Reviews

This is the most unfairly maligned film of the year. Some critics took it upon themselves to be the defenders of Japanese culture (without fully researching their arguments) and, in the process, betrayed their own racism. "The film is inauthentic because the actresses do not wear matronly bouffants," one said. Riiiiiight. Matronly bouffants are a Western stereotype! But in any case, some of them do and some don't! THAT'S authenticity. I guess critics wouldn't know that writing reviews without seeing the film or walking out long before it's over (some, such as Jeff Wells, do).

Anyway, it's a fantastic film and more than deserving of multiple Academy award nominations - which it may not get thanks to the fact that so many people decided they wanted to use the film as the sacrificial lamb for a half-baked debate about international politics, rather consider that pan-Asian casting for major roles is NOTHING new (it's true of House of Flying Daggers, The Joy Luck Club and even Crouching Tiger) and that this film's production might represent international cooperation at its best.

Look out for Gong Li and Youki Kudoh in RICHLY developed supporting roles. The supporting males, while obviously not as well developed since they spend less time in the geisha quarters, still give incredible performances. Ken Watanabe was excellent, but I particularly enjoyed the performance of the actor playing Nobu. Oprah is right about the sets and costumes; they (amongst other things) make you want to savor every moment of the film. Some people have argued that the brilliant colors make it seem like some sort of Orientalist fantasy. Truth is that this would only be the case if we saw a departure from a more sedate West to a flamboyant East; instead, the film opens in a rather sedate part of Japan and then takes us to the more colorful geisha district (which introduces this fascinating paradox of great suffering in a milieu of tremendous beauty). We know from Chicago that it's simply Rob Marshall's aesthetic to make everything the height of beauty, even if it's a slum. God forbid ENTERTAINMENT CIRCLES should be presented as visually spectacular! The film is by turns funny, moving and, yes, thrilling. Gasps in the audience for the film's third act gave way to sniffles. Ziyi Zhang really managed any language difficulties well; her face has this ripple effect when she's emoting. It's stunning to behold. If I were voting for the Oscars, I'd definitely give her a nomination at the very least. And homegirl can dance, too! Her performance and the film itself are not boring at all; audience members laughed when she was trying to be funny and sighed when she was suffering. IMO, too much happens in the film for it to get boring; there's a strong balance between the rivalries, the details about geisha entertainment and the romance. In the final scene, it all comes full circle. I won't tell you how. See for yourself.

My #1 film of the year. Brokeback Mountain, Chronicles of Narnia, Howl's Moving Castle, King Kong and Grizzly Man aren't far behind.

I finally saw this tonight with a friend. We both agree that it's just not a very good film. Clooney's direction and the screenplay give us little sense of how menacing the senator really was. It's very insular; the film would have been better if it took to the streets instead of keeping everyone in the newsroom the whole time. Cool and jazzy is always the mood, with a black woman appearing every now and then to sing random ditties. That doesn't work for me. The film wants to be about something serious but the score conflicts with that. Then there's a subplot about a marriage between staff members played by Patricia Clarkson and Robert Downey, Jr. Nothing comes of it. David's performance as Murrow would be fine if Edward R. Murrow weren't a historic figure. But because he is one and because many of his own performances are readily available in film archives, it becomes obvious that David was either miscast or just didn't do his research. The real Edward R. Murrow was much more charismatic than David would have us believe. Even the decision to shoot the film in black and white is questionable. The characters are smiling and cracking wry jokes half the time. Nothing dark about that, nothing suggestive of Schindler's List. It's a self-important film that probably benefits (at least with critics) from assumed parallels to our current political atmosphere and the fact that it takes place in the middle of the 20th century like so many other acclaimed films of late. I'm a liberal guy but I think it's possible to judge even a film this political without compromising my own views. As a film, it just didn't work for me. I nonetheless admire Clooney for bringing this story to the screen.

I just returned from my first screening of the film. Sorry folks... I'm not one of the many who "wish they loved this film more."

Because I loved it as much as it's possible to love a film. This is an unusual piece of art especially in relation to Classical Hollywood Cinema (Gone with the Wind, Titanic, even A Beautiful Mind). I was captivated by every minute of it. Oscar nominations should abound for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Lead Actor, Best Supporting Actress (Laura Linney, who could really go lead and legitimately win at this point), Best Supporting Actor (Peter Sarsgaard), Best Supporting Actor (John Lithgow), Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, Best Costume Design, Best Art Direction and Best Editing for a total of twelve nominations.

A second viewing is definitely in order because I'm a little confused about how Kinsey went from studying insects to studying human sexuality. It happened so quickly in the film, but I'm grateful for that because Kinsey's research on human sexuality is ultimately more interesting to me and probably most other people who had been long anticipating this film. There were at least a hundred things I loved and admired about it, but its biggest accomplishment is not belaboring the "scandalous" issues in the same way that mainstream films do. For instance, after Kinsey begins an affair with one of his research assistants, we don't get the typical scenes of his wife discovering it and all hell breaking loose. Bill Condon's screenplay and direction move us right from the start of the affair and into the conversation that he and his wife have about it. This is probably something that makes Kinsey an incredibly valuable contribution to the New Queer Cinema; it tells the spectator to accept things that Classical Hollywood Cinema would discourage them from accepting. It's a film that answers a question posed by so many people who lead "unconventional sex lives" -- why do conservative people care so much what I do with my life? -- by visually saying that the unconventional should be accepted or at least seriously evaluated apart from the social taboos attached to it.

The film also has a great sense of humor in addressing so many "controversial" issues. Seldom is a biopic laugh-a-minute but this one comes close; the best scenes involve Linney, Neeson and Sarsgaard interacting with one another. The characters are so blunt that I found myself amused yet very refreshed by their honesty. Knowing that educated people were willing to speak so frankly about sexuality in the first half of the twentieth century sort of made me want to give my 93-year-old great-aunt a phone call so that we can talk dirty. Really, this film is like Hedonism III except set in academia between the 1920s and the 1950s. An important point of note: During one interview [conducted on a balcony by Dr. Kinsey and his assistant played by Chris O'Donnell], the film risks moral judgment that breaks from the otherwise very "accepting" message. And that's okay because Kinsey is not a film that's attempting to say that all social taboos about sexuality are absurd. Rather, it's asking us to reconsider the extent to which those taboos have been accepted but never reasoned.

And what if all the rogues and libertines of England had come to this country instead of the Puritans? :) This film was by far a more thought-provoking film, for me at least, than anything else I've seen this year in a cineplex. I would rank it #1 on my list of most compelling 2004 films, with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Fahrenheit 9/11 just behind it. Kinsey is certainly a film that I could see getting nominated for many awards by voting bodies that want to recognize innovative film-making in much the same way that they did with Citizen Kane, Do the Right Thing, Far From Heaven and other films that represent risk-taking on the part of their creative teams. This is one film that people will probably be able to watch again ten years from now and understand why it was so critically-acclaimed when it was first released.

4/4 stars.