Inventive Shandy, Dismal Date, Exhausting Running
F.S./Movie Reviewer
Issue date: 3/1/06 Section: Arts & Entertainment
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Laurence Sterne's famous - or is it notorious? - eighteenth-century novel Tristram Shandy is a riot of digression and narrative back-pedaling, and it's successfully resisted adaptation to stage or screen, until now.
But Michael Winterbottom, one of the most innovative filmmakers working today, has fashioned a sort of version of it in Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (Angelika).
The picture does offer recreations of some scenes from Sterne's amazing volume, but they're set within the context of a highly improvised tale of a movie company doing a low-budget adaptation of the book, and most of the running-time is devoted to the actors and crew, whose obsessions and vanities mirror those of the characters they're playing.
The result isn't a Masterpiece Theatre retelling of the original, which would be pretty much impossible. It's a recasting, in contemporary cinematic terms, of the spirit of the book.
The result is a movie that's not only a fascinating riff on Sterne, but a picture that's hilarious in its own right. Even its raggedness reflects the wildness of the original prose. Like the book, Winterbottom's Tristram Shandy isn't for everybody. But if you're attuned to its invention, you'll find it a brilliant oddity.
The string of loopy parodies of movie genres that began with Airplane a quarter-century ago has reached its nadir with Date Movie (wild release), a gross, laughless spoof of the conventions of Hollywood romantic comedies.
Unfortunately, the makers seem to think that all they needed to do was repeat sequences from pictures like Meet the Parents, When Harry Met Sally and Hitch (to name but a few), with lots of vulgarity added to the mix, all strung together in a tale of a fat girl out to win her dream beau. A real parody requires some wit and style; both are utterly absent here.
Date Movie is appallingly bad, and though it only runs a bit over an hour it feels interminable.
If you liked last year's grotesque exercise in mayhem and super-snazzy visuals, Domino, you may also enjoy Running Scared (wide release), a testosterone-driven chase movie about a small-time wiseguy (Paul Walker) who has to track down a gun used to kill a cop that's been stolen by a runaway kid.
The script is extraordinarily dumb, filled with goofy coincidences and so many extraneous bits of business that it feels like three or four screenplays shuffled together indiscriminately.
But what makes the movie well-nigh intolerable is the garish technique adopted by the director. It's a virtual orgy of violence, wild camera moves, breakneck editing and washed-out colors, and the acting amidst all the visual hubbub might charitably be described as absurdly over-the-top.
At the close of the movie Walker's character is tortured by having several hockey pucks slammed into his head while he's pinned down on an ice rink. Suffering through Running Scared, you'll know pretty much how he feels after the experience.
Aspirin, anyone?
Finally, there's Danish writer-director Lars von Trier's latest anti-American diatribe Manderlay (Angelika), the second installment of a projected trilogy that began with the horrible Dogville.
The picture has something to do with American liberal guilt over slavery and the arrogant, blundering U.S. effort to bring democracy to the world.
But what it's really about is von Trier's desire to spread his political message and to showcase his ascetic, bare-bones filmmaking style.
The result is less drama than dissertation, and even those who agree with its point of view are likely to find it intensely talky, stagebound and dull.
But Michael Winterbottom, one of the most innovative filmmakers working today, has fashioned a sort of version of it in Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (Angelika).
The picture does offer recreations of some scenes from Sterne's amazing volume, but they're set within the context of a highly improvised tale of a movie company doing a low-budget adaptation of the book, and most of the running-time is devoted to the actors and crew, whose obsessions and vanities mirror those of the characters they're playing.
The result isn't a Masterpiece Theatre retelling of the original, which would be pretty much impossible. It's a recasting, in contemporary cinematic terms, of the spirit of the book.
The result is a movie that's not only a fascinating riff on Sterne, but a picture that's hilarious in its own right. Even its raggedness reflects the wildness of the original prose. Like the book, Winterbottom's Tristram Shandy isn't for everybody. But if you're attuned to its invention, you'll find it a brilliant oddity.
The string of loopy parodies of movie genres that began with Airplane a quarter-century ago has reached its nadir with Date Movie (wild release), a gross, laughless spoof of the conventions of Hollywood romantic comedies.
Unfortunately, the makers seem to think that all they needed to do was repeat sequences from pictures like Meet the Parents, When Harry Met Sally and Hitch (to name but a few), with lots of vulgarity added to the mix, all strung together in a tale of a fat girl out to win her dream beau. A real parody requires some wit and style; both are utterly absent here.
Date Movie is appallingly bad, and though it only runs a bit over an hour it feels interminable.
If you liked last year's grotesque exercise in mayhem and super-snazzy visuals, Domino, you may also enjoy Running Scared (wide release), a testosterone-driven chase movie about a small-time wiseguy (Paul Walker) who has to track down a gun used to kill a cop that's been stolen by a runaway kid.
The script is extraordinarily dumb, filled with goofy coincidences and so many extraneous bits of business that it feels like three or four screenplays shuffled together indiscriminately.
But what makes the movie well-nigh intolerable is the garish technique adopted by the director. It's a virtual orgy of violence, wild camera moves, breakneck editing and washed-out colors, and the acting amidst all the visual hubbub might charitably be described as absurdly over-the-top.
At the close of the movie Walker's character is tortured by having several hockey pucks slammed into his head while he's pinned down on an ice rink. Suffering through Running Scared, you'll know pretty much how he feels after the experience.
Aspirin, anyone?
Finally, there's Danish writer-director Lars von Trier's latest anti-American diatribe Manderlay (Angelika), the second installment of a projected trilogy that began with the horrible Dogville.
The picture has something to do with American liberal guilt over slavery and the arrogant, blundering U.S. effort to bring democracy to the world.
But what it's really about is von Trier's desire to spread his political message and to showcase his ascetic, bare-bones filmmaking style.
The result is less drama than dissertation, and even those who agree with its point of view are likely to find it intensely talky, stagebound and dull.