Super Short Movie Reviews

I'm so behind on my movie reviews, so here are short ones of the films I saw recently:

Closer (9/10) -- Everything about this film is nearly perfect. The performances were superb -- stunning, even, in the cases of Clive Owen and Natalie Portman, who exceeded herself in Garden State. The film shows four ruthless and selfish people in absurb love triangles. Interestingly, we never get to see them being happy. All we see are the beginning -- when one woos another away from someone else -- and the end -- when one leaves another. Both are the most painful parts of relationships in general, and we never see the supposedly happy things in the middle. Might as well -- this is a film not so much about relationships as it is about how we break them down, tear them up and abuse them to fulfill our absurd and desperate fear of loneliness. To that end, it serves up an amazing brew. The film was adapted from a play, and it shows. Characters spew hyper-intelligent lines at superhuman speed, and the way they talk is dazzling and frightening. Of course, this kind of stagey dialogue suits me just fine -- I'm not all that interested in reality anyway, as you may have gathered. The film basically moves from one fight/courtship scene to another, and boy are they spectacular! A fight between Clive Owen and Julia Roberts and a courtship between Clive Owen and Natalie Portman are two of the most breath-taking scenes all year long. Some take issues with there being no likeable characters. I would argue the point (I thought Natalie Portman's character was quite adorable), but it's true -- if you can't stand movies that don't have any character that you can like or relate to, Closer is not for you. Me? I'm just having too much fun watching them slash each other down in the most dazzling ways possible. There's love for ya.

A Very Long Engagement (9/10) -- Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Audrey Tautou -- director and actress of the adorable Amelie -- reunite in this beautiful film on one girl's search for his fiance, who was lost (and presumed dead) during his service in France for World War I. Yes, it's a war movie -- it's much heavier and less lyrical than Amelie, and Jeunet tones down his cinematic tricks to bring gravity to the subject matter. But the film is still one of the best-looking movies of the year, and the cinematography is just outstanding. Critics argue that it's too whimsical for the subject matter, and it may be, but we are not at all spared of some horrible and graphic war images. The plot is extremely complicated -- that it was adapted from an even more complex book guarantees this -- and sometimes difficult to follow. But even if you don't understand absolutely every detail in the first viewing, you'll still enjoy it at a more intuitive level. And, though it does have its light-hearted moments, it's the saddest movie of the year.

The Life Acquatic with Steve Zissou (8/10) -- This is, for me, the funniest movie of 2004. Coming from the quirky Wes Anderson, whose previous films -- Rushmore, The Royal Tennanbaums -- earned nothing but smiles from me, I expected little more than a few chuckles. But from the first scene, I was laughing like a mad man. It may be just me -- there were several moments when I was the only one laughing in the theater -- but Bill Murray gives such a funny and awkward performance that I feel like laughing every time he's on screen. Anderson also shows off a bit in a spectacular, emotionally-heated scene toward the end that is at once shocking and breath-taking. Great stuff.

Bad Education (8/10) -- Pedro Almodovar -- America's favorite Spanish director, last year nominated for Talk to Her -- has made a sumptuous film here. The plot is complicated and interesting, and the way he juggles multiple timelines and varying degrees of reality is brilliant. No plot details are necessary -- you should just watch it. I've never seen a Almodovar film, and I am very impressed. Once interesting note, though -- it is rated NC-17. WHY? For the record, as far as I can remember, this film has absolutely NO NUDITY. There are plenty of sex scenes -- the film is notorious for it -- but none of them show any private body parts. The only thing that this film differs from other, more explicit, R-rated films, is that the sex scenes are between two men. Is this reason enough to push it to NC-17? If there are other reasons, I'd love to know. Otherwise, this is completely ludicrous.

The House of Flying Daggers (7/10) -- For those who thought Hero was visually spectacular but emotionally hollow, this film is director Zhang Yimou's response. It has (thankfully!) fewer fight scenes, and none as dazzling as the leaves fight in Hero, but it actually has a real plot now, and one filled with real characters. Yes, it still feels pretty hollow, and I still don't really care much about the characters, but at least I'm not bored. And the beautiful fight scenes -- especially the one in a bamboo forest -- certainly elevate it above your typical martial arts film. Now that Zhang Yimou has gotten all these cool-fight ideas out of his system in Hero, he was finally able to craft a better film that's more than a rack on which to hang his fight scenes. It's unfortunate that he's not making another wuxia film -- at least not yet -- because next time, he might actually focus on the characters.

Finding Neverland (6/10) -- It's fine Hollywood yarn. Johnny Depp was fine, and Kate Winslet was fine. The plot was fine (if not a little trite) and the direction was fine. But it's sugary and a tad manipulative towards the end, and in general just not all that spectacular. There is very little magic as James Mathew Berrie writes his masterpiece, Peter Pan, compared moments from other literary films like Shakespeare in Love or The Hours. And Berrie's "boundless imagination" could've been presented with a little more imagination. But still, there's nothing terribly wrong with it. It's fine.