Me and You and Everyone We Know: Twee and pretentious debut from performance artist Miranda July. It’s not scary performance-arty as I feared, just self-conscious and trying too hard for indie wit and idiosyncrasy. I didn’t make it much past the half-hour mark.
Bartleby: Dreadful adaptation of Herman Melville’s cryptic short story. It’s been updated to modern times, yet periodically reverts to Melville’s archaic, stilted language. Whatever they were aiming for with that affectation, they missed it. The movie commits the further cinematic violation of using Joe Piscopo, who doesn’t appear to be acting in his role as a borderline-sociopathic meathead. And then there's Crispin Glover, who looks like a corpse and more or less acts like one. If someone asks you to watch this movie, just say, “I would prefer not to.”
Ace in the Hole: Perhaps shockingly cynical when it came out, this Billy Wilder film is not nearly as outrageous today (to quote Nora Ephron, no matter how cynical I get, I just can’t keep up). Disgraced big-city reporter Kirk Douglas toils at an Albuquerque paper, hoping for the big story that will catapult him back to New York City. When it doesn’t come along, he creates it, exploiting and manipulating the story of a roadside café owner who gets trapped in an old mine – apparently as big a story 60 years ago as now. (I watched this shortly after the cave-in that killed those miners in Utah, adding an extra layer of relevancy.) The film feels in many ways like a film noir, with Douglas’ hard-boiled dialogue and harder eyes; the grasping, bottle-blonde femme fatale; and the shady dealings of self-interested local politicos. It’s good – Douglas is excellent in a defiantly unsympathetic role – but a little overlong.
Reno 911!: Miami: This is an easy review: if you like the TV show, you’ll like the movie; if you don’t, you won’t. The movie is raunchier than the show – it takes full advantage of the liberties of cinema vs. basic cable – but adheres to the same basic spirit. An unrecognizable Paul Rudd has a very funny role as a drug lord, and Patton Oswalt is good as the deputy mayor totally unprepared for the responsibility suddenly thrown on him. Some bits from the show make an appearance (Terry, the roller-skating hustler/Tacos Tacos Tacos Tacos employee, has a key role), but the really loopy stuff (think Trudi Wiegel at her mother’s grave) seems to have been focus-grouped out in favor of broad comedy and explosions.
The Good Shepherd: The Bad Movie. Torpidly directed by Robert De Niro, this slow, dull, uninvolving movie purports to show the early days of the CIA. Seems like something I would be interested in, especially seeing as how Matt Damon is in it, but I guess I was assuming the birth of the CIA would… you know… involve stuff happening. Evidently not.
Damon is impassive – a good quality in a spy, not so much in someone you are watching for nearly 3 hours. As if in an effort to keep the audience awake, the movie jumps back and forth in time for no discernible reason and to no good effect.
And I just have to ask: What was the purpose of the scene with Joe Pesci (in which he plays a Mafia capo whom Damon tries to recruit to kill Castro but ends up putting in his dirty-immigrant place)? To show how desperate the CIA was to kill Castro? Well, then it would have been nice to see what came of it. To show that Damon’s character is racist and elitist? You covered that with the whole Skull and Bones thing. To get Joe Pesci a paycheck? Uh, mission accomplished, I guess.
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