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The Iron Giant (1999)
There is a magic that animation has that a regular film can never capture. It can delve into our imaginations and conjure up emotions and laughter that regular celluloid can rarely get a firm grip on. So why has every animated film this decade fallen under a strict formula that bogs down the quality of the efforts? Now comes a movie like The Iron Giant, which restores faith in all that is good with cinema.
The Iron Giant is reminiscent of E.T., but has a distinct voice of its own. The main question might be, “Is it enjoyable for people other than kids who can’t touch the floor with their feet?” I can answer that question easily: Yes! Adults, teenagers and children will have just as much fun with this picture together. It is a movie for all ages and for all time.
The animation is strikingly brilliant and deserves an ovation of its own. Never have I seen voice-over-to-mouth animations done so fluidly. The sight of the giant itself is awe-inspiring, but never terrifying. The movie also perfectly captures the innocence, patriotism and Cold War hysteria that defined American living in the ’50s.
But the truly biggest thing The Iron Giant has to offer is magic and heart. The characters are all well-developed, and the audience is made to feel great attachment to each one. The script for the feature is right on, and never is a scene wasted. And the tale is very touching as it heads toward its climax. I don’t mind admitting my eyes were quite moist toward the end.
The Iron Giant breaks the common mold of animated flicks. There are no cuddly animals and slapstick sidekicks, no dopey forced love interests, no one-dimensional villain, and thank God, no Grammy wannabe songs breaking up the drama. The Iron Giant sends out a strong message and breaks free of a Disney-controlled industry. I dare say this is the greatest animated film of this entire decade, by far. I urge everyone to go out and experience some of the magic and warmth that is The Iron Giant. This is destined to become a classic, mark my words.
Nate’s Grade: A+
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The Sixth Sense (1999)
August is mostly thought of as a time of dead water for summer movies. But now I think it should be regarded as the best month for film this whole mediocre summer, and The Sixth Sense is one of the main reasons. Though the title kinda’ sucks.
In a summer low on genuine chills here’s one movie that offers honest-to-God-grip-the-armrest-chills. It’s very moody when it needs to be and creepy when it never has to be but is anyway, and constantly moving. The Sixth Sense also offers audiences something they haven’t seen this summer: real characters with depth. The characters leap from the screen and are slowly established as complicated, rounded, and very thoughtful people. Now that’s something that took me for surprise.
Bruce Willis achieves his quiet mode and teams up yet again with another child (a la Mercury Rising). Willis’ acting is solemn and just enough to drive his character through his quest. You haven’t seen Bruce Willis show this much emotion since he walked over glass in Die Hard! But the story of The Sixth Sense is a little tyke that comes from out of nowhere and redefines child acting. To say Haley Joel Osment carries the film is an understatement – he throws it on his back and runs a 4.3 with it. If Ana Paquan can win an Oscar for babysitting a piano then this kid deserves one too. This is the greatest child actor I’ve seen in years and I begin to wonder why Lucas chose his miscast young Anakin.
The best thing The Sixth Sense has is intelligence. It rewards those who stood up and paid attention with a knock-out terrific ending that wraps everything up you questioned before. And you will rerun things in your mind over and over when you leave the theater. My only complaint, and it is small, is that the direction could be tighter at times. But for everything The Sixth Sense has to offer I will gladly wait in line for seconds. The best summer chiller, and one of the best movies of the year. The title still sucks though.
Nate’s Grade: A
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Brokedown Palace (1999)
Foolish teens today, thinking they can smuggle drugs into East Asian countries and get away with it. Foolish screenwriter for thinking we haven’t seen this exact same situation done many times before and done many times better. And foolish audience for actually paying to go see this.
The movie desperately tries to be an emotional tale of the chains of friendship and perseverance, and it uses earlier examples like Midnite Express and Return to Paradise as staples. But the movie is devoid of emotion all together because of one glaring fault in the flick: the girls are complete idiots! Throughout the whole movie they’re given cliched and horrendous dialogue to spurt. You can’t feel any attachment or connection because they are just so incompetent that on some cosmic level it’s almost like they deserve what they get. And they didn’t get much. The ending is rather ludicrous because it tries to have this strong emotional force but is only a whimper because there was little attachment to the characters in the first place.
It’s a common practice in movies to put the characters through harrowing and dangerous circumstances so that the audience will pull for them and be drawn closer to them emotionally. And in this genre nothing can do that like the good ole’ inhuman prison system so monstrously shown in previous films. But I don’t know where these girls went or who their travel agent was because where they stay is like the Club Med of all those horrible foreign prisons. They’re almost livin’ it up for an inhuman hell hole.
The women-in-prison genre is a classic cheesy late night television smorgasbord of gratuitous nudity and shower sequences that are almost the entire purpose of the genre. Brokedown Palace certainly isn’t going to go down this route. You won’t see Claire Danes sponging off Kate Beckinsale’s body during a mass shower, or see the tough lesbian guard who runs her shop tight and mean, or the tough lesbian rival in the jail cells. What you do get is a script that tries to garner emotion but instead can only grasp for cheap melodrama.
Nate’s Grade: C
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The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Who’s afraid of the big bad witch? Well apparently a nation of audiences and studio heads. I’ve heard all kinds of horror stories from people lying in the corners of theaters until the movie was over, to people running out screaming, to the distribution of barf bags by theaters (of course it might be due to the hand held camera and motion sickness). Well after all the hype I finally ventured out to see it after some failed attempts at evening shows that managed to be sold out. I’ll say right now that I was never very afraid. Of course there may have been some effect being that I saw it around three in the afternoon.
But I did come away with a great appreciation for what these kids have done. They themselves with a mere $100,000 budget have practically reinvented horror and given it a complete turn from where the Kevin Williamson post-irony pseudo hip teen slasher films were leading us. And I for one couldn’t be happier. The anticipation of the unknown is far more frightening than being slowly chased by a man in a rain slicker. That’s exactly what Blair Witch offers. It’s no typical horror flick. It lets you create the fear in your head and let you drive yourself mad with it. The tension is slowly building and building as the trio get even more lost, paranoid, and frightened. It really is a truly innovative effort and done so realistically that people still swear to their hearts it’s all true. I think more credit should go to the actors then the directors for how effectively real the movie was. When they’re not yelling profanity all the time they do manage to come off as very believable and we see how they are all slowly breaking down internally like a case study. Just remember people, money doesn’t equal scares.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Run Lola Run (1999)
There is a certain vibe some movies resonate while watching. With some it’s the mood of pure nausea, some the feel of being derivative and meandering, but there are those few that seem to leap from the screen, slap you in the face, and scream cool. It happened with Pulp Fiction, it was there with Trainspotting and The Matrix, and you better believe every precious frame of Run Lola Run drips with a feeling of absolute cool.
Since the movie is foreign, German, and subtitled, I’m sure most out there don’t know about it. It’s the tale of Lola’s desperate quest to save her boyfriend Manni. See Manni runs money for a very shady character and has accidentally lost a bag of money earlier. Lola has twenty minutes to retrieve 100,000 Deutschmarks somehow or else he will in an act of desperation rob a corner grocery store which inevitably means his doom. So Lola dashes out the door and she runs. And does she ever!
Born in an age of avant garde MTV videos and a declining attention span nationwide, Lola is a dizzyingly kinetic concoction of energy ]and excitement.The movie is a colorful fireworks display of multiple outcomes and the varying degree minute choices and details can have on our lives. The movie is a living video game telling Lola’s trek three different ways and showing the possibilities of chance and fate.
With each run the audience’s heart beats to the thumping presence of the blistering electronica soundtrack pulsing along Lola’ runs. It simulates her racing heart and that of the audience watching. Within an hour of seeing the flick I had to run out and get the soundtrack, and after a brief listen it made me want to run myself.
The movie has more energy than the Energizer bunny, and our carrot-topped heroine could run circles around his fluffy ass. The narrative structure poses the question to audiences how our lives could be different with any of the small choices that occur day-to-day in our lives. The idea was seen in last year’s Sliding Doors but is much better played out here. All I can say is that Run Lola Run will go down as one of the coolest movies of the millennium and ushers in a new time and genre for the world of cinema. I want my Lola running shoes.
Author’s note: I was so enamored with this film I went as Lola for two Halloweens in a row.
Nate’s Grade: A
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Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
There’s a certain awe one has to this film. It’s Stanley Kubrick’s last movie, took over two years in development, has the big name star couple, and no one knows ANYTHING about it. All I can say Eyes Wide Shut the movie is a challenging and engaging work from a titan of a director that will sorely be missed.
The first movie from Kubrick in over a decade comes sweeping in and I couldn’t take my eyes off it. The steady cinematography is gorgeous, coupled with the dream like lighting that seem glowing about on the frames. The story captured my attention and drew me in quickly as I was enthralled. It’s all about the tale of a husband and wife with sexual inadequacies, fantasies, delusions, and jealousy. It’s about the trust in a marriage, and how sex can be used not only as an intimate showing of feelings but as a weapon and as a tool. Journey with Tommy Cruise as he ventures through the city exploring all the different characters and how sex has influenced, controlled, or manipulated their lives.
The movie is adult, yes, but not pornographic. Those who argue it’s expensive porn don’t know what they’re saying. Though there are probably more butt shots of Kidman then necessary the movie never becomes exploitative or gratuitous. The sex here is portrayed more like a Victorian era arrangement instead of the hard-core stuff of today. In fact the sex is far more creepy than erotic. The actors all contribute nicely to the ensemble, even though Nicole Kidman is the slowest talker in the world here. But I couldn’t wait to see what she’d say next; she had me. The movie as well had me mostly.
The movie will certainly not go over well with audiences planning to see a Basic Instinct sequel in this. I blame the poor marketing that made it into something it was far from: a sexy and steamy adult thriller with TONS o’ nudity. So when people file in and find out it’s a two and a half hour art movie with depth, symbolism, and layers they are no doubt disappointed. Especially those who show up in raincoats. The movie is a fitting final work to Kubrick’s collection. Rest in peace Stanley.
Nate’s Grade: B
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