New Post on Sunday

A Couple of Movies I Just Saw or Resaw

In The Soup

This won the Best Picture award at Sundance the year it came out, beating out a superior Buscemi-intensive film, Reservoir Dogs by Quentin Tarantino. It tells the story of Adolpho Rollo, a dude with money troubles that wrote a screenplay he wants to make into a movie. He finally gives up on his filmmaking dream and tries to sell his screenplay, causing him to meet Joe, a total scumbag who unfortunately drives the rest of the movie’s narrative. It’s meant to be a movie about a guy with a lot of ideas and passions that gets in over his head with a criminal and his weird entourage in order to get his film made. The problem is, we the audience have no real reason to care about this guy, so when he makes a bunch of bad decisions, we just get annoyed with him. About an hour into this black-and-white indie nonsterpiece, I realized I hated all the characters – the aimless and blank (it’s quite a feat to make Buscemi seem blank, don’t you think?) main character; the repellent, manipulative, and omnisexual Joe; the mean and non-radiant love interest; the bickering mobster landlords; Joe’s omnisexual and stupid girlfriend; The repellent Frenchman who is married to the love interest; Joe’s pointlessly ruthless brother…

…Ok, so Joe’s brother is kinda cool, in a Tarrantino sort of way. But the whole movie seems to be attempting to reach David Lynch’s quirky and ominous Blue Velvet tone but isn’t committed enough to get it done and isn’t smart enough to succeed despite its failings. The movie is amateurish, and in a bad way. To use an analogy, Blue Velvet is to In the Soup as Nirvana is to Candlebox. I don’t think I can say it any better than that.

Hoop Dreams

In the special features to the new Criterion DVD, they have every single instance where the late Gene Siskel and the on-time Roger Ebert talked about this film. They trumpeted it when it came to Sundance, they trumpeted it when it came to theaters, they trumpeted it for a Best Picture nomination in 1994, they had twin coronaries when it wasn’t even nominated for Best Documentary, they were the public face of the movement that eventually reformed the documentary nomination process, and they both named it the best picture of the 1990’s when that decade was done. Whew.

While I think they might want to tap the breaks a bit on that last one, it is probably the best documentary of all time. For those unfamiliar with it, I’ll summarize: 2 black kids from the inner city of Chicago (Arthur and William) are recruited to play for a prestigious Catholic High School in the suburbs. William immediately plays with the varsity team, and becomes a rising Chicago prep star; Arthur plays with the freshman team and is kicked out of school during the first year because his family can’t pay his part of the tuition. The filmmakers follow them from their 8^th grade year all the way through High School graduation, and time brings a reversal of fortune for the two boys and tragedy and comedy for each of their families. It’s really about the inner city of Chicago and people finding hope there, told through the eyes of two prep basketball phenoms.

The commentary track featuring William and Arthur is awesome. They are funny, thoughtful, and illuminating as they discuss what was going through their heads the whole time. It’s a window into a world that is seldom seen even in our enlightened age: the world of the struggling urban non-criminal teenager. It’s not exciting or sexy – it’s just a noble struggle that’s sad and uplifting in a genuine way. What else do you want from a documentary, Holmes?

In The Soup: 1 ½ overpriced popcorns out of 5

Hoop Dreams: 4 ½ overpriced popcorns out of 5