Brief Film Roundup

The flicks I’ve seen in the last couple of weeks…

Departed: I didn’t like Departed quite as much as Scott, although he’s probably right that it’s the best American film thus far this year and the best Marty since Goodfellas. There were parts of the first half that had me chuckling because they seemed more like an expert, loving homage to Scorsese than an actual Scorcese film. I thought that Marty put just the right limit on Nicholson, although he might have gone a bit far with the bizarre sex scenes. The Damon/Dicaprio love interest paid off in an unexpected but not wholly satisfying manner. My biggest problem with the film came in the final act, as I really didn’t have the faintest idea where things were going following Nicholson’s death. This was a good thing in the sense of keeping me on my toes, but was not so great in that the film didn’t lead naturally to any particular conclusion, and thus that the actual finale felt a bit contrived and tacked on. Nevertheless, he had me from the first frame, and I very much enjoyed the film.

The Queen: I have an unhealthy appreciation for monarchy. Of Mirren’s performance much has already been said, and I find myself inclined to go back and take a look at the HBO Elizabeth miniseries. The look on her face in the church at the end, having been forced to appear at the funeral of a woman she loathed, was priceless. Mirren also conveyed the everyday Elizabeth Windsor, the one whose responsibilities included not only symbolic leaderhips of an empire but the very real management of a troublesome family. Michael Sheen did a fine job as Tony Blair, obviously impressed by the royals (perhaps over-impressed) but also capable of seeing what they could not. I wonder if the real Blair reacted so angrily against the contempt that the rest of the Labourites seemed to have for the monarchy. The interaction between Blair and Elizabeth was remarkable, as the initially out of his depth Blair came to the conclusion that he needed to offer forceful advice to the Queen who so obviously intimidated him. Charles fumbling attempts to build an alliance with Blair suggested to me that the Queen Mum was probably correct in believing that the monarchy is in serious trouble when Elizabeth passes. I’m not sure why, but the scene in which the Queen finally arrives at Buckingham Palace to be greeted and eventually accepted by the ambivalent throng almost made me fall apart…

Babel: I like Amores Perros almost (but not quite) as much as Y Tu Mama Tambien, and also thought that 21 Grams was strong. Inarritu keeps it up with some excellent work on Babel. I was impressed by how well he managed Pitt, who is an actor with some gifts but also with limited range. He handled Pitt with kid gloves, never letting him get out of his depth or into an area that might embarass his abilities. The rest of the film was quite good as well, even if the Japanese portion was only tenuously attached to the rest of the stories. I noticed that the fates of the protagonists (if not the situations that they had been placed in) seemed to correlate with their socioeconomic status; the wealthy Americans suffered but came out essentially alright, the Japanese dealt with loss but emerged without a noticeable change in status, the Mexican woman lost her job and her status but kept her family, while the impoverished Moroccans, through little fault of their own, found themselves imprisoned, beaten, tortured, and worse. Perhaps Inarritu was suggesting that crisis is endemic, but its effect upon us is mediated by money, citizenship, status, and so forth. Anyway, quite a solid film.