patbuddha

All of the warning signs are there from frame one: an opening sequence that intercuts between shots of the movie and the credits on a black screen, mobsters fresh out of movie mobster school, and unnecessary cross dissolves from one scene to the next. And then of course there are the fellow police officers who yell at one another most of the time, whether it be the captain admonishing the hero for taking too much time on the case or the hero and his new partner who don't see eye to eye.

I figured at the very least if I stuck around, I would be treated to some gratuitous nudity courtesy of the beautiful Jennifer Esposito. Unfortunately that didn't happen, yet I found myself being absorbed by the developing relationship between her character and the undercover cop played by Nick Moran.

There are some nice moments that elevate the film above its direct-to-video trappings. A scene where Esposito places a banana to her ear as if it were a phone has such a genuineness and spontaneity that it doesn't come off as a cheap attempt at humor but as an actual moment involving real people.

The two leads deserve a lot of credit for making this movie what it is. Nick Moran has a certain star quality, a charisma that holds the viewer with him. He gives everything he has in this performance, particularly midway through the film when his psyche is tortured after having been forced to assassinate an enemy of the mobster he's trying to bring down. It's almost as if he didn't get the memo letting him know that this was direct-to-video garbage and that he really need not try so hard. Fortunately for the film and the viewer he does.

It took me six months before finally seeing the second installment of Peter Jackson's adaptation of Lord of the Rings. I saw the first right around the time of its release. I was one of the few who just didn't get it. Coupled with how bored I was with the first Harry Potter movie, I came to the conclusion that I was never meant to be into straight fantasy. I'm about the only one of my friends who does not get excited about Dungeons & Dragons or Magic: The Gathering. Nor have I ever read Tolkien's books.

So Two Towers finally showed up at the dollar cinema (actually a buck fifty). With all of the hooha surrounding these films I figured at some point I would have to see it anyway. It's cheaper than renting it from Blockbuster AND I'm seeing it on the big screen.

I actually enjoyed this one for the most part. It occurred to me that the problem I had with Fellowship of the Ring is probably the same problem that most people had with The Phantom Menace: it holds itself back a bit. It saves all its good ideas for later and lets itself simply be an introduction to a larger whole.

This middle part of the trilogy finally is swept up with all of the imaginative stuff that you expect to see in this type of movie. Gollum and the big walking tree guys really sold the whole thing for me. As impressive as the Battle of Helms Deep was, I liked watching the big tree guys putting the smackdown even more.

However, an observation. While most of geekdom has proclaimed the Lord of the Rings movies to be the hands-down winner as between it and the Star Wars prequels, I still stand firm on my belief that both these series are qualitatively even. The dialogue in Two Towers bears little resemblance to how real people speak or interact with one another. Most everyone speaks in succint proclamations with very little nuance. But that's okay. It's not dialogue or subtle character development that brings us to these movies. It's all about the imagination and epic scope.

I hadn't seen this movie in almost 15 years when I caught it one night on the Fox Movie Channel. I simply could not take my eyes off of it. This is the essence of pure cinema where the visuals are what moves the story forward rather than an over-reliance on dialogue. It reminded me why I was so disappointed in two recent animated movies dealing with material that's in the same ballpark, "Dinosaur" and "The Ice Age". In those two films there is this fear to simply let the characters stand mute even if it means making them speak dialogue that isn't necessarily very interesting and often anachronistic.

I found it interesting how "Quest for Fire" compelled me to fill in the blanks on what was going on in the characters' minds. In some strange way I could almost identify with how fire would seem like some divine creation.

It's amazing when a filmmaker can take something so simple and so mundane and yet make it so profound. "Quest for Fire" doesn't get too bogged down in compicated intrigue or forced character arcs. Its MacGuffin is one of the few in my cinematic memory that I could fully get behind and believe in.

Annaud ignores a rule adhered to by many filmmakers: Don't work with children. Don't work with animals. I was impressed by what he was able to get out of his animal stars, going so far as having two very large cats fitted with prosthetic saber teeth. The appearance of the wooly mammoths about blew me away. It was fairly obvious that a large portion of those shots were animatronic or puppets with maybe a couple of shots using real elephants in costume, but I was thrilled nonetheless.