Peebo.net

So it wasn’t until I made that last post about Sunset Blvd. that I realized I’d never posted anything about movies, which is bizarre considering I’m kind of a Movie Geek. I like movies. All kinds of movies. I go to the movies at least once a week—often with a free pass from one of the half dozen film-related organizations that send me newsletters. (I have 161 messages tagged as “film” in my Gmail account–64 of which are unread). I have 144 DVDs in my Netlfix queue. I belong to the San Francisco Film Society. I subscribe to Film Comment magazine. I own books with titles like Film Theory and Criticism, Seeing Through Movies, Celluloid Mavericks, and More than Night: Film Noir and its Contexts (Ok, maybe I haven’t read every word of every book, but I do flip through them now and then with the best of intentions….) Yet somehow I’ve never blogged about movies?

God. I really am like the worst blogger ever…

Anywho, I’ll start rectifying this today. Following are some things I’ve seen recently that seemed blog-worthy.

I’ll use the Film Comment star rating system, because I like the range it provides—especially the “of interest” rating. I don’t like the Netflix rating scheme, for example, because it’s too limiting. It jumps from “liked it” to “didn’t like it” and where does that leave you when trying to rate something like “Alien vs. Predator.” You know it’s no “Citizen Kane” but, well… it’s freakin’ Alien versus Predator! Come on, there’s no denying that is “of interest”–even if it stinks.

= Bomb.
= Mediocre
= Of Interest
= Good
= Very Good
= Excellent

So, without further ado…

The War Within

Dir. Joseph Castelo (2005) - trailer, IMDB

This is story of Hassan, a Pakastani man who illegally enters the United States to join a terrorist cell. The film follows his preparations for a coordinated bomb attack on New York City and explores the relationship between Hassan and the Pakistani-American family he lives with, who do not know he is part of a cell and who have assimilated into American life.

This is the first film I’ve seen that looks at violent Islamic extremism from the point of view of the terrorist. While not a polemic, it does touch upon issues that motivate terrorism and the West’s complicity in fostering an environment conducive to extremism. However, the primary focus is on the personal rather than the political. To cope with a world in which he feels he has no other option, Hassan embraces an ideology, rooted in his own deeply held religious beliefs, and allows this ideology to dictate his actions. The conflict between action motivated by ideological imperative and the very real and painful consequences of those actions, to both the actor and others, is the subject of the film.

The film also provides an honest, even-handed look into the Arab-American community, which is rarely represented in the media in anything other that stereotype. The thought provoking narrative and well-acted characters (if slightly flat—there are character “types” here) make this film worth seeing. Go with friends and talk about it afterwards.

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

Directed by Jane Anderson (2005) - trailer, IMDB

Julianne Moore is Evelyn Ryan, a real-life Ohio housewife who supports an alcoholic husband (Woody Harelson) and ten kids by winning an incredible number of jingle contests in 1950s Ohio.

I saw this movie with a friend and as we left the theatre he said, “that movie was almost terrible,” which just about sums up my impression. The peek into the lost subculture of “contesters” is sort of interesting (who knew such a thing existed?) and Moore’s performance as a saintly and irrepressible housewife is terrific. However, the movie as a whole is a bit schmaltzy. The director also uses some too-cutesy cinematic techniques (Moore directly addressing the camera, “whimsical” imaginary sequences) that I found distracting and annoying. Also the last scene of the movie—a staged reenactment of real events by the real-life Ryan’s family (the movie was based on a Memoir by Ryan’s daughter)—was ridiculous, ill conceived and should have never been filmed. I also suspect the Mother Theresa Mom and the Alcoholic With a Heart of Gold Dad are more characters from the memoirist’s imagination than representations of actual people. (If Julianne Moore wasn’t in this I’d probably give it just one star; she’s great as usual. For a much better film in which she also plays a repressed 1950s housewife see “Far From Heaven”.)

On the other hand, it was sweet, entertaining, had some funny lines and makes you want to send flowers to your Mom. So, if you find yourself visiting relatives over Thanksgiving and need a non-threatening, non-controversial, light, populist entertainment, this might be a good choice.

Domino

Directed by Tony Scott (2005) - trailer, IMDB

A sexy but tough as nails ex-model (Keira Knightley) partners with the father figure she never knew (Micky Rourke) and becomes a kick-ass bounty hunter. A lot of action involving guns, explosions, reality TV, Beverly Hills 90210, armored trucks, Afghanistan, the Mob, and the Los Angeles DMV ensues. The result is a fantastic train-wreck of a movie.

A good hour and a half into this two hour movie, an unnamed character played by Tom Waits appears in the desert driving a convertible Cadillac with an unexplained bandage on his hand as a Tom Waits song plays in the background. He proceeds to ramble like a demented televangelist for several minutes to a group of stranded and wounded accident victims (which include Ian Ziering and Brian Austin Green from Beverly Hills 90210—playing themselves) who are high on mescaline and sitting in front of an overturned RV with skulls mounted on the front window. Everyone then gets into his Cadillac and drives to Las Vegas where Waits disappears never to be seen or mentioned again.

This sequence sums up the mood of the movie as a whole: self-referential, chaotic, ignoring traditional Hollywood storytelling in favor of an internal narrative logic that is both clever and absurd. It is an action movie that is also a parody of an action movie. It is a Hollywood entertainment that is a satire of Hollywood entertainment. It’s fun.

My favorite Tony Scott film is still “True Romance” (with a screenplay by Quentin Tarantino before he was Quentin Tarantino) but “Domino” occupies a solid second place. (Scott has helmed a diverse array of Hollywood vehicles from “The Hunger,” “Top Gun,” and “Beverly Hills Cop II” to “Enemy of the State” and last year’s “Man on Fire.”) Maybe I like this movie because, like “True Romance,” “Domino” is based on a quirky, funny screenplay by a young(ish) Hollywood outsider—thirty year-old Richard Kelley who wrote and directed one of my cult favorites “Donnie Darko.” Or maybe because, like “True Romance,” “Domino” is populated with quirky, funny characters played by a mixture of “hot” young talent (Keira Knightley now, Christian Slater then) and seasoned character actors (Micky Rourke now, Dennis Hopper then, Christopher Walken in both). Or maybe it’s because Keira is hot and you get to see her boobs. Whatever it is, it works for me.

Speaking of the actors, there’s really not a lot of character development for them to explore as almost all of the action is moved forward by Domino’s voiceover narration. The characters and the story played out on screen are just the chalk outlines of real people and places based on an unreliable narrator’s tall tale: Knightly is hot and tough and not much more, which is exactly what she’s supposed to be; Rourke essentially reprises his Chef character from the black-crystal-meth-comedy “Spun” to good effect; and the rest of the cast occupy their cardboard supporting roles in the best tradition of the action genre.

“Domino” is not a great movie nor does it aspire to be one. It is slick, surface entertainment and if you approach it in this way it’s a fun ride.

The 40 Year Old Virgin

Directed by Judd Apatow (2005) - trailer, IMDB

If you haven’t seen this already, just know that it’s a raunchy, foul-mouthed and very funny teenage sex comedy without teenagers. In the DVD shelf in my mind it sits somewhere between “Office Space” and “American Pie.” There’s not much more I wanted to say, but I do want to offer the following advice.

If you’re hanging out at your brother’s office one day and your brother says, “Hey, what should we do with mom and dad tonight?” and you say, “How about a movie?” and then he says, “Sure,” don’t then go through the list of movies online and say, “Hey, what about this Virgin movie?” And then when your brother says, “Do you think it’s too dirty for mom?” don’t think, well, it called the “40 year old Virgin” not the “40 Year Old Sex Fiend” or the “40 Year Old Virgin with a Bunch of Raunchy Pot-smoking Friends with Foul Mouths and a Fascination with Anal Sex Jokes” and then say, “Nah, I think it will be ok.” Then don’t meet your Mom at the movies and buy popcorn and talk to her about her horses before the previews and then, as the lights go down, think, this will be fun, a family night at the movies, we haven’t done this in forever, and then start watching the movie, which begins with a visual boner gag. Don’t laugh but then look nervously over at your Mom–who only says “shit” in a kind of quiet voice when she says it at all and who never says the F-word except for that one time in the 80s when she was REALLY, REALLY mad at your Dad and who thinks the language on network TV is getting “too ugly.” And then don’t look over at her again, when a scene early in the movie begins with four guys sitting around a table playing poker and then one guys says “What’s the filthiest thing you’ve ever done with a woman?” and see your Mom’s still smiling but it’s now more of a “polite smile” and think, Oh crap. And then don’t chuckle uncomfortably as the four guys at the table go on to describe in graphic detail, using very colorful nouns and verbs, the filthiest things they’ve done with a women, which involve all sorts of orifices you’re pretty sure your mom doesn’t really want to hear about. And then, later, don’t kind of hunch down in your seat, avoiding looking at yur Mom at all, thinking, Man, I don’t think I’ve every heard the word “Pussy” mentioned so often in so little time. And then don’t notice that your Mom got up and left and then sit up thinking, Oh Crap and look at your brother who looks like he might be thinking, Oh crap, and then just kind of sit there, glancing over to the empty seat now and then thinking surely she went to the bathroom, she didn’t walk out did she? should I go look for her? no she’ll be back, all the while also thinking crap, crap crap. And then don’t feel relief as you see your Mom come back and sit down and think, whew, it was just a bathroom break but now she’s back and she probably doesn’t think I’m a total perv and then realize she got back just in time for the scene where the naked blond girl masturbates in a bubble bath with a shower head.

Don’t do that.

-peebo

posted by peebo on Wednesday, October 19th, 2005 at 11:45 pm
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