Reviews

Movies

Submitting to Secretary

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All evidence suggests that the people who made Secretary didn’t pay much attention to the failure of David Cronenberg’s Crash. The movies share a similar M.O.: A relatively normal person is introduced to sexual practices that some might consider deviant and violent, and then gives him- or herself over the them. And the films also have the same fatal flaw: They are closed systems that don’t allow access to the characters. Both are beautifully made and so distant that the most I can do is admire their craftsmanship.

Tagged: Bodily Emissions, Dramas, Reviews, Secretary, Sex
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Movies

The Soul of The Insider

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The youthful, idealistic energy of Woodward and Bernstein in All the President’s Men has been replaced by the grim realities of corporate journalism in writer/director Michael Mann’s The Insider. While the inexperienced Washington Post reporters put their own lives in danger pursuing a scandal that reached to the highest levels of political power, 60 Minutes disembowels a story that could bring the tobacco industry to its knees. The surprise is that Mann’s movie ends up being more of a human story – a touching, potent portrait of a man who did the right thing for the wrong reasons with a phenomenal performance at its center.

Tagged: Michael Mann, Reviews, The Insider
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Movies

A Bridge to Dreams

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Lulu on the Bridge stands proudly in the realm of fictions that mine the rich territory of what might have been: the classic short stories “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (by Ambrose Bierce) and “The Garden of Forking Paths” (by Jorge Luis Borges), and the more recent films Jacob’s Ladder, Sliding Doors, and Run Lola Run. What makes Lulu interesting – and difficult – is that it doesn’t try to sell fantasy as reality; Paul Auster offers a story with the logic of dreams – that is to say, no real logic at all.

Tagged: Dramas, Lulu on the Bridge, Paul Auster, Reviews
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Movies

Alien History

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Rabbit-Proof Fence is one of the stranger movies I’ve seen recently. It takes a relatively obscure (for most audiences, and perhaps even Australians) historical subject and treats it relatively straightforwardly, yet it feels like scorched-earth science fiction. The film has an aura of foreignness, a curious distance, that makes it seem unreal.

Tagged: Based on Real Events, Dramas, Phillip Noyce, Rabbit-Proof Fence, Reviews
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Music

Has the Well Run Dry?

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New work from Lyle Lovett – he of big hair, golden voice, and cartoonishly ugly face – used to be a cause for celebration for me. From this point on, though, I’m going to approach him skeptically; he only wants my money, and while I’ve freely given it to him in the past, he’s going to have to work for it now.

Tagged: Lyle Lovett, My Baby Don't Tolerate, Reviews
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Music

Out-Tooling Tool

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A Perfect Circle seemed, at first, like one of the world’s most blatant rip-offs. Its leader, Billy Howerdel, was a Tool guitar tech, and its vocalist was none other than Maynard James Keenan. And the sound of the band’s debut, 2000’s Mer de Noms, was Tool Lite – less abrasive and more oriented toward traditional songs, but still strikingly similar.

Tagged: A Perfect Circle, Reviews, Tool
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Movies

Thank You, Lars von Trier

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Just as Pulp Fiction spawned a number of crude imitations, it appears that Lars von Trier’s Breaking the Waves has inspired young filmmakers to mimic his bleak depictions of degradation. The British film Under the Skin brings with it the affectations of von Trier’s film – the hand-held cameras, the grim natural light, the misogyny, the attempted shocks – in the service of a painfully immature story without a shred of psychological understanding or depth in its main character.

Tagged: Bodily Emissions, Carine Adler, Dramas, Lars von Trier, Making a Mockery, Reviews
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Movies

Insincere Insincerity

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Most hot young actors wouldn’t dare trying to play vacuous, affected, manipulative, selfish, back-stabbing rich kids. It would look too much like reality. Ryan Phillippe, though, is one of our great screen artists. He has the guts to play a vacuous, affected, manipulative, selfish, back-stabbing rich kid, and to avoid the criticism that he is simply being himself, he decides to play the role badly.

Tagged: Dramas, Making a Mockery, Reviews
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Movies

A Muse in Search of a Script

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The two movies at which I’ve had the most fun in the past 15 or so years both came courtesy of Albert Brooks. In each, Brooks played weenie-boy whiners in search of something important: courage (Defending Your Life) or the reason all his relationships with women fail (Mother). In The Muse, the Brooks character isn’t looking for anything nearly so deep; he just wants a good script – something Brooks could have used as well.

Tagged: Albert Brooks, Comedies, Making a Mockery, Reviews
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