Girl Detective

#42 in my movie challenge for the year is this classic mystery adapted from the Dashiell Hammett novel, featuring Nick and Nora Charles and their dog Asta. The mystery of an inventor’s disappearance is less interesting than the intrigue among the suspects, which is secondary to the witty repartee between Nick and Nora, who steal the show. Particularly funny was a throwaway scene, the morning after a big party, where Nick leisurely pops balloons on the Christmas tree with a pop-gun. It’s rather shocking to see how casually excess drinking was taken, and how it is both a joke and sometimes a sign of upper-class urbanity. I wouldn’t be surprised if Nick and Nora needed some time in rehab following their adventures.

#41 in my movie challenge for the year, and quite a departure from the previous film, Key Largo. Harold and Kumar is silly, fun, and knows its limits at under 90 minutes. It has been many years since I’ve had occasion to crave White Castle burgers, but I do remember how urgent those cravings always were. When I was in college, we had a local chain called Little Tavern, and a bag of Little T burgers never seemed as good an idea the morning after as it had the night before.

Both the leads are charming and one of the things that stands out about this comedy is that, without exception, all of the heroes are minorities, while all of the weirdo bad guys are not. It’s a refreshing turn, and one that I’m pleased did well at the box office. Plus, I’m sure this will go on to be a campus classic.

#40 in my movie challenge for the year is a Bogey/Bacall classic. Key Largo (1948) was directed by John Huston. Bogey plays the former military commander of Bacall’s late husband. He visits her and her father in law at the latter’s Key Largo hotel, only to find the place has been taken over by gangsters. Bacall is amazing–lovely to look at, entertaining to watch, and oh, what a joy to listen to that voice! She has a presence like few others. This is a dark thriller with a kind heart, much less naughty than The Big Sleep.

#39 in my movie challenge for the year was Collateral, directed by Michael Mann. While Tom Cruise may be an insensitive buffoon, he can sometimes act well, and here he does. Jamie Foxx is the everyday guy whose life quickly spirals out of control due to a bizarre chain of circumstances. He absolutely deserved his Oscar nomination. Collateral is beautiful to look at, well acted, fast paced and mesmerizing. I was so impressed with this film that I watched all the extras; I rarely watch even one. They made me appreciate the film, its direction and the acting all the more.

Last week I read Bruce Campbell’s autobiography If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor (#56 in my book challenge for the year) and went to see Bruce host a screening of The Man with the Screaming Brain (#38 in my movie challenge for the year).

Bruce Campbell is best known for his starring work in the Evil Dead trilogy, a set of B-movie horror flicks from the 80’s and 90’s. I saw Evil Dead for the first time when I was in college (in Henle 21, for the record), because some guy friends were big fans. It was bloody and it was funny, and I remember one of the guys kept up a continuous chorus of, “Oh, this part is so awesome.” It was clear that the guys had the movie memorized.

The director of the Evil Dead films, Sam Raimi, hit the big time finally with the very good Spider Man and even better Spider Man 2. Campbell has managed to stay alive in Hollywood as a B actor, but he doesn’t bemoan his fate. He has genuine affection for the early movies and how much creative control he and his friends had on them. He’s been in some big movies, such as the Coen Brothers The Hudsucker Proxy, and has spent a lot of time doing series television, first on the short-lived Adventures of Brisco Country, Jr. and later as a recurring character first on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and later on Xena: Warrior Princess. If Chins Could Kill is an entertaining, anecdote-laden trip. Campbell is humorous and self-effacing, and comes off as a likable guy. Bruce is touring in support of his new book, How to Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way.

The Man with the Screaming Brain is his first time directing a film. It was financed by the Sci-Fi channel, who told him he had to film in Bulgaria, so he re-wrote the movie around that. During the Q & A after the showing, Campbell joked that the film wasn’t released, it had escaped. He did a good bit of bantering back and forth, solidifying that funny, good-guy persona. The Man with the Screaming Brain is the story of a mad scientist (Stacey Keach) who discovers a way to merge brain cells of different people. It’s played for slapstick, and it is quite funny at times. Both City Pages and The Beat have reviewed it favorably, and perhaps a bit kindly, but it’s hard not to want to be kind to Campbell. It will air on the Sci Fi Channel on Septemer 10.

#37 in my movie challenge for the year was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I both admired and enjoyed this film. Jim Carrey’s performance was remarkably restrained, and was perhaps the best I’ve seen from him. Winslet was just as strong, and never once did I question her American accent. A friend of mine derided Kirsten Dunst’s performance, but I think she did a fine job of playing an annoying, immature person who hasn’t learned from her mistakes. Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman also wrote Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. Both of those were technically good, though I didn’t much like them. They were about being up in one’s head, and detached from emotion. This film did an admirable job of being intellectual as well as emotional.

Movies 35 and 36 in my movie challenge for the year were Zoolander and Starsky & Hutch. These were good, funny little movies that got the laughs and then got out. Each clocked in at about 90 minutes, as a good comedy should–see Wilson’s Shanghai Noon and Shanghai Knights for why not to push it to two hours. I am not a Ben Stiller fan. I find him rather creepy. Yet I didn’t find his presence detrimental to these movies, and he was particularly funny as Starsky. Both movies had strong supporting roles by the hilarious Will Ferrell. The soundtrack to Starsky and Hutch was great, as were the fashions. I keep hoping that both Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson will find better movies and larger audiences, but they’re doing pretty well in Wedding Crashers, which is a good sign.

#34 in my movie challenge for the year, Howl’s Moving Castle was both lovely and disappointing. Disappointing because the story got muddled in the middle and was hard to follow. I found this probably the least well done of director Hayao Miyazaki’s films. Then again, a lesser Miyazaki film is still well above average. There was a lot to like about the film. The visuals were lovely. I enjoyed the varying portrayals of the main character Sophie, both as a girl and then later, under enchantment, as an old woman. I thought the pretty, non-threatening appearance of young wizard Howl contrased nicely with Christian Bales’ deep voice, and was a very believable object of attraction for a young girl. I also very much liked the appearance of Calcifer the fire demon, and thought that Billy Crystal did an admirably funny, restrained job of voicing him. And the moving castle was a wonder to behold. As usual for Miyazaki’s films, the young girl has to find solutions and help both herself and those around her, not just without adults but often in spite of them. Miyazaki’s film, like the Diana Wynne Jones book it is based on, does not gloss over the fact of evil in the world, or the sometime stupidity of adults. The book and the movie honor their young audience members by portraying a complex story with complex heroes. The movie perhaps works best as a companion to the book, which is one I have recommended before. Diana Wynne Jones is a British author of children’s fantasy books, and the Harry Potter series owes much to her work.

#33 is my movie challenge for the year is Michael Moore’s acclaimed documentary. Yes, Moore can be annoying and manipulative. He tossed around some very fuzzy numbers. But he is also quite funny, and I appreciate how his tenacity often got results, as when he and two boys who had been shot at Columbine High School visited KMart headquarters, and got them to stop selling bullets nationwide. His point, which I don’t think he made clear enough, is that while people should have the right to have guns, they don’t really need them for protection. He blamed the American media and government for creating an environment of fear that resulted in a more gun-toting, violent society.

Ironically, I was still thinking over his point about how our fears about safety far outstrip the actual likelihood of violence in our lives when some drunk yahoo smashed our front porch window over the weekend. I was glad for our home security system.

#32 in my movie challenge for the year. The Bourne Supremacy was a solid spy movie, with good perfomances all around and well-filmed action and car-chase sequences. Matt Damon is suprisingly effective, as he was in The Bourne Identity, as an action hero. The shaky camera got a little annoying at times; I hope that the current penchant for this will wane soon.

#31 in my 50 movie challenge for the year was Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I know that you may not like either of the stars, particularly Ms. Jolie, since this is a usual comment once I say that I saw and liked the movie. This was a good summer action film. It was funny, it had good car chase scenes, and like it or not, there was good chemistry between the stars. They looked like they were having fun. Vince Vaughn was good if underused in the role of Pitt’s less good looking but funnier friend. The metaphors of lying for repression and violence for sex were hardly veiled, but some of the updates on the war of the sexes were quite good, e.g., he keeps his guns in the toolshed while she keeps hers in the oven.

#30 in my 50 movie challenge for the year was Crash, directed by Paul Haggis. In Altman-esque fashion, Crash follows a handful of characters through a few days and several belief-straining coincidences. But the story doesn’t suffer for these coincidences, as it doesn’t from a few bits of stilted dialogue. Instead, I was swept up in characters, their stories, and amazement because I didn’t see a bad performance in the bunch. Don Cheadle was, as usual, amazing, but the surprises were Sandra Bullock and Brendan Fraser, both cast against type. Matt Dillon and Terrence Dashon Howard both chewed up the screen during their scenes. Dillon’s character was sometimes so hateful that it was a brave role to take on, and an even braver one to do so powerfully. Crash was about racism, and it had some ugly moments, but it had compensating beautiful ones, too. What was most interesting was the complexity of the characters. Only one character seemed wholly good; the others were all a compelling, wrenchingly real mix of good and bad. I am still thinking about this film days after I saw it. One of the themes I took away was that we often can’t predict outcomes, so we might as well act in line with our higher ideals rather than out of our baser fears.

Batman and I go way back. My first celebrity crush was on Adam West, when I was in first grade. I watched Batman every day, even if I’d seen the episode before. I remember lying to my mother that they only re-ran episodes once to try to get out of a trip to the store. I missed whatever episode that was (Batman and Robin trapped in a beehive, perhaps?) but I did get a few comics that day. Then my comic reading and Batman appreciation went dormant for many years, emerging much later when a boyfriend handed me the two graphic novel standards–Watchmen by Alan Moore and The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. I was back into Batman, and back into comics, and have not abandoned either in the fifteen (!) years since. Soon after those initial graphic novels, I read Batman Year One, also by Frank Miller, and I liked it even more than I did Dark Knight Returns. (This view, I know, borders on heresy in the geek-dom.) It was a dark story, very much of its time in the 80’s, that emphasized the all-too-human aspects of the characters Batman, James Gordon, and to a lesser extent, Catwoman.

Therefore it was with some trepidation that I saw that a Batman origin movie was coming to the screen. I’d seen all four Batman movies, liking each one less, and actually feeling ashamed at having seen the last one. I had to be reminded who it was who played Batman in it–that was how forgettable George Clooney was in the role. Part of the problem of a Batman movie is the casting of Batman. Most actors can play either rich playboy Bruce Wayne or Batman, but not both. But when the reviews started to come in that Batman Begins was good and Christian Bale was well cast, I began to hope. And when a friend offered to watch Drake so that my husband G. Grod and I could actually go out and see a movie together, we knew immediately what we wanted to see.

Batman Begins was movie #29 in my 50 movie challenge for the year. And it was great fun. It was dark and atmospheric with good special effects. Everyone there played it straight, even the villains–there was no overacting or kitsch factor. There were a few throwaway one-liners to please the groundlings, but overall, it was extremely well done. This is not a movie of Batman Year One. The director and Frank Miller have been reminding people of that in recent interviews. It is, however, a well-done work on the origin of the man behind and within the mask. And because of that, I think it’s a fitting homage to one of my favorite graphic novels.

#28 in my 50 Movie Challenge for the year, and a recommendation from my friend Zen Viking back from the Shakespeare post. A high school riff on Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. Funny and engaging in a teen movie kind of way, i.e. it’s not life changing. Larry Miller is hilarious as Bianca and Kat’s obstetrician father who refuses to let them date. I had a tough time suspending my disbelief that either Heath Ledger or Julia Stiles was scary enough that no one would date them. They still look like movie stars. David Krumholtz seemed to be channeling Richard Kind, but has since graduated from the part of “less good looking but funnier friend” (one of Roger Ebert’s Movie Cliches), to hot young thing on Numb3rs.

Closer. 2004. Directed by Mike Nichols, who is Mr. Diane Sawyer, FYI. #27 in my 50 movie challenge for the year. I’d heard mixed things about this film. Some said it was great with terrific performances. Others said it was too dark and overly cruel. Both are true, though. It is well directed and acted, and doesn’t paint a reassuring portrait of couples in love. It does show, though, with cutting accuracy some of the truly funny and pathetic things people do while in pursuit of what they call love. I thought Clive Owen’s performance as Larry was the strongest, and not just because I have a crush on him. Many reviews said there were no sympathetic characters, bu at the end of the film, I liked and understood Larry, which I think had a lot to do with Owen’s portrayal. The scene when he and Julia Roberts reveal secrets to one another had tremendous emotional power. Much less effective was Natalie Portman. I am mystified that she earned an Oscar nomination. I could tell by Portman’s delivery that the script originally was a play. She sounded like she was reciting lines. Owen starred in the stage version, though in the character of Dan, played by Jude Law in the film. Charlie Rose interviewed Owen and tried to get him to admit which of the two parts he liked best. Owen, however, would not be goaded into an undiplomatic statement. He was unequivocal in his respect for having worked with Nichols, whom he called brilliant, but rather less effusive about Robert Rodriguez, with whom he worked on Sin City.

Lone Star. 1996. Directed by John Sayles. #26 in my 50 movie challenge for the year. I love watching a film and feeling swept up in the hands of an expert storyteller and skillful director. Lone Star intertwines stories of people in a small town around the theme of prejudice. It’s a mystery, told in the present and the past, with stellar performances. The characterization of a huge number of characters is pulled off gracefully, even as it shows people in all their messy complexity.

#25 in my 50 Movie Challenge for 2005. You knew this was coming, didn’t you? To finish my Don Quixote related media, I watched Lost in La Mancha, the documentary of Terry Gilliam’s failed attempt to bring DQ to film. Much was made of the fear of this turning into The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, a costly Gilliam flop. The documentary details the painful deterioration of the film due to an accumulation of almost unbelievable bad fortune. The production is plagued by bad weather, absent actors, military maneuvers, an ill lead actor and more. What I found most interesting was that Gilliam did not intend to film a straight adaptation. His film was to be called The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Johnny Depp, sporting a thick mane of dark, wavy hair with a blond streak, was cast as a modern ad agency guy who is transported back in time, and mistaken by DQ for his squire. I was surprised to hear Gilliam has an American accent. I thought he was English because of all the work he’s done with Monty Python, and was chagrined to learn at the IMDB that he’s from my neck of the woods, Minneapolis.

23. The Night of the Hunter. 1955. Directed by Charles Laughton. Mitchum is mesmerizing and terrifically creepy. While some of the sets were laughably fake (one house looked as if it were a cardboard cutout silhouetted against the sky), this movie still packs a wallop of tension. It can’t be coincidence, can it, that in the end, a character notes that “Children abide” while Jeff Bridges noted at the end of The Big Lebowski that “The Dude abides”?

24. Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. 2003. Directed by Peter Weir. An entertaining, well-crafted and not over-the-top epic. Russell Crowe has good hair, and carries off puffy shirts well.

More from my 50 movie challenge for 2005. My friend Becca wondered if I pick out what I watch/read in advance. Nope. I make it up as I go along. Becca lent me movie #s 18 and 20, which were good antidotes to #17.

16. Second Sight 2: Hide and Seek. 2003. Eh.

17. About Schmidt. 2002. Directed by Alexander Payne. Overly long. Unpleasant. Not that funny. I much preferred Sideways.

18. The Big Lebowski. 1998. Directed by Joel Coen. Very funny. The Dude is an amiable, like-able loser, unlike Schmidt. Favorite quotes: “It really tied the room together” and “Nice marmot.”

19. The Interpreter. 2005. Directed by Sydney Pollack. Sean Penn is stunning. A good, solid thriller. They were wishy washy about the romantic tension and should have left it out entirely.

20. Army of Darkness. 1993. Directed by Sam Raimi. I liked this much better than I remember liking it when I watched it before. Is it the director’s cut? Is it that I didn’t watch Evil Dead 1 & 2 right before it? In any case, good, silly, B-movie fun.

21. Laurel Canyon. 2003. Directed by Lisa Cholodenko. Not a good movie, but a great performance by Frances McDormand. How do you know that Kate Beckinsale has fake tits? Her bra never comes off. Not during sex with her boyfriend, not in the pool or in bed for a three way. McDormand is a good actress, and her beauty is real, interesting and complex. Beckinsale looks and acts like a Barbie doll.

22. The Iron Giant. 1999. Directed by Brad Bird. I love this film. Great story, great 1950’s look, great voice casting.

More reviews from my self-imposed 50-Movie Challenge.

10. Bad Santa. 2003. Directed by Terry Zwigoff. So dark that it often goes beyond the reach of humor. Weird, uncomfortable, sometimes quite funny. Sad for John Ritter that this was the last thing he worked on, because the unfunny scenes with him and Bernie Mac were reportedly tacked on in order to extend to movie’s running time.

11. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. 2002. Directed by George Clooney. Sam Rockwell plays Chuck Barris, creator of cultural icons like The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and The Gong Show, who claimed in his autobiography that he moonlighted as a hitman for the CIA. Barris later recanted, and Clooney’s movie does an excellent job with this amibiguity. The casting of megastar Julia Roberts as a spy, along with interviews with former Barris associates, contribute to the “is it real?” vibe. The film also slyly reminds us that reality TV is not a recent phenomenon.

12. Mean Girls. 2004. Directed by Mark Waters. Had some good commentary on how girls undermine other girls. Avoided many cliches, and had some laugh-out-loud moments.

13. Destry Rides Again. 1939. Directed by George Marshall. Jimmy Stewart is charming. Marlene Dietrich is funny. Great catfight. Tons of fun.

14. Second Sight. 1999. Directed by Charles Beeson. Not a film, but rather a Mystery miniseries starring my boyfriend Clive Owen as a detective who is going blind, but trying to hide the fact to protect his job. It veers occasionally into the realm of cheese, but is overall a good story, well acted.

15. Sin City. 2005. Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. Dark with a capital D. A stunning visual adaptation of Miller’s graphic novels, but one that replicates their flaws: simplistic, violent, misogynist, and hyper-fetishized. Rosario Dawson is the only performer who falters. The others are able to bring some dimension to their reductive characters, all the more impressive since the movie was filmed almost entirely in front of a green screen. My boyfriend Clive Owen’s accent is flattened, but not obliterated.