Movie time

I've continued to enjoy watching movies on DVD this week, and I've started working my way down the stack to movies which for one reason or another were the objects of unfavorable criticism when they were shown in theaters, but which interested me enough to invest a few dollars in the DVDs when they hit the clearance table at Blockbuster. My notes are as follows:

Bobby: Written and directed by Martin Sheen's boy, Emilio Estevez. This movie came and went without making much of a splash in the world of film. I was attracted to the DVD because the cast includes a number of well-known actors, such as Anthony Hopkins, Christian Slater, William H. Macy, and the director's dad. The title Bobby refers to Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and one criticism of the movie was that it didn't tell enough of RFK's story. Instead, this movie, like Crash or Babel, has numerous storylines with different characters running concurrently, then a climax revealing how they're connected. I usually enjoy that gimmick, and I found several of the characters in Bobby appealing and their storylines interesting. The whole movie takes place the day of the California primary election in 1968, and the event that pulls all the characters together is the RFK assassination that evening. Historically, that was another of those significant moments that occurred just as I was reaching adulthood, and 1968 was a year I remember well. I liked Bobby enough to recommend it unconditionally.

Silver City: I saw the trailers for this movie in 2004, when I was in a theater to see Fahrenheit 9/11. It looked like a parody of George W. Bush, so I picked up the DVD several years ago but only started watching it late last night. I began to doze off after the first hour or so. Chris Cooper, an actor I enjoy watching, plays Dickie Pilager, the son of an influential Colorado Senator, who's running for the office of governor. Dickie's campaign manager is played by Richard Dreyfuss. Cooper captures W's personality and mannerisms, and Dreyfuss manages an amalgam of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. The movie deals with the unpleasant relationship between politics and big business, and I need to give Silver City another try when I'm not sleepy.

Rendition: Everyone who was keeping up the last few years already knows about the practices this movie dramatizes in a sort of worst-case scenario. The criticism of Rendition was that it was too one-sided in its presentation, although after seeing it, I don't agree. I'm the guy who has bad dreams about being buried alive, so the situations depicted in this movie were enough to make me uncomfortable. Meryl Streep has found a nice niche in her middle-aged years as THE GO-TO GAL when a filmmaker needs someone to play a super-megabitch (The Devil Wears Prada, The Manchurian Candidate) -- she's up to standard in Rendition as a CIA official.

A Mighty Heart: Based on a book about the abduction and execution of Wall Street Journal writer Daniel Pearl by Islamic terrorists, written by his widow. A better movie than I expected, parts of this one play like a documentary; parts resemble a police procedural. Like Valkyrie, it held my interest even though I knew how it would turn out. Angelina Jolie as Mrs. Pearl does some serious acting here, and the more I see of her work, the more I appreciate it. Much like Hillary Swank, another actress who took a while to grow on me. Recommended.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: An honored tradition in my life is watching movies directed by Steven Spielberg, who was responsible for two of the best movies I've ever seen. This will probably be the final chapter in the Indiana Jones series; I can't honestly say it's as good as the original Raiders of the Lost Ark but few movies are. Spielberg can create popcorn movies with the best of 'em, and that's what this is: two hours of pure escapism. There are movies like The Kite Runner, and there are movies like this one, and there's room in my life for both kinds.