Wet Hot American Summer: Dull attempt at spoofing Meatballs-type camp movies -- twenty-plus years after they were in vogue. That no one's seen one of these movies in decades is only part of the problem; mostly, the jokes are obvious or just not funny. I watched about twenty minutes of it and then decided to try it with one of the "special audio tracks." My choices were "Commentary with Michael Showalter, David Wain, and Janeane Garofalo" or "With Extra Farts." Gosh, I have a feeling I know which is funnier. And I actually managed to watch the whole movie with the commentary, which certainly made it a whole lot funnier (still not on a par with the Raimi/Campbell oeuvre).
Grind: I rented this more out of interest as a completist than because of the movie itself -- it was the only Billy Crudup movie I hadn't seen. It's an okay film -- Crudup plays a ne'er-do-well who, when he's paroled, moves in with his brother's family, disrupting everyone's lives. Crudup is charismatically feckless but doesn't do a tremendous amount in the way of acting. Decent supporting performances from Paul Schulze as his brother and Adrienne Shelley as his sister-in-law, but the movie doesn't leave much of an impression -- it's one of the vast number of watchable yet unmemorable movies.
The Dead Zone: I'm not sure why I felt like I needed to see this movie -- probably because of the cultural references to it that pop up every now and then. I mean, after watching it, now I get the Saturday Night Live skit from about 10 years ago when Christopher Walken played a guy who could predict things about people when he touched them, but only minor things, like, "You're going to get a paper cut," or "You're going to choke on your sandwich at lunch... but just for a minute." I'm not sure how valuable that is to my life.
If the cultural references have been passing you by, too, Christopher Walken plays a mild-mannered schoolteacher who's plunged into a five-year coma. When he awakes, his fiancée is married to someone else, and he has the disquieting ability to see unpleasant things -- past, present, and future -- about people just by touching them. Walken is okay but over-emotes at times. The film tries to shoehorn in two subplots, one about finding a murderer, the other about an amoral Senatorial candidate (Martin Sheen), making it feel like the first two episodes of a series. The movie is visually and creatively far less interesting than I would have expected from director David Cronenberg. I dozed off for about 10 minutes toward the end and didn't feel like I'd missed anything.
Bread and Roses (2000): Another look at the working class from unapologetic lefty filmmaker Ken Loach (My Name Is Joe, Carla's Song); this time, it's illegal Mexican immigrant Maya (Pilar Padilla) cleaning office buildings in Los Angeles for an unscrupulous, anti-union company that exploits its workers' poverty to keep them subservient. Adrian Brody is the cute union organizer who prompts Maya to defy her compliant sister Rosa (Elpidia Carrillo) and protest their treatment. (I recall hearing that it had some connection to the real-life protest of L.A. janitorial workers that were happening a few years ago, but I don't remember exactly what -- I think maybe they used footage of the actual march.) All the actors are good; in addition to the leads, Alonso Chavez as Ruben, one of Maya's ambitious co-workers, also stands out. Though the movie is rather one-sided, it's hard to argue with it; the workers are being cruelly exploited, and to its credit, the film raises the issue of Brody's organizer being a college-educated, paid activist who's safe from any consequences his rabble-rousing might cause. Some emotional moments come out of nowhere (e.g., Ruben's declaration of love). But overall, the film is well done and well intentioned.
Everybody's Famous (Iedereen beroemd!): Charming, sweet Belgian movie about a thwarted yet relentlessly optimistic would-be songwriter, Jean (Josse De Pauw), who tries to push his heavy, shy daughter, Marva (the marvelously named Eva van der Gucht), into a singing career via a series of disastrous karaoke contests. Then, just after Jean loses his factory job, his car breaks down, and the country's most popular singer, Debbie (Thekla Reuten), comes to his aid. Jean uses her to blackmail her sleazy manager (Victor Löw) into making Marva a star. De Pauw is excellent, an endearing dreamer devoted to his often oblivious and impatient wife and daughter. It's an engaging and fun movie with appealing, quirky characters you'll enjoy.
I Know Where I'm Going!: A lovely, clever little Powell and Pressburger film about a self-assured young woman who finds she doesn't know where she's going when she's stranded on a remote island in the Hebrides on her way to get married to a wealthy industrialist. Redolent of the Scottish culture and atmosphere, with gorgeous landscapes and vivid characters, it's got the same visual creativity displayed in other Powell and Pressburger films like A Matter of Life and Death (also known as Stairway to Heaven), Black Narcissus, and The Red Shoes. Wendy Hiller is wonderful in the lead role; Roger Livesey as Torquil MacNeil, the Scotsman who crosses paths with her, is also good. I was looking forward to the extras on the DVD, but the main one is an insipid documentary about a New York City editor who loves the movie and travels to the island where it was filmed -- it was cool to see the scenery in color and see how little it had changed in the 50 years since the movie was filmed, but the editor was so dull I couldn't watch more than a few minutes of it.
Trouble in Paradise (1932): Supposed to be Ernst Lubitsch's masterpiece, although personally I prefer Ninotchka, it's an elegant screwball comedy that reminded me of one of my favorite movies, The Palm Beach Story. A pair of high-end thieves take jobs with a wealthy widow to try to rob her blind, but she and the male half of the duo fall for each other. Because it was made before the Hayes Code imposed morality -- or, at least, prudery -- upon Hollywood films, it's more risqué than you'd expect. All the leads are excellent and get great comedic support from veteran character actors.
Only Angels Have Wings: Decent adventure/romance, directed by Howard Hawks, with Cary Grant playing uncharacteristically tough yet still charismatic sweeping chorus girl Jean Arthur off her feet in a remote Latin American port. Grant runs an air-freight service on the verge of going under, in part because the route is so dangerous they keep losing planes -- and pilots. It has a nice depiction of the pilots' bravado, and Arthur's performance is the highlight of the movie. But it goes on a bit too long, and the redemption situation at the end is rather contrived. It has somewhat the same feel and dynamic as Red Dust.
Stop Making Sense: Supposed to be the best concert movie. It was reasonably entertaining, but it's hard to capture the energy of a live show on a TV screen -- it certainly made me wish I'd seen the Talking Heads live. The band's creative staging is cool but sometimes comes off as pretentiously artsy.
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