Out Now In Theaters: GUNNER PALACE & ROBOTS

Sorry for the lame lack of posts lately. Dammit, I’ve missed babblin’ ‘bout the Oscars, the MILLION DOLLAR BABY debate, and the release of the PASSION UNCUT!

No matter, we're back and ready to go so here's a few brief movie reviews:

GUNNER PALACE (Dirs. Petra Epperlein & Michael Tucker)

A.O. Scott of the New York Times says "not a movie anyone should miss.” Well, I think a lot of people would do just fine missing this flick. Don't get me wrong this is fascinating stuff at first approach. U.S. soldiers take over a bombed out pleasure palace formerly owned by Uday Hussein in Iraq, and they party while carrying on their service from those headquarters.

Filmed on video in 2003, this is a rough and poorly constructed documentary. The hushed tones of the director’s voice-over, and the loose thread narrative does little to engage the viewer. A shame really, because in all the rubble that litters the streets of Baghdad and in all of the footage taken of the 2/3 Field Artillery lies a much better film than this.

ROBOTS (Dirs. Chris Wedge & Carlos Sardanha)

A slick but disjointed PIXAR competitor from Twentieth Century Fox's Blue Sky Studios, the crew that brought you ICE AGE. Some laughs in this noisy animated effort, but they are few and far between with Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel’s trademark sentimentality sabotaging the mechanics at nearly every step.

The death-to-death plot mechanics concern Ewan McGregor as Rodney the Robot, an idealistic inventor who tries to stop the evil corporate doings of Phineas T. Ratchet (Greg Kinnear), who heads Bigweld Industries in Robot City.

The voices of McGregor, Robin Williams, Halle Berry, Mel Brooks, Paul Giamatti, and bit-part roles by Jay Leno and Al Rooker are warm and welcome presences (well, except for Leno) help make the time pass by, but the fart jokes, lame pop-culture references and weak one-liners makes me want to see THE INCREDIBLES again to appreciate how this sort of enterprise is much better done. 

More later...

DVDs: ALONG CAME POLLY, TRAINSPOTTING (Special Edition), & LIVE FOREVER

Now out on DVD:

ALONG CAME POLLY 

(Dir. John Hamburg, 2004) 

Along comes another stupid Ben Stiller-as-punching bag rom com. 



They seem to appear every few months. This time he's a risk management analyst who falls for a flaky artsy Salsa loving Jennifer Aniston and, of course, wackiness ensues. Not exactly high concept. 

At least there's a above par supporting cast: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Alec Baldwin, Bob Dishy, and Bryan Brown make this at least a notch above DUPLEX. Hoffman provides one of the only reasons this movie is not a complete waste of time playing a washed-up brat pack era actor. To make memorable the weak material he's given in a routine best-friend part in a routine formula comedy is quite a feat for Hoffman. He'll get better words to work with next time out, I bet.

TRAINSPOTTING

(Dir. Danny Boyle, 1996)

(Miramax Collector's Series, 2004) 



"Small time wasters with an accidental big deal" This British cult classic from the mid 90's is now done right by a domestic DVD release that contains extras long available on overseas formats. The commentary recorded upon the film's original release has Ewan McGregor, director Danny Boyle, screenwriter John Hodge, and producer Andrew MacDonald waxing wise and witty. 

Yet again, it's a stone cold blast to see McGregor's Renton and his scraggly crew (including Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, Kevin McKidd, and Robert Carlyle) slum through heroin-infested episodes of petty theft, nasty squalor, and refusal to take part in any part of normal society. A few then and now retrospectives, scratchy deleted scenes, and Cannes film festival interviews round out this essential package. Essential, that is, if you don't have an import version that has this stuff on it already.

LIVE FOREVER: THE RISE AND FALL OF BRIT POP

(Dir. John Dower, 2003) 

Mostly covering Oasis, Blur, and Pulp this loose documentary also touches on the Verve, Stone Roses, and Radiohead. Oasis makes their TV debut just weeks after the death of Kurt Cobain heralding the end of the grunge ara and start of the Brit pop period. Just as new Prime Minister Tony Blair represented a new way of government these shiny updated slices of Beatlemania re-ignited English culture if only for a moment. 

A well sequenced thesis marred by a lack of more on-screen identifications of the interviewees. Is that a member of a Oasis tribute band or is it an actual member of Oasis? I'm not sure. But the humor and pretensions of the key players especially during the Blur Vs. Oasis chapter make this a must for '90s music fans.

More later...

DVD Review: Tim Burton's BIG FISH

Now out on the popular DVD format: 

BIG FISH (Dir. Tim Burton, 2003)

While this movie is being touted in its trailers as “from the imagination of Tim Burton” it should be noted that it was adapted by screenwriter John August from the book by Chapel Hill native Daniel Wallace, and it was originally developed as a project by Steven Spielberg. 

Edward Bloom (Albert Finney) amuses everyone with his elaborate tall tales except for his son Will (Billy Crudup).

As his father is most certainly on his death bed, Crudup is struggling for some truth for once and attempts to sort out the reality from the fantasy.

Apart from the storybook fantasy sequences, one of the best things the movie has going for it is the casting of Ewan McGregor as the young Edward. Particularly effective because McGregor looks almost exactly like Finney did when he was younger. Take a look at TOM JONES (1963) if you don’t believe me.

What keeps this movie from truly being a classic is some of the hazy plot threads and the less than fully fleshed out characters. Poet Norther Winslow (Steve Buscemi) seems like he was created just for a reason for Buscemi to lend his punchy prescence, Helen Bonham Carter plays two underdeveloped roles which may be the same character - I'm not sure, and the choice of a unaffecting Pearl Jam song to end the proceedings with doesn't help either.

That said this is still a fine film and only persnickety film geeks like me would harp on such matters. The real emotion displayed here (especially in the last half hour) wins over even the most cynical critic, and I have a distinct feeling that time will be good to this elaborate tall tale. Danny Devito, Jessica Lange, and Robert Gulliaume round out the cast. 

Special Features: A disappointing commentary in which Burton is interviewed by some British guy who wrote a book on Burton (Burton On Burton) on top of the movie instead of a preferred straight Burton talking directly about the action on screen. Nevertheless it provides some insights, but the featurettes are pretty inessential and the trivia game is...well I didn't even check it out, I mean who puts a DVD in the player to play some damn trivia game?!!? I sure as Hell don't.

More later...