The first 10 minutes of Anastasia (1997)

The finest in Bolshevism, in a jar!

Below are the notes I took during the beginning of Anastasia, before I gave up on watching Anastasia. I know lots of people love this movie, and I do feel bad about not giving it more of a chance. Maybe I will some day. But for now:

The movie opens with a nostalgic voiceover: "There was a time not so long ago when we lived in an enchanted world of beautiful palaces." Yeah, there was a time not so long ago when we lived in an enchanted world of serfdom and, even when that was abolished, persistent economic inequality so great that it incubated a violent popular revolution WHICH IS ACTUALLY PRETTY TOUGH TO DO, GOOD JOB RUSSIA. I know that communism in the Soviet Union didn't work out, but I can already feel that I'm going to have major issues with this movie romanticizing czarist Russia. But whatever, Angela Lansbury, please continue. Tell me about how this society with no social mobility to speak of was totally idyllic.

Rasputin crashes the royal ball, and he's a creepy-looking motherfucker. Gray skin was basically a genius invention on the part of animators. That way you can have villains who would in reality be the same color as the good guys, but you can make them look darker (aka eviler). COOL.

Oh shit the premise of the movie is that dark magic caused discontent in Russian workers, leading to the revolution? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA awesome. I mean, look, I understand that this is a cartoon for children and not supposed to be realistic, but why even bother with this setting? Why not take these ideas and stick them in a fairytale world?

At this point I abandoned ship.

Bedrooms and Hallways (1998)

And we're back. Sorry I haven't posted in months and months. Can you forgive me?

On the subject of forgiveness, can you forgive Rose Troche for this movie? Can I? Can anyone? Bedrooms and Hallways is somewhere between mediocre and bad, and it shouldn't have been. There is real potential here, really squandered.

The facts: it is a romantic comedy about Leo, a gay dude (Kevin McKidd, aka Lucius Vorenus from Rome) who has an affair with a straight dude (James Purefoy, aka Marc Antony from Rome). His friends are all wacky or have wacky stuff happening to them, and they are played by--are you ready for this list of actors?--Tom Hollander (In the Loop), Hugo Weaving (Priscilla, Queen of the Matrix of the Rings), Jennifer Ehle (BBC's Pride & Prejudice), Simon Callow (Four Weddings and a Funeral), and Paul Higgins (JAMIE in The Thick Of It and In the Loop).

It is an amazing fucking cast. Plus, several of them make out with each other. If the script were remotely competent, this could have been a jewel of frothy no-stakes queer rom-commery. Instead, it is a meandering, dull disappointment. Here is the most disappointing part of all, SPOILER ALERT: Leo, the main character, a gay man, ends up with a woman. Now, sexuality is fluid, yes indeed, and I have no problem with real life gay people dating anyone of any gender identity because obviously whatever, but there are already plenty of movies--too many, in fact--about masculine cis dudes and feminine cis ladies pairing up. To see that in an LGBT rom com makes me feel so fucking cheated. Et tu, queer cinema?

- Didn't Like It

CHEATER #2: Special Preview Edition!

I saw a preview screening of Butter, an indie-but-not-really-indie comedy that's coming out next year. My friend and Butter date Josh says I'm not supposed to talk about it online, but whatever. That ship has sailed.

Butter is about two ladies who enter a butter-carving competition. I liked it (mostly, ish) while I was watching it, but in retrospect, my impressions are kind of negative? This definitely says more about me than about Butter. Below I will rank stuff I remember about it from best to worst:

1. Olivia Wilde as an angry stripper. The characterization of "stripper" is pretty lazy, but she's still hilarious.

2. There are very sweet scenes between Yara Shahidi, who plays the hero of the movie, and Rob Corddry, who plays her Cool Foster Dad. He was so cool that he made me wish I'd been in foster care! (No, not really. But he was very cool.)

3. I definitely remember that there were some funny lines of dialogue. So.

4. Ashley Greene was not bad, but she didn't have enough screen time. But she definitely makes out with Olivia Wilde during her limited screen time, and that is pretty great.

5. Hugh Jackman plays this weird superfluous character who has weird superfluous scenes. Like in one he sits in his car showroom and thanks God for letting him fuck Jennifer Garner. I don't even know.

6. The movie relies pretty heavily on tired Hollywood nonsense. FOR EXAMPLE: the movie opens with a boring voiceover over headless footage of fat people! Yay! Are these fat people relevant to the movie? Does the movie criticize overconsumption? Should writers be forced to prove to some centralized body that they actually deserve to use voiceover? No, no, and yes, respectively.

7. Jennifer Garner's character suuuuuuuuuuuucks. Basically a Sarah Palin type, but more two-dimensional and more neurotic.

8. Heard recently that the movie's supposed to parallel the Clinton/Obama primary. If that is true, that blows. "Oh, Hillary Clinton, what a bitch." -the filmmakers, right before they ATE ME

Män som hatar kvinnor (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) (2009)

Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace, in an awesome performance), a researcher/hacker with a criminal past, works for a large security firm. She's been assigned to spy on Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), a journalist recently convicted of libel. After she gives the information she's gathered on Blomkvist to a lawyer named Frode, Frode approaches Blomkvist on behalf of his client, Henrik Vanger. The ultra-wealthy Vanger hires Blomkvist to spend the months leading up to his prison sentence investigating the murder of Harriet Vanger--Henrik's niece. Blomkvist moves to the island of Hedebey, home of Henrik and family, and begins to dig.

He doesn't find much on his own, but Lisbeth, still hacking his computer, figures out a clue and e-mails him. Blomkvist, annoyed but intrigued, shows up at Lisbeth's door and gets her to join his investigation. Together, they are the best crime-solving team ever, uncovering a series of gruesome murders on their way to solving the Harriet mystery.

Before Lisbeth joins up with Blomkvist, there's a subplot where she has to deal with a new probationary guardian. From his first appearance, it is clear that this man--Bjurman--is controlling, sadistic, and an all-around winner. Lisbeth's interactions with him felt like the scariest, highest-stakes part of the movie. He's not central to the plot, but he is the clearest and earliest indication of the movie's big theme: misogyny. The Swedish title of the movie (and of the original book) means "Men Who Hate Women." I think this is pretty funny; I can imagine the English-language publisher saying, "Nope! Nope! No! Call it something else; call it anything else. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? Great. Print."

Men Who Hate Women Including the One with the Dragon Tattoo does an exceptionally good job of using vagueness to build suspense. The Vanger Group's business looms over the entire movie, yet I don't remember what kind of business it was. Are we ever told? Similarly, the infrequency of Blomkvist's contact with Vanger family members added to the unease I felt about them. It's really unnerving when Blomkvist is summoned to a meeting with the assembled Vangers, severe middle-aged and elderly strangers staring him down in an underlit living room. Henrik's brother Harald is the only Vanger on Hedebey who doesn't go to that creepy meeting--which makes him even creepier. Harald is the movie's bogeyman. He's mentioned often, and his house is an imposing presence on the island. He can't be overlooked, but he can't be seen, either. It's a really typical way of building up fear of a character, so I feel weird making a thing of it, but I thought this movie carried it off particularly well.

In general, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo uses familiar tricks but makes them feel compelling, not worn. Some of the plot developments were predictable--who was sending the pressed flowers, Lisbeth's violent crime--but that didn't bother me or make me enjoy the movie less. Plus, let's be real: it is incredibly refreshing to see a thriller about misogyny rather than a thriller filled with misogyny.

- Really Liked It

The Castle of Cagliostro (1979)

During the getaway from their latest heist, master thief Lupin III and his sidekick Jigen realize that the cash they've stolen is fake. They set off to the tiny principality of Cagliostro to search for the source of the superb counterfeits. On the way, they see a beautiful young woman in a convertible trying to elude a car full of thugs. She is Princess Clarisse of Cagliostro. Lupin tries to rescue her, but the thugs win, and Lupin and Jigen travel to the eponymous castle, determined to recover both Clarisse and the counterfeiting plates. Oh, and Clarisse is engaged to marry Count Cagliostro--an evil dude who tries really hard to kill Lupin.

I'd been told (by the Internet) that this movie works without any background in the Lupin III series, and it does, but not that well. There are two characters--the samurai Goemon and con artist Fujiko--who seemed totally superfluous to me. I can only imagine they're in the movie because they're established characters in the series, and fans would expect them. Even Jigen (Lupin's sidekick) and Zenigata (a Japanese cop who pursues Lupin) seemed to be treated as more significant characters than they were in this particular story. The Castle of Cagliostro works as a stand-alone movie, but I think I'd probably have liked it better if I had read the manga or seen the TV series, and I think I've enjoyed other Miyazaki films more in part because they felt more self-contained.

The Castle of Cagliostro's main characters--Lupin, Clarisse, and the Count--bear a strange resemblance to the main characters of The Princess Bride. Count Cagliostro is a carbon copy of Prince Humperdinck. Lupin must cleverly work around an injury in his assault on the castle. He and his two sidekicks even set up a "terrifying apparition" routine to interrupt the wedding--a routine very much in the spirit of the Dread Pirate Roberts. In the same scene, I was honestly surprised when the officiating clergyman didn't say, "Mawwidge is what bwings us togevah today." (Instead he tells Clarisse, "You must speak now. Otherwise, silence will be accepted as consent to this union." GOOD. That is a good policy.)

Clarisse cannot object to the union because the villainous Count has sedated her. Even without the drugs, though, Clarisse is pretty passive. She has the opening car chase going for her, but after that, she turns into a garden-variety damsel-in-distress. At one point, there's a wide shot of her standing still as the lights are switched off in her well-appointed tower prison.


I thought it would be funny if she just stayed that way, perfectly still--if she switched to a state of suspended animation whenever there were no men around to talk to her. Alas, she does not; instead, she occupies herself with staring rapturously at a fuckin' flower Lupin gave her or whatever. The movie's other female character, Fujiko, seems to have much more potential. I presume she's a regular in the Lupin series; it's too bad she's such a minor character here.

Overall, I felt like The Castle of Cagliostro was not a particularly compelling movie, but it had some very compelling sequences. The car chase with Clarisse, Lupin, and the baddies is a lot of fun, and I loved Lupin's heist antics on the castle rooftops and in the aqueduct. But I didn't love the movie, partly because I didn't know enough about the characters, and partly because my expectations were too high. I was hoping Cagliostro would be as magical as later Miyazaki movies like Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, or even Porco Rosso. It's not.

- Liked It

Doctor Who: Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks (2007)

"That motherfucker had, like, 30 goddamn dicks."

Doctor Who is this great show about a dude named the Doctor who is an alien and is awesome and zips around space and time in his space-and-time machine, which looks like a blue box and is called the TARDIS and is also awesome. One caveat to the show's awesomeness, though: sometimes it sucks.

In this two-part episode, the Doctor (David Tennant, at this point) and his companion Martha (Freema Agyeman) visit New York during the Great Depression, because, you know, they figured that would be fun. Alas! Their quaint excursion to the breadlines is foiled by--who else?--the genocidal Daleks. The Doctor's mortal enemies are kidnapping people and dragging them to the Empire State Building in service of some evil plan.

Okay. Pretty straightforward. Also pretty boring. Neither the Doctor nor Martha does or says anything particularly interesting, and most of the guest characters are similarly flat. I do like the relationship between stagehand Laszlo and Adelaide-clone Tallulah. It's sweet and sad. Everything else about this two-parter, though--the tedious plot, the awful American accents, the idea of Human Daleks--is best forgotten.

For some reason, in new Who*, the presence of Daleks (or Cybermen, another classic enemy of the Doctor) tends to indicate crappy episodes. The big exception is the Ninth Doctor episode "Dalek," which is heart-wrenching and pretty dope. But while "Dalek" pulsed with an emotional core, most Dalek-centric episodes have been heavy on the "EXTERMINATE!" catch phrase (which--don't get me wrong--I love) and light on real feeling. The most recent season of Doctor Who was superb; to my mind, its only truly lackluster episode was the third one: "Victory of the Daleks." I'm going to idly speculate that Dalek episodes disappoint because 1) they're probably commissioned in an unimaginative way ("Give us Daleks in the thirties!" "Give us Daleks in WWII!") and 2) Daleks bring down the whimsy level, which means that the episode must compensate by being really dark or really scary. Otherwise, it's just really dull.

Looking back on season 3 of new Who, I'm sad for Martha Jones. She was a one-season-only companion, and she got shortchanged. First, her pining after the Doctor was not a particularly meaty arc. Second, she was in a lot of mediocre-to-bad episodes. In spite of those substantial handicaps, I find Freema Agyeman's performance completely winning. I love Martha and want only the best for her. But she did not usually get the best. She usually got "Daleks in Manhattan."

*There is "old Who," which ran from 1963-1989, and "new Who," which began in 2005. New Who is not a true reboot; it continued from where the old series left off. (More or less.)

- Didn't Like It (but if I were rating new Who as a whole, I'd give it 4 stars, and if I was rating the newest season of new Who, I'd give it 6 or 7)

The Commitments (1991)

Note, in the front row: baby Glen Hansard!

Jimmy Rabbitte (Robert Arkins) is obsessed with music. Two of his friends ask him to whip their band into shape, and he responds by taking it apart and putting together a new one: The Commitments. This soul cover band has a wise old veteran trumpeter, an egotistical dick of a lead singer, three talented female backups (who could easily have replaced insufferable frontman Deco), and five young nerds on guitar, bass, sax, piano, and drums. Will the band succeed, or will it be destroyed by too much infighting and not enough money?

Early on, one bandmember suggests that they may be too white to play soul music. Jimmy responds that the music fits them because "the Irish are the blacks of Europe. And Dubliners are the blacks of Ireland. And the Northside Dubliners are the blacks of Dublin. So say it once, say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud." This sort of sentiment, well-intentioned though it may be, makes me really uncomfortable. First of all, it seems to render actual black people invisible? There are black people in Europe--and, indeed, Ireland--and if white Irish are "the blacks," then who are black Europeans? Also the blacks? Different blacks? Now, Jimmy's trying to draw a parallel between Britain's historical treatment of the Irish and America's historical treatment of black people. I get that. But that is itself problematic: you can't reduce "blackness" to just the experience of oppression or to a romanticized picture of musical "character" born of suffering. Not to be (even more) obvious (than usual), but it's a bit dehumanizing to treat people as metaphors instead of as, um, people.

This same sort of presumption manifests later in the movie, when club walls are papered with the band's posters proclaiming them the "Saviours of Soul." I'm sure Roddy Doyle, Alan Parker, et al. didn't mean anything by it, but saviors from what? I don't know. Maybe this isn't as bad as it seemed to me. I do this; I make a big deal over practically nothing. What do you guys think?

Race stuff aside, the movie seemed to me to have some structural weaknesses. The Commitments is based on a novel, and it felt like it would work better as a book. I haven't read the book, but I'm going to speculate wildly that there's probably more substantial character development there than in the movie. Plus, I think novels can get away with having less conflict than films.* There's a lot of conflict in the movie, but it isn't explored in a plottish way; it just erupts and subsides and erupts again, unhandled and probably unhandleable. (These are all official critical terms. Pauline Kael will back me up.) Anyway, to me, the movie felt a little thin on plot and on character.

Still, it's not thin on charm. I enjoyed watching it. I rooted for the band. I loved the dialogue between Jimmy and Joey "The Lips" Fagan at the end. Couldn't ask for a line much better than "That would have been predictable. This way it's poetry." Overall, though, I expected to like the movie more than I did, and I expected there to be more there there. (Not unlike my feelings on Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.)

Maybe I should just be happy I got through it. In the last couple days, I have tried to watch Diabolique and Return of the Secaucus 7 and gotten bored with both. I think I'll go back to them. They're probably very good. Maybe my attention span is just shot. Maybe I'm having post-Moon malaise, as I predicted I would. Maybe, right now, I only have eyes for The Wire.

*It is possible that I'm full of shit.

- Liked It