For my nephew's sixth birthday, we took him out for a "day on the town." We started with an afternoon at the Aquarium and then after a little nap and dinner we went to see Hotel for Dogs. I was totally prepared to hate this film. I figured that, at best, this was preparing me for the day I might one day be a father and have to drag my sorry to but to really mediocre movies or sit in the car listening to mind-numbing music. Much to my great surprise, I found this thoroughly enjoyable film.
Now, I don't think I would ever recommend this to friends without children -- it's not that good -- but I would encourage any parent to take their child. To some extent, this is a contemporary version of E.T. (but with dogs instead of extra-terrestials). I'd go so far as to say that the director even cribbed some notes from Spielberg. Both films portray adults and authority figures as ogres who just can't understand or sympathize with what kids go through. The fascistic appearance of the military and men in radiation suits is replaced by sadistic dog-catchers in knee-high, Nazi-era leather boots. Never mind the fact most people who work for animal control usually tend to be people who care for animals. In the world of Hotel for Dogs, dog catchers live to inflict punishment. The plagiarizing (or "subtextual referencing") of E.T. gets even more blatant during the big chase scene. The music swells just like every John Williams composition. I don't know if John Williams actually did the music for this movie but he might as well have. It's cheesy enough.
Also fascinating, even for cynical adults, was all the Rube Goldberg type contraptions. I can definitely see a young child being fascinated by all the gadgets and gizmos. If I were a young lad, it would certainly inspire me to go home and fiddle with my legos and erector sets.
Judging children's films is always hard. These movies lack sophistication and are never nuanced but that's because they shouldn't be. That's what makes kids' films so hard to produce: how can you stick to the basics without being overly simple? Judging from the most recent Star Wars films (the animated features), George Lucas certainly hasn't figure that out (even my six-year old nephew -- a Star Wars geek in the making -- deemed The Clone Wars just "awful"). is not nearly as inventive as Hotel for Dogs as E.T. but, in a pinch, it certainly will do.
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I had resisted seeing this film for quite some time because I was upset that it had beat out Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth for the best foreign film Oscar in for 2006. Granted, I hadn't actually watched Lives of Others, but I was convinced that no other foreign film could be nearly as good as Pan's Labyrinth. For all the talk there's been about the reunion of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, the truly significant return, I feel, is that of Sam Mendes to the suburbs. In 1999, Mendes exploded on the scene with his feature film debut, American Beauty. When it first came out, American Beauty, was considered an original and scathing condemnation of suburban America. To me, though, American Beauty, was always more about the failure of the boomers to live up to their ideals. Many many moons ago, the BBC documented the lives of several British youths (all age 7). The idea was to revisit them seven years later and see how each person's life turned out. The original documentary was called 7-Up. Seven years later, they released 14-Up, then 21-Up, then 28-Up, etc. The most recent installment is 48-Up and, from what I've heard, the next one, 56-Up is slated for release in 2011. Here's a list of the Oscar nominees for best picture in 1990 (in alphabetical order): For the longest time, I really didn't want to see this movie because of Sean Penn's voice. Like most film buffs, I truly believe that Penn is one of the best actors of his generation but even great actors make bad movies and, in the case of Mr. Penn, it doesn't get much worse than I am Sam. Serious film goers generally fall into one of two categories: those who focus on directors and those who focus on actors. J, for example, is of the latter group and I'm always amazed at her name/face recognition. Sure, I know who Brad Pitt is but I'm usually at a loss when it comes to "oh, that guy, the one who always shows up playing the tough dude." J can usually be counted on to not only name the person but also identify other films that said person might have appeared in. I, on the other hand, am a fan of directors. I generally won't see a film because of who is in it. Instead, I see a film because of who made it. Conversely, I also generally avoid films because of the director (yeah, I'm talking about you, McG and Michael Bay). All this isn't to say that I can't appreciate a good performance by an actor just as J is more than capable of appreciating good direction. It's all a matter of where we put our priorities. Jonathan Demme has had a rather fascinating career. After spending ten years toiling away in television and B-movies, Demme came on strong in the mid-80s with the Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense and the surprising Something Wild. After a commercial peak in the 90s with Philadelphia and Silence of the Lambs, Demme essentially put aside narrative film making in order to concentrate on documentaries. To put this in perspective, this would be like Missy Elliot deciding to leave hip-hop so that she can pursue a career Brazilian folk music. Sure, there's still a career there but on a miniature scale compared to what came before. This quarter, I'm showing Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing to one of my classes. I've probably seen this film about twenty times and while I've enjoyed each viewing (and I always come away with something new), it can never match the impact of seeing it the first time back in 1989. For young film viewers today, I think it's hard to really appreciate how revolutionary this film really was. Spike Lee, along with Steven Soderbergh (whose Sex, Lies, and Videotape was also released in 1989) gave birth to the modern independent film movement. While Tarantino may have exploded the scene a few years later, Lee, Soderbergh, and to a lesser extent Gus Van Sant (Drugstore Cowboy, also released in 1989) really laid the foundation for the great renaissance in American cinema during the 1990s. Will the real Danny Boyle please stand up? After hitting it big in the independent film circuit with 1996's Trainspotting, Boyle's proceeding works might best be characterized as a game of "guess what I've got in my hand?" Both the pleasing and frustrating aspect of Boyle's work is that it's so hard to pin down. Most great directors have a certain signature (as is the case with someone like the Coen brothers, Spike Lee, Martin Scorcese, etc.). Other directors, such as Rob Reiner, have a real craftsman approach to making films: their films may not stand out as aesthetic achievements but they are solidly built and very easy to watch. Usually, directors who lack style tend to fall into the latter category. Again, I have nothing against Reiner or people like him (in fact, I look forward to most Rob Reiner films because I know that they will be well crafted), it's just that those films tend not to leave any great impression. |
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