Movie Review #18

The Hours (2002)
Directed by Stephen Daldry
Screenplay by David Hare
Based on the book by Michael Cunningham

Rating: 6.75/10.00 or *** (out of 4)

The Hours is an example of a film that can be easily admired but rarely enjoyed. The film features the lives of three women in three different times in three different places with the same problem (sort of). The first of the three stories presented in The Hours takes place in rural England in 1923 (and partly in 1941) where Virginia Woolf is writing her fourth novel, Mrs. Dalloway. The second of the three stories takes place in suburban Los Angeles in 1951. In this segment, Laura Brown is reading Mrs. Dalloway and while doing so is beginning to formulate new ideas and and starting to discover who she actually is. The third story is in present day New York City, where Clarissa Vaughan is preparing a party for her special friend Richard, who is dying of AIDS.

Virginia Woolf is living a life she does not want. She is borderline insane, demented, detached from society. However, there are times of pure clarity when she knows how she wants to live and what she wants to do while living. In one such pure moment in 1941, she decides to drown herself, for the simple fact that she does not want to burden her husband Leonard any longer with her mental problems. She commits suicide out of love for her husband. Another clear moment occurs in 1923 when she dashes away from her home in Richmond to go back to London because she would rather die rather than stay in Richmond. In an immensely powerful scene, Virginia tells her husband, "If it is a choice between Richmond and death, then I choose death."

Laura Brown discovers with time that she is being smothered in her present lifestyle. She has a caring and somewhat dependent husband Dan and a child whom she does not understand. She does not love her husband, and there is a scene where we see that she has lesbian tendencies. Perhaps she has made the wrong choice in life or is just unfulfilled. Whatever the case, she decides that suicide is the best option for her predicament. She gets a hotel room and brings along several pills so she can kill herself. She decides, however, to not commit suicide. This leaves her with one last option, the ultimate price for living.

And there's Clarissa Vaughan, who may be living through the pain and torment of her dying ex-husband Richard. She observes with agony and maybe a tinge of hope as Richard decides whether to end his pain early by falling out of a window. Richard, meanwhile, has to decide whether to keep living (for Clarissa) or to end the endless torture he is enduring. At one point, this is explained dramatically:

Clarissa Vaughn: Alright Richard, do me one, simple favor: Come. Come sit..
Richard: I don't think I can make it to the party, Clarissa.
Clarissa Vaughn: Uh..You don't have to go to the party, you don't have to go to the ceremony, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. You can do as you like.
Richard: But I still have to face the hours, don't I? I mean, the hours after the party, and the hours after that...
Clarissa Vaughn: You do have good days still..You know you do!
Richard: Not really...I mean, it's kind of you to say so, but it's not really true.

We see the pain that both are enduring vividly during this discussion. Richard can't face living anymore, and Clarissa might not be able to face living without Richard. But the film evokes the question: Is Clarissa really living as it is now, with Richard alive?

The three stories presented are done so in parallel. We don't see these stories one after the other; we see them together, in short segments, in extreme parallel. At times, the parallelism is brilliant. The growing pain that each are showing (through the first half of the film) transitions well between the three women. There are other parallels, however, that seem overdone. The lesbian tendencies that all three women show tend to be overdramatic and (almost) out of place. Virginia is seen kissing her sister on the lips in one scene, and I just kind of wonder why that was shown. Was it to show that Virginia is very similar in style of living as Laura, whose kiss with her neighbor Kitty, serves an important purpose? Was it to show that Clarissa's lesbian lifestyle relates to Virginia's possible sexual preference(s)? Clarissa, who is openly lesbian, lives with Sally, and in a late scene of the movie, is seen kissing her. This scene also serves an important purpose, perhaps that of showing that Clarissa is now free to live after Richard's important decision of whether to live or not is made. But I still don't understand Virginia's. It is problems like this that emphasize the fact that this film presents the three stories with an overemphasis on parallelism. (This can be seen in other ways, also. We see transition scenes that are a bit too perfect and too convenient, for example.)

The major reason why this movie should be seen is superb acting. Nicole Kidman is excellent as the slightly aloof and mentally ill author, who is feverishly developing the story of Mrs. Dalloway while constantly fighting off the madness she must endure. Meryl Streep portrays Clarissa with a deep sadness and a glimmering hope. Her performance is powerful because she says as much with her appearance as she does with her words. And Julianne Moore, perhaps my favorite actress of present day, is mesmerizing as Laura Brown, a person who is beginning to face her dreadful realizations. Adding fantastic supporting performances are the underused John C. Reilly (Laura's husband Dan), Allison Janney (Clarissa's lover Sally), and Stephen Dillane (Virginia's husband Leonard). And then there's Ed Harris as Clarissa's dying ex-husband Richard. Harris is astounding as he portrays the anguish Richard is enduring. Each scene that includes Ed Harris is very powerful and quite difficult to take in as a result.

***A major spoiler follows.***

The final scenes of the movie connect the second and third story. An aged Laura Brown meets Clarissa after Richard decides to commit suicide. Laura's son (shown as a child in the 1951 segments) was Richard, Clarissa's friend and ex-husband. We learn of Laura's life altering decision, its effects on Richard, and its effects on Laura herself. The scene is very powerful and is profound. The film attempts to answer some of the questions it evokes. What is living? What must we do so that we can live? Laura's decision is perhaps the toughest anyone could possibly make. Her sacrifice was her mode of living. The aftereffects are tragic and yet hopeful.

Unfortunately, the scene loses some of its power because it decides to use Julianne Moore (with immense makeup) as the aged mother. And she just doesn't look old enough. The scene is powerful, but could have been made more so by using someone else. Moore, who is tremendous in the scene, still looks too young. This critique, which may seem picky, is actually important. The scene serves as a climax; it is problematic if something distracts from a climax. And this was a distraction.

This distraction aside, however, The Hours remains a powerful motion picture. I always admire films that try to make an audience think rather than to just observe. This film does just that. It may not be an enjoyable film to watch (due in part to its slowness), but its effects remain long after watching it.

Random Movie Thoughts Post #4

I apologize for not doing an extended version of this segment this week, but time has once again proven to be shorter than I care for.

Due to some suggestions by a surprisingly high number of people, I've developed a second website basically listing the movies I've seen and reviewed with their ratings. In the coming days, I will add links with the movies to their reviews I have made on this website.

Check out http://tetracorpus.blogspot.com for a list of those movies. This will be frequently updated.

My friend Antonio Gonzales has a similar website with movie reviews, television show reviews, political comments, and more. I heartily recommend reading his website. His comments are stated with an intelligence that few can exceed, and occasionally there is a good laugh out of it too. Please visit http://lordtons.blogspot.com for a guaranteed good read. Antonio, thanks for your comments about my website. They are much appreciated.

Next week, I will update my top 50 list. Also, some comments about the Oscars, favorite directors, and favorite movies will show up in the near future. Reviews of The Hours and Delicatessen are coming by Saturday. Have a good weekend, all.

Movie Review #17

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)
Directed by George Clooney
Written by Charlie Kaufman
Based on the book by Chuck Barris

Rating: 6.75/10.00 or *** (out of 4)

"Jesus Christ was dead and back again by the age of 32. You're 31. You better get crackin'."

So Jim Byrd tells Chuck Barris. One of my favorite lines of the movie, it might also serve as the most important.

George Clooney takes to the director's chair for the first time (and hopefully not the last) in this immensely enjoyable motion picture. With obvious influence from Steven Soderbergh and the Coen brothers, Clooney has mixed their styles surprisingly well given that their directing touches, I feel, have flaws and that Clooney hadn't directed anything before this.

The film features the rise and fall of TV-once-was Chuck Barris (played by the solid Sam Rockwell), the host of game shows including "The Dating Game" and "The Gong Show." But there was (supposedly) more to his life than hosting television shows that, according to a newspaper headline, were leading to the "decline of modern civilization." Barris, who has stated as such in real-life, was selected as a CIA operative and claims to have killed 33 people in his spy run. Uh-huh. Well, the movie does nothing to say that it isn't true, but taking the claim and the story at face value (maybe), I'd have to say that that is probably a gross exaggeration. Nonetheless, his claim leads to a rather interesting story told onscreen.

Barris is a man who blames himself for a lot of things; his self-esteem and self-awareness are mired in self-contempt. And he is surrounded by people attempting to control him. Take the quiet man that is Jim Byrd (George Clooney), who seeks Barris' involvement in the CIA. Always a man with an answer, Byrd easily convinces Barris to join his spy organization (using the self-contempt that Barris quite obviously displays). Take Patricia Watson (played by Julia Roberts, in her umpteenth-thousandth role as a strong woman who displays power with a tinge of evil near the surface). Watson easily plays Barris into her hands, at least for a while. Take the entertainment industry. Barris strives to succeed in the game show business, but the ultimate result is failure (such as when "The Dating Game" pilot was rejected so "Hootenanny" could be shown on ABC). And then there's Penny (Drew Barrymore), the long-time fling (maybe?) of Barris who seems to be the only one controlled completely by Barris. Penny becomes attached and stays by Barris' side to try to keep him out of trouble, although her ultimate goal is to marry him.

The story has interesting vignettes, two of which related to Barris' spy runs. One, in Helsinki, is immensely amusing since Barris takes a couple there on a vacation for his current game show to cover what he's actually doing there. (Uh-huh.) The other, in Mexico, shows (to an extent) Barris' regret as a spy agent. Rockwell focuses well on Barris' lack of self-esteem, and this is very obvious in this scene.

Clooney adds a lot of flavor to the movie, which at times is nearly brilliant and at others quite the opposite. Clooney messes with all visual features of the film. Often colors are nearly eliminated from the film, especially in the spy scenes or scenes involving Patricia (although the color red is emphasized with her a number of times as well). During interviews with game show hosts and guests (including Dick Clark), color is enhanced and the picture is blurred somewhat. Other times, the colors of the 60s and 70s come out in full flavor (such as the orange sets or the flannel outfits). Most of the time the colors are appropos, but there are some instances where there is little use for them other than for experimentation purposes.

Clooney also uses shadow, often times brilliantly. Patricia's face is nearly always shadowed in some way, adding to the mystery of her existence. Penny is often seen clearly, appropriately showing just the opposite. And Clooney is quite often clothed in gray or black and seen in much the same way. His character is subtle, and his appearance is quite the same.

There are times when Soderbergh's and the Coen brothers' styles get in the way of Clooney's, however. There is a shot of a "CIA camp" of sorts in a snowy, white background. The introduction to the scene is shown in several quick, panning shots much like Soderbergh's style in Traffic (This, and other odd-angled or quick shots, becomes distracting with time.). The "CIA camp" scene itself seems to be almost taken directly out of a script written by the Coen brothers. It makes me wonder how much Clooney was making this movie compared to Soderbergh or the Coen brothers themselves.

Acting is superb. Sam Rockwell plays Chuck Barris almost perfectly. This is one of the better performances I have seen in a while. Drew Barrymore holds her own as the almost depressingly attached Penny. Roberts does her usual job as the attractively mysterious Patricia. And George Clooney makes sure to make his role quiet so other more important roles are given the emphasis they need.

There is an occasional scene of brilliance in the film too. The Helsinki sequence is very well done. The cul-de-sac scene is well shot and very well presented. The scenes involving Barris in his dark apartment watching the TV (perhaps as punishment) are also quite effective. The last scene between Clooney and Rockwell is also excellently presented (somewhat of a David Lynch/Stanley Kubrick mix).

Some of the weaknesses of the movie overshadow the occasional brilliance, however. Clooney's final cut is a bit long and tends to drag from time to time (The ending seemed a tad long to me, for example.). Clooney seems to pay homage a bit too much to Soderbergh and the Coen brothers to call this film an individual work. Many times he uses their styles with class, but at other times there seems to be little point. I also had a growing difficulty in being kept interested through the film. This likely corresponded to the dragging that occurred at times during the film.

Clooney as an actor is often solid. Clooney as a director shows promise. Perhaps with a few more films he will find a formula that works on multiple levels. He made this film interesting, but it could definitely have been better. Based on what else is out there right now, though, I'll take it with a good amount of satisfaction. Furthermore, I hope he has the urge to direct some more because this is a decent first step.

Movie Review #16

The Pianist (2002)
Directed by Roman Polanski
Written by Ronald Harwood
Based on the book by Wladyslaw Szpilman

Rating: 6.50/10.00 or *** (out of 4)

I remember thinking about three-quarters of the way through this film that films dealing with the Holocaust or other real life unspeakable atrocities tend to be overrated. Perhaps it is because the critic does not want to be seen as too harsh when the material presented in the film is as sensitive or as devastating as the Holocaust. Perhaps it's because the usual biases critics have for film are somewhat put on hold and forgotten while watching these films. Whatever the case, I happen to believe that this film is not that good, and to say that most critics are overrating this film is an understatement.

The Pianist tells one Holocaust survivor's story basically from start to finish. The survivor is Wladyslaw Szpilman, a gifted piano player, who by fortune and the generosity of close friends and sympathizers, somehow finds a way to survive through six years of Nazi terror. Adrien Brody, who is in nearly every scene of the film, plays young Szpilman with a mix of recognition and detachment. Szpilman recognizes his talents but detaches himself from his surroundings. You could say Szpilman is blissfully ignorant, for a time.

But the Germans' ever-growing presence in war-torn Warsaw would soon begin to dominate. Quickly, the Germans and the Jewish police (obviously under German control) set up the Warsaw ghetto, cramming 500,000 into a small district. Szpilman's family, of which there are many, are put in a tiny room. Before this time, the Szpilmans' life was relatively luxurious, and the change is obviously dramatic for the family. The film shows (quite well) the diminishing hope of a family who seems to know what's going to happen to them. Well, all but Wladyslaw.

Soon the trains come, headed for the concentration camps. The Szpilmans, along with countless other families, wait with a combination of intrigue and dread as the trains take them to their terrible fates. There is a touching scene where the father of the family (Frank Finlay) buys a piece of candy and splits it up for the whole family to have. The scene was quietly powerful. Polanski, himself a Holocaust survivor, lost his mother to the German death camps. I have a feeling this was not only Szpilman's way of honoring his family in this film/(auto)biography, but also Polanski's.

The Szpilmans are about to be loaded onto the trains, when a friend of Wladyslaw's pulls him away to safety. Wladyslaw is now on the run and must survive several years of war, extermination, and fear. His stories of survival compose the rest of the film.

It's at this point where I want to explain my biggest problem with the film. It seems that several times through the course of the movie that the movie's objective, or focus, changes. The previous paragraphs explain the gist of the movie fairly completely. However, there are several times through the film where the focus is not on Szpilman or his mode of survival. Polanski frequently uses Szpilman for the purpose of observation. To clarify, there are several moments, especially in the latter part of the film, where the movie observes the goings-on of the world around Szpilman. We see numerous acts of atrocity, torture, starvation, murder. We see Szpilman observing the Polish rebellions, the German responses, a man in a wheelchair thrown out of a window, a German soldier abruptly shooting a lady in the head for asking a question, and much more.

This was a double-edged sword to me. The scenes, especially the ones involving individual murder or torture, were sometimes quite effective. At the same time I wonder about the sum intent of these scenes. Was it to add drama to the movie? Was it to include some documentary into the film? Was it to show us something we have heard an infinite number of times but maybe still don't fully realize? The purpose of these scenes is unclear; they may be a combination of the questions I ask. However, one thing that the scenes (probably unintentionally) did for certain was to make the film quite choppy. Frequently through the movie we spend several minutes watching a sequence showing Szpilman's modes of survival. Then we observe the Nazis' next horrible act. There is not much pattern and no obvious reasoning behind it other than to show us what was going on.

That, in and of itself, is not the (major) problem, however. The problem is that it evokes little, if any, emotion. Polanski adds absolutely zero melodrama, as several reviews have pointed out. But at the same time, he adds little drama, plain and simple. Polanski has seemed to do the impossible: He has shown the Holocaust in a nonemotional manner, and that, to me, is a weakness and not a strength of this film.

Polanski should be commended for adding little (if any) thriller or suspicion to the film. He adds no unnecessary drama or input into what he is showing. He just shows it. But this, by itself, does not make a great film. A film, especially dealing with this subject, needs to include drama because it *is* dramatic. To take away the drama deadens the audience, and this is certainly something I doubt was intended by Polanski. The film, simply put, is too unemotional for my taste.

Polanski has moments of brilliance in this film, however, and the two most memorable are in the last thirty minutes of the film. The most effective scene involves Szpilman alone in the streets of wartorn Warsaw. Houses and buildings are barely standing, mostly destroyed. Everything has been impacted by bombs, shells, or guns of some kind. The only colors we can see are gray and orange; the only thing we hear is gunshots. Damaged buildings are seen for miles, and Szpilman is literally alone in the middle of it. The scene is rather haunting. This is the only time while watching the film I could actually feel the horror Szpilman must have been engrossed with.

The other scene involves a little piano "recital" by Szpilman for a German officer who finds him in a house frantically searching for food. The officer, Captain Wilm Hosenfeld (Thomas Kretschmann), helps Szpilman survive the last few days before the Russians finally enter Warsaw. Hosenfeld asks Szpilman to play the piano, and the next few minutes we almost forget about the war, the horrible war, going on around them. All we see is a man, once a stylish, well-to-do musician, now a man who looks like he's straight from the Stone Age, play the piano. We don't focus on Szpilman, the captain, or the war, though. We focus on the music. Just a wonderful scene.

These two moments of brilliance, however, are not enough to save this film from the major problem it seems to have. Schindler's List is a masterful movie because it evoked an extreme amount of emotion and drama through what it showed. It showed us the murders and the Nazi terror with the added benefit of continuing a plot it had built. This film lacked this important necessity. It makes me wonder if this film would have been more effective as a pure documentary. As it is now, which seems to be half drama and half documentary, it is a bit too unfocused for my taste.