October 11, 2004

I wish I felt more sad about Christopher Reeve's passing…

It's not that I don't feel sadness for him and his family. But the great tragedy of his life was when he fell off that horse. I admire his commitment and his passion during his rebirth as a crusader for his cause. The ability to find strength in response to a great loss is a rare and admirable human quality. But I, as I think Reeve would, think about all those who were not famous when they lost the freedom of health. The greatest tragedy of Mr. Reeve's death yesterday is that the light he was able to draw to their plight is a little dimmer today.

I'm sure New Line will not be happy to hear it, but this loss makes me all the more compelled to go watch The Sea Inside again. In a strange way, that film is the photo negative of the Reeve story. The true/somewhat fictionalized story of Ramon Sampedro's 30 years following a diving accident that left him a quadriplegic. It is, like Reeve's life, a story of hope and passion and personal insight into the power of human emotion. But Sampedro wasn't out fighting for stem cell and other research. Sampedro was fighting for the freedom to die.

Really, I don't want to sound like an cold prick about Reeve. Mourning the loss of someone who was so heroic and brave and relentless is a worthy pursuit for any of us, not just his family. But something about all the images of Superman… the perverse irony… rubs me wrong.

There is something about the power of life and the infringement of all this stuff… whether government interference or television hyper-blab, that seems to be a part of this fall's movie season.

It's kind of odd. I think of Vera Drake, Mike Leigh's new film - about a woman who very kindly performs abortions with all the passion of someone cleaning a wound that could become a dangerous infection, her simple humane sense that some things are just not meant to be - as a story about freedom, even if the act of abortion is, whatever your politics, an ending of a potential life.

Sideways is, ultimately, about the long, hard fight to find the light at the end of the emotional tunnel of life… that small, weak light being more powerful than any oversized spotlight.

Bad Education, in the midst of its arch noir, seems to be about the boundaries that we expect and those we do not.

The Motorcycle Diaries is not, to me, about historic politics at all, but about the youthful passion to seek something outside of ourselves and the moment of decision we all face when we realize the cost of aspiring to being greater than singular to ourselves.

The Bobby Darin story, dramatized in Beyond the Sea, is all about overcoming the kind of emotional weights that people tend to linger in for their entire lives, even if the effort tends to take people off the tracks they meant to be on sometimes.

The last minute entry from Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby, is about a young woman overcoming the odds as a boxer.

In Kinsey, a man changes the way the entire world sees the most basic of human functions, yet still spends most of his life fighting to be able to get past the restraints his father put on his emotional freedom as a chil - , which not coincidentally started with masturbation.

Ray overcomes blindness to become a deserving legend.

Even a movie as grandiloquent as The Aviator is about a man who refused the limitations the world thought were to be expected of him.

And there is the greatest story of overcoming challenges ever… The Passion of The Christ.

But this morning, Mar Adentro is with me. The discussion of life, death, control of one's life, the support of your loved ones, the challenges of just getting through each day… that is what I want to consider when I consider the loss of Chris Reeve. The bravery of being a front person for a cause is one thing… but just getting through each day…

We make fun of Roy Horn… because he was a funny oddball before he was attacked. But now, he is heroic… still stunningly vain… but heroic. He is surviving.

And even in a movie like The Sea Inside, in which death is the survival of choice, the daily challenges of living and deciding, each of us for ourselves, how to live, how to die, how to love, how to choose…

Now I am feeling the loss of Christopher Reeve a lot more…

READER OF THE DAY: IRON LEUNG writes: "I went to see Team America and enjoyed it. However, I hope that in the future Matt and Trey stay out of the political arena....TA is no more offensive than Michael Moore's 9/11 but both are equally dangerous in terms of the influence their films can have on young people who don't research reasons for voting a certain way on Election day.

P.S. The puppet sex was nothing new, what was the big deal with the MPAA?"

And this from SOUTH STREET SEAPORT-ER writes: "Being a big fan "Crouching Tiger" and a qualified fan of "Hero" - it was very exciting to be at the NYFF's premier of "House of Flying Daggers" on Saturday night. Not only did we get to see Zhang Yimou and his new muse Zhang Ziyi in person, but Ang Lee was in the house!

I was very disappointed with the film, however.

Please find some random thoughts below. (I'm at work, so I have to make this short!)

- I was very happy for the lack of the ubiqua-cello. In fact, I would cite the soundtrack as one of the film's highlights. Sony must've thrown a fit that the Ma wasn't involved.

- What is with the crappy and excessive CGI? How many times do we need to see a (badly) animated dagger flying through the air? At least twenty times, it seems. While not as heinous as the arrows in Hero, the slo-mo daggers were overwrought. I got the feeling that, like nearly all American genre movies from the 90s, the CGI was there just for it's own sake, saying something like, "you see, we can do CGI over here, too!"

Zhang Ziy - she may have finally figured out how to come across as someone who is not a complete bitch. Now she needs to find a way to seem less vacant. This movie has long stretches with adoring close-ups of Ms. Zhang - and it seems that there is nothing behind her eyes.

When we see a close-up Michelle Yeoh in CTHD, we can tell that there is plenty going on. I dunno, maybe I'm just not subtle enough, but I'm beginning to think that Zhang Ziy can't carry a movie by herself.

Cinematography: I guess it's hard to make look bamboo interesting after a while. Where was Chris Do(yle) when we need him?!?

Kung-fu: Yawn. Not a single exciting moment. Not one -single- wow
moment.

The audience: Everyone at this screening -really- wanted to be there and were very excited as the film opened. However, as the melodrama unfolded, shushed snickers grew to bold laughter at the film's unintentional humor, with the loudest laughs happening when Zhang Ziy's character (edited for spolier). I don't think this was just a cynical Manhattan or an embarrassed kung-fu geek reaction. I think there were some serious miscalculations here.

In any case, I wasn't moved. I know what all the stakes were, but the execution was just not there.

Who was this movie designed for? The western art house crowd or the Japanese teen? (Certainly not for mainlanders.) On this side of the ocean, I will guarantee that this film will not nearly have the success of "Crouching Tiger" or "Hero.""

E-ME: Well, I liked Flying Daggers a lot... even though I see it as more lightweight and more traditionally Shaw Bros than Hero or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

So ROTD focuses on the lightness of Team America and Daggers... but how are you feeling about loss today?