Why Music Matters
Although it would appear to be a collection essays about 31 disparate songs, the true subject of Nick Hornby’s Songbook is our relationship with music, particularly as we mature.
Tagged: Nick Hornby, Songbook
A Failed Corrective
Coming a decade after Schindler’s List, Roman Polanski’s The Pianist seems wholly reactionary, a conscious counterpoint and correction to Spielberg’s popular and important but overly manipulative tear-jerker.
War as Nature Documentary
Terrence Malick spent 20 years away from Hollywood, 10 of those bringing The Thin Red Line to theaters. The work that ended up on the screen clearly stewed too long in one man’s brain, and I expect the movie the reclusive director thought he made is actually quite different from the one I saw.
Tagged: Reviews, Terrence Malick, The Thin Red Line, War
Prog Rock Is from Mars …
As with Tool’s Ænima and Queens of the Stone Age’s Songs for the Deaf, The Mars Volta’s De-loused in the Comatorium is clearly of a genre but towers above it – which is one way of defining “transcendence.” The album, like those two other records, quite simply opens the mind to the possibilities of rock music.
Malkovich’s Bloodless Revolution
In the end, there’s much to like about John Malkovich’s The Dancer Upstairs. But something isn’t right, nagging and prodding and saying that the movie isn’t all it might have been. It’s intelligent but not sharp, subtle in small moments but clunky overall, engaging without being engrossing, and sad but not heartbreaking. It’s as if there’s a layer of mist over the movie, dulling it, and that’s caused by Malkovich’s over-deliberate approach.
Tagged: John Malkovich, Reviews, The Dancer Upstairs
The Comfort of a Warm Movie
Since seeing the charming, sweet, and smart Pieces of April a few days ago, I’ve been trying to figure out why it brought to mind the sadly underrated and under-seen Stuart Saves His Family.
Tagged: Comedies, Dramas, Peter Hedges, Pieces of April, Reviews
The Confederate Patient
Every element of Cold Mountain – from plot points to names to lines of dialogue – shows the heavy hand of the writer. The plot doesn’t unfold naturally and from the characters; for the story to turn out the way it does, for it to achieve any sort of resonance, everything in the movie has to happen exactly as it happens, and most of the developments are matters of dumb luck.
Tagged: Anthony Minghella, Cold Mountain, Dramas, Reviews
Re-Claiming the Horror Movie
For the past two years, I’ve puzzled over the critical and commercial failure of The Mothman Prophecies. The $42-million movie, directed by Mark Pellington and written by Richard Hatem, came out in January 2002, got mixed reviews, and grossed an anemic $35 million. Yet it remains one of my favorite movies of last year, still tremendously creepy, unnerving, and satisfying.
Nearly Master of Its Domain
In Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, director Peter Weir establishes his tremendous skill almost immediately. The audience is dropped on board the Surprise as a mysterious vessel is lurking in the fog, perhaps nothing but maybe an enemy. When the phantom ship attacks, the audience is thrust into battle without the exposition that is de rigueur in Hollywood fare. You might not be able to follow the specifics of what’s happening, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the Surprise is getting the shit pounded out of her.
The Trouble with Jack
To put it glibly, About Schmidt has three problems: its star, its director, and its screenplay. To be more generous, all have a lot going for them, but they tend to give the audience too much, to extend a gag or a look or a shot beyond utility, destroying a moment or a mood. Alexander Payne directed and co-wrote the film, and Jack Nicholson stars, and they’re largely to blame.
Tagged: About Schmidt, Alexander Payne, Comedies, Dramas, Jack Nicholson, Reviews
