Fall 2002 Films:

Amelie (2001)

It's hardly uncommon that a phenomenally popular American film will find an equally receptive audience in the European markets, but things rarely work out in the opposite direciton, which makes the success of 2001's Amelie an even more pleasant surprise-- that, and the fact that aggressively middlebrow Mirimax served as its North American distributor. The latest film from acclaimed director Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, Alien: Resurrection), Amelie plays as his love letter to a highly stylized, idyllic Paris that functions similarly to the romanticized New York City of Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums.

A "feel-good" film in the best possible sense of the phrase, Amelie stars beguiling newcomer Audrey Tautou as the titular heroine, whose unusual lifestyle and quirky charm leads her on a mission to bring joy to those around her. She is perhaps the ideal woman for Ewan McGregor's hopelessly romantic Christian from Moulin Rouge. The film centers around Amelie's various attempts to rectify the sources of sadness in the lives of the people she encounters, and her eventual pursuit of a young man who could bring her some much-needed happiness of her own.

The highest-profile of several essential French films released in 2001 (alongside Under the Sand, The Closet, and With a Friend Like Harry), Amelie illustrates how the higher expectations of "artsier" European moviegoers can lead to a fresh, innovative take on a genre as tired as the romantic comedy. With Jeunet's striking visual style-- Amelie ranks among the year's most beautifully photographed and creatively edited films-- Tautou's engaging performance, and a good-natured, often hilarious screenplay, Amelie is a thoroughly charming crowd-pleaser that goes a long way towards reversing some misconceptions about the smarminess and/or pretense of French cinema.

Gosford Park (2001)

Following a decade of critical and commercial disappointments (Pret-a-Porter, Short Cuts, Dr. T and the Women), 2001's Gosford Park restored considerable lustre to the career of acclaimed writer-director Robert Altman (Nashville). Gosford Park retains the two trademarks of Altman's style-- enormous casts of characters, intersecting story arcs-- and transplants those elements into a murder mystery set at posh estate in 1932 England. And the result is as much a biting satire of the British "Upstairs vs. Downstairs" class system as it is a whodunnit.

Unlike several of Altman's weaker efforts, Gosford Park shows evidence that it was planned in advance, rather than improvised during production, and this yields a film that tells a cohesive story. While the plot is certainly engaging, the real strength of Gosford Park is in its hyperliterate dialogue, which rings with humor both subtle and scathing. The best lines are largely reserved for Helen Mirren (The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover), who plays the estate's head housekeeper. Mirren gives the flashiest performance in a cast that includes nearly every recognizable british performer of the last twenty years-- only Michael Caine, Sir Ian McKellen, and Dame Judi Dench are conspicuously absent. Dame Maggie Smith (Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone), Michael Gambon (The Cook...), and Emily Watson (Breaking the Waves) also shine, and American Ryan Phillipe (White Squall, Cruel Intentions), surprisingly enough, doesn't embarass himself.

That Gosford Park also serves as a thinly-veiled jab at the Hollywood machine outside of which Altman has always operated was apparently lost on many of the people inside that machine, given the number of accolades the film has received. An Oscar nominee for both Best Picture and Best Director, and an Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay, Gosford Park was a standout among the many exceptional art-house films of 2001, earning the respect of film critics while pleasing Altman's long-time fans and winning over scores of new converts.

Donnie Darko (2001)

2001's most sadly mismarketed, underseen film, the flat-out brilliant Donnie Darko represents two important firsts: it is the debut feature of writer-director Richard Kelly, who established himself as a major new talent to watch, and it is the first good decision in the career of Drew Barrymore, whose Flower Films production company produced the film. Incorrectly touted as a cross between Final Destination and Stir of Echoes, Donnie Darko combines the vicious 1980's social satire of Heathers with the soul of Ghost World in a sci-fi genre piece that's everything 12 Monkeys was supposed to be, but wasn't.

And there's Frank, the giant, terrifying, talking silver rabbit, who knows precisely when the world will end.

Jake Gyllenhaal (October Sky, Bubble Boy) stars as Donnie Darko, a sensitive and intellectually gifted teen with predilections for incredibly elaborate hallucinations and destructive bouts of sleepwalking. He finds that the world around him has fundamentally changed after he returns from sleepwalking to find that an engine has fallen off a 747 and crashed through the roof of his bedroom. As he tries to sort out how his visions of Frank connect to a series of bizarre coincidences, Donnie faces conflicts with a coke-snorting thug classmate, an overzealous teacher / dance-team coach, and a repulsive self-help guru (Patrick Swayze, in a self-effacing performance that's easily the best of his career), all of whom present obstacles for his desire to make the world a better place.

Every bit as inspired and challenging as David Lynch's Mulholland Drive-- although with an infinitely more coherent internal logic-- Donnie Darko is destined to become a cult classic. In what is certainly one of the best screenplays in recent memory, the caustic 80's satire is hilarious and never forced, and the sci-fi elements remain consistent, carefully following the rules Kelly establishes about time-travel, vectors, and worm-holes. All of the principal characters-- and most of the supporting ones-- are intricately realized and beautifully performed. Donnie Darko is an ambitious film that succeeds on nearly every level and both demands and rewards multiple viewings.

Startup.com (2001)

Towards the end of the 1990s, e-commerce very briefly replaced-- or at least stood side-by-side with-- rock and roll as the epitome of the American Dream for young, upwardly mobile white males. With production costs falling, good computers became cheaper than good guitars, and an influx of ephemeral web-based businesses onto the unsuspecting stock market made countless internet surfers as wealthy as CEOs.

2001'sStartup.com documents the rise and fall of govWorks.com, one such e-business, and the effects of its demise on its co-founders. The film begins with long-time friends Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman outlining the premise of their company-- govWorks.com will provide an online forum for settling parking tickets, attending town meetings via streaming video feeds, and other such municipal activities. By the company's official launch date, the ambiguities of "other such municipal activities" have caused govWorks' staff to balloon to 200, none of whom really know what their company is supposed to do. Because of their narrow foci-- Herman is the programmer, while Tuzman handles sales and PR-- neither of the two co-founders can cope with their unexpected new problems, and the two friends are eventually driven apart.

While its trajectory is, in hindsight, all too predictable, Startup.com succeeds as a documentary because of the depth in its portrayal of Herman and, in particular, Tuzman. Despite their unflinching view of the formative stages of Tuzman's outright megalomania, directors Jehane Noujam and Chris Hegedus (The War Room) also convey the sincerity at the root of Tuzman's actions, and they present Tuzman's and Herman's reconciliation without succumbing to snide dark-comedy. Considering their subject, it would've been easier for Noujam and Hegedus to politicize the failure of govWorks; instead, they allow the viewer to draw their own conclusions about the aspiring dot-com millionaires.

The Gleaners and I (2001)

Inspired by an 1867 Millet painting of women in long skirts collecting stalks of wheat, The Gleaners and I is the latest release by acclaimed French New Wave filmmaker Agnes Varda (Vagabond, the misleadingly titled Kung Fu Master), now 72. "Gleaning" refers to the gathering of left-over crops after the harvest, a practice that has been protected by French law since 1554, the reign of King Henry IV. Using the new technology of her digital camera, Varda travels throughout France for over six months to observe modern gleaners in action.

Although she exposes both poverty and excess, Varda's film is not the didactic bleeding-heart treatise that an American filmmaker would've likely made about this subject. Instead, her disarming, congenial personality puts her subjects at ease, and The Gleaners and I emerges as a warm, humorous, and ultimately introspective piece. She portrays gleaners at work in the potato fields and apple orchards, where farmers often welcome their scavenger lifestyle, in the Burgundy wine region, where they are often forbidden, and in major urban areas, where they forage through dumpsters outside restaurants and in piles of discarded furniture and appliances. The gleaners are a group with a diverse sense of purpose-- some do forage for food out of necessity, while one gainfully employed man gleans for food because he hates the wastefulness of throwing-out items with recent sell-by dates. Others search not for food but for objects they can sell or can use in sculpture.

What makes The Gleaners and I so powerful is the way that Varda becomes a gleaner in her own right. With the digital camera, she is unencumbered by budget concerns, and this allows her the freedom to construct her extraordinary essay on her own terms. The gleaners, many of whom are loners and outcasts, are largely a social afterthought, but Varda has searched through their world and found something invaluable.

Down from the Mountain (2001)

Capturing the unexpected resurgence of Bluegrass / Americana music ignited by the success of the soundtrack from the Coen brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou?, director Chris Hegedus (Startup.com) makes an encore appearance in one of KFS' "Documentaries Weeks," this time joined by filmmakers Nick Doob and D. A. Pennebaker. As a promotion for the newly-released soundtrack, the stellar line-up of musicians from O Brother gathered in Nashville's historic Ryman Auditorium in early 2000 for a live performance of the soundtrack and "old-timey" arrangements of the artists' less traditional fare.

In the pre-concert footage, Hegedus et. al. depict the performers as approachable and endearing, no small feat considering how cliquish this relatively small community of musicians is-- the artists aren't formally introduced at the outset, so there's something of an assumption that the viewer knows who Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch are and can distinguish between the two. By the time they hit the stage, however, everyone's identity is firmly in place, and the exceptional music becomes the focus of the film.

As a concert film, there's very little room to argue with the performances in Down from the Mountain, and the legendary "Dr." Ralph Stanley alone makes the film worth seeing. With such standouts as Welch's "I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll" and Chris Thomas King's "John Law Burned Down the Liquor Store," it's easy to see why this event, originally conceived as a one-time-only affair, has become a phenomenally successful national tour, now in its second year.

Double Indemnity (1944)

KFS concludes "Billy Wilder Memorial Week" with the director's third film, Double Indemnity. One of the earliest films noir, Double Indemnity established what is now one of its genre's identifying themes in its opening lines-- "I killed him for money. And a woman," says Walter (Fred MacMurray, Above Suspicion). "I didn't get the money. And I didn't get the woman."

The woman in question is Phyllis (Barbara Stanwyck, The Thorn Birds), who wants Walter, an insurance salesman, to sell her husband a $50K double indemnity policy, and then arrange for his "accidental" death. Walter, presumably because of his lust for Phyllis, agrees to her plan, and together they pull off a seemingly perfect crime. Eventually, however, claims investigator Keyes (Edward G. Robinson, Little Caesar) determines that a crime was committed, which causes considerable tension for Walter, who views Keyes as something of a father-figure.

Although its story now comes across as well-worn, the reason Double Indemnity remains a genuinely captivating film lies in the way Wilder and screenwriter Raymond Chandler handle the three principal characters. Wilder offers no definitive answers as to what these characters are really after, and this is what sets Wilder apart from lesser directors. His approach to the film noir story is different: he wants to show what happens to the characters after they've completed their crime. Rather than a clear answer, Wilder is interested in the actual consequences of the characters' actions, and he allows the audience to sort out the truth for themselves.

Jesus' Son (1999)

Often overlooked in light of flashier "drug films" like Trainspotting and Requiem for a Dream, 1999's Jesus' Son takes a novel approach to its protagonist's addiction. Set primarily in 1971 Iowa City, Jesus' Son is narrated by a man named "FH" (Billy Crudup, Almost Famous), for reasons which become almost immediately apparent. Because he's neither a traditional hero nor an anti-hero-- he's just a somewhat naive person overwhelmed by the drug culture-- Jesus' Son is surprisingly objective for a film about heroin.

Director Alison Maclean structures FH's narrative in a way that's appropriate to the source material, a series of short stories by author Denis Johnson. As he's telling his story, FH often doubles-back to fill in gaps or to provide previously forgotten details, resulting in a narrative that's largely episodic and disjointed. This structure allows the extreme highs and lows of FH's life to remain distinct, while the filler that occurs in between is forgotten. The tone of the individual episode varies-- Jack Black (High Fidelity) makes an appearance in the most hilarious one, Denis Leary (The Ref) has a supporting role in the most absurd-- but the overall film is decidedly bittersweet. FH's story neither glamorizes nor demonizes drug use; rather, it's told simply from the perspective of a survivor. Jesus' Son isn't a cautionary tale. It's about a man who, if nothing else, needed to take a more active role in his life.

Breaking the Waves (1996)

The first full English language film from director Lars Von Trier (Dancer in the Dark, Dogville), 1996's Breaking the Waves remains perhaps the highest-profile film in his "Dogme95" style. Shot using a hand-held digital camera and only natural lighting, Breaking the Waves often resembles a documentary, establishing an uncompromising intimacy with the characters that is appropriate for the film's subject matter. A complex and profoundly moving examination of both devotion and contemporary faith, Breaking the Waves is the story of Bess (Emily Watson, Hilary and Jackie, Gosford Park), a sheltered, childlike woman who sacrifices herself to a life of sexual brutality to save the life of the man she loves.

The film's greatest strength lies in its ambiguities. It is never made clear why Jan (Stellan Skarsgard, Dancer in the Dark), following an oil-rig accident that leaves him paralyzed from the neck down, asks his wife to go out and make love with another man, then to come back and tell him about it. Von Trier never explains this request because Bess never questions it herself. Further, for most of the film, Bess' relationship with God, which is absolutely central to the narrative, is only vaguely defined. Bess may be exhibiting signs of a split personality when she "converses" with God, or she might actually be His instrument of salvation.

Von Trier is often characterized as something of a misogynist, based on the fates of his heroines, but Breaking the Waves goes quite a long way towards disproving that, as Von Trier draws a distinct parallel between Bess and Christ. And Watson's performance as Bess is fittingly revelatory-- it's arguably the bravest, most difficult performance of the past decade. Showing none of the contempt for the audience that marred Dancer in the Dark, Von Trier uses Watson's captivating work to forge a compelling, spiritual near-epic.

Heavenly Creatures (1992)

With its frenetic visual style and disturbing theme of matricide, and with its reliance on extended fantasy sequences, director Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures now represents a seamless transition from his smaller, darker "cult" films (Dead Alive, Meet the Feebles) to his mainstream triumph with 2001's The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. Based on a true story, Heavenly Creatures is an intriguing, unsettling film about the obsessive relationship that develops between two girls in 1950's New Zealand.

Pauline (Melanie Lynskey, The Frighteners) is a dour, introverted girl until Juliet (Kate Winslet, Quills, Iris) enrolls at her school. The two quickly develop a strong friendship, in which they compare childhood illnesses, work on a medieval romance novel, and eventually "visit" the Kingdom of Borovia, the mythical land they've created. Each girl finds something in the other that is missing from her own life, and their relationship turns into an unhealthy co-dependence. When the girls' families begin to notice changes in their daughters, they make an ill-conceived attempt to separate Pauline and Juliet, with ultimately tragic results.

In Heavenly Creatures, Jackson moves away from the confrontational style of his earlier films, towards a more mature, appropriate tone. That he manages to avoid the melodrama in which his two principal characters revel is perhaps the most telling sign of his growth as a director. Instead, he builds a controlled tension while demonstrating how two people can feed off instability and obsession to bring out the worst in each other.

Pi (1998)

KFS kicks off "Geek Week" with the auspicious debut of director Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream). Pi centers around Max Cohen (Sean Gullette, Requiem for a Dream), a young, brilliant mathematician and his search for an "answer" to Pi. Using his home-made computer, he attempts to identify the elusive code that his mentor, Sol (Mark Margolis, Hannibal, End of Days), failed to find. Sol's intense efforts eventually brought on a debilitating stroke, and Max similarly suffers from crippling headaches and seizures that leave him on the brink of insanity. As he gets closer to his goal, Max also finds himself pursued by a radical Kabbalah sect, who believe that Max's solution will reveal the true name of God, and by a group of well-armed Wall Street types, who think that Max's work can accurately predict the fluctuations of the stock market. These two groups will do anything to get at the series of numbers inside Max's head, and that puts Max's life in grave danger.

Strikingly filmed in high-contrast black-and-white, Pi serves as an excellent introduction to Aronofsky's unique, if idiosyncratic, visual style. At his best, Aronofsky uses his stark visuals and his jarring edits to convey a genuine paranoia worthy of Edgar Allan Poe or Alfred Hitchcock. The way he portrays Max's Brooklyn might not be particularly flattering, but it is undeniably effective as a maze of endless catacombs and narrow back-alleys.

If there's a real weakness in Aronofsky's first feature, it's that he's too ambitious, attempting to unify perhaps too many profound metaphysical and spiritual questions in the film's final sequences. If not everything in the last twenty minutes is plausible, however, it's never less than fascinating.

Trekkies (1999)

In the relatively short history of American television, no series has attracted such intense devotion as Star Trek and its spin-offs. The lengths to which its obsessed fans will go often make "Trekkies" easy targets for ridicule (William Shatner's now infamous "Get a life!" sketch on Saturday Night Live) and satire (the film Galaxy Quest). 1999's Trekkies, a documentary consisting primarily of footage from a variety of Star Trek conventions, takes a somewhat less condescending view of this subculture without squandering its inherent absurdity and humor.

Narrated by Denise Crosby (Lt. Tasha Yar of ST: The Next Generation), Trekkies also features interviews with former cast members from each of the four Star Trek series, each offering his or her own take on the phenomenon. Most entertaining, however, are the interviews with the Trekkies themselves. Included are Barbara Adams, a woman who was dismissed from the Whitewater jury for dressing in uniform, and Denis Bourguinon, a dentist from Orlando who designed his office around an incredibly elaborate "Starbase Dental" theme.

Not everyone in Trekkies goes to such extreme lengths, and director Roger Nygard does well to humanize a group of people who routinely dress up like aliens. What emerges from Trekkies is the idea that these people are no more extreme in their chosen lifestyle than socially-accepted sports fanatics.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Only a certain degree of competence behind the camera is required to make images look nice; something far more elusive-- genius-- is needed to keep the pretty pictures from overwhelming the narrative that drives said pictures. That Peter Jackson's (Heavenly Creatures, The Frighteners) narrative happened to be derived from a universally familiar "hero" archetype makes his adaptation of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring even more astounding. Given the scope of J.R.R. Tolkien's source work, the $300 million budget provided by New Line Cinema, and the burden of expectation of several generations of fans, Jackson's film is an unqualified triumph.

Following hobbit Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood, The Good Son, The Faculty) from his home in the Shire towards Mt. Doom, Jackson crafts breathtaking and distinct landscapes for each region of Tolkien's Middle Earth. In his quest to return the One Ring to the fires of Mt. Doom in which it was forged, Frodo and his Fellowship of Nine struggle to evade the minions of the evil warlord Sauron, confront their individual temptations to claim the power the ring offers, and battle an unpleasant cave-troll in the climactic battle set in the dark Mines of Moria. Whereas Tolkien's novels are often exposition-heavy, Jackson has no problems in crafting compelling action sequences. Unlike, say, The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones, The Lord of the Rings represents a perfect integration of CGI technology and live-action.

While Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring has been variously interpreted as a Christian text, a parable of World War II, and an anti-industrialization fable, Jackson wisely focuses on the simplest aspects of the story-- Frodo's role as the archetypal reluctant hero who perseveres against seemingly insurmountable odds. As a result, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring works just as well for those unfamiliar with Tolkien's work as it does for the die-hard fans.


Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999)

KFS kicks off its "Mockumentaries Week" with 1999's Drop Dead Gorgeous, director Michael Patrick Jann's (of MTV's sketch-comedy series The State) biting satire of both beauty pageants and small-town American values. Writer Lona Williams rarely misses her targets in the shrewdly composed screenplay, and she has experience with the subject matter, having voiced perennial pageant-winner Amber Dempsey on an episode of The Simpsons. Jann's irreverent perspective is an excellent match for Williams' witty script, making Drop Dead Gorgeous an engaging, smart comedy.

Presented as a behind-the-scenes expose of the lengths to which pageant contestants will go in order to win the coveted title of Miss Mt. Rose, Drop Dead Gorgeous focuses on the competition's two front-runners: Amber Atkins (Kirsten Dunst, Spiderman, The Virgin Suicides), who lives in a trailer park and dreams of following in the footsteps of her idol, Diane Sawyer, and Becky Leeman (Denise Richards, Wild Things, Valentine), the spoiled rich kid who's also vice-president of the local Lutheran Gun Club. Complicating matters is Becky's mother, Gladys (Kirstie Alley, in a rare-for-her watchable performance), a former Miss Mt. Rose who'll stop at nothing to ensure that her daughter move on to the Miss Minnesota pageant.

The supporting cast, ultimately, upstages the performances of the leads. While Dunst occasionally botches a line-reading, Kenyon alumna Allison Janney (an Emmy winner for TV's The West Wing) is a riot as Amber's sleazy neighbor, and Brittany Murphy (Clueless, Cherry Falls) turns in a hilarious variation of Clueless' Tai. As Becky, Richards, a spectacularly awful actress, turns in the only solid performance of her career here, as well. Her "talent" portion of the Mt. Miss Rose pageant is easily the film's high point.

Waiting for Guffman (1996)

KFS wraps up its “Mockumentary Week” with Waiting for Guffman, Christopher Guest’s first experiment writing and directing this new comedic genre. Guest establishes himself as an incredibly strong director in the sharp comedy of Waiting for Guffman, with lines like, “It's a Zen thing, like how many babies fit in a tire,” coming from Corky St. Claire, an off-off-off Broadway director (Guest). Each character, or caricature, shows how hilarious small town life can be. Especially when the town dentist (Eugene Levy, Serendipity) tries to sing, exhibit his hilarious comedy, and act.

Set during the sesquicentennial celebrations of tiny Blaine, MI, “stool capital of the world,” we see random townspeople come together to make a play in the high school auditorium, telling the fantastic history of their town. Guest investigates what happens when the play becomes something bigger than cardboard backdrops and covered wagons, not to mention aliens, when director Corky St. Claire informs the group that he has raised interest in a Broadway producer- Mr. Guffman. The terrible actors become star struck, convinced of their greatness and inevitable success, make plans for the trip to New York, and go through extremes to make the play something spectacular.

This movie is painfully aware of how awkward amateurs can be in the acting world, and how anyone can become convinced that they have genuine talent, despite signs otherwise. With great performances by Eugene Levy (American Pie), Parker Posey (House of Yes- we’re good at making Kenyon connections), Fred Willard (Austin Powers 2: The Spy Who Shagged Me) and Catherine O’Hara (Beetlejuice), Waiting for Guffman quickly became one of the best comedies of the last ten years.
-- Lindsey Joerger, '03, and Valerie Temple, '03 --

This is Spinal Tap (1984)

Add a faux hair-band to a documentary by Rob Reiner (Meathead from All in the Family), and you get what was appropriately dubbed a “rockumentary” for its 1984 release. This escapade into the lives of some seriously hard rockers introduced us to this new form of comedy, now dubbed the “mockumentary” as it passes itself off as a documentary about fictional people/bands/beauty pageants, as the case may be.

Wishing they were the Beatles filming the glory of their concerts, the British band, Spinal Tap, welcomes a filmmaker into their start-studded world. The band had a hit, albeit many years ago, and is trying to cling to any remnants of their glory that may be left in the world. Egging them on is their one remaining fan, who is conveniently a filmmaker, determined to make a documentary of Spinal Tap’s momentous American tour. Starring Christopher Guest, (married to Jamie Lee Curtis, Halloween), Michael McKean (Hunchback of Notre Dame II, The Brady Bunch Movie), and Harry Shearer (voice artist for C. Montgomery Burns/Waylon Smithers/Ned Flanders/Seymour Skinner/Otto Mann the Busdriver of The Simpsons), we watch along with the cast of This is Spinal Tap as the band tries to stick to the notion that they are serious musicians. It’s hard to contradict this thought as they squeeze out gems of deep thought, such as “certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful.”

In all their glory, the greatest, loudest rock band of all time meets with a series of terrible mishaps on the road, creating an incredible satire poking fun at those fantastic musicians of the 80s, known as metal bands, who show that “it's such a fine line between stupid, and clever.”
-- Lindsey Joerger, '03, and Valerie Temple, '03 --

Waking Life (2001)

Inexplicably robbed of an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature-- in favor of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius, no less-- writer-director Richard Linklater's Waking Life is a powerful, complex film that is innovative in its style and challenging in its content. Tackling a host of philosophical questions, Waking Life is infinitely more engaging than a largely plotless, dialogue-centered film rightfully should be.

Waking Life follows an unnamed protagonist played by Wiley Wiggins (the incoming freshman from Linklater's Dazed and Confused) as he explores a city where, as a child, he was once told that "dream is destiny." He encounters a variety of characters-- mostly fictional, but some "real" people in cameo appearances-- and tells them of how he feels as though he's living through a dream from which he can't awaken. How these characters respond results in a series of dialogues and, more often than not, monologues on topics ranging from the evolution of language to the value of existentialism in a post post-modern philosophical climate to the role of quantum mechanics in explaining "free will" and to the significance of driving around in a car that looks like a boat. That the characters in Waking Life occasionally come across as pretentious isn't all that surprising, but that Linklater manages to keep a film with this weighty subject matter from lapsing into pretense is outright remarkable.

Just as noteworthy, then, is the "rotoscoping" animation technique that Linklater and art director Bob Sabiston employed to capture Wiggins' unique state of waking life. Linklater first filmed all of the actors using a hand-held digital camera. Hundreds of animators then traced the images, resulting in a captivating form of animation that is both highly stylized and acutely realistic at once. Like the ideas the characters discuss, the images-- and, in turn, the film itself-- seem very much alive.

Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer (1985)

KFS concludes its "KFS Hates Shrek" week with 1985's Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer, a frequently absurd nostalgia think-piece that often calls into question exactly how much people really remember about the cartoons of the 80's. Although much of the appeal of the film lies simply in the fact that it's the Rainbow Brite movie, Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer is a thought-provoking film that tackles its archetypal "good vs. evil" theme with a few more sinister twists than typically seen in children's movies of the Reagan era.

The film focuses on the coming of Spring, when all light and color return to the world. But Rainbow Brite and her bizarre cohorts, the Color Kids, quickly realize that something is amiss when the colors fail to appear on schedule. Immediately, they reach the logical conclusion that the "lightgiver of the universe" must be missing, so Rainbow Brite and her horse Starlite set out to return all of the world's color. The "Star Stealer" of the title is an evil, spoiled space-princess with her own design for the "lightgiver," which turns out to be a giant diamond. Rainbow Brite then teams with new friends Onyx, Orin, and Krys to recover the "lightgiver" and to defeat the evil princess and her army of henchmen, which includes a robotic horse and the smarmy Sergeant Zombo.

Considering the shoddy animation of the Rainbow Brite television series-- comparable to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe or Captain Caveman with its stagnant backgrounds and the jerky movements of the characters-- Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer boasts surprisingly detailed, fluid animation. That the film was produced in Japan is evident in the high-quality of the art direction. Granted, it also means that the film's dialogue doesn't always make sense or follow basic English syntax. But it's Rainbow Brite, and she saves the day. Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer is not to be missed.

No Man's Land (2001)

A surprising Oscar and Golden Globe winner for Best Foreign Film-- beating out the more popular Amelie-- 2001's No Man's Land is a very, very dark comedy set in a trench in the middle of the Bosnian/Serb conflict. First-time writer-director Danis Tanovic wisely chooses to focus most of his film on just three characters, using their situation as a clever metaphor for the war around them.

The film opens with the Serbian army using the presumed-dead body of a Bosnian to booby-trap a land mine in a trench. A tense relationship then develops between a Serb soldier (Rene Bitorajac) and a Bosnian soldier (Branko Djuric), who realize that the man on the land mine has just opened his eyes, and that any movement on his part would kill them all. Later, Tanovic expands the scope of the narrative to include both UN "peacekeeping" forces and the type of overzealous, self-aggrandizing reporter (Katrin Cartlidge) who seem to thrive on abject human suffering.

Ultimately, No Man's Land works so well because Tanovic captures the absurdity of the situation without compromising its humanity. The intelligent manner in which Tanovic handles difficult questions about the nature of hatred and of war makes No Man's Land particularly timely.

Ratcatcher (2000)

One of the most auspicious debut features in recent memory, writer-director Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher manages to find the poetry and the optimism in even the vilest of settings. A recreation of a horrific childhood in Glasgow, Ratcatcher is set in the national garbage strike of the mid-1970s, when city streets were often uninhabitable by humans but were ideal for rats. That the young protagonist, James (William Eadie, in a self-assured debut performance), will eventually become a victim of his dire circumstances is inevitable, so Ramsay wisely keeps her focus on James' naive idealism. In doing so, she balances the grim reality of the setting with extended narrative sequences that are breathtaking in their lyricism.

The film opens with a young boy wrapping himself in a window curtain, as though he could protect himself from the toxic world outside. Just minutes later, the boy has fallen into a fetid canal and drowned. Although the death is ruled an accident, James blames himself for failing to save his friend, and this guilt makes his already bleak life, which includes an abusive family and a roving gang of neighborhood thugs, even more difficult to bear. His one solace is Margaret Anne (Leanne Mullen, also in a debut performance), the slightly older girl with whom James shares a need for childhood innocence that neither of them can find elsewhere.

A difficult but ultimately rewarding film, Ratcatcher covers similar territory to typical coming-of-age films. That said, Ramsay displays a profound understanding of childhood, using an interesting editing style and a nearly hypnotic, dream-like perspective on the world to interpret the Glasgow slums the way a child such as James might. It is this unique perspective that makes Ratcatcher so powerful-- mere sympathy would not be sufficient to bring the audience close to such downtrodden characters-- and it speaks to Ramsay's remarkable gifts as a filmmaker. Along with her acclaimed follow-up, 2002's Morvern Callar, Ratcatcher establishes Ramsay as one of the most captivating new voices in international cinema.

Amores Perros (2001)

KFS concludes "Foreign Films Are Good for You Week" with another exceptional recent debut feature, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Amores Perros, a richly deserving 2001 Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film. Although the title doesn't easily translate into English, the official US release title, Love's a Bitch, is a fairly good fit, given the motives of several characters and the prominent roles that dogs play in each of the three intersecting story arcs. What emerges from these stories is a fascinating, explosive portrait of both the social and moral highs and lows of Mexico City and a powerful, irony-free vision of how the allure of violence affects civilization.

Amores Perros opens with one of the most singularly memorable scenes of the past decade-- a high-speed chase in which two men and their severely injured Rottweiler attempt to outrun a well-armed street gang. It's a scene that can't, and ultimately doesn't, end well, and the crash serves as the focal point for Inarritu's captivating non-linear narrative. Centered around this accident, Amores Perros moves variously backwards and forwards through three compelling stories about the ease with which people can commit acts of violence and the challenges they face in finding redemption.

Most reviews compare Amores Perros to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, but, structural similarities aside, Inarritu's film is a vastly more mature effort. Here, violence doesn't exist merely for the sake of violence or of absurdist humor; instead, violence is depicted as both inevitable in human relationships and ultimately corrosive. The violence of Amores Perros, not surprisingly, is often disturbingly graphic-- the film's depiction of dog-fights are particularly brutal and ensure that Amores Perros is not a film that most pet-owners could easily enjoy-- but Inarritu's lack of irony and self-conscious pop-culture references, fortunately, mean that the audience is not indicted in that violence.

The Exorcist-- The Version You've Never Seen (1973/2000)

Essentially a large-scale publicity stunt for an upcoming "prequel," the 2000 re-release of 1973's The Exorcist managed to reignite interest in and discussion of what, 25 years earlier, became an unexpected pop-cultural phenomenon, while also generating some new controversy. Director William Friedkin (The French Connection) maintains that his 1973 cut is "perfect," but writer William Peter Blatty (The Great Train Robbery) insisted that an additional twelve minutes of footage be added to The Exorcist, to restore his true intent for the film. Compared to Friedkin's original version, only one of the four scenes added to the film result in appreciable changes to the film's "meaning," that scene being a protracted, upbeat revision to the ending. The other added scenes, then, do little to change The Exorcist's status as one of the most effective horror films of all time.

What makes The Exorcist so effective is that it focuses as much on its characters as on its scares. The target of the film's demonic possession is an innocent twelve year-old girl, Regan (Linda Blair), the daughter of successful actress Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn, Requiem for a Dream). When Regan's behavior becomes increasingly erratic and then violent, her mother seeks aid from a variety of professionals, finally calling on Father Damian Karras (Jason Miller) as a last resort. Those who have criticized The Exorcist as a purely exploitative genre exercise miss Friedkin's skillfully planned character development-- particularly in Miller's emotionally conflicted priest.

Cube (1997)

The second film in KFS' "Don't be a Baby Week," like Halloween or The Blair Witch Project, illustrates that a great concept and sharp writing can make up for the lack of a budget when crafting a genuinely scary film. 1997's Cube, a tiny-budgeted psychological thriller, boasts some surprisingly realistic special effects and a truly memorable production design, in addition to an overwhelmingly nihilistic tone worthy of David Fincher's best films.

A group of six strangers awaken, finding themselves trapped inside a bizarre maze of connected cubes. As though the claustrophobic atmosphere weren't sufficiently tense, some of the cubes are booby-trapped in sadistic, gruesome ways, meaning that the group must rely on each person's individual strengths to attempt to find a way out of their prison. Math student Leaven (Nicole De Boer, Prom Night IV) looks for patterns in the serial numbers on each door, while "Type A" cop Worth (David Hewlett) uses his aggressive behavior to assume the leadership role for the group. Of even more uncertain motives are the escape artist Rennes (Wayne Robson, Dolores Claiborne) and Kazan (Andrew Miller), who has autism.

The real strengths of Cube, however, are not with these characters. The fact that writer-director Vincenzo Natali convincingly created a "maze" using just creative lighting panels and camera angles on a single cube set is simply a remarkable accomplishment. What gives Cube its greatest impact, then, is the way that the maze works as a model of an existential hell.

Joy Ride (2001)

More strictly escapist-- but, at its best moments, no less tense-- 2001's Joy Ride may lack the moral weight of The Exorcist or the thematic depth of Cube, but it's an example of a solid exercise in pure style. Unlike most recent post-Scream horror films geared towards a young audience-- much less effective fare like Final Destination or Jeepers Creepers-- Joy Ride works because it is anchored in three believable, sympathetic characters in a not-so-implausible scenario.

Lewis (Paul Walker, The Fast and the Furious) volunteers to drive long-time friend Venna (Lee Lee Sobieski, The Glass House) from Boulder to the east coast over a break from college, but he takes a detour to bail his slightly defective brother Fuller (Steve Zahn, Happy, Texas) out of jail. On the way to Boulder, Fuller convinces Lewis to play a CB-radio prank on a trucker who uses the handle "Rusty Nail," who is not at all amused by their joke and decides to exact his revenge on Lewis, Fuller, Venna, and just about anyone else who gets in his way. The climactic showdown with Rusty Nail at a sketchy motel is perfectly crafted, an incredibly tense finale that never insults the audience's intelligence.

Joy Ride covers similar territory to Steven Spielberg's 1971 film Duel in its general plot structure, but the characters and all of the details are original. Director John Dahl (Rounders) is in firm command of the film's tension, such that the unlikely situations quickly become inevitable. And, although he receives third billing behind Walker and Sobieski, Zahn carries Joy Ride with a hilarious, often improvised performance that shows great skill in not detracting from the film's tension.

Bottle Rocket (1996)

As with Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, another film about laughably inept would-be criminals, the backstory about how Wes Anderson's and Owen Wilson's Bottle Rocket was made is often more compelling than the film itself. Director Wes Anderson and writer-co-star Owen Wilson met at the University of Texas, made a short film about their idea for Bottle Rocket, then took that short to the Sundance Film Festival, where several big-name filmmakers helped them acquire funding from Columbia Pictures to turn Bottle Rocket into a feature-length film. The charm of Bottle Rocket, then, is that it plays as one would expect a film made by a group of friends using material adapted from their lives. Many scenes in Bottle Rocket almost seem like a documentary of several friends sitting around, trying to think of something to do.

The film opens with Anthony (Luke Wilson) planning his escape from a minimum-security mental institution. Most of the details of the escape have been plotted by his friend Didnan (Owen Wilson), who may or may not be more deserving of institutionalization than Anthony. After the escape, their flawed logic comes into play again when they collaborate on a residential burglary that turns out to be far less risky than they anticipate. Nevertheless, they are convinced that a statewide manhunt for them is underway, and they spend most of the remainder of the film hiding out in a hotel, where Anthony falls in love with Inez (Lumi Cavazos, Like Water for Chocolate), a maid who understands about ten words of English.

When Bottle Rocket works best, it is a true masterpiece of offbeat comedy. When Anderson and Wilson decide to focus on character development, not the strong point of Bottle Rocket, the film strongly suggests the potential and brilliance that they would go on to display in Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums.

Rushmore (1998)

The second film in “Wes Anderson / Owen Wilson” week is also the second collaboration of the two, and a complete delight. Following up Bottle Rocket, the comedic duo produced Rushmore, which is already a classic after less than five years since its release. The pairing of young unknown Jason Schwartzman (the son of The Godfather’s Talia Shire) and an aged Bill Murray (Ghostbusters) as co-stars was an odd move, but Wilson’s and Anderson’s films all prove that oddities can be truly hilarious.

Schwartzman plays the role of Max Fischer, a 10th grader at the prestigious Rushmore Academy who finds that everything he lives for is on the campus of his school. Though he does poorly in all of his classes, Max controls a great number of extracurricular activities, including the French Club, the Debate Team, the Calligraphy Club, the Bombardment Society, and the Trap and Skeet Club. New people in Max’s life are Rushmore Alumnus Herman Blume, for which Murray received some of the best reviews of his long career. Herman befriends Max just in time for the two to be torn apart by first grade teacher Rosemary Cross (The Sixth Sense’s Olivia Williams), with whom they both find themselves enamored.

Rushmore is an absurd coming-of-age story told by two men who have an appreciation for juvenile wisdom. Bill Murray will dazzle you with career-defining performance in which he, like the film itself, is deeply heart-warming without forgetting to make you laugh. Rushmore has an indefinable charm and wit that will win you over from its first frames.
-- Todd Detmold, '06 --

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

“Wes Anderson / Owen Wilson” week concludes with the most recent product of Wilson and Anderson’s collaboration: The Royal Tenenbaums. As their careers have progressed, their films have only gotten better. Tenenbaums is a brilliant, hilarious, and moving masterpiece and an inspiring achievement in filmmaking.

Gene Hackman (Behind Enemy Lines) plays Royal Tenenbaum, the unlikely patriarch of the Tenenbaum family, which lives in the house on Archer Avenue in an autumnal, fantastical New York City. Royal and his wife Etheline (Ever After’s Angelica Houston) have three children: Chas, Margot and Richie. As children, all three are prodigies. Chas (Ben Stiller) is an entrepreneurial breeder of Dalmatian Mice, Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow) an award-winning playwright and Richie (Luke Wilson) a champion tennis player since the third grade. After Royal and Etheline separate because of Royal’s inability to be decent husband or father, she raises the children on her own.

Eventually, everyone in the family is emotionally instable and lonely in a quirky, absurd Anderson/Wilson way. The Royal Tenenbaums is one of the most well-drawn ensemble films in years; every character is utterly human. The movie will break your heart, sew it back together again, and leave you waiting desperately for a fourth movie from Anderson and Wilson.
-- Todd Detmold, '06--

Sullivan’s Travels (1941)

“Movies Reference in Other Movies” week launches with Preston Sturges’ Sullivan’s Travels, a classic of screwball comedy. Sturges, in his fourth feature, tries to climb out of his slapstick ditch by making a movie about a director trying to branch out of his slapstick ditch.

Joel McCrea plays John L. Sullivan, a veteran Hollywood film director who decides that he wants to make a movie more socially conscious than his movies have been to date. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have a clue what it’s like to be poor, and so Sullivan sets off on a journey with a dime in his pocket to try and determine what it’s like to live in poverty. Where, in its first act, Sullivan’s Travels is as much a screwball comedy as Sturges’ earlier films, it takes dramatic, tragic turns, as it follows it’s main character on his trek.

Sullivan’s Travels has been hugely influential on modern American cinema. The Coen Brothers pay it homage tonally in Barton Fink while more blatantly in their second to last release; the movie Sullivan is hoping to make will be called O Brother, Where Art Thou? Robert Altman’s film Dr. T and the Women follows a main character named Sullivan Travis, while Monsters, Inc. names a monster James P. Sullivan, whose nickname, like Sturges’ protagonist, is Sulley.

Of course, the movie is not worthy of your time only because it will remind of you of recent films you may have seen in the theaters. It is classic Hollywood at its best- smart, funny and moving.
-- Todd Detmold, '06--

Day for Night (1973)

KFS continues its "Movies Referenced in Other Movies Week" with the film that was the subject of the most preposterous allusion ever filmed-- until Kim Basinger turned up watching Imitation of Life in 8 Mile, at least. 1973's Day for Night, directed by French New Wave filmmaker Francois Truffaut, is the subject of a lenghty, completely out-of-place monologue in Urban Legends: Final Cut. Truffaut is renowned for his genuine affection for the process of filmmaking, and in none of his twenty-three films is this more apparent than in Day for Night.

Set in a studio in Nice, France, where filming of a movie called Meet Pamela has begun, Day for Night plays out as an insightful anthology of anecdotes from film shoots, and what emerges is a glimpse into the intense, forced community that exists during production. The characters are all familiar-- the emotionally-fragile diva (Jacqueline Bisset), the aging leading man (Jean-Pierre Aumont) -- but Truffaut's brilliant directorial flair keeps them from becoming mere stock characters as the Meet Pamela shoot progresses. Truffaut himself even steps in front of the camera, playing the Meet Pamela director, who serves as the narrator for Day for Night. One of the film's most intriguing aspects is how the director of what turns out to be an exceptional film plays a director who is oblivious to the fact that he's directing a terrible film. Day for Night offers some great material for fans of meta-analysis.

Thematically, Day for Night is akin to recent releases like Ed Wood and Boogie Nights in terms of the type of people portrayed. At one point, Truffaut's character tells a heartbroken young actor, "People like us are only happy in our work." It's a statement that speaks volumes about how, for these people, simply being on the set is infinitely more important than the completed film itself.

Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

Referenced extensively in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers and stylistically linked to another dozen or so films, 1967's Bonnie and Clyde actually owes quite a bit to Truffaut, who embraced the film's original screenplay and brought it to the attention of Warren Beatty, who was determined to produce it. Reviled by critics on its initial release, Bonnie and Clyde has since been called "the first modern American film," a richly deserved accolade that fully takes into account the film's influence on all subsequent American cinema.

The film opens somewhat lightheartedly, as Bonnie (Faye Dunaway, Mommie Dearest) catches Clyde (Beatty, Dick Tracy, Bulworth) attempting to steal her mother's car. In Clyde, Bonnie sees a way out of her drab, impoverished west Texas town. As the film unfolds, it becomes clear that he serves this same function not only for Bonnie, but for the other members of the CW gang and also for everyone who reads the newspaper accounts of their bank robberies. Through their violence, Bonnie and Clyde become the ultimate form of escapism.

And chief among Bonnie and Clyde's successes is the way the film changed cinema violence. American audiences had never before seen such graphic violence as in Bonnie's and Clyde's final execution played for an artistic statement. What makes Bonnie and Clyde such a powerful, enduring classic is the way that the actors-- including supporting turns by Gene Hackman (The Royal Tenenbaums) and Gene Wilder (Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory)-- and director Arthur Penn (Little Big Man, Alice's Restaurant) perfectly balance this violence with equal, alternating parts of comedy and, ultimately, tragedy.

Following (1998)

KFS kicks off its "Black and White Week" with the debut feature of writer-director Christopher Nolan, whose 2001 triumph Memento made him Hollywood's latest "it-boy" filmmaker. In light of Memento's critical and commercial successes, Nolan's largely neglected first film, 1998's Following, has garnered some well-deserved attention. A taut, suspenseful "film noir" genre exercise, Following certainly ranks among the most assured debuts in recent memory.

The film's nameless protagonist, played by co-producer Jeremy Theobald in his only billed performance, leads such a marginal life that he becomes obsessed with following other people-- not with the intent to harm them, but simply to learn about their lives. He insists that he's only doing research for some writing he intends to do, but Nolan makes it clear that this young man's hobby is actually his way of filling up his otherwise empty life. The hobby takes an unexpected turn when he decides to follow Cobb (Alex Haw), a burglar who introduces Theobald's character to the exciting world of breaking and entering, showing him how he can reconstruct someone's entire life in devastating detail with just a handful of well-chosen items.

The scenes of the actual burglaries are easily Following's most captivating, and they hint at the claustrophobic atmosphere Nolan so masterfully developed in Memento and to a considerably lesser extent in his 2002 re-make of Insomnia. It's obvious that Theobald has gotten himself in well over his head, but the manner in which Nolan selectively reveals details as he changes frames-of-reference leaves the viewer guessing as to the specifics of the situation. It's this tension and Nolan's attention to pacing that are Following's greatest strengths. Like Darren Aronofsky's Pi, it's a genuine testament to the spirit of independent filmmaking-- Nolan's brand of ingenuity is ultimately more important to quality filmmaking than multimillion dollar budgets. Not all of the details fall into place quite as well as they should, but Following certifies Nolan's status as an emerging talent worth watching.


The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)

The most frequent criticism of the Coen brothers' films is that they play out strictly as rote genre exercises, with little or nothing of their own to say. This criticism has only on rare occasions-- their 1984 debut Blood Simple, Barton Fink to a lesser extent-- been founded, and never has it been less applicable than to 2001's The Man Who Wasn't There, a film of uncompromising artistic and intellectual maturity. The Coen brothers have created many great films, genuinely coming into their own and maintaining a consistent standard of excellence since 1994's The Hudsucker Proxy. That said, The Man Who Wasn't There towers over all of their previous work, an outright masterpiece.

At two points in The Man Who Wasn't There, Ed Crane (Sling Blade's and A Simple Plan's Billy Bob Thornton, inexcusably robbed of an Oscar nomination for this film) is asked the same question, "What kind of man are you?" At its essence, this is the fundamental question, rarely spoken, that drives the entirety of the film noir genre-- the noir hero may eventually save the day or avenge a lost friend or loved one, but at what cost? As the world descends into chaos both social-- the rise of women in the workplace-- and political-- WWII-- any victory for the hero is ultimately a hollow one that typically points to his own moral corruption.

The Coen brothers very clearly understood this about films noir, and, in crafting The Man Who Wasn't There, they attempt to construct their hero in an entirely different way. Although they make exceptional use of the genre-staple voiceover, The Man Who Wasn't There attempts to define the character of Ed Crane through the people around him. His wife (Fargo's and Almost Famous' Frances McDormand, in arguably her best performance) comprehensively fails to understand him. Her boss / lover (James Gandolfini, TV's "Tony Soprano") threatens him. Birdy (Scarlett Johansson, Ghost World), the daughter of a friend, refers to him as "an enthusiast" when it comes to her questionable musical talents. Though each of them are inevitably and tragically affected by the decisions Ed makes, what none of them realize or even consider are his motives. To them, Ed exists as a construct of a man, not as a real one. What drives The Man Who Wasn't There are Ed's attempts, however misguided, to prove them wrong.

Absolutely everything about this film works, and works incredibly well. Every performer in the ensemble-- Tony Shaloub gives a career-best turn as Ed's attorney-- is at the peak of his or her craft. The tough issues at play-- the formation of identity, the line between dreams and reality-- are never forced, nor do the Coen brothers entirely sacrifice their offbeat, signature brand of humor. And, perhaps most noticeably, The Man Who Wasn't There is a film of literally breathtaking visual beauty. Cinematographer Roger Deakins (O Brother, Where Art Thou?) is every bit as responsible as either Joel or Ethan Coen for creating the acutely detailed 1940's-era small town where Ed is so often reduced to little more than a shadow.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
To begin: I have not read the novel Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I did read its predecessor, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in anticipation of its film adaptation, but I was enough overwhelmed by the mania surrounding that movie's release that, this time around, I just didn't care. Which is not to say I didn't like it. I enjoyed reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and even thought the movie was pretty good. Mechanical, but decent. Steve Kloves, screenwriter, remained completely faithful to the novel, and in turn pleased all of the novel's admirers.

However, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets shows a numbers of flaws in this system. Sorcerer's Stone was barely an adaptation: it was more of a Xerox.

Most novels are long enough that they have to be twisted and manipulated and poked and torn apart to be made into successful movies. Jurassic Park the movie is nothing at all like "Jurassic Park" the book, and you never heard anyone complain, did you?

Harry Potter is a much more dangerous beast, though, than a genetically engineered T.Rex. He is immensely popular and beloved very early in his life. He is not to be toyed with. You don't change the course of Harry Potter's story to make his movie work better, because if you do, you make a lot of people angry.

Sorcerer's Stone worked because it was short and simple. Chamber of Secrets, I can tell and have been told, is much darker, much more dense, and a few pages longer. Because Warner Bros, Steve Kloves, and director Chris Columbus (who, we must never, never forget, is responsible for Stepmom) were trying to make a lot of money and couldn't piss off the readers, they've tried to tell the whole damn thing.

Five or six times during Chamber, I turned to my companions, who had read all of the books, and asked for an explanation of what was going on. They gave it to me, and I asked them if they would've been able to do this had they not read the books. They admitted that they wouldn't have. This is lazy filmmaking.

You can't Xerox every book directly into a movie; they are two completely different art forms. What you end up with is a muddled mess of confusing exposition and bad acting. Much of what breathed life into Sorcerer's Stone is smothered here. Maggie Smith and Alan Rickman have painfully little to do as Professors McGonagall and Snape, and John Williams (assisted here by William Ross) has not written a score so poorly used since, well, Attack of the Clones. Few seconds of the 161 minute running time are dedicated to comic relief; the story is too busy plodding along. Even the quidditch match is a bore.

To make matters worse, Chamber is not, I'm told, as faithful to the book as Sorcerer's Stone, and the (mostly small, incidental) elements of the story that have been changed for the screen stick out as the film's worst moments.

Beyond this, Daniel Radcliffe, who portrays the title wizard, has grown up much too fast. Rumor has it the role will be recast, and if you look closely, you can see awkward pubescence in his performance. This has to be embarrassing, and I feel sorry for him.

The movie's high point is the addition to the cast of Kenneth Branagh as the conceited Gilderoy Lockhart, who hasn't been this delightful since Much Ado About Nothing. Chris Colombus (always, always remember, the guy who did Stepmom) wants to go back to his family again. And poor, great Richard Harris, who struggles through his role as Albus Dumblebore, died recently of cancer. This movie has all of its collaborators tired, and it shows.
-- Todd Detmold, '06--