As Good As It Gets
The answer to the title is not very. HAO and two of her friends had come
for dinner and were going out afterward with another DU person. I affected an
offended tone to HAO: "I notice you didn't ask me if I
wanted to go."
"But you don't want to go.
"Well. No." I hate bars; I hate bars filled with smoke and smokers;
I hate trying to converse over oodles of other not-conversations and ill-chosen
juke-box music in bars filled with smoke and smokers; and I don't drink.
But before they left for Pearl Street, we all walked to BB for me to rent a
movie. I had no good ideas and didn't want to make the others wait while
I browsed (they were only in it for the walk), so I succumbed to BB's masterplan:
watch only those movies released in the past six months.
Summary: any scene without Jack Nicholson should be skipped; most scenes with
Jack are okay.
980703
Truman Show
I proved myself a part
of the problem by wanting the soap opera to continue: I wanted to continue being
a voyeur in Truman's life even after his escape. Which means I liked it.
980705
Wag the Dog
This wouldn't have
gotten the attention it did had it been released at some other point of scandal
in the Presidency. I thought "Sleepers" would be good because it had
both Robert DeNiro and Dustin Hoffman, but in that they were together onscreen
only in a constrained courtroom scene.
980711
La Cité des Infants Perdu
Fantastic. The opening scene is easily the most frightening thing I have
seen in years. I tried--honest--to make do without the subtitles, but didn't;
and despite the subtitles I am so firmly entrenched in English that when a character
addressed Ron Perlman by his name (One), I thought they were beginning an <OL>.
"Et deux, were you desperate to accept the rôle of Vincent?
'Beauty and the Beast,'ptooey! But you and Linda Hamilton are in great shape
now eh?"
980720
Blow-up
I fell asleep the first time we watched this, which is neither here nor
there. I played it again on an evening RDC wasn't home, and I still wondered
if I missed something. "So this photographer, between bouts of sex, sees
but does not see a murder, doesn't report it, never finds out anything about
it, and then watches some mimes play tennis?" Yeah, that's about it. He
watched a murder, but did not see it; through his photographs he sees the murder,
in steps from gun to body but still takes time to react to it; then he runs
after the mimes' tennis ball because it's as likely to be "real" as
the murder he also didn't see.
980728
Betty Blue
RDC's opinion immediately afterward: "Well that was depressing."
And it had begun so auspiciously too. In the fall of 1989, a poster for this
movie hung on the dorm room wall of a new friend of mine, who whole-heartedly
recommended it. This man thought it best to leave my room when I heard the Waterboys'
"The Pan Within" for the first time; I didn't lust him that much but
enough to remember this movie nine years later. Sing ho! for the uncircumcised
penis and for the European habit of not giving a shit about nudity. As far as
the unnoticed, uncharted descent into madness goes, Betty's seemed possible
and familiar.
980801
Saving Private Ryan
Let me jump on the bandwagon of the opening sequence. I appreciate being reminded
of the sacrifices made for my freedom. I was going to say "the sacrifices
honest men have made" but one of the horrors of war is that Everyman fights
it. Everyman is honest, cowardly, faithful, deceitful, courageous, and skeptical.
Everyman is you and everyman is me.
However, the rest of the movie is riddled with plotholes and saddled with a
most abrasive soundtrack, so overbearing that it overshot and could not manipulate
me as John Williams and Steven Spielberg intended. If you're going to blow the
bridge so the Germans can't use it, why not blow it before you've lost all the
men? And really, if I want to feel an emotion, let me feel it without music
coaching me through every nuance. The most affecting scene was that of the lullaby
accompanying the slow and deliberate stabbing; the framing story I found neither
misleading nor sad, but I remained detached.
980810
Amistad
Can anyone explain to me why Anthony Hopkins but not Djimon Hounsou was nominated
for best supporting actor? Or why this didn't do as well in the box office as
"Saving Private Ryan" has? The first best account of a slave ship
I read was Paula Fox's Newbery-winner, The Slave Dancer. I was glad to
hear the story from another perspective. In direct contrast to "Saving
Private Ryan," "Amistad"'s soundtrack complemented the mood and
plot very well. And a whitewashed [ooo, an inadvertant color joke] ending wasn't
tacked on, which I appreciate.
980814
Good Will Hunting
We've had the holy idiot theme going for a while what with "Rainman"
and "Forrest Gump" and "Sling Blade." This holy idiot theme
does not indicate a good or bad flick but does reflect the usual U.S. distrust
of intellectual ability. So here we have a bad-ass genius instead--who also
distrusts intellectual ability.
Good thing Minnie Driver is worth watching. I love her jaw, very nibblable.
98 August
Easy Rider
Hmm. "Easy Rider" and The Mill on the Floss. How to distinguish
between them?
Sorry. It's easy, actually. Motorcycles vs. mills. Except the causes of death
are neither of those. Oh, come on. I spoiled nothing with that. Peter
Fonda and Dennis Hopper headed nowhere else from the start. How much has the
country changed since then?
Peter Fonda looked much like his father and pretty much like he does now; Jack
Nicholson is much changed but his expressions are the same, plus I have seen
movies with him at every age. But I struggled to see Dennis Hopper in the face
of that actor, he who looked the oldest of the three then and now looks the
youngest.
980920
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