As though to make up for July's total lack of Oscar nominees, August gave us three...
Coyote Ugly
release: August 4
dir: David McNally
pr: Jerry Burkcheimer / Chad Oman
scr: Gina Wendkos
cin: Amir Mokri
A hopeful songwriter goes to NYC to pursue her dream and winds up dancing on the bar and serving up drinks at the infamous Coyote Ugly bar.
It's your classic Dreamer in the Big City film, not exactly reinventing the wheel, getting by on the charm of its cast, Piper Perabo lip-syncing to LeAnn Rimes. The best moments belong to Maria Bello as the bar's owner, not a mother figure but a big sister who's down to have fun as long as everyone behaves intelligently - I almost said "responsibly," but they have a NO WATER rule. The featured extras include Johnny Knoxville, Kaitlin Olson, and Alex Borstein.
Hollow Man
release: August 4
nominations: Best Visual Effects (Scott E. Anderson / Craig Hayes / Scott Stokdyk / Stan Parks)
dir: Paul Verhoeven
pr: Alan Marshall / Douglas Wick
scr: Andrew W. Marlowe, story by Gary Scott Thompson and Andrew W. Marlowe
cin: Jost Vacano
A team of scientists turn their project leader invisible, and he is driven mad.
The Invisible Man, but with Verhoeven's concerns about power through sex and the military. Kevin Bacon is terrific as an already shitty man whose genius allows him the power to be that shitty, made all the more so by becoming invisible using his own research, which (a) feeds his ego even more, and (b) has a side effect of increased aggression which leads him to stalking, rape, and murder. All made possible, of course, thanks to his research being funded by the government, excited about the potential of deploying invisible soldiers around the world, a horrifying idea. It is an exciting thriller, but Verhoeven does not shy away from the cruelty of unchecked power. One of Jerry Goldsmith's best scores.
Space Cowboys
release: August 4
nominations: Best Sound Editing (Alan Robert Murray / Bub Asman)
dir: Clint Eastwood
pr: Clint Eastwood / Andrew Lazar
scr: Ken Kaufman & Howard Klausner
cin: Jack N. Green
Something goes wrong on a satellite, and the only people who can fix it are geriatric Air Force pilots who were passed over for the astronaut gig 41 years ago.
If you like movies where the old-timers are usually correct but also dealing with the realities of aging while trying to prove that it doesn't define them, this is a movie for you! Like The First Wives Club, it has a prologue showing the younger versions...dubbed over by the four much older stars, lest we get confused (I'll tell you what's confusing, is hearing grizzled Clint Eastwood's voice come out of youthful Toby Stephens' mouth). It's a good time.
Autumn in New York
release: August 11
dir: Joan Chen
pr: Gary Lucchesi / Amy Robinson / Tom Rosenberg
scr: Allison Burnett
cin: Changwei Gu
Older man falls in love with younger woman, but she's terminal and also the daughter of a long-ago late love.
I believed in the connection between Winona Ryder and Richard Gere, I liked the sweetness of the story, I appreciated that they still allowed him to be an imperfect lothario who's desperately grappling with the very idea of mortality. Joan Chen should have done more projects like this, I like the performances she gets from her actors, the best one being Elaine Stritch as Ryder's grandmother, full of cocktails and regrets, a wiser companion piece to her September performance.
Cecil B. Demented
release: August 11
dir/scr: John Waters
pr: Joseph M. Caracciolo, Jr. / John Fiedler / Mark Tarlov
cin: Robert M. Stevens
Movie star is kidnapped by underground filmmakers who force her to take part in the shooting of their anarchic artistic statement.
This one's for the real Film Heads, the ones who would tattoo Rainer Werner Fassbinder's name on their person, who do entertain fantasies of terrorizing bad moviegoers and bad movies! It's about the frustration of the under-financed to be taken seriously as actual artists! It's about every film set becoming a family, only in this case it's a Manson Family! It's about allowing "movie stars" to actually stretch their craft, to be challenged, to buck expectations without going the prestige route! It's about fans and their unwavering loyalty! It's about the joy of creation! About coming together as artists! And talk about a climax...
The Replacements
release: August 11
dir: Howard Deutch
pr: Dylan Sellers
scr: Vince McKewin
cin: Tak Fujimoto
When the pros go on strike, one NFL team uses unlikely scabs as replacements.
There are two things wrong here. First of all, the dismissiveness with which it treats football players on strike: the millions of dollars others make on them, the risk to their overall health, the short breadth of most of their careers? Yeah, give 'em a raise, what do you care, the brain damage will take them out before they can spend it, let them leave something for their families! Second of all, the titular replacements are set up as lovable rogues, the B-squad, the Island of Misfit Toys...but there's no real sense of anarchy or excitement, save a bar fight. A relentless soundtrack keeps the '70s hits going without a break, it's exhausting. Charmingly acted, professionally mounted, but you won't see me recommending a pro-scab film, especially not one this unimaginative.
The Cell
release: August 18
nominations: Best Makeup (Michèle Burke / Edouard F. Henriques)
dir: Tarsem Singh
pr: Julio caro / Eric McLeod
scr: Mark Protosevich
cin: Paul Laufer
A therapist using a new tech that allows entry into people's dreams is tasked with doing so for a comatose serial killer so the FBI can find his latest kidnapped victim before it's too late.
Film can be so literal and dreams are so ephemeral that it is rare for the former to capture the uncanny magic of the latter. The Cell manages the trick of making the dream worlds navigable while still convincingly a world where memories and fantasies are mixed together, sometimes controlled, sometimes not, capable of being reassuring, horrifying, erotic. And it does this within a fantasy spin on the police procedural, which somehow works, thanks in part to the relative blankness of its two leads, especially when pitted against the black bog of evil that is Vincent D'Onofrio. It's Tarsem, so you know going in it's going to be visually audacious, and one is not disappointed. I have seen four of his five features, and this is the only one I would watch again (sorry to fans of The Fall, that is a movie that I just do not get).
The Art of War
release: August 25
dir: Christian Duguay
pr: Nicolas Clermont / Ron Yuan
scr: Wayne Beach and Simon Davis Barry, story by Wayne Beach
cin: Pierre Gill
An American secret agent is framed for the murder of the Chinese ambassador.
Apologies to all involved, this is a stupid, stupid movie, just incompetent from script to editing to Anne Archer's performance, it gave me nothing.
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