Arlington Road

First off, why the hell are they start movies off with commercials?!?! Don’t we get enough of them on TV? Eyes Wide Shut started off with a stupid car commercial. This one started off with two commercials (one about a meteor coming to Earth only to be knocked out of the park by a baseball player–one funny part: a bunch of models, fearing the end of the Earth, rush to a bakery and pig out) and a freakin’ PSA! Sure, it’s cool to see Howie Long getting a sense of humor about his movie career (not much of one, though…he wasn’t very funny), but do we need to see him yuck it up with Terry Bradshaw and a couple of other has-beens about asthma? Previews are fine. In fact I like those. Keep ‘em coming! But stop the perversion of our film going experience. STOP THE MADNESS!!!!

On a brighter note, I saw a rather interesting preview today. Melanie Griffith, David Morse, Meat Loaf (!) and Lucas Black (the kid from Sling Blade and The X-Files movie) star in Crazy In Alabama. Something about a couple of kids in Alabama that see a sheriff (Loaf, er, Meat, er Mr. Loaf) kill a black kid at a “whites only” swimming pool. (Yes, this takes place in the 60s sometime.) Meanwhile, one of the kid’s aunts (Melanie) is in Hollywood trying to make it big. Looks like a pretty good movie, but the surprise came near the end of the preview. This is the directing debut of ANTONIO BANDERAS!!!! Uh, what? When did he decide to start directing? And why hadn’t I heard about this? He must have had some help on the trailer from his old pal Robert Rodriguez, because it makes the movie look really good. I guess we’ll find out in October. Pretty weird.

Now on with our feature presentation.

Arlington Road is an suburban thriller with Tim Robbins and Jeff Bridges. Not many people will probably see this because it’s not a typical Summer Movie. It actually requires a little thought.

Jeff is Michael Faraday, a professor who teaches a course in terrorism at the local university in Washington D.C. His wife was killed in a failed attempt to stop some terrorists who ended up not being terrorists. He is trying to raise his 9 year-old son, Grant (Spencer Treat Clark), and keep his ex-grad student girlfriend, Brooke (the ever-beautiful Hope Davis), from seeming like a replacement.

Tim plays Oliver Lang, the perfect neighbor. He and his wife, Cheryl (Joan Cusack), have three kids and seem to be your everyday, typical family. Maybe.

The movie starts with Michael almost hitting the Langs’ son, Brady (Mason Gamble from Dennis the Menace, Spy Hard and (moving up in the world) Rushmore), in the middle of the street. Brady is bleeding and staggering. Michael takes the kid to the hospital and meets his parents not even knowing that they live right across the street. The tension never lets up after this scene.

Jeff takes this family in as friends until he starts to uncover some very unsavory aspects about his new buddy. Oliver’s name isn’t really Oliver. He was arrested when he was sixteen for taking a pipe bomb to a government building. Was it because his family’s farm was taken away from them? Or was there another reason?

Jeff starts to scare everyone with his conspiracy theories and his snooping. Could suburbia be infiltrated by a terrorist? Why is Oliver constantly hiding his blueprints for a new mall? And why does the mall look surprisingly like an office building?

When I first started seeing previews for this movie I knew that it would be good. The preview was suspenseful and Tim and Jeff are two of the best actors of their generation. The problem was that it seemed to give the whole thing away. They told you exactly who Oliver was.

Fortunately there’s a lot of tricks up this flick’s sleeves. Writer Ehren Kruger (Scream 3) injects a lot of twists, turns and unending suspense. Not to mention a great ending that really sticks with you for a while. I, personally, can’t stop thinking about it. It all ties together so well that you can’t help but wonder how a guy in his 20s could come up with it. (I’m almost 24 and I know I could never do it.)

Director Mark Pellington (Going All The Way) ups the ante with his direction. There’s a very slow chase scene that somehow keeps us riveted. There’s even a Waka-Jawaka song! (And we MST3K fans know that a chase scene just isn’t a chase scene without the Waka-Jawaka. MITCHELL!)

This is definitely the best movie that I’ve seen this summer. (In fact, the only problem I have with it is that the credits sequence is too much like Seven’s. Kind of fits, though, considering…well, I don’t want to give anything away.) I know that I’ve been saying that about South Park, but that’s in a different class. And then there’s George Lucas’s little flick. Good, but not up to scratch. Kubrick? Well, that comes close. I think that was mainly good because of it’s director. We all knew that we would like that one. The man never made a bad movie. Well, except for Fear and Desire, but that was his first one. We forgive him. He may not forgive some of us for watching the damn thing, but that’s ok. We don’t all ask forgiveness.

The performances were great. This is the kind of movie that I wish Pacino and DeNiro would sign up for. Heat was cool and all, but they were barely together. Arlington Road and The Negotiator have been the best pairing of amazing actors in the past few years. They both get the actors’ juices flowing and have them face each other off. They’re basically trying to out act each other and we get the rewards.

Everyone else does great, too. Joan Cusack isn’t known for her menacing qualities. I’m so used to her being in movies like In & Out and Say Anything that it’s kind of disturbing to see her as the wife of a possible terrorist. I guess that’s the point, though. However, I refuse to say that “her endearing smile has never been so menacing.” That may be true, but it’s become a cliché. Both reviews that I’ve read of this movie have that line in it. I, on the other hand, will just reference the line and move on. Hope Davis is also a winner. The only other movie that I’ve seen her in was The Daytrippers. That was pretty good (another one with a semi-surprise ending) and she was great. I haven’t seen Next Stop, Wonderland, but I’ve heard that it was pretty good, too. I may have to add that to my list of “must-see”s this summer. I never had much of an interest before. She’s definitely an indie break-out star of the 90s.

I hear that Roger Ebert didn’t like this movie. I didn’t see his show about this one, so I could have heard wrong. But if I didn’t, let me tell you one thing: ROGER EBERT IS A BOOB!! He also thinks that Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome is the best of the series. Is this the kind of man you want choosing your movies? I didn’t think so.

So seek out this movie! I would hate to see it get lost in the shuffle of summer flicks just because its original production company was bought out. (That’s why it wasn’t released six months ago.) It deserves some recognition before it comes out on video.