Category: Reviews

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In the Loop

In theaters.

True satire spares no one, and In the Loop is as true as it comes: mercilessly sharp, brutally unsentimental, and absolutely hilarious. The movie targets (albeit with fictional characters) the transatlantic political machinations that lead to the invasion of Iraq, but it never actually names that country or makes any more than the vaguest references to the Middle East. For all the high stakes we know to be there, most of the characters are too wrapped up in bureaucratic infighting to pay them much heed. That breathtakingly cynical vision of an already dark chapter in the history of both the United Kingdom and the United States leaves me with mixed feelings. Despite the precision and brilliance of its barbs, In the Loop doesn’t always ring true to me, and I can’t figure out whether that’s because I’m too cynical, not cynical enough, or simply cynical in a different way.

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Journey to the Stars

Planetarium show at the American Museum of Natural History.

Planetarium shows should never, under any circumstances, feature the words “Now that’s STAR power.” That’s not even a fun bad pun. It’s just stupid, especially when delivered by Whoopi Goldberg in the broadest possible manner. Just … no.

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(500) Days of Summer

In theaters.

The periodic narrator of (500) Days of Summer announces early on that “this is not a love story; this is story about love.” I disagree. This is neither a love story nor a story about a love but rather a story about narcissism, passive aggression, and rank immaturity, and as such, it’s not a particularly enjoyable tale.

God knows it’s not unusual for a romantic comedy to traffic in all sorts of twisted ideas about love and romance, but (500) clearly—and incorrectly—fancies itself unusually wise, which makes it unusually annoying. For one thing, despite its pretensions, the movie dabbles in plenty of the usual clichés (the impossibly wise child adviser being a particularly obnoxious element), but it’s the warped “romantic” hero that really gets me. The movie knows he’s in the wrong, but it never truly acknowledges just how in the wrong he is, and although it wants to pretend that Tom has Learned Lessons and Grown over the course of the movie, that’s not really the case—mainly because the filmmakers seem a bit foggy on what lessons he should have learned. They make a joke about Tom having badly misinterpreted the ending of The Graduate, but the joke’s on them: frankly, I don’t think they completely get it either.

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Columbine

By Dave Cullen. Published in 2009.

Dave Cullen taught me the difference between hate and contempt. Some five years ago, he wrote an article for Slate exploring the motives of the notorious Columbine killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, with new analysis from the FBI’s lead investigator on the case, a clinical psychologist. The key idea was that the two boys were very different people: Harris was a full-blown psychopath (in the true psychiatric sense), and Klebold was a suicidal depressive who fell into the other boy’s orbit.

That conclusion and the well-informed rationale behind it are fascinating, but it was the distinction between hate and contempt that haunted me. In the immediate aftermath of the massacre, most people assumed that the killers’ motive was hatred—for jocks, for minorities, for Christians, whatever—but judging from the considerable evidence left behind, Harris, the mastermind, wasn’t motivated by hatred of individuals or even of specific groups. In a way, that would have required acknowledging his victims as human beings, fellows worthy of hate. Harris considered himself a god among insects; his victims were interchangeable fodder for his apocalyptic vision. In short, he didn’t feel hate so much as general contempt. And that’s what makes him so frightening.

Cullen expands upon that old article—along with his numerous others and a decade’s worth of investigation into the attack—to produce Columbine, an exhaustive, compelling look at that horrific day in April 1999, the months that lead up to it, and the years that followed. At once a true crime tome, a psychopathy primer, and a media criticism treatise, the book is engrossing and deeply thought-provoking. That unforgettable lesson on hate and contempt is not an anomaly: Columbine is not a rubber-necking tabloid tale but a reflective, compassionate view of both the trees and the forest. As the New York Times acknowledged, Columbine isn’t In Cold Blood reborn (which cracked me up: Capote’s masterpiece is truly the unattainable grail of the true crime genre), but by virtually any other standard, it’s a triumph.

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Castle

Select episodes from first season available online at ABC.com (and soon, I hope, on Hulu). Season two debuts Monday, September 21, on ABC.

I recently read an interview with a short story author who said she enjoys writing short works because she feels more freedom there to explore extremely dark, bleak places—places she would be reluctant to visit, as either a writer or a reader, for the length of a novel. The idea rang true to me (partly because I’m presently in the midst of a provocative but depressing, emotionally draining novel that I wish were a bit shorter), and although I think the notion could easily be taken too far (perhaps it would be better to say that that overwhelmingly dark subject matter is more challenging in a novel than in a story), I find it fun to extrapolate from that notion to other media.

For example, musical devices that might be tiresome in a longer work—gimmicky orchestration; the incessant drill of a single rhythmic pattern; light accompaniment of a guileless melody—can be charming in a short piece (see: Sabre Dance). A movie can use simple, archetypal characters that would become flat and tiresome in an ongoing work like a TV show (see: Pan’s Labyrinth). And a TV show with a charismatic lead character often can get away lackluster storytelling because spending time with the character is the whole point of watching the show.

Such an encapsulation would be a little harsh for Castle, ABC’s one-year-old mystery drama, but not by much. The premise is gimmicky, the policework is standard, and the mysteries vary in quality (to be fair, that’s typical of crime shows), but none of that really matters because Nathan Fillion is the star: Castle is fun and compelling to the extent to that Fillion is fun and compelling, which makes it quite fun and compelling indeed.

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The Hurt Locker

In theaters.

I wouldn’t have thought that a war movie, much less a contemporary war movie, could be apolitical, but The Hurt Locker comes close. Whatever the personal beliefs of director Kathryn Bigelow and journalist-screenwriter Mark Boal, their film is a relatively open text, focused not on the political implications of the U.S. military presence in Iraq but on the day-to-day experiences of a single three-man team of Army explosives technicians, tasked with dismantling improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on the streets of Baghdad.

This is not to say, however, that The Hurt Locker is an morally empty experience, just guns and explosions and flash. For all the well-wrought tension and artfully constructed set pieces, the movie is powerful and thoughtful, an unflinching but compassionate look at the lives of three soldiers. Boal (whose journalistic work has been published in Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, and Playboy) spent time embedded in an Army bomb squad stationed in Iraq, and that experience reveals itself in every well-observed scene and every finely drawn character. The movie feels lived-in, populated by real people, not cinematic cannon fodder or propaganda pawns but true human beings, both flawed and heroic. It’s a thrilling, engrossing, almost too intimate film.

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Fun with music videos because there’s nothing else to do in June

“Waking Up in Vegas,” Katy Perry; “Lessons Learned,” Matt and Kim; and “Paparazzi,” Lady Gaga.

I admit that saying there’s nothing to do in June is an exaggeration, but options (at least my kind of options) do tend to dry up in New York in the summer, and Sean and I have been out of town too, so voilà! A music video post! Easy filler!

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Moon

In theaters.

If you’re going to put a talking computer in space, you’re going to make people think of 2001: A Space Odyssey. It’s unavoidable, especially if that computer is talking in smoothly uninflected yet conversational voice. Especially if you give it a cutesy human name. So at first Moon seems kind of hackneyed, what with the lone guy and his dependable-but-maybe-kind-of-ominous GERTY on an isolated outpost on the Moon. You think you know how things are going to go, and then they don’t go there, not really, and Moon turns out to be far less hackneyed and far more intriguing than you expect.

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The Sims 3

On the PC.

Once again, I’m engrossed in the imaginary lives of imaginary people. I’ve been playing with Sims ever since the first iteration of the game, nearly a decade ago, and it’s kind of embarrassing. I’m not even one of those players who use the games to construct elaborate buildings or design clothing, which would be more justifiable, I think. No, I just get a kick out of telling myself stories about the imaginary people, like a little girl with her dolls. Like I said: kind of embarrassing.

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Castle in the Sky

Special showing at the IFC Center. Also on DVD.

Castle in the Sky is one of animation master Hayao Miyazaki’s early films, but in it, you can see glimmers of his later, more polished works. There is the old woman who is more than what she first seems to be and the young woman whose past holds a mystery, even from herself (Spirited Away). There are the environmental themes, explored with gravity and reverence and just a trace of horror (Princess Mononoke). There are the outrageous, elaborate, ravishingly detailed flying machines (Howl’s Moving Castle and, really, just about every other Miyazaki movie—he’s obsessed).

Without question, those later movies are far more ambitious and innovative than the comparatively modest Castle in the Sky, but frankly, Castle is pretty damn ambitious and innovative in its own right. And like all Miyazaki’s films, no matter how sophisticated, it is childlike in the best sense: possessed of a luminous, ageless sense of wonder that makes the fantasy story come alive.