Face/Off (1997)
Director John Woo can be depended upon to create visually beautiful films that take cinematic style to a far higher level than that attempted by any American director. As the former high priest of Hong Kong action films, Woo, now on his third Hollywood feature, has done it again with a gorgeous and gory movie that is both balletic and bullet-riddled. *Face/Off* features all that is familiar in Woo's ouevre both thematically and stylistically, save one crucial element: emotion. What should be another moving meditation on violence, retribution and redemption is scuttled by an apparent lack of conviction and a story too cumbersome and preposterous to be engaging.
Sean Archer (John Travolta) is an FBI agent in perpetual mourning and pursuit after the death of his young son at the hands of assassin and terrorist-for-hire Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage). When Archer kills Castor, his troubles are only just beginning, however. Turns out Castor recently planted a biological bomb, set to detonate in several days. Castor's sociopathic brother Pollux (no sign of sister Helen of Troy here, by the way) won't divulge the location of the bomb, so, to trick Pollux (Alessandro Nivola) into spilling the beans, Archer goes undercover in prison, after assuming a most clever disguise. With amazingly simple (and disgusting) technology, Castor's face is cut off and transplanted onto Archer in a supposedly reversible procedure.
But it turns out that Castor isn't dead after all, and he miraculously awakens from his vegetative state only to discover he has no face. Luckily, Archer's disembodied countenance is conveniently floating in a nearby pan and presto-chango, the Archer-enemy assumes his nemesis' identity and kills all the people who know about it. Castor enjoys Archer's life, complete with heroic escapades and accolades, a patient and surprised wife (Joan Allen), and rebellious teenage daughter (who thinks her Dad is suddenly cool), a little too much. Castor-as-Archer is at his most menacing, and the movie is most suspenseful as the familial fox-in-a-henhouse subplot plays out. Meanwhile, Archer-as-Castor is forced to escape from a brutal prison, hang out with lowlifes, and kill lots of people who would ordinarily be on his side of the law.
With its heavy symbolic and mythological underpinnings and Woo's signature Christian imagery (including his standard shootout in a church), *Face/Off* has the potential to be a better-than-average psychological thriller. The hero and villain, in altering their external identities, find themselves altered within, good turning to bad, bad turning to good. In a nice twist, each man also embraces paternity in an unexpected, figurative child swap. While struggling with the complications of their dual identities, they must also face off against each other (as nicely realized in a shootout staged in a mirror-filled room). The psychological possibilities are not quite satisfactorily explored in *Face/Off*, however, and at no point does this visually compelling film manage to suspend disbelief long enough to be involving or moving, despite the poignancy of the familial relationships.
The part of *Face/Off* that's works best, surprisingly, is the whole silly face transplant business. Through a neat bit of sleight of hand, Travolta and Cage sustain the illusion that they are characters pretending to be other characters. So Cage first plays Castor, then Castor as Archer might impersonate him, while Travolta, in the juicier role, is Archer, and Archer as a psycho killer might impersonate him. Travolta and Cage do some fine acting and have a lot of fun hamming it up with the two-in-one roles, and both are quite effectively convincing even though the identity shifts are purely a psychological illusion, requiring no physical changes whatsoever.
If only the rest of the film were so convincing. *Face/Off* features huge, spectacular stunts, and land, sea and air chases, but there's never any real sense of conviction about them. It's like seeing the wizard behind the curtain -- with no real illusion of reality to thrill and chill, all that's left is a distracting awareness that some pretty neat stunts are rolling out on film. And while Woo's action sequences are precisely and beautifully choreographed (one gun battle was set to the song *Over The Rainbow*), the moves are predictably familiar by now -- the shootouts always start with two-fisted, guns-a-blazing, bodies-a-flying mayhem and end in an inches-away who's-got-nothing-to-lose standoff. After the sixth or seventh movie, it's like seeing *Swan Lake* over and over again -- *Swan Lake* is great, but maybe *The Nutcracker* would be nice for a change.
From a purely stylistic standpoint, *Face/Off* is a gorgeous, lyrical film, far superior to standard action fare. Thematically, *Face/Off* is overly ambitious, exploring paternal, maternal and fraternal love, revenge and redemption, good and evil, internal and external identity, good science and bad science, and more. The result is an unwieldy narrative structure whose collapse, ironically, is hastened by the distracting beauty of the storytelling technique.
30Jun1997
My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)
Julianne (Julia Roberts) really has her heart in the wrong place. Her head is all wrong, too. She's altogether Ms. Wrong, and altogether a mess the minute she learns that her best friend is getting married. This isn't just a run of the mill case of always the bridesmaid never the bride jealousy, however. This is psychotic, desperately lonely jealousy, the kind of cupidity that instantly turns an ordinary restaurant critic into a raving lunatic.
That's because Julianne's best friend is Michael (Dermot Mulroney), and his impending nuptials cause her to suddenly realize that she has been in love with him for nine years. But he's about to marry Ms. Right, a sweet, adorable heiress named Kimmy (Cameron Diaz). So Julianne, rather than confess her love to Michael, hatches scheme after devious scheme to drive the lovebirds apart on the eve of their wedding -- she'll stop at nothing, even if it means ruining both their lives. Some friend.
There's a fine tradition of devious, lovesick women in romantic comedies. They always get their man through trickery, chicanery, wile and guile, but they have the very best intentions, and they really are meant to be with the generally unsuspecting objects of their affection. And aside from her ruthlessness in romance, the romantic comedienne is always a likable, charming, smart but screwy gal, a self-sufficent, self-possessed woman rendered nutso by love. Not Julianne. She's no Katharine Hepburn. Julianne breaks every rule by being venal, petty, cruel and utterly selfish, a woman singularly determined to destroy a good relationship at any cost.
That's the catch to *My Best Friend's Wedding*, and a big catch it is. Not only is the protagonist generally unlikable, but she's obviously *not* meant to be with the man she so mercilessly pursues. He's happy with Kimmy until Julianne starts to work on him. *My Best Friend's Wedding* is a deliciously subversive, sneaky movie that violates the rules of romantic comedy and violates audience expectations as well. If this was a classic romantic comedy, you'd like Julianne, you'd want her to get together with Michael, to believe that true love always win, but there's nothing true or very loving about Julianne. If she wins, Michael loses, and if she loses, the whole romantic comedy genre gets turned on its head. *My Best Friend's Wedding* makes you want what you don't want, and ambivalent about what you get.
Catch number two: Julianne's real soul mate, her true best friend is obviously George (Rupert Everett), her patient, saintly editor. It is really George that Julianne is meant to be with, except that George is gay. George and Julianne and have an ease, familiarity and compatibility that makes them sizzle, while Julianne and Michael don't -- they fizzle.
Ronald Bass' script has moments of frothy wit mixed with screwball comedy, plus numerous plot twists and loads of rich, funny characters. *My Best Friend's Wedding* is an unexpectedly fresh new take on the old genre, a twisted, devious little movie that really sneaks up on you by being utterly unpredictable. Director P.J. Hogan (*Muriel's Wedding*) brings his flair for bright, quirky comedy and even quirkier musical numbers to this movie, which is loaded with catchy Burt Bacharach songs.
Everett is a major scene stealer -- the movie could have used a lot more of him because he's a complete delight. The gay friend is practically a stock character in movies nowadays, but Everett brings an unusual intelligence, dash and mischievousness to George -- imagine suave James Bond as a sensitive, smart gay man and you not only have George, but you're getting awfully close to the ideal male. The rest of the cast handles the many mood swings of *My Best Friend's Wedding* well -- this movie puts everybody through their emotive paces, particularly Diaz, who pulls off the difficult task of being likably perfect. Mulroney is unusually bland, an atypical romantic lead, but that's all part of this movie's cunning subterfuge -- Michael has no spark, and he's no match for firecracker Julianne, as combatant or mate. Rachel Griffiths (also from *Muriel's Wedding) is terrific as a saucy bridesmaid who has a memorable encounter with a racy ice sculpture.
*My Best Friend's Wedding* lacks a true-blue heroine, but the movie itself is like an old-fashioned romantic comedienne, and the audience is the unsuspecting victim of this unlikely romance, starting out at odds, resistant, uncertain, and finally, won over by its unconventional charms.
23Jun1997
Speed 2 (1997)
Cruising isn't exactly a high excitement activity. It implies a certain languor, a leisurely lifestyle, a wandering nature. It does not imply speed. The oxymoronic title of *Speed 2: Cruise Control* is meant to be punny, since most of the action, such as it is, occurs on a cruise ship. But there's a lot more cruising than speeding in this waterlogged high seas adventure. Snooze Control would have been a more apt title for this damp, derivative *Love Boat* meets *The Poseidon Adventure* meets *Under Siege*. Were it not insufferably irritating, *Speed 2* would have been merely insufferably boring.
Among the uncommon irritants to which this movie subjects its audience are emergency lights that flash constantly for at least half the movie, and the shaky camera effect, suggesting a drunken steadicam operator, that is *Speed 2*'s primary stylistic effect. As an effect, and used properly and with restraint, the shaky camera can create a sense of tension, but as it is abused here, it is more likely to cause seasickness and, in vulnerable individuals, epileptic seizures. Let me be the first to suggest an instant moratorium on the rampant misuse of this nauseating effect in entertainment.
But back to that cruise ship. Annie (Sandra Bullock), charming heroine and ersatz bus driver of *Speed*, finds herself on the *Seabourn Legend* with her new cop boyfriend Alex (Jason Patric). All is well until a mad bomber (Willem Dafoe) hijacks the boat using smoke bombs disguised as golf balls. Geiger the bomber is disgruntled because his employer fired him when he became terminally ill with copper poisoning as a result of designing cruise ship computer systems. Or so he says. Geiger takes lots of pills and periodically applies leeches to himself, when he isn't planting golf balls in the air vents, throwing people overboard and laughing maniacally. Geiger is no mere terrorist, however; his elaborate and nefarious plot is actually a ruse designed to divert attention while he steals jewels from the ship's vaults as the terrified passengers abandon ship. Of course, none of this would have happened in Canada, where they have national health insurance.
Geiger's plan goes awry, as such plans always do, and Alex, Annie and a bunch of whiny passengers are stranded on the ship, which is cruising towards a Caribbean island at a terrifying 17 knots (the land equivalent of about 21 miles per hour, or, less than half the velocity of the runaway bus in *Speed*). Why doesn't everyone just jump off the ship? Apparently they'll be pureed into fish food by the massive propellers, unless, of course, they jump off the back of the boat, where they'll be safely whooshed out to sea, but nobody ever thinks of that. That's the problem with stressful situations and dumb movies -- nobody ever thinks of the right thing to do at the right time.
The plot of *Speed 2*, scripted by Randall McCormick and Jeff Nathanson from director Jan DeBont's story, has enough holes in it to sink the Bismarck. There's not a single lifeline in the form of decent subplot, dialogue, character development, or humor, either. Most of the lifeless dialogue involves characters reporting on events in the movie with a blow-by-blow account of the action, sort of like watching the Olympics, only much less interesting. Since he's a saucy villain, Geiger gets the wittiest lines this movie has to offer, and says memorably uninspired things like "Let's see how he likes that!" and "How do you like your vacation now?"
The closest *Speed 2* gets to character development and humor is taking characters from *Speed* and placing them in similar situations in *Speed 2*. So Annie is once again taken hostage by a mad bomber, and hapless traveller Maurice (Glenn Plummer) once again has his vehicle commandeered by a cop on a more or less high speed chase. Oh, the irony. Meanwhile, Alex, the putative hero of this soggy tale, is so bloodless and dull that one suspects he's feeding a stash of leeches of his own. With all that dead weight, it's little wonder this leaky vessel sinks like a stone (although stuff like this usually floats).
Bullock works overtime to compensate for her zombie-like co-star -- a far better movie would have developed Annie into a full-fledged heroine, rather than devolving her character into a passive, imperiled Pauline. Bullock is quickly dragged under by the feckless Patric. Not one single emotion found purchase on his stony face, nor anywhere else on his person, throughout the entire movie, not even when he was barking orders at the poor little deaf girl who got stuck in the elevator. Dafoe gets all buggy-eyed in his effort to inject some life into the psycho du jour, to little effect. Temuera Morrison shows action-hero potential as first-mate Juliano, but like everyone else who actually bothers to act in this movie, the script gives him only one oar to row with, and he, too, goes down with the ship.
Despite every desperate measure taken to pump interest into the underinflated, hyperventilating *Speed 2*, this movie is slower than a slow boat to China. There's lots of screaming and shaking and swimming and quaking, with big boats, little boats, sail boats and even menacing oil tankers, but none of it adds up to anything other than sound and fury. Long before the laughably idiotic and headache-inducing climax, *Speed 2* makes like the *Titanic* and capsizes.
16Jun1997
Con Air (1997)
A good action movie plot is like a good car: once it gets you where you need to go, you don't have to worry about it anymore. Utilitarian simplicity works best, not something with a lot of bells and whistles and complicated parts that take attention and effort to figure out. Fuel, fire, zoom.
*Con Air* has a simple, utilitarian plot with lots of fuel, fire and zoom. Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage, with a Southern drawl and sounding exactly like Hi, his dopey character in *Raising Arizona*) is a highly decorated Army Ranger who goes to prison for killing a man in a bar brawl, leaving behind a pregnant wife. When he's paroled seven years later, he ends up on an airplane transporting several of the world's worst prisoners: serial killers, serial rapists, serial lunatics, and other remorseless recidivists, the kind of hardened criminals that make Republicans open the coffers wide. When the prisoners hijack the plane, only Poe stands between civilization and two dozen bloodthirsty villains, but being a selflessly heroic sort, and, thanks to his military training, a human deadly weapon to boot, Poe is up to the task even though it might mean never seeing his wife, or the daughter he's never met. On the ground, US Marshal Vince Larkin (John Cusack) suspects Poe is a good guy, and battles with bloodthirsty bureaucrats who want to shoot down the plane.
The simplicity of *Con Air* -- bad guys try to get from point A to point B, good guy tries to stop them -- leaves lots of room for big bangs, and this movie has them in spades: huge, fiery, technicolor explosions, all manner of vehicular mayhem, brutal fist-fights, blazing shoot-outs, in short, an exhaustive barrage of violence, stunts and special effects that result in a seemingly endless string of climaxes. *Con Air* isn't a movie that never ends, it's a movie that does virtually nothing else.
The thing is, when you've seen one explosion, you've pretty much seen 'em all, and the same goes for car chases, plane crashes, gun fights, and so on. First-time director Simon West is an anti-auteur, leaving virtually no stylistic imprint whatsoever on this film, save for some fairly cornball slo-mo effects, so he doesn't add anything artistic or innovative to the action, although *Con Air* is abundantly energetic and fast-paced. West is a director who, like the plot, doesn't get in the way, which is far preferable to an in-the-way director whose style is incoherently flashy and meaningless.
*Con Air* is as entertaining as it is because of a witty script by Scott Rosenberg. The best moments of this movie happen when *Con Air* occasionally slows down to refuel before resuming the mayhem anew. The abundant villains are not a complex, shades-of-grey lot, but neither are they standard-issue movie psychos. Each man possesses his own colorful moniker: there's ring leader Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom (John Malkovich), an indiscriminate mass murderer and phrenologist's dream with a bald pate, "Diamond Dog" Jones (Ving Rhames), a black militant who blew up an NRA convention, and everybody's favorite psycho, Garland "The Marietta Mangler" Greene (Steve Buscemi), a mild-mannered cannibal and a loquacious travelling companion who arrives a la Hannibal Lecter ("I love your work" Cyrus tells him). Poe's only pals are his former cellmate Baby-O (Mykelti Williamson), a near-comatose insulin-dependent diabetic, and Bishop (Rachel Ticotin), a prison guard who spends most of the film manacled and menaced by serial rapist "Johnny 23" (Danny Trejo). With the exception of "Sally Can't Dance" (Renoly), an unfortunate drag queen stereotype, the cons of *Con Air* are an ugly but witty bunch, armed with pithy one-liners *and* rocket launchers -- these fun-loving fellas really love their work . There are at least as many laughs in *Con Air* as there are explosions, and that's quite a few.
*Con Air* is armed with a self-mocking tone, an awareness, verging on self-parody, of how silly all this testosterone-fueled noise and naughtiness actually is. This is most evident in the performances of Cage and Malkovich, who all but wink when they deliver lines that are knowingly absurd and extreme variations of archetypal villain-hero dialogue. *Con Air* seems to lose this smart self-awareness, however, when the movie reaches its real conclusion, and goes out in what should be a blaze of glory. After so many premature climaxes, the final act is really an anti-climactic lunge for the finish line, a stunt-filled, cliche-riddled, emotionally corny last gasp, an all-out effort to top the movie off with bigger, faster, wilder action that only betrays the rest of the film.
*Con Air* gets off the ground and flies high because it's smart and funny. When this movie crash lands, it is because it dumbs down and flies too low.
9Jun1997
Addicted to Love (1997)
An effective romantic comedy has to overcome the inevitability rule. That’s the rule that potential lovers, be they boys and girls, boys and boys, girls and girls, or any imaginative permutations thereof, must fall in love by the end of the movie. Without romance, the romantic comedy obviously isn’t. So the trick is to keep the audience interested until the inevitable occurs, by making the path to true love as full of potholes as possible. This generally involves various shenanigans, numerous complications, vociferous denials by one or both parties, and, almost always, at least one other person who is in love with the one of the other two. Everything gets sorted out in the end, and everybody goes home happy and stuffed full of popcorn. The end.
Boy, does Addicted To Love have potholes. Sam (Matthew Broderick) is in love with his childhood sweetheart Linda (Kelly Preston). But Linda leaves for New York and falls in love with Anton (Tcheky Karyo). So Sam abandons his career as an astronomer in order to gaze upon Linda in her little downtown lovenest. Enter Maggie (Meg Ryan), Anton’s ex, who went a little psycho when he dumped her for Linda. Maggie invades the crumbling, condemned tenement where Sam spies on Linda with an elaborate camera obscura, and sets up an equally elaborate bugging system so the two stalkers can also listen in as Linda and Anton have sex, and eat, and eat during sex, and so on. Will Maggie and Sam fall in love? But of course.
First, however, they have to cause Anton and Linda to break up through various overly elaborate and complicated schemes. Sam does it because he thinks he still wants Linda back. Maggie doesn’t want Anton back, and she won’t settle for just ruining his relationship -- she wants to ruin his entire life. These two wounded hearts take a substantial detour into wrath and resentment on their way to true love.
Addicted To Love has replaced Cupid’s arrows with poison arrows, and that’s a fatal misfire. A dark romantic comedy isn’t a bad idea, but the execution of this one just doesn’t work. The dialogue and acting are stylized in a way that is stiff rather than witty -- there’s an obvious attempt here to make the sort of wild screwball romances that Wilder and Hawks used to make, but it falls flat because the script by Robert Gordon is sloppy and heavy-handed, with too little wit and too much venom. First-time director Griffin Dunne adds nifty visual touches to the movie, particularly in the interesting use of the camera obscura, but his nice style doesn’t hide the unpleasantness of the story.
Not one of the principle characters in Addicted To Love is particularly appealing, and even worse, it’s next to impossible to understand what any of them see in each other. That is pretty difficult to do with cute actors like Ryan and Broderick, but, alas, they get dragged down along with the rest of the movie. Addicted To Love features a pretty morose and unsympathetic bunch: Sam and Maggie are motivated by jealousy and revenge fantasies, Anton is a scoundrel, and Linda is a flighty codependent who loves the one she’s with, whoever that may be. These are not exactly good candidates for healthy, happily ever after romance.
Addicted To Love has its moments, as when Linda repeatedly sends her long-faced Dad (Nesbitt Blaisdell) to read Dear John letters to her victims-- but those moments are too few and far between, while the movie too frequently stretches credulity, even for a comedy, by being downright dumb (like when Sam gazes at galaxies through his telescope *at noon*.) The plots hatched by Sam and Maggie are too far-fetched and generally downright cruel -- by the end of the movie, creepy, misogynistic Anton is the most sympathetic character, and even he is still a jerk.
The romantic comedy is essentially a character study -- everything is designed to move characters towards romantic epiphany and a change of heart. But there are no real changes of heart in this cynical movie, and there are definitely no epiphanies of any kind. In fact, there is precious little heart at all in Addicted To Love. Taking the romance and love out of a romantic comedy is like taking the murder out of a murder mystery -- what you’re left with is neither comedy nor mystery. There’s nothing to hang your hat on in Addicted To Love -- if any of these characters ever were addicted to love, they’ve long been cured.
2Jun1997
Lost World: Jurassic Park II (1997)
What’s scarier than a hungry Tyrannosaurus rex? An angry mother. Make that mom a T. rex with big yellow teeth and a supernaturally accurate nose, and you’ve got real trouble. So it is in *Lost World: Jurassic Park 2*, where loving, nurturing, caring dinosaurs wreak havoc on any human who so much as *looks* at their kid funny. A wailing baby T. Rex is not the runt you want to shove in the sandbox.
In this epic showdown between family values and corporate greed, mathematician Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) returns, this time with his own kid, daughter Kelly (Vanessa Lee Chester), in tow. They’re in the misty jungles of Isla Sorna where nutty professor John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) once kept a dinosaur breeding facility. Now those dinos are running free in an idyllic jungle paradise: stegasauri, T. rexes, pterodactyls, brontosauri, velociraptors (villains par excellence of *Jurassic Park*) and many, many others, all born free. Malcolm is there to rescue his girlfriend, paleontologist Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore). She, of course, doesn’t want to be rescued until she can prove that dinosaurs are really great parents (and, incidentally, help Kelly and Malcolm resolve their familial differences). When evil hunters show up to capture dinos and take them to a zoo, our intrepid heroes must save the lizard kings and queens from corporate greed (now, that’s scary).
The villains this time around are led by Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard), a corporate shark in an expensive suit who calls dinosaurs \\software\\; his latest corporate venture is a dinosaur theme park on the mainland (villains never learn). His dino-hunting expedition is led by big-game hunter Roland Tembo (Pete Postlethwaite), who wants one thing: to kill a T. rex, preferably a big buck. These folks are not above tormenting baby dinosaurs. Neither are their nasty peons, especially Dieter (Peter Stormare), who delights in shocking compies with an electric prod. Compies are cute, tiny little dinos that will nibble a man to death given the chance, and they eventually exact a satisfying revenge on their human tormentor.
The plot is simplicity itself: people bad, dinos good. *Lost World* is a much darker, scarier, and funnier movie than *Jurassic Park*, full of viciously violent, gory moments and nasty, black humor. Spielberg has rediscovered the joys of a good, kid-unfriendly scare a la *Jaws*; In the first moments of *Lost World*, a cute, unsuspecting little girl is set upon by compies -- its obvious from then on that all bets are off and none will be spared, regardless of age, species or cuteness factor. That small element of unpredictability makes for scream-inducing frights and rousing, edge-of-your-seat suspense.
There’s a genuine tension between good and evil in *Lost World*, with morals that are much more clearly defined than in the less satisfying, more vaguely Frankensteinien science-out-of-control *Jurassic Park*. That movie featured beastly dinosaurs with little personality and a mindless, instinctual tendency to kill. In *Lost World*, by contrast, people are the real monsters, and dinos have every reason to kill them, even if they occasionally tear asunder the wrong folks. This is especially true of the T. Rexes, who vigorously defend Rex junior and come to see all humans as a threat, and rightly so. Even the velociraptors of *Lost World* are more fully developed, although they’re still brought in as scary dino ringers -- quick-tempered, jumpy, mean and relentless serial killer dinosaurs. There are enough villains in *Lost World* to sate a herd of velociraptors, although that doesn’t spare our heroes from their share of terror.
The dinosaurs, both the computer-animated and mechanical varieties, are terrifically realistic in *Lost World*. There’s not only a greater variety of dinosaurs, but far greater numbers of them, vast thundering herds of giant lizards, as well as small, nasty packs of little ones. This story is greatly enhanced by Spielberg’s mastery of visuals and sounds -- a night scene in which raptors pick off a veritable buffet of victims uses little more than eerie rustling sounds and dark trails in waves of tall grass to achieve a sense of genuine dread. *Lost World*’s creepy noir jungle, reminiscent of *King Kong*, is alive with sound and movement; a low rumble in the jungle signals the approach of a T. rex long before the massive beast appears, nostrils flaring and thighs thundering. When the dinosaurs chomp a human or two it is done with much screaming and tearing of limbs. (Parents be warned -- *Lost World* earns its PG-13 rating: this is real nightmare fodder for the little ones.)
When daddy T. rex is transported to San Diego, *Lost World* gets a bit lost itself, trading terror for giddy, homage-happy parody, with Rexie smashing cars and pounding the pavement while the citizenry runs in terror. By this point, *Lost World* has already climaxed and petered out -- most of the villains have been dispatched and digested, half the heroes have gone home -- the rest is just pulpy, campy fun, and in a far lighter vein than the nasty, violent and more effective humor of the first two acts of the movie.
Scripted by David Koepp, who penned the original *Jurassic Park*, *Lost World* has some of the same flaws as the original. The human characters are pretty thin, and they conveniently disappear when their storylines peter out. Hunky Vince Vaughn (Nick Van Owen), an environmentalist and dinosaur rights activist, has a prominent role in the film as nemesis to Roland, but both men are jettisoned from the film without any resolution when the movie shifts to San Diego. Ludlow is little more than a prissy Brit stereotype, glasses and all, which is a shorthand way to avoid creating a character with depth. Goldblum is the real human star of this adventure, and he’s got the right touch of Pandora doomsaying mixed with I-told-you-so venom and heroism. Moore and Chester ably perform their share of heroics, although their characters are also a tad threadbare.
Despite its flaws, *Lost World* offers enough fun, fright and effects to fully entertain, and it’s obviously the work of a seasoned filmmaker and cinephile. It is also that rare, rare movie, a sequel that improves on the original with a meaner, leaner story, and more mature jolts and jollies. And for once, I wasn’t the only one cheering for the giant reptiles.
26May1997
Waiting for Guffman (1997)
Unlike Godot, Guffman has not two, but five inepts eagerly awaiting his arrival. These folks know exactly what they want from their unseen benefactor, and they’re naively confident that they’ll get it: Guffman can make them stars.
Is Christopher Guest, writer and director of *Waiting For Guffman*, a modern-day Beckett? An argument can be made for that thesis, but that doesn’t tell you anything about the wonders that await in *Waiting For Guffman*. What *Godot* and *Guffman* have in common are comedy, absurdity, loss and delusion. One is typically staged in a theatre, the other set in an ersatz theatre (actually, a high school gym) -- but *Waiting For Guffman* is garishly tacky instead of austere, a celebration of the shameless quest for fame that feeds on dreams that cannot be quashed by something as insignificant as a phenomenal lack of talent. *Waiting For Guffman* is a wacky, hilariously deadpan mockumentary about a small-town America community theatre production. Like the equally brilliant pseudo-rockumentary *This Is Spinal Tap* [MIK UMLAT OVER THE N] (1984), which starred Guest as idiot guitarist Nigel Tufnel, *Waiting For Guffman* mines comic riches from tackiness, self-delusion, egotism and denial.
Blaine, Missouri, known as the “Stool Capital of the World” because of their footstool industry, is celebrating their sesquicentennial. Corky St. Clair (Guest), closet queen, is tapped to direct the town’s annual musical because he was once a professional actor in New York City. Blinded by the stars in their eyes and Corky’s big-city pedigree, the residents of Blaine don’t seem to notice that their artistic leader is at best a fifth-rate actor, and an even worse director. His original musical, *Red, White and Blaine* stars the town’s travel agents (Fred Willard and Catherine O’Hara), a nerdy Jewish dentist (Eugene Levy), and a dim Dairy Queen dipper (Parker Posey), who dreams of stardom and/or inventing new ice cream sundaes. They’ve all got performing in their blood -- they just don’t have any talent. Bob Balaban is brilliant as the high school music teacher who, it turns out, really does have talent, although he also defers to Corky.
Dreaming of a triumphant return to Broadway, Corky invites New York theatrical producer Mort Guffman to the show -- like every other loser in *Red, White and Blaine*, Corky is convinced that Guffman will wave his wand and make them all stars. These characters are ridiculous in their egotism and self-delusion, but at the same time, there’s something terribly poignant and brave about all of them, about the faith in themselves that makes them both utterly blind to reality and immune to paralysing self-doubt and fear.
In a series of interviews with the townsfolk of Blaine, it becomes apparent the performers are not alone in their delusions of grandeur. Following the cast of *Red, White and Blaine* through rehearsals, emotional upheavals, hissy fits and creative differences, this faux-cinema verite film is caustically funny, and fabulously subtle and revealing. Everything is subtext with these characters, but subtext they can only hide from themselves because nobody in Blaine ever bothers to put two and two together -- Blaine is the denial capital of the world. Blainians never seem to notice that their theatre director, for instance, wears flashy clothes, speaks with a lisp *and* has a wife who has never been seen by anyone.
The marvelous conceit of *Waiting For Guffman*, that this is a real town and real people in a documentary film, works perfectly thanks to inspired performances. It is no small trick for a good actor to convincingly play a real person acting very badly, but Guest and company pull it off without a glitch. *Red, White and Blaine* (with music by Guest and fellow Tappers Harry Shearer and Michael McKean) is spectacularly tacky and inept, an appropriately oddball passion play for a town of superficially bland, but passionately hopeful loonies. The mixture of hilarious incompetence and self-importance, tempered by a touchingly groundless faith in themselves, makes these characters really memorable and vivid.
*Waiting For Guffman* pokes relentless fun at the foibles of Blaine’s all-Americans, but also exposes the emptiness behind the greasepaint fantasies. *Waiting For Guffman* is an inspired gem, a perfect, seamless parody of documentaries and a no-holds, hilariously sharp satire of shabby dreams of glory and shameless American dreamers.
19May1997
The Fifth Element (1997)
When Leeloo falls from the sky and lands in Korben Dallas’ taxi, the only word she and the cabbie both know is Bada-boom. Bada-boom also describes what *The Fifth Element* aspires to, but there is surprisingly little of the bada-boom element in this sci-fi heavy, action-lite French film by writer-director Luc Besson (*La Femme Nikita*). What there is in abundance in *The Fifth Element* is comic book style over substance, broad humor stretched thin, and a trifling plot that amounts to a bunch of claptrap about divine beings saving the world with a little help from their friends.
The story begins, as such stories always do, in Egypt in 1914. An archeologist discovers heiroglyphs that prophecy the coming of a great and terrible something or other that destroys the earth every 5,000 years. Suddenly, a spaceship appears, and a bunch of big metal turtle guys with little insect heads debark, open a secret chamber and make off with four stones and a statue, promising to return with them in 300 years, when they will be needed to defend the world from the terrible something. The four stones represent the four elements we know and love: earth, wind, water and fire; the statue is the fifth element, the divine element.
Fast forward 300 years. Right on schedule, the terrible something, looking for all the world like a giant charcoal briquet, zooms through space on a collision course with Earth. The turtle guys, true to their word, are on their way back with the stones when they are inconveniently shot down by warriors in the employ of Jean-Baptiste Zorg (Gary Oldman, with big teeth, the better for chomping on scenery), an evil gazillionaire businessman who intends to acquire the stones for the space briquet (to build a barbecue?). It looks like Earth is doomed, but wait! Using a salvaged disembodied hand from the statue, scientists genetically engineer a perfect being (Milla Jovovich, a fashion model of course), who just happens to be The Supreme Being, divinity incarnate, albeit divinity scantily clad in a costume that consists of a few skimpy white bandage-like straps (straps are apparently all the rage in 2214). She calls herself Leeloo, and she somehow hid the coveted stones while she was a disembodied hand (it doesn’t pay to ask too many questions about this plot). The upshot of all this is that Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis), soon-to-be-unemployed cabbie and ex-Special Forces guy extraordinaire, will have to retrieve the stones and save the world before the briquet arrives. Since the briquet doesn’t actually do anything but beetle through space, it is left to Zorg and his evil minions, a bunch of rock-stupid alien guys with big lumpy heads and droopy donkey ears, to stop Korben and Leeloo.
So much for the substance.
*The Fifth Element* isn’t really about saving the world. It’s about style, style, style! This movie is an gigantic catwalk for the fabulous futuristic fashions of costume designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, strapmaster of the universe. I myself was absolutely mesmerized, to the point of distraction, by Korben’s form-fitting orange tank top (with strappy back!). I couldn’t take my eyes off it: what was that marvelous fabric? It looked like plastic, it looked like silk, and the subtle striping! Now, that, is divinity incarnate. Leeloo was clad in a variety of revealing, form-fitting outfits, though none as memorable as the bandage bondage number. Zorg, being evil, was prone to wearing the big Elvis collars that would-be world dominators favor, as well as long jackets made of shimmering mood-ring fabrics. Korben’s ersatz sidekick, DJ Ruby Rhod, a temperamental combination of The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, RuPaul and Stepnfetchit, wore suitably flashy, glam numbers with deep decolletage. Even lowly muggers in *The Fifth Element* wear kicky little hats and strappy tops.
As one might expect in such an environment, nothing much gets done, likely for fear of soiling the garments. Korben doesn’t do anything at all, really, until the last half hour of the film, when he is more suitably decked out in a disposable tux that is quickly stripped away to reveal the standard action-hero-suspenders-and-white-tank-top uniform, as seen in *Die Hard* un, deux, trois. You just can’t save the world in a Gaultier, darling -- imagine the cleaning bills!
Cartoony-colorful sets are built around all the sartorial splendor. *The Fifth Element* really piles on the style -- it’s a great looking movie, full of visually interesting architecture (ranging from late 20th century Boeing 747 to futuristic *Blade Runner* cum *Jetsons* sky cities to cold, dark corporate monolith styles), and nifty visual effects (briquets notwithstanding) like flying car chases, mega skyscrapers, and orbiting luxury hotels.
Take away the visual accoutrements, however, and *The Fifth Element* is pretty much naked, without so much as a figleaf to cover its gaping plot holes and caricaturish characters. Willis can rise to the level of good material, but here he plays a pretty standard, world-weary guy on a mission who doesn’t talk much. He’s plenty likable in the role anyway, and as mentioned before, he wears a really nifty shirt. I liked his bleach-blonde hair, too. Jovovich’s Leeloo is just another alien waif who absorbs knowledge like a sponge, but she handles the emotional ups and downs of the role well, and is a convincing action goddess in her own right. The most annoying character is the nattering DJ Ruby Rhod (Chris Tucker), a collection of shrill stereotypes that are not particularly funny, although clearly, he is meant to be comical. His is a throwaway bit part that inexplicably turns into a major character in the film. Perhaps the French pedigree of *The Fifth Element* accounts for the many comic misfires -- that Jerry Lewis thing. The film’s minor characters are also played broadly (and none so broadly as Oldman’s Zorg), in keeping with the overall cartoonishness of *The Fifth Element*. For the most part, these folks stare in dumb wonder at various things such as flying space briquets and naked supreme beings.
To say that style triumphs over substance is to damn with faint praise in the case of *The Fifth Element*, because there really is no substance. This movie is nothing, literally, if not visually exciting and compelling. But on that level, and that level alone, it’s actually quite enjoyable.
12May1997
The story begins, as such stories always do, in Egypt in 1914. An archeologist discovers heiroglyphs that prophecy the coming of a great and terrible something or other that destroys the earth every 5,000 years. Suddenly, a spaceship appears, and a bunch of big metal turtle guys with little insect heads debark, open a secret chamber and make off with four stones and a statue, promising to return with them in 300 years, when they will be needed to defend the world from the terrible something. The four stones represent the four elements we know and love: earth, wind, water and fire; the statue is the fifth element, the divine element.
Fast forward 300 years. Right on schedule, the terrible something, looking for all the world like a giant charcoal briquet, zooms through space on a collision course with Earth. The turtle guys, true to their word, are on their way back with the stones when they are inconveniently shot down by warriors in the employ of Jean-Baptiste Zorg (Gary Oldman, with big teeth, the better for chomping on scenery), an evil gazillionaire businessman who intends to acquire the stones for the space briquet (to build a barbecue?). It looks like Earth is doomed, but wait! Using a salvaged disembodied hand from the statue, scientists genetically engineer a perfect being (Milla Jovovich, a fashion model of course), who just happens to be The Supreme Being, divinity incarnate, albeit divinity scantily clad in a costume that consists of a few skimpy white bandage-like straps (straps are apparently all the rage in 2214). She calls herself Leeloo, and she somehow hid the coveted stones while she was a disembodied hand (it doesn’t pay to ask too many questions about this plot). The upshot of all this is that Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis), soon-to-be-unemployed cabbie and ex-Special Forces guy extraordinaire, will have to retrieve the stones and save the world before the briquet arrives. Since the briquet doesn’t actually do anything but beetle through space, it is left to Zorg and his evil minions, a bunch of rock-stupid alien guys with big lumpy heads and droopy donkey ears, to stop Korben and Leeloo.
So much for the substance.
*The Fifth Element* isn’t really about saving the world. It’s about style, style, style! This movie is an gigantic catwalk for the fabulous futuristic fashions of costume designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, strapmaster of the universe. I myself was absolutely mesmerized, to the point of distraction, by Korben’s form-fitting orange tank top (with strappy back!). I couldn’t take my eyes off it: what was that marvelous fabric? It looked like plastic, it looked like silk, and the subtle striping! Now, that, is divinity incarnate. Leeloo was clad in a variety of revealing, form-fitting outfits, though none as memorable as the bandage bondage number. Zorg, being evil, was prone to wearing the big Elvis collars that would-be world dominators favor, as well as long jackets made of shimmering mood-ring fabrics. Korben’s ersatz sidekick, DJ Ruby Rhod, a temperamental combination of The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, RuPaul and Stepnfetchit, wore suitably flashy, glam numbers with deep decolletage. Even lowly muggers in *The Fifth Element* wear kicky little hats and strappy tops.
As one might expect in such an environment, nothing much gets done, likely for fear of soiling the garments. Korben doesn’t do anything at all, really, until the last half hour of the film, when he is more suitably decked out in a disposable tux that is quickly stripped away to reveal the standard action-hero-suspenders-and-white-tank-top uniform, as seen in *Die Hard* un, deux, trois. You just can’t save the world in a Gaultier, darling -- imagine the cleaning bills!
Cartoony-colorful sets are built around all the sartorial splendor. *The Fifth Element* really piles on the style -- it’s a great looking movie, full of visually interesting architecture (ranging from late 20th century Boeing 747 to futuristic *Blade Runner* cum *Jetsons* sky cities to cold, dark corporate monolith styles), and nifty visual effects (briquets notwithstanding) like flying car chases, mega skyscrapers, and orbiting luxury hotels.
Take away the visual accoutrements, however, and *The Fifth Element* is pretty much naked, without so much as a figleaf to cover its gaping plot holes and caricaturish characters. Willis can rise to the level of good material, but here he plays a pretty standard, world-weary guy on a mission who doesn’t talk much. He’s plenty likable in the role anyway, and as mentioned before, he wears a really nifty shirt. I liked his bleach-blonde hair, too. Jovovich’s Leeloo is just another alien waif who absorbs knowledge like a sponge, but she handles the emotional ups and downs of the role well, and is a convincing action goddess in her own right. The most annoying character is the nattering DJ Ruby Rhod (Chris Tucker), a collection of shrill stereotypes that are not particularly funny, although clearly, he is meant to be comical. His is a throwaway bit part that inexplicably turns into a major character in the film. Perhaps the French pedigree of *The Fifth Element* accounts for the many comic misfires -- that Jerry Lewis thing. The film’s minor characters are also played broadly (and none so broadly as Oldman’s Zorg), in keeping with the overall cartoonishness of *The Fifth Element*. For the most part, these folks stare in dumb wonder at various things such as flying space briquets and naked supreme beings.
To say that style triumphs over substance is to damn with faint praise in the case of *The Fifth Element*, because there really is no substance. This movie is nothing, literally, if not visually exciting and compelling. But on that level, and that level alone, it’s actually quite enjoyable.
12May1997
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997)
What’s a mad supervillain to do when flower power, free love and groovy vibes make the world an unbearably nice place? Go into cryogenic hibernation, of course, and return when avarice, self-interest and villainy make a comeback. That’s precisely what Dr. Evil does, little knowing that his arch-nemesis, British superspy Austin Powers, international man of mystery, also goes into the deep freeze. Needless to say, both men are a bit behind the times when they’re defrosted 30 years later, in 1997.
That’s the premise behind *Austin Powers*, a giddy, goofy movie that is both a loving paean and a silly send-up of the sixties and that odd and enduring little genre, the British spy movie. Swinging playboy Austin (Mike Myers), boasting a thatch of chest hair that rivals Sean Connery’s hirsute hair suit, suddenly finds himself in a world where bad British teeth and Carnaby Street fashions are no longer in vogue, women don’t like to be called baby, and casual sex has consequences. His partner in spying, Vanessa Kensington (a more than game Elizabeth Hurley), must constantly fend off his politically incorrect advances (\\Let’s shag, baby!\\) while helping him save the world from Dr. Evil. The effete and self-amused Dr. Evil (also played by Myers), faced with monetary inflation and shifting mores, discovers that what passed for villainy in 1967 looks a bit tame in the 90s -- his evil plots include blackmailing the royal family by accusing Charles of adultery, and holding the entire world hostage for a million dollars -- and he has a troubled relationship with his petulant son Scott Evil (Seth Green). While he was frozen, Dr. Evil’s second-in-command Number Two (Robert Wagner) turned his evil empire into a successful international conglomerate, and he would really prefer that the mad villain not mess things up with his crazy schemes for old-fashioned world domination.
Written by Myers, *Austin Powers* is right on target, a good-natured, infectiously funny and minutely-detailed spoof that mimics both the style and substance of 60s spy movies, from the psychedelic fashions to the deadly but sexy, amply endowed villainesses. The manly Austin faces off against Dr. Evil’s team of fembots, armed with retractable guns concealed in their capacious bras, and shags a vixen named Alotta Fagina (Fabiana Udenio), soul sister to Bond girl Pussy Galore. Like any spy movie worth its salt, *Austin Powers* spends time in a casino, too, although this superspy is less adept at blackjack than at swirlies, dispatching a henchman in the men’s room (there’s a fair amount of toilet humor in *Austin Powers*, all of it handled tastelessly, of course).
The set and costume designs are flawless in *Austin Powers*, lovingly accurate recreations of the most outrageous fashions the 60s had to offer (including the madly mod fashions featured in Antonioni’s *Blow-Up* -- Austin is a fashion photographer in his spare time). Likewise, the direction mimics Beatles-era psychedelia, with kooky camera angles, freeze frames, and mad chases. *Austin Powers* also deliciously exploits that mainstay of British comedy -- nudity -- with an elaborate bit of hide-and-peek physical comedy that just barely maintains the movie’s PG rating.
As Austin, Myers is endearingly ridiculous. Like his spy compatriots then and now, Austin is utterly convinced that he is a suave, debonair hipster, an irresistible ladies’ man, an unbeatable superspy. That he is instead an anachronistic neanderthal is as incomprehensible to him as the discovery that Liberace was gay (\\The ladies all loved him. I didn’t see that one coming\\). Of course, superspies, from Bond to Matt Helm, have all been anachronistic neanderthals, and that’s really the point, but Austin’s obliviousness is his charm, and what makes this movie really click -- he has no idea that his snaggle-toothed grin screams out for a good flossing, or that Versace suits have replaced striped hiphuggers and wide, white belts as the couture de riguer of martini-swilling spies. Of course, only the innocent Austin could fully appreciate the naive menace of the Nehru-jacketed Dr. Evil, who devises overly elaborate and easily escapable mechanisms of death, then doesn’t bother to make sure his victims don’t escape because that’s just the way supervillains operate.
*Austin Powers* is a giddily elaborate, but uncomplicated spoof that finds funny fodder in the paradoxical reversals that time has wrought: what passed for freedom and modernity in the sexually-liberated 60s now seems deadly dangerous in the safe-sex 90s, while 60s-style danger (shark-infested pools! predatory females!) is laughably tame in the bullet-riddled 90s. *Austin Powers* pokes fun at the past, but the present-day gets it in the ribs, too. Either way, it’s ticklish fun.
5May1997
That’s the premise behind *Austin Powers*, a giddy, goofy movie that is both a loving paean and a silly send-up of the sixties and that odd and enduring little genre, the British spy movie. Swinging playboy Austin (Mike Myers), boasting a thatch of chest hair that rivals Sean Connery’s hirsute hair suit, suddenly finds himself in a world where bad British teeth and Carnaby Street fashions are no longer in vogue, women don’t like to be called baby, and casual sex has consequences. His partner in spying, Vanessa Kensington (a more than game Elizabeth Hurley), must constantly fend off his politically incorrect advances (\\Let’s shag, baby!\\) while helping him save the world from Dr. Evil. The effete and self-amused Dr. Evil (also played by Myers), faced with monetary inflation and shifting mores, discovers that what passed for villainy in 1967 looks a bit tame in the 90s -- his evil plots include blackmailing the royal family by accusing Charles of adultery, and holding the entire world hostage for a million dollars -- and he has a troubled relationship with his petulant son Scott Evil (Seth Green). While he was frozen, Dr. Evil’s second-in-command Number Two (Robert Wagner) turned his evil empire into a successful international conglomerate, and he would really prefer that the mad villain not mess things up with his crazy schemes for old-fashioned world domination.
Written by Myers, *Austin Powers* is right on target, a good-natured, infectiously funny and minutely-detailed spoof that mimics both the style and substance of 60s spy movies, from the psychedelic fashions to the deadly but sexy, amply endowed villainesses. The manly Austin faces off against Dr. Evil’s team of fembots, armed with retractable guns concealed in their capacious bras, and shags a vixen named Alotta Fagina (Fabiana Udenio), soul sister to Bond girl Pussy Galore. Like any spy movie worth its salt, *Austin Powers* spends time in a casino, too, although this superspy is less adept at blackjack than at swirlies, dispatching a henchman in the men’s room (there’s a fair amount of toilet humor in *Austin Powers*, all of it handled tastelessly, of course).
The set and costume designs are flawless in *Austin Powers*, lovingly accurate recreations of the most outrageous fashions the 60s had to offer (including the madly mod fashions featured in Antonioni’s *Blow-Up* -- Austin is a fashion photographer in his spare time). Likewise, the direction mimics Beatles-era psychedelia, with kooky camera angles, freeze frames, and mad chases. *Austin Powers* also deliciously exploits that mainstay of British comedy -- nudity -- with an elaborate bit of hide-and-peek physical comedy that just barely maintains the movie’s PG rating.
As Austin, Myers is endearingly ridiculous. Like his spy compatriots then and now, Austin is utterly convinced that he is a suave, debonair hipster, an irresistible ladies’ man, an unbeatable superspy. That he is instead an anachronistic neanderthal is as incomprehensible to him as the discovery that Liberace was gay (\\The ladies all loved him. I didn’t see that one coming\\). Of course, superspies, from Bond to Matt Helm, have all been anachronistic neanderthals, and that’s really the point, but Austin’s obliviousness is his charm, and what makes this movie really click -- he has no idea that his snaggle-toothed grin screams out for a good flossing, or that Versace suits have replaced striped hiphuggers and wide, white belts as the couture de riguer of martini-swilling spies. Of course, only the innocent Austin could fully appreciate the naive menace of the Nehru-jacketed Dr. Evil, who devises overly elaborate and easily escapable mechanisms of death, then doesn’t bother to make sure his victims don’t escape because that’s just the way supervillains operate.
*Austin Powers* is a giddily elaborate, but uncomplicated spoof that finds funny fodder in the paradoxical reversals that time has wrought: what passed for freedom and modernity in the sexually-liberated 60s now seems deadly dangerous in the safe-sex 90s, while 60s-style danger (shark-infested pools! predatory females!) is laughably tame in the bullet-riddled 90s. *Austin Powers* pokes fun at the past, but the present-day gets it in the ribs, too. Either way, it’s ticklish fun.
5May1997
Chasing Amy (1997)
Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. There are complications, as usual, but not the usual complications. This girl is a lesbian. When she says she just wants to be friends, she *really* means it.
The unlikelihood of love has been the jumping off point for many a romantic movie, whether it be a comedy or a multiple-kleenex sudser. *Chasing Amy* is a little bit of both, with a modern twist.
Holden (Ben Affleck) and Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams) are both comic book artists, both scruffy cute Gen-Xers, both from New Jersey. When they meet at a comics convention, Holden instantly falls for Alyssa. Like any dutiful puppy in love, he follows her to a lesbian club in Manhattan, his best buddy and writing partner Banky (Jason Lee) in tow. There, to Banky’s delight, Holden discovers the awful truth about the girl of his dreams.
Friendship follows, then love, then separation, as Holden discovers that the truth is even more awful than he ever imagined. In spite of its odd characters and knotty, unconventional relationships, there’s a lot about *Chasing Amy* that is extremely conventional. Much of the humor derives from the sheer shock value of hearing someone actually saying, out loud, things that are not spoken of in polite company. Writer-director Kevin Smith (*Clerks*) is far from polite, as usual, and pound for pound, his dialogue is the crudest and dirtiest around, featuring extended riffs on oral sex, gay sex -- in general, sex. But outrageousness aside, the thoughts expressed by the characters in *Chasing Amy* are, by and large, fairly orthodox as they try to comprehend lifestyles they can’t quite understand. Homophobia, heterophobia, jealousy, curiosity and titillation -- the veneer of ultra-hip sexual liberation barely conceals the fact that this is really just good old fashioned missionary position middle America speaking (although these particular kids all blame their hang-ups on Catholic upbringings).
Smith has it both ways in *Chasing Amy*, on the one hand looking askance at the misanthropic, homophobic macho frat boy posturing of his characters, having a little fun at their expense, while wringing most of his laughs out of their potty-mouth raunchiness. Smith wallows in the hetero male fascination with lesbians that is frequently exploited in movies. The difference is that the lads in *Chasing Amy* freely admit, and rather proudly, that they get off on it. Unlike the single-minded boy’s club atmosphere of *Clerks*, however, *Chasing Amy* also includes an element of swoony romanticism, and a few decidedly Hallmark moments. Smith’s own on-screen alter-ego, the taciturn Silent Bob (a fixture in *Clerks* and *Mallrats*) turns out in *Chasing Amy* to be a mushy romantic at heart, while his constant companion Jay (Jason Mewes) remains the apoplectic, sex-obsessed spewer of raunchy spiels. They represent the opposing sides and sentiments of the movie -- crudely, distastefully hilarious, and rainbow sappy.
Yet for all the adolescent banter and sentimentality, *Chasing Amy* is the most emotionally mature work Smith has produced to date. There are agonizing moments of raw, real emotion and excruciating stupidity, insensitivity and confusion. Holden and Alyssa really struggle with their relationship, their friends, and themselves. *Chasing Amy* fixes its focus on sexual politics and love at their messiest, as problems for the heart and mind, and it wrestles with the double standards and foibles (all male, naturally) that can undermine even true love.
Smith’s style of writing is arch and verbose, showy and unapologetically indecent. His characters talk and talk and talk. And then they talk some more. The talking is interspersed with more talking, the occasional rant, the prolonged spiel. It is diametrically opposed to the current action-bloated arcade-style embraced by Hollywood, where a three word speech is the ideal and four words is considered too long. You will never hear someone talk, non-stop, for minutes on end in such a movie, but you’ll hear it in *Chasing Amy*, where the speech and the spiel are everything.
All that chatter is a challenge for the actors, and they rise to it most of the time. Adams is particularly effective as Alyssa, an unlikely combination of baby voice and cutie-pie-verging-on-sultry-blonde looks. The most emotionally wrenching scenes of *Chasing Amy* belong to Adams, and she handles them with ease. Affleck’s laid back Holden is often overshadowed by his flashier friends, Banky, Jay and Silent Bob, and especially Hooper (Dwight Ewell), a scene-stealer as a gay black man posing as a militant white-hater.
The ideas in *Chasing Amy* aren’t entirely revolutionary -- at heart this is a fairly standard boy-meets-girl love story. Smith’s voice is unique, however, and you won’t hear anything remotely like his dialogue anywhere else. As a filmmaker, he also has tremendous patience, allowing scenes to go on and on and on, taking a circuitous path to the payoff, be it an insight or a laugh.
28Apr1997
The unlikelihood of love has been the jumping off point for many a romantic movie, whether it be a comedy or a multiple-kleenex sudser. *Chasing Amy* is a little bit of both, with a modern twist.
Holden (Ben Affleck) and Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams) are both comic book artists, both scruffy cute Gen-Xers, both from New Jersey. When they meet at a comics convention, Holden instantly falls for Alyssa. Like any dutiful puppy in love, he follows her to a lesbian club in Manhattan, his best buddy and writing partner Banky (Jason Lee) in tow. There, to Banky’s delight, Holden discovers the awful truth about the girl of his dreams.
Friendship follows, then love, then separation, as Holden discovers that the truth is even more awful than he ever imagined. In spite of its odd characters and knotty, unconventional relationships, there’s a lot about *Chasing Amy* that is extremely conventional. Much of the humor derives from the sheer shock value of hearing someone actually saying, out loud, things that are not spoken of in polite company. Writer-director Kevin Smith (*Clerks*) is far from polite, as usual, and pound for pound, his dialogue is the crudest and dirtiest around, featuring extended riffs on oral sex, gay sex -- in general, sex. But outrageousness aside, the thoughts expressed by the characters in *Chasing Amy* are, by and large, fairly orthodox as they try to comprehend lifestyles they can’t quite understand. Homophobia, heterophobia, jealousy, curiosity and titillation -- the veneer of ultra-hip sexual liberation barely conceals the fact that this is really just good old fashioned missionary position middle America speaking (although these particular kids all blame their hang-ups on Catholic upbringings).
Smith has it both ways in *Chasing Amy*, on the one hand looking askance at the misanthropic, homophobic macho frat boy posturing of his characters, having a little fun at their expense, while wringing most of his laughs out of their potty-mouth raunchiness. Smith wallows in the hetero male fascination with lesbians that is frequently exploited in movies. The difference is that the lads in *Chasing Amy* freely admit, and rather proudly, that they get off on it. Unlike the single-minded boy’s club atmosphere of *Clerks*, however, *Chasing Amy* also includes an element of swoony romanticism, and a few decidedly Hallmark moments. Smith’s own on-screen alter-ego, the taciturn Silent Bob (a fixture in *Clerks* and *Mallrats*) turns out in *Chasing Amy* to be a mushy romantic at heart, while his constant companion Jay (Jason Mewes) remains the apoplectic, sex-obsessed spewer of raunchy spiels. They represent the opposing sides and sentiments of the movie -- crudely, distastefully hilarious, and rainbow sappy.
Yet for all the adolescent banter and sentimentality, *Chasing Amy* is the most emotionally mature work Smith has produced to date. There are agonizing moments of raw, real emotion and excruciating stupidity, insensitivity and confusion. Holden and Alyssa really struggle with their relationship, their friends, and themselves. *Chasing Amy* fixes its focus on sexual politics and love at their messiest, as problems for the heart and mind, and it wrestles with the double standards and foibles (all male, naturally) that can undermine even true love.
Smith’s style of writing is arch and verbose, showy and unapologetically indecent. His characters talk and talk and talk. And then they talk some more. The talking is interspersed with more talking, the occasional rant, the prolonged spiel. It is diametrically opposed to the current action-bloated arcade-style embraced by Hollywood, where a three word speech is the ideal and four words is considered too long. You will never hear someone talk, non-stop, for minutes on end in such a movie, but you’ll hear it in *Chasing Amy*, where the speech and the spiel are everything.
All that chatter is a challenge for the actors, and they rise to it most of the time. Adams is particularly effective as Alyssa, an unlikely combination of baby voice and cutie-pie-verging-on-sultry-blonde looks. The most emotionally wrenching scenes of *Chasing Amy* belong to Adams, and she handles them with ease. Affleck’s laid back Holden is often overshadowed by his flashier friends, Banky, Jay and Silent Bob, and especially Hooper (Dwight Ewell), a scene-stealer as a gay black man posing as a militant white-hater.
The ideas in *Chasing Amy* aren’t entirely revolutionary -- at heart this is a fairly standard boy-meets-girl love story. Smith’s voice is unique, however, and you won’t hear anything remotely like his dialogue anywhere else. As a filmmaker, he also has tremendous patience, allowing scenes to go on and on and on, taking a circuitous path to the payoff, be it an insight or a laugh.
28Apr1997
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