My most distinct memory from April 2000 is below. Before we get there, I want to point out how, quelle coincidence, all three of these films I rewatched were directed by women. Not on purpose! Just how my rewatches of April 2000 worked out.
Return to Me
release: April 7
dir: Bonnie Hunt
pr: Jennie Lew Tugend
scr: Bonnie Hunt & Don Lake, story by Bonnie Hunt & Don Lake and Andrew Stern & Samantha Goodman
cin: László Kovács
An architect loses his wife in a car accident; a waitress receives a long-awaited, life-saving heart transplant. One year later, the two of them are brought together. Can they open themselves up to love? Will the secret of his late wife's heart tear them apart?
Dad and I came back from a camping trip to find that my mother had gone to the movies to see Return to Me three or four times, even walking out of a baseball game halfway through to see it again. In my memory, she then took me to see Return to Me before it left theaters, though that may not be true. We certainly watched it several more times on VHS and, later, DVD, and if we stumbled on it on TV, it didn't matter that we owned two copies, we'd still watch. Does it hold up after all these years?
Yes. It holds up so well, you barely realize that the two leads don't even meet until almost an hour into the movie (it's only 1hr55min). Bonnie Hunt takes her time getting the audience to know these people, to live with them in their new lives, so much so that we know who they were before this time in their lives. It's the casual way they reference the past, like Grace's best friend and her husband mentioning a terrible date Grace went on way back when (no details, or timeline just, "Tucc' Fartucci? That's a date?"). It's the way Bob grabs Grace a hot chocolate without her asking because she keeps a sweater on (he doesn't know it, but she's hiding her heart surgery scar; it's the thoughtfulness on his part, though, noticing the sweater and trying to make her comfortable!). It's Bob asking to hold Grace's hand. David Duchovny and Minnie Driver are the heart (ha), of course, and they share the kind of chemistry that Old Hollywood would have exploited with thirteen subsequent pairings, it's rare magic. The best way I can describe this whole movie is human: it's funny and it hinges on the kind of contrivance that should make your eyes roll, but everything is rooted in the truth of human behavior and emotion; we believe them, so we believe the story. It's a story of a love that transcends this mortal coil, a heart that beats for one man within two women. That's romance. That's beauty. That's a great movie. I'm gonna have to see a lot of five-star movies to knock this off my 2000 Top Ten.
28 Days
release: April 14
dir: Betty Thomas
pr: Jenno Topping
scr: Susannah Grant
cin: Declan Quinn
Party girl goes to rehab for her drug and alcohol problem.
Saw this in a high school health class when we did the unit on drug/alcohol abuse and addiction.
I've always felt a remove from this film, even though I admire the performances and find the screenplay - that is, the course of events and dialogue, I've not read the script - to be honest. To be honest, I don't think Betty Thomas has nailed the tone Susannah Grant's going for, the mix of drama and comedy that sounds right doesn't play right, to say nothing of how desperately sweaty some of the editing and lighting choices come off. It's too self-conscious to be fully successful.
American Psycho
release: April 14
dir: Mary Harron
pr: Christian Halsey Solomon / Chris Hanley / Edward R. Pressman
scr: Mary Harron & Guinevere Turner, from the novel by Bret Easton Ellis
cin: Andrzej Sekula
1980s Manhattan: finance bro Patrick Bateman's shallow demeanor masks the homicidal maniac lurking within...and only we are privy to his most private thoughts and actions.
First saw this in college, a movie night in the dorms. Watched again, I believe, also in college but a little later on, and then again my first year here in LA. But that was 14 years ago.
"Tour de force" was made to describe performances like the one Christian Bale delivers here. He's simultaneously frightening and hilarious. His practiced squint, his deliberately paced way of speaking, his breathlessness in those moments of extreme ecstasy (usually leading to bloodshed), the hushed reveremce with which he greets a perfectly-manufactured business card, the shit-eating grin and too laborious casualness...what a perfect portrait of an airhead asshole. What a great indictment of an era and a people who made materialism chic, where the greatest sin that you could commit wasn't murder, but breaking the illusion.
Tomorrow, my first time watches from April 2000, including Love & Basketball and The Virgin Suicides.
1 comment:
It wasn't halfway through a baseball game, it was the 10th, that's right, the tenth inning and we left to see it for the 3rd nite in a row. I don't know who won the game.
Post a Comment