Z/Web

Director: Ed Harris

This is the film Ed Harris produced, directed, and stars in, about the life of the painter Jackson Pollock. I knew nothing of Pollock except that his paintings were abstract and worth a ton of money. This portrays him as a disturbed individual, extremely conflicted, agonizing over his craft, and a dangerous drunk. It’s a sad tale in many ways, but inspiring in others. Jackson seemed so desperately unhappy most of the time I wondered about the Catch-22 he seemed caught in: when he wasn’t painting he was frustrated and depressed, and when he was creating, he was still unhappy because no one understood his art. How many struggling artists (no just painters) are caught in that dilemma? Is it any wonder that most creatives are disturbed? Cool film, excellently done. A little slow.

Silly mess. I was never a fan of the TV series (I pretty much hated it), but was curious about the big screen rendition. It wasn’t as bad as I expected, but that’s not saying much. First rule Hollywood needs to learn: animated hijinks don’t translate well into live action. Seeing a Wylie Coyote stand in midair for a few seconds before realizing he’s run off a cliff and then falling is hilarious: do that in live action and it’s just dumb. This film works best when it concentrates on characterization, not the lame plot or silly cartoon-like special effects. The translation of the characters to live action is pretty good. Matthew Lillard’s Shaggy is fantastic: it’s like he’s channeling the original character. Velma is great. The others are so-so (of course Fred and Daphne are the blandest of the characters anyway, so no great loss there). Scooby Doo (the dog) is better in the film than in the promos. Here you can actually understand him (something I liked from the show), though his animated reality is less than realistic (too cartoony for live action yet too realistic for animation). Weak for the title character. The plot is typical of the series (which, unfortunately, is not good as the series’ plot were horrible): bad guy disguised as something else and scary strange things happening. Some mildly entertaining moments. My favorite, honestly, was cut from the film: on the DVD are deleted scenes and there’s a terrific one of shy Velma doing a drunken lounge act on a piano singing “You’re Too Good to Be True” — hilarious! Why they cut it who knows: about par for the judgement of people who create this kind of dribble. I can’t believe they’re making a sequel.