School of Rock (2003)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

School of Rock (2003) – R. Linklater

Somehow, I went 20 years without seeing this film, not for any particular reason other than that it seemed like a kids’ film and I am an adult. Now that my kids are old enough, it happened.  Jack Black plays Dewey Finn, a perpetual adolescent who has just been kicked out of his classic rock band and just before the city’s battle of the bands is about to begin. He’s also about to be kicked out of his apartment, if he can’t get together his share of the rent.  So, when the principal (Joan Cusack) of a prestigious prep school calls looking to offer his roommate (screenwriter Mike White) a substitute teaching job, Dewey decides to take the gig, masquerading as his friend (“Mr. S.”).  Of course, he doesn’t know how to teach, but what he does know is ROCK.  You really need to have a high tolerance for Jack Black and his schtick to enjoy this movie – personally, I like him, so it worked for me, but it is definitely all high-octane goofy improv action. (Director Richard Linklater must have been a fan of Tenacious D.). Basically, Dewey takes his 5^th grade class and teaches them to be a rock band who he imagines will eventually back him in the battle-of-the-bands. It’s your traditional bad-news-bears-styled plot, the underdogs make good: you’ve seen it before. The kids vary in their performances but no one is too terribly cringe-worthy and under Linklater’s expert direction, some heartstrings are pulled. Classic rock fills the soundtrack.  It’s a feel good affair, occasionally funny, and good for 5^th grade kids (and not bad for parents).

 

Shattered Glass (2003)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Shattered Glass (2003) – B. Ray

Based on the true story of discredited journalist Stephen Glass who fabricated stories for The New Republic in the 1990s.  Hayden Christensen plays Glass as a needy character, clearly seeking attention and approval, but somehow also cocky and manipulative.  He has clearly endeared some of his officemates to him (Chloe Sevigny, Melanie Lynskey) and that may have helped him to pass various stages in the editorial process (fact-checking, in particular) with less scrutiny than needed.  His editors, Hank Azaria and then Peter Sarsgaard, are more suspicious but the house-of-cards does not come tumbling down until a reporter at an online magazine (Steve Zahn) stumbles onto the fraud. As directed by screenwriter Billy Ray, it feels like a thriller at times, as the clues and lame defences start turning up. Perhaps it also wants to be a character study but we never really get any insight into Glass’s motives, although perhaps they are pretty transparent.  I’m reminded of a similar case in my own area, where a Dutch social psychologist, Diederik Stapel, admitted to having faked dozens of research studies, published in the top journals, after having been caught by other researchers who found his data analyses too good to be true (but only after they had passed muster through the peer review process and with unwitting or negligent consent of famous co-authors and grad students).  In his memoirs (yes, really!), he claimed that he could not resist the adulation that came with success and claimed to be sorry. At the time, pundits suggested that our publish-or-perish culture invites such desperate acts – but not much has changed in the intervening years. There are lessons for us all in these morality plays.

 

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) -- P. Jackson

The final 3 hours (of nine in the theatrical release version of the trilogy - I passed on the super-long extended versions) wraps up the tale of Frodo Baggins and his quest to destroy the one ring of power (with a fellowship of 8 others) and thereby defeat Sauron the evil one. Again, it feels like a non-stop war movie with little time to catch one's breath, except when we cross-cut at regular intervals to parallel narrative threads (which is schematic but probably necessary and arising from the Tolkien novels themselves). The preponderance of characters introduced in the previous film do seem to become more solid here but Elijah Wood does nothing but grimace and the whole effect can be ponderous (although this may be due to my watching this a second time, albeit ten years later). The coda after coda of ceremonies and goodbyes are a bit much. To conclude, I warrant the books are better. (However, thus far I am enjoying the Hobbit trilogy more).  (2008 review)

Dogville (2003)

☆ ☆ ☆

Dogville (2003) – L. Von Trier

There’s a perennial question, about the artist whose choices in their personal life are so unspeakably bad that they contaminate appreciation of their art, that is increasingly relevant (or in the news) today.  However, I’m not sure a distinction can be made when it comes to Lars von Trier, whose choices in the artworks themselves are so questionable, even despicable, that the fact that he might also be a jerk personally seems beside the point.  His latest film at Cannes drove over 100 people out of the theatre because of its extreme violence toward women and children (and this, after he was only just allowed back to the festival when his banishment for appreciating Hitler ended).  His cultivated image is of “the provocateur” but he seems more of a poseur to me.  So, why did I give Dogville a chance?  Perhaps because of its reputation as an experimental film, with its sparse warehouse set, representing a small Colorado town with just a few pieces of lumber and some chalk outlines for houses on the floor (think Our Town).  That’s about all I knew.  As the film began and I found out that John Hurt narrates the entire film, alternating with some spoken dialogue from the characters, I found it sufficiently intriguing to keep watching.  Nicole Kidman plays a woman, fleeing from mobsters, who takes shelter in the town.  They have a community vote to decide whether to let her stay (after a two week trial where she works for each family to try to impress them).  Of course, she does get to stay but as the mobsters and the police close the dragnet, the “costs” of keeping her in the town and the price the townsfolk demand from Kidman increases.  Eventually, Kidman becomes the target of abuse, since she isn’t from there.  So, misogyny charges against von Trier are more or less fulfilled (again).  Kidman said she wouldn’t work with him again to boot.  And it isn’t quite clear where the experiment took us (the viewers) -- some read this as “anti-American” (since von Trier refuses to come to the US) and the use of David Bowie’s “Young Americans” over the ending credits seems to bear this out.  I saw it as a sadistic game of “chicken”, taunting the audience about just how far he was willing to go (to shock), and a sardonic repudiation of Dogme 95 trying to be as artificial as possible, as if to poke a finger in the eye of anyone who bothered to take him seriously back then (when he issued his philosophical filmmaker’s manifesto).  Although there is no denying that he has a certain degree of artistic know-how, let’s hope no one bothers to take von Trier seriously again.

Five: Dedicated to Ozu (2003)

☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Five: Dedicated to Ozu (2003) – A. Kiarostami

As a break from his narrative films, Kiarostami shot this distinctly non-narrative experimental feature composed entirely of five long shots (ranging in length from about 8 minutes up to about 30 minutes).  The only links to Yasujiro Ozu’s films would be to the still life shots that Ozu often interspersed between scenes and to the fact that Ozu’s camera often seemed to rest statically on a tripod creating a frame in which people could move in and out, inviting us to look at the composition within the frame.  Here we see scenes that would be unlikely in any Ozu film: 1)  a medium shot of waves with driftwood; 2) the same waves in the background behind a boardwalk with people passing by (all of whom must feature in the opening credits – an example of Kiarostami’s sense of humor, I think); 3) a long shot of the waves and creatures in the distance which are too indistinct to make out until you suddenly realize what they are when one moves – this shot eventually bleaches out; 4) a close up shot of the beach and lots of ducks passing back and forth; and 5) a very very dark shot of the surface of a pond at night, then rain, then sunrise.  Especially in this last scene (and also with regard to the ducks’ pitter patter footsteps), the soundtrack is meticulously crafted (possibly with foley assistance) to enrich the experience.  Indeed, the whole film may be more than what it seems:  as in all of Kiarostami’s oeuvre, there is a high level of intelligence at work here, guiding us to new and different experiences that ask us to question what we are seeing and why (that is, the director’s intentions).  And, in the end, this was pretty soothing stuff!