Bob Greenberger

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March 17, 2005

Chilling

First things first, at 7 p.m. tonight I was voted on to the RTM and tomorrow will get sworn in. Then, next week I dive right into budget hearings. Fun, fun, fun.

Second, been meaning to talk about this all week…

Kate and I watched Be Cool over the weekend and we both enjoyed it as silly fun. She had never seen Get Shorty, while I had seen it when it first opened so we approached it from entirely different perspectives and still were entertained. That says something for the film and its makers.

However, the more I thought about it, the more I was troubled by how people were being depicted in the story. The widow (Uma Thurman) seemed incapable of running her record company even though we were repeatedly told she helped found it. The guy looking for money owed from said widow was a black rap producer (Cedric the Entertainer) who was surrounded by his posse of gun-totin’, stylin’ fellow black men. And caught up in this web of deceit are the Russians, who of course are the Russian Mafia.

Everyone was a stereotype including the hilarious Rock as a gay wannabe actor cum bodyguard.

And everyone, starting with Vince Vaughn’s delightful agent who dresses and speaks like the most stereotypical black man in the film, plays their part so over the top that John Travolta’s Chili seems ultra-cool.

About the only person not playing to type is Debi Mazar as a police detective (and it’s nice seeing her get work again).

Anyway, the story sort of works and it’s all neatly tied together, but Chili does everything to make it happen. Even though Uma is the one in dire need of help, seems incapable of helping herself.

What makes the movie work in a fun way is how self-reverential it is from the opening scene between Travolta and James Woods about being in sequels. Throughout the movie, it keeps winking at the audience, and that’s sort of fun, but in the final analysis, Be Cool is anything but.

On the other hand, if the story works and the acting is solid, Frank Miller’s Sin City could be the coolest, freshest and most visually interesting film since Pulp Fiction. The cast is dynamite, the look in the trailers and posters is spot on from the comic, and it has fans and civilians salivating for it to open. I am rooting for this to deliver and be the second most successful comic book adaptation of the year (I have to reserve hopes for first place to You Know Who).

Posted by Bob Greenberger at March 17, 2005 08:46 PM

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Posted by: Michael A. Burstein at March 17, 2005 09:15 PM