MOVIES SEEN SINCE KINGS AND QUEEN

I haven't posted any movie reviews in over three weeks. I could blame my lack of motivation on the sticky, mucky weather that has hung over this city like a festering, smelly sweatshirt. Fortunately, the winds have shifted, so I no longer have an excuse. Here's an incomplete list going backwards, with occasional commentary:

DIAL M FOR MURDER
KISS ME KATE
HOUSE OF WAX
All of 'em in 3D! My theatre is having a super-cool week long festival. WAX was my favorite, because the aesthetic works best in a horror context, with hurled chairs and rising corpses clearly meant to startle and scare the bejeezus outta you. KATE was slightly more gimmicky, but the dance sequences (particularly any with Ann Miller) were giddy, show-stopping fun. As a stand-alone film, DIAL M is a decent murder mystery, but you could tell Hitchcock's heart wasn't in the 3D trickery--enough with that goddamn lamp, anyway! But the obviously giant phone (and fake dialing finger) was a hoot.

SHAMPOO
Fine screenplay (by Robert Towne) and cast (right down to a disarmingly young Carrie Fisher). Considerably dated, but it has much to say about its time.

HOUSEKEEPING
Adaptation of Marilynne Robinson's first novel. Directed by Bill Forsyth. Starring Christine Lahti. Criminally unavailable on DVD. A work of genius. More on this later.

ROCK SCHOOL
Unexceptional, if entertaining look at a real life SCHOOL OF ROCK. I'd rather watch the Linklater film again, but at least this one made me want to listen to Frank Zappa.

MIDNIGHT IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL
Now that I've spent time in Savannah, I wanted to watch this again. Of course, Eastwood's adaptation is no substitution for reading the book. The film comes alive when it shifts away from the John Cusack character and towards the town's inhabitants--especially The (Inimitable) Lady Chablis. What a daring, shrewd choice to have her play herself, and since she's naturally inhabiting the role of her life to begin with, it works.

THE GIRL FROM MONDAY
While I love Hal Hartley for how he's remained so fiercely independent and distinctive, I cringe a little when confronted with some of his stylized dialogue and quirkier conceits. So, I was surprised at how much I actually liked this one. The first twelve minutes are oblique, confounding and almost off-putting, but from there, the film settles into a good, compelling groove, one far less jarring and uneven than Hartley's last feature, NO SUCH THING. It follows a typically hard-boiled Hartley hero, Jack (Bill Sage) in the throes of a dystopian society of faceless conglomerates, sex as the ultimate commodity, and a sinister plan to put "soda pop in the schools." Yep, it's a little pretentious, but also incredibly funny, always beautiful, and in a few instances, almost poignant. If the theories bandied about here don't exactly cohere, he does often make poetry out of digital video's limitations.

THE SEA INSIDE
IN GOOD COMPANY
TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE
A few recent DVD releases and concessions to Hollywood... well, THE SEA INSIDE isn't necessarily a studio film; you probably won't see a mainstream euthanasia melodrama anytime soon. Another impossibly brilliant performance from Javier Bardem and some nice imagery, but it was a little heavy handed--Almodovar should've made it. IN GOOD COMPANY was competent and vastly preferable to any Kate Hudson rom-com vehicle you'd care to name, but also often as slick and impersonable as its title (they should've kept the original one: SYNERGY). TEAM AMERICA, on the other hand, was fully worth a rental. Predictably, it's as hit-or-miss as SOUTH PARK, but when it hits its targets, whether they be a certain misunderstood dictator, action schlockmeister Michael Bay, or various Hollywood liberals, it does so with the irreverent, hysterical glee you'd expect. And although a fine actor he sometimes is, you'll never take Matt Damon seriously again.