Nobody Knows Anything

No cinema visits this week, though this is set to change in July.

Bad Boys II (2003)

Another sign of the apocalypse. I now own a film directed by Michael Bay on DVD. I must admit my curiosity was peaked by the reverence accorded it in Hot Fuzz (2007), and then it turned up cheap in HMV’s current sale and I can’t resist a bargain. And so? Much as it pains me to admit it, I quite enjoyed it. It was a decent throwback to the gratuitous violence and plentiful swearing action pictures of the 1990s that we all loved so much until some bunch of twats successfully prevented Hollywood from marketing R-rated movies to kids and forced them down the road of PG-13 with everything. I should point out here that the whole point of the R certificate in the first place (no one under 17 admitted without an adult) was precisely so kids could go to see R-rated movies, and everybody was perfectly happy about the arrangement until aforesaid bunch of twats took umbrage.

Spider-Man 2 (2004)

Also in the HMV sale was the Limited Edition DVD Gift Set of this for £4 (I’m not receiving kickbacks from HMV for plugging them here; in the current climate, they need all the help they can get). I saw it in the cinema and didn’t think it was that great because I thought it possessed absolutely no depth. Once you get past the “with great power comes…” thing, what else is there? Well, there must have been something in the Diet Coke at the cinema because seeing it again on DVD, I liked it a whole lot more, possibly for the soap opera elements than the action sequences.

In Her Shoes (2005)

I find the term “chick flick” really kind of patronising, as if only women were interested in films about characters, emotions and relationships. There was a time when a film like When Harry Met Sally (1989) was known as a “sleeper hit” because 13 year old boys weren’t turning out in droves to see it, and its audience consisted of regular people like you and me, who’d previously been “asleep” when Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) came out to keep the kids happy with the wham bang. The sleeper hit has now, somewhat inevitably, turned into the marketing category of the chick flick, the kind of film girls have to drag their boyfriends kicking and screaming to see. Allegedly.

RV (2006)

One of the best things about a new Barry Sonnenfeld film is the prospect of a new Barry Sonnenfeld DVD commentary. As this generation’s Blake Edwards, the go-to guy when you want a comedy filmed properly on screen, in commentary mode he is the king of the dry delivery. Although there’s nothing new about this film that National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983) et al haven’t done before, it does silly and heartwarming with reasonably equal effectiveness. One thing nobody mentions in either the commentary or the featurettes is that this is Sonnenfeld’s first widescreen movie because the shape of the RV dictated that it be so. The movie’s aspect ratio is part of the joke. That is what I call dry.

Underworld: Evolution (2006)

As a horror fan, I’ve been pissed on by filmmakers and studios for decades. For some reason, unknown to me, if one horror film becomes a hit, say Halloween (1978), the producers decide that what horror fans want is another EIGHT sequels that are more or less complete retreads of the original. Whereas what horror fans like me actually want is another original horror film AS GOOD AS Halloween. Why has this message not got through? Unfortunately, there are enough undiscerning idiots claiming to be horror fans around that there is actually an audience for Sleepaway Camp IV (2002) when the original Sleepaway Camp (1983) was a) no fucking good in the first place, b) made 20 years earlier, and c) a ripoff of Friday the 13th (1980) anyway. Although Underworld (2003) had vampires vs werewolves vs big guns vs a ripoff of the look of The Matrix, what it had in its favour was the right tone: it took its world seriously, and this continues in the sequel.

The Constant Gardener (2005)

After a week of popcorn, I felt the need for a little fibre. Fernando Meireilles proves that Cidade de Deus (2002) wasn’t just a flash in the pan, and that a thriller that tells its story out of chronological order is still possible in modern Hollywood, particularly when directed with the deftness and skill on display here. Everybody brought their A-game to this project, from the off-kilter framing of every shot to the performances of the actors to the producers filiming the story in Kenya where it was set, rather than trying to recreate Kenya in, say, Mexico or Canada. The filmmakers were also affected by the poverty in the areas in which they shot some of the film and actually decided to do something about it:

http://www.constantgardenertrust.org/

After last week’s unrelenting barrage of political satire, sleazy metaphors and full frontal nudity, I needed a break from the sturm und drang and spent the week watching a few lighter movies. No cinema visits this week.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)

For the record, this was the unrated version. One of the most amusing commentary track experiences I’ve had recently is listening to the creatives involved in this movie moaning about not having enough money to make the film the way they wanted to. The budget for this movie was $110 million. In what way is that not enough money to make a no-think action comedy with half a dozen action sequences? This is why they call Hollywood La-La Land because the rules of reality no longer apply.

Enter the Dragon (1973)

Meanwhile, 32 years earlier, for under a million dollars you had this. Apart from seeing campy clips in other circumstances, this was probably my first experience of a genuine Hong Kong action flick from the 1970s. Except of course it isn’t quite that, because it was made by an American crew with American money. But they did have access to those astonishing audio whooshes and simulated limb and bone cracks that Hong Kong cinema audio mavens had been dreaming up for decades. And they had Bruce Lee, who, I’ll be damned, is every bit as astonishing as he’s always been hyped up as. The guy was a real action hero, and he puts the Van Dammes and Seagals of this world to shame. And to die so young by accident… Sigh.

Addams Family Values (1993)

The rare example of a sequel being so much better than the original that the original still hasn’t been released on DVD in the UK. But if Paramount hadn’t released this sequel, an angry mob would have tracked them down and burnt them at the stake. And as much as they tried to share out the mayhem amongst the cast, the standout is Christina Ricci, who delivers one of the most brilliant comedic performances of the 1990s as the deadpan, death-obsessed Wednesday Addams. It takes a special kind of film to pull out the best from Ms Ricci, The Opposite of Sex (1998) being another example, so I am very much looking forward to Black Snake Moan (2006).

The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

Although I pride myself on holding positions on certain movies at direct contradiction to received wisdom or majority opinion, there are some films where I fall in line with everyone else. And this is one of them. It is the best one of the six. Lucky Irvin Kershner. He didn’t have to spend any time introducing characters or working on the plot, he just had to go shot by shot making sure each one had a cool piece of character emotion or humour, and glue it all together later. I also think that the 1997 Special Edition is better than the original. Of course, it’s now the 2004 Special Edition since there was a little more fiddling before the box set came out. That they were able to go back to the original elements and recomposite all the individual pieces of the special effects shots so they worked more perfectly in the digital realm than they ever could through the optical printer, just shows how damned good the work was in the first place. There are very few digital additions to Episode V; it doesn’t need them. One more thing, watch the closing credits of this film and you will see an astounding number of crew people who have defined Hollywood special effects and movie making for the last 27 years.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)

Has its time come yet? Are people ready to admit liking it after all? This is what you would have got if you made Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940) with a $40 million budget in 1940. I guess it’s one of those things where you either go with the look of the thing or you don’t. Along with a well-thumbed visual appeal, it also has a terrific, aggressive soundtrack that will, as they say, really give your subwoofer a workout.