"Accomplishments"
In theaters: You might think you have The Outfit figured out, at various points, but like a well-made suit, it's a thing of many parts, not all of them visible. Like Mark Rylance's tailor--I mean cutter, this movie seems quiet and unassuming, but has hidden depths and keeps throwing twists and turns at the audience. Chicago, 1956, a night of gangland warfare with stakes that could be John Wick-adjacent, the tailor shop becomes a pied-à-terre for mobsters. Rylance's character must navigate this dangerous situation with careful pulling of threads so he can get himself and his receptionist/surrogate daughter out of there alive. No surprise, he gives a pleasantly subtle performance and makes the witty script sparkle. A "bottle show" that could be reworked as a play, you'll still get caught up in the tense atmosphere, as various characters climb a web of complicated lies and try not to get eaten by the spider at its center. Just who is that spider depends on your point of view at any given moment. A smart first feature for director Graham Moore, better known as a scriptwriter (having won an Oscar for The Imitation Game).
At home: Just about everyone I know wanted Cliff Beasts 6 to be real, an ultimate trash sequel to a fake monster franchise, so The Bubble's marketing may well have outsmarted the film itself. Would-be Cliff Beasts fans may be glad to know we see ENOUGH of the movie the scratch the itch, though the movie is really a comedy about a movie production working under COVID restrictions. I think we get the absurdity, but it still feels like a massive inside jokes for industry professionals. Besides, a lot of this could have been told without the "bubble", since movie people are often thrown together for months, far away from home. Judd Apatow gets a good cast and lots of comedy cameos, so there's probably someone you like in here, either top billed or as a surprise, but it feels extremely padded for a comedy and I think might have worked better as a 4-6 25-minute episode mini-series. As is, it can be amusing, but the plot takes forever to take shape and you might find yourself looking at the clock and thinking, wait, there's HOW MUCH left?!
Featuring a poster that makes it look like either a cyberpunk or time travel movie, Timebomb is actually a B-movie version of The Manchurian Candidate (ish). Michael Biehn "on the edge" is always watchable, and in this one, he's a brainwashed super-soldier whose live as a government assassin he's only starting to remember. He teams up with his therapist to stop his former colleagues' attempt on the Attorney General, but ironically, if they hadn't tried to kill him, he wouldn't even have been activated. In terms of action, it's pretty standard, with lots of machine guns in downtown L.A., but when it gets more physical, it looks like it hurts. No really, I feel like some actors got hurt from time to time (though there's also an example of a very obvious stunt person early on). Biehn's co-star Patsy Kensit in particular gets knocked about a LOT. Perfectly watchable trash, but I'm docking it a notch for how absurdly exploitative it is, never missing an opportunity to shoot scenes under sexualized billboards, staging action in an X-rated cinema, and making Biehn have pornographic flashbacks. That's of course in addition to the obligatory sex scene. I get it, sex sells, but Timebomb often just feels icky.
/1996: My one word review of DragonHeart would be "Unconvincing". Sure, that applies to the 90s CG dragon, even if the production manages a number of good interaction gags with the live action. It's rather like they grabbed a cartoon monster from How to Train Your Dragon and slipped it in. But that's the era, and not entirely the film's fault (except in ambition), it's not what I really mean. I mean the bad wigs, the worse accents used by the American stars, and a number of plot elements (like, do all dragons have Sean Connery's voice, and if not, why can't Dennis Quaid make the connection?). More than anything though, it's that the film doesn't really have control over its tone. Sometimes it's meant as dead sincere Arthuriana, most of the time it's light, slapstick action with comedy kills etc., unless it's not and then it's just violent Medieval stuff. But it's still watchable, has a stellar cast (especially the British contingent), and its cheesy ending should warm the heart at least a little bit.
Also from that year: The Craft, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach
1997: So Kevin Sorbo trades in his Hercules chips to get into movies and it's Kull the Conqueror?! With its horrendous CG, objectionable wigs (apparently a De Laurentiis feature), wooden acting, and TV quality barely above that of The Legendary Journeys, that's not much of a trade. The heavy metal score makes it even cheaper - if you're going to be anachronistic, go all the way, not just SOMEtimes and give the action and cinematography that style too. At least the world feels like it has back story, with Kull essentially at the end of his pulp journey, becoming king and having to defend his crown from demon witch Tia Carerre (absurdly coiffed as a red head). The way he gets there is clunky and the second act quest forces another awkward structural change, but at least we can't call the plot "slim". Though it may seem derivative because it was originally supposed to be a third Conan film, it's not like Conan the Barbarian itself didn't borrow heavily FROM the Kull stories - Thulsa Doom, the hero's life as a slave, that's all Kull, not Conan. So fair game. Unfortunately, the result is underwhelming.
Also from that year: Princess Mononoke, Disney's Hercules
1998: What would the Hollywood version of Wim Wenders' meditative Wings of Desire be like? It's a thing that exists and it's perhaps no surprise (especially in the 90s) that City of Angels should follow a romcom formula. Not that it's funny, or trying to be, but making it a Meg Ryan vehicle and pushing the romance above all else is reductive. Many elements of Wings of Desire remain - the library, for example - but in no way is City as bold as the original. Los Angeles is used instead of Berlin, but it's not much more than a pun. Nic Cage's angel gets to experience life (in what seems like a fourth act), but it's all about love, love, tragic love. The ending is very manipulative and feels manufactured. If you've never seen Wings, you may well enjoy it for what it is. If you have, it tries its best, but it's trapped in an undemanding formula. Still, the leads are watchable (Cage is mostly restrained), Ryan always rather underrated. Dennis Franz is quite good as their guide. And it's pretty cool to see Andre Braugher and Nick Offerman as young actors (the latter in a bit part).
Also from that year: After Life, Sliding Doors, Pleasantville
1999: Made as if the German expressionist movement of the silent era had never ended, Tuvalu is a strange throwback to color-filtered black and white, strange angles and lo-fi effects. Sound design is very important to the mood and story, but dialog is onomatopoeic at best (and indeed, uses words from various languages). It stars the always bold Denis Lavant (Beau travail, Holy Motors) as Anton, a man desperate to keep his decrepit public pool open in a wasteland of bulldozed buildings, despite the efforts of an evil land developer to get it marked for demolition, efforts that even include turning Anton's love interest against him. The way Anton gets out of it is very entertaining, and by that point, you've rewired your brain to better process the old school film making that perhaps at first, had you wondering what was going on. In the end, I very much enjoyed the style and the movie's flights of fancy. Throwback or not, it feels quite original.
Also from that year: Being John Malkovich, Dogma, The Mummy
2000: A cheeseball time travel romance out of Korea, Ditto sits at the crossroads of that same year's Il Mare (remade as The Lakehouse) and Frequency, as university students from 1979 and 2000 start to magically communicate across the years via ham radio. They have other romantic potentials in their lives so to call it a romance isn't exactly it, but that poetic ending does justify calling it that. I suppose it's about relationships one builds up in one's head, and how infatuation, even when reciprocated, doesn't necessarily mean one is fated to be with the person. There's definitely something there, but the movie takes a little too long to get the premise going, and therefore makes us wait for the more relatable characters in the year 2000, in favor of Kim Ha-neul's overacting of teenage emotions. I suppose if I find it cheesy, a lot of it down to the oppressive piano score (the strings, often used for the year 2000, are way better), but the soapy acting definitely plays a part.
Also from that year: Il Mare, How the Grinch Stole Christmas
2001: I've never played the game, so I guess my question is whether Lara Croft actually fights robots in it. If not, the first few minutes of her first movie are even more nonsensical. Angelina Jolie is striking in the role despite being strapped with an English accent and a weirdly-shaped bra. In fact, one of the worst things about this is how embarrassingly sexualized she is - like Jolie needs it! Pre-Bond Daniel Craig provides a bit of tat for tit, but that's not any better. The attempts at humor are also lame (as is the dialog), and physics don't always seem to apply to these characters. However, I can excuse the latter because the action scenes evoke Hong Kong cinema's gun fu, though things eventually devolve into fights with CG monsters and set pieces no doubt inspired by the video game. It's the kind of stuff I can't stand in fantasy films of this era. The post-production slow-mo is the pits. As a more fantastical/superheroic take on Indiana Jones, it's fine. Artifacts must be collected before the Illuminati can use them to reverse time and change history, an adventure that makes use of locations that haven't been overdone, like Cambodia and Siberia. It's just a bit too exploitative is all.
Also from that year: The Fellowship of the Ring, Spirited Away, Shrek, Harry Potter begins
2002: I don't think anyone ever expected a dragon apocalypse, so Reign of Fire scores some points on premise alone. It's also got a pretty good genre action cast, with Christian Bale and Gerard Butler as community leaders protecting a human stronghold (for Trekkies, Alexander Siddig is also there) and Matthew McConaughey as an American soldier with some experience and useful knowledge when it comes to slaying dragons. These beasts look pretty good and having burned the world, there's a Medieval feel to what's left. What hurts it is the structure. We start with an origin (a waste of Alice Krige) before plunging into cheap infodump narration, and McConaughey shows up as a main character only in the second act. It's clumsy. Never mind the slim world building that makes the plans and results highly suspect. Pretty watchable, but fails to realize its full potential.
Also from that year: The Two Towers, The Cat Returns, so does Harry Potter
2003: Lara Croft 2 - Raid Harder - is a better movie that the first by virtue of letting some of the video game elements - the puzzle-like rooms and polygonal Lady Croft - in favor of a more Bondian feel - globe-trotting adventure, big stunts, MI-6 even gives her the mission. The baby didn't exactly get thrown out with the bathwater - the magical relics are still epic, Lara still sexy without forcing the issue - but the action isn't quite as interesting. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. I appreciate The Cradle of Life's limited use of CG creatures and more grounded experience (but damn, why did de Bont feel the need to use obnoxious slow-mo like Miller did?), it's just that when you cut fights on every move, you sap a lot of the style and effect from it. Gerard Butler is a better version of Daniel Craig's selfish merc character, but the relationship is more complex and therefore more rewarding. And this Hong Kong cinema fan liked seeing Simon Yam in an American production. The better of Jolie's Tomb Raider movies, but I still prefer Alicia Vikander's.
Also from that year: The Return of the King, Big Fish, Pirates of the Caribbean begins
2004: Ahead of the curve in telling stories about consent, Ella Enchanted also conflates sexual consent with tyranny in its other forms, because they're all related, in a fairy tale universe that evokes Shrek's and A Knight's Tale. Ella is very much Cinderella, though like the baby in Sleeping Beauty and later, Frozen's Elsa, she's cursed by a supernatural agent (world's worst fairy), in her case cursed with obedience. And so the romantic, but also political action becomes the quest to free herself from it, and the land from its cartoonish king's villainy. The prince is essentially Hamlet, about to be denied the throne by his evil uncle, and there's even a key scene in a hall of mirrors that makes it seem like someone watched Branagh's 1996 adaptation for research. Benefiting from Anne Hathaway's star power, just coming off The Princess Daries, this fairy tale remix is goofy as all get-out, like a live action cartoon, but that's part of the fun. Some performances fall under the category of panto, but then Steve Coogan's snake Heston delivers a line and all is forgiven. Downton Abbey's butler is an ogre. Heidi Klum is a giantess. Bonus Eric Idle rhyming narration. It's wacky like that.
Also from that year: Howl's Moving Castle, Shrek 2, The Polar Express
Books: There are a couple of passages about cats in The Door into Summer that make me believe Robert Heinlein gets the feline mindset. We reach on that point. His politics though... oof! I could do without his Libertarian claptrap about the bootstrap myth, and do all his protagonists have to whine about how much money is taken off their paychecks?! The more objectionable trope, of course, is the science-fiction example of grooming present in the novel's pages - Heinlein seems to see children as objects of desire (even if you have to wait for it) and it's pretty disgusting. Otherwise, I was promised a time travel story, and it's one that partly uses the slow path (cryogenics), but that once you realize going in the other direction is possible, is pretty easy to predict (at least, if you've been paying attention). The thriller element comes as an engaging surprise, but I often felt like I was ahead of the protagonist in solving the mysteries at the heart of the book. Though I'd bought about a half-dozen Heinlein books second hand, like, 20 years ago, and am only getting to them now, I think I'm actually ready to throw in the towel after just two.
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