January 2004

• House of Sand and Fog (1/4, Orange [2003])–Obviously, this is plotted in such a way as to make it seem as if relatively small mistakes have inevitable catastrophic consequences, but I could never make myself not see the stage machinery. Good performances, but the material just doesn’t hold up.
• The Cooler (1/19, Orange [2003])–A wild fantasy that stays true to itself and thus works. Alec Baldwin pushes Sean Astin off my list of Best Supporting Actor nominees, and it’s great to see Bill Macy get a chance to carry a film. His putty face is used to perfection here.
• The Triplets of Belleville (1/24, Providence [2003])–Talk about wild fantasy! An indescribably and marvelously bizarre animation about song, cycling, slavery, sacrifice, and cuisine, among other things. No description can suffice; just see it.
• Monster (1/25, Madison [2003])–Arnold, the theater manager, tells me that Roger Ebert called Charlize Theron’s "the greatest acting performance in the history of cinema." I don’t know about that, but it was certainly something beyond mere excellence. And I don’t agree with the pans of Christina Ricci’s work, either: I think she simply nailed a vacant, unattractive character. One scene (you’ll know it) taught me that, contrary to my assumption, I do have a turn-away-from-the-screen threshold.
• Girl with the Pearl Earring (1/31, Orange [2003])–As much as I like Scarlett Johansson, she’s just too twenty-first-century a presence not to be miscast as Vermeer’s maid and model. The film itself is pretty and inoffensive, a reasonable translation of what I understand to be (without having bothered to read it, of course), a novel with modest pretensions to literariness.