After the Sunset

After the sunset is an action-caper designed to give a two-hour entertainment. On that aspect it delivers. Max, Lola, and Stan form a triangle upon which the plot narrative goes around. (And all around it goes!) Max (Pierce Brosnan) and Lola (Salma Hayek) are retired thieves enjoying the fruits of their labor in idyllic Bahamas. Stan (Woody Harrelson) shows up one day and baits Max to steal the last of the Napoleon Diamonds which, not surprisingly, was on display in a cruise ship docked for a week on the same island where the master thieves are setting up home. Hmmm, at this point onwards, the movie goes on one predictable scenario after another. Most of the scenes feel like a setup designed to elicit laughs (and admittedly they do). Don Cheadle stars and is wasted as a local gang leader who commissions Max to steal the diamond for his ‘charity’ work. Visually, the movie is attractive. The Bahamas setting was use to full advantage in undressing Salma Hayek at every conceivable scenario. The music is also lively (as is typical of a movie set in the tropics). Of the clichés in the movie, the most glaring and sometimes offensive is the depiction of the locals: 1) as always having fun; 2) police are inept and 3) women, even those in the police force, are always gorgeous. But the movie is fun. The climax is not entirely something new but it still delivers some excitement and a little thrill.

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Kinsey

Kinsey feels like a good movie. The performances from the entire cast – from Liam Neeson (who is so commanding in the title role that even when he engages in homosexual sex with his assistant/lover Clyde Martin, excellently portrayed by Peter Saarsgard, the viewer will not ever doubt his masculinity) to the British great Lynn Redgrave who was almost unrecognizable as the final subject/interviewee – were all uniformly good. The photography brilliantly captures the color of the various periods in Kinsey’s storied life. And yet, I was somewhat clueless whether the movie was excellent good or just okay good. Kinsey is the story of Alfred Kinsey’s life before and after his ascendance as the sex guru of modern America. The film swiftly laid out the foundation of Kinsey’s psychology when it dwelt on his early childhood where his view on the morality of sex was based on his father’s traditionalist teachings (reasons for which are expectedly revealed in one of the film’s highlights – drawing no dramatic resonance anymore given the fact that it came too late into the story structure). The film then quickly jumps into his early adulthood when he becomes a zoology professor at the Indiana University, collecting wasps. He meets his future wife Clara (portrayed effortlessly by Laura Linney) during one of his class and they get married. At this point, talk of sex has been particularly scarce. On the night of their wedding, they both discover difficulty in consummating sex because: first, both of them are virgins; and secondly, Kinsey has a big penis. Supposedly, that act brought about an impetus on the eventual urge for Kinsey to study sex behaviors of the American people. I haven’t read the biographical book where this movie was based nor have I read any of the landmark books based on his studies of American sex, but given this scenario, I already started having serious doubts about the plausibility of this sudden burst of inspiration. The film is insightful on the subject matter it professes to dissect. Moviegoers will laugh and snicker at the old sex taboos of the early ‘60s culture about masturbation, pre-marital and extra-marital sex, homosexuality, bisexuality, etc. But are the laughter aimed at the morally-stringent period where sex remained a taboo topic or are they laughing at themselves because these have become almost the norm of the present society and the virtue to distinguish right from wrong have almost vanished to the so-called advancement of sexual psychology? At film’s end before the final credits roll, a short film compiled by the Kinsey Institute for Sex showing various animals and insects in separate stages of the sexual act is shown. I have no idea what the director’s intention was in inserting this clip but one wonders: have we really gotten down to such low that even those animals who are impervious to the codes of morality pale in comparison to what we humans are actually doing so publicly now? Was it actually the whole conceit of the director in filming this story?

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The Incredible Bridget Jones

I watched “The Incredibles” and “Bridget Jones” on the same day. And boy was it a blast! The new Disney-Pixar animated “The Incredibles” is a story about a family of retired superheroes who must spring out from government-imposed retirement to save the world once again from the evil threats of a fake superhero. Holly Hunter and Craig T. Nelson provide voices to Elastic Girl and Mr. Incredible respectively. The animation is on par with Pixar’s bests and the storytelling, leisurely and enjoyable. Some critics have drawn social parallelisms between the fate that befallen the retired superheroes to the current social norm heavily dependent on litigation. The superheroes were once mighty group of law enforcers who were forced to retire when most of the people they saved felt “victimized” by the obtrusive nature of their heroic acts and started suing them. Funny it seems but it happens in everyday life now. In the end though, when the people get to see the goods this real superheroes are made of they are once again exalted in public. But lingering thoughts take us back to the time when they were unceremoniously retired and there is fear as to just until when the public’s euphoria over their exploits last and how eventually they will be forced into seclusion again. “Bridget Jones: The edge of Reason” stars Renee Zellwegger as Bridget who returns once again to regale us with her tale of love that doesn’t end happily ever after or so it seems when applied to her overly neurotic personality. Zellwegger sizzles in another great performance and she is again supported by Colin Firth as the conservative and reserved Marc Darcy and Hugh Grant who is back as bridget’s dashing and playboy ex Daniel Cleaver who happens to have changed for the better and shuns casual sex. It is 8 weeks into Bridget’s relationship with Darcy when she stumbles on her first great rival, the long-legged, svelte lawyer Rebecca. Typical of Bridget, she rushes to her friends for advice and she ends up more confused and unreasonably jealous. She breaks up with Darcy and goes to Thailand with Cleaver. In Thailand, they met a stranger who introduces Bridget to the illicit joy of Narcotics. She was almost tempted into going to bed with Cleaver until a ‘room service’ interrupted the interlude. Bridget is caught trying to smuggle drugs out of Thailand, the package she innocently carries for her friend turned out to have drugs inside. She gets imprisoned but is once again rescued by Darcy. Later, Bridget realizes that her jealousy were not only unfounded but also funny. When confronted, Rebecca confesses to Bridget that she was indeed in love but not with Darcy. Hmmm… Who could she be in love with? And so ends the movie happily again until the next neurosis of Bridget comes into surface one more time and unnecessarily wreaking havoc on her romance with Darcy. There are a lot of funny scenes in the movie but what set this movie different from the first one is its attempt to further show the audience the special character that Bridget Jones is. In the Thailand prison scenes, she made friends easily with the inmates there. She taught them how to sing Madonna’s Like a Virgin properly and related to their love problems with her own (which she is forced to make up because she realized that Darcy have been very good to her all along.) Bridget may not be perfect but as portrayed by Zellwegger she comes off lovable and endearing and she doesn't know how much loved she is. There is a scene where Darcy and Cleaver were fighting over something and later on the audience realizes that Darcy is in fact jealous and only wants to be assured that nothing happened between Cleaver and Bridget in Thailand. And if Bridget were present during this fight she would have cheered on whoever was the victor! Lovely.