Aliens, Monsters, and Mexicans

Once Upon a Time in Mexico - Thank the maker, I think we can chalk up the awful Spy Kids 3-D as a horrible, horrible mistake on the part of Robert Rodriguez. Mexico is a return to form for the "guerilla" director -- and somehow he maintains that indie cred even when he's making thirty-million-dollar action flicks with Antonio Banderas. We sat towards the front for this one, which was a mistake, as I kept having to move my head to read the subtitles. Since the film's dialogue is about one-third Spanish (a good thing, in my view), that got old pretty quickly. (My wife likes to rest her feet on the railing in the first row of stadium seating, but I'm pretty much over it.) Still, great flick, very much in the tradition of the previous two films (El Mariachi and Desperado), if not quite a sequel to either one, since some of the plot details have been changed. Johnny Depp had better be careful, or he's going to get a reputation as a box-office draw. (Mexico made $24 million this past weekend.)

Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas - The wisecracks and lush animation kept this one from sinking into the oblivion of mediocrity that seems to be the "traditional" animated market these days. The script, amazingly enough, was written by John Logan, who also put together the jaw-clenchingly awful Star Trek: Nemesis and the recent Time Machine, which I haven't seen. More interesting than the movie itself was the venue in which we saw it. The Clearwater Cinema Cafe was pretty busy for a Sunday afternoon, mostly because one of their theaters was given over to showing a Bucs game. I can see why it's popular -- not only does the theater show the game on a movie-sized screen with an excellent digital video projector, but they also serve the usual bar food and beer. The smaller theater in which we saw Sinbad was threadbare but clean, and the aging vinyl seats were actually pretty comfy. The food was standard sports pub fare, but it arrived promptly and you can't beat the price: dinner and a movie for two, for under $25.

Godzilla (1998) - After the disappointing Godzilla X Mechagodzilla, I decided to revisit the American incarnation of Godzilla to see how it stands up, five years later. The answer? Not that bad. Ignoring the issue of whether this particular giant lizard is the "real" Godzilla, it's actually an entertaining bit of science fiction and has much, much better interaction between man and beast than any other Godzilla movie in recent memory. In fact, not since Gamera, Guardian of the Universe has the monster-vs-human action been so well choreographed. This is likely because there wasn't another giant monster in the film for Godzilla to fight, so the only possible interaction was between Godzilla and New York City. True, Maria Pitillo isn't much of an actress, but Matthew Broderick, Hank Azaria, and Jean Reno acquit themselves well and most of the dialogue, while scientifically questionable, at least makes sense within the goofy context of the movie. Tristar-zilla haters, there are many other films more deserving of your enmity.

Alien Resurrection - I kinda buzzed through this one on the Tivo last night, trying to pick out the Joss Whedon dialogue and enjoying some of the performances. It's definitely Whedon's darkest work, and you can see some of Firefly's roots in the characters and set design. The revival of Ripley's character was deftly handled. A neat film, but not one I'm anxious to own.