LA GUERRE EST FINIE/THE WAR IS OVER Co-worker Guy Keating and I left the office early on Friday afternoon and met up with Vivian C. Wong, a.k.a The Notorious V.I.V., to see Revenge of the Sith. It was a good thing that we left when we did, since our theater was almost completely full half an hour before the show. The crowd was surprisingly subdued: no one talked too much, no one was in costume, and no one showed up egregiously late. I know that I frequently complain about the obnoxious behavior of the cretins I observe at the movies, but I was a little disappointed by the serious, sober nature of the audience. I was hoping that everyone would be in a state of frenzied anticipation, but my fellow movie-goers looked as if they were there to take in the latest Ron Howard snoozefest.

(As an aside, I wonder if the opening night of Titanic in Times Square will always be my most intense movie-going experience. I saw it on an enormous screen at the Astor Plaza theater with about a fifteen hundred other people. Three or four fights broke out over seats and girls shrieked and moaned over Leo as if he were the second coming of the Beatles. There was just a buzz of excitement in the theater that night that was like none I've experienced before or since.)

As it turns out, my fellow movie-goers might have been the ideal audience for Revenge of the Sith, because it was one, goddamn, serious movie. I'm not saying that serious is a bad thing, as I think that all of the best Star Wars films - the original, Empire, and in my opinion, Attack of the Clones, (yes, that's right, I'm the one who liked it) - were made by people that took them seriously. By "seriously" I mean that the previous films were made with conviction and passion even though their subject matter was the stuff of Saturday morning matinee serials. This was the first Star Wars film where it felt like the makers took the material itself too seriously. The result is that instead of an exciting sci-fi action adventure film with a sense of tragedy, we get a dull tragedy with the trappings of sci-fi action adventure.

Revenge of the Sith begins with a lot of promise: Obi-Wan, Anakin, and R2-D2 infilitrate a ship where Count Dooku and General Grievous are holding Chancellor Palpatine hostage. This sequence displays what the most recent Star Wars films do best: digital animation of scope and detail combined with exciting action. Unfortunately, once this bravura opening concludes, we are hustled back to the planet of Coruscant and the political machinations of the Republic. It's as if Lucas is saying, "Alright, you've had your fun. Now it's time to get down to the important stuff."

I've come to dread the scenes in the most recent Star Wars films that take place in the Republic's Senate. I find myself cringing in anticipation of the boring speeches about trading rights or some equally sleep-inducing issue. Seriously, it's like Star Wars C-SPAN. I was reassured in my opinion of these "political" scenes by the amount of people that headed for the exits when they began. Indeed, everyone practically ran out of the theater during the first sappy love scene between Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman. It was like that moment in a Rolling Stones concert when Keith Richards sings one of his solo numbers, the result being a mass exodus to the toilets.

The problem with Revenge of the Sith is that since we know what's going to happen - Anakin transforms in to Darth Vader and the Jedis and their allies temporarily lose to the Dark Side - the film lacks suspense. Lucas doesn't compensate for this problem by adding surprises to the plot that catch us off guard, such as Yoda's duel with Dooku in Attack of the Clones. Instead, he opts for expanding and deepening Anakin's story, hoping that an attempt at high tragedy will mask the film's sense of inevitability. But Lucas's attempt at Shakespearean depth fails because he is unable to dramatize Anakin's transformation in an interesting or believable manner. This failure is chiefly due to the trite dialogue given to Anakin and Palpatine: instead of being subtle and powerful, it's flat and unispired. Hayden Christensen doesn't help either. He simply isn't skilled enough as an actor to pull off Anakin's transformation into Vader. When he attempts to express inner turmoil, he just looks like he had a bad burrito for lunch. Lucas's decision to turn Revenge of the Sith into a tragedy isn't a bad one, it's just that he fails to execute it convincingly.

Revenge of the Sith climaxes in a duel between Anakin and Obi-Wan that has an air of inescapability to it that is in line with the rest of the movie. What should be a rousing end to the Star Wars saga has a going-through-the-motions feel about it. Instead of concentrating on Anakin and Obi-Wan, Lucas seems more interested in the heavily animated backgrounds of the volcano planet that is the setting for their battle. It's as if Lucas has lost faith in the ability of the characters to interest and move us, thinking that what we want is more special effects. He seems even more desperate when he shows us the destruction of Anakin's body. What should be a fascinating look at the man behind the armor becomes off-putting in its gruesomeness. I was reminded of Saving Private Ryan, a film that similarly tried to amp up a weak story with gratuitous violence.

With all of the above said, I didn't hate Revenge of the Sith. I thought it looked beautiful and came to life during its action sequences. Lucas has attempted a grand conclusion to his thirty-year artistic endeavor, but I just don't think he has suceeded in creating the epic tragedy that he had obviously hoped to. A noble failure, but not a catastrophe.  ¶ 11:40 AM 1 comments

  MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR MAJOR Saw Sam Peckinpah's Major Dundee (1965) at the Music Box last Thursday night. Peckinpah appears to have shot all of the existing footage, but was fired by execs at Columbia before he could complete filming and editing. Depending on whom you believe, Peckinpah was either an abusive jerk or the studio couldn't understand his artistic vision. The film has recently been restored with a new score and footage that had previously been thought lost.

Plot: Charlton Heston plays the eponymous Major, a Union Army officer in charge of a military prison in the New Mexico territory during the last years of the Civil War. A band of Apaches has been wreaking havoc in the country surrounding Dundee's command, but he doesn't have enough men to do anything about it. However, a group of Confederate soldiers is locked up in Dundee's prison and their leader just happens to be Captain Benjamin Tyreen (Richard Harris), an old West Point classmate of Dundee's. Hmmm, are you thinking what I'm thinking? Dundee's chocolate and Tyreen's peanut butter? Yep, Dundee convinces Tyreen to hunt down the Apaches in return for the freedom of Tyreen's men.

Major Dundee has a good premise, but fails severely in the execution. What should be a taught action-adventure tale is slack and episodic; the film slogs from incident to incident without gaining any momentum. For example, it's understandable that some time should be spent on Dundee's recruitment of the Confederates to his cause; after all, it wouldn't be very interesting if they immediately agreed to help him. However, the better part of an hour passes by before the soldiers set out on their mission. Believe me, it isn't time well spent, as it's mostly composed of tired, familiar scenes of Dundee sorting through all the riff-raff in search of a few good men.

The actual military expedition is handled at a similarly static pace. Instead of concentrating on the Apache-hunting story and allowing the Civil War subplot to develop from that, we're treated to countless, North/South confrontations between Dundee, Tyreen, and their soldiers. What should be an interesting context to the film quickly becomes tiresome. The mission is actually forgotten about for large parts of the film, only reappearing in force at its conclusion.

As for the actors, I thought Charlton Heston was terrible. Handsome in a dignified and stately manner, he looked the part, but just didn't have the range to play the role. He either looked serious or angry. Actually, that's not quite it. He looked pompous too. Overall, he's been a wooden actor in every film that I've seen him in.

Richard Harris fared much better. He played his part with a hammy theatricality that brought some desperately needed life to the film and suited the character. It's too bad that Tyreen wasn't the focus of the film.

James Coburn, as Dundee's one-armed scout, and the luscious Senta Berger, as the woman torn between the two leads, were mostly wasted in potentially juicy supporting roles.

So, I didn't like Dundee much and wouldn't recommend it. And I haven't even said anything about the voice-over narration, which might be the worst in film history.  ¶ 9:09 AM 0 comments

  WHAT LIES BENEATH I don't want to write about DVDs regularly, but I think that I have to do something when it comes to The Life Aquatic.

When The Life Aquatic came out last December, I was interested but noticed that most of the reviews were negative, so I didn't make much of a point to see it. The critics wrote en masse that Wes Anderson's propensity toward cuteness and art direction had finally caught up with him, swallowing any semblance of a narrative structure to the film. I don't think that I read a single review that attempted to analyze any of the film's content. If you had asked me, based upon the reviews, what The Life Aquatic was about, I probably would have said that it was just a bunch of cute sets shot in bold colors with no story.

I finally saw The Life Aquatic at the Brew N' View in early April, (with my co-worker Lord Guy Keating), and it was a very pleasant surprise. I laughed a lot, was moved by several scenes , and, yes, thought it looked great. However, considering that I saw it at the Brew N' View, I was still doubtful. I thought that the beer and cigarettes might have been the reason that I had such a good time and not the film itself. So, I decided to see it again when it came out on DVD this Tuesday.

I'm pleased to say that I enjoyed the Life Aquatic just as much the second time around, if not more so.

I won't go into the plot in detail: Bill Murray plays Steve Zissou, a Jacques Cousteau-like undersea adventurer and film-maker. The Life Aquatic begins just after Zissou's best friend, Esteban du Plantier, has been eaten by something called the Jaguar Shark. Zissou vows revenge and, with his faithful crew and possibly illegitimate son, Ned, sets off to hunt down the creature.

As most reviewers didn't try to analyze the possible meaning of The Life Aquatic, I'll take a crack at it: I think that the film is about growing old and death. The film begins with the aforementioned death of Zissou's best friend, an event that has sent Zissou into a deep depression. His latest film has not been received well and his career appears to be crumbling around him. Zissou's vow of revenge upon the Jaguar Shark, is a vow of revenge upon death itself. Zissou can't and won't accept that growing old and death are a part of life. The only thing that he can think to do is destroy the thing that has robbed him of his best friend and that is also a reminder of his own mortality.

Notice too, all the dead people that either appear or are mentioned in the course of the film: Ned tells Zissou early in the film that his mother committed suicide after a long bout with cancer. We learn that Zissou's mentor, Lord Mandrake, died many years ago. When Zissou arrives at his island, the first thing that his wife, Eleanor, tells him is that his cat has died. Zissou kills a pirate during a raid on his ship. A key character dies near the end of the voyage. Death surrounds Zissou, he cannot escape it. Only at the end of the film, when he finds the Jaguar Shark, is he able to accept death as a part of life. Instead, of trying to kill the beast, he is brought to tears by its beauty.

I know this analysis sounds pretty heavy-handed but I can assure you that it's played out with a lot more playfulness and subtlety in the film. I'm just surprised that the critics either couldn't or wouldn't see beyond Anderson's mise-en-scene. All I can think is that they had such a strong reaction to The Life Aquatic's "cuteness" that they didn't even want to look for any meaning in it. I know there's a lot on the surfaces of Anderson's films, but there's a lot underneath too.

It goes to show that you should never trust a critic.  ¶ 8:46 AM 0 comments

  NOT ENOUGH COWBELL FOR THIS FEVER Saw Fever Pitch last night in Evanston. Ms. Vivian C. Wong was in attendance with me. Actually, it was her idea to go to the movie. The Vivster had just finished a mid-term at Northwestern and felt like a bit of unchallenging entertainment.

I can't say that Fever Pitch was entertaining, but it wasn't terrible either. By now, most of you probably know the plot: Jimmy Fallon plays, Ben, a Boston elementary school teacher who is OBSESSED with the Red Sox. We learn that his obsession began traumatically at an early age and has continued on into adulthood; indeed, his apartment looks like a demented ten year old boy's shrine to the Sawcks. Ben meets Lindsey (Drew Barrymore), when he takes some of his students to her company's office for...well, for some vague reason. He then asks her out, but she turns him down. Lindsey has a change of heart when she realizes that she rejected Ben solely because of his job and not because of Fallon's creepy awkwardness.

This sets up the strangest first date I've seen in a movie in a long time. Ben shows up at Lindsey's place only to find that she's very sick. Not just a little bit sick, mind you, but puking her guts up sick. We know this because we're treated to several shots of Barrymore with her head over the bowl. Nice! Ben decides to take care of her that night, as opposed to abandoning her, I guess, and as he's such a swell guy, Lindsey decides to date him.

So, she's a high-powered corporate type who's obsessed with her career and he's a school teacher obsessed with the Red Sox. Do they have a snowball's chance in hell of making it? You betcha, kids.

The rest of Ben and Lindsey's burgeoning relationship plays out across the backdrop of the baseball season. Things are fine at first, actually downright sweet when Ben invites Lindesy to Opening Day, but gradually worsen as the depths of Ben's obsession are revealed. He insists that Lindsey go to more and more games, blows off important events that she wants him to attend, and, in one darkly comic scene, celebrates snagging a foul ball at the game, while failing to notice that the only reason he was able to make the catch was that the ball bounced off Lindsey's head, knocking her unconscious. Their relationship reaches a crisis point at the same point that the Red Sox's season reaches a crisis point, but everything works itself out, though not before Ben's friends have to do a sort of intervention on him, he proclaims his love to Lindsey, and there's a big reconciliation at Fenway.

Okay, on to my always complex and nuanced film analysis:

Things I Didn't Like about Fever Pitch:

1. The grubby, murky cinematography. I don't how they manged to make Boston in the summer look like Columbus, Ohio in the middle of winter, but they did. Barrymore also looked like she was capable of puking at any time in the movie, not just that one scene. Bad lighting. I think they got Kevin Smith's cinematographer.

2. Fallon/Barrymore's lack of chemistry. It got better as the movie went on, but their first intereactions were hard to watch. Barrymore was really acting like Fallon was a creepy guy on a blind date. Fallon was just really awakward. He got better as his character turned into more of a jerk, but that kinds of makes you wonder.

3. Ben and Lindsey's "friends." Ben's friends were complete cyphers, no character development, no nothin'. Lindsey's friends were developed in more detail, but only to offer misogynistically-conceived cliches: there was souless career-driven friend, office flunky friend, non-threateningly pretty friend, and dopey, makes-you-feel-better-about-yourself, fat friend.

Things I Liked About Fever Pitch:

1. Ben's fellow Sawcks Fans at Fenway. Not great, but a solid bunch of Masshole-types. I enjoyed the weird, bespectacled guy who offered everyone a sponge and the two or three brassy broads that came the closest of anyone in the film to having a Boston accent.

2. Some general Farrelly brothers goofiness. Ben's friends decide to throw him in the shower during their intervention after his initial breakup with Lindsey. This leads to Ben saying to one of his friends: "Why are you shaving my ball?" Friend: "Relax. I'm a doctor." I also enjoyed the scene where Barrymore got hit in the head at Fenway. Nicely devious.

3. The big sappy ending. [Spoiler. Don't keep reading, if you haven't seen the movie. But don't you think you're kidding yourself? You know how this kind of movie ends, don't you?] I know it was so cliched, but I really liked Barrymore buying scalped tickets for a Fenway playoff game and running onto the field to find Ben. It was just fun to watch Barrymore run around while security guards bumped into each other trying to catch her. Probably the funniest line in Fever Pitch came when she finally made it to Fallon and he asked her, "How did the grass feel? Was it spongy?"

So, not a very good movie, but not a terrible one either. On the positive side, it's inspired me to write a longer piece on the films of the Farrelly brothers. Stay tuned.  ¶ 12:58 PM 0 comments