The Tuxedo 9/28/2002
What’s Good: Chan is the most likeable actor alive...
What’s Not: Even while he's working with shoddy material... everybody else in this film seems to be taking it way to seriously. 
Directed by  Kevin Donovan (III)
Plot Outline: A hapless chauffer must take a murdered secret agent's place using his special gadget-laden tuxedo.

     Yeah, let’s save Jackie Chan from bad Chinese movies so he can do even worse movies out here in America. Great logic, Hollywood. Problem is that a bad Hong Kong film like "Operation Condor" or even this years “The Accidental Spy” are tailored to be charmingly bad trash. It seems as though the only way Jackie can make a bad movie is if he tries to make a good one ("Crime Story" "Mr. Nice Guy"). Or in this films slightly misguided case, when he tries to impress us round eyes by making us laugh at the funny sounding Asian lout who is paired up, for the fourth American film in a row, with a polar opposite partner. Believe dat? What’s scary is that despite’s Hollywood’s best efforts to corrupt an overseas icon by handing him another sub par script, Chan, that old fox, still almost snuck an enjoyable film past Hollywood's radars.

     The film opens with a working class Chan getting a job as a driver for a Bond like agent (Jason Isaacs playing agent Clark Devlin) but no explanation is offered as to why the government hires immigrant taxi drivers to assist operatives while there engaged in top secret missions. But thanks to Chan’s “pure heart” the agent and his driver get along pretty well, that is until a “skateboard bomb” rolls into their car and 00 Dumb-Ass gets toasted by evil thugs who want to use molecularly altered drinking water to control the world and did I mention the plot made no fucking sense? But before Devlin goes out of commission he instructs Chan to slip on his tuxedo suit and it is up to the once mousy driver, now made superhuman thanks to a super slick suit, to –yawn—save the world or whatever.

     In his Pink Panther like quest Chan accidentally gets pretty far into solving the case thanks to the help of the suit’s advanced powers and his obligatory buddy; this time, Jennifer Love Hewitt (after nine movies still searching for one above a C+) playing a rookie CIA like agent assigned to help Chan (who she thinks is the infamous Devlin) and is constantly annoyed with the guys antics.

     As a comic pair, Chan and Hewitt (who seems to have an equally augmented piece of machinery working under her bra) have no chemistry and that's before Hewitt inexplicably falls for the fifty something taxi driver. If you thought chicks digging Woody Allen was far fetched brace yourselves. The casting of Hewitt is as laughably misguided as Chan's character but the problem is that each is likable on their own terms and plus, no chemistry in this film is still worlds more than the chemistry in which Chan and Chris Tucker exhibited in that second “Rush Hour” movie.   

     Unlike agent Devlin this film is anything but smooth but it veers away from a comedy/action movie dead zone thanks to a charismatic Chan. Likeability comes out of this guys pours and its nice, for a change, to watch Chan playing an uncoordinated hero. He makes even this ridiculous materiel feel like there is a purpose to it...And indeed there is for only a film this lame can be savaged by a oblivious Chan in a scene where, while wearing that all purpose black suit, Chan switches his threads to James Brown mode and wins over a snooty crowd by singing a Brown’s “Sex machine” while his suit allows him to manically shakes his booty in front of the big bad’s scowling face. A scene like that in any other movie would have been disastrous (remember Chris Tucker's musical number in "RH2?"). But with Jackie, making us believe in him despite our selves is all in a days work.

Grade: C+

Hollywood Ending 9/14/2002
What’s Good: A nice premise. Allen seems to be enjoying himself.
What’s Not: A weak cast. Many jokes seem strained.  
Directed by  Woody Allen
Plot Outline: A has-been filmmaker is hired to direct his ex-wife, who's now dating the studio boss. But when he arrives on the set, he develops a case of psychosomatic blindness.

     Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that Woody Allen has hit a career lull. These days, with mediocre comedies like "Small Time Crooks" or "Curse of the Jade Scorpion" his humor seems strained at best. While Woody could be leaning towards substantial drama (as many aging directors do, it's easier I guess) instead, he’s making with the funny… which would be okay his new material was funny, or analytical, or intellectual, or kitschy like his old stuff. Well, this film is probably the best return to form version of a dumb Allen comedy as we will ever get.

    "Hollywood Ending" takes an inspired concept of a neurotic film director who has one last chance with a big budget movie and blows it by psycho somatically going blind. The funny stuff comes when a blind Allen, in need of a paycheck, actually directs the picture. And while the director keeps this ailment a secret from his crew, the few people he does tell don't seem surprised. The film takes the overt metaphor that all commercial directors today are blind to some extent and runs with it. Well, more like stumbles, but the film's got more of a comic footing than a half of his comedies from the 90s and 00s. The execution of the film's jokes could use some of that old Allen fine-tuning (many of Woody's lines that involve bitching to his ex-wife/fiancée of the studio head whose producing Allen's picture were too flat and obvious) but the premise is enough to sustain things.

     As with “Stardust Memories,” this film is a meditation on what Woody, the director, has or will become: A hack of sorts. “That was ten years ago Hal” his supportive ex-wife (Tea Leoni) says while trying to convince a room full of pompous executives that Allen is the right man to helm their $60 million dollar epic set in New York. “His pictures were ten years ago too” says a skeptical exec. Allen as Val Waxman has indeed “lost his audience,” a crisis that is all too real which is why its so funny.

    At one point Allen is even referred to as an “artistic masturbator.” Its clear that Allen is his own harshest critic but funny thing is, that Allen may be right about himself, but the real life man (if we can still distinguish that figure from the one in the movies) has got a masterpiece or two left in him. I may relish this movie but it's no masterpiece.

Grade: B-

Murder By Numbers 9/14/2002
What’s Good: Gosling and Pitt as the youthful killers. Gosling in particular  
What’s Not: Routine killer story. No surprise ending.
Directed by  Barbet Schroeder
Plot Outline: Two gifted high school students execute a series of "perfect" murders then become engaged in an intellectual contest with a seasoned homicide detective.

Bullock stars as detective Cassie Mayweather and she relays a darker side that is much appreciated after she played another cop figure in the shameful “Miss Congeniality.” One reason why I find this by-the-numbers story so hard to fault is that within that said banality, Bullock gives her best performance yet. She’s got a well rounded part here, scars and all. All of her co-workers (including her green partner played by Ben Chaplan) find her bullish attitude exasperating but it is for this reason that I believed in Bullock for the first time. This tough disposition is not just some male Hollywood version of an empowered feminist cop icon but an organic plot point that works.

     Funny how even in a film that contains Bullocks best performance she still gets upstage by her co-stars. From the very first scene we see two high school kids in an overhead shot. They have guns to their heads and as the film cuts away just as we hear a gunshot. Cut to a few weeks back when these two brainy guys formulate how to commit the perfect murder; a “completely random” experiment. Those students are played by an expressive Michael Pitt and an exceptional Ryan Gosling as a “beyond good and evil,” Nietze loving, Leopold and Loeb-esq duo of killers whose cold confidence starts to waver as they begin to distrust each other because of a girl that gets in the way (there’s always one of those). The boys are arrogant but not evil. I liked how we see moments when each can't quite cope with what they've done. And although they know all there is to know about forensics and playing it cool when being intergraded, it is the minute mistakes that has the Sandra Bullock hot on their scent. Through out all the cat and mouse stuff there is an undeniable homosexual subtext to the relationship (even mroeso than the trio from last season's "Buffy") and each scene with these two are charged with life. I say make the movie only about these two and forget the cops.

     Speaking of which on the cop's side of the story the procedural material is not as seamless as in a modern day crime masterpiece like “Seven,” and not even as smooth a blow-by-blow account on crime solving 101 as in a show like "CSI" or a film like “Blood Work.” But where this film has that Eastwood dud beat is in the motivation department. The way the cops gather evidence, the way the young killers manipulate things… the film plays fair on all fronts (except with a brain-dead subplot with a monkey... don't know where that came from). Fact is that there are no superhuman masterminds and no detectives that sit in a chair, go “hum?” and pull insightful clues out of their ass like Morgan Freeman does so often in his Alex Cross films. Maybe this is not enough to recommend the film --playing fair is refreshing but it makes for a rather unspectacular thriller-- but it's at least more than enough to place this film above all those other clueless cop thrillers.

Grade: B-

Monsoon Wedding 9/14/2002
What’s Good: I defy anyone to call this third world cinema.
What’s Not: The structure works but is comprised of characters that are ultimately one dimensional
Directed by  Mira Nair
Plot Outline: A stressed father, a bride-to-be with a secret, a smitten event planner, and relatives from around the world create much ado about the preparations for an arranged marriage in India.

     “A surprisingly robust family comedy from director Mir Nair. Call it My Big fat Indian Wedding, only this film is not as contrived as that overrated money machine. "Wedding" offers a colorful celebration of a modern, middle class India (set in Deli) with a giant ensemble of characters that are as full of life as those chaps in the complex "Gosford Park."

The film centers around a antsy girl who is being arranged to be married yet might prefer to be with a man of her choosing, a slimy television personality. Most of the action centers around her families house and we get a dozen or so ancillary stock characters (the uptight dad, the horny cousin, the pest of a brother, the cheeky wedding planner...)  that all (save one or two) are likable and have problems that we want to see settled. Indeed, all these many problems hover in the air in the first half. Nair juggles here and spends much time setting everything and everybody up so that in the second half she can watch it all come down. I liked the feeling of mania… even the language adds to the frenetic pace. Characters spit rapid dialogue at each other, half of which is in English and the other half is anyone's best guess. This instability and savory theme of culture clashing through the mix of old culture and new (cell phones, e-mail…traditional Indian garb, traditional Indian dancing) give the film a remarkable leg-up from other Indian productions. This is not a musical, this is, however, a film that seems to sing and dance with every colorful scene.

Grade: A-

Spirited Away 9/20/2002
What’s Good: Perhaps the best children's film ever made. Beautiful in a way that defies words. I will also concede that Disney did a great job with the dubbing thanks to "Toy Story" director John Lassiter who oversaw the translation.
What’s Not: So close to an A+ but due to a slightly tepid ending this film gets, like, a 99%. Also sad is the fact that it made 100 million in Japan and wont make half that figure in the states.

Note: This film has been rated G for "scary moments." Okay, fine there are some. But then why, MPAA, is "Monsters Inc." a movie where MONSTERS go around "scaring" little kids rated G? Well, it's because the antichrist is not in the form of one person, but in the form of a company. No parental guidance is needed for a G rated Disney movie because that way it's easier to get inside children's heads... ahhh... there going to take over... we must stockpile weapons and stop the evil empire before they make another "Lilo and Stitch!!!" Now if you'll excuse me I've got to cut this short so I can play "Kingdom Hearts." 
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Plot Outline: In the middle of her family's move to the suburbs, a sullen 10-year-old girl wanders into a world ruled by witches and monsters, where humans are changed into animals.

     “Spirited Away" gives us the opportunity to re-connect with our childhood imaginations and offers a world that bursts with a ingenuous zeal that no American animated film has ever approximated. This is the "Wizard of Oz," the "Fantasia," the Alice in Wonderland of our our time and how grateful we should all be that storytelling this whimsical and grand still exists. 

     Picture Walt Disney, now picture a director with more vision, clarity, and daring than that luminary. It has long been believed (by me) that while the name the Disney name once evoked a sense of innovation and admiration, today, seems more like a curse word. The Company seems to have a monopoly on larva cinema yet nobody bitches because our dirty little secret is that the Disney cartel has done more to raise the kids of American than the parents of America. And as such, Disney has graciously handed each red blooded American a voracious consumer appetite and nice antiseptic imagination. This is where Hayao Miyazaki comes in. For every Disney dark haired villain, blue eyed protagonist, and piece of shit plush toy, there exits a flurried humanistic visual from the mind of Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli. 
     If Disney has done anything well in the last ten years, it's hopping in bed with and distributing on behalf of a visionary more ambitious than any Disney employ could ever Imagine... and they know it too. 

     The release of Hayao Miyazaki’s latest opus, “Spirited Away,” is about as anticipated to anime fans as, lets see, if a second “Fight Club” were to premiere for belligerent frat boys who mistook the message of the first movie. The setting was the opening day screening at the El Capitan theater in Hollywood and while a lifeless silence filled the air when the words “Disney pictures presents…” appeared on the screen, the blue Studio Ghibli logo, however, received a more Spirited applause then the time “a long time ago in a galaxy far far away” appeared in the 1998 "Star Wars" re-release.  

     After the unchallenged and overlooked 1999 epic “Princess Mononoke,” hearing that Miyazaki threw in the towel seemed appropriate. I mean, if a director is going to go out, what better note to end on than a fetching epic with a magnitude as vast as “Princess Mononokie." It seems that after being inspired one more (and hopefully not last) time the filmmaker is back and while his latest film is more grounded, it is no less the epic that “Mononokie” was.
      "Spirited Away" tells a sweeping story in both big and small proportions. Small as in the detail. An aspect that is almost as impressive as this year's other elaborate anime titled “Metropolis.” Like that tale, there seems to be many films going on at once. There’s what the main character, a young human girl named Chihiro, is saying and doing, but at the same time there’s the diligent inhabitants of this spirit world that she has visited. These auspicious creatures operate with a separate intelligence. From talking frogs to Radish spirits to big rubber duck looking things, each character design is outlandishly diverse; unlike the racist looking cartoon characters in Disney's "Lilo and Stitch," hundreds of characters exist in this film yet none of them felt like animated extras.
     Pint size dust balls with giant eyeballs and spider thin legs have more personality than Mike Wazowski from "Monster's Inc." A hilarious fly who carries a chubby mouse around is more inspired and funny than that bitch ass bird from "Lion King." Even the phantom spirit named “no face” that follows Chihiro around in silence is more haunting, peaceful, striking, and ambiguously drawn than Simba's ghostly dad (there's a dazzling scene where, after No Face is invited into the bath house, it allows all the gluttonous patrons beg for gold before it gobbles them up). Indeed, the many varied inhabitants are full of go and the film requires a second viewing just to take in the enormity of detail in this lush world.  

     Though it's hardly the primary reason to see the film, the story of "Spirited Away" holds up nicely . With the first hand drawn frame we see young Chihiro in the back of her parent’s car. She is riddled with fear, trying to cope with her familes decision to relocate. Right before they get to their new home her mom and dad come across a mysterious and alluring tunnel that leads as far as the eye can see. Intrigued, they all go down this tunnel (this linear movement through a dark passage represent, to me, how we fall into our dreams) and it leads them to beautifully rustic “abandoned amassment park,” or so they think. Chihiro knows something isn't right and much to her dismay the parents continue to look around this neglected landscape and before Chihiro knows it her parents have turned into pigs and Chihiro, along with the audience, is hurled into a new world, one inhabited by spirits.
     It seems that all Miyazaki films about children exist in a world without parents and even in a film like "Mononoke," the grown ups are the corrupt ones who denigrate the natural order of the world. Chihiro's principal goal is to get her parents back but along the way she meets and comes across the most fantastical creatures and sites cinema has ever offered; while film centers around a huge bathhouse that is a sort of vacation spa for restless spirits, but Misaki is not bound by any description that can be summed up in words. This film has to be seen to be believed.

     "Spirited Away" contains some apt comments regarding the industrial machine we’ve all been sucked into (the pig symbolism is by no means subtle) and there exists some further Buddhist imagery (the spirit of the river and this human girl have a symbiotic relationship) but what overrides all that during the first viewing is the films visual splendor.

     Also impressive is the depth in the innocent character of Chihiro. She has a nice arc as she learns to be brave and trust her humanly instincts. These and her other lesions learned along the way make this film perfect for young ones but since we are too afraid to warm up to Japanese animation I will leave it at that. Anyways, part of Chihiro's arc involves dealing with the picture's antagonist-- if you can even call her that-- a wrinkly old witch with a big old head named Yubaba. Yubaba is a business minded miser, intent on capturing Chihiro's own name and replacing it with the name "Sin" (symbolism for the loss of our souls today perhaps? I sure know that I've lost my name at the college I'm currently attending) yet Chihiro does not combat this scoundrel with the same manner of pent up violence as a character from "Aladdin," "The Lion King," "Atlantis," etc. No, she treats the witch with the same kind of respect that Miasaki treats his audience with. Problems in this film get solved by using ones mind, by having compassion for others, and of course by love.

     With each frame of this film I was assured that I was in the hands of a master craftsmen. The film evinces a world (not unlike the universe created in "Kiki's Delivery Service" and "My Neighbor Totoro") that surreal but not as distant as the world we were taken to in Alice in Wonderland. "Spirited Away" is a modern fairy tale, only, you know, with spirits instead of fairies.
      There is a scene in the film where a sickly stink spirit storms into the bathhouse much to the dismay of the greedy, frog looking employees who don't wish to help this troubled being. It is only through the courage and empathy of our main character that the crisis is resolved. The selfless girl figures out not only how to clean the odorous "beast" but she goes one step further when she is able to cure it's ailment indefinitely by pulling on what looks like a thorn. As that thorn is pulled out it (thanks to a teamwork effort that Chihiro has sparked) it turns out not to be a thorn but a giant globule of putrid, man-made industrial mesh that has plagued the once beautiful spirit just as nature has been plagued by technology. That spirit is grateful and before it majestically flies up to the heavens, it rewards Chihiro for her unselfish and decidedly atypical behavior. This is a exquisite, you had-to-be-there moment that it seems no western film could ever match. And it should be noted that the film is composed of one moment like that after another.

To call "Spirited Away" a movie would be doing it an injustice. It is an ethereal dream trapped in a celluloid web.

Grade: A

Resident Evil 9/14/2002
What’s Good: If nothing else, a campy zombie movie. Cool music, a great final shot and Milla! I can't wait for the sequel in 2003.
What’s Not: Offers the bare minimum. This film is nowhere near inspired, it's simply adequate.  
Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson 
Plot Outline: A special military unit fights a powerful, out-of-control supercomputer and hundreds of scientists who have mutated into flesh-eating creatures after a laboratory accident.

     “Resident Evil” doesn't so much tell a story of a group of people under siege against genetically constructed zombies as it beats you over the head with it. This film is big dumb and borrows generously from the “Alien” series and Romero’s “Living Dead” films but the funny thing is, as B-zombie flicks go, “Resident Evil” is pretty damn kick ass.

     Milla Jovovich stars as a amnesiac who wakes up (naked of course) in an underground compound that has been closed off due to an outbreak of the “T-virus,” a biological weapon created by ? to turn humans into soulless flesh eaters. A confused Jovovich joins an elite army team who, as expected, gets picked off one by one until the climax where Jovovich goes up against a giant, skinless lizard looking motherfucker named Nemesis. “WHAT…THE…FUCK…WAS…THAT!!!” one of the army men brilliantly observes.
    Directed by Paul Anderson (the Brit who brought us the clever "Mortal Kombat" and beyond freaky "Event Horizon"), the film's 100 minutes zip by in a furry of hip carnage and redundant gunfire (guys, bullets don't hurt zombies... stop waiting bullets!) and a bevy of groaning and screaming belted out from humans and non humans alike. Against my better judgment the film is being recommend on these grounds: Watching this empty piece of entertainment may hit the spot when you yourself are in that zombie mode.  

Grade: B-

The Count of Monty Cristo 9/12/2002
What’s Good: Caviezel is more than up to the task. A good beginning and a good middle.
What’s Not: Too hurried.
Directed by Kevin Reynolds
Plot Outline: A young man, falsely imprisoned by his jealous "friends," escapes and uses a hidden treasure to exact his revenge.

    I consider "Count" to be three decent short films consolidated into one hasty feature. This is part stranded swashbuckling sailor movie, part Shawshankian prison picture (this middle chunk is the best thing about the film), and part revenge/wealth picture. And all throughout this plot we get one Jim “holy man” Caviezel who treats the classic character of Dantes like a wounded puppy dog turned vengeful misanthrope intent on getting his wife back. Caviezel’s performance is the only consistent thing about the picture.
   Along side Dantes is a post-“Memento” Guy Pierce who plays Fernand Mondego, the jealous best friend who one day double crosses Dantes to join the elite class of corrupt French officials. Pierce goes on to marry Dantes’ longtime love played by Dagmara Dominczyk (an act I was never able to forgive that skanky ho for) only to see Dantes escape from prison, get rich by finding Napoleon’s lost treasure (huh?), only to become self proclaimed count who proceeds to mind fuck Mondego until he is now the one running from the law… and didn't the same thing happen in "The Mask Of Zorro?"

The film, from what I hear, is a glaringly unfaithful adaptation when put up next to the thousand plus page Alexander Dumas novel (aspects like the quasi-homoerotic manservant played by a confused Louise Guizmon were invented just for this film… and thanks for nothing). Indeed, this version is so eager to tell Edmond's sad story and is packed with so much contrived content that the end result rendered me indifferent.

I guess this cinematic abridgment is the best we will ever get but that's no reason to like it.

Grade: C-

City by the Sea 8/21/2002
What’s Good: Some thoughtful performances, especially by De Niro.
What’s Not: As a noir detective drama it fails to do much with the routine material that involves police work.
Directed by  Michael Caton-Jones 
Plot Outline: Vincent Lamarca, whose father was executed for a 1950s kidnapping of a child, grew up to become a police officer, only to see his own son become a murderer.

     As De Niro gets older I imagine he will take even more chances with roles that have previously eluded him due to his youth or middle age. He looks older, more worn in-- closer now to Brando's Don Vito than the De Niro's Don Vito-- and I think the next few decades will bring some amazing performances out of the iconic actor-- the only job we have in ensuring this is to pray that he stays away from asinine comedies like “Showtime.” So it is with this in mind that I say I could see few other actors in a role like that of Vincent Lamarca, a middle-aged cop whose unsettled past is caving in on him as if it were a Shakespearian tragedy. De Niro carries the weighty look of regret like only a master could.

     This film is about a troubled son and absent father and a few may find parallels with this summer's other remorse laden gangster flick called “Rode to Perdition” except the son and father roles are reversed. Both films take two older actors and make their characters deal with a volatile past that both neglectful men have essentially created. If anything, both films seem to offer exciting exercises for the actors and I believe it goes without saying that it is immeasurably valuable to see how Hanks and De Niro approach these fallen patriarchal characters. Sadly though, both films fail to connect with anything other than a few good performances and some nice art direction. While “Rode” was a comic book that took itself too seriously, this film is a real world film-noir morality tale that, for most of it's sluggish running time, doesn't take itself seriously enough and gets caught up in the tedium of its moping supporting characters.

     Besides the father/son themes, we get to look in on De Niro's private life which entails drinking beer, looking dopy while watching the Knicks and visiting his girlfriend in the apartment below for some late night booty call.  The pairing if De Niro and McDormand as the girlfriend is a great idea. On paper. This is a no frills relationship that is treated in a realistic and thoughtful manner, sure, but the talent exceeds the sluggish material; this relationship is illustrating how De Niro's character is fucking up a second chance at happiness but mostly it gets in the way of his geriatric angst. I would have preferred to see this character alone and naked (metaphorically of course) because too often we would see the pair the same room and they would have absolutely nothing to say. Lines between the couple like “I don’t know what to do except be a cop. That’s all I have” don’t exact win Oscars and if the two ailing farts in "Iris" can have thrilling dialogue, then these two have no excuse.
    Yes I get that the chemistry between these two shy people lies in their lack of chemistry but I'm not sure the awkwardness works. Since De Niro is playing a clandestine bore and McDormand wants him to take the relationship seriously, the fact that neither changes or gets their wish is a bit maddening. 

     This film was directed by Michael Caton Jones, who put Bobby D in the 1991 troubled father/step-son film called “This Boys Life,” with Leonardo DiCaprio in the role of abused son and De Niro as a father figure who, unlike Lamarca, was around, but terribly abusive (remember, De Niro and DiCaprio were also good together in "Marvin's Room"). With “City By the Sea,” we see the upcoming star James Franco give a memorable performance in the unreachable son role. Franco, who totally looks the part, is playing a frail and hopeless heroine addict who has killed a crazy drug dealer in self defense and is now being hunted down by the law (which happens to include De Niro, his father), the mother of his baby (Eliza Dushku please come back to "Buffy") and an malicious, mullet wearing drug lord who, as usual, wants his goddamn money back (William Forsythe in the films worst subplot). Franko is quite solid here but I got to say that the the film doesn't really do anything with this character. Like McDormand he too is relegated to sitting around and looking stupid. Franco's only worthwhile scenes, in fact, are when he's paired up with his father. The closing shots between De Niro and Franco, then De Niro and Franco's infant son are hauntingly poignant.

      We are seeing a cuttingly lethargic De Niro, and his portrayal of a man who just wants to forget the past and be left alone is nothing new but still a nice change of pace for the actor. This performance marks brave salute to the quiet joy of emotive subtlety that he was capable of in films like "True Confessions" and "1900" and of course "Awakenings." I'm not embellishing when I say that De Niro single handedly saves this film. But, then, what else is new?

Grade: B-

One Hour Photo 9/1/2002
What’s Good: As cinema’s weirdo’s go, Sy is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Williams needs another Oscar.
What’s Not: I'll get back to you on that.  
Directed by Mark Romanek 
Plot Outline: An employee of a one-hour photo lab becomes obsessed with a young suburban family.

     Here is a film that, psychologically, goes far beyond the standard psycho stalker movie genre. It is not immediately entertaining and audiences may not warm up to it but as Sean Penn said on "Inside the Actors Studio," "If you want entertainment, get two hookers and an eight ball." This film is not entertaining, it's art.

    "One Hour Photo" is a visually arresting drama with the brooding Robin Williams in the foreground of each and every loaded shot. Director Mark Romanek, who, like many great music- to-move directors got noticed with his conceptually groundbreaking music videos (Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” for one). Here he proves that he has an eye for sustaining the kinetic fervor of some of his three minute videos into an engrossing feature length film. Each shot is framed, shot, composed, etc beautifully and the director (along with a great cinematographer, composer, art director, you name it) seem to be showing us a story as much as he is telling us one.

     If there’s any reason to see Williams in this film and “Insomnia” this summer it is because the actor has finally earned the respect that comes with that Oscar he won-- I'll even forget he was in "Death to Smoochy" this year. With this layered role of an isolated photo technician, Williams proves that he can be one of the best actors around if he chooses to. After watching his dead serious portrayal of Sy the photo guy, this performer could never tell a joke again, and I'd be fine as long as Williams gravitates towards intrepid projects like “One Hour Photo,” he will be an asset to the filmmaking community.  

     What puts this film over the top from just about everything else I’ve seen all year is its ability to end properly. As closing acts go, this year has seen far too many great films spiral downward. Not to give anything away but this film surprised me with its ability to stay true to its character. So true, in fact, that I can’t recall another movie about a buggy stalker to end without a significant amount of violence. "Taxi Driver," "Psycho," "The Fan," "With a Friend Like Harry," even "What About Bob"… these films unilaterally equate weirdoes with bloodshed; and if violent tendencies are not in these character's personalities, some is added for that extra punch of action. Films like “Fatal Attraction” need the stalker to turn into, as Ebert noted, “a grown up version of 'Friday the 13th.'” And not that "What About Bob" should have ended with a duet of "Come on Eline," violence is most always necessary, but it is a testament to this film's dedication that it would stick with an original path of insight and maturity as opposed to a bloody one with boiled rabbits and dead pimps.
     So when I view "One Hour Photo" again, and watch Williams obsessing over the seemingly happy family that frequents his Photoshop I will not be distracted with the question of what’s he going to do to them, but rather, what would make him like this. And why is he doing this to them?

      There is a scene early on in the film when Williams' character Sy is finished with work at the local SavMart (shot with stark white colors). He gets to the parking lot and we see that he owns a white Toyota Echo (the metaphor, I think, is saying that everything in Sy’s life is a once removed, artificial reflection of something human... his life is an echo of sorts) and when Sy gets closer to his car he realized that the front windshield has a hairline fracture running down it. Sy says “that’s just great” with a tone in a mannered tone that should be calming but is not-- I loved how this is a creepy and calm affect of mild disgust does not change throughout the film. My point is that this crack on this lackluster car may represent Sy’s personality. He’s dull, he’s sad, he’s broken and everything about him is slightly off. The cracked glass on the clean white car resonated with me because Williams plays this character as if there is a crack in his own miserable psyche. Due to Sy’s mellifluously sad tone and mild mannered emoting --and knowing what fevered madness Williams is capable of-- we get the feeling that the glass will shatter. That Williams' Sy will loose it at any moment, erupting into a volcano of rage and turning into Jack Nicholson’s character in “Witches of Eastwick.” This bubbling suspense keeps the film alive and glowing like the fluorescent lights at the soulless American super store.

      It is because I feel so much unusual empathy for Sy and his distilled personal life (it is no accident that just about everything in this film is spotless and white; you should see this guys lifeless apartment… yikes) we cannot treat him like an uber villain and in the films closing moments writer/director Mark Romanek makes sure that he is not evil incarnate from “The Cell” but a troubled soul in need of being loved and worthy enough to have someone “care enough to take a picture” of him. The irony is that Sy actually gets a picture taken in first shot of the film. Though the picture is not by an loving companion, but rather, a menacing looking camera that, as we find out in this flash-forward, is a mug shot being taken while Sy is in police custody for a crime he commits later in the film.
     I was touched by William's somber performance here and I bet if we could get into the heads of stalkers more often they would be like Sy. We would see that they were not violent masterminds but scared little children and this film brilliantly offers up a character like that—a withdrawn type who is a human sponge. A man that would, as Matt Damon put it in “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” “rater be a fake somebody than a real nobody.” Sy lives vicariously through other's “happy moments” in their pictures. Moments that Sy never got.

Grade: A