SXSW2004–Jersey Girl/Hellboy

JERSEY GIRL I gotta tell ya, I love Kevin Smith. Yeah, his movies aren’t great cinematic experiences, but they’re really fuckin’ funny. So when I heard that he was going to do a movie about a man whose little daughter changes his life I thought, “Holy shit! Kevin’s gone soft!” And when I heard that Ben-Lo was going to star, I knew that something was horribly, horribly wrong.

Then Ben-Lo broke up. And I heard about Kevin cutting a lot of the Lo half of the dumbtastic duo out of the film. That’s when I knew that things might be right in the world, after all.

Ollie Trinke (Ben Affleck-Kev hasn’t lost his touch with the weird-ass names) is on top of the world. He’s got a great wife, Gertrude (Jennifer Lopez-funny, huh?), that he just married, a great job as a publicist for the biggest stars. His New York life is made even better when the little woman gets pregnant.

Then things go wrong. The baby is fine, but Gertrude dies in childbirth. (Ding dong, the witch is dead!) Ollie’s life falls apart one second at a time. He doesn’t know what to do with little Gertie. To him she’s just something else that he has to pay someone else to take care of. When the his dad, Bart (George Carlin), forces him to take care of his new daughter he has to take her to a Hard Rock Café where he’s supposed to introduce Will Smith, who is just starting his movie career with Independence Day.

Of course, all hell breaks loose. Ollie loses his job and has to move in with his dad, just until he gets back on his feet.

Fast forward to present day. Gertie (Raquel Castro) is now six years old and Ollie is driving the street cleaner just like his old man. He still has interviews, but since his meltdown, he is publicity poison. That’s when he meets Maya (Liv Tyler), a free-spirited (of course) video store clerk who pulls him into her world by asking him questions about his porn renting habits.

This movie is totally predictable, but it’s a cute little movie and is very funny. Even though it’s all cutesy at times, it’s definitely a Kevin Smith movie. There’s just no mistaking it. It’s soft, though. Kevin said that he was really happy that Linklater put out School Of Rock before Jersey Girl came out so he could say, “What about Linklater?! Look at him!”

He’s still having a problem with writing women, though. Maya is a really weird girl. I’m not so sure I would have been very enamored with her at first. She grew into a true character towards the middle of the film, but for the first half I couldn’t get a handle on her. She was just way too weird.

But Raquel makes up for Liv’s weirdness. She is extremely cute and has a cool Kevin Smith edge to her that a lot of six year olds probably wouldn’t have. She’s written pretty well, although I’m not so sure that a six year old girl would ask her dad after seeing her friend’s penis, “Is yours that big?” There’s just no way she would even think to ask that. His answer is great, though.

There’s been a lot said about Ben’s performance in this movie. Personally, I think he did a great job. No Oscar winner or anything, but he didn’t seem to be forcing himself to cry when Gertrude died. It was all very real. And that’s pretty hard to do.

And, of course, George Carlin was hilarious, as were his two buddies (Stephen Root and Mike Starr). Jason Biggs was pretty much just Jason Biggs. But he’s good at that, so don’t knock him too much.

Watch for Matt Damon and Jason Lee in pretty funny cameos and, of course, Will Smith in a VERY funny cameo.

My main quibble with the movie (and it’s a pretty small thing) is the use of Bruce Springsteen’s “City Of Ruins.” Unfortunately Kevin decided to use this song about a post-9-11 New York during a scene where Ben is looking around his house after Jennifer died. It was totally mis-used and very weird. If he had to use a song from that album he should have used “You’re Missing.” Using “City Of Ruins” is a bit like using Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s “Ohio” during a shoot-out. Kinda bad taste.

I’m not sure if I loved this movie, but I had a lot of fun with it. Check it out if you like Kevin Smith. Even if you don’t you might be charmed.

An added note: Mr. Catholic, Kevin couldn’t keep his mouth shut about Mel Gibson. “I’m a pretty devout Catholic. I made a movie about it once. But who knew? All you have to do to make $100 million is beat the shit out of Jesus. Beat the shit out of him more, make $200 million. If I’da known I would’ve gotten a few kicks in. Instead I went with a rubber poop monster.”

HELLBOY

Once again, I gotta tell ya, I love Guillermo del Toro. The guy’s super nice and makes some pretty kick-ass horror films. The Devil’s Backbone is one of the creepiest of the modern ghost stories and Blade II is a lot of fun in a really gross, weird way. Cronos is pretty awesome, too. We’ll stay quiet about Mimic.

For the last five years Guillermo has been trying to get this movie made. It’s based on one of his favorite comic books and he definitely wanted to do it right. The only person he thought of for the lead role was Ron Perlman. If it hadn’t been for Blade II’s success, the movie probably would still be languishing in development hell. The studio wanted an all CGI Hellboy, but Guillermo knew that wouldn’t work. You had to have a real face behind the monster.

And it didn’t hurt that creator Mike Mignola also wanted Perlman in the role.

Hellboy is a demon from Hell (where else?) who was allowed into this world during World War II. He was sent here to wreak havoc, but Professor Broom (John Hurt) saved him from the Nazis and raised him to be a force of good.

In the present day, Hellboy has grown up. (He ages in reverse dog years, so he’s in his mid-20s or so now.) He’s hidden away from the world, but he does get out to help out the good guys. The more he gets out the more he is seen and the more the head of the FBI, Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor), has to lie about his existence. But now Agent Clay (Corey Johnson) is going to take charge of Hellboy and help him stay out of sight while still helping the world stay alive.

Hellboy’s friends include Abe Sapien (Doug Jones with the voice of David Hyde Pierce), a half man/half fish and Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), a fire starter who is just learning to control her powers.

And that, of course, is where the pathos of Hellboy comes from. He is in love with Liz, but he knows that he can never have her. She has been in an asylum for years, but he still tries to visit her occasionally, much to her dismay. She loves him, too, but she knows that she is too dangerous to be free.

But he’s made of asbestos, Liz! He can handle it!

Oh yeah, there are some bad guys, too. Rasputin (Karl Roden) is the main bad guy and the man who let Hellboy out in the first place. His female minion, Ilsa (Biddy Hodson), is just kind of there to blow him occasionally and make him feel really good about himself by saying things like, “You are the greatest, sir!” It’s his other minion who makes the real impression. Sgt. Whitman (Angus MacInnes) is the coolest minion to come out of one of these films in a long time. He wears a cool mask, does gymnastics and has some really cool blades. He’s pretty freakin’ awesome. In fact, if it weren’t for him, the bad guys wouldn’t be interesting at all. I wasn’t all into Rasputin and Isla. They were kind of boring, actually.

I really wanted to love the hell out of this movie. And, while it was a lot of fun at times, I didn’t love it. Dammit! What went wrong?

Well, it was a little overlong. I understand that they needed to develop the characters and I totally appreciate that. I hate it when the characters are just cardboard cut-outs and we’re supposed to love them just because they kick ass. I think the characters were great and I can’t wait to hang out with them again in the inevitable sequel. But I feel like the plot was just an excuse to introduce the characters. I didn’t feel like anyone was in very much danger at all and I certainly didn’t like the bad guys.

The monsters and make-up effects were awesome, though. In fact, everything looked pretty awesome. And the acting was great all around. Ron really showed that you don’t have to over-act to act through that much make-up. I can’t imagine anyone else doing it now. And Abe Sapien was a great creation. Between Jones and Pierce Abe became a real person and not just a freak wearing a leotard.

There were some great, human moments, too. When Manning started to realize that Hellboy was more human than he thought, he has a rather fatherly moment that’s really funny and touching.

Strangely, I’m not really sure what kept me from loving this movie. No, I have never read the books (I didn’t even know this character existed until the premiere of Blade II, actually.), but that probably makes me a better judge of whether this is a good movie or not. I can tell you, it’s a good move, but it’s not a great one as everyone on Ain’t It Cool says it is. It’s fun, but nothing to write home about.