Infernal
Affairs
is a highly touted Hong Kong movie that’s
currently being remade by Martin Scorsese (who you’d think would have
more
respect for world cinema than to remake a perfectly fine foreign movie
just so
that lazy Americans don’t have to read subtitles or view a different
culture). The story of two turncoats – a
police informant in a Triad gang and a gangster infiltrator in the
police
department – it’s engaging enough, and Andy Lau (House of Flying Daggers)
and Tony Leung (Hero)
are excellent as the two informants. It
has clever touches, but it goes overboard
on the arty flourishes, which makes it seem pretentious and detracts
from the
basic conflict of twisted loyalties. It’s
possible Scorsese could actually improve on the source material, but I
don’t
hold out much hope, even with Matt Damon in the cast.
So I finally buckled to
peer pressure and
watched The Incredibles. I
could go a couple of ways here; I could point out the subversively
reactionary message -- that if you don't have "special" abilities, keep
your mouth shut and don't expect any help, and that all trial lawyers
are money-grubbing scum -- or the "homages"/rip-offs of classic work --
like, the villain looks like the Heat Miser
and his lair could be Blofeld's hide-out in You Only Live Twice, right down to
the entrance hidden under the lake and the China Sea karst
limestone formations off the shore, or how the family, powerwise,
is very, very much like the Fantastic Four. Or, I guess, I could
just note that it's an enjoyable movie with outstanding animation and
some clever touches, and leave it at that.
Anchorman
is a tedious, one-joke movie that is pretty much not worth any further
comment.
Step
Into Liquid is a fun, unpretentious documentary about
surfing, made with the gee-whiz enthusiasm of an amateur (in the best
sense of the word, although it gets a little too goofy occasionally),
very similar to The Endless Summer
(director Dana Brown is the son of Endless
Summer director Bruce Brown). It gives a great sense of
riding a wave with amazing shots, and it shows some truly odd surfing
spots (a shipping channel outside Galveston, Texas, where surfers can
ride a wave for a mile or more, and the frigid waters of
Ireland). Quite fun to watch.
City
of God is a well-done movie that I'm not sure most people
would want to see. It seems at first to be a roguishly off-color
coming-of-age story (based on actual events) set in the slums of Rio de
Janeiro, starring a charming scamp (Alexandre Rodrigues). But
quite suddenly, it veers into jarring scenes of casual brutality.
I'm not one to fetishize the sacred innocence of childhood and all that
crap, but this is some rough stuff: pre-teens casually murdering
anyone who pisses them off, including other children. It's pretty
tough to watch, and I'm not sure if the rewards of the gripping story
and vivid characters will be worth it for many people.
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