Review of Levity (2003) by Jennifer A — 28 Jan 2005

I watched another Takeshi Miike movie, "Happiness of the Katakuris", and once again I looked at the screen pretty much in disbelief for most of the movie. I don't know what to say about the movie, really. If you like musicals, but feel they don't typically have enough random violence, corny synthesizer music, incongrous song placement and claymation torture, you're in luck - someone made a movie just for you.

On a more pretentious note, I watched "Levity", which by my calculations is the pretentiousist movie ever made in english. It's about a guy who gets out of jail and... well, it's really about some liberal's guilt fantasy. Or maybe just general, pussy guilt. I'm pretty much a knee-jerk, tax and spend, bleeding heart myself, but this movie reminded me of an old National Lampoon song by Christopher Guest about his "middle-class white-boy well-intentioned blues" a little too much. I don't think anyone involved in the movie knows a goddamn thing about any of the characters in it, so everyone's just a walking stereotype with a built-in twist. I kept almost turning it off, but Kirsten Dunst is in it so... I kinda just waited it out until she was on screen again.

On a side note, at what point did Holly Hunter decide it would be a smart career move to only take roles inspired by after-school specials? First "Thirteen", now this - I can't even remember why I used to think she was cool.

Now for the bright, happy moment - I finally saw "The Crime of Padre Amaro", and it was word as hell. I thought there'd be more [b]fukin'[/b], but there was enough to get by on, and the movie smartly kept it's character close to it's heart, even as the plot spiralled and sprawled everywhere. I've seen that Gael Bernal guy in a few things now, and liked him, but I wasn't really prepared for how much ass he could kick as an actor. He completely got inside the character. He kicked ass... but [i]subtley[/i], and he was probably the main reason the movie didn't suck.

So good job, guy.