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clausq
Reviews
Adaptation. (2002)
Kissing Itself to be Clever
Charles Kaufman and Spike Jonze are clever, and they want you to know that. So clever, so self-referential (or self-reverential, as another reviewer nicely put it), that every scene, every line, every gesture is a wink and a nudge and a nod. This a movie that is so full of winks and nudges that it practically has Tourette's syndrome.
You've read enough other reviews by now to know how clever this film is. A struggling screenwriter wants to write about how he's a struggling screenwrither (you think 100,000 other struggling screenwriters don't already have a script about that?), how he's dedicated to art and his naughty alter ego (or "twin brother") tarts it up to achieve crass success. So the struggling screenwriter turns to his crass twin/alter ego to write the last third of the movie, and it turns into an inane self-parody of drugs, sex, and gun chases. Only, it isn't that funny. Perhaps the best part is that the self-parody goes far beyond what the actors think -- Meryl Streep no doubt thinks she's doing sublime comedy, but what's funniest is watching her play a part that she is so hopelessly ill-suited for -- watching her snort a line of green cocaine is far funnier than she knows.
And this movie knows so much. It knows that its critics are going to complain that it's an exercise in intellectual masturbation, so it has its main character masturbating all the time. Very clever. By the time it's all over (which is not until a very very long time), it's more of an exercise in intellectual impotence.
BUT: What I'd really like to know is what Susan Orlean thinks of all this. I haven't read the Orchid Thief, and wild horses couldn't drag me to do so (yes, of course that Stones' song is part of the sound track), because above all this movie makes the novel seem like the worst piece of banal recycled Hallmark greeting card trash ever foisted on mankind. So I'm glad to see the fictionalized version of the authoress turn into a drug snorting, gun-toting moll with a trailer trash boy friend. Is Susan Orlean still desperately trying to find something that will make her feel something? Well, she could watch this movie and feel ridiculous. Perhaps if I had read the book, I'd congratulate this film on being a wonderful sendup. But I doubt it would be worth the effort.
Memento (2000)
Clever, but not quite clever enough
Memento is a highly ambitious, engrossing film, where the story is told backwards. However, it never comes together -- when you reorder the pieces there are too many glaring plot holes. So, though it's very entertaining while your watching it, it leaves a vague sense of irritation at the end -- it's a cheat. It's keeps promising that it will eventually make sense, but it never does.
The Deep End (2001)
Don't bury bodies in shallow water
SPOILERS
Spoilers sure, but what's to spoil? The critics, no doubt parched for anything resembling a movie of substance these days, have collectively gone off the deep end, hook line and sinker, for this piece of unmitigated garbage. This is surely among the worst "serious" movies ever made, marred at every turn by inexplicable emotional reactions, ludicrous plot turns, bad acting, and bafflingly amateurish ineptitude. The plot can be summarized as follows, tongue only slightly in cheek: Kid has preposterous sexual relationship with a disgusting slimy smarmy creep, creep gets in fist fight with kid, during fight creep manages to hurl himself lung first upon an anchor in Lake Tahoe without kid knowing it, super soccer Mom discovers body the next day and calmly totes it in her little power boat out into the middle of Lake Tahoe in order to bury it in 2 feet deep water (soccer Mom has a screw loose), Mom comes back an hour later to do a striptease and dive to get keys out of corpse's pocket, handsome stranger comes to blackmail Mom, Mom irons sheets drops kids off at tennis and runs around trying to raise $50,000 to pay blackmail, Mom never has more than a 2 second conversation with son, son is an uncommunicative jerk who seemingly has no relationship at all with Mom, Mom hocks jewelry, irritating sit-com father-in-law has a heart attack, handsome stranger performs CPR, handsome stranger looks at family picture while Mom is at hospital and falls in love with her, Mom joins traveling Mariachi band and travels naked throughout Portugal to raise cash, handsome stranger gets in fight with partner in crime and kills him, then dies in car crash in his get-away car, Mom frantically discovers this and smears her love all over his bloody forehead, kid watches the whole thing bemused, and they all live happily ever after. Sounds like a classic, eh? This compelling and organic plot line had a significant portion of the audience in giggling fits throughout. Some of the dialog is so lame, you can't wait for more of the characters to find some absurd way to off themselves, perhaps wishing you could do the same to whoever talked you into seeing this disgusting and degrading trash.
Chocolat (2000)
Melts in your hand, not in your mouth
A sickly sweet confection, turning on the premise that a small town in 1960 France would somehow confuse the opening of a chocolate shop with the second coming of Satan. An impossibly silly cross between a light weight art film and a cartoon. A sticky gooey mess -- perfect for lovers of that genre, however.