Category Archives: Movies

Gene Pool

X2The summer movie season effectively kicked off last night with Bryan Singer’s “X2: X-Men United.” With these would-be blockbusters, it takes a dogged determination to avoid being inundated by advance publicity; I tried my best over the past few weeks to avoid trailers, television commercials, critical reviews and entertainment journalism, all in an attempt to preserve as much novelty as possible for the 10:00p show on opening night. What little publicity I was unable to avoid seemed really positive — the ‘buzz’ was good, sometimes outrageously positive. I worried that my expectations were already being inflated but I shouldn’t have, as “X2” is a complete success.

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The Commercial Con

ConfidenceTonight I went with some friends to see the new movie “Confidence,” which stars Edward Burns and Rachel Weisz as a pair of con artists at odds with Dustin Hoffman. Before I get into commenting on the film, let me just tell you that what I’ll remember the most from this evening is that there’s no escaping advertising, even if you’ve paid the exorbitant ten dollar ransom on a movie ticket. Advertising is unstoppable.

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Talk Talk

Talk to HerPlenty of movies entertain me and manage to surpass my often limited expectations, but when I watch a film like “Talk to Her,” I’m reminded that there is an art to filmmaking and it’s capable of making my jaw drop. Pedro Almodóvar’s latest feature begins as a tale of a female matador, shifts to an unlikely friendship between two vigilant and lonely would-be lovers of coma victims, interludes with a parody of silent films and concludes something like “Dead Man Walking.” From the very first few moments, I was transfixed by Almodóvar’s unpredictably elegiac, hilarious and disturbing roller-coaster ride. Its lingering power is one of emotional resonance, but I will gladly pay another ten dollars to see any movie that can even approximate the beauty of “Talk to Her“’s bullfighting cinematography — it’s one of perhaps two times that I’ve ever seen film look uncannily, rapturously like painting.

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Don’t Judge a Film by Its Poster

IdentityPosters for the upcoming film “Identity” can be seen all over town these days. And though the trailer doesn’t look too promising, this poster is brilliant, easily the best I’ve seen yet this year. It’s the kind of conceptually dense illustration that used to feature more prominently in commercial graphics, and I think Columbia Pictures deserves a pat on the back for approving such an unorthodox approach.

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H-E-Double Toothpicks-site

HellsiteSigns are good for the 2004 cinematic debut of Mike Mignola’s “Hellboy.” Director and writer Guillermo Del Toro seems to be creatively invested in the character, and I’m so thankful that the title role will be played by an actor with a bit of real grit — Ron Perlman — rather than a vainglorious Hollywood drip like Vin Diesel or some such. The movie’s promotional Web site, cleverly called “Hellsite,” is even up and ready to go a year early. When’s the last time a Web site launched a year early?

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I’d Like to Thank the Academy

Five random notes on the occasion of the 75th Academy Awards: 1. I saw “Far from Heaven” earlier today and while it was excellently made, there was almost nothing surprising about it. What’s more, Julianne Moore, while talented and beautiful, has a zillion teeth. 2. On the way back from a short vacation in Miami at New Year’s, I sat next to Adrien Brody on the plane. I remember thinking, “When’s his career going to go somewhere?” 3. What, exactly, is the point of the Best Animated Feature category if its only purpose is to honor these kinds of nominees? They may as well add a category for ‘Best Instructional Workplace Video.’ 4. “Adaptation” should have been nominated and chosen Best Picture. 5. I still hate the Academy Awards.

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Remembering Superman

Superman: The Movie Something prompted me to go back and watch the first two installments of Christopher Reeve’s “Superman” movies over the weekend. The first film is fondly remembered by critics, and while I enjoy it still, I could never quite explain its enduring quality. On the other hand, its sequel, which held together so well for me when I was in grade school, is a lazy disaster.

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Boys in Blue

Dark Blue There’s not all that much that’s surprising about “Dark Blue,” but there’s enough to recommend it beyond its inevitable, shortcut-to-video fate. To start with, like so many Kurt Russell enterprises, the movie’s star delivers more earnestness and hard work than can rightly be expected from an actor that’s been in the business for forty years and yet still always seems to be only on the verge of a major breakthrough.

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Wounded Walking

While at the dog park this weekend, I took a bad spill on the unkind accumulation of ice and slush lingering from last week’s blizzard, and did something nasty to my ankle. Now, my walk has taken on a charming, hobbling quality and I can barely get from one end of the apartment to the other, much less across town to the office. Luckily the local kennel has a pick-up and drop off service, and Mister President goes wild for the place. In the meantime, I’ve spent most of the past two days re-watching DVDs (with a limp, I can’t even get to the video store to rent new flicks) ordering in food and browsing the Web.

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