December 2004

• Donnie Darko (12/3, Crit)--I finally saw this for the first time only a year or so ago, via Netflix and a 26" Trinitron, and I was underwhelmed. The director's cut, on the big screen, impressed me a lot more. Jake Gyllenhaal should have been around during the stoner age of film: his face does a remarkable job of expressing gradients of disorientation, confusion, fear, and goofiness.
• Kinsey (12/4, Orange)--Fine performances by all, perhaps best by my future wife Laura Linney. The surprise of the film is its humor, and its good humor. The catastrophic failure comes during the end credits, where thanks are given to the institution that employed Kinsey for most if not all his academic career, "University of Indiana." As someone who once referred to the "University of West Virginia" in print, I can assure you that the folks in Bloomington feel just as strongly about word order.
  Finding Neverland (12/5, Orange)--Sweet but not oversweet, filled with sentiment but not much sentimental. Depp, Winslet, Christie, and the boy who plays the real-life Peter are wonderful, and I had not known until the opening credits that Kelly MacDonald was in it, but as soon as I saw her name I knew she must be the stage Peter, perfectly cast.
• Guerrilla (12/18, YSC)--Documentary about Patty Hearst and the SLA, well reviewed but surprisingly flat, even boring at times. Note that this was my first trip to the old downtown art house since the early-Nov. opening of the new downtown art house. [120]
• Sponge Bob Squarepants (12/19, NoHa)--Never seen an episode of the series, so I brought in only what I'd read about it. It was cute, but I could have survived without seeing it.
  Spanglish (12/19, Orange)--OK, I'm a sucker for James L. Brooks (Broadcast News is probably one of my top ten of all time--top twenty at worst), and though this is undeniably schmaltzy, who does schmaltz better? Amazing performance by Téa Leoni in an even more thankless role than she had in Flirting with Disaster, and here's a sentence I never imagined I'd write: I liked Adam Sandler in two films this year! And Paz Vega? Well, let's just say that I didn't feel a crying need for a prettier Penélope Cruz, but I'm not complaining.
• Meet the Fockers (12/23, NoHa)--Really liked Meet the Parents (though the DVD buy was strictly a surge of mindless consumerism), really like all the stars of the original except for the boring Teri Polo, really like Hoffman, and though I can't say I really like Babs, it was good to see her again, but good god, what a cynical piece of crap this is. Ugh.
• Lemony Snickett (12/23, NoHa)--Another one I came to with only theoretical familiarity with the context, and another I enjoyed but was never in danger of falling in love with. Good-looking pic, especially (1) the amazing face of the girl who plays 12-year-old Violet, and (2) the end credits, which are the best at least since the last Harry Potter.
• Alexander (12/24, Orange)--I guess "Not as bad as everyone said" is not the sort of blurb they're looking for, but that's my take. Battle scenes are good, Jolie is wonderfully (and appropriately) campy, and Ferrell, if not perfectly cast, does well. But good god, it's long! Bonus for the I, Claudius fan: an early scene in which the wrestling instructor is played by Brian Blessed, who was Augustus in the Masterpiece Theatre series.
• Bad Education (12/24, YSC)--I don't believe I've read or heard anyone pointing this out, but from the Saul Bass-esque opening credits, accompanied by Bernard Herrmann-esque music, it's clear that this is Almodóvar's Hitchcock film. (I believe he even makes the obligatory cameo appearance, as a pool skimmer with odd, face-obscuring headgear.) Unfortunately, Hitch is hard to do (favorite counterexample: Mamet's Spanish Prisoner), and though I seem to be in the minority here, I liked this less than Talk to Her or All About My Mother. Which is not to say I didn't like it, only that he has raised my expectations so high now that it's going to be tough for him not to disappoint me a bit. It should be said, though, that Gael García Bernal is as hot as a woman as he is as a man.
• The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (12/25, Crit.)--Another case of too-high expectations: I enjoyed this a lot, particularly the performances of Wilson and Blanchett (each of whom I saw in another film over the long weekend!), but this didn't match the Wes Anderson standard of Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums. Certainly contains the best running musical gag of the year, though; I won't spoil it for you.
• The Aviator (12/26, Orange)--For an hour, maybe an hour and a half (like Alexander, this is almost 3 hours long), I was calling this one of the best films of the year, but as Hughes's planes do more than once, it runs out of fuel and lands awkwardly, though nonfatally. Absolutely loved Cate as Kate--a performance as spot-on perfect, if less extended, as Foxx's in Ray. But when she disappears, the pic just can't compensate for her absence. Leo, who in the trailers looked too callow to carry it off, acquits himself admirably. A noble failure of a film.
• The Incredibles (12/30, Orange)--I liked Nemo less than I expected because I was expecting Toy Story quality; then Nemo lowered my expectations enough for me to like this one more than I expected. The political stance of the film has been much commented on, but I'd like to point out that no brand of liberalism I ever signed up for holds that everyone is the same; it holds, rather, that everyone deserves an equal opportunity to maximize his or her talents. Another fine end-credits sequence, though not as good as Snickett's.
• The House of Flying Daggers (12/30, Orange)--As expected, gorgeous but rather soporific when concentrating on its romantic subplot. We don't really much care about the politics, either, except for a knee-jerk assumption that we should root for the rebels. Just show us the action, and the amazing color palette. [130]
• Beyond the Sea (12/31, Crit)--I was a little afraid that I might be ending 2004 with the worst thing I'd seen all year, but it turned out not even to be the worst thing I saw in the last week and a half (viz. Fockers). Yeah, it's a vanity project, but given that, it's not bad. Whether you think Bobby Darin's worth a biopic or not, you have to pretty much concede Spacey's the one to make the pic.