Movie Review Weekly

Another week, another collection of movie reviews - some good ones, but a slow week for new stuff.

Aeon Flux - Moan - I watched the cartoons, back in the day. I think it took a while to get it, but I liked it - the way things moved, all the angles, the minimalism - I remember the way it sounded, the little flitting sounds... the movie, alas... Look - a movie like this - if you have to make it - is simple: there is one point - the girl in the catsuit. The filmmakers don't even get that right. Long stretches of this benighted affair are consumed in worst kind of back and forth close ups - long plot expositions with Charlize Theron and the guy (I'm not even looking the bastard's name up, not that he's all that bad, but what's the fucking point), Trevor, whatever, talking, talking talking - in alternating closeups - No, God Damn It! This is easy to film - you back the camera up, you put Ms. Theron in motion, you film. Voila. Jesus. Anyway - an online acquaintance wisely suggested that if you need to see a girl in a catsuit, you should rent Irma Vep instead - sage advice. The real irony here is that Olivier Assayas - Euro art film maker deluxe - has, indeed, already made this movie twice. Irma Vep has the catsuit - Demonlover, though, has the storyline, or lack thereof - it certainly gets the sexy nihilism of the old Aeon Flux cartoons. And Connie Nielson, who may not be Maggie Cheung, but who is?

The Wide Blue Road - *** - Gillo Pontecorvo's debut film, starring Yves Montand as Squarcio, a dynamite fisherman somewhere off the coast of Italy (Sicily? or the Adriatic? I don't know.) There is conflict in the town - no one makes money except the dynamite fisherman, but Squarcio's honest friend Salvatore is organizing a co-op that will break the hold of the capitalists and allow honest men to make an honest living. Meanwhile the coast guard is trying to catch Squarcio - at first it's led by another old pal, who's ineffectual and depressed - but he's replaced by a younger man, with a faster boat and a more manly mustache, and things get tougher. Squarcio refuses to join the co-op or stop bombing fish, thinking he can make it alone - but things go wrong... Very formulaic, especially toward the end, but Montand comes close to pulling it off, aided somewhat by Pontocorvo's tough minded leftism. It's also gorgeous, but it's hard to say if that's for or against it.

Pride & Prejudice - *** - it's been hanging around a while, with good reviews, but it's Jane Austen! whatever merits Miss Austen has as a writer, as a source for films - one takes chances.... But this weekend, there was nothing better to see (it's been a dismal few weeks, if I say so myself - there's nothing new I have any interest in at all, and it's been a while since there has been more than one film a week I care about. Thus repeat viewings and films I fear, like this one. [Aeon Flux is another class of film - that's known as a bunch of guys wanting to see some violence. (Skin may also play a role, though blowing stuff up is more immediately important. We aren't teen-agers after all.] We were gravely disappointed, and may be forced to see Syriana to adjust some kind of cosmic balance. Though Syriana looks pretty painful itself.)

Lost the plot there a bit. So faced with the choices of Syriana and that Wal-Mart documentary, I said, let's take my cultural medicine and see if this Austen thing is any good. The answer: yes it was. I quite regret snubbing this film - I should have listened to the reviews. It's a nice adaptation - gets the story told without any offenses to history (real, literary or cinematic) - and done in a way that makes you think the people in it might have been real people, not just Great Literary Characters Brought to Life on the Screen. Uses an active, mobile camera that keeps moving you through the world - and has a nice sense of solidity that is usually lacking in period films. The opening shot of the Bennett manse sets the tone - a single shot going through the farm yard, circling around to show the daughters doing laundry and such - with some nice details in the props - a shiny new (or at least clean) looking wooden table and shabby, worn out creaking wooden floors. That's good - period films are usually either sparkling clean, as if everything was just brought in from a museum, or deliberately shabby, as if everything was just dug up out of an archeological site. The real world - theirs or ours - has both. Things wear out and things are replaced - some things are maintained and some are not. In this film, clothes can be a little threadbare; hair is out of place; people are sometimes shaved and sometimes not; details appear like a servant in a powdered wig with a 5 o'clock shadow; it has worn sideboards, peeling and faded paint, cracked stone-work. Meanwhile - it is raucous and lively. The balls are noisy, cluttered affairs; people carry on indecorously, or decorously, depending on what kind of person they are... And Keira Knightley herself is quite good, in that vein - grinning and laughing - and composing herself - thinking about it... she makes Elizabeth Bennett the actor. She has a very nice kind of canny independent gaucherie. Makes for a fine movie. We are grateful.

Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes van Zandt - *** - what it says. Van Zandt was a songwriter and singer from Texas, well respected, but not exactly famous. A hard life... This documentary follows his life, tells his tale, with plenty of musicians popping in to opine. It's good - it's a bit padded, and sometimes gets confusing, but the story gets told, and the music is quite superb, though it might benefit from more complete and uninterrupted performances. But that's the way with far far too many documentaries about musicians - filmmakers should let the songs finish. Screw cinematic pacing - we want to hear the music! But that's a little unfair - I have had Van Zandt's voice echoing in my head for the last couple days, so they must have done something right.