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January 23, 2009

A QUICK ONE

A FEW QUICK MOVIE REVIEWS

It's been a while, kids. Here are the movies I saw since December:

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE: Depending on how you look at it, it's either a charming fairy tale or the latest manipulative attempt to use an impoverished country for dramatic and visual effect. I was not a huge fan of the spate of films a few years back that adopted the "callow Westerner has a life-changing experience with Africa as a backdrop." But it seems stupid to apply that criticism to SLUMDOG, with its intense focus on the experience of living in these slums. Is it commercialized and dramatized? Somewhat. But there's something refreshing about Danny Boyle making a movie and not a travelogue or an intense experience in suffering with no narrative to ground it. Some found its structure manipulative; I thought it was inspired. Some found its optimism contrived; I thought it was stirring.

Some movies are "critic-proof," but SLUMDOG is a pretty easy film to tear apart. When compared to something like CITY OF GOD, it lacks the realistic brutality and documentary feel that made Mereilles' film remarkable. Its storybook plot can come across as imposed on a setting that deserves revelation, not contrivance. Yet I'd argue that these contrivances don't diminish the problems of India - at times Boyle subtly shows how globalization changes everything, and rarely for the better. The naturalism is overwhelmed by the optimism, but it's still there in grim shots that remind us that Salim's story is the exception, not the rule.

But to be perfectly trite, SLUMDOG is as much a love letter to the human spirit as it is a reminder of what movies can be.

FROST / NIXON: I was pretty high on Ron Howard after CINDERELLA MAN - the kind of old Hollywood entertainment that's fewer and further between these days. So I was hoping he'd ride that success in the immensely intriguing F/N, my most anticipated movie of the Xmas season. While I enjoyed the performances, many of Howard's choices left me flat. Why, for instance, have talking heads explain what is happening on screen? Especially when what is happening can be revealed through the narrative?

Michael Mann would have nailed this movie - given it the sense of professionalism that he gave THE INSIDER. As it is, the movie suffers from a lack of context, which keeps the drama pretty slow. Thus it has to be carried by the titular characters, who pull it off as well as can be expected. Frank Langella is a marvelous Nixon - his sweaty not-charm is balanced by the realization that (he thinks) he has nothing to lose. But Michael Sheen is equally good as Frost.

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON: I love David Fincher; I'm glad he exists. He is a visual stylist of the highest order, and his visuals always coalesce with whatever story he decides to tell. But why BUTTON? Why tell a story about a guy who ages backwards and have little of import happen to him? BUTTON is FORREST GUMP without the funny, and the main thing I liked about that movie was the funny. Fincher has never really proven that he can do "whimsy," and his latest film needed a bit of that. Instead, it feels like a lead weight. Benjamin searches for a father figure and ends up with a mother; yeah, I get it - but the movie plays like a poor man's BIG FISH.

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD - A disaster. Don't fall into the easy trap of trying to pin the blame on Kate and Leo. They're just doing what they're told: to be histrionic. Richard Yates' novel, one of my favorites, is remarkable because it resists the judgment that the reader wants to give it. But in Sam Mendes' surprisingly terrible adaptation, we're left hating Winslet and feeling sorry for Leo. (Really?! How did he get away with this? Kate W. seems like a pretty smart lady; why didn't she challenge them?) Not as good as the worst episode of MAD MEN, it hearkens shamelessly back to better films in hopes that we'll transpose those find memories for the dull melodrama we're watching. Yates the author had a way of seeing the way melodrama came from naturalistic means, and found an immense amount of compassion for two people who wanted more than they had. Perhaps because Leo and Kate are always reminding us of the kids they were, we keep responding to them like children rather than the adults they become.

Please read the book . . . it's much better than this movie.

Posted by Andytown at 11:39 PM | Comments (2)

January 3, 2009

J-E-T-S

A few days ago, Brett Favre was ripped by his New York Jets teammate, Thomas Jones. Jones, a consistent if unremarkable running back, claimed that Favre should have been benched in the last five games of the year, when he threw for only two touchdowns and about nine interceptions. You can read about the interview and the still-developing aftermath here.

First: yes, I am a Jets fan. Why? It's weird. Growing up, I was obsessed with those NFL Films Super Bowl Videos. ESPN used to show all of them on Super Bowl Sunday (or maybe it was Saturday, before they decided they needed 12 hours of new material before the game) and I taped pretty much all of them. My favorite, then and now, is Super Bowl III, which begins with a picture of Joe Namath guaranteeing victory over the heavily favored Baltimore Colts. Something about the Jets struck me then, and I immediately became obsessed with their history. Of course, by the early 90s, and continuing to day, that remains noncompetitive high mark of the franchise. The closest they've come since was the AFC Championship game in 1982 (the strike season), a 10-1 start in 1986 that ended with five straight losses, and the 1998 AFC Championship game in one of Bill Parcells' two years as coach. As a young sports fan without an NFL team in his city, the Jets charmed me: their blue collar status among New York sports teams, their underdog status in the then-AFC East compared to flashier, higher profile teams, their lack of superstars, their always-gritty but never excellent defenses, their (then) ugly green uniforms. And the fact that since 1968, they have never . . . won . . . anything. Unlike other teams who have more or less never won anything (the Kansas City Chiefs, the Seattle Seahawks, the New Orleans Saints), the Jets never even seem to have brief, consistent spells of success.

I suppose you can say this continues to endear them to me.

So this season my favorite team picked up Brett Favre. If you don't know about this saga, you've probably stopped reading already. Favre got off to a slow start, but after giving the Titans their first loss, he had the Jets rolling at 8-3. Just as in 1986, they stumpled at the end of the year, finishing out of the playoffs at 9-7. Salt in the wounds? The division winning Dolphins followed up a 1-15 season and were jumpstarted by the very dude that management ran out of town to bring Favre in: Chad Pennington. I can't help but be happy for Pennington, a stand-up guy of limited gifts but tenacious staying power. But I was really hoping to see the Jets as a Super Bowl contender. For years, Jets fans have been waiting for the Patriots to get out of the way, and once they finally do, this happens.

There is one problem with Jones' statement, which is that the alternative to Brett Favre is the tried-and-failed-former-QB-of-the-Jets-future Kellen Clemens. Clemens was supposed to be the anti-Pennington: a guy whose natural gifts did not have to be made up for by a compromised offensive scheme. Yet Clemens bombed in his attempts to prove himself.

But other than that, Jones is absolutely right: as a superstar and as the biggest story of the 2008 season before Plaxico Burress accidentally shot himself, Favre was too big of a name for the matinee to be benched. And despite the repeated notion that Favre is a humble dude from Mississippi who would just as soon be sitting on a rocking chair than moving along with the spotlight, Favre clearly was not going to sacrifice himself for a organization that he had belonged to for a little over 100 days. And Eric Mangini was not going to bench him, and if he wanted to the organization probably wouldn't have let him, because if he did the outrage from the media would have ensued and there would have been the same result: Mangini's firing. Because the media would have insisted that Favre is the kind of guy who could pull this all together, which he then proceeded to not do.

I was happy with Favre's retirement, because I thought it might end a love affair between him and the media that has always annoyed me. When he came to the Jets, I hoped for the best - at least they would have to lock up their best talent and sign some other promising performers. But in the end, Favre's failure is both consistent with the Jets failure and a complete departure: normally the Jets fail in the most mediocre way imaginable and are treated as the lovably mediocre franchise that they are, yet now their failure has sparked a huge story that threatens to consume even bigger stories, like the hilarious failure of the Cowboys.

Oh well. On with the NFL! And with the other teams I enjoy watching, if not with the ardor I have for those goofy Jets. Go Eagles! Titans! Colts! Anyone . . .?

Posted by Andytown at 3:16 PM | Comments (1)