Artist: The 88. Album: Over and Over.
It's a shame Joe Eszterhas and Russell Crowe never crossed streams. The resulting throw-down of wrong-headed self-righteousness and noble savagery would have been manful and awesome and totally not gay to behold. That imaginary near-miss notwithstanding, there's enough Social Darwinist star-fucking and petty industry score-settling between the covers of Eszterhas' doorstop to offer some schadenfreudelicious pickings if you're willing to wade through the sneakily index-less, haphazardly time-shifting free-associative text. The chapters recounting Eszterhas' childhood are helpfully labeled "flashback" and may be skipped entirely. (PS. Joe, if you ever Google this, please don't punch me or even threaten to do so in a sternly worded, manually typed letter. I will weep like a girl and we'll both be embarrassed.)
Overlong and somewhat unfocused, Brokeback Mountain works best as a searing character study, as well as a sweeping portrait of the way longing and denial transcend societal boundaries. Heath and Jake are, of course, fine, but the unexpected standouts are Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway and Linda Cardellini in flinty supporting roles that, underwritten as they are, simmer with heartbreak and anger. Prudes/prurients dreading/anticipating hot cowboy-on-boy action will likely be disappointed with Ang Lee's customarily square, self-important direction. Aside from a few brief grunts and some light petting, the film's central coupling is handled with a retrograde chasteness that will arouse, at best, an MTV Movie Awards parody featuring Johnny Knoxville and Seann William Scott. Grade: B
Keira Knightley is expectedly luverly but I may have to recuse myself from commenting on the movie as a whole. Truth is, I find Jane Austen's drawing-room sensibility to be so overstuffed with innumerable sighs and a general, unrelenting "chaise-longueur" that I am frequently rendered narcoleptic in the presence of her work. And it's not like I'm some dude's-dude, "Movies For Guys Who Like Movies"-TiVoing adrenaline addict. Epistolary handwringing just strikes me as an un-cinematic motivation for romantic intrigue. Okay, I'm a boor. Grade: B-
You know how in Barbra Streisand movies there's always that scene where the male lead pulls Babs aside and literally forces her to acknowledge her alleged beauty? (PS. I don't watch Barbra Streisand movies.) I got the feeling watching King Kong that Peter Jackson was working out similar childhood self-image issues. For starters, in this version, Ann Darrow doesn't just feel reluctant pity for the great ape; she unequivocally wants to jump his monkey bones. I'm not exaggerating. Either Ann rolled some E on the way to Skull Island or she has the inter-species hots something fierce. (This despite the fact that Kong keeps biting the heads off her friends. What an asshole.) Her interaction with Kong is punctuated with the kinds of orgasmic moans and sighs one usually encounters in the clip reels of George Clooney's ex-girlfriends. And earlier in the film, a major point is made of Adrien Brody's physical unattractiveness as Darrow's potential (and subsequently sidelined) human love interest. If Jackson inexplicably deviates from the cherished Kong of his youth in some ways (do we really need an extra ninety minutes of repetitive digital lizard/bug brawls and fetishistic immersion in CG effluvia?), he pays misguided "homage" to the film in other ways—e.g., directing his cast to hammy acting suicide (excepting Jack Black, whose inability to deliver dialog without air quotes is merely a congenital defect) and larding the visual effects with smug, expensive winks to the limitations of the original film. (Personal beef: is the green-screening jarringly atrocious on purpose or the result of rushed postproduction?) I could go on, but basically King Kong is so belabored, so tone-deaf and so unrelentingly botched that I'm absolutely mystified by the raves it's been receiving from critics. Maybe they rolled some E on the way to Skull Island too. Grade: C
Stephen Gaghan's clearly an intelligent guy, but the sophistication he exhibits here elevates him to Steven Zaillian-status in my mind. And just like Zaillian's classy, underrated A Civil Action, Syriana isn't getting nearly the kudos it deserves. Merging the informed immediacy of a documentary with the fit and finish of big-budget cinema is a rare achievement. Syriana is a study in cool, compassionate filmmaking. (Also: will someone please nominate Jeffrey Wright for an Oscar already?) Grade: A-