Monthly Archives: September 2004

Who is Cletis Tout?

Posted on September 29, 2004

Even though I enjoyed the 95 minutes, give or take, I’m not surprised that 2001′s Who Is Cletis Tout? slipped through the cracks and was immediately forgotten. What we have here is (an attempt at, or what is commonly characterized as) a comic take on the slippery criminal story told to in flashback a la The Usual Suspects, with Christian Slater in the Kevin Spacey role and Tim Allen(?!) in the Chazz Palminteri role, though Allen is a hit man rather than a cop.

But Cletis lacks the subtlety and elegance of that film’s story within a story, layered with lies and misdirection; instead we get something more along the lines of a criminal 1001 Nights where Slater tries, as Allen puts it, to make the hit man forget his mission in the grips of a terrific movie. Critical Jim, Allen’s character, is a classic movie fan and the script gives him mainly a combination of recognizable lines and studio exec chatter for his dialog. We open, for instance, to the closing scene of Breakfast at Tiffanys on a small TV and end with Allen spouting lines from it, and he also quotes The Dirty Dozen, Deliverance and The Great Escape. Even Slater’s natural resemblance to Jack Nicholson doesn’t go unnoticed by Allen.

Writer/director Chris Ver Wiel does an okay job overall, at least enough to keep me from hitting the delete button. Richard Dreyfuss, Portia de Rossi and Billy Connolly are not bad in supporting roles though RuPaul and Peter Macneil don’t do much for me. Allen doesn’t quite have the mien, if I’m using that word correctly, for his role while Slater does a bit better, but then he also has a more active role.

mildly recommended

Posted in comedy, crime, movies, Recommended, Reviews | Comments Off

Twenty Four Hour Party People

Posted on September 25, 2004

A lot of people liked this movie. Not enough for it to make a profit but a lot of, um, the right people, the cool people, the people who were into the post-NewWave English music scene of the early ’80s. For them Twenty Four Hour Party People is a trip home, I guess, but for me wasn’t even worth finishing. I couldn’t connect with the dark humor and not being a fan of Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge TV character nor the bands involved (Joy Division, New Order) so I hit the delete button after about 45 minutes.

not recommended

Posted in biography, movies, musicals, Not Recommended, Reviews | Comments Off

Character

Posted on September 21, 2004

An appealing summary and since Character won the 1997 Oscar for Best Foriegn Film, I figured what the heck and watched. I don’t agree with the user comment on IMDB that this Dutch film (yes, that means subtitles) was the best film of that year bar none (Good Will Hunting was far superior IMO) but it wasn’t bad; I’m thinking that the subtitles probably didn’t translate the subtleties of the original dialog all that well.

Summary: The meat of Character is set in the 1920s in the port city of Rotterdam where Jacob William Katadreuffe has grown up with a stern, silent mother and apart from his stern, silent, violent father; the parents never married (each other or anyone else, though the father did ask, coldheartedly and repeatedly) and in fact the boy seems to be the product of rape, to the extent that could be inferred). Mostly self-taught, Katadreuffe finds his way to the office of a friendly lawyer, De Gankelaar, who becomes a mentor and employer. The father, Dreverhaven, is well-known man in the city, a court bailiff who used his office to accumulate a sizable fortune but is never willing to share as much as a penny to help his son.

The film, which is told in flashback after the opening scene in which we see father and son in heated argument and then see Dreverhaven taken off in a body bag, mainly concerns the son as he grows from repeated confrontations with the father. A subplot with a beautiful woman in the law office primarily serves as a device to emphasize the futility of conflict.

Perhaps this is an artifact of the subtitles, but I felt the characters and dialog were very flat, straight and overly dramatic. Even though, for example, I had to read the subtitles to understand the dialog, I was still listening to the actors for tone of voice and such. Studies such as this ought to try and capture the complexities and vagaries of reality rather than use simplicity to make an obvious point, and director Mike van Diem hasn’t done that well. The acting was very strong, though, and I also enjoyed the unfamiliar time and place, which seemed well recreated.

moderately recommended, more so if you speak Dutch<

Posted in drama, family, history, movies, Recommended, Reviews | Comments Off

Mona Lisa Smile

Posted on September 19, 2004

Despite the obvious chickflickness, we were definitely anticipating Mona Lisa Smile–how can a film starring Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Styles, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Dominic West and directed by Mike Newell not be great? Sadly, this movie shows exactly how.

Generally compared to the much-better Robin Williams Dead Poets Society, Smile is the story of new Wellesley art history prof Roberts and her difficulty fitting into the conservative college environment for the 1953-54 school year. West is the Italian professor who screwed the promiscuous Gyllenhall the previous semester before hooking up as Roberts’ love interest and the other women are her students. Why seniors would be taking an introductory art history class is just one of the many questions never answered, by the way.

The core problem with this movie is the absence of a defining conflict. Saying that Roberts’ character does not fit in is far too abstract to drive a movie and the writing team of Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal try to throw in a bunch of smaller issue to hide this but simply fail. A prime example of form without substance, the acting and most othe aspect are just fine but cannot overcome such a deficiency.

Newell, especially, has a long history of quality including Into the West, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Donnie Brasco; his effort here does make me wonder, though, about his upcoming Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. After about 40 years as a director you’d think he would see this problem screamingly no later than early editing cuts. Oh well.

not recommended

Posted in movies, Not Recommended, Reviews, romantic comedy | Comments Off