2005 – King Kong and More

I caught a few of these films when they were on their last leg before the Holidays. Others were in limited release during Christmas Holiday and went wide in the New Year. Some were surprisingly better than I thought they would be and others were disappointing.

AEON FLUX - Charlize Theron poured her heart and soul into this futuristic action movie that never quite lives up to the promise of its trailer. “Aeon Flux” is a slinky freedom fighter out to assassinate the leader of a Utopian Society whose citizens are disappearing and their histories erased. Frances McDormand who plays with Theron in “North Country” is the leader of the resistance movement. She and her minions turn on Aeon whom she thinks is a traitor. Most of the digital sets look like they came right off a draftsman’s table with lines zigzagging back and forth across the screen defining borders and barriers meant to keep people in and others out of its closed society, but those brilliantly created lawn of razor blades were a killer. The lady warriors are incredibly sexy, but thankfully there is no gratuitous nudity. They are all about attitude.

And just who is killing off the citizens of this futuristic society? And what is the deep dark secret that the government is keeping from its citizenry? It all has to do with cloning, disease, and a second chance for a world gone crazy. I had low expectations for “Aeon Flux” but Theron’s athletic prowess and commitment to the role kept me interested.

BREAKFAST ON PLUTO - Gillian Armstrong was scary as hell in “Red Eye” as terrorist for hire and in “Batman Begins” as the mad psychiatrist who drives his patients crazy. In “Breakfast on Pluto” he poses no threat to anyone except himself as Patrick Braden aka ‘Kitten’ a gender bending sometimes cross dressing soft spoken innocent with the soul of a female who never has an unkind word for anyone. Kitty longs to find the mother who abandoned him as a baby on the doorstep of a Catholic priest (Liam Neeson). His only clue: his mother looks like actress Janet Gaynor. Kitty is like a piece of tofu that gets tossed from one segment of society to the next absorbing the flavor of everything and everyone he comes in contact with. He is ostracized by the Irish clergy in school, almost loses his life to a John who picks him up off the streets, and is threatened by both the I.R.A. in his native Ireland and the law when he’s mistaken for an Irish terrorist in England. Kitty takes up with a bar band singer and later becomes part of a magic act in exchange for companionship. Throughout it all, Kitty’s childhood friends come in and out of his life during times of political upheaval, or emotional duress. In the end it’s his one female friend who gives him something to live for. “Breakfast on Pluto” is a bizarre movie that I found wildly entertaining with Kitty as the one constant in an ever changing world.

CACHE - Someone is watching. Surveillance tapes of a talk show host played by Daniel Auteuil show up at his doorstep. He is uneasy. His wife (Juliet Binoche) is uneasy. If the audience takes to this French movie whose title means “Hidden” they will be uneasy. I was not. “Cache” has the distilled quality of a Mike Leigh movie but without the emotional engagement that characterizes his films. Georges (Auteuil) tries to find out who is spying on him. Then childlike line drawings of a bloody child start arriving. With his comfortable, complacent life about ready to teeter off the edge, the memory of a hateful act committed in childhood rises to the surface. It all has to do with the political climate of that time and an Algerian youth. According to what I can fathom, the premise may be more meaningful in France than in the U.S. because of the Algerian connection. At first I found director Michael Handke’s video P.O.V. technique, and the audio design of natural sounds, and virtual lack of music fascinating, but after awhile it grows tiresome. I never really felt Georges’ terror as I believe I was supposed to.

CASANOVA - With everyone talking about Heath Ledger’s performance in “Brokeback Mountain” as a gay sheepherder - I mean ‘cowboy,’ “Casanova” unjustly got put on the short list of movies to see by a lot of people. He plays the title role as the world’s greatest lover.

“Casanova” is done with the panache of a Restoration comedy with mistaken identities, and misunderstood motives propelling Casanova into a world where women from all walks of life, nuns included, want to make love to him, men are jealous of him, and the Catholic Church wants to punish him for his carnal sins. He is advised to marry to save himself from exile and the hangman’s knot. Casanova becomes engaged to a sweet young thing but he falls in love with Francesca Bruni (Sienna Miller) the sword swinging sister of a young man who challenges Casanova to a duel because he loves the girl Casanova is supposed to marry. Francesca is engaged to marry the very wealthy and very fat Paprizzio by proxy, but he eventually falls for Francesca’s mother. What Casanova doesn’t know - at least at first - is that Francesca is the women’s libber of her day and the author of popular risque pamphlets written for women under an assumed male name The author is also on the Inquisition’s list of blasphemers. This alone makes her a perfect match for Casanova. You know they will eventually get together, but not before director Lasse Hallstrom fills out the movie with comic escapades full of narrow escapes, sword fights and verbal duels. “Casanova” is fun.

THE FAMILY STONE - A terrific ensemble cast makes “The Family Stone” better than it has a right to be. The annual Christmas gathering at the Stone household is about to have an interloper in their home - the uptight, trying to do everything right - girlfriend of favorite son Everet (Dermot Mulroney). Sarah Jessica Parker is a hoot as girlfriend Meredith Morton who always manages to say and do the wrong thing much to the glee of the Stone family who never miss a chance to put her down. “The Family Stone” is a comedy of bad manners that only an insider could understand. She just doesn’t get it. But Everett’s brother Ben (Luke Wilson) gets Meredith. He sees her as an overachiever who thinks she has to overextend herself to make herself feel welcomed. Diane Keaton shines a the mother hen who knows her kids too well. Her husband (Craig T. Nelson) is the bulwark of the family, arbitrating feuds and acting as the unofficial ambassador of good will. Feelings are hurt and restored by a series of misunderstandings and mishaps that realigns family loyalties and romantic partners. “The Family Stone” tries to be too many things to too many people with its politically correct family: a straight pregnant daughter and a deaf gay son with a Black partner who are trying to adopt. And to top it off Mom won’t be around next year. “The Family Stone” succeeds in spite of itself because the cast is so likable you can’t help but forgive and forget their shortcomings while loving them for not being perfect.

HARRY POTTER and the Goblet of Fire - Harry Potter fans - mostly kids - probably won’t be disappointed judging by the film’s box office. I was - disappointed.

In the other Potter movies, the magic had some rationale behind it. Not this Potter. The first half was cluttered with magic for magic’s sake. It came across as a senseless exercise in cinematic wizardry to dazzle the senses without rhyme or reason. The second half with its stirrings of first love and an ominous trip to the Dark Side saved me from losing interest all together.

Harry Potter is chosen to be the school’s champion in something called The Tri-Wizard Tournament, a sort of life and death Olympic triathlon involving fire breathing dragons, an underwater rescue, and a mysterious maze of hedges that come to life. But! - and it’s a big But - according to the rules, Harry is not old enough to participate in the games. So how was he chosen? It has something to do with the promising beginning where mysterious figures talk about Harry in ominous tones.

Harry is ostracized by his classmates and friends but proves himself worthy of the contest’s final event with the help of a new teacher Mad-Eye Moody (Brendan Gleason). Harry’s encounter with the maze leads him into a netherworld where he comes face to face with the fearsome Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes). As a Harry Potter movie, the end would usually be a given. But for all its business, “Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire” feels unfinished.

My favorite new character: Rita Skeeter (Miranda Richardson) is a gossip columnist who embellishes her stories with a pen that has a mind of its own.

KING KONG - I’ve been fan of director Peter Jackson ever since I saw “Heavenly Creatures,” - a true life crime story in 1950’s New Zealand. He introduced the world to Kate Winslet as the murderess. The movie with its imaginative sexually charged CGI fantasy of Mario Lanza singing in old Italian square introduced Jackson to Hollywood. The “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and all the requisite accolades followed. It gave him the chance to realize his dream project - a remake of the movie that sparked his childhood imagination - 1933’s “King Kong.”

The original “King Kong” is legendary. Kong fighting the biplanes from atop the Empire Building is an iconic image that’s hard to live up to. A modern 1976 version with Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange failed with Kong on the World Trade Center. Jackson wisely attempts to recreate the thrills of the original with the new technology. He pays homage with strains of the original music score, snatches of dialogue and the ending with its immortal lines about beauty killing the beast.

The story: megalomaniac producer/film director Carl Denham (Jack Black) recruits out of work Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) to star in one of the greatest adventure films of all time on the uncharted Skull Island. His writer is Jack Driscoll (Adrian Brodie), a cause celebre of the theater, forced by circumstances beyond his control to sail with Denham as he flees his creditors and the law. Once on Skull Island, Denham and company discover a lost world with primitive savages and enough CGI prehistoric animals and creepy crawlies to fill a dozen Jurassic Park movies. And then there’s King Kong. The big ape that stirs Denham’s imagination. He sees his men dying for the sake of his art. Ann Darrow becomes Kong’s plaything scooped up by his giant hand. He’s never seen white people much less a white blonde. The natives were his food supply. Ann endears herself to him in some of Jackson’s more imaginative set pieces at his lair. Jack and Denham comb the island with his cameraman filming everything and most of the boat crew becoming puppy chow for the monsters. Ann is saved by her cardboard hero Jack and Kong is captured. In New York Denham becomes the showman of the century with a jungle show featuring the big ape and Ann Darrow in chains. King Kong escapes, messes up the city, finds Darrow, goes ice skating on his butt in Central Park, and climbs to the top of the Empire State Building for his rendezvous with death. Clearly ‘Less’ would have been more.

I loved the first half hour of “King Kong.” Peter Jackson creates an idealized picture postcard of depression era New York complete with trolley cars, bread lines and music that evokes the hard times. Denham is shown pitching his idea for a movie to the money men as only Jack Black can - with grandiose wide eyed enthusiasm. His only collateral - an unfinished screenplay by Jack Driscoll. Black obviously enjoyed poking fun at every director claiming to be a cinematic visionary - not unlike the movie’s creator Peter Jackson. Ann Darrow is given a show business background that leads up to her chance meeting with Denham.

Once Denham and his film and boat crews make it through the rough waters to Skull Island, Jackson lets loose his special effects extravaganza with scenes that copy the fights between monsters as in the original and then some. Most of the effects are thrilling in and of themselves with the herd of raptors in pursuit and the giant slug like monsters winning top honors, but after one narrow escape morphs into another, the end result is numbing. It’s like eating steak every night and getting tired of it.

Back in New York, when King Kong escapes and goes looking for his beauty, I kept waiting for King Kong to prop his head up through the elevated train tracks as in one of the more famous scenes from the original “King Kong.” You see the train trestles in the beginning of the movie, lining the New York streets like bait, but when I bit there was nothing there. Instead he stalks the streets of New York, and tears up a trolley car. Once the beast finds his beauty, he’s chased to Central Park and Jackson inserts what looks like something out of a fantasy on ice show that should have been excised and used as DVD extra. It was a gorgeously mounted scene but it had no context. It made no sense dramatically except possibly to ‘humanize’ the monster in Kong. Likewise, the final scene on top of the Empire State Building suffered from overkill.

“King Kong” is a big screen movie whose technological marvels are best appreciated in the theater but the story would be best served by the fast forward search button on the remote when it hits the DVD stores.

RENT - I never saw the play “Rent” which hit Broadway like a thunderbolt in 1996. It’s author Jonathan Larsen never lived to see it win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the top New York critics awards, not to mention its four Tonys, the New York Theater version of the Oscars. With all its history, the anticipation for the film version was strong. The two trailers I saw running months in advance of the movie’s premiere raised the bar and whet my appetite. It was never sated.

“Rent” started off on a high note with Seasons of Love, the best song in the movie. It was thrilling. Once the movie settled into its story of Larsen’s New York Bohemians living a squatter existence without regard to life and limb and AIDS, it peters out by making the characters so upbeat you’d never know that some of them were dying - that is to say - you never really believed that any of them were ill except perhaps for Angel. His solemn funeral is the one truly moving scene in the movie. All the actors are good, if perhaps too old to for the parts. Practically all of them were in the original Broadway show. Angel is played by Wilson Jermaine Heredia. Jesse L. Martin, best known as Detective Green on “Law and Order” is a college professor rescued by Angel after he’s mugged. Adam Pascal is a musician trying to cope with the suicide of his girlfriend who has a thing for an exotic dancer (Rosario Dawson-not in original show) with a drug problem. Anthony Rapp is the ‘young’ filmmaker documenting his friends’ lives with his camera. His girlfriend (Idina Menzel), a performance artist, left him for another woman - a lawyer - played by Tracie Thomas. Taye Diggs plays the sell out who marries into real estate and turns his back on his friends when they need him most. One of the real surprises in the film is comedian Sarah Silverman who almost steals the movie in the few scenes she is in as a news network honcho who gives the filmmaker Mark (Rapp) his first big break.

As I said all the actors held up their end of the bargain, but “Rent” had no pacing. Rather than being led into the lives of the people through song and dance, I felt like I was being pounded by one high octane production after another. About half way through the movie, the pulsing music began to sound like white noise.

THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA - Director/actor Tommy Lees Jones is rancher Pete Perkins. The title character, Mr. Estrada (Julio Cesar Cedillo), works for Mr. Pekins, at least until he’s killed by Texas border patrolman, Mike Norton (Barry Pepper). Mr. Perkins likes - or liked - Mr. Estrada. This is not a good thing for Mr. Norton. As this is a Tommy Lee Jones film, Mr. Norton will have to pay for his misdeed, however accidental.

The screenplay for “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” was written by Guillermo Arriaga who also penned “Amores Perros” and “21 Grams” for director Alejandro Gonzalez. Anyone familiar with those films might say ‘they were all over the place.’ To some degree, so is this movie. Some scenes are chronologically out of sequence depicting the same event from different points of view. The effect is as it appears: disjointed. But for what reason? Only Tommy Lee Jones can answer that. This is his baby. He is producer, director and star.

As a series of character sketches, Jones’ movie is right on the money. The Sheriff (Dwight Yoakam) is more interested in getting laid than doing his job. He’s always trying to find time to bed Rachel (Melissa Leo), the hustling waitress who has more time for the lonely men who frequent her husband’s diner than she has for her husband (Richard Jones). Rachel strikes up a friendship with Lou Ann (January Jones), the lonely wife of the newly appointed border patrolman Mike Norton (Barry Pepper). Together the women find time to party with rancher Pete Perkins and his hired hand, Melquiades Estrada. Estrada is an illegal immigrant who hopes to save enough money to go back to his wife and live in his own personal Garden of Eden in Mexico. Perkins shares his liquor and women with Estrada. Estrada shares his dream with his employer, friend and confidant- Perkins. So when Estrada is shot by Norton and treated as a John Doe, Perkins takes it personally.

Tommy Lee Jones’ vision of a small Texas town where people occasionally cheat on each others’ better halves to alleviate the boredom of the lives when they’re not working or boozing feels like the real deal. In his eyes, the Illegal Mexican workers and native Texans who have the same hopes and aspirations are equal partners in a dream of a better life. As the director, Jones carries this idea to the n-th degree in the second half of the movie when Perkins kidnaps Norton and forces him to help bring Estrada’s body to the place he called home. Jones uses the changing landscape and the laws of nature to define Perkins character. He moves through the mountains and the valleys with the skill of a tracker. Only he is the one being tracked. Here is where, “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada falls apart. The idea of Perkins taking Estrada to the homeland of his dreams in and of itself should have worked. But the kidnapping of Norton to accompany him just to teach him a lesson in human dignity is so contrived it undermines the credibility of the first half of the film. If Perkins had been left to fight the elements, he would have been seen to be one with nature. Returning Estrada to his native soil would have made more sense. Norton had been portrayed as a fool. It seems Tommy Lee Jones is using the Norton character as a redemptive figure to highlight the real life abuses of the Border Patrol that inspired Jones to make this movie. It just doesn’t work. It’s a case of the individual parts being better than the film as a whole.

WHITE COUNTESS - Ralph Fiennes has never given a bad performance - until now. He pronounces each word like a foreigner searching for the proper way to enunciate each syllable in text book English but with a forced Southern drawl.

Fiennes plays, Todd Jackson, a former American diplomat of some reputation living in 1936 Shanghai blinded by the bombing that killed his family. He frequents the sleazy nightclubs where he meets Sofia, a member of an exiled Russian royal family. Todd falls in love with the sound of her voice and the touch of her hand. He recognizes a gentility of spirit that separates her from others who ply their trade in the dark corners of Shanghai. He gambles a small fortune and opens up the nightclub of his dreams where enemies may leave politics at the door and mingle in anonymity. He calls it The White Countess, after Sofia. Unfortunately not much happens at The White Countess or in “The White Countess.” The movie embodies Todd’s idea of creating a refuge for people of means to chill out. Hanging out in the movie waiting for something to happen is exactly how I felt. There is one ominous figure, Matsudo, whose presence foreshadows the invasion of Shanghai by the Japanese. But writer Kazuo Ishiguru and the producing team of Merchant/Ivory never create the sense of dread that should have accompanied him. Instead they are content to let him and Jackson philosophize about their fatalistic approach to life. For the most part, “The White Countess” is pretty boring. Good looking - but boring. The few highpoints of the film belong to the members of Sofia’s family with the two Redgrave sisters, Lynn and Vanessa, in fine form. “The White Countess” comes alive in the last twenty minutes with the invasion by the Japanese. It’s visual knockout with people feeling through the streets and Jackson trying to find Sofia and her daughter. But it’s a case of too little too late.

THE NEW LAND - As of this writing, “The New Land” is supposed to be cut down by writer/director Terence Malick from the version I saw in a preview. It can only help. The movie is not designed as a drama with conflict and resolution. It unfolds like a two hour plus pictorial tone poem that relies mostly on the internal dialogue of its historic figures and the raw sights and sounds of an untouched landscape to convey its feelings and emotions. The net effect is like watching a big screen version of a PBS documentary about Pocahontas (who is only identified as ‘Pocahontas’ in the end credits) being told with professional actors instead of re-enactors.

Colin Farrel is not the sanitized version of John Smith that appears in children’s books. He’s a soldier of fortune dispatched to make contact with the natives. He falls for the chief’s daughter Pocahontas (Q’Orianka Kilcher). Back at the neophyte settlement, soldiers fight amongst themselves, then later with the natives. More settlers arrive several years later this time with women and the first English settlement of Jamestown takes root. Later Pocahontas marries John Rolfe (Christian Bale) who takes her to England where she lives out the rest of her short life.

A lot of Malick’s script is attributed to accounts of the Jamestown settlement and Pocahontas’ story as they appear in Historic archives. “The New Land” is not for all tastes.

A Spoiler

I purposely left Woody Allen’s “Match Point” for last so as not to reveal the end of the movie as a lead in to a new piece. Hopefully I have at least removed the temptation to peek. So without further ado, here is my take on the “Match Pont.”

MATCHPOINT - Woody Allen went to England to make this story about a social climbing tennis pro who worms his way into a wealthy girl’s heart and carries on like a dog in heat with a would be actress who almost became his sister-in-law.

Writer/director reels you in with the winning personality of Chris Wilton played with amiable charm by Jonathan Rhys Meyers. He’s an ex tennis pro teaching tennis who warms up to wealthy Tom Hewett whose sister Chloe falls head over heels for him. Everyone is likable and boring. Just when you think “Match Point” is going to sink under the weight of its useless banter, Chris has a tryst with Tom’s girlfriend Nola (Scarlett Johansson). Chris marries Chloe and lands a job with daddy’s firm. Life is good but Chris’s appetite for Nola increases every time he sees her.

Will he give up his wife and the good life for the tempestuous Nola? Whether he does or not becomes irrelevant. His subsequent actions strained for credibility. At first Woody Allen had me hook line and sinker until “Match Point” shifted gears and turned into a crime thriller with a cop out ending that is so inane it undermines the build up that Allen so painstakingly constructed.

Could I believe that Chris believes Nola when she says he got her pregnant? Yes. Could I believe Chris is capable of killing Nola? Yes. Could I believe he wouldn’t get caught? Depends. He’s been pretty sloppy about covering his tracks in the past. Chris does kill Nola. He confesses his affair to the police but asks that they not tell his wife. Pregnancy is never brought up as a motive. If she was pregnant, a DNA test could prove the fetus was his and the police would have a motive. If she was pregnant by someone else, it could clear him. unless the test proved it was somebody else’s. If Nola wasn’t pregnant then Chris would be in the clear. Woody Allen never addresses any of these questions. The ending Woody Allen devises could only work if Nola lied and she was either not pregnant or she was pregnant by somebody else.

Copyright 2006