Category: theatrical reviews

V for Vendetta: 2006, dir. James McTeague. Seen May 13, 2006 (Alamo South Lamar).
V for Vendetta is an entertaining movie while you’re watching it, although afterwards, it hardly seems memorable. It is a lesser, almost forgettable entry in the dystopian-future genre of films, but then it’s up against classics like Brazil. It’s difficult not to think of 1984 or Brazil while watching this movie, and the movie suffers in comparison. Still, it was more enjoyable than I would have predicted, and didn’t drag much even with the long running time.
V for Vendetta, adapted from the graphic novel by Alan Moore, takes place in a grim future in which the government has infringed on citizens’ rights in the name of safety against terrorism, and added some religious oppression to boot. (You can imagine that many people might feel that this day is not far off in real life.) A gang of secret police known as the Fingermen have the power to break into any building and arrest, or assault, whomever they like. So when our heroine, Evey (Natalie Portman), is out after curfew and encounters a group of these guys, she knows she’s doomed … until a mysterious stranger in a Guy Fawkes mask, known only as V (Hugo Weaving) rescues her and involves her in his scheme to blow up the Old Bailey. Next year, he warns, he’ll blow up the Houses of Parliament on Nov. 5, tres Guy Fawkes. Evie is unable to extricate herself from accusations of terrorism and from V, the mysterious masked man.

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Monarch of the Moon: 2006, dir. Richard Lowry. Seen on April 20, 2006 (Alamo South Lamar).
Monarch of the Moon was promoted earlier this year as a “lost” science-fiction serial from the 1940s, originally intended as covert WWII propaganda, that had recently been unearthed … but the film was actually shot in 2005. The hoax promotion was similar to that for The Blair Witch Project, but perhaps less successful. The movie is now being touted as a spoof of sci-fi serials from the 1940s. However, it seems to me that Monarch of the Moon doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it meant to be hilarious, or to invoke a gentle nostalgia for the films of that time? Is it supposed to be a faithful re-creation of the old serials? The film veers between a number of tones and as a result, drags and lags at times. Perhaps it would have worked more effectively as a shorter film.
The film focuses on the adventures of Yellow Jacket (Blane Wheatley), his secretary Sally and later her twin sister Maxine (Monica Himmelheber), and sidekick Benny (Brent Moss) as they fight Japanese invaders led by the mysterious Dragonfly (Kimberly Page). The characters encounter the usual serial-chapter perils: out-of-control airplanes, secret mountain lairs, and even outer-space creatures.

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Thank You for Smoking: 2006, dir. Jason Reitman. Seen April 16 (Alamo South Lamar).
Thank You for Smoking isn’t as satirical and biting as one might imagine from the publicity; it didn’t make me stop and think about politics, the advertising industry, or American culture. It’s a lightweight smart comedy with sharp dialogue and a capable cast. And I am a total sucker for a smart comedy film, even if it’s shallow and obvious at times.
Nick Naylor (Aaron Eckhart) is a top lobbyist for the tobacco industry — he’s able to spin any situation into his favor. His latest venture is a campaign to convince Hollywood that cigarettes could be a lucrative source of product placement. He wants to bond more with his son Joey, so he takes him along on the trip to Hollywood. It turns out that not everyone falls for his charismatic act, however, and he ends up facing trouble from a number of different fronts, including an anti-smoking politician and an ambitious reporter.

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We finally got around to seeing Wedding Crashers. I wasn’t much interested in the film when it opened in theaters last summer, but people keep telling me how clever it is and how it’s not just another dumb comedy and how the writing is much better than you would expect. Hell, my little brother thinks it should have won an Oscar for Best Screenplay, but then he also seems to have a fixation with Rachel McAdams.
What struck me about Wedding Crashers was how much it reminded me, in structure, of romantic comedies from the 1930s. I was expecting something more like Anchorman, but Wedding Crashers is an old-fashioned romantic comedy that appeals to modern moviegoers with up-to-date humorous dialogue and physical comedy. Not grossly physical, most of the time — it doesn’t resort to Farrelly brothers-style humor. But underneath all the Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson banter is a storyline closely related to It Happened One Night (1934) or even more apt, Midnight (1939).

Continue reading Wedding Crashers (2005) vs. Midnight (1939)

The Squid and the Whale: 2005, dir. Noah Baumbach. Seen at The Dobie (Jan. 29, 2006).
I was hesitant about seeing The Squid and the Whale; a friend of mine told me the characters were too unsympathetic and that I should pick something else at The Dobie instead. But I was curious: I enjoyed The Life Aquatic, which Baumbach co-wrote, and wanted to see what kind of movie he wrote and directed. Also, I have liked Jeff Daniels since The Purple Rose of Cairo, and he’d been receiving a lot of attention for The Squid and the Whale.
I can see why Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson worked well together; if you removed the quirky sweetness from The Royal Tenenbaums and saw the characters as the people they really are—in particular, Gene Hackman’s character when the kids were teenagers—you’d find characters who fit in the world of The Squid and the Whale.

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Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story: 2006, dir. Michael Winterbottom. Seen Oct. 25, 2005 at The Paramount (Austin Film Festival).
I tried to read the book Tristram Shandy a few years ago. I remember taking it to brunch at Z Tejas downtown, back when I liked to go out to brunch alone every weekend. It was one of the few times I sat at a table and not at a bar; I guess my favorite bartender at the time wasn’t there. Or maybe the bar was just too crowded that day.
I remember, also, that it was one of the few times I strayed from the gloriousness of the breakfast quesadilla, my favorite brunch treat at Z Tejas. (The corned-beef hash is pretty good too, though.) I had the Navajo tacos, on someone’s recommendation. I didn’t like them much at all. The fried spinach thing just weirded me out. It was not a successful meal, although normally I’m quite fond of Z Tejas … the one downtown, that is. The north location, although closer to our house, has abysmal acoustics and I nearly lose my voice if I try to hold a conversation in there.
So perhaps that fateful brunch affected my opinion of Tristram Shandy. Admittedly I thought the book would be a straightforward narrative comedy like Tom Jones. I had no idea what I was getting into. All the digressions started to annoy me. Were we ever going to get to the character’s birth? I finally gave up in frustration, perhaps a quarter of the way through the book. I realized that the whole point of the book was to be one long series of digressions, but I still wanted some linear action of some kind, and I never could motivate myself to finish the book. I suspected that the narrator never would get past the birth.

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Serenity: 2005, dir. Joss Whedon. Seen on DVD (Dec. 30, 2005).
I heard a lot about Serenity even before its release, because I have many friends who are loopy for anything touched by Joss Whedon. They were terribly excited that a movie was being made from Whedon’s science-fiction TV series Firefly. Serenity had a lot of sneak previews in select cities long before its release date, presumably to build up word-of-mouth. What it did was confirm to many of us non-fans that Serenity would appeal strictly to fans. The trailers we saw in theaters provided further proof—it appeared that if you weren’t familiar with the TV series, the movie was not for you. (The low box-office numbers for the film prove my theory that the marketing campaign backfired.)
However, my friends who went positively ga-ga over Serenity assured me that the movie was not just for fans, that they’d brought along this person or that one and every single person just loved the movie even if they had never heard of Firefly (except perhaps as Rufus T.’s last name). My boyfriend and I were skeptical at first, but eventually we succumbed and rented the movie on DVD.
It turned out we had been right in the first place: we found Serenity to be dull and flat and even annoying, and I suspect that it relied too heavily on the audience already knowing something about the characters. We had no idea who these people were, if they were new for the movie or regulars on the TV show, but we never learned much about them and some of them never showed much depth.

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The Producers: 2005, dir. Susan Stroman. Seen Jan. 2, 2006 at Alamo Lake Creek.
I’ve had music from The Producers stuck in my head since we saw the movie on Monday night.
However, the song stuck in my head is the version of “Prisoners of Love” from the end of the 1968 film, not from the recent musical adaptation/remake. We don’t have a term yet for a movie adapted from a Broadway musical adapted from a movie, although my boyfriend thought of the perfect word to describe the film: unnecessary.
The Producers is one of the most unnecessary movies I have seen in the past year, the other one being the remake of The Bad News Bears.
I can only assume that these movies aren’t made for people who have seen (and like) the original films. Filmmakers, studios, and/or distributors assume that the audience will be a younger crowd who has heard of this movie title in a vague sort of way—in the case of The Producers, as a highly successful Broadway production with charismatic movie stars in the leads. Therefore, no one sees a problem with lifting scenes and dialogue wholesale from the original movie, trimming out some of the best lines, reworking others to make them more contemporary, and re-creating these beloved bits so that they are pale shadows of the source that will cause people who like the original film to wince.

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Can I write movie reviews while waiting in Houston Hobby airport for my flight (currently running 30 minutes late) to be called? Let’s find out. I have a list of movies I haven’t written about, and while I can’t randomize very well, or time myself, this will be the Airport Edition of six-minute movie reviews.
1. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: 2005, dir. MIke Newell. Seen at Alamo Village.
I felt a bit sad because this is the first Harry Potter movie I saw alone. For the other three, I slipped out of work early and saw them with co-workers, hoping that the matinees would be less crowded. We saw the second and third movies at Alamo Village, because the pre-show stuff they play beforehand is agreeably silly.

Continue reading four six-minute reviews: in Houston airport

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: 2005, dir. Andrew Adamson. Seen at Alamo Village (Dec. 15).
(Warning: I will give away elements of the plot in this review.)
I loved the book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when I was younger—middle-school age, I think—so I was intrigued to see how this adaptation would fare. I liked many of the little touches: the transition between wardrobe and Narnia, the White Witch’s scary black-hole eyes and expression, the understated look of Father Christmas. I liked that they replaced the “battles are ugly when women fight” lines with simply saying that battles are ugly, period.
But there were so many other details I disliked: the sniggering bits of humor throughout, such as the drawn-on glasses and mustache on the animal at the end of the movie (Adamson also directed the Shrek films); Edmund being imprisoned with Mr. Tumnus, which seemed unnecessary; the voice of the head wolf, which had a Dana Andrews-like quality that jarred with the rest of the cast and their generally British accents; and the Blitz sequences in the beginning, which didn’t quite work for me. (Also, I cannot see the word “evacuees” right now without thinking of something else entirely, which is a distraction, but that’s sadly unlikely to affect anyone not on the Gulf Coast.)

Continue reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005)