So I just got around to watching “Angels and Demons,” Ron Howard’s adaptation of Dan Brown’s bestselling novel. The movie could fairly be accused of not making a lick of sense, but whereas its predecessor “The Da Vinci Code” was flaccid and boring, “Angels and Demons” mixes in a little “Se7en” for good measure and manages to come out the other end with solid entertainment. There’s an actual climax this time, and a few nail-biters that actually made me bite my nails. To wit, it’s vastly less offensive than its cousin, both in basic story and execution; you could almost say it was a topical dialog about faith and reason. Almost.
I’ve also seen a film called “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” which I do not recommend to the faint of heart, but if you can stomach some pretty unpleasant violence, then definitely give it a try. I was actually quite disappointed with the extreme nature of the bloodshed in the film, because it was so random and unnecessary. The movie is at its heart an investing thriller about an unsolved murder, and its protagonists are sympathetic and ignite a fiery and compelling onscreen romance. All of these things seemed in place perfectly fine without a horrific rape scene (two actually), followed by an equally horrific retribution (which I admit was satisfying in a “Straw Dogs” way). I don’t discount the value of the plot points, but the manner in which they were executed. Fortunately, these missteps are only a small part of a very long and very good mystery, so if you can avert your eyes for a few minutes you will be amply rewarded. I wouldn’t call the mystery’s resolution the cleverest thing I ever saw, but it was satisfying enough, and like I said, the characters here are too splendid to mind.
Corelyn and I watched “This Film is Not Yet Rated” last night, a documentary aimed at discrediting and attacking the MPAA and their ratings system for American cinema. It’s something of a mixed bag: on the one hand, the MPAA is a surprisingly easy target with glaring errors in its practices and ethics. And yet, perhaps because his target is so easy, Kirby Dick slightly fumbles the ball in his indictment. A lot of the movie felt “soft” to me, lacking in journalistic rigor and high in opinion, speculation, and emotional manipulation. About 40% of the movie contained nice, firm facts that really drove home Dick’s point, but the rest was scattered between anecdotes about a pair of P.I.s who fail to register as interesting characters, and filmmakers whose criticisms about their assigned ratings don’t hold water. Kimberly Peirce, director of “Boys Don’t Cry,” earns tremendous sympathy with the ridiculous double-standards she endures, but John Waters won’t shut up and makes a bunch of creepy comments that deflate his credibility, and Matt Stone’s films, fair or not, are presented in a way that makes their NC-17 rating seem pretty reasonable.
There’s a constant sense that “This Film is Not Yet Rated” had the target in its sights but got excited and missed. By suggesting the monopolistic intermingling between the major studios and the MPAA—as well as the bizarre involvement of organized religion—”Rated” touched on a gold mine that should have comprised its entire running time; if it had, the film would have been devastating. Instead, Dick spends most of his time spotting inconsistencies in past ratings as if it was a game of “Where’s Waldo,” and while many of his points are valid, they all add up to very little. He seems not to grasp that these unfair rulings are byproducts of simple human nature, and that they would likely exist in any organization with the MPAA’s duties. Yes, they punish homosexual sex too much, and yes they let decapitations slide while fornication gets treated like the plague, but in focusing there he is going after basic inconsistencies in the American psyche (something the movie actually admits), and that’s not his target. He ends up losing control of his thesis; his movie suggests (probably against his will) that the MPAA’s biggest problem is that it’s run by Americans. He’s got a perfectly good and juicy prey waiting to be pounced on here, but instead Dick gets lost bemoaning how Europeans are so much more advanced than us. It’s a critical mistake, because the viewer can’t shake a nagging feeling that “Rated” is wandering around, grabbing at ideas without making a coherent picture. We never trust the picture, and so it does not compel us.
I would love to see a real journalist go after this topic. God only knows what he/she would dig up.
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