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The Flick Chick Films with titles beginning with "T" and "U" Reviews We see films so that we can laugh, so that we can cry (with an excuse and in private), so that we can see into other people's lives, and maybe to feel less silly about our own — after all, I've never taken that big a pratfall, or made that big a fool of myself, have I? At least not yet. There in the dark, for just a little while at least, we're not alone.

Taxing Woman
Subtitles

          I love to laugh. If you say the same, then scour the video stores for ths Japanese film. (Also for Taxing Woman Returns) What does the title mean? Is she hard to get along with? Not especially; just that the diminuitive star is, well, okay, a Japanese tax collector.
          WHAT!
          Yep, there she goes, off on her motorcycle, racing around Tokyo, keeping her bright eyes tenaciously peeled for nefarious cheats, unprincipled scoundrels, and whatever other wicked evaders she can get her brains on! A little short on plot, but long on jolly good excitement and great fun!

Traffic

     Didn't enjoy it; wouldn't have missed it! The hype says "riveting" and "stunning," but to me, the words "gritty" and "grim" seem more appropriate.
     As most of the world already knows, "Traffic" follows three aspects of the drug trade: production, distribution, and consumption, narrated through largely unrelated plot lines. The quick cuts from one to next — from unresolved scene to unresolved scene — were made more intelligible by the sunny brilliance that illuminated the world of Don Cheadle's dogged stake-out man and the fetching (if unprincipled) Catherine Zeta-Jones, the dust-filtered sepia tones of all the Mexican episodes, and the grim blue of Michael Douglas's DC scenes. Douglas, not my idea of anybody's good Dad even at his most winsome, is massively wooden and chill, even for him, and that serves the plot very well. Splendid (Oscar-winner) Benico del Toro was the only character I ever warmed up to, and we never know which side he's on until the last moments of the film. In sum: Absolutely do see it, but don't expect to walk away smiling. (3/01)

Treasure Planet

      What can I say — Disney. Treasure Island set in space: Space ships with no air problems, shaped like Spanish galleons; Motorized peg legs; Robot eyes under the sailors' eye-patches; Cute anthromorphised globs for pets; Marooned Ben Gunn is a dilapidated zany robot. Japanese-anime-adorable faces with extra-big eyes and no noses to speak of, except in profile. And plenty of schmaltz. Other than that, it was not bad, with a nicely thought out and sort of appropriate ending. But mostly for ten and under. Be warned. (12/02)

Troy

        Read the book. Saw the movie. Each was different. Both were good.
        Backstory: Once upon a time there was this gorgeous woman. And there was this fascinating Dude. And they . . . only she was married to King Menelaus. So when they ran off, Menelaus and his bro, Agamemnon, got together this army and hired Brad Pitt to fight for them, and those guys went and . . . only Troy had good defenses, so it took a long time. Also, in the original, the Greek gods got into the act, but in the movie it was all about politics and pillage.
        So far so good. Another sword and sandals epic and an excuse for beefcake and the occasional lightly veiled dancing girl. Right?
        Not quite. Brad Pitt (Achilles) is a major fighting machine. Unstoppable. Only . . . every time he kills off a dozen or so Trojans . . . you can see they are really very dead. Maimed and all. So . . . although Zeus and Aphrodite and the rest are not in the cast (or maybe because of that) it is the audience who get a sort of Olympian view of the story. There are good guys and bad guys on each side. We are not induced to want our side to win. Because we have no side. Or maybe we are on both sides. We don't want to see Brad Pitt and our friends, the Greeks, get trashed. But neither would we like to see our friends, the Trojans, such as the noble Hector and his dad, the still gorgeous Peter O'Toole, get trashed. Yeah, Olympian view. As in War is Ugly. And cruel. And a waste of good men. And a way that crying women get deprived of their nice husbands. And little kids get to have no Dads anymore. So we end up with the thought that . . . hmm, maybe war really is what they say. Hell. (5/04)

Under the Tuscan Sun

        Say, I'm kinda getting into one-word reviews, so here's another, this time of Tuscan Sun. Ready? Okay:
        Shameless.
        Shameless romanticism (yeah, REALLY). Shameless destruction of the original novel. Shamelessly gorgeous photography. Shamelessly gorgeous lovers. Shamelessly sterotypically pure-at-heart-simplicity of the local peasantry. And shameless pandering to every woman's desire to own a glorious old house; to cook good gorgeous food without turning a hair; to look cute in dirty work clothes; to have an always-loyal woman friend who is never jealous of your successes and of whom you never need be jealous; and then to end up as everybody's heroine and get a handsome and romantic fella into the bargain.
        Sure I cried when she cried. Hey, it was dark. Nobody saw the Chick yield. (10/3/03)