Tuesday, January 18, 2005

MARTY SELLS HIS SOUL... AND FINALLY MAKES ANOTHER GOOD MOVIE AGAIN



Working as a hired gun, I'm sure Martin Scorsese considers his Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator as a one of those "one for them" projects, but it's the best thing he's done in ten years. Scorsese's professionalism is a welcome change from his distending auteurism. David Edelstein mentions that he seems to have borrowed some of Spielberg's unpretentious energy and nonjudgemental tone from Catch Me If You Can, and it suits him well. Scorsese seems like he's working on instincts, and he's reconnected with the part of him that loves to make movies. (Who would have guessed 20 years ago that Scorsese had had something to learn from Spielberg?)


Like in Catch Me If You Can, The Aviator is held together by a fantastic man-child performance by Leonardo DiCaprio. I always forget that DiCaprio is a real actor. Not in the way that Tom Cruise is an "actor". Or even the way Cruise's more adventurous ex-wife is an "actor". DiCarprio at this best doesn't telegraph his performances for the benefit of Academy voters. He merely works inside his characters, and at his best you don't realise he's doing anything at all. (Like Hughes, DiCaprio insists on counter-sinking his rivets.) That's a tough task when you're playing an increasing nut-job like Hughes. Lets not kid ourselves. It's the kind of role where you'd practically expect the production team to slather the sets in mayonnaise before each take. (I hear that's the only way Pacino works nowadays.) But Scorsese and DiCaprio keep the film remarkably lean from "look at me, I'm acting!" moments.

Thursday, January 06, 2005

THE PROBLEM WITH BEING INCREDIBLE



There's no doubt that The Incredibles is sensational entertainment, but it's appearance on numerous Ten Best lists is a little baffling. It pales beside Spider-Man 2, which is admittedly as much a remake and reworking of the first film as it is a sequel, but it's still the best of its kind since Burton's Batman movies.

The Incredibles, frankly, just seems a little late. Marvel comics has been doing the dour middle-class lives of superheroes for 40 years, so I'm not sure why this aspect has critics so agog. And this may sound like sour grapes, but I think the film makes a fatal (and decidedly un-Pixar-ish) mistake in its conception of the villain, Syndrome. While there's something refreshing in its refusal to accept mediocrity, there's something almost Randian in its insistence that greatness is born, not made. The heroes are "all natural", after all, while the villain turns to crime after he's rejected for entry into the superhero family because his "powers" are artificial. No matter how great his technological ingenuity, the fact he uses a jetpack means he's forever a pretender.

I realize The Incredibles consciously posits itself as the first post-9/11 family entertainment (Helen's warning to her super-children that the enemies they'll face aren't like the ones on TV shows who never harm kids could not mean to invoke anything but al Qaeda.), and as such suggesting that all evil needs is a good hug certainly isn't a hip attitude... but the guy's name is Syndrome, for chrissake! Show the kid a little love, will ya?

I know we don't want to sugar-coat things for kids, but at the same time do we really need to be teaching them that there really is unredeemable evil in the world? Maybe I'm a soft, lefty loony, but I'm still more partial to the lessons of Finding Nemo where even sharks can learn that fish are friends, not food.

Sticking with the post-9/11 theme, how galling is it that no matter how good his intentions, Mr. Incredible never has to accept even partial responsibility for how his arrogance ends up creating his nemesis in the first place? This isn't blaming the victim. It's taking responsibility for you actions. He's trying to make the world a safer place. The fact that his actions may in fact be resulting in the opposite is completely irrelevant. Despite a layer that would be the envy of any Bond villain, Syndrome doesn't want to rule the world. He just wants to rid it of "supers" only because they rejected him first. As we've seen, these ideological battles never really end well.

Our popular artists are best when they are anticipating the zeitgeist (or at least skewing current trends) rather than pandering to it. (It's the genius of Larry David to have created the comic self-absorption of Seinfeld in one decade and then morph it into the comic horror of Curb Your Enthusiasm in another.) Maybe the fact they're so time consuming to make is the biggest drawback to computer-animated features. The Incredibles might have been mildly refreshing in the midst of Clintonia when writer-director Brad Bird thought it up, but in the midst of George Bush spending his political capital it's smug superiority is suffocating. Frankly, The Incredibles isn't merely a critique of the lame notion that "everyone is special". Its real lesson is "I'm special, you're not". That's fine and dandy, you say, until you realize they're pointing at you.

There was a point near the end when Syndrome's evil plan goes awry that offered an opening to allow him to redeem himself by helping the family stop his mechanical monster. The fact the film doesn't take that opportunity can only suggest that its haughtiness was deliberate.

The key line of dialogue from Spider-Man (both the comics and the movie) is, "With great power comes great responsibility." Peter Parker is constantly grappling with this issue, and it's what makes his quest to do good so moving. He's not just trying to be the best hero he can be. But the best nephew, the best friend, the best boy-friend, the best photojournalist, the best pizza delivery driver he can be. It's a humility that's shockingly absent from The Incredibles.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

MY WOULD-BE TAKE 6 BALLOT



The Village Voice Take 6 is out. Here's what I would have voted for if they had let me:

BEST FILM
1. Sideways (Alexander Payne)
2. Touching the Void (Kevin McDonald)
3. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry)
4. Before Sunset (Richard Linklater)
5. The Agronomist (Jonathan Demme)
6. Old Boy (Chan-wook Park)
7. The Saddest Music in the World (Guy Maddin)
8. Spider-Man 2 (Sam Raimi)
9. The Manchurian Candidate (Jonathan Demme)
10. Dogville (Lars von Trier)

BEST PERFORMANCE
1. Paul Giametti, Sideways
2. Joe Simpson and Brendan Mackey (as Joe Simpson), Touching the Void
3. Jon Heder, Napoleon Dynamite
4. Denzel Washington, The Manchurian Candidate
5. Catalina Sandion Moreno, Maria Full of Grace

BEST SUPPORTING PERFORMANCE
1. Kate Winslett, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
2. Mark McKinney, The Saddest Music in the World
3. Maia Morgenstern, The Passion of the Christ
4. Mark Walberg, I [heart] Huckabees
5. Tom Wilkinson, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

BEST DIRECTOR (tie)
Kevin McDonald, Touching the Void
Alexander Payne, Sideways

BEST SCREENPLAY (tie)
Charlie Kaufman, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, and Ethan Hawke, Before Sunset

BEST FIRST FILM
Shaun of the Dead

BEST DOCUMENTARY
Touching the Void

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Ellen Kuras, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

BEST UNDISTRIBUTED FILM
Old Boy

Not a bad year.