Category: 2001

The Dead Boy Detectives (2001) #2

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Ah, perhaps my apprehension comes from this issue… it’s not bad at all, but it’s more focused on the backstory of a supporting cast member than it is on the two leads (who act really silly at one point, playing dress-up with wooden swords, an activity I associate much more with eight year-olds than the leads in this comic). It’s a nice showcase for Talbot’s artwork (except the ghost eyes again), since it lets him do stuff modeled after wood carvings of the Middle Ages and such, as well as the modern London scenes.

Brubaker’s working in a framework here–there are chapters, they open with text exposition–and it feels fine… but again, I’m apprehensive. I don’t want to get too enthusiastic because I know (or think–or kind of remember) it takes a hit.

But it’s shocking how well-produced Vertigo limited seres used to be.

The Dead Boy Detectives (2001) #1

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I’ve read The Dead Boy Detectives before and I remember it not working out, but this first issue is fantastic. Brubaker brings a fairy tale slash Mark Twain feel to the story and Bryan Talbot’s art is, there’s no other word for it, precious. The two detectives–Charles and Edwin, I think–are adorable in a way no regular teen detectives ever could be… they’re ghosts. Teenage ghost detectives. I’m shock DC hasn’t turned it into a film property yet.

The case–it’s just one case, I think–hasn’t really taken off yet, though they’ve done a lot and given Talbot a lot of time to show off. My only art complaint is the eyes. The ghost eyes. It looks too emo for its own good.

But a great first issue; not a lot of limiteds have those… especially not today.

Brubaker writing so much dialect is my only complaint.

From Hell (2001, Albert and Allen Hughes)

I had no idea Heather Graham was ever a lead in such a high profile project. I knew she was in From Hell, but she’s got a lot to do–and with an Irish accent. I suppose it’s the best performance I’ve ever seen her give, maybe because her character isn’t a twit and Graham tends to play morons. She does a decent job, even if her hair coloring looks unnatural, not to mention her general appearance not seeming very realistic for a Victorian era streetwalker.

From Hell‘s a solid Jack the Ripper thriller. There’s nothing particularly outstanding about it–the graphic violence, which I guess caused a stir, is somewhat tame (it’s a Jack the Ripper movie after all), but it’s solid. Johnny Depp has a fine accent and he’s a dependable lead in this one. It’s hardly a showy role–regardless of him being psychic, which doesn’t seem to help with with the case at all. Robbie Coltrane gets all the good lines as Depp’s sidekick.

The star of the film is really the production values. It looks and feels like one thinks the 1880s London would look and feel. When the Hughes brothers do sequences with visual flourishes, well… it doesn’t exactly work. Depp’s opium-fueled fantasies look a whole lot like someone running film through iMovie filters. They’re effective due to their content, not their presentation.

Again, it’s fine. It might be too hard to really get involved with a Jack the Ripper thriller; no point.

1.5/4★½

CREDITS

Directed by Albert and Allen Hughes; screenplay by Terry Hayes and Rafael Yglesias, based on the comic book by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell; director of photography, Peter Deming; edited by Dan Lebental and George Bowers; music by Trevor Jones; production designer, Martin Childs; produced by Don Murphy and Jane Hamsher; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Johnny Depp (Fred Abberline), Heather Graham (Mary Kelly), Ian Holm (Sir William Gull), Jason Flemyng (Netley), Robbie Coltrane (Peter Godley), Lesley Sharp (Kate Eddowes), Susan Lynch (Liz Stride), Terence Harvey (Ben Kidney), Katrin Cartlidge (Dark Annie Chapman) and Ian Richardson (Sir Charles Warren).

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Kate & Leopold (2001, James Mangold)

I unintentionally watched the Roger Ebert cut of Kate & Leopold. I originally saw it at a sneak preview with the plot intact. Ebert saw it around the same time and threatened to complain or whatever if they didn’t cut it.

It works all right, but the original cut is available on DVD. I thought that version is what I’d be watching.

But it wasn’t.

It’s a perfectly fine romantic comedy.

Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber are way too good for it. Schreiber’s performance is fantastic, of course. Jackman’s continuing his development into this romantic leading man–that role never really took off for him. His most popular role, for female audiences, is Wolverine. That Wolverine movie, over half the audience opening weekend was female.

It seems kind of natural to stick him in a Meg Ryan movie . . . I guess. Except this one’s a post-Russell Crowe Ryan movie, after she’d lost her luster.

It’s amazing how little work goes into making her a character, other than her being Meg Ryan. It’s upsetting–comparing Innerspace Ryan to this film–it’s this watered down version.

Mangold does a good job directing. His script’s long, with too many characters.

All the acting’s good except Bradley Whitford, which is because they cast him as a nasty Adventures in Babysitting Bradley Whitford role . . . only after he was Josh Lyman Bradley Whitford, which doesn’t make any sense.

Breckin Meyer’s good in it.

It’s fine. One should, if possible, see the director’s cut.

But it is long.

1.5/4★½

CREDITS

Directed by James Mangold; screenplay by Mangold and Steven Rogers, based on a story by Rogers; director of photography, Stuart Dryburgh; edited by David Brenner; music by Rolfe Kent; production designer, Mark Friedberg; produced by Cathy Konrad; released by Miramax Films.

Starring Meg Ryan (Kate McKay), Hugh Jackman (Leopold), Liev Schrieber (Stuart Besser), Breckin Meyer (Charlie McKay), Natasha Lyonne (Darci), Bradley Whitford (J.J. Camden), Paxton Whitehead (Uncle Millard), Spalding Gray (Dr. Geisler) and Philip Bosco (Otis).

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The Royal Tenenbaums (2001, Wes Anderson)

The Royal Tenenbaums is a profound examination of the human condition. It’s hard to think about Tenenbaums, which Anderson made as a precious object–he tends to put the actors on the right and fill the left side of the frame with exactly placed sundries, sometimes it’s the carefully placed minutiae, but he usually puts those items on either side of a centrally placed actor–as a character piece. The film tells the story of specific, highly fictional characters (I don’t think I’ve ever used highly to modify fictional before) in a very specific place–it’s New York, but it’s not New York. It’s an otherworldly setting. There are no “normal” people in the film until the end, and even then it’s questionable….

Watching Tenenbaums, the only thing I could think of as a comparison was something a writing professor once told one of my classmates. The student asked–after we just got through reading an interview with Faulkner–if he could write science fiction. The professor said sure, just as long as it was about the things (the human heart in conflict with itself, others and its environment) Faulkner had been talking about. The Royal Tenenbaums, with the meticulous sets, the strict composition and the exclusive characters, is like really good science fiction. The relationship between Luke Wilson and Gwyneth Paltrow (adoptive siblings in love) is not a Hollywood standard. Anderson and Owen Wilson’s script somehow makes such elements moving, but still funny (maybe not so much Luke Wilson and Paltrow, who are sort of the film’s protagonists–definitely the relationship between Gene Hackman and Danny Glover though).

Even Ben Stiller, who has the film’s easiest role (and gets the easiest out, which I always hold against him at the beginning of the film but never by the end), is irreplaceable. Stiller takes a backseat to Grant Rosenmeyer and Jonah Meyerson (as his sons); their interactions with Hackman are a much funnier way to spend running time, but the film still pulls Stiller in by the end, giving him one great moment in the film.

It’s incredible people–critics, the Academy Awards–didn’t recognize Hackman for this performance, because it’s the closest thing he’s ever done to a slapstick role and he’s perfect in it. It’s a magnificent performance, full of life–every time Hackman stops talking, there’s an anticipation for what he’s going to say next… the film’s a wonderful viewing experience, even after the drama takes over.

The way Anderson and Owen Wilson approach the drama is interesting. It isn’t the climax, which is a more comedic moment, it’s a little while before (I wonder if they used the same formula in Bottle Rocket and Rushmore–I know I should remember). Tenenbaums is so good it’s hard to write about, but five or six hundred words also can’t cover it all. I might never get around to mentioning the use of music–like the instrumental “Hey Jude” at the open or the Van Morrison at the close. I can’t remember it all.

Anjelica Huston’s great, Danny Glover’s great (why he doesn’t get more eclectic roles like this one I don’t understand), Paltrow and Luke Wilson are wonderful together–see, they deserve a few hundred words just themselves–and I haven’t even gotten to the narration read by Alec Baldwin.

I remember, going to see The Life Aquatic, wondering if Anderson could top Tenenbaums. He never will.

Tremors 3: Back to Perfection (2001, Brent Maddock)

The first Tremors sequel probably used up all the goodwill the first movie created… and the presence of Fred Ward helped quite a bite. Ward was a lead in the first film–not to mention being a highly recognizable character actor. The third movie opens poorly, with Michael Gross doing something silly under the opening titles, and barely recovers enough to be watchable. I can’t bring myself to call it a film and movie gets annoying after a while, so I guess I’ll just say there are a number of major problems with the production.

Even though it’s from the same producers–one of the original writers even directs–the guy performing scripting duty is severely lacking. He can’t make the jokes work, even with Gross giving some decent deliveries throughout. And besides the dumb things about the script (the flying monsters, the guy making zen observations), there’s also the constant references to the earlier movies. It gets to the point a regular person couldn’t sit down and understand what’s going on, even after expository dialogue tries its best. There were references in the film I had to think about–and I just watched the original a few weeks ago.

The direction’s another defect. Maddock’s obviously composing for full frame television–the whole production was just a backdoor pilot for the Sci-Fi Channel–and the pseudo-widescreen presentation gets annoying all the time. He’s also just not a good director. He can’t do the humor (which is odd, given his screenwriting career). The script doesn’t help things, but Maddock’s responsible for a lot of the one liners falling flat.

The acting is all mediocre, sometimes better. Shawn Christian isn’t much of a sidekick, but Gross isn’t much of a lead, so it doesn’t matter. Susan Chuang’s probably more likable than she should be, given how dumb her character is written. The best performances come from the other first movie returnees–Charlotte Stewart and Tony Genaro. Ariana Richards has some terrible writing, but if she were in it more, the movie would probably be a lot better.

Another problem is how bad the effects get. The monsters are almost all cheap CG and, if they aren’t, there’s a visibly felt sock puppet in use. The music’s awful–I find it incredible Kevin Kiner’s ever worked again.

The movie runs long (there, I called it a movie again) and gets boring in stretches. I don’t think it ever actually gets interesting, but there’s always something moderately compelling about the genre. There’s also the car wreck aspect–watching Michael Gross run around pretending to be chased by cheap CG monsters… it’s mildly amusing.

With a decent rewrite, a little bit more money and an adequate director, it might have been fine. But there’s still the problem of Gross… he’s a TV guy, not a movie guy. Besides the first Tremors, I’ve never seen him in any other theatrical release. His presence as protagonist makes the whole thing immediately suspect.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Brent Maddock; screenplay by John Whelpley, based on a story by S.S. Wilson, Maddock and Nancy Roberts; director of photography, Virgil L. Harper; edited by Drake Silliman; music by Kevin Kiner; production designer, Ken Larson; produced by Roberts; released by Universal Home Entertainment.

Starring Michael Gross (Burt Gummer), Shawn Christian (Desert Jack Sawyer), Susan Chuang (Jodi Chang), Charlotte Stewart (Nancy Sterngood), Ariana Richards (Mindy Sterngood), Tony Genaro (Miguel), Tom Everett (Statler), Barry Livingston (Dr. Andrew Merliss), John Pappas (Agent Charlie Rusk), Robert Jayne (Melvin Plug) and Billy Rieck (Buford).

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The Mexican (2001, Gore Verbinski)

No kidding The Mexican has a lot of the same score as The Abyss, Alan Silvestri composed both… oddly, I didn’t even think he was working anymore (or even back when The Mexican came out). Besides the Abyss rips, he turns in a good, funny score. But anyway….

The Mexican is kind of strange and kind of not. The Brad Pitt without Julia Roberts half, the doofus’s adventures in Mexico, plays a lot like a Paul Newman movie from the 1970s, only not as good. Pitt, unlike Newman, can play a doofus though and he does a great job here. The Julia Roberts on the road with gay hit man James Gandolfini is actually the stranger part of the film, because it’s Julia Roberts in a role beneath her movie star stature. Her role’s the girlfriend and while she and Pitt are good together, it’s really not a big enough part for her.

The film’s quirky in its handling of its mega-stars (though Pitt is a lot more comfortable) and it almost seems like a smaller movie, until the last act when the surprise guest star pops in and The Mexican becomes the standard Hollywood movie Dreamworks had so much trouble making. It’s an excellent standard Hollywood movie too.

Gore Verbinski’s direction, much like the big movie stars, seems almost more than the script deserves. The Mexican‘s script is frequently way too cute for itself and way too contrived and it’s a shock no one thought to get a quick rewrite. John Sayles probably would have done wonders in a few weeks. But Verbinski really knows how to shoot Panavision, whether it’s conversation or action….

The other reason the film works is the casting. Pitt, Roberts and Gandolfini (Pitt does the most work in terms of range, though the performance is kind of like Twelve Monkeys, down to the mannerisms) are all good in the three biggest roles, but J.K. Simmons, Bob Balaban, Richard Coca and David Krumholtz are essential in the primary supporting roles. It’s very well-cast.

The Mexican is the kind of movie Hollywood doesn’t make any more and needs to… it’s unspectacularly okay.

Fighting for Love (2001, Joe Ma)

Watching Fighting for Love is frustrating. Rapid-fire dialogue–straight out of a Howard Hawks comedy–is difficult to get in subtitles, especially poorly translated ones. Still, the charm of the actors comes through and Fighting for Love is probably the best mediocre romantic comedy I’ve seen in a long time, at least of the recently-made (since 1998) ones. I initially queued the film right after I saw Yesterday Once More and went through Netflix for other Sammi Cheng films. Since Yesterday tried to be serious, it didn’t offer the best precedent for Cheng. She’s charming and funny and touching in a way we don’t have right now in American cinema. As goofy as Fighting for Love gets, Cheng is never otherworldly. Her problems are never two-dimensional, on celluloid. The problem could be–I don’t really think it is, but I’m acknowledging the possibility–with American female actors, we’re a little too aware of their reality and can’t disconnect enough to connect with their films….

Once I had queued Fighting for Love, I realized the Tony Leung it starred. There are two Tony Leungs, Chiu Wai and Ka Fai. I don’t know who had the name first (and I’m too lazy to look it up). Chiu Wai, who appears in Fighting for Love, is the Tony Leung from In the Mood for Love and 2046 and Hard-Boiled. I’m a Tony Leung fan and so I was looking forward to the film. While he’s older than Cheng, their age difference doesn’t really affect the film. He does look rather silly surrounded by all the much younger actors playing his siblings, but I let it pass. The story’s a general romantic triangle (his girlfriend’s out of town and they have to fall in love while she’s gone, yada yada yada). It doesn’t matter. It’s a romantic comedy, the predictability isn’t an issue. There are some nice moments between Leung and Cheng and funny ones too and those scenes are what romantic comedies are about.

The most particular thing about the film–and I wasn’t expecting it–was the quality improvement throughout the second half. It didn’t do anything particularly special, it just laid on those nice scenes. By the end of the film–where, of course, there was a final cute joke–the varnish was nice and shiny.

3/4★★★

CREDITS

Directed by Joe Ma; written by Ma, Chow Yin Han and Lam Oi Wah; edited by Cheung Ka-Fai; produced by Carl Chang; released by Film Power Company.

Starring Tony Leung Chiu Wai (Veg Cheung), Sammi Cheng (Deborah), Niki Chow (Mindy), Joe Lee (Camel) and Li Fung (Deborah’s mom).

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Sorum (2001, Yun Jong-chan)

Sorum’s approach makes the film singular. While the DVD cover certainly suggests a ghost story, the first half of the film does not. Instead, it’s a film about urban apathy, just one with an uncanny style. Director Yun really does know how to make a film–one scene in the film had me ready to proclaim it the greatest journal of self-destruction since Leaving Las Vegas (but then the film changed again, so I didn’t get to make the claim). Yun sprinkles Sorum with breather moments–romantic scenes, still highly intense, but at the opposite of the feelings he infused into the majority–and the film’s more an example of his ability than anything else. Sorum is not a good film. While Yun’s writing, on the scene level, appears to be excellent (I’m going off subtitles, so who knows?), and he never really sells the film out, never really exploits it, it just doesn’t turn out to be meaningful. There are spikes of content, but it’s about the confirmation of the supernatural in the end.

The ghost stories maneuver these confirmations, keeping them either full in the viewer’s mind or full out–though I can’t think of a ghost story where there isn’t really a ghost in the end, just because of the audience’s expectations–and Sorum’s maneuvering is fine. But the maneuvering inherently sells out the work of the actors and the work of the good writing. It’s cryogenics. It can go tabula rosa. It has to take no responsibility for itself. Sorum manages to delay this cop-out–even the expectation of a cop-out, because the first hour is such a weird film, I thought it was possible–until the last fifteen or twenty minutes. Then it goes. It has a beautiful few scenes of people in terrible situations, just awful situations, then it cops out. Ghost stories have no responsibility. People stories have tons. Responsibility is rarely what an audience wants to address.

The acting in Sorum is good, though the male lead, Kim Myeong-min, can’t hold on to the character throughout. The female lead, Jang Jin-Young, does such excellent work, the cop-out does her the most disrespect. I know when Kubrick made The Shining, he didn’t tell the little kid it was a horror movie and shot it so he’d never know… I never got the feeling from Jang she was just starring in a genre picture (similar, for example, to Toni Collette in The Sixth Sense), while it was obvious Kim knew what was going on.

I tend not to see American horror movies because of who’s directing and writing them–and the exploitative sense the genre has come to embrace–but, again, Korea knows how to make fluff better than Americans. Horror films are just as much fluff as romantic comedies and I suppose if Sorum’s possible quality was so apparent throughout, I wouldn’t be so upset. Maybe I’m not upset. What’s a good synonym for dejected? After watching Sorum, I am dispirited. Not incredibly dispirited (it’s not like Vanilla Sky or something), but dispirited nonetheless.

1/4★

CREDITS

Written and directed by Yun Jong-chan; director of photography, Hwang Seo-shik; edited by Kyeong Min-ho; music by Park Jung-ho and Yun Mi-na; produced by Baek Jong-hak; released by DreamMax Films.

Starring Kim Myeong-min (Yong-hyun), Jang Jin-yeong (Sun-yeong), Gi Ju-bong, Ahn Jo and Ki-hyeon Kim.

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Minoes (2001, Vincent Bal), the English dubbed version

After we finished watching Minoes, my fiancée turned and asked me if it was a children’s film or if the Dutch just made weird films. While it appears to be assigned to the children’s film genre in festivals, the film won best picture and best actress at the Netherlands Film Festival. Still, I wouldn’t just say it isn’t an odd film. I think it’s my first Dutch film, actually.

While Minoes is good, I did watch it dubbed, so it’s possible I got something or lost something or neither. Again, it’s intended for young audience–lot of mild swearing, actually… those naughty Canadian dubbers–and maybe that level of storytelling depth made dubbing less offensive. Minoes is an enjoyable experience, though probably not for people who don’t like cats (it’s a cat who turns into a young woman). The film doesn’t ask any questions about the transformation, sticking to expected child-level of acceptance. Since the questions are never raised, there’s no expectation of an answer, which might only be nice at the end, but Minoes establishes early there won’t be any questions… It establishes its setting, its conflicts, then sticks with them.

The director, Bal, has a great sense of composition and the film’s rooftop sets are wonderful–both functional and imaginative, while never unrealistic. I’m not sure how the special effects were done, if there were any (the cats mouths appeared to be moving to words, but since it was dubbed, I don’t know for sure), but they were excellent as well. The talking cats fell immediately into the film’s agreement with itself and the audience so there was never an issue. None of the special effects looked CG (but well could have been) and there was no gee whiz factor to the film. All the cats just happened to talk in Minoes.

Since I did see it dubbed, I can’t really can’t say anything about the acting, though the lead, Carice van Houten, seems like she did a good job….

The film seems to agree with Mel Stuart's excellent observation: make a movie for adults and kids will be smart enough to figure it out.