Category: Cinema

Wine & Memory.

The 2004 Golden Globe nominations are out, with Sideways leading the pack as predicted. Given the usual Lacuna-like lapses for early year standouts, I was very happy to see Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, still my #1 film of 2004, pull down three nods (Best Comedy/Musical, Carrey, & Winslet), although it’ll rightfully face stiff competition from both Sideways and The Incredibles. Otherwise, this list seems like good news on The Aviator, but the lack of Life Aquatic nominations bodes trouble for the next film in my queue.

Dark Knights.

In case you couldn’t access it over the weekend (or just want a closer look), the new Batman Begins trailer is officially up, as is our most recent view of Keanu Reeves in Constantine.

Getting Colder.

It’s too bad some of Julia Roberts’ Ocean’s Twelve mojo didn’t rub off on the Closer shoot, ’cause here’s a film that could use both the fun and the self-awareness of Soderbergh’s flick. But, no, Mike Nichols’ Closer (meant, I assume, in the primal and jagged sense of the NIN song) turned out to be a pretty grievous swing and miss. Jude, Julia, Natalie, and Clive each do what they can to enliven the proceedings, but they’re fighting a losing battle this time around. Stilted and stage-y throughout, Closer feels like warmed-over Neil LaBute, and seems less a treatise on our often-frightening capacity for emotional violence as much as an excuse for A-list actors to talk dirty to each other.

First, there’s the dialogue. Perhaps Closer works better as a play, but it certainly doesn’t work as a movie. All four characters speak past each other in sterile, well-crafted bon mots that sound unspontaneous and rehearsed throughout. Then, there’s the fact that all four of these characters come off as thoroughly detestable (and not in an empathetic Sideways kinda way): Jude’s a wheedler, Julia’s depressive, Natalie’s somewhat heartless, Clive’s a bully. Thus, it becomes much easier to dismiss the characters’ respective agonies as just-desserts for awful behavior, rather than as any kind of meaningful comment on the evils “normal” people perpetrate in the name of love.

Add these flaws together and you end up with some strikingly misconceived scenes, probably none more so than Natalie’s strip-tease for a love-ravaged Clive. Both actors go for it, with Portman fearlessly parading around semi-nude and Owen drawing up barrels of rage and despair to the fore. But to what purpose? Their conversation seemed so forced and artificial, and Portman so curiously distant from the traumatized Owen (who we just saw at his worst the scene before), that it took me right out of what’s going on. Ultimately, Closer leaves you with not much more than the experience of watching first-rate actors splendidly overexert themselves on cut-rate material. And sadly, to paraphrase Morrissey, the closer they got, the more I ignored them.

Twelve Goofy Men.

Nonsensical, self-indulgent, and occasionally even a tad smarmy, Steven Soderbergh’s much-hyped Ocean’s Twelve is also, I’m happy to report, just plain fun. While Eleven was an intricately designed (and quickly forgettable) clockwork caper flick, this sequel turns out to be a rather silly, rambling affair that reeks of inside-baseball, and I mean that in the best way possible. In fact, I’d say Twelve turned out to be what Soderbergh tried and failed to do with Full Frontal…As much a riff on stars and stardom as the heist movie we were all expecting, it’s probably the most sheerly pleasurable film experience you’re going to find this side of The Incredibles.

That’s not to say there aren’t problems here. The film starts slow, reintroducing every character from the first movie as if they were the reuniting Beatles. The plot…well, the plot doesn’t make much sense at all — this isn’t the type of heist movie where you can put the jigsaw pieces together yourself. A lot of the scenes are probably a beat or two too long, and the movie’s got more endings than Return of the King. But, y’know, in the final analysis, none of that really matters. Right about the time Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) goes to check in on imploding (i.e. “going all Frankie Muniz”) TV star Topher Grace (“I just phoned in that Dennis Quaid movie!”), Ocean’s 12 starts to show its true colors: Forget the crime and just have a good time.

And have a good time I did, although admittedly all the Hollywood in-jokes and cameos on display here are my cuppa joe. Sure, the movie could probably have used more Clooney and more Bernie Mac, but there’s a lot of characters to keep in play here, and, besides, it got the cowbell just right. I won’t say Ocean’s Twelve is a great film, but it is a well-made, entertaining film, and it kept a smile on my face for most of its running time. So, if there’s an Ocean’s Thirteen in the works, deal me in.

The Grapes of Wretchedness.

Lost in a wine-dark sea, Miles (Paul Giamatti) is withering on the vine. His wife left him two years ago and he’s still in the drunk-dialing throes of despair. His novelist aspirations are dying an ugly death in ever-smaller publishing houses. Both oenophile and alcoholic, he drinks too much, eats too much, surveys the world in furtive glances, and cringes with self-loathing every time he looks in the mirror. He’s lugubrious, pedantic, bristling with negativity to the core. In sum, Miles is almost completely beaten down by life…so of course he attracts the attention of a smart, beautiful woman (Virginia Madsen) who shares all his important interests and remains fond of him, even and despite his awful behavior.

If you can get past this one critical and wholly improbable plot point (and I did, eventually), Alexander Payne’s Sideways is a trip to California wine country well worth taking. The movie basically plays like an approaching-middle-age version of About Schmidt (right down to the unfortunate nude scene), but this seemed a more well-rounded and generous film than its predecessor. (I thought Schmidt derived too many laughs from turning Dylan McDermott’s character into a buffoon. That being said, I also think Sideways flinches from reality in the closing moments in a way About Schmidt didn’t.) And, while I’m about as far from a wine connoisseur as you can get (whites with chicken and fish, right?), Sideways also succeeds in making the subculture of oenophilia both accessible and reasonably engaging, a few ham-handed “wine-is-life” soliloquies notwithstanding.

Special nods go to all the actors involved here, and particularly Paul Giamatti for making it so easy to empathize with the easily unlikable Miles…I can’t think of many other folks who could have pulled it off so well (In fact, looking back I’d say Nicholas Cage pulled it off less well in Adaptation.) I also wouldn’t be surprised to see Thomas Haden Church, as Miles’ low-key, horny doofus of a best friend, and Virginia Madsen, as the previously noted underwritten muse of second chances, get some action come award time (which may end up meaning sour grapes for the Closer crowd.)

Samurai Bat.

The holiday trailer season continues today, with the first look at Spielberg’s War of the Worlds and, if you’re fast, this early copy of the spiffy new Batman Begins trailer. (If that doesn’t work, there are a number of screencaps here.)

Don’t Eat the Chocolate.

Would you let your kids near this man? The all-new, all-creepy trailer for Tim Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory just popped up on the grid, and it seems Johnny Depp is playing it more Ed Wood and Hunter Thompson than he is Gene Wilder. I like it.