Dublin-set “Intermission” ahead of “Go” because not everyone gets what he deserves and not everyone learns a lesson. Most of these movies are about how random and unpredictable life is, yet we can usually predict what will ultimately happen to each character. If the universe is supposed to so chaotic, why does each character get her just desserts? And so “Intermission” gets points because the poetic justice is ladled out sparingly—not every bad character who deep-down-isn’t-so-bad gets a second chance. Stories include Colin Farrell as a petty crook constantly being badgered by too tightly-wound cop Colm Meaney; supermarket drone Cillian Murphy, possibly the girliest man alive, loses his girl (Scottish sexpot Kelly Macdonald) to an older married man; his sister (adorable Shirley Henderson) grows a mustache in defiance for a tragic romance; a hapless bus driver (Brian F. O’Byrne) loses his job when a punk kid throws a rock through his windshield. These and more intermingle in a grungy and atmospheric DV Dublin. Everyone swears magnificently—Farrell has to pause from fleeing from cops to flick them off and spout a certain “C” word describing a woman’s woo-woo that the Irish say so well. And, yes, he does sing “I Fought Law” over the end credits, although he makes it sound like “I Fought the Lawr.”
The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (2005, 99 min, NR) ***1/2 – Directed, co-written, and animated by the Quay Brothers, starring Gottfried John, Cesar Saracho, and Assumpta Serna. Live-action mixed with stop motion, and the result is like a series of insane rituals played backwards. A plot summary doesn’t even begin to do justice to “The Piano Tuner’s” haunting, foggy charm, but here goes: a mad scientist takes an opera singer to his island, where an unsuspecting piano tuner gradually realizes that she’s been kidnapped. But all that is seen obliquely, as a dream or a ghost story—all the dialogue is very weird and languages change without subtitles. Half the time you don’t know what’s going on—I loved it. Shot on hi-def but tinted like an old movie, with overblown light sources, hauntingly unconvincing effects, and a gauzy lens that floats seductively. Terry Gilliam is the executive producer, but the movie mostly leaves aside his silly-shock grotesques in favor of a European detachment. And getting laughed at by a little stop-motion man who’s cut his own foot off with an ax is just plain creepy.
Reality Bites (1994, 99 min, R) **1/2 – Directed by Ben Stiller, starring Winona Ryder, Ethan Hawke, Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Joe Don Baker, and Steve Zahn. Encapsulates a pop, movie’d-up version of how angsty white college kids in the early-1990s thought of themselves. There are times in “Reality Bites” when you’re not sure if it’s completely accurate or completely fake—you begin to wonder if the whole greasy-haired Gen-X slacker thing wasn’t cooked up in a marketing office somewhere and “Reality Bites” is its commercial. In it, a college grad (Ryder) shoots a documentary of her friends, only to have it cut-up into an MTV-style mess by corporate types. You’re never quite sure if the same thing hasn’t happened to “Reality Bites.” Still, the movie has some good laughs and moments of truth (college teaches these kids nothing beside their Social Security numbers), as Ryder navigates the year after college in an alternate-universe Houston where everyone is not constantly coated in sweat. She’s in love with her slacker-loser-guitar player friend of many years (The Hawke) but won’t admit it; she’s also dating a well-meaning but flaky corporate type (Stiller). This embodies the college grad’s question of adaptability vs. youthful idealism. Stiller’s direction is surprisingly good in its casual way, with several long, uninterrupted takes of conversation. Ryder has always been something of a one-note actress (her finest work is probably “The Age of Innocence” or “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”). If that one note is all that’s needed of her (like “A Scanner Darkly”) she usually works out, but in “Reality Bites” she’s called upon to do more than sputter like she’s excited or high, but that’s about all she can do. Photographed by Emmanuel Lubezki of “The New World,” with nice shadows and dusty sunlight.
The Stranger (1946, 95 min, NR) *** - Directed by & starring Orson Welles, co-starring Edward G. Robinson and Loretta Young. There’s not much of Orson in “The Stranger,” but he does it well. The only conventional film Welles ever directed is from a shallow script (adapted by Victor Trivas, inexplicably Oscar-nominated) about a Nazi war criminal (Welles himself) hiding in a small Connecticut town. Welles has fun as an unrepentant Jew-hating sleazebag, putting on a perfectly proper face to the townspeople while strangling an old friend, plotting to murder his suckered, innocent wife, and doodling swastikas while he’s on the phone. As the director, Welles has fun showing off with deep focus, tracking and crane shots, and long takes. He shoots people talking through a window just so he can pull back and follow them across the town square in the same shot. When Edward G. Robinson’s G-man comes into the drugstore, we stay behind the clerk’s head the whole time, but Robinson stays in focus during the single shot, no matter how far up-and-down the store he goes. And of course the clocktower where the Nazi spends his days is considerably less safe than anything in real life; no extra points for guessing where the final showdown will be staged.
S.W.A.T. (2003, 117 min, PG13) **1/2 – Directed by Clark Johnson, starring Samuel L. Jackson, Colin Farrell, LL Cool J, Michelle Rodriguez, and Olivier Martinez. Adequate late-summer entertainment about the ups-and-downs of a LAPD Special Weapons And Tactics group. The movie’s emphasis is on the team training in potential situations—hijacked hotels, airplanes, etc.—and there’s a mechanical fascination to it that director Johnson manages not to smother with too much MTV styling. The third act is really quite engaging, as the team escorts a villainous French millionaire (Oliver Martinez) through a gauntlet that begins in downtown and ends just outside the federal penitentiary. Samuel L. gets top billing as the team leader, but only because Farrell (the real main character) has hardly any dialogue; his monosyllabic, taciturn competence had my wife even beginning to accept him with short hair. He nods and pushes those caterpillars on his face together when a lesser actor might actually say something. All his gun training must have come in handy for the infinitely superior “Miami Vice.” A “Michael Mann lite” style is used for some of the shoot-outs and the movie finds creative ways to mow people down and still get the PG13. Shooting people in shadow or cutting away from them quickly are popular. I’m becoming a fan of people getting shot through things, or in front of things that can shatter, so that a trashed windshield or papers flying off a desk can take the place of blood splattering. “M:I2” does this well, too.
Zoolander (2001, 89 min, R) **1/2 – starring Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, and Milla Jovovich. About as good as you’d expect it to be and maybe a little better. A series of sketches about how pouting male models are stupid, strung along by a clothesline plot that nine out of ten people won’t even begin to care about. If you accept the movie’s tone of yelled exaggeration, bizarre costumes, and endless mugging, some of the sketches are pretty amazingly funny, some are not, but few or none of them are genuinely annoying. Ferrell has fun as an insane screaming fashion mogul, while Stiller and Wilson are brainless arch-nemeses on the runway named Derek Zoolander and Hansel. The brainwashing sequence, set to Frankie Goes to Hollywood, is a thing of beauty, and there are at least three great cameos.
Index of All Reviews.