I'm sick today -- head cold, it feels like. I mention this so that in 2024, I can look back on this blog and say, "Why the fuck would I want to remember that?"
X2 (Bryan Singer)
I might be overrating this. I only saw this flick once, and I don't remember a damn thing about it. Well, not totally true. I remember Alan Cumming's Nightcrawler being pretty cool, and his rescue of Rogue at 30,000 feet was very exciting, but other than that...zip. But after I see a movie, I immediately enter it into my handy-dandy Excel database and, if warranted, place it in my Top Ten. (I believe this sucker entered in at #2, originally.) I'm gonna go with my original instincts on this one, but I really need to see it again.
Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton)
I might be overrating this one, too, possibly letting it coast on the Pixar name, a name good enough to get tattooed on your ass. (Not my ass, mind you, your ass.) My main beef is the feeling that a lot of action scenes felt like they were developed simultaneously with the inevitable video game. That is, it was difficult to watch the Albert Brooks fish and the Ellen DeGeneres fish hide from sharks, or jump on the jellyfish, or try and find something while that flashlight-fish was chasing them, without thinking how these scenes could be translated into a video game without any difficulty. That's probably a strange thing to say, as every Pixar movie has been turned into a video game. I think the indefensible stance I'm getting at is that in other Pixar action sequences, the action feels too chaotic; there's a sense that there is a goal (get to the back of the moving truck, cross the busy downtown street), but no rules -- anything could happen. The action in Finding Nemo feels like it's guided by rules, the kind of unbreakable rules you find in video games, where you complete the task in the only way deemed possible by the programmers before you can move on. Maybe this feeling has to do with the infinite-looking blue sea, which has the paradoxical effect of making the world feel small and linear. Or maybe I should just shut up now.
Anyhow, there's obviously something to this movie, or else I wouldn't have put it at #2 on my then-Top Ten, knocking out X2. I'll post follow-up comments when I buy the DVD (it's Pixar, maaaaan.)
Down With Love (Peyton Reed)
Fizz! Pop! Bang! There was only one movie that was funnier, and only one that was more fun visually, than this kooky ode to the fluffy romantic comedies of the 50s and early 60s. Although it isn't a musical (well, there is a musical number, very well done, but it's during the end credits), it's presented like a musical, with large, fantastic sets, goofy colorful costumes, and a broad, to-the-rafters style of comedic acting that I found refreshing (in this context, at least). There's a great moment when Renee Zellweger and Sarah Paulson enter a restaurant and drop their coats simultaneously, and swagger to their table -- a bit of unneccessary yet totally wonderful choreography that expresses the spirit of the movie. If you avoided this in the theater, thinking it silly piffle, please, check it out on DVD. Silly, perhaps; piffle, perhaps not.
Where we saw it: film | We deign to rate it: outta 100Re: Down With Love
How did you feel about Renee's explain-it-all-alogue? I thought it was overdone and totally missed the mark, but I've read other people think it was pitch perfect.
Re: X2
Nightcrawler was the best part. Actually, the best part of both X-men movies was thinking "Oh, that's what SNIKT really sounds like." or "Oh. That's what BAMF really sounds like.
See, I thought the entirety of Down With Love was, in one way or another, overdone, and that was the thrill and the attraction. Or, put another way, Down With Love is incredibly artificial, and there isn't a moment more artificial than that monologue, so I guess I'm in the pitch-perfect camp.
Also, I'm not sure I followed the monologue (and I'm not sure I was supposed to), and that might have something to do with my reaction.
X2:
I've never really thought about the sounds, actually. Certainly, I can't remember what they sound like right now. Another reason to watch it again.
Posted by: Kza at January 5, 2004 01:33 PMIn Retrospect, what you say about D.W.L. makes sense--but at the time I remember it snapping me out of the movie enough to feel funny. I may have to give it another chance--there were some things I loved about it. One favorite was the driving scenes where they were projecting the old films of NY as the background projection.
Posted by: Martin at January 5, 2004 03:10 PM