2005 Summer Movies

Lords of Dogtown — A gritty but engaging tale of young skateboarders from the wrong side of town. Based on real figures from the '70s, this film depicts in an understated but effective manner what happens when the lure of fortune and fame eclipses an athlete's pure love of his sport. It's honest about the triumphs and the tragedies without being too sentimental about either. There is exuberance and humor in the portrayal of youthful sexuality that is true to the spirit of the times, but which never crosses into rank vulgarity. Also, from a technical perspective, the camera work puts you right on the skateboards with our heroes, but it doesn't make you queasy (a la Blair Witch). Featuring a cameo by the legendary Tony Hawk, Lords of Dogtown chronicles the beginnings of so-called extreme sports as well as or better than any documentary is likely to do. I thoroughly enjoyed this film. See it if you get the chance.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith — This movie is for anyone who is married, has ever been married, or who has been in a committed relationship for longer than six months. You will laugh until you cry. Ostensibly about a pair of spy/assassins married to each other without knowledge of their partner's true profession, there are plenty of chases-&-explosions of the action-adventure sort, but the real reason to see the movie is the hysterical portrayal of a long-term couple working out their "issues." Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie sizzle on the screen, even when they are supposedly bored with each other. I don't mean by that comment that the beginning, when they are supposedly trapped in the ennui of their marriage, is not believable. I mean rather that they have classic cinematic chemistry which contributes greatly to the success of the film. (And no wonder there was so much speculation that she contributed to the breakup of his marriage....) There are lots of big movies out there this summer, and this is one that would be easy to skip, but as I said, if you're married it might be just the tonic.

Batman Begins — This is Batman for grown-ups. The focus of this entry in the Batman series of films is the traumatic origins of the Dark Knight. While the movie is definitely worth seeing if you are a connoisseur of the genre, frankly I missed the cartoon elements of the earlier episodes. It took me a few days of meditating to figure out why exactly I was disappointed with this movie. In addition to missing the self-effacing sense of humor that has permeated the Batman franchise going back to the '60s tv series, I also realized two other major objections: First, the long beginning segment of supposed Ninja training for a wandering Bruce Wayne seemed spurious and ultimately dishonest. Filmed in the stunning mountains and glaciers of Iceland, and supposedly set in a monastery in the Himalayas, this segment seemed an odd pastoral departure for our hero. Batman is after all a creature of Gotham City. This was like watching a travelogue while waiting for the real movie to begin. By the time Bruce gets back to Gotham I was feeling restless. My second objection was the acting of the principals, or perhaps the casting. I don't know any of the previous work of Christian Bale (Batman/Bruce Wayne) — you couldn't pay me enough money to make me see the perverse American Psycho. I simply didn't get anything from his performance here that added anything to my concept of Batman. Nor have I seen any other work Katie Holmes has done. It was hard, however, to take seriously her portrayal of Rachel, a crusading young district attorney and childhood friend of Bruce Wayne, because of all the parallel publicity surrounding her real-life affair with Tom Cruise. There was nothing in her performance that erased that external noise from my consciousness while I watched her scenes. And most distressing of all was the acting by Liam Neeson in the role of the Ninja master/villain that was, as they say, phoned in — it was lame and muddled from start to finish. On the other hand, Michael Caine as Alfred the Butler and Gary Oldman as not-yet-Chief Gordon were marvelous bits of work by two seasoned actors, and in my view, they literally stole the show. Finally, the use of real bats as metaphors for Bruce Wayne's evolution into Batman was surprisingly unconvincing. Perhaps it was lack of surprise, since virtually every scene with the bats was shown in the various promotional trailers distributed prior to the film's release. Other special effects designed to be scary, or at least to heighten the dramatic tension seemed instead simply tedious and predictable, if often yucky. I don't know if this is the beginning of setting the limits to computer graphics special effects in film, or merely a second-rate effort, but the CGI in Batman Begins is not nearly as entertaining as, say, the CGI in Revenge of the Sith. Hollyweird may need to get a new schtick to keep its summer blockbuster revenues streaming in. This isn't a bad film, I'm not sorry I saw it. However, the Tim Burton Batman is in no danger of being overtaken as the signature Batman movie.

Crash — A slice-of-life look at race relations in post-9/11 Los Angeles, I went in expecting to really like this film. I had heard nothing but raves about it. It is unquestionably well-acted, with an all-star cast doing quiet but excellent work; it is well-written and well-directed. There is a circularity to the telling of the stories of the characters that yields a sense of completion at the end of the movie. I cannot recall another film where the weaving together of the tangential strands of disparate characters and incidents to tell a larger story works quite so seamlessly. The movie is sincere and earnest, and it tugs at the heartstrings in all the right places. However, when I walked out of the theatre, and as I meditated on it over the next few days, I kept asking myself that ever-important question, "To what end?" Was the point just to say, "Yeah, we all have racist urges underneath our facades of good manners or political correctness"? Or was it, "Yeah, we're all so piled on top of each other in our cities that we're creating new mini-Balkan states"? If so, I don't think that's enough. If this had been a documentary, then yes, raising these questions would be a good place to start to examine this hard subject. But in a work of fiction, a drama, it's not enough to only ask questions. I was taught and I believe that the point of view of the filmmaker (usually the director) should provide a principled resolution, exhibited in the cathartic changes of the characters. While these characters do act against their natures when circumstances drive them to do the right, or wrong, thing in the moment, and thus a kind of climax is suggested, a kind of growth of insight in the characters is implied, I ended up feeling that these resolutions were more than a bit contrived. The principal filmmaker of Crash (Don Cheadle?) wanted to shake people up, I believe, by asking the questions, but was either too conflicted to break all the way out of the bonds of political correctness, or simply didn't have enough of a philosophic analysis to provide a true dramatic resolution. In simpler terms, I felt the movie was somewhat hollow, and perhaps, maybe, just a bit dishonest. I think some of the characters were played as more openly racist than anyone in modern L. A. would actually behave. I'll grant the filmmaker the license to take that liberty, but there should be one heck of a payoff for doing so, and I don't think this movie achieves that payoff. I do believe that everyone should see Crash, and talk about, and think deeply about the questions it raises regarding racism and tribalism and simple human fallibility. Just don't expect this movie to offer more than the questions.

War of the Worlds — Full disclosure time: I have believed, since Close Encounters, that Steven Spielberg is the most overrated director in the movie business today. If he had just done Indiana Jones 1 & 3, and Jurassic Park 1, and retired, then he would probably deserve the acclaim he receives. Unfortunately, he also made films like ET, choking his audience on treacle, and Saving Private Ryan, a bloated and lurid piece of junk, likewise playing on cheap sentimentality. In a similar vein, I consider Tom Cruise the most overrated movie star in the modern pantheon (note I did not use the term "actor"). So bear my strong prejudices in mind as you read this review. I freely admit that I only saw the movie because I have long been a devotee of the H. G. Wells oeuvre.

Spielberg's War of the Worlds is a rather hideous conglomeration of all the old treatments of this Wells novel, cobbled together in the Industrial Light & Magic studios, and with pumped-up volume. When I ran into a neighbor as I got home from seeing the movie and she asked me what was up, I immediately replied, "I just went to see War of the Worlds and now I have a headache." I didn't think it was possible to make a movie with a louder soundtrack than JP1, without causing the theater itself to tumble to the ground. I was wrong. So my first point of critique is that no one should take young children to this film, as it might permanently damage their hearing.

I hoped for a modern treatment of this classic story, but alas, the only thing truly Wellsian is the brief narration at the beginning and end of the movie. (And when did the ubiquitous Morgan Freeman replace James Earl Jones as the sonorous baritone meant to convey authority?). The rest, all the stuff in between is just a lazy modern reliance on special effects to carry a weak script. There are a few suspenseful moments, but those come largely from imitating scenes from the old '50s movie. Suspense is almost entirely replaced by violence here, and that's another reason not to let younger children see this version of the story. Not that there are copious quantities of blood and gore, as in some of the modern horror or crime movies, but I'm just bored with Hollyweird's constant portrayal of carnage against humanity being passed off as normal. Maybe that's idealistic of me, especially considering that we live in a world where we can dial up streaming video on the internet and see real people suffering, even beheaded. But at a certain point, we the audience are inured to the shock. Even here where the violence is distinctly alien and anonymous, the expected collective "euww!" is muted by our overexposure to the cliché?. Thus, the close up of a woman's face as she is vaporized by the alien death ray becomes more annoying than it is frightening. Call it my prejudice if you wish, but I am of the opinion that when nothing is left to the audience's imagination in a script that's a sure sign there wasn't much imagination used in creating it.

Which brings me to something I found truly offensive about this War of the Worlds: Spielberg's story makes several unsubtle references to our post-9/11, terrorism-filled world, but he relies entirely on the worst sorts of stereotypes to describe our human response to overwhelming danger. There are the panic-stricken crowd scenes, with their obligatory shots of people trampled or wrenched away from each other, usually leading to their doom. There is the gun-happy (white male) psychotic that poses more danger to Cruise's character and his family than the aliens do. And etc. But if you honestly think back to 9/11, and the days and weeks following, what happened was quite the opposite of such stereotypes. Even in anonymous, alienated New York City, when the metal met the meat what we saw were scene after scene of people helping each other to escape danger and survive calamity. Some may have been separated, and some may have been lost, but no one to my knowledge was trampled to death due to callousness or blind panic. We saw the hero cops and firefighters (lots of white males there) running into burning, collapsing buildings to save people they didn't know. So why must Hollywood hacks like Spielberg constantly refer back to pre-9/11 clichés, when we have a recent, historic example of something mmuch nobler about ourselves? Is it simple lack of imagination? Or is there some hidden agenda at work in this?

Lack of imagination certainly characterizes this movie. While Cruise gives a better performance than I expected, at least through the first half, or so, of the film, the rest of the cast turn in such appallingly stilted performances I'm amazed that other reviews have been so positive. Compared to this War of the Worlds, the acting in Revenge of the Sith seems like high thespian achievement. And here again, I took serious offense: About half way through the film, during the hanging-with-a-psychotic interlude (Tim Robbins in a lame-o performance that makes Liam Neeson's in Batman Begins seem Oscar-worthy), I suddenly realized that Dakota Fanning, playing Cruise's young daughter, had done virtually nothing during the whole movie but scream and whimper. My initial thought was, "What a waste of a very talented young actress." But as her piercing screams continued, demonstrating that she utterly failed to appreciate how noise and movement would attract the aliens' attention, it occurred to me that this was also a contrivance. In our post-modern, ever so politically correct world it is impossible to write an adult female character who reacts like the classic damsel-in-distress heroines of '50s sci-fi/horror movies. In the era before elaborate special effects allowed for the creation of really scary looking monsters, an hysterical female was the cypher for the terrors that the alien invaders visited on us all, as well as providing the impetus for the male protagonist to do his heroic, manly duty. By changing the leading lady from an adult, romantic interest to a young and vulnerable daughter, Spielberg preserves the old sci-fi formula without having to take any socio-political risks. Or, without having to do the work of developing a good, modern script. As I said, this was a real waste of Ms. Fanning's abilities.

The sad part of all the bad acting is how little I cared about any of the characters, or even the fate of the world. I know that Tom Cruise is in real life a father, and yet I couldn't identify with this on-screen family melodrama. I just didn't believe that the occasion of the end of the world is the time for even a sulking teenager of a son to carry on a prolonged confrontation with his estranged father. Nor, apparently, did the pimply-faced nerd-boy with the hyperactive leg thump sitting two seats down from me. He kept laughing in all the wrong places, and I was so removed from the action on-screen that I couldn't block him out of my consciousness as I watched the movie. The magical reappearance of said sulking teenage son at the end, after an apparent flaming death and with not even a slight hint of survival, just reinforced the formulaic essence of the whole effort.

Lastly, on the theme of special effects contrivances, in the original movie of War of the Worlds, all that was ever seen of the aliens themselves was the dying, spindly arm with its three tuberous fingers hanging out of a fallen craft at the end of the film. Spielberg chooses to make them literal rather than leaving them hidden in our imaginations. And guess what? They look remarkably similar to the aliens in Independence Day! The only difference really is that these bad boys are more animated than their cinematic antecedents. So also with most of the special effects, they seem to be copies of things from earlier films. There is nothing really edgy anywhere in this epic. In its best moments of suspense it copies the '50s movie, and at its worst, it mimics the sicko tv series of the same title from the late '80s — early '90s. Plus, the opening shot gives away the whole story, if you know the Wells book. I think Spielberg meant it to be clever foreshadowing, or a slick inside joke, but for me it was just the first of many "uh-ohs."

Bottom line: I strongly recommend that you don't feed the Scientology beast. Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg's version of War of the Worlds is not worth the price of the ticket.

Bewitched — After spending way too much time with Tom Cruise and his new girlfriend in hyperactive special effects blockbusters, I decided to take a break and go see the Ex-Mrs. Cruise in this reworking of yet another cartoon from a long gone era. I'm generally of the opinion that a little bit of Will Ferrell goes a long, long way, so I went in trepidatious. Much to my surprise I liked this movie more than I expected to do. It is a genuine homage to the tv series in its way, and there was some actual thought and writing that went into putting this piece together. Yes, it's a frothy romantic comedy, and yes, it might've been a better movie with some other male lead, but Nora Ephron co-wrote the script with Penny Marshall, they co-produced it, and Ephron directed. Kudos to them both. Mostly, Ms. Ephron controls Ferrell, or at least contains his excesses by changing the scene. For once, special effects are made to serve the script. I strongly suspect that what really garnered all the indifferent to mildly negative reviews was that Bewitched (ever so gently) skewers the ways of Hollywood.

Nicole Kidman is just astonishing in bringing Isabel/Samantha to life. How she captures the naivete and wonder of a young, otherworldly witch as she discovers this new environment, how she slowly realizes that normalcy is more a fable than magic, how she ultimately learns to balance the clashing elements of her new life are all simply marvelous to witness. It has been reported that Shirley McClaine told friends after making this movie that Nicole Kidman is the best actor McClaine has ever worked with. Think about that. Shirley McClaine worked with giants. And I agree with her in that Kidman is the rare acting genius who can totally disappear within her character. The other actor who comes immediately to mind who did this so well was Spencer Tracy. No one ever accused Katherine Hepburn of disappearing into her characters, but Tracy beside her could do so. Among modern actors Johnny Depp also possesses this ability. I fervently hope that someday he and Kidman will be paired in some suitable vehicle, as that will be the movie that teaches acting forever afterward.

Ms. McClaine does her turn as Iris/Endora with professional grace and a light hand. She's having a good time here and it shows. Also, Michael Caine does another supporting role, as Isabel's father trying to help her find herself. He is an actor who has aged nicely before our eyes, and he seems to have unerring instincts about what role is good for him. Then he unfailingly makes it good for us.

So if you're in the mood for something different, albeit a sort of chick flick, Bewitched may be a treat.

Fantastic 4 — Ok, one more cartoon brought to the big screen. Indulge me. Here's another Stan Lee creation made live action, special effects blockbuster. Only this time I was able to completely enjoy myself. I went to see this movie on a weekend afternoon, along with every other kid in the neighborhood. I wondered if it would be ok for some of the little kids I saw around me, and at the beginning I did hear lots of little whispers as big brother or sister explained some of the grown-up relationships to younger siblings. But as the movie went on that distraction disappeared. This is another big loud movie, but this is one I would feel reasonably ok taking kids to see. There is only one scene that might bother younger children with its graphic depiction of violence, appreciating yet again how much more sophisticated children of all ages are today. Also, there is no vulgar language. Nor any sexual content. There is a romantic element, but that's it. In fact, this movie doesn't talk down to anybody, grown-ups or kids. Therefore, it harks back to the old spirit of comic books much better than a lot of its predecessors. Notable here is Michael Chiklis as The Thing, who does a remarkable job in keeping the man who has undergone the most extreme mutation fully human beneath his monstrous new form. He has one scene, about halfway through the picture, that cracked me up so much I had to struggle to focus for a few minutes. And Jessica Alba just keeps getting better. I liked her in the tv series Dark Angel and I like her here because she brings such a strong, female intelligence to her role. There are some pacing problems with this film — i.e., it seems to follow a strict formula about inserting action sequences and special effects every third page of the script, but the cast usually saves the CGI from becoming overwhelming by keeping true to their characters' personae. I think Fantastic 4 is a great way to spend an afternoon. It's not Shakespeare, but it is exactly what it was meant to be, a cartoon brought to life.

Charlie & the Chocolate Factory — And now to review the movie I've been waiting for all year, actually since I first heard about it last year. Generally speaking the more I like a movie the less I have to say about it when I write these little reviews. Thus, I never even attempted a review of Finding Neverland after I saw it. I felt there was nothing I could say that would add anything to its beauty. With Charlie, I am tempted to just say, "Go see it," and leave it at that. But that would not be nearly persuasive enough. This is the movie that makes my investment of time and money going to see films worth all the botheration of lesser works. Most of you know me well enough to know that I am a serious-minded person with an arrested-at-best sense of humor and no tolerance whatever for silliness or childish things. I absolutely despised the Gene Wilder Willy Wonka of the '70s, and if I read the Roald Dahl book as a little girl it didn't leave any memory. Tim Burton & Johnny Depp's Charlie is the film that has given me the childhood I didn't want as a kid. It's a magical movie in the very best sense of that word. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Without question this is Tim Burton's best directorial effort since Edward Scissorhands. Charlie & the Chocolate Factory is a visual feast of a film, comparable only to The Wizard of Oz in transporting us to another world. And don't believe for a nanosecond any of the garbage you may've read or heard from other reviewers that Johnny Depp is channeling Michael Jackson here. Depp should sue anyone who made that comparison. He gives Willy Wonka a full-blooded, multi-dimensional, touching character, and he does so at the same time he makes eccentricity respectable again. I can't make the claim that this is Depp's best acting since Scissorhands, because of Finding Neverland, but it certainly is up there with those other two performances as among his best. Like most Tim Burton films, Charlie features fine ensemble support for the principal actor that makes the acting the servant of the story rather than the other way round. Neverland's Freddie Highmore as Charlie is angelic and wise and luminous all at the same time. Once again he and Depp create something very special up on that big, silver screen.

An unexpected pleasure for me was the music of Danny Elfman. Not that I don't appreciate Elfman, just that I was not aware that he was the composer for this project. The musical numbers with the Oompaloompas are just hysterical. I was nearly falling out of my seat with a couple of them, and I don't even like musicals. In re the Oompaloompas, there is a trick at work in this that I won't give away, but it's an astonishing achievement that only a genius like Tim Burton could have conceived.

I can give Charlie an unqualified recommendation for children of all ages. As with all true fables, there is an element of the sinister embedded in the candy. It is not clear until near the very end that the other children besides Charlie are ok after being eliminated from Willy's contest by their own weaknesses. But with their reappearance, the lessons they should've learned are made clear for the rest of us. For very young children the movie may be a good bit longer than their attention spans. However, all the kids in the audience with me seemed completely enthralled, with the exception of one baby whose grown-up had the good sense to take him/her/it out of the theater when the crying didn't stop immediately. Happily enough, as with Wizard of Oz or Alice in Wonderland, this story is told in a language that can reach both children and adults at the same time. Absolutely magical.

Finally, just to reassure self-conscious grown-ups, I did NOT walk out of the theater wanting to binge on chocolate. Your diets are safe. If anything, my runaway sweet-tooth was somewhat sated by the immersion in Candy-land.

So, DO GO SEE Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. See it now, see it often, and most of all share it with family and friends. You won't be sorry.

Copyright © 7/25/05, Erin Iris Earth-child