Wednesday, 22 December 1999

RANTING & REVIEWING

Hey there. Busy working on pre-vacation clean-up and I realized that there were four films that I have seen and commented on briefly, but haven't really focused on, so I shall... in alphabetical order. Additionally, starting today, you can find a Hot Button page that will take you to my comments on all of the other films out or due out during the holiday season in case you have some spare time and want to argue with me via e-mail over the movies you are finally getting to over the holidays. (Agreements are always welcome too.) And don't forget to check out roughcut reviews, where Christopher Brandon & Co. deliver sharp, incisive commentary every week on every film that hits the big screen.

ANGELA'S ASHES:
Let me start with a confession. I never read the book. With all the intensity around this Frank McCourt apparent-classic (jokes are made in lit corners that there is no room for any more Irish memoirs on the bookshelf if McCourt hasn't written them), I feel a bit like I'm writing about The Last Temptation of Christ without ever having read the Bible. And so, it with some discomfort that I tell you that I didn't feel as much watching Angela's Ashes as I expected to feel. It is a powerful story of a family that has less than nothing, a mother who manages to do almost anything to protect her family while keeping her dignity in the face of absolute humiliation and a father whose body is willing but whose soul is weak.

I have enormous admiration for director Alan Parker, one of the few visualist directors who has always focused on content first. I first saw his work in Midnight Express, which I saw in a make-shift theater in Israel, making the terror all the more present. Shoot The Moon, for me, is probably the best film about divorce ever made. Mississippi Burning was a great movie experience, even if intellectual dissection seems to limit its legacy. I think Evita was a masterwork on his part, managing, with some obvious effort, to make Madonna look like an actress. (Oliver Stone took a shot at Parker's Evita at the Any Given Sunday junket as he exited the room. Stone had been set to direct the film with an actress who could sing as Evita. I would love to see Stone's vision, but an Any Given Sunday junket was nowhere for Mr. Stone to be throwing his namesake mineral at anyone.) I even enjoyed the often disastrous The Road To Wellville.

But it is The Commitments that really strikes me in regard to Angela's Ashes. Parker seemed to tone down his imagery, as he had in Fame, so that there was almost a documentary feel to the film. And I wish he had done the same here. He had great actors. He had a great story. But the rain was always a little too pretty. The dirty, cobblestone street the family lived on always felt a little too designed. When the first floor of their apartment fills with a foot of water for an entire season, they just hop over it. It must have smelled foul. It must have been freezing. It must have been painful to get moving in the mornings. I didn't feel that watching this movie.

It interests me that Andrew Sarris, while sharing some of my opinions here, was turned off by what he felt was an excessive dankness in the film. I suspect you will still be able to read his review (click here) as The New York Observer issue is a two-week year-ender. As I suggest you do every week, take a look at his p.o.v. I would link you to the views of others, but because of the Christmas Day release, many critics are still holding the embargo line.

GALAXY QUEST:
What a happy surprise! When DreamWorks started sending autographed pictures from the stars of Galaxy Quest, I didn't look too closely and never recognized Sigourney Weaver or Alan Rickman in their costumes. As it became clear that they were in the movie, I got the promotional idea... cool. DreamWorks even did their official page with Amazon.com ... they never host their own page... and linked to a great fan page But while I admired the promotion, I still didn't connect with the idea of the movie.

So when I walked into the cast & crew screening of the film, I had no idea what to expect, except that perhaps I would need to sneak out at the end to avoid locking eyes with the publicists. I was wrong, wrong, wrong. The movie, about a bunch of actors whose careers were made and then wrecked on the beach of the hit TV show Star Tr... uhh, Galaxy Quest, started with the group suffering through yet another Questie convention. (As it turns out, the actors all watched Roger Nygard's Trekkies which I first wrote about for roughcut.com in June of 1997.... click here to read it.) An alien planet has intercepted their transmission, and because their culture does not include any form of deception, like lying or acting, they assume that these space heroes can help them deal with a truly reptilian (literally and figuratively) invader. So, in classic movie style, our false heroes are faced with becoming real heroes in 90 quick minutes.

My feeling from the moment the lights came up was that the movie had a strong premise, a clean, smart screenplay and an amazing cast. Tim Allen was a real comic actor and not a TV guy for the first time in my perception. Weaver, who has always been underutilized as a film comedienne, scores big here and looks remarkable doing it at 50 years of age... though as she walked out of the junket room, it is still apparent that, as Melanie Griffith squealed in Working Girl, she has a bony butt. But hey, I was looking. And Alan Rickman gets to shred bad actors everywhere with another performance that will maintain his legendary status as one of the great actors of all time.

So what was my concern? I wished that they had gotten Harold Ramis, as they tried to, to direct. Dean Parisot didn't make a mess of this movie. Don't get me wrong. The movie rolls along and works and I suspect that it will be a holiday hit. But had a comic director as gifted as Ramis or Reitman or Oz gotten their hands on this, they would have taken it one step farther and we'd be looking at a $150 million smash. The idea and the performances are that smart. But scene after scene, you got the joke from this director, but you didn't get the little something extra that makes a good comedy great. The tinniest of details are what makes comedy fly. And I kept waiting for that little extra oomph and just never got it.

Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy the film. I really did. It is silly, it is meaningless and it is the best live-action comedy in the marketplace right now, given that I don't count Man on The Moon as a real comedy.

PAGE TWO: "The Hurricane & The Talented Mr. Ripley"