“I’ll be back.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Terminator (1984)
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Elegy (2008) There’s absolutely no doubt this movie is based on a Philip Roth novel (the novel in question being The Dying Animal): it’s a melancholy, self-absorbed examination of an aging man’s character, all flaws prominently on display. Ben Kingsley and Dennis Hopper are perfect in their roles, and Penelope Cruz is particularly impressive. It ends in a most curiously uplifting way . . . there’s nothing happy about the ending, and yet there is. Quibble: I know this will sound prudish, old fashioned, and gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), but I was annoyed by what I felt was gratuitous T&A, gratuitously sexist T&A at that . . . the boys get to keep their knickers on, the girls have to strip. |
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Rachel Getting Married (2008) This movie was kind of a mess . . . I almost thought I was watching a Robert Altman film. It made me cringe and it made me laugh (mostly cringe), but I’m not sure it taught me much. Okay, it taught me (as if I didn’t already know) that I am blessed to have a relatively normal marriage and relatively normal children. As the characters act out their conflicts (conflicts that would probably disappear if they had jobs and responsibilities), they do so in the context of an incredibly long, over-the-top, multicultural wedding. Every species of humanity save the Esquimaux is represented. Whether or not this is a joke isn’t made clear, but I suspect it is, in the sense that this sort of humanity-hugging sentimentalism could only happen in the imaginations of comfortably wealthy white people. The acting is superb throughout. |
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JCVD (2008) Not your standard Jean-Claude Van Damme flick. I liked it. My wife liked it. We were both surprised. I wonder, though, whether it was inspired by Mickey Rourke’s great comeback success with The Wrestler. And more cynically, I wonder how long it’ll be before we start seeing similar introspection from the likes of Steven Seagal and Chuck Norris. |
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Angels and Demons (2009) This is a new release, still in theaters and not yet available on DVD. The success of Angels and Demons depends on the audiences’ suspension of disbelief, and I have to say that as an audience member of average intelligence I had to work at it, but once I decided to ignore the parts that didn’t make sense and embrace the fantasy, it clicked right along. I don’t know why Tom Hanks is so wooden as Robert Langdon — was he perhaps playing Al Gore playing Robert Langdon? — and I think another actor might have been a better choice, but the rest of the cast was great. I kind of missed the scary albino from The Da Vinci Code, but the cardinals do their best in the Byzantine intrigue department to make up for that. Lutherans and Episcopalians? Pah. They don’t get up to one tenth the evil the Catholic hierarchy pulls off before breakfast, is all I’m saying. |
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Stop Loss (2008) Movies about American troops’ experiences in Iraq and their troubles adjusting once they return home routinely fail at the box office, and probably don’t do too well in the home rental market either. I think most Americans would rather watch Starship Troopers than In the Valley of Elah or this serious and realistic movie, and that’s just fucked up. This is a good movie about serious issues, well acted and directed, and very, very sad. |
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The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) Meh. This one didn’t do it for me. Some day soon it’ll be a cable channel perennial, running opposite its twin, Forrest Gump. “What’ll we watch tonight, honey, Button or Gump?” “I don’t give a shit, pick whichever one you want . . . I’ll be in the other room reading a book.” Benjamin Button is butterscotch for the soul that craves chocolate. |