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Movie Reviews

I've decided to try something entirely different for the upcoming school year and make this a film review page. Each time I see a movie, I'll post my review. So, expect frequent updates to this page (hopefully).

To start this academic year, here are some quick review of the three most recent films I've seen in the theaters. With rare exception, I'm not going to do DVD reviews because then I would have to update way too often.

Talk to Me (viewed on Sept. 07): I went to see this with J who very rightly pointed out, "You really can't go wrong with a Don Cheadle pic." For the most part, I'd have to agree. Not all of Don Cheadle's films are great (i.e. Swordfish) but they are never bad. Cheadle began doing small roles in small films and lots of television appearances (he even did a small guest appearance as some background character in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). But, ever since 1997's Boogie Nights, Cheadle has become an A-list actor who has proven himself to be quite astute at picking his material.

Talk to Me is basically a bio-pic that focuses on the life of Petey Greene, a convict turned radio host. Thankfully, this film doesn't fall into the same trap that so many bio-pics tend to do. Rather than create a pop-psychology profile that tries to understand the inner Petey, Kasi Lemmons, the director, is content to see Greene as simply a person doing what he can within the context of a particular social and historical context. In other words, this is biography in the old-school model. An expose of a man and his times, not a deep profile into the scarred childhood that created the man or drives him to self-destruction.

The one thing about this film that bothers me a bit is the color processing. Much like the film Zodiac , Lemmons uses a slight sepia-like tint in her film to emulate the film stock used in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In other words, if the film is about the early 70s then she wants to make the film look as if it were made in the 1970s. Zodiac and Talk to Me are, of course, not the only ones who do this. The recent Rodriguez/Tarantino collaboration, Grindhouse, essentially did the same thing in trying to make the form match the content. A 21st-century view of the 1970s will be always be precisely that ... the present looking at the past. Trying to dress up that perspective in the guise of aesthetic authenticity is, in fact, the most inauthentic thing an artist can do. Don't get me wrong, the color processing is most definitely not a deal breaker.  This is a solid film and definitely worth watching. I just wish it stayed true to the present.

Superbad (viewed on Sept. 08): Every ten years or so there needs to be a defining coming-of-age film (or what we in the literary biz call a bildungsroman). I was caught right in-between films -- too young to really appreciate the profundity of Fast Times at Ridgemont High and too old to be taken in by the sentimentality of The Breakfast Club. This isn't to say that I wasn't wholly affected by either film only that the impact was somewhat deflected. After watching Superbad, I envy those currently in the 16-20 age group. On the one hand, this is straight up raunchy adolescent potty humor. Simply put, 90% of the jokes involve ... oh, how to put it delicately ... male genitalia. The bildungsroman for reasons that any student who has taken my literature courses should well know, is an inherently male-privileged genre and Superbad makes no apologies for that. But, on the other hand, this is dumb comedy done smartly. There is a sincere intelligence behind all this potty-mouthed humor. In other words, it's a dirty film that doesn't make you feel dirty for having watched it.

Shoot 'em Up (viewed on Sept. 12): Speaking of dumb done smartly ... Shoot 'em Up just might be the most crazy fun I've had in the theaters for quite some time; however, this is definitely not a DVD film. Much like Snakes on a Plane this is the kind of film that requires the collective experience that can only be had by sitting in a theater full of people. The semiologist, Roland Barthes, once wrote that the true pleasure of cinema comes not from the private experience of sitting in the dark but from the public experience of symbolically awakening together from as the lights turn on at the film's end. To this I would amend that the most profound and important pleasure from cinema is not in the watching but in the discussing, in being able to not only share the experience but recall the shared experience. With each absurd scene, it's hard not to turn to the people around you, exclaiming, "did that really happen? Did they really do what I think they did?" It's as if the affirmation of absurdity heightens the experience of absurdity. I went to see this film with the Mini-ster (with whom I had gone to see Snakes on a Plane) and we agreed that as fun as this film was, it would have been better had it been seen in a packed theater.

Shoot 'em Up is cartoonishly absurd. Much like Hot Fuzz, Shoot 'em Up is not so much a parody of action films but rather an irreverent homage that both mocks and respects the generic conventions: the dark anti-hero, the femme fatale (hooker with a heart of gold), the hapless henchmen led by the grimacing, slightly-psychotic bad guy, lots of guns and cars, etc. While the film plays around with the idea of second-amendment rights, it in no way takes any of those ideas seriously. In fact, it is precisely the film's vapid meaninglessness that makes the film such a pleasure to watch. There is no shortage of moronic and meaningless films out there but those films (like the most recent Die Hard) contain a pretense of meaning that ultimately only turns the film into a sentimental mess. Shoot 'em Up is an honest film that knows its audience only comes for the explosions and has no problems in giving them precisely and only what they want.

On quick sidenote: I mentioned that this is a film that is very aware of itself as being part of a certain tradition of films. The number of references to classic actions films is far too numerous to go over; however, there was this one line that to me was the best line of the movie. After Hertz (Paul Giamatti) once again fails in his attempt to kill "Smith" (Clive Owen), Giamatti yells out, "F*** me sideways." If you don't get that joke then you need to see better movies.

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (viewed on Sept. 12): I'm not very big on modern video games. Perhaps it's just a sign of my age but I definitely prefer the old-school, classics especially Ms. Pac Man. Of course, a simple love of video games would never have compelled me to see a documentary about a bunch of Donkey Kong players. What did drive me to see this documentary (despite the fact I couldn't find anyone else even remotely interested in seeing this film) was a fascination with what Dick Hebdige calls subcultures. In the united states, when we use the term ethnic we usually think along racial lines. But, as documentaries like King of Kong, American Hardcore, and Word Wars clearly show, ethnicity is not necessarily something into which you are born. Ethnicity can also be something you choose.

The world of competetive videogaming is not unlike any other subculture (whether it be something as mainstream as athletics or as obscure as scrabble): there are unique values, rituals, histories, and a sense of family. I think the filmmakers went a bit too far into trying to carve a clear, linear narrative with a clearly marked good guy and bad guy dichotomy such that the conflict between Billy and Steve (the two main foci of the film) synecdochically stand in for a red-state/blue-state conflict. In other words, the film attempts to mainstream the conflict rather than appreciate the unique, subcultural nature. With all that said, I have to confess that I couldn't help but get caught up the struggles of "the good guy" and quickly found myself rooting against the "bad guy."

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (viewed Sept. 15). I saw this film with "J" at iMax. About a year ago, the Mini-ster and I went to see Superman Returns at iMax and found the whole 3-D experience to be distracting more than anything else. Who knows, maybe it was because the film as a whole was thoroughly disappointing but I walked out of Superman Returns feeling as if I had wasted two hours of my life. Not so with Phoenix. I think part of it may have been that there was just one 20-minute sequence in which you had to wear the 3-D glasses. With Superman Returns, there were three short sequences.

Anyways, as for the film itself, the Harry Potter films seem to be getting better with each volume. I found the first one nearly unwatchable. It was almost as if Disney had made them: cute, precocious children doing cute and precocious things. The book is much darker and far more nuanced than what the film allowed. Of course, the fact all of this is lost shouldn't come as a surprise when one considers that it was Chris Columbus directing (he also directed Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire). Starting with the third film, the producers smartly got rid of Columbus and put in real directors. Each chapter is getting increasingly darker and more complex. I haven't read the book but "J" had and she tells me that there are a lot of major plot points that get overlooked or given only a cursory look. I figure that's about par for the course when it comes to any adaptation. Movies can never tell a story quite as good as a novel. With the exception of The Godfather, you will almost never hear anyone say the movie was better than the book. This isn't to say the movie isn't good (because this one certainly is) only that it will always fall short of the book.

On a final note, I think the producers of the series must be slapping themselves on the back for having had the great fortune of choosing children actors who would grow up one day to become halfway decent actors. Both Radcliffe and Watson have proven themselves to be quite capable. Grint, on the other hand, will probably see few movie roles beyond this one (although I heard he wasn't half bad in Driving Lessons).