Heal Thyself
Who in his right mind would place Stuart Saves His Family, a movie based on a regularly awful Saturday Night Live skit, among his favorites? Well … me.
Who in his right mind would place Stuart Saves His Family, a movie based on a regularly awful Saturday Night Live skit, among his favorites? Well … me.
The level of self-reference in American Splendor should be too cute and modern for words or patience, but it has the strange effect of being more honest than either a straight documentary or drama.
There’s a good movie in the seed of There’s Something About Mary – that being a beautiful woman carries with it the burden of a dozen or so stalkers – but the brothers Farrelly use it simply as a vehicle for a handful of sex-related sight gags spread very thinly over nearly two hours.
If you want a perfect example of how great material can transcend its treatment, watch HBO’s recent two-part mini-series of Angels in America.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love is not bad, exactly, just anxious and annoying and perfectly framed and puzzling. It does make a certain amount of sense, though, if you look at from my skewed perspective.
The premise of Idle Hands: an easy way to cash in on an audience that has never heard of some of the movies listed below. The story: Pot-smoking slacker teen loses control of his right hand, which goes on a murderous rampage and is undeterred by being cut off and microwaved.
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, writer/director Guy Ritchie’s first feature, doesn’t just borrow from Pulp Fiction; it wants to be its British equivalent. Surprisingly, it’s mostly successful, nailing the seemingly offhand style, the description-proof plot, and the casual violence.
A big part of the charm of Lost in Translation is that there is no epiphany and little character development; it’s a gentle, intimate study of two specific but relatable characters with the detail and resonance of a good short story. It approaches modest perfection.
You’re in your apartment. Your husband has gone to work. There’s a knock at the door. A genial man says he’s the plumber. You explain that you haven’t called for a plumber. He replies that he’s checking the pipes of all the apartments because of a pressure problem. You let him in; his story seems reasonable, and he’s got the right tools. It’s an act of trust. He says his name is Max.
You’re watching The Plumber. This setup is awfully familiar. You know the plumber’s a violent man, capable of unspeakable deeds. You know the wife, Jill, is in trouble. It’s an act of trust.
Peter Weir’s debut, The Cars That Ate Paris, is good art and a bad movie. It fails fundamentally as a narrative, but it has enough interesting things going on that it’s compelling in spite of itself.