11 JUNE, 2001: There’s a variety of reasons I haven’t written any essays since before the Oscars, but few of them are the least bit interesting. Here’s one that is: This fall, I’ll be joining the graduate program in Film Production at New York University Film School, in an attempt to put my money where my mouth is.
Last week, the folks at NYU sent me a memo, listing fifty films I’m to have seen before classes start in September, eleven books I’m to have read by that time, and seventeen still photographers whose work should be familiar to me by then as well. I consider myself fairly film-literate, so imagine my surprise that I had, in fact, seen a mere seven of the fifty required film, and read none of the books. And I couldn’t pick any of those shutterbugs out of a lineup. So much for kicking back for the summer.
The first film on the chronologically organized list is D.W. Griffith’s "Intolerance", which, if you are lucky enough not to know, is a three-hour silent epic. I realize that it is impossible to fully appreciate how revolutionary Griffith’s work was in its time, and blah blah blah. Here’s What I Know: "Intolerance" is a long, dry, booo-rring slog of a movie. It’s not that I don’t appreciate silent cinema. I love Keaton and Chaplin and many of the other comics of the day. But, I’m sorry, watching silent drama is like watching fucking paint dry. It’s a three-hour movie, as I mentioned, but it took me four and a half hours to get through it, since I was constantly looking for any distraction to take me away from it (fixing dinner, doing laundry, talking on the phone, balancing my checkbook, clipping my toenails, organizing socks, removing genital hairs one by one with a pair of pliers). I realize it’s a movie I’m SUPPOSED to like, or at least appreciate, and shit, I should be pleased as punch they didn’t make us watch "Birth of a Nation". But let me put it to you like this: Given the choice between revisiting "Down To You" and "Intolerance", I’d go with "Down To You". Twice. (Since "Intolerance" was twice as long and all. Or maybe I’d do a Freddie Prinze Jr. double-header, chasing the smooth margarita of "Down To You" with the gin-fizzy "Wing Commander".)
I’m taking this moment to denigrate the father of modern cinema not merely as the opportunity to try and inflict a little pain on a film that caused me more than it could never know; I’m using it to explain why, when the final ridiculous image of Lillian Gish rocking the goddamn cradle faded at 9:40 on Saturday night, I was in exactly the right mood to see and enjoy "Swordfish", as slick and ridiculous a piece of summer movie garbage as you’re liable to see, and all the better for it.
The movie has a dynamite opening which it never really lives up to. John Travolta plays a terrorist (or anti-terrorist operative, or something; the movie never seems really sure) who we meet in the middle of a bank robbery, as he delivers to the camera a sharp and funny monologue about the shittiness of current Hollywood movies—a potentially fatal bit of postmodernism (seeing as how "Swordfish" is exactly the kind of movie he’s talking about), saved by the smart writing and Travolta’s expert delivery. This is a guy who knows how to deliver this kind of dialogue. Then he and Hugh Jackman return to their robbery, a hostage gets blowed up real good, and director Dominic Sena actually manages to use the bullet-time gimmick from "The Matrix" one (hopefully) last time, and does it fairly effectively (the camera zips through an entire city block, sound pounding throughout the theatre; it’s a great little moment that got applause from the admittedly adolescent audience I saw it with).
From this, Jackman flashes back to how he got into this whole big mess; he’s a master hacker whose parole prohibits him from touching a keyboard, tempted into taking on a difficult job with the promise of money, the opportunity to see his daughter, and a chance to check out Halle Berry’s tits (that last one’s not exactly promised, but it certainly helps, and I can see why—that same promise got me to part with five bucks admission). Don Cheadle is slumming as an FBI guy trying to bust the whole thing up, but he knows it, and has as much fun as he can. There’s two or three pretty strong set pieces, lots of computer jargon, and the afore-mentioned peek at Halle’s goodies.
A word about that. It’s one thing to leak word that she got a half-mill bonus for a topless scene as a subtle cue to horny young guys like me to go see the movie. It’s quite another thing to stand on stage at the MTV Movie Awards, as Halle did, and announce that "If you pay your $8.50 and go see ‘Swordfish’, you get to see these babies." For whatever reason, that was just a little too blatant. I felt cheap enough before that, Halle. Don’t make me feel any dirtier than I already did. (By the way, they look great, but the two shots of them are about five seconds each and that half mill seems a little much for that kind of limited screen time. A while later, however, we get a nice, long scene of Halle in her underwear which helps make up for the brief appearance of the twins).
Movies like "Swordfish" are critic proof. Critics aren’t expected to like them, and most don’t. But the promise of summer action and well-toned flesh will get asses into seats, and "Swordfish" opened just fine, and why not? It’s getting harder and harder for me to pin down what makes some dumb summer movies okay and others an affront to my taste and good nature, but it usually comes down to whether or not it blatantly insults my intelligence. "Swordfish" didn’t, or if it did, I was so ready to be entertained that I didn’t care.
The night before, I took in "Evolution" and had a similar reaction. To be sure, "Evolution" is a hell of a lot smarter than "Swordfish", but it’s basically a "Men In Black"/"Ghostbusters" clone, a blatant summer money machine. But I didn’t really give a shit about any of that while I was watching it, since it’s funny and smart and Julianne Moore is just sexy as hell.
David Duchovny and Orlando Jones play a pair of Arizona community college professors who investigate a meteor landing and discover an alien life force splitting and evolving and reproducing at an astonishing rate. Duchovny and Jones supply many of the movie’s best moments, engaging in the kind of clever banter that Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Harold Ramis pulled off so effortlessly in "Ghostbusters" (that film was directed by "Evolution" helmer Ivan Reitman; Aykroyd makes an uncredited appearance as an Arizona governor and is apparently continuing his quest to step into his late co-star John Candy’s shoes as America’s fattest character comic). Duchovny’s sure hand with light comedy nicely matches Jones’ energy (this is the first film I’ve liked him in); early in the film, a glance between them generates one of the movie’s biggest laughs.
Julianne Moore is one of my two or three favorite actresses working today, and I’ve made my ridiculous, schoolboy-like crush more than evident in previous essays. It’s a joy to watch her work here; she does some great physical comedy and manages to make her tired character (the hottie with the ice queen exterior) into a living, breathing, sexy creation. Seann William Scott basically plays his character from "American Pie" and "Road Trip" again.
Neither of these movies are gonna change the world, or cause us to rethink cinema as an art form. But there’s certainly worse than this out there, and from the look of some of the summer previews, there’s worse to come.