Possession

Cover of "Possession"
Cover of Possession

Possession combines two elements that were meant to go together: the difficult pursuit of knowledge, and passionate romantic love. The lives of Victorian and twentieth century lovers run in parallel in this story; one wishes there were as much passion in the latter as in the former, but then you’ve got a passionless Aaron Eckhart as a “brush and flush kinda guy” – the male role. And Gwyneth Paltrow’s treatment of the ideologically inhibited gender studies professor is… well… inhibited. She smiles a couple of times but, for the most part, she just lies there, so to speak. I think the film would’ve been better had the entire thing been a period piece. Still, while the dialogue was wonderful, and the Victorian storyline suitably heart-rending (lovers caught by their promises and society), there just didn’t seem to be much acting. Most of lovely Jennifer Ehle’s work seems to have amounted to smiling in a composed worldly-for-the-time miss nothing kind of way. These were characters in costumes reading parts. It’s hard not to recommend the film, though; the dialogue and the plot were enough that I’d see it again despite its shortcomings.

The Recruit

The Recruit is a puff-piece recruitment flick for the security state. The whole film takes place as an internal drama – the CIA version of E.R. One part action, one part gadgetry, two parts mystery, and a dash of ideology. That’s how the ongoing barrage of spook flicks like Recruit are successful. The story line changes slightly, but the theme is the same: ‘Our enemies are everywhere. Our side is right; the anti-globalist anti-US-hegemony hordes are wrong. We need people with dirty hands and ambiguous moral commitments to fight this ‘war’. The secret police know best.’ Recruit, like so many such flicks, is Zamyatin’s We except that “The Guardians” are the “good guys” or, at worst, the necessary evil, the providers of safety at whatever cost. The twists and turns of the story hold one’s attention, but it requires a suspension of distaste w. the shadow regime, as it were.

Brotherhood of the Wolf

Brotherhood of the Wolf is a veritable party tray of a film. Director/co-writer Christophe Gans has put together an action/horror/thriller/period piece/mystery/martial arts flick that literally has something for everyone.

A lifelong film fan, Gans was involved in several fan publications in France. He has taken bits from nearly every type of film and placed them within the context of his story so that the seams don’t show. A technical achievement in the success of the blending, even if the story peters out before the end.

Catch Me if You Can

Catch Me if You Can is about one of the cleverest check forgers ever, Frank Abagnale (here’s his personal web site abagnale.com. I’m not a fan of cons turned cops, but most of this film is about Abagnale’s adventurous youth, so it’s interesting. Of course the filmmakers knew that we’d be more interested in the con than the consulting he does now. Tom Hank’s role reminded me of his role in Road to Perdition, except of course he was a nerdy, loner, of an FBI agent. DeCaprio’s role somehow reminded me of Matt Damon’s in The Talented Mr. Ripley, but without the homicidal madness. One likes this character better. Catch Me if You Can is a contemporary The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper in attitude. It romanticizes the outlaw, even if he does get caught in this one, and leaves a fair amount of anti-establishment flavor to savor (especially at a time when media is full of silly cop shows like America’s Most Wanted tell us criminals are “crazy” for running afoul of the law. I liked this flick. It’d be more fun with a French edge, and one could argue it’s kind of made-for-TV, but I liked Abagnale’s character enough that I stayed through it.

How High

Cover of "How High"
Cover of How High

How High is another “in the hood” drug film. You know the genre. The stereotypes aren’t amusing. The constant obsession with the perfect ‘bud’ is as trite as Cheech and Chong, and will mainly appeal to those who are currently feeling the “munchies”. And the ‘stupid stoners go to Harvard on an affirmative action gig’ worn-out plot premise that relies on canned ‘clash of culture’ gags is a real yawner. Another film we’ve seen before under many other titles. Skip this one and check out Spike Lee’s School Daze. While the latter can be tedious in places, when not outright offensive, at least it’s got some substance.

Center Stage

Center Stage is one of those ‘snapshot in the lives of’ films. You know. It’s like most such films about the struggles and affairs of doctors, spies and soliders (the current fashion for the security state), policemen, police women, ice skaters, figure skaters, skate boarders, street dancers, teachers, musicians… etc. If you liked Fame, this is that with ballet dancers. And, of course, it’s got the usual “stick up their butt” (nice imagery) American Ballet Association needs a dose of street dancing ‘soul’ cliches. You know. Shakespeare needs hip hop to make it palatable, and so on. Again, we’ve seen it before; pick your title.

Changing Lanes

Cover of "Changing Lanes"
Cover of Changing Lanes

Changing Lanes was interesting. Jackson does it again in this role and Ben Affleck isn’t bad. The latter makes a good yup, which is the role he has in this flick. Feels like I’ve seen this one before, but I can’t recall under what title. And the flavor reminds me, not entirely because of Jackson, of The 51st State. Still, I like the intellectual aspect of the film. It’s two cultures colliding. The role that Jackson gets is the man that is always misinterpreted, always pounded down by some bureacratic technicality, and no one will listen. Consequently, he can’t seem to rise from the pavement. I can understand. Affleck is the usual yuppy asshole who thinks he can walk up and slap a stranger on the back, say whatever he wants, and then just walk safely away. Instead, he gets followed home, so to speak. Middle class white bread all the way. I like it.

Blade II

Blade II kinda kicked ass. There were some horror elements that reminded me of Mimic – I’m not big on that stuff – but as the usual vein of vampire flicks goes, Blade and Blade II aren’t that bad. And I do believe that Kris Kristopherson has actually found his niche. A vampire hunter! Blade II spends a little too much time on the drama and the medical details of vampirism – obviously fun stuff for the vampirella-goth crowd – but overall, the action is freaking great. Watching this is like playing Quake without having to think. :)

Kate & Leopold

Film poster for Kate & Leopold - Copyright 200...
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Kate & Leopold is the usual romance. Bumbling male, sharp female. If he rolls over and plays nice, he’ll win her heart. Excuse me while I vomit. If you like nice films about nice men and the uptight women who want them, you’ll like this one. This is every other romance you’ve seen where you could substitute Hugh Grant for the lead male. The bewildered kind of mind that only sees the beauty of the specialness that is you (i.e. her) – the kind you can dress up in knee-length trousers, suspenders, and a puffy shirt and take shopping with you. On the other hand, if you want a man’s teeth at your throat, look elsewhere.

The Royal Tenenbaums

The Royal Tenenbaums. I don’t have a lot to say about this one. I didn’t find it funny. I didn’t find it enlightening. I’ve debated this, but I still see it as basically another naturalistic mood piece. I happen to like (I’ll take crap for this) Gene Hackman, and I like Anjelica Huston and (more crap coming, I know) Gwyneth Paltrow (Shakespeare in Love is one of my all time favorites, though perhaps she simply benefits from being in that one). Ben Stiller’s best role, imo, is still “The Screamer” (a Friend’s episode – the one where he yells viciously at everyone while playing the gentle soft male to Rachel, and they finally catch him in time for Chandler to say, “Back away from the duck.”.). But I kept looking for something in this film and, typical of naturalistic films, it kept promising, but it never paid off. Sure, there’s some kind of psychological resolution for each of the characters, so I can see the point of the person I argued this with, but then look what kind of resolution it is – it’s resolution without real meaning, imo. The incest part of it is certainly interesting, and that should have been the plot, I think.

Ocean’s Eleven

Likewise, Ocean’s Eleven was an action-heist flick we’ve seen under a number of other titles. It’s the usual man out of prison, puts together the old crew, does one last big job, but there are complications plot. They strung together all those big names for it – Clooney (with a pathetic love interest and not much else – none of that style we saw in O Brother Where Art Thou or Dusk Til Dawn – or maybe just so much of the same that it went by unnoticed), Matt Damon (who ached for a more prominent role – Rounders and Good Will Hunting are still top billings for him), Andy Garcia, Brad Pitt (nothing outshines Fight Club for him), and even Elliott Gould (as a wealthy gangster type). It’s a yawner. Heavy on cast, low on things for them to do. They practically stand around looking at each other. I suppose I remember commenting on this film elsewhere, too.

War Flicks

I can’t say enough bad things about Behind Enemy Lines and Black Hawk Down. Besides being propaganda flicks to justify our current foreign policy (euphemism alert), they’re chalked full of enough inaccuracies and hype about specific or thinly veiled representations of specific persons and nations that they’re even more offensive. If you can turn off the part of your brain that cares about such things (if you can, we’ve really nothing to say to each other anyway), and just watch them as action flicks or combat flicks (for those who like combat film for the sake of combat film), ok. As anything else, let alone truth about Serbia or Somalia, they’re crap. Talk to Ambassador Oakley about Somalia, for instance, and you still won’t get a story quite this squeaky clean. Or… maybe you might, come to think of it. I’ll bet they consulted him on the project. Yeesh. And following on the heels of Pearl Harbor, and several other such flicks, it’s been just too much of a barrage of jingoistic sentiment and smokescreen about the villages and hospitals we destroy from the air, the waters we poison, and the people we dispossess and turn into refugees. If we’re going to say something about Somalia or Serbia or Iraq or Afghanistan or (soon) North Korea, that will live on as the public’s cinematic memory about it, it should include the napalm, the FAE’s, and the BLU-82′s.

Childhood

When Asher was a child he was afraid of the dark. Not so much the dark as the sense that it seethed with intelligence, and that intelligence seemed to want him dead. It would linger a while even if one suddenly threw light upon it, as if to say “I am only blind, not toothless”. “In the dark”, thought Asher, “it can see me”.

When he was older, Asher realized that he too could be formidable in the dark. Here the enemy was on equal footing. He could see in it, if he let his eyes adjust, had taught himself to walk without sound, and could restrain his breathing. And he could hide not from but hide in wait for his enemy. “It too can be prey,” he thought.

Asher feels now most comfortable after dark, though he prefers to light lamps in order to read or write. He is at home in the night; it is his world. And whenever he feels a slight chill at the neck, he pulls his muffler a little tighter, holds his breath, and slips into the black… waiting.

Sometimes if he seems short of breath, he has probably forgotten to resume normal breathing.