Column #24 - Hitting PAYDIRT - The Second-Half of Summer

It's the middle of the holiday season and I figured, what better time to publish the my analysis of the second-half of summer filmmaking. But don't worry, in the weeks ahead, as expected, as wanted, as anticipated, as desired by my loud and feverish fan-base, comes the annual Best/Worst list and boy is it a doozy. Till then, remember back to a time when the weather was warmer, where we still dosed in the success of the Flames playoff run, and there was no way that the Bosox curse was going to end this year. That's right, I mean...SUMMERTIME.

This was a banner summer for comedies and the second half was no exception.

Team America. Puppets equal funny. Puppet sex equal funnier. Puppets from the guys who make South Park equal one of the funniest movies of the year. Oh, pardon me, I meant Marionettes. Damn, but those puppets were funny. Also, an scathing indictment of US foreign policy, especially when Team America blows up the Eiffel Tower crashing it into the Louvre, destroying both. But done in a very funny, non-muppet puppet way. Don't worry, they got the generic terrorists in the process. Also, contained some of the funniest song lyrics since...well, South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Un-cut. 'America, F**k Yeah' was my favorite.

I, Robot. I had low hopes for this movie. Go figure, they weren't met. Instead, Alex Proyas' very liberal take on Isaac Asimov's classic tale, starring the anti-robotic Will Smith, was quite the passable time-killer. The effects were solid, the acting nice, the pacing effective, the robots all robotic. It even had the gruff lieutenant who utters phrases like, "This is killing your career." and "How many robots have ever committed a crime? How many in history?" The answer was none. Will Smith proves otherwise. It also has a nice little twist at the end. Could've been slightly better, could've been much worse. I have one minor complaint. Once again we've a hero who literally saves the world, the entire world, and doesn't get so much as a kiss from the girl. This is all the more poignant since the hero is black, the girl white. Come on, prohibitions on miscegenation went out with Strom Thurmond. Save the world, kiss the girl, my new motto circa 2005.

The Manchurian Candidate. A remake of an iconic classic always spells crap-fest, except here. This movie was not only nail-biting, it once again proves that Meryl Streep is in the pinnacle of her career not the down-slope. Angela Landsbury set the bar high in the original, but Streep hurdles it, bringing six new levels of creepy to her relationship with her troubled, Gulf War hero son Raymond Shaw (Liev Schreiber). Denzel Washington has the Frank Sinatra role, as Ben Marco, the only man who believes that Raymond isn't all that heroic. The problem: He's a paranoid vet that even the army doesn't believe. Or does it? Updated for the post-Fahrenheit 9-11 world. Maybe the best conspiracy movie since the X-Files. Speaking of which...

....The Bourne Supremacy. Once again Matt Damon proves that solid storytelling surpasses tabloid fodder each and every time (that was a shot at Affleck, who apparently is trying to work his way through all the Jennifer's working in Hollywood. I have two words for him: Lucky Bastard.) While not as interesting or nail-biting as The Bourne Identity and the way they dispatch Franka Potente is shameful in its blink and you'll miss her cameo. On the other hand, Damon only continues to mature as an actor and hey, the guy's personable. You want him to defeat the evil Michael Moore-esque intelligence agency and learn that his name is really...wait, I'd hate to ruin it for the half-dozen who didn't see it...screw it, rhymes with Sean Poe.

Open Water. This film did more for real sharks than any of the Jaws and Blanchard Ryan ranks right up there with Jessica Biel in the category of girls I'd like to marry but they probably have better things to do, like self-immolation. Maybe a top five film for the year, we'll see how it breaks down. Two divers stranded in the middle of the ocean after a tour-boat leaves without them. So casual in it's plausibility, I'll never so much as think about taking a Caribbean cruise. Trapped in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by increasingly aggressive real-life sharks (no animatronics here, too expensive), every time the actors jumped, so did I. This wasn't acting, this was a lesson in animal reaction. One of the two movies that may have finally turned me into a convert of digital video. Out on the water, alone for miles, tails flapping and teeth thrashing, unable to see farther than a few feet, I simply can't imagine Open Water being any better on 35mm. Which leads nicely into...

...Collateral. This movie looked good. This movie felt good. This movie proved pre-Ray that Jamie Foxx could act his ass off and against an aggressively against type Tom Cruise. He plays a smooth criminal using Jamie as his driver/patsy for one hell of a night throughout Los Angeles. While not as guitar-string tight as Heat, this flick beats to its own rhythms: the metropolis at night, barren back-alleys, uncontrolled rage. I've never been to LA but this movie makes me think it's more than the riot-prone cesspool depicted on TV. The only thing out of place in an otherwise exciting movie-going experience was the standard hero-killer shootout in the subway ending. It's been done better, The Fugitive and Speed come to mind. All-in-all though, still a rewarding couple of hours.

So how did the summer pan out? Strong beginning, strong finish. Maybe the strongest in memory. The best film? Might be The Chronicles of Riddick, might be Open Water, might be Shrek 2. Check back in a couple of weeks to get all the answers.
Jess Nakaska is an aspiring screenwriter always on the lookout for the next great script idea. He'll let you know if he finds it. Feel free to contact him at jessnakaska@hotmail.com.