November 2003

• Sylvia (11/1, Madison)--As a former English grad student who studied and wrote on Plath’s poetry, I had to see this despite so-so reviews. It disappointed, but less in the ways I’d been expected to than in oversimplifying her suicide to a result of her inability to hang onto her man. She had demons aplenty before she ever met Ted Hughes, and though the breakdown of the relationship surely meshed with her existing depression, it is depressing for me to see her reduced to a pathetic wronged woman concerned about noting more than whether he is "still fucking" the other woman.
• The Station Agent (11/1, Madison)--Three perfect performance carry a paper-thin slice-of-life plot and make this one of the best films I’m seen this year. It reminds me a bit of You Can Count on Me, which I saw in the same theater, just in terms of the way it tunnels in and makes you know these people, and care about them. And because, like You Can Count, it never could have been made by a major studio. Bonus: excellent score by my friend and former upstairs neighbor Stephen Trask.
• Pieces of April (11/7, YSC)--This wins the award for widest qualitative chasm between trailer (which looked jokey and obvious) and film (smart, funny, and human). The brilliant thing about this is that it hurtles you toward what seems an inevitably sentimental conclusion, then finesses that, because the point clearly was the journey, not the destination. Bonus: music by Stephin Merritt, including some things from Magnetic Fields’ wonderful 69 Love Songs.
• Elf (11/8, NoHa)--This, on the other hand, is absolutely true to its trailer, which helped persuade me, against all logic, that I’d enjoy spending 90 minutes with Will Ferrell. Even the inevitable true-meaning-of-Xmas schmaltz at the end is redeemed in part by a witty parody of Lord of the Rings’ Rangers--here, Central Park Rangers. And Zooey Deschanel can sing! Her duet with Leon Redbone on "Baby, It’s Cold Outside" should keep a few more people than usual in their seats for the end credits.
• Master and Commander: Far Side of the World (11/14, YSC)--Yes, this is what only Hollywood can do: the big pulse-pounder. There are no doubt a thousand possible factual quibbles, but bottom line: the movie gets the job done.
• The Human Stain (11/15, Orange)--The reviews had lowered my expectations considerably, but if this weren’t an adaptation of a splendid novel, it would, I suspect, be universally hailed as a splendid film. I have no problem with the casting: Hopkins’s admitted physical stretch is not beyond my ability to willingly suspend disbelief, and speaking as someone who once loved a woman very similar to Faunia Farley, I think Kidman nails "trailer trash." (There is one close-up on her--or rather, Farley’s--work-wrecked hands, though, that I confess struck me as fake.) My only complaint about the cast was Gary Sinese’s wooden performance as Zuckerman. [90]
• Bus 174 (11/16, Village East)--I kept imagining how easy it would be for Hollywood to fictionalize this story and make the confused homeless protagonist into Sonny from Dog Day Afternoon. And in fact there are many voices (one insufferable sociologist in particular) who work very hard to give meaning to Sandro’s bus hijacking. Not that it doesn’t have meaning--not that the circumstances of his pitifully short life aren’t a mortal indictment of Brazilian society. But the worst indictment is the ultimate stupidity and meaninglessness of his death, and that of the one hostage he (as well as a cop) untimately shot.
• Être et avoir (11/16, Cin. Vil.)--I miscalculated and got in several minutes late, but if I’d had a few minutes more in this one-room elementary school in rural France, with its beautiful children and its teacher, who looks like Roy Scheider but acts like Mr. Rogers, I might have had to run off to teach in a similar school myself. Charmant.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (11/16, Cin. Vil.)--A wonderful accidental documentary by a Canadian film crew that happened to be doing a piece on Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez when the political and military reactionaries staged their short-lived coup in 2002. Not since All the President’s Men has the real-life triumph of the good guys be depicted so exhilaratingly on film.
• Yossi and Jagger (11/16, Quad)--An interesting premise--a gay love affair in the Israeli army--but calling attention to clichéd events (Jagger says, "It’s just like an American movie") doesn’t make them any less clichéd.
• The Matrix Revolutions (11/17, NoHa)--Had I been able to stay awake, perhaps I’d have appreciated it more, perhaps not. As it is, I appreciate only that the series is over (there were suspicious openings left at the end, but I suspect that the disappointing critical and box-office response to installments 2 & 3 this year will clinch its end). I’ll watch my DVD of the first one again when I get my good TV, but 2 & 3 were a waste of time.
• Shattered Glass (11/22, Orange)--Of course, as a former journalist, I had to see this despite lukewarm reviews. It’s entertaining and occasionally powerful, but it loses points at the very opening with scrolling text that says The New Republic staff "is comprised of" X number of reporters rather than "comprises."
• Elephant (11/28, YSC)--Like Zero Day, which showed at Film Fest New Haven in '02 and then had a well-reviewed theatrical release this year, this is based on a Columbine-like killing spree, but the films are otherwise unlike. This one follows each of several future victims and the two perpetrators in an overlapping schoolday chronology, such that we get to know, very superficially, each of these kids before the violence begins. A very powerful film, though more than once I wondered whether the emperor (Gus Van Sant) is really naked.
• Bad Santa (11/29, Orange)--Well, unlikely Xmas movies are 2 for 2 with me: this is outrageous and obscene and hilarious. One thing that really makes it work is that while the Billy Bob Thornton character is awful, he’s not cruelly awful, he’s just self-involvedly and self-destructively awful. The film is surprisingly non-mean-spirited in much the same way There’s Something About Mary is.
• My Flesh and Blood (11/30, Angelika)--A woman adopts more than a dozen children, most handicapped in some way (two have no legs, e.g.; one living and one dead suffer[ed] from a rare disease that essentially breaks down what holds the flesh together; one was horribly burned in her crib and now has no external ears, no hair, no face, really; one has cystic fibrosis and borderline psychotic desertion anger). If this all sounds Reader’s Digesty uplifting, it’s far more than that. This woman has obviously adopted so many children to deal with demons in her past, and she knows it--but she is still an extraordinary hero. An astonishing film, and an excellent start to my 7th M4.
• El Bonaerensa (11/30, FF)--A year ago, when I was still seeing 3 or 4 foreign films a year rather than sometimes seeing that many in a day, I would have found this far more gripping. As it is, this Argentine film about a locksmith who goes to police academy after being arrested in a burglary is an interesting slice of life. Its main distinction: [100]
• Hukkle (11/30, Cin. Vil.)--This Hungarian film without dialogue reminded me of nothing so much as Microcosmos and Winged Migration--only with people, too. It seems to be all about images and sounds (the title apparently comes from the insistent hiccups of a grandfatherly looking fellow we watch at the bus stop for several minutes), but in the late going we discover that there’s a narrative--a murder mystery, in fact! At first, I thought, "Well, that’s really unnecessary," but thinking about it I realized that the point is that things happen when we’re not looking for things to happen, and that it takes the right sort of eyes to sort out the meaning from apparent meaningless. But whether the murder mystery seems tacked on or not, it’s a remarkable film, and the moment at which a U.S. fighter jet is frozen in time while flying under a bridge drew audible "wow"s from more than one person in my audience.
• Die Mommie Die (11/30, Loew’s 34th)--Camp with a kapital K! A parody of soapy ’50s films, particularly those starring Bette Davis and Joan Crawford as sisters who hate each other. The dialogue and the acting are hilariously broad, but the real key is the casting of the washed-up, slutty diva: one Charles Busch, who wrote the play on which the film is based. This, like The Other Side of the Bed, is part of the Sundance series. Wide release seems unlikely, but if it happens, do not miss this.