Uncle Orson Reviews 1999 • Uncle Orson Reviews Practically Everything • 1999 Summer Movies Worth Seeing • Best of the Year Books

Best of Summer

Iron Giant. This animated film from Warner Brothers is the opposite of their failed Quest for Camelot. Quest was a pale imitation of Disney, with the addition of a taste for the grotesque. By contrast, Iron Giant owes nothing at all to Disney ... or anybody else, except Ted Hughes, the author of the story it was based on. Set in the 1950s, the story concerns a boy with a taste for horror films and comic books who hears rumors of a giant iron man who came from space and saved a fisherman caught in a storm. The broad strokes of the storyline are predictable enough, though I was glad to see that the government as stock villain was replaced by a loose cannon with delusions of grandeur. What makes this film a delight is in the small things, the delicious wit and japery that don't feel like they're being pointed up to make sure you "get" them. The writing is smart, and the acting is very, very good. Good voices, with Jennifer Anniston leading the cast with natural cleverness as the tired but warm-hearted mother. And good visual acting, as the animators do the best job I've ever seen of making faces carry natural expressions. For those of you with a taste for hardware sci-fi, when the true nature of the iron giant is revealed, the artists did a superb job of making him truly terrifying. And if there was a bit of sequel-setup going on in the epilogue, I don't mind a bit - if the same team does the sequel, I expect it to be excellent. This movie is so smart and entertaining it makes it painfully obvious just how dumb and boring Fantum Mennis was ...

An Ideal Husband. What? An Oscar Wilde turn-of-the-century comedy? The directing is superb, as fine actors give what may be their best performances. And the art direction and costuming are both authentic and gorgeous, as one has come to expect in this era of Merchant-Ivory period films. But the real surprise, for me, was how this cast and this director transcended the original material - or, perhaps, merely fulfilled it. Oscar Wilde's brittle wit, always funny but, once one catches on to his tricks, always a bit predictable, is here made freshly human, the soul under the cleverness fully revealed without losing a bit of the sparkle on the surface. Oddly enough, the result of all this is a profoundly pro-marriage film made from a faithful production of a rather anti-marriage play. How did this happen? Partly because the cast and director made everyone so real that it wasn't just an exercise in mocking people with moral values. And partly - or even mostly - because our society has gone so far down the path of disparaging marriage that Wilde's "daring" satire now stands on the other side. But all this talk of morality and art may give you the wrong impression. See this movie because it's funny and delicious and you've never seen Kate Blanchett so warm or Rupert Everett so ... all right, I'll say it ... so sexy.

Big Daddy. I've got to admit it, after getting sick of Adam Sandler on Saturday Night Live, I didn't see any of his movies until The Wedding Singer. Then I realized that he wasn't following the ever-more-desperate-for-a-laugh coursethat has wasted the talents of so many SNL graduates. Instead, he was taking a page from Steve Martin's book of film-making strategy. He has made his share of dumb-guy comedies - Waterboy was no worse than The Jerk - but he is also reaching, bit by bit, toward "serious" comedy, comedy for people with a brain and a heart. In short, while Big Daddy has its share of cuteness, it never cloys; of gross-out humor, but it never disgusts. Instead, it shows, very entertainingly, the passage of a completely irresponsible boy-man into responsible adulthood. Best of all, the courtroom "climax" does not turn out as you would ever have expected. In fact, it turns out the way it might actually happen in a reasonable world - something that never happens in comedy courtrooms. Sandler, who was only a marginal comic (he could never wipe the smirk off his face) is a charming and honest, if limited, actor, and he's at his best when he's not doing goofy voices. Like Steve Martin (and, sadly, unlike Jim Carrey) Sandler has learned that the heart of comedy is honest reaction to pain, with emphasis on the word "honest."

The Thomas Crown Affair. I'm no great fan of Pierce Brosnan, and I've never particularly enjoyed Renee Russo's (for very shallow reasons - I admire her performances, but find her "look" annoying). I am, however, a fan of smart caper movies, and so I had hope enough to go see this remake. To my surprise and delight, it was better than it had any right to be. The caper, while very entertaining, does not even provide the structure of the movie. Rather it's the maguffin, keeping us busy while the film does its real work, which is to figure out how people who have devoted their lives to winning can learn - and earn - trust. Along the way, we get plenty of exotic locations and stunning costumes, but unlike the Bond movies, reality is compromised only a little in the gimmickry and not at all in the characterizations. Indeed, the costumes are actually used as part of the action, as is the artwork. And, while a happily married Mormon isn't supposed to notice this sort of thing, this is the sexiest film I've enjoyed in a long time - perhaps ever. Sexy is actually hard to do, and in recent years a jaded Hollywood sensibility has forgotten what sexy is to most people and has replaced it with kinky - which interests only a few people and disgusts many. By the end, I was a Rene Russo fan and found that Pierce Brosnan's pretty face has finally gotten craggy enough with age that I can almost believe a real person might look like that.

Tarzan. Oddly enough, even this Disney animated film doesn't really follow the Disney-animation formula. I liked Greystoke and felt no need for a cute Disney version of the story. But to my surprise, the Disney team seems to have recovered from its post-Katzenberg malaise and have created something quite entertaining without any of the poisonous political correctness or artsy "edginess" that wrecked, respectively, Hunchback and Hercules. This film, like Lion King (and Bambi) faces death and loss but does not force us to watch the killing. And, unlike any Disney animation ever, there is a core of honesty and wit that brings it up to the level of real storytelling instead of mere diversion. Casting Minnie Driver as Jane and writing her character as a believable bluestocking of the period was exactly right. The film managed to be pro-animal without being anti-human, an attitude that your average animal activist would do well to discover. And while we had the average run of cute animals, there were actually moments when their behavior was beastlike. The animators did a splendid job of making Tarzan's movements apelike and human at the same time. And the ending, while a bit too neat, was also quite satisfying.

Worst Disappointment of Summer

No movie could have lived up to the hype that the first Star Wars prequel generated, but even if the hype had been proportionate to something more modest than, say, the end of the world, it wouldn't have saved this picture. Because Fantum Mennis made obvious what has been a fairly well-kept secret up to now: George Lucas isn't a very good writer and, when he directs the film himself, the director can't save the script. Where was the wit of Star Wars? Casting extraordinary talents like Liam Neeson or Jake Lloyd doesn't mean a thing if they have dialogue that simply cannot be saved. (I've been amused at the number of people who, incapable of distinguishing between performance and script, have written to me saying, "Don't use Jake Lloyd in Ender's Game!" To them I must say: If Liam Neeson couldn't make his character into a believable human, why do you think Jake Lloyd, equally bereft of script and direction, should do better? Indeed, I think Jake did a better job than any of the adults of transcending his lame material.) The worst thing about Fantum Mennis, though, was the cultural arrogance of the film. Lucas apparently thought that since Jar-Jar and his people were animated aliens, the imperialist attitude would not be taken as racism. Wrong! But when you consider that Lucas's entire education comes from films of the thirties and forties and fifties (the stuff that was on TV and in the theaters when he was growing up), it's hardly surprising that he would have unconsciously picked up the superiority complex that "we" always have when discovering an "inferior" culture. Let's be correct here, though: What curses Jar-Jar is not racism, but colonialism. Jar-Jar doesn't represent African-Americans, he represents natives in general, and his pidgin English is the obvious clincher. If Lucas had been aware of what he was doing, then the when Jar-Jar led the humans down under the water, there would have been a remarkable transformation. Under water, Jar-Jar would have been graceful, the humans clumsy and stupid. And for a moment, seeing the beautiful underwater city, I thought that's what Lucas was doing. But no, the mayor of the city was a fat buffoon, just as stupid as Jar-Jar. And then, when Jar-Jar's people heroically stand against the Federation forces in open battle, Lucas blew his last chance at redemption by making them break ranks and run away. He could have shown them making a heroic stand, being courageous and sacrificing. But no, these natives had to be comical cowards, running away from battle as soon as the shields were gone and looking like goofs while doing so. Americans of African, Latin-American, and Asian origin took exception to the depiction of Jar-Jar and his people, not because they're too sensitive, but because they absolutely understood what was happening on that screen. This film is an embarrassment, and nothing Lucas does with the next two films can redeem this one. Only a remake could make it right - and when a movie makes $400 million despite such flaws as bad writing, bad direction, and offensive stereotyping, it's hard to imagine Hollywood - or Lucas - redressing the wrongs. I, for one, won't be seeing any more Star Wars films, for the same reason I don't see Ace Ventura sequels or Austin Powers movies: Life is short, and I have better things to do with my time than to give two hours to filmmakers with nothing to say that's worth hearing.

John Brown responds to OSC's review of Phantom Menace