Sunday, July 04, 2004
THE TANGLED WEB OF SPIDER-MAN 2
Sometimes you just take it for granted that a movie will be great. You’ve got preconceptions. After all, the first Spider-Man movie was a great roller coaster ride, the critics have come out in force to praise the sequel to the high heavens and the trailer looks great. So you sit back as the lights fade and just assume you’re in for a great time. No doubts at all. And then it falls apart before your eyes. Well, most of it, anyway.
Spider-Man 2 is not a bad movie. In fact, whenever Doc Ock is onscreen, it strives for greatness. But the aspect of Peter Parker that made him such a popular comic book character – the sheer melodrama of his angst-ridden life – has become such a fucking annoyance that it just brings the movie to a screeching halt every time he takes off his costume.
Let’s get something straight right off the bat. When I was a kid, I dug the Spider-man comics of the 60's and 70's a lot and read them regularly. As an adult, and as someone who still reads comics, I just can’t stomach the soap opera that is Peter Parker’s life anymore. Just like the X-Men have become a bunch of characters who trade lovers and moan about their mutant outsider status, the Spider-Man of the comics would fit perfectly in a soap opera. But where the X-Men have been able to sidestep this crap in their movies for the most part, the Spider-man movies wallow in it. Which is probably a big part of their appeal to some people – leave in all the sobbing and romance and you’re guaranteed repeat ticket sales from the teenage girl market that obsessed over Titanic. Me, I can live without the soap suds. Sure it's nice to have a hero who has problems and who is human, but enough is enough! If you wallow in the angst too much - it becomes a joke.
That said, the one thing I've always loved about Spider-man are his villains. He has one of the most bizarre and exciting rogues galleries in comics. Personal favorites include the Green Goblin (but not his mostly lame-ass descendents), The Sandman, The Lizard, The Kingpin, The Rhino (a character who never really got his due), and of course later formidable bad guys like Venom and Carnage.
One thing that really surprises me about the two Spider-Man movies so far is the use of villains. In the first one, they had the Green Goblin, the quintessential Spider-man villain, and in some ways they blew it. The mask, that looks like a robot from The Might Morphin Power Rangers – without expression and totally hiding the face of talented actor Wilhem DaFoe – kinda ruined the character for me. Sure the fights were exciting, and the plot worked, but the Goblin lost something. He was okay, but not as much fun as he was in the comics. And I just couldn’t get past that shitty mask of his. Sure the mask in the comics was just made of rubber, but for some reason it always had a very human, maniacal grin on it that summed up what ol’ GG was all about. Render him faceless and he’s just another psycho on a bat glider.
But I forgave the first Spider-Man because it got everything else right. The pacing, the characters, the feel of the comics. Director Sam Raimi showed that he was a fan of this stuff and that he could bring it to the screen with an ease no other comic book movie director had ever done before.
In Spider-Man 2, the villain is Doctor Octopus. In the comics, he is second only to the Goblin when it comes to personal history between him and Spider-man, first appearing all the way back in issue # 3 of the comic (which is even pre-Goblin). But as a character, he’s always seemed to be something of a joke to me. With his coke-bottle glasses and Moe Howard haircut, Doc Ock is nothing if not goofy. But Raimi took this bespectacled oddball and turned him into a legitimate and manacing bad guy (with the help of actor Alfred Molina of course) who dominates every single scene he’s in.
Suddenly the good doctor is not so silly. His mechanical arms, grafted to him when an experiment in fusion goes awry, look downright scary now. And as portrayed by a thespian with the chops of Molina, he’s fleshed out in ways he never was in the comic, and with a minimum of screen time. You care about this guy, you regret what’s happened to him, and then you see him for the formidable menace he is.
Ock, using his arms to climb up the sides of buildings or knock Spider-man’s ass across the block, is even more fun than the Goblin was in the first one. In fact, I’ll go out on a limb to suggest that he might just be the most dynamic, exciting super villain brought to the screen so far. Ever. And based on that metal armed geek from the comics – who knew?
But Doc Ock is what’s right with the movie. The sad thing is, Raimi gets everything else wrong this time around, and it all revolves around Peter Parker’s decision to give up being Spider-Man and trying to live a normal life again. As life conspires to keep Peter down – he’s practically penniless all the time, living in a dump of an apartment where he’s always late for the rent; his Aunt May is getting evicted from her own house for the same reason; and the love of his life, Mary Jane Watson, is engaged to the son of J. Jonah Jameson – the newspaper editor who hates Spider-Man’s guts but who also employs Peter to take pictures of him.
All of these things are from the comics, so Raimi hasn’t been unfaithful to his source material. But the point is, all this weepy shit gets on your nerves after awhile, and puts the movie in a sort of limbo, as you can’t wait to see him put the costume back on and just get his ass back in gear. The most annoying storyline of all is the excruciating will-they-won’t-they weepfest that the love relationship between Peter and Mary Jane has become. At this point, who gives a fuck? Peter doesn’t want to get involved with anyone because he’s afraid his enemies will exploit his lovelife to get back at him – but Mary Jane still has been captured by the Green Goblin and Doc Ock, despite Peter’s attempts to live the life of a monk – so does it really matter? Why not have a little happiness in his otherwise miserable life?
The thing is, you notice that when he’s in costume fighting bad guys, Parker ISN’T so fucking miserable. Crime fighting gives him a sense of joy that’s not in his depressing civilian life. Which is why Spiderman 2 is such an aggravating movie. When Parker decides to give up the one part of his life that’s really interesting, the movie ceases to be interesting, too. It’s only when he changes his mind and suits up to fight Doc Ock that things get great again, but by then it’s the last half hour of the movie and it’s too late to salvage things completely.
And what’s so great about Mary Jane anyway? As portrayed by Kirsten Dunst, she’s actually kind of annoying, waffling as much as Parker is. Why doesn't she just grab this idiot, shake some sense into him and say “Do you want me or not, you wimp!” Also, in the comics, Mary Jane is supposed to be a model and an actress, and I’m sorry, but Dunst just isn’t hot enough, baby. I can think of a half dozen actresses who’d be better for the role, and who might have more chemistry with Tobey Maguire. I was able to overlook this in the first movie, but this time around, it was more glaring.
Half of Spiderman 2 is one of the greatest superhero movies ever made. Every time Alfred Molina is on screen, every time Spidey fights Ock, it’s as thrilling as the first movie, maybe even more so. But the other half of the film, where Peter Parker wallows in his depression and slops around in sappiness, I could gladly do without.
Raimi stays true to the comics and Maguire still has Peter Parker down cold, but this time around they focus a little too much on the crap and not enough on the stuff that can make this series great.
Like I said, I went into this one expecting it to be a no-brainer that I'd love it. But the things that are wrong with it just bugged me enough to ruin my enjoyment of the film as a whole. And good ol' Doc Ock, the best thing in the film, just isn't onscreen enough to make things right.
SUMMER MOVIES PART 1 - 2004
Saw a ton of movies the last couple of weekends, and here's a quick rundown. I've already discussed Farenheit 9/11 and am going to review Spider-Man 2 right after this, but here are some other things I've seen lately:<
TIME OF THE WOLF - French filmmaker Michael Haneke made the disturbingly fascinating film The Piano Teacher with Isabelle Hupert. Huppert stars again in his latest film, which has some good ideas but which has one central problem that really ruined the movie for me. I'll get to the problem in a minute, but first a quick recap of the plot. A family goes to their summer house in the country to find that another family has broken in and are staying there. While the father of the intruder family holds a gun on them, the "civilized" father tries to explain and make a deal with them. He's shot for his trouble. The intruders take all of their supplies and force the "civilized" family's wife/mother (Isabelle Huppert) and two kids to leave. They wander around a countryside they do not recognize, no one will take them in, and we start to realize that something is very wrong.
It is never explained but some apocalyptic event has changed the world around them. Desperate for food and shelter, the woman and her children join in with another group of "survivors," and the story goes from there, showing us day to day life in this new world. At one point they even come across the family who killed Huppert's husband again, creating some real tension.
The concept of Time of the Wolf is interesting, and the acting is good. The standout characters are Huppert's children, the teen-age daughter Eva (Anais Demoustier) who keeps a diary and has a kind of boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with an odd boy who steals from the camp, and younger son Benny (Lucas Biscombe) who is a much more tortured soul than we are first led to believe. These kids are great in their roles and are the strongest personalities of the film. Huppert, normally a strong actress, isn't given much to do in this movie, and pretty much just goes around looking horrified and explaining that "we're from the city" to anyone who will listen.
The movie has a real sense of atmosphere, and is thought provoking. I didn't even mind that the "apocalypse" itself is never explained, and we have no idea why these people are behaving the way they are. Like life, shit happens, and people adapt. Some critics have also complained about the bleak outlook of the film, but that has always been a plus for me. I'm not about to turn on a film for having a negative point of view.
But the one big problem I did have with this movie is its pacing. This thing moves so fucking slow in parts that it is torture. I have one basic rule when I go to the movies - the number one sin a filmmaker can make is to be boring. And the pacing of Time of the Wolf makes large chunks of it very boring indeed. Even though this is the kind of movie that has you thinking afterwards, and appreciating it more in hindsight, the actual effort of sitting through it is pretty excruciating. And a big reason why I am reluctant to recommend it. Wait for the video and then you can fast-forward through the slow parts.
NAPOLEON DYNAMITE -I've read that the filmmakers who made this wanted to make a "PG-version of South Park" and it's produced by MTV, so for those reasons alone I should hate it. But I didn't. There's a lot to like about Napoleon Dynamite, starting with lead actor Jon Heder, who is amazing in the role of a nerd who just doesn't give a fuck. He's tall and gawky and weird, but he doesn't apologize and doesn't really seem insecure about who he is. He fights back and he speaks his mind. He's an aggressive nerd who actually seems to like being different, and that's exactly what makes this movie so cool.
The only friends Napoleon has are Pedro - the new kid in school - who is Mexican and thus an outsider in this small town as well, and Deb, a nerdy quiet girl who takes glamour photos of people on the side to make money.
Napoleon's family life is no better. He lives with his grandmother and his older brother Kip, who is even nerdier than he is. Kip doesn't seem to work and spends his day surfing the internet going on chat rooms. When their grandmother takes ill and has to go to the hospital, their uncle Rico shows up to "look after them" (even though Kip is an adult). Rico is a bizarre character who seems to be locked in a 70's time warp of polyester suits and a bad mustache. He claims to be a stud but lives in his van and films himself throwing footballs, trying to recapture the glory of his high school years that are long gone.
Storylines involve everything from Pedro running for class president (the kid actually seems to be in a depressive coma most of the time, so it's pretty funny) to Kip meeting his true love over the internet, a cool black chick from the city who transforms Kip into a slang-spouting homey (this storyline is especially hilarious) to Deb trying to get Napoleon to notice her.
Sometimes the movie just tries way to hard to be weird and quirky and comes off like a less edgy version of Todd Solondz's Welcome to the Dollhouse. But, for the most part, there's a lot of laughs in Napoleon Dynamite, and the characters are just endearing enough to make you enjoy spending some time in their world. It's also really refreshing to see a nerd character who isn't ashamed of what he is and who has some real attitude. Napoleon Dynamite has that and more.
(By the way, I thought Napoleon Dyanmite was a really familiar name and finally realized that it was a psuedonym that Elvis Costello used on one of his albums.)
BEFORE SUNSET - If you saw 1995's Before Sunrise, this is Richard Linklater's sequel to that previous film. That one involved an American guy and a French girl who meet on a train, start a conversation, and find themselves hitting it off. At one point they get off the train and spend a night together, mostly talking, and eventually making love. They agree to meet again six months later. It starred Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, and I remember thinking I'd hate it, but seeing it because I think Linklater is just an amazing director (he also did such great films as Slacker, Dazed and Confused, Tape, Waking Life and even the recent School of Rock (!) - all of which are worth seeking out). I found Before Sunrise to be the first intelligent "chick flick" I'd ever seen, mainly because it's not really a "chick flick" at all. It's about two people who meet and fall in love - but they seem like real people, not romanticized caricatures.
It's all about the one that got away...
Before Sunset, the sequel, takes place nine years later. Ethan Hawke's character, Jesse, is now a best-selling author in Paris for a book signing. Julie Delpy's character, Celine, comes to see him. He's written a book about the night they spent together nine years before. He's overjoyed to see her, even though he's married now and has a kid. She's in a relationship herself. But they start talking and instantly pick up where they left off all those years earlier.
Jesse's marriage is on the rocks, Celine is unhappy, and it's clear that there was some magic that night nine years earlier, and that both of them have been pining for each other since. In real life, if something like this happened, chances are you'd never see the person again, and you'd move on. But they get a second chance. At first, they're both hesitant to open themselves emotionally again - they're afraid that they'll just go their separate ways again (he's supposed to catch a plane in a couple of hours when they meet up) and that they'll both be hurt again. But they do open up and the conversation thaws them. The magic isn't gone.
Linklater is a terrific director when it comes to dialogue. He's created whole films that are based totally on dialogue that work perfectly (aside from Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, stuff like Tape come instantly to mind). His first film, Slacker, was just a series of conversations by different people in a Texas town. And he pulls it off seamlessly. His characters are interesting - you want to hear what they have to say. And Before Sunset is no different.
You know a movie is good when an actor who normally annoys the hell out of you (in my case, Ethan Hawke) can appear likable and sympathetic. And Julie Delpy is downright adorable.
You want to see a smart date movie that will leave you feeling good afterwards and not like you just wasted your money on shit? Then check out Before Sunset.
Next up: Spider-Man 2
Saturday, July 03, 2004
FARENHEIT 9/11
I meant to write about this earlier, but things have been kinda hectic on this end. Went to go see Michael Moore's new movie last Friday night when it opened, but couldn't. For some reason every fucking showing that night was sold out. It was playing on multiple screens at a few theaters, and we went to two different places, and had no luck at all. There were lines around the block. Who would have thought this would happen for a documentary - much less a political one about the Bush administration?
Saw the movie the next day, only because we got tickets online beforehand. But once again the showing was a packed house. Even more amazing was the standing ovation the audience gave it afterwards.
So after all the hype and controversy surrounding this movie - is it worth seeing?
You bet it is!
I've seen every movie Moore has made so far, and he has a real knack for making you think, and making very real points, while keeping you entertained. He's done this since his first movie, Roger and Me, which took aim at General Motors for closing down their factory in Moore's home town of Flint, Michigan, tossing hundreds of people out of work and into poverty, right up through last year's Bowling for Columbine where Moore examined what happened at Columbine High School that fateful day, and realizing there are no easy answers, and that the media itself creates a society of fear that eats its own tail.
But with Farenheit 9/11, Moore fries his biggest fish yet, as he examines our government, and for the most part just parades a series of disturbing facts in front of us and lets us make up our own minds about what's going on. And it really is some disturbing stuff - starting with how Bush won the election - a fact that is still very much under debate, to the current situation in Iraq, to the deep ties between the Bush family and Saudi Arabia. I don't want to go into too much detail here - you should really go see the movie and make up your own mind - but Moore does his homework, and he's presented us with a thoughtful, emotional look at the state of the country. And it's not good news at all.
Moore has been criticized for being heavy-handed and for having an agenda - but he's a filmmaker, not a reporter on the 6:00 news, and all of his movies do have a point of view. But what's wrong with that? Every conservative talk show host pontificating on radio or FoxNews has a point of view and an agenda, and yet they claim to be journalists. Even the reporters on the 6:00 news aren't completely objective. Like the best muckrakers, Moore exposes the underbelly for everyone to see. If you're like me, you've heard a lot of this stuff before, in the news, but when you see it all together in one movie, the sheer audacity of the Bush administration is amazing. This is one movie that will have you leaving the theater angry - and you SHOULD be angry.
Now go see it and decide for yourself already!
MARLON BRANDO (1924-2004)
Well, Marlon Brando died a couple of days ago (on July 1st). He was one of the greatest actors ever, even if he'd become kind of a joke in his later days. This doesn't erase how important he was to cinema.
Stand-out roles include his quintessential performance in The Godfather (1972), one of the greatest films ever made, amazing fucking roles in earlier movies like Elia Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) (where he played a total animal, Stanley Kawolski - what a great role!), and On the Waterfront (1954). The Wild One (1953) was cool too, single-handedly creating the biker genre, as Brando and Lee Marvin and their gangs squared off and took over a small town in the process. Even a small role in Apocalypse Now (1979), as Kurtz, was so amazing that it added to Brando's legend as one of the greats.
But perhaps my favorite role of his is Bertulocci's underrated LAST TANGO IN PARIS (1972), which was overshadowed by controversy about the sex, but which gave Brando the chance to play a very interesting character in the middle of his career - an American in Paris whose wife had recently died and who drowns his sorrow in anonymous sex with a Parisian woman. I even saw glimpses of Henry Miller in his performance. The movie really deserves a second look as the masterpiece that it is.
Brando was one of the greats. No doubt about that. And his death is a loss to anyone who loves movies.
