May 21, 2003

Nicole Kidman smoked in France…

And lunatics are complaining about it!  Geez!  I could understand that someone might be upset if she stopped shaving her pits, bathed only as the dining table with Perrier (“Zee boobles… zay teekle!”) and answered every question with a sneer.  No one seems concerned that she is giving her star power to a filmmaker whose work is about powerless women at its core and plans on doing two more films with the guy (six more hours of my life lost).    Worst of all, the director berated this grown woman for smoking at a press conference, then saying “Okay, you can talk now,” while he said nothing at all to Stellan Skaarsgard, who lit up at the same time as Nicole. 

But we are worrying about the smoking!!!  Moronic.

Of course, this may be flaming because there is nothing else to talk about at Cannes.  Vincent Gallo has confirmed his status as the most self-indulgent “filmmaker” on the planet.  (The self-indulgent filmmaker chain these days goes from Henry Jaglom to Von Trier to Larry Clark to Gallo.  But at least Von Trier has some tangible talent.)  We will now find out how many people will pay to see Chloe Sevigny perform fellatio on Mr. Gallo at the very same time that, in a stroke of genius, he performs fellatio on himself and sucks precious hours out of your life.  Of course, I haven’t seen the film.  My guess is that I will avoid it at any price.  But there is no indication that there is any more there now than there was before.

Gus Van Sant has made an interesting, apparently, Rorschach test in Elephant.  The story of some kids who plan and execute, literally, a Columbine-like attack on their high school without, apparently, a whole lot of explanation.  I find those kinds of films fascinating… unlike Gerry. 

Hector Babenco's Carandiru, a  Brazilian prison drama, has gotten nice notices and a pre-Cannes pick-up by Sony Classics, but seems to have been overshadowed by last year’s City of God, whose Fernando Meirelles will shoot another self-penned film in Brazil before setting his American studio debut. 

Elie Samaha’s Franchise Pictures is setting up shop in London, according to a Cannes announcement, spreading the horror of this producer further across the globe. 

We can suffer his ugliness for ourselves this weekend with The In-Laws.

Andrew Fleming is one of our best young commercial filmmakers.  After a stumbling start with Bad Dreams, he recovered to make his second film six years later.  Threesome is one of those “Man this is crap… but I can’t stop watching it” movies.  There is something really broken about the movie, but Lara Flynn Boyle has never been as good in anything, Fleming captured the Barney that Stephen Baldwin has proven to be and Josh Charles… well, maybe that’s what didn’t work. 

Fleming’s The Craft is, in my opinion, a key piece of both grrrl and fantasy cinema.  Robin Tunney emerged, Fairuza Balk was reestablished, Neve Campbell was a perfect fit and the tragically underused Rachel True could keep up with all of them in both smarts and sexiness.  The perfect double feature with Ginger Snaps, the combination of witchcraft and female coming of age is a minor classic.

That brings us to the hard-to-write-about-because-of-the-title Dick.  I do love Dick.  Bob Altman meets the best of Andy Bergman, Fleming turned a nearly impossible trick, combining two goofy teenage girls (who aren’t always as goofy as they behave, just like in real life) and the downfall of one of the most controversial presidential administrations in history.  (You think that Max and the recent Hitler movie on CBS were controversial… I’d love to see Fleming’s “Mein Addy,” told from the P.O.V. of a teen Eva Braun and her wacky best girlfriend!  “Where’d you get that wheelbarrow of money, Eva?”) 

And now, The In-Laws.  I can feel Fleming’s hand at the till.  If his visions were given a proper life… if his skill at using the space of a city or town had been exploited… if he wasn’t loaded down with all too many unknown Canadian actors instead of the parade of instantly recognizable no-names that he casts so well…  we might be talking about one of the great comedies of the year. 

Of course, there are the great gets… David Suchet, best known to Americans as Hercule Poirot from the ITV/PBS/A&E television series, hits it out of the park, playing against the expected type.  Albert Brooks is much, much better than the TV commercials, which limit him to the most shop-worn schtick in his arsenal.  Michael Douglas seemed a little disconnected, much like the entire movie, but gives a game performance. 

But that disconnect… it really permeates the entire film.  Robin Tunney is right for her role, but never gets the room to really breathe.  The wonderful Ryan Reynolds, who should be a movie star and needs to get a big movie, gets one or two beats to really work… not enough.  Candice Bergen is playing the right notes, but again, has too little to do with too little payoff.

The whole film just feels rushed and out of place.  A friend argued that the spy/dentist-mutually-out-of-water thing is too old hat.  I disagree.  It could have been a contender.  I would suggest that all genres are old and pudgy… until a good movie is made. 

Fleming’s sense of space and time is one of the things that seems, to me, to distinguish him as a director.  A pot brownie is soooo old hat… unless it’s the 70s and Nixon is eating it.   Unhappy girls in a small town… soooo done, until they add a little witchcraft to the plot.  But I am oversimplifying my thought… Dick felt like Washington… The Craft felt like a small town in NoCal with a nearby beautiful, empty beach... Threesome felt like it was in the cramped confines of a college dorm. 

Knowing Chicago, I can safe say that even when they went to the beach, it didn’t feel like Oak Street Beach… it didn’t have the unique urban bent of that amazing stretch.  The yacht club didn’t feel like Chicago’s.  There was none of the neighborhood flavor of Chicago, especially when they go for ethnic food. 

The great thing about Chicago is that it is unique.  It isn’t hard to get the feeling of the city in movies.  Lesser directors have done it by mistake.  But Fleming isn’t in Chicago.  And some horrible mattes and a few shots in front of the Calder don’t do the trick.  There was a great, fun summer movie to be made here… but Elie did it on the cheap, again.

It is no wonder that the only thing close to a franchise that Franchise Pictures has is The Whole Nine Yards… which Bruce Willis insisted be set in Vancouver so they wouldn’t be trying to fake another city, like Boston or Chicago. 

Damn those Frenchies!!!

READER OF THE DAY: British Petroleum writes:  “In an effort to steer away from The Matrix... I saw Bruce Almighty last night.

I won't say I didn't laugh , because I did. More than once, in fact. But for a concept so ripe with comic fruit just waiting to be picked, this is one of the laziest, most disappointing comedies I've seen in a long time. The whole idea of Jim Carrey with all God's powers is totally wasted. They might as well have just given him magic powers or made him invisible. The subject of religion is almost entirely avoided. None of the Big Questions are asked. There is no tweaking of organized religion. What does he do with the power? Toilet trains his dog and makes his girlfriend's boobs bigger. It's like being given a million dollars and spending it all on ice cream.

To setup the bestowing of powers, he goes on a tirade about how God sucks. But before this, we don't get any sense that he's religious in any way. Why not have a scene at the start of the movie where he's a little kid in church and the minister/priest/rabbi tells him that if he just believes, everything will be alright? It's totally self-centered on Jim, which would be fine for the first half, but let's have that pay off in the second. It never does. He doesn't even get the biggest laughs -- The Daily Show's Steve Carell does.

The obvious benchmark for a film like this is Groundhog Day. What if you had to relive the same day over and over. What would you do? Harold Ramis et al obviously thought long and hard about this and came up with a funny, thoughtful, rewarding movie. Bruce Almighty just pisses their million-dollar idea away. Rent Groundhog Day again, or Oh God!, or Heaven Can Wait or the original Bedazzled if you want a funny religious satire. I guess to really delve into religion is scary for a major motion picture studio, but then why make it at all? What a waste.”

E ME:  A little brutal.  But no spoilers, since everything he wrote was in the commercials.  I’ll be reviewing Bruce Almighty on Friday.  But let me know, if you were God for a couple of weeks, what would you do?  And make it cinematic.

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