movies this week: ode to parkbench

I must say it has been difficult to follow in the footsteps of the creator of this type of entry. I feel rather like Dorothy Parker as she filled in temporarily as The New Yorker drama critic for Robert Benchley, while he was off in Hollywood for a few months. It seemed as though the minute he left town, the quality of plays plummeted, only to rise again when he returned. However, Ms. Parker at least knew that Mr. Benchley would eventually return and free her from her difficult task. And while we might reasonably debate the merits of Mr. Gallaga versus Mr. Benchley, Dorothy Parker could write me under the table, even when hungover and disappointed in love. Maybe especially then.
So I lag behind, intimidated by a standard of The Funny that I cannot quite reach, gathering up little bits and scraps of hints about movies that I have not yet seen, trying to form them into a brilliant pastiche, bursting with wit and cleverness and stylishness.

And instead … well, I think I should blame the movie selection, first and foremost. The movies that opened in Austin this week do not inspire very much, either good or bad. Some are big-budget summer releases that will be replaced by other summer releases next week, without much change in plot and storyline. Some are obscure foreign films that also seem interchangeable, but that’s probably because I’m a low-culture heathen who has very little interest in sitting through one more deliberately paced coming-of-age independent film, perhaps set in Estonia this time, with the all-seeing child and the sui generis teenager and the mysterious relatives. Especially if I have to sit sideways in a cramped theater at the Dobie, or endure that mix of commercials and trailers called “The Twenty” at the Arbor Great Hills, while watching such a film.
I present this week’s films in Austin to you, and I hope you will find something exciting and intriguing enough to motivate you to find a theater where the film is playing. Me, I will probably sit around the house waiting for an opportunity to finally watch my rented Alice Adams DVD. Or perhaps my boyfriend may lure me to the revival of Godzilla that is still playing at the Dobie.
New movies in Austin this week:
Carandiru—This is an Argentinian prison drama, written and directed by Hector Babenco, who brought us Kiss of the Spider Woman and … oh, dear, I’d nearly forgotten about At Play in the Fields of the Lord, a movie I reviewed for the Daily Texan, unsuspectingly, back in 1992. I still have the scars. And Ironweed. Proceed at your own risk.
Facing Windows—My boyfriend does this every day at work, where they are forcing him to work on XP machines, then he comes home to his Linux boxes with a sense of relief. Oh, all right, this is a movie about a married woman making Big Life Decisions, assisted by an elderly pastry chef who survived the Holocaust. I think I would prefer to listen to my boyfriend’s anti-Microsoft rants, really.
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle—Alamo had a bizarre road-race event involving this movie a few weeks ago, and as a result I have seen the trailer for this movie more times than any other upcoming film. Perhaps that’s why it sounds a little tired and dull. Or perhaps it is because my stomach flip-flops queasily every time I remember White Castle or Krystal burgers. I’ve heard surprisingly good things about this movie, but … urgh, those burgers.
(Does anyone else hear that title and think of Harry and Walter Go to New York, or is it just me? It’s just me, isn’t it.)
The Manchurian Candidate—You might remember that I was extremely upset about Jonathan Demme’s remaking a favorite movie of mine, Charade, as The Truth about Charlie, which was a dismal failure. So I was all set to write nasty, belittling comments about Mr. Demme’s remake of the 1962 paranoia thriller. I was waiting for it to fail miserably, too, and then maybe Mr. Demme would return to making fun movies like Married to the Mob.
However, I am hearing from all sides that The Manchurian Candidate is a surprisingly good movie, that it updates the original movie in apt and innovative ways, that it will be one of the better movies of the summer. I am likely to see this movie in theaters in another week or two (except it’s not currently playing at an Alamo theater, so I’ll have to decide which horrible commercial-ridden chain I want to deal with, damn it). Who knows, I may have nice things to say about Mr. Demme again. I still think he should make another comedy, though.
Thunderbirds—The director’s name looked familiar to me, and a little voice in my head told me why, but I am not a big Star Trek fan in any way so I ignored the little voice. Then I checked IMDb. The little voice was right—director Jonathan Frakes is best known for his role as Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation, although he has directed a number of movies and TV episodes. I’m wondering how the hell that particular bit of information became lodged in my brain when I can’t remember important stuff, like how to phrase the standard error-code sentence in documentation for work, and on which shelf of the pantry my boyfriend prefers we store the peanut butter.
The Village—I will admit up front that I have never seen any films directed by M. Night Shyamalan. I have never been particularly fond of the type of suspense film that relies on One Big Secret, and the secrets in his movies remind me of “Soylent Green is people! People!” I have heard what the Big Secret is for this movie and it’s certainly no better. Also, I have been frequently annoyed in the past few weeks by having a big red streak superimposed over text I am trying to read on the Web, which was part of this movie’s hyper ad campaign.
I will also admit that I am taking a perverse pleasure in watching all Disney’s movies tank and plummet and fail miserably this year. For that reason, part of me is hoping this movie follows the trend. They ditched Fahrenheit 9/11 (which has grossed over $100 million to date), they’ve decided to stop making traditional animated movies (because the animation method is what’s making them fail, right? not the inane storylines), they made a mess of their relationship with Pixar, and their smartest decision in the past couple of years was to hire Johnny Depp to star in that movie based on an amusement-park ride. Burn, baby, burn.
Notable revivals in Austin:
Forbidden Zone—Midnight Saturday at Dobie. I wish they had a non-midnight showing of this movie. It’s very difficult for me to make midnight movies work for me, although it’s almost always worthwhile. This movie will be released on DVD by Fantoma next month, by the way.
Godzilla—Still playing this week at Dobie.
Sergio Leone marathon—The Paramount is showing a half-dozen Leone films over the next week, including Fistful of Dollars and Once Upon a Time in America. I’m thinking I might see Duck, You Sucker because I haven’t seen quite enough James Coburn movies this year.
Personal: Omar, please save me. I see dead people.