THE BAD AND
THE BEAUTIFUL
...a summer flick and a film for the ages

by Sasha Stone

The Girl Can't Help It

While it may be true that when Halle Berry walks by beef steaks turn well done, those prodigious assets do not a good movie make. But then again, SWORDFISH is the just the kind of silly techno-thriller I've come to depend on to herald the arrival of summer.

It's the same impulse that makes me reach for a beer instead of a mineral water, or troll the used bookstores for old paperbacks from the 1970s, the same impulse that used to make me excited about standing in line at the crack of dawn for the latest George Lucas extravaganza. It goes all the way back to those pre-skin cancer days of "laying out," hoping for that great tan to show off at the movies Saturday night.

Now that I'm older, but none the wiser, escapism still rules the day. Swordfish is hardly a good movie, but was Valley of the Dolls a good book? Trashy, skanky, and a waste of time perhaps - but hey, thrills don't come any cheaper.

Don't be fooled by the film's R rating (which it gets the most out of), a rating no self-respecting pre-teen will be able to resist, especially when the film was pumped so heavily on MTV's movie awards. Co-stars Hugh Jackman and John Travolta were made to show off their chests because that's what Berry had done. "And if you go see Swordfish," Berry might as well be saying, "you'll get to see these."

As Erin Brockovich might say, "They're called boobs, Ed." They may be just boobs to you and me, but to Hollywood they're worth about 500 Gs. A body hasn't had this big of draw since Sharon Stone "forgot" to wear underwear to the police station.

They show up about thirty minutes in, after much teasing featuring Berry in various sorts of clinging dresses, saying lines like "Are you surprised a woman with an IQ over 70 can still give you a hard-on?" Certainly, as breasts go, Berry's will rank right up at the top, next to Susan Sarandon and Uma Thurman, no doubt.

Berry and her breasts play Ginger, a temptress who draws in once-jailed hacker Stanley (Jackman) to work for the ruthless maniac Gabriel Shear (Travolta) who inspires the movie's tag line: Log on. Hack in. Go anywhere. Steal everything.

But the plot is better summed up this way: 1 cup of The Usual Suspects, 3 tablespoons of Die Hard, 1/4 cup of M:I, a splash of Speed, 1 teaspoon of Dominic Sena's previous movie, Gone in 60 Seconds, 2 cups of Ransom, 1 cup of Air Force One, with a pinch of Red Dawn, and a sprinkling of The Matrix. Add nudity, do not overmix. Bake at room temperature for 99 minutes until knife inserted in middle comes out clean. It should look better than it tastes.

The second half of the film is so loud I would suggest not cleaning your ears prior to the screening. You'll need the extra wax, especially if you're on a date and find ear plugs to be "uncool." There are lots and lots of bombs going off, glass breaking, people exploding, and just to add insult to injury, there is a kidnapped child, the cheapest way to make an audience care. I would be grateful if for once they left the kid out of it.

Travolta, of course, knows that he's not exactly reaching for Oscar with this one. He's well-suited to play a nasty sociopath. He also sports a soul patch, which when worn along with his puppy-ears haircut makes him look like he was drawn by Matt Groening. By contrast, Hugh Jackman just looked confused. Sam Shepard and Don Cheadle appear in supporting roles that could belong in the "What's a sweetheart like you doing in a dump like this?" category.

Perhaps the relentless sun somehow alters our brain chemistry, or maybe our appetites have been steadily conditioned over the years. Either way, enough people wanted to see Swordfish to land it in the number one spot over the weekend. Finally, one must never underestimate the power of a deep tan, a trashy book or a ridiculously loud techno-thriller. Heck, it's summertime, the living is easy.

Exuberance is Beauty

My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light!

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Baz Luhrmann's reinterpretation of "Like a Virgin" in his wholly inspired new musical Moulin Rouge is nothing short of profound. Jim Broadbent as Zigler, the owner of the Moulin Rouge, uses the song to sell his prized courtesan, Satine (Nicole Kidman) to the wealthy Duke (Richard Roxburgh), and all of a sudden the trite song takes on a greater meaning - it's the perfect sales pitch.Of course, it isn't merely the song itself that sells the scene - it's that Broadbent turns himself over to it completely. There's no room for irony here - he sells the song with the same desperation he sells Satine. In fact, if any of the actors (who all do their own singing) had believed for one second that they couldn't pull this off, it would have all come tumbling down. But they don't, god bless them, they sell each and every time, transforming pop lyrics into opera (popera?).

The film opens on Christian (Ewan McGregor) telling the story in flashback - he is a playwright whom a group of bohemians are hoping to sell on Satine (a showgirl with aspirations of being a "real actress"). If Satine is sold on Christian then she will help get their play "Spectacular Spectacular" funded. Of course, Satine and Christian fall in love, Satine has already been sold to the Duke, who will pay to have the Moulin Rouge transformed into a "real theatre." Will true love triumph over evil? Will the lovers be united? Or will they be pulled apart by circumstance? What will become of the Moulin Rouge?

William Goldman once said that good writing is when we get the story we expect - just not in the way we expect it. Here, the plot, and the characters, are shamelessly archtypical. We've seen this all before, just not glued together this way. So, when our two doomed lovers break out in "Your Song" by Elton John, or "Silly Love Songs" by Paul McCartney, I didn't, for once, feel cheated out of a unique experience just because I've heard that song before.I felt like a virgin, touched for the very first time. And when Nicole Kidman, who hasn't had a camera paw her delicate features this way since Dead Calm, performs "Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend," she wipes out all versions before it. It isn't a topic to be winked at - not when you're a girl with no friends, not when you're a commodity. To that extent, Moulin Rouge reclaims many songs that have floundered in our past, like "Roxanne," by the Police, or even Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

Experiencing Moulin Rouge is like walking into an absinthe-induced daydream of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. While the man himself is but comic relief (played by the scene-stealing chameleon John Leguizamo), his beautiful, freakish paintings of the bohemian life he was devoted to breathe in and out of this film, from the sickly white faces of the whores, to the shadowy top hats in the background, to the haunting color red, which permeates every scene - Luhrmann owes much to the great painter whose otherwise miserable life was brightened for a time by the oddly rebellious characters he watched at the Moulin Rouge back in the late 1890's.

It is no surprise, then, that Luhrmann chose the famously red-headed Nicole Kidman for the starring role of Satine. Kidman is perhaps the only big name with the necessary qualities to pull off Luhrmann's visual dream while also having enough presence to dominate the film, which she does seemingly without effort (though Kidman broke ribs and other bones during filming). Her red hair is in stark contrast to her impossibly pale skin, and her red lipstick is ever-present, so that when she coughs up blood, it's seems as though it's not the consumption, but rather so much lipstick, that is killing her.

Here we are in 2001 - the trend has been to give us what we've seen before - films made from TV shows, sequels and remakes. Luhrmann (Strictly Ballroom, Romeo+Juliet) has created a film that doesn't care about our collective consciousness, but rather appeals to our collective unconscious - it's creepy, brazen, positively beautiful and oddly moving. The studio, Baz Luhrmann and the actors took a great risk with Moulin Rouge, an $80 million "art film." But I can tell you this much: I thought I'd seen it all. Before Moulin Rouge, it seemed that cinema had nowhere to go except toward better computerized special effects. For this film to have been funded, and for it then to be delivered per Luhrmann's vision, and for it to be this magnificent, well, how can I not have faith in the future of cinema? Yes, indeed, it is as Antoine de Saint Exupery once wrote: Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

©Sasha Stone, 2001
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