Tom's Media Roundup, Part one:

I thought I'd take a tip from Robert Fiore's piece in the latest (#275) Comics Journal and do a bit where I touch on most of the stuff that I've seen since last November and give you a short(ish) bit on each of them. Obviously, I've had a lot more stuff floating through my perception than this, but this list is pretty indicative of what I've been up to recently...

Movies-

X-Men 3: -Consider the plight of the poor movie studio doing an adaptation of a comic-book franchise. On one hand, they have to keep the fans of the original series happy, or at least not displease them. On the other hand, they've only got ninety minutes or so to tell a story, so for a large cast of characters, (like x-men) some of the primary characters get what amounts to a cameo appearance. A lot's been made about Brent Ratner taking over Bryan Singer on the directing chores, mostly bad. However, I don't think anyone could've made a good movie out of this franchise anymore, to be honest.

A 'cure' for the mutant gene is discovered, Magneto(Ian McKellar) calls up an army of mutants to storm the lab where the 'cure'(a little boy whose proximity turns mutants normal), and it's up to the x-men sans Dr. Xavier(Patrick Stewart) to save the day. As I said, they're stuck trying to shoehorn too many subplots into the movie, and it just becomes a drudge to sit through. It looks like it's going to be the last in the series, fortunately. Here's the odd thing: It's come pretty close to breaking some box-office records. I'd like to attribute that mostly to it's being released on the Memorial day weekend, but I suspect a lot of that is momentum from the first two movies. Studios, do me a favor- please stop digitally removing the wrinkles of older characters in flashback sequences. Made McKellar and Stewart look like embalmed corpses; creepy and distracting...

War of the Worlds -not too bad, considering that it's a foregone conclusion how it's going to end. (The Martians get the cold, don't have Sudafed, Deux ex Machina strikes again) What's notable is how Spielberg keeps all the big FX in the background, pumping up the sense of dread. I suppose you could view a subtext about how it's a metaphor for helplessness in the face of the New Terrorism, or the impotence of the left in facing the Republican Hordes, but I choose to see it as a straightforward thriller. Not really a counterpoint to "close encounters" as some suggested, (It's not really among Spielberg's best) but quite watchable. If you dislike Tom Cruise, like me, it's fun to watch him get knocked about. He's kind of a Mel Gibson-lite.
Cruise feels making his character suffer (Eyes Wide Shut, Minority Report, the new MI:3) makes him a 'deeper actor', but he's not fooling any one...

Munich- Manages to get that 'John LeCarre' feel of a heavy 70's thriller directed by Sidney Pollack. Spielberg reins in the melodrama he showed in 'Schindler's list'(except for that pointless sex scene near the end. What? Why?) He keeps the story moving at a brisk pace, and unlike X-Men 3, the characters get enough screen time to put themselves in your head without confusing you. Tony Kushner and Eric Roth's script is articulate and even-handed.

It puts us in a time when it was not unreasonable to believe that 'an eye for an eye' was an acceptable solution to combating terrorism. You can look at the Golda Meir regime now and think, aww. How naive; They think they can stay on top of it. About the only thing you can do now is realize that the instant terrorism is at its most effective, it becomes least effective. I doubt we're going to see anything like 9/11 again, but (especially in the west) we're going to have to accept that the world is a lot smaller than we think, and we haven't even begun to see the fallout from George the Younger's folly into Iraq...

Capote- A confident first film from Bennet Miller. I was surprised to see his previous effort was a slight documentary and had assumed he was stuck in television all this time. It helps that he's got Philip Seymour Hoffman on board, Hoffman's Oscar was a given. You can see why Capote was such a presence in the intelligentsia of the 60's-he wins over the taciturn Midwestern inhabitants of the town where the murders were committed (an accompanying documentary has Capote claiming after a couple of weeks, 'they wanted to make me
Mayor!)-while charming William Shawn, New Yorker editor into turning his proposed magazine series into a genre-changing 'non-fiction' novel. The price he pays, however, essentially destroys his subsequent writing career. (In the mid-70's, parts of his unfinished novel, Answered Prayers, came out in the New Yorker, and the thinly-veiled back-stabbing caricatures of his colleagues finished him. He drank himself to death later on.)

I've now got 'Breakfast at Tiffany's' and 'In Cold Blood' on order at Amazon.

Crash- I haven't seen 'Brokeback Mountain', and I don't know if I ever will-I'm not a homophobe, mind you, I just get the impression that the whole movie is a turgid downer. That having been said, I think it should've got the Oscar over Crash by default. When insulated Hollywood types make preachy- 'love good, racism bad' tripe like this, I just wanna smack 'em in the head. A bunch of stock characters gallivant around Los Angeles, Paul Figgis hits you over the head with his pat moralizing just like in 'million dollar baby', and I die a little inside.

A History of Violence- Cronenburg seems to be letting up on repressing his lead characters a bit, and it's not as unsettling as I'd expected. However, (and this might be telling you more about me as a person than I should) isn't the movie being a little hard on the Tom/Joey character? He doesn't take any pride (even a craftsmans' pride) in the killings, and he's put in a kill or be killed situation against truly reprehensible people every time. I suspect Cronenburg was asking us, 'is Joey or Tom the real person? Which is the made-up persona, and who's the real man? There's a dream motif running through the whole movie. (note the short order
cook's tale about his first wife stabbing him in her sleep) I did like it, but maybe Cronenburg's forgotten that violence in a narrative can be a catharsis. (I didn't feel any disgust at any of Tom/Joey's actions, and even his son's kicking the high school bully in the nuts seemed perfectly acceptable. Like I said, maybe I'm the one with the problem...)

Hostel- Standard gross-out grind-house fare from Eli Roth. I wasn't offended by this, mainly'cause I know what I'm getting into in this type of exploitation thriller. For what it's worth, Roth refrains from the type of misogyny you usually find in these movies. (A little gratuitous nudity never hurt anyone,though) If there's a 'how-to' manual on making this type of movie, Roth's copy must be pretty worn-through. Quentin Tarantino's the executive producer and he's responsible for the only real surprises in the movie. (the hero turns out to be the smug jock and not the nerdy writer wanna-be, the 'bad guy's' get their comeuppance in satisfying ways)

The thing I don't get is Roth's and Tarantino's reverence for this genre. If you were to babble to the original makers of this type of stuff how 'groundbreaking' and 'exciting' their 'oveure' was, they'd try and sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. This stuff is art in reverse. Still, I look forward to Eli Roth's next one. (Hostel 2)I'm a sucker for this stuff...

Howl's Moving Castle- It's a tribute to Studio Ghibli's high standard of craftmanship that the worst movie I've seen come out of their studio is still heads and shoulders above anything by Dreamworks. It loses it's narrative about a third of the way in, so by the time the scarecrow turns out to be the missing prince who can avert the war, you feel relieved that the movie's over, and kinda ripped off by the sloppy resolution. Also, can we please stop using B and C-level movie stars for voice overs? It's really distracting-moreso in this movie than others. (Hey, isn't that the American Psycho/Batman guy? and is that.. Billy Crystal? Huh.)

Layer Cake- speaking of following the 'how-to' manual comes Matthew Vaughn's debut. He was Guy Ritchie's producer on his first two films and he's got the 'bri-ish gangstaw' sub-genre down pat. Colorful characters? Check. Twists out of left field? Check. A lead digging himself in deeper the more he tries to extricate himself from a situation he was thrown into? Check-a-roonie. No surprises here, though after this movie, I'm looking forward to Daniel Craig's turn as the new James Bond. Don't get me wrong, I quite enjoyed myself. (like in Hostel, it's the type of movie where I know where it's going, but I'm enjoying the ride) Also, is Dexter Fletcher required by law to appear in all these type of movies? Couldn't they get Ewan Bremmer?

The Constant Gardner- Understated piece by Fernando Meirelles. Well, duh. Understatement is Meirelles' stock in trade, isn't it? The best part is Finnes' title character rediscovering his late wife through investigating her suspicious death. It's like a morbid honeymoon. Unlike every other 'fight-the-powers-that-be' plot, the characters show doubt, unease, and almost (but not quite) give up on their quests. When we (and Ralph Finnes) first meet his wife (Rachel Weisz), she's berating his party's callousness (he's a minor foreign minister giving a lecture at a polytechical institute), then realizing she's making an ass of herself. It's a moving
moment, and Finnes' attempt to comfort her after her outburst lets us understand why this gentle man (and us) loves this firebrand.

It's funny, but by keeping his point of view as dispassionate as possible (in both this and City of God), Meirelles is making some of the most emotional work I've ever seen. (I'm not sure, but I think he's a fan of Jean Renoir.) The callous testing of unproven drugs in third-world countries (still going on, by the way) hits you like a thud in the gut when you see it's effects. Once we see what's at stake for activists in the third world, even a libertarian-leaner like me can't help but be moved. Only one complaint (and I really have to stretch for this one)-the condescending British Lord getting his comeuppance at Weisz' memorial service. It seemed a little too neat, I guess we needed it for some closure.

Now if I could track down Meirelles' TV series, 'City of Men'...

Jarhead-The only Sam Mendes film I've liked so far. I don't know if it works as a parallel to the current situation in Iraq. The lead trains and trains to become an elite sniper, and his only chance to actually do his job and kill an enemy officer is thwarted by a low-level Marine officer. It's hard to do a movie where the enemy is boredom, not the Iraqi Republican Guards (dunno if you remember, but in the beginning of the Kuwait conflict, the Republican Guard was sold to the American public as an awesome fighting force of death. Turns out they surrendered as quickly to the Americans as the lowest Iraqi Army conscript. Oh well..) Mendes could've gone
for the same black humor as Altman's "M.A.S.H", but in the end, we (and Jake Gyllenhaal's character) come away with "meh."

Part two coming soon...