When Hollywood Gets It Right
<p>My last two posts<br />
(<a href='http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=273'>If Hollywood Were Really Brave</a><br />
and <a href='http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=274'>Out of the Frame</a>)<br />
have slammed Hollywood pretty hard for cranking out preachy, boring crap<br />
while congratulating itself on its bravery.  I&#8217;ll make it a triptych by<br />
examining some recent movies that I found truly excellent.</p>
<p><span id="more-275"></span></p>
<h3>Lord Of The Rings (2001-2004)</h3>
<p>Tolkien fans went into these movies dreading a disappointment and<br />
came out stunned by the power and fidelity with which director Peter<br />
Jackson (himself a lifelong fan) brought Middle-Earth to life.  It was<br />
a revelation that a fantasy film this good and this true to its<br />
materials could get made inside the Hollywood system at all.  Most of<br />
the credit seems to go to Jackson, who insisted on doing it<br />
<em>right</em>; but kudos to everyone in the cast (except the<br />
inexplicably unconvincing Cate Blanchett) who clearly gave these movies<br />
everything they had and then some.</p>
<h3>The Incredibles (2004)</h3>
<p>If there&#8217;s anyone out there who still thinks animated film has to<br />
be trivial entertainment or just for children, this is the movie to<br />
nuke that misconception into vapor.  What an amazing and wonderful<br />
work of art this was &mdash; entertaining, intelligent, emotionally<br />
rich, morally serious without being preachy, deeply humane. And with<br />
a tasty libertarian-verging-on-Objectivist subtext, too!</p>
<h3>Serenity (2005)</h3>
<p>And speaking of libertarian subtexts &mdash; this movie&#8217;s punchline<br />
is the hardest slam against coercive social engineering I&#8217;ve ever<br />
seen on film.  Along the way to it we get plenty of action, the<br />
superb ensemble acting we&#8217;d come to expect from the TV series, humor,<br />
horrror and a lot of plain old visual gorgeousness. Extra points for<br />
the hot-chick-with-mad-kung-fu-skillz fight scene&#8230;</p>
<h3>Open Range (2003)</h3>
<p>I thought this was an underappreciated gem, a superb Western in the<br />
traditional style that even managed to extract a fine performance from<br />
within Kevin Costner&#8217;s excessive self-regard.  Robert Duvall was even<br />
better as the tough old trail-boss Costner&#8217;s ex-gunfighter rides with.<br />
Annette Bening barely holds up her end as the female lead, but that&#8217;s<br />
OK; this is a film about men, and manhood, in the best sense of both<br />
terms.  There&#8217;s one scene where she serves Costner&#8217;s and Duvall&#8217;s<br />
characters tea; the wordless moment when the two are trying to fit<br />
their work-gnarled fingers through delicate bone-china handles is one<br />
of the most complex and poignant bits I&#8217;ve ever seen in a movie.</p>
<h3>The Last Samurai (2003)</h3>
<p>I&#8217;ve reviewed this movie in a previous blog entry; go <a href='http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=137'>there</a>.  Alas, the trend<br />
towards better historicals I was so happy about in 2003 didn&#8217;t<br />
continue; instead, we got disappointments like <cite>Troy</cite> and<br />
the mega-craptacular <cite>Alexander</cite>.</p>
<h3>Looney Toons: Back In Action (2003)</h3>
<p>Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and the whole Warner Brothers posse rock<br />
the house old-school style. But this was no mere gag-fest; the chase<br />
scenes running through famous paintings in the Louvre were art and<br />
satire and satire about art of a very high order (the chase through<br />
Dali&#8217;s <cite>The Persistence of Memory</cite> was particularly<br />
brilliant).  Marvin the Martian gets more screen time than his entire<br />
previous career put together, especially during the slam-bang finish<br />
set in (animated) Earth orbit that wonderfully sends up the Star Wars<br />
movies and finally (finally!) lets Daffy be the hero.</p>
<h3>Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)</h3>
<p>This movie absolutely should not have worked.  The plot was thin,<br />
the maguffin was a ridiculous lift from a Disney amusement-park ride,<br />
Orlando Bloom uttered a lifeless Errol Flynn imitation in lieu of a<br />
performance, and Keira Knightley forgot anything she might have known<br />
about acting (or possibly she was just stunned by the wooden quality of<br />
the script).  It was all redeemed by Johnny Depp&#8217;s incandescently<br />
brilliant turn as Captain Jack Sparrow, proving that a good enough<br />
actor can bring life to even the most formulaic crap.  Depp didn&#8217;t<br />
just carry this movie on his back, he spun it on one finger with an<br />
insouciant grin.</p>
