Monday, 27 November 2000

WEEKEND REVIEW

It was a breathtaking weekend.

On Friday, I was on a plane. On Saturday, I saw Traffic. On Saturday night, I saw Small Time Crooks. On Sunday night, I saw Quills for the third time, at a 9:50 pm show with tickets bought when the 7 pm show sold out.

I walked out of Traffic calling it the best film of the year. Soderbergh is proving to be one of the great movie directors of all time... he made two of the five best movies of a single year, both of which speak to thoughtful, adult subjects and both of which work in completely different ways. Erin Brockovich and Traffic are almost impossible to compare. One of them is a real movie-star movie, however edgy Julia Roberts’s performance. Traffic is a pure ensemble film. Brockovich is an "underdog makes good" movie. The only underdog in Traffic is the suspicion that its characters have real control of their lives, no matter their intentions. Brockovich has fun with T&A as a concept. Traffic has a small amount of T&A, which makes us look into the ugly picture of what is so compelling about those two little initials.

Then I went to see Quills again. While Traffic and Quills are the most comparable of the Oscar-type pictures out there, again, they are as different as two films could be. Quills brilliantly uses classic filmmaking techniques, with Phil Kaufman at the very top of his game. Steven Soderbergh is working in all the complex and demanding brush strokes that those who saw The Limey appreciated and that so many couldn’t quite pick up in Erin Brockovich. But they are here in Traffic, even though Soderbergh doesn’t call attention to them. Quills is about censorship and the artistic soul of humanity and the people who fear that vulnerability in their lives. Traffic is about lives out of control, desperately trying to find direction as they search for the answer to a question they don’t really even understand. Both are terribly important stories... and are entertaining…. and have brilliant performances…

Then you have Before Night Falls. And Cast Away. And Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. And Finding Forrester.

As crappy a year as it has been for movies -- and it’s been thin sledding for American films at Sundance, at Cannes, and at Toronto -- this may turn out to be one of the greatest movie years in history. And I’m not even talking about the You Can Count on Mes and the Almost Famouses and the Girl on the Bridges and the Timecodes and the Ghost Dogs and the Wonder Boys and the Billy Elliots. I’m talking about a half-dozen films that can be classic, important films for decades to come. That’s a pretty damned good year, folks. After all the dreck, it’s a shocker.

And there is still a handful of potentially great films left. (And I’m not even mentioning foreign films or documentaries.) MGM has The Claim and Paramount has The Gift and Miramax is keeping Chocolat (not a remake... repeat, not a remake!) and All the Pretty Horses in its back pocket... we’ll see.

But let me get back to the movie I haven’t yet written about... Traffic. I saw the final print on Saturday, sneaking into a Hollywood Foreign Press screening. It is everything that I could have hoped for. Even the missteps turned out right. For example, Catherine Zeta-Jones’s pregnancy, which had to be written into the script at nearly the last minute, added depth and richness to the film. Likewise, Ms. Jones’s new husband, Michael Douglas -- who said no to the role early on, but then came back after passes by Harrison Ford and Kevin Costner -- hits a home run that neither of the other actors would have been able to hit. Not because he’s a better actor, but because he’s not quite as shining a movie good guy, so his stumble into humanity isn’t as shocking... it doesn’t unbalance the film.

Because that is what Traffic is about... small stumbles... human stumbles. I won’t be doing a "full review" (whatever that means these days) because the publicists asked that I wait (a theme of the month), but I will speak to the spirit of the film. Traffic tells the story, in part, of today’s America and illegal drugs. It tells the story both from the heights of wealth and power and from the low world of the people who actually get their hands dirty. Men, women, young, old, parent, child, good, bad... all desperate. All seeking truth. None of them... well, almost none of them... with any idea of what that truth looks like. There couldn’t be any better tag line than "No one gets away clean." Which is not to say that Traffic is an angry polemic that will set your teeth on edge. It’s demanding, but it is still a great bit of filmmaking that fills your soul.

Traffic is the most honest movie about drugs ever made. There have been some great and honest junkie movies, but Traffic reaches beyond the story of any one person to tell the story of literally every man and every woman. I talked to someone after the film, who said, "I could have been any of those characters, except for the cops." Well, I haven’t been through some of the experiences that these characters have, thank god, but I know many of these people. I share the questions that a lot of them need to answer. And even the characters I was distant from, I believed completely.

If you want to add to the Oscar Watch (THB 11/22), move Benicio Del Toro into the serious battle for Best Supporting Actor. As is often the case, this is going to be one of the exceptionally competitive categories. It’s hard to imagine that Joaquin Phoenix won’t be nominated. Del Toro, unless Traffic really hits a wall, will be nominated. Finney seems like a pretty sure bet for Brockovich. And then you have deserving veterans Willem Dafoe and Tobey Maguire, first-time actor Rob Brown in Finding Forrester (misidentified in my piece last week), and industry newcomer Mark Ruffalo, who is really the co-lead of You Can Count on Me. Academy-member favorites Oliver Reed and Jeff Bridges are pulling up the rear... Not even mentioning De Niro in Meet the Parents. There is not one actor in these 10 who don’t deserve a nomination. Tough room. A bit less competitive is Best Supporting Actress. I now like Catherine Zeta-Jones to secure a slot here.

Okay... I’m done. My love for Quills has me holding off on proclaiming that Traffic is the best film of the year... at least for now. But I’ll be back at Traffic on Monday afternoon. And Monday night, I’ll finally see The Claim. And I gather that Paramount Classics is showing The Gift, so maybe I’ll see that later this week. And then, only Miramax is left. Ahhhhh... then I can start going to see the great ones again.

PAGE TWO: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly