August 2004

• Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (8/4, Orange)--What happens when the members of a heavy metal band gets in touch with their inner feelings? This documentary answers the question I would have bet no one had ever asked. A wonderful film, if overlong and unfortunately full of Metallica music.
• Maria Full of Grace (8/4, YSC)--An unsentimentalized, unsensationalized picture of how the drug trade preys on the poor and helpless. Reportedly the acting debut for the woman who plays the title character, and whether that's true or not, it is an amazing performance.
• The Door in the Floor (8/7, Orange)--A very different film--and a better one--than the trailer suggested, though it turns oddly Coenesque at a critical moment. Not that there's anything wrong with Coenesque--and Lebowski veteran Bridges makes it almost work--but it's just not in keeping with the tone of the rest of the film. [70]
• Collateral (8/8, NoHa)--The coldest film of the year, it gets a heartbeat only in the clichéd last-act chase. Still, the icy direction by Mann and the performances by the two leads, particularly the subzero Cruise, make it worth watching.
• Intimate Strangers (8/14, YSC)--I expected this to be a wacky French mistake-identities sex farce, but in fact, the mistaken identity doesn't persist long, and it is a lot more serious and believable than I imagined. The lead actor, who looks a little bit like Eric Idle, had a remarkable capacity for telling a lot with a silent face. Even the unbelievably happy ending is forgivable.
• Garden State (8/15, Orange)--Two things: (1) for about the first 3/4 of the film--specifically through the shout into the abyss--this engaged me emotionally more than anything since Lost in Translation; (2) it proved that, contrary to what we might have believed from the last two Star Wars films, Natalie Portman really can act. I look forward to seeing her, Julia Roberts, and two men I'd be hot for if I were gay, Jude Law and Clive Owen, in Closer, though I don't know whether that means less far away or the opposite of an opener.
• We Don't Live Here Anymore (8/28, Orange)--Wow, not exactly the feel-good movie of the year for someone still bearing the scars of divorce. A good, tough film, and fine ensemble acting. Then afterward, my car wouldn't start, and between the jump start and tow that were necessary that day, and the new alternator the next day, it was a $500 movie.