Hey, folks--as most of you know by now, Jill and I are expecting our first child in January, which is, of course, much bigger news than any movie I've seen recently. I am sure that this will impact the frequency of the newsletter (not to mention every other aspect of our lives) quite a lot, but at least for now, I am planning on still writing it, if perhaps not as often (maybe twice a year, instead of four times). On another subject, I was recently asked how I got interested in the whole movie-critic thing; I thought some of you might be curious, so my response appears below, after all the reviews.

ON SCREEN:

PEARL HARBOR: Ah, the joy of the Hollywood formula! Historical events reduced to hokey instant romances, overheated acting, overbearing music telling us every emotion to feel and every second to feel it, effects overkill, noise overkill, and overkill of damn near everything else! Oh, well--at least in Pearl Harbor's case, the result is still a watchable yarn. It helps that the Strong-headed, Beautiful Woman is a pretty decent actress (Kate Beckinsale, who does an American accent quite well--my theory is that she was cast to placate those in her homeland upset about Renee Zellweger playing Bridget Jones) and that at least one of the Two Young Handsome Heroes Competing For Her Affection (the Bold One, Ben Affleck) is a likable and skilled actor (the Shy One Who Has to Prove Himself, Josh Hartnett, isn't horrible, but doesn't make as good an impression). It also helps that the filmmakers created a fairly decent invocation of mid-1940's America, without any truly awful anachronisms. While they were at it, they made some adventurous casting decisions, recruiting Jon Voight (Jon Voight!) to play FDR and Alec Baldwin to play the eccentric Colonel Doolittle, leader of the famous retaliatory raid on Tokyo six months later. They made a good choice to emphasize the young cook who became the first black sailor to win the Silver Star by manning an antiaircraft gun on the Arizona after its crew were killed (played well by Cuba Gooding, Jr.) They even went out of their way to humanize the Japanese without apologizing or implying that the Japanese leadership wasn't responsible for the attack, although they did include General Yamamoto's hesitation and mixed feelings about the whole enterprise. So why didn't I like it more? I guess it was the whole over- thing I mentioned--over-formulaic, over-noisy (my wife complained about the soundtrack overwhelming her hearing aids), and even a bit overlong at three hours (and I'm usually the person who wants movies to be longer). In addition, like other reviewers, I wish Gooding's character would have been given more screen time--a movie specifically about him wouldn't have been a bad thing, even. Anyway, I would sum up that if you loved Titanic, you'll love this movie; if, like me, you liked Titanic but got tired of it by the end, you'll feel the same way about Pearl Harbor. (Speaking of Titanic, I should mention in closing that there is a clever nod to that earlier disaster/romance blockbuster early in this movie, and a very strange reference to, of all things, The Blair Witch Project later on, during the attack. Fans of Scottish actor Ewen Bremner--Spud from Trainspotting--should see this movie, in which he plays a similar but more nuanced role. Like Beckinsale, he nails his American accent down pretty well.) RATING: 7.

ON TAPE:

TRAFFIC: A stoic Mexican cop (Benecio del Toro) and his partner (Jacob Vargas) try to stay loyal to each other and their consciences as they work the streets of Tijuana. A wisecracking DEA agent (Luis Guzman) and his partner (Don Cheadle, who previously teamed with Guzman in Boogie Nights) pursue similar activities, and similar characters, on the San Diego side of the border. A naive suburban princess (Catherine Zeta-Jones) learns that her husband has been busted, and that their stately home and furnishings didn't come from wise investment decisions. A respected Cincinnati judge (Michael Douglas) is appointed to be federal drug czar, ignorant of the drug problem lurking within his own house (his teenage daughter, played one-dimensionally by Erika Christensen). Of course, a certain powdered, illegal substance is the only thing holding these diverse lives together, and Steven Soderbergh's direction almost succeeds in making their travails into some kind of coherent whole. Some notable implausibilities don't help; the new czar complains about talking only to people "who have never left the Beltway" (never mind that almost anyone with power in DC actually comes from somewhere else). More annoyingly, how in the world did Zeta-Jones' character enjoy all that wealth without an inkling of where it came from? All that said, I was still impressed with Soderbergh's ability to make a movie that, like Dead Man Walking, took a definite stand on an issue without gross oversimplification or cheap-shooting, something Hollywood has not always been able to do in the past. I found that I was able to enjoy this movie (especially the camaraderie of the two sets of police partners) without agreeing with all of the filmmakers' opinions. (As it happens, I do agree with at least some of them, but that's another subject for another day. I should mention that the film has a rather interesting cinematic contrivance--all the scenes set in Mexico are filmed in grainy black-and-white, and all the north-of-the-border sequences are filmed in full color. This is quite clever when you first see it, especially when a character crosses the border and gains or loses color! I thought it got old after a while, however, and it seems to emphasize the alien-ness of our neighbor to the south, which is at odds with the theses of the film. Furthermore, my wife and I have been to Mexican border towns in our travels, and among the most stimulating things about them are their bright colors, which this film fails to capture.) RATING: 7.

KICKING AND SCREAMING: Surely there is no fate more horrible than that of those poor souls forced to leave the peaceful isolation of their college campus and (gasp!) graduate and move into the real world. One is forced to find a job, to commit to responsibilities and people, and even--surely the ultimate indignity--to go to the grocery store to buy food. (Of course, it could be argued that not everyone even gets the chance to go to college, but that never quite makes it into the conversation....) Kicking and Screaming is a good movie because it gets a fair amount of amusement out of what could have been just endless bellyaching about the Campus Life Left Behind. It helps that director/scriptwriter Noah Baumbach came up with some interesting characters: Chris Eigeman (the Metropolitan veteran, who is almost as good here) is Max, a quipping veteran of many a discussion seminar. Not as cynical but more confused, his friend Grover (Josh Hamilton) is busy trying to figure out what to do with his literary and personal life now that his longtime soulmate, the brilliant Jane (Olivia D'Abo), has made a rather trendy move to Prague. Meanwhile, perpetual dweeb Otis (Carlos Jacott, who looks like a less threatening version of John Malkovich) tries to find fulfillment working at (big surprise) a video store, and Louis, the least developed of the characters (John Lehr), goes back to school in a bid to keep his not-yet-graduated girlfriend (Parker Posey). The happiest of all seems to be perpetual student and bartender Chet (Eric Stoltz), which may say a lot. There are a lot of genuinely funny and insightful moments, and I was generally kept entertained until the end, which I found unsatisfying and the weakest thing about the film. (I should mention that I was pretty happy with Elliott Gould playing Grover's father, who is dealing with a confusing life-transition of a different sort--divorce.) I would recommend this. RATING: 8.

A GREAT WALL: How about "Great Movie?" Co-director, screenwriter, and star Peter Wang takes a light touch to explore both serious and not-so-serious issues of cultural identity. The result entertains remarkably well, with an almost-perfect balance and a deft comic brush. Wang plays Leo Fang, a Chinese-American computer programmer who abruptly quits his job and takes his second-generation wife (Sharon Iwai) and thoroughly Americanized meathead son (Kelvin Han Yee) back to his homeland for the first time since he was ten. Hosting these "strange foreigners" are his sister who stayed behind (Shen Guanglan), her husband (Hu Xiaoguang), and their cute daughter (the charming Li Qinqin), who spends much of the movie being chased through a subplot by two young Chinese buddies (couldn't get the names off IMDB). Besides the easy and affectionate comedy of Wang's script, there are moments of genuinely skilled cinematography. When Leo impulsively quits his job after accusing his boss of discrimination, the office cubicles seem to crowd around him in a maze. Later, when the family finally lands in China, any attempts by Leo to idealize his homeland get crushed under the endless Communist high-rises. This kind of deft combination of form and substance always impresses me (as it did with Big Night, a movie to which I could compare this one), and it is the main reason I can highly recommend this film. RATING: 8.

...SO WHY DO I WRITE THESE THINGS, ANYWAY?

Recently, there has been a rash of interest (well, okay, actually two people asked) about whatever it was that made me interested in writing movie reviews, so I thought I would try to answer the question in the newsletter. (I have to admit I'm tempted to take a page from George Carlin here--"Did you always want to be a comedian?" "Well, not in the womb, but after that....") In a way, it makes a lot of sense for me to write about movies, because writing and movie-watching have been interests of mine for many years. I still have memories of going to the drive-in theater in Scottsdale, Arizona (and yes, I am old enough to have gone to a drive-in movie theater!) to see The Rescuers and Revenge of the Pink Panther with my parents (thanks, Mom and Dad!) The first movie that really hit me, however, was the first Star Wars, which we all saw twice. My brother and I got to the point where we re-enacted the movie line for line with our silly plastic figures, having no idea that there were other kids all over the country doing the same thing (and also having no idea how much those figures would be worth now if we had kept them). From there, the other pleasures of my young life-comic books, Dungeons and Dragons, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and of course the sequels-seemed to flow almost inevitably, and I still love action movies, even if I don't watch them as often as I used to. Writing came some years later, thanks to D&D and some encouraging teachers. I started writing poetry (and still do, to this day), some nonfiction, and the occasional story, although I have found that the latter form doesn't come to me as naturally as the others do.

Knowing of my interest in writing, Bobbie Rydell Jones, the founder of the New District of Columbia Collage Society, recruited me to pen and edit the group newsletter not long after I joined the group in 1990. I did this for four very fun (and busy) years, and it was a fantastic experience-I tried hard to make the newsletter both informative and enjoyable to read. (If anyone wants to evaluate how I did, I have posted several back issues on the web that are accessible from my writing page, which can be viewed at http://home.earthlink.net/~porcos/write.html). By 1995, I was too busy with night school and other commitments to keep doing the newsletter on a regular basis, so I had to quit. I soon realized that I missed the steady stream of non-fiction writing that I had been doing, however, and the occasional essay or letter-to-the-editor just wasn't enough. There wasn't a single flash of recognition with Thus Spoke Zarathustra playing in the background that made me realize that I wanted to write film reviews, but I did start thinking more about it after I started going to see the foreign movies at the Columbia Film Forum (in Columbia, Maryland). This was something of a transition for me; before this, when I saw an independent or foreign movie, I was usually by myself and didn't have anyone with whom to discuss it. Thanks to the Film Forum, however, I saw Ju Dou with Myles' parents, Scent of Green Papaya and Time Piece with my own parents, and Farewell My Concubine with my friend Jan Blacka, among other things. When I had a chance to talk about movies (particularly provocative or artful ones like these) with someone, I realized that I enjoyed the talking almost as much as the movie itself! It seemed logical to write down some of what I was thinking, and to irritate my friends by foisting my opinions on them about whatever film I had just seen or rented. To my amazement, no one complained that I was imposing my tastes on them, which, of course, only encouraged my behavior. (Frankly, I am not sure how I would be imposing my tastes on anyone just by recommending movies and writing reviews. After all, I'm not holding a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to watch anything!) The other thing that surprised me is that no one questioned my authority to write about movies. That authority, I must admit, is rather limited-I have studied acting and acted in amateur plays, and I am a published author in other contexts--but it remains unchallenged, so far.

I can't say that I have developed a coherent theory of film criticism, except for some rather general and vague concepts, and sometimes I break my own rules and like a film I didn't expect to like. I can't speak for other people, but for me, the first and foremost reason I watch movies is to enjoy myself. If I get educated or enervated along the way, there is nothing wrong with that, but it is secondary to this main purpose. I should add that I have never quite bought into the sometimes-popular idea that an experience is either educational or fun, and never both at the same time. Historical movies, which I often enjoy, can be very well-researched and surprisingly accurate, but can never be trusted to be completely correct in all respects-it is better to trust them to be fun, and to use historical movies as only one of many ways of learning about the past. In addition, I should say that I define "enjoy" broadly-if I watch a sad or tragic movie that moved me, or a documentary that kept me enthralled, then I enjoyed it, in the sense that it was a positive experience.

I don't believe in Marxist film criticism or feminist film criticism or attaching any other -ism to film criticism (apart from the one that's there already)-I think that requiring movies to be much more than pleasurable is expecting too much of them, and will inevitably lead to disappointment. I'm not a big fan of most of the sequel-after-sequel, focus-group-tested, rake-in-as-much-money-as-possible Hollywood nonsense that passes for movies much too
often these days (one reason I like being a critic). That said, I also believe that a movie can be good even if it wasn't made in a foreign country, or by a guy just out of film school who borrowed his parents' credit card to finance it. Hollywood, for all its annoyances, still makes at least a few movies a year that are at least diverting and enjoyable, and the occasional great cinematic landmark. (Also, it's worth noting that commercialism in Hollywood isn't as new as some of us critics would have you believe.) While I have actors and directors I like and dislike more than others, I try to judge each film on its merits, keeping past experiences to a minimum. In short, I try to stay open-minded.

I'm not as well-read on film history and film criticism as I would like to be, although I do have a few favorite film critics. I really like Pauline Kael, and the way that her reviews are worth reading even if you haven't seen or never see the movie she is discussing. Roger Ebert is as fun to read as he is to watch on television (and like many people, I miss his late partner, Gene Siskel). Leonard Maltin is not quite as insightful as Ebert, but is still worth reading, and his annual movie guides are definitive, if heavy. I know I pick on him a lot, but I do respect Stephen Hunter, the Washington Post's main movie man, not least for being a hard-core conservative in an entertainment world that is somewhat dominated by liberals like myself. I'm not fond of the City Paper's endless, caustic cynics, but I will admit that they can be guilty fun from time to time.

Anyway, there you have it; that's how I got started. I've now in my sixth year of doing this, and it seems like a good time to ask: How am I doing? While I cannot promise I will make use of it, feedback is always appreciated. Thanks for reading all of this, and see you at Blockbuster....

TONY