Simone 8/21/2002
What’s Good: Two Al films in one summer. Nice.
What’s Not: The screenplay should reached further and gone to darker places in the second and third acts.
Directed by Andrew Niccol 
Plot Outline: A producer's film is endangered when his star walks off, so he decides to digitally create an actress to substitute for the star, becoming an overnight sensation that everyone thinks is a real person.

     "Our ability to manufacture fraud now exceeds our ability to detect it." So says Al Pacino, playing Viktor Taranski, a fallen director that is given a second chance thanks to computer technology in the vein of the all-digital "Final Fantasy" movie. "The scales have tipped, naturally, in favor of the fake" he says of the computer creation named Simone (Simulation One) that has now become a star and fooled a nation. For some reason Simone reminded me of Britney Spears' equally artificial performance in "Crossroads." Except, I doubt any simulation could act as poorly as Spears.

    This film is about so much more than Hollywood because, sadly, Hollywood is as a ubiquitous presence as the evening news and director/writer/producer Andrew Niccol contends that there is no escaping the fantasy of fakeness that we are reliant on. Niccol (who wrote "The Truman Show" and directed "GATACA") seems fascinated with the notion of what is real, but on a more satirical level than the many others who peddle that overused theme in recent time. Through a comedic guise, we are witness to a film about films, but more importantly; a film about how the media deifies mere mortals who appear these little films. We are all hooked on smoke and mirrors, Niccol seems to be saying, and in this film the public does just about everything to keep up the illusion that emperor has cloths on.

    "There mocking us," Pacino gripes about a difficult and mostly organic movie star played by the much missed Winona Ryder. "We always had movie stars but they were our stars." Well, early on in the picture Taranski gets his wish when a mad, one eyed computer scientist played nicely by Elias Koetas hands him a hard drive that allows a computer generated actress to be placed in any electronic construct. This turns out to be a blessing for Taranski. He has been given the ultimate subservient performer. No questions about motivation, no qualms about nudity or stunt work, no outrageous salaries, no freaky demands... just the performance. Simone is the true director's actors and Taranski figures nothing could go wrong.

     As a character well versed in the method school of Casavetes, Pacino is playing a guy who can't understand why quality doesn't come first in American cinema. The first question he is asked about his film after he has secretly inserted this "cinthespian," is "who is Simone seeing?"  The media has, in essence, created a monster that cares more about what Jodie Foster is wearing and who she is fucking rather than how solid her performance in "Panic Room" was. Or, to take it one step farther, there's a scene in this movie where a radio announcer is talking about the increasing crime rate and impending war then proclaims that more important than all of that "the Oscar nominations were announced today!!!"
     The message of this film is clear and repeated often yet I'm just not sure anybody wants to hear it. I doubt this film will make any money and I know the stodgy critics aren't going to get it.

     "I have taken nothing and created something" Pacino says with a hint of the same god complex from "The Devil's Advocate." What makes this film so intriguing is that Taranski is a "god" that no longer desires the creative power of life. He was drunk on being a belatedly respected puppet master and is now experiencing the nasty hangover of too much power. He wants out because it is only after getting respect and making the film he wants that he now realizes how shallow popular culture is and how cold those who are dishing it out are. The public doesn't care about a well directed Taranski picture. They just want Simone... As you can see this film endlessly preaches but is really ingenious in the way that we get to see Pacino's character go from a nobody with spirit to a somebody who is soulless. But this is not "Ragging Bull." On a skill level ("Simone" message is valid but is delivered hastily) but also in its pitch. The one note premise grows stale but is built on a foundation so strong that the film still works for me.
     All of this heavy material is presented in a way so severe and hard hitting that I smiled more than anything else. Hell, if even more cruel and morbid it would have gotten a solid A. Truth is, I couldn't help but to laugh at the publics warped reaction to a computer generated star that they think is real--they even give her Time Magazine's Person of the Year after she said that school children should be given guns because, "how else can they protect themselves."

    Who says De Niro is the only good actor that can be a funny these days... much credit should go to Pacino. Al, like many great (real) comedians projects misery and weariness without making the material a downer. Pacino's theater training seems fitting for this role.

      Despite a debilitating delay in this films release (two years!?) the cast and crew are really at the top of their game. I have mentioned Niccol and Pacino but the production is consistent all over and the only place I see it lagging is in the script department. There is a beautifully cold and minimal production design--I love the giant warehouse set with just a computer monitor. The "Gattaca" inspired photography (green lenses and all) is first rate. And moody orchestral musical score creats a nice mood. Plus, the co-stars in the picture don't present the characters as if these are stupid people. Even when they are all acting like sheep they are just sheep that want to be entertained. There is no distain that I detected, just desperation and acting out that need to conform. Pruitt Taylor Vince and Jason Schwartzman play Max and Milton (yes, that was also the name of Pacino's character in "The Devil's Advocate"), two cop-like journalists that will do anything to get the scoop on Simone. There's also Katherine Keener as Al's ex-wife and, surprise, she's a suit wearing movie executive. Keener is playing, as I said in my review for "Full Frontal" and every other film she is in: the most likable cunt in the business. Ryder in a prolonged cameo is also deceit as a haughty  movie actress that must have the red Mike and Ikes separated and baby nannies on planes must ride with her in first. Which would be fine except she has no children.  
     Finally, there's Simone. Real or not (she is though) Niccol wants us to believe that this is computer program but also a genuine personality. Granted, I thought Simone came off more smug than any of the humans, she still came off as a viable entity. One whose many scenes with Mr. Pacino work nicely because it is so easy to see Simone as just Pacino's alter ego. The back and fourth dialogue scenes between the two are amusing because Al's lonely character is both telling Simone what to say and arguing with her when she says it. This poor man has been reduced to thinking that Simone is as real as anyone else he's meet in the business. And he's right.    

    "Gattaca," "The Truman Show," and "Simone" are all about artifice. About not only a few characters being fooled, but a culture that is somehow flawed the way it is. Our our priorities are queer you see-- Gattica: our need to manufacture perfection through genes (one of the more underrated sci-fi films of the last decade); Truman Show: The cost of celebrity and our reliance on manufactured reality TV; And presently Simone. Indeed, Niccol does such a good job at making the media and movies seem so fake and murky then I might just start listening to him. If everything about movies are as hopelessly empty as Niccol thinks, then how low is a person on the evolutionary food chain who likes to write on them? Now there's an act that's so bogus and depressing that even Niccol wont touch it.

Grade: B+

The Sweetest Thing 8/23/2002
What’s Good: This year's record for most F films is going strong. Plus the DVD has a killer casual commentary with all the stars and director and it's fun to hear the feisty Selma Blair rag on the film's abysmal success ("this film closed after three weeks she jokes") and Christina Applegate's bad acting and bad hair.
What’s Not: The fact that Cameron Diaz still thinks she's funny.
Directed by Roger Kumble 
Plot Outline: A girl finds she is forced to educate herself on the etiquette of wooing the opposite sex when she finally meets Mr. Right.

"What’s up with you?"
"Nothing, what’s up with you?"
"Nothing. What’s up with you."
"Nothing… What’s up with you…"

    You either think that’s funny or you’re me. To get an idea of how humorous this film is take that minute of dialogue that I quoted above and fill up an 80 minute movie full of jokes approximately as witty as that (only more crass) and have them delivered by three women who think there way hotter than they actually are.  
     For the record: Yes, I hate the HBO's NY set show called "Sex in the City." And no its not because of the female empowerment of the four over the hill leads scare me (Buffy is empowered and intelligent) but because of trite duologue delivered by actress that have not yet learned the concept of subtlety or timing. So it is with this in mind that I can’t fully fault "The Sweetest Thing" as a failure. As a comedy, I would compare this cinematic accident to something like a 12-year-old that commits a murder. Sure the crime is his or her fault but one maybe should look at the monster's parents. And in this case, "The Sweetest Thing" is the retarded child that wished he/she could be like it's bad parental role model that is “Sex and the City,” an inept show that's Woody Allen without the insight, "Seinfeld" without the wry humor, and a whole lot of misplaced estrogen.

     “The Sweetest Thing” hurls gross out jokes at us like it’s still funny so many years after Diaz was in “Mary” (and its still can be… I still chuckle when I think about Jason Biggs and the glue from “American Pie 2”) but the bottom line is that nobody involved in this film should be doing these kinds of films. I still like Tomas Jane (he plays the normal love interest that, for some reason, Diaz chases after the whole movie), I sometimes like Diaz (I stress the sometimes part), I am still saying that Selma Blair will one day appear in a great movie, and even though the director Roger Kumble has two F films under his belt all hope is not lost because if he had one good one in him he might have another (his first film was "Cruel Intentions" and he provides a commentary on the DVD that is far better than the actual film). I guess what I'm saying is that even though all the people involved in this film--save the useless Christina Applegate-- can be winning, I would rather see all of them quit the business today then to try to be funny again.

Grade: F

The Rookie 8/26/2002
What’s Good: Quaid revives his career with this role. A nice little film but Texas is still at the top of my list as the top five worst states in America go. That ain't changin for a long long while.   
What’s Not: Pretty standard material really. And what's with that awful Irish music. Am I missing something?
Directed by John Lee Hancock 
Plot Outline: A Texas baseball coach makes the major league after agreeing to try out if his high school team made the playoffs.

     Here is a film that is so blunt that the difference between watching it or listening to it on the radio is negligible. We know from the very first scene what this movie is going to be. That’s not to say the film is bad just simplistic in its attempt to uplift. This is a sports movie with an emphasis on "discovering your dreams." Pardon while I wretch but what I like is that this film offers no apologies for its sentiments, just a middle aged man with a dream and a glove... HA HA HA! But seriously, Quaid is really good in this film. It's no "Innerspace" but it will do pig.

     Quaid plays that guy who seems to be caught in this minutia of suburban failure. What else is new? He has a supporting family, he’s a good teacher, and he coaches a loosing baseball team that lives in the Texas shadow of Football. But besides raising a pair of ugly kids, putting up with a nagging wife, being raised by a dick of a father, and coaching a bunch of sports rejects, Quaid seems miserable and clearly always wanted to be apart of something special. The big game. Every night he solemnly practices pitching against a fence with only the light of his pickup to guide those balls to their target (Terrence Maleck better get a wiring credit) and while he's relatively content (well, as content as one can be with a child as unsightly and dim as the one his wife popped out), his spirit seems to be impotent. But, to quote a Mamet movie, things changes. After a harsh loss, he bets his bumbling team that if they win district he will try out for the big leagues. Cut to a montage of the team winning. Cut to a few scenes with Quaid and his wife then Quaid and his father and more winning with a voice in the background saying "they win five in a row!!!" Gee, wow, maybe the bad news bears will win the big game. No points for guessing what actually happens but the film really soars in it's second half where Quaid goes chasing waterfalls, er, I mean his dream. "Do what you want to do until you do what you were meant to do" his father tells him. And there it is...

     “The Rookie” has a nice (mostly underutilized) cast. Six Feet Under's Rachael Griffiths as the bitchy when she needs to be/supportive when she needs to be wife, Jay Martinez from "Crazy/Beautiful" as the headstrong player, and the great Brian Cox as Quaid's austere father who tries to mend old wounds.

   The Rookie is a mostly faithful film that fails in its attempt to show proper motivation for the team and Quaid winning. Everybody wins because the screenplay requires that they do so and am I the only one to find this to be shallow? At least in "Tin Cup," Costner was motivated to win because of poon. To be honest, I am not very inspired to write more on this film so I will close this review with a question. "Remember the Titans" and this film were huge hits. Fact. They were squeaky clean and perhaps even pure in their intentions. I regret to say that I liked both films but must also say that they were quite light on the substance. My question is that if clean sports films are so popular then why do so few remember the best baseball movies ever made? No, I'm not speaking of "Bull Durham" or "Field of Dreams" or "The Natural" or even "Eight Men Out" but the baseball comedy starring Albert Brooks called "The Rookie." That underrated film, about a phenom being discovered in Mexico by a down on his luck agent is a sports movie classic, a comedy that reaches further and is still more touching than this piece of inspirational guck.

Grade: B-

High Crimes 8/23/2002
What’s Good: Freeman and Judd, good as always.
What’s Not: Bad dialogue for one. "Your honor this is a capital case. An objective judge would have admit the tape and YOU KNOW IT!!! This is grounds for an appeal!"
Directed by Carl Franklin 
Plot Outline: High powered lawyer Claire Kubik finds her world turned upside down when her husband, who she thought was Tom Kubik, is arrested and is revealed to be Ron Chapman. Chapman is on trial for a murder of Latin American villagers while he was in the Marines. Claire soon learns that to navigate the military justice system.

    "High Crimes" re-teams Freeman and Judd (they were in "Kiss the Girls") and has the dubious honor of taking two good actors and bringing them down a notch. Now, on any other day a movie with these two would be a good thing, but for some reason Judd and Freeman gravitate towards formula genre films so much that they ended up appearing in two bad ones.

   A high profile lawyer (Judd) is involved in a happy marriage with Tom Kubik (the beyond holy Jim Caviezel)-- we know so because there trying to "make" a baby in the film's introduction of the couple. One day while Christmas shopping, Caviezel is arrested and charged for a murder. Woops. He is quickly put on trial for the grizzly murder of seven in El Salvadorians (you remember Stone's anti Regan film "Salvador" don't you?) but all this comes as a shock to Judd who thought he was a humble orphan not a murdering marine. Well, the headstrong Judd sees that the military will stop at nothing to put this guy down so she enlists the help of a slovenly ex-marine lawyer who is played by Freeman as a lovable alcoholic and self described "wild card." Judd then proceeds to defend her husband in a series of laughably bad courtroom scenes. The film twists and turns in its slow revelations of the facts of who exactly committed the crime and the courtroom scenes couldn't be more completely standard. The biggest problem with what I have just described is my apathy towards it. I've enjoyed standard courtroom melodramas like "Men of Honor" and "Jagged Edge," but with "High Crimes," I didn't much care about how the military case turned out and cared even less about the guilt or innocence or Caviezel (a good actor in a dumb-ass role). Freeman and Judd. Now I cared about them, enough to wish the two actors actually appeared in a good movie together.

    Director Carl Franklin ("One False Move" and the straight A movie that's easily the best dying wife film ever made called "One True Thing") seems an odd choice for this cut-and-dry material but, then again, so does every daring project he undertakes. I like Franklin's style but this film doesn't need him or any qualified director for that matter because it is on autopilot. After the slightly above average military court room thriller called "Rules of Engagement" (I gave that movie a B- because of Samuel L Jackson and still say its much more involving that this mild drama) the only case this film seems to be solving is the case of too little too late.

Grade: C-

The Cat's Meow 8/14/2002
What’s Good: A great ensemble.
What’s Not: Not as cohesive as "Gosford Park."
Directed by Peter Bogdanovich 
Plot Outline: In November of 1924, a mysterious Hollywood death occurred aboard media mogul William Randolph Hearst's yacht.

     Shameful as it is to say this, this is my first Peter Bogdanovich film I've ever seen. Sure, I'll tell people "oh, you got to see 'The Last Picture Show'" but I really don't believe that. I like because I got a cred to maintain, ya dig?
      "The Cat's Meow" is not an ambitious endeavor but its finely crafted one; the clear work of a director who loves his job, who is for all intensive purposes good at his job, but from what I hear, just doesn't know how to do his job anymore and is afraid. Until now. That being said, this film should breath new life into the washed-up director. It works so well and along Gosford Park (both, obviously modeled after past greats like "Murder on the Orient Express") these fun spirited capers could spark a revival-- do I smell a remake to "Murder By Death?" Both films only use the murder as a way of introducing us to characters and the decadent culture in which they belong to. In the small world that this film reflects, Bogdanovich masterfully sets everything up in a way that this is a murder story (or a mystery if you will) where, by design, the least interesting thing about it is the actual murder and culprit. The gold comes from observing all the personalities and watching them react (or in this film's case, not react) to this heinous act committed by a man who is beyond the law.  

    Bog obviously loves this subject matter too. I cannot say how much that helps in this film's case. I mean, after hearing his comments on the "Citizen Kane" commentary (the best single DVD of last year) I watched this film resolved in the fact that the subject matter was in the hands of someone well versed in the 1920's Hollywood yacht club milieu. Sure, the man hates Hearst and has an agenda but in this film, comic observations (through a number of well earned misunderstandings) come first. The director's private yet obvious bias is what's exactly is so fun about the picture. It simply adds another layer of intrigue. And as we see the beyond rich madman Hearst (the cool character actor Edward Herman) running around with with a gun and trying to kill Charlie Chaplin (the even better Eddy Izzard) for sleeping with his future wife (a better than usual Kirsten Dunst) but instead shooting producer Thomas Ince (Elways) I was in Hollywood lore heaven. The best scene in the film has Hearst shooting at sea gulls and saying they taste as bad as crows.

    So not only do we learn about the Hollywood elite and their frivolous habits that entail silly dancing as a way of changing the subject and numbing all the pain that comes with the superficial lifestyle, but the film echoes "Kane" and along with "RKO 286," this is the perfect companion piece to the film voted by the BFI critics and directors as the best film of all time.
While this film doesn't approach Altman recently brilliant "Park" in its dynamic filmmaking, social satire, or character development, it is in its own small way, perfectly charming. 

Grade: B

Possession 8/18/2002
What’s Good: Northam is brilliant. He needs more props. 
What’s Not: The film looks realistic, it sounds realistic, yet it's anything but realistic. I had a lot of trouble with this review and I contraindicated my self many times. I liked the structure but not the all too literal mentality behind the structure. 
Directed by  Neil LaBute 
Plot Outline: A pair of literary sleuths unearth the amorous secret of two Victorian poets only to find themselves falling under a passionate spell.

   This is not Neil LaBute. This is LaBute proving to us that he can adapt a Victorian novel if he wants to. Like "Full Frontal," this film is an experiment by a good director more than anything else.

    From the libido that brought us the speechified "In the Company of Men," the excellent "Your Friends and Neighbors," and the exquisitely sick "Nurse Betty" only one line in this picture resonates from his past when Gwyneth Paltrow's character comments, "It's horrible when you think about it, men and women together." The rest: touchy-feely city and I must say that while I like the savage side of LaBute better, this experiment is really compelling.

     This film contains a brilliant idea for a narrative structure. I say brilliant because this genre needs "Pulp Fiction" like innovation and it may be true that only books like Possession can provide that. As written by A.S. Byatt (who also penned Angels & Insects), this is what I imagine was near a impossible novel to adapt. But is was and the end result, on film, is far from perfect but quite impressive and pleasantly original from a chick flick standpoint (though, an episode of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" called "I Only Have Eyes For You" had the exact same structure, only better and with murderous ghosts instead of melodramatically dead Brits).

     There's one glairing fault though. "Spy Kids" wasn't as farfetched as this film (see plot outline above). The coincidence are so astronomical that one must forgo all mortal logic to get into the action. I found that suspension of disbelief thing a little hard to do here because there is no indication that the film is playing with the same kind of magical realism that something like, oh, say "Moulin Rouge" was. There is not even an implication of the F word, F A T E (an all too handy chick flick theme), which makes the goings-on in "Possession" bewildering if looked at from a literal standpoint, which, I think the filmmaker wants us to do. So if this film is not an "Amelie"-like fantasy of love, fate, destiny and crap like that, then what the hell is it? No magic here, just realism that's as real as a comic book.
     The two main characters, Maud Bailey (Paltrow) and Roland Michell (Aaron Eckhart), seem to be clairvoyant in their knowledge of two lover poets separated by two hundred years. They are after priceless letters written by a famous writer named Randolph Henry Ash and the modern characters seem to be able to find his lost, non corroded notes with ease (oh sure, there tucked away behind that scenic waterfall, why didn't I think of that?). In their quest, the two modern researchers manage to come upon the exact same rooms, corners, train stations, and we are even privy to the fact that they say the exact same things as the couple which they are pursuing on paper. Is all this logical? No, of course not, but I still loved how the story unfolds like a convoluted detective murder mystery. We will see Ash and LaMotte standing by a wall in the 1890 and without any cuts, the camera will pan over to 2002 where the investigative Roland and Maud are now standing. This can be fun if you don't think about it too much.

     So how does one know when this film flashes back to the 18oos? That's easy. If you see people acting proper, looking sultry, repressing everything and saying "tis" a lot, then your now on planet Merchant Ivory. And since there are lot of time jumps, rest assured that you'll get acclimated to it quickly; that is, unless you were dragged to this picture and are cutting your arm like Coffey (from "The Abyss") to distract you until the sappy misery stops.

     As a film that tackles two stories in an amalgamation of one grand one with uncanny parallels, there are obtuse moments but the old school lovers fit in beautifully and perhaps disserved a movie only about them. Jeremy Northam (so good in countless films like "Gosford Park," "Emma," "The Winslow Boy," and "An Ideal Husband") as the now famous dead writer of mushy poetry. Northam gives the best performance in the film as a man who has sworn off love and can only express himself through the written page (we are told that a single poem is worth more than 50K). His character is in a complicated marriage that is based more on understanding than passion but despite the fact that he takes on a devotee he still "loves" his wife. That secret lover is played by Jennifer Ehle, a relative newcomer who, despite having "man hands" as a friend remarked, seems perfectly at home in movies like this, "Wilde," and the superlative and underrated "Sunshine." Ehle just happens to be playing a converted lesbian (leave it to Labute) but I like how that is a non-issue. She just happens to have been in love with a woman and is now in love with a man, lets leave it at that. And as the film slowly chronicles the many forces pull these passionate lovers apart, Labute and especially these two actors helps us to understand how a fleeting love can mean as much as if not more than a life time of love--obviously the written word plays a vital part in the theme of the undying love between these two tragic figures.   
   
     In the present day is Aaron Eckhart who is playing an American research assistant in England who is working for an austere professor and a bunch of conniving co-workers. When a clandestine Eckhart leaves to search for the lost letters between Northam and Ehle, his boss remarks "He's an American. He's probably out trafficking drugs." Where's the love? And this leads us to the fourth piece of the puzzle. Gwyneth Paltrow playing a gender studies professor named Maud (yuck!) is insisting on using a British accent in yet another a movie of hers... and oddly enough, the last three of her accent movies bear much in common with this one: "Sliding Doors" is also about two realities that collide into one; "Emma" is also set in a Victorian England and even stars Northam; and of course "Shakespeare In Love" is about the unbridled passion of a poet and his great (albeit brief) love. Now, this film is far better than those two overrated romantic clunkers ("Emma" was good though) and the difference is that this time Paltrow seems complacent. Instead of getting in the way ("Shakespeare in Love") or being one small part of a great ensemble ("Tenenbaumbs," "Seven" etc) she is essential to this story... she would have stolen the movie too if it weren't for Northam.
     While Paltrow's chemistry with Eckhart is not as vivacious as the Northam/Ehle combo, it wasn't supposed to be; the irony is that the Americans are more repressed and uptight than the old timers. I liked that the film left the real romance between those whose love existed in the past and it is only through uncovering that lasting tryst that these two blond hair blue eyed scholars get to live vicariously through the old lovers. Hum, I wonder if Paltrow and Eckhart are going to fall in love too?

 Predictability aside, though, I'm fine with all this. When commenting on Northam's love affair, the wounded lover and monk-like Eckhart remarks, "It's a tangle most people want, not me though" with a detached coolness that successfully melted the frosty shell right off of that ice princess Paltrow. She is so paralyzed by the notion that this guy doesn't want any attachments with her that she of course falls for him-- a movie by Eckhart that Jason Patrick from "Your Friends and Neighbors" would approve of no doubt. He follows that up with a bit of brilliant reverse psychology by saying "I don't want to take anything from you" and wham, she suddenly can't resist this guy. This, my friends, is how you get a Gwyneth Paltrow to make out with you... pardon me while I write this down in my little memo book.

      Languid love stories. Brilliant structure. Unabashedly romantic. Clunky, trite, and illogical...why am I so conflicted? In the end I guess I loved this film despite the fact that I know I shouldn't have... tis a forbidden love. Whatever problems I had with the exegesis was dwarfed by the conviction of all four actors and the film's enchantment, as I saw it, came down to it's closing moments where everything beautifully comes together. I won't give anything away except to say it involves Northam, a hidden secret, a happy accident, a child, a letter, and some wind. I was touched by this, one of the best film moments of the year.   

Grade: B+

Bella Martha 8/14/2002
What’s Good: A great performance by Martina Gedeck. One of the years best love stories. 
What’s Not: Too bad that love story takes a back seat to a lame orphan.
Directed by Sandra Nettelbeck 
Plot Outline: When a headstrong chef takes charge of her equally stubborn 8-year-old niece, the tensions between them mount... until an Italian sous-chef arrives to lighten the mood.

    "Bella Martha" is a movie is about a woman chef-- not Monica, a good cook, played by a good actress-- whose only means of communication is through food. I like the sound of that. During one scene, instead of asking her new neighbor out on a date, she offers him fish. That chef is played by Martina Gedeck a character whose cooking is perfect but life is not; Martha can control one and not the other and the angst that results makes up the core of this sometimes lighthearted sometimes weighty film. The character is cold but passionate and the performance by Gedeck rises above the oft turgid material. One of the years best roles in fact.

     It should be noted that this is not a drab German production, or that German movie that the kids from South Park were watching, but a warm character piece about cooking and the responsibility that comes with family (hey, wasn't "Spy Kids 2" about that?). The kind of movie that, despite it's many many faults, appealed to my emotions and made me forget for a second what was wrong with it.

     The director (Sandra Nettelbeck, the cutest and one of the most energetic new directors around) does something odd with the familiar material. This is a cooking film w/o the culinary payoff like the one from "Big Night" and also a mother-daughter film without much insight. "Bella Martha" goes from the usual cooking movie montages to a throwaway plot about an orphan and a hard ass learning to live with each other. Too bad, because at this point I'd prefer a trite cooking movie to a exasperating sad kid movie. Yes, the film manages to hold on to the profession of the main character, Martha still narrates and talks in food metaphors (which is not as maddening as it sounds), "I wish I had a recipe for you if I wanted" Martha says to the stubborn child, thus illustrating how myopic (yet insightful in a Gump sort of way) her outlook is. But at a certain point Martha regards her cool job as if it was getting in the way of her ready to explode biological clock while, ironically, the food was the only thing that saved the picture. 

     Think of this film as "About a Boy"... except in German, with a lot more cooking, minus the yuppies, and seen through the eyes of energetic women characters. But except for zat, totally like the "About a Boy" movie and book. And is that a bad thing, not really, it is only bad when the material doesn't slip too far into TV melodrama territory with characters whining more than feeling. "Mostly Martha" comes close to movie of the week territory but saves itself with the central relationship between Martha and Mario, the Italian actor played by Sergio Castellitto.

     Indeed, the films melodrama--the sulking child routine--and eventual formulaic turn into maternal softness and happy conclusions (marriages, reconciliations, new jobs... life IS beautiful) is a too arch for me. The film takes itself too seriously when it could have been a brilliant little movie about food, mulish personalities, and the relationship between two alpha chefs in one kitchen. Everything in this film except the puppy eyed orphan angle had real momentum, I loved the performance by Castellitto as Mario the rival chef because the volatile chemistry works so well that it's a crime not to give it more screen time.

     Yes, again I am guilty of faulting a movie for not living up to all that it could have been (in my eyes) but damn, this film, like so many others, was so close to being great that seeing anything less is a slap in the face. The presence of that orphaned child seems to be a byproduct of a lazy script too afraid to deal, point blank, with an interesting and complex character like Martha. Oh, lets just throw a child in the mix and see how she reacts instead of diving into her fascinating personality and way of looking at the world. Ug. As is, Martha is distracted in a story that, like the preparation of a delicate meal, requires a little more focus on what ingredients are important.

Grade: B

Spy Kids 2 The Island of Lost Dreams 8/08/2002
What’s Good: A great, colorful adventure. Perfect for young ones but not torture on anybody else (unless they take the film too seriously which I almost did). .
What’s Not: Granted, some jokes don't work (namely the camel crap joke), but the actors tried so hard that I can't hold anything against the innocent fun everybody was having.
Directed by  Robert Rodriguez 
Plot Outline: The Cortez siblings set out for a mysterious island, where they encounter a genetic scientist and a set of rival spy kids.

     "Spy Kids 2" is a soulful adventure film with a jaunty personality and aplomb to spare. It is a kid's film above all else but it is a colorful romp with enough energy and cheesy bravado to appeal to prudes like me who don't automatically like spy movies if they look slick and have fine ass hos (though there's nothing wrong wid dat if it is in a movie that works). During the brief running time of 88 minutes, most of the enjoyment for me came not out of the gadgets, special effects or one liners, but the characters. I know, sounds crazy to make a spy movie with likable characters that are easy to warm up to instead of condescending (Bond and XXX) but here is a PG franchise built on charming characters above all else.

     The first "Spy Kids" was a marvelous achievement... it had the element of innovation on its side (one thing that this film does not have) in the way it told the story of two children who learned their parents were spies and attempted to rescue them when the shit hit the fan. Both the first and second "Spy Kids" movies were not about wonton violence as "XXX" or countless other spy films were (again, nothing wrong with that if it's done right) but about overcoming violence with ingenuity and camaraderie. I didn't object to the semi-preachy family first message because the characters were joyfully acting out those principles instead of shoving them down out throats (cough, Mandy Moore). I have no agenda, a film's message could be anything, I just need to feel it was delivered well and Rodriguez at least knows how to do that. Case in point: Besides many charming scenes with the bickering Cortez kids, there are also some great moments with the parents and their attempt to relate and guide their kids without making it seem like they didn't trust them (loved that hair combing homage from "Four Rooms").

     So just a year after the first (still too soon if you ask me) a new "Spy Kids" feature was rushed into theaters before Rodriguez's less popular, in the can film, "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" (the much disserved sequel to "Desperado") for what I imagine may be monetary reasons. Remember, Bob and Harvey Weinstein head up Miramax and Dimension and they certainly don't care about quality as much as they once did. That line from "Jay and Silent Bob" comes to mind... Jay: "Miramax? I thought they only did classy pictures, like "The Piano" and "The Crying Game." Brodie: "Yeah, but then they made 'She's All That' and it went downhill from there."  Anyways, here is a sequel that, unlike "MIB II" and a wave of other lame follow-ups, seems to have purpose and is a continuation rather than a retelling of the first. Miraculously, it does not feel like Rodriguez had a gun to his head by those two money grubbing producers. The director seems invigorated and happy with this project so either he's an adept pretender or he likes the material as much as fans like me do. 

     The new film involves even more byplay between the brother sister combo of Carmen and Juni Cortez (parents to Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino) and this time there is even an official spy kid sect of the OSS agency of which the kid's parents are top agents in. This new mini agency is a subplot that might not have worked-- I'm thinking "Baby Genius" territory-- but thanks to the oddball dialogue I found it amusing to see kids acting as if they were adults in a real spy film. There are even rival agents played by rival kids (Matthew O'Leary  from "Frailty" and Emily Osment) competing for cases which, I assume, are not as vital as the cases that the adults are getting but you never know.
     The plot kicks underway when a thing is stolen and the good guys want but other people want it even more because it can bring about the end the world or something and people must go on assignment to find it but the spy kids hack their way into a computer and steal that assignment from those others and when they arrive a complication arises cuz of guys with magnets on their heads and other weird stuff and long story short, the Cortez's end up on this mysterious island and while they compete with the other young agents to get some "transmogripher" from an eccentric mad scientist (Steve Buccemi with the best line in the picture that ends with "maybe God is up there and he too afraid to come out" followed by a classic bug eye look), but not before the overly protective Cortez parents go after their children to rescue them, along with Banderas' critical step parents. Okay, this is a bit convoluted (just wait till the scene with genetically engineered animals that seemed to be inspired by the original "Kind Kong") but I was never burned with the iffy plot because, well, it's a kids movie and somehow I cling to that caveat and never took the film seriously. The reason why I took to the film was not for the pitch of the storytelling but for the warm vibe that resulted. Again, I liked all the recurring characters and thought the children actors were more than up to the task of basically carrying this film. Vega epically. At fourteen the actress is lively and has a great career ahead of her.  

     "Spy Kids II" has great characters in a film with obtuse jokes, granted, but I feel da love... more so than the joyless "XXX," a film that I admit I was hard on (had it come out in 1999 it would have been a D- movie, this year I'm just too grouchy) but it is still a film without much purpose. The way I see it, "XXX" thought it could take the shortcut by offering grand set pieces instead of moviemaking joy and it failed because I didn't buy into any of the characters. Namely the title character played by Diesel. By contrast, the two little characters in this film don't walk in the room and expect to be noticed, they do that the hard way. They get noticed by being charismatic. And unlike Diesel's smug-ass motherfucker, a man who forced his coolness upon us as if it were a favor, these kids have finesse when their thumping baddies and dishing out the one liners.
     To use a platitude, "XXX" took on the case of style over substance, only, it couldn't even muster up any style. "Spy Kids 2" has a small amount of both.

Grade: B

XXX 8/08/2002
What’s Good: 45 days. 45 days till it's done. In 45 days the summer of 2002 will come to an official end and I will be celebrating. No more wretched summer movies. Nothing but cold weather, homework, and movies that are bad, granted, but at least knowingly bad. The only thing good about "XXX" is the fact that I will have more than enough films to fill up my year end "year's worst."
What’s Not: See below
What sucks: Roger Ebert. He panned "Reign of Fire" for being too "illogical," yet couldn't praise this film enough. Well, flying dragons make more sense to me then Diesel, the flying idiot.  
Directed by Rob Cohen 
Plot Outline: Xander Cage is an extreme sports athelete recruited by the government on a special mission.

What’s Not: A numbingly terrible excuse for summer action. Glib, degrading, boring, overlong (124 minutes when it should have been 80) unknowingly hammy acting,  sail dialogue, a director (Rob Cohen) so confident that his film will be cool and popular that he didn't bother to deliver a film that's compelling, jokes so eager to relate to the young ones that they end up sounding like a Ned Flanders' as if he was forced to do an hour at the Apollo, the story is more disposable than a bad Jackie Chan film (XXX must contend with evil Euro-trash thugs with long/greasy hair, computer chips, chemical weaponry, double crossing dames, elaborate guns... enough!!!) and the film is redundant and redundant and redundant with its set pieces.
What else... Vin Diesel finally lives up to his silly name (we should call him Mark Vincent. it almost sounds better). Diesel is so colorless and shallow that he makes the endless barrage of grandiose yet vapid action sequences mean nothing because the character's in them are nothing; Bond may be old but that bro still has style and most importantly, personality. This film's "slick" hero is just too confident and full of himself-- I hate Diesel's XXX. I hate him more than I do all of Ocean's 11 dweebs combined. XXX is a man that pretends to be lackadaisical with his black shades, white wife beaters, garish tats, and that flamboyant goat hair coat (what the fuck was that thing?) but in actuality, we are watching a film about a man with serious self-esteem issues. A man desperately eager to have everybody in the room proud and astounded and extolling his righteous virtues. This guys mother must have raped him with a wooden spoon or, I don't know what, cuz XXX's obsessive need for validation is embarrassing... and the only thing more pathetic that XXX, is everybody's compliances in making him think he's a cool guy. This guy is so popular that even the villains like and admire him. I thought I was watching "The Truman Show" at one point. Plus, XXX's overt, mojo laden magnetism renders every nearby femme spellbound, for they all they can now think about is suck him off like he's Austin Powers. But folks, Diesel is serious and this is not a comedy; its laughable, yeah, but not in the ways intended by director Cohen. And, almost I forgot, we don't even get violence or cool sex in the picture because PG-13 sells more tickets to repressed teenagers who can't see "Y Tu Mama Tambien" because it is a tasteful film about responsible sex but can see this film because (barley) clothed women are only treated like animals---At one point two heavies lift two hotties out of a pool and literally toast them like they were Champaign glasses before the gals were carried up stairs to be fucked. 

Um, that's about it in the "what's not" category. One more thing though. Diesel pretends to be so tragically hip and his character is so forced into this possible franchise that a canned meat version of an action hero emerges. The only thing "eXXXtreme" about this guy is his EXTREMEly inept persona.

Grade: F

Blood Work 8/08/2002
What’s Good: I love Clint’s character, I didn’t love the movie. This detective is not some middle age smoker but a sick man well into his seventies and that nuance is enough to give the character purpose and elevate him above the shoddy material.
What’s Not: The routine plot fails to connect by the end and the love story just doesn't work. I mean really, I don’t want to see Clint hooking up with a middle aged mother. Also, the killer, like so many trite Hannibals in training, likes to play elaborate but ultimately meaningless mind games-- the one in this film is a big lame doosey.
Directed by Clint Eastwood 
Plot Outline: Retired FBI director Terry McCaleb (Eastwood), who has recently had a heart transplant, is hired by Graciela Rivers (De Jesus), to investigate the death of her sister, Gloria, who happens to have given McCaleb his heart.

To equivocate and be random for a second, a line from the Buffy musical came to mind while I was watching “Blood Work” and it sums up everything for a written review of this kind. A sullen Buffy is trudging along doing the usual-- walking through a dark graveyard and patrolling for vampires-- when suddenly (in song mind you) she states to the audience exactly what’s wrong with her life: “Going through the motions/ Walking through my part/ Nothing seems to penetrate my… heart.” Classic pun and nuff said.

There’s nothing wrong with being average, with going through the motions, and as such, “Blood Work” is an adequate police procedural drama. Faithful in the brooding, LA noir spirit of Raymond Chandler and as steadily involving as the point by point plot mechanics of a James Patterson novel, the only thing this thriller is missing is the crime solving joy from those two. By the end, nothing really connects and the plot fails to raise hairs due to a stale third act... it all seemed like an routine exorcize in gumshoe 101. So if “Seven” and “Silence of the Lambs” shot precision arrows through it's audience's hearts, then this film barley gets up enough strength to flick a paper airplane at it. Like Clint’s character, this film's heart needs to be on life support.

Grade: C

The Accidental Spy 8/08/2002
What’s Good: Sure the Hong Kong legend could continue to make piss poor films with Chris Tucker in the states, but for me, I prefer to watch these glorious B-movie action.  
What’s Not: If you're expecting a coherent plot you don't know what a vintage Chan movie is.
Directed by Teddy Chan 
Plot Outline: Bei may be the long-lost son of a rich Korean businessman. In no time, Bei is on his way to fulfill his dreams of adventure and fortune traveling to Korea and even exotic Turkey. As Bei is drawn deeper into the game of cat and mouse, he realizes he has become the key to locating a lung cancer virus.

     There’s a scene in a bathhouse where Jackie is being hunted down by the usual band of hilariously dubbed thugs. This time Jackie (for some reason that doesn’t matter much) ends up in Istanbul Turkey, and the thugs want to jack money that Jackie’s estranged and mysterious father left for him. To escape, he jumps off a three story building using only three umbrellas (it looks like he actually jumped too… take that Jet “wire team” Lee) and proceeds to run into a Turkish market, naked mind you, to fend off the bad guys using that charming trademark style of utilizing everything in the environment to protect himself.
     The difference in this all too familiar Jackie Chan-movie situation is that Chan is naked and as he dazzles us with his sporty maneuvering, he also must uses props like tambourines, sitting in a green spice pale, wrapping himself in newspapers, table tops, plates, towels, little children… you name it. The scene ends with Chan majestically transforming a long white drape into a female Muslim robe (or whatever there called).
     During this scene it hit me that in watching Jackie do anything to cover up his unmentionables and fend off those villains is to see why he is so beloved. The action and fighting in most Jackie Chan movies (save “Crime Story”) is never violent or excessive and always comical and innocent. Chan is the world’s first true action movie pacifist that rarely fights back and never gets angry.

     Contrary to how much money the awful “Rush Hour 2” made, this is the real Jackie Chan. For better or worse, American audiences either love him, hate him, or don’t give a shit but for my money, the guy disserves an honorary Oscar; no actor since Buster Keaton has been this effortlessly physical, this funny, and entertaining. At fifty something, it’s amazing how Chan can make an act like jumping off a building or between two speeding cars seem so cool (hell, no American actor, period, could do half the stuff Jackie does in his seniority). Just look at old man Arnold’s recent debacle “Collateral Damage” to see why Chan, at fifty, still is and has always been the man.

Grade: B

The Last Kiss (L'Ultimo Bacio) 7/31/2002
What’s Good: A great comic pacing. The film also mixes elements of humor and tragedy quite well. Plus, lead actor Stefano Accorsi gives a memorable performance as an unsettled man.
What’s Not: Nothing bad except that the by the films end, it didn't come together and click as well as other ensemble films like "Magnolia" or "Short Cuts."
Directed by Gabriele Muccino 

    As the new stuff goes, I prefer the darker, more pessimistic Italian films like Amellio's "Lamerica" or "The Stolen Children" to the fluffy droll that consists of retards like Roberto Benini-- not since Mussolini has a single Italian done so much to besmirch the culture. The fluffy stuff seems to be more popular (many like being debilitated by obvious humor and simplistic characters, this makes reading the subtitles easier I guess) but, who knows, maybe mature Italian films like "The Last Kiss" this will catch on here.

     Behold, the Italian PT Anderson, let us be thankful: Like PT the film contains a beautifully melodic score that relentlessly drives its point home with exigency, wonderfully crisp cinematography, interweaving characters that are connected and may not no it (the recent and overlooked “Lantana” was even better at that), and that palpable sense of urgency crossed with a wry breed of humor. This is also could be considered the "Lord of the Rings" or romantic comedies, a virtuoso tempo is displayed as the camera follows characters from one room to another, circles around them and even (in a bravura shot at the end) zooms up into the sky from a hilltop, over trees, and lands in the wedding banquet of two main characters. Since these films are all dialogue, none of this is necessary (the ugly and simple “Sex Lies…” or "You Can Count On Me" would be brilliant even if they were radio productions), but its refreshing stuff nonetheless.  
     Despite the kinetic camera, though, the films theme has no epic sweep--no frogs falling, no Rollergirl, no masked orgies—it is people with problems that turn manic with a fear that is all psychological. Characters are anything but stock and since they seemed so human I cared about their issues, egocentric as they may be. Our main protagonist (if you can call him that) is Carlo  and as played by the Stefano Accorsi, a guy who is experiencing a mid life crisis, despite the caveat that he's only thirty. Carlo just knocked up his long time girlfriend and is being nagged by her to get married and buy a house. As the puerile Tom Likus would say, "dump that bitch," but he deals with this new responsibility in a fascinating way. He freaks out and shags a doe eyed high school girl and proceeds to fucks with her head too. Now he has two women angry with him and the film pumps up the angst. Despite this un-politically correct attitude (from a puritanical American POV at least), I didn’t not see Carlo as an evil man-whore. He's flawed but, as I said earlier, at least he's not some stock character out of a Garry Marshal film. He, along with a few other characters in this piece (Carlo has three friends with three female companions and they all too have similarly hazardous situations), defies the Meg Ryan formula.

     After this delightfully madcap film, I’ve got my eye on Gabriele Muccino, a director that, like Anderson, Altman, and Allen (the three A’s), is interested in human connections and how the sexes relate to each other. Overriding plots seem extraneous in these types of films. I also liked that these films don’t have to be laugh out loud funny because the humor exists in the harsh reality and I laugh because I, the voyeur, am presiding over breathless characters are in the hands of master storytellers. Through watching Muccino’s characters in every day life, especially Carlo and his childlike infatuation with the young girl, we learn a bit about where the human condition heads when people have too much time and are too financially secure. The two best scenes in the picture are touching scenes that involve Carlo's young mistress: one, a sweet hearted dancing scene where we see the innocent joys of youth, and a painful scene where she runs after Carlo's car and through this, we catch a glimpse of the heartbreak that exists in the younger age bracket that the main characters just grew out of yet want to go back into.

Late 20-somethings just can’t commit. They want to be free yet they want companions just as much. Being an early 20-somehtin, I find this subject matter compelling and relatable when it's not carried out by real characters and not glib ones that have crawled out of "The Big Chill." That fear of growing up presides in all men and it is about time we got some chick films representing the guys side. Simply put, this is a film for men that women can get a lot out of too-- consider it a psychological study. And like a prologue to the terrified man-boy comedy, “High Fidelity,” “The Last Kiss” plays out like a sweetly reverent seminar on the grown man's libido.  

Grade: A-

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 8/01/2002
What’s Good: Likable actors like Vardalos and Corbett.
What’s Not: Would have been much better if I believed in the main relationship.  
Directed by Joel Zwick 
Plot Outline: A young Greek-Canadian woman falls in love with a non-Greek and struggles to get her family to accept him while she comes to terms with her heritage.

    "When my ancestors were creating philosophy, yours were swinging from a tree.” So says Gus Portokalos (Michael Constantine) a protective father to our heroine Toula (producer/wrter/actress Nia Vardalos as a plain looking, Pygmalion inspired character) in the surprise Indy hit of the year. “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” is a film about a wedding, duh, but that’s about it. The film does not exists to develop or add depth to the central participants of this wedding, but to showcase Toula's wacky Greek family in which idiosyncrasies like using Windex to heal all ailments, crazy grandmothers who think the Turks are invading, or obsessive nationalism, run amuck. The family stuff is mildly amusing at best but it does nothing further the relationship, which, being that this is a romantic comedy, should be priority number one.

     The film “Meet the Parents,” a prime example of an outsider dropped in situation where he must contend with a WASPy family from hell, and this film is the opposite with a plot about a ethnic European family dropped into a situation where they must deal with a WASP that wants to join their clan. "Parents" was a film that actually cared about the couple's survival within the innumerable force that is family and that is important to me. Both films are quite funny and charming in their own ways but this film seems hasty in progressing the Vardalos/Corbett relationship even before we are willing to accept them as a couple. The two dance around each other and make out a little bit but then, boom, Corbett asks his girlfriend to marry him. The reason: so the film can add a crisis (the Greek dad doesn't want his girl to leave the house; Toula wants to move on with her life but also wishes to remain close to her family and cultural identity; Corbett's unfairly vilified parents (talk about reverse racism) are cold and ineffectual and Toula's father complains that they “look at us like were from the zoo,” etc). These are pertinent issues that the film can never quite make believable but the surprise is, despite the iffy chemistry, Vardalos and the demonstrative character actor, John Corbett in the male lead, are two people I absolutely loved by the films end. And as this film taught me, love is not always logical.

     Whatever flaws lie in this film's world can be easily looked over by me. I don't intend to examine it too closely, I just want to smile. And I did... This is an amusing tale and John Corbett makes his role as the husband-to-be as winning as possible (this actor need more non TV work). I'm not exactly sure why a film as innocuous as this  has made so much money (not a one character drinks cum-beer or gets caught masturbating into a tube sock) but it's nice to see a harmless fodder  like this do well in a summer full of cloned phonies.

Grade: B

Full Frontal 8/03/2002
What’s Good: A handful of great characters.
What’s Not: A shallow film with meaningless narrations.  An ugly film too. Make's a strong point that a 2 million film that looks this bad should just be filmed in 35mm and save some money by loosing Roberts. "Full Frontal" is basically a film where a bunch of rich and talented people patting themselves on the back and pretending what's its like to be broke-- the Lauren Hill of summer movies.
Directed by Steven Soderbergh 
Also Try The Anniversary Party
Plot Outline: This arty film-within-a-film (which was shot in just 18 days) revolves around seven people with little in common whose lives collide.

Grade: B

Signs 8/02/2002
What’s Good: Should have been the best film of the year and was for a great long while.
What’s Not: I'm not sure if we should take the "alien" thing seriously. The supposed aliens in this picture may be a metaphor. But even if they are, the metaphor doesn't work and the ending still sucks.  
Note: Initially I wanted to give "Signs" a B-. My written review (although mostly negative) gave it a B+. But when thinking about the film now, I'm liking it more (I now applaud it for staying true to it's POV). So A-, until, that is, next week when I may hate it again. 
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan  
Plot Outline: A family living on a farm in Philadelphia finds mysterious crop circles in their fields.

      Long gone are the days of William Wyler, David Lean, Victor Fleming, and Hitchcock. Those were the auteurs of big budget films that were created by men who achieved the daunting task of pleasing audiences as well as film critics. Crazy I know but today most quality filmmakers (PT Anderson, Scorsese, Stone) combined don't make half as much as an Adam Sandler movie and these big thinkers are segregated alongside the directors whose films are profitable (James Cameron, Michael Bay) yet have no substantial artistic talent. Sure, there are traitors like Steven Soderbergh’s running around  and pleasing everybody, but for the most part the talented directors of this age don’t like making movies that people see.
     What brings me to thinking about all of this is M. Night Shyamalan, a fascinating director that has managed to sell out without exactly selling out. He, like Hitchcock, is having his cake and eating it to but can (if he chooses to go the opposite way of Spielberg) become a filmmaker worth respecting. The visual talent and creative force is present in this young one but he can easily be lost to the dark side.

     I find the directors last film, "Unbreakable," to be fascinating. After a legitimate commercial success he didn’t tackle a sure bet like, oh, say the next “Batman” but instead chose to go with a subtly brilliant film about a tragic comic book hero. Sure it made money but the audience soon figured out (about a day after they saw it) that "Unbreakable" was artistic to the point of fault. The filmmaking there was, in essence, to singular and smart considering the audience just went to be scared and a little bit surprised at the end as they did when they saw that little ghost picture. That end jolt is something “Unbreakable” could not offer the masses but it still managed to win me over as the best high profile American film of recent memory.

     Okay, so here we are, it is the trivial summer of 2002 and Shyamalan's new film “Signs” lands in theaters. Billed as an “alien” film in the vein of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” the thriller will make money but for me the fun came mostly from the anticipation of the outcome of the "Sign's" artistic success or failure in its relation to the director. Like David Fincher proving that he could sustain his beautifully morbid storytelling with “Panic Room” (and oh boy did he), with “Signs” Shyamalan seems to be giving us a sign as to where he’s headed as a filmmaker (pun= bad). And the answer is that he wants to make money but he also wants to challenge and dazzle us. A noble M.O. if you ask me.
     The one running theme in the directors work, though, is that he always starts out with B-movie plots (ghosts, comic books, and now aliens) but s l o w l y alchemizes these inane subjects into an intelligent story with atmosphere to spare. 

     All that being said, “Signs” is clearly the best film of the year… that is until it’s pitiful denouement. Shyamalan may not be Spielberg yet but his film fell into the same unfortunate pit fall as Spielberg's last two pictures: “AI” and “Minority Report.” I am angry about this. More so than had the film been uniformly bad. But why does this keep happening? Why can’t I just sit back and love a film again? Am I being fastidious or have films just suck these last couple of years? Why can’t a director make a something cohesive that offers greatness in full instead of greatness in portions and segments like this film, or a handful of others to come out in the last three years? Okay, no more empty questions, but I vow to myself that an A+ movie will come out this year, oh yes, it must. 

     With “Six Sense,” Shyamalan created a flawed film with a stellar ending (never mind that it copied "Jacob's Ladder"). But with “Unbreakiable” and “Signs” he made two exceptional films with out anything to say at the conclusion… the director apparently can't aim for both but I guess I prefer the later because at least then your experience is mostly pleasurable. But “Unbreakable” soared because it did not bank on an ending with gravitas because that great revelation came at the film's middle point (remember the paint can can scene?), whereas this film holds so much back that one is sure that the scope will widen by the last act. Not so. I feel Shyamalan should have either continued to hold back everything (that would have been the daring thing to do) or he could have shown us all that he possibly could as a treat for sitting through two lethargic (but well made) acts. But instead of getting everything or nothing, we get just a moderate amount of disclosure that is illogical and inconclusive.   

     To review “Signs” would be to give it away. Which is why I'm not really reviewing it. Truth is, I avoided all written comments, covered my ears when Ebert talked about it on the box, and hushed the people talking about it as they left the showing before the one I was to see. No one was going to spoil the fun for me because, in essence, this was my last hope. The last summer movie that looked promising. I will say that I went into the show as the perfect audience member: I was expecting it to be great and went in fresh. So I watched the thing not knowing whether these "alien" threats were real or a hoax, or who knows, maybe Night had some other secrete in store for us.

     The story entails a humble family living on a farm that seems to be a target (one of many) for aliens who, as some hypothesis, are creating these massive, circular crop circles as a navigation system for when the "invasion starts." The film stars Mel Gibson as Graham Hess (a fucking great movie name) a fallen minister who now believes in nothing and as such, is this skeptical of the chatty townsfolk. Gibson’s expressive children, Rory Culkin and the aggressively cuddly but ultimately irritating Pillsbury Dough Girl, Abigail Breslin, are filled with wonder and hope, something that has been missing since their mother died and father turned into a ghost (the emotional kind not the Bruce Willis kind).
     Graham’s brother Merrill Hess is played by the skilled Joaquin Phoenix who is playing a stubborn, ex-baseball playing failure that has moved into the farm house after his bro’s wife was killed by a driver who, by "chance" fell asleep (the driver is played films own director M. Night Shyamalan, and he's really good here). Merrill is there for support but feels he is not needed.
     These four family members hardly ever leave their property (a beautifully rustic country home) and that was just fine with me because, up until the ending, Shyamalan brilliantly captured the alien-phobic anxiety and a good portion of his film is funny (the kids put aluminum on their heads to keep the alien mind reading rays out), insightful, and haunting. The story is more “You Can Count On Me” than “ID4” (and good, I greatly appreciated being privy to a big summer alien picture without any explosions) but if Mark Rufallo hadn’t dropped out of this film at the last minute, the parallels to “You Can Count On Me” would have been eerie considering Rorey Caulken and Rufallo would have played nephew and uncle in both.

     Anyways, I liked the suspense because I liked the family. Loved them in fact. Dread was in the air and Shyamalan stepped this up with a sort of horror movie claustrophobia that hasn’t been this effective since the first “Alien.”

     "Signs" could have been a satire on the culture's mores as characters sat like zombie from "Dawn of the Dead," glued to the television and the hanging on each word of the media (due to the small town’s reaction to the “news” there are as many laughs in the picture as there are scares). The film could have also been about the nature of mass hysteria--at one point a closet bound Phoenix says “This is just like ‘War of the Worlds.'” On one further level this could have been (and is) a serious film about faith and one man’s struggle with loosing his wife and raising his children. Or, hell, just a plain good alien invasion picture. Due to the shallow ending, though, it raises all these things and only tries, half assed at that, to pay off one of the afore mentioned aspects.

I soon fell in love with the notion that we were only allowed to see what was going on in the world through this family’s eyes and liked even better the bits of news that slipped into ours ears and the characters heads as a TV or radio would be on in the background. The world could have been burning down, an army of aliens could be right next door, this could have all been a big joke; either way, the real action was always outside of the house and the film distances itself from that as a ploy to increase the itchy tension from within the house. And boy does it; Night gets a gold star for creating a sticky mood and I don't mind admitting that there was one point in the picture, right before the ending (redundant much?), where my heart was pounding.
Since this is a summer of 2002 film, a but comes with every good mention so here it is: but… what could have been an A+ film about all these many worthy themes (the media, hysteria, invading aliens, spirituality, the possibility of a hoax...) ended up taking themes and using them to blow smoke up our asses. Well, not smoke but rather lamely, poison gas and H2O.

In summation: The film is good, yeah, but it should have been great. Gibson wasn't the only one who lost his faith.

Supplementary Rant: Here's where I vent and give everything away (p.s. I have no idea how to grade or review this film and it's taken me two days to put this crap out)

     After watching the film I have great respect and utter distain for it. On one hand I love the filmmaking: the performances across the board, the prickly musical score by James Newton Howard, solid sound effects editing, and the slow paced editing by Mamet's gal, Barbara Tulliver. But on the other hand, the presence of aliens, in retrospect, seems a bit torpid and bears absolutely no meaning. It would have had meaning if Shyamalan had done something, anything with the big green men but as is, aliens didn’t need to be in this picture. But since they were it’s a slap in the face to see Shyamalan betray his subject matter. Why Night, why? Why not have a sad ending where the aliens invade instead of pussing out for reasons that are never explained? Why not leave the character's (and world's) fate to our imagination and end the film with the family, while waiting for "them" to come, fell asleep sleeping in the cellar as the film fades to black? Or why not have a "Twilight Zone" inspired ending where the characters, after they wake up in that dark cellar, end up in the farm until it is slowly revealed to us (a la "Dark City") that there actually in a space ship made to look like a farm. Hey, that's a great idea! 
    And I still don't know why the aliens ran away? Creatures this stupid shouldn't have bothered landing on Earth because I don't think they could have even invaded a dormant planet. Hell, these dumb fuckers couldn't have invaded a Coco's restaurant when it was seniors night. But perhaps I do know why they ran, and perhaps I understand the reasons for Night's stupid coda. The reason is that we're taking the alien thing too seriously. The answer may be that Night is not interested in the aliens at all, but rather Gibson’s character and his apostasy from Christian spirituality. The alien's are just representative of the turmoil inside a troubled man's head. Gibson figuring out how to defeat them is actually his mind coming to terms with a tragedy.

     Many will love this ending, most will think it an unsatisfying coda that is spiritually sincere in the wrong kind of movie. Come on, most will just see a movie about green men in an alien costumes, bringing God into a silly film like this might only hurt your point. But I don't intend to knocking religion in films, is fine if done with tact... I actually appreciated the fact that Gibson was playing a holy man. It was a fine screen performance which, unlike his part in the worst movie so far this year "We Were Soldiers...," didn't feel the need to preach. Preach all you want Shyamalan, but why not do so in an Alien-free drama about Gibson's struggle to raise his family?

     In the end, one could argue that film exists to tell us exactly why God is so cool (one of many this year... what's up guys?). Basically, the Six Sense-esq kicker is a semi-surprise that's anything but a ghost when (***big spoiler ahead***) we learn that what Gibson though were his wife's gibberish dying words ("swing away..." she said last) was actually a message from some higher power that is really a preemptive memo on how to save their child from a future rogue alien who intends to kill Gibson's kid with hands that expel poison gas (huh? wha?). The prophetic last words, "Swing away," was not something from a random universe but God's way of telling Phoenix's ex-baseball playing character (who happened to be standing next to his prized bat at the same time the alien was to kill Gibson's child) to take the green man out with his trusty bat (huh? wha?). At this point the audience is going, "OH FUCK, GOD DOES EXIST!!!" but I'm going "huh? wha?" Why the fuck didn't God let her dying words be: "hey Braveheart, aliens are going to invade in a couple of years so you need to buy yourself really good gun and move near a lake because they hate water?" Oh, right, God works in mysterious ways, sure, uh-huh.

Grade: A-
Unbreakable: A+
Six Sense: B+