Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
Remember the six months before American troops invaded Iraq. The French and German secret services were claiming that no credible evidence existed to show that Saddam was close to producing nuclear weapons. Colin Powel, in what became a reputation destroying speech at the UN, claimed that the U.S. had precisely this smoking-gun kind of evidence. After the speech, the French were not still convinced and blocked an U.N. vote that would have given U.N. approval for a U.S. military strike against Iraq. Some Americans were so upset by what they perceived to as unwarranted French obstinacy that they started to a movement to rename
My Super Ex-Girlfriend
Uma Thurman plays a female version of Spiderman. Unlike Spiderman, G-Girl has a bad temper and has trouble keeping a boyfriend. When she is dumped yet again, she becomes exceedingly angry and vindictive. Now she uses her supernatural powers not only to rescue people in need but also to cause mountains of trouble for her Ex. The movie does not work and should never have been made.
Grizzly Man
Timothy Treadwell lived for 13 summers with grizzly bears as if they were tame and loving creates before he was killed by one them. Treadwell created in total 100 hours of film footage that Werner Herzog has woven into an arresting documentary. The film is the most original piece of work that I have seen in a long time. It deserves to be seen by any serious student of the cinematographic art. Treadwell tells us that he is unable to live in “the people’s world.” Casting himself very successfully on the 100 hours of footage as an actor in a film shot in beautiful Alaska, he goes on to say that he committed himself to spending all summer protecting what he believed to be an endangered species. He constantly risks his own life and during the last two years also that of his girlfriend.
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Like with many borderline crazy people, there is rationality in his madness. Treadwell deep down knew that at his core he was an artist (who can only exist in relationship to society) and that he was willing to sacrifice everything to create a piece of art that had never existed before and but for him would have never seen the day of light. By taking us away from civilization into the wild and brutal world of grizzly bears, Treadwell was able to provide an entirely new perspective on civilization. He brings us right to the point where we can see: Man Grizzly.
Cars
The two previous blockbuster movies by Pixar, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, became such an artistic success because the animal and cartoon characters were more human than most characters in films populated by humans. I was skeptical whether you could turn automobiles into believable human characters. After all, people often love their cars, but they don’t transfer onto the inanimate objects the same emotional energy as they do onto their pets. Cars is not on the same level as Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, but it turned out surprisingly good. It is a great movie for kids, communicating lessons that every parent would like to teach. Adults will also enjoy the film because the computer animations are once again done so well. Imagine what car racing through the Arizona landscape will look like in a computer animation. You will be surprised
A Prairie Home Companion
A Prairie Home Companion is a film about the live radio show presenting a mixture of folk music and comedy for the heartland of America every Saturday night. Periodically I would stumble upon show on my classical radio station, but never listened more than a few minutes because the humor was not my cup of tea. I suspect that the director Robert Altman grew up with this kind of show and was willing to make a film about a fictional last show of radio program out of sense of nostalgia for a time gone by. One could have made a beautiful film about American folk music and its cultural meaning. But the ambitions of the film are too modest. It simply wants to preserve for posterity one of these shows and what its dominant host was like. This does not amount to much despite its great cast of actors, including Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Tommy Lee Jones and Woody Harrelson.
The Departed
The Departed is an exceedingly well-craft piece of work. But I left the theatre disappointed because the story feels repetitive and fundamentally wrong. Just as in many of his films, Sorcese suggests that violence for violence’s sake is the general condition in America. With question America is violent. Too violate for my taste. But no society can survive for 200 years in which the average members of society believes it is normal to kill innocent people. Scorcese’s superb film Gangs of New York has perhaps even more bloody scenes than The Departed but the historical narrative arrives at the crucial point that the modern state triumphed over the capricious violence of one member of society of the next. The Departed makes no sense. Scorcese assembles a superb cast whose acting is impeccable. But Jack Nicholson and company cannot compensate the absence of a story worth telling.
The Devil Wears Prada
The Devil Wears Prada does not offer any meaningful drama but it gives a wonderful peek into the world of high fashion magazines. . If you read fashion magazines regularly, you will enjoy this behind the scenes look. If you never open such magazines, you will probably enjoy getting to know this world. I did. Based on a book about the long-term editor of Vogue, Meryl Streep plays satan at the top fashion magazine in the world. And she does it well. But don’t expect any real drama except feeling every more acutely during the course of the movie your wardrobe is totally inadequate!
Just My Luck
If you have thought deeply about the role of fate in life, Just My Luck is not going to offer you any new insights. If you are looking for a nice little romance movie that you can let your kids watch, this is just the right movie for you. I suspect that kids don’t mind a plot where good and back luck can be turned on and off by a small kiss.
Little Miss Sunshine
For most of its history, the United States has existed in the minds of people from all around the world as the place of freedom and unparalleled economic opportunities. Real as they always were, these opportunities never fell into everyone’s hands in equal amounts. Nonetheless, America has produced millions of success stories that coalesced into the myth of unlimited opportunities. Little Miss Sunshine tells the story of a family that tries hard to participate in this American dream. The father is hatching a plan to make millions through selling self-help books and videos. The daughter is practicing with granddaddy to win a beauty contest for little kids. The teenage son decided to stop talking to anyone, while he is focusing on becoming a fighter jet pilot. In the meantime, Mommy has to work all day to keep the family afloat and bring food to the table while daddy is trying to make his business work. The only problem this American family is that they have no skills to make their dreams come true. In the competitive American world, they appear to be total losers. Not surprisingly the family life is a bit stressful because it is not clear how they will continue making a living. It is much easier to tell (and watch) heroic tales of people who overcome their challenges and succeed. The genius of Little Miss Sunshine is that it can turn the camera onto the lives of a disintegrating family without merely depressing you. It turns out that the parents don’t have the cash at hand to fly with their daughter to children’s beauty pageant to California. Yet when the family decides to make this long trip by car you want to go on the road trip with them and see who they fare in their struggle to make a living in contemporary American society. Except for the ending, the film is brilliant.
McLintock!
Drawing on the plot of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, Mclintock shows you what the fourth of July was like in the Wild West. They did not have fireworks but plenty of fun. The Wild West in this film is a comedy land. The place is Arizona and it is dry. My historical knowledge is inadequate to understand why the West was so romanticized in American culture. The land from from Utah to California is not particularly lushes. Why would I want to move there if I am on lushes green land on the East Coast? Perhaps it was the availability of free land that gave a lot of people the opportunity to become economically self-sufficient, which was not possible in Europe. How little I new about the historical Wild West became clear after I read the article on the subject in the Wikipedia.
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