Monday, 13 September 1999

"And while Chris Rock has grown into a brilliant comedian, he should never again be asked to say a line in a movie that he didn't write himself. "

Dogma left me feeling really uncomfortable. And it wasn't about blasphemy or sex or violence or a female God. It was the painful conclusion that Kevin Smith is not a good director. He is a strong writer and an even stronger creator of ideas. But the ideas that Smith had on this one were sabotaged in one part, by his inability to effectively bring to life much of what he put on the page and in the second part, by his lack of perspective as the man pruning his own garden. The best version of what Smith put on film would probably be about 90 minutes. He could have done the whole thing most effectively, starting on the screenplay level, in 60. What we have is 2 hours and five minutes of some good moments, some dead moments and a lot of characters telling us the dogmatic exposition, a lot of Ben and Matt goofing on each other and a lot of Kevin Smith trying to say absolutely everything he wants to say regardless of whether it's still entertaining.

In a clever opening on-screen letter to viewers, Smith asks that we don't take this "trifle of a movie" too seriously. He was probably kidding. But he was right. One of the biggest disappointments of this film is, indeed, that it is so tame. Maybe I'm a jaded, old organized religion basher, but saying that religion has been bent into a reflection of the human condition, mostly for worse, is not exactly shocking. The specific twists in this film tend to feel like jokes, not deep or rich insights. As often as not, the joke is precisely the same. White men wrote the Bible, so Jesus' ethnicity was re-written, God's sex was (and is, apparently, always, though Smith seems to waffle on this one) re-written and loopholes were added and somehow, God has to abide by them (???). Yet, as an audience, we are supposed to really be amused by jokes based on sex, violence and excrement. Are those the jokes of multi-cultural insight? This is the one area where I feel a bit like an old fart. (Old = not funny. Fart = funny.) I'm perfectly willing to laugh at a crap joke, but the walking crap monster seems like something that was too sophisticated for "Fat Albert & The Cosby Kids". I'm willing to laugh at a muse challenged to make a living after changing professions, but is being a stripper the only way to inspire men and make a living? If there is humor in being God's hitman, aren't there some very real questions, other than the personal inconvenience of fallen angels, about who that hitman chooses to kill?

So, why am I unhappy with my feelings about this movie? Well, I'd love to be on the Kevin Smith bandwagon. I really enjoyed his Daredevil comic book series that I bought when taking my 10-year-old nephew to the comic book store and hid from him because he isn't ready for it. I know this man is smart and thoughtful. I really appreciate his choice to tackle this material. But this is not an exceptional movie. It is an overlong, overcute mess. And I don't want to be on the Kevin Smith basher list. I just wish he was a more skilled director. The same is true of Robert Rodriguez. The bigger the budget Rodriguez has for his movies, the less he seems to get. I have no problem with him being a "strap the camera on my back and let's go" kind of director. In fact, I've been hoping that Sam Raimi would go back to being that, since he's another one who seems to have moved out of his range lately.

I left the theater really depressed by this whole phenomena. I bought Alan Rickman as the Voice of God before I walked into the theater. You have to give me more than that. If Alanis Morrisette is what a teen might see as God, cool. But does a God who can't communicate seem to be anything more than a pretty meaningless attention-grabbing "wouldn't that be cool" gag, really? And while Chris Rock has grown into a brilliant comedian, he should never again be asked to say a line in a movie that he didn't write himself. `Nuff said.

After Dogma, I decided to go and sacrifice myself on the altar of publicity, set up on the fourth floor of the festival's headquarters. As I've written, I've avoided Publicistville, focusing on being a critic this week. But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. There is something wonderful about talking to great talent. One of the seductions of this job is to just talk to everyone. It certainly makes the job of the publicist easier. You would be surprised how many press days at this festival are set before the first press screening. Anyway, tomorrow's schedule now included Bill Forsyth and Soren Kragh-Jacobsen, who directed Mifune, one of my multi-fest favorites. And I got to see old friends and new. Everytime I find myself telling the absolute truth to publicists about what I don't want to do, I kind of expect the hand of God to come down and electrocute me and I end up experiencing quite the opposite. I have the unusual position of a kind of absolute freedom in my work. When some try to pigeonhole me into "you cover (add film job) most," I'm probably interested in someone else. I hated The Astronaut's Wife, but I felt terrible having to cancel a chat with Clea Duvall when Yahoo! had a (very rare) technical problem. She is talented. Thus, she is interesting. I don't want to smile and pretend. I want to be passionate about interviews and everything else I do. And one begins to wonder about whether the system of counting mentions over counting quality of thought is anything other than destructive to the idea of creating art of any kind. Sigh. Lecture over. You may now go on to my comments on The Jaundiced Eye. Uh...been there, watched that. Sorry. This is a well-made documentary, but does another false molestation accusation documentary add to our communal conscienceness? Mind you, if you do a Holocaust doc, you had better be bringing something new to the table to get approval from me. Same here. If you can't beat the McMartin Pre-School horror show or be telling your story to remind us that people think things have changed but haven't or be telling a story with a twist that I couldn't tell you was coming before entering the darkened square, don't ask me for an opinion, because you won't like it.

Next!

You come all the way to Toronto, Ontario to show your movie and the projectionist manages to get it slightly out of focus for more than one reel. Ouch. That was the first distraction while watching Bill Forsythe's sequel to Gregory's Girl called Gregory's Two Girls. (Well, not the first. The first was the images of silent comedians on the theater curtain and my thought that it should be Elvis Presley and Lou Costello's instead of Abbott & Costello because I wonder how many people would get the "Elvis & Costello" joke. But that was just me being weird.)

The third distraction was the return of Gregory's Girl star John Gordon Sinclair. I spent the entire movie trying to make some sort of visual connection between the teen actor I remember and the 30-something I was watching in this movie. I know it's the same guy, but I couldn't make the connection for the life of me. Likewise, the Dougray Scott who was in Ever After, just shot Mission: Impossible 2 and who is about to appear in The X-Men didn't look like the guy I've seen. He looks more like the Dougray Scott I've seen than Sinclair looks like the Sinclair I saw so long ago, but okay, I have to get over it. (Scott did remind me, however, of the Dragoon Captain in Princess Mononoke.)

If you remember Gregory's Girl, you remember one of the '70s most charming, wistful romantic teen comedies. Wistful was - and is - Forsyth's very special strength. Forsyth followed Gregory's Girl with his best film ever (and one of the best films ever, period), Local Hero. Comfort & Joy focused on Bill Patterson's special skills as a performer. Christine Lahti was the center of housekeeping. Burt Reynolds and Casey Siemaszko were considered Oscar® bait for Breaking In. And Robin Williams was at the middle of the nuclear meltdown known as Being Human, a movie that preceded a six year period of no films for Forsyth, double the previous down period for the writer/director.

So, was the sequel worth returning for? Kind of. This is not a return to the Top 100 Movies Ever level of Local Hero but it is not the disappointment of Being Human either. It is small. It is sweet. And it makes for a lovely trip once you give it a chance. I can't imagine anyone would leave this movie angry they went, but it probably won't change any lives either. It is solid entertainment. And that's not always easy.

Seeing Gregory's Two Girls so that I would be prepared to speak to Forsyth kept me from yet another screening of Boys Don't Cry, a buzz film at the festival that tells the Teena Brandon story. The first feature from Kimberly Pierce has people excited. I will try, again, to check it out and let you know what I think.

I took a break and planned on having a little NFL football and some food before going to see another film. I stopped by Foster's on Elm, the pub/restaurant that I really enjoyed the other day and found that not only was the NY Open men's final on TV instead of football, but once again, there was not a woman in sight. Was my great little steak the product of tripping into a gay pub? Could be. Of course, the food was good and not finding myself by men in chaps, I would have stayed for another meal anyway. But I wanted to watch some football. So, I was off to Hoops Bar & Grill, a Yonge Street joint that has a lot of TVs and multiple games on. And by sheer dumb luck, the burger was terrific and the fries were sensational. Perhaps I'll be back tomorrow night for Monday Night Football. Yes, folks, I'll be shirking my responsibilities tomorrow night.

But I digress...

It seems that the rest of the world has been more interested in making classic American movies than America is anymore. Fernando Trueba's The Girl of Your Dreams reminded me of the best version of To Be or Not To Be I have ever seen. The story is not dead on by any means, this movie focuses on a group of movie people from the dying Spanish film industry who go to Germany to make a movie in both Spanish and German. The politics are more complicated than To Be or Not To Be, but the cast of characters fits the old Hollywood style to a "t." The director who may care more about his film than anything or anyone. The actress so beautiful that she drives every man (at least every heterosexual man) to distraction. The gimpy, horny Nazi, so far up the food chain that saying "no" to him could cause arousal followed by death at any second. The besotted vet actress, the gay sidekick, the egomaniacal actor, the saucy foul-mouthed slut, the translator caught in the middle and in this case, the beautiful doomed Jew who inspires the actress to risk everything. They're all there.

As I was leaving the theater, a couple was discussing that people said you couldn't mix comedy with Nazis, citing Life Is Beautiful as an example. Well, this movie is everything that Life Is Beautiful wasn't. In L.I.B., the Nazi thing was as much a game in the movie as it was inside the movie. Was there ever a sincere effort to stay inside the lines of reality in that movie? In The Girl of Your Dreams, the tone is both melodramatic and comedic, but never giddy. Never heavily tear-jerking. Never begging for your love.

Penelope Cruz, another Theron-level icon of beauty, is a good example of how Trueba did things right. She lies naked in a tub of milk. And we see her breasts briefly, but it isn't a scene about exposing her. In fact, the scene ends up being about a man making a fool of himself for her. Likewise a near rape that isn't played for any more pathos than is needed to make the drama work. And then again, as she makes love again, there is nudity, but subtle and beautiful moments that are focused on passion more than the body or the sex. As a reflected image of the care that Trueba took with Cruz, look (again) to Dogma, which offers up the differently but equally beautiful Salma Hayek in panties and bra grinding on a strip stage. You could ask for less from Hayek's body, but you would be hard pressed to ask for more. And yet, she is abused over and over by her directors as an over-sized object of body lust. It was an odd thing for me to notice that Penelope Cruz is, for me, far more beautiful in a moving image than when captured in stills. Her movement is part of what makes her who she is. Likewise, I saw a flash of that with Hayek in Dogma. There was a single shot where her hip moved through the frame and was a bit stunning. But otherwise, she was reduced to a busty prop. And that's a shame.

Think I got off the track there? Well, I don't consider the excessive use of the physical any different really than the excessive sentimentality. Dogs playing poker is art if meant ironically and not if meant as pure art. The Girl of Your Dreams is so old fashioned and yet so lovely and sophisticated and smart. This may be "the" non-English language picture of 1999, at least in terms of domestic box office. Everyone is anticipating the new film from Almodovar that was so well received at Cannes, but this film and Mifune both have a chance of reaching big audiences in America this fall. The one theme continues though. Can any of the now many art companies that aren't Miramax maximize grosses on non-English films past the $10 million mark? We soon shall see.

I returned back to the hotel to write a little and to head off to my first Telluride party, celebrating the opening of But I'm A Cheerleader, a film I haven't seen yet, but look forward to. But instead, I napped. I woke at 1:30, coincidentally caught "Roger Ebert & The Movies" and went for Chinese at Wah Too yet again. And yet again, Wah Too kicked butt. Some of you have been kind enough to send in your Toronto restaurant suggestions, which I will take to heart. That is, if I ever have more than 30 minutes to wolf down a meal. One more week of fun and then I rest. Yay!

But I have to tell you. I'll miss having all of these great movies around. I'll even miss the misses. Even at a rate of four or five movies a day, each time those lights go down, the potential for magic is there. Me Myself I topped off Telluride for me quite happily. The Girl of Your Dreams was there today to make a day that started unfortunately into a great day. Not only does the great stuff bring joy. But the quantity of effort around us brings the failure into perspective as well.

Until tomorrow...

SMART ASS READER OF THE DAY: Bri writes: " L.A. Dave: Canada is overrated."

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E ME: Thoughts? Have you even heard of Gregory's Girl? Will you line up for Dogma regardless of what anyone says? Will you pay to see a "Hollywood movie" in another language?