March 2004

• Touching the Void (3/7, Orange)--Wow, this sure puts a nagging cold in perspective. Half documentary, half reenactment, it's the story of two brash young mountain climbers' assault on a previously unscaled peak in Peru. They scale it, but one of them breaks a leg on the descent (the audience reaction to his description of this excruciating event is worth the price of admission); afterward, moral and physical limits are pushed to the utmost. Remarkable film.
• Starsky and Hutch (3/13, Branford)--Well, I'm sure I would have gotten more out of this if I'd ever seen a single episode of the TV show, but as much as I like Stiller & Wilson, I didn't get many chuckles out of this.
• Spartan (3/15, Orange)--Mamet's action pic! Lots of fun, and lots of surprises, with Kilmer appropriately wooden in the lead role.
• Passion of the Christ (3/16, Orange)--Well, the first thing to say, I guess, is that it was better than I expected. Felt like I had to see it for myself, since most reviews are by definition agenda-driven. Next, the anti-Semitism thing: I don't think so, though I can see how a Jew could think so, just as I can see how a devout Christian could think it a great film, which it's not either. I was taught the same thing as a boy that Mel was: it's not just the Jews, it's not just the Romans: we all killed Christ. I was taught that every time I gave free rein to an "impure thought," I was hammering in another nail. And I think that's what's going on here. (Incidentally, the Jews aren't the nastiest ethnic group portrayed, by far: the Romans portrayed here are the most vicious Italians on film since The Godfather.) I believe that what Mel set out to do was to graphically illustrate the sacrifice made by Christ in the idiom he's most at home in: grotesque violence. And I think he did that very effectively. It was impossible for me, a devout nonbeliever, not to feel for the poor bastard. If I were a lukewarm believer, it might have made me a stronger one, and that is precisely the goal. Incidentally, it turns out that Aramaic sounds a lot like Middle Earth Elvin.
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (3/23, Orange)--A wonderfully ballsy pic, thematically much like 50 First Dates. The idea seems to be that soulmates will find each other, even if their brains have no record of each other--and, in this case, even if the mated souls aren't particularly attractive to those who aren't mated. It's a philosophical tour de force, one I may need to own.
• Battle of Algiers (3/24, YSC [1966])--It's impossible to see this film now without reading it through the lens of Israel and Palestine, and its brilliance is that it makes both sides--and neither side--sympathetic. You can't be on the side of the Algerian freedom fighters--whose tactics are pretty much exactly the same as the Palestinians'--without getting where Hamas is coming from. And that makes this very uncomfortable to watch, very disturbing.
• Goodbye Lenin (3/26, YSC)--A look at appearance vs. reality from an unusual perspective: a doctrinaire East German mother of two goes into a coma just before the Wall falls, and her son engineers her perception of the world such that she is unaware of the change. The goofiness of that summary does apply, but there's a little more going on than that, and because we care so much about the characters, we're inclined to accept the goofy at face value. [20]
• Bubba Ho-Tep (3/27, Cine [2002])--I've been chasing this across the Eastern Seaboard for months. Talk about high concept: Elvis Presley and JFK (played by Ossie Davis--one of the strategies used to conceal him was dyeing his skin black) team up to combat a soul-sucking demon from ancient Egypt who is terrorizing their nursing home. Very low-budget, ver low production values, but it gave me a very good feeling: it's the sort of film Jennie and I used to lobby for when we volunteered for Film Fest New Haven.
• Never Die Alone (3/28, NoHa)--Went to this on the basis of an unexpectedly good Times review, and it was not an uninteresting view of a rather clichéd slice of urban black life, but ultimately that's what it is: a vicious drug dealer searching for redemption.