I’ve been catching up on some new releases that are no longer very new. In fact, they’re not really new at all. But I’m glad I finally got around to watching them. Here are some highlights:
“Terminator 3”
I missed this one, and now I’m kicking myself. Sure, it’s not as good as the first two Terminators, and it’s more of a mindless action flick than thought-provoking science-fiction, but so what? This film is exciting and fun, and it was the perfect thing to watch after a long week of work. I’d forgotten how charismatic Arnold Schwarzenegger is as the Terminator. There are flaws — I prefer Ed Furlong to Nick Stahl in the role of the young revolutionary John Connor, and I missed Linda Hamilton — but I’m not going to nitpick. By the end of the film, I was ready for Terminator 4. Or at least ready to sit down and watch “Terminator” and “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” all over again.
“Black Snake Moan”
This crazy film is the follow up to director Craig Brewer’s acclaimed and controversial debut, “Hustle and Flow,” which caught some flack for its humane portrayal of a street pimp who loves hip-hop. “Hustle and Flow” was a good film, if you could buy into the idea that the pimp was really a nice fellow at heart, and his prostitutes really enjoyed working for him. Like “Hustle and Flow,” “Black Snake Moan” is about music, in this case the blues. Samuel L. Jackson plays a farmer/blues musician named — symbolism alert — Lazarus, whose wife has just left him. He finds a half-naked, beat-up woman played by Christina Ricci lying by the side of the road, and brings her home and nurses her back to health. Ricci, we learn, is a nymphomaniac who had sex with everyone in town the moment her boyfriend (Justin Timberlake) left for the military. Lazarus decides to cure her demons by — I kid you not — chaining her to the radiator so she can’t escape. “Black Snake Moan” is absolutely ridiculous, but it’s also compulsively watchable, with great blues music playing throughout. I like what Brewer is doing — making movies steeped in Southern culture and music. Now if he could just find a way to create a female character who wasn’t a prostitute or a nymphomaniac, he’d really be onto something.
“Quinceanera”
A couple of months ago I was visiting a friend in North Carolina, and we were trying to rent a movie. This is always a long, involved process, and I pointed to “Quinceanera.” We had both covered a quinceanera — in Hispanic culture, a coming-of-age ceremony held when a girl turns 15 — while working for the Birmingham Post-Herald; my friend had taken photographs, and I had written a short story for the paper. The event was similar, in some ways, to a wedding, and is perhaps best described as a Latino debutante ball. My friend looked at the DVD box and squinted. “That quinceanera looks a little harder-edged than our quinceanera,” he finally said.
We didn’t end up renting the movie. But I watched it a couple of weeks ago, and it’s pretty good. The film follows a girl in the Echo Park district of Los Angeles as she prepares for her quinceanera. When she becomes pregnant, she is sent to live with an elderly uncle and an older cousin who has been living there ever since his parents found out he was gay. The film is about these characters, but also about the gentrification of Echo Park, and how a new wave of homeowners is displacing residents on the lower-rungs of the socio-economic scale. It’s realistic and believable, but also entertaining and heart-warming.
“Hot Fuzz”
This film comes from the same people who made “Shaun of the Dead,” the zombie satire where a group of shiftless Brits fend off a zombie attack by holing up in the local pub. So if you liked “Shaun of the Dead,” you might want to check out “Hot Fuzz,” which is a satire of cop-buddy movies, filtered through a dry British sensibility. The plot: A hot-shot city police officer (Simon Pegg, who is very funny) is so good at his job that his superiors get sick of him and send him to the country, where there’s hardly any crime. Of course, as soon as he gets there he discovers that a serial killer is picking off village residents, and mayhem ensues.
“Hot Fuzz” is a little too long, but I enjoyed it. I prefer “Shaun of the Dead,” but that’s probably because I love zombie movies. The first zombie movie I ever saw was “Dawn of the Dead,” which my dad rented when I was a freshman in high school, on a weekend when my mother and sisters had gone out of town. “Will it be too scary?” I wondered, looking at the box. “It’s full of social commentary and humor,” my dad promised. And it is. But it’s also full of gore and violence. My recommendation: Watch “Night of the Living Dead,” “Dawn of the Dead,” “28 Days Later” and then “Shaun of the Dead.” You’ll be ready for some real comic relief by then.
The movie I really want to see is “WALL-E.” First of all, Pixar never misses. I’m sure someday they’ll make a bad movie, but their track record is impeccable. I still really love “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2” and Pixar has only gotten better since then. Last year they gave us “Ratatouille,” a thoroughly enjoyable movie about a rat who loves to cook, and now they’ve given us a mostly wordless movie about a lonely robot cleaning up the earth after the humans who covered it with garbage have evacuated.
Some have suggested that this film is a big risk for Pixar, because the plot and tone are sort of bleak and melancholy and the film paints a grim picture of the future. But everyone I know wants to see “WALL-E,” which looks like a meditative science-fiction film in the tradition of “2001: A Space Odyssey,” except geared for a family audience and with a more lovable main character. The description made me think of “Silent Running,” the 1971 film in which Bruce Dern plays a botanist who works on a spaceship, tending plants from a ruined earth that is no longer habitable. When he receives an order to destroy the plants, he refuses. I watched “Silent Running” earlier this year, and it’s pretty good. Plus, I just love the idea of Bruce Dern as a sensitive botanist.
July 4, 2009
4:26 p.m. [ Suggest removal ]
You really should go see "WALL-E" -- it's excellent. It amazed me how they could humanize a little metal box, a rusted hunk of junk, to the point that I spent much of the movie going "awwww," actually feeling for the little guy. And it has good lessons you can take away from it, too, but it's not overtly preachy.
4:42 p.m. [ Suggest removal ]
a scintillating collection of flicks
I was briefly on Netflix but dropped it when my credit card bounced about three months in. I wasn't thrilled with my own selection of movies. I think to really get the most out of Netflix you have to have resources that direct you to movies that suit your taste ... which I failed to do.
so I catch movies on the Independent Film Channel on my parent's cable when they are out of town.
the most interesting thing I have seen on IFC recently turned out to be what my brother Bill informed me was Mumblecore. a style of film-making recently developed at NYU of young people capturing the vicissitudes and developments of their own lives. a sort of self documentary.
so far I have come across two examples both at IFC: FourEyed Monsters & Young American Bodies
these kids (they are all young) are turning their social, psychological and sexual lives into a sort of artform.
it is a little self-involved and in the case of Young American Bodies frankly sexual
it's not really a movie as there is no plot - nor does it have the gravity of a documentary. neither is it the false drama of reality television. but it has elements of all.
1:39 p.m. [ Suggest removal ]
WALL-E may be my new favorite movie, edging out Nemo by a little bit. I laughed, I cried, and yes, Pixar can really make you feel for a little metal box and a shiny oval. Best scene? Cockroach in the Twinkie.
1:40 p.m. [ Suggest removal ]
Also, "Quinceanera" sounds a little bit like "Real Women Have Curves"--also realistic, entertaining, and heart warming. It's America Ferrara's first film role, I think.