Spiderman 2, that I saw in Medford, Oregon (don’t ask): I always had a weak spot for director Sam Raimi, in particular because of the Evil Dead movies. And it seems now quite obvious to the whole world how incredibly talented he is, given the rave reviews everywhere of the movie and at the same time, the whirlwind-like box office performance. Granted, it’s not a bad movie, but I fail to see the depth and importance it seems to get attributed. Ok, a superhero with plenty of personal issues is a break from the usual infantile Hollywood crap we get served, and it is clearly one of the better comic book movie renderings, but I think the bar should be put higher, especially for a genius like Raimi. I did love the brilliant intro graphics though.
Bedtime for Bonzo:
The Stanford theatre here in Palo Alto, a beautiful theatre showing classic movies, is currently featuring a Ronald Reagan-retrospective(!). Bedtime for Bonzo is a flick featuring Reagan taking care of a chimp - I like to remember this because it inspired the great Ramones song ‘Bonzo goes to Bitburg’ (unfortunately many of the Ramones-members seem to be or have been joining Ronnie in the hereafter lately).
Before sunset:
Now here’s a great movie! I must first admit not to be entirely objective, since I recognize much of Ethan Hawke’s character in me: about the same age, same mindset and with a huge crush on Julie Delpy. I also loved ‘Before Sunrise’ from ‘95 to which this is a sequel.
The movie is about 90 minutes of long shots of Hawke and Delpy talking and walking through Paris. Nothing really happens in it but I wasn’t bored for a minute (and my threshold is not that high). The dialogue is, like in the ‘95 movie, very natural - you almost feel like taking part in it. I won’t reiterate the story here (lost love and its consequences), but what struck me is some autobiographic elements: Jesse is an American writer (Ethan Hawke also became a writer and put his acting on hold for quite a while), the two actors wrote the dialogue themselves, Celine plays the guitar and writes songs (Delpy plays in the movie a song from her album to Hawke), Celine used to live some time in the US (Julie Delpy as well and might still if I’m not mistaking), Jesse’s unhappy marriage (Hawke is in a divorce) et cetera.
The movie is unusually deep (to Hollywood standards), and director Richard Linklater (an excellent chroniqueur of us Gen-X’ers) gave it an ending in perfect style: unexpected, but very appropriate. For a real review, check out this article.
