fishwad

This movie is simply great. Watch it again, since it's probably been a month or two since you last saw it. What can be said that hasn't already, other than to comment on the unfortunate (but hilarious) alteration made to the dialogue for the TV-friendly clean edit; when Walter destroys the Corvette in what he thinks is retaliation for the disappearance of The Dude's car, he bellows "this is what you get when you fight a stranger in the Alps." Fans of the film will recall instantly what this line replaces.

The Cohen Brothers are in top form on this one. Too bad Intolerable Cruelty didn't quite deliver.

Pixar put together a fairly entertaining film with Finding Nemo, especially in light of the crop of terrible Hollywood offerings this summer (Matrix 2 and The Italian Job come to mind). Not as engaging or amusing as Monsters, Inc, but still an enjoyable diversion. I had expected this film to be a lot funnier than it was-- there were far too many times when it seemed the writers sensed they needed more comedy and decided, "Oh, we'll have the Ellen character forget something. Again." But there was enough about the movie that was amusing to keep my attention.

The major problem I had with the movie is that Disney and Pixar had a wonderful opportunity to make a fairly strong environmental comment with the potential to reach millions of future consumers (and potential polluters), yet they failed enormously.

I didn't buy a ticket to Finding Nemo expecting to see a "message movie." I did, however, expect to see the issue of pollution touched on, even in an antiseptic, stock-holder-friendly Disney kind of way. There were numerous opportunities for this, specifically at the point when Marlin and Dora enter Sidney harbor and are officially in man's domain. Yet Disney repeatedly dropped the ball. After having established a lovable cast of characters that the audience was entirely in love with, Disney easily could have presented at least a hint of the idea that mankind is doing serious and possibly irreparable damage to the environment. And that mankind can do something about it.

But that's alright, because Nemo went on to score the biggest opening weekend of any animated film! And in the end, that's what it's all about, right?

I'm not going to waste too much time on this movie; it sucked. I have no idea why everyone is so enamored of John Woo. His filmmaking is cliched and pretentious. If you feel that Mexican standoffs and slow-motion shots of birds are seriously underrepresented in cinema today then Woo is your man. But if it's a decent plot, interesting characters or well-written dialogue you're after you'll have to look elsewhere. I honestly could not believe it when Chow Yun Fat told the detective to have the doctors save his corneas for Jenny if he was killed! How embarrassingly corny was that!?! Chow Yun Fat is a much better actor than he shows here, though that's probably attributed to Woo more than anything. Roger Ebert, in his review of "Le Samourai" (the French film that supposedly inspired Woo to write and direct "The Killer"), says "Better to wait for a whole movie for something to happen (assuming we really care whether it happens) than to sit through a film where things we don't care about are happening constantly." I can't think of a more fitting condemnation of "The Killer" than that.