The Good
Two modest British films topped my recent spate of DVD viewing. Shaun of the Dead is an amiable comedy about two aimless friends, Shaun and Ed, who are suddenly confronted by a plague of zombies. They aren’t exactly heroic about it at first, but eventually they rise to the occasion. There are few moments of out-and-out gore (although when one comes along, it’s usually quite nasty); the film has an irresistible, cheeky charm (it takes a clever swipe at its predecessor in the “young Brits vs. zombies” genre, 28 Days Later). It’s funny in slapsticky but also more subtle, dry ways (it takes the guys a while to cotton on, for example, because they and everyone around them are practically zombies anyway, robotically droning to and from work in a mindless, numbing routine). Dare I say – it’s a bloody good time.
Birthday Girl, I’ll
admit, didn’t
totally hang together, but I
enjoyed the movie enough that I forgave its minor suspension of
disbelief. The terrific cast helps: Ben Chapin is great as shy bank clerk John,
as is Nicole Kidman as Nadia, the Russian internet bride he orders up. Mathieu Kassovitz and Vincent Cassel are
excellent as Nadia’s “cousins,” who show up at John’s door – and get
rather
peeved when he finally gets up the courage to tell them to leave. Birthday Girl
is a well-crafted
film, just what I expected based on the quote I’d
seen from writer-director Jez
Butterworth.
The Bleh
Intermission got great reviews, but I can’t see why. It’s reasonably entertaining – various Dubliners’ lives intersect in love and crime – but no great shakes. Its light-heartedness drops suddenly for a violent ending, which is jarring. Perhaps the most memorable character is the nameless, evil little boy who pops up to precipitate the event that triggers the climax of the various stories – and him only because he’s such a little shite.
The Believer’s hook
is a neo-Nazi who’s
also Jewish. Although it more or less kept
me interested –
star Ryan Gosling is charismatic in a horrifying way – its fatal flaw
is that
you never get how or why he preaches violent anti-Semitism in public
but
privately, reverently practices. It’s
not clear if he’s trying to spur Jews to action, or if he thinks he’s
some kind of
martyr, or if he’s just really, really fucked up.
I’m Not Scared (Io
non ho paura) is marketed as a
tense thriller, but it’s hardly that, a few startles aside. Young Michele, playing near a deserted
farmhouse, discovers a boy his own age – chained in a hidden,
pitch-black
pit. It’s well done, and it’s nicely
unpredictable, but I found myself losing interest and becoming
frustrated by
the gaping, unaddressed plot hole – why does Michele never even
consider
telling an adult about his discovery?
The Legend of Suriyothai
is a
sprawling, Thai epic that’s of
interest for its exoticism, but it’s too long and dragging to recommend. I guess I wasn’t paying enough attention,
because I kept confusing the many characters, which didn’t help matters.
The Ugly
demonlover is a foul pustule of misogyny, violence, and amorality. A bunch of unpleasant corporate sharks viciously sabotage each other, all in the name of getting their scummy hands on a web site that shows repulsive, graphic anime. After watching about half of it, I was disgusted by its very existence, not to mention by everyone affiliated with it. Just when Gina Gershon had almost erased the taint of Showgirls, she goes and does this (and this movie makes Showgirls look like a fairy tale).
World Traveler
inspired somewhat less
rancor in me, but it
still was bad enough that I didn’t get more than a half-hour into it. I was particularly annoyed by its abuse of
Billy Crudup, who plays an apparently soulless architect who deserts
his wife
and son on the son’s birthday, with no clue as to why on his
expressionless
face. No apparent mitigating
circumstances, no evident remorse – not interested.
Dodgeball
is a crass,
lowest-common-denominator stinker that gives Ben Stiller yet another
unwelcome opportunity to do his seething, creepy dork act. But
hey, if watching guys get hit with various objects, often in the groin,
is your idea of a good time, Dodgeball
is 92 minutes of heaven.
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