June 11, 2003

Ain't It Conscious News, Part 1
Ain't It Conscious News, Part 2

Perhaps it should have been called Girl By The Pool…

I’m not quite ready to write in depth about Francois Ozon’s latest film, Swimming Pool.  I really want to experience it again first.   But that is the right word… experience this film. 

Ozon seems to be developing into a surreal Gallic combination of Charlie Kaufman, Bob Zemeckis and Todd Haynes.  Each element supports and reflects the other.  His work is not particularly commercial, but in its own element, it is extremely accessible.  He loves playing in and bending genre.  And his sense of the metaphysical is sharp and defined. 

Swimming Pool is being sold with Ludivine Sagnier’s bikinied body by the side of the movie’s lush blue pool.  Some movies make you want to eat. This one makes you want to swim.  It also makes you want to closely inspect a willing pair of taut 20something thighs.  Ladies… use that.  Drag your boyfriends in with you.  Because while they will get what the expect – Sagnier is luscious in that way that only young women can be and spends quite a lot of time topless – this movie is a lot more than you expect, even as you watch it. 

One of the things that Ozon shares with Kaufman is a real and gentle love of women.  How Ozon has come into ownership of the emotional complexities of exceptional middle-aged women, I do not know.  But it seems to be his specialty.  Ozon seems to live through Charlotte Rampling and Ms. Sagnier as Patrice Laconte lives through Jean Rochefort, who is also a person of a very different age that the auteur. 

I hope to sit down with Ozon sometime in the next month and to get a better sense of the man.  He is a filmmaker of style and a passion for twisting expectations without being a show-off… even in the goofy, loveable 8 Women.

Sagnier is a movie star who could eat any of the American actresses of her age for breakfast.  I would kill to see something teaming her and Reese Witherspoon, because Witherspoon, when not being excessively blonde, is the only young woman I can think of who could really give Sagnier a run for the same kind of money.  Maggie Gyllenhaal could be right there with them, but my sense of Ms. G. is that she is less of a chameleon than these two.  Sagnier and Witherspoon could do a Thelma & Louise or a female version of Nine Queens or almost anything and would surely find ways to surprise us all.  I really like Kirsten Dunst and Julia Stiles, among others, but you get the feeling that Sagnier would tear them all to pieces on the same sound stage. 

Charlotte Rampling is just getting better and better with age.  Sadly, I can’t think of a role for an adult woman in this country that she would really be right for.  Rampling is too internalized for most Hollywood writing.  For instance, Meryl Streep’s dynamic duo from last year were not really in Rampling’s range.  The Julianne Moore role in The Hours was wrong in age and required a certain false front that Rampling’s amazing face could never manage.  She could have played the Joan Allen role in The Contender, with the sexual blackmail being a possible lesbian dalliance.  She would have made the role even more challenging by giving her character a poker face.    I don’t know… I’d love to see her get a place at the big table again. 

I haven’t really explained the opening comment.  And I don’t think I will right now, other than to say that movies like Man On The Train have a lot more in common with this film than you might ever expect. 

I walked out of the theater, thrilled for having been there, while not feeling hyper… these are the films that remind you of the word “cinema.”

HULK ADVERTISE!!!:  I caught the first great Hulk TV spots last night, on David Letterman.  (I assume they were everywhere.)  Part of it is that they finally have enough footage to do what they did, which is to cut the Hulk bits really tight, but to have enough content to make that work brilliantly.  All I can say is, “More.”  The spot, using some song that repeats the lyric “Set me free,” accurately represents the third act of the film and is good enough to make it a must see, first weekend film.  Another three or four spots of this level of quality run over the next 10 days and a $90 million opening weekend might be well within range.  Really excellent work. 

DICK & JANE:  I love the 1970s comedy Fun With Dick & Jane.  It was an unexpected, silly joy.  Sonenfeld will do it well.  Jim Carrey will play Dick relatively straight, I’m sure, which is good.  But as much fun as it is getting Jim Carrey and Cameron Diaz together again for the first time since The Mask, it means a real change in the story.  One of the brilliant things about the original was that Jane Fonda started by playing to her then-type and ended up going quite against it.   What Cameron Diaz would have been great in - had Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger not eliminated the opportunity – would have been something like The Getaway, where she’d get to play drama and sex in an adult way.  I’m sure they can rewrite to accommodate her.  But it would be a better role, taking Carrey’s age into account, for Demi Moore or Catherine Keener or even Nicole Kidman or Julia Roberts.  A great part of Diaz’s appeal is the lack of restraint.  And when she plays against that, it never quite works.

READER OF THE DAY:  There is a lot of AICN/Hulk mail, but instead, for the sake of sanity, a classical e-mail from TAIWAN STEVE, as always, unedited:  “After I successfully turn "Men In Black 2" into a gay movie last summer, I found out I can did it again. This time, it's "2 Fast 2 Furious".

We all knew Brain played by Paul Walker is not a gay in first movie, he slept with Dmoinc's sister while we saw him half naked. But the funny is, he does not kiss any female this time.

Yes, Monica played by Eva is the sexy beauty, and Brain seems to be interested at her. But Do they ever kiss? No. Do they ever talk about love? No. Do they have sex? No. Don't you wonder why?

The answer is Roman played by Tyrese. He is used to be Brain's best friend since their childhood, but he pissed Brain off 3 years ago when he got arrested. 3 years ago? Isn't it the time while Brain was dating with Dominc's sister or something?

Besides, whenever Brain does anything to express his feelings to Monica, Roman just can't help but piss off, keep warning Brain not to do anything to screw up the undercover mission. So funny. Have you ever wonder why?

And we couples, they broke up due to the first movie, then they become reconciled this time. I think this is one of untold secrets in Hollywood. Or you can ask John Singleton if my theory is true or what.”

E ME:  Is Maxim ready for Ludivine?  Are you ready to see Tinkerbelle topless?