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