Friends,
I think David is right. Gloom is to 2000 what length was to 1999 and lavish period costume design has been in other years: a means of fitting out fairly pedestrian movies with the trappings of importance in the hopes of seducing members of the Academy. So Cast Away, which might have been a wonderful adventure story (and which, in its middle section, was quite gripping and inventive), bogged down under the weight of overinflated self-help “philosophy” and shameless metaphor mongering. Gladiator expunged the element of camp that made the old sandal epics so appealing in favor of glowering macho melancholy. Even MI: 2 seemed to compromise its clean pop professionalism with a lot of mumbo-jumbo about honor, betrayal, and sexual jealousy.
I do, however, want to defend Chicken Run, which I have watched, thanks to my 4-and-a-half-year-old son, at least 28 times since the screener tape arrived from Dreamworks without any significant diminution of pleasure. (My 2-year-old daughter, whose vocabulary is expanding into words of more than one syllable, also loves the picture because it allows her to point and wave and shout “chicken” every time one appears on screen.) I don’t think the comparison to Life is Beautiful is altogether fair. Chicken Run isn’t a movie about remembrance and redemption in the wake of fascism, but rather, in the tradition of Stalag 17 and Casablanca, about resistance to evil. The emotional and moral idiom of the picture is simple but also authentic, in the tradition of the best classic Hollywood melodramas of conscience. It’s also an amazing triumph of artisanal handicraft in an age of industrial light and magic. (The promotional tie-in with Burger King, I’ll grant, was a bit mind-boggling, as though Schindler’s List had put together a merchandising deal with Krupps or IG Farben.)
I reviewed both Kikijuro and Souzhou River and wasn’t crazy about either. The latter struck me less as an Asian Vertigo than as a Shanghai Diva, an unquestionably skillful, sometimes exhilarating exercise in mood and style that evaporated as soon as I’d left the screening room. As for Kikijuro, I thought its lugubriousness emphasized the essential sentimentality of the story rather than subverting it and found the formalism more exasperating than enthralling. (Though I did like the part where, under the stern command of the mean yakuza guy, the bikers put on a makeshift circus for the little kid’s entertainment.)
Memory is a funny thing. All year I kept hearing, and sometimes voicing, complaints about how bad the movies were, but looking back I recall mostly being moved, delighted, and surprised by films too numerous to list, from Chuck & Buck (one of my top 10) to Alice and Martin to Bring It On (Does anyone share my affection for this picture? I swear it’s not just incipient dirty-old-manism. I admire the bold feminist politics as much as I do the skimpy uniforms. Honest.) And in recent weeks there have been, in addition to Traffic, State and Main, and O Brother, Where Art Thou?, two light-handed, clever entertainments from filmmakers about whom I’ve long been ambivalent. Any thoughts on these? (I can’t talk about Shadow of the Vampire, lest I scoop my review in Friday’s paper.)
Also, I just had an inspiration, which I hope the editors of Slatewill note. Next year, Edelstein’s holiday beer tasting and the “Movie Club” should be combined and delivered to the readers via a live Web cast. Down with sobriety! A time for drunken critics.
Cheers,
Tony
