Film Week

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

HOT TUB TIME MACHINE (2010)
Slow to get started, but ultimately a funny and sweet story about recapturing past glories that borrows quite heavily from Back to the Future. Not much else to it, but I enjoyed it. Fantastic soundtrack. And hey, Lizzy Caplan! Didn't know she was in it. *** stars.

WHEN IN ROME (2010)
Look, Kristen Bell is obviously suited to romantic comedies. But can't they be good? I liked her in this, and I liked Josh Duhamel as her love interest. Even the plot mostly works--thank you for not having to go to the hackneyed, insulting old saw of having to force the woman to choose between her career and love. Even the plot conceit--that when you steal someone's coin from the fountain, their wish for love is transferred to you--pretty much works. It can work that Kristen becomes uncertain whether her ideal guy is really in love with her or if it's just some magic spell. The problem is that most of the comedy falls flat, and does so loudly. What this movie doesn't need, at all, is the comedy chorus of Will Arnett, Dax Shepard, Danny DeVito, and Jon fucking Heder playing the most over-the-top stereotypes possible who are stalking Bell because she took their coins from the fountain. It's not funny, it doesn't work, it takes away from the rest of the movie (it seems like Josh Duhamel's entire life got left on the cutting room floor), and it's irritating as all hell. Cut those guys out, leave in the uncertainty, give the relationship time to breathe, and you've got a movie that works. Unfortunately, the filmmakers don't think that's enough, and they ruin the whole thing. Could've been a nice movie instead of one that tries too hard. ** stars.

CIRCUS OF HORRORS (1960)
I couldn't really get into this horror movie about plastic surgery and the circus. I wanted to, but I just couldn't. It's a nice-looking movie, though, despite some of its sillier moments. (Apparently the way a bear kills you is to turn itself into a rug and remain still as you slowly fall to the ground.) ** stars.

THE BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW (1970)
Very atmospheric but somewhat nonsensical movie about Satan worshipers in England. Excellent score, looks great, but didn't get me going. ** stars.

BIG BAD MAMA (1974)
Angie Dickinson is Ma Barker (kind of). Silly movie, not as much fun as it seems like it should be, but Angie's naked and she's a sex goddess, so there's that. And William Shatner is hilariously bad in it as a smooth-talking thief who has a sex scene that's frankly horrifying. ** stars.

SHUTTER ISLAND (2010)
I thought it was excellent. It might not work so much as a mindfuck--though it kind of did on me--but it's an excellent character piece with a great performance by Leonardo DiCaprio as a detective investigating the disappearance of a patient from a mental institution on an island. Trapped there by a hurricane, he and his partner (Mark Ruffalo) dig deeper and deeper into the institution's true purpose. I loved it; I think it's Scorsese's best since probably Bringing Out the Dead. **** stars.

THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII (1935)
An old-fashioned disaster epic with a bit of religious epic thrown in. Marcus (Preston Foster) is a simple blacksmith who loses his wife and child in an accident, is forced into the arena as a gladiator, and comes to care for a boy whose father he killed. Now with a son, Marcus lets his ambition guide him into becoming a horse dealer, a slave trader, and a shady businessman. Of course, all ambitions (and religious decisions, apparently) will eventually come to a head when Vesuvius erupts. From the makers of King Kong. There are some good turns in here from Basil Rathbone and Alan Hale. I always enjoy pictures like these. ***1/2 stars.

THE KING OF KONG: A FISTFUL OF QUARTERS (2007)
This was a surprisingly affecting movie. It tells the story of a rivalry in the world of Donkey Kong, between long-standing Donkey Kong champ Billy Mitchell (record holder for 25 years) and Steve Wiebe, a likable guy who, after getting laid off from Boeing, got really, really good playing Donkey Kong in his garage. When he sends a tape to Walter Day at Twin Galaxies, the chief scorekeeper in competitive gaming, showing himself beating Billy's record, Billy questions the record, the machine, the video, even Wiebe's character. He has his creepy little lieutenant, Brian Kuh, go to Washington and take apart Steve's machine without his knowledge in order to look for irregularities. So Steve goes first to New Hampshire and then to Florida to challenge Billy, but Billy won't play him head on. Instead, after denouncing videotape as something that can't be trusted, he sends in a tape of himself playing Donkey Kong and beating Steve's new record. Even though there are questions raised about the veracity of the tape, his score is accepted.

It paints an interesting picture of the very insular world of coin-op arcade gaming. It still has its devotees but, to watch the film, not many. These guys aren't playing to large audiences, but they take this very seriously. Not seriously enough to police themselves, though; for all of the talk about having to create a standard of rules or else competition is meaningless, no one thinks to raise the question that maybe, as a board member of Twin Galaxies, Billy Mitchell has no business submitting competitive scores. That seems like an ethical boundary to me.

It sets up its conflict nicely. You have Steve Wiebe, a likable guy with a very supportive wife who is being shunned by an exclusive establishment that is too heavily invested in Billy Mitchell as the wizard of 1980s arcades. And then you have Billy Mitchell, who comes across as a Machiavellian narcissist surrounded by people who seem to have latched their self-worth to being a part of his inner circle, as much as anyone can be. I don't know how much of it is editing and how much of it is just that Mitchell's self-confidence comes across as a massive ego (he does say, at one point, that his record is as polarizing as the abortion issue; and he also says that if you can't defend your record, you might as well step aside, yet he never actually defends his record in the film). But it is one hell of a movie. **** stars.

THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: DANIEL ELLSBERG AND THE PENTAGON PAPERS (2009)
Moving, surprisingly personal documentary about Daniel Ellsberg and his release of secret memos showing America's extensive, decades-long involvement in Vietnam to American newspapers. Makes you think about what's going on right now, with the WikiLeaks exposing of papers about American involvement in Afghanistan. The importance of the Pentagon Papers in trying to establish, however briefly, government accountability, cannot be overstated. What was really effective about this film, though, was how Ellsberg takes us through his change from a believer in the rightness of America's cause to a whistle blower who dedicated his life to peace. **** stars.