Orginally posted 9 November 1999
Movies: Bringing Out the Dead, Being John Malkovich, Princess Mononoke, The End of the Affair, The Limey
Baseball season is over, and now that the Yankees have smoothly crushed the Red Sox and other hapless opposition, it's time to get serious about deepening the pockets of the idiots who run Hollywood. I kicked off the post-post-season by seeing four movies in five days last week.
On Friday night, my friends Amy and Rama and I went to see Bringing Out the Dead, Martin Scorsese's new movie. Nicolas Cage plays an unbalanced ambulance driver, and he is, as usual, charmingly insane in his role. The movie helps him out with some sharp dialogue and a few scenes that are funny for their bizarreness. But it's not clear that the movie is *supposed* to be humorous, and it lacks a story line or any discernable raison d'etre.
Scorsese generally goes for a hyper-realistic ambience in his films, but Bringing Out the Dead is more surreal than anything--almost like an opera--and this doesn't serve any particular end. In addition, the movie relies tremendously on the audience's willingness to buy into images of New York as an ugly, chaotic ring of hell. Again, this is more cartoonish than real, and it undercuts the potential truth of the characters' struggles.
Scorsese lays down a good sound track for Bringing Out the Dead. But he doesn't do anything he hasn't done before with the music, and I found the effect to be a little anemic this time around. Some cool camera angles and gritty cinematography do not elevate this film to any notable status. On the other hand, one objective fact about Bring Out the Dead is that Nicolas Cage is sexy sexy sexy (even though he plays a pathological alcoholic). So there's that.
Here's how Bringing Out the Dead scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:
*Gender: 4. Patricia Arquette is somewhat better than satisfactory, but her role is pretty minor (not to mention pretty weird).
*Race: 4. Ving Rhames and Cage have some hilarious scenes together, and Rhames wears a nifty wig. But for the most part, junkies, hookers and gang members comprise the movie's black and Latino characters.
*Shoes: 6. I liked the pair of stacked-heel maryjanes Arquette wears in the scenes in which she's wearing a skirt. I would wear shoes like that.
*Dogs: 6. Arquette has an awesome black lab-ish dogger. Fittingly, the dog greets Arquette with furry enthusiasm when she returns to her apartment in one scene. Unaccountably, the dog is not on the bed with Arquette and Cage in another scene. One or two other dogs are seen walking on the street.
*Do things blow up? 1. There's some minor vehicular immolation.
If Bringing Out the Dead were the debut film from a new director, I might be excited by the potential it holds. As the latest flick from an accomplished director who has made some Great Films, I found it mystifying at best. In the final analysis, it seems like Scorsese has been influenced by Tarantino, and this is not a pretty turn of events. Even if you loved Taxi Driver and Reservoir Dogs, you'll find little of interest in Bringing Out the Dead.
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On Saturday night, I went on a date with Darryl, a guy I met at a funeral earlier in the week, and we saw Being John Malkovich. I really liked the preview for this flick, and I was hoping it might be a filmic revelation. No such luck, but it is entertaining.
The movie has an interesting, off-beat premise, and although this isn't carried out in a fully satisfying manner, it's still engaging. The acting in general was quite good, and Malkovich in particular was marvelous. A promising debut from director Spike Jonze.
Here's how Being John Malkovich scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:
*Gender: 5. The male and female characters are all equally fucked up and manipulative.
*Race: 0. I can't remember any non-white characters in the movie.
*Shoes: 3. Catherine Keener wears good shoes, and she has cute toenail polish, too.
*Dogs: 3. Cameron Diaz and John Cusack have a nice, quiet mutt.
*Do things blow up? 0. In a movie like this, there's a good possibility something's gonna blow, but disappointingly, nothing does.
Date-wise,Darryl was amenable to sitting in the fifth row center of the theater, so the evening was pretty much a 10.
Being John Malkovich is like a cross between Brazil, Pulp Fiction and Dangerous Liaisons. If you liked any of those movies, you'll find something to enjoy in Malkovich.
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On Sunday night, my friend Tania and I went to see Princess Mononoke, a Japanese animated film from the master of the genre, Hayao Miyazaki. I had read nothing but reverential, awed profiles of Miyazaki, and I thought Princess Mononoke would be a life-changing event. It was not. But it was amusing, and one of the main characters, an elk, really reminded me of my dog, so this flick was pretty popular with me.
Here's how Princess Mononoke rated on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:
*Gender: 7. Despite its title, this movie is more about the male lead than the female. Nonetheless, and taking into account potential differences in Japanese gender roles, plus translation, there are a large number of female characters in the film, and for the most part, they're quite strong.
*Race: ? This is really tough to evaluate because 1) I couldn't read the cultural race references, were there any; and 2) it was a cartoon. I will say, though, that the evil female human was thinner and had slightly different facial features than the other women in the movie.
*Shoes: 4. Ashitaka, the male lead, wears practical-looking forest slippers. Princess Mononoke wears wolf boots.
*Dogs: 8. There aren't any dogs per se in the film, but three white wolves play a big role, and as I mentioned, there is a Robie-like elk that is one of the best characters in the movie.
*Do things blow up? 5. Yes, some things do blow up. I could have used more unusual disaster sequences, but I'm not sure how thrilling this category can get in animated movie.
All things considered, Princess Mononoke was a lot like a cross between Ran and Bambi. If you have a penchant for Kurosawa or Disney films, you'll find something to like in Princess Mononoke.
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On Tuesday night, I took my neighbor Rich to a press screening of The End of the Affair, a movie directed by Neil Jordan, and starring Julianne Moore, Ralph Fiennes and Stephen Rea. Because the movie is slated for a December 3 release, this is an actual pre-view (!). As you may be guessing, I did not get into the screening based on my credentials as the sole reviewer for Sarah's Movie Opinions. I got into the screening because my cousin who is an editor at a Hearst Website called me in panic on Tuesday and asked me to attend a press junket for the movie on Wednesday in order to get quotes from Moore and Fiennes.
I wasn't that excited about going to the junket at a Park Avenue hotel on Wednesday morning and asking Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore what the best gifts they'd ever received were and what they were planning to do to ring in the New Year. But the Tuesday night screening was being held at the big Sony theater in my neck of the asphalt, and I'd seen a decent-looking preview for it before Being John Malkovich, so I agreed to go.
The beauty of the press screening is manifold. One, you get in for free. Two, the theater is not jammed to the gills with small children, whooping teenagers and ill-behaved adults. Three, it isn't even crowded with press geeks, and you can get a good seat without showing up 45 minutes before the movie starts. On the downside, there are no previews.
There were precious few benefits to the junket, which took up several floors of a hotel near Bloomingdales. I was part of the roundtable interviews--a series of rooms, each with an honest-to-god round table surrounded by members of the press, through which the director and stars were shuttled for 15 minutes of grilling apiece. I was assigned to a print journalists room, and I was the last of 11 reporters to be seated at the table. Everyone else had little tape recorders sitting ostentatiously on the tabletop, but my cousin had assured me I wouldn't need one, so I just whipped out my notebook and my bottled water, and I settled in to wait for Somebody Famous to show up.
While we were waiting, the other journalists murmured among themselves about how Jim Carrey would only be doing a press conference but no roundtables for Man on the Moon--the arrogance! There was also some agreement that The End of the Affair had been passable. Nobody ate any of the fruit or croissants from the table in the corner, and it was warm in the room. After a while, the door opened, and a few well-dressed young people and a scruffy looking guy came in. Several of the reporters said, "Hello, Neil," as the scruffy guy dropped in the only empty chair at the table, and everyone leaned over and placed their tape recorders in front of him, red lights glowing. I astutely deduced that this was Neil Jordan.
Jordan, puffy around the eyes, was wearing a wrinkled green cotton shirt, buttoned askew, and his hair was matted into an interesting wedge. He asked one of his associates for a cappuccino, please, then he smiled at the assembled pack. The woman to my right (the only other female reporter) immediately asked him why he and Stephen Rea had made so many films together (Rea has been in at least half-a-dozen of Jordan's films), and Jordan said in a soft Irish accent that it was only because they were both in Ireland a lot; everyone laughed. Questions about the financing of the film and the moral issues of the story followed. Jordan gave thorough answers, and at one point he got up to serve himself some fruit from the side table. The obligatory "how was it to work with Julianne?" and "what is Ralph like?" questions were posed, and Jordan gave the standard "a director's dream" and "wonderfully professional" answers. The woman next to me pressed for details on Ralph--"What would surprise us about him?"--but Jordan would only allow that Ralph is rather shy.
After about 15 or 20 minutes of Q&A, the door opened and a young woman with a clipboard came in and stood behind Jordan. Jordan finished his sentence, picked up his cappuccino, smiled, thanked everyone and was whisked away, handlers trailing behind. I had not found The End of the Affair to be a particularly successful film, but I did think Jordan was engaging and thoughtful, and I wrote in my notebook that he'd probably be "great to go out to dinner with." After he left, however, the woman next me hissed loudly, "Did anybody else *see* that? He picked up that fruit with his fingers! Do not eat from the fruit platter!" Somebody else noted that Jordan "did not look like the cleanest celebrity" he'd ever seen.
Stephen Rea came in next. In the movie, he plays a dapper cuckhold, and he does a good job of it, looking noble and dismal at the same time. In person, he dressed and acted in an unassuming manner. There was a gap of quiet after he sat down, and one of his handlers asked everyone to introduce themselves. It turned out that my table included reporters from TNT, Entertainment Weekly Online, People, Newhouse Newspapers, the Daily News and various other rags. As soon as the intros ended, our friend of the fruit observation asked Rea why *he* thought Jordan kept using him, and Rea pointed out that he'd been in all of Jordan's most successful films, so he assumed Jordan was afraid *not* to use him. Questions followed about how Rea began acting (he was reluctant to admit that his first role was at age four as the Big Bad Wolf in Little Red Riding Hood) and how he found stage acting versus movie acting (stage acting involves a lot more actual acting, and he likes that). He was pressed for his feelings about Hollywood, and while he was careful with his answers, he seemed to have a very
real perspective on the industry ("people are often more interested in the money than the work"). He could not remember the size of his trailer during the filming of Interview with the Vampire, and he seemed surprised but delighted when the People reporter asked if he realized his hair was very expressive in each of his movies (he hadn't realized, but now that it had been mentioned, it did seem true).
The door to the room opened signaling the end of the interview, and a few reporters handed Rea photos to sign, and then he left. There was a pause, and somebody said, "Thank god he didn't try to eat the fruit." Discussion ensued about how Rea had been a lot more talkative today than during the roundtable for Guinevere. Complaints about the heat and a comparison of tape recorder functions kept everyone engrossed until Julianne Moore showed up.
I just this minute checked the Internet Movie Database and discovered that Moore will turn 38 the day the movie is released. This makes her seven years older than I am, although in person, she looks to be about my age, and she is perky and friendly as a cheerleader. She entered the room with a small entourage, and she was wearing an above-the-knee skirt and black boots and a sweater that she demonstrated had a tear in the neck ("good for ventilation in here"). She sat down all animated hellos and warm smiles. She easily answered questions about working with Rea and Fiennes ("Honestly, Stephen and Ralph are my favorite leading men ever ever ever ever."), and although she played with her hair a lot, she was very thoughtful and articulate in discussing the meaning of the movie and the biblical issues with which it tangles. After some lengthy moral conversation, the guy from People said simply, "You looked very comfortable during the nude scenes." There was just the slightest silence before Moore replied, "Nobody is comfortable doing nude scenes, except maybe Robin Byrd." When Moore had signed photos and was being ushered out, she said, "Thanks, you guys! See you next week at the Map of the World junket!" I was a little sorry I wouldn't be seeing her or her cute knee-high boots again.
After Moore left, the woman next to me tried to adjust the room's thermostat, and while she was up, she picked out a croissant. She squeezed herself back in next to me, tasted the croissant, pronounced it "terrible" and wondered out loud why Moore had been reluctant to answer a question about Map of the World. The Daily News guy responded, "I don't know, but she is *incredibly* freckled. I interviewed her for Boogie Nights, and she is covered in freckles." "Yes, she does have great hair," another reporter concurred.
After a long unscheduled break, Ralph Fiennes was shown into the room. He was wearing burgundy cords, and an ivory broadcloth shirt with the top two buttons undone and a prominent wedding band. He had morning hair, and he looked timid--not at all like the characters he tends to play. Right away, the woman next to me said, "We don't bite. So. Neil said you're very shy. Would you characterize yourself that way?" Fiennes was remarkably polite and said that he was maybe more wary than shy. The lines of questioning focused on his family, his free time, his likes and dislikes. At one point, Fiennes had the opportunity to explain that he would like to discuss the movie and that he was not comfortable with personal questions. There was a respectful pause before somebody asked, "So, is there a lot of competition among you and your siblings?"
Fiennes signed photos and was taken away by a rather severe blonde woman. Our last interview of the morning turned out to be with Stephen Woolley, the producer for The End of the Affair. Before Woolley came in, the guy to my left commented that having the producer in on the roundtables is usually just a lot of "ego-stroking" because nobody *really* wants to interview the producer. Woolley arrived wearing a rumpled black outfit, longish hair and dark sunglasses. He immediately explained that the sunglasses were a mistake--he'd put them on to come over to the hotel and had forgotten to bring along his regular glasses--and then he invited questions. A few reporters took stabs at relevant issues, like the financing of The End of the Affair, before the woman next to me asked whether Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt had truly hated each other throughout the filming of Interview with the Vampire (for which Woolley had been the producer). Woolley explained at length that they had gotten on beautifully. In fact, all of his answers were wonderfully long-winded, saving the us from having to think up many things to discuss with him.
Nobody asked Woolley to sign photos as he left, and afterwards, we were free to disperse. I walked out with a reporter who said, "God, those things really take a chunk out of your soul every time." I can't disagree.
Here's how The End of the Affair scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:
*Gender: 5. Nothing notable in the movie. As for the junket, despite the fact that there's a prominent shot of his ass during the movie, nobody asked Fiennes about his nude scenes.
*Race: 0. Everyone in the movie is a paler shade of white. A few of the people running the junket were Other, and there were two Latino press guys at my roundtable, one of whom was writing for a Spanish-language publication.
*Shoes: 7. Julianne wears some solid pumps in the movie, and in the press packet, Rea compliments the costume designer by saying, "Costumes were extremely important in terms of your bearing...you know, it's the shoes." During the junket, Moore mentioned that she had given Ralph a pair of Birkenstocks as a wrap present--he hadn't known what they were before he saw her wearing them around the set--and that he loves them. Lo and behold, he was wearing them (closed toe, dark brown leather) when he came in for his round of inquisition, and when asked about them he smiled genuinely and said, "They're great!"
*Dogs: 0. The movie might have benefited from a few dogs. The junket definitely would have.
*Do things blow up? 3. The movie takes place during wartime, so one or two things do actually blow. The hotel room where my roundtable was held was unnaturally warm, but none of us exploded as a result.
The End of the Affair was like a cross between the English Patient and something fairly dreary. Unless you can get in for absolutely no dollars, I can't recommend it. And even if you're getting paid, I can't recommend a career in the celebrity-scrutiny business. It wasn't a bad experience, but as Rich said, they don't call them junk-ets for nothing. (And speaking of junk, the production notes for the film, although surprisingly free of typographical errors, contained some of the most nauseating prose I have ever read. "In Brighton--the cast and crew spent a week of location filming at the famous Grand Hotel (where the IRA nearly succeeded in blowing up Prime Minister Thatcher and her entire cabinet in the late 1980s). Several scenes were also shot at the Royal Pavilion, the exotic confection built for the Prince Regent by John Nash and Henry Holland in 1782. The latter event brought the court to Brighton and thus guaranteed the town's escalation from insignificant fishing village to watering hole of the great and the good. As a result, many fine Regency terraces and hotel were built and survive to this day." I kid you not.)
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Other Things I've Seen Lately
In October, I spent a week in Paris with my Aunt Tootsie. As is turns out, Paris is a great city for movies--muy better than New York. French films abound, not to movies from all over Europe and the other continents (including that planet unto itself, Hollywood), and there are revivals aplenty. It would not be a mistake to fly over there for a week just to see a lot of films (if you were to begin feeling nostalgic for the streets of Paris itself, you could go see Funny Face or such like). Movies were not the purpose for our trip to the City of
Lights, but towards the end of the week there, we were getting sick of hearing French all the time, so we went to see Notorious (Les Enchaines) in the version originale--English.
Notorious, a 1946 Hitchcock film-noir spy flick, stars Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman and Claude Rains. It is widely lauded as one of Hitch's best films (Anthony Lane recently wrote in the New Yorker that he would find the world a "bleak and bloodless place" without the presence of Notorious), but I think the film is weak in character development and that the story suffers as a result. Nonetheless, the Paris audience was extremely respectful, and Aunt Tootsie and I, despite both having seen Notorious several times before, enjoyed the hell out of it. Afterwards, there was some debate as to whether or not you get to see any of Bergman's or Grant's shoes during the film. We could not agree on this point (Aunt Tootsie insisting that shoes were frequently glimpsed, me not even remembering a single important shoe moment), and if you have occasion to catch this flick anytime soon, please help us settle this footwear contretemps.
Since returning from Paris, I have managed to see North by Northwest, The Lady Vanishes and The 39 Steps, all on the big screen and all with my friend Matthew.
Naturallement, I recommend all of these films. On the other end of the spectrum is The Limey, Steven Soderbergh's latest, which I saw with Rich and his friend Peter shortly after returning to New York. Not only is the movie a lot weirder than it needs to be, but it may mark the end of the line for using songs by the Who to help define characters. Pete Townsend wrote The Seeker in 1969 when he was 24 years old. It is unseemly to use the song as the theme for a character who is 60+. Moreover, the song isn't played loud enough, and the moviehas few redeeming sandals or explosions. The Limey is sort of like a cross between Quadrophenia and The Player; rent either one for a better story and a more appropriate soundtrack.
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