Too Many Movies

July 2, 2001

It was a long weekend of film and fire, as I watched three movies and barbecued twice. Atlantis, Pootie-Tang and A.I. all stole my money. They weren’t all bad, necessarily. They certainly weren’t as nauseating as Tomb Raider. But they all were entertaining up to a certain point, and then kind of all failed miserably.

Atlantis was the first flick I caught. After a lot of hype of this being the first really adult Disney feature, this film really fell apart for me. There was a great sense of design (based mostly on the work of Mike Mignola) and some spectacular animation, but the story, characters and dialogue were even worse than the standard Disney fare. Yes, they’ve taken out the wacky animal sidekicks and songs, but they’ve replaced them with wacky human sidekicks that seem even more out of place. People do die, but that really wasn’t enough for me to look at this like the second coming.

Pootie Tang was a bit of a refreshing change. A low budget feature based on a skit from the Chris Rock show, Pootie Tang is probably one of most inexplicable movies I’ve seen in a long time. I laughed and I laughed, even though it made little or no sense. Pootie Tang is a multi-media superstar who whips people with a belt and looks like Lando Calrissian’s love child. I probably shouldn’t recommend this to anyone since the humor is probably a bit particular… but everyone should give this a go when the rental comes around. Wa da tah.

A.I. is one of the strangest movie going experiences I’ve ever had. There was definitely the makings of greatness for this one, even with the schizophrenic results of Kubrick’s ghost pulling Spielberg’s hand. The film mixes bits of Frankenstein, Pinocchio and the Wizard of Oz together in a tricked out Blade Runner future, and for the most part, it’s really great. Spielberg does a good job of aping Kubrick’s paranoid, cold style for the first two hours of the film… and then it happens. With about 25 minutes to go, the film falls apart. Spielberg so desperately wants to get to his happy ending that the exposition and narrative crumble to bits and the movie seems to drag on forever and ever. It’s a very, very frustrating thing to watch, because there are many points where AI teeters on the verge of greatness. Alas, it was not meant to be.

Oh, and we set fire to meat several times this weekend. Yummy.

Posted in Moving Pictures