June 2003

• Finding Nemo (6/1, NoHa)--This one, too (completing my G-rated weekend), is great to look at, but it doesn’t rise to the jaw-dropping level of Toy Story, by which everything else in the Pixar genre has to be judged. The writing isn’t as good--the story is similar to, but far less sophisticated than, the best animated film I saw last year, the Oscar-winning Spirited Away, and there aren’t as many jokes for the old folks as in the two TS films. David Ansen of Newsweek, the movie reviewer I trust most other than Jennie, called this this best big-studio release of the year so far, and looking back over what I’ve seen, I’m almost ready to agree--it’s better than Daredevil, X2, or Bruce Almighty--but I enjoyed A Mighty Wind more. Oh--and Holes, meaning it’s not even the best Disney film I’ve seen this year.
• Only the Strong Survive (6/22, Orange [2002])--It’s great to see Isaac Hayes and Sam Moore (of Sam & Dave) and Rufus Thomas, etc., but the unifying theme of the documentary seems to be simply, "Look at all the old soul singers I found." The ever-present producer is consistently annoying (in part because he seems to make no qualitative distinctions between the Chi-Lites and Jerry Butler--everyone is great), and Mary Wilson, still with a terrific voice at 60-something, is just pathetic singing "Love Child," thus assuming without irony and with no apparent self-awareness, the persona of a ghetto teen resisting sex because she doesn’t want to perpetuate the cycle of illegitimacy.
• Respiro (6/22, Madison [2002])--A Sicilian slice of life featuring a wife and mother of 3 tottering on the brink of an emotional breakdown. Except that you’re never really convinced of that, because the film seems so determined not to overdramatize that it barely dramatizes at all, even when the woman deserts her family and is presumed dead. Still, it’s believable, and the characters are sympathetic. I guess it’s Thoreau’s life of quiet desperation.
• 28 Days Later (6/28, Cine [2002])--Jesus, how intense; not a great film, but the most gripping I’ve seen in ages. Owes a lot to Night of the Living Dead. Like that one--and every horror movie ever made--it raises a lot of questions better left unthought-about, but like all really good horror movies, the implausibility doesn’t matter. And it’s not just a horror flick, either--or at least not just a horror flick in the conventional sense. Some of the scariest scenes are just of the empty streets of London, shots that are reminiscent of the empty-Times Square dream sequence in Vanilla Sky, and which make you wonder how the hell they managed to get all that real estate empty to shoot it that way. [40]
• L’Homme du train/Man on the Train (6/28, YSC [2002])--A tender love story between a bank robber and the 70-ish retired schoolteacher who befriends him, each of whom envies the other’s life. Very funny and very sad and very French; one of the best things I’ve seen this year. Would make a great double feature w/ The Good Thief.
• The Hulk (6/29, NoHa)--Gotta give Ang Lee credit for fearlessness: he’s unafraid to tackle Jane Austen, ’70s Connecticut key parties, and the Western. But the comic book--or at least this one--seems not to be his thing. Actually, the opening credits were great, and the breakneck backstory establishment were very good; not until the big green guy showed up did the picture become . . . well, boring. The Hulk himself looks cartoonish, completely out of place, and the special effects are completely underwhelming, in part, I think (and I’ve thought about this a lot) because, unlike the wonderful FX in Spiderman and the first X-Men, they’re based not on grace or strangeness but on brute strength, which just ain’t all that interesting.