Village Vidiot

  “Monsoon Wedding,” August 17 2002 (2001), theater.    This film about an Indian wedding and culture in the “world’s largest democracy” started slowly, with set pieces that were predictable, but it evolved rapidly into a captivating piece about family and class in India, about love and obligation, about what matters to people. It is…

  “Italian for Beginners,” June 17 2002 (2000), theater.  This lovely, humane, touching and disturbing, comic Dogma film from Denmark looks at the various people who are taking an Italian class together. It’s the lightest and cheeriest of all the Dogma films I’ve seen and is marred only by the overly happy and optimistic ending….

  June 17, 2002 (2001), video  This ambitious conceit examines the issue of consciousness as one man sleeps? Dies? It is interviews animated over. A fascinating film worth seeing in this age of boring crap. Still, do not see it as I did, while exhausted after watching “Italian for Beginners”. I fell asleep.

  “Memento,” March 17, 2002, video.  Very fine, weird and demanding conceit of a movie about a man who loses his short-term memory in a horrible rape of his wife. Was she murdered?. He thinks/knows so. But he knows so as he tattoos his body with the clues he thinks he needs to hunt down…

  “Pi,” March 17, 2002 (1998), tv/IFC.  This is a scary and disturbing, yet gripping drama about a young computer genius who is trying to find the numerical hook for predicting stock market fluctuations. In the process, he both achieves his goal and attempts to find the numerological/kabbalistic hook into the Bible. Wonderfully played in…

  “SLC Punk!,” March 17, 2002 (1998), tv/IFC.   The first 2/3 of this movie is really fun and in your face. Then it can’t sustain the courage not to moralize. It is a fun and sort of depressing romp through 80s punk culture in Salt Lake City (who’d of thunk it!). A pleasant antidote to…

“Tampopo,” December 17, 2001, video.  I liked this 1987 film about food, culture, sex, and identity in Japan less than I did when it first came out. A trucker-cowboy helps a young widow master noodle culture and climb the ladder to meaning and success. Fun stuff about the Japanese/European connection. Zen through noodles, movies as a…

  “Amores Perros,” December 17, 2001 (2000), video.    We both survived this brutal Mexican look at a society literally going to the dogs. Three interlocking stories geared around a car crash and dogs all take one into the brutalities of modern Mexico, its connection to cynicism and lost radicalism, tradition recreation (dog fighting) and…

  “The Shower,” December 17, 2001 (1999), video  This is an interesting look at the issues of modernization versus traditional family values in China. A successful, modern Chinese businessman hurries home when he receives a cryptic note from his retarded brother and thinks his father has died. The father and brother run a traditional men’s…

  “Life As a House,” December 15 2001, theater.    We both liked this incredibly sentimental, melodramatic weepie about a divorced architect, George (Kevin Kline), who loses his job and finds out he’s dying from cancer. The movie follows his efforts to reconcile with his rebellious and outrageously self-destructive 16-year old son Sam (Hayden Christensen)…

  “Shrek,” November 17, 2001, video.    Very funny animated comedy about an ogre who sets out to save a princess to protect his land from an evil noble. Celebrity voices. This thing works for kids and adults. Really quick and playful.

  “State and Maine,” September 17, 2001 (2000), video.    This very funny David Mamet version of Trufaut’s “Day for Night” works as a troupe of actors descends on a small NH town to make a film. Led by their director William Macy, they include a pedaphile, Alec Baldwin, and a shy leading lady, Sarah…

“Under the Sands,” theater, August 17, 2001.  Remarkable French film starring Charlotte Rampling about the aftermath of a death/suicide/disappearance. A couple goes to the shore. He is very depressed, she’s in denial. They go to the beach, he says he’s going for a swim and never returns. Her inability to cope, to accept, to come…

“Pollock,” August 15 2001 (2000), video, home. Wonderfully acted look at Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner starring Ed Harris. He seems to have the painter’s surly, non-verbal pain and alcoholism down perfectly. He also has clearly studied Pollack’s unique and exciting painting style. This is a depressing film. Marcia Gay Harden’s Krasner seems nicer than…

“Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” theater, August 15 2001.  Rocky Horror for 2001. Very funny, loud look at gender bending for the 21st century. Based on the off-Broadway play, this looks at a failed m2f transsexual German operation patient as he/she tries to adjust to life as an American wife/impoverished divorcee/rock star/seducer/failure/success. Fun lyrics, fun…

“The Perfect Storm,” July 17, 2001, video.  Well-made. and well-acted blockbuster with good acting from George Clooney and a fine supporting cast about the fishermen lost during the huge storm of 1991. Scary stuff, good on the work of fishing. Would play better on the big screen

  “Traffic,” July 17 2001 (2000), video.  Very interesting, rough film about the drug trade. Well done in some settings, less well in others. The parts played in Mexico and San Diego are really cool. The other pieces shot in Cincinnati are less interesting. Michael Douglas is, once again, rather boring and overly sincere as…

Yucky, confused comedy about religion with a fine cast, all of whom spout scads of platitudes about the Catholic Church, God, religion, and lots of other stuff. By the guy who did “Clerks” and “Chasing Amy”. The first had the wild craziness of the slacker, the second was cool and weird but then became sentimental….

  “Twilight: Los Angeles,” April 17, 2001 (2000), tv (PBS) production of play.    This is a marvelous one-woman production by Anna Devere Smith. It looks at the aftermath of the Rodney King trial and riots in LA. She does all the characters: African-American, Chicano, Korean, Euro-American. Not always kind, it is nonetheless insightful and…

“Not One Less,” April 17, 2001, video.  Superb Chinese film from Zhang Yimou about a 13-year old substitute school teacher in a poor rural Chinese village. When one of her students leaves school and goes to the city to earn money to pay his family debts, she follows him in and hunts him down. The…

  “The Limey,” 27 January 2001 (1999), video.  Very good film by Steven Sodderberg about a British ex-con trying to figure out and avenge his daughter’s murder. Fine acting and production by Terrence Stamp and Peter Fonda. Set in LA. Wonderful, creative use of old clips of Stamp from his first film “Poor Cow” by…

  “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” 19 January 2001 (2000), theater.    We enjoyed this more serious martial arts film starring Chow Yun Fat and Michelle Yeow. It had some silliness about people flying or walking on water based on their martial arts training, sort of like Peter Pan meets Bruce Lee, but it was well…

  “High Fidelity,” December 17, 2000, video.  This quirky and very playful John Cusak vehicle looks at the life of the owner of a vinyl music store in Chicago. Good tunes as it chronicles his relentless failures in love. The people who patronize and work in the store are priceless, the women are great (Lily…

“The Rugrats in Paris,” November 17, 2000, theater.  Not as good as the first Rugrats movie, this one is sweeter and less tense. Also, much less well developed transitions between the scenes. Better for the kid, though. We ate way too much popcorn and drank too much root beer. Fun to see with her.

  “Boys Don’t Cry,” October 17, 2000 (1999), video.  Very well acted story of Teena Brandon, aka Brandon Teena, a ftm ts in the Great Plains region. A bad end to be sure. Wonderfully acted, especially by Hillary Swank as Brandon (an Oscar) and Chloe Sevingny as her girl friend. But from what I’ve heard,…