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Director:
Terry Zwigoff

Starring:
Billy Bob Thornton
Tony Cox
Brett Kelly
Lauren Graham
Bernie Mac
John Ritter
Cloris Leachman

Release: 26 Nov. 03
IMDb

Not since Bill Murray played crabby TV executive Francis Cross in Scrooged has Christmas cheer seemed so overrated as it does in Bad Santa. It is a haphazard little comedy that probably shouldn’t play at any multiplex exhibiting The Cat in the Hat -- it could be destructive if a child accidentally walked into the wrong theatre.

R-rated and brazenly ugly, Bad Santa comes from the loins of the Coen Brothers and director Terry Zwigoff. These are artists who have a better grasp on the unusual parts of life that most people miss in their day-to-day monotony. Zwigoff’s Ghost World is a masterpiece of misanthropy and selfishness; the Coens have made a career out of weird characters coexisting in an absurd world. I don’t know why, but their collaboration seems like a match made in heaven.

But Bad Santa is a type of Hell. Perhaps this is really what many mall Santas are like, but, regardless, such an unapologetic attitude towards children and their fragile feelings is nearly unforgivable.

Yet, it is this audacity that ultimately makes Bad Santa into an enjoyable, if bothersome, experience. This is not to say that anyone over the age of 18 will get some pleasure out of the film, but it does have something more to offer than angry diatribes and spiritual reawakening, as the trailers and the clichés of the genre might have one believe. Bad Santa is funny without being sentimental, and, as much as I may respect Love Actually, I can’t help but find it impressive that anyone in Hollywood would be willing to try this.

The main reason for all this ink on the film’s suitability for an audience is the character of Willie T. Soke (Thornton), a mall Santa who spends his off time drinking excess amounts of alcohol, sleeping with random women, and living in an all-around state of debasement. The main problem is that these actions do not really stop when he clocks in for work. This is a mall Santa who is more likely to puke (from a hangover) than the kids sitting on his lap. When a kid asks why his beard is falling off, he answers, “Because I loved a woman who wasn’t clean.”

The reason that he does this is that he can make a year’s wage just by getting into the mall for the season. Along with his accomplice, Marcus (Cox), who acts as Santa’s elf, he breaks into the place on Christmas night and runs off with high-end products and the money in the vault. Now, situated in the heat of a Phoenix suburb, they are preparing to do it again.

There is a kid, called “The Kid” (Kelly), who seems to be the person who could charm Willie back into the Christmas spirit, if only Willie had the capacity for such in the first place. This kid believes in Willie and is willing to let the guy stay at his home, where the only parental supervision is from his near-catatonic grandmother (Leachman). There are moments when Willie seems to be on the verge of turning into kind person, but usually they are followed by his invitation to “Mrs. Claus” (Graham) to come by the place for a conjugal visit in the kid’s hot tub.

It’s hard to forgive the film for the way it toys with the emotions of its many characters, especially the kids, but its final resolve comes with a flurry of Coen-level cacophony that Bad Santa nears masterpiece. Even if its conclusion isn’t fully appealing (as if anything else in the film was), the overall impression is that Zwigoff has made something unabashedly divergent from normal Hollywood fare. That it is ultimately more charming than anything in Elf says wonders about a film where the protagonist eats all the candy in a kid’s countdown to Christmas box.

Director:
Peter Farrelly
Bobby Farrelly

Starring:
Matt Damon
Greg Kinnear
Eva Mendes
Wen Yann Shih
Cher
Seymour Cassel
Griffin Dunne

Release: 12 Dec. 03
IMDb

Although not as charming as Shallow Hal or as funny as There’s Something About Mary, the seventh film from filmmaking siblings Peter and Bobby Farrelly, Stuck on You, continues the trajectory of their career, as their comedy becomes a little more muted (this is mute considering that their previous jokes have included mistaking bull semen for cow’s milk and using human semen for hair gel) and much more pleasant. I like their charming side, and have always felt compelled to their films even though their production credits (Outside Providence and Say It Isn’t So) have been consistently bad.

Still, Stuck on You isn’t as complete a film as their other works because, as they up the ante in telling a moral, they forego much of the humor that put them on the map. Outside of the song number during the credits, nothing in the film ever comes near their finest comedy, from Dumb & Dumber’s blind kid buying a dead bird to My, Myself & Irene’s walked upon father oblivious to his wife’s adultery despite having three black kids. The jokes rarely provoke the same amount of guffaws, but their intentions seem even more compelling.

After all, this seems to be somewhat personal. Although they do not suffer from the same handicap, the Farrelly brothers haven’t been seen as anything more than a pair. They are like the directorial equivalent of Laurel and Hardy or Abbot and Costello -- together it is perfect, but apart marginal. Having a film about twins who have been conjoined since birth may not seem like comedy fare, but this is the Farrelly brothers, and, regardless of the limitations of a premise, chances are they’ll find a way to make it humorous, even if it means projecting some of their own frustrations on the screen.

Now, I’m not theorizing that there’s a Walt (Kinnear) and Bob (Damon) in Peter and Bobby Farrelly, but that they do empathize with the characters’ dilemma in some way. Still, these are two guys from Rhode Island who have hit it big as filmmakers but still haven’t shrugged off their rural New Englander attitude.

What they do share, I have little doubt, is the brotherly love that is found underlying the comedy in Stuck on You. These Walt and Bob may get on each other’s nerves much of the time, and their disagreements may verge on fisticuffs, but ultimately, they share a devotion to each other that is symbolized in the layer of skin holding them together and the liver they share (mostly on Bob’s side; a great way to explain why Walt looks older than Bob since the actors have a seven year age difference). They have spent their lives working as one -- even if they go through the surgery for separation, one has little doubt that they will still come back to each other like magnets.

Inside their tale of fraternal devotion is the Farrellys make a snide comment on Hollywood and the industry that has made them semi-recognizable names. Best of all, they criticize celebrity (embodied here by Cher in a terrific self-effacing performance), television, and the audiences that obsess over both, with the type of Nor’easter smugness that even a Southerner would find it polite.

While this may not seem like the best way to pronounce a comedy as worthy of seeing, Stuck on You charmed the socks off me. For all its failed jokes, and odd bits of storytelling, the impression that it made was valuable. I have little doubt that the Farrelly brothers, conjoined in their artistry, have many more great comedies to come.

Director:
Nancy Meyers

Starring:
Jack Nicholson
Diane Keaton
Keanu Reeves
Amanda Peet
Frances McDormand

Release: 12 Dec. 03
IMDb

After two films in a row reminding audiences of the agile actor who first emerged in American films of the late 1960s and 1970s, Jack Nicholson seems ready to return to the public persona in his films. Even though his performances in The Pledge and About Schmidt were acclaimed, and the latter somewhat successful for an independent film, there is a Nicholson audiences expect to see. Hinted at the return earlier this year with Anger Management, he puts it in full gear with Something’s Gotta Give, a film that wallows in the womanizing, smarmy, charming Jack Nicholson who sits in the front row of every Academy Awards ceremony hosted by Billy Crystal.

He’s done this before, going from the one-two punch of The Crossing Guard and Blood and Wine, hinting at a return with The Evening Star, and then coming back in full force with As Good As It Gets. It’s a nice cycle, and, even if those intermediary films are bad, it generally gets two masterpieces and one highly likable and highly accessible crowd-pleaser.

And that’s exactly what Something’s Gotta Give is -- there’s little offered, little achieved, but it’s all pleasant and enjoyable. As a diversion from a hectic day at the mall buying Christmas gifts, Something’s Gotta Give may be the perfect salve.

Nicholson plays Harry Sanborn, a Manhattan record executive who prides himself in the fact that he’s been dating younger women for forty years. Now he is in a relationship with Marin (Peet), daughter of famed playwright Erica Berry (Keaton). To prepare for the consummation of their relationship the May-December couple go to the Berry beach home in East Hampton. After a sitcom-level misunderstanding in which Erica believes Harry is a robber, Harry settles into the home only to have a heart attack.

Since transport back to Manhattan is impossible for this ailing impresario, Harry is forced to live in beach house with Erica as their styles clash and, to no audience member’s surprise, they find the inkling of an attraction. The only problem is that Erica is already forging a relationship with Harry’s doctor, Julian Mercer (Reeves). She has two possible beaux at a time when she felt destined to settle into retirement alone.

Director Nancy Meyers isn’t necessarily loath to letting the film turn into something of a sideshow for Nicholson balanced against the tale of femininity. Although not always seamless, her films like Private Benjamin, Baby Boom, and What Women Want have all struggled to show the state of women in a patriarchal world. In this case, she’s considering the way virile men consider themselves above their contemporary women even though many of them have maturity that’s made them enchanting instead of decrepit.

Nicholson is perfect as himself, which isn’t much of a stretch other than to say that few actors can play themselves better. However, the real treat is in Keaton’s performance. She is a living, breathing, intelligent, vulnerable person. It’s rare to find a female character this engaging in a romantic comedy without being the supporting comedienne (given that role is McDormand as Erica’s sister). Keaton hasn’t particular shined in recent years because she always seems to be playing over-dramatic martyrs (Marvin’s Room) or elder stateswomen (The First Wives Club, Hanging Up). Unlike Nicholson, she isn’t given many chances to remind audiences of who she was in the 1970s, embodying the progressive woman in Annie Hall and Looking for Mr. Goodbar. I fell in love with her then, but saw her lose much of her aura over decades of mediocre scripts. In Something’s Gotta Give, it all came back, and I could fully understand how two men could be transfixed by her.

Director:
Sam Green
Bill Siegel

Starring:
Bernardine Dohrn
Mark Rudd
Brian Flanagan
David Gilbert
Bill Ayers
Naomi Jaffe
Todd Gitlin
Laura Whitehorn
Don Strickland
Kathleen Cleaver

Release: 4 Jun. 03
IMDb

Only now, as I take part in the opposition to Gulf War II do I begin to understand the world of the antiwar movement that thrived on college campuses during the Vietnam War. Before it just seemed like kids afraid of a draft, uncompromisingly holding to their principles, or finding some solidarity with the Communism that the Vietcong supported. Today, I look at many of them as being students who noticed before their elders that the war being fought was taking the nation in the wrong direction.

Sam Green and Bill Siegel’s The Weather Underground reminds me that some of those telling the country of its violent, oppressive government were not much better themselves. The Weathermen were the radical faction of the Students for a Democratic Society, a much more protest-driven organization that ultimately broke ranks with the violence brought by the Weathermen. Under the leadership of Bernadette Dohrn, they attempted to “bring the war home,” in other words, they wanted the American people to see the atrocities abroad in their own backyard.

They did this by bombing federal building and statues, staging huge, aggressive protests in Chicago, and boosting Timothy Leary from prison. After three Weathermen died in an accidental premature explosion of one of their bombs in a Greenwich Village townhouse, no one died directly from one of the Weathermen’s events. But the intentions were still muddled by administrations and the press who only portrayed the antiwar movement as being as heedlessly radical and violent as the Weathermen’s manifesto.

“I think the Vietnam War made us all a little crazy,” says one former Weatherman in The Weather Underground. This is only part of the story, as the directors make clear. The reasons behind this movement were built on a collection of things that began with sex and drugs and ended with the overthrow of the U.S. government. Mischievous youth was the easy explanation, but how then was it that they comprehended the negative impact of the Vietnam War when most of the nation still supported it?

Like Michael Apted’s seminal 7 Up documentary series (in which he looks at his collective of subjects every seven years, showing how they’ve changed from childhood into middle age), the heart of this film is seeing how these people have grown into different personalities from those they seemed destined to in 1969. Dohrn and Bill Ayers, formerly the leaders of the movement, spent nearly a decade underground, long after everyone else came out (their story was the basis for Sidney Lumet’s Running on Empty). None of them did time for their work with the Weathermen because the FBI was so intent on catching them that they broke multiple laws and ruined their case. Only one is serving time, but it’s for a crime he committed after he left the movement.

These are interesting people, and it becomes clear why followers of the movement were drawn to them. The Weathermen cannot fully explain themselves to those of us who do not see violence to stop violence as a fair trade. But they are compelling because they are so intent on their beliefs. They truly felt passionate about stopping the Vietnam War, so much that they became unremorseful criminals in their actions.

As the aftermath of Gulf War II continues to have speed bumps, one might think that a movement against it would well up beyond the simple protests that have occurred in large cities. With the increased popularity of antiwar candidate Howard Dean, we might just be on the verge of the New Left taking over the government, without any civilian blood spilt.

Director:
P.J. Hogan

Starring:
Jeremy Sumpter
Rachel Hurd-Wood
Jason Isaacs
Olivia Williams
Richard Briers
Harry Newell
Freddie Popplewell
Lynn Redgrave

Release: 25 Dec. 03
IMDb

J.M. Berry’s 1904 play Peter Pan might seem like one of the least likely sources in need of a film these days. After an androgynous Mary Martin flew threw the air, Walt Disney animated, and Robin Williams just plain scared, no one would likely ask for another film version. Except for maybe director P.J. Hogan, who obsessed with turning the Berry vision into a literal cinematic translation? Those who see this -- and considering the competition for family film’s this season, there may not be many -- are certainly thankful that he took up the cause.

What was lost in the previous films was the vitality of its characters. They were contrivances, not the metaphorical ids Berry wrote them as. Each character was a part of the human psyche: Hook (Isaacs), angry and violent, is our fear of loneliness; Tinker Bell (Sagnier) is our willingness to hurt those we love when threatened; Peter (Sumpter) is our terror at resigning into adulthood; and Wendy (Wood) is our young hormones before we fully knew they existed.

What, you might ask, are hormones doing in this? Berry made it part of the experience, and, considering the dumpiness of the other films, it’s a part of the story that is needed. Some might be off-put by the idea that Peter and Wendy are meant to represent pre-pubescent romance, but it is certainly chaste but true. By age 12, most youths have experienced that first kiss. Wendy just gets to experience her with the father of the Lost Boys and the hero of Neverland.

I think that the accusations that Hogan has made a quasi-homosexual agenda out of this is just as mistaken as those opposed to the presence of the budding sexuality in the first place. Even though Hogan is gay, it is fully understandable that Peter is shirtless throughout and that Hook is a median between masculinity and femininity -- these are concessions that the Berry play welcomed. However, I do find it entertaining to hear someone articulate the hidden meaning of Peter’s “I do believe in fairies!” mantra.

Exquisitely framed throughout, the film has a cinematography and production design team that gets just the right tones for the real world and its real problems with the contrast of a colorful, soft-focus Neverland. With Donald McAlpine, the photographer of Moulin Rouge, behind the lens, much of this fantasia styling comes with the grace of a musician. Even if the special effects aren’t quite suitable at times (I understand why they look that way -- this is, after all, a dream world -- but do they have to look so ugly at times?), the photography it covers is still breathtaking.

Sumpter is a bit bland as the epitome of childish energy, but most of his young costars are pleasing in their presentation of, well, kids in an abandoned toy shop. This is especially true of Wood, who is appearing in her first film. She has a compassionate way of dealing with her Lost Boys, kids who call her ‘mother,’ and a vitality in her hesitant passions for Peter, the compatriot they call ‘father.’ I look forward to seeing her again in the near future.

The overall satisfaction of seeing a film that deals with childhood issues without talking down to them is amazing. Hogan, whose previous credits include Muriel’s Wedding and My Best Friend’s Wedding, might be the only person who thought this would work, but he’s certainly not the only one excited to see him prove himself right.

Director:
Bo Welch

Starring:
Mike Myers
Spencer Breslin
Dakota Fanning
Alex Baldwin
Kelly Preston
Sean Hayes

Release: 21 Nov. 03
IMDb

Brian Grazer should be ashamed. Not only has he helped bankroll a string of flaccid films by Ron Howard, but he’s also proactively tried to destroy the legacy of Dr. Seuss. With his atrocious 2000 adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, he turned the ebbs and flows of Seuss’ genius into a clatter of overacting by Jim Carrey and garish production values.

One would consider it tough to turn a book of merely 100 words into a feature length film, and perhaps that is what Grazer wants to use as his explanation for critics: you try and pull together this production! But then comes the understandable reply: Why do it in the first place?

Now on his second venture, touching on Seuss’ second best known story, The Cat in the Hat, Grazer and first-time filmmaker Bo Welch throw everything in (including the kitchen sink) to fill the screen time. Getting an actor like Mike Meyers to portray the title character might seem like a godsend -- he’s certain to know what to do with all that time -- but then comes the understanding that Meyers can pull the same things out of his hat that he always does: a little Coffee Talk, some Austin Powers. The whole thing is like an extended improv for a Saturday Night Live skit that’s gone awry (you know, one where David Spade forgets his cues and Jimmy Fallon begins laughing uncontrollably). By a the midpoint of the film, it’s just sad, like watching a former track star fall behind the prestige actor/musician runners at the Boston Marathon.

To make matters worse, stiff-as-nails Dakota Fanning (I’d swear she’s a robot) and past-his-prime Spencer Breslin are the kids whose psychoses we’re supposed to see in ourselves. Instead, it just feels like watching precocious kids aping for the camera -- they’re more forced that the home video montage at the end of Philadelphia. I don’t care if I sound like a horrible person, but I welcome the day when Hollywood recognizes that Fanning has nothing to offer the film industry and lets her go to her perfect field: cold, Lilith Crane-style psychology.

Considering that the director is a proven production designer -- Welch created the sets for Men in Black, Batman Returns, and Edward Scissorhands, among others -- and that the cinematographer is impresario Emmanuel Lubezki (Sleepy Hollow, Great Expectations, Y Tu Mamá También), it’s amazing that The Cat in the Hat looks so ugly. Instead of recreating the world illustrated in Seuss’ book, they have chosen to drop every pastel under the sun into a world of oversized buildings and furniture, gruesome looking characters (Thing 1 and Thing 2 seem to be victims of face lifts gone awry), and a cat who could be Charles Nelson Reilly back from retirement.

Chuck Jones made the best of Seuss, and, although most kids today may remain ignorant to these masterpieces thanks to Grazer’s productions, these classics (which also include Horton Hears a Hoo and The Lorax, my favorite) will continue to remain untainted in the minds of my generation and its predecessors who read Seuss as a child and now attempt to read him to their kids. The anti-literary touch of Grazer may be profitable, but it’s also one of the great atrocities of our times.