Park City's Flick Chick by Jill Adler
September 2004 - Movie Reviews in a Nutshell
Garden State
Film Rating: R
Yet
another movie about a 20-something with baggage. But this one
is a romantic comedy rather than a twisted head-trip. Then again,
it is about a twisted head-trip…. B-List actor Andrew Largeman
(Zach Braff) goes home to New Jersey for the first time in 10
years for his mother’s funeral. The quadriplegic, clinically-depressed
woman drowns in her bathtub and Largeman must come to terms with
his feelings of guilt (he was the one who put her in the wheelchair)
at the same time he ditches his anti-depressants and faces the
real world. The edginess is tinged with bright spots including
Natalie Portman who once again turns in a stellar performance
and steals every scene as the messed-up, epileptic girl Largeman
meets at the hospital. While GS only skims the surface of mental
illness and psychotropic drug effects, it creates an interesting
palette of quirky memorable personalities you can root for. Produced
by Danny Devito’s Jersey Films and written and directed
by Braff (Scrubs), it’s easy to see how Garden State stole
the hearts at this year’s Sundance Film Fest.
The Village
Film Rating: PG-13
Good
thing Ron Howard has a talented daughter or The Village would
have absolutely no redeeming qualities. Bryce Dallas Howard
plays Ivy, the Village blind girl. Apparently, she sees way
better than the Stepford people inhabiting the Amish-like town
where everyone wears drab 19th century rags, eats together at
long picnic tables and holds regular meetings about “Those
We Do Not Speak Of” in the forest that they’re forbidden
to enter. Ivy decides it’s time to brave the woods to
find a town where she can get “medicines” to save
her true love Lucius Hunt (Joaquin Phoenix playing a stone-faced
loner to the point of me wanting to slap him silly) who’s
been knifed by the Village idiot (Adrien Brody). How M. Night
Shyamalamadingdong can corral a fiercely talented cast (including
William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver) and waste them all (but one)
is unfathomable to me. Let The Village forever be one of “Those
We Do Not Speak Of.”
Without A Paddle
Film Rating: PG-13
Don’t.
Just Don’t. Three longtime buddies with issues are on
a quest to find D.B. Cooper’s treasure, get their L.L.Bean
asses dumped in the woods after trying to canoe a Class V, get
lost, meet Burt Reynolds and stumble on the treasure. Granted,
I did laugh in places despite myself. I tend to dig American
Pie humor. However, this flick is so disappointingly crappy
(literally- the characters throw human feces at two redneck
ATV hunters from a treehouse for hippies), I won’t waste
the space.
Collateral
Film Rating: R
We
went from summer blockbusters to summer ballbreakers in three
weeks. After three superdogs (Catwoman, Without A Paddle and
The Village), I was to chill from the cinema and take up, say,
mini-golf. Then came Tom Cruise and Collateral. Ok, I’ll
admit a bias ever since Tom slid into the living room singing
“‘Ol Time Rock n’ Roll” in his briefs,
but he shows his acting chops work just as well as his thighs,
playing an amoral hitman wreaking havoc on a cabbie’s
(Jamie Foxx) graveyard shift. Cruise as a bad guy? Yup, he pulls
it off- big time. Even more impressive is that Foxx holds his
own in this Michael Mann thriller. The film, shot mostly on
high-speed digis, captures an L.A. that doesn’t exist-
dark, quiet, intimate and creepy. Max (Foxx) dreams of owning
a high-class limo fleet but can’t seem to do more than
keep his cab spotless for 12 years. Then Vincent (Cruise) hops
in, books him for the night and forces him on a messy killing
spree to eliminate the key witnesses in a drug cartel bust.
Mann (Miami Vice, Heat, Manhunter) conducts this one like a
symphony blending a clever, provocative script, score and cast
through the maze of psyche and city streets. There are a few
plot holes that annoy- an L.A. cop (Mark Ruffalo) figures out
what’s going on when not even the FBI has a clue, but
then his storyline abruptly ends? But in the end, what works
is Max’s transformation and the connection he shares with
his alter-ego embodied by Vince. Look for some Oscar nominations
out of this one!
