This set of films goes from September 26 through Halloween, 2003.
In the midst of all this was my first real date with a girl. I met her through my summer theatre camp, though we didn't do a show together, she was friends with friends of mine. Cute girl, dated two of my friends before me, we saw Runaway Jury.
I regretted it when she started making out with me. Good kisser, cute girl, don't get me wrong, but I was enjoying the movie and missed an important plot point, a blank that wouldn't be filled until, well, this year. That’s when I realized I was not a movie date guy, not for a first date, anyway, and definitely not for a first kiss. My best friend later told me the mistake was going to one I was interested in but I don’t think that matters. I love the movies, I want not just to watch them, but to tell you what I liked, what I hated, why something was good or bad! I think I would’ve felt the same frustration if we had seen, I don’t know, The Room. Cinema was already My Girl.
We split about a month later, amicably, and I never saw her again. Twenty years later, I saw Runaway Jury without interruption.
Thirteen films here. My first time watches were The Human Stain, In the Cut, Shattered Glass, and Under the Tuscan Sun. The only ones I saw multiple times before this were Mystic River, Kill Bill: Volume 1, and Intolerable Cruelty.
Under the Tuscan Sun
release: September 26
dir/scr: Audrey Wells
pr: Tom Sternberg / Audrey Wells
cin: Geoffrey Simpson
This was the last movie I watched for the 2003 retrospective, in which Diane Lane is blindsided by a divorce, goes on vacation in Tuscany, and feels compelled to stay and try to build a new life there. Pleasant, unchallenging movie.
School of Rock
release: October 3
dir: Richard Linklater
pr: Scott Rudin
scr: Mike White
cin: Rogier Stoffers
Saw this one in theaters with my friends Danielle and Roxanna, hadn't seen it since even though I liked it at the time. LOVE it now, heartwarming without becoming saccharine, a feeling of rebellion that doesn’t feel too dangerous (except for the whole taking kids out of school under false pretenses to compete at a bar they’re way too young to enter thing): it’s a feel-good romp for teens, adults, and music lovers. Jack Black is a slacker who’s just been kicked out of his band, he passes himself off as a substitute teacher using his roommate’s name and molds his high-achieving private-school students into the rock band of his dreams. And they do learn math and debate and engineering through the music! It’s the film that provided the greatest example for how arts in schools are a necessity, not just instilling discipline in the learning of a craft, but allowing for creative solutions and unexpected strengths to come to the surface. Jack Black’s phenomenal, Joan Cusack’s phenomenal, the kids are phenomenal, it’s all GREAT!
House of the Dead
release: October 10
dir: Uwe Boll
pr: Uwe Boll / Wolfgang Herold / Shawn Williamson
scr: Dave Parker & Mark A. Altman, story by Mark A. Altman & Dan Bates
cin: Mathias Neumann
For a while there, each new Uwe Boll adaptation of a popular video game was greeted as a challenge, an endurance test to measure just how bad it could get. The Room seems made by an alien species; House of the Dead just seems made by an idiot. A group of sexy youths go to a rave on a remote island, only to find mutilated corpses - turns out, the island is cursed and there’s a mix of zombies and undead whatevers lurking about. Some shots pleasantly surprised me...until I realized they were cribbed directly from Fulci's Zombi 2. If there's anything good I can say about it, it's that it's a pretty wonderful time capsule of music and fashion in 2003, the waning days of Wet Seal and glowsticks in the freezer.
Intolerable Cruelty
release: October 10
dir: Joel Coen
pr: Ethan Coen / Brian Grazer
scr: Robert Ramsey & Matthew Stone and Ethan Coen & Joel Coen, story by Robert Ramsey & Matthew Stone and John Romano
cin: Roger Deakins
A highly skilled divorce lawyer in the midst of an existential crisis becomes smitten with a serial divorcee out for wealth. I believe this is the only film in which the Coen Brothers share a writing credit. Some folks consider this "lesser Coens" but this is one of my favorites. Catherine Zeta-Jones purrs, George Clooney does a perfect blend of his usual suavity and his Coens idiocy, it's a throwback to the screwball comedies of the 30s and so absolutely Coens (Wheezy Joe...my goodness). Surprisingly sexy and hilarious.
Kill Bill: Volume 1
release: October 10
dir: Quentin Tarantino
pr: Lawrence Bender
scr: Quentin Tarantino, story by Quesntin Tarantino & Uma Thurman
cin: Robert Richardson
Did I see this on DVD or did we stream a pirated version? All I know is I watched this - the fourth film from Quentin Tarantino, about an assassin left for dead who wakes from a coma and hunts the people responsible - at a friend's house and was immediately in love. Even remember my freshman math teacher reading my "getting to know you" survey out loud, pausing with mouth agape before announcing, in her thick Bronx accent, "Kill...Bill? This is a mooooovie?" It sure is, and what a movie it is, featuring Uma Thurman's greatest performance: kick-ass action, convincing handling of The Blade, sardonic line readings, a chilling whisper voiceover...oh, she's great. The whole movie's great, it realigned my way of thinking about cinema. And it holds up, a western-martial arts actioner that takes the time to humanize not just the vengeance-seeker but her targets. Stylish.
Mystic River
release: October 15
wins: Best Actor (Sean Penn), Best Supporting Actor (Tim Robbins)
nominations: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress (Marcia Gay Harden), Best Adapted Screenplay
dir: Clint Eastwood
pr: Clint Eastwood / Judie G. Hoyt / Robert Lorenz
scr: Brian Helgeland
cin: Tom Stern
Three estranged childhood friends come back together when the daughter of one is found murdered. More next week.
Pieces of April
release: October 17
nominations: Best Supporting Actress (Patricia Clarkson)
dir/scr: Peter Hedges
pr: Alexis Alexanian / John S. Lyons / Gary Winick
cin: Tami Reiker
A black sheep daughter trying to get her life together hosts Thanksgiving for her not-excited family. Earnest study of something, I'm just not exactly sure what. Pulls away from catharsis at the most inopportune moments. Sketchy.
Runaway Jury
release: October 17
dir: Gary Fleder
pr: Gary Fleder / Christopher Mankiewicz / Arnon Milchan
scr: Brian Koppelman & David Levien and Rick Cleveland and Matthew Chapman
cin: Robert Elswit
In a high-profile lawsuit against a gun manufacturer, one juror proves to be a master puppeteer with an agenda. Fun times, don't worry about it. The novel (I read it!) tackled a tobacco company, the update is effective, seamless, and strangely, oddly, frighteningly relevant to...well, apparently, forever, or at least as long as Americans are willing to sacrifice their friends, family, and everyone's children for the illusion of power. Anyway. Good performances from everyone involved, Gene Hackman and Dustin Hoffman are a joy to watch.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
release: October 17
dir: Marcus Nispel
pr: Michael Bay / Mike Fleiss
scr: Scott Kosar
cin: Daniel C. Pearl
Remake of the 1974 classic. This was my first exposure to the Leatherface mythos, I watched it at a party at. It's more polished, of course, than the original, there are known television stars and R. Lee Ermey, reassuring you that this isn't some snuff film. Still. It's at least creative in its reimagining of the original, picturing an entirely desolate town where the remnants are in a conspiratorial contract with each other to take what they can from whatever passes through. Grisly, nightmare fuel.
In the Cut
release: October 22
dir: Jane Campion
pr: Nicole Kidman / Laurie Parker
scr: Jane Campion & Susanna Moore, additional writing by Stavros Kazantzidis
cin: Dion Beebe
An English professor finds herself embroiled in the investigation of a serial killer when she starts schtupping the lead detective. I have seen a lot of recommendations reclaiming this one but, while I quite like the cinematography and admire what Meg Ryan is going for in her performance, I can't say I found it all that engrossing or memorable. A shame. Which is not to discourage you, my friends, as there are a lot of people who find depth in its depiction of female desire and how that can override danger, among other things. I just did not personally care for it. Wish I did, I like everyone involved.
Elephant
release: October 24
dir/scr: Gus Van Sant
pr: Dany Wolf
cin: Harris Savides
A tapestry of teens going about their day until classmates shoot up the school. A movie that honestly captures high school mornings as they are: banal, my God, yet somehow within that banality was filled this feeling of possibility, routine taken for granted but leading to something, everyone living their own individual story. Which makes the brutality of those stories being cut suddenly short so heartbreaking, so...apocalyptic. And one thing it does, too, is show how these alienated shooters did have a community, did have people to talk to, did have organizations and resources within their schools that could have helped, but they were so fixated on this idea of themselves as hopeless loners... What a movie.
Die, Mommie, Die!
release: October 31
dir: Mark Rucker
pr: Dante Di Loreto / Anthony Edwards / Bill Kenwright
scr: Charles Busch
cin: Kelly Evans
Melodrama about a former movie star wrestling with her awful husband, her ungrateful children, a scheming housekeeper, and murder. Based on Charles Busch's play, Busch plays the titular Mommie. It's a weird combo of Douglas Sirk and the Hag Horror films of the 1960s, perfect for fans of such camp endeavors. Suitable for others? In the notes to one of his play collections, Busch mentions that the comedy only works if the performers play it all straight. Busch, bewigged but with the trace of a five o'clock shadow, certainly practices what he preaches, and assembled among him is an ensemble that does the same: Philip Baker Hall, Natasha Lyonne, Frances Conroy, and Jason Priestley all could be either in a parody or the terrible straight-faced genuine article. Which is the trick, isn't it?
The Human Stain
release: October 31
dir: Robert Benton
pr: Gary Lucchesi / Tom Rosenberg / Scott Steindorff
scr: Nicholas Meyer
cin: Jean-Yves Escoffier
Disgraced college professor discharged for racism has secrets from the past. An intellectual exercise wherein ostensibly liberal creators create in their heads a scenario where they can use whatever racist slur they want without consequence. Oh, maybe that's not fair, I did like the movie and thought it an original way to address passing, colorism, self-racism, and how liberal institutions reward all of that while patting themselves on the back for progressivism. I don't think it's entirely self-aware of how moronic the final conversation between its hero's sister and Gary Sinise plays. Anna Deavere Smith gives an entire workshop on performance.
Shattered Glass
release: October 31
dir/scr: Billy Ray
pr: Craig Baumgarten / Tove Christensen / Gaye Hirsch / Adam Merins
cin: Mandy Walker
This was the big discovery for me, this drama about a hotshot journalist who's been faking all his best scoops, set contemporaneously - at the precipice of print journalism giving way to online journalism. And baby, it's all true. I grew up with the Star Wars prequels and Hayden Christensen's terrible performances, I never understood how people could still defend him as an actor. This movie schooled me: as Stephen Glass, a flirty writer who sells his "scoops" in the room and uses a self-deprecating charisma to sidestep criticism, smacking away any conflict with a baby-voiced, "Please don't be mad at me," Christensen perfectly embodies That One Asshole you feel crazy for hating. It's fuckboy behavior but for writing instead of dating. It's thrilling and depressing to see how and why certain institutions of journalism came to be distrusted, scoffed at, mocked: when you smell your own farts, it's hard to tell what stinks. Peter Sarsgaard is terrific as the editor actually taking a whiff. Intelligently written and directed. Thrilling, funny.
Tomorrow, Christmas classics in November...
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