Lung Shadows.

At first, after the early director troubles and the casting of Keanu, I wouldn’t have given Constantine a snowball’s chance in Hell. But, while I can definitely see how it might come off as long-winded, somewhat inscrutable, and mostly boring to folks who hadn’t read the comics, I found the movie a surprisingly good adaptation of the source material. Much more atmospheric than your average February release comic book film, Constantine is a well-thought-out, well-constructed (if occasionally overlong) B-picture. As Keanu might say, “Whoa.”

I haven’t read Hellblazer much in the past decade, but what I remember most about the early adventures of John Constantine were (a) his frequent conversations and complicated pacts with the various demilords of Heaven and Hell, and (b) the absurdly short life-spans among his worldwide network of demonologists, clairvoyants, freaks, and hangers-on. To its credit, Constantine gets both details exactly right, with Tilda Swinton, Gavin Rossdale, Djimon Hounsou, and Peter Stormare playing otherworldly nobility to great effect (although I think I preferred Viggo’s take on Lucifer in The Prophecy), and Max Baker and Pruitt Taylor Vince (born to play a Constantine sidekick) layering on the eccentricities thick as unlucky compadres of the man of the hour.

When Constantine falters, it’s mainly in the long, protracted scenes between Keanu and Rachel Weisz, the latter of whom plays twins (one the love interest, the other the McGuffin.) The two (or three, whatever) don’t have much chemistry, and they stop the film cold occasionally in the middle hour. Also, the depiction of the Underworld, which basically resembles Sarah Connor’s nuclear nightmare in T2, has that cheap FX-house look to it, and fails to capture the wry malevolence often seen in DC’s comic-book Hell (for example, in the various torments visited upon Alan Moore’s Anton Arcane in Swamp Thing, or, in a creepy vision that I’ve never escaped, when Grant Morrison’s Kid Eternity encountered his teddy bear in the throes of agony, pleading for respite and demanding vengeance for his abandonment.)

Still, despite these lapses, I found Constantine for the most part an enjoyable and sequel-worthy adaptation, and an auspicious sign for fanboy cinema in 2005. Perhaps this’ll even bode well for FF…Nah.

Luck be a Lady.

“I’m on a roll, I’m on a roll, this time. I feel my luck could change.” Just as it seemed that I’d have to settle into Valentine’s Day weekend with the cloying miasma of Love Actually still wafting in the air, along came Wayne Kramer’s The Cooler (by way of my local Blockbuster.) Stacked with quality performances by William H. Macy, Maria Bello, Alec Baldwin, Paul Sorvino, and Ron Livingston, The Cooler is an enchanting magical realist tale about the transformative power of love that I found passionate, poignant, and poetic (and not in the Vogon sense.) I thought it managed to capture that first, giddy and glorious flush of a new romance in spades.

The film begins with Bernie (Macy), a guy beat down so low by life he makes Jerry Lundegaard seem like Tony Robbins, ambling around the once-fabulous Shangri-La casino, bestowing bad mojo like a benediction upon any unfortunate gambler in his wake. Y’see, Bernie is such a hard luck case that he infects everyone around him with his awful fortune, and has thus been hired as a “cooler” by Old Vegas mob boss Shelley Kaplow (Baldwin, well-deserving of his Supporting Actor nomination.) But, when Bernie encounters cocktail waitress and amateur astrologist Natalie (Bello), Cupid works some mojo of his own, and soon enough a revitalized, invincible Bernie inexplicably has the Midas Touch, which may not sit well with his employers…

True, you can guess where this is basically going from the opening moments. The Cooler is ultimately a brief genre exercise in noir romance – It’s not reinventing the wheel. But the wry script takes a few jags I wasn’t expecting, and Kramer, Macy, and Bello succeed in fashioning two lovebirds who veer from playful to amorous to desperate for each other in a way that belies the cookie cutter courtship of so many other films. (And while it at first seems that The Cooler has a Sideways problem, it doesn’t, for spoilerish reasons which will be evident if you see the movie.) In sum, if you can stomach the occasional burst of Old Vegas-style mob brutality (usually at the hands of Baldwin), The Cooler is a testament to the notion that even perennial losers can sometimes catch a lucky break, and a touching character-driven romance well worth checking out.

Death, Revenge, Love, and Slyders.

Some short thoughts on recent DVDs witnessed…

Dead Man: Many cinephiles whose opinions I trust have told me to check out Jim Jarmusch’s stuff, so I figured a good place to start would be this black-and-white western featuring Johnny Depp and a slew of my favorite character actors. Alas, I found Dead Man to be slow, scattershot, and for the most part uninvolving. Depp is William Blake, a fellow who is forced to flee the frontier town run by an industrialist strongman (the late, great Robert Mitchum) after an unfortunate love-triangle mix-up, and who, despite being unrelated to the English poet and mystic of the same name, nevertheless encounters enough shamanist mysticism in the wilderness to make even Oliver Stone blush. Blake’s tour guide on his increasingly bizarre escapades outside “civilization” is an Indian named Nobody (Gary Fisher), who speaks in riddle-like profundities (and, occasionally, passages from Blake) in the manner of filmed Native Americans since time immemorial.

Basically, I thought Dead Man was kinda goofy. It never established much of a rhythm or a narrative, and as an episodic travelogue, it’s hit and miss. Billy Bob Thornton as a lonely trapper and Alfred Molina as a priest peddling smallpox blankets probably make the most indelible impressions, but other quality actors (particularly John Hurt and Gabriel Byrne) needed more to do. Frankly, I just don’t think I got it. Why does long-winded, cold-blooded killer Michael Wincott sleep with a teddy bear? Why is frontiersman Iggy Pop dressed like a Willa Cather heroine? (Presumably, the answer for Jarmusch fans is “Why Not?” I suppose I could just as easily question David Lynch’s dwarves or the Coens’ similar non-sequiturs.) Perhaps I went in with abnormal expectations, but I found Dead Man‘s “funny” parts stiff and the “profound” parts stilted. I’ll definitely get around to the rest of Jarmusch’s oeuvre, but, sadly, this counts as a strike against him.

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: Mike Hodges’ reinvention of Get Carter was also a disappointment. It strives mightily to be a somber, Unforgiven-like tale of unfulfilling revenge and redemption denied, but turns out instead as a slow, plodding affair that feels a bit like Eyes Wide Shut, in that a great director’s once-pioneering vision now sadly comes off as somewhat stale and antiquated.

The movie throws you in in media res, with pretty-boy n’er-do-well Davy Graham (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) dealing to and scamming the London glitterati while his brother Will (Owen) seems to have taken a page from Matt Foley and is now, literally, living in a van down by the river. Very shortly, horrible, droogie-like things are done to Davy by none other than Malcolm McDowell, resulting in the former’s suicide, and lean, mean wildman Will blows back into town to settle the score. The rest of the film consists of Owen slowly seething (to impressive effect) while his former mates and enemies cringe, cower, and — like us — await the inevitable denouement. It eventually happens, but lordy does it take awhile to get there. Jamie Foreman (soon to be Bill Sykes in Polanski’s Oliver Twist) deserves marks as the Graham boys’ flawed and frantic lieutenant, but otherwise there’s not much to go on here. If you want to see Hodges direct Owen, rent Croupier instead.

Love Actually: Oof, where do I start? Ok, I knew going in that this probably wasn’t going to be my cup of tea. But a good friend of mine had it sitting on his TV, he recommended it as “like Sliding Doors” (which, much like Next Stop Wonderland, was a romantic comedy that I really enjoyed), and it had a bunch of actors I like (Liam Neeson, Keira Knightley, Emma Thompson, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and much of Team Hitchhikers: Martin Freeman, Alan Rickman, and Bill Nighy.) But, as many of you probably already know, Love Actually is, actually, godawful dreck, a schmaltzfest of grotesque proportions. I was complaining about the occasionally saccharine taste of In Good Company only yesterday, but Love Actually makes that film look like Requiem for a Dream.

The film follows multiple couples in the weeks leading up to Christmas, and is set in an alternate universe where no love goes unrequited (among the beautiful, of course), at least without a wink and a kiss. In fact, in this Fairie-England, where Hugh Grant (doing his pre-About a Boy faux-self-effacing schtick) is the new Prime Minister, it’s even considered somehow romantic to make an unabashed play at your best friend’s wife. Look, I know I’m a cynical sort, but my heart warms to certain well-made fare. But this…um, not so much. From a wholly implausible joint press conference (Billy Bob Thornton cameos as a prez who combines the worst of Clinton and Dubya), to Grant cavorting around 10 Downing Street a la Risky Business, to Liam Neeson constantly interacting-cute with his Padawan stepson, to Colin Firth venturing to 19th century Portugal, to the, um, musical numbers, this film all too often made me want to claw my eyes out. Most of the time, I was hoping I’d see more of Bill Nighy, the movie’s saving grace, as an aging rocker trying to make one, last improbable comeback with a sellout remix of The Troggs’ “Love is All Around.” But, by the end, even that storyline gets smothered in sugary sweetness. For the love, actually, of Pete, stay away from this lousy film.

Harold & Kumar go to White Castle: White Castle…hmmm, those are some fine little burgers, particularly in quantity. I haven’t had a 12-pack of Slyders in a dog’s age. In fact, I think there’s a Castle a couple of blocks over at 125th and 7th. Man, how awesome would that be right now? I…I, uh…oh yeah, Harold & Kumar, right. Yeah, that was pretty a funny movie.

Admittedly, Harold & Kumar is for the most part a check-your-brain-at-the-door kinda film. For all of its clever 21st century savvy about 80’s-movies racial tropes, H & K is still ultimately a lowest-common-denominator college comedy. Yet, while some of the vignettes definitely fall flat, I found Harold & Kumar just enough of a variation on the age-old After Hours road-trip formula to be really amusing. John Cho and Kal Penn are both charismatic and engaging as our wayward, famished, and thoroughly stoned protagonists, and Neil Patrick Harris earns special plaudits for showing up as himself (albeit more-than-slightly tweaked) and just going for it. All in all, I highly doubt H & K is everybody’s bag, but — despite the gross-out gags and retro thinking — it is at times a rather intelligent dumb movie.

In the Company of Men.

Contrary to his admission in Ocean’s 12, I’m happy to report that Topher Grace did not in fact “phone in that Dennis Quaid movie.” In fact, he, Quaid, and much of the supporting cast make In Good Company a sometimes saccharine but ultimately worthwhile evening at the movies. Like Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Todd Louiso, Grace is great at bringing to life characters that we all know in real life but rarely see onscreen, and his turn here as aspiring but well-meaning corporate shark Carter Duryea is no exception. And Quaid, who’s slowly taken on a rugged, masculine resonance in his middle-aged period — sorta like Harrison Ford 6-8 years ago — is equally good as displaced and disgruntled ad sales exec Dan Foreman (probably one of the most goofily symbolic character names since Tom Hanks’ “Chuck Noland” in Cast Away.)

In fact, that “Foreman” gimmick is probably the main problem with In Good Company. It’s painted in broad strokes, and at times, the scriptwriting wheels grind so loudly in this so-warmhearted-its-dopey flick that it took me right out of the film. Quaid’s Foreman doesn’t just love his job — he loves his job, with an intensity and naivete that’s, if not unbecoming, at least unrealistic in a guy his age. Similarly, Grace’s overcaffeinated, underexperienced Duryea seems to know instinctively he’s trodding the wrong path from the get-go, which kills what little uncertainty we had about where the story is going. The one real bad guy (Clark Gregg) is really bad, Duryea’s self-absorbed trophy wife (Selma Blair) is really self-absorbed (their foyer is a shrine to her image), and so on. (Scarlett Johansson, rounding out the top bill as Quaid’s daughter and Grace’s post-Blair love interest, is at turns girlish and womanly as the script necessitates…and I didn’t find her believable at all. Then again, I’ll admit, Lost in Translation notwithstanding, I’m starting to find Johansson as annoyingly mannered as Jeremy Davies on his bad days.)

To be fair to In Good Company, my taste in corporate satire runs closer to Brazil, Office Space, The Office, Glengarry Glen Ross, and In the Company of Men than it does to films like this one, which I think almost undoubtedly speaks worse of me than it does this movie. As he also showed in the surprisingly moving About a Boy, writer-director Paul Weitz is magnanimous to a fault with his characters — at times, he doesn’t seem to want to think badly of any of them. And, particularly with Grace, Quaid, and role players like David Paymer working their mojo, In Good Company‘s kindness is contagious — Annoyed by the sugary-sweetness of it all at first, I found myself slowly and inexorably won over by the movie in the middle hour. By the time Quaid speaks truth to power (in the form of Malcolm McDowell’s Murdoch-like Teddy K) in the final act, I knew the movie was selling me a seriously implausible view of just desserts and the corporate life. But, ultimately, I didn’t mind so much.
Just as the film condemns globalization and “synergy” while throwing in more gratuitous product placements per minute than I’ve seen in some time, In Good Company nevertheless eventually won me over with its generosity of spirit. As Barnum said, there’s a sucker born every minute, and by the end, I was another satisfied customer.

2004 in Film.

Happy New Year, everyone. Inauspiciously for 2005, it looks like I’m starting the year a day late on the end-of-2004 movie roundup…but better late than never. As you probably already guessed, this year’s film list will be the first in four years without a Peter Jackson Tolkien adaptation in the #1 spot (although I’m still keeping it warm for The Hobbit in 2008.) Nevertheless, my top choice this year was an easy one, and those of y’all who come ’round here often can probably figure it out.

Top 20 Films of 2004:
[2000/2001/2002/2003]

1) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The one true classic of 2004, Eternal Sunshine has only grown in my estimation since its initial release in March. (David Edelstein’s take on it as one of Harvard philosopher Stanley Cavell‘s remarriage comedies is well worth reading.) A heartfelt examination of love, loss, and memory, Eternal Sunshine was also a strikingly adult take on romance and relationships, the kind you usually don’t get from Hollywood. With great performances from a caged Jim Carrey and an electric Kate Winslet, the film managed to be both an earnest, passionate love story and a wistful paean to those person-shaped holes we all carry in our hearts and memories. Along with Annie Hall and High Fidelity, it goes down as one of my all-time favorite films about the mysteries of love. (Why even bother? We need the eggs.)

2) Garden State. Writer-director Zach Braff’s “anti-Graduate” debut was a small but touching ode to home that, along with reviving Natalie Portman as an actress and offering the best soundtrack of the year, delivered exactly what it promised. A bit hokey at times, sure, but Garden State wore its heart on its sleeve and, for the most part, got away with it. It was a witty and eloquent voyage to the Jersey burbs and a testament to the proposition that as Paul Weller put it, it’s never too late to make a brand new start.

3) The Incredibles. Pixar has been delivering well-constructed eye-popping wonders since Toy Story, and The Incredibles is the best of the lot. I figured it might be awhile before a movie topped Spiderman 2 as a sheer comic book spectacle, but, as it turned out, The Incredibles did it only a few months later. One of the best comic book films ever made, The Incredibles was two hours of unmitigated fanboy fun. I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s probably also the best Fantastic Four film we’re ever going to see.

4) Sideways. Like a fine 1961 Cheval Blanc, Alexander Payne’s elegiac toast to California wine country and the regrets and indignities of middle-age has a tendency to linger in the senses. Paul Giamatti must tire of playing depressive, barely sociable losers, but he’s great at it here…Sideways isn’t as funny as Election, but it is a memorable trip.

5) Spiderman 2. A definite improvement on the first adventure of your friendly neighborhood wallcraller, Spiderman 2 was a perfectly made summer film that stayed true to the spirit of Peter Parker. Along with X2, this is the gold standard for comic book-to-film adaptations right now…let’s hope Batman Begins is up to snuff.

6) Shaun of the Dead. Although it lost its footing shambling to its conclusion, Shaun of the Dead was great fun for the first two-thirds of its run, and it’s now probably my favorite zombie movie (everyone should have one.) A much-needed dry British humor fix to tide us over until Hitchhiker’s Guide.

7) The Aviator. A bit on the long side, Scorsese’s life of Howard Hughes is most fun when it stays away from the airfields and lounges about Old Hollywood. Two very clean thumbs up.

8) The Assassination of Richard Nixon. A dark, unflinching 90-minute descent into violent futility. I originally had this before The Aviator, then figured the degree of difficulty on Scorsese’s flick was much, much higher. Nevertheless, this funereal biopic for non-billionaire crazies, while grim and not much fun, was well-made and well-performed, and I expect it’ll stay with me for awhile.

9) The Bourne Supremacy. Perhaps a bit too much like its predecessor, Bourne II was still a better Bond than anything we’ve seen in the past 20 years. Paul Greengrass’ shakicam work here bodes well for Rorshach in The Watchmen.

10) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkhaban. It’d be hard to make a better film of Harry Potter’s adventures at Hogwarts than Alfonso Cuaron did here — Azkhaban managed to capture the dry wit and subversive spirit of the books that’s so missing in the Chris Columbus movies. That being said, Azkaban also made it clear that much of the fun of Rowling’s tomes is uncapturable on film. What was great fun to read on the page ended up seeming like Back to the Future II on the screen. With that in mind, Year 6 begins on 7/16.

11) Ocean’s 12. Two swollen hours of Soderberghian glamour and inside baseball. Not everyone’s cup of tea, I know, but I found it an agreeable improvement on Ocean’s 11. (Don Cheadle’s accent is still terrible, tho’.)

12) Touching the Void. Snap! Aigh! Crunch! Aigh! It’d be hard to forget anything as memorable as Shattered Femur Theater. Well worth seeing, if you can stand the pain.

13) Fahrenheit 9/11. Hmmm…perhaps this should be higher. I definitely left the theater in an angry froth (not that it takes much)…unfortunately, apparently so did all the freepers.

14) My Architect. An excellent documentary on Louis Kahn, brilliant architect and terrible family man. Alas, it’s also a less-excellent documentary on Kahn’s son, and his Oprah-like quest for self-acceptance.

15) Kinsey. Take that, red staters.

16) Hero. A memorable meditation on love, power, and kick-ass kung-fu, until its train-wreck derailing in the last half-hour.

17) The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. As I said yesterday, Aquatic was a jaunty Wes Anderson joyride that nevertheless gets a little lost in its terminal cuteness. When you care more about the leaving-behind of Cody the three-legged dog than you do the death of a major character, there’s a problem.

18) I Heart Huckabees. Huckabees had its heart in the right place, and made for a decently appealing night at the movies…but it also had a terminal-cute problem.

19) Collateral. If the movie had maintained the promise of its first hour throughout, Michael Mann’s Collateral would have been a top ten contender. Alas, it all falls apart once Tom Cruise goes bugnut psycho in da club.

20) Kill Bill, Vol. 2. There was probably one really good movie somewhere in the two Kill Bills. The second half was closer to it than the first.

Not Seen: Bad Education, Before Sunset, Finding Neverland, Friday Night Lights, Harold and Kumar, Hotel Rwanda, Maria Full of Grace, Million Dollar Baby, Ray, Spanglish

Worst Movies of the Year: Van Helsing, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, The Chronicles of Riddick, The Village, Code 46, Closer, Alexander, 21 Grams (2003)

Biggest Disappointment: The Ladykillers

Ho-Hum: Team America: World Police, The Alamo, House of Flying Daggers, Troy, King Arthur, Anchorman, Blade: Trinity, Shrek 2

Worth a Rental: Mean Girls, The Manchurian Candidate,
Hellboy, The Machinist, City of God (2003)

Best Actor: Jim Carrey, Eternal Sunshine; Paul Giamatti, Sideways; Sean Penn, The Assassination of Richard Nixon.
Best Actress: Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine.

Best Supporting Actor: Thomas Haden Church, Sideways
Best Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett, The Aviator; Virginia Madsen, Sideways.

2005: On paper, it’s looking like a better year for film, fanboy and otherwise, than 2004. The slate includes Star Wars Episode III, Batman Begins, The Chronicles of Narnia, All the King’s Men, PJ’s King Kong, Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm, Polanski’s Oliver Twist, Malick’s The New World, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Constantine, Sin City, Fantastic Four, and my own most-anticipated project, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. So here’s to the new year!

Death of a Salesman.

The last film I’ll see in 2004, the harrowing Assassination of Richard Nixon, is arguably also the darkest. A much more successful gape into the maw of despair than Sean Penn and Naomi Watts’ earlier foray, the ghastly and ridiculous 21 Grams, The Assassination of Richard Nixon also boasts a strange producing pedigree, with Alexander Payne and Leo di Caprio both listed as executive producers (Azkhaban‘s Alfonso Cuaron also gets a producing cred.) Yet, in a way, it makes sense that these guys would be involved. Perhaps they felt they had to set the record straight — most people in the throes of terminal melancholy don’t end up with the likes of Virginia Madsen taking note, nor do most folks descending into stark raving madness have Ava Gardner come over and shave them.

Then again, Samuel Byck wasn’t like most people either…in fact, that may be the biggest problem with this otherwise haunting film. Played for laughs in the Sondheim Assassins, Byck here is portrayed as a beaten-down American Everyman of the Willy Loman/Travis Bickle school, albeit one with a Pulp Fiction-like problem with authority and a frozen run of luck like you read about. But, while the film’s hold lies in Sean Penn’s powerful portrayal of a down-on-his-heels, borderline-stable guy who gets one too many doors slammed in his face (to Penn’s credit, his performance never really feels like a stunt, as it might have with a lesser actor), the real Samuel Byck was an even stranger bird than this film lets on. For example, there’s no mention of Byck’s protesting outside the White House in a Santa suit here, and the whole tapes-to-Leonard-Bernstein angle is played as straight as it possibly can be.

But, historical veracity aside, The Assassination of Richard Nixon still makes for a grim and compelling 90 minutes of darkening gloom, anchored by Sean Penn’s slow, fidgety burn. (Watts, Don Cheadle, Michael Wincott, and Jack Thompson all do good character work here, but the film is Penn’s, and he’s the only one to leave a mark.) The movie’s unrelenting downward trajectory is clear from the opening titles, and the final scene at BWI airport probably played a few minutes too long, particularly as Byck awaits boarding for his final destination. All in all, though, The Assassination of Richard Nixon is a somber inquiry into a life of quiet desperation, and a sad reminder that, regardless of what our American dream may promise, there are no guarantees in this world, and all too often no respite for the damned.

House of Cards.

Going in to Zhang Yimou’s House of Flying Daggers, I wasn’t looking for much more than Hero without the scary uber-nationalist politics. Unfortunately, while the movie contains some similarly entrancing art direction and foregos any ruminations on leadership this time around, Daggers also falls behind Hero in the story and action department. Hardcore kung-fu fans will probably love this House, but to be honest I got kinda bored with it.

It’s clear early on in House of Flying Daggers that Zhang isn’t shooting for anything with the ambition and gravitas of Hero…Instead, we’ve got a plot strung together with a number of genre cliches, most notably the “deep” undercover cop (Takeshi Kaneshiro) questioning his motivation and the sixth-sense-laden blind girl (Zhang Zi Yi, lovely as always) who improbably kicks more ass than Rutger Hauer in Blind Fury. Hey, genre exercises are cool…let’s get to the fighting. Alas, there seemed to be a lot of filler between the action setpieces, and I found myself hoping through several unmemorable meet-cute scenes that more low-level flunky guards would show up and be efficiently dispatched.

With that in mind, I know it’s a little late to be complaining about the realism of kung-fu sequences. But the fights in House of Flying Daggers are so stylized and farfetched that I didn’t find them all that engaging — there was no real sense of danger to be had. In Crouching Tiger, Hero and countless lesser kung-fu films, I never found myself thinking so much about the logistics of what’s going on, but Daggers seems to beg questions like, “Where are these tree-flying policemen obtaining their inexhaustible supply of bamboo spears?” and “How straight and true could you throw a dagger if gravity was of absolutely no consequence?” Perhaps it’s unfair to call out this House for its fantastical fight sequences, but for one reason or another my disbelief was suspended less than usual.

At any rate, not to give the whole game away, but the movie does eventually contain some unexpected twists in the middle going. That being said, the denouement of the film also suffers from one of the most egregious dead-“not dead” reverses I’ve seen in recent memory. If martial arts films are your bag, then you’ll probably find House of Flying Daggers an operatic tale of love, passion, and betrayal. But, as for me, I kinda wish these two young lovers had spent less time being smitten and more time smoting.

Tintin meets the Tenenbaums.

One part Herge, two parts Cousteau, and all parts Wes Anderson, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, alas for Bill Murray’s thwarted post-Lost in Translation Oscar hopes, doesn’t really work. In fact, at times it seems like someone’s parody of a Wes Anderson movie. But, if you dig Anderson’s penchant for artfully constructed shots crufted over with kitsch so precious it’d make Belle & Sebastien blush — and, frankly, I find it mildly endearing — then you’ll probably have a decent time aboard the Belafonte. The movie’s a complete non-starter, but it is a rather pretty and innocuous non-starter, a bland pleasure cruise of a film.

At least the cast appears to be having fun…except for Murray, who’s doing yet another amusing variation of the resigned, laconic, vaguely crestfallen wiseass that’s his signature. I never thought I’d see Willem DaFoe out-ham his turn as the Green Goblin, but by golly I think he’s done it. Cate Blanchett is luminous again, although she (and these seamen) are a world away from The Aviator. Owen Wilson doesn’t add much to the equation (and he’s a bit overexposed in my book these days anyway), but Michael Gambon, Bud Cort, and Noah Taylor are all enjoyable in brief supporting turns.

That being said, these actors are all dressed up in authentic Team Zissou gear with no place to go. The story — ostensibly an Ahab-like quest for a carnivorous jaguar shark — never amounts to much, and we are instead treated to a series of episodic vignettes of life at sea (albeit on a boat with a spa, interns, a recording studio, and a Brazilian Davie Bowie fan). Many of these individual scenes are diverting, and I remember smiling through a lot of ’em, but, to be honest, they don’t really add up to a movie. By the time The Life Aquatic starts trying to gain some dramatic headway at the end, it feels forced and unearned. Ultimately too clever by half and probably the least engaging of Wes Anderson’s films so far, Aquatic is cute but not very resonant. All in all, it makes for a blithe but instantly forgettable two-hour tour.

Kid Icarus.

Chock-full of period glamour and notable performances, Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator is breezier and better than the last Marty-Leo outing — it seems both lighter of foot and more self-assured (and, for that matter, more historically accurate) than the plodding, heavy-handed Gangs of New York. That being said, I did find myself wishing at various points in the second and third hours that Scorsese had taken a page from Howard Hughes and found a way to get from TWA to OCD more quickly. Well worth seeing and consistently entertaining, The Aviator is also (like many Scorsese films) probably 15-20 minutes too long.

Arguably the goofiest scene in the film is in the opening moments, as we see the child Hughes being bathed by his mother and forced to spell Q-U-A-R-A-N-T-I-N-E…it plays like exactly the same type of ham-handed Freudian shorthand that so marred Alexander a couple of weeks ago. But, soon thereafter, the movie jumps to 1927 and the set of Hell’s Angels, and The Aviator settles into cruising altitude. Watching Hughes indulge his passions for fast planes and starlets against a backdrop of New Era glitz is great fun…at times, the movie even feels like Oceans’ One or Two, with Jean Harlow, Kate Hepburn, Errol Flynn, and Ava Gardner all holding court in Old Hollywood.

Only later in the film, when the madness begins to come upon Hughes and the interminable handwashing begins, does one start to feel the drag. I found myself looking at my watch long before Hughes begins finding unsavory uses for milk bottles. Still, despite the turbulence, The Aviator is kept aloft through the compulsive years by a number of solid performances, including (but not limited to) Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner (Surprisingly after drek like Van Helsing and Underworld, she’s pretty good here), Matt Ross as Hughes’ long-suffering aeronautics #2 Glenn Odekirk, Alec Baldwin as Pan Am head/Hughes rival Juan Trippe, and Alan Alda as the unctuous anti-Hawkeye, Sen. Ralph Owen Brewster. (di Caprio, for his part, is excellent throughout.) And, flying head and shoulders above them all is Cate Blanchett’s uncanny turn as young Katherine Hepburn. Alive, acerbic, and adorable, Blanchett’s Hepburn walks away with every scene she’s in, and the film misses her dearly after her second act exit. (Damn you, Tracy.) With a gal like Cate’s Kate by his side, it’s little wonder Hughes found a way, however briefly, to soar amongst the clouds.

Getting Colder.

It’s too bad some of Julia Roberts’ Ocean’s Twelve mojo didn’t rub off on the Closer shoot, ’cause here’s a film that could use both the fun and the self-awareness of Soderbergh’s flick. But, no, Mike Nichols’ Closer (meant, I assume, in the primal and jagged sense of the NIN song) turned out to be a pretty grievous swing and miss. Jude, Julia, Natalie, and Clive each do what they can to enliven the proceedings, but they’re fighting a losing battle this time around. Stilted and stage-y throughout, Closer feels like warmed-over Neil LaBute, and seems less a treatise on our often-frightening capacity for emotional violence as much as an excuse for A-list actors to talk dirty to each other.

First, there’s the dialogue. Perhaps Closer works better as a play, but it certainly doesn’t work as a movie. All four characters speak past each other in sterile, well-crafted bon mots that sound unspontaneous and rehearsed throughout. Then, there’s the fact that all four of these characters come off as thoroughly detestable (and not in an empathetic Sideways kinda way): Jude’s a wheedler, Julia’s depressive, Natalie’s somewhat heartless, Clive’s a bully. Thus, it becomes much easier to dismiss the characters’ respective agonies as just-desserts for awful behavior, rather than as any kind of meaningful comment on the evils “normal” people perpetrate in the name of love.

Add these flaws together and you end up with some strikingly misconceived scenes, probably none more so than Natalie’s strip-tease for a love-ravaged Clive. Both actors go for it, with Portman fearlessly parading around semi-nude and Owen drawing up barrels of rage and despair to the fore. But to what purpose? Their conversation seemed so forced and artificial, and Portman so curiously distant from the traumatized Owen (who we just saw at his worst the scene before), that it took me right out of what’s going on. Ultimately, Closer leaves you with not much more than the experience of watching first-rate actors splendidly overexert themselves on cut-rate material. And sadly, to paraphrase Morrissey, the closer they got, the more I ignored them.