My Month in Movies AKA Now My Eyes Fall Out

August 15, 2004

Riding Giants was just another surf documentary about big wave riding. It’s less wide-eyed and naive than the Brown family movies like Endless Summer or Step Into Liquid, but it doesn’t have nearly as much breathtaking footage as Step Into Liquid either. I thought this was disappointing coming from Stacey Peralta, who put together Dogtown and Z-Boys.

Metallica: Some Kind of Monster is probably the funniest movie I’ve seen this year. It’s like Spinal Tap with a reality TV show twist, as you see Metallica run around with therapists and Gandalf and admit their gay love for each other while Dave Mustaine stands at the edges talking about how he misses smoking dirtbongs with his “little Norwegian friend” Lars. The band bills it as a document about how they overcame substance abuse and internal conflict to put together a landmark metal album. Everyone else can watch it to see rich, whiny, petulant egos wreck a metal legacy.

Bourne Supremacy bored me to tears. Seriously. There’s a few decent action sequences in it, but they’re barely watchable with the shaky camerawork. Without any partners or foils, the Jason Bourne character is just far too dull to carry the movie anywhere. That said, he still looks at road maps before he starts on a car chase, which I think is hilarious.

Garden State is supposed to be a melancholy character drama, but for the first hour it’s really a series of skits as b-actor Andrew Largeman, played by Scrubs’ Zach Braff, returns home to Jersey after his mother dies. It’s funny but aimless, saved by a super sense of mood and composition in Braff’s shotmaking and good use of two year old KCRW music. There is actually a plot after a while, and the movie becomes sweeter and warmer as Natalie Portman shows up more, even if some of the monologues ring false on occassion. As writer/director/actor, Braff’s first major motion picture is an understated and extremely likable piece of work.

Harold and Kumar’s not nearly as funny as I wanted it to be, but it’s always a pleasant surprise to see East and South Asians on screen together, getting fucked up as often as they show off their math skillz. I wish there were less dead spots, but the cameos by Neil Patrick Harris, a cheetah and an anthropomorphic bag of weed were all perfect. After the movie was done, I wanted White Castle so bad, probably because I’ve never had White Castle before and don’t know how sucky the burgers really are.

Collateral is a gritty little thriller made by Michael Mann, who apparently is trying to get back to his gritty little thriller roots after a shit load of three hour movies. The movie is pretty much a two man play in a moving set with Jamie Fox’s humble cab driver driving around Tom Cruise’s homicidal hitman around a high contrast, low light Los Angeles. I never thought I’d like a movie with those two in it, but Foxx builds admirably on his low key work in Ali and Tom Cruise plays an asshole, so that works out great! I think this movie works even better if you imagine Tom Cruise’s “Vince” character as the same “Vince” from Color of Money. Actually, it doesn’t add anything to the movie, but I just think it’s funny. Best supporting performance goes to Cruise’s hair, which is something close to ridiculous.

Takashi Miike’s Gozu is subtitled Yakuza Horror Theater, but barely lives up to its billing. There are certainly Yakuza, but it’s not particularly horrifying as much as it is kooky and weird. Transvestite diners and inns where lactating old ladies co-habitate with tonsil hockey minotaurs aren’t really scary as much as they are just fucked up for no real reason. There are a few brilliant moments, but for the most part Gozu is a bunch of bland non-sequiturs.

Posted in Moving Pictures