Forget-Me-Not.


While The Ladykillers ultimately fell well short of expectations, I thought Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind lived up to the hype and then some. One part Annie Hall, one part Sliding Doors, three parts Charlie Kaufman, Eternal Sunshine is an exceptionally strange take on the romantic comedy, and probably the best flick by the screenwriter in question since Being John Malkovich. (It probably helped that I tend to be a fan of almost all the folks at work here, particularly Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Ruffalo, Elijah “Bad Frodo” Wood, and David Cross.) While the movie occasionally lapses into gratuitous symbolism (The “lost and gone forever” name “Clementine,” for instance) and hokey pop psychology (All of the Carrey-as-baby scenes were done more quickly and effectively in the Cameron Diaz-Catherine Keener chase scene through Malkovich’s brain), Sunshine is a fun, thought-provoking look at relationships and memory, and one that definitely holds together better than Gondy and Kaufman’s last collaboration, Human Nature.

I don’t want to say too much about Eternal Sunshine, as I think it’s probably a movie best enjoyed fresh. But just to give a sense of where my own brain was at during the film, there’s a scene near the end where Joel and Clementine are talking in a Barnes & Noble, and as they chat the books around them slowly lose their color and titles, until they’re all just blank. I think this scene unnerved me more than any other in the film…I wanted to shout, “Not until Thursday! Just remember them until Thursday!” Until then, I’d like to keep my mind as spotted as possible, thank you very much.

Visions to Come.

It’s been a quiet January as usual for fanboy and fangirls, and particularly in the wake of the Grey Havens last month. But lots of news out and about today: Terry Gilliam and James Cameron both discuss their next projects (The Brothers Grimm and Untitled Big Idea CGI Sci-Fi respectively), USA Today looks at a number of fantasy projects (including Lemony Snicket, Narnia, Elric, Artemis Fowl, and The Hobbit), and a longer trailer premieres for Frodo (and Charlie Kaufman’s) next project, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, also featuring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson, Kirsten Dunst, and Mark Ruffalo (previous trailer here.) Also, we’ve got a few more new Spidey II pics, some small Episode III tidbits, and The Ring‘s Martin Henderson possibly up for Superman. (Hmm…I hope not.)

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

creeps about this petty pace ’til Summer 2004, as three sci-fi/fantasy trailers are released in the wake of the King: Vin Diesel returns in The Chronicles of Riddick, aka Pitch Black 2. I enjoyed the first one decently enough, but this teaser doesn’t do anything for me. Meanwhile, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Angelina Jolie fight giant robots in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which looks like a great idea for a short film but may be hard to sustain for a full two hours. (And Jolie looks ridiculous.) Finally, Spiderman 2 gets the Quicktime treatment (I already commented on this one here.)

Coming Attractions.

AICN points to a flurry of new trailers, most notably The Missing, a Blair Witch western with Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones (no, he’s not playing the pollution Indian), and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the new Charlie Kaufman script starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, and Tom Wilkinson (and directed by Michel Gondry)…looks like Kaufmanesque fun.