June 6-8, 2008

One From the Heart -

I rented this movie because the entire soundtrack was done by God. God being Tom Waits. Unfortunately, the soundtrack was the only redeeming thing. This film was a giant ball of schmaltzy crap. I'm entirely disappointed with Francis Ford Coppola. He should've done better.

This is the story of Frannie (Teri Garr) and Hank (Frederick Forrest), two working class schlubs who find their relationship falling apart on the Fourth of July in Las Vegas. Frannie gets mixed with a waiter/piano player played with verve by the late, great Raul Julia. Hank gets mixed up with a showgirl/performer played by the ultrasexy Nastassja Kinski.

This film is basically Coppola trying to make a film based on the music of Tom Waits and completely missing the point. Whereas Waits sings about the troubles of everyday people and makes it sound believable, this film makes them seem like caricatures. It isn't helped by the style of film, which starts at juvenile and descends to cartoonish. The film was shot and staged like a play, entirely on set, and it looks like utter crap. There is also a completely inexplicable musical scene, full of people dancing in the streets, on cars, etc. Also inexplicably, Teri Garr spends most of the film topless....and I don't know why. Don't get me wrong, I'm ALL in favor of nudity in films. Yes, more boobs please. But, for one, Teri Garr isn't all that where we need to see her nude for the majority of the time. Two, it doesn't really emphasize the plot or even serve as shock factor. It seemed like Teri Garr agreed to appear topless and the filmmakers decided to get as much mileage from it as possible. Conversely, Nastassja Kinski appears topless for approximately 1.2 seconds and that at a distance so you can barely see anything, which sucks because she has a body that could make men and some women spontaneously combust.

The film isn't without some merit. There is, after all, the music of Waits. While I'm not a fan so much of his duets (see "I Never Talk to Strangers" with Bette Midler) and many of the songs here are done with Crystal Gail, but many of the songs also kick much ass. There is also a tango scene with Teri Garr and Raul Julia that is wonderfully shot. The rest of the film, utter crap.

Grade: D

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen -

This film is directed by Terry Gilliam. That means the film has that inventive, mind-boggling, curious, intriguing and above all unique Terry Gilliam style. In fact, the film really is just an exercise and excuse to let Terry Gilliam run wild with his imagination.

It's hard to describe the plot of this film. A city occupied by the...British I think, is under siege by a Turkish army. Inside the city a group of players is putting on a performance of The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Aside from some mortar shells, it all goes fairly well, until the real Baron Munchausen shows up. Then the story goes crooked. The Baron takes off to find his compatriots of years ago so he can return and save the city, all in the company of a little girl, the daughter of the owner of the actor company. During this trip, the Baron takes a trip to the moon (an interesting sequence with Robin Williams playing the king of the moon), a volcano where he converses with the god Vulcan and dances with the goddess Venus (played by Uma Thurman who never looks hotter than she does here, plus you get to see her nipple), and reside in the belly of a whale ala Jonah.

I think Gilliam wants to make this a vehicle to poke fun at the lack of imagination in people, especially during this "age of reason". Mourn the loss of imagination. But really, where this film suffers in comparison to other Gilliam masterpieces is that the story is less coherent. Like I said, it's less a story and more a method of letting Gilliam have fun. Not that that is a bad thing.

Grade: B

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind -

It's a rare thing in film for the screenwriter to outshine the actors or directors, to take upper billing. Occasionally it happens when the movie is based on a famous book, but it's even rarer when it is an original screenplay. The two prominant cases come to mind of legendary satirists Preston Sturges and Paddy Chayefsky, the latter of which I've raved about before. Well, it's struck again. Charlie Kaufman is the new Paddy Chayefsky.

I like Charlie Kaufman. I identify with Charlie Kaufman. I loved Adaptation, except for the end where he got too cutesy in a meta-sense, but other than that it was BRILLIANT. Wasn't a huge fan of Being John Malkovich, but that was the fault of some false expectations. Everyone told me it was sooooooooooo funny, and I didn't find it funny at all. I found it bleak and black. Probably because I identified most with the John Cusack character. But still, Charlie Kaufman = awesome.

I was worried about this film because it stars Kate Winslett, and I hate Kate Winslett. But this film was amazing. I don't think this is a film that has a message per se, but more of a movie where you derive your own message. To me, the film was about the crap of life, and how perhaps that crap is more important to our life than we think. And that sometimes you just have to take the bad with the good. The film reminds me of a line from an otherwise bleh film, Forget Paris.

"All I know is we are better together than we are apart."

Or something close to that. Relationships may not always work, and they may not always be pretty. But sometimes you are just better together than you are apart.

Kaufman has a way of making characters that connect to people. I think it's because the characters are often insecure and irrational and flawed. And everyone is insecure and irrational and flawed, so we identify with them. They seem real. But it's not just that they are flawed. It's easy to write flawed characters. His characters are flawed in very real ways. They behave and react in real ways. And that's why he is a genius and successful where many others aren't. I mean, the scene where Joel is with Clementine under the covers and he's screaming "let me keep this one, please, let me keep just this one!" nearly broke my heart.

I'm not sure about the whole B story with Kirsten Dunst, it seemed tacked on. Was it just an elaborate way of getting the tapes into Joel and Clementines hands? If so, it was a bit overelaborate. Or was it a way of exposing the fraud of starting over with a clean slate, that there is no such thing. That whole part of the story didn't seem to gel with the rest of the plot.

I still think Adaptation is better, but I very much liked this film, and it's worthy of watching by anyone.

Grade: B+