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Man on Fire (2004)
By far, the most entertaining moment of Man on Fire occurs shortly after the movie ends. A message comes on screen more or less saying, Mexico City is a very special place and we thank them. Now, after having watched a lengthy 2 hour and 25 minute film that shows Mexico City as a chaotic equal to the Middle East, a city that experiences four kidnappings a day we are told, these ending sentiments feel like a mea culpa. To say a place is great after showing it to be a corrupt war-zone is hilarious. I doubt Mexico City will be using Man on Fire to lure tourism, just like I doubt Germany uses Hogan’s Heroes for its tourism.
The man on fire is Creasy (Denzel Washington), a former soldier with a drinking problem. Hes hired dirt cheap to be the bodyguard for Pita (Dakota Fanning), the daughter of a wealthy Mexican politician (Marc Anthony). Creasy is pragmatic about his job and shirks Pitas attempts at friendship. Eventually, the precocious tyke gets the better of him and Creasy forgoes his self-loathing for coaching Pita on how to swim better. Creasy has found his recovery in the form of Pita’s love, but his world is ripped apart when Pita is kidnapped and Creasy is left for dead. When he recovers, he vows merciless vengeance on anyone involved in Pita’s kidnapping.
Denzel Washington is competent in his role, but there aren’t many films that wouldn’t be better by having a Denzel Washington performance in it. Fanning has a robotic nature to her delivery. The wacky Christopher Walken is in this movie somewhere, but you would be hard-pressed to find him in the last hour or so. It’s kind of nutty that Walken of all people plays the voice of reason in a revenge movie.
Director Tony Scott (Crimson Tide, Top Gun) has flat-out forgotten or lost interest in telling stories. His direction of Man on Fire is erratic and heavy on stop-the-action-dead visual flourishes. Scott is a slave to visuals, but so many of them are jarringly miscalculated that the audience can never fully immerse themselves in the film. It’s like a kid fiddling with a new camcorder and wanting to try all the super cool special features (Whoa, I can make things slower … now grittier stock … now sepia … now I can make a mirror of things … etc.).
It takes over an hour to get to the key kidnapping plot point. Until then the audience is relegated to watching scenes of Creasy find redemption through the eyes of a child. Denzel and Fanning have a nice mentor camaraderie, but after an hour the audience is impatiently waiting for the inevitable kidnapping that the movies foreshadowing has been tripping all over.
When Man on Fire does hit the kidnapping, the ensuing movie gets very messy, and boy does it get ugly. Creasy goes on a grisly killing spree that turns him from a sympathetic loner into a one-man wrecking crew. Vengeance is an easy emotion for an audience to get behind a character, but Man on Fire goes way beyond audience empathy. Are we to cheer when Creasy goes about ruthlessly killing unarmed people and threatening families, pregnant women, and kids? I didn’t cheer. I was somewhat appalled that the filmmakers expected us to revel in this violence as if it was more than justified. It’s just ugly, plain and simple. It is also sickeningly sadistic.
The most bizarre thing about Man on Fire is the subtitles. When I think back on this film in the future, that is the one thing that will stand out for me. These arent your ordinary stay-at-the-bottom-and-do-as-you’re-told subtitles. Oh no. These subtitles dance, jump around, float, fade, expand and shrink in size, and do about everything but make balloon animals (or, I should say, subtitle animals). It’s like a living comic book; however, this is yet another visual trick that draws the audience out of the film. The unusual subtitles call too much attention to themselves, especially when they just pop up for a single word, spoken in English, as if to clue in the audience that this point of information will be vital somehow.
Man on Fire is a sadistic action film that is too full of itself for amusement. By the time that mea culpa comes onscreen its almost a relief to laugh again. The hard-driving ugliness of Man on Fire might make you forget how to. Fans of revenge films may find some redeemable qualities, but Man on Fire is one gruesome 145 minutes to squirm through.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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The Alamo (2004)
The Alamo was originally going to be the jewel in Disney’s 2003 Oscar crown. It began with a star-studded pedigree: Ron Howard directing, a screenplay by John Sayles and Stephen Gaghan, and Russell Crowe starring. Things got dicey when budget figures were debated, and Howard insisted on an R-rated cut for authenticity. After some creative wrangling, Howard left to get his gore fix on with another flick (The Missing), Crowe went off to sea (Master and Commander), and Disney tapped Johnny Lee Hancock to direct in the wake. Trouble is, Hancock had only directed one previous film, 2002’s The Rookie. The 90 million dollar movie was supposed to be released during December 2003, just in time for Oscar season. However, the editing needed more time, so Disney’s supposed award-grabber was delayed until April 2004. Now, given the final PG-13 product, were the wait and creative compromises worth all the trouble?
In The Alamo we follow the men of Texas, including surly drunk Jim Bowie (Jason Patric), idealistic Sam Houston (Dennis Quaid), girly aristocrat William Travis (Patrick Wilson), and legendary Davey Crockett (Billy Bob Thornton). They want to make Texas their home, but Mexican General, Santa Anna, has different plans and wants to reclaim the land for the glory of Mexico and, more importantly, for the glory of himself. As Santa Anna storms into Texas, a meager number of men take refuge in the Alamo, an old Spanish mission, and arm themselves for an eventual battle between the merciless General and his thousands of soldiers.
The pacing of this movie is about as fast as a tumbleweed. An entire act of this movie involves Texans and Santa Annas men exchanging a shot here, a volley there, back and forth and back and forth for no reason. It certainly doesn’t build tension. It just squanders time, and this thing is 2 hours and 20 minutes long! If it weren’t for my free bag of popcorn I would have fallen asleep countless times during viewing.
The acting of The Alamo may make you want to throw up a white flag yourself. Jason Patric spends the majority of his time on his back with teeth clenched, and when that’s not the case hes lookin’ to get his famous blade a cameo. Quaid seems to have a frog permanently lodged in his throat. The only performer who walks away unscathed is Thornton. He gives a humanistic touch to the familiar character of Davey Crockett and shows the wear of living up to legend.
Perhaps the most shocking thing about The Alamo is how poorly directed it is. I know Johnny Lee Hancock has only one previous movie under his saddle, but my jaw hit the floor when I saw how flat his direction was. Scenes and angles are very awkwardly framed, everything is too flat or too rigid, his cinematography is an underwhelming mixture of silhouette shots and dusty hues, his sets look like a high school production, and his action scenes are staged without any sense of excitement or tension. Excluding one shot that shows the battle on all four sides of the Alamo, seen prominently in the trailers and TV spots, there isn’t a single shot in this entire film that looks great. This is one of the worst looking $90 million film I have ever seen.
The script is another factor in driving down the entertainment. The makers strive for historical accuracy and to show both sides of the conflict without bias. So we get what all modern historical films feature now, namely the Famous People with Flaws. Bowie drinks a lot. Travis is unsure of himself and leaves his family. Boone doesn’t live up to hyperbolic legend. This information is fine, but The Alamo tries so hard to get the characters accurate that it fails in getting the characters right. I’m not calling for the return of myths, but The Alamo is so focused on the details that that’s all these characters become: historical details instead of living, breathing people.
The script also shirks any kind of detailed look at the role of minorities involved during the siege. Black people hardly mention slavery (and Texas would go on to become the largest slave state), women are designated as caregivers, either tending to the wounded or becoming floaty fantasies. The Alamo feels more like a eulogy than a film. And how many eulogies do people pay 5-10 bucks to go see?
I think what ultimately sinks this movie for me is my roots. I’m not from Texas, I dont know anyone from Texas, I dont know if everything is bigger in Texas, and I dont know if I’ve ever messed with Texas, but the lone star state clings to the martyrdom of the Alamo like the crucifixion of Jesus. When I was watching The Alamo I kept having one reoccurring thought: is this accomplishing anything? In my assessment, no it did not. A bunch of Texans banded up in an old mission and fought Santa Anna but there was no reason for it and nothing was really gained. Someone will argue that they held up Santa Anna and allowed Sam Houston to collect his army and eventually take down Santa Anna. I would counter that with, ”You know what else could delay Santa Anna? Anything.”
The Alamo is an overlong, overly serious, flat, uninteresting bore. It feels more like a textbook and less like a story. Sure its not the jingoistic flag-waver that John Wayne’s 1960 version was, and I can appreciate trying to get history right, but The Alamo is so insanely by-the-book serious that its as fun as a funeral march. It seems like the director and the producers were so afraid of telling the story of the Alamo wrong that they lost the ability to tell a good story. Only ardent history buffs, and maybe ardent Texans, will find anything appealing about this boring history lesson.
Nate’s Grade: C
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Jersey Girl (2004)
Writer/director Kevin Smith (Dogma) takes a stab at family friendly territory with the story of Ollie Trinke (Ben Affleck), a music publicist who must give up the glamour of the big city to realize the realities of single fatherhood. Despite brief J. Lo involvement, Jersey Girl is by no means Gigli 2: Electric Boogaloo. Alternating between edgy humor and sweet family melodrama, Smith shows a growing sense of maturity. Liv Tyler stars as Maya, a liberated video store clerk and Ollie’s real love interest. Tyler and Affleck have terrific chemistry and their scenes together are a playful highlight. The real star of Jersey Girl is nine-year-old Raquel Castro, who plays Ollie’s daughter. Castro is delightful and her cherubic smile can light up the screen. Smith deals heavily with familiar clichés (how many films recently end with some parent rushing to their child’s theatrical production?), but at least they seem to be clichés and elements that Smith feels are worth something. Much cute kiddie stuff can be expected, but the strength of Jersey Girl is the earnest appeal of the characters. Some sequences are laugh-out-loud funny (like Affleck discovering his daughter and a neighbor boy engaging in the time-honored game of “doctor”), but there are just as many small character beats that could have you feeling some emotion. A late exchange between Ollie and his father (George Carlin) is heartwarming, as is the final image of the movie, a father and daughter embracing and swaying to music. Jersey Girl proves to be a sweetly enjoyable date movie from one of the most unlikely sources.
Nates Grade: B
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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
No other movie this year captured the possibility of film like Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman’s enigmatic collaboration. Eternal Sunshine was a mind-bending philosophical excursion that also ended up being one of the most nakedly realistic romances of all time. Joel (Jim Carrey restrained) embarks on having his memories erased involving the painful breakup of Clemintine (Kate Winslet, wonderful), an impulsive woman whose vibrant hair changes as much as her moods. As Joel revisits his memories, they fade and die. He starts to fall in love with her all over again and tries to have the process stop. This labyrinth of a movie gets so many details right, from the weird physics of dreams to the small, tender moments of love and relationships. I see something new and marvelous every time I watch Eternal Sunshine, and the fact that it’s caught on with audiences (it was nominated for Favorite Movie by the People’s friggin’ Choice Awards) reaffirms its insights into memory and love. I never would have thought we’d get the perfect romance for the new millennium from Kaufman. This is a beautiful, dizzingly complex, elegant romance caked in visual grandeur, and it will be just as special in 5 years as it will be in 50, that is if monkeys don’t evolve and take over by then (it will happen).
Nate’s Grade: A
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Taking Lives (2004)
While viewing Taking Lives my mind wandered quite a bit. There was one point where I actually gave credence to a theory that Taking Lives was so intensely bland that is was parodying the glut of serial killer films. Then I just concluded that the movie was dumb. Angelina Jolie plays one of those hard-as-nails criminal investigators who just happen to be drop dead gorgeous. She’s on the hunt for a Canadian serial killer who murders then assumes the lives of his victims. He’s been doing this for over 20 years. My main question is … how? Taking someones identity has so many variables to it. What if any family member found you? Theyd know for sure you wouldn’t be their loved one. Oh yes, and the killer masks the identity of his victims by cutting off their hands and smashing their faces in. Would that even work? All you have to do is draw some blood and do a DNA test. Taking Lives is so by-the-book that it even dares to have a scene where the serial killer calls Jolie and claims that he and her are exactly alike. The ending veers so far off track into the land of implausibility that its almost entertaining. Almost. The only reason to even poke your head in a theater to see this is for a gratuitous nude scene involving Jolie, and even that you’ve seen before in better movies.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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Hidalgo (2004)
It is important to talk about Hidalgo being marketed as a “true story.” As a general rule, it’s good to be wary of movies that are heavily pushed as being “true stories” or “based on true events.” You have to pay close attention to the wording. Last fall, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake was heavily marketed as a film “inspired by true events.” Which means it’s about as real as your dreams are. With this said, Hidalgo is based on the real Frank Hopkins and his stories about his life. Oh yeah, it just so happens that Hopkins is also a pathological liar and none of this is real. So, what the marketing of Hidalgo should really say is something like “based on the true story of what we heard from a pathological liar.” Something like that.
In fact, if you do some minor research, you’ll discover that the only thing true is that there was a guy named Frank Hopkins. He wasn’t part Native American, a Pony Express employee, a member of Wild Bill’s Circus, and he never had a horse named Hidalgo AND there has never been any 3,000-mile race in the Arabian desert. Yet Disneys marketing department still goes with “based on a true story.” I’ll remember that next time I have a dream involving little people and ice cream.
Hidalgo is the “story” of Frank Hopkins (Viggo Mortensen), a former Pony Express employee who’s turned to the bottle to try to forget the slaughtering of Native Americans (exactly like Tom Cruise in Last Samurai). Hopkins enters a legendary 3,000-mile race across the Arabian desert to regain his spirit. The race, across the “Ocean of Fire,” is dangerous, the elements are brutal, and the other riders will stop at nothing to win. Can the American cowboy who no one believes in triumph in the end?
Taking a hard look at Hidalgo, roughly 50 percent of the finished movie is watching Hopkins travel from Point A (usually on the left) to Point B (usually on the right). So, yes, half of this movie is watching someone walk one direction. I can’t imagine what the editing process was like. How do you know exactly where one shot of Hopkins walking should go? Sure, Lawrence of Arabia had a lot of walking in the desert from left to right, but it was also 4 hours long! Both films do star Omar Sharif, though.
25 percent of what is left involves people sitting around talking about all kinds of clichés, like pining for acceptance, independence, equality, etc. These sequences tend to bog down Hidalgo‘s narrative and bring the action to a halt. I realize that these “sit down” scenes are meant to be breathers and expand the characters. However, the characters don’t deepen because they are amidst a patchwork of clichés instead of a story. The actors are also saddled with some laughably awful dialogue, like, “There is a tempest in my tent,” or the greatest groaner of them all, “Even a blind man could see you’re beautiful.”
So, continuing numbers crunching, an audience is left with 25 percent of a movie, and what is that 25 percent? In short, the rest. Hidalgo does have some lively action sequences and exciting horse races but these bursts of fun are much too far apart. When getting down to it, Hidalgo is 25 percent an interesting movie. Now, whether 25 percent of entertainment is enough for someone depends on how hard-fought they are for amusement.
The thing Hidalgo has going for it is Viggo’s star power. He is a handsome guy and has a smoldering presence but he whispers more lines than any actor I know. Maybe he threw out his voice after three of years of yelling with The Lord of the Rings.
There are just some wondrously odd moments in Hidalgo. When Hopkins gets to the Arabian desert he notices a group of chained black people walking beside him. “Never seen slaves before?” a rider asks Hopkins. Then we cut away. What was that? The movie gives a shoulder shrug to slavery and then moves on. Later the slave kid becomes part of Hopkins’ pit crew, which also includes a wily old goat farmer. What? I have no idea how this kid became like Hopkins’ servant, and I have no idea why he’d be so happy about it. This part of the movie leaves me stumped, especially for a film where a character is so forward thinking about tolerating other races (as the protagonists always are in movies now). By the time you get to a laugh-out-loud sequence where Hopkins is on his knees chanting Native American chants, and the wavy ghosts of his brethren encircle him, you may have already checked out of the building.
Some of the blame must be heaped upon director Joe Johnston (Jumanji). His pacing is quite slack (136 minutes) and yet he stuffs more subplots and minor characters than the narrative seems able to handle. A very long subplot involving a kidnapped princess is a nice diversion, but entirely inorganic and almost to a distracting level of fantasy. Johnston also employs some hatchet CGI work that seems like it was left over from The Mummy movies. It does not speak well to the quality of a film when it’s been on the shelf for close to a year. The surprise antagonist who kidnaps, kills, and does whatever to win the race has no repercussions at the end. They lose. That’s it. Hopkins doesn’t even find out the person is a villain. What’s up with that? There’s no comeuppance
Hidalgo is not a bad film, but it’s not exactly a good film either. It’s cliché-ridden, clumsily plotted, and full of bad dialogue and stiff characters. The movie looks good, and the horses are beautiful, but this is one tale to put out to pasture. Those hungry for a grand adventure with a hunky lead may be partially pleased, but that’s only if they can put up with 25 percent of an entertaining movie.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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The Passion of the Christ (2004)
The Passion of the Christ is a retelling of the last 12 hours of Jesus Christ’s life (perhaps you’ve heard of him?). In these final hours we witness his betrayal at the hands of Judas, his trial by Jewish leaders, his sentencing by Pontius Pilate, his subsequent whippings and torture and finally his crucifixion. Throughout the film Jesus is tempted by Satan, who is pictured as a pasty figure in a black hood (kind of resembling Jeremy Irons from The Time Machine if anyone can remember). The Passion spares no expense to stage the most authentic portrayal of what Jesus of Nazareth endured in his final 12 hours of life.
For all the hullabaloo about being the most controversial film in years (and forgive me for even using the term “hullabaloo”), I can’t help but feel a smidgen of disappointment about the final product. The Passion is aptly passionate and full of striking images, beautiful photography and production values, and stirring performances all set to a rousing score. But what makes The Passion disappointing to me is the characters. You see, Mel Gibson’s epic does not devote any time to fleshing out the central characters. They are merely ciphers and the audience is expected to plug their feelings and opinions into these walking, bleeding symbols to give them life. Now, you could argue this is what religion is all about, but as far as a movie’s story goes it is weak. The Passion turns into a well-meaning and slick spectacle where character is not an issue. And as a spectacle The Passion is first-rate; the production is amazing and the violence is graphic and gasp-inducing. Do I think the majority of people will leave the theater moved and satisfied? Yes I do. But I can’t stop this nagging concern that The Passion was devoid of character and tried covering it up with enough violence to possibly twist its message into a Sunday school snuff film.
For my money, the best Biblical film is Martin Scorsese’s 1987 The Last Temptation of Christ (also a film mired in controversy). Last Temptation, unlike Gibson’s spectacle, was all about Jesus as a character and not simply as a physical martyr. Scorsese’s film dealt with a Christ consumed by doubt and fear and the frailties of being human. But the best part is the final 20 minutes when Jesus is tempted, by Satan, to step down from the cross and live out a normal life. Jesus walks away from the cross, marries Mary Magdalene, fathers children (this is where the controversy stemmed from but they were married) and dies at an old age. Jesus is then confronted by his aging apostles who chastise him for not living up to what he was supposed to do to save mankind. Jesus wakes up from the illusion and fulfills his mission and dies on the cross. Now, with the story of Last Temptation an audience has a greater appreciation for the sacrifice of Jesus because they witness his fears and they witness the normal life he forgoes to die for man’s sins. There is a sense of gravity about what Jesus is sacrificing.
With The Passion Gibson figures if he can build a sense of grand sacrifice by gruesomely portraying the tortures Jesus endured. Even if it is Jesus, and this may sound blasphemous, torturing a character to create sympathy and likeability is the weakest writing trick you can do. Yes Jesus suffered a lot, yes we should all be horrified and grateful, and yes people will likely be moved at the unrelenting violence he endured, but in regards to telling a story, I cannot feel as much for characters whose only characterization is their suffering. Sure, The Passion flashes back to some happier moments of Jesus’ life, which I like to call the Jesus Greatest Hits collection, but the movie does not show us who Jesus was, what he felt (beyond agonizing pain) or the turmoil he went through in finally deciding to give up his own life for people that despised him. The Passion is not about character but about spectacle.
So let’s talk about the violence now, shall we? Gibson’s camera lovingly lingers on the gut-churning, harrowing, merciless level of violence. But this is his only message. It’s like Gibson is standing behind the camera and saying to the audience, “You see what Jesus suffered? Do you feel bad now? FLAY HIM MORE! How about now?” What was only three sentences of description in the Gospels takes up ten minutes of flogging screen time. Mad Mel has the urge to scourge. After an insane amount of time spent watching Jesus get flayed and beaten the violence starts to not just kill whatever spiritual message Gibson may have had in mind, but the violence becomes the message. The Passion does give an audience a fair understanding of the physical torture Jesus was subjected to, but the movie does not display Christ as fully human, enjoying life and love, or fully divine. The only thing The Passion shows us about Jesus is that the son of God sure knew how to take a whuppin’. For Gibson, the violence is the message and the point is to witness what Jesus endured. Some would call that sadistic.
The actors all do a fine job and it’s impressive that everyones’ lines is in two dead languages (Latin and Aramaic, though for the life of me I can’t tell them apart). But the acting is limited because of the nature of the film. Had there been more moments of character the acting would come across better. As it stands, the acting in The Passion is relegated to looks of aguish or looks of horror, interspersed with weeping. Monica Bellucci (The Matrix sequels) really has nothing to do as Mary Magdalene but run around in the background a lot. Jim Caviezel (Frequency, Angel Eyes) gives everything he has in the mighty big shoes he tries to fill. It’s too bad that his Jesus spends most of the screen time being beaten, which kind of hampers his acting range.
Now let’s address the anti-Semitic concerns. Let’s face facts; you are not going to have a film about the crucifixion of Jesus and have some Jews coming off in a good light. Just as you would not have a film about the Holocaust and have some Germans coming off in a good light. It is unavoidable. The Passion does portray a handful of Jewish religious leaders as instigators for Jesus’ eventual crucifixion, but there are also Jewish leaders who denounce their actions and just as many people bemoaning the torture of Jesus as there are calling for it. Who really comes off looking bad are the Romans. Excluding the efforts to make Pilate look apprehensive, the Roman soldiers are always seen kicking, punching, whipping, spitting on Jesus and laughing manically with their yellow teeth. How anyone could watch The Passion and come away anti-Semitic and not anti-Italian is beyond me.
And like I said before, most people will be extremely satisfied with the film because it’s hard to find a person who doesn’t have an opinion on Jesus. Gibson is counting on audiences to walk in and fill in the holes of the character so that The Passion is more affecting. Gibson’s film is worthy spectacle, and despite the vacuum of character I did get choked up four separate times, mostly involving Jesus and his mother. The Passion is a well-made and well-intentioned film that will hit the right notes for many. I just wish there were more to it than spectacle. I really do.
Nate’s Grade: C
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The Butterfly Effect (2004)
Notice: I found Ashton Kutcher, star of The Butterfly Effect, on a trip to buy dog food, and cordially asked him to write a review. This is what he sent me. It’s totally him. I wouldn’t make this stuff up. That would be dumb.
“So, like, this Nate guy asked me to do a review of my new awesomest movie, The Butterfly Effect. Dude, like anyone needs a review for the most awesomest movie ever. I mean, like, the term awesomest movie ever should say, like, everything. The only thing possibly more awesome than The Butterfly Effect would be trucker hats … or two chicks totally making out. And I only said possibly more awesome, which doesn’t mean it is more awesome, because, dude, like I said before, The Butterfly Effect is the most awesomest thing ever. You cant dispute that. Dont even try. Im awesome!
Like, the story goes like this, man. I play this guy, like I know big stretch there, but he’s not the most awesome guy ever, which is what you’d be thinking since its the most awesomest movie ever. But no, he’s like this kid who blacks out and has this wickedly twisted childhood where he stars in his neighbors kiddie porn, has his dog set on fire, and, like, his dad is all crazy, or, like I like to say, insane in the ole membrane. Ha, I totally made that up right now. I’m awesome!
So, you’re like saying, ’Dude, that movie sounds less than awesome. Yes, sir, I am having definite doubts about the awesomeness of this movie. Like, do I need to go to the movies to, like, feel bad? I got my parents to do that for me. That and school.’ Hey man, I’m there, I know what you feel. Cause right when you are like, “‘Dude, when is Demi gonna show up playing his mom?’ I find these old journals of mine and, dude, use them to travel back in time. I know, the awesomeness has returned. And I use the journals to go back and try and punk time, man. I try and make things better and change the future but I like totally just make it worse. I know, double punkd, man! I try and fix the life of this hot girl in the movie (she showed her boobs in that Road Trip movie, did you see that? That part where she shows her boobs, oh man … It is awesome) but things don’t work out. Like she becomes a crack ho at one point. Dude, total punkd. I’m awesome!
I should be taken as a serious actor. I didn’t hit my head on something and I grew a beard, what more do people need to know I got the goods? I mean, I don’t want to keep saying it but …
beard. C’mon! When actors want to be taken seriously they, like, grow beards. That’s why all those people in movies before 1970 (I know, it surprised me too that there were older movies) got awards and stuff. Beards, dude. Beards. When Billy Dee Shakespeare, like, invented acting, he totally imagined dudes, and chicks too, with beards. Thats why girls cant be taken as serious actors, cause they cant grow beards. But dude, don’t tell that to Demi, because she totally has one wicked ferocious beard, if you know what I mean. Ha. I’m awesome!
So, like, if you ever wondered what it would be like to see me, Ashton Kutcher, the most awesome man alive who ever lived, no the most awesome human being -the most awesome thing - ever, as a frat boy, or like, some poor dude with no arms, then you should see my new movie, The Butterfly Effect. After all, it is the most awesomest thing ever. That’s awesome. So, like, you people reading (is that what school is for?) should go see my movie. Ill tell you why in two words: beard.”
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Monster (2003)
Monster follows the life of Aileen Wuornos (Charlize Theron, now nominated for a Best Actress Oscar), Americas only known female serial killer. In the late 1980s, Wueros was a roadside prostitute flexing her muscles with Florida motorists. She describes hookin’ as the only things shes ever been good at. One day Wuornos has the full intention of taking her own life, but she meets 18-year-old Selby (Christina Ricci) at a lesbian bar and finds a companion. Driven by a growing hatred of men from sexual abuse, Wuorno’s starts killing her johns to try and establish a comfortable life for her and Selby.
Let’s not mince words; Theron gives one of the best performances I have ever seen in my life. Yes, that’s right. One of. The. Best. Performances. Ever. This is no exaggeration. I’m not just throwing out niceties. Theron is completely unrecognizable under a mass of facial prosthetics, 30 extra pounds, fake teeth and a total lack of eyebrows. But this is more than a hollow ploy to attract serious attention to the acting of a pretty face. Theron does more than simple imitation; she fully inhabits the skin of Aileen Wuornos. The closest comparison I can think of is Val Kilmer playing Jim Morrison in The Doors.
Theron is commanding, brave, distressing, ferocious, terrifying, brutal, stirring, mesmerizing and always captivating. It may be a cliché, but you really cannot take your eyes off of her. Her performance is that amazing. To say that Theron in Monster is an acting revelation is perhaps the understatement of the year.
With previous acting roles in Reindeer Games and The Cider House Rules, Theron is usually delegated to pretty girlfriend roles (who occasionally shows her breasts). Who in the world thought she had this kind of acting capability? I certainly did not. If Nicole Kidman can win an Oscar for putting on a fake nose and a so-so performance, surely Theron should win an Oscar for her absolute transformation of character and giving the performance of a lifetime.
With this being said, and most likely over said, Monster is by no means a perfect film. Minus the terrific central performance, Monster is more of an everyday profile of a grotesque personality. The film weakly tries to portray Wuornos more as a victim, but by the end of the film, and six murdered men later, sympathy is eradicated as Wuornos transforms into the titular monster. Some supporting characters, like Ricci’s narrow-minded Christian up bringers, are flat characters bordering on parody. The supporting characters are generally underwritten, especially the male roles that serve as mere cameos in a film dominated by Sapphic love.
Monster is proof positive that human beings will never be phased out by advancing machinery when it comes to acting. Monster boasts one of the greatest acting achievements in recent cinematic history, but it also coasts on sharp cinematography and a moody and ambient score by BT (Go). Monster is a haunting film that you wont want to blink for fear of taking your eyes off of Theron. She gives an unforgettable tour de force performance that will become legendary.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Cold Mountain (2003)
Cold Mountain (2003)
Premise: At the end of the Civil War, Inman (Jude Law, scruffy) deserts the Confederate lines to journey back home to Ada (Nicole Kidman), the love of his life he’s spent a combined 10 minutes with.
Results: Terribly uneven, Cold Mountain‘s drama is shackled by a love story that doesn’t register the faintest of heartbeats. Kidman is wildly miscast, as she was in The Human Stain, and her beauty betrays her character. She also can’t really do a Southern accent to save her life (I’m starting to believe the only accent she can do is faux British). Law’s ever-changing beard is even more interesting than her prissy character. Renee Zellweger, as a no-nonsense Ma Clampett get-your-hands-dirty type, is a breath of fresh air in an overly stuffy film; however, her acting is quite transparent in an, “Aw sucks, give me one ‘dem Oscars, ya”ll'” way.
Nate’’s Grade: C
nathanzoebl 
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