On the Quality of Things, #2

by Wade Stuckwisch, Illustrated by Jacob Chabot

I know, a hip, independent publication like Great Hoboes should be reviewing cool, hip, intellectual art films (like CQ or My Big Fat Greek Wedding), not schlocky big-budget summer movies. Well, I justify this by the fact that the local theater nearby in Sunnyside has $3 Tuesday movies, and they tend to show things like The Sum Of All Fears and Master of Disguise. Hey, being a great hobo starving artist involves sacrifice, you know.

Summer kicked off early in mid-April this year, with the Rock-headed Scorpion King and Ben Affleck/Samuel L. Jackson white guilt trip Changing Lanes preheating the box office, and partially redeeming the lackluster spring. The latter was a creative and enjoyable drama, but suffered from bouts of self-indulgent screenwriting. It was as if the writer was under deadline to finish the script and finished several of the final soliloquies while drunk. (But who among us isn't occasionally guilty of that offense. (Which reminds me, I could use another bottle of McSorley's…) My favorite movie of the summer warm-up period, however, was probably was the unassuming teen comedy The New Guy. The scenario: a disaffected, awkward white suburbanite named Dizzy spends a night in prison after overdosing on his ADD medication. He meets a black inmate, who identifies with his victimization by school bullies, and conveys to him the lesson of prison: be the bull, not the bitch. The bullied Dizzy then transforms himself into Gil, a rebel without a cause who suddenly becomes the most popular kid in school. The "high school is a lot like prison" comparison is so disturbingly appropriate that it remains compelling even in a movie as trite as this one. The manner in which the transformed Gil employs violence and compromises his identity in order to survive the strict social hierarchies of the school system rescue the film from banality - until it quickly backslides into a typical teen comedy. The plot line involving Gil encouraging his school's football team on to a winning season is so ludicrously misplaced, in a movie about the violent competition for acceptance, that it's insulting. Still, any movie about a James Brown-loving skinny white kid, with cameos by Henry Rollins and Gene Simmons is all right in my book.

And then came the twin juggernauts of this summer: Spiderman and Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Clones wasn't nearly as disappointing as the first Star Wars prequel, The Phantom Meanace, but then again I haven't been nearly as disappointed in Lucas's recent amendments to the Star Wars franchise as many fans have. Episodes I and II both suffer from lackluster scripting and flat characters, but the biggest problem I see is the existing back story Lucas is working with. The transformation of Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker to the black knight of Episodes 4-6, Darth Vader, might be good material for Shakespearean drama, but it hampers the swashbuckling adventure that made the first three movies so enjoyable. But I wouldn't go so far as to call Episodes I and II a disservice to the original trilogy, as some fans have. Power of myth aside, I can't get that flustered over a kids fantasy movie.

Speaking of pretentious references to Joseph Campbell, Spiderman is a perfect example of everything Star Wars: Clones is lacking. For once, the people involved in bringing this comic book icon to the screen understood Spiderman's greatest attraction to audiences: not cartoonish villains or colorful action (although the movie has plenty of both), but realistic characters and conflicts in a fantastic setting. Credit director Sam Raimi (better known for film and TV work like Evil Dead and Xena, but also notable for his serious films like A Simple Plan) and writer David Koepp for understanding the universal appeal of Stan Lee's original back story. In their hands, the metamorphosis of Peter Parker into Spiderman becomes about much more than the social responsibily to fight evil; it's a textured and nuanced picture of the tangled web of individual need and desire, often showing the outside world as just as villainous as The Green Goblin ever could be.

The early May release of Spiderman has made this summer quite unseasonable at the movies, as the quality and appeal of releases has steadily cooled since then. Christopher Nolan's superb morality tale Insomnia was a definite highlight. Spielberg's newest fantasy action epic Minority Report was some recompense for his criminally negligent treatment of A.I., but suffered from an ill-conceived effort for marketability and a Hollywood ending. And what did the Tom Cruise character's drug use have to do with anything? The latest Adam Sandler vehicle Mr. Deeds survived on Sandler's goofy charm, while Men In Black 2 and Austin Powers in Goldmember were comical but somewhat disappointing hodge-podges of gags, although all the laughs played well individually. John Woo's war epic Windtalkers suffered from his inability to resolve broad social commentary with his focus on juvenile macho action. Self-indulgent direction and superfluous stylized violence, like the countless scenes of stuntmen/soldiers catapulted skyward by an endless series of explosions, overshadowed a script which, at its best moments, approached a profound realization but never quite arrived. And Jason X was truly awful. Like high-school drama awful. There was one inspired and twisted piece of self referential comedy but that was hardly worth the price of admission. But why would you even care about a piece of shit movie like that?

As we cross out of the doldrums of mid-July (dragons and spiders and bears, oh my!) we briefly return to the land of big shiny blockbusters (Signs, Spy Kids 2 and XXX) before we fall headlong into the late August dregs of our summer bender. After that, it's probably all downhill until mid-October, when the vanguard of the holiday and Oscar-wannabe pictures arrive. Somehow summer always passes too quickly.

-August 1, 2002