HEATWAVE ROUNDUP including 'The Squid and the Whale' [7/10]

HEATWAVE ROUNDUP including ‘The Squid and the Whale’ [7/10]

I was seriously intending to write full-length, a-page-to-themselves reviews of these films, but for some reason have been "blocked" for a couple of weeks. Lack of motivation/inspiration/time/energy — or maybe just the infernal lets-all-move-to-Tromso heatwave?

JD/S+W

DEEPENS LIKE A COASTAL SHELF : Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale [7/10]
Tim Streeto's exhilarating, to-the-bone editing makes the most of potentially self-indulgent material in this intriguing if somewhat overpraised drama. The downside of Streeto's work is that the eminently Oscar-nominatable performance (amusing and disturbing) from Jeff Daniels ended up too big for Supporting, not quite big enough for Lead. The Academy did see fit to nominate Baumbach's screenplay, however, which seems a touch generous (the similarly relationship-based Broken Flowers and Transamerica are stronger). His cathartic exploration of dysfunction among an overeducated, overarticulate, upper-middle-class urban family doesn't break any massively new ground (the spectre of Woody Allen is seldom far away, while Sean Wilsey's doorstop memoir Oh The Glory Of It All takes everything a stage further), and his grasp of period detail (it's supposedly 1986) is so shaky he should really have set it in the present day. But then again, how often do you get a film which pivots on a major character breezily plagiarising Pink Floyd?

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COWBOY DREAMS : David Jacobson's Down in the Valley [6/10]
Determinedly offbeat romance/psychological-drama set in California's San Fernando Valley – as seen in the last three films of Paul Thomas Anderson. Jacobson's nowhere near Anderson's level as a writer (the Taxi Driver-ish script goes off the rails into melodrama during the unevenly-paced final third), but as a director he shows considerable promise, crafting (with cinematographer Enrique Chediak) a shimmery Badlands-flavoured mood-piece around his well-chosen cast. Co-producer Edward Norton is particularly strong in a very tricky role – the less you know about which in advance, the better (suffice to say that that is a Black Flag tattoo on his shoulder…)

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CHICAGO SPLIT : Peyton Reed's The Break-Up [6/10]
Not by any means as bad as you'd perhaps think, though still more of a DVD catch-up than a run-to-the-cinema-now situation. As with Reed's Down With Love, in theory the picture is theory an anti-romantic romantic-comedy, but beneath the convention-defying surface it's disappointingly conventional: the thoroughly by-the-numbers shots of Chicago landscapes (featuring the inevitable Lake Shore Drive) give the game away. Aniston and Vaughn carry the burden of the plot, and they surely realised very early on that they were never going to steal scenes back from a supporting cast including Judy Davis, Vincent d'Onofrio (works wonders with a nothing role) and John Michael Higgins (whose a capella rendition of Yes's "Owner of a Lonely Heart" belongs in another, better, funnier picture). When these three are absent, the film's longueurs become more apparent (it actually feels longer than the new Pirates picture) – and the abrupt ending comes as something of a relief. Though very lukewarm, the last scene is by far the oddest thing about the whole enterprise: it's clearly shot on high-definition DV rather than celluloid, and not since The Stepford Wives remake has it been quite so obvious that an original ending has been ditched after "testing" badly with advance audiences.

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RUM DO? : Gore Verbinski's Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man's Chest [6/10]
In this instance the critics (who hate it) are wrong and the public (who, in grim times where escapism is a welcome release, love it and have made it a surprise runaway smash) are right – well, more right than wrong. Saggy, baggy and shaggy as all sea-tales should be, Pirates II barrels along with enough chutzpah and laughs to ensure that you never have to consult your watch at any point during the prodigious-sounding 2 1/2-hour running-time. Whatever else is wrong with the picture (and the script isn't the strong suit) the pacing is spot-on: one example of Verbinski and company getting it right is the way they handle the big bad uber-squid/octopus sea-monster known as "the Kraken" (pronunciation is amusingly discussed at one stage, though nobody points out that the "-en" ending actually means "the" in Norse) – a marvel of CGI which is revealled in carefully-calibrated stages. As with Pirates I, the nonsensical shenanigans are essentially a framework around which Johnny Depp creates a performance that's essentially a compendium of grace-notes. And his final scene – with Kraken – has a loopy grandeur that will take you by surprise, while the actual ending (featuring a most unexpected star cameo) is also something of a corker, setting us up very nicely for Pirates III : At World's End. What seems to have eluded many critics is that II and III are effectively two halves of the same film – a quasi-Kill Bill scenario, in fact – so it's ludicrous to expect any kind of proper denouement here. As with I, essentially ramshackle proceedings receive a veneer of respectability via the presence of slumming Brits (Tom Hollander, Jonathan Pryce, Bill Nighy) – with a lugubrious Swede (Stellan Skarsgard) thrown in to add ballast (and thus counterbalance the semi-ironic, semi-deliberate forgettability of nominal leads Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley). Amusing, meanwhile, that in the days when Hollywood is so agitated about "piracy" that the year's biggest moneyspinner should be an elaborate glorification of the same subject.

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Neil Young
31st July, 2006

THE SQUID AND THE WHALE : [7/10] : USA 2006 : Noah BAUMBACH : 81 mins (BBFC timing) seen at The Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK), 18th July 2006 – public show (paid £6.00)

DOWN IN THE VALLEY : [6/10] : USA 2005 (copyright-dated 2004) : David JACOBSON : 118 mins (approx; BBFC timing – two versions were submitted for certification, running 113 and 118 mins) seen at The Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK), 14th June 2006 – press show (paid £6.00)

THE BREAK-UP : [6/10] : USA 2006 : Peyton REED : 107 mins (BBFC timing) seen at Odeon cinema, MetroCentre, Gateshead (UK), 17th July 2006 – press show

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN – DEAD MAN'S CHEST : [6/10] : USA 2006 : Gore VERBINSKI : 151 mins (BBFC timing) seen at Empire cinema, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK), 16th July 2006 – public show (paid £6.40)