The Summer of My Discontent

June 18, 2005

I realized I haven’t written any movies in months, mostly because I haven’t been overwhelmed by anything. It’s been a sea of mediocrity, with only a recent little upswing. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a brave attempt at adapting that book, but hurts itself by being comedy that’s not actually funny. That kinda killed it. I’d say more but I almost fell asleep more than once.

I had no expectations for Kicking and Screaming but it cracked me up. It’s by the numbers Bad News Bears type stuff, but there are more than enough laughs. It has kids climbing out of a butcher’s truck covered in blood right before a match, for one. Only producer Judd Apatow would think this was good for kids movie. Remember, he once thought a movie about kids getting abused at fatcamp was comedy gold. There’s a midget Asian kid in the movie named Bing-Bong, and there was this creepy pair of ladies behind us that kept yelling stuff like “AWWW HE’S SO CUTE” and “OH MY GOD I WANT ONE.” That was good for some bonus laughs.

Oh look, it’s the last Star Wars. I actually liked lots of Episode III, but it seemed like every time I was really into it, Lucas would clip my legs out from under me with a poorly timed joke, a feeble romantic scene or just basic ineptitude. Pity poor Natalie Portman, who gets to do exciting stuff like sit in an apartment and look sad while outside INTERGALACTIC WAR breaks out. I still liked more than I hated, and all in all it’s probably the best of the prequels. Plus I like prettyboys getting amputated. It makes me guffaw.

On the other side of the universe, Lords of Dogtown would be a perfectly serviceable biopic, if it weren’t for the fact that Dogtown and Z-Boys covered that material so completely. Lords of Dogtown is completely superfluous as a result. There are decent scenes here and there, but it tends to jump around a lot without any real narrative. There’s nothing particularly awful here, except for maybe Emil Hirsch shaving his head and acting like a cholo.

Here comes the aforementioned upswing. Howl’s Moving Castle is Hayao Miyazaki’s latest feature, and like most of his work, it features a young girl finding herself in the midst of a great conflict, usually brought upon by the encroachment of industry into nature. OK, so this one’s not exactly about that, but if you switch around some words you can make it fit. One thing I love about Miyazaki’s movies are that they are just so damn unconventional compared to the American animated features. The plots meander and flux, the designs always have that unique style, combining the adorable and the grotesque. They really do feel like the product of one vision, as opposed to a committee effort to steal kid’s disposable income. For one, the cutesy buddy character is a PILE OF SENTIENT FIRE. I wonder if any kid went home and tried to play with their gas range. It’s beautifully animated and has more than its share of jaw dropping moments.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith never seems to get going, but it’s still a fun little romp regardless. The plot is straight out of old comic book teamups, where our heroes fight each other due to a misunderstanding before realizing they have a common enemy and combining forces. It’s funny and clever but it’s not really hilarious, and the action is well done but somehow never really exciting. There is LOTS of action, but much of it is perfunctory stuff, background noise for the back and forth quips. There is one terrific car chase though, and the leads are ridiculously hot. While I didn’t love it, it killed 2 hours pretty well and I think it’s setup for some really fun sequels.

Batman Begins is actually the first Batman movie to be about Batman. Not the villains, not the car, not Robin, not some extended Batfamily, but Batman himself. Christopher Nolan commits the movie to explaining Batman’s origin, making it feel possible and real. For the first time, you really get the feeling that Batman is more than a little fucked in the head, and for the first time the costume and the car actually make sense. I liked Burton’s phantasmagorical take on it, but there’s something to be said for this lean and mean, fully functional Batman. Populating the cast with Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman,Gary Oldman and Liam Neeson gives the whole thing real gravity, which helps keep the camp down despite dispicable dialogue. I wish David Goyer could have found a thesaurus, because he uses the word FEAR about 50 or 60 times. I know it’s the main theme of the movie, but come the fuck on! Give me a little terror, dude. The only things I really hated were Katie Holmes and the last race against the clock set piece, but the rest of the movie built up enough good will that I was willing to let it slide.