Movies I Watched in June, Part 4

Here it is, the final recap for the month where I watched a whopping 16 movies from beginning to end. Hard to believe I have a wife, a kid and a job .... or a life, for that matter.

I’ve had the Criterion disc for a while, and I watched the “bonus” feature, 1931’s “The Front Page” a few months ago ( check out the review here ), so when I was looking for something to watch, I figured, “Why not choose one of the greatest comedies ever made?” I’ve seen it before, of course, most recently about three years ago for an episode of our Out of Theaters podcast ( listen here ). It’s even better than I remembered, blisteringly fast-paced and fueled by the off-the-charts charisma of its two stars, Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. It’s dark, it’s funny and it manages to make the newspaper business not just romantic, but downright sexy – something that, as a 20-plus year veteran of the profession, I can assure you it almost never is. Bonus points for including a murderer’s row of classic character actors, including Roscoe Karns, Regis Toomey, John Qualen, Cliff Edwards, Gene Lockhart, Abner Biberman, Porter Hall and Ralph Bellamy in the most Ralph Bellamy role of all time. (He’s even compared to “Ralph Bellamy” by Grant’s character – by name!)
Hey, look! A brand-new movie! I was skeptical of a sequel to one of Pixar’s very best films a whopping 14 years after the original hit theaters, but I’ll be damned if writer/director Brad Bird and his team didn’t do the first film – and themselves – proud. It lacks the seismic impact of “The Incredibles” (after a decade-plus of Marvel and DC movies, how could it not?) but it’s a worthy successor, picking up the story at the moment the first film ended and mixing things up by putting Elastigirl in the super-hero spotlight and having Mr. Incredible handle things on the homefront. The movie looks spectacular, subtly (and cleverly) starting out relatively simple to mimic the look of the 2004 original, then gradually shifting to a more complex, more modern version of computer animation as the story progresses. It’s fun to compare the city scenes at the end of the original (which looked great in 2004 and still look pretty good today) with the city scenes in “Incredibles 2,” which are on a whole other level of sophistication and detail. The plot is solid, too, exploring some of the parenting themes touched on in the first film and exploring the powers lil’ Jack Jack starting displaying back then (and in the short included on the DVD). My only criticisms? The twist involving the actual villain was way too easy to predict and, on a personal level, I wish we’d seen more of Dash. His running scene in the jungle in “The Incredibles” still ranks one of the best -- and most joyous -- super-hero action scenes in movie history.
Roman Polanski is a controversial figure for a whole lot of reasons (well, come to think of it, maybe one very specific reason ), but he sure knows how to direct a movie. “Chinatown” ( review here ) is a confirmed classic, his version of “MacBeth” ( review here ) is one of the best Shakespeare adaptations I’ve ever seen, and “Rosemary’s Baby” ( review here ) is one of my favorite movies of all time. So while I realize he’s done horrible things, I can’t help but admire the talent he exhibits. (Does that make me a bad person? Probably.) Which brings us to “The Ghost Writer,” his 2010 slow-burning thriller about a writer (Ewan McGregor) hired to pen the memoirs of an ex-prime minister (Pierce Brosnan) who stumbles onto – what else – a deadly conspiracy. It’s not one of his major films, but it demonstrates how, even on a smaller project,  Polanski is a master of generating not just suspense, but a vibe that says no one can be trusted and dark forces are amassing just outside the frame. Though “The Ghost Writer” is set mostly in America, it was filmed in Europe thanks to Polanski’s legal troubles, and that actually works to the film’s advantage, giving everything a cold, icy, foreboding feel that works perfectly with the story being told. Solid cast, too, with McGregor and Brosnan (who is so much better here than he was as Bond) given strong support by Tom Wilkinson, Olivia Williams, Timothy Hutton, Jon Bernthal, Jim Belushi (!) and Kim Cattrall, who, believe it or not, is actually British by birth.
You’ve seen it. If you have any sort of cable, you’ve probably seen it, in bits and pieces, a dozen times. That’s because it’s compulsively watchable, thanks to a stellar cast – Damon! Norton! Landau! Turturro! Malkovich! Mol! Janssen! – sleek direction by John Dahl and a crackling script by David Levien and Brian Koppelman that delivers exactly the right combination of fun poker scenes and dark moments of paying the piper. One thing I like about it that rarely gets mentioned? The fact that (spoiler alert) our hero, Matt Damon, does not, in fact, learn the lesson that the straight-and-narrow is the path to take, and instead ditches his girlfriend, bails out of law school and hits the road for the big poker tournament. In this movie, it's an oddly moral triumph, and any other ending would’ve felt false. One thing I don’t like that everyone else loves? John Malkovich’s performance. He’s a great actor, and his character is a lot of fun, but he’s so goddamned goofy and over the top that the menace never feels threatening enough. I feel a lot more on edge when Damon is playing a few hands with the cops and Norton strolls in, screws everything up and they both get a (well deserved) ass beating.