Reviews

Historical inaccuracies aside, Mamet and DePalma's conception of Capone vs. Ness and the Prohibition Era is mechanical and silly. Mamet's script is full of tired gimmickry (Malone's St. Jude necklace being passed on, Ness coming to terms with the violence and lawlessness within him, using children in danger as a means of upping the emotional ante), and his clipped, hit-the-beats style of writing does not mesh well with DePalma's outlandish, tongue-in-cheek sensuality. (Stone's script for Scarface matches perfectly with that style.) The result is a film with wildly uneven tones: it's both darkly (perhaps unintentionally)comic and moralistic in a square way. Mamet portrays Ness as a naive bore (Costner certainly plays him that way), and allows Connery's Malone (a good performance) to take over the film. DeNiro's scenes as Capone seem disconnected from the rest of the film, and provide no more than a surface portrayal of the infamous gangster. On the plus side, the sets, costumes, cinematography, and supporting actors are all excellent, and DePalma manages to give a charge to a few of the set pieces. The Ennio Morricone score is another highlight and among the best of the maestro's distinguished career. Overall, it's a simplified, dime-store novel approach that isn't even as fun as the TV series that preceded it. The real story deserves better.

Eternal Sunshine is neither the masterpiece that many people will have you believe nor is it awful as the backlashers claim. Once again Charlie Kaufman takes the kernel of a great idea and overloads it with his own obsessive personality. The idea of a couple fighting to retain beautiful memories of their past together while undergoing a memory erasure is ingenious. Kaufman definitely hits some poignant notes along the way (he's great at communicating the mundane pleasures and comforts of relationships), but Joel and Clementine's characters seem like mere sketches rather than fully developed people that the audience can care about. Joel in particular is maddening because he's the same schlubby protagonist that is in all of Kaufman's scripts: it's Charlie himself. The man is simply incapable of creating characters outside the bounds of his own personality. Also, the movie isn't as enjoyable as it should be. Though I wanted to see how it ended (even though I predicted the plot twist about 30 minutes into the movie), Kaufman denies the audience the pleasures of human connection with the characters in favor of convoluted, intricately distanced storytelling. The characters come across as rats in an experiment or pawns in a chess game or any other omniscient metaphor you can think of. And the subplot between the workers of Lunaca fits but in an unimaginative, convenient way. I must say that all of the performances were excellent (except Elijah Wood, but he didn't have much of a character anyway), particularly Winslet and Mark Ruffalo. Director Michel Gondry and his team of technicians give the movie an appropriately jittery, jagged rhythm and look. It feels like the work of a writer on anti-depressants and Valium filtered through the mind of a director on a 3-day caffeine binge. That's not necessarily a bad thing because without the energy and gimmickry that Gondry brings to the film, the emptiness of the conception would be all the more glaring. Don't believe the hype but don't discount the film altogether either. It seems that many people are discovering something profound in it. Self-doubt and emotional shallowness might be the new status quo.

The African Queen is an entertaining film done in grand old Hollywood style, and it is probably the most conventional movie John Huston ever made. It's surprising though that people can call this movie one of the greatest of all time considering the hokey (and at times unbelievable) script and the awkward lack of chemistry between Bogart and Hepburn. Actually, that lack of chemistry creates some strangely funny moments which change the tone of this adventure story--sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. The two are never really believable as the characters they are playing, but they are still fun to watch as a couple of stars chewing up the scenery. Bogart's Academy Award for this performance is obviously a Revlon choice in that it makes up for his being overlooked for at least 10 better performances that he gave prior to this one. Huston's direction seems to lose focus in the last 10 minutes or so and the ending is very abrupt, but overall the film is briskly paced and painless. Also worth noting is the wonderful use of African locations as photographed by master cinematographer Jack Cardiff. If you want to see a better film with similar themes, check out Huston's far superior Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison.

This film shows the depth of feeling that John Huston was capable of as a director. It also shows how wonderfully he handled actors, eliciting great performances from both Mitchum and Kerr. Though it doesn't have the humor of The African Queen, it shows a similar since of dignity to the characters. It also shows respect for the audience in that it doesn't feel the need to resort to romantic over-indulgences or tear-jerking death scenes to win us over. Both characters remain intact physically and spiritually at the end. Also worth mentioning is Oswald Morris's beautiful location photography on the island of Tobago. Fox did a wonderful job on the DVD transfer.

How people can call Lost In Translation a great movie is beyond me. Sofia Coppola proves once again that she doesn't know how to shape a scene let alone an entire film. The premise isn't bad, but all of the ideas float by latently on the screen. Cinematographer Lance Acord helps make up for Coppola's lack of an eye by giving the city locations an ambient glow, but scenes that feature people talking to each other (including those between Bill Murray and Scarlet Johannsson) feel oddly disconnected. Some may argue that this mirrors the characters' frame of mind, but when all of these scenes lead up to a big romantic farewell it feels like you're getting the payoff without the proper build. As for the "comedy" in this film, I thought it was insulting. Everyone in the movie except for the two main characters (and maybe Johannsson's Japanese friend) are made to look either clownish or shallow. Since when is making fun of Japanese people and custom considered "hilariously inventive" as one paper put it. The whole conception is so narrow minded that unless you're willing to fall in love with the characters' mopey derisiveness you will find very little to grab onto as a viewer. Bill Murray has been giving this same sad-sack performance for the past fe w years. It worked in Rushmore because....well because it was just a much better film. That film had original humor, great visuals, and Murray had an actual character to play. Here it looks like there were a lot of script pages that probably read, "Bill does something funny here." The truth is, not much of what he does here is funny or even interesting. It's a tired performance that's being misconstrued as "real" or "honest." Granted, a tired Bill Murray is still much better than most, and he shows a few glints of spontaneous magic. Much of this movie was obviously improvised--at least dialogue wise--and Scarlett Johannsson comes out looking the worst. Often she lets her pretty, pouty face do what her mind (and probably Coppola's script) is not doing. Her performance is full of longing glances and dulled edges. It's telling that her best scene--and Coppola's best conception/composition--is the opening shot of her backside through pink panties seen from the vacant side of her bed. It's a brilliant piece of metaphorical imagery, and there's not a shot or line of dialogue in the rest of the film that comes close to matching it.

** out of *****