Flushed Away
March 12th, 2007
Most of the recent computer-animated movies feel like endless remakes of Toy Story. This one, about the adventures of a bunch of mice in the London sewers, is produced by Aardman of Wallace & Gromit, and it’s more inventive and, for my money, funnier than your regular Pixar flick. We’ve all come to expect the winking references that are supposed to fly over the kids’ heads (like the cockroach reading Kafka) — but Flushed Away also has visual quotes from Akira. Voices by Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Ian McKellen, Bill Nighy, and Jean Reno as “Le Frog.” Fun.
Flushed Away. David Bowers and Sam Fell, 2006. ***
The Fountain
December 22nd, 2006
A trippy comic book about the search for eternal life. The go-to adjective for Darren Aronofsky’s first film since Requiem for a Dream is “ambitious,” but Métal Hurlant has been churning out stuff like this for decades. In three overlapping stories, Hugh Jackman is a meditating spaceman traveling to a dying star, a conquistador unearthing secrets of the Maya, and a doctor trying to save his wife (Rachel Weisz) from a brain tumor. Weisz also appears as Isabella, queen of Spain. The spiritual mumbo-jumbo never adds up to more than the old saw about death bearing the kernel of life, but the pull of the grief-stricken moments between present-tense Jackman and Weisz is difficult to resist.
The psychedelic visuals are tasty, but when it’s all said and done, I was disappointed with the way the three stories finally hook up. We have to take it on good faith that the low-rent Ken Wilber in the space bubble, the poorly lit Apocalypto outtakes, and the melodrama about the doctor and his dying wife are related in a meaningful way, and The Fountain doesn’t reward that faith very well. It’s a comic book that mistakes itself for something much more profound.
Made me want to watch Solaris again.
The Fountain. Darren Aronofsky, 2006. **
Bonus audio: In honor of Izzy, here’s Phish covering Jimi Hendrix’ Izabella, Madison Square Garden 12/30/97. Totally legal audience recording, which is to say the sound isn’t great.
[audio:Isabella - Phish.mp3]
[tags]film, 2 stars, darren aronofsky, hugh jackman, rachel weisz, space, maya, eternal life, scifi, trippy, spain, inquisition, metal hurlant, audio, phish[/tags]
