The Z/Web Archive

Movie: The Taking of Pelham 123

Incredibly disappointing. I remember I liked the original, and while this one had good performances from Denzel and Travolta, the film itself is awkward and weak. There's excessive bad language used for no real purpose, and the plot goes nowhere. The idea of taking hostages on a subway train seems odd, since you'd be trapped in a tunnel, so I kept expecting some brilliance out of the bad guys, a twist at the end revealing their clever plan. Nope. They all just get shot in the end. Lame. Most critical for me, I found myself completely baffled by Travolta's bad guy character: he made no sense and I felt I understood him less at the end than at the beginning.

Movie: Fly Me to the Moon

Uninspired animated film about young houseflies that stowaway on the original Apollo moon mission. While there are occasional -- and rare -- moments of decency, for the most part this is dull and witless, with really tired jokes and fly puns. It seems aimed at really young kids (i.e. five and under) but some of the jokes are tasteless and above such an audience. Very strange. It's almost saved by the art, which is mostly well done (love the historical NASA footage), but I found the fly characters to be absurdly human-looking; they didn't look like anything like flies (a warning I should have taken right from the first scene where one of the flies tells the audience that they are flies). While I liked the premise, it was so badly executed (complete with silly Russian spy flies), you definitely won't be missing anything if you miss this one.

Movie: Astro Boy

I like animated films and this one seemed interesting, but the trailer blew it for me with one scene that showed machine guns popping out of the robot boy's butt. That was so ridiculous and inappropriate that it turned me off and I skipped it, assuming the whole film would be such cheap humor. It turns out, it's actually a pretty good film. That single scene is really the only crass note in the thing. Though the plot's a little forced and simplistic (evil is red, good is blue), it's an interesting tale of a scientist who recreates his dead son in robot form. The boy doesn't even realize he's a robot but soon discovers he has rocket feet and can fly and he has super-strength. A big part of the story is the clash between classes, as the privileged live in a floating city above the ruined world with robots to do their bidding, while the people on the ground are poor and struggling. There's also an interesting side plot dealing with robot rights. The film is clearly for kids as the moral lessons are see-through thin, but I did like the ending a lot, where the boy gets saved because he saved a life earlier in the film (his goodness comes back to reward him in the end). I also really liked how the father-scientist role was not completely stereotypical and didn't just magically reform after his son died, but kept some of evilness and began struggling with his conscience. The film's a bit dark at times -- interesting for kid fare -- with the death of the human boy and robots killing each other for sport and the amusement of humans. Above average. I just wish that butt-gun thing had been left out. It was lame and completely out-of-character with the rest of the film.

Movie: Unknown

This film has a gimmicky concept: after an accident while in Europe a guy's wife no longer recognizes him and another man claims to be him. The injured man is bewildered: is he losing his mind? But he has no ID or way to prove he is who he claims while the impostor has a password, family photos, and more. It's a little bit Bourne Identity and with Liam Neeson in the starring role, a lot of Taken. The beginning is poorly written, with weak dialog and nonsensical events. Often the dialog will telegraph the reaction (for instance, a character might ask a leading question that sets up the answer, something not done in real life when one doesn't know the answer). But the mystery is compelling enough to keep our interest, though sluggish at first, and later when the action starts, it's quite good. It's inconsistent, however, as though it isn't sure if it's an action film or psychological thriller. The "twist" at the end is surprisingly good, though I wasn't that impressed by how well it was handled. It comes across as forced, heavy-handed. In the end I was slightly disappointed thinking "This could have been really good," but then I was also thinking, "This isn't as bad as some might think." It's therefore not a great film, but it rises slightly above the paint-by-numbers routine you might be expecting for such derivative material. Fun.

Book: Galapagos
Writer(s): Kurt Vonnegut

This is a fascinating book on several levels. The main one is how it is written: the narrator is writing from a million years in the future as he has watched mankind's evolution from "big brained" creatures into simple-minded otters. The joke is that this is a huge improvement, because instead of using our big brains to steal and cheat and invent atom bombs, we evolve into simple creatures with simple needs and everyone's the better for it. Kurt does a number of unusual things from a writing perspective, including foreshadowing which characters will soon die by putting an asterix next to their names. These techniques make the first half of the book amazing, as we follow a motley crew of people and catch glimmers of how they are the future of the human race without knowing exactly how that will happen. Unfortunately, this technique fails in the later part of the book where we already know what's going to happen and the denouement is boring and feels like it goes on forever. The early parts of the novel are brilliant, however, and more than make up for the weaker conclusion. I love Kurt's wit and sarcasm, especially the way he mocks how our "big brains" get us into trouble. The plot is also terrific, as we learn the remarkable way an unusual set of people end up stranded on the Galapagos Islands and become the future of the human race. It's fun and fascinating, and highly recommended.

Movie: Micmacs
Writer(s): Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Jeunet is one of my favorite directors of all time and he doesn't miss a beat in this film, which is an ingenious delight from start to finish. The entire story is basically an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine, as tiny, seemingly insignificant things, lead to major events. Our hero's father is killed by war when he's a child and years later the orphaned man is accidentally shot in the head by a stray bullet. The doctors have to leave the bullet in his head as it's too dangerous to remove it, and he ends up jobless and homeless. He falls in with a quirky band of fellow homeless folk who live in a wonderful junk yard where one of them fashions marvelous machines and automatons from the wreckage. Other crazy characters include a former world record holder as a the human cannonball, "Calculator," a girl who can at a glance tell you the size, weight, measurements, and distance of anything (her father was a surveyor and her mother a seamstress), a woman contortionist, and more. One day our hero comes across the two rival arms dealers who built the weapons that killed his father and injured himself and he decides to embark and complex plot to pit them against each other so they destroy themselves. All his friends help in marvelous ways, from the contortionist who is delivered past security inside a box to Calculator, who assists them calculating trajectories. As usual with Jeunet, the film is basically a series of sight gags -- illusions and tricks and clever camera angles. He tops himself in this one, with hilarious bits such as background advertising billboards that match the scene we're watching (winking self-promotion) and an explosion that's so powerful it blows the clothing off a swimsuit model on a calendar. One of my favorite scenes involves a minor fantasy when our hero's stuck in traffic outside a soccer game: he imagines the game's commentators mentioning the "new rule" adopted whereby there's a land mine hidden on the field somewhere, a ploy to add spice to the match. Sure enough, one of the players suddenly blows up! Priceless. Another terrific moment is when our hero has an "ah ha" moment and we hear the swelling orchestral music and as the camera pans we suddenly see a real-life orchestra playing behind him! Wonderfully meta! Though the story gets a little overly complicated and involved, it concludes the way we want, with justice served on the evil arms dealers, but the point of this film isn't the destination but the journey. Every scene is a visual treat, and the performances are fantastic. Quirky, odd, and utterly endearing, this is a film I could watch over and over. Don't miss this French masterpiece.

Movie: Bad Lieutenant (1992)

This was not what I expected. I'd heard it was brutal and outrageous, and the corrupt cop who gambles, sniffs cocaine and shoots heroin, steals from crooks, and abuses his authority didn't surprise me. But I hadn't expected this to be about such an awful man having a pang of conscience over his crimes. When a nun is brutally raped, she claims to have forgiven the rapists. He even overhears that she knew who they were (kids from the Catholic school) but she refuses to tell on them. Our "bad lieutenant" can't fathom this as it goes against his every corrupt instinct and it torments him. Harvey Keitel is flawless in the awful role, utterly believable and disgusting, and to see him moaning and screaming in a spiritual quandary is amazing. The ending is surprising and makes you think. It's a surprisingly cerebral film, though it depends too heavily on the shock value of a ultra-corrupt cop. It's not a pleasant film at all, and the story, such as it is, is convoluted and rambling and confusing (the baseball betting left me baffled, as I don't follow the sport and I never did figure out which team he was betting on and if they ultimately won or lost), but it's worth seeing just for Keitel's performance.

Movie: The Order
Writer(s): Brian Helgeland
Director(s): Brian Helgeland

I remember when this came out I had thought about seeing it until I heard the horrible reviews and it disappeared from theaters quickly. Now that star Heath Ledger is dead and getting acting accolades it seemed a good time to check it out. It's a strange film. It feels incomplete, as though this was a rough draft. It's got a shockingly talented cast and crew (it was written and directed by Brian Helgeland, the Oscar-winning writer of LA Confidental), but it's haphazardly put together with inconsistent performances and structure. It's actually not that bad of a concept: a "sin eater" absorbs the sins of another, giving them redemption, but lives an immortal life of purgatory filled with the guilt of others' crimes. Such a person is very much opposed by the Church, who regard his actions as sacrilegious. Heath's character is a priest following up the death of his mentor and is offered the chance to become the next sin eater. He'd have power and immortality. He chooses love instead, and then is cruelly tricked into accepting the role. The moral questions surrounding this issue are interesting, but they aren't explored. The film is filled with so much mumbo-jumbo and cheesy special effects, and the simple plot is presented in such a confusing backwards manner -- apparently meant to be more of a mystery -- that it is utterly disinteresting. Worse, we never really meet or understand the main characters, so we care nothing about what happens to them. The misleading title doesn't help either (I was expecting more of a religious conspiracy theory along the lines of The Davinci Code). Ultimately, this is an idea that had potential, but it was ineptly handled in every manner, from script to directing to performing, and it's a disappointment throughout.

Movie: King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

I'd been wanting to see this documentary since I first heard about it, but by the time it was actually available, it had dropped off my radar. I discovered it on Netflix streaming and watched it. It's a fascinating story about setting the all-time scoring record in the Donkey Kong videogame, but the structure's awkward as it doesn't follow a traditional storyline. (That's because it's real life, but it seems like something that could be fixed in editing.) I don't want to spoil the story, but let's just say that it's difficult to see who the heros and villains are, making for uncomfortable viewing as we aren't sure who to root for and against, and the story's ups and downs often left me frustrated because I couldn't see where we were going (there's no important foreshadowing like in a fictional tale that prepares us for bad news). It also ultimately felt a little empty, without any moral or conclusion. It could be that is the point -- that people who spent zillions of hours mastering an ancient videogame are engaged in a pointless endeavor -- but I wanted at least a hint of something more. All that said, I'm a huge fan of Donkey Kong and that alone makes me love this film. Donkey Kong was the first videogame I ever played (I'm showing my age). I still have vivid memories of my eighth grade year when I walked to school every morning and stopped by the 7-11 on the way and spent my lunch money on Donkey Kong (yes, DK was more important than food). When I first started playing I could go through my $1.25 in quarters in fifteen minutes, but eventually I risked being late to school because one quarter would last me thirty minutes or more. (I'd play again on the way home from school, too, and then I didn't have quite such a deadline.) While I never achieved anything close to the scores of the phenoms in this film, Donkey Kong is still the one videogame I did the best at (I never had enough time for videogames after those halcyon days): I used to get groups of admirers watching me play as I was way better than most. (I once made it to the third pie factory, if that tells you anything.) This film resurrected a lot of memories. The endings is a little unsatisfying, but that's mostly because it takes textual explanation at the closing credits to really conclude things (I would have much preferred that to be filmed as part of the story). But it's definitely worth seeing, and if you're a fan of classic videogames like Donkey Kong, it's a must-see.

Movie: Cashback

Strange title, but a neat quirky British film about a young artist who's so devastated when his girlfriend breaks up with him that he goes weeks without sleeping. To occupy his time, he takes a job on the night shift at a supermarket. There he meets a bunch of strange fellow losers who each have ways to make the time go by while doing as little work as possible. He discovers his method is to stop time. He puts the world on pause and while everyone is frozen, he can use the time to draw pictures of any pretty female shoppers. I liked the way the film toys with the line of whether he's really freezing time or if it's just in his imagination (a question never really answered and truly, it doesn't really matter since the effects are the same either way). As an artist, his privilege is to see beauty everywhere, and he falls for a homely clerk who gradually becomes beautiful to us as well. There's not a huge amount of plot -- the love story of the two is simple enough -- and the main appeal is the young man's genuine personality and the fantasy of being able to stop time. I liked it.

Movie: The Mechanic (1972)

This is the 1972 original film (watched via Netflix streaming -- yeah!) and it is astonishing how much better it is than the remake. I don't get the point of redoing a film if you're not going to make it better in at least one perspective. I was surprised at how closely the new film follows this one in many regards: some of the best parts of the new one are straight from the old one (e.g. cassette/phonograph playing classical music while studying hidden wall of assassination details). But the real problem is that every time they change something, they change it for the worse. For example, in this film the training of the apprentice hit man is more involved and feels more realistic and natural. The new one has the apprentice going out for his first solo within minutes. The whole "agree to train" aspect of the relationship is far better in the old one as well. In the new one, the hit man knew his old friend's kid. In this one, they were strangers who met shortly before the father's death. The funeral scene is almost identical, but I really liked the way the hit man sees the potential in the young man, when the kid's girlfriend threatens to kill herself and he watches passively as she slits her wrist and waits to die. That shows the kid's heartlessness. In the new film, the kid wants to go after the carjackers who supposedly killed his dad, but since he hated his dad, that motivation feels misplaced and artificial. The actual killings in this film are also much better, more realistic and interesting, and I liked the exoticness of a trip to Italy for a big job, though I wasn't crazy about the gangland-style shootout -- it didn't feel like the intellectual hit man's style. This film had more philosophical musings, which I liked, and the new one should have had even more of that, instead of less. Here we see more of a glimpse of the hit man's guilt (sadly missing from the remake), and I liked the way they handled the ending far better in this one (the young man's greedy motivation is far more believable than revenge). After seeing this one, I recommend it over the remake wholeheartedly.