BoogieNights/The Ice Storm

Well, this has been a busy week for me. I got to see two really good movies in the theatre. That doesn’t happen very often, but I’m going to try to go at least once every week or two from now on.

The first movie I saw this weekend was Boogie Nights. In case you don’t know, this is the one with Mark “I’m Not Marky Mark Anymore” Wahlberg and Burt Reynolds about the 70s porn industry. It wasn’t quite as shocking as I thought it was going to be. There was some sex and nudity (of course), but it wasn’t as graphic as we were led to believe. The most shocking part was seeing Julianne Moore naked. A friend of mine, who thinks she’s really attractive, even said that it was kind of like seeing your mom naked. She just doesn’t have the kind of reputation that lets her do stuff like that. Especially not with Marky Mark. (Even if he doesn’t like that name anymore, and even if he is a pretty good actor, he’ll always be Marky Mark. Once you’ve rapped, there’s no turning back.)

I guess the big surprise in the acting area was Burt Reynolds. He said that after he saw the movie he started re-thinking his involvment in it. He really did not like the film! Pretty strange considering that people are talking about Oscars for him. You know, ten years ago if you even mentioned “Oscar” and “Burt Reynolds” in the same paragraph you would be laughed at and then skewered. Now everyone’s doing it. He was very good as a porno director. His character seemed to want more than he ever wanted in real life. He wanted to be remembered for one of his movies. That’s never seemed to be one of Burt’s goals in life. Anybody remember The End? I didn’t think so.

This film was written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson who also brought us the little seen Hard Eight. It looks like we’ve got another great indie director coming up. Hard Eight deserved more than it got. It’s about a life time gambler (Philip Baker Hall) who finds a young man (John C. Reilly, who will apparently be in all of Anderson’s films) to teach. After a while John meets Gwyneth Paltrow (lucky guy) and they fall in love. They (of course) get in trouble and Philip takes care of them. It’s more than it sounds like. I highly recommend both of these films.

The only problem I had with Boogie Nights was the great unveiling at the end. It seems to only be there as a pay-off or for shock value. The thing is that it’s not really that shocking. (Well, maybe to the teenage girls sitting behind us, but they also seemed to think that it was real.) We knew it was coming the whole time. After the semi-surprised looks from everyone on the camera crew and Heather Graham (homina, homina, homina) we knew the size was the shock. Why not just get it over with somewhere early on and let us go on with the rest of the movie?

The other sort of shocking thing about the movie was the violence. Near the end it started to look like Pulp Fiction! There were heads being blown off and shot guns being blasted everywhere. It was done well and didn’t really seem too gratuitous, but it was still kind of weird. I guess I just didn’t expect the porn industry to be so violent.

There are quite a few moments that reminded me of Scorsese’s gangster films. The long, long, long tracking shots through the bar and Burt’s house and some of the fast shots (such as the camera going straight to the phone when it rings and following it up to the person’s face, and the camera following a person’s glance–not cutting to what they’re looking at, but panning to what they’re looking at) were very indicitive to these films. Not that Scorsese has a patent on either of these techniques, but they seem to be used mostly in his films now.

Boogie Nights was a very good film. Not exactly a family movie…or even a date movie for that matter. At the end I doubt that a girl would ever look at her boyfriend the same again. We guys definitely won’t look at ourselves the same way again. The other movie I saw was The Ice Storm. Once again, it was a very good movie. It was also one of the most depressing movies I’ve seen in a long time. I would not suggest going to see this if your family has been getting you down lately.

It’s another movie that starts at the end. It’s kind of hard to understand this at first because they don’t explain it to you at all. The Hood family is waiting for their son, Paul (Tobey Maguire), to get off the train, he gets off, and suddenly he’s calling from school. Huh? Oh, ok. I get it. I really liked what he said about the family being a void that you are constantly drawn back into. I can relate to that pretty well.

I guess I should start with the story. The Hoods are a typical suburban family of the early 70s. (Funny. I saw two movies about the 70s this weekend. I don’t think that’s a good thing.) Ben (Kevin Kline) tries so hard to be a good dad who doesn’t come down too hard on his kids. Elena (Joan Allen) is a pretty cold woman who is too busy trying to be good that she doesn’t catch on to her husband’s affair with Janey Carver (Sigourney Weaver), their next door neighbor (who appears to live pretty far away for being right next door–everyone has to walk for days to get there). Wendy (Christina Ricci, who is blooming quite well, in my opinion) is approaching womanhood. She desperately wants to lose her virginity, but she’s not really sure who with. Is it Sandy Carver(Adam “I hope he grows into that nose” Hann-Byrd from Little Man Tate and Jumanji) or his older brother Mikey (Elijah Wood). Paul, her older brother, is in the same predicament. He’s been away at school for a while and his roommate sleeps with every girl that Paul shows interest in. He goes to New York for a night to meet a girl from school to find a surprise waiting for him.

Now there’s the Carvers. Janey is colder than Elana ever could be. When Ben tries to talk to her after sex she says, “I already have one husband. I have no desire to have another one.” Jim (Jamey Sheridan) is her husband who doesn’t realize that she has affairs until it’s too late. Mikey is kind of a geeky 15 year old who is more innocent than he thinks he is and, by the end, realizes that he kind of wants to stay that way. Sandy is the younger brother who idolizes Wendy.

The tension culminates in the title storm and a wife swapping party at a friend’s house. This, of course, leaves the kids home alone and the parents finding out something about themselves.

Everyone in this film did a great job of being icy (Ah-ha! Ice Storm…they’re icy to each other–get it?) to their family members and friends. Even the kids tend to be cold to one another. Wendy has her near-trysts and then treats them like they never happened.

Everything about this film is cold. Sometimes it seems like overkill to show so much ice, but overall it’s to good effect. The music is an interesting mix of tribal drums and pipe with the occasional piano. It’s a very icy score. The colors also bring out the cold. There is very little red or orange. The only charactersto wear them that I remember are Wendy and Mikey. Perhaps this is to show the feelings that they won’t show.

A running theme throughout the film (besides ice) is the loss of innocence. There are really only two innocent characters in the whole film and one of them inadvertently brings the Hood family back together.

I guess the real surprise in this one is Christina Ricci. She still looks like Wednesday Addams, but she’s grown into a very good actress. She shows the confusion of the times and the age. She seems to want to lose her virginity, but she doesn’t really want to be there when it happens. (Her “experience” with Elijah Wood shows this. She wears a Nixon mask through the whole thing. It’s really quite funny.) She’s caught somewhere between womanhood and girlhood and doesn’t know how to be either. She shows this conflict very well in her scenes with Elijah Wood. In her scenes with Adam Hann-Bryd she seems to want to corrupt him. It’s hard to be both innocent and corrupt at the same time, but she pulls it off.

Kevin Kline is also very good as the almost doltish Ben Hood. He knows that what he’s doing is wrong, but what can he do about it? His wife isn’t showing the feelings that she should. His kids don’t really seem to care. His scene in the car with Paul trying to talk about the facts of life a few years too late is classic Kevin Kline. He wants to be serious, but he also wants to have a sense of humor. He ends up sounding like an idiot who really doesn’t know how to connect with his kids. I’ve always liked Kline because there’s something inherently funny about him. Even in his serious films he seems want to have a laugh. I think he’s a great actor who deserves more roles like this one. He usually gets stuck with the sarcastic one-liner king parts. Not that he’s not good at those. He won an Oscar for one in A Fish Called Wanda. (Did he deserve it more than River Phoenix did for Running On Empty? Well, that’s a different story.) The thing is that he has become known for those roles. He needs to do more dramatic roles so that people realize that he’s a great actor. He and Micheal Keaton should be in a drama together some time. We could get both under-rated actors to be great together.

Another actor who I think is under-rated because of his age is Elijah Wood. I realized he was a good actor when he was the only good part of The Good Son. (Well, Macauly Culkin’s demise was pretty good, too, but that’s a given.) Roger Ebert has called him the best child actor of any generation. I’m not sure about that, but I think he’s better than most in his generation. This part gave him a chance to show the confusion of his own age. Most of his roles lately have been pretty much dumbed-down versions of teeanagers. Did anyone see Flipper (I didn’t) or North (I did)? North wasn’t as bad as everyone said it was, but it still wasn’t very good. Flipper I’m sure everyone involved would like to forget about. Anyway, just watch the scene where he’s just figured out that Christina Ricci has pulled an “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” on his younger brother. He rides his bike out to her and says, “I never want to see you again.” Her response, without looking back: “Then why’d you come out here to get me?” He thinks for a beat, turns his bike around and goes back home, all the time looking like “What did I just do? What did she just do?” Or the scene where she tells him to drop trou for her. He’s confused by his own feelings. “Should I or shouldn’t I?” Or even the scenes where he’s in the middle of the ice storm acting like a kid. He’s really enjoying himself even though he’s in danger. He just wants to be a kid for a little while longer.

This is a very good film from Ang Lee. The only other movie I’ve seen from him is Sense And Sensablity, but I plan on seeing more as soon as I can. I just have to get the Blockbuster I work at to get Pushing Hands. Or any foreign films for that matter. His other two are The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman. Maybe I’ll review them in another post.

There’s already been talk of an Oscar for this film and I can see why. It is a deeply affecting and moving piece of cinema and deserves a longer theatrical run than I have a feeling it’s going to have. Go see it while you still have a chance!