Culture Snob Two of the most endearing qualities in a movie critic are the ability and willingness to re-consider a judgment in a public forum. So it seems pretty big of Roger Ebert (and Vincent Gallo, for that matter) to sit down and talk about the new version of the The Brown Bunny.
One of the fun elements of baseball (more than probably any other sport) is that it has a statistical richness through which one can completely divorce oneself from subjectivity. Take, for example, my beloved Boston Red Sox, who through May, June, and July were accused regularly of being playoff pretenders, to the point of being more than 10½ games behind the God-Damned, Mother-Fucking New York Yankees on August 16.
The oft-stated (and obviously fallacious) stakes are that Miramax needs Project Greenlight movies to be financial successes for the studio to continue bankrolling the enterprise. The unstated reality is that Greenlight will never produce a decent movie until it drastically changes the way it operates.
Most performers would kill for one of Kris Kristofferson’s careers. But he has three of them: as a great country songwriter, a musical performer of no small repute, and a successful actor. This man has been in a musical group with Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, and Waylon Jennings, and as an actor has worked with Martin Scorsese, John Sayles, Sam Peckinpah, and Tim Burton. But for all that, Kristofferson seems amazingly modest, and he sounds nearly unsure of himself when he talks about playing solo.
Singer-songwriter Chris Smither has been around long enough that not much surprises him. His latest album, though, came together in a way he didn’t expect. But his producer knew what he was doing, and that’s the way Smither prefers it. His expertise is in songwriting, not producing albums.
Just to be clear, Michael Mann’s Collateral is a thriller, and an adept one at that. I say this up-front because that part of the movie isn’t of much interest to me. It doesn’t seem to captivate Mann, either. What Mann recognizes better than other directors is that investment in characters makes the action more tense and suspenseful. (Also, David Mamet’s Spartan.)
The adjective “competent” is a faint compliment if it’s praise at all, but it’s all the enthusiasm I can muster for Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2. The movie is about as good as superhero movies get these days, but that’s not saying much.
With Monster, writer/director Patty Jenkins has fashioned a story of insistent, persistent desperation that is so fully embodied by Charlize Theron that I had a hard time believing the movie’s politics and psychology were so facile.
The Arts & Faith Web site last month posted its list of the “Top 100 Spiritually Significant Films.” Some of the more interesting choices: Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction and Bad Lieutenant; Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves and Dogville; Kevin Smith’s Dogma; David Fincher’s Fight Club; Monty Python’s Life of Brian; and Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven.
As a screed against George W. Bush to justify the feelings, suspicions, and thoughts of people who already dislike the president and plan on voting against him in November, Fahrenheit 9/11 is strikingly effective. But as propaganda – as a compelling case to convince undecided voters and GOP loyalists that Bush needs to be voted out of office – Michael Moore’s movie is an utter failure.
