Category: Movies

[Movie: Black Hawk Down] In 1982, the blockbuster “Top Gun” was directed by Tony Scott, brother to Riley Scott. In 1986, James Cameron directed the blockbuster “Aliens” — the sequel to Ridley Scott’s own “Alien”. Now, in Black Hawk Down, Ridley tries to one-up everyone, attempting to outdo Top Gun in patriotism and Aliens for breathtaking scenes showing endless waves of attackers. While he’s at it, he also tries to usurp the Most Gutwrenching War Movie throne held by Saving Private Ryan. All this ambition makes for a movie that’s well above-average, but tries a little too hard.

By now you know the story, either by because you’ve read countless Black Hawk Down synopses, seen the Frontline special or recall the details of the actual event. In 1993 a simple “extraction” mission in Somolia went from frying pan to fire, resulting in scores of US soldiers trapped in Mogadishu, surrounded and beseiged by Somolian milisa. Scott does an excellent job at conveying the out-of-control, chaotic nature of this event, but he just never seems to know when to quit. The first third of the movie centers of the soldiers before the mission, showing their relationships and dedications to the cause. This does a good job of stirring patrotism in the auidence, but he keeps it up until the whole thing begins to tilt towards jingoism. In the firefights sceens — where a handful of American soldiers defends themselves against hordes of oncoming Somolia gunment — you are at first mesmersized by the overwhelming odds, but Scott continues until you feel like you are watching someone play “Black Hawk Down’ on a Playstation 2. And the “fog of war” is well documented by showing conveys driving around aimlessly through town as the officers try to make sense out of the deteriorating situation, but these scenes go on for so long that I found myself getting bored by the confusion rather than unnerved by it.

In these instances (and other), less would have been more. Scott continually orchestrates the action and suspense until they reach their peak, but then feels the need to drive the point home a few more times, ultimately weakening the power of the imagery. That said, there’s no denying that those scenes or incredible and indelible power exists in Black Hawk Down, and they make this a movie well worth seeing.

Upon seeing the delightful Amelie, and having fond memories of the bizarre Delicatessen, I decided I was going to watch each and every film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. Luckily, this is an entirely achievable goal: aside from those mentioned above, he only has two other major motion pictures under his belt. One of them is The City of Lost Children, which I spent yesterday evening enjoying.

My review in a nutshell: <low whistle>. That there is one fine movie. The plot centers around a Frankensteinian monster who kidnaps children and siphons off their dreams for his own amusement. The problem: kidnaped children tend to only have nightmares, so our antagonist never gets the beautiful dreams he’s searching for. But this plot is little more than an excuse to string together two-hours of breathtaking visuals and neato special-effects. Midgets, clones, strongmen, trained fleas, de-bodied brains and large machines with large red levers — this movie’s got it all. For sheer hallucinogenic hijinks, The City of Lost Children ranks up there with best of Terry Gillium, Tim Burton, and David Lynch.

Now all I have to do is see Jeunet’s other film. Which, unfortunately, turns out to be Alien 4: Resurrection. Wish me luck.

Last week I mentioned seeing In The Bedroom, a film which would have been great had it not seemed like two different movies clumsily glue-sticked together. It’s a drama for the first three-fifth, and then it has some kinda mid-life crisis and decides that, no, what I really wants to be is a thriller. The end result is that it doesn’t entirely succeed at either.

A few days ago I saw Gosford Park, and I have the exact same complaint: it’s like a two-hour treatise on class relations wrapped around an unrelated one-hour murder mystery. (It’s not actually three-hours long, mind you, but it feels like it). People: if you have a good idea for a movie, make a movie; if you have two good ideas for a movie, make two movies. Is that really so hard?

That said, I’d still give it a seven.

Perhaps my expectation were too high, but I thought In The Bedroom didn’t quite live up to all the superlatives which have been heaped upon it. Yes, it was a fine film, but I found it to be a little too shallow to be an effective philosophical drama and a little too ponderous to be a convincing psychological thriller. They should have picked a genre and stuck with it. I recommend it, but don’t go in anticipation of “The Best Movie of the Year!!” In the category of Actor in the Movie Who Has an Bit Role And Yet Nonetheless Kicks Ass, the award goes to Celia Weston playing the part “kid’s father’s best friend’s wife”. In one scene you just hear her voice echoing down a staircase (i.e., she’s not even on screen) and she’s still terrific. Download cracks.

Speaking of movies (when am I not?), it looks like David Lynch’s fabulous Mulholland Drive is finally getting it’s due. Best movie I saw in 2001, surpassed only by “Lord of the Rings” and “Memento”.

We recently received One Day in September from The Only Internet Commerce Site That Really Makes Any Sense Anymore, NetFlix.com. After reading the capsule description (“A documentary about the terrorists who held 11 Israeli athletes hostage during the 1972 Olympics”) I suddenly realized I had no interest in seeing it. Why watch a DVD about terrorism when I can just flip to channel 5 and watch Dan Rather yammer on about it any day of the week?

Yesterday day, though, with nothing else good on TV, we finally watched it. And boy howdie: it was goooood.