2006 Viewing
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Starsky and Hutch on FX (December) -- Meh. If I had known the original series
better (that inspired this big-screen remake), I might have found this movie
funnier. I like Ben Stiller's parodies, but this movie seems too tame to be either
a parody or a comedy, really. There are some grin-inducing moments, and
there are lots of nods to the '70s throughout (the costume, hair, set, and props
designers must have had a blast raiding thrift stores). Sadly, the best
performance might be that of a non-actor: Snoop Dogg (as Huggy
Bear)--although Jason Bateman is not to be overlooked. I recommend the
movie to lovers of the TV series, but it just doesn't stand on its own as a movie
for viewers without all the "insider" knowledge of the original.
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The Rules of Attraction on IFC (November) -- "Nobody knows anyone else ever."
These words of wisdom, bitterly slung by one aimless character at another,
encapsulate the spirit of the movie. It's about college students with no hopes
for their university careers or lives thereafter, with no meaningful romantic
relationships or social interactions, with misplaced priorities and stereotypical
vices (drugs, alcohol, sex, violence), and with cynicism and angst as modes of
living. It's the movie version of a Bret Easton Ellis novel--which, if you know
anything about the author, should tell you a lot about the movie. So I found
little about the characters or how they deal with their lots in life to draw me in.
However, the manner in which the movie tells their stories is interesting. The
movie opens at the event that also ends the movie, setting us up for a
let's-back-up-and-show-you-how-we-got-to-this-point approach used throughout
the movie. There's some very interesting camera work used, too--especially a
split-screen dialogue scene that resolves into a . . . well, it's too complicated to
explain, but quite interesting to watch. I was drawn into the movie not by the
characters but by the storytelling approach of the movie makers.
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Hairspray on TCM (November) -- Yet another John Waters, this one undoubtedly
the most accessible of the three I've seen recently [read below]. An
overweight Ricki Lake plays Tracy Turnblad, a teen who catapults to fame (well,
amongst Baltimore teens) by demonstrating her dancing prowess on a local
teen dance show. She's also instrumental in the movement to integrate the
dance show (this is a segregated Baltimore in the early '60s), so racism is a
major player in the plot, too. All this sparks jealousy, outrage, and revenge in
the heretofore unchallenged dance queen, a slender blonde whose popularity
satisfies her parents' desires. Divine is considerably subtler in this movie and is
matched well by Jerry Stiller as her husband. Debbie Harry, Sonny Bono, Ric
Ocasek, Ruth Brown, and Pia Zadora also appear in the movie. It makes me all
the more interested to see the musical version that hit Broadway a couple
years ago, as well as the upcoming movie version (a movie based on a musical
based on a movie!) starring John Travolta as Tracy's mother!
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All About My Mother on IFC (November) -- If you've seen the classic movie All
About Eve, you will have a hint about this movie, but only a hint. It's promotional
material advertises the movie thus: "Manuela goes to Barcelona in search of
Lola, her son's father. The search for a man with that name cannot be simple.
And indeed it isn't." It's complicated but compelling, and beautifully laid out.
There are many layers to the story, all of which seem to connect to the central
idea of the capacity of women to act: on stage, to the public, with their loved
ones, with one another. The main character, Manuela, is appealing and
sympathetic (and, evidently, an incidental character from a previous Pedro
Almodovar movie whose story he fleshed out to become this movie), as are the
other characters, frankly, even though they all do plenty things to make one
think less of them. But they're human, and they're acting for reasons that seem
important to them. Ultimately, though, they all make connections that last
despite (because of?) their acting.
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High School Musical on Disney Channel (November) -- The Disney movie that
has become a national sensation (and, now, a touring production) enchanted
our children when they first watched it on TV, but Susan and I somehow never
got around to watching it until now. We DVRed it and watched it with the girls to
see just what was the big deal. I was cynical from the start, noting how
hopelessly cheerful and innocent the high school-aged characters were and
how unlikely the plot was. But, come on: it's a musical, an art form that relies on
the willing suspension of disbelief (who really lives in a world in which people
spontaneously break into fully orchestrated songs and choreographed dance
numbers with whoever else happens to be nearby?). Looking at it from my
daughters' eyes, it's a fun experience. The characters really are typical high
schoolers in that they judge others by what groups they belong to/activities
they participate in, and in that they want their social order maintained (i.e.,
basketball players do not audition for musicals; theatre kids do not participate in
science club). There is romance, comedy, a little bit of drama, and a satisfying
ending. There are lessons learned, too--by the kids themselves (and, thus, the
kids in the viewing audience) and by the adults who play a part in keeping the
separation of spheres in the high school alive. And the title itself is clever; the
events surround the auditions for a high school musical ("musicale," as the
quirky director calls it), but the movie itself is a musical, too, about high school.
The characters break into song and dance to express their feelings about high
school life. I think I can see why it has been such a hit.
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Y Tu Mama Tambien on IFC (November) -- Two spoiled, lazy Mexican teens take
an unhappily married woman on a road trip to the ocean. Their adventures
include alcohol, drugs, sex, and confessions and experiments that ultimately
tear their friendship apart. The movie's style is interesting, and there seems to
be a bigger message than just, "Behave as teenagers, because a carefree
lifestyle will hurt you in the end." There are parallels and juxtapositions with
Mexican political and social events. I was eager to see it after having heard
good things about it. It was good exercise for my eyes as I moved rapidly back
and forth from the subtitles to the images throughout the entire movie!
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But I'm a Cheerleader on IFC (November) -- A teenager thinks she's living a happy
life as a stereotypical pretty cheerleader with a cute athletic boyfriend and
upcoming cheerleader meetings to plan for the "big game." That is, until she
comes home one day to an intervention; her friends and family thinks she's
gay, and they're sending her to a "rehabilitation camp" to "turn her straight."
Cathy Moriarty is funny as the strict headmistress of the camp, pressing
everyone to confess his/her homosexuality and drilling them in their proper
gender roles (girls learn to scrub the floor and change diapers, boys learn to
change the oil on the car and play football). Eddie Cibrian is queeny as her
muscular son whose latent tendencies drive her nuts (e.g., she yells at him for
sipping his juice through a straw rather than chugging it like a man). The other
actors are fine, but the characters are too broad and the stereotypes too
obvious. Toward the movie's end, I was fast forwarding large chunks and
wondering what the movie makers' overall purpose was.
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Polyester on IFC (November) -- Another John Waters film, this one considerably
more watchable . . . but still laughable. Drag queen Divine plays a suburban
housewife who is much put upon by life. Her adulterous husband shocks her
morality and scandalizes the town by running a porn movie theater, her mother
is a judgmental shrew, her daughter is an unabashed whore, and her son is a
sociopathic drug user who stomps women's feet for pleasure (his, not theirs).
Even the encouragement of her mildly retarded, overweight, orthodontically
challenged, filthy rich friend isn't enough to keep her from descending into
alcoholism after her husband and children abandon her. And just as things are
starting to look up for toward the movie's end, she is betrayed again. What's
the message about mid-20th century suburban life? about domestic life in
America? about polyester in general? Who knows. It's another exercise in
making movie viewers uncomfortable, although the discomfort comes mainly
over the poor acting and storytelling and not over the jarring images and
situations.
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Female Trouble on IFC (October) -- Wow, is this movie bad. I DVRed it because it
was a John Waters film I hadn't seen, so I thought I'd try it out. The acting, the
technical aspects, the writing--all are so unfathomably bad that, to enjoy this
movie, one has to be a lover of cult classics, a student of John Waters' oeuvre,
or a masochist. Or maybe some of each. Its characters have no redeeming
values whatsoever and resemble no plausible people on this planet, nor do they
experience events that any viewer is likely to connect with or learn from. Okay,
so it's unrealistic. Is it compelling? No. Is it funny? No. Is it
thought-provoking? No, it's repellent. However, John Waters' goal in his
movies was to shock and inspire discomfort and, in so doing, cause the viewer
to react and feel. Meh. This one is laughable. (But it's not stopping me from
DVRing some other Waters films . . .)
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Barnyard in theaters (August) -- Part of our celebration of Abigail's 7th birthday
was a family viewing of this movie, about which I really knew nothing before
going to it. It was pretty cute! The premise is that barnyard animals are
bipedal party animals whenever humans aren't looking. Ben is the responsible
cow who keeps watch over the barnyard (on the lookout for the carnivorous
coyotes) while everyone else has fun, including his adopted son Otis, the teen
cow who resists Ben's efforts to groom Otis to take over his "watchcow" duties.
There are lots of visual and verbal puns and lots of silliness, including a scene in
which a delinquent boy delights in going "cow tipping," only to become a victim
himself of "kid tipping" when the cows hotwire a car and seek revenge. There is
also tragedy and scariness and, in the end, love, triumph, and important life
lessons learned. The girls REALLY enjoyed it, and so did Susan and I.
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Atlantis: The Lost Empire on VHS (July) -- My daughters checked this video out
from the public library and invited me to watch it with them. I was struck by the
great effects--a Disney animated feature that feels like a live-action one with
great camera angles and special effects. There are WAY too many supporting
characters for any of them to get adequate screen time, however. Otherwise, it
was fun to imagine the lost world of Atlantis and to "get into" this movie's
mythology. It was especially fun to do it alongside my daughters and to see it
from their perspective (e.g., what's merely action to me is "a scary part" to
them).
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Superman Returns in theaters (June) -- I have vague recollections of having seen
the Christopher Reeve movies, and it seems to me that this one is pretty true to
the franchise--right down to the font used for the opening credits! Susan's dad
agreed to watch the girls while she and I went to the movie, which I wanted to
see mostly because of its being a super hero movie, not because of my being a
Superman fan in particular. It was good. The special effects are really good,
especially in comparison to the original movies (I'm thinking of how realistic
Superman's flying looks this time around). I like the acting, too. Kevin Spacey
makes a good Lex Luthor, and Parker Posey is appropriate for her role,
although it's the same one she seems always to play in every movie. I also like
Brandon Routh as Clark/Superman.
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X-Men III: The Last Stand in theaters (June) -- My wife and I joined several of our
friends for a child-free night at the movies and out for a drink and appetizers
afterward. We had seen the first two movies in this franchise, so I was able to
understand where this one picks up with the overall plot and the characters'
situations. I never read the X-Men comics, so I'm not familiar with the
"mythology" except as I know it from the previous movies. No matter--I enjoy
meeting new mutants (well, new to me) in each movie, and this one was no
exception. One of the saddest things I've ever seen in a movie was the scene
in which a young boy, ashamed of his being a mutant, hides in the bathroom
from his dad and tries to saw off the feathered wings growing from his back.
My wife liked the movie, too, but mainly because of its featuring Hugh Jackman!
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Over the Hedge in theaters (June) -- As a last-day-of-school treat, Susan and I
took the girls to a matinee of this very funny Dreamworks film about a group of
animals who wake up from hibernation to find their chunk of nature surrounded
by a newly sprung-up housing development. Though their traditional sources of
food are now limited, they discover an abundance of food in the homes that
have encroached on their land. Soon it's a battle between the animals, who try
to sneak food and supplies from the humans, and the humans, who want to rid
their neighborhood of these pests. Things are complicated by the fact that one
of the animals is withholding his real reason for pressuring the others into
stealing from the humans and by the increasingly intense efforts of two humans
in particular to eradicate the animals. A cute variety of characters, serious
messages beneath the adventures on the surface, tense moments, comic
moments, great voice work by famous actors--a great afternoon in the movie
theater.
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The Big Lebowski on DVD (March) -- A student loaned me this DVD, which I have
had for a long, long time and finally got around to watching this weekend with
Susan. It's an odd movie with many humorous moments but ultimately nothing
to latch onto. All the characters are really just "characters" and not people;
they're defined entirely by their quirks, not by any realistic qualities with which
a viewer might connect. Thus, I don't care about their dilemmas or whether
they achieve their goals. I cannot invest in them emotionally because they're
too cartoonish. That said, I enjoyed some of the comic performance choices
made by John Goodman and Jeff Bridges and Philip Seymour Hoffman; and
Julianne Moore was compelling and somehow did manage to make her weird
character seem somewhat realistic. I felt bombarded by the profanity,
though--yet another way in which the movie kept me at a distance. Some might
call that Postmodern, but I just call it a good reason not to have spent any
money renting this DVD.
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Nanny McPhee in theaters (February) -- Awesome! So good that we bought the
Nurse Matilda books upon which the movie is based. Read more about our
viewing experience here.
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