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ndn109
Reviews
World Trade Center (2006)
carefully crafted emotional wallop
Of course they are going to make it out alive. Or there wouldn't be a movie. There's no "survivor story" without the survivors after all, right? Still, somehow Stone manages to pile the dramatic weight on so thick that we are inevitably swept up in the officers' struggle for survival. It goes against the grain of most hero stories, because McLaughlin and Jiminez don't really "do" much in the active sense. They can't move, so their main heroic deed is garnering the will power to survive.
Profiling the marine story sort of telegraphs the rescue a bit early, but this is permissible. I mean it's a miracle of narrative agility that this material was able to lend itself to a taut, conventional two-hour movie anyway. I mean everything "looks" real, but the dialogue is more schematic than realistic.
The home-front stuff is a bit stiff dramatically, but I guess there really isn't much you can do with it. The performances are sincere, which makes up for the abyss of real emotion in these scenes. It isn't "THE" movie about the trade center towers collapsing it's just one story of the internal fight for survival and one that only scratches the psychological surface at that.
But I liked it? Yeah. The story's essential struggle was so deftly handled that I found its emotional pull irresistible. All in all, this was a fitting tribute to the bold heroism of New York's finest martyrs on that day.
Harvey (1950)
Pleasant, but dated
"In this world you've either got to be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. I was smart for years. I recommend pleasant."
Harvey, Jimmy Stewart, Universal International Pictures. All of these warm, charming, phony, & dead. The sweetness of the film comes from its refreshing, if naive, optimism about human nature. Stewart rattles off a few truly poetic monologues about Harvey that seemingly boost the film's gravitas, but when you really lay the film on the slab, it appears irresponsibly simple-minded. What is Elwood P. Dowd's secret exactly? That alcoholism is a noble enterprise so long as it is pursued within the context of building fellowship? That, in trying to be pleasant, you can deftly avoid pain? It's sweet like all stories that say, gee, wouldn't the world be swell if everyone were just nicer to everyone else, but such stories have no business posturing as humanist or even adult fiction, as "Harvey" presumptuously does.
How is it that Dowd doesn't get "spiffed" with all the drinking he does? Where is his belligerent side? Why doesn't he have to work? It's always amazed me how easy it is for jobless movie characters to tip cab drivers and the like. Where does Dowd get all his drinking money from? You may think I am quibbling, but the degree of seriousness with which I regard this film stem from the seriousness of the film's own subject matter. Don't tell me it isn't serious. That really it's just about a six foot rabbit and a bit silly and leave it at that. "Harvey" is nothing short of alcoholic apologetics. Sure, it's okay if there is nothing more to your life than drinking and making friends, because, hey that's what Dowd does and isn't Dowd happy?
I bring this up to argue that the film is problematic, not (merely) socially but aesthetically. Nevermind Harvey. Why can't Dowd be real? Strip away just a layer of that affected civility and let me see some repressed hostility and pathological loneliness. As is, all he does is drink, introduce himself to people, and politely invite them to dinner to the chagrin of his sister. That's it. That's the totality of his being. And he's the moral compass of the film. More than that, he's a shaman! Throw a little tension, a dash of denial into the character and suddenly you've got a strikingly touching individual. Still with the sweetness and politeness and the rabbit and all of it, but also with weakness and contradiction and all of the other wonderful things that make us human.
Anyway, I've babbled on a bit too long and I really must bring this to a close. It's good enough, really. Stewart is great at being a sweetheart. But if you want a real treat, I'd do a doubleheader, following this up with Hitchcock's Vertigo. That way you get to see the dark side of Stewart's aww-shucks persona and it'll provide a springboard for fantasizing about how great it would have been if they had the guts to make the movie about a guy and his six-foot rabbit spirit a bit more realistic.
Ella Enchanted (2004)
lotsa existential Marxist fun (SOME quasi-SPOILERS)
Who'd have thought Ella Enchanted was really about class issues, particularly regarding race relations?
The fun fantasy film follows Ella's attempt ostensibly to marry the hunky prince, but primarily what she desires is social reform. All of the ogres, elves, and Giants are oppressed and under-represented by the fascist, speciesist monarchy government led by a sinister, Richard IIIish surrogate King.
Luckily, Ella is able to imbue in the literally Charming - if easily coerced - prince enough of a sense of social justice that he can stand up to his evil uncle who plans to usurp the throne for himself.
Along the way there's a lot of delightful supporting characters, who populate a landscape rich with gloriously colorful architecture and delightful, often comical special effects that reminded me of what it was like when special effects were fun and actually added something, rather than how they are often used now as a show-stopping spectacle.
Anne Hathaway, who has positively unquenchable movie star charisma, is challenged to overcome the deterministic factors that are getting in the way of her attaining what she wants - in this case, a magic spell that makes her obedient. To do so, she is required to garner up the existential energy to shed the deterministic barriers to her freedom and the scene where she does is pleasant and convincing.
Most pleasant is the political subtexts that can be read into this film, where the minority communities literally band together to, in essence, overthrow the royal ruling class (of course this is done in a fun, basicaly nonviolent fairy tale fashion). In an election year, it is refreshing to see ideologically progressive films like this, particularly one whose very political agenda is confirmed quite blatantly in the last scene of the film.
After Ella has completed her act of political subversion and married the prince to live happily ever after she throws the bouquet (freedom, political action) to the next person who will be asked to do the same task. In this case, that next person is the chick from Bend It Like Beckham, the only actual minority figure in Frell, an otherwise whitewashed community. Basically, the filmmakers are putting a challenge to the working class minority community to carry on the Marx-fueled political action enacted by Ella in the film. By democracy or by any means necessary. An interesting and seductive political message for what looks, on the surface, to be a kids' movie.
That said, it isn't perfect. I found the musical numbers unsatisfying; they seemed more like nods to Moulin Rouge! and Shrek than something that director Tommy O'Haver actually wanted desperately to do. The sequences are just not choreographed with the same energy and wit as the rest of the film is. Also, some of the humor falls kind of flat, but God Bless them for trying anyway. There's really no hackneyed, been-there comedic sequences; everything, even the stuff that falls flat, feels pretty fresh.
This is the best family-friendly movie I've seen since School of Rock.
7/10
Week end (1967)
They don't make 'em like this anymore
Watching "Weekend" gave me the same joyous sensation as watching Bunuel's "The Phantom of Liberty." It's so blessedly free from conventionality that it's a rollercoaster of voyeuristic pleasure. Every scene is a text unto itself and maybe it relates to the whole, maybe it doesn't. Godard is making up his own rules as he goes along. This might be the first truly existential film I've seen. It's the kind of movie Nietzsche would've made if he'd been alive to see the advent of film art.
It's a shame, though, that the closest thing we have to Godard nowadays is guys like Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson. Not to knock Q or Wes - I have a lot of love for their movies - but you just don't feel the same freedom watching one of their movies as you do watching Godard's, because with theirs you still realize you're following a constricting narrative path, contrived to hoodwink us into thinking the world makes sense.
There is certainly a place for that kind of filmmaking. But there's a place for Godard's kind, too, and it's a shame that niche isn't being satisfied.
11+ (cuz JLG's a rule breaker)