Review – Capote

Here’s the behind-the-scenes story for In Cold Blood, a dramatized, behind-the-scenes peek at Truman Capote’s work with Smith, Hickock and the good folks of Holcomb. Philip Seymour Hoffman does a surprisingly good job in the title role. The self-caricature mannerisms of the flamboyant author alone would have been easy to mimic, but Hoffman brings a much greater depth to the character. The result is one of those movies that leaves you wondering just how much of it is true. The story departs from the book in some small details, but of course Capote doesn’t say anything himself about things like lying to the killers to retain their confidence or ceasing his support of their appeals in order to hasten the end of the story so he can finish his work. I was in the middle (actually closer to the end) of the book when I went to see the movie, and the two made an interesting combination. Worth seeing

Review – The Rookie

Baseball and kids and the triumph of the underdog … throw in Disney, and you’ve got a pretty good idea what’s in store here. This is the true story of a small town Texas baseball coach (Dennis Quaid alternately smirking and scowling through another role) with a miracle fastball that takes him to the majors (or at least to the Devil Rays) by the end of the picture. The thing I found most interesting about this production was the almost complete lack of antithesis. The guy’s dad is kind of a creep, and his wife rags on him in a couple of scenes. But for the most part there’s no opposition, just a slow, steady rise to success. The result is a sentimental little picture that’s fun to watch if you’re a baseball fan with a couple of hours to kill on a brain-dead weekend evening. Mildly amusing

Review – City of God

Believe it or not, I actually expected the slums of Rio de Janeiro to be worse than this. Indeed, aside from the drug-related violence, this place didn’t seem all that bad. Of course the violence is overpowering stuff, certainly the focus of this tale about a boy growing up amid brutal gang wars. Based on a true story and filmed on location, this movie nonetheless has a well-produced feel to it. Yeah, you have to read subtitles. But beyond that this is a gangster movie worthy of anything Hollywood has churned out in recent years, made all the better by the absence of sugar coating. Worth seeing

Review – The Freshman

The first time I saw this movie was when it was originally released. Back then I was a film student myself, so it wasn’t too hard for me to be charmed by this tale of a fish-out-of-water kid from Vermont (Matthew Broderick) who ends up pulled into a bewildering series of plots in the Big City. Naturally Brando is great as the mastermind behind the scheme, re-creating one of his most famous characters so closely that the original’s studio sued. Throw in Penelope Ann Miller as the love interest and a water monitor lizard playing a Komodo dragon, and the set is complete. Fans of the serious cinema won’t get much out of this fluffy caper flick. But then fans of the serious cinema might see themselves a little to clearly reflected in the obnoxious professor, a character every film student must know in one form or another. The scene in which the gangster’s daughter makes an idiot of the windbag is a sanity-saving moment for anyone who’s ever studied cinema under such a creature. Worth seeing

Review – A Dirty Shame

I’m sorry, John Waters. I really tried with this one. I wanted to see some of the guts it took to make Multiple Maniacs and Pink Flamingos. Certainly there’s some thematic similarity. However, it just doesn’t work. Part of the problem is that society has moved on a bit from the 1960s. While “perverted” sex isn’t openly embraced across the board, as a nation we’ve at least managed to reach a mind-your-own-business accommodation with most of the weird things people like to do behind closed doors. The other problem is that once you’ve gone Hollywood it’s darn difficult to go back. As a result, this comes across as Cecil B. Demented using sex in the place of indie film-making. The joke isn’t the worst one ever told. Waters retains his gift for obscure off-the-rack music, adding his aplomb for library footage to put together some entertaining hallucination montages. But it gets old after awhile. Really old. There’s just a limit to the number of times I want to hear Johnny Knoxville yell “Let’s go sexin’!” within the course of a single movie, or even the course of a single lifetime. Mildly amusing

Review – Matewan

This is the most blatant piece of pro-labor propaganda since Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin. And like its predecessor, it’s also an extremely effective piece of film-making. John Sayles brings the full force of his skills as a writer and director to the task of portraying the start of the coal field wars to the silver screen. The characters are interesting, however cliché they may be. The plot tends to wander on occasion, but the story stays interesting throughout. Sure, the forces of justice triumph with a level of convenience usually reserved for episodes of Superfriends. But darn it, sometimes it’s nice to see people who deserve to win actually triumph in the end (and even frequently throughout the rest of the two and a half hours of the picture’s running time as well). For my money, the movie is worth seeing just for the scene in which David Straithairn’s character expresses his opinion of the owner of the detective agency that sends strike breakers to the town. Buy the disc

Review – The Triplets of Belleville

This odd animated tale of a kidnapped bicyclist has to have been the strangest Oscar nominee in history, if for no other reason than the almost complete absence of appeal to American audiences. The first few minutes are an interesting swirl of Sally Cruikshank and Chuck Jones. But as soon as the actual story gets underway, the movie turns into a muddled mess. Whoever made this unfortunately seems to have learned the craft at the knee of the Film Board of Canada, taking to heart lessons about the importance of minimal plot and dialogue and extreme affection for laborious pacing. Indeed, were it not for occasional bursts of impressive technical quality I could have sworn that I was back in the nightmare realm of the animation festivals that were common in art houses back in the 80s. See if desperate

Review – Waiting

For better or worse, this is one of those movies where you get exactly what you pay for. So if you’re in the mood for a vulgar mix of Van Wilder, Office Space and Applebee’s, you’re in the right place. The resulting burgoo is an uneven blend of extremely funny moments spread out across long stretches of completely unnecessary plot and character development. I suppose this tale of what really goes on in the kitchen should be mandatory viewing for anyone who’s planning on being rude to the wait staff at a restaurant. Beyond that, however, redeeming qualities are few and far between. See if desperate