Cynical Cinema

Margot At The Wedding is about a woman named Margot who goes to a wedding. It comes out from Alliance Atlantis on Tuesday the 19th of February and it’s sort-of worthwhile. Margot is played by Nicole Kidman, who is a very uptight, scathingly bitter-tongued ice queen. She drags her son along with her to her sister’s (Jennifer Jason Leigh) wedding to unemployed musician Jack Black. The dialogue is very smart, the acting is terrific, and the family is believable. The big problem with the movie is the lack of likeable characters. Kidman gets to her sister’s place, and immediately makes herself unlikeable as she attacks everything around her, questioning her sister’s choice in a husband, exacerbating the war between her sister and her neighbours, and visiting the man with whom she is having an affair. Jennifer Jason Leigh has just figured out she is pregnant, but hasn’t told anyone yet. She tells Kidman, who then tells her son, who then tells his cousin, who then asks her mom about it. The whole family harbours intense bitterness and hard feelings toward each other, much of which is not fully explained in the film.

A lot of scenes ring very true, especially in the little details. My favourite little detail is when Jason-Leigh’s young daughter tells Jack Black he has to hide his King Crimson album. It is the In The Court Of The Crimson King album (shown below), and I have had to do the same thing myself. It was initially up on the wall with the rest of my favourite vinyl albums. Welcome To My Nightmare, The Kids Are Alright, Johnny Cash at San Quentin, Over-Nite Sensation, The Melodians Rivers of Babylon, and King Crimson. But I had to take it down, because my wall of albums is in the area downstairs where the kids play, and it really freaked out our 8-year-old. I can certainly understand why. This is just one in the many small details in Margot At the Wedding that ring so very true. Which is an indication of the intelligence of the movie. And some of these scenes are very funny, especially the Jack Black scenes. This is the kind of movie that suits him best. Where he is not the centre of attention, where he does not have to carry the comedy all on his own, but where he can add understated fat-sloppy-guy comedy to understated prim-proper-people type scenes. Think of the scene in High Fidelity where he laments the fact that the customer does not own Blonde On Blonde.

But Margot at the Wedding can only go so far on wit and intelligence and fine performances. For most movies, that should be enough. But the one adult character who is actually likeable is John Turturro, as Kidman’s husband, and he shows up for about two minutes of screen time. So by the end, the movie’s message is a decent one - no matter how lousy things get, or how lousy life is, you always have family to count on. But after watching the whole thing, you think “not THIS family!” These poor kids! Jennifer Jason Leigh is a space case, Nicole Kidman is a passive aggressive, unfaithful, clingy jerk of a mother, and Jack Black is a slovenly, childish, out of control deviant. (Which is funny, but not exactly laudable.) You wouldn’t wish this family on anyone, and you end up feeling pretty sorry for the kids. With more Turturro, this movie could have potentially been a 9/10. As it stands, it is very smart, but tough to watch in parts. And it jsut feels like a standard, well-written, indie dark comedy with nothing new to say.

The Invasion is a remake, yet again, of the 1950s classic sci-fi horror film Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, a film that has been done many times, in many different ways, including an excellent 1978 remake featuring Donald Sutherland. The basic premise here is that aliens are invading Earth, and doing so by taking over the bodies of humans. In this way, no one can tell that the aliens are here - they still look like the same people. But their loved ones and people close to these people begin to notice. Those people are somehow different. You see, they seem to have lost all capacity for emotion. And it’s easy to spot emotionless people when you are close to them. This leads to some creepy scenes without the need to have some kind of high-tech computer generated monster spitting venom at the screen, or an actor of Anthony Hopkins’ calibre talking about fava beans and Chianti. All you really need to be creeped out is real people who can register no emotion and convey an icy demeanor.

Enter Nicole Kidman. No one does icy demeanor and cold-fish emotionlessness better than Nicole Kidman. She looks like a china doll, as though her features have been carved out of some kind of fine china, and might shatter if she smiles or frowns. And that’s when she’s being interviewed. One big problem with the 2007 edition of The Invasion is that Kidman does not play the leader of the emotionless drones who take over the world. That is a role that would suit her immensely. Yet she plays the emotional centre of the movie, for some reason. The only scenes where she is truly convincing are the ones where she must blend in with the invaders by acting emotionless. Another big problem with The Invasion is that there is nothing terribly interesting about it. Daniel Craig plays Kidman’s best friend, with some romantic tension, but nothing really develops there. Kidman’s son is the catalyst for the proceedings, as he has been taken by his father, and Kidman must get him back before hiding out in the safe zone away from the steel-faced mobs. Her ex-husband, the child’s father, fills the role of the big villain in the film, as he is perhaps the First Person Infected, and therefore the Most Evil.

During the shooting of this movie, there was a well-publicized accident during a car chase scene. A car (with Kidman inside) slammed into a wall with six or seven stunt men hanging onto it. The headlines in the papers - Nicole Kidman survives scare! The details in the reports were that Kidman had suffered only minor scrapes and bruises. Ummm…what about the stuntmen? They must have been completely smashed up, right? They were hanging onto the car, it crashed into a wall…no mention of them. I tried to do some research on this to include here in the review. Other than the fact that two stunt men had to be hospitalized, there was no information about them at all. I assume broken bones, smashed ribcages, horrible injuries. But who knows? And this is in a way another problem with the movie. Only Nicole Kidman matters. Daniel Craig exists mainly as her driver. Jeremy Northam exists only to put a bad-guy face on the “invaders”, and Jeffrey Wright has a part that could be fairly interesting, but takes up only about three minutes of screen time.

Wright is a scientist and doctor who can solve the problem of the epidemic. The key to stopping that epidemic is finding Kidman’s son, who seems to be immune to the infection. I guess they will just mulch him up, synthesize his remains, and create an antidote that will be administered to the emotionless masses by means of an army of crop dusters. Who knows. The climactic scene is nerve-wracking for a moment, but loses all the momentum it has right at the end, leading to something of an anti-climax. The one thing I will say about the movie is that it is a bit of a throwback to those classic horror sci-fi films of the 50s, (like the original Bodysnatchers) and attempts to make a social commentary at the conclusion of the film. It comes off as a bit heavy-handed, since early in the movie there is a Russian diplomat inserted into the story for the express purpose of making that social commentary. Was there anyone who didn’t think his words would come back to seem prescient? No. By the way, during that scene, Kidman is praised for her intelligence in shooting down the theories of this diplomat, but she does so by making statements that have nothing to do with his. It’s like someone says to you “I think abortion is the murder of babies”. And you say “I once burped a baby, and he was grateful”. And then people say “what a brilliant way to win that argument!” What?

As far as modern horror or sci-fi movies go, The Invasion is in the middle of the pack. Far below The Descent and The Host and 28 Days Later, far above Resident Evil and Stay Alive and The Village and Lady in the Water. But all that means is that sci-fi fanatics might find it worthwhile just because they will watch anything in that genre. Really, this movie is made for rabid fans of Nicole Kidman, who want to watch her run around, pretend to talk smart, and get into her underwear several times. That’s the target audience, that’s who should watch this film.

When The Golden Compass was released into theatres, it created a gigantic controversy due to it’s purported anti-Catholic overtones. All kinds of right-wing Catholic wing-nut groups protested the movie, demanded that their congregations not attend, and complained bitterly about it in the media. Which, of course, increased the box office immensely. And the fact that it was still a dud at the box office indicates that had all these ridiculous groups just shut up, it would have disappeared from the public eye, made virtually NO money, and we wouldn’t even remember it today. Today being the day it is released on DVD, courtesy of Alliance Films. And I couldn’t really watch it without thinking about this anti-Catholic controversy. That was all I could think about. What are they so angry about? Where is the problem coming from?

Have you ever noticed that what you think of yourself makes you especially sensitive? Like, if you think you might be a dirty slut, you get extra angry when someone calls you a dirty slut? Or if you’re fat and you hate being overweight, then you flip out when people call you fatso? (This doesn’t happen to me - I don’t mind being overweight at all.) My personal hot-button is when people call me pretentious. Because, on some level, I am afraid that I might actually be pretentious. So, there must be something in this movie that the Catholic elite see in themselves that makes them crazy. I mean…crazier. So…what is it?

OK. This movie is about a parallel universe to our own. This parallel universe is run and overseen by a mysterious, evil religious-type institution called The Magesterium. Alright, they’re a religious-type organization…so maybe the Catholic church sees a bit of themselves in that. Perhaps they see themselves in the repressive, thought-police style administration run by this group. And maybe they think the hats and chains are reminiscent of their own. Or perhaps they saw the nazi-style uniforms of the soldiers who spoke German and said “oh my God! That’s us!” Actually, I made that up. Hardcore Catholics never say “oh my God”. But if this is what made them sit up and take notice, they must be a really self-loathing bunch, dem Catholics.

And the thing is, this isn’t a very good movie. It’s OK, it does the job, kids will probably like it alright. But it isn’t as good as it should be. As I watched it, I couldn’t help but think of a movie that was even worse - Sky Captain And The World of Tomorrow. Remember? Angelina Jolie, Gwenyth Paltrow, Jude Law, in a movie full of ancient bi-planes…in the future? The Golden Compass may well have been done by the same set designer, because it has the same ancient-future vibe to it. There are soldiers who are clearly Nazi-inspired. There are futuristic, long-distance high-tech zeppelins and dirigibles and hot-air balloons. There are flying machines that are like ancient Chinese junks with wings and balloons. It’s a bizarre past-future world in the present. And it definitely looks amazing, but it’s fairly irritating.

There seem to be no original ideas here at all. The characters have names like Azrael (Daniel Craig), which had me waiting for a while for the appearance of Gargamel, who never materialized. Another (evil character played by Nicole Kidman) is named Mrs. Coulter. Hmm…maybe that’s what has the zealots up in arms. A vixen who embodies all that is evil in the world called…Coulter? Perhaps a reference to Ann? Well, in the movie her first name is Marisa. We see it written down. Everyone in this alternate universe has “daemons” walking around with them. There is a group of rebels called the “Gyptians”. So…Egyptians without the E. These “daemons” are like our souls here on Earth, only they are manifested in animal form and walk around beside people. Which is pretty cute some of the time. But why “daemons”? Why couldn’t the author of this series of books have come up with a new name for them? I’ve heard of daemons before. These aren’t them. Anyway.

This is the second movie this year that teams Nicole Kidman with Daniel Craig. And, like in The Invasion, Daniel Craig has very little to do. He shows up at the beginning as the uncle of the little girl (Dakota Blue Richards) who is the star. The Magesterium tries to poison him, because he has discovered something that they want to keep hidden from the rest of the world. But Richards saves him, and then he goes off on a journey. And we don’t hear from him again. Then there is a really strange revelation toward the end of the movie, and I still have no idea whether it was for real or a ploy on the part of the evil people. But you see, this is actually the first film in what I imagine will be a forty-one part series, and as such there are many loose ends when it’s over. Also, this is the second movie this year to team Daniel Craig with Eva Green (you might remember Casino Royale). And neither of them gets enough screen time.

A few good scenes (like the polar bear fight) and a few great appearances by some cool actors (Sam Elliott, Christopher Lee), and an amazingly vivid set design make The Golden Compass pretty cool to look at. And I expect the series to get better. Dakota Blue Richards is very good as the young lead actress. More Sam Elliott, more Daniel Craig, and more Eva Green could really liven this thing up. But as it stands with this first movie, it ends up being much less than the sum of it’s parts, and it’s kind of boring. The best thing The Golden Compass has going for it is it’s message. The idea that kids need to learn to think for themselves, that independent thought is essential, and that not all authority is good authority. Hmmm…maybe that’s what got all those Catholics so riled up!