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Quickie movie reviews 2003,
episode 2: the quickening

2004.10.28 — Entertainment | Movies | Movie Reviews | by Andrew Cole

The Pianist

No. I don't know "Havah Nagilah." [source]

Into April's soft, showery tax time, the film season continued to be flat. The occasional late Oscar contender... the occasional early blockbuster.... But for the most part, spring is the time of drek.

We picked some gems out of the spring mud, starting with the re-release of The Pianist, and then plunged headlong into summer. Here there be monsters, matey....

 

This is part two of a three-part series. You didn't miss "Episode 1: the phantom menace" did you? And you haven't skipped ahead to "Episode 3: 3-D," have you?

 

In this episode:

The Pianist

Bend It Like Beckham

Identity

X-Men 2

Confidence

The Matrix: Reloaded

Bruce Almighty

The Italian Job

Hollywood Homicide

Hulk

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

 

The Pianist

[T]he Jewish player of pianos... regained his artistic gifts with aid from "the unlikeliest of sources" (my guess: a talking monkey).

After a rousing showing at the Oscars, The Pianist is this week's American Film Studies and Dressage Club pick. The Pianist is a heart-breaking/warming adaptation of the autobiography of famed Polish pianist Wladizlcznzck Szpilmzczmnn or whoever, the Jewish player of pianos who struggled thru World War 2 and regained his artistic gifts with aid from "the unlikeliest of sources" (my guess: a talking monkey). The film stars Adrien Brody as a kid from the Bronx who just wants to stop being beaten up for having a girl's name and win an Oscar for Best Actor. Brody returns this year in The Singing Detective in the role of "Hood #1." No kidding.

There are, theoretically, other people who appear in the film, but they are all the kind of people whose agents haven't bothered to post their pictures on the Internet Movie Database. The movie was directed by acclaimed director Roman Polanski, best known for Chinatown (well, best known for forcing himself on a 13-year-old girl and skipping the country—and before that for being the husband of Sharon Tate, the pregnant actress who was among those murdered by the Manson family).

Next week's dressage exhibition is canceled now that 4-year-old filly Illegal Alien has been mistakenly deported. Club officials are working with the INS to assure them that Chinese Checkers and Mexican Hat Dance are legal residents.

Verdict

Wow. Great movie. Bring your soul.

 

Bend It Like Beckham

This week, the American Film Studies and Dressage Club reaches across the pond to the UK. Yes, it's the limited-release word-of-mouth comedy hit Bend It Like Beckham, the engrossing saga of an Indian family (the Asian kind) transplanted to London and struggling with the culture clash. Older daughter Pinky is planning a traditional Sikh wedding and a lifetime of cooking chapati (mmmm, chapati...). Younger daughter Jess dreams of playing professional football (the no-hands kind) like her hero, David Beckham, a soccer player so famous that a couple people in the United States have heard of him. Conflict ensues, songs are sung where people jerk their heads from side to side, and everything is worked out with a little tears and laughter.

Sean Connery plays the father. Okay, no he doesn't, but it would be fun to see him in the turban, wouldn't it?

Directed by Gurinder Chadha (What's Cooking? and Bhaji on the Beach), the film stars Parminder Nagra (now on ER) as Jess and Keira Knightly as her soccer-playing friend. Sean Connery plays the father. Okay, no he doesn't, but it would be fun to see him in the turban, wouldn't it? It's actually Anupam Kher, veteran of 121 films (my favorite was Uff! Yeh Mohabbat, but Jhooth Bole Kauwa Kaate was really good too; you decide for yourself).

Presented in English, altho it is subtitled in Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, ancient Sanskrit, Esperanto, and Klingon.*

The dressage exhibition for next week is postponed in order for those who also own racing horses to teach them to run backwards for the upcoming Irish Derby.

Footnote:

* There are a lot of ways to go with this, and I don't think I'll get another chance at an Indian language joke anytime soon, so here are a few. Did you know there is an Indian language called "Ho"? There are a couple of hooker jokes and Santa Claus jokes right there. Another is "Sindhi," which suggests older and prettier languages of "Jan" and "Marsha." And another is "Kannada," which implies a bigger and richer language called "Ammerika" as well as a more laid-back language call "Oztralia."

Verdict

Fun, but predictable. Sometimes felt small, like an after-school special. Neat to see both Nagra and Knightly on the cusp of fame (and babehood).

 

Identity

Mysteriously, they start winding up dead one-by-one, because that's the way these things work.

The American Film Studies and Dressage Club movie for this week is Identity, a thriller starring John Cusack. It is the story of several strangers brought together and trapped in a desert motel during the proverbial dark and stormy night. Mysteriously, they start winding up dead one-by-one, because that's the way these things work.

Cusack plays a limo driver. Ray Liotta plays a cop transporting dangerous prisoner Jake Busey (son of Gary Busey). Rebecca DeMornay and Amanda Peet play an actress and a hooker. Bob Denver plays Gilligan, the bumbling but likable ship's mate. Several others round out the list of victims/suspects.

The film is directed by James Mangold (Copland; Girl, Interrupted; Kate & Leopold) and written by Michael Cooney, best known for writing the Jack Frost movies about a killer snowman. No kidding.

Since it's a thriller, expect the "talking killer" scene, in which the villain lays out his dastardly plan, which, like all plans that get explained in the movies, is doomed (if you're in a movie and you want your plan to succeed, you have to whisper it to someone so the audience can't hear). Also, look for the "hysterical running-away-and-stumbling woman" character and the "selfish and arrogant man who gets a well-deserved death" character, both of whom are early casualties.

And since it's a John Cusack movie, expect something quirky and off-beat (my guess, as always: a talking monkey).

Next week's dressage exhibition has been postponed because another of Saddam Hussein's bunkers was discovered under the arena and a stockpile of mysterious aerosol cans was discovered. Altho initially reported to be chemical weapons, preliminary analysis suggests that they are actually Aquanet hair spray.

Verdict

Clever, but overly so. Cheats a little on the premise, but a good flick nonetheless. No talking monkey.

 

X-Men 2

The American Film Studies and Dressage Club movie for Seis de Mayo is X-Men 2, the thrilling return of the mutants on a mission defending their superhuman right to exist and ridding mankind of evil in the form of other mutants.

The film stars Patrick Stewart as Professor Xavier and Ian McKellen as his friend/nemesis Magneto. Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Famke Janssen, James Marsden, and Anna Paquin return as Xavier's team. Alan Cumming joins as Nightcrawler, and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos returns as Mystique. For anyone counting, that's a big chunk of the $110 million budget in actor salaries alone.

I know that sounds like a political drama mixed with a crime mystery, but presumably along the way people fly around and blow stuff up.

Directed by Bryan Singer again, the story finds the X-Men battling General Stryker (veteran character actor Brian Cox) and his brigade of mutant haters in a political battle while simultaneously tracking down the mutant who perpetrated the attack that makes people hate mutants more than ever. I know that sounds like a political drama mixed with a crime mystery, but presumably along the way people fly around and blow stuff up.

Stay for the very end, after the credits, when Halle Berry shows off her Oscar to classically-trained Shakespeareans Stewart and McKellen.

The dressage competition for next week is canceled owing to hangovers the horses have after the Cinco de Mayo celebration.

Verdict

More fun than the first, altho the teen angst got a little thick at times. Kinky scene with Mystique in the tent was a turn on.

 

Confidence

Jake Vig is a polished con man looking to make the bad guys pay for killing his best pal, so he uses the only tools he knows and pulls the biggest confidence game in his career. Confidence is the American Film Studies and Dressage Club film for the week.

Since it's a Dustin Hoffman movie, expect a lot of mumbling (but Oscar-caliber mumbling).

Edward Burns, best known as that guy who gets mixed up with Ben Affleck because of his looks and with Edward Norton because of his name, stars as Jake Vig the grifter. Dustin Hoffman is the crime boss known as "the King" (how do they come up with such catchy names?). Andy Garcia (world's coolest casino owner in Ocean's Eleven) and Rachel Weisz (world's hottest Egyptologist in The Mummy) round out the cast.

Since this is a con game caper flick, expect more twists and turns than a snake on a hot skillet. Since it's a Dustin Hoffman movie, expect a lot of mumbling (but Oscar-caliber mumbling). It is directed by James Foley, who directed Glengarry Glen Ross and Who's That Girl? Confidence is likely to fall somewhere in between.

Next week's dressage show is canceled owing to the US Special Forces' capture of Kiki's Yellow Dream, a palomino filly which turns out to be a disguise worn by Jamal Mustafa Abdallah Sultan Al-Tikriti, deputy head of the Iraqi Tribal Affairs Office and the 9 of clubs in the Coalition's most-wanted deck.

Verdict

Slick and cool, but drags a little in spots. The kind of movie you catch on video and say, "Dang, I kind of wish I'd seen that in the theater."

 

The Matrix: Reloaded

Wake up, Neo.

The American Film Studies and Dressage Club film for this week is The Matrix: Reloaded, the sequel to the highly-successful film of 1999. The film stars Keanu Reeves as Neo, the golden boy of the human resistance to the robot oppressors who keep humanity locked away in watery chambers for use as batteries to power their massive, impersonal, faceless computer system called the Matrix. The Matrix is again personified by Hugo Weaving (Elrond in The Lord of the Rings), because even impersonal, faceless computer systems need a face to personify them (just like the Star Trek Borg "collective" needed a queen—but don't get me started on that).

Look for kung fu, gun fu, cyber fu, cell phone fu, and quite possibly the first film example of "fu fu."

This time, new awakeners begin to travel to Zion, a cleverly-veiled reference to the real-life promised land of "Zion." The minions of the Matrix try to find and destroy Zion, while Neo and his band of virtual rebels run around looking incredibly cool and kick major virtual ass in an all-out race against time. Look for kung fu, gun fu, cyber fu, cell phone fu, and quite possibly the first filmed example of "fu fu."

The film is again written and directed by the Wachowski brothers and sees the return of not only Reeves and Weaving but Lawrence Fishburne and Carrie Ann Moss, joined by new cast member Jada Pinkett Smith for your viewing pleasure.

The dressage exhibition for next week will be held as a virtual event. Entrants are encouraged to envision themselves at the event and then bend that vision to their wills. Practice by bending a horseshoe and then telling yourself: "There is no horseshoe."

Verdict

What's with the religious imagery? I was checking my watch during some of the video games—I mean action sequences.

 

Bruce Almighty

The votes are in, and Bruce Almighty is the next American Film Studies and Dressage Club movie. The film stars Jim Carrey as an ungrateful and angry local news reporter who, having a bad day, complains about the incompetence of God. He is promptly visited by God and endowed with unlimited power to see how hard it is to manage the universe. He then uses his powers for his own selfish ends, but soon finds that there is more to being a deity than getting revenge on people and making his girlfriend's boobs bigger (but... not much more).

It's Carrey's show tho, and virtually every other person in the movie is set dressing, with names like "Teenager #1...."

Morgan Freeman co-stars as a wry God, complete with snappy white suit. Jennifer Anniston is Carrey's sympathetic girlfriend. It's Carrey's show tho, and virtually every other person in the movie is set dressing, with names like "Teenager #1," "Volunteer Nurse," and "Panicked News Employee" (bright spot: Steve Carell of The Daily Show as a rival newsman). Look for Carrey's specialties of cartoonish hijinks and self-satisfied posing, followed by schoolboy chagrin and half-hearted repentance.

The dressage competition for this week has been merged with the local dog show. Please be prepared to demonstrate your horse's ability to catch frisbees and crawl thru a simulated rabbit burrow.

Verdict

Cartoonish hijinks and self-satisfied posing, followed by schoolboy chagrin and half-hearted repentance. Call me omniscient.

 

The Italian Job

The American Film Studies and Dressage Club movie for this week's outing is The Italian Job. It is the touching tale of a band of criminals who find love and betrayal in the midst of a huge gold bullion heist and must commit another heist to get their just rewards. The movie stars Mark Walberg (Boogie Nights) and Edward Norton (Fight Club) along with Charlize Theron (Trapped) and several souped up Mini Coopers. Rounding out the cast are Mos Def (Monster's Ball), Jason Statham (The Transporter), and Seth Green (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Austin Powers, Rat Race and, yes, the voice of the son on Family Guy).

Since it's a heist movie, expect a wildly improbable plan that requires entirely too much inside knowledge of the location of the loot.

The Italian Job is a remake of the 1969 Michael Caine film of the same name. The new version is directed by F Gary Gray, whose short list of credits includes The Negotiator. Since it's a heist movie, expect a wildly improbable plan that requires entirely too much inside knowledge of the location of the loot. Also, expect an ending that includes the old switcheroo and an unusual lack of police presence until it's time to haul away the bad guys.

Early reviews indicate a reference point may be valuable: 35 million dollars in gold bullion would weigh about 6500 pounds (3000 kg) or about as much as a civilian Hummer.

Next week's dressage exhibition is canceled due to the lack of interest in the "upside down" theme of having the horses ride their owners.

Verdict

Fun and slick, but follows the numbers too closely. Not many real surprises for fans of the genre. Good pick if you're in the mood.

 

Hollywood Homicide

Due to overwhelming (well, whelming anyway) demand, the American Film Studies and Dressage Club movie for this week has been changed to Hollywood Homicide, the action comedy about a weary LA police detective and his new yoga-practicing partner, who is much too young to make detective. Together, they try to solve the multiple murder of a rap group that may have been set up by a music producer. Mayhem ensues.

...Master P (who, I think it's safe to assume, is some sort of rap culture person...).

The film stars Harrison Ford (American Graffiti, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Blade Runner, Frantic, Witness, Presumed Innocent, The Fugitive, Patriot Games, The Devil's Own, Air Force One, Clear and Present Danger, Random Hearts, What Lies Beneath, and more) and Josh Hartnett (Black Hawk Down and a few really crappy movies). Also present are Lou Diamond Phillips (in drag), Martin Landau (thankfully not in drag), and Master P (who, I think it's safe to assume, is some sort of rap culture person—my knowledge of the hip hop world ended with Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo).

Hollywood Homicide was directed and co-written by Ron Shelton, who usually sticks to sports movies like Bull Durham, White Men Can't Jump, Tin Cup, Play It to the Bone, and several others, so look for a lot of sports terminology. And since it's an odd-couple cop movie, look for the following:

  • The by-the-book older detective eats cheeseburgers and drinks black coffee
  • The young maverick lives clean and scores the chicks but eventually proves his worth and earns the older cop's grudging respect
  • The angry commander threatens to pull the heroes' badges
  • The cop-gone-bad turns out to have had a hand in the crime
  • The only kinds of women allowed in cop movies: the long-suffering wife/girlfriend, the pole-dancing stripper, and the hooker in handcuffs in the precinct house

 

The dressage exhibition for next week is postponed due to a mistake by the contractor who built the new doors for the arena. They are all too small to get a horse thru.

Verdict

Funnier than I thought it would be, but ultimately not very compelling. Fun if you feel like seeing Ford get goofy.

 

Hulk

Movie for week is HULK. HULK is big green man with little pink man inside him. Little pink man is very smart, but he get energy all over him and when he get mad he become big green man. Big green man smash everything. Smash! Smash! Smash! Everyone happy again. Also, is pretty girl in movie.

The story was created by James Schamus... so expect a good deal of soul-searching anger management in between... special effects sequences.

Hulk is directed by Ang Lee (Eat, Drink, Man, Woman; The Ice Storm; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and stars Eric Bana (Finding Nemo, Black Hawk Down, Chopper)—the latest victim of Australia's shameful Actor Deportation Act—and Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind, Requiem for a Dream, Dark City, The Rocketeer). The story was created by James Schamus, who is mostly known as a producer, but did write Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Ice Storm, so expect a good deal of soul-searching anger management in between bass-rocking, tank-hurling special effects sequences.

The Hulk is another Marvel Comics superhero (Spider-Man, Daredevil, X-Men, Blade, Captain America, and a Captain Marvel, but not Superman, Batman, or the Captain Marvel [SHAZAM!]), and one of the most popular in the genre. Note that the part of the Hulk will be played entirely by a computer generated effect.

Also, look for the following:

  • Cameo by Lou Ferrigno, Incredible Hulk TV show star (do not look for Bill Bixby: he's dead)
  • Cameo by Stan Lee, Marvel Comics creator (thin gray-haired guy with bushy mustache)
  • Reference to Jack Kirby, Hulk's creator (also dead)

 

The dressage competition for next week has been mysteriously smashed. Police and Army Intelligence are investigating the matter.

Verdict

Plodding and unsatisfying. The Hulk looked great, and the action scenes met with my gut-level approval, but ultimately it was just a Frankenstein movie.

 

Terminator 3

In a world where robots travel thru time to kill people who could change the future, one young man must survive to bring hope to mankind.... Playing against type, Arnold Schwarzenegger is Pepito, the little tortilla boy, in the American Film Studies and Dressage Club film of the week: Terminator 3: Not Without My Tortillas.

Claire Danes... gets to scream a lot and demand "What is going on, John?! This is crazy! Look out!"

Nick Stahl (Disturbing Behavior, In the Bedroom) takes over the role of John Conner from Terminator 2's Edward Furlong, who is rumored to have... uh... "medication" problems. Claire Danes (My So-Called Life, Romeo & Juliet, Brokedown Palace, The Hours) plays a chick along for the ride who, I'm guessing, gets to scream a lot and demand "What is going on, John?! This is crazy! Look out!" Kristanna Loken steps up to the big leagues as the new terminator made of "leequid meh-tal."

This third installment of the Terminator money train is directed by Jonathan Mostow, who directed U-571 and Breakdown, both of which barely broke even; but the studio has bet $170 million he'll do better this time. The screenplay picks up the characters created by James "am I richer than Spielberg yet?" Cameron. However, T3 has no fewer than seven screen writer credits, so... the dialog ought to sparkle. Then again, it's also got ten producers, so they must have produced the hell out of this thing.

Linda Hamilton, who (with Sigourney Weaver) defined the role of butt-kicking bull-femme in the 80s as Sarah Conner, opted out of Terminator 3 for smaller roles in more personal pictures (...that don't involve her ex-husband Cameron).

The dressage exhibition team "Prairie Dogs on Horseback" has been postponed until the monkey pox thing dies down.

Verdict

Scarier and more effective than I imagined it would be. Good ending to a story I (and James Cameron) didn't think needed an ending.

 

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

Allan Quatermain (sic) leads a band of adventurers the likes of which the world has never seen... unless the world has read Jules Verne, Robert Louis Stevenson, and HG Wells. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is the movie of the week for the American Film Studies and Dressage Club. Sean Connery stars as Quatermain (from H Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines and frequently mispronounced "Quartermain"), the leader of adventurers from Victorian (public domain) literature. Here is the rest of the dramatis personae:

 

[T]he story is based on (SURPRISE!) a popular comic book....

I'm not exactly sure how extraordinary Tom Sawyer is, or why a victim of Dracula should become a hero, or what's so great about a guy who doesn't age, but the story is based on (SURPRISE!) a popular comic book and involves plenty of mayhem and anachronistic inventions like submarines, cars, and automatic weapons.

Helmed by Stephen Norrington, whose only prior big production was Blade, the film pits its heroes against a madman known as The Fantom in an attempt to stop a world war in their alternate history 19th-century world.

The conspicuous absence of Tarzan prompts me to suggest my own league:

 

They would do battle with none other than... baby Hitler.

The dressage exhibition has been canceled in favor of an auction of items recovered from the overflowing lost-and-found room. Among the auction lots will be: a horse blanket embroidered with the name "El Bronco," a baby blanket embroidered with the name "El Niño," seventy-two un-paired mittens, a child's doll with one eye missing, and a lock of hair with a note that reads "To my darling Stewart, always and forever."

Verdict

Silly and predictable, and I love the genre.

 

To be continued....

So there we were, in the thick of the summer blockbuster season, thrilled yet anxious that the hits might not hold out thru autumn's chill horror-flick malaise to see us thru to the early Oscar contenders of winter. We could only hope....

Episode 1: the phantom menace

Episode 3: 3-D

 

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