Movies

I've seen a bunch of good movies lately, including these, all of which I'd recommend:

• The Triplets of Belleville - entertaining, silly French animation. Musical, fanciful, sees Americans as quite obese.

• Spellbound - Endearing documentary about the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee. Heartwarming and cheesy, just like you'd expect, but completely satisfying.

• American Splendor - Quirky part-documentary, part-fiction based on the life of American-original autobiographical underground cartoonist Harvey Pekar. Again, heartwarming, cheesy and enjoyable, while also passing itself off as an "alternative" kind of film.

• Ken Park - Saw this in Budapest, as it's not supposed to have U.S. distribution, owing to its explicit sex (including, most notably, a young man gratifying himself, with a bathrobe belt around his neck and a doorknob, to graphic, on-camera completion). I enjoyed it, sex aside (though I admit I am now a big fan of Tiffany Limos); the acting was great and the plot -- exploring mostly unhappy teenage suburban lives -- certainly rang true. Compellingly character driven. You'll have to see it on DVD or abroad, however, as I believe they are not seeking U.S. distribution (though I don't think it was any "harder to watch" than Happiness).

• Mystic River - Just saw this Wednesday. As good as you've heard. Adrienne's only complaint was it was a bit too slick, which I can understand. I could see the big plot twist coming a mile away. But the acting of all the prinicipals was so good -- Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins -- that any shortcomings could be overlooked. Expect this to popular during Oscar season.

• 21 Grams - Like Mystic River, heavy drama and great acting -- again with Sean Penn and also Benicio Del Toro and Naomi Watts. I thought the disjointed time sequence of the editing was unnecessary and inconsistent -- it started out jumping all over the place among different charaters' stories and time frames, although soon enough it becomes clear how the subplots all connected, and for the second half of the movie the time frame stays current with the present, at which point the jumpy cutting was just contrived and distracting. But it is a powerful film worth seeing.

All of those films I saw in the last month. My favorite film of 2003, however, remains Lost in Translation, which I saw a couple of months earlier. Just a beautiful film. Superb acting. Certainly Bill Murrary's best performance that I've ever seen.

To those who would criticize it for "making fun of the Japanese" -- a charge I've heard a couple of times -- I'd say, phooey. PC twaddle. Sure, some of the humor is driven by Murray's glib reaction to his not speaking or understanding Japanese and various cultural differences, but none of it is mean-spirited. In fact, there are several scenes of him and Scarlett Johansson emersing themselves in the local culture and making Japanese friends, such as the karaoke scene. More importantly, though, the film is an honest portrayal of its characters. Neither character is in Japan for a love of travel and exploring other societies. Murray's character is an unhappy Hollywood star cashing on a lucrative advertising opportunity, and Johansson is a newlywed there because of her husband's business. They're both bored and alienated in a strange place, and they're acting perfectly naturally in that regard.

I don't know why I'm even making these excuses for such a great film (aside from recently having a conversation to this effect with one frequent Bruner Blog reader, although he hadn't even seen the film...). In any event, it's my pick for the year. It really should be at least nominated for best actor and film. See it, if you somehow haven't yet done so.