Nobody Knows Anything

No cinema visits this week.

Vanilla Sky (2001)

In which Tom Cruise continues to prove that he’s an actor not just a movie star, and the consequences of success are examined at some length. This film also tests the limits of what a mainstream audience will take when it comes to different levels of reality. And it doesn’t have any kung fu, wire work or bullet time to distract an audience from the angst of its central character and the memorably nasty sequence in which someone is killed.

The Matrix (1999)

For the record, I watched the original R1 DVD rather than the one in the box set. What you notice the most is that the ending of the third film is set up very early in the first. “You’re my own personal saviour.” Indeed. The film is proof positive that a grabbag of influences can work and will flow together to form a cohesive whole. The more that’s layered into the film, the better it becomes.

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)

The two sequels to The Matrix are brilliant, but not necessarily in the way that The Matrix was brilliant. For a start, there is no attempt whatsoever to bring anyone up to speed with what is going on. If you didn’t see the first film, whole chunks of the sequels won’t make any sense at all. There is no attempt to re-explain the divisions between the real world and the world of The Matrix. The sequels are also really abstract. They are more about the stranger behaviour of programs in a computer system than they are about regular human emotions. And yet it is the regular human emotions within the computer system that are causing all the mayhem. What the Wachowskis have done is they’ve managed to con Warner Brothers into funding a two part $300 million art movie with philosophical digressions as intense as those in an Ingmar Bergman movie combined with ass kicking on an absurdist scale.

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

Because, amusingly, what the sequels boil down to in the end is two guys in a hole in the ground hitting each other. It’s the WWF on a cosmic scale. These things aren’t called burly brawls as a matter of convenience, the Wachowskis really mean it. Among the things that the Wachowskis must be fans of is Alan Moore’s run on Miracleman. I don’t know if they’ve ever come out and admitted it, but the final confrontation between Neo and Agent Smith at the end of Revolutions is awfully similar to that of Mike Moran and Johnny Bates in Miracleman #15. And they must also be familiar with the marriage of heaven and hell at the end of Swamp Thing #50 and the cosmic endings of Japanese anime. This is why Revolutions doesn’t end with a tubthumping victory, but with a highly unamerican concept in 2003: peace. There is a sense, particularly in the battle for the dock, that this is a film that goes too far and gives you too much to look at. On the contrary, I wish more films were as ambitious.

eXistenZ (1999)

The Matrix wasn’t the only mindjob of a movie released in 1999, there was also David Cronenberg’s first original script for a number of years. Somehow, Cronenberg’s films have remained away from this blog all year, possibly because I was saving them up for a full career runthrough at some stage. eXistenZ pulls a wonderful trick on its audience that is impossible to discuss without spoiling it for anyone who hasn’t seen it. Suffice it to say that it matches the exposition of The Matrix for its ability to mess with your head.

One cinema visit marked with a *. I inadvertently ended up with a season of Cameron Crowe films that ought to be called Bring Me the Head of Cameron Crowe. But isn’t. Though you can imagine that it is if that makes you feel better.

Elizabethtown (2005)

William Goldman makes great play of beginnings and endings in Adventures in the Screen Trade, and how good the end of North by Northwest (1959) is and how bad the end of Excalibur (1981) is by comparison. Unfortunately, this film fits into the latter category. It is another warm film about people and your ability to tolerate it may depend upon your like or dislike of Orlando Bloom or Kirsten Dunst. I liked it, but Crowe has got the ending badly wrong. Without giving too much away, the film ends with a (much-criticised) road trip. The problem is that Crowe hasn’t realised that the road trip is his equivalent of Hitchcock’s MacGuffin, an item the characters in a film care intensely about, but which should be of no importance to the audience. And the road trip lasts ten minutes at a time when the film is basically over. All you would need is about one minute of road trip running over the main end credits, then the film’s ending and that’s it, out in two minutes. Without nine minutes of padding that it doesn’t need.

Say Anything… (1989)

After his unhappiness at the way his script of The Wild Life (1984) was brought to the screen, he was determined to direct his next script. And this was the result, a great movie from the 80s, a teen romantic comedy no less, that has none of the horribleness of the John Hughes movies, or, even worse, the sub-John Hughes movies.

Singles (1992)

Even though I think it had been some years since Crowe worked for Rolling Stone, he’s remained in touch with popular culture in the way that other film directors haven’t. Hence his next film, which is what Friends (1994) could have been like if it hadn’t been made for TV, is set in Seattle miraculously as the thing that journalists labelled grunge was happening. So there’s the amusing spectacle of Kyra Sedgwick and Campbell Scott politely moshing at an Alice in Chains gig. Alright.

Jerry Maguire (1996)

Even though it has a picture of Tom Cruise smiling on the cover, this is a film about failure. It has its moments of warmth, but for most of the movie, Jerry Maguire is dancing on the abyss of emptiness at 33. It also highlights how darned good Tom Cruise is as an actor, an actor cursed with movie star good looks. For all the well-deserved flak he’s taken recently, what remains is his performances, as long as he works with a good director who pushes him.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) *

As the books have got longer, the films have turned into a kind of precis rather than the overly slavish approach of Chris Columbus in the first two movies. Although it may seem rather gratuitous to some, I actually saw this at the Imax with the final 20 minutes in 3D. And wow is all I have to say about that. Bring on The Dark Knight (2008), that’s what I say. Harry Potter isn’t for everyone, but it is cool to see how the actors have grown into their roles.

Untitled (2000)

For the record, this was the extended version of Almost Famous in DTS 5.1. Very nice. The film won an Oscar for Best Sound, a fact that may seem rather strange until you realise that it won it for the onstage sequences where in a film, you actually had the sound, the volume, the depth, the bass, that you would have got if Stillwater had performed at a real concert. The film is nostalgic in the best sense, an elegy for a way of life and a time and a place that have disappeared forever, except in the memories of the ones who were there. Almost Famous is the culmination of Crowe’s interest in people, relationships and character, and it will be interesting to see what happens next after the criticism of Vanilla Sky (2001) and the financial disappointment of Elizabethtown (2005).