Film Week

A review of the films I've seen this past week.

MINUTEMEN (2008)
One of the better Disney movies from the past few years (Lord, some of them have been bad) about high school kids who figure out how to travel through time. Good messages about friendship, for a change, and JP Manoux is always hilarious. And Chelsea Staub is cute, even if she doesn't get to do much. I hope the Disney Channel comes up with something else to do with Jason Dolley; he's the only good thing to come off the awful Cory in the House. *** stars.

THE RAINS CAME (1939)
One of those lavish romances where everyone's problems become small in scope compared to a massive special effects sequence. In this case, it's a flood. Good production values, great effects, and Myrna Loy is likable as always as a married British noblewoman who falls in love with a Hindu doctor in a fictional Indian colony. Still, the melodrama feels half-hearted. For a much better example of the same kind of movie, I recommend John Ford's The Hurricane. **1/2 stars.

THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY (1999)
I really never expected much from this movie (not an Anthony Minghella fan), but I was engaged, even riveted, and blown away by this movie. Matt Damon plays Tom Ripley, a mimic and forger who goes to Italy to persuade Dickie Greenleaf, the wastrel son (Jude Law) of a captain of industry (James Rebhorn, always good), to come back home. He ends up completely enamored not just with Dickie, but with his lifestyle, and tries to get closer to it any way he can. I remember hearing a lot about gay subtext, but I think it's a lot more "text" than "sub." It's played very interestingly; Ripley could be a master criminal, but he craves emotional closeness, and it becomes his tragedy. Excellently acted from all the leads--Damon, Law, Cate Blanchett, Gwyneth Paltrow, Philip Seymour Hoffman (though he's kind of riffing on Malkovich here) and Jack Davenport--and beautiful to look at. Anthony Minghella really made this as though it were a film from the 1950s rather than just one that took place in the period, and I adore the way it looks. Excellent, excellent movie that I'm rather sorry it took me this long to see. **** stars.

SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT II (1980)
Now, I really enjoyed the first movie. This one... I don't know, it's kind of smug. It feels like it thinks it can get away with anything and you'll just laugh your ass off at it. Unlike the first movie, which was funny, this one feels like it was aimed at children. It plays it safe for a general (family) audience. Even the mission--Bandit, Snowman, and Carrie have to transport an elephant to the RNC--feels aimed at kids. Add Dom DeLuise as an Italian doctor and Jackie Gleason playing not only Buford T. Justice but also his three brothers (one of them really over-the-top gay and not at all funny) and this is just... not really very good. **1/2 stars.

SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT, PART 3 (1983)
One too many movies. *1/2 stars.

APPALOOSA (2008)
Interesting, but ultimately very cold Western directed by and starring Ed Harris as a lawman trying to bring a murderous rancher (Jeremy Irons) to justice. Harris is very good; Viggo Mortenson as his partner is better. Renee Zellweger plays the widow who comes between them (and has the most psychologically interesting role). Great production values, good music, and most of the performances are good (I really wish I could still like Renee Zellweger as much as I once did), but it doesn't quite add up. A shame, since with some tightening and a more direct style it really could've been something more. **1/2 stars.

OH, GOD! (1977)
I saw this as a little kid, of course, but hadn't seen it in about 26 years. It was coming on cable and I thought, hell, why not? I didn't realize this movie was written by Larry Gelbart, directed by Carl Reiner, and produced by Jerry Weintraub. Unfortunately, that makes it sound a lot better than it is. The plot is simple--God takes the form of a man and tells a grocery store manager to spread the gospel--but executed poorly. This thing feels like it takes place in real time, and the conflicts--what little there are--are obvious. George Burns plays God, and I really wish they'd stopped trotting him out in the seventies and eighties. All he does is stand around and have no facial expressions while delivering one-liners that fall flat (but at least he doesn't murder a Beatles tune in this one). John Denver wisely doesn't overdo it as the chosen prophet, and Teri Garr is always watchable (her second unsupportive wife of 1977, though she's not as multifaceted here as she was in Close Encounters). Paul Sorvino is especially funny as a televangelist, playing the kind of role you never see him in. I don't know, there's a whole smugness to the thing. It's not preachy, but it's very self-satisfied. It's like the bad Disney films of the era. Swing and a miss. ** stars.

RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN (2009)
The Rock is great at comedy, and I'm glad he keeps doing it. I hope he gets better vehicles for it at some point, but Race to Witch Mountain is a great improvement over The Game Plan (which I thought was harmlessly cute). In this movie, he plays a cab driver who falls in with some alien kids trying to get back to their space ship, while Ciaran Hinds (playing it the same way Ray Milland did as the villain in the original Escape to Witch Mountain) pursues them on behalf of the government. I have to say, I'm getting a little sick of the government as the default villains in science fiction. It just seems too easy these days. But I really, really enjoyed this movie. It plays so much like a science fiction movie from the seventies, with the same sort of effects and a real focus. It's like a Spielberg movie from the time. And it jumps right into the story instead of dicking around for a half-hour like far too many movies do. Oh, and Carla Gugino is as delightful as always as a scientist. It probably sounds ridiculous to give this movie ***1/2 stars, but I don't really care. I enjoyed the hell out of it and I wish they'd make movies like this again. Pure fun. (Oh, and I thought it was cool that Disney got the two kids from the original movie to make cameos, because I'm into Disney like that.)

THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE (1974)
Now that's a movie. Crime movies like this were so much better in the seventies. They came out of a real working class cynicism instead of the slick action movie style of too many movies today. Robert Shaw, Martin Balsam, Hector Elizondo, and Earl Hindman hijack a subway train and hold it for a million dollars ransom. Walter Matthau plays the Transit Authority cop who has to deal with the situation. It's tense and suspenseful without cheating the audience, and it's smart and logistical without being remotely tedious. It's a perfect movie, and it only last an hour and 43 minutes or so, and it all ends on a perfect final shot. **** stars.