Orange Mocha Frappuccino
There’s a very small chance of me ever writing anything negative about any of the films here since I’ve either made a conscious decision to go to the cinema to see them, or I’ve made an equally conscious decision to buy them on DVD and it’s very unusual for me to watch a film without wanting to. This is also a plus because films are a lot harder to praise than they are to pick apart. By the way, The Departed is genius.
One Hour Photo (2002)
For some reason, Robin Williams decided he’d had enough of playing the same part for a decade (you know, the child inside the man) and that it might be a really good idea if he started to demonstrate his range as an actor instead of repeato ditto. Presumably because there was a shortage of stage-trained British actors in Hollywood in 2001, two very different villain parts came his way and he jumped at them. Amusingly, in his audio commentary with Robin Williams, the director Mark Romanek refers to this film as his debut, when it is so not. Mark Romanek’s true debut feature was Static (1985), on which he was co-director with Keith Gordon, probably most famous for playing Brian De Palma as a teenager in Dressed To Kill (1980). Static is really really good, but it’s pretty impossible to find. In the 17 years between these two films, Romanek established himself in the world of music videos (see The Work of Director Mark Romanek in the Directors Label series). Thankfully, his second movie only takes the good parts from the music video genre (intense stylisation) and not the bad (fast cutting, inability to work with actors or direct way out of wet paper bag, eg. McG, Michael Bay et al).
Insomnia (2002)
Among the treats of this film: a good performance from Hilary Swank in a supporting role; Christopher Nolan’s commentary which rearranges (more or less) the whole movie in the order of filming and makes you appreciate just how good Al Pacino’s ability to convey the successive stages of insomnia really is since scenes were filmed wildly out of continuity; Robin Williams as a really nice bad guy.
Mulholland Dr. (2001)
Stop reading this right now and go out and buy this film on DVD and watch it immediately. It will change your life.
Sideways (2004)
Here’s the thing. Why didn’t Virginia Madsen become one of the biggest movie stars in the world? She looked spectacular and she was a great actress, and yet it just didn’t happen for her. It’s almost like she was too beautiful for fame, and somebody picked Demi Moore and her insipid psychobabble instead. There’s an engaging lack of vanity to Madsen’s performance in this film; there’s no attempt to hide her age and it only serves to highlight her beauty. An actual movie for adults by adults starring adults.
Zoolander (2001)
In a world of obsessive celebrity worship and reality television, where we’re now past celebrities famous for being famous into fake celebrities who weren’t famous in the first place, there is only one film that has taken a stance against uneducated morons with perfumes to hock and ghostwritten autobios: Zoolander. It’s the new Spinal Tap. Everybody loves them some Zoolander. It even has Paris Hilton in it.