New to DVD

Lately I’ve been catching up with 2006 films that have already been issued on dvd, but I’m still strangely reluctant to assign ratings. Certainly United 93 was the best of the group; in fact, according to www.metacritic.com it is the best reviewed film of the year so far (MC-90.) I watched it because I have been following the career of Paul Greengrass since his Bloody Sunday, even watching The Bourne Supremacy, a Robert Ludlum/Matt Damon thriller franchise that I normally wouldn’t notice at all. United 93 was certainly riveting and impeccably made -- not entertainment certainly, and not exploitive, but I don’t really know what I think or how I feel about it. It certainly gives a you-are-there feel to the events of 9/11, but does one really want to be there? The on-board drama of the hijacked airliner is not hyped up, but doesn’t add all that much to one’s imagination of the event. To me the most interesting scenes were in the various air traffic controller sites, as they tried to make sense of an incomprehensible situation, with many of the real folks reenacting their actual responses. Greengrass is a master of the quasi-documentary style, and certainly one of the best directors working today. If you really want to know what it feels like to be going down in a doomed airplane, then this is the movie for you.

Nicole Holofcener is another youngish writer-director who has earned attention with two previous films, Walking and Talking and Lovely and Amazing. Her new film, Friends with Money, brings back Catherine Keener, along with Frances McDormand and Joan Cusack as “successful” SoCal women, plus Jennifer Aniston in her indie mode, as their old friend, a dropout teacher working as a maid. It’s a wonder how a group of appealing talents such as this could combine for such a wan production (MC-68.) There are good moments of dialogue, and pointed bits of business, but overall we’re not given much reason to care about the problems of these privileged women confronting middle age, nor about their financially and romantically deprived friend. It’s indicative that one gets no idea how these women became friends in the first place. Presumably “real” and fitfully funny, these are not friends I am eager to spend time with. My enthusiasm is effectively curbed.

And my enthusiasm is more than muted for Spike Lee’s latest (and financially most successful) feature, Inside Man. I mean, how bad could it be, with Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster, Clive Owen and a distinguished supporting cast; with Spike’s real feel for New York City locations and people; with a great model in Dog Day Afternoon? The answer is pretty bad, despite the Metacritic score of 77. The film has one of those scripts with so many clever twists they begin to seem pointless, and I began to tune out the puzzle rather than try to solve it. It almost seemed as if Spike did the same, throwing away the maguffin (oh those Nazis -- will they ever wear out as a lazy signature for evil?). There are some good things in this film about a hostage/heist at a Wall Street bank, it’s not an out-and-out disaster like She Hate Me, but my patience continues to wear thin with Lee’s lack of judgment. He’s too fond of his own trips, tricks, and tics -- he doesn’t know when to murder his darlings. Here’s a tip, Spike, if you want to be a great filmmaker, stick with the documentary form -- you need the discipline of fact. And as you of all people should know, shorter is sometimes better.