11.30.04
Movie Reviews: Ray, Team America: World Police, A Dirty Shame

Ray (2004)

Ray Charles: musical genius, innovative businessman, not a very nice person.

Jamie Foxx has finally landed himself a role that will lift him up out of the doldrums of WB sitcoms, establishing him as a serious dramatic actor. Let’s look at IMDB and see what future projects I can look forward to seeing him in... Hmmm. Miami Vice, the Movie. As Tubbs.

Ray seems to be a clear-eyed account of Ray Charles’ hard luck life and hard-won success and includes his 30 year heroin addiction, philandering, and schmaltzy full-orchestra-and-heavenly-choir period. It also includes its share of cliches, including a scene in the recording studio when he is finally able to capture “that new sound I’m looking for” while the engineers nod approvingly.

But, in the end, you go to see this kind of movie to hear the music, hopefully performed well, and in this case, it is. Jamie Fox certainly disappears into the role, and is riveting for the entire two and a half hours- but in the end, Ray Charles remains an unknowable bastard. Good for him.

Team America: World Police (2004)

You’d think that an R-rated musical written by the creators of South Park satirizing our current political climate and starring marionettes would be… well, at least funny and timely. It’s neither. An awful lot of the plot seems to be stolen from the South Park movie, and it’s not that funny the second time around. And songs making fun of the show Rent and the movie Pearl Harbor are about 5 years too late.

A Dirty Shame (2004)

Imagine a quite street in suburban Baltimore. Everything is normal until the neighbors start turning into zombies. Sex zombies.

The NC-17 feels like a stunt to me. John Waters’s latest is at heart a gentle fable about the dangers of repressing your true personality, and a plea for tolerance. It only looks and sounds like a 82 minute catalog of sexual fetishes and penis euphemisms.

It’s not laugh-out-loud funny every minute, but it’s pretty close. Tracy Ullman gives a brilliant physical performance as a Baltimore housewife who has a concussion, turns into a sex fiend, and ends up in the middle of John Waters’ usual freaks vs. squares showdown. The freaks are led by “Sexual Savior” Johnny Knoxville, in what has to be the weirdest single performance of the year. Among the squares is a wonderfully frumped-out Mink Stole, wringing the most out of lines like “I'll say it loud, I'm a neuter and I'm proud”.

Upon the movie’s initial release this past summer, Waters was criticized for pitching arguments over standards and decency in a 1950’s dream-world. However, viewing it after a Presidential election supposedly won on “morals and values”, it may take on new relevance. Or, it might just be the final death rattle in David Hasselhoff’s career. Either one is good.

Bonus: bitchin' rockabilly soundtrack.